My WF Fighter. War Mind or WF Juggernaut?

[Kristivas]

My Warforged is a level 1 fighter. In your guys' opinions, should I take him toward Warforged Juggernaut or War Mind (from XPH)? If you pick War Mind, what's the best path? 2 levels of Psychic Warrior? 2 levels of Psion? Ect.

Oh, and I rolled a high int with him, in case that helps.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Neither. But if those are your only choices, WFJ. However, you HAVE to have an artificer in the party, and probably ought to have a level or two of artificer yourself. The inability to be healed by Conjuration (Healing) really hurts.

Brad

 

[Kristivas]

Neither. But if those are your only choices, WFJ. However, you HAVE to have an artificer in the party, and probably ought to have a level or two of artificer yourself. The inability to be healed by Conjuration (Healing) really hurts.

Brad

If Neither, what would you then suggest? I'm starting to really like the War Mind. Yeah, the WFJ no-healing thing really got to me after awhile.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

It depends. I don't like Warmind, but that's just me. I do like its "mini Warhulk sweep" ability, but that's it.

I think Dragon Disciple or Kensai (CW) would be amusing. Alternately, just taking straight fighter is pretty decent, too. If you have a decent Cha, try Singh Rager from OA.

Remember, though, if you took Adamantine Body, check out Races of Stone. Two feats from that, Heavy Armor Optimization and Greater Heavy Armor Optimization, are very good choices for an Adamantine warforged, making you harder to hit and more agile.

Also, see if you can get a psion to enhance your armored body for you. Gleaming, from XPH, is a +3 EBE and grants permanent concealment...it's effectively like a minor cloak of displacement, so you'll never be sneak attacked again.

Brad

 

[Scion]

Those are both great classes, each has their own flavor which is nice.

Unfortunately warforged have a wisdom penalty ;/ which really hurts the warmind.

But, you can have 5 levels of juggernaut and 9 levels of warmind by level 20

Warmind does have the benefit of being able to heal yourself (body adjustment), pretty good saves, and some interesting abilities which can really help the juggernaught push (psionic lions pounce).

So, I would suggest:
Fighter 2/Psychic warrior 3/Warmind 6/Warforged Juggernaut 5/Warmind3

It is a late bloomer for the juggernaut potential unfortunately, but it has a ton of feats and a lot of interesting options.

Especially when you start psionic lions charging a greater powerful charge and sweeping strike across the front lines of the opposing forces. They litterally wont know what hit them.


Edit: Although personally I would just go straight psychic warrior the whole time, pick up metamorphosis eventually (lots of interesting constructs to change into) and form of doom for just the coolness factor.. especially with a psicrystal (a pet construct!) who has form of doom up..lol.. plus it would again make self healing a more viable option through several means

 

[Kristivas]

So far, I've kinda got planned...

Fighter 2/Psion (shaper) 3/War Mind....

Eventually, I'd plan for getting a few more Shaper levels. A living construct that summons his own construct to fight with?!

War Mind PPs stack with his Psion PPs, so he can still Augment it.

Rather than taking Offensive War Mind powers, I'd pick the Defensive ones and not have to worry about a DC since my wis is lower (it's actually not that low, being 14. I rolled -real- good with this guy).

Why I want to take Psion levels? I love the thought of my guy summoning Astral Constructs, plus Body Adjustment. If I were to take WF Juggernaut, wouldn't Body Adjustment not work because of the healing thing?

 

[Scion]

In that order shaper 3 gets you:
3d4 +3x con mod hp
6 skill points + 3xint mod + other modifiers for shaper skills
1 bonus feat (psionic, metapsionic, or psionic creation feat)
+1 BAB
+1 fort, +1 reflex, +3 will
11pp + bonus from being 3rd level in psion (int prime stat)
5 first level powers known
2 second level powers known
manifestor level 3 (note that you cant exceed this normally so even if you have 10 levels of warmind you astral construct power would still max out at 3rd manifestor level without special help)

vs
Psychic warrior 3
3d8 +3x con mod hp
6 skill points + 3xint mod + other modifiers for psychic warrior skills
2 bonus feats (psionic or fighter feat)
+2 BAB
+3 fort, +1 reflex, +1 will
3pp + bonus from being 3rd level psychic warrior (wis prime stat, same as warmind so less stat dependency, and with the initial stat penalty you may need the help)
3 1st level powers known (generally better at personal buffing)
manifestor level 3


Definately a hard choice in my mind ;/

You could get the construct faster by going through psion but if you wait until your first level of warmind to spend a feat and get it then you could use your warmind manifestor level to manifest it instead.. maybe your dm would allow you to convert 'practiced spellcaster' over into 'practiced manifestor' though.


Also, the DR gained by the warmind doesnt normally stack with the adamantine body feat (away from my books, I am assuming it grants 2/- DR) which makes the class a little less desireable overall.


I would definately suggest picking up a psicrystal however, if for nothing else the coolness factor. Levels in psion or psychic warrior will stack with warmind levels to determine its abilities.


If you want to go for interesting/cool/crazy and your dm is going to allow practiced manifestor then you could do something like this:
Fighter 2/Psychic warrior 2/psion 1/Warmind X
and get practiced manifestor for psychic warrior, psion, and warmind. You would have a ton of interesting options, but it would cost you.

Fighter 1/psychic warrior 4 could also work.
+4 BAB, 4 bonus feats, easy entry into warmind

Your will save will 'suck' though

Ahh well.. have fun with it!

 

[Kristivas]

With the +2 con adjustment for my Warforged (my only 18, popped it to 20 -- told you I rolled *good* this time lol), the hp between psion and psychic warrior won't be much of a problem. Only 1 less BAB.

11 + bonus pp.. that's not too shabby. Is there a rule that limits how much I can augment Astral Construct with extra PP?

Where can I find "practiced spellcaster"?

On the side of the Psychic Warrior, though.. could cram in a few more bonus feats and some nice defensive powers. But arrrgh! That Will save!! I hate having a character with a crappy low will save. I keep picturing myself... playing this Big Warforged combat machine.. who gets dominated and turns, then starts rending the poo out of the spell casters. Or worse, being feared and running off while something else rends the poo out of the spell casters (why is that worse, you say? I get no exp if I run off, but I get MORE if I kill my own party THEN kill the BBEG! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!.... jk. a little 3:30 am humor.)

I could always splurge on Iron Will, I guess....

 

[Dimensional]

You can only augment to your manifestor level. so for shaper(3) that will be 3.

If want to be able to do useful Summoning, Go straight PSiwar and pick up AC with expand Knowledge.

if one was choosing between PSion and Psiwar for going inot warmind i'd go with PsiWar, for the feat if nothing else. a lot of the more fighter type powers are only on the psiwar list.

(and personaly I'd never allow a Practiced manifestor feat - because of augmentation.)

Jeremy

 

[Scion]

Where can I find "practiced spellcaster"?

complete divine I believe.

On the side of the Psychic Warrior, though.. could cram in a few more bonus feats and some nice defensive powers. But arrrgh! That Will save!! I hate having a character with a crappy low will save. I keep picturing myself... playing this Big Warforged combat machine.. who gets dominated and turns, then starts rending the poo out of the spell casters. Or worse, being feared and running off while something else rends the poo out of the spell casters (why is that worse, you say? I get no exp if I run off, but I get MORE if I kill my own party THEN kill the BBEG! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!.... jk. a little 3:30 am humor.)

I could always splurge on Iron Will, I guess....

If you take 3 levels of juggernaught first then the will save becomes 'less' of a problem. Although still an issue at times being immune to all mind effecting tends to really cut down on will saves.

The extra levels of psychic warrior to get the bonus feats would allow for psionic charge as well, so you can charge around opponents, and speed of thought so that you move faster all of the time.

Although it is true you would likely be best off simply taking all the levels in psychic warrior, better manifestor level that way and many more powers to choose from.

(and personaly I'd never allow a Practiced manifestor feat - because of augmentation.)

Would you allow practiced spellcaster though? They are very similar in ability, although the manifestor one would really make a psion/psychic warrior run out of pp extremely fast if they tried to take advantage of it.

A fighter4/sorc 1 who takes practiced spellcaster can pop out at least 4 first level spells at caster level 5, which means extra duration and more power (such as burning hands doing 5d4 or magic missile doing 3d4+3)

A fighter 4/psion 1 who takes practiced manifestor might get a single power using 3 pp off, or three powers without any augmentation at all, although he also gets the extra duration effect.

for the guy I suggested earlier who would need it (fighter 2/psychic warrior 2/psion 1/warmind X, we'll just say warmind 10 for a point) this is what he would look like after buying it three times.
psychic warrior manifestor level 6 (decent buff duration sometimes, auto take down from dispel however)
psion manifestor level 5 (enough to put up some minor effects now and then, cannot bypass SR so it will be limited to tricks generally)
Warmind manifestor level 14 (not quite enough to keep buffs up against a dispel a lot of the time, but at least it is somewhat possible, with proper power/item choice it'll be better than 50%, but this build relies on its buffs pretty heavily)

So, even with the feat the build would still be a little precarious, but at least it would be fun! Too bad there isnt a feat to make it go up to +8 or more ;/

That is part of the reason why I said full psychic warrior would be nicer, full manifestor progression!

At that point, practiced spellcaster is 'much' more powerful.