Can a Psychic warrior tank for a party?

Abraxas

Explorer
OK - I'm going to start playing in a new campaign (FR) and have never used the 3.0/3.5 psionics system. Here are the questions . . .

For those that have played them,

Are Psychic Warriors effective as the party tank?

What powers work best for a primary or support tank?

Are the psionic feats more important or the fighter feats?

I've got the following stats to work with 18, 17, 15, 14, 13, 11 and can use any ECL 1 or 0 race from the Forgotten Realms.

Any advice/ideas would be appreciated.
 

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Abraxas said:
Are Psychic Warriors effective as the party tank?

Yes.

For powers, get Biofeedback and Force Screen as early as possible and wield something big and nasty like a greatsword.

Like any tank, Power Attack, Cleave and Great Cleave should be taken as soon as they can be.

There are other effective ways to use the PsyWar, but this is very similar to one that has really worked for us.
 


I was also thinking of going two handed weapon - greatsword or greataxe (maybe scythe for the x4 crit multiple) and armor spikes and fighting two weapon style.
 

RithTheAwakener said:
for those people like me, and have no idea what these psionic powers do, would u mind giving a brief description of those powers suggested? :D thx

Biofeedback: Damage redution 2/-, last 1 minute/level
Force screen: They could have named it Psionic Shield, but it doesn´t stop magic missiles.

You can find the psionic SRD rules at www.opengamingfoundation.org
 

essentially, if you gear them totally toward being a tank, they can be quite effective, if you try to have more options, they will be ground into a bloody mess unless your dm tailors everything toward the party's strengths.
 

We had a psychic warrior in a 3.0 campaign, basically as the party tank.

She was very good in this role, thanks to the defensive buffs (i.e. vigor, animal affinity, displacement, and the aforementioned biofeedback).

In 3.5 we have banned psionics, because the rules don't really work for us (too overpowered and too non-3.5), but there are plenty nice defensive powers to boost AC, hit points, etc.

Bye
Thanee
 

Absolutely, psychic warriors are some of the best tanks in the entire game. My current character is a Psychic Warrior 15/Fighter1/Psychic Weapon Master 3, and he is, essentially, the party's tank. He does, on average, 35 points of damage per hit, has 235 HP in his most-buffed form, and has a max AC somewhere in the 70's.

As far as advice goes - don't pick up an ECL, unless you can get something that gives you significant bonuses to Wisdom. You'll need all the wisdom you can get - as a psychic warrior, you're dependent on your buffs, and putting them all up takes a boatload of power points. (For reference, my PsiWar has 143 power points. After he's done with his standard suite of buffs, he's down to 68 - and that's using a Torc of Psionic Might.)

For powers: Defensively, Inertial Armor, Thicken Skin, Defensive Precognition, and Force Screen are essential low-level powers. All of them scale upwards, and Inertial Armor and Thicken skin have considerable durations. With inertial armor, your armor will lag a bit behind a traditional tank for a while, but you have your complete dex mod, and don't take an armor check penalty. Biofeedback is useful, but in the long run is more expensive than Inertial Barrier, a 4th level power that gives you DR 5/-. Biofeedback, however, scales upwards, while Inertial Barrier does not.

Once you get into the higher levels, Concealing Amorpha (Greater), Energy Adaptation, Freedom of Movement, and Personal Mind Blank are necessities (for a party tank, that is). Dispelling Buffer should be your 1st 6th level power - it makes all of your stuff that much more difficult to dispel. With the number of buffs you -will- have up, you need all the help you can get. Evade Burst is also a very nice power to get.

As just general advice, get as much AC from as many sources as possible. You don't have as many HP as a normal fighter-build tank, so you need to make yourself as hard to hit as possible.

Offensively, I'd definitely recommend going with either two-handed weapon, or going down the "claw" path of powers. If you want to be a dual-wielder, you're really better off just shunning weapons entirely and getting the "Claw" powers. Claws of the Beast, Bite of the Wolf, Vampiric Claws, Claw of Energy, Duodimensional Claw, Metaphysical Claw, Truevenom, and Form of Doom are all very nice powers, and, when completely manifested, will have 7 attacks once you get Form of Doom, with your claw attacks at your full BAB, your secondary attacks at -5. At 20th level, assuming you max out your augments, your attacks will be doing 5d6+str for your claws, 5d8 + 1/2 str on your bite, and 2d8+1/2 str for each of your 4 tentacles.

For general utility, Animal Affinity, Hustle, Empathic Transfer (Hostile), Body Adjustment, Synesthete, Skate, Vigor, Psionic Lion's Charge, Wall Walker, Offensive Precognition, and Expansion are all good. If you have the points to burn, you're completely awesome, but you really have to learn to pace yourself - make sure you can survive without needing to manifest beyond your standard buff suite.

As far as feats go, it really depends on the build. Most of the same fighter feats work well for Psychic Warriors - in the role of tank, Expertise is very useful. You can spice things up quite nicely, however, by adding in psionic feats - Psionic Weapon, Greater Psionic Weapon, and Deep Impact are all very good for specific situations. Deep Impact + Power Attack + a two-handed weapon is great for those battles against huge creatures with obscene DR that, inconveniently enough, you can't get through. Expanded Knowledge is a useful feat, if only to gain access to Metamorphosis. Speed of Thought and Up the Walls are both good general feats, helping to overcome the lack of mobility tanks often end up with. Psionic Charge used to be decently useful, but in 3.5 it was hit with an extreme nerf, taking it from "Almost worth it to take on its own, but I mostly took it to fulfill the prerequisites for something else", to "Why would I ever want to take this?" If you're serious about psionic focus-using feats, Psionic Meditation is a requirement, esp. with Hustle. Extend Power is also a decently useful feat.

I'd put your 18 in Wisdom, and would recommend putting all of your stat boosts into Wisdom. Especially at lower levels, you're going to be hurting for power points. Your 17, I'd put into Str or Con, the 15 into whichever of the two you didn't put the 17 into, the 14 into Dex, your 13 into Int, and your 11 in Charisma.

So, there's my advice, as a 19th level PsiWar player.
 

Life to you, Adventurers. And everlasting glory.

I have used psionics in 2nd, only briefly. As a rogue, with the gypsy kit and whilst playing Darksun. The Gypsy kit, as I recall, just used talents, rather than full blown psionics powers and Darksun, well everything was psionic. But even as a novice user I saw how powerful psionics were compared to the arcane and divine magic of the same level. Now I have not played 3/3.5, psionics, but I did read the psionics srd; and it seemed to me that not only would the psionics character be dead, after the first psionic encounter, but the party itself would be in danger of being severely injured, if not killed. Yet from the examples given, not only are psionic characters playable, they are as powerful as ever. Have I got the wrong impression, or can psionic characters be balanced with the rest of the party.


Yours Niko
 

Thanks Folks.

Yes I am building primarily a combat character - he will be part of a mercenary group and everyone is taking a different speciality to improve team play.
I have been juggling between two handed weapon and the "claw" path - hmm more to think about in the next 3 weeks.

I'll post a first draft in a couple days.
 

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