3.5 pyro build help

[jdizzlean]

I'm researching a new character for my table top game for the future. I want to play a pyrokineticist. about the only resource i can find is the min/max handbook which is pretty scarce as far as any kind of optimization goes. Since it doesn't advance ML and only requires a pp reserve to access it, i'm sure there's plenty of racial options, or the old standby hidden talent to cover that. I don't have a great idea what to use for the first several levels before hand, and either mixed in or after pyro i think something like silver pyromancer might be an option, but i haven't looked at it in other but the most cursory way (so, i don't recall for example if silver p requires spellcasting that i wouldn't have because i wouldn't have it). i'd only go that route as you can make fire still affect things immune to fire iirc, but i'm afb.

this would be starting at level 1, all first party sources available, dragon ok w/ sufficient reasoning and attached to background. table is generally all levels of optimization.

i tend to play chaotic characters as that alignment to me is just more fun, however alignment doesn't play a big part in our games beyond as a requirement for spells or prc's or the like.

Probably more a martial character than anything. although having been reminded of it from another thread, finding a way to do all this and maybe get access to kaupers quickblast (i think thats how it's spelled) for even more fire (and other elemental) fun would be neat, but certainly not game breaking either way.

i intend to see if the DM would allow energy substitution to be taken to affect the class abilities thus giving me something other than just fire damage as well, as well as the pyro feat which iirc affects fire spells. however if it's fire effects than that's probably fine w/o any discussion at all.

that's as far as my thinking on it has progressed at this point.

we do get 1 LA free at creation if that helps w/ anything

thoughts and/or ideas?

[IraWolf]

one big issue is that pyrokineticist is just, simply, an ABYSMAL prestige class. it's just a worse warlock in damage with awful abilities (1st level ability is...a flame whip. with a d6 hit die. which takes an action to summon. why), lack of manifester advancement, AND with one of the most commonly resisted elements in the game, compared to the much harder to resist eldritch blast.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

There's a separate version of the class for other energy types (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625e), sonic being the least likely for opponents to be outright immune to, plus casting Creaking Cacophony gives opponents vulnerability to sonic damage.

How married to that class are you? The only unique ability it gets is the energy lash at 1st level, everything else can be duplicated by spells/powers or reserve feats.

Pathfinder has the Kineticist (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/kineticist/) base class, though it's widely regarded as one of the weakest classes in the game.

Silver Pyromancer requires a LG alignment, while Pyrokineticist requires a chaotic alignment. If you're not limited by alignment requirements, I'd start off as a DFI Bard, dip one level in each of Pyrokineticist and Silver Pyromancer by 10th level, pick up Sublime Chord, and continue taking Silver Pyromancer to advance Sublime Chord casting. You can meet the turn undead prerequisite of Silver Pyromancer by spending two feats on God Touched and Divine Channeler in Dragon 305 p42-43, in order to have eight Bard levels in the build without sacrificing Sublime Chord spellcasting.

Alternatively, swap Pyrokineticist to the electric damage version, and still start out DFI Bard with an early dip in Dragonblood Sorcerer to get Draconic Heritage for a lightning variety. Go (Savage) Bard 8/ Sorcerer 1/ Electrokineticist 1/ Sublime Chord 1/ Stormsinger 9. Wear Gloves of Endless Javelins to throw lightning bolts since ranged attacks benefit from DFI, swing an electric whip, and get amazing storm powers in the later levels.

If you're set on taking all ten Pyrokineticist levels, see if Ranged Weapon Mastery will increase the range of the fire lash. If so, take four Fighter levels (or six Warblade) prior to Pyrokineticist, and I guess focus on Power Attacking with it, but the character will end up rather bland IMO. If you start out with Warblade, see if using Mountain Hammer and similar with the fire lash will allow you to overcome fire resistance/immunity with that attack, assuming strikes will even work with it.

[Maat Mons]

You should get your DM to provide all the relevant rulings on Fire Lash. For example, are you treated as proficient with the whip you create? Whips are melee weapons, but the whip created by fire lash is a ranged attack. How does that work?

Edit:

My favorite fire-related feat is Initiate of Amaunator. It lets you spontaneously cast any fire spell on your list by expending a prepared spell slot.

And here are some of my favorite fire spells.
1: Wall of Smoke
2: Heartfire
3: Fire Wings
4: Firestride Exhalation, Wall of Fire
5: Daltim's Fiery Tentacles

If you can convince your DM to allow that Dragon magazine Cleric variant that gets access to Wizard spells, you can combine those spells with the Initiate of Amaunator feat.

Since fire immunity is your Achilles' heel, you might want to see if your DM would be permissive enough to adapt Winterhaunt of Iborigue for your character.

[jdizzlean]

i'll look into those variants for sure.

one thing i should've mentioned as well, a pile of dips is routinely disfavored or outright disallowed. 3 classes total, maybe 4 but that would again have to tie not only into background, but actively pursuiing it during all gaming sessions.

i realize that pryo is typically considered to be sub-par, however also as stated my group is all spectrum's from tier 5 to tier 1's mixed together, and the DM usually does a good job of mixing in enough things for everyone to get a chance to 'shine'. I don't want to play it to be the best at anything in particular, i just think it'd be a fun class to tinker around with.

what is winterhaunt from?

[Venger]

i'll look into those variants for sure.

one thing i should've mentioned as well, a pile of dips is routinely disfavored or outright disallowed. 3 classes total, maybe 4 but that would again have to tie not only into background, but actively pursuiing it during all gaming sessions.

i realize that pryo is typically considered to be sub-par, however also as stated my group is all spectrum's from tier 5 to tier 1's mixed together, and the DM usually does a good job of mixing in enough things for everyone to get a chance to 'shine'. I don't want to play it to be the best at anything in particular, i just think it'd be a fun class to tinker around with.

what is winterhaunt from?
do you just want to be a pyro in concept, or do you need to have that specific prc in there? what kind of powers do you want your guy to have?

winterhaunt of iborighu is from frostburn. it's a pretty cool class, especially for a low-op game.

[jdizzlean]

pyro in spirit. the problem w/ going the sorc route for that is that someone is doing that right now, so it'd be just meh doing it again immediately after. plus, wanting to watch the world burn is ok because the fluff matches the class like it does for pyro, otherwise doing anything like that in character would spark (haha see what i did there) a chat w/ the dm every single time as to WHY do i want to do that.

as for bards, i just don't understand the class well enough to go that route, and i'm already playing a crappy caster this time around. crappy in that i usually suck at playing casters, not that the class is crappy in the slightest.

beyond that, getting very specific magic items can be troublesome or impossible outright.

it's a catch 22.

[Venger]

pyro in spirit. the problem w/ going the sorc route for that is that someone is doing that right now, so it'd be just meh doing it again immediately after. plus, wanting to watch the world burn is ok because the fluff matches the class like it does for pyro, otherwise doing anything like that in character would spark (haha see what i did there) a chat w/ the dm every single time as to WHY do i want to do that.

as for bards, i just don't understand the class well enough to go that route, and i'm already playing a crappy caster this time around. crappy in that i usually suck at playing casters, not that the class is crappy in the slightest.

beyond that, getting very specific magic items can be troublesome or impossible outright.

it's a catch 22.

is there anything else you don't want to do because your party already has one? how do you feel about rolling kineticist?

[Vizzerdrix]

Well, what about doing a bit of Cha stacking, seeing as pyro both uses and boosts Cha? Battle Dancer 1, pally of freedom 4, pyro 10, "Cyran" Avenger 5.

Primordial, magic blooded half giant for a +6 cha and natural psionics. Use the racial class to see if you can get that free +1 as well to boost Cha even more.

Flaws allowed? Half giant thunderer and half giant stomp makes your racial ability much better, setting it to 3/day and the DC to HD +Cha mod. Gives some battlefield control and puts that cha to work.

Pally 4 gets turning, so grab travel devotion, and a sudden stunning weapon. Maybe twf? Grab ewp whip and a mighty barbed whip to slap that stunning on. Ancestral Relic can make sure you get that enchantment.

Now to bind it with fluff. Your people where Sun worshippers, and you had just been chosen to be a temple honor guard. One of the few tasked with protecting the temple and assisting the high priest by performing ceremonial dances during holy times.
You had just started down the path of your training when "Something Awful" (tm) happened and wrecked up the place. Now you're an adventurer, and you're gonna keep the traditions of your people alive while tracking down the sonova that did you and your people dirty, and you aren't gonna let it happen again.

That is Cha to quite a lot of things. I lost count.


Please forgive me if this is poorly written and makes little sense. I`m quite sleep deprived and my thoughts are a bit scattered. I hope this at least gives you some ideas if nothing else.

[DeTess]

pyro in spirit.

Maybe an odd suggestion, but how about a swordsage specializing in Desert Wind maneuvers? It gets you a lot of fire-based tricks, on a pretty good chassis and with room for some utility maneuvers and stances.

[AnimeTheCat]

Maybe an odd suggestion, but how about a swordsage specializing in Desert Wind maneuvers? It gets you a lot of fire-based tricks, on a pretty good chassis and with room for some utility maneuvers and stances.

Your idea gave me an idea which is to do both. Start as a swordsage specializing in Desert Wind, then prestige in to Pyrokinesticist, and then possibly pick up some feats along the way to get you in to Master of the Nine to finish out your levels. I mean, the requirements aren't that steep: chaotic alignment, 9 concentration, Craft alchemy 1, knowledge psionics 2, 1 pp reserve, and be a normal adventurer (set a house on fire for fun). The only things that are "difficult" are is the alchemy skill since it's locked behind needing to be a spellcaster of some kind. Otherwise, Concentration is a great skill to max out for a Swordsage since you can use it with diamond mind maneuvers and counters which would be really really useful.

So yeah, Swordsage 5/Pyrokineticist 10/Master of Nine 5 and that will be more or less pretty neat/fancy. Maybe discuss with your DM switching your Swordsage from keying off of Wisdom to keying off of Charisma (maybe with a feat or something) and you'll be flying happy with Charisma being a primary stat so you can social enteract well too.

[Darrin]

I was going to say... Flaming Homer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=4108954&postcount=22) is a pyrokineticist build. But it kinda isn't. Or rather, it's not the primary focus of the build.

Iron Chef VIII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?160266-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-VIII/page8) showcased Pyrokineticist, so that's probably worth a look.

[Segev]

Maybe go Warlock into Hellfire Warlock?

With one level dip into Binder so you can bind Naebarius and get ability damage back 1/round you can channel hellfire with pretty good impunity. You can have you eldritch blast look like fire until you get into the prestige class. You could have your fog cloud invocation be smoke. Invisibility could be a heat haze shimmer to hide you. Shadow wings could instead be fire wings.

Or you could play any sort of arcane caster into Elemental Savant, which would make all your energy spells fire spells and give you other thematic fire powers, culminating in being a human-shaped fire elemental.

Also take a look at the pathfinder soulknife. It could be built for fire emphasis. You could even go into pyrokineticist from it, but that’s one class they didn’t fix, so it still sucks in PF. Use d20pfsrd.com and search “soulknife” to see what that class looks like there.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

pyro in spirit. the problem w/ going the sorc route for that is that someone is doing that right now, so it'd be just meh doing it again immediately after. plus, wanting to watch the world burn is ok because the fluff matches the class like it does for pyro, otherwise doing anything like that in character would spark (haha see what i did there) a chat w/ the dm every single time as to WHY do i want to do that.

as for bards, i just don't understand the class well enough to go that route, and i'm already playing a crappy caster this time around. crappy in that i usually suck at playing casters, not that the class is crappy in the slightest.

beyond that, getting very specific magic items can be troublesome or impossible outright.

it's a catch 22.

For a pyro in spirit, maybe go with a Monk/Spirit Shaman/Sacred Fist and cast (Extended) Produce Flame to have flaming fists?

[RaiKirah]

I would second DFI Bard, but do it without the Bard. A single level of Warrior Skald can net you all the Bard songs, and basically fits into any martial build (you can start with any martial class, get Warrior Skald at 6, and start burning things at 7). This way you can follow any of the other martial advice here (Paladin, Swordsage/Warblade (particularly would think Warblade would work, since weapon aptitude will apply to the Flame Whip, and you should be able to use Martial Strikes with the Flame Whip, as well as Song of the White Raven), fighter, etc.). With just Warrior Skald you can swap a bardic music ability for Song of the Heart and/or Haunting Melody for free, and have +2 dfi without feat/class/item investment. Add in words of creation later on and you've got baseline +4 dfi, which isn't too shabby. You'll need an Extra Music unless you find another way to get additional uses (more Warrior Skald isn't terrible to be honest, and there are less honest methods as well).

[Piggy Knowles]

Alright, well, let's go over the class features in detail, and think of different ways we can optimize them:

Fire Lash: This is probably the pyrokineticist's most iconic ability, and it's also the easiest to optimize around. It's a ranged touch attack to hit with the fire lash, but it explicitly benefits from any melee feats. A melee build that stacks on riders like Power Attack, Knock-Down, Knockback, etc., can do some interesting things here, using the fact that it's a touch attack to compensate for the penalties to your attack roll you'd otherwise take. Or, take things in a different direction with a defensive build using the Kalashtar Dancing with Shadows feat line and Improved Combat Expertise. Basically you've got some interesting options. You can access this ability with just a small dip into pyrokineticist, too.

Fire Adaptation: Fire resistance is nice but hard to specifically optimize around.

Hand Afire: Extra damage on unarmed strikes. Damage isn't completely terrible for a 2nd-level ability and if nothing else it gives you an armed attack for adjacent enemies while you're wielding your fire whip. Could be optimized with a build that focuses on unarmed combat (unarmed swordsage in particular comes to mind, or maybe Tashalatora monk), but going that route AND doing interesting things with fire lash might be a bit tough.

Bolt of Fire: Turn yourself into a warlock. Harder to directly optimize than the fire lash. There are the usual suspects for boosting damage on ranged attacks (sneak attack, rider effects, etc) but the standard action activation means this is probably best as a way to supplement your usual fighting style, rather than primarily focusing on this.

Weapon Afire: Less useful than hands afire, because at least that effectively gave you Improved Unarmed Strike by allowing you to be considered armed with unarmed strikes. Directly conflicts with your most iconic ability (fire lash) for +7 points of easily resisted damage on weapon attacks. If this can apply to your fire lash, it's free extra damage, so that's nice.

Nimbus: A very cool ability, untyped bonus to Charisma and retributive damage is always nice. Once per day sucks, but at least it's a move action instead of a standard to activate. That said, the once per day restriction means you probably don't want to devote a ton of build resources to this.

Firewalk: Very cool ability that unfortunately requires PP investment, making it not particularly useful for classes that entered via a psionic race (except kalashtar, which has enough PP to possibly make this worth it) or Hidden Talent.

Fear No Fire: Upgraded fire resistance. Passive ability that is handy but hard to build around.

Greater Weapon Afire: Improves both hand afire and weapon afire, so that's nice. I'm still not a huge fan of weapon afire, but whatever.

Heat Death: Really low DC for a death effect. You're at minimum ECL 14 before you get access to this; an ECL 14 sorcerer with glass strike or finger of death or whatever would have a DC of at least 3 points higher, even assuming equal Charisma. A build with heavy Cha-stacking and maybe some debuffs that target saves can do something with this. At least it doesn't have a daily limit.

Conflagration: Again, disappointing DC, and this one does have a daily limit. It's a shame, because this one is really cool thematically... but the fact that this requires two failed saves to kill and has a mediocre DC means it's hardly worth making this the focus of a build.

So basically, some cool options in the first half of the build, and some more awkward options in the second half.

Here are my thoughts for ways to build out a pyrokineticist:

1. Flaming Homer, more or less. Attack with your fire lash, dumping your attack bonus into bonus damage via Power Attack and using riders like Knock-Down or Knockback to get even more mileage. Half-giant dungeoncrasher fighter into pyrokineticist, but don't bother taking more than a few levels (honestly you can get away with even just a one level dip), charge and smack someone with full PA-adjusted fire lash, tripping them and flinging them back into a wall for even more bonus damage. Easy, effective and fun.

2. Kalashtar defensive fighter. Take Combat Expertise, Improved Combat Expertise, Path of Shadows, Dancing With Shadows, Power Attack. Dump your attack bonus into Improved Combat Expertise, using the touch attack of your fire lash to ignore the downsides. Thanks to Dancing With Shadows, the following round you get that full defensive benefit without still taking , AND you get a bonus to your first attack roll equal to the penalty you just took. So go ahead and dump THAT into Power Attack, and now you'll have +BAB to AC and twice that to damage. Plus, since you're a kalashtar, you'll have enough PP to make firewalk actually useful. Warblade 14/Pyrokineticist 6 is simple and effective and gets 9th-level maneuvers and tons of pyro goodness, though this is a fairly feat-intensive route, so you may want to dip fighter somewhere.

3. Cha-focused debuffer. Heat death doesn't have a daily limit, and a spammable death effect is a cool idea. Go with classes that debuff saves (Paladin of Tyranny + Hexblade is a classic combo), which ALSO tend to have really good Cha synergy, and pump your Cha as high as possible. You can still benefit from Power Attack + fire lash if you want (after all, it's a fairly minimal investment), but heat death is the real kicker for you. With -4 to saves from PoT's aura and hexblade's dark companion, plus Ability Focus, you'll be able to spam heat death with a DC of 20+Cha, which is not bad at all, considering that you'll be damned near Cha-SAD thanks to your main melee attack hitting touch AC.

[RaiKirah]

I had forgotten about Heat Death. If you can get extra standard actions this pairs nicely with a Bard build using Doomspeak for an effective +10 to the save DC.

It also occurs to me that if a 'full attack action' is the same as a 'full attack' (I honestly don't know the answer and would love feedback) then if you can fit Shadow pouncing into the build you could hit someone with Heat Death multiple times a round.

[RNightstalker]

Alternatively, swap Pyrokineticist to the electric damage version, and still start out DFI Bard with an early dip in Dragonblood Sorcerer to get Draconic Heritage for a lightning variety. Go (Savage) Bard 8/ Sorcerer 1/ Electrokineticist 1/ Sublime Chord 1/ Stormsinger 9. Wear Gloves of Endless Javelins to throw lightning bolts since ranged attacks benefit from DFI, swing an electric whip, and get amazing storm powers in the later levels.

If you're set on taking all ten Pyrokineticist levels, see if Ranged Weapon Mastery will increase the range of the fire lash. If so, take four Fighter levels (or six Warblade) prior to Pyrokineticist, and I guess focus on Power Attacking with it, but the character will end up rather bland IMO. If you start out with Warblade, see if using Mountain Hammer and similar with the fire lash will allow you to overcome fire resistance/immunity with that attack, assuming strikes will even work with it.

Pardon me for asking, but what is DFI Bard? And maybe it's more appropriate for a separate thread, but it looks like a cool build to try sometime.

[jdizzlean]

Pardon me for asking, but what is DFI Bard? And maybe it's more appropriate for a separate thread, but it looks like a cool build to try sometime.

dfi = Dragonfire Inspiration. a feat from Dragon Magic.

essentially inspire courage becomes extra d6's of energy damage instead of a boost to hit/dmg to all allies in range

[daremetoidareyo]

Aight. Human Hidden talent Soulknife is one way to go. Get two hidden talents. If you check the e6 soulknife competition, there is a fantastic explanation about the hidden talent soulknife as a manifester.

Then, take a look at 3.0s lasher class to see if you can't festoon the rest of the build with that.

There is a pyro feat in song and silence that you might like. It's name is pyro.

[Segev]

Since I'm actually at a computer, I can do links now. I strongly recommend checking out the Pathfinder soulknife (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/) class. Unfortunately, it takes until level 6 to be able to add the "flaming" tag to your mind blade, but that's just one thing you can do.

This is also the level at which you can take the mindflayer (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/blade-skills/#Mindflayer) blade skill, which lets you shape your mind blade into a whip or scorpion whip (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/weapons/weapon-descriptions/whip-scorpion/) and also make victims make a saving throw to avoid being dazed on a hit.

Coincidentally, 6th level is when most PrCs start to be accessible. Also, you can fluff your mind blade as LOOKING like fire from level 1.

Alternatively, Emulate Melee Weapon (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/blade-skills/#Emulate_Melee_Weapon) can make it a whip or a scorpion whip (and you stay proficient, because mind blade) as early as level 2.

If you take the War Soul (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/archetypes/dreamscarred-press/war-soul-soulknife-archetype/) archetype, you can pick up the Sleeping Goddess (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/path-of-war/disciplines-and-maneuvers/sleeping-goddess-maneuvers) maneuver Call the Soul's Blade, which is a Boost that lets you apply a +1 equivalent enhancement to your mind blade for 1 round/level. Note that it doesn't say you need to have a +1 enhancement on your mind blade already. So you could apply Flaming from level 1, more or less once per encounter, for at least a round.

[Troacctid]

pyro in spirit. the problem w/ going the sorc route for that is that someone is doing that right now, so it'd be just meh doing it again immediately after. plus, wanting to watch the world burn is ok because the fluff matches the class like it does for pyro, otherwise doing anything like that in character would spark (haha see what i did there) a chat w/ the dm every single time as to WHY do i want to do that.

as for bards, i just don't understand the class well enough to go that route, and i'm already playing a crappy caster this time around. crappy in that i usually suck at playing casters, not that the class is crappy in the slightest.

beyond that, getting very specific magic items can be troublesome or impossible outright.

it's a catch 22.
Any spellcaster can be a pyro with Spell Thematics (fire)!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

A while back I had Elemental Savant (fire) recommended to me for a fire-themed character. It's got some cool features. Doesn't help with energy resistance, but does help with spell resistance when you're using your favored element.