psionics and martial characters

[riddles]

following on form the martial characters discussion, i recently built a monk for one of my new party members using some psionics.

i'll be honest, i was deeply impressed by the usability of psionics for martial characters. expansion, inertial armour and pounce (which i used for the monk) are excellent.

so much so, that i can't see anyone taking more than 2 levels of the fighter class ever again. for anything. i have, in fact, re-written my recent carebear character (using eldariels excellent barbarian guide) to include some psionics. having enough power points to cast expansion 4 or 5 times a day, plus maybe inertial armour is outstanding.

does anyone here have any experience with psionic warriors? they look the business...

[Yukitsu]

I took a few levels of psionic warrior on my paladin ubercharger so that I could use pounce as a paladin. I would have taken barbarian instead, but since they don't mix, I had to make due with psionics.

Otherwise, I'd probably have built a gish instead. There are just more gish based options out there compared to psionic warrior options, and it's possible to get a much higher BAB while maintaining a high caster level as an arcanist than you can as a psion. Mostly because of the lack of full manifesting classes that also maintain full BAB.

It's a decent route to take, but It's not really anything to write home about. There just aren't enough PRCs out there to really make the most out of that.

[Lycanthromancer]

Psychic warriors are, indeed, quite excellent. They're in the sweet spot of power and flexibility; just good enough to be awesome, without being remotely broken.

However, the primary problem with psychic warriors is stamina. If you can get around the lack of power points (and there are several ways to do this), you're golden. Otherwise, they burn out, and quickly.

I've done some psywar building, and there's a LOT you can do with them. They're on par with ToB for excellence (and can even outdo them on rare occasions), but if you don't take their stamina issues into account, they can flub pretty hard.

What kind of psywar character did you have in mind?

[Person_Man]

Psychic Warriors rock. They get plenty of impressive powers plus bonus feats. There are dozens of possible builds.

There are some potential problems though:

• MAD: Psychic Warriors need high Wis and respectable Con, Str, and Dex.
• Limited Power Points: Psychic Warriors tend to run out of Power Points after 2-4 encounters. But this is no different then any caster, and can be used by a judicious DM to balance them out against weaker builds in the same party. Note that some Psychic Warrior powers last for hours though, so they're very rarely totally screwed.
• 3/4 BAB: This can be solved by some creativity. But for most Psychic Warrior builds, you need a source of extra damage that's not Power Attack.
• Magic/Psionics Transparency: Like any caster who focuses on buff effects, a Psychic Warrior can be brought down by Dispel Magic, Antimagic Field, etc.

[Lycanthromancer]

Psychic Warriors rock. They get plenty of impressive powers plus bonus feats. There are dozens of possible builds.

There are some potential problems though:

• MAD: Psychic Warriors need high Wis and respectable Con, Str, and Dex.
• Limited Power Points: Psychic Warriors tend to run out of Power Points after 2-4 encounters. But this is no different then any caster, and can be used by a judicious DM to balance them out against weaker builds in the same party. Note that some Psychic Warrior powers last for hours though, so they're very rarely totally screwed.
• 3/4 BAB: This can be solved by some creativity. But for most Psychic Warrior builds, you need a source of extra damage that's not Power Attack.
• Magic/Psionics Transparency: Like any caster who focuses on buff effects, a Psychic Warrior can be brought down by Dispel Magic, Antimagic Field, etc.

I agree with most of your assessment; however, psywars can easily be built to run off of only one or two stats. Unlike fighters and monks, you can circumvent or augment several ability scores with powers. Heck, I can run a good psywar with nothing but Int and Wis, with a reasonable Dex.

Remember that they get access to other classes' power lists through research and Expanded Knowledge, and as such, can get things like metamorphosis, making this even less horrible.

[Keld Denar]

A dirty little trick if you are trying to do what you are trying to do is to nab 2 levels of Monk with your PsyWar. Why? Other than the obvious saves and evasion, you can then take the Tashalatora feat from Secrets of Sarlona. This feat lets all of your manifester levels automatically advance your UAS damage. Now, combine that with a Monk Belt and Improved Natural Attack and Expansion, and you'll have huge hammerfists that are swingin for like, 8d6 or more by mid levels. Thats pretty decent before you manifest any of a PsyWars other neato tricks.

For once, Monk is NOT a trap...

:)

[Zaq]

One really cool thing about PsyWars is that they get a lot of swift-action self-buffs, so they don't have to do prestige class gymnastics to buff and fight at the same time. I will echo what's been said already, though, that their power point supply is very limited and it's very important to keep an eye on it. Not every fight NEEDS you to turn on Power Overwhelming mode. A well-made PsyWar, in my opinion, pays even more attention to contingency planning than other classes do. Always be aware of your options, and when building yourself (selecting powers and feats and such) be sure to keep several of them open, so you're not screwed if you run out of PP or if your enemy has more tricks up its sleeve than you bargained for. PsyWars are great because they naturally can cover the weak spots that martial characters have... flight, invisibility, the basics. You just have to be judicious with your power selection.

Oh, and Linked Power in Complete Psionic is amazing. Gishes always always always suffer from action limits, and Linked Power helps circumvent that.

[AslanCross]

I have no actual experience playing psychic warriors, but there's a lot of synergy between melee characters and getting even just Wild Talent and some of the Psionic feats. I think the best synergy comes from Psychic Warrior and Swordsage multiclassing, though.

[Lycanthromancer]

A few tips on building a good psychic warrior:

A.) The only time any power on your list shouldn't have a considerable duration (ie, 10 min/lvl or more, preferably Extended, or Persisted if you can swing it) is when its benefits are groovy enough to compensate. For instance, hustle is just that awesome. Breath of the black dragon, not so much.

B.) You'll want to use the right tool at the right time, so have as many multipurpose powers as you can, to cover a number of different problems. Preferably powers that synergize well. Expansion, for instance, is a power that works exceptionally well to solve a huge number of problems through various means. It's awesome for extending your reach, which improves your ability to make AoOs while not provoking them; it grants massive bonuses to tripping, disarming, grappling, bull rushing, and overrunning, and helps you resist them too (and it allows you to actually use those maneuvers against foes that would normally be way too large to be subject to them, as well as make you immune to a surprisingly large number of abilities, such as Swallow Whole); and it increases your strength and your base damage dice. It also synergizes well with any number of other powers, such as grip of iron (for insane grappling bonuses), strength of my enemy (to ramp your Str score even higher), and any weapon-like power, such as bite of the wolf and claws of the beast (by increasing damage considerably). In other words, think of as many different situations that you might get into for a particular campaign, as well as the personality and focus of your character, and mold your power list to suit.

C.) There are numerous tricks you can use for extending your power point reserve. Improving the durations on your buffs, such as through Extend Power, or through Overchanneling, will go a long way toward improving your stamina. You should also be judicious as to how heavily you augment your powers; in a lot of cases, minimum augmentation is all that is needed. For instance, a 1 pp bite of the wolf will be all you need, no matter how high level you are; the same goes for powers like hammer. Others, such as inertial armor, should be max-augmented at all times (sans metapsionics, such as Extend Power), but only because of the increased benefits you gain for it. You can also use, say, vampiric blade to heal yourself rather than body adjustment, since the return for your investment is so much higher. You can nab power leech to regain power points (but only if you're in a psionic campaign), get a psionic cohort with bestow power, buy a torc of power preservation, or you could acquire some +1 manifesting arrows. Not to mention various other items, such as psychoactive skins and power stones.

D.) Don't pick your feats like a fighter would. Fighters only think about how feats interact with other feats, but psywars have entirely new dimensions to consider (see: skills, psi powers, and items). There are many feats that no fighter in his right mind would ever consider, that would actually be not only useful for a psychic warrior, but are actually very powerful. Crafting feats, for example. Metapsionics. Psicrystals. Feats like Able Learner and Darkstalker. Because a psywar has access not only to his own class's power list, but also every other classes' lists (through Expanded Knowledge and research), he can have a surprising range of abilities to expand that will assist his ability to kick ass and take names. Able Learner + Darkstalker, for instance, allow him to ramp up his Hide skill, which will allow him to get more use out of, say, metamorphosis. As an assassin. Something no single-class fighter could dream of. Use your imagination.

E.) Given that the prototypical weakness of any gish class is the need to buff during a fight, do everything you can to (ab)use your action economy to its fullest. Use swift action powers. The Linked Power feat. Synchronicity. Reactionary measures during a fight (such as expansion + move up to a group of enemies + Combat Reflexes + Robilar's Gambit + Improved Trip, etc). Also, contingencies are your friends.

F.) Nab psychic reformation (see #G), and use it whenever you find that having a certain configuration to your abilities would be useful. Do some research on whatever you plan on going after, then change your abilities to suit. Go into combat fully armed against whatever that dragon and his kobold minions can throw at you, then with the gold you earned, twiddle yourself around to do some serious crafting to double (or even triple, with the Extraordinary- and Legendary-Crafter feats) your gear, then toss out those now-useless feats and powers so you can go infiltrate the thieves' guild to assassinate its leader. You can even toss on a contingencied psyref for the times when you get ambushed by something completely unexpected, so you're never surprised for long (this will also let you remove psychic reformation from your powers known, to free up the slot, since you can put it back on with your contingency).

G.) Don't hesitate to research powers to add to your class list, even if you don't add it on to your powers known. This will allow you to use items such as power stones and dorjes, and will let you craft items that are useful (such as metamorphosis, for skins of proteus for you and your psicrystal, your party rogue, and so on). You can also craft your own items, to ensure that the ability to activate dorjes and power stones will come in handy.

H.) Make full use of all of the items that you can use that most martial-types can't. Dorjes. Power stones. Psicrowns. Tattoos. Psychoactive skins. Third eyes. Suppression weapons (!). Any character can swing a sword or wear armor, no matter how clumsily. Not everyone can effectively make use of those others. A little advantage can go a long way, especially since crafting can ensure that you'll always have just what you want, when you want it.

There's more, but it tends to go toward what most optimizers already know. I can give you advice on a specific build or tactic, and how to get the most out of it, but this should be enough to build on, for now.

[Darth Stabber]

Psiwar probably the best base gishlike class going. It may not have the BAB of duskblade, but you will get more mileage out of it than you would from duskblade. You get some feats, you get some powers, and you have a ball wrecking faces. You have more versatility than duskblade's "RAWR, MY SORD MAIK UR HED ASPLOD" shtick, and has some bonus featness going for it to. Probably one the best non TOB melee classes to date.

[Person_Man]

I agree with most of your assessment; however, psywars can easily be built to run off of only one or two stats. Unlike fighters and monks, you can circumvent or augment several ability scores with powers. Heck, I can run a good psywar with nothing but Int and Wis, with a reasonable Dex.

Remember that they get access to other classes' power lists through research and Expanded Knowledge, and as such, can get things like metamorphosis, making this even less horrible.

Agreed. For example, a Paladin 4/Sanctified Mind 1/War Mind 5/Sanctified Mind 2-6 with Serenity and Intuitive Strike runs exclusively off of Wis, with high Con being very useful for hit points (though not strictly necessary, if you know what you're doing with Claws of the Vampire, Vigor, and Hostile Empathic Transfer). It also has full BAB and powers equivalent to a 15th level Psychic Warrior. But that requires a level of game mastery that most players don't know about.

But really though, it's a minor issue. Strait out of the SRD a Psychic Warrior is pretty powerful, easy, and fun to play.