Elocater Initiator build help?

[Falcii]

I stepped away from 3.5 for a few years and my building skills have notably deteriorated. I was hoping someone could help me with this odd one.

So I know full well that the Elocater is trash. I'm fine with that, but for flavor reasons I would love to play one. The idea of zipping around and hovering as a martial character is super neat. What would be the easiest or most effective way of getting at least the first level of Elocater as early as possible while also getting some Martial Initiate in there for some gameplay sauce. I am fine with either sword sage or warblade.

Worth noting, full arcane psionic transparency is on the table, so if we need to enter with duskblade or something, I can make that work.

Races with lvl adj or RHD don't work tho sadly.

[ChaosStar]

I stepped away from 3.5 for a few years and my building skills have notably deteriorated. I was hoping someone could help me with this odd one.

So I know full well that the Elocater is trash. I'm fine with that, but for flavor reasons I would love to play one. The idea of zipping around and hovering as a martial character is super neat. What would be the easiest or most effective way of getting at least the first level of Elocater as early as possible while also getting some Martial Initiate in there for some gameplay sauce. I am fine with either sword sage or warblade.

Worth noting, full arcane psionic transparency is on the table, so if we need to enter with duskblade or something, I can make that work.

Races with lvl adj or RHD don't work tho sadly.

Xeph for the Race. Psychic Warrior for the psionic class. Swordsage for the Initiator Class. Focus on Diamond Mind and Setting Sun maneuvers. Setting Sun for Step of Wind Stance to ignore difficult Terrain, Diamond Mind since you need tons of Concentration Anyway, Xeph gives Burst of Speed as a racial, Psychic Warrior for the HP, Medium BAB, and mostly Buff oriented Powers. Note: not an optimizer so I could be wrong.

[Morphic tide]

Psychic Warrior 1 gives you a bonus Fighter or Psionic feat to put towards Spring Attack and the requisite 1st-level Power, from a deliberately Gish-city list, while scaling with Wisdom to synergise with Swordsage. Elocater 4 loses 1 BAB and 1 ML for Flanking offset and a damage bump for follow-up attacks, while Elocater 6 increases that damage bump, loses a second ML and BAB, but gains Teleport and Plane Shift for five PP, making for a quite considerable escalation of strategic movement.

What's actually terrible about Elocater? Is it just the hit die? The lack of "and now I just win" buttons? The messy prerequisites? Seems like it works decently for a gish-type build, especially if you're doing Psychic Rogue or Lurk in-and-out stuff.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Ardent for your psionic class, I'd get two levels for a third mantle and for +1 initiator level. Take Practiced Manifester as early as possible since that class learns higher level powers based on your manifester level rather than your class level. Always use Substitute Powers (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a) for Ardent as well.

Start with two flaws (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm) (more here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?258440-The-quot-Best-quot-Flaws#30)) if possible for two extra feats, you'll need as many as you can get to qualify for Elocater. Even if you can't, Human gets you just enough feats.

Take Swordsage for your initiator class, it has Wis synergy with Ardent. Go Swordsage 2/ Ardent 2/ Swordsage 2/ Elocater, taking Practiced Manifester at 3rd level and Spring Attack at 6th.

[ExLibrisMortis]

There's no psionic/initiator class, which is a real shame, because the first elocater level is actually pretty sweet (advances manifesting, bonus feat, ability to ignore difficult terrain, six skill points from a good list), but you'd like to switch to a different class afterwards.

There are a few appropriate classes that share some of the Elocater prerequisites: Jaunter (shares all feats), Master of Nine (shares one feat), Psionic Weapon Master (shares two feats), and Swiftblade (shares two feats, grants Spring Attack). All of these have problems. Jaunter doesn't give you that much, Mo9 and PWM have steep requirements, and Swiftblade requires haste, of which there is no first-party psionic version, hence a psionic conversion is tricky. Jade Phoenix Mage doesn't share any prerequisites, and also needs (straightforward) psionic conversion, but it's a solid gish PrC and one of only two with ToB advancement (the other being RKV, which requires Turn Undead).

If you can get around the adaptation problem (for example, with the StP-derived, DSP third-party PF, or third-party Dark Sun psionic version of haste) and play a psionic Swiftblade, then do so. You'd play something like psion 4/warblade 2/elocater 1/swiftblade 9 (ECL 16, +13 bab, 11th-level manifesting) or psion 6/swiftblade 1/elocater 1/swiftblade +8 (ECL 16, +12 bab, 13th-level manifesting). Note that Spring Attack is being annoying here--Elocater only requires +3 base attack, but Spring Attack requires +4. On a more positive note: your first Swiftblade level grants Spring Attack, but the text specifies that you get to pick a replacement if you already have it. No feats wasted!

If you can't play a psionic Swiftblade, Mo9 requires quite a few feats, which encourages a psywar build and some dips. Something along the lines of unarmed swordsage 2/warblade 1/psychic warrior 2/elocater 1/master of nine 5/psychic warrior 3/swordsage +1 (ECL 16, +12.5 bab, just enough manifesting for a couple of low-level tricks) could be quite nice.

[Darrin]

Iron Chef did a round on Elocator (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=21543842&postcount=315), so that might be worth a look for build ideas.

(Huh... I came in last that round. Why did I come in last? Hmm... apparently I took way too many levels of Elocator.)

[ZamielVanWeber]

I remember that. I loved... all the builds. Not my finest judging work tbh but I thought there was a lot of really cool builds.

[Segev]

Are you restricted to 3.5? Because the Elocator in PF has some more fun toys at its disposal, even if they're not mechanically super-great, they look like a lot of fun. (Personal gravity, in particular.)

There's also the Sleeping Goddess discipline, which is psionic and an initiator thing.

[Thurbane]

There's no psionic/initiator class, which is a real shame, because the first elocater level is actually pretty sweet (advances manifesting, bonus feat, ability to ignore difficult terrain, six skill points from a good list), but you'd like to switch to a different class afterwards.

If home-brew is allowed, Troacctid made a pretty decent "universal theurge" class: Prestige Class: Gestalt Theurge (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?427306). It only works with base classes, so wouldn't advance Elocater - but you could advance an Initiator base class and Manifester base class, and dip Elocater.

OP could also ask their DM if they would re-fluff/adapt Jade Phoenix Mage or Ruby Knight Vindicator to advance psionics instead of casting.

[Edea]

What's actually terrible about Elocater? Is it just the hit die? The lack of "and now I just win" buttons? The messy prerequisites? Seems like it works decently for a gish-type build, especially if you're doing Psychic Rogue or Lurk in-and-out stuff.

It's mostly the prereqs. The weird ML prog doesn't help it, either.

I think I'd do four things to this PrC, TBH:

1) change the prereqs to the following (the Jump requirement makes it so non-Nomad psions would have a bit of difficulty getting in early):
Skills: Jump 8 ranks, Psicraft 8 ranks
Feats: Speed of Thought, Up the Walls
Powers: Ability to manifest 1st level powers

2) Set the ML prog to 'every level but 1st'.

3) Change Dimension Step to "Translocater (Ex): At 3rd level, an elocater learns both psionic dimension door and psionic freedom of movement. These powers are in addition to any powers the elocater normally learns by advancing a level. The elocater treats these powers as if they were 2nd-level powers on her class list. This means, among other things, that manifesting these powers costs 3 power points. (If the character does not have a high enough manifester level to manifest 2nd-level powers the character cannot manifest these powers until she has attained the required manifester level.)

4) Change Dimension Spring Attack to "Dimension Pounce (Su): Any time the elocater uses an ability, spell, or effect with the teleportation descriptor (for example, the psionic dimension door power), she may execute a full attack upon completion of the teleportation. The elocater must have line of sight to her intended target from her original location, and the spot to which she teleports must be a place from which she can launch a melee attack at the intended target with whatever weapon she has in hand at the beginning of her action."