Psicrystal mindswitch?

[kemmotar]

I'm playing my first psion and as I was browsing through potential future combos when I was intrigued by mindswitch. Firstly, for some reason a found a reference that if your original body dies while mindswitch is active you lose a level. Secondly, if the above happens (with or without level loss) you retain control of the new body.

If the above is correct, it should be possible to take over someone and kill your body to gain a new body. The amusing question here is, can you do it with a psicrystal? In theory it should be possible, you can manifest mindswitch on your psicrystal and a chosen target, made possible via share powers since mindswitch has a cast range of "you". Assuming the enemy fails the save, you smash the psicrystal and voila, free high level cohort with full items that is fully loyal to you as he is essentially part of you.

Depending on DM interpretation he would also retain all the abilities of a psicrystal aside from those related to the actual crystal, i.e. not self propulsion, flight or natural armor. The rest should be fair game?

I haven't found anything else on this, or if there I've missed it. Thoughts?

[DrMartin]

Assuming your DM is cool with this (or that you are quite adept at dodging books), the only step you are missing is a manifestation of metamorphosis on your petrock to make him lose construct traits (mind switch is, not surprisingly, mind-affecting).

You need True Mind Switch (the 9th level telepath-only power) to pull it off as far as I know, as the 6th level version has a different clause in case of death of either participant.

In the Psionic Tricks handbook there was a way to do the same thing without paying the 10k xp - i think it was in the "psionic sandwich" trick, using a variation on the mind seed shenanigans, if my memory serves.

[kemmotar]

Has mind switch been errata'd? The version I find in XPH and SRD says nothing about level loss. The only things i find in terms of this are:


If either body is killed while the power is in effect, the other participant also dies when the power ends.



Conceivably, you could manifest mind switch to utilize a temporary body, but only an evil creature would smash his own temporarily empty storage crystal to permanently usurp a subject’s organic body (unless the subject is itself irredeemably evil).

....

you also have a negative level that cannot be healed.

It seems to me that a mindswitch and kill should work based on what astral seed says because there should be no fundamental difference between someone in an astral seed and one with a proper body. So smashing the storage crystal with your mind in it makes the transfer permanent while the level loss comes from manifesting the astral seed. This is also what tleilaxu_ghola used in the psionic sandwich:


5. Ritualistically slay yourself with favored method of suicide. Be sure to place your storage crystal next to the sandwich turned bunny. (I prefer to be killed with a dagger to the heart... :shifty: ) (Approximately 5 rounds)
6. Use mind-switch (the 6th level power) to switch with the rabbit, while in your storage crystal. (1 std action)
7. Metamorph into a troll and smash your storage crystal (now containing the mind of a sandwich). (2 standard actions)

What I dont get is why the roundabout way? Am I missing something with mindswitch?
Also about the psicrystal's construct immuntiies, the text of astral seed takes care of that because you gain all the abilities of a psicrystal (I assume, including construct immunities) but you are still able to manifest mind switch. The equivalent should be possible with the psicrystal.

[Necroticplague]

Has mind switch been errata'd? The version I find in XPH and SRD says nothing about level loss. The only things i find in terms of this are: Despite saying Mind Switch, they're referring to True Mind Switch (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/mindSwitchTrue.htm).

[atemu1234]

It works. As far as optimization goes, it's not even particularly bad. Just note you only get what is essentially a cohort; you wouldn't get a new psicrystal, because your old one is still alive - though this is up to DM interpretation, I suppose.

[Gee-chan]

Technically, RAW, this doesn't work without help as the Construct Mind Immunity gets in the way, however there are ways around this.

Otherwise, the idea looks fine and is giving me ideas for my own game.