Aberrant Mind Sorlock: A Renaissance Man

[Merudo]

I've made a list of your recommended Psychic Spells:

Dissonant Whispers, Arms of Hadar -> Sleep -> Hex
Detect Thoughts, Calm Emotions -> Hold Person -> Suggestion
Sending, Hunger of Hadar -> Enemies Abound
Black Tentacles, Summon Aberration -> Arcane Eye
Telepathic Bond -> Synaptic Static, Telekinesis -> Modify Memory

[borg286]

I've made a list of your recommended Psychic Spells:

Dissonant Whispers, Arms of Hadar -> Sleep -> Hex
Detect Thoughts, Calm Emotions -> Hold Person -> Suggestion
Sending, Hunger of Hadar -> Enemies Abound
Black Tentacles, Summon Aberration -> Arcane Eye
Telepathic Bond -> Synaptic Static, Telekinesis -> Modify Memory

To provide reasoning for these choices:
Arms of Hadar is available through warlock and is a poor substitute for fireball. Sleep is only good for a handful of levels. Hex cast psionically is amazing.
Psionic Suggestion is also build defining. I recognize that it overlaps with the Yuan-ti's suggestion, but if figured that there is a fair chance that a lurker's DM wouldn't allow this powerful race, so I figured I should fit in the spell somewhere.
Hunger of Hadar is a great spell, and seems better than Enemies Abound as you'd be taking out more enemies with the AoE. But I felt that with Sickening Radiance and Evards black tentacles there was sufficient coverage for AoE. And Hunger of Hadar only imposed Blindness as long as they were in the area with not much keeping targets from simply running out of the area. The damage is meh, and there wasn't much to lock down foes. The buff effects are nice, but are only beneficial if the monster is at the edge of the zone. Enemies Abound can be twinned and used in a social situation, and has a slight healing aspect. It pulls attacks off the team and onto the enemy. It has the possibility of getting a dragon to take out his own army with a 9d6 cone.
Telekinesis, while it seems to be highly rated by many people, just didn't feel as powerful as Modify Memory when combined with Psionic Sorcery. This build already has enough hard control spells, and I figured that by mentioning the spell many people would recognize its power and stick with it, or see my selection of Modify Memory and opt for that. Killing Telepathic Bond for Synaptic Static just seems like an obvious choice. I do regret that I don't have fireball at a much earlier level, but that would have required bumping out a 3rd level spell known when there is so much contention at those early levels, and fitting in Transmuted metamagic at Sorcerer level 10 to keep its expected damage up (knowing that fire resistance becomes more common). I ended up just staying happy with Synaptic Static as a 5th level spell (which only costs 2 spell points more than fireball) and trying to make due with other blaster spells to tie me over (see Arms of Hadar and Thunderwave).

[borg286]

I switched a couple things around after having practiced this build a bit more.
The Staff of the Python is sooo good. The damage mitigation is nearly broken. 60 HP is very tanky for a CR 1 monster, but quite broken considering you can simply revert it to staff form then delete all the damage it took. It is Huge, which makes its presence on the battlefield quite an attractive target for the monsters to attack. The no-contest grapple lets this Giant Constrictor Snake drag foes away which thus give them no better target to attack than the snake. This one snake has prevented so much damage that would have gone to the party.

I switched Enemies Abound for Clairvoyance as the utility offered far outweighs the potential offensive power of Enemies Abound. While Enemies Abound can be twinned and targets Int, the range and concentration just make it less attractive compared with your other firepower.

I also switched to keeping Summon Aberration as I've seen the light for damage mitigation done by tasty targets on the battlefield, especially if it looks threatening. While I don't like the low HP from Summon Aberration, if the DM never gives you a Staff of the Python or you fear the snake taking enough damage to kill it, then you'll want the throwaway summon instead.

I'm playing this build in 2 games, one starting at 5th level and another starting at 8th level. It really is performing quite well. This build really rewards you mastering your spell list. Having 10 cantrips really expands your potential out of combat. My DM doesn't have us making critical skill checks all that often, but if they did I can see myself throwing my sorcery points into Magical Guidance to be the skill monkey.
In one group I use Spell points, which is super nice and fluid. You really need to master your spells well to get the most out of using your spell points optimally, but if you do, wow it makes you capable of doing a nova and stretching yourself on a long day.
In the other group I use traditional spell slots, and you have to do more of a balancing act, but it is also fun trying to optimize how you'll keep 1 spell slot open just in case. As an Aberrant Mind you have 4 spells to throw at your last slot in each level.

[Coil]

Ended up making a similar build, except with the Warforged race instead. Reached lvl 3 before I thought to look this up, this will definitely be helpful for deciding what spells I end up taking.

[borg286]

I updated this build with an awesome new spell, Raulothim's Psychic Lance. The Aberrant Mind's 4th level spells were in dire need of some Enchantment/Divination spells to replace Summon Aberration. While Summon Aberration lasts a long time, it just didn't provide the same umph as the other spells. The renaissance man lacked direct damage spells, especially since we had to give up Scorching Ray at level 8. This spell is so much more powerful because we do decent damage, but with an Int save. This effectively doubles the damage as it is almost never saved compared to Dex saves or Con saves.

This spell also has great Nova and Control capability due to Incapacitated being an invitation for allies to do crits. You basically pick 2 foes and invite the party to dogpile them.

I also updated the 3rd level Aberrant swap to be Clairvoyance. This is a wonderful utility spell that is likely to see more use than Enemies Abound. After playing this character at 8-9th level, Enemies Abound is really crappy.

A cool use of Sending was in conjunction with Detect Thoughts. You use Detect Thoughts to get familiarity with someone that some target knows and thinks about due to you bringing up that person. Then use the throughts you gleaned to justify the "familiarity" clause in Sending. Your DM may not grant the familiarity that Sending needs, so YMMV.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: Thread Necromancy is also an aberration