Maximizing a Gestalt Wizard/Psion

[Ungruush]

One of my friends is about to play in an incredibly high powered campaign, and wants to play a human wizard/psion (10th lvl)

now, im not too familiar with the gestalt rules myself, but i know enough to understand that, although the Int synergy is outstanding, they drawback of only being able to cast once a round (without feats or other class abilities) and having two spellcasting classes is kind of rough.

So, i come to you sages for advice...how would one maximize this concept for a battlefield controller?

 

[Kat']

Okay, where do we start... Does the player intend to take on prestige classes? or do he want to be a clean psion//wizard? Are alternative base classes allowed?

General stuff first:
- Abilities should be Int>Con>Dex>Wis>Str>Cha. Str isn't important for you but it determines how many stuff you can carry, so...
- Skills: max out Concentration, Spellcraft, Psicraft and Knowledge skills. Depending on your psion spec. you may have access to other useful skills worth a few ranks.
- Power points get used up faster than spells. Manifesting is potentially very powerful, but the brightest flame burns quickest.

A few thoughts on spells and powers:
- Psionic True seeing is much, much better than the magical version. First, it's level 5, not 6. Second, it does not require material components. A must have.
- If you have Complete Psionic, you will have noticed Psionic Dimension Door has been upgraded with interesting options. The most interesting one is reducing the cost and casting as a full-round actions. Given that you can't take actions after Dimension Dooring anyway, this is just great.
- Dispel Psionics is potentially more powerful than Dispel magic.
- Body adjustment is a must have. Wizards usually have no way to heal themselves.
- You will need protection and movement to be a decent battlefield controller. Buy a Rod of Extend Metamagic and a Lesser Rod of Extend metamagic. You now have three spells lvl 0-3 and three spells level 0-6 to extend each day. My advice: Mage Armor, Heart of Air, Heart of Water for the lower spells, Heart of Earth, Heart of Fire, Overland Flight for the higher spells. "Heart" spells are in Complete Mage.

More to come!

 

[Ungruush]

a little clarification...

he has no intentions as of yet for prestige classes, but i suggested mage of the arcane order, for no other reason than to make him a "swiss army knife" type of caster...

and he is set on the psion wizard combo


and he has 130k to play with as far as items and gear goes

 

[Kat']

130k? Wow. That's a lot. Almost three times the standard wealth for a level 10 character. Things you could get:

+1 twilight radiant heartening buckler (36885): a +1 buckler with no ACP and no spell failure that acts as a permanent Energy Adaption spell. In comparison, a minor ring of universal energy resistance costs 84000. The Heartening ability is excellent and only costs a mere 720. You can drop it of course, but hey, when you're already at it...

Headband of intellect +6 (36000): do I need to explain?

+1 defending dagger (8302): You're not going to use it as a weapon. Just cast Greater Magic Weapon on it for the dodge bonus to AC. While you're at it: if you plan to buy a cloak of resistance, don't buy a +5 cloak. Buy only a +4 cloak and add the Parrying ability to the dagger. Better result and you save 1000 gold.

Rod of Chain Metamagic, lesser (27200): what did I say about Greater Magic Weapon? How about giving it to the whole party? Plus there are a few 0-3rd level useful spells around that certainly can suffer being chained, either on your enemies or on yor allies. Power Word Pain? Fly? Invisibility?

Orange Prism Ioun Stone (30000): +1 caster level is good. Combine it with one of those spellbooks increasing the CL of, say, transmutation spells, and your Greater Magic Weapon grants a +3 bonus, though you're only level 10.

There's a lot of great items you can buy for so much money. Think about it. And don't neglect scrolls, wands and potions, and their psionic counterparts.

 

[Jack Simth]

Let's see... all WotC sources permitted?

Feats: Faerie Mysteries Initiate negates the need for much Con when you use the HP form (still need it for Fort saves, though). Combine with Vigor to overcome your d4 HD by a lot. You also need both Quicken Spell and Quicken Power (because you've got more casting than actions). Get Schism too, even if you need to burn a feat to do it. It's that good.
Alacritous Cogitation cuts way back on the guessing game of what spells you'll prepare today. Keep a good general list, leaving one spell slot of your highest level open, and once per day, you have the right spell for the job (provided it's in your spellbook at all).
Other feats depend on what you want to do. If you want to be a crafter, take item crafting feats. If you want to de-trap, take Elemental Summoning and either Fiery Burst or Invisible Needle (reserve feats, Complete Mage; Elemental Summoning gives you something you can renew every round to spring traps, while Fiery Burst of Invisible Needle gives you something to use to zap the trap until it dies; you'll want to combine with Detect Magic and Permanency, or a way to boost your caster level, Arcane Sight, and Permanency). If you're after a particular PrC, take it's pre-requisites.
Powers:
You want Psychic Reformation (it's a must-have), Vigor, and Schism (as mentioned). Your Psion side gets a lot of really nifty low-level defensive powers - Force Screen, Inertial Armor, and Defensive Precognition take the lead here. Also, you'll want to put powers that you'll use repeatedly on the Psion side - teleportation, direct damage, and the better Psionic Save or Lose abilities. You might also want to look at Incarnate, as it lets you take racial abilites.

Wizard Side: Specialize. You can get the better choices from your forbidden school on the Psion side. So Specialize.

 

[Kat']

Faerie mystery initiate is not a WotC source. It's Dragon magazine.

Good grasp on Schism, though.

 

[Bacris]

Psionics has quite a few powers that can be augmented to be manifested as swift / move actions. I'd look at ways to use your psionic powers as swift / move, while your spells stay as standard. You can get the most out of your round that way, without necessarily having to worry about taking the Quickened feats.

For example, check out the power Hustle - extra move action for a swift action.

 

[Zelc]

You want stuff that gets you extra spells/powers per round. Schism is good. Imbue Familiar with spell slots something like that I forgot the name is good. Quicken Spell/Power is good. Long-lasting buff spells are good.

You should also pick a better prestige class than Mage of the Arcane Order. Even Swiftblade could be good for the extra actions, even though you lose some caster levels. Incantrix is good for free persistify.

You probably should have enough resources to not need reserve feats, especially since you'll be feat-starved for PrC qualifications and Expanded Knowledge and metamagic/metapsionics.

The Wizard has better battlefield control spells than the Psion. If you want battlefield control, a Conjurer Specialist can't go wrong, although you do have plenty of resources per day so you may not want to give up the spell schools. Your choice. Use the Psion to pick up the slack on the other stuff. For instance, Telekinetic Thrust is a strong and multi-use power and is a bargain at only level 3. I like Temporal Acceleration better than Time Stop. Energy Wall is an interesting power that's often overlooked: it blocks LOS and deals damage which is great for disrupting spellcasting, it doesn't burn through power points, and it functions as an on-par AOE damage spell in a pinch at high levels when combo'd with Temporal Acceleration.

By the way, don't take Psychic Reformation if you don't want your DM hitting you over the head repeatedly with a book . Having access to any power in the game at the cost of 50 XP and a standard action is pretty darn cheesy .

 

[Bacris]

By the way, don't take Psychic Reformation if you don't want your DM hitting you over the head repeatedly with a book . Having access to any power in the game at the cost of 50 XP and a standard action is pretty darn cheesy .

50 xp and 10 minutes, unless you're using some loophole.

 

[Zelc]

50 xp and 10 minutes, unless you're using some loophole.

Whoops, yes, 10 minutes.