Creating a 3rd level Psion for planescape...suggestions?
- Thread starter Stalker0
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Arkhandus
First Post
Don't antagonize the DM too much by trying to be broken. Don't compel him to ban psionics from the game. :\ Cuz some of the kineticist powers are b0rken. You don't need to be broken to still be an effective psion.
Take Swarm of Crystals or Energy Push as your 2nd-level power, and avoid the other Energy powers of 2nd-level. Avoid the Energy powers from the Kineticist's list of exclusive power choices. Though Energy Cone or Energy Ball may be fair enough, the others can be pretty sick and cheap. I don't know if Complete Psionic fixed the broken Energy powers or not.
Inflict Pain, Specified Energy Adaptation, Ego Whip, or Psionic Levitation could be good choices for your other 2nd-level power.
Empathic Projection may be a useful 1st-level power if you, or the rest of the group, plans to deal with other people and/or creatures at any point that does not necessarily involve violence.
Vigor could well save you at low levels, with its 5 temporary HP per power point you spend on its activation.
Catfall, Detect Psionics, Disable, and Energy Ray could all be useful 1st-level power choices. Far Hand is of course situational in usefulness (though slightly better than Mage Hand since it can be augmented a little).
Avoid Mind Thrust, Entangling Ectoplasm, Inertial Armor, and Force Screen, probably. The first two are broken or kinda broken, and the latter two, while useful and reasonably fair, are kinda unnecessary since you can use armor and shield as a Psion without worrying about interference. You'll suffer the armor check penalty on your attack rolls and such for being nonproficient, but you could easily walk around in full plate with a tower shield and not care one whit how much it limits your movement. As long as you don't rely on rays or touch powers or the like, anyway. If you do, then a chain shirt and buckler could still be reasonable and not too hindering for your ranged and melee touch powers.
On the other hand, while Entangling Ectoplasm is broken, it is decidedly less broken than the druid spell Entangle, only significant difference being that the former is single-target short-duration with no save, while the latter is wide-area long-duration with a somewhat-relevant partial save. So Entangling Ectoplasm may actually be fair enough to use without annoying the DM, and it is effective.
Float could be a useful power if you go for wearing heavy armor and a tower shield, since it means you're not troubled much by falling in water or the like; just manifest Float and swim to shore within the duration (it's a short duration, but you can just keep manifesting it every few rounds until you run out of power points or reach shore).
As for feats, Psionic Talent might be useful for the extra 2 power points, at least at low levels. It's enough to augment an Energy Ray to 3d6 damage, or to manifest Energy Push one more time when you might have otherwise only had enough to manifest a 1d6 Energy Ray.
If you go for light or medium armor for mobility's sake, then Speed of Thought could be a good feat choice, potentially; it requires at least 13 Wisdom, and only works while you're psionically focused and not wearing heavy armor, but adds +10 ft. to your speed.
It may be useful and fair to take Overchannel and Talented, as your 1st-level bonus feat and 3rd-level character feat, respectively. They won't do you much good at first, but you can use them to Overchannel an Energy Ray to 4d6 damage at the cost of 4 power points and expending your psionic focus (rather than your normal 3rd-level-manifester maximum of 3d6 for 3pp); so only once per battle, generally, since you can't take Psionic Meditation until 4th-level or later (requires 7 ranks of Concentration). Once you take Psionic Meditation later, you'll be able to regain psionic focus as a move-equivalent action, and thereby use Overchannel + Talented once per round instead. Also, at 4th-level you'll be able to use these feats on Energy Push for 3d6 damage at the cost of 5pp and expending psionic focus; but EP will also get +1 to its save DC, and do a better job pushing the opponent back (preferably into a wall or over a ledge, so they'd take more damage).
Still, I'm leery of Overchannel and Talented in 3.5.
Either Improved Initiative, Armor Proficiency (Light), or Lightning Reflexes could be a useful feat choice depending on what sort of build you go with, for your 1st-level character feat. Psicrystal Affinity may or may not be useful to your, for a Hero, Nimble, or Single-Minded psicrystal.
Take Swarm of Crystals or Energy Push as your 2nd-level power, and avoid the other Energy powers of 2nd-level. Avoid the Energy powers from the Kineticist's list of exclusive power choices. Though Energy Cone or Energy Ball may be fair enough, the others can be pretty sick and cheap. I don't know if Complete Psionic fixed the broken Energy powers or not.
Inflict Pain, Specified Energy Adaptation, Ego Whip, or Psionic Levitation could be good choices for your other 2nd-level power.
Empathic Projection may be a useful 1st-level power if you, or the rest of the group, plans to deal with other people and/or creatures at any point that does not necessarily involve violence.
Vigor could well save you at low levels, with its 5 temporary HP per power point you spend on its activation.
Catfall, Detect Psionics, Disable, and Energy Ray could all be useful 1st-level power choices. Far Hand is of course situational in usefulness (though slightly better than Mage Hand since it can be augmented a little).
Avoid Mind Thrust, Entangling Ectoplasm, Inertial Armor, and Force Screen, probably. The first two are broken or kinda broken, and the latter two, while useful and reasonably fair, are kinda unnecessary since you can use armor and shield as a Psion without worrying about interference. You'll suffer the armor check penalty on your attack rolls and such for being nonproficient, but you could easily walk around in full plate with a tower shield and not care one whit how much it limits your movement. As long as you don't rely on rays or touch powers or the like, anyway. If you do, then a chain shirt and buckler could still be reasonable and not too hindering for your ranged and melee touch powers.
On the other hand, while Entangling Ectoplasm is broken, it is decidedly less broken than the druid spell Entangle, only significant difference being that the former is single-target short-duration with no save, while the latter is wide-area long-duration with a somewhat-relevant partial save. So Entangling Ectoplasm may actually be fair enough to use without annoying the DM, and it is effective.
Float could be a useful power if you go for wearing heavy armor and a tower shield, since it means you're not troubled much by falling in water or the like; just manifest Float and swim to shore within the duration (it's a short duration, but you can just keep manifesting it every few rounds until you run out of power points or reach shore).
As for feats, Psionic Talent might be useful for the extra 2 power points, at least at low levels. It's enough to augment an Energy Ray to 3d6 damage, or to manifest Energy Push one more time when you might have otherwise only had enough to manifest a 1d6 Energy Ray.
If you go for light or medium armor for mobility's sake, then Speed of Thought could be a good feat choice, potentially; it requires at least 13 Wisdom, and only works while you're psionically focused and not wearing heavy armor, but adds +10 ft. to your speed.
It may be useful and fair to take Overchannel and Talented, as your 1st-level bonus feat and 3rd-level character feat, respectively. They won't do you much good at first, but you can use them to Overchannel an Energy Ray to 4d6 damage at the cost of 4 power points and expending your psionic focus (rather than your normal 3rd-level-manifester maximum of 3d6 for 3pp); so only once per battle, generally, since you can't take Psionic Meditation until 4th-level or later (requires 7 ranks of Concentration). Once you take Psionic Meditation later, you'll be able to regain psionic focus as a move-equivalent action, and thereby use Overchannel + Talented once per round instead. Also, at 4th-level you'll be able to use these feats on Energy Push for 3d6 damage at the cost of 5pp and expending psionic focus; but EP will also get +1 to its save DC, and do a better job pushing the opponent back (preferably into a wall or over a ledge, so they'd take more damage).
Still, I'm leery of Overchannel and Talented in 3.5.
Either Improved Initiative, Armor Proficiency (Light), or Lightning Reflexes could be a useful feat choice depending on what sort of build you go with, for your 1st-level character feat. Psicrystal Affinity may or may not be useful to your, for a Hero, Nimble, or Single-Minded psicrystal.
Particle_Man
Explorer
If you take the Expanded Knowledge feat to get Astral Construct, you get the cool Kineticist bit of adding d6 instead of d4 environmental damage (though I think this is for the beefier constructs you get at higher levels).
Have you checked out the 3.5 Psion Build Guide and Compendium?
And for the record, those whopping 2 powers in the XPH that had their saves at +1 pp / +1 DC were changed in CPsi.
I used Energy Missile as-is for a year as a mid-teen to mid-20s kineticist and it was never an issue. Encounters were still a challenge.
YMMV.
And for the record, those whopping 2 powers in the XPH that had their saves at +1 pp / +1 DC were changed in CPsi.
I used Energy Missile as-is for a year as a mid-teen to mid-20s kineticist and it was never an issue. Encounters were still a challenge.
YMMV.
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