Psychic Warrior: Worth it?

Sitara

Explorer
Is this class worth taking in a traditional adventuring party (i.e. fghters, mages, rogues, etc?). From what I gather it looks somewhat weak, since it only goes up to the 6th tier of powers. Or should I go stright psion, or a soulknife?


if its worth it, what would be a good build for a level 3 human psychic warrior? What kind of feats should I take, powers, and which stats should I focu attributes on? (its 32 point buy)

Note I am using only the core psionic stuff (i.e. stuff on d20srd)

Thanks!
 

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What role do you plan on playing?

From my experience - and that of quite a few other regular psionics users - the psychic warrior is one of the most balanced classes in the 3.5 ruleset. But, you have to choose what it is. If you try to make it too general or too versatile, it's going to fall flat, and you also have to recognize that it's not a primary manifester - it uses its powers to augment its physical abilities, it doesn't rely solely on its powers.

I've played a psychic warrior a few times and the only problems I ran into at low levels were running out of power points, but you can easily make builds that don't rely quite so much on power points (using things such as Psionic Weapon and long-lasting buffs).

I'd say pick what you want it to do - battlefield control, damage dealer, tank - and you can build it from there.

As for stats, depends - if you want to be mobile, Dex, if you want to be a powerhouse, Str. Con & Wis are both good to have for HP & power points.
 

Psychic warrior is a bit like a cleric without the ability to heal or buff others. There was one in the last game I ran and he was pretty powerful, stacking up well in comparison to a druid and gish. The PW is stronger if there are few encounters per day but also functions fine if there are four. A lot more than four and ToB classes would be superior.

Vigor, Expansion, Animal Affinity, Psionic Lion's Charge and Hostile Empathic Transfer are all excellent, especially the last one. It's like Harm, but better. People used to take levels in PW just to get lion's charge but now Lion Totem barbarian from Complete Champion does the same thing cheaper.
 

I recently used a PW/Monk/Kensai to great effect...

Combining PW's Expansion with Kensai class features and Monkey Grip, Power Attack, and a DCv1 Feat called Pole Fighter, my Large PC helped my party trash a couple of dragons.

Reach + FoB and all that stuff? Brutal.

(Expansion is on my short list of PW must have powers- esp. since it can be used to boost your PC 2 size classes.)
 

Sitara said:
From what I gather it looks somewhat weak
I had good luck using it to create a trip/grapple build with Half-giant, Expansion and Grip of Iron (which lent itself to the vow of non-violence). The class also transitions nicely into the warmind prestige class.

Also, Call Weaponry allowed for this spiked-chain tripper to take vow of poverty.
 

Oh heck yeah, it's worth it. Fill the fighter position. Psychic Warriors aren't all about manifesting or all about fighting, they use the manifesting to boost the fighting and they use psionic focus a lot as well.

3rd-level human psychic warrior? Well, you could go the archery route or the melee route. Archery-wise, you could take Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Psionic Shot, Rapid Shot, and Psionic Talent or Weapon Focus (longbow). Get psionic focus after each battle and each time you get up from sleeping or being unconscious, then expend it on your first shot in each battle against the biggest threat, using Psionic Shot for extra damage. Psionic Talent can get you a few more power points to manifest more powers when you need to, since psychic warriors get only a scarce few power points to begin with.

Learn Vigor, Force Screen, and Offensive Prescience to begin with, making you tougher and harder-hitting. OP will work well with Rapid Shot, and Force Screen will bolster your AC to a good total despite your lack of heavy armor and shield. Don't bother augmenting them most of the time, except for Vigor, which you should probably reserve for any fights that seem really big or tough; otherwise, just use OP before shooting folks, and FS before that when possible. You'll probably have around 9 pp to start maybe, so you can manifest both OP and FS each in 4 fights per day, and still have 1 pp available for a manifestation of Vigor in one fight (or just go OP+FS+V in two fights, and OP in any remaining fights).

Psionic Talent would make it something like 11 pp, which would mean you can throw around psionic powers with abandon most of the time. Just make sure to keep 1 power point unspent most of the time, in order to have access to psionic focus (for your Psionic Shot feat). Take Expanded Knowledge (Astral Construct) around 5th level or so, to get yourself a meat-shield while you stay back and shoot stuff to ribbons. Psionic Meditation is handy for choosing at 6th-level, to use Psionic Shot more often. And Greater Psionic Shot. If you take EP (AC), then wait until later for Psionic Meditation, Greater Psionic Shot will be more useful for 6th-level (since you'll often be shooting away with Rapid Shot, so you won't be regaining psionic focus very often during battle).


Going the melee route, you could take Power Attack, Psionic Weapon, Reckless Offense, Cleave, and Psionic Talent or Weapon Focus (greatsword). Learn Expansion, Force Screen, and Vigor to begin with. Expansion will make you deadlier, and until you get high enough in level to augment it for a two-size increase, just augment it for 3 points total for the greater duration so one manifestation will last long enough for multiple fights.

FS will compensate for the AC penalty incurred by Reckless Offense, and that feat will allow you to go all-power-attack-all-the-time for at least a few levels without any serious loss of accuracy. You can chop down enemies left and right, and not worry much about getting hit as a result. And you'll have Vigor providing temporary HP to soak up the occasional hit. Offensive Precognition would be a good power choice later, too. The same EP (AC) feat choice could also help at 5th-level to get yourself a flanker and melee double-teamer. And Greater Psionic Weapon at 6th-level, for more damage when expending psionic focus.


Ability-wise, either one should get 18 Strength. For the archer, go 15 Dexterity, 10 Constitution, 8 Intelligence, 14 Wisdom, 8 Charisma. Put the 4th-level ability boost in Dex when ya get there. For the swordsman, go 10 Dexterity, 14 Constitution, 10 Intelligence, 14 Wisdom, 8 Charisma (maybe shift 2 points of Int and/or Con into Dex, since you'll have Vigor for extra HP when needed). 4th-level ability increase would likely go into Strength. Get a greatsword and a composite longbow in either case, with the bow set at allowing +4 Strength to damage.
 

I've only seen them multiclassed, in my games or others' - just to add a bit of that psionic punch to mainly fightery-types. I don't see why they mightn't work with a few more than say, 2 levels though.

It's a fun combination of abilities that they get, too. Definitely could be entertaining.

Level 3? I'd still be tempted to go PsyWar 2 / [something] 1. Maybe Fighter, or a Bo9S class.
 

I had a half-orc barbarian 2 / psychic warrior 4. Powers were: Expansion, Force Screen, Prescience (Offensive), and Animal Affinity.

He'd often Expand (with the longer duration) and then use a boosted Animal Affinity for both Str and Dex. Combined with rage, he was uber-strong and had ok AC. (Mithral breastplate)

He was extremely fun to RP, too.
 

Where's the reckless ofense feat?

Also, I want to focus on a damage dealer, in melee and hopefully at range (using psionics only). What kind of damage dealing psionic powers would you recommend?

And which armor would you recommend the pc wear?
 


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