Help with a psionic build

[Belzyk]

So I have a player coming into my game at the same time I am introducing my Tyranids into the game. This person is wanting to play a psionic with the ability to use melee style fighting. I know there is psychic warrior or some such. All I know is psion. He wants to be lightly armored

Normally I'm good at putting together builds but I am a complete novice with psionic classes.

[Nifft]

What level?

What sources?

What house rules?

[OgresAreCute]

The Ardent is a full-manifester with a cleric-like chassis (d8 hit dice, 3/4 bab). Psychic warrior has a slow power progression, 3/4 bab, d8 hit dice and a bunch of bonus feats ala fighter. A regular-old psion can melee by using buffs and/or polymorph effects just like other full-casters can.

If your guy wants to be a melee fighter with some psionics, then psychic warrior is a good fit. If he wants full manifesting progression I'd go with ardent.

[CaptainLettuce]

Hey there! I reckon Psychic Warrior is a great place to start. Its extremely versatile - plenty of options available to specialize in any one particular form of melee, and I'm sure some more adventurous folk out there have even made serviceable ranged builds. If you play with Pathfinder material, Psychic Warrior by itself with no added frills is completely fine in a mid to low op campaign. Honestly even without Pathfinder's added class features and paths, PsyWar is probably still fine by itself. But if your player is looking for something a little bit more, here are a few things to consider;

Monk dip, with the monastic training and tashalatora feats. Continue to take PsyWar levels, and receive monk goodies such as UA damage, AC bonus, and Flurry progression at the very low cost of two feats. Technically, you could use these feats with zero monks levels, but I personally frown upon such things. Note that this does not necessarily lend itself well to prestige classes, as the feats scale with only a single chosen class. Personally, I would fiat this to also include a prestige class such as Warmind. YMMV.

Alternative Class Features. You have the option of forgoing PsyWar's bonus feat at second level to gain a mantle as per Ardent. If none of the mantles give your player the jollies, consider creating a custom mantle. On the topic of ACF's, there are too many Monk ACF's to list, all of which are decent in my opinion. A personal favorite is The Invisible Fist from EoE, which trades evasion for the ability to become invisible once every three rounds. Do be careful with mantles though, as a PsyWar with Anticipatory Strike is p o t e n t.

Something something Spiked Chain. Standstill?

Psywar also lends itself very well to natural attacks. A quick google of the king of smack should do. Probably tone it down a bit, perhaps stick to just PsyWar and/or Totemist, its all very synergistic.

Anyways, I hope this helps you!

[Belzyk]

What level?

What sources?

What house rules?

Currently lvl7 house rules are everyone has weapon fitness brutal throw and precise shot. Also melee non casters can make a full attack even after moving each round. Kinda makes melee more meaningful late game also gets rid if needing to shoehorn builds.

All,source material is open

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Final build: Spellthief 1/ Psion 4/ Psychic Assassin (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723d) 6/ Slayer 9
(or Psychic Avenger (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070401a) if you prefer)

Psion 1 bonus feat is Practiced Manifester, pick Egoist or Nomad or Telepath depending on what he prefers. Consider getting Psicrystal Affinity (initiative bonus) and use the Share Pain/Vigor trick.

The Spellthief level allows him to use wands of any spells that class gets access to, namely a Wand of Wraithstrike in a wand chamber of one of his weapons. Per the Rules Compendium a wand takes the same action to activate as the spell being used.

Psychic Assassin special ability should be Mind Cripple, so he deals 2 Int damage on every sneak attack that hits. An opponent at Int 0 is disabled/unconscious, regardless of how much hp it has.

Get TWF, Gloves of the Balanced Hand (MIC), and plan to eventually get two Sword of Subtlety (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#swordofSubtlety).

[DMVerdandi]

I agree with ogres as far as using ardent. Even further using tashaltora and taking a first level of monk.

If monk isn’t an option really, you could still go straight ardent and pick up expanded knowledge for all your feats so that you can get juicy psychic warrior powers while still getting more than enough power points early on to remain very obviously psionic.


Another option with everything on the table is using the erudite from dragon magazine and the convert spell to power ACF.

Now you can take really awesome arcane spells for gishy goodness while still having the superior manifesting chassis.

Greater mighty whallop + haste + heroics + hustle = total destruction.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Tiny Von BigMcLargeHuge? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?132294-Tiny-Von-BigMcLargeHuge)

Qualify for Jotunbrud via Human Blooded or Human Heritage.

[Nifft]

So I have a player coming into my game at the same time I am introducing my Tyranids into the game. This person is wanting to play a psionic with the ability to use melee style fighting. I know there is psychic warrior or some such. All I know is psion. He wants to be lightly armored

Normally I'm good at putting together builds but I am a complete novice with psionic classes.


Currently lvl7 house rules are everyone has weapon fitness brutal throw and precise shot. Also melee non casters can make a full attack even after moving each round. Kinda makes melee more meaningful late game also gets rid if needing to shoehorn builds.

All,source material is open

Ranger 2 / Psion 4 / Slayer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/slayer.htm) 1 (and then more Slayer).

Ranger gives access to light armor and Favored Enemy: Aberrations (assuming that's what your Tyranids are), plus either TWF or Rapid Shot.

Psion can be anything, but Shaper, Telepath, and Nomad are all particularly good. The feat Psicrystal Affinity + the powers Share Pain and Vigor = phenomenal tanking power.


Ranger 1 / Ardent 4 / Slayer 2 -- as previous, but with more Slayer

Ardent demands careful Mantle selection, since some of them are full of poor choices, and some have pathetic associated abilities. This character will have relatively few powers, and will select them from a sparser list. In trade she gets one extra level of manifester advancement (so access to level 3 powers at ECL 7).

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If going for max BAB and max manifesting, Ranger 1/ Ardent 4/ Slayer 9/ Sanctified Mind 6 is the way to go. Use the Fast Movement (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#ranger) variant for Ranger, Substitute Powers (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a) for Ardent, and with Practiced Manifester you don't even delay how soon you get access to higher level Ardent powers. Use the Otyugh Hole in CS to get the Iron Will prerequisite for Sanctified Mind without spending a feat on it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Wasting levels on ranger on a slayer build grates on me something awful. It's just so...wasteful. There's just not much to ranger 1 or 2 unless you can get some very nice ACFs without sacrificing the Track feat.

[Nifft]

Wasting levels on ranger on a slayer build grates on me something awful. It's just so...wasteful. There's just not much to ranger 1 or 2 unless you can get some very nice ACFs without sacrificing the Track feat.

1 - It's thematic, since the campaign is anti-Aberration.

2 - It's a nice pile of skill points and bonus feat(s), which means you can spend your general feat slots on better things than Track.

3 - Access to wands with Ranger spells on them is not a waste, especially not if the main healer goes down and you're the only one with a wand of cure light wounds.

4 - The PC starts at level 7, so getting into the PrC at or before level 7 is a good thing from the standpoint of having the build already come together when play starts. It's kinda frustrating to be handed a build that doesn't work yet.

-- -- --

I mean sure, going Psion 8 / Slayer 10 is a great build at level 9+, but this PC isn't there yet.

What to do to get there... hmm, maybe Egoist? Then you have metamorphosis at level 7, which makes you a melee threat and can carry you through level 9. Waste a feat on Track, I guess.

Standard tanking trio Psicrystal Affinity + share pain + vigor on top of metamorphosis every combat. That's viable, though not as flexible as switching off between casting / melee / ranged combat via Rapid Shot + prepped dissolving weapon arrows.

You're failing to deliver the requested archetype -- "lightly-armored melee style" -- since this is an unarmored full-caster until level 9, but it can melee, so maybe it's acceptable.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Psions can wear light armor just fine, since every class in the game that isn't monk, wizard, or sorcerer gains the Light Armor Proficiency feat for free. Just look in the feat description for THAT little tidbit.

And even if the DM says no to that, there are no downsides whatsoever to not being proficient in mithral chain shirts.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Wasting levels on ranger on a slayer build grates on me something awful. It's just so...wasteful. There's just not much to ranger 1 or 2 unless you can get some very nice ACFs without sacrificing the Track feat.

Ranger 1 gets Fast Movement (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#ranger) as a barbarian, which means it can likely be replaced by a spirit totem ACF in CC for Pounce. On top of getting Track as a bonus feat, superb skill points at 1st level, two good saves, full BAB, etc.

Plus with Ardent you can get Practiced Manifester and it doesn't delay your acquisition of higher level powers.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Ranger 1 gets Fast Movement (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#ranger) as a barbarian, which means it can likely be replaced by a spirit totem ACF in CC for Pounce. On top of getting Track as a bonus feat, superb skill points at 1st level, two good saves, full BAB, etc.If you can swing it, then I heartily retract my complaint. A lot of DMs won't let you do that, though.


Plus with Ardent you can get Practiced Manifester and it doesn't delay your acquisition of higher level powers.Or you could go psion with Supernatural Transformation (Psionics) and paying for a few psychic chirurgeries and be many times better.

I prefer the low-to-mid level powers anyway, as the highest level ones are pretty lackluster, at least in the XPH and CPsi.

[Crichton]

Psions can wear light armor just fine, since every class in the game that isn't monk, wizard, or sorcerer gains the Light Armor Proficiency feat for free. Just look in the feat description for THAT little tidbit.

And even if the DM says no to that, there are no downsides whatsoever to not being proficient in mithral chain shirts.


This is a lot of fun! And that's never been errata'd out? I mean, I assume it's worded that way because it's in the PHB, and not taking any classes from outside that into account, but they never changed it?? I love it!

[Nifft]

This is a lot of fun! And that's never been errata'd out? I mean, I assume it's worded that way because it's in the PHB, and not taking any classes from outside that into account, but they never changed it?? I love it!

Earlier editions of D&D run on copious amounts of "you know what I mean bro" and the errata mostly focused on outright errors, not places where the text wasn't forward-compatible with supplements.

The precise technical language of 4e was probably a reaction to this sort of criticism -- and look how well-received that was.