Please help me optimize my Psion

[Kilmrak]

Like it says in the title, I have a level 3 psion and it being my first psionic character I need help optimizing it. I am playing in a homebrew world my friend devised and it is pretty dangerous so require a pretty high level of optimization.

I would really appreciate a feat progression and advice on which powers to choose. All books allowed, pathfinder feat progression and max HP every level.

I am a Dwarf
My stats are:
14
16
13
18
14
12

Thanks in advance for the help.

[JeminiZero]

Exactly how optimized do you want it to be? The most powerful Psion, is the Spells to Power Erudite, in essence a Wizard/Archivist pretending to be a Psion.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

There's also infinite power point loops out there, if you want to get ridiculous. Psions are crazy-good at Nova.

[Draz74]

Chances are, even in a high-optimization game, you probably don't need cheese like Spell-to-Power Erudite or infinite loops to excel as a Psion. You may not even need to Feat Leech your piscrystal (which may or may not be considered cheese, depending on your group).

Do you know what Discipline you want to specialize in? Some of them have pretty different playstyles. Egoist is mostly for if you want to be a gish or a healer. Seer is if you want to control the game with crazy divinations. Kineticist is if you want to be a hard-core blaster (though it also has some other cool tricks). Shaper is if you want to be a summoner and have your PP go a little further than usual. Telepath is if you want to Batman it up. Shaper and Telepath are probably the most well-rounded overall. Nomad has some fun teleportation tricks, but overall I think it's got the least to offer for a well-rounded character.

Regardless of specialization, most Psions will want the following feats:

Psicrystal Affinity, Psicrystal Containment, Overchannel, Talented, Psionic Meditation, Linked Power (CPsi), and at least one or two Expanded Knowledges. (Hidden Talent, if allowed, can should substitute for one of the Expanded Knowledges.) Once you have all of those, there are still plenty more you'd like to have.

Note that any optimized Psion should pick up Share Pain and Vigor; with a Psicrystal, these two powers let him make himself very hard to kill with HP damage.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I think Share Pain + Vigor + Psicrystal should be mentioned again, just because it's so good. Share Pain on your Psicrystal, so damage taken by either of you is split between you. Remember that the Psicrystal has Hardness 8, so any hit for 17 or less on you will just get reduced by half and the psicrystal won't even feel it. Vigor gives you 5 HP per powerpoint, and you can share it with the psicrystal so it too gets 5 HP per powerpoint. With Share Pain active this effectively gives you a 10 HP per powerpoint cushion before you even start taking any actual damage. If your character is an Elan with the feat Improved Elan Resilience you can spend powerpoints to prevent damage to yourself at a rate of 4 HP per powerpoint, which helps quite a bit when Vigor isn't up. Just be careful not to run yourself out of powerpoints with all of these defenses.

Shaper with the Personal Construct ACF is pretty good. Make an Astral Construct to do your fighting, maybe throw around a power or two but let that thing do most of the work for you. With Overchannel + Talented you can make it stronger a little sooner. At 5th level your most frequently created astral construct will be only a swift action to manifest, rather than taking a full round before appearing on the following turn. Take the feat Boost Construct and it gets even more useful. If you get Ectopic Form: Emerald Gyre even a 1st level construct will have a Menu B ability, so Boost Construct will give it either another Munu B or two Menu A abilities, so it's extremely strong for a low cost and at a low level. Later on Emerald Gyre won't be as useful so you can use Psychic Reformation to swap it out.

I'd go Shaper 6/ Constructor 9, but I haven't touched psionics in so long I can't even think of something to finish the build with. Just try not to lose more than one more level of manifesting, and you'll probably want to get Practiced Manifester at some point. Get Boost Construct and Psicrystal Affinity at 1st level, Overchannel and Talented if you can take flaws, Ectopic Form: Emerald Gyre at 3rd, Personal Construct at 5th, Psionic Meditation at 6th, and Overchannel if you don't already have it or Expanded Knowledge for Hustle (2nd, Psychic Warrior list) at 9th.

At your 10th level you'll get 5th level powers, you should pick Psychic Reformation and immediately manifest it, repicking your skills, powers, and feats from 3rd-10th level. Get rid of Ectopic Form, you want to have both Overchannel and Talented so if you couldn't use flaws you should put those at 3rd and 9th, if you had one flaw for Overchannel put Talented at 3rd, and if you had two flaws just take Practiced Manifester. Also get rid of Psychic Reformation and pick a new 5th level power known. Every time you level up you should get at least one new power, if you ever want to change anything just get Psychic Reformation when you level up and then use it to repick itself and whatever else you want.

[Kilmrak]

thanks, the advice has been pretty helpful so far. I want the optimization to be high but not infinite loop type stuff though (What is going "nova" anyway). In case it matters I am a Kineticist.

[Endarire]

My Warforged Shaper/Constructor

I like the notion of malleable astral constructs. "Summoning" them means I spend less PP in battle, since Psions must pay by the manifester level.

Note that everyone gets damage powers, though energy missile and energy ball are generally the best in the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Not everyone gets astral construct or hustle. You can get powers from other disicpline or class lists via the feat Expanded Knowledge, or with independent power research.

d20SRD.org's psionics section has most of what you need. It is also wise to ask, "What is the most powerful psionic power?" This link only covers SRD psionics.

"Going nova" has two meanings.
1: Using your best abilities in a very short time span, like a fully augmented energy missile, schism->synchronicity->energy missile, Belt of Battle->energy missile.

2: Spending lots of resources (especially your best) in short succession.