I'm new with psionics, so...

[Dullyanna]

I need help designing a character that doesn't suck (But isn't necessarily powergamey). I'd prefer a melee based build (Maybe go into Elocater or Warmind). I'm not really sure which feats and powers are worthwhile, either.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Start off with a psychic warrior. Not too complicated. Get some good melee, some powers, like a psionic cleric.

[Behold_the_Void]

I second the Psychic Warrior. Augmenting powers are the way to go here, they make you more combat effective.

[Lord Iames Osari]

As for specifics, assuming you're a PsyWar 1, I'd take the Psionic Weapon feat. For your power, go with Dissolving Weapon.

[Zeful]

As for specifics, assuming you're a PsyWar 1, I'd take the Psionic Weapon feat. For your power, go with Dissolving Weapon.

Then pick up Deep Impact, touch attacks with a great sword are fun. And pick up greater metaphysical weapon (I think) and use that to get your sword the +5 enchancement to your to hit and damage and you'll cleave enimies left and right.

[BadJuJu]

Lions charge is good later on. Full attack on the charge with bonus damage.

[Lord Iames Osari]

Then pick up Deep Impact, touch attacks with a great sword are fun. And pick up greater metaphysical weapon (I think) and use that to get your sword the +5 enchancement to your to hit and damage and you'll cleave enimies left and right.

There's no such power as greater metaphysical weapon. Metaphysical weapon is augmentable.

[DraPrime]

Well if you have any experience with wizards or sorcerers, go ahead and make a psion. Simply make it the way you would a normal spellcaster. Look at metapsionic feats that are similar to metamagic feats that you know are good.

[Bassetking]

A fun, slightly off-the-beaten-path Psionic Melee build would be to run as a Psionic Egoist.

Make judicious use of Animal Affiinity, Biofeedback, Psychofeedback, Inertial Armor, and Force Screen. You're going to dump your charisma or Wisdom into your constitution, and are going to use animal affinity to buff your constitution. The idea is to raise your HP as high as you can manage, and then, as a d4 HD character... walk into combat.

And let Forced Shared Pain and Empathic Transfer pay back your enemy hitpoint for hitpoint.

[Xaros]

I just finished making a Warforged Ardent, starting off with the Conflict and Freedom mantles, and taking the Physical Power mantle at level 2. This gives the character serious mobility, and being able to boost ability scores and weapon damage isn't bad either. If only two-handed weapons could be the target of Graft Weapon.

Longspear + Psionic Lion's Charge + Hustle/Dimension Hop (to move away) = FUN!

And that's before taking Psionic Fly, Psionic Teleport, and Anticipatory Strike at later levels.

[Dullyanna]

Hmm.... can't find Lion's charge anywhere.

@BassetKing: THat sounds like a pretty nifty idea. I'm loathe to go into melee with a low HP character (Even with Con buffs) since I always seem to attract at least one critical hit. I've had quite a few characters die that way.

I'm not too sure about race now, either. I just noticed that Half-giants get some nice little bonuses (Free oversized weapons FTW!) for a +1 LA. I was originally thinking of just using a human, for mucho feats and skillpoints. Actually, since this is my first time using a psychic anything I should probably just go with the latter, so I can experiment a bit more. Should I become an Elocater later on? The requirements are a wee bit stiff (Not to mention the stunted power growth... Wait, I did just mention that), but floating above the ground and whatnot is inherently cool. On second thought, a multiclass rogue would work better for that, to take advantage of the flanking ability.

Edit: Just found lion's charge. A Half-giant with this power, the right feats, and a large lance would basically make anything he hits explode in a shower of gore:smallamused:

[CASTLEMIKE]

Just core and SRD: Ranger - 1, F- 2, Psion - 2 (1 level could be a Poor BAB PRC if your DM lets you average out BAB (**Another option would be to take a single level of Psion and 1 or 2 levels of Warmind if the game won't be going to level 20 for those first two chains and delay entering Slayer for a level or two but having Slayer improve the Psion side), (Illithid) Slayer - 10 is pretty simple and pretty strong (Plenty stronger with a lot more optimization like the King of Smack):

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/slayer.htm

At level 15 you have +14 BAB, You have known powers as a psion level 11 for 106 base Power Points plus 5 more levels to increase it to psion - 16 with 221 base power points and at least +16 BAB at the minimum. You know a level 6 Power and at level 20 could know level 8 powers. Hit points are pretty good with 11D8 + 2D10 + 2D4.

You could enter Warmind pretty easy with the entry requirements of +3 BAB, Non Chaotic, History ranks - 2 and Psionics rank - 8.

A Psychic Warrior - 5 War Mind - 10 would have +13 BAB and know a total of 11 Powers (Mostly level one and two powers) and have a smaller power pool of 70 PP + Wis and (7 PP + Wis but the PW powers would be capped at level 5 (Some games will let use wisdom for a double bonus to power points and some won't depending on how various rules are interpreted so discuss it with your DM)). Chain of Overwheming Force (SU) +10D6 to a single attack usable once a day is nice and the capstone of the PRC but foregoing it nets you more known Powers and PP in another build using Psion and Slayer.

In comparison at level 15 a Psychic Warrior has 67 Power Points and knows 15 powers of level 5 and below. A level 20 Psychic Warrior will only have 127 base Power Points and +15 BAB and be limited to level 6 or below powers.

This is really strong in a skill based campaign with those initial Ranger skills and having Intelligence as your primary stat along with giving you Track for the Slayer PRC. The Two Psion levels give your build a lot more in the long run than going Psychic Warrior (Since 1 PP of Vigor would address it in any combat if your build nets you at least one extra known power for Vigor and 4 or 5 extra power points it should be moot). Fighter gets you two extra bonus feats, D10 and +2 BAB.

[Dullyanna]

@CastleMike: That looks pretty good. I'll have to try it when I get used to the system.

Now I have the urge to play a half-giant Pyrokineticist. I know it's not that great of an idea to specialize in fire, but the thought of a Half-giant charging in with a gigantic flaming greatsword while on fire himself makes me giddy. It also would have made my previous DM cry (And respond ten minutes later with vorpal kitties or something). Anyway, for something like that, I was thinking six levels in Psychic Warrior, with the powers Expansion, Force Screen, Offensive Prescience, Psionic Lion's Charge, Strength of My Enemy, and Dissolving Weapon (Maybe). The Feats would be Power Attack, Deep Impact, Psionic Weapon, Reckless Offense, Speed of Thought, and Psionic Charge.

[Person_Man]

Psionics are fun and easy. Just remember:

1) You can't spend more points on a power then your total manifester level.

2) The Wilder and Soulknife suck rocks. Avoid them unless you really know what you're doing.

3) Avoid Level Adjusted races unless your DM uses LA buyoff.

[Dullyanna]

@Person_Man: Yeah, I've always known the soulknife is weak. Looking at the wilder now, it looks rather wimpy too. As far as I know, my DM is cool with LA buyoff. Whether he's okay with a character that does 3d6 damage without taking into account strength and power attack modifiers is another thing entirely. Especially if said character is on fire the whole damn time, as well.

[CASTLEMIKE]

The Educated Wilder variant is a good improvement on the class for what you gain and lose.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a

With LA buyoff consider a +2 LA Phrenic Template for a psionic build.

[StickMan]

If you don't go the Pyro route, what or psy warrior class go psion. If you go psion if you want to be a blaster understand you are a nuke, you go off then your done. If you want to be a blaster who is not a nuke don't play a psion. Psions are best in my experience at Telepathy and Astral Construct creation if you don't use the MORONIC Complete Psionic nerf.

If you go Astral Construct route then use the Constructor from the wizards website not form Complete psionic.

[Dullyanna]

@Stickman: I noticed the potential for astral constructs. A minion that's always invisible, regenerates, and pounds things into mush is pretty nice. I'm probably going to mess around with some melee builds before I use a psion, though.

@CastleMike: I'm basically restricted to core and SRD right now, due to lack of funds, so could you tell me what the Phrenic Template does, please?

[CASTLEMIKE]

@CastleMike: I'm basically restricted to core and SRD right now, due to lack of funds, so could you tell me what the Phrenic Template does, please?

I'll send you a PM. Crystal Keep has a Free General Index of 3.5 D&D file 22,681K ZIP with lots of useful gaming information from various sources I believe you will find very useful although I didn't see Phrenic in it:

http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/index.php

Listed as Phrenic Creature in the D20 Hypertext SRD:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/phrenicCreature.htm

[Draz74]

2) The Wilder and Soulknife suck rocks. Avoid them unless you really know what you're doing.

3) Avoid Level Adjusted races unless your DM uses LA buyoff.

He says he's not going for a super-optimized character, necessarily, so a +1 LA could be all right. And as far as +1 LA races go, Half-Giant is pretty decent (much better than Hobgoblin or Tiefling). I think Half-Giants actually make great psionic tanks; just make sure you use the +4 bonus they give you on Grapple and Trip!

And the Wilder probably does suck as a full caster, but I find it invaluable as a psionic class to get into PrC's with, on charismatic characters. Specifically, Rogue/Wilder/Elocator and Paladin/Wilder/Slayer can be decent gish builds (or monkey-gish, in the former case). So many PP is a good thing.

Back to the OP: First, you can find the Phrenic Template (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/phrenicCreature.htm) in the SRD.

Second, Elocator builds ... You can really start with any psionic class you want.

A Psychic Warrior / Elocator might have more skill points than he knows what to do with ("I'm tired of being spotted, time to suddenly get really good at Hiding even though I've never been a stealthy character before"?). But that's not really a bad thing. He can be really good at Wisdom skills, such as Spot/Listen/Sense Motive. The dumb prereqs (Spring Attack et al) for Elocator don't hurt him as much as they hurt others, since Psychic Warrior grants bonus feats.

A Psion / Elocator will have a LOT of skill points with his high Int. Other than that, he can do all kinds of things depending on his choice of discipline and Powers Known, just like a Psion. In combat, he won't really have much use for his Elocator abilities. :smallfrown: Because they're just not the kinds of things a d4, poor-BAB manifester uses. At least, they won't be as useful as another 3 manifester levels would have been. So if you go with this option, make sure your skills are useful outside of combat.

A Wilder / Elocator can dip some Rogue levels too, like the build I mentioned earlier. Since Wilder isn't really a strong full manifester class, this combo will need to make itself a useful skill monkey even more than the Psion combo, and Rogue levels help with that. He will have few powers, but he can use them often! Which makes it really nice when Elocator gives you Plane Shift and Teleport as bonus powers and lets you manifest them with a discount. Elocator unfortunately doesn't get many good Charisma-based class skills.

[Dr. Weasel]

Sice this is a Psionics thread it seems to be the place for this:
At 5th level a Psion (Shaper) qualifies for Chameleon. One level of Chameleon gives access to Cerebremancer. Perhaps it's just my being tired, but I can't tell; is this route a good one for a generalist Psion, is it just too cheesy to allow, or is it just a trap?

Scratch that. Not legal (first thing the Chameleon Class even says).

[its_all_ogre]

the wilder rocks at low levels. at level 3 using your surge ability with every power but do not augment at all this effectively means all your manifests are at level 3 (3pp used) and you can do them loads of times a day!
be very careful what powers you choose though, blasting may in fact be the best way to use them.

[Dr. Weasel]

The Wilder doesn't rock so much compared to the Psion, but it does do a tolerable job in the Warmage archer-type role (though Psions still win with access to Energy Missile).

I don't think it's anywhere near weak enough to put in the same sentence as the... the one Person_Man mentioned.

[Dullyanna]

Crap... I finally thought I found a group to play with, and suddenly it won't work, after all. *Sigh* guess I'll have to put this character on hold for a while yet.

Anyway, isn't there a psychic rogue in the complete psionic or something? That'd be a better gate into the Elocater than a multiclass rogue/wilder.

[Draz74]

Anyway, isn't there a psychic rogue in the complete psionic or something? That'd be a better gate into the Elocater than a multiclass rogue/wilder.

The Psychic Rogue isn't in a book, it was just published on the Wizards web site. Google it. Its cousin the Lurk is in the Complete Psionic. ... and yes, both of them would make good entries into Elocator, probably better than my crazy (but SRD-only!) multiclass build.

[proud_walker]

maybe its a bit off topic, but i want to know how many ways there are so a psion can increase his manifester lvl.
The only way i found till now its with the "over channel" feat.

[Telok]

Dwarf Psion1/Fighter1

Attribute priorities are Int and Con. Feats are Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, and Psionic Body. Powers are Force Screen, Energy Ray or Vigor, and one other of your choice.

Level up in Psion, only take psionic feats, wear armor and use a guisarme.

The War Mind PrC is made for characters who don't have manifester levels but want a couple of powers and/or the special abilities. The first two levels, the fifth level, and the tenth level are what the War Mind is about.

Proud_Walker: Yes, Overchannel and Wild Surge are the only ways to increase manifester level above character level.

[CthulhuM]

If you want a good psionic melee character for the long run, I'd suggest going psion/illithid slayer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/slayer.htm) (or just "slayer" I suppose if you don't own the psionics handbook). At level 20 you've got the same base attack and armor and weapon proficiencies as a psywar, almost as many hit points, a bunch of handy abilities, and manifest as a 19th level psion. All you really give up is a few bonus feats, and having three times as many power points and 7th-9th level powers more than makes up for that.

[Dullyanna]

@The last three posters: Thanks for the advice but... you know this thread is four months old, right? That definitely makes it threadomancy if I remember correctly...

P.S. Proud_Walker, you might just want to start your own thread. I'm sure you'll get your question answered soon enough that way (And by someone more competent than I, as well).