Help with my character part 2

[Najo]

Ok, so we are gearing up for our Eberron campaign this week. I have my character mostly figured out. I essentially want a psychic warrior with low cost powers, tooled up for front line combat. The feats I am looking at are heroic focus, action surge, psionic meditation, psionic weapon, greater psionic weapon, speed of thought, improved initiative, improved critical, weapon focus, power attack.

My psychic warrior powers I want are damp power, power weapon, animal affinity, biofeedback, body equilbrium, dimensional door (psionic), elf sight, hustle, psionic lion's charge, vampiric blade, vigor, metaphysical weapon, inhertia armor.

I am doing a 28 point build. Human. With Str 14, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 8. All of my points are going to get sunk into Str from here out.

So here is my thinking, I can either do 16 levels of psychic warrior with 4 levels of fighter or I can do 1 or more levels of soulknife mixed in with fighter and then mostly psychic warrior. I like the idea of getting weapon focus (mind blade) and wild talent (+2 PP). The idea of having a weapon I can summon at will and then power up with my selection of feats and powers is intriguing. My only concern is the lack of the mind blade's ability to grow if I do not focus on the soulknife class. Is there a benefit here of always having a weapon that my feats work with on hand and powering up with modifiers that way? or am I short changing myself and I should just hold out for magic weapons? Does the soul knife suck with only 1 level in it or is there any way to make it work? What other options for calling a weapon to hand do I have (other thna call weapon, which is an option).

What is the best way to build this character?

 

[Slaved]

How about 2 levels of monk instead?

You will have to shift around your feats a little bit but the Psychic Warrior works nicely with unarmed combat builds. Double duty for your wisdom as well.

Two levels of swordsage could do something similar as well.

Choosing between those two mostly comes down to which you like more for what they offer.

 

[Najo]

I don't really want to do the unarmed fighter thing. I like the idea of either summoning a weapon, or having a armed and armored fighter type. The monk levels are intesting though, as they lend towards making use of the Wis bonus.

The soul knife is intriguing as I will always have a weapon that I can summon and be trained in my feats with. I just want to know what the downsides are to using a soul knife with no levels in it, and if there is a way around them. Also, is there another alternative that is similar? Like a psionic weapon or magic weapon taht can be summoned?

 

[Darklone]

Yupp certainly... the Psywarrior has two line of powers, one summons magic weapons, the other gives him claws... Call Weaponry is what you want, a level 1 power (augmentable).

 

[Najo]

Anything that doesn't require a ton of power each encounter to get to a decent level of bonus? A weapon that is already to go once it is called up?

Also, what other classes go well with the psychic warrior? Any awesome combos out there?

 

[EyeontheMountain]

Anything that doesn't require a ton of power each encounter to get to a decent level of bonus? A weapon that is already to go once it is called up?

Also, what other classes go well with the psychic warrior? Any awesome combos out there?

A build along the same lines is Warmind the prestige class. If you take something else for 5 levels ( even Psywarrior or soul knife) then you can get the psionic powers a bit slower but better with Warmind, plus the awesome sweeping strike ability.

Warmind also has a good BAB, so it is much easier to keep hitting more often.

 

[irdeggman]

For a soulknife (you mentioned it intrigued you earlier):

Try a Kalashtar with racial substitution levels from Races of Eberron and the Soulblade Warrior feat from the same book (requires you to be a Kalashstar): Give you the ability to manifest mindblade as free action (at first level - not an issue for you high level PC), your effective soulblade level is increased by +2 for purposes of enhancements (not the +1 etc, but the enhancement costs that can be imbued in the mindblade), and when you spend an AP to modify your attack roll you get to add the result to damage.

The Atavist prestige class from the same book is also a decent addition. It adds to soulknife levels for enhancement bonus (this time it is for the pluses and not the enhancements that can be put in the mindblade).

Illumine Soul Prestige Class from Complete Psionic is good if there are going to be a lot of undead.

The Soulbow Prestige Class from Complete Psionic is another viable option, unless you want to wade on in and melee.

Kalashstar also get +1 pp/character level - so for any pp using class (especially hig level characters) they are real useful.

Focus on Dex instead of Strength and get weapon finesse (short sword version of mindblade is finesseable) or go with

Might be a better race for your Psychic Warrior because of that.


Just some thoughts. . .

 

[Satori]

In all honesty, I've found that combining a Psionic Race with 1 level of Fighter and Wilder levels makes a better "Psychic Warrior" than a Psychic Warrior.

You get the same BAB, more powers, WAY more PP, and some nifty combat bonuses when you Surge.

Psychic Warriors, in my experience, have far too few PP to really benefit from their plethora of cool powers. I'd rather have the option to Surge, Augment Powers, and take Expanded Knowledge over a few bonus feats and some niche powers.