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Can a Psychic warrior tank for a party?
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<blockquote data-quote="Cyrik Skylark" data-source="post: 1570005" data-attributes="member: 9776"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.)</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>So, there's my advice, as a 19th level PsiWar player.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cyrik Skylark, post: 1570005, member: 9776"] 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. [/QUOTE]
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