[3.5] Straight melee Psion level 5

[Fruchtfliege]

Hey guys,

I'm currently trying to make a concept happen, that has been in my head for a long time.
A real melee Psion.

Meaning: You see the guy and think "Damn, he's a Fighter", and then he starts doing useful stuff outside of combat and still hits people in melee in combat.

It is of no importance to be optimized. I want to optimize the concept, but dont want to kill everything in one hit :)
I chose this concept in part because my group does not optimize that much.

It has to be a Psion (I very much dislike wizards and think sorcerers have too little spells).
His highest stat has to be strength. We start at level 5, so he should work from there on.
It's 28 point buy, no flaws, no LA buy off.
All books allowed, dragon magazin on a case by case basis.

So far my Idea is a Dragonborn Water Orc Egoist with
Str 18; Dex 10; Con 18; Wis 8; Int 14; Cha 8

As Feats I got: Linked Power (For buffing up), Extend Power (for pre Buffing); Expanded Knowledge [Claws of the beast] (for face ripping) and Psionic Meditation (for fast refocussing)

Essential Melee Powers:
1. Inertial Armor; Vigor; Claws of the Beast
2. Animal Affinity
3. (Hustle)

Now I'm not sure this ist the way to go. It seems very pricy to keep myself from dying in combat this way. I like the idea of Claws though. Another rout would be going for a reach weapon plus expand (?) and maybe the feat where you can burn two PP for 2d6 damage.

It's very important for me to only use my standard action of the first round of combat for buffing up (see linked power) and being able to hurt someone the second round.

As for equipment: I have really no idea what to take.

Thanks for your ideas.

[WhiteBread]

The problem with Psion is that he looses alot of Bab with only half progression and he misses armor and shield profiencies to stand anywhere near enemies. If you want to play a Melee Psion, Psychic Warrior is the way to go. If you really need 7-9th level powers than maybe wilder.

But hey it wouldn't be interesting without trying right? I don't know how much cheese your dm accepts but going an Erudite(psion variant) with StP (Spell to Power) allows you to get access to Spells. Now the cheese is that you should still be able to use Divine Metamagic on them if not you gotta get the magic mantle for the other First Feat.( By raw you can take two ACF's with Erudite). Now you can persist divine favor and later divine power and have full bab which will make you a standard fighter. You need some turn undead or other turn/rebuke to use Divine Metamagic. Which you can get with a dip into cleric, other dips with turn/rebuke checks or get the planar touchstone feat with access to a domain that has turn/rebuke. (Don't know which Planar Touchstone exactly).
As you see this is quite feat intensive. And generally it is a bad idea to focus both melee and spells/powers because your class will be really feat starved. A human is a good choice or some other cheese but i think what i wrote above is already banned in like 50% of all games. Most DM's don't allow for even Divine Metamagic to exist and asking them to play a Spell to Power Erudite will get you several books thrown at your head.

Moreover if you really wanted to be melee but keep your full power progression than i would recommend Astral Construct. It is on par with any fighter not specialized on specific enemies. Makes the life of Psion really easy.

[Fruchtfliege]

Thank you for your suggestions.
Sadly you are right in that I get bumps on my forehead just by reading them. Oh, those imaginary book flying all around :D

Our game is really too low powered for that. This is part of why I'm trying to do it.
Our Tier 1's are being played like tier 3/4's. And yes, that means healing cleric and fireball wizard. Okay, maybe not tier 4. That would be too harsh. They do bring some utility to the table.
The warblade at least does his damage in fights. But its really hard to not play them at least half good.

A question about constructs. I thought about being a shaper an having a personal construct. But the damage seemed really low. Trip and such are nice, but what I saw was a worse "summon natures ally".
Are there ways to pump that?
I'd still want to go melee, but with a strong construct I'd only have to pretend for roleplaying reasons. I'd not have to hit anything most of the time.

Still: If anyone has some more Ideas, please feel free to share. A weapon swinging psion, some better feats for my above idea, good equipment. Everything is welcome.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Psicrystal Affinity, vigour and share pain is a classic survivability combo. No need for inertial armour when you can tank big stacks of damage. Don't forget you can wear armour with zero ACP without penalty, even if you're not proficient. +1 reinforced studded leather grants +5 AC for a relatively cheap 2315 gp.

You can get hustle as second-level power by taking the Freedom mantle. Also gets you +10' speed.

You can use synchronicity with Metapower and Linked Power to manifest powers cheaply and quickly, albeit with a slight delay. Still worth it in a lot of cases.

[WhiteBread]

A question about constructs. I thought about being a shaper an having a personal construct. But the damage seemed really low. Trip and such are nice, but what I saw was a worse "summon natures ally".
Are there ways to pump that?
I'd still want to go melee, but with a strong construct I'd only have to pretend for roleplaying reasons. I'd not have to hit anything most of the time.

Still: If anyone has some more Ideas, please feel free to share. A weapon swinging psion, some better feats for my above idea, good equipment. Everything is welcome.

The Astral Construct does as much dmg as a fighter would but has an easier time pouncing, grappling and you can give it even a power to manifest with the menu choices. You can make it fly and get flybyattack or however that feat is called and pewpew from above for example. There is even a feat which allows you to use astral cosntruct as a weapon and makes it really easy to have a +5 sword if needed. You could also ride your astral construct which uses pounce which does a full attack and than do a full attack after the round of your astral construct yourself. This way you have more attacks in higher levels by taking the right menu choices. (Shaper ACF helps with swift construct)

With the PSV( Psicrystal, Share Pain, Vigor combo) you will be better at tanking than most others. The greatest problem is to get Divine Power somehow because it boosts your BAB (this what makes melee, melee). I don't know if there is a Power equivalent. But with magic mantle (acf for easy access) you could simply use a wand with that spell on it and at least have full bab for a fight.

Take a race like elf to get the weapon profiency you need.(The psion only has access to simple weapons which are pretty bad actually)

And guess you would have a rather tanky, mounted and hard hitting sword spellcastermanifester this way without cheese.


Edit: Slightly Swordsaged with the PSV combo

[Troacctid]

Anarchic Initiate upgrades you to medium BAB for free.

[AnachroNinja]

I like using warforged telepaths for this. Stack Con, choose empathic transfer: hostile. Soak damage, hand it back via your slam attack.

[Fruchtfliege]

Thanks guys,

it seems I underestimated the vigor, Psycrystal, share pain thingy.
BOUGHT!

I'd have to really fight for being allowed to use warforged I think. I'll look into it though.
And into Anarchic Initiate.

The weapon construct feat sounds interesting. A quick google search left me empty handed though (Might be because its getting late)


You can use synchronicity with Metapower and Linked Power to manifest powers cheaply and quickly, albeit with a slight delay. Still worth it in a lot of cases.
This trick.. I don't get it :(
I choose Metapower(Synchonicity), cast synchronicity with linked power (say.. Vigor for 20 HP [4PP]) for 5 PP minus 2PP (Metapower) for 3 PP and use the granted standard action to cast Share Pain for 3 PP. Then I move. Next round Vigor goes off and I can move and attack. So 6 PP in total.
Without this trick the same would have been possible for 7 PP (Cast Vigor linked to Share pain).
Thats "only" one PP saved. For a combat focused character, wouldn't it be more efficient to take Metapower (Share Pain) and then link it to Vigor [or the other way round] to get this off for 5 PP?

Metapower(Synchronicity) seems more flexible, but when do I ever need to link two powers regularly, expect at the start of combat?
What am I missing here? Where is my train of thought de-railing?

[MisterKaws]

Can't you... Y'know, play an Ardent? It's basically a psionic Cleric. In short, a bulkier Psion with a stronger passion towards some concepts. The class has the same HD/BAB as the cleric, plus the same PP as the Psion, so it's basically what you want.

Also, about the Linked Power cheese: You link Synchronicity to itself, and then cast another linked Synchronicity on each of the linked actions, until you run out of stored Psionic Focuses. The result is a lot of actions.

[ExLibrisMortis]

This trick.. I don't get it :(
I choose Metapower(Synchonicity), cast synchronicity with linked power (say.. Vigor for 20 HP [4PP]) for 5 PP minus 2PP (Metapower) for 3 PP and use the granted standard action to cast Share Pain for 3 PP. Then I move. Next round Vigor goes off and I can move and attack. So 6 PP in total.
Without this trick the same would have been possible for 7 PP (Cast Vigor linked to Share pain).
Thats "only" one PP saved. For a combat focused character, wouldn't it be more efficient to take Metapower (Share Pain) and then link it to Vigor [or the other way round] to get this off for 5 PP?

Metapower(Synchronicity) seems more flexible, but when do I ever need to link two powers regularly, expect at the start of combat?
What am I missing here? Where is my train of thought de-railing?
Synchronicity linked vigour can get you a 6 pp vigour, even though your ML is only 5. The total cost is 5 pp, reduced from 7 by Metapower. You can use the standard action to refocus, and the effective action cost is the same as manifesting a power. Effectively, this trick reduces the cost of all powers by 1 pp, provided you are willing to wait a round. It's great out of combat as well as in. Erudites use it to get around their UPPD limitation, as well.

The primary reason synchronicity is Metapowered is the versatility. Because it doesn't require much in the way of actions (the move action to refocus), and because it allows tricks like the one MisterKaws mentioned: you link synchronicity to synchronicity, and for 1 pp, you get another standard action on your next round. You still need to refocus, and that's the next step in the trick: using hustle linked synchronicity to refocus and get extra actions, or rather, convert moves and swifts into standards. The real multiplication happens when you get around the refocussing, for example by being a Dominant Ideal ardent, or if a twinned (hustle linked hustle) grants four move actions with just two refocusings, or through affinity fields.

The best-case scenario is one where you start with a round of buffing right before combat. So:
0) Buff round: synchronicity linked vigour. Costs 5 pp, grants 30 temporary hp to you and your psicrystal. Refocus with move action, then manifest synchronicity linked share pain, for 2 pp. Refocus with your new standard, and manifest hustle linked synchronicity, for 4 pp. Refocus with your new move action.
1) First round of combat: Your synchronicity from last turn comes online, along with share pain and vigour. Manifest hustle linked synchronicity. Costs 4 pp, grants a move action now, and a standard action next turn. Now you have two standards and two moves, and no focus. Make two full attacks*, or do whatever else you want.
2) Second round of combat: You still have a standard from last turn. Manifest hustle for 3 pp, and you again have two moves and two standards. Repeat the full attacks etcetera.

Basically, the idea is to concentrate actions in the first rounds of combat. The above maneuver cost 18 pp, which is obviously a lot (especially at level 5, when you have 35-40 pp), but most of the time, you shouldn't need to go all-out. The hustle manifests are the most expensive, totalling half the cost of the entire scheme, and that's using hustle from the Freedom mantle.


*If your DM doesn't allow you to combine synchronicity readied actions with move actions into full-round actions, you should look at some Tome of Battle, because standard action strikes are a lot better than regular standard attacks. That also frees up your move actions to refocus some more, and you could even use them to move.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

*If your DM doesn't allow you to combine synchronicity readied actions with move actions into full-round actions, you should look at some Tome of Battle, because standard action strikes are a lot better than regular standard attacks. That also frees up your move actions to refocus some more, and you could even use them to move.His group seems to be very low optimization. While ACF ardent/initiator/psionic variant jade phoenix mage would be pretty great, I think it might be too much for his group to handle reasonably well.

However, I do suggest dipping into crusader for various healing maneuvers, weapon and armor proficiencies (not that you need armor, if you've got mithril chain shirt), and HP/saving throw boosts.

[Sian]

competent, but underappreciated would be a Wilder ... they got Medium bab just as Adent and PsyWar ... their power selection is a bit tricky as they have so few, and some of the better powers are gated behind Mantles (Via ACF, which then bring on another kettle of fish as it expliticly says that you have to take a power from the mantle if at all possible) or in disciplines which they usually don't have access to.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Why not play a Battle Sorcerer or Bard, but use the spellpoint variants from Unearthed Arcana?

Or the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm)?

[DMVerdandi]

Seconding using a Spell to power erudite, BUT, Using the balanced Dragon 319 Erudite, rather than the broken Cpsi version.

The 319 Erudite essentially gets 4 Unique powers per day, per spell level, so you always have 4 slots in a decoherent state until you use them. At max you get 36 Unique powers per day, but they aren't all at the same level.

Anyhow, Psion powers are awesome, but not necessarily geared towards making you into a better fighter. For that, admittedly spells, are better.


Look up best spells for a gish and learn them and mix and match with your psionic powers.

Also think about throwing in a level of monk With Tashalatora and Kung-fu Genius feats for Int to AC, and other monk stuff.

Monk 1/Erudite 19

[Troacctid]

Seconding using a Spell to power erudite, BUT, Using the balanced Dragon 319 Erudite, rather than the broken Cpsi version.

The 319 Erudite essentially gets 4 Unique powers per day, per spell level, so you always have 4 slots in a decoherent state until you use them. At max you get 36 Unique powers per day, but they aren't all at the same level.
How is that balanced? That's essentially the same as having no limit at all. It's more unique powers per day than normal psions have powers known.

The Complete Psionic version is much more reasonable.

[ExLibrisMortis]

How is that balanced? That's essentially the same as having no limit at all. It's more unique powers per day than normal psions have powers known.

The Complete Psionic version is much more reasonable.
Complete Psionic gets you UPPD per power level, though, up to 99 UPPD. You would first have to houserule it down to UPPD total across all levels, and that houserule is not guaranteed.

[Great Velocity]

The slayer PRC could be useful. It grants 9/10 manifesting while also giving full BAB and d8 hit dice.

[Troacctid]

Complete Psionic gets you UPPD per power level, though, up to 99 UPPD. You would first have to houserule it down to UPPD total across all levels, and that houserule is not guaranteed.
Where are you getting that number? The table only has an entry for the total Unique Powers/Day, and it only goes up to 11, with the epic erudite getting 12 UPPD at level 25, 13 at level 30, and so on.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Where are you getting that number? The table only has an entry for the total Unique Powers/Day, and it only goes up to 11, with the epic erudite getting 12 UPPD at level 25, 13 at level 30, and so on.
As per the class ability "Unique Powers per Day":

Unlike a psion, an erudite is limited to manifesting a certain number of unique psionic powers of each level per day from the repertoire of powers he knows, according to his class level.
That is the only line that limits manifesting multiple unique powers per day. Hence, a sixth-level erudite can manifest four different first-level powers, four different second-level powers, and four different third-level powers per day.

[Troacctid]

As per the class ability "Unique Powers per Day":

That is the only line that limits manifesting multiple unique powers per day. Hence, a sixth-level erudite can manifest four different first-level powers, four different second-level powers, and four different third-level powers per day.
But the table only has a column for unique powers per day, not unique powers per level per day.

The epic erudite is also specific in saying that a 25th level erudite can only manifest 12 unique powers per day, not 108, and that this is an increase.

[ExLibrisMortis]

But the table only has a column for unique powers per day, not unique powers per level per day.

The epic erudite is also specific in saying that a 25th level erudite can only manifest 12 unique powers per day, not 108, and that this is an increase.
The table column isn't called 'Unique Powers per Day' because it specifies the number of different powers across all levels you can manifest per day. It's called that because the erudite class ability is called that. The description of the ability then makes clear that this 'unique powers per day' applies to each power level individually.

In the epic description, 'unique powers per day' is used as short form of 'unique powers per level per day'. The epic description uses other shorthands: the epic continuation of the 'Unique Powers per Day' ability is called 'Unique Powers', for example. The epic description is concise, and maybe a bit unprecise. It does not, however, provide any support for UPPD over UPPLPD.


All that said, I am currently playing an erudite, and we're using the UPPD ruling, as per my suggestion to the DM. I agree that UPPD was intended to be the number of different powers across all levels you can manifest per day. Most of the text could match that. We can't just call it RAW, because it doesn't match all the text.

[Troacctid]

I agree that UPPD was intended to be the number of different powers across all levels you can manifest per day. Most of the text could match that. We can't just call it RAW, because it doesn't match all the text.
The text contradicts itself, so no interpretation is going to match all of it. There's no reason to take the dysfunctional interpretation when the functional interpretation is right there.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The text contradicts itself [...]
No, it doesn't.

[DMVerdandi]

How is that balanced? That's essentially the same as having no limit at all. It's more unique powers per day than normal psions have powers known.

The Complete Psionic version is much more reasonable.

It's really not.
How is it balanced? Okay. Lets say you have 6 first level spells/powers learned and you have 4 UPPD.
That means that you will eventually either A. Have to lock in 4 of those powers known, or B. Not use them all.
Okay. Fine.
Where does that break the game? Nowhere. You cannot manifest all the powers you know, and the powers that you can manifest are all held down by a very static limit, that can only be changed with feat investment.

Now, if you are going to say the dragon erudite is broken, then you have to say that the Psion is broken in comparison to the wilder, who only gets a measly 11 powers while the psion gets 36.

Or that the wizard puts the sorcerer to shame, especially with the existence of the eidetic spell caster acf.


Or that the cleric and druid really are better than all of them because they don't have to spend money, time or effort to learn their spells, they just have them natively, not to mention lacking most of the restrictions held by other classes.


Now if you think the Dragon erudite is broken because of mechanics compared even to a core druid, you are sorely mistaken. If anything its a slightly better and worse spirit shaman casting mechanic.



Just because things are fantastic doesn't mean they are broken.
The complete psionic erudite is broken because it is completely incoherent. you just had an argument about what it even does. Even if the other one is better, that doesn't mean its worse. It's better partially because it's actually simple and functional, even if it is the wizard to the Psion's sorcerer.
A cleric is better than an adept. Does that mean clerics should not exist? No.

[Fruchtfliege]

Interesting discussion ;-)

There are a lot of great suggestions bere, thanks.

My primary concern is versatility. After that I want to make the most melee out of it. And for flavor reasons I want the characters class to scream "NOT melee". With that I want to optimize. Everything else would break our game.

I thought about a sorcerer with the Point-System, but what about survivability? It gets the polymorphing a level later and has no PSV combo.

[Fizban]

Time to COMBINE:

Psion 5 has BAB 2.5 with fractional BAB (as is right and proper). Two levels of Anarchic Initiate with fractional BAB gets you +1.5, for a total of BAB +4, which qualifies you for Slayer. That's only one level earlier than you could do it with straight Psion, but every level counts when you're trying to preserve BAB and Chaotic Surge is perfectly usable with even a single level. Psion 5/Anarchic Initiate 2/Slayer 10, loses 3 points of BAB and one level of casting, takes you up to 17th level.

That said, anyone who knows their prestige classes will know perfectly well that Slayer is a gish class, so that reads "totally melee." And getting actual weapon and armor proficiencies without Psywar or a Fighter dip is way too costly. In any case, you can't do melee with half BAB past a certain point, attack bonus just will not keep up.

Which brings us to Deep Impact. If you must go straight Psion or Psion+non gish classes, and still swing a sword in melee, you're gonna be taking Psionic Weapon+Deep Impact in order to actually land a hit, and not having tons of attack bonus to dump into Power Attack like an actual melee build would have. From there you layer as much burst damage as you can on that single hit, Deep Crystal, Power Storing, etc.


. . . But wait! Someone mentioned Wilder above, and lo did salvation ring! Indeed, Wilders have: 3/4 BAB, d6 HD, light armor, and shields. They also have a class feature which boosts their attacks after casting. It's not a very large bonus, but it's not nothing either. Take Postpone Ennervation to get a good two rounds of fighting when you inevitably fail your ennervation rolls. As for the insultingly small number of powers known and poor access, The Mind's Eye (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a) articles have what is basically a stealth buff for the Wilder: trade your unwanted Volatile Mind for bonus Expanded Knowledge feats (four total, the first is at 5th). You can also trade Elude Touch for a Mantle, but only if you're willing to spend almost all your powers known learning every power in that mantle. Which is terrible. . . until you read part three (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a), which has the expanded Ardent content, and allows you to rebuild a Mantle with whatever powers you think make more sense.

That all depends on weather your DM will allow the Mind's Eye articles, but considering how obvious it should be at a glance that the Wilder is garbage and needs the buff, as well as how arbitrary and useless most of the Mantles are, I don't see any argument that would hold water. Wilder clashes with orc cha penalties and you lose the ACF bonuses if you go into Slayer (but you can hit slayer another level sooner, Wilder 6/Slayer X). As for survivability, with high con and Vigor you should be just fine: Vigor provides a disgusting amount of hp, and you can pre-buff with Wild Surge for even more without risking ennervation in combat (and taking Ennervation Endurance makes the failure cost so low the free points should easily win out in the end).

I also seem to remember a loophole: the rule for researching powers, http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm#independentResearch]here, lacks the line used to prevent Sorcerers from exceeding their spells known table. The problem is that the text says "psion," so technically a Wilder can't do that. It does mean that a Psion can have unlimited powers known and accessable with no restrictions, leaving the Erudite with the advantage only in significantly reduced xp cost, time spent, and access. But if you can convince your DM to let you grab some extra powers for a Wilder through research, that would massively increase your versatility with just low level powers.

Gear could be a problem though, since it sound like you want to look completely mundane. That means no Deep Crystal weapon, no Skin of Ectoplasmic Armor. Halfweight can do the job but is too expensive to start with. Halfweight Full Plate is quite good, but not actually good enough to beat out Mithril Breastplate until you get close to maximum enhancement. Halfweight Mechanus Gear is what you want, especially if DM rules that being light armor negates the speed penalty entirely (Mechanus gear cuts you to 1/2 instead of 2/3, but light armor has flat zero speed penalties as a rule). As the heaviest non-garbage armor available, that should certainly scream "fighter," with bonus points when you walk around like it's not even there.

And with gear comes the possibility of power aquisition through gear. Knowstones are Dragon Magazine material, with a perfectly reasonable cost and no slot restrictions. Magic-psionics transparency doesn't quite go far enough to cover it explicitly, but again it's perfectly reasonable to ask if you can buy Knowstones for psionic powers to make up for your terrible spells known. It should be noted that the Psion and Sorcerer actually gain almost the same number of spells known (just a few off), while the Wilder gets 1/4 of that. Having reminded myself of just how bad it is, I suddenly want to un-suggest Wilder, but really if you can patch the powers known it's the best option.

[Fruchtfliege]

Great summary, thanks a lot.
I really have enough to on on now.
My thanks to everyone who contributed.