Children throw. A true warrior hurls.

Quote Originally Posted by Ponee Tutrix
Ponee Tutrix - Psionic Ghost Control Unit




Neutral Goliath
Psychic warrior 6 / fighter 1/ ballisteer 10/ hulking hurler 1/bear spiritual totem barbarian 1

Spoiler: Designer’s note
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This build is inspired by the question: What is the funniest thing I can do with the abilities of the ballisteer?

Brainstorming: Round 1
To use the totality of the class features, we need a big funny ranged projectile weapon. Footbow? Blow gun? crossbow winch?

Trebuchet?

Yes.

Trebuchet. How do we guarantee access to a trebuchet?

Soulbound psychic warrior.

Counter argument: so what, you got big damage dice and colossal weapon that you need to get a staff of 12 to get working?.

Rebuttal:
Using ethereal and incorporeal shot, I can trebuchet all of the ghosts and ethereal filchers off the face of the planet, harming no one. Evil clerics will pay you handsomely to exorcise their manor’s without disturbing anything, from a large distance away.
Phase shot is hilarious to imagine when the result isn’t an exploding arrow, but instead a massive meteor of shot material delivered at high velocity from the astral plane. “Oh, no. THe bandits made it back to their woodland fortress! What ever can I do, other than explode them all from a distance?

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Brainstorming: Round 2
I noticed that the energy shot and explosive shot do not need to be a projectile weapon. Any ranged weapon can work with those abilities.

What is the best ranged weapon, that isn’t a trebuchet, to use with this power.

Spear spikards? Eldritch blasts? Flasks of oil?

Picked-up opponents that you throw at other opponents?

Picked-up opponents that you throw at other opponents.

Using feats?

Nope. Using obscure archived online content resources and….grappling rules. Also, hulking hurler’s superior ability called “really throw anything.” This ability is unlike the feat “throw anything”, where the designers tried to hit the brakes on what you can do with it. .

Counter argument: So what, you threw a dude for 2d6 damage against him and another opponent and you get to tack on some extra d4s for damage.

Rebuttal:
The dude I throw will explode. Does he insta-die? Is it a horrific spray of guts and psychic energies? Is it a dragonball z style crater-leaving explosion? Who cares, cuz both are cool.

Brainstorm 3
Those ideas are mutually exclusive.

Tie them together with a clever name.


Spoiler: Abilities
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Abilities
 Initial Race 4th 8th 12th 16th 20th
STR
 17 +4= 21 21 22 22 22 22
DEX 15 -2 = 13 13 13 13 13 13
CON 10 +2 = 12 12 12 12 12 12
INT 11 11 11 11 12 12 12
WIS 14 14 15 15 15 16 16
CHA 8 8 8 8 8 8 8


Spoiler: Table
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Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features PP
1st Skilled city dwellin' Soulbound weapon psychic warrior 0 2 0 0 8: {+2} Tumble: 2; {+2} Concentration: 2; {+2} Profession (Siege Engineer): 2; {+2} Search: 2; Dodge, Point Blank shot, Weapon Focus (trebuchet) Soulbound weapon (trebuchet), bonus feat, call weapon 0
2nd Psychic warrior 1 3 0 0 2: {+1} Tumble: 3; {+1} Concentration: 3; Profession (Siege Engineer): 2; Search: 2; expansion 1
3rd Psychic warrior 2 3 1 1 2: {+1} Tumble: 4; {+1} Concentration: 4; Profession (Siege Engineer): 2; Search: 2; mobility grip of iron 3
4th Psychic warrior 3 4 1 1 2: {+1} Tumble: 5; {+1} Concentration: 5; Profession (Siege Engineer): 2; Search: 2; dimension swap 5
5th Psychic warrior 3 4 1 1 2: {+1} Tumble: 6; {+1} Concentration: 6; Profession (Siege Engineer): 2; Search: 2; Psionic Shot Bonus feat, dissolving weapon 7
6th Fighter 4 6 1 1 2: Tumble: 6; {+1} Concentration: 7; {+1} Profession (Siege Engineer): 3; Search: 2; Power Attack, Weapon Focus (thrown weapon) Bonus feat, tower shield proficiency 7
7th Ballisteer 1 4 6 3 1 2: Tumble: 6; {+1} Concentration: 8; {+1} Profession (Siege Engineer): 4; Search: 2; Psionic Sidestep, Throw anything psionic sidestep, throw anything 11
8th Ballisteer 2 5 6 4 1 2: Tumble: 6; {+1} Concentration: 9; {+1} Profession (Siege Engineer): 5; Search: 2; invisible shot, dimension slide 15
9th Hulking Hurler 6 6 6 1 2: Tumble: 6; Concentration: 9; {+2} Profession (Siege Engineer): 7; Search: 2; Expert Siege Engineer, Snatch arrows, Throw anything Catch weapon, really throw anything 15
10th Ballisteer 3 7 7 6 2 2: Tumble: 6; {+1} Concentration: 10; {+1} Profession (Siege Engineer): 8; Search: 2; ethereal shot Telekinetic boomerang CPsi, 103 19
11th Ballisteer 4 8 7 7 2 2: Tumble: 6; Concentration: 10; {+2} Profession (Siege Engineer): 10; Search: 2; energy shot 23
12th Bear spiritual totem Goliath Barbarian 9 9 7 2 5: Tumble: 6; Concentration: 10; Profession (Siege Engineer): 10; Search: 2; {+1} listen: 1; {+4} survival: 4; Owlbear berzerker improved grab, Mountain rage 23
13th Ballisteer 5 9 9 7 2 3: Tumble: 6; {+1} Concentration: 11; {+1} Profession (Siege Engineer): 11; Search: 2; listen: 1; survival: 4; {+1} Use Rope: 1; incorporeal shot Escape Detection 27
14th Ballisteer 6 10 10 8 3 3: Tumble: 6; {+1} Concentration: 12; {+1} Profession (Siege Engineer): 12; Search: 2; listen: 1; survival: 4; {+1} Use Rope: 2; pinpoint shot pinpoint shot psychokinetic weapon CPsi, 96 35
15th Ballisteer 7 11 10 8 3 3: Tumble: 6; {+1} Concentration: 13; {+1} Profession (Siege Engineer): 13; Search: 2; listen: 1; survival: 4; {+1} Use Rope: 3; improved grapple explosive shot 43
16th Ballisteer 8 12 10 9 3 3: Tumble: 6; {+1} Concentration: 14; {+1} Profession (Siege Engineer): 14; Search: 2; listen: 1; survival: 4; {+1} Use Rope: 4; improved psionic sidestep improved psionic sidestep Living Arrow CPsi, 92 51
17th Ballisteer 9 12 11 9 4 3: Tumble: 6; {+1} Concentration: 15; {+1} Profession (Siege Engineer): 15; Search: 2; listen: 1; survival: 4; {+1} Use Rope: 5; phased shot Empower Weapon (CPsi, 85) 59
18th Ballisteer 10 13 11 10 4 3: Tumble: 6; {+1} Concentration: 16; {+1} Profession (Siege Engineer): 16; Search: 2; listen: 1; survival: 4; {+1} Use Rope: 6; empower supernatural ability infused shot 67
19th Psychic warrior 14 12 11 5 3: {+1} Tumble: 7; {+1} Concentration: 17; {+1} Profession (Siege Engineer): 17; Search: 2; listen: 1; survival: 4; Use Rope: 6; personal Mindblank 79
20th LA+1


Level Breakdown
Spoiler: snapshots
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Level 5 Snapshot:
You’re a goliath psychic warrior with skilled city dweller trading the ride skill for tumble and the ability to summon a trebuchet for a single power point. For Melee, break out a greatsword. You have expansion in there to make your size even bigger. Carry some sort of high damage touch attack ranged weapon to use point blank shot or psionic shot. The iron grip power is relevant later in the game, but it’s an immediate action power for grappling, so you may find utility for it here. Dimension swap lends some utility to team work situations. Dissolving weapon doesn’t specify that it only applies to melee weapons, so enjoy throwing acidic trebuchet shots.

Level 10 Snapshot
A level of fighter grants a bonus feat that helps fulfill the prerequisites for hulking hurler. Ballisteer then begins providing interesting ranged weapon supplementation. Invisible shot allows you to turn your trebuchet ammunition invisible, which doesn’t help much. But nothing is stopping you from using a bow to hurt people without any ability to trace that damage to you. Ethereal shot however, allows us to start our ethereal creature pest eradication service. It hurts nothing in a town if you trebuchet every square of it with explosive ethereal ammunition. Setting up the impressive short ranged damage trick of this build is the hulking hurler. Not only can we now snatch arrows aimed at us, but we can really throw anything as an improvised ranged weapon.

Level 15 Snapshot: High point of the build.
At level 15, all of the build is together in a cohesive piece. Our business of carpet bombing ghosts at great cost and no collateral damage is well underway with our trebuchet skills. But the final tools for the covert death attack ability of ballisteer is unlocked.

According to the Rules of the Game online article found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20071113...d/rg/20050315a

Toss Your Foe: Make an opposed grapple check as a melee attack. If you succeed, you can literally pick up your foe (provided you can lift your foe's weight). Make a Strength check; if your result is at least 10, you toss your foe 5 feet. For every 5 points your Strength check result exceeds 10, you toss your foe another 5 feet, to a maximum of 25 feet.

I can throw my opponent. Can I throw him as a weapon?
Hulking Hurler gives us a compatible answer that allows us to throw our opponents, so long as we pin an opponent and make large DC strength check.

Really Throw Anything (Ex): A hulking hurler gains the Throw Anything feat (described in Chapter 3 of this book) as a bonus feat. However, since a hulking hurler depends on brute strength more than skill, he can throw anything (not just weapons) he can lift as a light load. If the item is an improvised weapon, he takes a —2 penalty on his attack roll instead of the normal —4. Use the rules in Chapter 4 of this book to determine the amount of damage the thrown weapon does. The range increment of a thrown weapon or improvised weapon wielded by a hulking hurler is 10 feet + 5 feet per size category the hulking hurler is beyond Large (this is a modification of the Throw Anything feat).

Ballisteer has two abilities that work on any ranged weapon, not just a projectile ranged weapon: Energy shot and Explosive shot. If I pin an opponent through grappling, I can toss them as a melee attack with some bonus fiddly rules, and If “really throw anything” lives up its name, that opponent is now an improvised weapon.

Which means we can infuse that person with psychic energies to deal damage against other opponents (+ point blank shot). Which means, that, at level 15, we can make our ranged weapon explode on a hit.

Explosive Shot: The ballisteer can now make his Energy Shots explode with a 10-ft.-radius burst with the expenditure of 2 additional power points. This ability is applied as the attack is made, but the cost must be paid before the attack roll. Explosive shots that miss their target do not explode and the energy dissipates harmlessly. Creatures other than the initial target in the affected area may attempt a Reflex save (DC 20) for half damage.

What does it mean by explode? The weapon is consumed in the process of exploding, right? Right?

Towards this goal we get ourselves into a level of barbarian, not for the rage, but for the access to the owlbear berzerker feat, (+4 on grapple checks) as well as improved grab. So we can hit with a two handed sword, improved grab, grapple. Pin them on round 2 and throw them at other bad guys as a sacrificial exploding improvised weapon to hurt his buddies.

Level 20 Snapshot
Tutrix can now phase shot, double damage trebuchet blasts anywhere he can get a clairvoyant sensor to within 1500 feet. Truly terrifying. Imagine being raided from the astral plane by someone you couldnt see approaching up until 5 minutes before the attack. And even if you have a counter offensive, the siege engineer is a giant who can throw an opponent so hard that they explode, no saving throw, no nothing. You just have to hope he misses his target.

A number of psionic powers augment the siege engineer. He can grow to gargantuan size. He can manifest psychokinetic weapon on his trebuchet, quite possibly removing the need for it to have a crew entirely, because again, there isn’t an explicit prohibition on the power limiting it to melee weapons. Empower weapon has some hilarious implications for putting powers into your allies if you wield them as improvised ranged weapons, Allowing you to touch them to manifest powers while you rage. More simply, you could just deck yourself out in weapons with powers stored in them. This allows you to manifest while raging. Living arrow seems appropriate to put onto this character, as we can still use bows like a normie. And if you miss with your opponent as a weapon, (or hell, if you hit) telekinetic boomerang is hilarious.