Psychic Warrior vs. Fighter

Does anyone have enough experience playing a 3.5 PW to determine if it matches the fighter in combat ability? It seems to me that the Pw is far behind even with the various buffs and ability to heal with body adjustment. You'd have to buff yourself considerable before combat and use a ton of PP to buff yourself with swift actions during the fight , while the fighter has more hit points and feats, a higher BAB, and access to the weapon specialization feat tree. Am I missing something?

The PW's advantage lies in his self buffs. At lower levels I'd say the fighter does better due to his full BAB and better hit dice. But at higher levels, the PW outshines the fighter both in flexibility and raw damage potential. The PW is more like a cleric than a fighter, I would say.

The Psi Warrior does better in the one-fight-a-day games while the fighter tends to be better when there are multiple fights. A PW with no PSPs isn't that tough.

A 1st lvl psywar can have the Psionic Weapon (or Psionic Shot) feat, giving it +2d6 damage to one attack per combat, for an unlimited number of times per day (as long as the character has at least 1 PP remaining).

At 5th lvl, a psywar can have the above plus the Psionic Meditation feat, allowing it to use that extra 2d6 damage once per round, providing that the character can make the DC 20 Concentration check.

at 8th lvl, a psywar can have the above plus Greater Psionic Weapon/Shot and the 2nd lvl power Hustle, giving the character an extra 4d6 damage with one attack per round... while making a full attack.

Aside from using Hustle to get a full attack and a move action in the same round, none of the above requires any expenditure of power points. The psywar need only have 1 PP in reserve so that it can regain psionic focus (and be able to make high DC Concentration checks).

Aside from that, Vigor gives you a LOT of temporary HP for your power points, Hostile Empathic Transfer is pretty deadly in the hands of a psywar, and Force Screen allows you to wield a greatsword and still have a decent AC.

kigmatzomat said:

The Psi Warrior does better in the one-fight-a-day games while the fighter tends to be better when there are multiple fights. A PW with no PSPs isn't that tough.

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Like spatula said, it's not all about power points. Besides, at higher levels a PW will have points coming out his ears if he has a decent wisdom score, and a lot of the time he will be using low-level powers which cost a negligible amount of points. Just consider Expansion, where you can spend a measly 7 points to increase your size by 2 categories, or Compression that decreases by 2 sizes.

PWs get bonus feats every 3 levels from the fighter list as well as from the psionic feats list. So featwise they won't be too far behind the fighter. Even if a PW runs out of power points after quite a few battles, he'll still have those feats to fall back on.

The PW sits a few notches behind the Fighter with no PPs or actions spent. If this were not the case then the PW special abilities would need to be too weak to be interesting.

A few abilities are pretty good and only require expenditure of the psionic focus, e.g. Deep Impact. It is very powerful even if you choose to think of it as a "once per combat" ability.

I would say they are very much on Par with each other. You look 20% HPs and fall down to Cleric BAB. But you gain access to Very good feats, and much more flexability with your powers.

But, a DM much always been cautious with a PW character. PW can easly been min/maxed out to be the most damageing character in the game < dont remember the exact numbers but where where in the 20d6 per hit range >. I personaly love the class due to its flexability and jsut - coolness. But I try to keep an eye on PW characters.

if fighters and psychic warriors come out about on par then it is a sad, sad day for the psychic warrior.

Most of the smackdown part of Fighter versus PsyWar has been expressed above, but Id like to add one point from a party point of view.

Im currently playing a PsyWar who has just reached level 9, and despite all the powers I'm finally getting most of my power points goes into vigor with expansions thrown in on top. Any fight of decent size that the party isn't suprised I will use large vigor to gain 25-40hp before the start. This puts me a bit over par on fighter hp, but more importantly it means that the cleric isn't healing all of that damage. There have been game days that my character has gone through over 150 damage during successive fights with the cleric only barely topping up my HP, usually only with a CLW wand after the action has finished.

The cleric loves this as firstly his resources are used for self buffing or other useful spells rather than healing and secondly he usually doesn't have to worry wasting actions in combat healing my character as I can always use another vigor when the first has been stripped away.

Expansion GOOOD. Full attack charge. Healing cheap & Vigor. Extra move actions. Weapons Spec if you want (as power).

I only see a fighter being better at all for the first 7 levels. A PsyWar can be customized/specialised much more to beat a fighter in many regards, even without spending a lot of PPs.