3.5 Psion or PsyWar build

[ZenBear]

So we just finished a major plot line in our game and the DM is allowing us to change up our characters. I'm retiring my Barbarian in favor of balancing out the party which is entirely lacking any INT characters. I really don't like Vancian magic, so I don't want to mess with the Wizard, but my DM is allowing me to try out the Psion or Psychic Warrior. What I would like is to either fill a tank role as a PsyWar or support/control role as a Psion. I'm very new to 3.5 and especially the Psionics handbook but I'm trying to read up. What suggestions can you guys give me for a level 9 character with little to no multiclassing that would fill either of these roles?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Well, the PsyWar is Wisdom based, so that might affect your decision somewhat.

[ExLibrisMortis]

You can be a tank as psion. Play a human, specialize in Metacreativity (be a shaper). Take astral construct and synchronicity amongst your first-level powers. Take Boost Construct, Midnight Augmentation, Linked Power, and Metapower (Linked synchronicity). At level 3, you can now manifest synchronicity Linked astral construct, astral construct augmented by 4, costing only 1 + ((1 + (4 - 1)) - 2) = 3 pp. That means you're getting a 5 pp astral construct on the cheap, and it's faster to manifest, too--normally, it'd take one full round, but now it only costs your focus.

Edit: The combo works exactly the same at every level: at manifester level X, you manifest astral construct augmented to X + 2, and without much of an action cost, especially if you pick up Psionic Meditation to refocus as a move action.

[Red Fel]

So we just finished a major plot line in our game and the DM is allowing us to change up our characters. I'm retiring my Barbarian in favor of balancing out the party which is entirely lacking any INT characters. I really don't like Vancian magic, so I don't want to mess with the Wizard, but my DM is allowing me to try out the Psion or Psychic Warrior. What I would like is to either fill a tank role as a PsyWar or support/control role as a Psion. I'm very new to 3.5 and especially the Psionics handbook but I'm trying to read up. What suggestions can you guys give me for a level 9 character with little to no multiclassing that would fill either of these roles?

I'd go with a Psion. Psions have great utility, and your Discipline selection further augments that. Specifically, a Shaper or Telepath can handle some very solid battlefield control. Shapers, for example, get Astral Construct (so you can have your control role and a tanky minion) and Ectoplasmic Cocoon (so you can render enemies completely helpless), both of which let you significantly alter the battlefield. There's also a Shaper ACF, Personal Construct (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070411a), that's basically the precursor to Pathfinder's Summoner - an Astral Construct you can quick-summon by expending your psionic focus, that's the same each time and you can upgrade when you level.

Oh, and if you make, say, a Warforged Shaper, you could do something like, say, use True Creation to create aerosolized highly deadly toxins in a cloud all around you, or contact poisons you can rub all over your poison-immune metallic surface, and just let your enemies kill themselves.

With the Telepath, you get lots of controller abilities, like Psionic Charm ("You're my friend now,"), Aversion ("Stay away from us,") Brain Lock (enemy can take no actions), or Crisis of Breath (breathing takes a standard action). There's also an ACF, Telepathic Communication (same link as above), which gives your Telepath the Telepathy quality - which means instantaneous communication, even if you don't have a common language, with any targets within range.

The Telepath has the added benefit of being able to easily get into the Thrallherd (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/thrallherd.htm) PrC, which gives you 8/10 manifesting progression but adds a personal army. (Your DM may have words about this.) Again, this means that you can have an NPC minion who is basically the tanky bodyguard you were thinking of playing. Also, this PrC augments your Psionic Dominate power, making it less expensive to use - which leads to more control options, in a very literal sense.

[Nifft]

A PsiWar typical tank combo look be like: Psicrystal Affinity (feat) + Vigor (power) + Share Pain (power not on your list). But you can't get Share Pain until level 8, when you buy it with Expanded Knowledge. It's a great combo and totally worth the feat cost, but it isn't viable at level 5 for you.


Psions are great. They aren't as strong as Wizards, but they have a lot of really cool & fun tricks. Some of my favorites:

Time Hop is the best power. You can just make parts of your environment disappear for a while. Move a lock out of the way while your party walks through -- or just move the whole door into the future. Works great on allies, too -- move an NPC into the future so nothing bad happens during a fight, for example.

Energy powers are flexible. Energy Wall can partition a battlefield, or set up some monsters to take a bunch of damage to which they're vulnerable (usually fire or cold). Energy Push or Energy Stun can scale well, but check with your DM about how the DCs work. Energy Bolt is a nice back-up power but probably not your main.

Entangling Ectoplasm is a very cheap save-or-suck effect. I've used it at all levels of play.

Affinity and Aversion are both very powerful if you're allowed to use them creatively.

Psi Charm and Psi Dominate give you the effect of their higher-level counterparts at lower levels.


You could be a Psion tank, using the exact same combo described up in the PsyWar section:

Level 1: Ranger 1 (favored enemy: Aberrations) - bonus feat: Track
Level 2: Psion 1 - bonus feat Psicrystal Affinity; powers Entangling Ectoplasm, Vigor, ___
Level 3: Psion 2 - feat ___; 2x L2 powers
Level 4: Psion 3 - powers Share Pain, ___
Level 5: Psion 4 - 2x L2 powers
Level 6: Psion 5 - feat ____; bonus feat ____; 2x L3 powers
Level 7: Psion 6 - 2x L3 powers
Level 8: Slayer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/slayer.htm) 1
Level 9: Slayer 2 - 2x L4 Powers

For a Psion, the combo comes together at level 3, so by character level 5 you can use it reliably.

You're more of an off-tank than a main-tank, but you can tank face tolerably well at level 5, and that's only costing you one feat (which is good anyway) and two power choices (of which you have lots). Your tank-capability improves more after level 8, and only goes up from there.

[Fouredged Sword]

Another really fun thing with Psions it to go into the Crystal Master PRC (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625d). This is a very fun class that can make you very tanky. You can get +7 to ac and ALL SAVES, (stacks with cloak of resistance and most AC bonuses), +3 con that stacks with enhancement items, 28 power resistance, and DR 6/-.

You can also share Vigor and Share Pain with your psicrystal to half most incoming damage.

[Rebel7284]

Elans get some pretty tanky racial abilities.

Also, there are Kalashtar which are alright to begin with but there are augment shards that they can implant into themselves which are pretty amazing

[J-H]

Wow, how have i not seen crystal master before? Cool stuff.

[Fouredged Sword]

And if you can manage +1 ml through over overchannel and +1 ml from anywhere else you an enter at 4th level. Low skill prereqs make for easy entery.

[Cavir]

Wow, how have i not seen crystal master before? Cool stuff.
Yeah, same here. Just last week started a psion (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1307103) that will go crystal master. My thought at this point is to get these from crystals:
1) +3 INT (not as many PP as taking the +PP gem, but plenty of other bonuses it from +INT)
2) +3 CON
3) +6 AC/Saves (not sure where the +7 from above post comes from)
4) Power Resistance +29 (11+ (3xgems))
5) Open choice, will see how the campaign goes:
- a) Telepathy 90'
- b) +3 DEX
- c) +3 CHA

Character is very defensive heavy. Hopefully the powers will balance that out.

Pretty obvious Epic progression- allow more gems


You can also share Vigor and Share Pain with your psicrystal to half most incoming damage.
Concern I have with that is if you do lose your psicrystal (has 1/2 your hp) then it's a year + 1 day to get a new one (as ruled for this game at least since there's nothing definitive). Granted Vigor + Shared Pain sucks up a lot of damage. I'm not sure if the psicrystal's Hardness plays a part with the shared pain, I'm guessing not since that would probably be OP.


There's also a Shaper ACF, Personal Construct
I got the ok for that already. It would be cheesy (not going to do it) but as per RAW you keep maintain a small rotating army of Personal Constructs:

Each Round: Expend Psi Focus (quickened action) to get Personal Construct. Move action to regain focus. Still have Standard Action to use a power.

"by only sacrificing your psionic focus" meaning no PP spent so you can do it every round all day and each lasts ML rounds. Add Boost Construct to add the extra ability to all of those summons. Surprised all that never hit the handbooks.

[ZenBear]

Thanks for all the tips so far, everyone!

So at this point I'm leaning toward the Shaper Psion, which as I understand means I can just focus on maxing INT for DCs and PPs with DEX/CON secondary for survivability. I like the Personal Construct idea from The Mind's Eye (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070411a) article, so I'll be picking that feat up at 5. I'm thinking it will look like the Eidolons (http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/782/782217/shadowrun-20070419105323486.jpg) from Shadowrun, with either a crystaline or ectoplasmic appearance based on whether I want to go with the Crystal Weaver or Ectomancer style. Now I just need help with picking powers and feats beyond that. Any specifics that stand out for a support/control Psion?

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, same here. Just last week started a psion (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1307103) that will go crystal master. My thought at this point is to get these from crystals:
1) +3 INT (not as many PP as taking the +PP gem, but plenty of other bonuses it from +INT)
2) +3 CON
3) +6 AC/Saves (not sure where the +7 from above post comes from)
4) Power Resistance +29 (11+ (3xgems))
5) Open choice, will see how the campaign goes:
- a) Telepathy 90'
- b) +3 DEX
- c) +3 CHA

Character is very defensive heavy. Hopefully the powers will balance that out.

Pretty obvious Epic progression- allow more gems


Concern I have with that is if you do lose your psicrystal (has 1/2 your hp) then it's a year + 1 day to get a new one (as ruled for this game at least since there's nothing definitive). Granted Vigor + Shared Pain sucks up a lot of damage. I'm not sure if the psicrystal's Hardness plays a part with the shared pain, I'm guessing not since that would probably be OP.


I got the ok for that already. It would be cheesy (not going to do it) but as per RAW you keep maintain a small rotating army of Personal Constructs:

Each Round: Expend Psi Focus (quickened action) to get Personal Construct. Move action to regain focus. Still have Standard Action to use a power.

"by only sacrificing your psionic focus" meaning no PP spent so you can do it every round all day and each lasts ML rounds. Add Boost Construct to add the extra ability to all of those summons. Surprised all that never hit the handbooks.

Read the moonstone gem carefully. It grants a base of 1 plus one PER EMBEDDED GEM. You end up with 5 embedded gems, then your psicrystal counts as number 6. This is a total of 7.

The gems need to be read carefully. Some say "per embedded gem." and some say "Per additional embedded gem." The first list counts the gem itself, the second do not.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Thanks for all the tips so far, everyone!

So at this point I'm leaning toward the Shaper Psion, which as I understand means I can just focus on maxing INT for DCs and PPs with DEX/CON secondary for survivability. I like the Personal Construct idea from The Mind's Eye (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070411a) article, so I'll be picking that feat up at 5. I'm thinking it will look like the Eidolons (http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/782/782217/shadowrun-20070419105323486.jpg) from Shadowrun, with either a crystaline or ectoplasmic appearance based on whether I want to go with the Crystal Weaver or Ectomancer style. Now I just need help with picking powers and feats beyond that. Any specifics that stand out for a support/control Psion?
Well, there's the combination I mentioned above: Boost Construct, Linked Power, Metapower (Linked synchronicity), and Midnight Augmentation. It makes powers slightly cheaper, but the main benefit is that astral construct (which should be the usual target of your Midnight Augmentation) becomes more powerful, and manifesting it will take less time.

Psionic Meditation is great for nearly any type of psionic build.

Burrowing Power can be used in some nasty ways, either stealthily, manifesting through windows or doors (looking through keyholes and whatnot), or quite blatantly, when combined with telekinetic sphere-style effects.

[Fouredged Sword]

Some solidly good powers

1st level
Entangling ectoplasm - A solid 1 PP no save debuff VS one target that stays solid thought the game. It works just as well on a level 1 commoner as a level 20 lich. Worth throwing around at 1st level and continues to work with little or no augmentation.

Grease, Psionic - A staple for wizards is a staple for you.

Vigor - 5 temp HP goes a long way. 100 temp HP goes even further. Great at all levels.

Crystal Shard - No save physical damage, solid

[Cavir]

Well, there's the combination I mentioned above: Boost Construct, Linked Power, Metapower (Linked synchronicity), and Midnight Augmentation. It makes powers slightly cheaper, but the main benefit is that astral construct (which should be the usual target of your Midnight Augmentation) becomes more powerful, and manifesting it will take less time.

Psionic Meditation is great for nearly any type of psionic build.

Burrowing Power can be used in some nasty ways, either stealthily, manifesting through windows or doors (looking through keyholes and whatnot), or quite blatantly, when combined with telekinetic sphere-style effects.

Yeah it depends which psionic book you are using. For the game I'm in it's XPH so Linked Power and Synchronicity aren't options.

ZenBear, it hasn't been linked so just to make sure... handbook1 (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=e1c08bs1mjk3akg82upr5oq830&topic=5343) and handbook2 (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?471414-3-5-Psion-Buildguide-and-Compendium-(Carnivore))


The gems need to be read carefully. Some say "per embedded gem." and some say "Per additional embedded gem." The first list counts the gem itself, the second do not.
Had missed that, thanks :smallsmile: I could see a DM ruling either way, but those bonuses are awesome either way.

[ZenBear]

Well, there's the combination I mentioned above: Boost Construct, Linked Power, Metapower (Linked synchronicity), and Midnight Augmentation. It makes powers slightly cheaper, but the main benefit is that astral construct (which should be the usual target of your Midnight Augmentation) becomes more powerful, and manifesting it will take less time.

Psionic Meditation is great for nearly any type of psionic build.

Burrowing Power can be used in some nasty ways, either stealthily, manifesting through windows or doors (looking through keyholes and whatnot), or quite blatantly, when combined with telekinetic sphere-style effects.

I don't know that Midnight Augmentation will be allowed, depends on if my DM has that book. What is "essentia (http://dnd.arkalseif.info/feats/magic-of-incarnum--74/midnight-augmentation--1939/index.html)" and how do I get more? Definitely taking Psionic Meditation, maybe Burrowing power if I have a spare feat after any other essentials.


Some solidly good powers

1st level
Entangling ectoplasm - A solid 1 PP no save debuff VS one target that stays solid thought the game. It works just as well on a level 1 commoner as a level 20 lich. Worth throwing around at 1st level and continues to work with little or no augmentation.

Grease, Psionic - A staple for wizards is a staple for you.

Vigor - 5 temp HP goes a long way. 100 temp HP goes even further. Great at all levels.

Crystal Shard - No save physical damage, solid

Ok, so I have two concepts now. Either I play Walter C. Dornez (http://hellsing.wikia.com/wiki/Walter_C._Dornez) as a Crystal Weaver and act as the party's butler, or I play Richard Upton Pickman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickman%27s_Model) as an Ectomancer artist and be a Lovecraftian protagonist, fainting spells and all. :P

EE and Grease fit the Pickman Model (:smallwink:) and Crystal Shard I suppose fits both. This will also define whether I focus more on Psicrystals or my Eidolon. I'm leaning toward Pickman right now.

[Sagetim]

I mean, are you limited to Expanded Psionics Handbook and Mind's Eye, or do you also have things like Complete Psionics and Ebberon campaign material to draw from (the only campaign I can think of that had significant psionics support of any kind in 3.5).

Astral Construct is great, I finally got a chance to run a Psion in a relatively low level game (we stopped around level 5 or 6, but started from 1) and the tankiness of even the first level construct saw us through some fights we would have otherwise lost (bottlenecking the enemy forces to make them have to fight the construct helped a lot).

Also, you can describe your constructs (at least shape wise) however you want. I had 'magic murder monkies' and I think some of the dumber party members thought my character was a demon summoner. Not the players, mind, they knew I was finally rocking a psionic character after years of wanting to play one.

The Constructor Prestige Class from the Mind's Eye articles expands on options for Astral Constructs, if you just want to go all in on those. There's also the Ecotopic Adept in Complete Psionics (which is kind of meh, but if you want to fill our the last levels from 15 to 20 with more prestige class, I mean, you Can.)

If you don't mind feat taxes to get it, Ecotopic Form (which can be taken multiple times) can give you extra freebies to staple onto your constructs. Basically, you take the feat and it gives your construct a general shape and a set of abilities in addition to your normal Astral Construct array of options. Like the Alabaster Aerial bolting flight on, the Emerald Gyre giving it a third arm and better grappling, or the Anathemic Carapace that turns your construct into a bomb that explodes when it dies. You might like the feats, you might not, I'd consider them more as flavor options than as things that are particularly great feats (Anathemic Carapace is pretty power point expensive for the damage it does, and the longer the construct lasts, the less damage it does on popping).

Skin of the Construct is also from Complete Psionics, and while you probably don't need the temp hp it gives you from absorbing an astral construct as you manifest it, having that and Boost Construct can let you grab some cheap special abilities, like flying or what have you.

Expanded Knowledge may well be your best friend as a feat, because it can let you take things from completely different manifester lists as powers known. This works best when you have Complete Psionics, because the Ardent has some sweet powers to cherry pick from. Touch of Health is one of them. It may have a godawful conversion rate for power points to hp healed, but when you need the cleric up and you need him up Now, it can be just what the doctor ordered. Alternatively, if you're a party of godless heathens, then healing from psionic powers might be some of your only options.

Red Fel (he who must not be named. Slayer of Men. That which has 30 intelligence), mentioned True Creation, but you don't even need that to get busy with poison shenanigans. Use Minor Creation, a 1st level shaper power. The creations might be temporary, but you don't need to be constantly poisonous if you're going to be a ridiculous warforged jerk about it. And at 1 power point, it's not a bad deal. You might want to take Psiforged Body as a feat if you go that route, for the extra power points.

Because of Ardent Mantles, you can even pick up stuff that's normally only spells, like Protection From Evil (or Protection from Good). There's also Stygian Ward, Mend Wounds (a level 6 power that has a 5:1 hp per pp cost), Psionic Revivify, and Psionic Restoration (all things that are normally 'cleric stuff', and some of which don't cost the money that clerics have to burn through to cast them).

Within the Shaper list, you also have Fabricate, and Greater Fabricate, which can be used to great effect if you have even a few token ranks in a couple different craft skills. After all, you're int based, you'll have a good modifier even if you only have a few ranks thrown in.

Also, Mind Thrust sucks. It's will or nothing, and because it's a mind affect, a lot of stuff at higher (and even lower) level is just straight immune to it. Don't be distracted by it's shiny d10 of damage per power point spent. Now, if you're just dealing with dudes in armor regularly, it may be your favorite power for blowing people's heads up. But if you have a regular dnd campaign loadout of 'mostly it's monsters' then even the humble Energy Ray is a better damage option.

Complete Psionics also opens up a handful of powers that let you dabble in an area Psionics generally doesn't get much support in: Negative and Positive energy shenanigans. Celestial Conduit might not be a great power but it does positive energy damage, and if that's what you need, there you are. As a 5th level power on the general psion/wilder list, you could take it with no problem.

There's also Planar Embrace, for picking up temporary template abilities from either Half Celestial or Half Fiend and a fly speed for the duration (not necessarily a bad trade off, power points wise, as some of those spell like abilities can be pretty handy). Both it and Planar Champion are outside your level range at the moment, but they provide capabilities that you generally don't get in Psionics: Planar Champion lets you actually summon a monster (depending on your alignment) and your two options are both pretty decently potent monsters. The Sybillic Guardian and the Cerebrelith aren't utter chumps as summons, and since they're summons you can use them at the same time as your Astral Construct.

As an aside, a lot of psionic powers have xp costs where the spell version of the same thing has a material cost. However, there are some powers that just don't have a cost where the spell version of the same thing costs cash money.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't know that Midnight Augmentation will be allowed, depends on if my DM has that book. What is "essentia (http://dnd.arkalseif.info/feats/magic-of-incarnum--74/midnight-augmentation--1939/index.html)" and how do I get more? Definitely taking Psionic Meditation, maybe Burrowing power if I have a spare feat after any other essentials.
Oooh boy, explaining incarnum...

Basically, you get "essentia", which you "invest" into abilities ("soulmelds", feats, class features) that grant bonuses depending on the amount of essentia invested. Essentia invested in feats stays put for 24 hours, so it doesn't require any sort of resource management. In this particular case, you will only ever have 1 essentia, and it will never be invested in anything else, so it's all very straightforward.

Midnight Augmentation allows you to invest essentia to reduce the augmentation cost of a single power, chosen when you invest the essentia. For example, if you invest 1 essentia into Midnight Augmentation (astral construct), you could augment astral construct by 2 pp (total cost 3 pp), and only pay 1 pp (total cost 2 pp). The nice thing is: this extra point of augmentation goes 'over the cap', a bit like getting spells one level early. If you could spend only 4 pp on a single manifestation, you could augment by 4, and still keep the total cost at 4 pp, getting a third-level construct, normally worth 5 pp, on the cheap (duration is still 4 rounds of course, but hey, can't have everything).

Midnight Augmentation has an annoying limit which says you can't invest more essentia than the level of the power you're affecting. Since astral construct is a first-level power, you can only invest 1 essentia. The feat grants 1 essentia, so you're done.

Linked Power + Metapower does a similar thing, except that it works on all powers, and comes with a one-round delay, bypasses manifesting time, and requires you to expend your focus.

Together, they let you get 4th-level astral constructs when a non-specialist would only be getting 3rds, and for the same price, too.


Oh, and there's the constructor (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625b), good for astral construct-focused shapers. You can eventually create--in a single manifestation--four Large constructs, which is an impressive wall of meat to put onto the battlefield in one round. I think they deal like 100 damage per round each, as well.

[Fouredged Sword]

I, honestly, would shy away from midnight augmentation and incarnum in general unless you intended to make it a solid segment of your build. While it IS a great choice, it is also a choice that a lot of DM's will be confused by. For your first Psion I would go straight Psion or Psion into a pure psionic PRC. The only exception would be to consider Psion 6 / Ranger 1 / Slayer 10, but that is purely optional.