Modifying War Mind

[Coredump]

I have a player that is playing a Psionic Warrior, and thinking about going into War Mind.
It is kind of a drag that the War Mind uses the same powers, but 'starts over'. I was thinking of replacing the normal progression with "+1 to manifester level".

If I do that for all 10 levels, it will be too much, so how often should I do it? I am currently thinking of levels 2,3,4,6,7,8,10.

 

[comrade raoul]

"Starting over" is what keeps the war mind balanced. The required ranks in Knowledge (psionics) mean that it's very difficult to qualify for war mind with most non-psionic classes, so almost all warminds have some levels in a manifesting class that don't do them much good. This makes sense, given the warmind's large amount of power points and excellent base attack bonus and special abilities.

 

[Brain]

I agree. War Mind shouldn't be +1 manifester level. It's plenty powerful as it is.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I'm going to disagree with the previous two posters. The war mind has bugged me also. (I'd rather it didn't have the Knowledge (psionics) prereque so others can take it, but that's another story).

The great thing about +1 manifester, is that they'll be balanced at some point. +1 at every level is obviously too powerful, but what if it only had a +1 at 10th level? That would obvioulsy be underpowered. So there must be some middle ground in between.

I'd have a feeling its at six or seven +1 manifsters, and since I tend to err on the side of underpowered, I'd go for six levels.

Let's compare two psychic warrior 5/warmind 10s, on RAW, and one with six +1 manfester levels.

RAW
11 powers known (5 psyw, 6 war)
Maximum power level know 5th
77 power points
Manifester level 5/10
Cannot Improve warmind beyond

Varient (as an 11th level psy)
11 powers known
Maximum power level 4th
35 power points
Manifester level 11
Futher improvements benifit all powers.

I think it compares pretty well. Same number of powers known. One the con, varient has not quite as high a level powers known, and a major hit in power points. On the pro it has a better manifester level (especially nice for original psychic warrior powers) and it has the potential to keep improving after the maxing out in Warmind, which I think is a major bonus (more high level powers, including the possability of 6th level powers, something the RAW can't even hope of).

This is all theoreticall of course, but I think six is a pretty good number, maybe something like 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10

 

[Spatzimaus]

It is kind of a drag that the War Mind uses the same powers, but 'starts over'.

Well, it doesn't actually 'start over', it's substantially better than that. Look at the casting benefits of Psychic Warrior levels:
Power Points: PWs get 0 at level 1, 1 at level 2, 2/level at levels 3-5, 4/level at 6-10, 8/level at 11-15, and 12/level at 16-20. WarMinds, on the other hand, get N+1 at levels 1-5, and N+2 at 6-10, averaging 7/level. So, by level 20, a WM 10 will be only 30pp behind a pure PW (corresponding to 2.5-3 high-end levels of PW).
Powers Known: PWs get 1 new power per level. WMs get one at first level and one at every even level, for a total of 6 powers. However, these aren't as good as additional PW powers, since they're limited in level. If the PW waited until after level 10 to go WM, his highest power would be 4th-level, until he hit WM10 and unlocked one 5th-level power.

The numbers would imply that "+1 level" at 6 or 7 out of the 10 would be balanced (you'd have slightly fewer power points but more powers). The restriction on power levels is harsher, in theory, but in practice it's actually not bad; I converted my pure Psychic Warrior to 3.5E, and one of the problems I had was that there was only one power I even wanted above 4th level (Form of Doom), until I added some of the Mind's Eye converted powers. As it was, I was picking a bunch of low-level powers in the teens anyway, since I could easily afford to augment them. So, the restriction on spell levels really didn't affect much in my case.

 

[Kristivas]

Being a huge fan of psionics, I'd played more psion than psychic warrior. Reading this post made me think more about the warmind, so I made a character sheet of what I would do in a campaign. I made it a several levels, so I could see the changes.

In the end, I came out with psychic warrior 5/fighter 2/warmind 10/psion 3 with sheets at every 4 levels to look at progression.

I gotta say, Warmind is quite a powerful class and I don't think it needs any bonuses to manifester level. For instance...

Say the person takes Psion as their psionic class and goes psion 6.. (where they have +3 BAB and the skill requirements for the class). +1 manifester, even every odd level (only 5), have them with:
106 pp
22 powers
level 6 max

Being that the Psion powers are pretty darn tough, and add all the excellent warmind abilities, throw in a level or two of fighter for bonus feats/hp/ect... and you would have a majorly overpowered character.

People are thinking only psychic warrior and not that you could use a psion for this.

 

[Coredump]

Being that the Psion powers are pretty darn tough, and add all the excellent warmind abilities, throw in a level or two of fighter for bonus feats/hp/ect... and you would have a majorly overpowered character.

People are thinking only psychic warrior and not that you could use a psion for this.

That is because I am asking about a PW taking it. I am not trying to get it officially changed forever, just looking for a variant in case a PW character wants to take it.

 

[comrade raoul]

Let's compare two psychic warrior 5/warmind 10s, on RAW, and one with six +1 manfester levels.

These builds are not optimal builds in either case. When you're balancing prestige classes, you need to consider the strongest character, within reason, you could create using the prestige class. Otherwise, you won't know if it's possible to use the class to break the system. So, Kristavas is right, and you need to realize that if the warmind provided manifester levels the way all of the other classes that provide manifester levels do, you could also use it to boost psion levels. A warmind/psion, with that sort of manifester level enhancement, would be really powerful.

It's best to think of a warmind as representing a different approach to psionics, albeit one that's powerful and difficult to require initial talent and lots of difficult-to-acquire study of the psionic arts. The best warminds are generally characters who only have a couple of levels in a manifesting class and use their warmind levels to rediscover psionics, as it were.

(In an Eberron campaign I played in, I had a kalashtar warmind who started out by taking a couple levels in monk (in Eberron you can take a feat to flurry with a longsword), psychic warrior, and fighter. Dude was a badass.)

 

[Spatzimaus]

Although none of the 3.5E SRD PrCs are written this way, there HAVE been prestige classes that explicitly increased the spellcasting ability of a single base class. In the Mind's Eye, for instance, I think one of the Psychic Warrior offshoots (Mindknight or Diamond Warrior) explicitly said "+1 to psychic warrior" or something like that. I'll look when I get home.

I'll agree with the basic sentiment, though; if you have it just be the usual "+1 to level" ability, you have to consider a Psion taking it. Especially since while the RAW version of the Warmind is explicitly a WIS-based caster, changing it to a +1 ability would allow a pure-INT Psion to get the full benefit. Full BAB, two good saves, d10 hit die, lots of free action combat boosts; practically the only thing missing is skill points.

Compare to the Eldritch Knight, though; okay, it's only a d6 HD and improves a class that can't really wear armor, but it's got full BAB and 9/10 casting. Considering how reluctant pure-casters are to sacrificing ANY caster levels, would a 5 or 6/10 Warmind be used?

So, analyze this: Which'd be stronger in a fight, a Psion 6/Warmind 10 (assuming 5/10 spellcasting) or a straight level 16 Psychic Warrior? Comparable BABs and hit points. Level 11 Psion casting versus level 16 PW casting. Free action bonuses versus lots of Feats... I'm not sure it'd be very unbalanced.

 

[Coredump]

Missing my point

I realize that "+1 level..." may be different for a Psion... but I am specifically asking about a PW that is taking this.

This is meant for a Psychic warrior, we do NOT have to consider a psion at all.

The question is the same. If a *psychic warrior* wants to take the WarMind PrC, would it be unbalancing to use 6-7 +1 level... instead of the current method?