Taking your own psicrystal as a Cohort?

[Segev]

There are a number of scattered references to psicrystals having feats in the material Dreamscarred Press has printed for Pathfinder on Psionics. Not a ton of them, but a few. Not the least being in their Psicrystals Augmented booklet, where a feat lets a psicrystal have and use psi focus, which is expressly noted as being useful for feats that require maintenance or expenditure thereof.

However, as best I can tell, psicrystals, by default, do not get feats. There is no way to "level them up" or give them more HD.

But... what if they took class levels? Okay, normally, there's no mechanism for that. But what if you take them as a cohort, making them a pseudo-PC? You could, obviously, take a normal PCable race as a cohort and get any class you want. Is there anything against the rules or overpowered (beyond normal for the Leadership feat) in taking your own psicrystal (or, I suppose, familiar; no reason to restrict this to psionics only) as a cohort and giving it class levels?

The two big things that might stand out as potentially broken, to me, are the possibility of using the shared powers to make your psicrystal into a doubled-up powers-known reservoir, and getting the psicrystal its own access to things like Share Senses (which would let it do the concentrating on sharing its senses with you). The latter is what led me down this thought process, for the record: how to get the most use out of sharing your psicrystal's Sighted trait.

The former, however, isn't really all that broken; a cohort with a psionic class could already share those powers with you.

So, is there anything I'm missing here? Is it broken? Illegal? Legal? Balanced? Any neat tricks inherent to this that aren't to a non-psicrystal cohort? Any other ways to expand your psicrystal's ability to get feats or use psionics?

Anything for or against doing this with a familiar?

[Eldaran]

I think you're misunderstanding that feat that lets them focus. The Psicrystal does not take that feat, the master does, and then the psicrystal can focus itself.

Edit: Nevermind, I misread what you were saying. Yes it's a bit odd that it has that text there. Maybe just future proofing it in case they wanted to grant them feats somehow.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

It's really too bad that DSP decided that psicrystals no longer gain HD or feats in PF. They were actually useful, once.

[Psyren]

They're still very useful, especially if you use the cool stuff they added to Psicrystals Expanded. All gaining HD did was make them cheesy.

[Segev]

They're still very useful, especially if you use the cool stuff they added to Psicrystals Expanded. All gaining HD did was make them cheesy.

There are some neat things in there. That feat that lets you focus your psicrystal is one of them, but I have trouble figuring out how the psicrystal can use the focus.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

There are some neat things in there. That feat that lets you focus your psicrystal is one of them, but I have trouble figuring out how the psicrystal can use the focus.Taking 15 on Concentration checks is about the only way to use it without...

...wait for it...

...feats.

[Ramza00]

It's really too bad that DSP decided that psicrystals no longer gain HD or feats in PF. They were actually useful, once.

Shrugged Psicrystals are an Improved Initiative Feat (Jittery Personality) that stacks with Improved Initiative plus other things. Furthermore some psionic classes get Psicrystals for a very cheap price. For example with Aegis getting a psicrystal is merely a +1 Customization Point. Furthermore other psionic feats that have "psicrystal affinity" in the prereqs is another +1 CP.

[Segev]

Psicrystals are nice, yes.

Incidentally, do creatures’ psi-like abilities count as powers they know for purposes of manifesting a power from another creature’s powers known? In particular, can a psicrystal’s master who has the Superior Psicrystal feat for an empowered psicrystal manifest his psicrystal’s powers via those rules?

Tangentially, Elfsight seems like a weird power to give a psicrystal. It is still a +2 to perception checks, but it’s an odd choice nonetheless.

[Psyren]

IIRC, psionic powers count as psi-like abilities but not the reverse.

[Segev]

IIRC, psionic powers count as psi-like abilities but not the reverse.

That's my instinct, as well, but I am having a devil of a time finding anything definitive. Though it's worth noting that accessing powers from another's mind requires those powers to be on your class list and of a level you can manifest. If you try it from a power stone, presumably you can cheat with UMD since it's still using a magic item, but there are no provisions for that with fellow-manifesters.

Weirdly, the Vitalist gives me the most enticing use for Craft Power Stone yet: because they can rotate out their powers, having Craft Power Stone means they can use downtime to rotate in rarely-used, situational powers and make the stones, then adventure with their usual list. When situational situations come up, they pull out the Power Stone and either use it directly, or - if ML and augmentation are important - gain the power-known from it with a round's concentration and spend the pp.