Building a Telekinetic Psion

[Greyfeld]

Alright, so I'm building a Shardmind Telekinetic Psion for a PBP game. The race and feature choice are non-negotiable. The game's starting at level 19, and I'm having a hard time solidifying the crunch of my character. I'm pretty new to 4e, so I have yet to play past heroic. Pretty much all books are open for this game, except anything that's heavily set-dependent (so, no dragonmarks, etc etc).

I also haven't chosen my paragon path. I originally intended on going Shard Disciple, but I'm a little concerned about the fact that two of the three powers available from the path require sitting in "beat on my face" range to make use of them.

So, this is what I have so far. Feel free to give me any suggestions, or ask any questions about why I made the choices I did. For the record, I have yet to go through and pick most of my items, but we're allowed a level 18, 19, and 20 item, and 85,000gp for anything else we want to buy.

Edit: I decided to switch to Dreamwalker paragon, and Shaper Focus, to basically give myself two different figments to cast spells from.

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Level 19
Shardmind Psion
Dreamwalker Paragon Path
Discipline Focus: Shaper Focus
Paragon Features: Manifest Dream Form, Dreaming Advantage, Paragon Power Points, Dreaming Manifestation

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 9, Con 14, Dex 11, Int 23, Wis 23, Cha 12.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 8, Con 13, Dex 10, Int 16, Wis 16, Cha 11.

AC: 25 Fort: 21 Reflex: 28 Will: 30
HP: 97 Surges: 7 Surge Value: 24


TRAINED SKILLS
Arcana +22, History +20, Insight +20, Perception +22

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +10, Athletics +8, Bluff +9, Diplomacy +9, Dungeoneering +15, Endurance +13, Heal +15, Intimidate +9, Nature +15, Religion +15, Stealth +10, Streetwise +9, Thievery +10


FEATS
Psion: Ritual Caster
Level 1: Superior Implement Training (Petrified Orb)
Level 2: Orb Expertise
Level 4: Battlewise
Level 6: Buffeting Shard Swarm
Level 8: Perfect Fracture
Level 10: Jagged Force
Level 11: Solid Sound
Level 12: Superior Reflexes
Level 14: Superior Will
Level 16: Impending Victory
Level 18: Grounding Shot


POWERS
Psion at-will 7: Dread Spiral
Psion at-will 13: Void Shard
Psion at-will 13: Kinetic Wave
Dreamwalker Feature: Manifest Dream Form
Dreamwalker Encounter 11: Dream Blade
Psion daily 5: Force Spheres
Psion daily 15: Living Barrage
Psion daily 15: Dominate
Psion Utility 2: Transport Self
Insight Utility 6: Prescient Maneuver
History Utility 10: Tactician's Measure
Dreamwalker Utility 12: Dream Stride
Insight Utility 16: Insightful Riposte

ITEMS
Adventurer's Kit
Orb of Nimble Thought +1
Petrified Orb of Unfailing Concentration +4
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[Obryn]

Ouch. Being new to 4e and starting out with a 19th-level psion is rough, man!

I'd start here:

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For what it's worth, psionic characters still baffle me a bit. The decision process for upgrading At-Wills is still kind of a mystery to me. It seems like early powers with good riders are just way more efficient and spammable than high-cost high-level ones.

-O

 

[Greyfeld]

This isn't the first character I've built... but I haven't built a character from scratch higher than level 1.

That said, I spent several hours going over that handbook already. Since a lot of the information is very generalized, I need more specific critiques now.

I agree with the comment about at-will powers though. It feels odd seriously considering keeping a level 1 at-will power over upgrading it to a level 17, because the Augment 2 power is just that good.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I also haven't chosen my paragon path. I originally intended on going Shard Disciple, but I'm a little concerned about the fact that two of the three powers available from the path require sitting in "beat on my face" range to make use of them.

Look at the Dreamwalker. It has nifty powers that let you project your powers from proxies of yourself. Even your close-range stuff will suddenly be usable at a distance.

As for powers, I'm a big fan of Static Mote (Lvl1 At-Will):

Int v Ref Att; Dam = 1d6+Int mod, Augmentable, Psionic, Lightning, Range 10, Close Burst 3 centered on mote (see below), targeting all creatures in the burst.
Aug1: As standard, but one target is pulled 1sq toward center of burst
Aug2: 2d6 + Int mod lightning damage
Conjure a mote of lightning in target square, which lasts until start of your next turn. Any creature starting it's turn adjacent to the mote is slowed until the end of its turn. The mote ends by making the attack.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Feats to look at:

Controlling Advantage: your TK abilities will involve a lot of forced movement- this adds a square to that.
Discipline Adept: doubles number of times you can use your Disciplie Focus powers/encounter.
Desperate Renewal: burning a HS in order to gain enough PP to Aug2 could pay off nicely.
Puppeteer: another one that lets you do more sliding- +1sq if target fails save.

 

[Greyfeld]

Feats to look at:

Controlling Advantage: your TK abilities will involve a lot of forced movement- this adds a square to that.

Puppeteer: another one that lets you do more sliding- +1sq if target fails save.

Discipline Adept: doubles number of times you can use your Disciplie Focus powers/encounter.

I already get +2 movement between Orb Expertise and the Petrified Orb. I feel dedicating any more resources to increasing forced movement will be overkill.

I considered changing my Petrified Orb for an Accurate Orb, then picking up Controlling Advantage (afterall, Orb Expertise and Petrified Orb don't work with the Forceful Push power, since it's not an Implement power), which would give me more of a reason to pick up Discipline Adept. But in the end, I decided that I would also need to pick up Distant Advantage to really make use out of Controlling Advantage, being a ranged character and all.

In the end, I decided to just stick to what I'm already using, because I feel that even if my class feature power remains moderately weak, it's worth it to maintain a persistent +2 forced movement to all my At-Will powers.

Desperate Renewal: burning a HS in order to gain enough PP to Aug2 could pay off nicely.

Maybe... I generally intend to stay as far away from combat as possible. I'm not sure that I can think of a situation where I'd rather regain PP than keep myself from dying.

 

[Greyfeld]

Look at the Dreamwalker. It has nifty powers that let you project your powers from proxies of yourself. Even your close-range stuff will suddenly be usable at a distance.

I looked at Dreamwalker, and while I think it's pretty nice, I'm having a hard time reconciling the flavor of having a Shardmind (which doesn't sleep) being able to manifest a dream form.

And I have to ask, isn't the main draw of the Dreamwalker paragon pretty much moot if I take Shaper Focus instead of Telekinetic Focus? The effects of the Shaped Consciousness encounter power sound almost identical to the Manifest Dream Form at-will power.

As for powers, I'm a big fan of Static Mote (Lvl1 At-Will):

Int v Ref Att; Dam = 1d6+Int mod, Augmentable, Psionic, Lightning, Range 10, Close Burst 3 centered on mote (see below), targeting all creatures in the burst.
Aug1: As standard, but one target is pulled 1sq toward center of burst
Aug2: 2d6 + Int mod lightning damage
Conjure a mote of lightning in target square, which lasts until start of your next turn. Any creature starting it's turn adjacent to the mote is slowed until the end of its turn. The mote ends by making the attack.

Void Shard is pretty much a direct upgrade to Static Mote. It's Force instead of Lightning, but has the following effects:

Close burst 3 centered on the square the shard occupied
Target: Each creature in burst
Attack: Int. vs Fortitude
Hit: 1d8 + Intelligence mod force damage, and the target falls prone.

Aug1
As standard, and when the shard is conjured it makes the following attack:
Free Action Close burst 3
Target: Each enemy in burst
Attack: Int. vs Reflex
Hit: The void shard pulls the target 3 squares.

Aug4
Hit: 2d8 + Intelligence modifier force damage, and the target is both dazed and slowed until the end of your next turn.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I looked at Dreamwalker, and while I think it's pretty nice, I'm having a hard time reconciling the flavor of having a Shardmind (which doesn't sleep) being able to manifest a dream form.

And I have to ask, isn't the main draw of the Dreamwalker paragon pretty much moot if I take Shaper Focus instead of Telekinetic Focus? The effects of the Shaped Consciousness encounter power sound almost identical to the Manifest Dream Form at-will power.

Dream Form is like Shaped Consciousness+. For one thing, if you're multiclassed, Dream Form can serve as a proxy for even non-Psionic powers- Shaped Consciousness can't.

Besides, with Shaped Consciousness and Dream Form both active, you have multiple points of attack: the SC, the DF, and yourself. That means that you can cover nearly the entire board even using short to medium range powers.

Void Shard is pretty much a direct upgrade to Static Mote.

Yeah- when I posted that, it hadn't clicked that there had been some level-based power swaps involved! Void Shard is a good, good power.

 

[Greyfeld]

Actually, now that I think about it, I think I can come up with a way to refluff the powers to make them make sense.

I can have the shardmind basically send out a small piece of his body (shard of glass or crystal), and wrap it in psychic energy that shapes itself into a transparent form of the character. The whole "one attack destroys the manifestation" is easily explained by shattering the glass/crystal in the center of the manifestation.

Though I still need some more thoughts on my feats, and items. Those two points are really difficult for me to flesh out right now.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I can and have seen it: if you're the only one in the party dealing appreciable damage to a foe (for any of a variety of reasons), boosting your PP for one last big hit may be all that stands between the party and a TPK.