Cerebremancer Advice? 3.5

[EENick]

Hey all,

My play group just bought a special level 1-15 adventure box set and we're all making new character planning to run through this adventure this summer. I'm planning working towards becoming a cerebremancer an arcane/wizard hybrid similar to the Mystic Thurge due to the long dungeon crawly nature of this adventure where having tons and tons of spells will really have a chance to shine.

I see a lot of potential for abuse like taking Telepthay to get Schism and then using it to cast stilled and silent spells as "purely mental actions". However I only recently got the Psionics rules so I was hoping some more experienced twinks might be able to offer some advice on making a cerebremancer and what some strong combinations are.

[Caliphbubba]

No real advise for cerebremancer per se, but you might want to consider the Reserve Feats from Complete Mage if you're worried about having enough juice to last throughout a long dungeoncrawl.

good luck

[2xMachina]

Don't need to still/silence the spells. You're a Cerebremancer. Use your Powers, as they're stilled and silent.

[Ranos]

The Cerebremancer is just another kind of mystic theurge, so the class itself has nothing to twink. As usual with mystic theurges, they are pretty weak, but with practiced manifester you'll be at least able to augment your powers to the level you ought to be able to.

The schism thing is doable, but pretty damn expensive in terms of feats and slots. When you're already a Cerebremancer, you really don't want to lose even more spell levels. As 2X said, just use your powers with the second mind and your spells with the first one.

[Fouredged Sword]

My first thought would be a wilder / sorcerer and take versitile spellcaster to get in early with one level of sorcerer. I think you can hit the spell reqs at 4th with "wilder 3 / sorcerer 1". The wilder lack of number of powers can be offset by the sorcerer acting as a utility caster. I would suggest that the wilder act as a damage dealer and leave the sorcerer casting for useful spells.

A Psion / Wizard is a great caster, but I don't know any method of early entry.

Note, there is a dificulty with a psion / arcane caster progresion, and that is they run off difrent feats. You can pick up ether metamagic or metapsionics. You really lack the feats for both. Pick one and go with it.

That being said, a psion is great at nova, and having that extra power from arcane casting in reserve for after you burn through your PP is great. Just make sure to avoid duplication. If you are a kinetisist, don't bother with damage spells, ect.

The idea of reserve feats is a good idea. Also I would emphisise the psionic CL over the magic one, thus the wilder / sor build. Utility spells don't need as much in the way of CL.

Also remember that you can manifest a power out of a power stone without burning it up. It isn't practical in combat, but a stone of teleport is a cheap way to ignore the fact that you aren't a nomad. It's a wilder's best friend.

[Darth Stabber]

1: Specialize (probably conj, but divination is good too) on the wizard side, and ban enchantment (and probably evocation) and for your discipline choose telepathy. The lack of enchantment will not hurt you since telepathy can do all the same, sometimes better.)

2: If allowed use precocious apprentice cheese, do so. (you are playing a theurge, it is not as cheesy as it would be in other builds)

3: When you pick powers and spells, you should choose powers based on likelyhood of frequent use, and then use the wizard side to fill in with effects you can't get otherwise. Specializing in divination keeps all of the cards on the table as far as wizarding goes, as long as you make telpath do most of the heavy lifting (and if you do use precocious apprentice cheese, it will just work out that way any way).

4: Int boosting items are even more important to you than normal wizards and psions. Since you are behind of spell/power level for your level, you will need your save DCs boosted through the roof if you are to be useful in a fight


5: As much as it pains me to say it, minimise your use of Expanded Knowledge. If you absolutly need an effect, there is a wizard spell out there that is probably as good if not better.

6: schism should be used to manifest psionic powers (since those are automatically silent and still, with out increasing the spell level, or burning feat slots), and then use your normal actions for spells. You probably want both quickens though (allowing you to become the machinegun of magic).

7: Getting a Psycrystal is far better than a familiar (Since it is based on manifester level as opposed to base class level). You may see if you can get your DM to waive your famliar for free psycrysal affinity, worth a shot anyway. Especially given that you can make your psycrystal concentrate on powers for you, leaving you free to do more stuff.

[2xMachina]

How much cheese can you tolerate?

For the Wilder/Sorc, go Loredrake Dragonwrought Kobold. It'll shore up 3 lvls of Sorc.

[EENick]

No real advise for cerebremancer per se, but you might want to consider the Reserve Feats from Complete Mage if you're worried about having enough juice to last throughout a long dungeoncrawl.

good luck

Thanks, maybe next time I get paid I'll try and get that book in PDF form.

The Cerebremancer is just another kind of mystic theurge, so the class itself has nothing to twink. As usual with mystic theurges, they are pretty weak, but with practiced manifester you'll be at least able to augment your powers to the level you ought to be able to.

The schism thing is doable, but pretty damn expensive in terms of feats and slots. When you're already a Cerebremancer, you really don't want to lose even more spell levels. As 2X said, just use your powers with the second mind and your spells with the first one.

Yea I know but my group doesn't want anything too powerful so the cerebremancer is a compromise.

Practiced manifester eh? That sounds pretty darn good! I'll have to get Complete Psionics too I guess.

My first thought would be a wilder / sorcerer and take versitile spellcaster to get in early with one level of sorcerer. I think you can hit the spell reqs at 4th with "wilder 3 / sorcerer 1". The wilder lack of number of powers can be offset by the sorcerer acting as a utility caster. I would suggest that the wilder act as a damage dealer and leave the sorcerer casting for useful spells.

A Psion / Wizard is a great caster, but I don't know any method of early entry.

*snip*

The idea of reserve feats is a good idea. Also I would emphisise the psionic CL over the magic one, thus the wilder / sor build. Utility spells don't need as much in the way of CL.

Also remember that you can manifest a power out of a power stone without burning it up. It isn't practical in combat, but a stone of teleport is a cheap way to ignore the fact that you aren't a nomad. It's a wilder's best friend.

Wait how does a level one Sorcerer meet the requirements? Wouldn't precocious apprentice work for a wizard getting them to the level 2 spell requirement?

Good point about the power stones.

1: Specialize (probably conj, but divination is good too) on the wizard side, and ban enchantment (and probably evocation) and for your discipline choose telepathy. The lack of enchantment will not hurt you since telepathy can do all the same, sometimes better.)

2: If allowed use precocious apprentice cheese, do so. (you are playing a theurge, it is not as cheesy as it would be in other builds)

3: When you pick powers and spells, you should choose powers based on likelyhood of frequent use, and then use the wizard side to fill in with effects you can't get otherwise. Specializing in divination keeps all of the cards on the table as far as wizarding goes, as long as you make telpath do most of the heavy lifting (and if you do use precocious apprentice cheese, it will just work out that way any way).

4: Int boosting items are even more important to you than normal wizards and psions. Since you are behind of spell/power level for your level, you will need your save DCs boosted through the roof if you are to be useful in a fight


5: As much as it pains me to say it, minimise your use of Expanded Knowledge. If you absolutly need an effect, there is a wizard spell out there that is probably as good if not better.

6: schism should be used to manifest psionic powers (since those are automatically silent and still, with out increasing the spell level, or burning feat slots), and then use your normal actions for spells. You probably want both quickens though (allowing you to become the machinegun of magic).

7: Getting a Psycrystal is far better than a familiar (Since it is based on manifester level as opposed to base class level). You may see if you can get your DM to waive your famliar for free psycrysal affinity, worth a shot anyway. Especially given that you can make your psycrystal concentrate on powers for you, leaving you free to do more stuff.

Seems like all pretty solid advice. I think I'll try asking me DM about psycrystal affinity. I think that might fly.

How much cheese can you tolerate?

For the Wilder/Sorc, go Loredrake Dragonwrought Kobold. It'll shore up 3 lvls of Sorc.

Hmmm I think that might be a bit much cheese for my party members, but it is still worth a try.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and advice. I apreciate everyone pointing out the pros and cons. I guess still and silent spell would be a bit much now that everyone points it out.

If anyone else has something else to suggest I'm all ears. I've been playing other roll playing games for a while now instead of 3.5 so learning about feats I hadn't heard about and getting some solid advice is a huge help.

[Claudius Maximus]

Cerebremancers can be very strong with early entry shenanigans and action economy boosters. Take powers like Schism, Synchronicity, temporal Acceleration and Anticipatory Strike and you can throw a huge number of spells and powers around in each round. Twinned Synchronicity in particular can result in great output.

As for early entry, Precocious Apprentice and Sanctum Spell are the easiest means.

[2xMachina]

There's also the PP refill tricks... but it's super cheese.

[Person_Man]

You probably already know this but don't care, but I think it's worth reiterating that beyond level 4 you will perpetually be 1 or 2 spell and power levels behind all of your friends. For example, at ECL 10, you will essentially be a Wizard 7//Psion 7. You will have 3rd level spells and powers, your friends will have 5th level spells/powers/maneuvers/etc. This will make you very weak and somewhat useless for much of the campaign.

If you are worried about running out of resources (which rarely actually happens, since you an just retreat and rest when needed via a variety of means) you may wish to consider any Tome of Battle class, or a Dragonfire Adept, Binder, Incarnate, or Totemist. All of the are much better "all day" classes.

[EENick]

Cerebremancers can be very strong with early entry shenanigans and action economy boosters. Take powers like Schism, Synchronicity, temporal Acceleration and Anticipatory Strike and you can throw a huge number of spells and powers around in each round. Twinned Synchronicity in particular can result in great output.

As for early entry, Precocious Apprentice and Sanctum Spell are the easiest means.

Yea I'm certainly not opposed to the idea of my character being what you would expect out of main character in a John Woo movie if he did fantasy instead of gritty martial arts.

I think I'd rather go with Precocious Apprentice over sanctum due to the nature of the adventure.

There's also the PP refill tricks... but it's super cheese.

Power Point refill tricks? By all means please elaborate good sir! I'd certainly like to hear about it even if my group isn't likely to go for it.

EDIT:

You probably already know this but don't care, but I think it's worth reiterating that beyond level 4 you will perpetually be 1 or 2 spell and power levels behind all of your friends. For example, at ECL 10, you will essentially be a Wizard 7//Psion 7. You will have 3rd level spells and powers, your friends will have 5th level spells/powers/maneuvers/etc. This will make you very weak and somewhat useless for much of the campaign.

If you are worried about running out of resources (which rarely actually happens, since you an just retreat and rest when needed via a variety of means) you may wish to consider any Tome of Battle class, or a Dragonfire Adept, Binder, Incarnate, or Totemist. All of the are much better "all day" classes.

I hear you but like I said, there are some internal group reasons for picking this particular class. It isn't that I don't care, it is just that there are other factors involved.

[Darth Stabber]

PP refill tricks tend to involve Psycarnum infusion and azure talent, and whatever those pp storage crystals are called (cognizance crystals I think). I don't remember the full trick, but it involves using some feats to generate a rediculous amount of PP that only lasts one round, then dumping them into a crystal where they won't dissappear since they were technically spent, and then having full access to them since they are now real PP as opposed to temp.

Also don't forget opportunity power for even more action economy abuse.

That is really what cerebramancer does best, with their doctorate in Action Economics. Manifesting/casting 7 times in a round is impressive, and cerebramance is one of the few classes that make it really doable. (Spell, quickened spell, Schism power, quickened schism power, opportunity power, last turn's twinned spell, last turn's twinned power). They may not have the highest level effects, but they resolve 1d6 encounters per round.

Feats that are basically needed for the build PHD in actions build
Quicken spell
Quicken Power
twinned power
twinned spell
psycrystal affinity
psycrystal containment
psionic meditation
opportunity power(optional, may not prove useful if people aren't provoking AOO from you, much better for psywar, also your psionic focus is at an extreme premium in this build)

[Yuki Akuma]

Don't be a Psion. Be an Ardent and take Practiced Manifester.

Maybe try early entry cheese on the arcane side, although I'm not entirely well versed in that. In either case, you'll have level 9s on one side, at least.

[Flickerdart]

Learn this spell. Use it whenever you're out of PP. It will give you a minimum of 33 power points, more with caster level cheese, and access to five powers.

[Keld Denar]

Mr Stabber, you are forgetting Linked Power (CPsionic) for even more action economy abuse. Remember kids, Torcs of Power Preservation are your friend! Squeeze in as many PP per action as you can! NOVA THE WORLD!

[Yuki Akuma]

Learn this spell. Use it whenever you're out of PP. It will give you a minimum of 33 power points, more with caster level cheese, and access to five powers.

Note that you can use these PP for any power you know, not just the ones granted by Mental Pinnacle.

[2xMachina]

Learn this spell. Use it whenever you're out of PP. It will give you a minimum of 33 power points, more with caster level cheese, and access to five powers.

Works best with StP Erudite.

And Erudite/Wizard/CM is quite good. Any spell/power. You have it.

Though StP Erudite/Wizard/(some Psionic/divine dual prog) has EVERYTHING. Powers, check. Divine, check. Arcane spells in power form, check. Arcane spells in divine form, check.

[Darth Stabber]

If we are adding more meta psionics to the build- keep in mind that those all require a psifocus, and you can generate one of those per round, and you and your psicrystal together can hold 2. I think adding more will feat starve the poor guy, since he would have to try to come up with more focus cheese too. Forgot about mental pinnacle, but yes you need it in this build, hard, the 5 shiny new powers are just icing.

We have the engine now, what do we want to use for killing?

[Keld Denar]

Alternatively, StP Erudite/Archivist/PsychicTheurge.

Powers? Check. Wizard spells? Check. Cleric spells? Check. Druid spells? Check. Ranger spells? Check. Paladin spells? Check. Divine Bard spells? Check. Spells as powers? Check.

That leaves off the Assassin list and the Wujen list. Awwwwww.

BTW, can a StP Erudite get Sorcerer-only spells like Arcane Fusion or Arcane Spellsurge? Cause that would be...wow.

[Ranos]

Don't be a Psion. Be an Ardent and take Practiced Manifester.

Maybe try early entry cheese on the arcane side, although I'm not entirely well versed in that. In either case, you'll have level 9s on one side, at least.

I can't believe I forgot about the Ardent. Definitely do this.

[Darth Stabber]

Human Wizard(diviner, ban ench)1/psion(telepath)3/CerebremancerX

Flaw - Loner (no familiar, from Dragon Magazine)

Feats
1st - Precocious Apprentice, quicken spell(human), repeat spell(flaw)
2nd - psionic Meditaion(bonus feat)
3rd - psycrystal affinity
6th - quicken power
9th - psycrystal containment
12th - linked power
15th - twinned spell
18th - twinned power

This is not not as cheesy as it could get but it does allow for 18th level spell supernova, depending on availability of any kind of metamagic reducer. Since you can have spells that cast twice in a round and twice again in the next round. Any your schism based psionic powers are adding to that machine gun rate of fire.

Assuming that schism and meta magic/psionics are your only accelerators

-Last turn's twinned linked power (2)

-Last turn's twinned repeated spell (4),

-This turns Quickened spell (5)

-This turn's twinned spell (7)

-This turns twinned power(9),

-This turn's quickened power (10)

and there you go 10 spells/powers in a single turn.

And keep in mind there are alot of other powers/spells that can add to this, It is always rather interesting to run completely of ouf spells in 1 combat after casting all of them within 4 rounds. The biggest limiter to this is psionic focus. If you can find another way to keep generating them as a non-action, you can keep the above rate of fire up for a few turns as opposed to just one nova, and that only really limits psionics, spells are uneffected.

[Keld Denar]

You could also add last turns scism twinned linked power and this turns scism twinned power. If you don't take Loner as your flaw, you could have your familiar cast a quickened and normal spell with imbue with spell ability.

Granted, you'll probably have burned through all of your PP and most of your spell slots, but I'll be damned if thats not a huge load of dakka.

[Person_Man]

I hear you but like I said, there are some internal group reasons for picking this particular class. It isn't that I don't care, it is just that there are other factors involved.

Out of curiosity, what are the other factors? I never question someone who says, "Yes I know this sucks, but I really want to use such and such ability and/or the fluff is exactly what I want and I don't like re-fluffing other classes." But there's really no compelling mechanic or story that I can think of behind a Psion/Wizard that couldn't be accomplished by a single class version of either.

[EENick]

@Darth Stabber: Wow that is impressive, 10 spells a round sounds pretty good to me. If you worked expanded knowledge into there somehow to pick up fission couldn’t you just alternate between yourself and your copy each round one of your going nova and the other spending the round recovering focus?

@Yuki Akuma: Ardent? I know they are some sort of psi-warrior right? I’ll have to look into them, I’m not sure if they would really mesh later on with a d4 hit dice and other class features of the cerebremancer but then again maybe with all the psi feats I could just take that feat which gives you two hit points each time you take a psi feat.

@Flickerdart: That is amazing!

@Keld Denar: I think we would already blow psi-focus on quicken and twin which give full damage rather than half.

@Keld Denar/2xMachina: I can see that, particularly with the Archivist combo for a PychicTheurge (which since it is about the same as a Cerebremancer should be okay with my group). But how many PP do Erudite’s get? I think I’d probably not want to go for a 10 spell a turn build if I didn’t have the PP to sustain it and instead focus on being the Swiss army knife of PCs. And yes that is a lot of dakka.

@Ranos: I’ll have to look into the complete psionic to read up on the ardent vs the Erudite vs just being a Psion. I admit the idea of being able to cast almost any spell or power does seem pretty appealing provided it won’t leave me a one encounter wonder (but the MP trick should take care of that provided I can get my hands on the needed potions) so I’m rather thinking that might be the way to go right now.

@Person_man: Oh well it is less RP then group politics. The group I’m joining is sort of sick of wizards taking the lead (apparently before I joined for this new adventure the wizards had pretty much taken over the game and the other players were rather board with what was supposed to be an epic conflict) so they asked if everyone would be willing to pick up a second class of some sort to give the other players a chance to shine and we all agreed to give it a try at least for this game hence why I’m employing the under power Cerebremancer or now possibly the psychicthurge. In short caster were all asked if we would take this particular handicap for the sake of the whole group having fun and I agreed to give it a try and just see if I couldn’t twink back up to par or better.

They described it as Arthur questing for Excalibur to confront his foes only for Merlyn to say “a sword how quaint” and teleport in behind Mordread and nuke ‘em.

Thanks again for all the feedback and advice everyone.

[2xMachina]

Erudite gets Psion's PP. The difference is that it has Unique Powers per Day rather than a power's known limit. Pick blasty powers on Erudite, and Utility on Archivist.

Use the Mental Pinnacle trick to refill PP.

[Fouredged Sword]

Ardent is more like a cleric with domains you manifest from. I would read ardent very carefuly for the rules, becuse you may only take powers from your mantels, and you gain new mantels from ardent levels. You wouldn't gain any more mantels after you started another class or PRC, and that will sharply restrict the powers you can manifest. If you can find all the powers you need in two mantels go for it, otherwise don't.

You do gain domain like boosts from the mantels though.

You also run into a wiz/int or wiz/cha split for casting stats insted of a int/int or cha/cha.

In response to your question about getting sorcerer to meet the ability to cast 2nd level spell requierments at 1st level.

VERSATILE SPELLCASTER - page 101 Races of the Dragon.

You can use two lower-level spell slots to cast a spell one
level higher.
Prerequisite: Ability to spontaneously cast spells.
Benefi t: You can use two spell slots of the same level to
cast a spell you know that is one level higher. For example,
a sorcerer with this feat can expend two 2nd-level spell
slots to cast any 3rd-level spell he knows

You can use two of your first level spell slots to cast a second level spell. Therefore you can cast a second level spell.

I would strongly suggest you not take a caster mix class without some form of early entry. Being one level of manifestation behind everyone is worth also having arcane casting of level-3. You still have equle levels of powers half the time. If both are three levels behind than not so much.

[Ranos]

@Ranos: I’ll have to look into the complete psionic to read up on the ardent vs the Erudite vs just being a Psion. I admit the idea of being able to cast almost any spell or power does seem pretty appealing provided it won’t leave me a one encounter wonder (but the MP trick should take care of that provided I can get my hands on the needed potions) so I’m rather thinking that might be the way to go right now.

The interesting thing with ardents is that their powers known are not based on class level, but on manifester level. That means you get to manifest powers of a level equal to a full psion, even if you lose up to 4 levels to multiclassing. Wizard 3/Ardent 1/Cerebremancer X ends up with double nines at 20, only losing one level of casting on the wizard side. Doing that makes you end up with less PP and less variety of powers though, but the level of your powers is usually much more important.

They described it as Arthur questing for Excalibur to confront his foes only for Merlyn to say “a sword how quaint” and teleport in behind Mordread and nuke ‘em.

I'm afraid you're not going to solve this problem by just switching classes. D&D 3.5 is not the system for low-magic campaigns. The Arthurian/Conan/LOTR kind of stories just don't work.

Ardent is more like a cleric with domains you manifest from. I would read ardent very carefuly for the rules, becuse you may only take powers from your mantels, and you gain new mantels from ardent levels. You wouldn't gain any more mantels after you started another class or PRC, and that will sharply restrict the powers you can manifest. If you can find all the powers you need in two mantels go for it, otherwise don't.

Thankfully, you get to cherry pick your powers, as long as they all fit into the theme of the mantle. Yay for substitute powers.

[Claudius Maximus]

VERSATILE SPELLCASTER - page 101 Races of the Dragon.

You can use two lower-level spell slots to cast a spell one
level higher.
Prerequisite: Ability to spontaneously cast spells.
Benefi t: You can use two spell slots of the same level to
cast a spell you know that is one level higher. For example,
a sorcerer with this feat can expend two 2nd-level spell
slots to cast any 3rd-level spell he knows

You can use two of your first level spell slots to cast a second level spell. Therefore you can cast a second level spell.

That won't cut it on its own. You need to be able to cast a 2nd level spell with that slot to qualify for things. Heighten Spell mixed in will satisfy the requirement since you can use it on a 1st level spell using the 2nd level slot, making an actual 2nd level spell.

Alternatively, Warmages, Dread Necromancers, and Beguilers can actually cast higher level spells than normal with Versatile Spellcaster since they know all spells on their list at all times, but lack slots.

[Ranos]

Alternatively, Warmages, Dread Necromancers, and Beguilers can actually cast higher level spells than normal with Versatile Spellcaster since they know all spells on their list at all times, but lack slots.

So you can use advanced learning to get a spell of a level higher than you can cast as well ? That could be interesting.