Tactical Psionic Warrior help

[Cabral]

Can anyone suggest good feats and powers for a tactical-minded Psionic Warrior? I'm making a PC for one of my players and I keep thinking "wouldn't it be cool if he could ..." rather than "this provide a great tactical advantage."

Currently, I've picked out the feats:
Psionic Body
Speed of Thought
Up the Walls
Psionic Meditation
Psionic Weapon
Expanded Knowledge (Mindlink*)
Expanded Knowledge (Energy Ray*)
Deep Impact

and the powers:
Call Weaponry*
Precognition, Offensive*
Prescience, Offensive*
Dimension Swap*
Strength of my Enemy*
Prescience, Defensive*
Vampiric Blade
Dimension Slide*

*denotes augmentable powers.

Thanks for the help

 

[Creeping Death]

Expand, first level power, lasts 1 minute a level and gives the character 10ft reach. Increases strength and base weapon damage. That should be one of the first powers he takes.

 

[Nifft]

Deep Impact without Power Attack?!? Shame, shame, shame.

No Vigor? Vigor is fantastic. Take it right after Expansion. It lasts for 1 hour/level, so it's a great all-day buff at this level.

Otherwise, you suffer from the classic Cleric newbie issue: too many self-buffs, all of which are useless if you are surprised, or if you just don't have 10 rounds to buff before combat.

So: ditch the Prescience / Precognition -- they can all be replaced with Animal Affinity, which also picks up slack in other areas. Do pick up some utility powers -- Catfall, Detect Psionics, either Dimension Swap or Dimension Slide, maybe Synesthete.

Pick some powers that can be used in combat (Swift or Immediate actions): Burst, Hustle, and Energy Adaptation (Specified) are good choices. Hustle especially is a great choice for a tactical kinda guy.

Why Energy Ray? He's not going to be good at ranged combat -- he has no ranged feats. A better choice than the two Expanded Knowledges would be Expertise & Improved Trip, or Improved Bull Rush & Combat Reflexes.

In summary, assuming Human:
1: Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, (Speed of Thought) -- Expansion
2: (Up the Walls) -- Vigor
3: Psionic Weapon -- Synesthete
4: -- Hustle
5: (Psionic Meditation) -- Dimension Swap
6: Power Attack -- Animal Affinity
7: Detect Psionics
8: (Deep Impact) -- Vampiric Weapon
------
9: Combat Reflexes -- Dissolving Weapon
10: -- Inertial Barrier
11: (Psicrystal Affinity) -- Psi Freedom of Movement
12: Psicrystal Containment -- Strength of My Enemy
13: -- Oak Body
14: (Expanded Knowlege (Share Pain)) -- Energy Adaptation
15: ....


A good weapon choice is Halberd, since it's got a decent die size and you can trip with it.

 

[Kristivas]

I made a Warforged Psychic Warrior for an Eberron game I'm playing in. So far, he's level 4 and heading toward the War Mind PrC.

1st Level - Adamantite Body, Exotic Weapon: Bastard Sword
Power: Burst (since Adamantite body only lets me move 20 ft)
2nd level - Weapon Focus: Bastard Sword
Power: Float (since he's warforged, and constantly in heavy armor, and since we're going to be taking a lot of ship voyages)
3rd Level - Two-weapon Fighting
Power: Expansion
4th level -
Power: Body Adjustment. (my DM houseruled in that body adjustment heals normally for normal creatures, and when a WF uses it, it heal's the WF's body the way a "fleshie" would heal themselves aka without the healing penalty.)

Here's the path I'm heading so far.....
5th level - Oversized Two-weapon fighting (dual bastard swords, baby!!)
Power: Animal Affinity

Afte that, going to get Psionic Weapon, Psionic Meditation, and so forth.

 

[Cabral]

He specificly wanted a greatsword and wanted a tacticly minded warrior. I didn't take power attack because the psionic warrior has a 3/4 BAB progression instead of a Full BAB. Also, the Psionic Body feat combined with his 8 psionic feats give him the largest HP in the party (and the fighter rolled really well) However, I didn't consider the power attack+deep impact combo ...

The prescience and precognition powers give him effectly weapon focus and weapon specialization with any weapon he uses. And he wanted to be able to summon any weapon to his hand, so it's either Call Weaponry or Gloves of Storing.

Right now, he's not really digging the Dimension powers since he was envisioning a less flashy Psi warrior. And I took energy ray to round out his abilities since he has a good ranged bonus and it's nice against monsters with DR. If he decides he likes the flashiness, I might replace dimension swap with another psionic warrior and use expanded knowledge to take the Nomad Dimension Swap (so he swap two allies or himself and an ally)

The Dimension Slide power I took because at level 9, he expend 9 power points to move 45 feet as move action without provoking an attack of opportunity but again, currently he doesn't like this power.

One thing that is a bit surprising is that it's hard to go all 20 levels picking just powers that can be explained as exceptional ability ...

Vigor is nice, but it only lasts 1 min/lvl acoording to d20SRD

Actually, I wish the gladiator-themed fighter was using a spiked chain ... but he wants a greatsword too

 

[Frater]

I just got done playing a Psychic Warrior, some things to consider are -

Most of those powers you have selected - heck really any that are available - are of short duration. Typically X rounds per level or X minutes per level. I kept finding that fights would start and I would either have to spend time buffing up or I would have to go without.

I suggest investing in Quicken Power and maybe Extend Power.

And Force Shield as a power is great for a 2-hand weapon wielder because it gives you a shield bonus to AC.

 

[Cabral]

"Luke. Use the Force Shield, Luke ..."

A few of the powers have an innate spend +6 power points to cast as a swift action, so I avoided Quicken Power.

Thanks for the duration tip; I'll look at the Extend Power and the powers' durations again.

 

[Dimensional]

after playing A Psi War for a while.

Hustle - It's all about Hustle. it gives tactical posibilities all the way to the bank.
Combine with Deep impact/Psi Meditaion and power attack for evil.

Psionic Lions charge. You don't need it if you have hustle and it's better for a TWF, But I just didg it.

Expansion is nice - extra damge and all that. Also battle field control due to extra Reach.

Vigor - You can never have to may HP

Your two Precognition powers - Nice - But frankly not that great until you can quicken them effectivly. I'd only take theone that grants to hit bonus cause that gives you that tactical flexibility you want - as you can convert it to damage with PA

Strength of my Enemy - Sounds Great - But Effectivly Unless You plan on Hitting some one lots for low damage it's not that great. I'd drop it for a great sword weilder.

Force sheild is great defensivly.

Vampiric Blade aint all that great. It's useful But I think their better powers. It heals half of the base damage of the weapon which ani't all that much. Go for hostile empathic transfer instead.

Dimensional Slide is amazing.

Feats
Drop expnad knowledge Energy Ray - Which while useful is a strength pick up a bow for ranged problems.
Instead pick up overchannel.

The extra manifester levels will count.
and with vigour and HEP you should be OK for HP

so thats

Vigour
Expansion
Precog Offensive
Force Sheild
Hustle
P. Lions Charge
Hostile Epathic Transfer
Dimensional Slide

With Expansion and Hustle - you can control/ treaten a large portion of the battle field.

use Hustle to Keep Focus if necissary - Deep Impact PA to tear into anything that bothers you.

HUge GreatSword + Deep Impact PA damage = Nasty.

anyway have fun

 

[Garrett]

Check out Empathic Transfer Hostile.
I'm not really sure what page its on in the XPH, or what kind of tactics your looking for...
but stealing hitpoints is a quick and easy way of keeping yourself alive to use your tactics

 

[Patlin]

Expand, first level power, lasts 1 minute a level and gives the character 10ft reach. Increases strength and base weapon damage. That should be one of the first powers he takes.

It should be the 3rd power he takes, at 3rd level. The 2 point augmentation gives it a usefull duration, until then it's worthless. Be sure to read over the errata, there are a bunch of changes.