Psion vs deity

[J-H]

In a game that finished a couple of months ago, our group was level 30; I had a psion, and I don't recall the exact class mix our other party members had. We ended up going against a partly-depowered god. His save bonuses meant he'd have to roll a 5 or lower to fail against most of my spells, and he had 20 class levels in Monk, giving him improved evasion reflex saves anyway.

I had 3 epic powers created:
1) super-invisibility power (greater invisibility + immune to true sight & divinations, 30-hour buff)
2) super-enervation (lose 10d4 levels, for save for half damage)
3) crown of psionic might (+6 INT, a few other things)

Due to the nature of our surroundings, I could only have 1 or 2 buffs up going in to the fight, anyway.

Deities get a long list of general immunities, including death effects, elemental damage, poision, ability damage/drain, level drain,etc. I could not find any debuff powers that would actually work. A max-level Astral Construct couldn't even make the touch attack to start a grapple. HP damage appeared to be the only way to defeat him.

I of course had Schism up, and ended up using Reality Revision and its lesser cousin to grant our charger Pounce and Offensive Precognition, and to reset him into position to get off another charge+full attack for 500+ damage each round (he had to roll an 8 or 10 to hit, and there was a miss chance involved). I don't recall how much XP I burned, but it was around 20,000-35,000xp...

How else could I have defeated him?

[Morcleon]

Chaining Linked Synchronicities so you can cast swarm of crystals as much as you have the PP for. No save, no SR, AoE. :smallbiggrin:

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Persistent Power + Timeless Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timelessBody.htm) can be achieved at level 20 with Metapower and Overchannel. Persistent Power (http://archive.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/ArcanaOccupationsandFeats.rtf) is in the 3.0 Psionics Handbook, but per DMG p4, "Why A Revision?" it's still perfectly valid for use in 3.5 games. That makes you completely immune to anything anyone could possibly affect your character with for 24 hours at a time.

[Eldaran]

Persistent Power + Timeless Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timelessBody.htm) can be achieved at level 20 with Metapower and Overchannel. Persistent Power (http://archive.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/ArcanaOccupationsandFeats.rtf) is in the 3.0 Psionics Handbook, but per DMG p4, "Why A Revision?" it's still perfectly valid for use in 3.5 games. That makes you completely immune to anything anyone could possibly affect your character with for 24 hours at a time.

Except for dispel magic, disjunction, and antimagic fields.

[Werephilosopher]

Persistent Power + Timeless Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timelessBody.htm) can be achieved at level 20 with Metapower and Overchannel. Persistent Power (http://archive.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/ArcanaOccupationsandFeats.rtf) is in the 3.0 Psionics Handbook, but per DMG p4, "Why A Revision?" it's still perfectly valid for use in 3.5 games. That makes you completely immune to anything anyone could possibly affect your character with for 24 hours at a time.

Well... it'll make you immune to "all attacks and powers" (and ostensibly spells) for 24 hours, but technically, you only "ignore all harmful (and helpful) effects" until the end of the turn after the turn the power is manifested, and persistent power doesn't change that.

[Rubik]

Well... it'll make you immune to "all attacks and powers" (and ostensibly spells) for 24 hours, but technically, you only "ignore all harmful (and helpful) effects" until the end of the turn after the turn the power is manifested, and persistent power doesn't change that.Except the regular duration is 1 round. Persisting it means that "1 round" lasts 24 hours.

[Werephilosopher]

Except the regular duration is 1 round. Persisting it means that "1 round" lasts 24 hours.

Yes, but

Your body ignores all harmful (and helpful) effects, beginning when you finish manifesting this power and ending at the end of your next turn. While timeless body is in effect, you are invulnerable to all attacks and powers.

So for 24 hours, you are invulnerable to all attacks and powers - because that is the duration of (persistent) timeless body. But timeless body's effect of ignoring all harmful (and helpful) effects isn't based on the duration of the power - it ends at the end of the turn after the turn the power is manifested, regardless of whether it is persisted.

EDIT: I answered your post in the wrong way. From the text of Persistent Power, there is nothing to indicate that it "stretches," if you will, the normal duration of the power to 24 hours for all purposes of the power. All it says on the matter is "a persistent power has a duration of 24 hours." So you effectively X out the "1 round" from timeless body's duration and write "24 hours" instead. Thus, my original post - you are still only completely immune to all effects until the end of the next round.

EDIT 2: And rereading the text of the power, I realize it says the complete invulnerability ends "at the end of your next turn." So not only is it not dependent on duration, it isn't even dependent on time - it ends at the end of your next turn no matter how long "1 round" lasts.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It doesn't matter. You're still invulnerable to all attacks and powers for 24 hours.

For purposes of psionic powers, an Attack is defined as follows: "All offensive combat actions, even those that don’t damage opponents, such as disarm and bull rush, are considered attacks. All powers that opponents can resist with saving throws, that deal damage, or that otherwise harm or hamper subjects are considered attacks. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm#attacks)"

So like I said, you're invulnerable to anything that anyone who exists within the game could possibly do or affect your character with, as any action taken against you would be considered an 'Attack' and thus fall within what the power protects you from.

[Werephilosopher]

In a game that finished a couple of months ago, our group was level 30; I had a psion, and I don't recall the exact class mix our other party members had. We ended up going against a partly-depowered god. His save bonuses meant he'd have to roll a 5 or lower to fail against most of my spells, and he had 20 class levels in Monk, giving him improved evasion reflex saves anyway.

I had 3 epic powers created:
1) super-invisibility power (greater invisibility + immune to true sight & divinations, 30-hour buff)
2) super-enervation (lose 10d4 levels, for save for half damage)
3) crown of psionic might (+6 INT, a few other things)

Due to the nature of our surroundings, I could only have 1 or 2 buffs up going in to the fight, anyway.

Deities get a long list of general immunities, including death effects, elemental damage, poision, ability damage/drain, level drain,etc. I could not find any debuff powers that would actually work. A max-level Astral Construct couldn't even make the touch attack to start a grapple. HP damage appeared to be the only way to defeat him.

I of course had Schism up, and ended up using Reality Revision and its lesser cousin to grant our charger Pounce and Offensive Precognition, and to reset him into position to get off another charge+full attack for 500+ damage each round (he had to roll an 8 or 10 to hit, and there was a miss chance involved). I don't recall how much XP I burned, but it was around 20,000-35,000xp...

How else could I have defeated him?

What about the surroundings limited you to "1 or 2 buffs"?

My Erudite recently went up against a deity in-game. HP damage was the only way to feasibly harm him. Like Morcleon suggested, you should use powers with no power resistance, and preferably no save. If you really can't have too many buffs up, at least maybe try assimilate with a critter from a bag of tricks to boost all your abilities, including your manifesting ability, to increase your power DCs.

Also, even if your astral constructs couldn't harm him, they still could have distracted him while your charger got back into position by himself, so you wouldn't lose so much XP.


It doesn't matter. You're still invulnerable to all attacks and powers for 24 hours.

For purposes of psionic powers, an Attack is defined as follows: "All offensive combat actions, even those that don’t damage opponents, such as disarm and bull rush, are considered attacks. All powers that opponents can resist with saving throws, that deal damage, or that otherwise harm or hamper subjects are considered attacks. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm#attacks)"

So like I said, you're invulnerable to anything that anyone who exists within the game could possibly do or affect your character with, as any action taken against you would be considered an 'Attack' and thus fall within what the power protects you from.

That's why you don't kill them by taking direct action against them. You kill them by reality revisioning them into the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum, or the Far Realm, and letting the environment take care of them.

[J-H]

It's from a published module so I don't want to spoil too much.

We were on a pocket plane of some sort, with a time limit and an accelerated time passage as the McGuffin charged up. Basically every round was like an couple of hours of time as far as entropy (spell expiration, hunger, etc.) was concerned.

A twinned Crystal Shard at ML 31 (orange ioun stone!) does 54d6 damage, or 189 on average, if I make the ranged touch attack roll. BAB 15+8DEX = +23 to-hit, plus maybe a few other minor bonuses. This deity had 20 monk levels, so base 10+monk AC + dex + wis + divine rank AC + cha to deflection AC + any gear or spells... I think his touch AC was around 40. I know the Astral Construct never landed a touch attack to start a grapple, and that's with a +28 to hit. I don't recall how well it rolled.

It's good to know that, so far, I don't seem to have missed any obvious or non-obscure ways to harm him. High-level D&D is rocket tag for spellcasters, save-or-die/sucks rule...until you get to VERY high levels, and then it's back to "HP damage is the way to go."

[Psyren]

Persistent Power + Timeless Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timelessBody.htm) can be achieved at level 20 with Metapower and Overchannel. Persistent Power (http://archive.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/ArcanaOccupationsandFeats.rtf) is in the 3.0 Psionics Handbook, but per DMG p4, "Why A Revision?" it's still perfectly valid for use in 3.5 games.

1) This is a common misconception. Your DM still has to determine what "minor adjustments" are necessary in order to allow any 3.0 content; it is not "perfectly valid" unless they say so.

2) For psionics in particular, the PsH was completely updated by the XPH. "Three years of feedback, notes, observations, and new ideas could finally come to light in a completely expanded, revised, and updated version of the Psionics Handbook." The entire book represents an updated version of the Psionics Handbook, therefore there is no "unupdated" material to port.

[martixy]

Your psion was in the unique position of horribly abusing the one super-powerful advantage you had over him(and any other single creature when pitted against an entire party) - more actions.

Given the uber-high-level nature of the game I'll assume you've had access to Psychic Reformation so botched build wouldn't have been an issue.

Affinity Field + Synchronicty + Temporal Acceleration + Hustle/Schism/Fission + Psycrystal / Cohort / Fission shenanigans can get you many many actions per round.

That's the whole shtick of psionics - action economy abuse.

[J-H]

I didn't realize that I really, really needed the maximize/empower line of metapsionics until we were in that fight. The 10 minute manifesting time made an in-combat change not an option.

I was previously able to contribute heavily in all the other battles. As I recall:
-Decerebrated 3 or 4 balors while the party handled the demigod that summoned them.
-Used Tornado blast to weaken an entire room full of enemies; not sure who did the final hit on the main enemy there but it wasn't me.
-Energy missile to damage some evil outsiders and later some sneaky types; my invisibility power kept them from targeting me easily
-Reality Revisioned us past a really big tough fight (large monster, small doors)
-Cha-damaged a vampire sorceror into using a magic item to leave (I had him at Cha 8 in 1 or 2 rounds) while the party made mincemeat of his companions

I may be leaving out one or two fights; we only had 1 rest/break in that time period.

My biggest advantage was that it took epic magic for anyone to be able to see and directly target my character... although an epic dispel thing did blow that buff once.

Oh, and we had a lich's phylactery that we didn't know how to destroy. We gave it to a dragon who didn't like the lich.