Psions...

[tstewt1921]

So I've never really played a Psion, but I'm filling the blaster slot in our Gestalt game (yes it's the same game as all my other posts, I'm very indecisive and want something I haven't played) I'm pondering the idea of a Psion to do something a little different.

So filling the blaster spot it seems likely I'll be going the kinetics using Psion. My big question is what to put on the other side? I know it doesn't really matter. I was thinking since that version of Psion is just blast with elemental damage, is there another class that works kind of like a geomancer? I'm not looking to specialize in one element, I want to use and manipulate them all? From my knowledge the geomancer given by 3.5 is a very weak class.

Now to specify I don't want to be broken, I just want to use the elements? So maybe a caster focused Druid or a Cleric with the several nature domains that are available?

Let me know any suggestions guys and gals!

Looking at you ExLibrisMortis!

[Sian]

Psion damage dealing is very low-maintenance in terms of power-slots used ... with Psionics you should be able to get away with maybe as low as 3-4 powers focusing on blasting ... a nuke or two (of slightly different flavours in terms of range, and attack types, as in Ranged attack and SaveOrHurt) and a similar number of AoEs

[GreatGoatEater]

The beauty of a lot of 3.5 Psychokinesis powers is that you can change your element on the fly. You can shoot out Fire, Ice, Electricity, and Sonic blasts on the fly. So in that respect you're arguably already are a master of the elements. With that said, I can't think of any options that synergism really well with Psions that also help you further that elemental theme. If you're dead set on Psion that I might look at the Factorum or Warblade(but those were probably obvious choices). If you have generous point buy Dragon Fire Adept could work.

Now if you were to play a Wilder, that opens up a few more options. Dragon Fire Adept is now a lot more attractive, you could also look into Sorcere, Shugenja, or one of the Icarnate classes.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Alternately, something like an Ardent//Druid could give you a ton of elemental type powers-- grab the Energy mantle (blasting) and Elements (because duh). Maybe Natural World too. (And hey! Powers don't even need Natural Spell to work while shapeshifted!)

If you stick to a Psion... they don't need anything but Int, and they've got a crappy chassis-- most things can work alongside them.

A Wilderness Rogue or Scout could potentially give you some nature thematics while also boosting your chassis and damage (Scout in particular goes well with blast spells, since it's really easy to move-and-zap).
Ranger, especially Wildshape Ranger, would give you nature thematics, a great chassis upgrade, and (hopefully) shapeshifting-- sort of a Druid light.
Factotum and Warblade go great with anything, especially Int-based things. Factotum can eventually snag some Sorcerer/Wizard spells that can be element-related; Warblade, not so much.
Dragonfire Adept also works surprisingly well in a gestalt; they can extend their breath weapon to cover quite a few elements, and if you don't take Invocations with saves (easy to do) the only stat you need is Con.

[tstewt1921]

If you're dead set on Psion that I might look at the Factorum or Warblade(but those were probably obvious choices). If you have generous point buy Dragon Fire Adept could work.

I'm not dead set on Psion, any option can work, I was trying to add a little flavor while still covering our magic damage roll in the party. Our stat points are as follows; 18, 16, 14, 14, 12, 10. It's so every can be on equal grounds stat point wise. That's before +s and -s.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm not dead set on Psion, any option can work, I was trying to add a little flavor while still covering our magic damage roll in the party. Our stat points are as follows; 18, 16, 14, 14, 12, 10. It's so every can be on equal grounds stat point wise. That's before +s and -s.
Ardent//Druid?

[Zombulian]

Alternately, something like an Ardent//Druid could give you a ton of elemental type powers-- grab the Energy mantle (blasting) and Elements (because duh). Maybe Natural World too. (And hey! Powers don't even need Natural Spell to work while shapeshifted!)

If you stick to a Psion... they don't need anything but Int, and they've got a crappy chassis-- most things can work alongside them.

A Wilderness Rogue or Scout could potentially give you some nature thematics while also boosting your chassis and damage (Scout in particular goes well with blast spells, since it's really easy to move-and-zap).
Ranger, especially Wildshape Ranger, would give you nature thematics, a great chassis upgrade, and (hopefully) shapeshifting-- sort of a Druid light.
Factotum and Warblade go great with anything, especially Int-based things. Factotum can eventually snag some Sorcerer/Wizard spells that can be element-related; Warblade, not so much.
Dragonfire Adept also works surprisingly well in a gestalt; they can extend their breath weapon to cover quite a few elements, and if you don't take Invocations with saves (easy to do) the only stat you need is Con.


Riding on this idea, if you want to focus more on Elemental power instead of just being a nature-guy, you could do the Swift Deadly Hunter variant of Druid to give yourself Monk bonus speed, Wis to AC, and Ranger Favored Enemy instead of Wild Shape.

[tstewt1921]

Riding on this idea, if you want to focus more on Elemental power instead of just being a nature-guy, you could do the Swift Deadly Hunter variant of Druid to give yourself Monk bonus speed, Wis to AC, and Ranger Favored Enemy instead of Wild Shape.

Where do you find that Swift Deadly Hunter variant?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Looking at you ExLibrisMortis!
Okay! The game is ECL 8, correct?

My first thought is Mind Mage (because it always is, when psions are concerned). My second thought is Dominant Ideal ardent. My third thought is Midnight Augmentation, with some focus infrastructure, which comes online a little earlier and works very nicely with the ardent. Trouble with the first is that it might run afoul of the "no class combinations" gestalt 'rule'. I personally loathe that ill-considered string of words, but if you can't enter Mind Mage because of gestalt, just go ardent for your psionic side (with Substitute Powers, if at all possible).


1) Mind Mage is an arcane/psionic theurge class. It is unique in that it actually features abilities that enhance spells with pp and powers with spell slots. It's very powerful (extremely, in gestalt), and grants you a very high manifester and caster level. Most of your blasting would probably be with arcane magic enhanced with metamagic, paid for with power points, but you can occasionally blow up something with some crazy pp-guzzling blasting power.

The Psiotheurgy feat allows you to stack your arcane caster level and psionic manifester level together for one psionic discipline and a corresponding (sub)school of magic. Since blasters typically rely on a narrow selection of highly-enhanced powers, a single Psiotheurgy feat can essentially double your ML for all your blasting powers. You can take this feat even if you're going plain ardent//wizard.

2) Dominant Ideal ardent lets you use metapsionic feats without focus cost, and for less pp. Limited power selection (Substitute Powers can help a lot), but very good economy. Goes well enough with druid/cleric, as both are wisdom-based and you can manifest powers while Wild Shaped. There's no real merging of psionics and druid abilities otherwise (sadly, Dual-Plane summons doesn't work on SNA, or I'd totally recommend Constructor//druid), so you'd alternate between ardent and druid abilities as needed.

3) Midnight Augmentation allows you to augment a bit further than normal, by reducing augmentation costs. You can't save more pp than the power's level or your essentia capacity (which is 2, at level 8), but it works well enough. Incarnate or Totemist is a good dip in gestalt for multiple reasons, and provides the essentia you need.



Mind Mage would go something like this:

Wizard 3/cerebremancer 2/mind mage 10//psion 3/[stuff 2]/psion +1/wizard +1/psion +1/wizard +1/[stuff 6].
...or this:

Wizard 5/mind mage 10//ardent 6/wizard +1/ardent +1/wizard +1/ardent +3/[stuff 4]

These builds are slowish to come online, but both work from ECL 7 onwards, when you get the Compensation ability. Either would get you a manifester and caster level of 50 (at level 15) for your Psiotheurgy discipline and school, and 25 for other powers and spells. Psion//wizard takes advantage of the fact that both are intelligence-based, and will probably go towards psionically-enhanced arcane blasting. The second build has wisdom-based manifesting and intelligence-based casting, and less room for [stuff], but does get you Dominant Ideal, which is really good for psionic blasting.

[tstewt1921]

So the Midnight thing is basically Incantrix for Psions?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Where do you find that Swift Deadly Hunter variant?
Unearthed Arcana (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druid). I don't really recommend it; you give up your second best feature (Wild Shape) for... nothing, really. A Monk's AC bonus is 13,000 gold, and armor is probably better anyway. Fast Movement is crap, Favored Enemy is crap, Track is crap. If you're desperate to ditch Wild Shape, I'd recommend Aspect of Nature (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/classFeatureVariants.htm#wildShapeVariantAspectOfN ature) instead; it's still bad, but at least it offers something new. (And, eventually, elemental forms)

On the other hand, Elemental Companion (Complete Mage) is worth looking at; you trade your animal companion for an air/earth/fire/water elemental buddy.

[Keld Denar]

Go Incarnate. It's a neat class, has a lot of passive abilities and the Midnight Augmentation feat is pretty sweet.

[bahamut920]

Psion works well for a "master of the elements" blaster, as does a Spellthief/Sorcerer or Wizard/Spellwarp Sniper/Archmage build. I'm playing a similar character to the latter build currently (sub in Unseen Seer for Archmage, because he's also the party skillmonkey to an extent), and it's pretty good at blasting, especially single-target damage. Take Ocular Spell, and you'll be shooting heat-ray (or any other element) vision out of your eyes - Superman would be proud!

As for the other half of the build, Factotum combos well with any caster class (and many non-casters), especially Int-based ones. Cunning Insight means your spells/powers will always hit, Arcane Dilettante throws you a few options off the Sor/Wiz list, Cunning Surge allows you to NOVA HARDER, and even a conservative interpretation of Cunning Brilliance could grab you some handy abilities like Evasion or 10d6 Sneak Attack for one combat.

Or you could play a Duskblade or Warblade and have nasty surprises for anyone who assumes "blaster master" means "squishy" - Duskblade works better if you go arcane due to Arcane Channeling only allowing spells, but there's nothing stopping you from asking your DM if a psionic variant is available.

If you decide to focus on single-target damage, Rogue or Scout (consider Swift Hunter) could boost your damage significantly - since you're attacking with standard-action spells/powers, there's nothing stopping you from moving 10' (or 20' with Improved Skirmish) every round for the damage boost. Rogue would even qualify you for Spellwarp Sniper without needing the Spellthief dip.

[DrMartin]

while Druid is unquestionably more powerful, spirit shaman may fit your concept better - and if you are looking for classes you haven't played yet, chances are it's one of them :)

Psions blast really well. You don't even need to devote many resources to do it well. picking psychokynesis as your discipline does get you the best blasting power but you could really go for any discipline, pick one or two blasting power along the way, and still be a decent blaster.

Ardent gets a lot of love on this forum but I have always found the psion bonus feats to be really useful, especially at low/lowish levels.

[ExLibrisMortis]

So the Midnight thing is basically Incantrix for Psions?
No, that's Dominant Ideal (with some reservations) and generic ML boosts. Midnight Augmentation is a bit like getting +2d6 damage on a fireball or orb of fire. Augmentation is the process of spending more power points to get a power-specific (and power-inherent) improvement to a power's effects; metapsionic feats are feats (really!) and are not power-specific or power-inherent. By power-inherent I mean that the augmentation option of a power can't be separated from the power. If you know energy burst, you can augment it. To Empower it, which might have a very similar effect, you must know the feat.

The nice thing about metapsionics is that they don't rely on spell slots. Any time you boost your manifester level, you can use more power points, thus apply more metapsionic feats, but you need to expend your focus each time as well. Since you generally only have two foci, you can apply two metapsionic feats. However, with Dominant Ideal, you don't need to expend your focus to apply a metapsionic feat to powers from one mantle. So your 12th-level ardent//mind mage might have a manifester level of 29, and would be capable of applying Quicken Twin Maximize Empower Enlarge Widen Chain to a Dominant Ideal power quite easily. It's just a matter of how many metapsionic feats you can actually pick up.

[Psyren]

Good "other halves" to a Psion gestalt:

- Factotum (skills, actions, reflex save, the occasional arcane spell that covers a power gap)
- Incarnate (massive synergy between psionics and incarnum, gives you an "all-day" resource when your PP run low.)
- Warblade (Fort save, powerful melee from maneuvers, feats)
- Psychic Rogue/Lurk (skills, talents, sneak attack, lots of extra PP and powers.)