Psionic Melee Twink PRC: Warrior of the Path

[Jeph]

The Warrior of the Path

Uh . . . I was just looking for a name, and it kinda sounded cool. I want it to have a slightly wuxia feel, but only kind of. Okay, that told you nothing. Anyway, without further pointless ramblings, the Warrior of the Path (at least until it gets a better name):



Requirements
To qualify to become a Warrior of the Path, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Base Attack Bonus: +5.
Skills: Concentration 10 ranks, Tumble 10 ranks, Jump 5 ranks.
Psionics: Ability to manifest 2nd level Psionic powers.
Feats: Weapon Focus, and any two Psionic or Metapsionic feats.

Skills
The Warrior of the Path’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Autohypnosis (Wis), Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Intuit Direction (Wis), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Spot (Wis), Stabalize Self (Con), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).

Skill Points at Each level: 4 + Int modifier.

Class Basics
This would normally be on a table, but it isn't.
Base Attack Bonus: High
Base Saves: Fort medium, Ref medium, Will medium
Psionics: +1 Level at levels 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10.
Hit Die: d8

Special

LV Special
01 Far Strike (10')
02 Constant Awareness (1 point)
03 Body of Soul
04 Far Strike (20')
05 Bonus Feat
06 Acrobatics
07 Far Strike (30')
08 Constant Awareness (3 points)
09 Impact Weapon
10 Far Strike (all attacks)

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Followers of the Path are proficient in all simple and martial weapons, with light and medium armor, and with shields.

Far Strike: At a cost of 1 Power Point per strike, you may make melee attacks as if you had ten foot reach. You gain this reach for the purposes of that attack only; it does not apply to other attacks made in the round unless you pay the power point for them, too, nor does it grant you extra attacks of opportunity. At 4th level, you may attack as if you had twenty foot reach by paying 3 PP. At seventh level, you may attack as if you had thirty foot reach by payinjg 5 PP. At tenth level, you only have to pay the Power Points once per round. If you do so, all attacks in that round (except for attacks of opportunity) are made as if they had the given reach.

Constant Awareness: At second level, you are treated as having 1 reserver Power Point even when you have no Power Points. At 8th level, this ability improves: you are treated as having 3 reserve Power Points even if you have only 1, 2, or no Power Points remaining.
Body of Soul: At third level, you may walk through solid substances as if they were thin air. You may not walk through heavy metals such as gold or lead. When walking through other materials, you must pay 1 PP per foot through which you travel (minimum 1 Power Point).

Bonus Feat: At 5th level, the Warrior of the Path gains a bonus Psionic, Metpsionic, or Fighter feat.

Acrobatics: At 6th level, the Warrior of the Path gains a +4 bonus to all Climb, Jump, Tumble, and Balance checks.

Impact Weapon: At ninth level, any weapon that a Warrior of the Path holds is treated as if it were an Impact weapon. Impact weapons deal 2 points of bonus psionic damage on a successfull attack. If the weapon ever leaves the hands of the Warrior of the Path, it loses this quality.



Right now it seems vaguely overpowered to me. I'm thinking that I could either reduce the skill points to 2/level and remove the feat at lv. 5, or just reduce the Psionics to +1 manifester level/every odd level. The main schtick of the class is the Far Strike. Thoughts (or a better name)?

 

[Spatzimaus]

Name: Hmm, it definitely needs a change, not sure what to, though. Without a background or flavor text, it's hard to tell exactly what the class is all about, so it's hard to come up with a thematic name.

Questions:
> Why does a Psychic Warrior (medium BAB) PrC have a high BAB?
> Saves: What is "medium"? There's either high (2 + level/2), or low (level/3), under the core rules.
> Skill points: Psychic Warriors only have 2+INT. Why the extra 2?
It's not that you can't bump up these categories, but it only seems appropriate if you have some reason. Mindknights have full BAB, but they were a militaristic order, for example.

Now, for the abilities:
> Far Strike: it should go 10', 15', 20', not 10/20/30. Step by 1 square at a time. If you want that full distance, do it like this:
level 1: 10' for 1 pp per attack
level 3: 15' for 2 pp per attack
level 5: 20' for 3 pp per attack
level 7: 25' for 4 pp per attack
level 9: 30' for 5 pp per attack
Move the bonus Feat to 4, and you're set.
> Constant Awareness is a neat idea. I'm assuming its main use is for Speed of Thought and Inertial Armor, and maybe Stand Still. Reserve PP just aren't used for very much.
> "Body of Soul" should be in bold. I almost missed it there. It's a pretty expensive ability, since its only use is to get through walls (and remember, Psychic Warriors can take Dimension Door for 7pp). There's also the question of what happens if you run out of power points while inside an object.

Now, how about this as an alternative:
Body of Soul (This really could use a new name too, it's just awkward): The Warrior of the Path can become incorporeal a number of times each day equal to his class level, as a spell-like ability. He pays 3 power points for each round spent in this state, and may dismiss it at will. While incorporeal he can pass through any material objects, but cannot cast any spells or make any attacks. All attacks against him in this state suffer a 50% miss chance unless made with a ghost touch weapon.

Basically, give him a generic ability that lets him do things like escape from chains, be nearly immune to attacks, that sort of thing. You could add in the gold/lead limitation if you want. Or, just let him cast Passwall 1/day as a spell-like ability.

Prerequisites: The skill points are very restrictive, since PsyWars only get 2+INT at each level, but one level of Rogue fixes that nicely. The Feats are nothing; practically every Psychic Warrior will have two Psionic Feats (gotta love Speed of Thought), and Weapon Focus isn't a stretch since they get Weapon Specialization already.

So, assuming you were a Psychic Warrior before entering, you're sacrificing 2 Feats (3 from 10 levels of the base class, minus the bonus one you give), a lot of skill points (but they're in useful skills, not like the Knowledge skill requirement for Loremaster), and three levels of spellcasting for those extra abilities. The balance would be fine without pumping up both the BAB AND skill points, and there's still the question of saving throws. If you kept PsyWar-style saves (Fort good, others bad) and dropped the skill points down to 2/level, you could keep the high BAB and have the class be fairly balanced as is.

But, if you were a Rogue/Psion multiclass before entering, it's a stronger class, since you're not really sacrificing any Feats (and you now get a better BAB and HP). To fix this, you could lower the skill requirements (drop the 10 rank ones to 7 or 8), and add another Feat or two (Psionic Weapon seems an obvious choice). Just as easy for a Psychic Warrior, a bit harder for the others.

As for names and stuff, you could tie it all together with a theme. For example, you could follow a "Ghost Warrior" theme: Replace the "Constant Awareness" ability with a "Add the Ghost Touch ability to a single attack for 1pp" ability. Change "Impact Weapon" to be "Ghost Touch Weapon" (that is, it's always on). Go with the incorporeal thing I mentioned earlier. Voila, instant flavor.

 

[hong]

Name: Hmm, it definitely needs a change, not sure what to, though. Without a background or flavor text, it's hard to tell exactly what the class is all about, so it's hard to come up with a thematic name.

Psychic warriors == kung fu swordfighting guys. Jeph is probably going for the CTHD/Hero/Stormriders thing, like I was. The far strike and body of soul abilities are straight out of martial arts flicks.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Jeph is probably going for the CTHD/Hero/Stormriders thing, like I was.

Sure, but that's still pretty open-ended. There's the acrobatic leaping thing from CTHD, like you were using, but there's also the Seven Samurai-style swordplay which seems closer to what he's using. Both are martial arts cliches, but they're very different.
Most of the fighting styles in old martial arts movies are named after an element, an animal ("Two-Fisted Monkey Style!!!"), or whatever. Then, of course, you have Drunken Fighting.

I'm just saying that for purely stylistic reasons you'd be better off picking a theme and naming everything along those lines, possibly tweaking the class abilities to match.