To Psi or Not to Psi?

[Spatula]

Yep... found that out when the party Psi-War used Graft Weapon on his magical weapon (which can be done days in advance because the weapons stays grafted until ungrafted), Disolving Touch, and the feat Deep Impact. Nasty stuff indeed. In that case you only have to pay for the Disolving Touch power and have the reserve points for Deep Impact.

Deep Impact costs 5 PP per use, it doesn't use reserve PP. But yeah, most of the broken combos involve graft weapon.

Given all the bonus feats that Psi-Wars get there is no reason for a Psi-War not to take the feat that grants extra power points (the name of the feat escapes me at this time).

Inner Strength, which only gives you a handful of PP. A psywar would be better off taking combat feats.

Psy-Wars get an amazing number of bonus feats too (as many as Fighters if I remember correctly).

8 (+weapon specialization) vs 11 for the fighter. Of course, the psywar can use its bonus feats on psionic feats as well as martial ones.

 

[Altalazar]

I've always liked PSI characters. They are just a different flavor of core class - and I think they are different enough that they aren't just some minor variation of some other class.

I've seen them put to unique use in 3E and I had great fun playing a Psi character in 2E that I really thought of as a Merchant who happened to have Psi powers. He ended up making rather a lot of money from his investments over the course of that campaign... and this is in a relatively low-treasure campaign. By seventh level (when we stopped) he had several hundred thousand gold of his own plus some other investments he had made for other party members. I liked the psi aspect of it because I really did play it as a Merchant first and a psionicist second - even though all of his levels are as a psi - that was just him naturally progressing.

 

[Staffan]

I see the psychic warrior as being more like a paladin, as it fills the "supernatural warrior" role.

Actually, I think it's more akin to a bard than a paladin - at least the powers are about on par with those of a bard (albeit with a different focus). In a way, the bard is like a sorcerer/rogue with some extra stuff, and the psychic warrior is like a psion/fighter (with not so much extra stuff).

 

[Psion]

Hmm. Now this is not what I wanted to hear. :\ It would be cool to hear about some scenarios where the psychic warrior excels, but just to hear that at full power a psywar can outperform every other warrior at their peak certainly makes it sound over-the-top (I sure never warmed-up to feats like Deep Impact).

The Fighter outshines the PW in endurance. A PsyWar really rocks when its buffs are a churnin', but after that he's a bit of a wet noodle in combat. The fighter is more like the engergizer bunny of melee. After 4 or 5 combats, he's "still going..."

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Has anyone got much experience of psi-warrior at higher levels?

I'm guessing they could be the king of scry-buff-teleport attacks... Their extra combat options could really set them apart?

IME, we used the 3.0 psionics rules for a while in several different campaigns. Impressions were:

Think they can be a bit much in a low wealth setting.

I really dislike the random save mechanic... wish I'd realised it was optional earlier.