Tashalatora Racial Selection

[cartejos]

The build: Monk 2/Psychic Warrior 10/Slayer 8

Draconic Illumian is the race I thought would work best, recovering 2 of the 3 lost caster levels.

The build is using beast strike, INA, and SUS and a monks belt to max out unarmed damage by 20

My feat layout is:
1: improved initiative
M1: IUS; Monastic Training
M2: Beast Strike
3: Tashalatora
PW1: Psicrystal affinity
PW2: Psychic meditation
6: Power attack
pW5: INA
9: Snap kick
Pw:8 leap attack
12: track
15: extra power(???)
18: SUS



My main question was is there a race that is good enough to replace 1 feat to make up for caster levels
Starting level: 6, +1 la buy-off already assumed to have taken place

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Instead of Improved Natural Attack, buy a fanged ring, which grants it to you via a magic item; it also grants Con damage on a crit. Maybe replace with Supernatural Transformation (Psionics)? Removes SR as a concern, prevents AoOs when you manifest, and it boosts your ML up to your HD.

Also, try to find a high level psion to manifest psychic chirurgery for money, to teach you powers that way. Invest in one of the many and varied ways to regenerate power points for additional stamina.

Perhaps consider going dragonborn warforged? Takes away your body armor and slam, but you can wear normal armor. See about taking Ancestral Relic, as well. Maybe for a psychoactive skin of proteus?

[Gruftzwerg]

SUS and Monk's Belt (also Monk's Tattoo) don't stack with each other.
1) The rules never did give you permission to stack anything here. It is not a bonus ("a modifier to a dice roll") and thus you lack the permission by the rules to stack it.
2) Further, all these effects let you count as monk of X lvls higher for the purpose of the mentioned effect, but your monk lvls don't change. Thus all abilities start with your normal monk lvls as base to calculate.
SUS: monk lvls + 4
Monk's Tattoo: monk lvls + 4
Monk's Belt: monk lvls + 5
Total monk ability progression increase: +5

But there is one other option to increase your monk progression that can stack with one(!) of the options above (best with monks belt due to the +5). And that is the Fist of the Forest prc. FoF gives you "one step of progression" for your monks unarmed strike ability (not the same effect as to count X lvls higher and thus do stack normally). If you take all 3 lvls of FoF you get a second step of increase.
If you wanna hit 20 lvls of progression:
7 lvl of monk ability progress by (pr)class progression + 5 from Monk's Belt + 2 steps from 3 lvls of FoF
or
11 lvl of monk ability progress by (pr)class progression + 5 from Monk's Belt + 1 step from 1 lvl of FoF


Other option would be to go the UMD route:
UMD a Monk's Belt and pretend to be a higher lvl monk: UMD roll -20 (penalty for the roll) + 5 from Monk's Belt

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Human or Strongheart (Water) Halfling with Practiced Manifester accomplishes the same thing as Illumian, only better.

Mineral Warrior is generally among the best +1 LA template for a melee character. An even better one is Half-Minotaur, but don't expect your DM to allow it.

[Maat Mons]

Monk's Tattoo (Magic of Faerun) is an 80,000-gp, slotless item that gives +4 Monk levels for unarmed damage (and speed and AC). When you consider that 11 "monk" levels are required to max out Flurry of Blows, I feel like the total +9 levels given by Monk's Tattoo and Monk's Belt are a great way to cap out your progression.

For the 11 "monk" levels, remember that psionic prestige classes are in fact psionic classes. So you can choose them for Tashalatora as the class that stacks with Monk. So Monk 1 + psionic PrC 10 is an option for maxing out Flurry of Blows.

Lesser Drow with the Lolth-Touched template isn't bad for +1 LA. Lolth-Touched gives +6 Str and +6 Con, which compensates for the -2 Con from Lesser Drow. Half-Drow might also be a plausible-enough base race for the Lolth-Touched template.

The Primordial template applied to a Half-Giant or Eneko would get you some nice mental ability scores.

If I recall, the Gheden template makes you immune to nonlethal damage for +1 LA. And the Troll-Blooded feat converts everything except Acid and Fire into nonlethal damage.

Is Power Attack much good in an unarmed build? Your returns are only going to be half of what a two-handed build would get.

I'd be tempted to switch out Psychic Warrior for Ardent. You'd need to take Expanded Knowledge to gain access to Claws of the Beast, and you wouldn't get bonus feats like Psychic Warrior gives, but you'd have way more power points.

[cartejos]

To my knowledge the usefulness of a dragonborn warforged would come fron taking Mithral or Adamantine body at 1st level? Which wouldnt do much for a monk.

Human: +1 feat/+1 skill point: loses 1 less caster level than illumian and gets an extra skill point per level, because the bonus feat is eaten by PM; I believe I prefer the Illumian

Mineral warrior over draconic: Id lose my natural claws and may have to rework beast strike. But mineral warrior is definitely strong

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

There's also Feral in SS, which gets claws and a bite and even boosts Wis.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

To my knowledge the usefulness of a dragonborn warforged would come fron taking Mithral or Adamantine body at 1st level? Which wouldnt do much for a monk.

Dragonborn warforged lose their body armor, which normally costs a feat. They also lose their slams and -2 Dex. These are all they lose. They get to keep all those wonderful abilities from their type (which, incidentally, gives all of the benefits of the construct type that aren't overridden by the living construct subtype or their class levels; that's a lot of REALLY nice abilities) and the aforementioned subtype. They also gain the obvious benefits of the dragonborn template.

You don't have to take the X-Body feats if you don't want to. The benefits of dragonborn warforged are many, varied, and some of the absolute best you can gain for a 0 LA creature. Plus, you're literally a robotic dragon-man. How awesome is that?

The most unfortunate part is that the warforged's body armor doesn't count as actual armor, and yet it can be magically (or psionically) enhanced as such. So just wear a shirt you can enhance, instead. Can be enhanced as armor but doesn't count as armor otherwise. Note that armor can't be enchanted because it's immune to [mind-affecting] effects.

The OP may want to look into the psychic warrior's online ACFs. Mantled warrior is good because it allows you to choose additional powers from other lists and gain the mantle's power. (Natural World mantle is my favorite for access to metamorphosis.) Soulbound weapon is also fantastic, since it allows you to summon a fully modifiable weapon that is highly versatile and incredibly useful. Feel free to add aptitude, sizing, morphing, and metalline to the thing, as needed.

As far as the psywar's low power point count, there are lots and lots (and lots!) of ways to regen pp, and quite a few ways to mitigate usage. Look into them and see which ones you want to use. My favorite is the powerleech weapon quality, from Lost Empires of Faerun, for +8,000 gp. Add it to a +1 sap, give your psicrystal a [host] feat (and no power points), and whack your psicrystal with your sap to refill your pp pool. Doesn't hurt your psicrystal (immune to nonlethal damage), doesn't actually drain your psicrystal's psi-like abilities (or pp, since it doesn't have any), and yet it refills your pool since powerleech activates "on a hit" instead of when dealing damage.

You'll also want to use the Natural World mantle's access to metamorphosis to craft a psychoactive skin of proteus for use with the Ancestral Relic feat. See the quote for some really nice ways to optimize this:

Here're a few:

Let Me Touch Your Skin
So, find someone who can create and install illithid grafts (LoM). No, illithids are not a good idea here, because you'll wake up without a brain. Try a relatively trustworthy shapeshifter who can take the form of an illithid, or destroy the mind of an illithid and then use one of the myriad ways of inhabiting its body and do it yourself; those are much better ideas. Have 'em put you (or your body, at least) under for a few weeks (best done in quintessence) and remove your skin, turning it into an illithid humanoid skin graft. Now, ensure it's preserved via gentle repose or similar, and then enhance it as a magic item or twenty, which will take up your magic item slots, (?)(un)fortunately(?). Then reinstall.

My favorite is the below WoC sanctified psychoactive skin of proteus, with a built-in 'possum pouch that is itself enhanced as a handy haversack + sanctified enveloping pit (for a 10' x 10' x 50' haversack), with hands that act like gloves of the master strategist to shrink items and auto-store them in your pouch.

Now you're a shapeshifter who has his own video game inventory.

Holy Psychoactive Skin, Batman!
Use the Words of Creation (WoC) feat on a sanctified psychoactive skin of proteus. Now you've got +1 ML for fairly cheap on it, and you can use it to turn into creatures of 8 HD or lower. This works well for any psionic or magic item, really, but on the skin of proteus it's especially valuable.

[ezekielraiden]

I would think a reason to be at least cautious about Dragonborn Warforged is that, while you get +4 Con on the net, you are saddled with -2 Dex/Wis/Cha, which is not ideal. Livable, especially with the benefits of being a construct, but not something done lightly.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I would think a reason to be at least cautious about Dragonborn Warforged is that, while you get +4 Con on the net, you are saddled with -2 Dex/Wis/Cha, which is not ideal. Livable, especially with the benefits of being a construct, but not something done lightly.

If you're willing to put an odd number into your Wis, Cha, Str, Dex, and Con, you could go Middle-Aged, gain a +1 to Wis (and Int and Cha) and take a -1 to Str, Dex, and Con, and not lower any ability mods. You'd lose some carrying capacity, and that's it.

[Yael]

SUS and Monk's Belt (also Monk's Tattoo) don't stack with each other.

It's not like any DM will forbid stacking those effects. On top that they are expensive, they progress unarmed strike, for a monk class feature. The joke tells itself.

[Gruftzwerg]

It's not like any DM will forbid stacking those effects. On top that they are expensive, they progress unarmed strike, for a monk class feature. The joke tells itself.

I just pointed out what RAW and in this chase even what RAI is. What the player and his table does make of that is their thing, not mine^^

I just felt the need to point it out, to prevent misinformation about how the rules work. That's all.

edit: I even showed how you can easily get 20lvls of monk progression without even a single lvl: with UMD and Monk's Belt/Tattoo.

[Anthrowhale]

Tashalatora works off of levels in a psionic class, not manifester level.

Something like Monk 2/Spell to Power Erudite 18 seems interesting. You could pick up Wraithstrike to always hit and Greater Mighty Wallop to do substantial damage.

[Kaleph]

The build: Monk 2/Psychic Warrior 10/Slayer 8

Why slayer? Wouldn't PsyWar 18 be better? You would spare track, SUS, get bonus feats and you wouldn't loose 1 ML...

[cartejos]

If I remember correctly, slayer was to hit the 16 bab benchmark

[Kaleph]

If I remember correctly, slayer was to hit the 16 bab benchmark

Oh, you're right, that's quite obvious. The problem is that I've personally never missed the 4th attack with a psychic warrior, probably because I always relate it to the "claw of the beast" approach. But for a IUS build it could be different. Maybe.

[freduncio]

Sorry if this sound obvious to y'all, but how are you getting Beast Strike with your monk bonus feat?

[Kaleph]

Sorry if this sound obvious to y'all, but how are you getting Beast Strike with your monk bonus feat?

Through the "martial monk" ACF of dragon #310?

[cartejos]

Its one of the options for Monk Fighting Styles, Way of the Shackled Beast

[Kaleph]

Its one of the options for Monk Fighting Styles, Way of the Shackled Beast

Ain't the way of the shackled beast shifter only? That's what I get through a quick google-fu.

[cartejos]

No? Its from Dr355, and while the flavor mentions shifters it doesnt seem to require you to be one.

In a similar vein, isnt Hit and Run tactics for fighter under "Drow Fighter" but lacks requirements so people tend to argue you dont have to be drow?