Any advice for a first time Psychic Warrior?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In your carreer as a psychic warrior, you will want and have to find many statboosting items, because you want to be able to get good powers. Remember you learn only 3 powers on every level, though choose with care, thinking in the future.

0: Burst, Catfall, Far Punch
1: Combat Precognition, Lesser Metaphysical Weapon, Vigor
2: Combat Prescience, Animal Affinity (not exactly Jedi-like with its animal manifestations, but emulates their force-boosting powers quite well)

I don`t fully agree, here are some other thoughts:

If you have a decent Wisdom (13+), forget Combat Precognition. In the long run, a power like "Call Weaponry" (never lack a +X weapon at higher levels) will be more useful than the pathetic +1 insight bonus to AC, that you will later want to get via "Shield of Prudence" (giving you a +6 bonus, lasting hours )

Expansion will give you some extra boost to your Strength, stacking with Animal Affinity (and, strict by the words, it seems it will also stack with Bull's Strength, and I woulnd`t be surprised if that's what is meant to be ). Animal Affinity will also help you to get up the other stats to be able to manifest some of the Wisdom/Int based powers, where you're stats aren't so good...

Personally, I don`t think Vigor is that great, but maybe I am wrong...

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Zhure]

In your carreer as a psychic warrior, you will want and have to find many statboosting items, because you want to be able to get good powers. Remember you learn only 3 powers on every level, though choose with care, thinking in the future.

I don`t fully agree, here are some other thoughts:

If you have a decent Wisdom (13+), forget Combat Precognition. In the long run, a power like "Call Weaponry" (never lack a +X weapon at higher levels) will be more useful than the pathetic +1 insight bonus to AC, that you will later want to get via "Shield of Prudence" (giving you a +6 bonus, lasting hours )

Expansion will give you some extra boost to your Strength, stacking with Animal Affinity (and, strict by the words, it seems it will also stack with Bull's Strength, and I woulnd`t be surprised if that's what is meant to be ). Animal Affinity will also help you to get up the other stats to be able to manifest some of the Wisdom/Int based powers, where you're stats aren't so good...

Personally, I don`t think Vigor is that great, but maybe I am wrong...

Mustrum Ridcully

All good points.

- Vigor is great because of the errata. It adds 3 hit points per level up to 18 hit points. Improved Vigor is the same but up to 60 temp hit points.

- Animal Affinity is an unnamed bonus. Bruce Cordell has mentioned that it should've been an enhancement bonus, but there's no official errata on it. (I like treating it as an enhancement bonus for balance sake.)

- Expansion is an enlargement bonus to STR so stacks with either Animal Affinity or Bull's Strength.

Greg

 

[Hejdun]

Get Animal Affinity! It stacks with all the cleric/arcane boosting spells, so you could have the possibility to have a massive strength.

 

[Roland Delacroix]

All good points.

- Vigor is great because of the errata. It adds 3 hit points per level up to 18 hit points. Improved Vigor is the same but up to 60 temp hit points.

- Animal Affinity is an unnamed bonus. Bruce Cordell has mentioned that it should've been an enhancement bonus, but there's no official errata on it. (I like treating it as an enhancement bonus for balance sake.)

- Expansion is an enlargement bonus to STR so stacks with either Animal Affinity or Bull's Strength.

Greg

Wow, i really gotta check the eratta. Vigor rocks now! I'm sorry I told a PC it sucks and he took something else, oh well. He has a new character anyway.

I agree, Animal Affinity should be an Enhancement bonus. Its identical to the arcane versions, just more flexible. Them stacking is not such a big deal, ontill they get wands of triple Empowered Bulls Strength and triple Empowered Animal Affility, etc.

 

[Piratecat]

Zhure is right; skate is a power no psi-warrior tank should be without! My new psi-warrior dwarf has skate, burst, and the speed of thought feat; even with the 10' penalty for being a dwarf, he can still hit 55' movement in a round when he has to. Fun!

There's a great psionic power in WotC's Mind's Eye column that gives you 10' reach. I'm looking forward to that.

You'll want to get the feat extend power; it's really important for psi-warriors, since it reduces their need to spend a round or two powering up before a given combat.

Finally, the biofeedback powers become quite effective if you coordinate with your cleric. Using them effectively lets your cleric heal twice as much damage on you, and greatly reduces the risk that you'll die instead of just being knocked out.

 

[MyPetSlug]

I'm playing a psychic warrior now and I have to say they rock if you choose your power's accordingly. The other thing that really hasn't been mentioned though is that there are some really good psychic warrior powers in the mind's eye columns (if your DM allows they of course) on the wizard's sight. Some of my personal faves are the 3rd level power psychokinetic blast. Basically a 5D6 ranged touch attack that can push your opponent back 5 feet as well. It gives one of those melee type psychic warriors a good ranged attack, and at high level (14th and above) you can quicken it for even more damage against a single opponent in a round. The other really good one that I plan on getting is dimensional strike. Basically, it's a short range dimension door as a free action. Can you say full attack against an opponent and then teleport far enough back so that he only get's one attack against you. It has a wide range of other uses as well(negating spring attack).

The other thing you should consider is taking the quicken power feat at about 12th level when you can start to quicken 2nd level powers (quickened expansion). I think this basically doubles your effectiveness as you don't have to waste presious rounds buffing or you can use the aforementioned psychokinetic blast to dish out the damage in addition to your normal melee attacks.

However, the sickest combo has to be any weapon with the mind feeder power. Once your score a critical hit, you'll be in power points heaven, and since you have the quicken power feat, you could cast a quickened vigor on yourself every round to keep yourself going if nessessary. You could also pump some serious power points into pychofeedback as well.

Well, that's my imput,
Slug

 

[garyh]

Thanks for the advice everyone!! This is loads of help!!

I hadn't seen the WOTC Mind's Eye page till just now, that really has lots of good stuff, and I'm pretty sure the DM will let me use it.

I'm still open to any other advice that's out there. Keep it coming!!

 

[Chun-tzu]

If you take one level of Psion: Egoist, you can get the Lesser Body Adjustment power (cures 1d8 hit points or 1 point of temporary ability damage). Then, take Trigger Power: Lesser Body Adjustment, and you can heal yourself for free (almost as good as Fast Healing). You need a high Strength to pull this off, so you want to have Animal Affinity. This works really well with the Tank role: not only can you absorb more damage than Fighters or Barbarians, but you can heal yourself after combat (more often than not, for free).

Trigger Power also requires Inner Strength and Talented. So it takes a few levels before you can pull this off well.

 

[garyh]

Any last minute advice? Besides "Roll well," of course.

Less than three hours till my character creation session!!

 

[ùìéè äîáåê]

Well...

I haven't played one, but from a friend's character...

I would strongly recommend the Trigger Power (Lesser Body Adjustment) + Inner Strength + Talented option. You can also add Body Fuel, and with a high enough Str (remember those Enlarge and Animal Affinity!) you can constantly have a +6 to all scores, full HP, and full Power Points at the beginning of every encounter. Consider also Master Droje - with almost unlimited power points/day (and often dungeon/adventure), it makes Drike's ineshaustible.