Help! Advice wanted on psion bad guys [3.5]

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I'm not familiar with the psionics rules of D&D 3.5. I've got the SRD, and I understand how the rules work, generally... but I have no experience with them.

Now, there's a region of my game world where magic is liable (not guaranteed) to fail (due to Plot). In that region, psionics developed to fill the niche normally held by the full casters - so I have a society where psions and psychic warriors are the wizards and clerics.

Assume everyone is human, and no other races are available. The society is generally neutral, with lawful government, and religious, but follows the disciplines of psionic power, rather than divine power. A real-world parallel culture for flavour could be China in the Song dynasty (though the parallels are mostly vague).

What advice for making psionic adversaries for the traditional magic, 11th-12th level PC party can you lovely Playgrounders give me?
What powers and abilities are awesome and useful, what tricks I might be able to use, and that sort of thing. Generally, I like to use a bunch of lower level minions and a PC-level bad guy.

Thanks!

[Ecalsneerg]

First things first: if psionics aren't affected by this wonky magic zone, does that mean you'll be using the optional rules for psionics and magic not being transparent? If so, psionic foes get slightly tougher, as PCs can't use bonuses vs spells, dispel magic, spell resistance, etc to resist them.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

First things first: if psionics aren't affected by this wonky magic zone, does that mean you'll be using the optional rules for psionics and magic not being transparent? If so, psionic foes get slightly tougher, as PCs can't use bonuses vs spells, dispel magic, spell resistance, etc to resist them.

Good point.
No - in all other ways, psionics and magic are transparent, it'll just be that arcane and divine magic is messed with by the Plot, while psionics is not.

[Dimers]

Altair, you say you're using SRD? That means that you don't have access to Complete Psionic?

Summoning differs a lot between magic and psi. There's only one summoning spell in the SRD (astral construct); it can only summon one creature at a time, not d3 or d4+1; you give it special abilities while summoning based on your current needs; and if you use the Complete Psi rules, you can only have one astral construct summoned at a time.

Psionic and metapsionic feats are an important aspect of psi power, and most of them revolve around psionic focus. Some require you retain it; for others, you need to spend it. If you want to optimize your antagonists (and save yourself the big headache of remembering which bonuses apply when), don't mix the two. Design a character to always be psionically focused for constant bonuses, or to always take a moment to focus before using a psi/metapsi feat. For the latter type, the Psionic Meditation feat is almost necessary.

Deep crystal is a material that can add to damage for characters with power points. That stuff is great for a skirmishing fighting style, with one high-damage hit per round, especially when combined with Deep Strike or Fell Shot feat to turn a normal attack into a touch attack.

As Ecalsneerg noted, the PCs are likely to have a more difficult time fighting something like magic while much of their own buffing, healing and blasting magic fails. The lack of reliable healing means that combat could get lethal quickly, so be ready to impress that fact on the players. If the PCs know ahead of time what they're getting into, they might research, copy or pray for spells like psychic turmoil (in the "magic" part of the SRD, under "psionic spells"), which would hurt their foes without any chance of hurting themselves.

You can use manifesters' ability to manifest without display to ambush and confuse the PCs. They won't be able to tell where the power is coming from (and may very well guess wrong based on who's wearing armor, since armor doesn't interfere with psi). Given that psions can potentially "see in the dark" as well as any dragon (touchsight power > blindsight or blindsense), an ambush could be very effective.

You might also spice things up with a warlock. Sure, they can't invoke their powers reliably, but they can just try again the next round without penalty.

Finally, don't neglect the psi monsters. Crysmals could be used in a theft encounter (or could potentially be befriended, if your players do that kind of thing). You could homebrew something of a power level between thought eaters and thought slayers. Normal creatures with the phrenic template or with puppeteers riding them can become psionic foes. Udoroots and phthisics are other monstrous nasties that would thrive in areas where magic is unreliable but psi works fine.

[Rhiannon87]

A good way to figure out how to translate things over is to look at this: the description of all the psionic disciplines and what their magic school counterpart is.

As for enemy suggestions... one very fun and simple one is a Telepath/Thrallherd. Have the telepath learn metaconcert. Have them acquire a bunch of psions as believers. Watch as your save DCs go through the roof.

[Zaq]

If you have a Wilder (or a psion, I guess, but that's kind of mean) who uses the Vigor-Share Pain-Psicrystal trick, I guarantee that your party members will be rather pissed, unless they have either good dispelling (and it's a wilder, so that caster manifester level check will be up there) or some nice SoDs. It's a little bit nasty to put on low-level enemies, but a viable target for making the main bad less likely to be one-shotted.