Psychic Warrior Help! Please!

[Akennedy]

Hey all, I was just wondering if anyone could give me a helping hand with a character I'm making.
Also, sorry if this isn't worthy of it's own thread, I didn't know where else I could post it, and my wizards account isn't working... Grr...

I am having a hard time picking and choosing my powers known. I currently have Call Weapon, Expansion, and Force Screen. I'm about go to 2nd level powers and thoroughly confused what power I should take. I'm guessing this campaign will get to around level 10, and I was wondering if you, as a people could help me pick and choose my powers to level 10. This is going to be my feat build:
1:Combat Expertise
1:Imp. Trip
2:Power Attack
3:Dodge
5:Karmic Strike
6:Combat Reflexes
8:Mobility
9:Elusive Target

I'm an Elan and I'm often going to be using a glaive (which my party allows for trips) and a halberd.
I think these would make for a good combination:
1:Expansion
2:Force Screen
3:Call Weapon (To later be changed with Precognition, Offensive[via retraining])
4:Strength of my Enemy
5:Body Adjustment
6:Hustle/Animal Affinity
7:Vampiric Blade
8:Greater Concealing Amorpha
9:Dimension Slide
10:Lion's Charge, Psionic
Well, armed with that information, what can you tell me about what powers I should take? Or do those powers seem workable/good?
Help, Please!

[martyboy74]

Feats: Are you sure about Improved Trip? Stand Still works just almost as well, but without preqs. If you do that, put Combat Reflexes in instead of Combat Expertise. Also, why Mobility?

Powers: Why'd Precognition, Offensive? There are generally mosre efficient things that you can do. Vigor + Empathic Transfer allows for fairly efficient healing of allies.

Other than that, you seem to have a fairly good idea of your concept. Strength of My Enemy could work very well if you end up as a battlefield controller.

[Akennedy]

@ martyboy - Improved trip because it's great with expansion. So, when it's my turn, after I expand, I can trip like a mad man! Also, it helps all my other fellow melee'rs giving the opponent -4 ac for being prone. And forgot to mention, body adjustment was houseruled so it can target my friends too, not just me! (sorry ) The reason I have Precog, Offensive, is so my attack bonus and rival a fighter's when I need it too.

[Lemur]

@^ Mobility is a prereq for Elusive Target. Also, Combat Expertise is necessary for Karmic Strike as well, so going for Improved Trip is okay (although Stand Still is still pretty good for stopping people). I would switch the placement of Karmic Strike and Combat Reflexes, since Karmic Strike isn't quite as useful without it, and of course, you have to by RAW (KS isn't considered a fighter bonus feat).

However, I agree about getting Vigor. It's better for you than either Call Weapon or Offensive Precognition. If used properly, it's also more efficient than Body Adjustment, which would lead me to suggest Body Purification instead, if you're looking for a restorative power. Also, I'd go for Hustle over Animal Affinity.

[Telok]

I think these would make for a good combination:
1:Expansion
2:Force Screen
3:Call Weapon (To later be changed with Precognition, Offensive[via retraining]
4:Strength of my Enemy
5:Body Adjustment
6:Hustle/Animal Affinity
7:Vampiric Blade
8:Greater Concealing Amorpha
9:Dimension Slide
10:Lion's Charge, Psionic

If you're replacing Call Weaponry and plan on playing a full campaign you may want to think about taking Catfall or Float. Those powers are rarely useful, but potentially lifesaving. I'd consider taking Empathic Transfer, Hostile instead of Vampritic Blade. It's a touch for 50 damage/healing and Will half instead of standard attacks for 1d10/2 for ten rounds. There are always times when one will be better than the other, you'll just have to anticipate what you'll be running into.

[Talic]

Personally, I prefer Improved trip. Getting up provokes, and when you have reach, makes for much fun. In addition, the rest of the melee people in the party benefit from prone peoples, and you get the followup ouch.

Prone + hurt is better than standing where you're at, IMO.

[tyckspoon]

Personally, I prefer Improved trip. Getting up provokes, and when you have reach, makes for much fun. In addition, the rest of the melee people in the party benefit from prone peoples, and you get the followup ouch.

Prone + hurt is better than standing where you're at, IMO.

But harder to make work. Stand Still is a Ref save of DC 10 + Damage roll. Trip is an opposed Strength check, and the opponent gets bonuses for size and extra legs or otherwise being extra stable. As you go up the CRs, monster size and Strength bonuses tend to increase, which makes tripping hard to impossible (remember that you can only trip something within one size category of yourself.) Stand Still has no such restriction, and bigger monsters tend to have correspondingly worse Dex scores and Reflex saves. I don't like to keep referring to dragons as examples because they are exemptions to so many rules of thumb about monsters, but you probably have trouble tripping a dragon. You can make it Stand Still fairly easily.

[Talic]

But harder to make work. Stand Still is a Ref save of DC 10 + Damage roll. Trip is an opposed Strength check, and the opponent gets bonuses for size and extra legs or otherwise being extra stable. As you go up the CRs, monster size and Strength bonuses tend to increase, which makes tripping hard to impossible (remember that you can only trip something within one size category of yourself.) Stand Still has no such restriction, and bigger monsters tend to have correspondingly worse Dex scores and Reflex saves. I don't like to keep referring to dragons as examples because they are exemptions to so many rules of thumb about monsters, but you probably have trouble tripping a dragon. You can make it Stand Still fairly easily.

And it'll still likely have the reach to hit you. Stand still is best against smaller foes, where you can keep them safely at bay. While, yes, you can use Spiked chain cheese to get 30-40 foot reach, it's hardly the baseline for comparison.

[tyckspoon]

And it'll still likely have the reach to hit you. Stand still is best against smaller foes, where you can keep them safely at bay. While, yes, you can use Spiked chain cheese to get 30-40 foot reach, it's hardly the baseline for comparison.

Being prone doesn't stop it from taking a shot at you either. The critter will take a penalty to hit, but it can still do so. The ideal situation for any AoO-based control scheme is to have greater reach than whatever you're fighting, which isn't too hard to achieve with a reach weapon and a size increase- even a Huge creature only has a standard natural reach of 15 feet, and ones that are Long instead of Tall are left at 10.

[The_Snark]

On the other hand, tripping yields much greater benefits. You're dealing damage in addition to stopping movement, and you're giving every meleeist in your party (yourself included) another free attack when it gets to its feet.

And with Expansion, Improved Trip, high Strength, and maybe a weapon with the tripping property, you can get an impressive trip bonus. Compare a level 10 psychic warrior's +19 trip bonus (+5 Str, +4 Improved Trip, +8 size, +2 tripping weapon) to the opposed checks of many CR 10 monsters... there are only a few with a better bonus, even counting the bonus for having more legs, and most of those are huge, mindless combat machines. In fact, you will be tripping dragons of equal CR at that level.

And Combat Expertise is a prerequisite for Karmic Strike, anyway.

[leperkhaun]

Might wanna take short haft, so you can melee adjecent targets.

[Akennedy]

Is there any way to keep my damage close to a fighter, via feats or powers? I know this guy is a bit of controller/damager, but how could i increase my damage further?

[Chronicled]

Might wanna take short haft, so you can melee adjecent targets.

Nah, just get spiked armor/gauntlets--or take a 5-foot step back.

[Person_Man]

1) What books are available?

2) It seems like you have several different tactics working at once, and they don't synergize well. Do you want to focus on battlefield control (expand reach, trip, and lock down enemies), damage output (Karmic Strike, pounce, buffs), or defense (Elusive Target, Force Screen, Concealing Amorpha)? You can try to pull off all of these, but they work against each other. For example, Karmic Strike requires enemies to hit you, so it works best with low AC and buffed up Claws of the Beast + Claws of the Vampire (i.e., King of Smack). Elusive Target requires enemies to swing and MISS you, granting you a free Trip attempt. Expansion gives you a great reach and synergizes well with Improved Trip. But if your enemies are Prone and 10+ feet away from you, they won't be attacking you.

4) If you want to use a Trip build, then you should definitely pick up Knock-Down. Combine with Expansion, Hold the Line, and a reach weapon, and enemies won't get anywhere near you.

5) I'm personally not a fan of Elusive Target. It has very poor feats as pre-reqs, and two if its maneuvers only applies to 1 enemy at a time (the subject of your Dodge bonus). Knock-Down generates a ton of Trip attempts by itself. So unless your DM uses Power Attack a lot, I'd skip it. But if you do want to use it, I suggest that you boost your AC, use Hustle to run around the battlefield, and generate as many AoO as possible.

6) The best way to use Karmic Strike is to dump your AC (usually via Shock Trooper) and use Claws of the Vampire or Vampiric Blade to heal yourself every time you hit an enemy. Otherwise, you're usually better off just picking some other feat that adds attacks or damage.

Once you decide what tactic you want to focus on, the feat and power choices become a lot clearer.

[Akennedy]

@ Person Man - The reason I want such a broad spectrum is because I want to cover everything in combat, I know, unreasonable, but I think it's neat. I want Karmic Strike coupled with Elusive Target because if they miss OR hit, I do something in response, missing is good because I don't take damage and an trip them without wasting an AoO. Hitting's good because I can hit back or trip back if need be! Yes, I do agree dodge and mobility Suck.
Oh, and not to be a prick, i just thought it was funny, you missed #3.. :P
But thank you for the advice!