Mystic tank build assistance

[Bannan_mantis]

I am making a mystic who I aim to make into a tank for the party. I am currently making one and I was looking to get some assistance with how to build it with things such as what disciplines to take, feats, races and how my ability point distribution should look. So far I am taking immortal mystic (for roleplay reasons) and from that I believe my points should be something like CON>INT>DEX>STR. CON for concentration, AC and HP, INT for mystic abilities, DEX for AC and finally STR for attacks. Additionally so far from what I know good choices for tanking in terms of disciplines include bestial form for rough hide, psionic restoration for some self heal and iron durability for AC.

What other disciplines are good for tanking, what feats I should take, what race I should be and how would you design ability scores (using point buy?) I'm slowly wrapping my head around the mystic but I feel like I might've missed a few things.

[Jerrykhor]

Mastery of Air has a self buff that makes all attacks against you have disadvantage. Adaptive Body has a lot of good resistances to element damage. Giant Growth to body block and gain huge amount of Temp HP and other nice buffs.

What level is your character though?

[Bannan_mantis]

Mastery of Air has a self buff that makes all attacks against you have disadvantage. Adaptive Body has a lot of good resistances to element damage. Giant Growth to body block and gain huge amount of Temp HP and other nice buffs.

What level is your character though?

Currently undecided with it being either 3rd level or 5th

[Aett_Thorn]

For Race, I would go Mountain Dwarf. Immortal Mystics are very MAD, and getting +2 to both Str and Con is great, and it will give you proficiency with Medium Armor, which you lack. This will also lessen the need for a very high Dex as well. Plus, Dwarf gives you some weapon proficiencies which helps, since you only have access to Simple weapons normally.

[Damon_Tor]

For Race, I would go Mountain Dwarf. Immortal Mystics are very MAD, and getting +2 to both Str and Con is great, and it will give you proficiency with Medium Armor, which you lack. This will also lessen the need for a very high Dex as well. Plus, Dwarf gives you some weapon proficiencies which helps, since you only have access to Simple weapons normally.

I feel like that's one step forward two steps back.

I agree that medium armor proficiency is valuable, but +2 to strength just doesn't have much value. Either you're planning on being able to make decent weapon attacks, in which case you're going to have to boost either str or dex and dex just makes more sense because it does more for you, or you're not planning on being able to make decent weapon attacks in which case the +2 str is irrelevant. And even if you're using str to attack, you'll still want at least 14 in Dex, so it's not efficient.

If you want medium armor proficiency be a VHuman and get Moderately Armored as your free feat; this gives you shield proficiency as well.

[Max_Killjoy]

Had a similar request a couple days ago, but this subforum moves fast.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?586108-Mystic-build-help&p=23857782#post23857782

[Aett_Thorn]

I feel like that's one step forward two steps back.

I agree that medium armor proficiency is valuable, but +2 to strength just doesn't have much value. Either you're planning on being able to make decent weapon attacks, in which case you're going to have to boost either str or dex and dex just makes more sense because it does more for you, or you're not planning on being able to make decent weapon attacks in which case the +2 str is irrelevant. And even if you're using str to attack, you'll still want at least 14 in Dex, so it's not efficient.

If you want medium armor proficiency be a VHuman and get Moderately Armored as your free feat; this gives you shield proficiency as well.

Yes, but if you’re just going normal Immortal Mystic, you only get Simple Weapon proficiency. So if you go Dex for attack, then you’re pretty much stuck with dagger for weapons. Or you could go with a bow or crossbow, but then you’re not really going to be in position to Tank.

[Aquillion]

Yes, but if you’re just going normal Immortal Mystic, you only get Simple Weapon proficiency. So if you go Dex for attack, then you’re pretty much stuck with dagger for weapons. Or you could go with a bow or crossbow, but then you’re not really going to be in position to Tank.
Or they could go High Elf for short sword proficiency, plus Dex and Int bonuses.

Immortal Mystic doesn't really need armor proficencies; they can rely on Immortal Durability (if they have sky-high constitution and dex) or on Inertial Armor (if they just have sky-high dex.)

With 15 Constitution and 17 dex, they can spend an ASI rounding both up and get an AC of 17, with 18 a possibility if they spend another ASI. This might not sound great, but it's is the same as what the Mountain Dwarf would get - remember, the dwarf doesn't come with a shield proficiency. And the Dwarf would still need 14 Dex to get there, while still wanting Intelligence, Constitution, and Strength.

It's just not worth it. If they want more AC than that, they need to spend an ASI on medium armor proficiency anyway in order to get a shield.

Besides, at the end of the day they're a caster, not a fighter. They can build themselves to tank, but they shouldn't be spending many actions attacking with a weapon. Even the dagger is probably fine. Or they can just use Mind Thrust - you don't need to utterly max Intelligence to be good with it, since it targets what's usually the weakest save anyway. Even if they took the very best weapon available and did max Strength or Dex, Mind Thrust is going to do more damage at higher levels, and against many enemies it will hit more reliably (since enemy int saves tend to not scale up as reliably as AC does.)

Alternatively, Crossbow Expert will make point-blank crossbows very reasonable while also giving them the option to go ranged when tactics require it (no matter how good of a tank you are, there are some situations where you can't or don't want to get up close.) Though they might have other stuff to spend their bonus actions on.

[Max_Killjoy]

There's also Energy Beam, which isn't bad when you consider it's a Mystic's equivalent to a cantrip.


Energy Beam

Psionic Talent
As an action, you target one creature you can see within 90 feet of you. The target must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 1d8 acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage (your choice).

The talent’s damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 5th level (2d8), 11th level (3d8), and 17th level (4d8).

[carrdrivesyou]

Take mastery of ice first. 20 thp at the start of each day can go a long way. I'd focus on dexterity first and light armor.

[Aquillion]

There's also Energy Beam, which isn't bad when you consider it's a Mystic's equivalent to a cantrip.


Energy Beam

Psionic Talent
As an action, you target one creature you can see within 90 feet of you. The target must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 1d8 acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage (your choice).

The talent’s damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 5th level (2d8), 11th level (3d8), and 17th level (4d8).
So little resists Psychic damage that I'd prefer Mind Thrust's higher damage and targeting a generally-weaker save.

Although if your DM lets you throw energy beams at objects to do things like light fires (technically not RAW but pretty reasonable) then the calculation changes a bit.

[Dork_Forge]

I am making a mystic who I aim to make into a tank for the party. I am currently making one and I was looking to get some assistance with how to build it with things such as what disciplines to take, feats, races and how my ability point distribution should look. So far I am taking immortal mystic (for roleplay reasons) and from that I believe my points should be something like CON>INT>DEX>STR. CON for concentration, AC and HP, INT for mystic abilities, DEX for AC and finally STR for attacks. Additionally so far from what I know good choices for tanking in terms of disciplines include bestial form for rough hide, psionic restoration for some self heal and iron durability for AC.

What other disciplines are good for tanking, what feats I should take, what race I should be and how would you design ability scores (using point buy?) I'm slowly wrapping my head around the mystic but I feel like I might've missed a few things.

Hey there, late to the party but I played an Immortal Mystic in a campaign with the concept of I will shrug off whatever comes my way (and in this unbalanced to the deadly side of things campaign I didn't go down once) and I have some hopefully helpful insight:

In terms of race you can go for whatever you like that'll give you an int bonus realistically but I went Variant Human and took the Tough feat to bump HP. For AC you should be able to rely on Immortal Durability (with Dex being your primary attack stat and a minimum +2 in Con), you can get a +1 from the focus of Mastery of Wood and Earth and Beastial Form can give you a +2 for an hour, without concentration for the low cost of 2psi and a bonus action. So in terms of AC you'll be rocking most likely a 16/17 walking around AC and a combat AC of 18/19, but the durability of this build comes from three separate parts:

1) Psionic Resilience: Having temp hp that auto restores every turn is a game changer, the higher your int the more the temp hp, but I'd recommend a minimum +3 to int

2) Mystical Recovery: between your temp hp and being able to BA regenerate I've slugged it out with some big bads and with fairly negligible net hp loss per round

3) A Butt load of HP in an unconventional package: The +1 per level you get from being an Immortal means that HP wise you're essentially on par with d10 hit die classes (especially since you have more compelling reasons to buff Con then they do), however you aren't a warrior class, you're a mystic with a slew of defensive psionics and a near constant bubble of temp hp.

Recommended Disciplines: Mastery of Wood and Earth will give you a focus +1, a solid scaling attack option (animate Weapon), the ability to debuff enemies, wall them off with arguably one of the better walls in the game and ultimately summon an earth elemental.

Beastial Form: A bunch of ways to adapt to your situation, be it needing to climb, fly, swim or interact with animals competently. The +2 bonus to AC is a very strong ability and a staple of a mystic tank build.

Mastery of Force: you can get a better version of Mage Armor (14+Dex) that will stack with Beastial form and the focus of Wood and Earth (22AC no shield in combat if +5 Dex)

Precognition: Reaction disadvantage on a hit, bonus action self bless (and guidance rolled into one), solid self buff and defense option with some party initiative advantages.

By all means the above isn't a comprehensive guide but I hope it's helpful, I'd recommend dipping into fighter (1 level will give you all the profs you could want and dueling will give you a solid dmg boost) or wizard (Bladesinger for cranking that AC to mid 20s, War wizard for arcane deflection and tactical wit).