Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
As usual for the showcase, these builds are intended to spur discussion and perhaps inspire a few people in the spirit of the old CO boards. They come from members of my gaming group - me, TempestStormwind, DisposableHero_, Andarious, Sionnis, and Seishi - and I'll always identify who wrote the build at the start, so do not assume I'm the guy behind all of them (because I'm not!).
Unless otherwise noted, showcase builds use 28 point-buy, and have their snapshots evaluated using fractional base attack / saves (because it simplifies the math). None of them actually rely on fractional to be built, though. The format I use showcases their progression at key levels rather than just presenting the build and showing off a few tricks at level 20; most of these are capable of being played 1-20 if you so choose.
With that out of the way, let's get started. This week, we’ve got a particularly potent entry by DisposableHero_. Andarious and I finalized it, but the original theory and chassis was all DH’s idea.
------------------
PSYCARNUM WARRIOR
You can’t stop me, I got SOUL!
Required Books: Expanded Psionics Handbook, Magic of Incarnum, Complete Psionics. A few equipment suggestions from the Magic Item Compendium are used.
Unearthed Arcana used: None.
Background: I’ll just post DH’s thoughts directly here.
The Basics
Skill Notes: Concentration is the only skill you need, it’s the only skill you have the ranks to max, it’s the only skill needed for prerequisites. Any questions? Didn't think so.
Basic Equipment: You’ll only need armor for levels 1 to 7; go with what fits your Dex bonus. A greatsword is, well, great for the first while; you may want to switch out to a glaive and spiked gauntlets after you take Improved Unarmed Strike. A backup ranged weapon
Magical Gear Goals: You absolutely must have a Torc of Power Preservation as soon as you can swing it. It’s necessary to manifest your highest tier of powers for free. Otherwise, buffs replace many of the melee character gold taxes; you don’t need to care that much about Strength boosters with Strength of my Enemy active. As you don’t have Evade Burst, Freedom of Movement, or True Seeing on this power list, consider the rings and goggles that grant their effects. You only need Wisdom boosters for increasing your Will save and protecting your manifesting from ability damage. That said, ability damage is a threat; the Orbs of Physical and Mental Renewal from the MIC are worth considering. Also useful from that book is the Ghost Shroud, which takes up the spot normally occupied by armor and lets your attacks hit incorporeal creatures without that pesky miss chance. As you won’t need armor from level 8 on, it’s worth considering. Oh, and a Third Eye Concentrate, don’t forget that.
The Build.
Build Stub: Psychic Warrior 20
1 – Psychic Warrior – (Azure Talent, Psicrystal Affinity, Psycarnum Infusion) (Force Screen)
*
[sblock] Turn on that cheese and kick back. The infamous Psycarnum Infusion combo is used to get around the 1/day limit on Azure Talent. As you will never invest essentia in that feat anymore, you can give yourself 2 temporary power points per round by expending psionic focus. Not much to spend them on right now, though. You start out as an AC focused psywar with a surprising number of power points for this level. A single-minded psicrystal for boosting that Concentration check is probably your best bet. [/sblock]
2 – Psychic Warrior – (Power Attack) (Expansion)
3 – Psychic Warrior – (Psicrystal Containment) (Offensive Precognition)
4 – Psychic Warrior – (Strength of my Enemy)
5 – Psychic Warrior – (Psionic Meditation) (Hustle)
*
[sblock] Fairly standard buffs and feats up to this point. You can see that we’re building up our psionic focus infrastructure, so we can use Psycarnum as regularly as possible in combat. [/sblock]
6 – Psychic Warrior – (Improved Essentia Capacity) (Psionic Lion’s Charge)
*
[sblock] Your essentia capacity for feats just reached 3 at this level, you can give yourself 6 temporary power points per round by expending psionic focus, of which you have two that you can recover with a move action. This is the peak level for efficiency, as the Psycarnum Talent combo will cover the cost of fully augmented powers. You can augment everything in your arsenal to max and will never spend any ‘real’ power points unless you manifest more than one power per round. [/sblock]
7 – Psychic Warrior – (Vampiric Blade)
*
[sblock] You can manifest Vampiric Blade with Azure Talent’s power points. Fully augmented buffs, like a Huge Expansion or a +3 Offensive Precognition, cost you 1 pp each. [/sblock]
8 – Psychic Warrior – (Midnight Augmentation) (Inertial Armor)
*
[sblock] What’s good for Azure Talent is good for Midnight Augmentation. You can now manifest augmented powers of up to 9 pp without spending any real power points. You can also manifest a +4 Offensive Precognition for 2 power points, the most you will need to spend on fully augmented powers at this point. We pick up Inertial Armor because this is the level at which we can get 11 pp manifestations that are equal to +1 ghost touch full plate without max dex or ACP. Said Inertial Armors last for 8 hours apiece and cost us 2 pp per manifestation. [/sblock]
9 – Psychic Warrior – (Cobalt Power) (Share Pain)
*
[sblock] Share Pain is another power we can effectively manifest for free. Cobalt Power is what we do with that essentia we don’t need or want to invest in Azure Talent or Midnight Augmentation. Power attacking for a penalty equal to your essentia capacity will give you a nice x3 return on that damage bonus with a two-handed weapon. Note that it’s an insight bonus to damage; that’s why we didn’t get Offensive Prescience. [/sblock]
10 – Psychic Warrior – (Greater Concealing Amorpha)
*
[sblock] Yes, we can manifest this for free too. [/sblock]
11 – Psychic Warrior – (Improved Unarmed Strike) (Defensive Precognition)
*
[sblock] Now we can boost our AC even more and get monk-tier saves as well. [/sblock]
12 – Psychic Warrior – (Improved Grapple) (Grip of Iron)
*
[sblock] We turn into a magnificent grappler practically overnight, at the same level that our essentia capacity for feats increases to 4. We can manifest augmented powers of up to 12 pp for free, 13 pp if we have a Torc of Power Preservation. 13 pp covers a +5 Defensive or Offensive Precognition, or a +10 Grip of Iron, or a +8 Force Screen, or a +16 max Str bonus from Strength of my Enemy. We could also manifest 5th level powers for 1 pp each (free with the Torc), but we don’t know any yet. Powers fully augmented to 16 pp cost us only 4 real power points. Remember: Keep your Dex high so you don’t lose access to Improved Grapple (with its 13 Dex requirement) when you manifest an augmented Expansion. [/sblock]
13 – Psychic Warrior – (Empathic Feedback)
*
[sblock] Allowing no save or PR, the only way to block this power is through immunity to mind-affecting effects, and we can augment it until it returns up to 12 damage per melee attack for free (13 damager per attack with a Torc of Power Preservation). [/sblock]
14 – Psychic Warrior – (Expanded Knowledge) (Wall Walker, Schism)
*
[sblock] This is our next big leap in power. While we can have a ton of buffs up all day if we spend the actions on them, that is a lot of actions for our per/round buffs. Schism takes care of that problem by providing the actions. It only has an ML of 8, but 8 is the number of power points Azure Talent will give us, and Midnight Augmentation gives us 4 points of free augmentation, so with a Torc our schismed mind can still pump out those 13 pp powers for free. Once every 14 rounds we’ll need to spend a real standard action to reset Schism, but that’s alright, because we can manifest it for free. We can also manifest Wall Walker for free, making us quite mobile. [/sblock]
15 – Psychic Warrior – (Combat Reflexes) (Perfect Riposte)
*
[sblock] Perfect Riposte, with its 9 pp base cost, can be manifested for free if you have a Torc (which you should have by now). And it is quite the boost: you get an attack of opportunity every time an enemy attacks you in melee and misses. They will be doing this very often, because you have 13 pp buffs for free all the time and can manifest a 19 pp Inertial Armor at the beginning of the day for +13 force armor to AC. Combat Reflexes lets you use this power more effectively and also do battlefield control with your insane grappling ability. Again, you lose Dex when expanding, and Combat Reflexes has a minimum Dex requirement; keep that ability score high. [/sblock]
16 – Psychic Warrior – (Dispelling Buffer)
*
[sblock] Dispelling hurts you, as it can take a while to get your god suite of buffs back up. This will provide you with protection from dispels. It also lasts 16 hours per manifestation and costs you 3 power points. [/sblock]
17 – Psychic Warrior – (Expanded Knowledge) (Inconstant Location, Touchsight)
*
[sblock] Touchsight, at this level, can be manifested at 13 pp for free with a Torc, giving you 100’ radius blindsight. Inconstant Location is a knockout power and a good upgrade over Wall Walker. It allows you to teleport up to your base movement speed as a swift action. Sadly, it lasts for a minute, and we can’t manifest it for free at this level…[/sblock]
18 – Psychic Warrior – (Expanded Knowledge) (Form of Doom, Power Resistance)
*
[sblock] …because this is the level when our essential capacity increases again. With a Torc of Power Preservation, we can manifest 6th level powers for free, including Inconstant Location and the awesome Form of Doom, and also freely manifest augmented powers of up to 16 pp (see below for what that signifies). It’s worth noting that our ML is now high enough to manifest all this through Schism. Among the powers we can manifest for free is Power Resistance, which gives us PR equal to our manifester level plus 12. That’s a buff you do NOT want to manifest through Schism, mind you. [/sblock]
19 – Psychic Warrior – (Personal Mind Blank)
*
[sblock] Yes, we can manifest it for free. No, you can’t dominate our uber buffed self into beating on our buddies. [/sblock]
20 – Psychic Warrior – (Expanded Knowledge) (Mind Over Energy, Psionic Teleport)
*
[sblock] Say no to energy damage or insufficient mobility. [/sblock]
Snapshot: You hit level 20, assuming level ups and manuals boosting your physical stats to 18 each, with 233 hit points, a base attack of 15, and saves of 17/11/12 assuming +6 enhancement items to Dex, Wis, and Con, but BEFORE any resistance bonuses from cloaks. You have a power point pool of 157, but that number is deceptively low, since you’ll rarely spend any power points when you combine Psycarnum Infusion, Azure Talent, and Midnight Augmentation. Let me explain how.
With a Torc of Power Preservation at level 20, the Psycarnum Warrior spends 9 pp on a 25 pp Inertial Armor at the beginning of his day (that's +16 ghost touch armor, with no max Dex bonus or armor check penalty, that lasts for 20 hours), and then spends the next few minutes setting up the following buffs, which he enjoys for free the rest of the day:
God Mode Activated
[sblock]
[/sblock]
I repeat, you get all that for free. It leaves you with plenty of PP left over to manifest those 26 pp Psionic Lion's Charges (for 10 ‘real’ pp apiece). That's a +23 circumstance to damage rolls on that full attack at the end of your charge. With a +5 glaive and a +5 amulet of mighty fists, you will charge with +34/+29/+24 huge glaive attacks (3d6+40 damage each, 50 damage average) and +29/+29/+29/+29 tentacles (6d6+32 each, 53 damage average), and that’s without the suggested -4 to Cobalt Power or any enhancement bonuses to Strength from SomE. If you want to control? You have a grapple bonus of +48 with all those buffs active. You can also manifest Hustle and Psionic Teleport for free, in case Inconstant Location and Wall Walker aren't enough mobility. And for added fun? That big ol’ list? Take a look at how many of those buffs you can share with your psicrystal, turning it into a frightful combatant in its own right.
Overall Strengths: This build kicks the Psychic Warrior straight into Tier 2; this is as close as you get to entering “up up down down left right left right A B start” when you pull out your character sheet. Your charging full attacks will deal over 200 damage easy at the high levels with a bit of Power Attack, and over 300 or even 400 damage if all attacks hit and or you’ve got a high enough Strength bonus from Strength of my Enemy up and running. Having all those amazing defensive buffs up makes you incredibly hard to kill, and you can control the battlefield for your party very well against anything not immune to grappling.
Overall Weaknesses: Ummm…I’m sure he’s got some weaknesses somewhere…I think? Someone could attack him in his sleep? His social skills suck and your GM is likely to ban Psycarnum Infusion when he sees you go all day in God Mode. That’s about it.
Variants: Switch up the buffs? Great options that didn’t quite make the cut in this round include Bite of the Wolf, Claws of the Beast, Prevenom Weapon, and Skate. (Inertial Barrier and Biofeedback were considered, but Form of Doom scoops them pretty hard) If you feel mobility would be a concern, Dimension Slide or Dimension Door wouldn’t hurt to include. You can also switch up the feats. Power Attack and Cobalt Power were DH’s original picks, but you could switch them out and move the Improved Grapple and Combat Reflexes feats earlier in if you want more Expanded Knowledge options. EK: Astral Construct would give you a buddy all day, and if you feel like being a mageslayer, using Expanded Knowledge to snag Dispel Psionics and Crystal Shard works well. It’s trivial for this build to manifest fully augmented Dispels for free, and you can have your Schism ready actions to interrupt any casting with 14 pp Crystal Shards (also, yes, for free). Another tangent considered the possibility of dipping into Anarchic Initiate for Wild Surge, but that’d involve skill shenanigans this build can’t do in its current stat loadout.
There you have it. In case you were wondering, this is why we don’t showcase DH’s stuff as often; he makes us look pretty amateur.
Next up: Take your pick from [DH] Eat, Sleep, Gank, [AR] Heavy Weapons Elf, and [RT] Edge of the Light. I’ll be passing the baton back to Tempest, so let him know what you want!
Originally posted by draco1119:
Love the Skill notes!
Feats for levels 2 & 3 need to be switched, since Psicrystal Containment requires a maniftester level of 3.
How much would it hurt this build to lose a feat in order to use a Half-Giant? The bonus pp isn't a big deal, but Expansion + Powerful Build +4 Str = Win! Or did I get my math wrong?
I vote for the Heavy Weapons Elf.
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
The loss of the Azurin abilities is what would hurt most there Draco.The bonus Essentia Pool, a bonus feat, those are pretty key to the build.
Side note on variants, this is a REALLY nice chasis for a charger as well. Changing out a few of the feats starting at level 11 will quickly realize potential as a rather well protected and potent charger.
Originally posted by Caker:
It's like someone took all my hopes and dreams for psychic warrior being good, and made them come true! Powerful single class/1 PrC builds make my all warm and fuzzy inside.
I vote for heavy weapons elf as well.
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
EDIT: Thanks to Andarious for catching how Improved Essentia Capacity can't be taken until level 6.
Originally posted by 123456789blaaa:
I vote for eat,sleep,gank.
Was the psycarnum fusion-midnight augmentation-azure talent combo created by DH?
Originally posted by 18DELTA:
Heavy Weapons Elf
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Since you aren't actually using real essentia all that much (it helps, don't get me wrong!), and Azure Talent is one of those incarnum feats that doesn't require essentia to take, any bonus-feat race can pull this off to a greater or lesser degree. This is just one example - arguably the best, but not necessarily the only one close to this caliber.
Non-bonus-feat races such as half-giant are much trickier to work with, since you need several infrastructure feats to begin with (Azure Talent, Midnight Augmentation, Psycarnum Infusion, Psicrystal Affinity, and Psicrystal Containment, plus ideally Improved Essentia Capacity), and if you look at how ML advances as compared to how many "free" power points you get (largely a function of when your feats come online and your maximum essentia capacity), you'll see that it serves you VERY well to consider getting them online as soon as possible.
I'd like to note one other interesting effect here - in addition to the obvious effect (namely, free max-augmented psywar buffs), since the cost reductions are so extreme, and what costs exist are shuffled to temporary power points, this build effectively gets Persistent Spell for free simply because re-manifesting those buffs outside of combat is so trivial. And this is real Persistent Spell, not the Hyperconscious (Bruce Cordell) version of Persistent Power.*
[sblock]If you haven't read Hyperconscious, Bruce (the XPH's author) made Persistent Power cost +12 PP (so six spell slots equivalent) and, curiously for metapsionic, made the effect last as long as you maintained psionic focus. Thus, the tradeoff was "Permanent power in exchange for all your expend-focus feats, including further metapsionics". THAT would have made Persistent Spell somewhat less problematic, no?[/sblock]
RT: Really? "↑↑↓↓←→←→BA Start" isn't the perfect tagline for this? Aww fudge. Well, I do have control over how it's shown in my sig block...
(PS: I should have mentioned that pasting from Word into Firefox messes with the spacing like this; similar but less noticable problems happen if you paste into Chrome. I've been manually fixing the spacing on each showcase.)
Yes it was; he also discovered the original psycarnum metamagic trick (the one I've taken to call "metapsycarnum") back in the day. Dude's freaking scary (on either side of the screen) because of stuff like this.
The big difference between this and psycarnum metamagic - besides psionics/magic differences - is that here, Psycarnum Infusion + Azure Talent gives you a small but consistent flux of temporary PP (which can be spent on base power prices, instead of just augment costs), very similar to the Stone Power Crusader.
Originally posted by frost.fire:
Would there be a point to trying to squeeze in metamorphisis or would it be too heavy and investment
Originally posted by 123456789blaaa:
See stuff like this is the reason I (and probably everyone else who remembers you guys) want you guys to migrate (or at least post) to/on the other boards. We really miss the expertise and optimizing experience of you guys
. i don't think the above trick is saved anywhere except the thread you linked and those boards are going to be deleted some day.
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
Far be it from me to dictate the content's of someone else's signature
I wouldn't hesitate to say that he's the most mathematically inclined of our optimization group. Not mentioned in this showcase are the levels of calculation he put into the most optimal power point expenditures for manifesters of all levels WITHOUT psycarnum; it shows up when he plays Xander.
Actually, it wouldn't be difficult at all. You could replace just about any one of the post-level-15 Expanded Knowledge feats with that. We tend to avoid polymorph effects because they're too freaking powerful to be fun, most of the time. I mean, does this guy need war troll stats on top?
I spend too much time on the Internet already, I don't need to join another forum.
Originally posted by draco1119:
Just noticed another nitpick: I assume IUS is to power some touch-based powers? If not, why use it? If so, why are you using a SPIKED gauntlet?
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
It's being used to threaten the area adjacent to you with grapple attempts while wielding a glaive. The spiked gauntlet is so we can do so with lethal damage. It's also a prereq for Improved Grapple; and speaking of which, I miscalculated his grapple bonus with all the buffs up. It's even high than I anticipated.
Originally posted by draco1119:
Originally posted by Caker:
I think it is so that you can protect your squishy caster buddies by giving the bad guy a hug.
Originally posted by frost.fire:
Or to potentially stop the squishy caster on the enemy team? Also I'd like to put my vote in for eat sleep gank
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
It's also for antimage stunts and counter-grappling on Improved Grab or Swallow Whole fighters, but the real reason?
You're a psychic warrior. One thing you do REALLY well is grapple (Expansion + Grip of Iron). You do this exceptionally well here since you get those powers fully-augmented without really paying for them. With a grapple bonus brimming 50 without really trying for it (including no charge-ups on Strength of My Enemy), you're a pretty damn good wrestler.
The real logic behind this build is that the psychic warrior gets bonus feats in excess (second-greatest amount of bonus feats in the game, next to the fighter), but lacks PP. This build uses some of those bonus feats to bypass PP; the remainder can be used for general combat, using powers to do to the real heavy lifting. The later feats beyond the Psycarnum Warrior infrastructure are actually wide open - Andarious points out you could switch to a charger if you wanted, for instance. (I wouldn't, though - you're rewarded for getting the infrastructure early, so the charge feats would be late, which is when charging gets less effective due to circumstances).
Originally posted by draco1119:
That makes sense, but it brings me back to my original question: why use a SPIKED gauntlet? Spiked gauntlets are armed attacks, not unarmed. If you plan to grapple, why not use regular gauntlets, which are still unarmed attacks?
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
In all likelihood? Typo. No one ever uses gauntlets, instead favoring the spiked variety, and it's a small aspect of this build so it's not likely to see as much scrutiny as the main trick anyway.
Alternatively, spiked gauntlets are still light weapons, and without monk unarmed strike, they'll be better in a grapple than a standard gauntlet anyway. You're picking Improved Unarmed for Improved Grapple, not for any actual unarmed striking.
Originally posted by draco1119:
My character was based on the concept of "avoid grapples at all costs" due to traumatic experiences with illithids and a troll, so I'm going to have to ask a stupid question: why is a spiked gauntlet better for grappling than a regular one?
Originally posted by frost.fire:
The spiked does lethal and can be used in a grapple where the normal gauntlet doesn't creat your attack as being lethal iirc
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
It's a moot point after you get Form of Doom all day long and have tentacle attacks to use instead.
Originally posted by The_Fred:
Of course I like this, it has both "psy" and "carnum". However, I'm always a bit dubious about Psycarnum Infusion. It doesn't take a great leap of creativity to start wondering about applying it to Midnight Metamagic or Azure Talent, but it's not 100% clear how it actually works. A a DM I'd be tempted to say Azure Talent gives you the PP per essentia once per day, regardless of how often you fill and empty it.
Regardless, would your bonus PP necessarily be spent first? Example, you have X PP, you use Psycarnum Azure Talent and get X+6 PP. You spend those 6, so you're now on X PP... but when the essentia goes out of AT, wouldn't you drop back to X-6 PP? This would pose quite a serious problem, since when you hit 0 PP you wouldn't be able to use your Psionic Focus, and thus wouldn't be able to use Psycarnum Infusion to give yourself any PP back.
Of course, it all boils down to your DM, but the latter interpretation is certainly well within RAW, and the RAI seems for this combo never to have been used, so I think you'd need a relatively lax DM (or, more likely, one who simply isn't familiar with Incarnum... which seems to be a lot of them).
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
I think it'd be unfamiliarity with psionics that would lead to that conclusion, as we have precedent for gaining bonus power points from short-term effects, problematic as it is. And, although Azure Talent doesn't use temporary PP (though it really should have...), precedent there shows it's burned off first too.
(Seriously, what is it with psionics having mechanics that the developers themselves forget about? Temporary PP and ability burn solve so many mechanical problems - Bestow Power and the Hellfire Warlock come to mind.)
Originally posted by The_Fred:
True, but Azure is not quite like Bestow. That just flat-out gives PP, and it's permanant (well, technically instantaneous). As a DM I'd be tempted to stomp on Psycarnum Infusion abuse anyway, much as I like the feat, but by RAW it's just the investing of the essentia which grants you the PP.
The real problem with this is that - by that interpretation of the RAW - you could, in theory, simply get up in the morning and keep using your Psionic Focus to Infuse Azure over and over and get infinite PP, because there's nothing to say they don't stack (they should probably be temp PP).
A better interpretation is that the PP rely on the essentia being invested. That's obviously the RAI, especially given the line about the +2 for having the crown chakra. However, that suggests that when the essentia goes, so do the PP, and unless there's a distinction between those PP and your other PP (which there isn't) I would expect it to work more like the Totem Avatar or Heart of Incarnum.
Originally posted by aelryinth:
It would also be reasonable for the DM to say they are temporary power points, and when they expire, any effects they power also expire.
So, you could power round by round effects, but you could not power effects that last more then one round...they would collapse as the extra PP used to power them vanish.
That's probably how I would handle it. If you want God Mode long duration, spend the power. If you want a temporary buff for one round, I'm okay with that.
Of course, this still falls down when applied to Metamagic and blasting feats, but you can't have everything!
Nice straight 20 level build, even if it does build upon an exploit. See, this is why no one should ever play a non-caster.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by The_Fred:
It's a shame, because Midnight Metamagic is not so great on its own (I guess it's OK, and it's good in that you can reuse the essentia, but it's somewhat limited to Soulcasters who can get the most use out of it), and Psycarnum Infusion really isn't (I guess there might be some uses for e.g. filling up an attack soulmeld at a high level without having to have a lot of manifester levels). The two together, however, are pretty broken. It'd be nice to have some kind of middle ground.
Originally posted by zylo_drizzt:
this has made me think, what if you had access to off published books like from dreamscared press, what sort of shenanagans could you get into
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Funny you should mention that. You know who Dreamscarred Press is? In essence, the majority of our group started DSP. The original presentation of this trick used Untapped Potential's powers, most notably Physical Acceleration and Zealous Fury (note the synergy here with natural attacks, and the duration augment.)
That said, we took pains when writing the books to be careful on the power levels. Virtually everything was balanced with other effects of the same level. The only ones that had an extra balance point were the "formbinding" powers (a variant take on shapeshifting); due to the unbounded effect of copying monsters, we added an extra balance point of making the powers expensive. A Psycarnum Formbinder might produce devastating effects. (Although I sincerely believe it'll be weaker than Polymorph - big surprise).
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
Yeah, DH, Tempest, and I were three of the original four authors. DH mused about using Mantra feats with this too.
Originally posted by zylo_drizzt:
oh sh** i didnt realize, thats awesome love almost everything from dreamscarred aka you guys. hey maybe you guys could help me out on a character i got coming up. which seems to be right up your guys ally in optimizing. if your interested in helping i pm you about my character
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
Why not make a thread? Surely the rest of the community can help out too. I'd be happy to help, but we're not the true gods of optimization and it's entirely possible others will pick up on stuff we miss.
Originally posted by zylo_drizzt:
well i was sure you all know dreamscarred press and not so sure everyone else does as well
Originally posted by zylo_drizzt:
hmm was just pondering the thought of actually storing the pp from these feats instead of using them right away, would they still dissapear, if not then maybe you could not use any pp for your buffs at all, just a thought
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
You can't store 'em normally; Infusion lasts for only one round. You might be able to pull some funny stuff with Soul Crystal, but that's not a trick the psywar can pull.
Originally posted by zylo_drizzt:
yes I figured that but the reason i asked is because in the original context of azure talent was perminent until used, well you are using your pp to fuel powers that have long durations, why dont those go away after the round when you used the feat? i figured if you could use them on powers then you could use them on items, maybe my logic is faulty but i figured you just shuffled them to a diffrent source and now they are stored pp but idk i guess that would be too powerful though the combination seems a bit powerful as well lol
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
Mantled PsyWar could have that MoI power on it's list,
via Substitute Powers from the Ardent acfs (this is the shakiest part)
but he'd have to use the CPsi powerstone nerf.
And it's expensive, and basically not worth doing.
Of course if a helper wants to cheese it up, the more the merrier.
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
Psycarnum Infusion can be used more than once per day. If you never actually invest real essentia in Midnight Augmentation, you never trigger its 1/day limit on power selection.
Yes, it's cheesy as hell.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
This argument was covered when psycarnum infusion was first discussed. There's a link on the first page to an archive discussion on the subject. As I recall, some saw the limit as a function of investing essentia, and others saw it as separate. It came down to order of operatons in an English clause. It was never clarified by wizards.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Except "that" is a referral, not part of the limit itself. If you're skipping the 1/day limit on essentia investment (which Psycarnum Infusion pretty clearly does), and the power selection is a function of investing essentia, then the "that" refers to the power that's "effectively" chosen when you "effectively" fill the feat with essentia.
It seems the long, involved discussion on the 339 heyday has been absorbed by the internet; the link I provided earlier was to a BG discussion on the topic, and this point is brought up there (though in less detail than I'd hoped). We have discussed this before.
It comes down to two direct readings: One that links the power selection to the act of investing essentia, and one that "distributes" the Once Per Day to the essentia investment and the power selection independently. Both are legitimate readings of the feat. The consequences of the first interpretation are a dramatic increase in power level (particulary if it's applied to magic via Midnight Metamagic or Pearls of Psycarnum Power), albeit at the cost of a lot of infrastructure feats; conservative DMs are more likely to select the second interpretation as a result, but that does not make the first interpretation any less legitimate.
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
minor tangent
... about the Warlock Invocations on M.O.I. p. 107.
2 of them could be targetted by the Psy Infusion trick.
The level 8 gets a meh. The level 6 one looks promising.
As usual for the showcase, these builds are intended to spur discussion and perhaps inspire a few people in the spirit of the old CO boards. They come from members of my gaming group - me, TempestStormwind, DisposableHero_, Andarious, Sionnis, and Seishi - and I'll always identify who wrote the build at the start, so do not assume I'm the guy behind all of them (because I'm not!).
Unless otherwise noted, showcase builds use 28 point-buy, and have their snapshots evaluated using fractional base attack / saves (because it simplifies the math). None of them actually rely on fractional to be built, though. The format I use showcases their progression at key levels rather than just presenting the build and showing off a few tricks at level 20; most of these are capable of being played 1-20 if you so choose.
With that out of the way, let's get started. This week, we’ve got a particularly potent entry by DisposableHero_. Andarious and I finalized it, but the original theory and chassis was all DH’s idea.
------------------
PSYCARNUM WARRIOR
You can’t stop me, I got SOUL!
Required Books: Expanded Psionics Handbook, Magic of Incarnum, Complete Psionics. A few equipment suggestions from the Magic Item Compendium are used.
Unearthed Arcana used: None.
Background: I’ll just post DH’s thoughts directly here.
The Basics
- Race: Azurin.
- Ability Scores: 14/14/14/8/16/8 to start with. This ability score set will actually suit you just fine from 1 to 20, so you have complete freedom as to where you want to put those level-based ability score increases. I personally like 2 in Strength, 2 in Dexterity, and 1 in Constitution, followed by +2 manuals for Str and Dex and a +3 manual for Con. 18 in your physical stats is plenty. Surprisingly, you don’t need to boost Wis as much as you might expect.
Skill Notes: Concentration is the only skill you need, it’s the only skill you have the ranks to max, it’s the only skill needed for prerequisites. Any questions? Didn't think so.
Basic Equipment: You’ll only need armor for levels 1 to 7; go with what fits your Dex bonus. A greatsword is, well, great for the first while; you may want to switch out to a glaive and spiked gauntlets after you take Improved Unarmed Strike. A backup ranged weapon
Magical Gear Goals: You absolutely must have a Torc of Power Preservation as soon as you can swing it. It’s necessary to manifest your highest tier of powers for free. Otherwise, buffs replace many of the melee character gold taxes; you don’t need to care that much about Strength boosters with Strength of my Enemy active. As you don’t have Evade Burst, Freedom of Movement, or True Seeing on this power list, consider the rings and goggles that grant their effects. You only need Wisdom boosters for increasing your Will save and protecting your manifesting from ability damage. That said, ability damage is a threat; the Orbs of Physical and Mental Renewal from the MIC are worth considering. Also useful from that book is the Ghost Shroud, which takes up the spot normally occupied by armor and lets your attacks hit incorporeal creatures without that pesky miss chance. As you won’t need armor from level 8 on, it’s worth considering. Oh, and a Third Eye Concentrate, don’t forget that.
The Build.
Build Stub: Psychic Warrior 20
1 – Psychic Warrior – (Azure Talent, Psicrystal Affinity, Psycarnum Infusion) (Force Screen)
*
[sblock] Turn on that cheese and kick back. The infamous Psycarnum Infusion combo is used to get around the 1/day limit on Azure Talent. As you will never invest essentia in that feat anymore, you can give yourself 2 temporary power points per round by expending psionic focus. Not much to spend them on right now, though. You start out as an AC focused psywar with a surprising number of power points for this level. A single-minded psicrystal for boosting that Concentration check is probably your best bet. [/sblock]
2 – Psychic Warrior – (Power Attack) (Expansion)
3 – Psychic Warrior – (Psicrystal Containment) (Offensive Precognition)
4 – Psychic Warrior – (Strength of my Enemy)
5 – Psychic Warrior – (Psionic Meditation) (Hustle)
*
[sblock] Fairly standard buffs and feats up to this point. You can see that we’re building up our psionic focus infrastructure, so we can use Psycarnum as regularly as possible in combat. [/sblock]
6 – Psychic Warrior – (Improved Essentia Capacity) (Psionic Lion’s Charge)
*
[sblock] Your essentia capacity for feats just reached 3 at this level, you can give yourself 6 temporary power points per round by expending psionic focus, of which you have two that you can recover with a move action. This is the peak level for efficiency, as the Psycarnum Talent combo will cover the cost of fully augmented powers. You can augment everything in your arsenal to max and will never spend any ‘real’ power points unless you manifest more than one power per round. [/sblock]
7 – Psychic Warrior – (Vampiric Blade)
*
[sblock] You can manifest Vampiric Blade with Azure Talent’s power points. Fully augmented buffs, like a Huge Expansion or a +3 Offensive Precognition, cost you 1 pp each. [/sblock]
8 – Psychic Warrior – (Midnight Augmentation) (Inertial Armor)
*
[sblock] What’s good for Azure Talent is good for Midnight Augmentation. You can now manifest augmented powers of up to 9 pp without spending any real power points. You can also manifest a +4 Offensive Precognition for 2 power points, the most you will need to spend on fully augmented powers at this point. We pick up Inertial Armor because this is the level at which we can get 11 pp manifestations that are equal to +1 ghost touch full plate without max dex or ACP. Said Inertial Armors last for 8 hours apiece and cost us 2 pp per manifestation. [/sblock]
9 – Psychic Warrior – (Cobalt Power) (Share Pain)
*
[sblock] Share Pain is another power we can effectively manifest for free. Cobalt Power is what we do with that essentia we don’t need or want to invest in Azure Talent or Midnight Augmentation. Power attacking for a penalty equal to your essentia capacity will give you a nice x3 return on that damage bonus with a two-handed weapon. Note that it’s an insight bonus to damage; that’s why we didn’t get Offensive Prescience. [/sblock]
10 – Psychic Warrior – (Greater Concealing Amorpha)
*
[sblock] Yes, we can manifest this for free too. [/sblock]
11 – Psychic Warrior – (Improved Unarmed Strike) (Defensive Precognition)
*
[sblock] Now we can boost our AC even more and get monk-tier saves as well. [/sblock]
12 – Psychic Warrior – (Improved Grapple) (Grip of Iron)
*
[sblock] We turn into a magnificent grappler practically overnight, at the same level that our essentia capacity for feats increases to 4. We can manifest augmented powers of up to 12 pp for free, 13 pp if we have a Torc of Power Preservation. 13 pp covers a +5 Defensive or Offensive Precognition, or a +10 Grip of Iron, or a +8 Force Screen, or a +16 max Str bonus from Strength of my Enemy. We could also manifest 5th level powers for 1 pp each (free with the Torc), but we don’t know any yet. Powers fully augmented to 16 pp cost us only 4 real power points. Remember: Keep your Dex high so you don’t lose access to Improved Grapple (with its 13 Dex requirement) when you manifest an augmented Expansion. [/sblock]
13 – Psychic Warrior – (Empathic Feedback)
*
[sblock] Allowing no save or PR, the only way to block this power is through immunity to mind-affecting effects, and we can augment it until it returns up to 12 damage per melee attack for free (13 damager per attack with a Torc of Power Preservation). [/sblock]
14 – Psychic Warrior – (Expanded Knowledge) (Wall Walker, Schism)
*
[sblock] This is our next big leap in power. While we can have a ton of buffs up all day if we spend the actions on them, that is a lot of actions for our per/round buffs. Schism takes care of that problem by providing the actions. It only has an ML of 8, but 8 is the number of power points Azure Talent will give us, and Midnight Augmentation gives us 4 points of free augmentation, so with a Torc our schismed mind can still pump out those 13 pp powers for free. Once every 14 rounds we’ll need to spend a real standard action to reset Schism, but that’s alright, because we can manifest it for free. We can also manifest Wall Walker for free, making us quite mobile. [/sblock]
15 – Psychic Warrior – (Combat Reflexes) (Perfect Riposte)
*
[sblock] Perfect Riposte, with its 9 pp base cost, can be manifested for free if you have a Torc (which you should have by now). And it is quite the boost: you get an attack of opportunity every time an enemy attacks you in melee and misses. They will be doing this very often, because you have 13 pp buffs for free all the time and can manifest a 19 pp Inertial Armor at the beginning of the day for +13 force armor to AC. Combat Reflexes lets you use this power more effectively and also do battlefield control with your insane grappling ability. Again, you lose Dex when expanding, and Combat Reflexes has a minimum Dex requirement; keep that ability score high. [/sblock]
16 – Psychic Warrior – (Dispelling Buffer)
*
[sblock] Dispelling hurts you, as it can take a while to get your god suite of buffs back up. This will provide you with protection from dispels. It also lasts 16 hours per manifestation and costs you 3 power points. [/sblock]
17 – Psychic Warrior – (Expanded Knowledge) (Inconstant Location, Touchsight)
*
[sblock] Touchsight, at this level, can be manifested at 13 pp for free with a Torc, giving you 100’ radius blindsight. Inconstant Location is a knockout power and a good upgrade over Wall Walker. It allows you to teleport up to your base movement speed as a swift action. Sadly, it lasts for a minute, and we can’t manifest it for free at this level…[/sblock]
18 – Psychic Warrior – (Expanded Knowledge) (Form of Doom, Power Resistance)
*
[sblock] …because this is the level when our essential capacity increases again. With a Torc of Power Preservation, we can manifest 6th level powers for free, including Inconstant Location and the awesome Form of Doom, and also freely manifest augmented powers of up to 16 pp (see below for what that signifies). It’s worth noting that our ML is now high enough to manifest all this through Schism. Among the powers we can manifest for free is Power Resistance, which gives us PR equal to our manifester level plus 12. That’s a buff you do NOT want to manifest through Schism, mind you. [/sblock]
19 – Psychic Warrior – (Personal Mind Blank)
*
[sblock] Yes, we can manifest it for free. No, you can’t dominate our uber buffed self into beating on our buddies. [/sblock]
20 – Psychic Warrior – (Expanded Knowledge) (Mind Over Energy, Psionic Teleport)
*
[sblock] Say no to energy damage or insufficient mobility. [/sblock]
Snapshot: You hit level 20, assuming level ups and manuals boosting your physical stats to 18 each, with 233 hit points, a base attack of 15, and saves of 17/11/12 assuming +6 enhancement items to Dex, Wis, and Con, but BEFORE any resistance bonuses from cloaks. You have a power point pool of 157, but that number is deceptively low, since you’ll rarely spend any power points when you combine Psycarnum Infusion, Azure Talent, and Midnight Augmentation. Let me explain how.
With a Torc of Power Preservation at level 20, the Psycarnum Warrior spends 9 pp on a 25 pp Inertial Armor at the beginning of his day (that's +16 ghost touch armor, with no max Dex bonus or armor check penalty, that lasts for 20 hours), and then spends the next few minutes setting up the following buffs, which he enjoys for free the rest of the day:
God Mode Activated
[sblock]
- 13 pp Force Screen (+7 shield)
- Huge Expansion (+4 to Strength, up two size categories, -4 to Dex)
- 16 pp Offensive Precognition (+6 insight to attack rolls)
- 15 pp Strength of my Enemy (that's a +16 max enhancement bonus to Strength)
- Vampiric Blade
- Share Pain with his psicrystal (increasing your hit point pool by at least 50%)
- Greater Concealing Amorpha (50% miss chance)
- 16 pp Defensive Precognition (+6 insight to AC and saves)
- 15 pp Grip of Iron (+11 to grapple checks)
- 16 pp Empathic Feedback (up to 16 empathic damage on every melee attack returned to sender)
- Wall Walker
- Schism
- Perfect Riposte
- 15 pp Touchsight (that's 110' radius blindsight)
- Dispelling Buffer
- Inconstant Location
- Form of Doom (frightful presence, + 5 natural armor, +4 untyped to Strength, +10 movement speed, 4 2d8+1/2 Str tentacle attacks, DR 5/-, and a slew of nice skill bonuses)
- Power Resistance (that’s PR 32)
- Mind Blank
- Mind Over Energy (immunity to an energy type of your choice, immediate action to manifest when you want to switch)
[/sblock]
I repeat, you get all that for free. It leaves you with plenty of PP left over to manifest those 26 pp Psionic Lion's Charges (for 10 ‘real’ pp apiece). That's a +23 circumstance to damage rolls on that full attack at the end of your charge. With a +5 glaive and a +5 amulet of mighty fists, you will charge with +34/+29/+24 huge glaive attacks (3d6+40 damage each, 50 damage average) and +29/+29/+29/+29 tentacles (6d6+32 each, 53 damage average), and that’s without the suggested -4 to Cobalt Power or any enhancement bonuses to Strength from SomE. If you want to control? You have a grapple bonus of +48 with all those buffs active. You can also manifest Hustle and Psionic Teleport for free, in case Inconstant Location and Wall Walker aren't enough mobility. And for added fun? That big ol’ list? Take a look at how many of those buffs you can share with your psicrystal, turning it into a frightful combatant in its own right.
Overall Strengths: This build kicks the Psychic Warrior straight into Tier 2; this is as close as you get to entering “up up down down left right left right A B start” when you pull out your character sheet. Your charging full attacks will deal over 200 damage easy at the high levels with a bit of Power Attack, and over 300 or even 400 damage if all attacks hit and or you’ve got a high enough Strength bonus from Strength of my Enemy up and running. Having all those amazing defensive buffs up makes you incredibly hard to kill, and you can control the battlefield for your party very well against anything not immune to grappling.
Overall Weaknesses: Ummm…I’m sure he’s got some weaknesses somewhere…I think? Someone could attack him in his sleep? His social skills suck and your GM is likely to ban Psycarnum Infusion when he sees you go all day in God Mode. That’s about it.
Variants: Switch up the buffs? Great options that didn’t quite make the cut in this round include Bite of the Wolf, Claws of the Beast, Prevenom Weapon, and Skate. (Inertial Barrier and Biofeedback were considered, but Form of Doom scoops them pretty hard) If you feel mobility would be a concern, Dimension Slide or Dimension Door wouldn’t hurt to include. You can also switch up the feats. Power Attack and Cobalt Power were DH’s original picks, but you could switch them out and move the Improved Grapple and Combat Reflexes feats earlier in if you want more Expanded Knowledge options. EK: Astral Construct would give you a buddy all day, and if you feel like being a mageslayer, using Expanded Knowledge to snag Dispel Psionics and Crystal Shard works well. It’s trivial for this build to manifest fully augmented Dispels for free, and you can have your Schism ready actions to interrupt any casting with 14 pp Crystal Shards (also, yes, for free). Another tangent considered the possibility of dipping into Anarchic Initiate for Wild Surge, but that’d involve skill shenanigans this build can’t do in its current stat loadout.
There you have it. In case you were wondering, this is why we don’t showcase DH’s stuff as often; he makes us look pretty amateur.
Next up: Take your pick from [DH] Eat, Sleep, Gank, [AR] Heavy Weapons Elf, and [RT] Edge of the Light. I’ll be passing the baton back to Tempest, so let him know what you want!
Originally posted by draco1119:
Love the Skill notes!
Feats for levels 2 & 3 need to be switched, since Psicrystal Containment requires a maniftester level of 3.
How much would it hurt this build to lose a feat in order to use a Half-Giant? The bonus pp isn't a big deal, but Expansion + Powerful Build +4 Str = Win! Or did I get my math wrong?
I vote for the Heavy Weapons Elf.
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
The loss of the Azurin abilities is what would hurt most there Draco.The bonus Essentia Pool, a bonus feat, those are pretty key to the build.
Side note on variants, this is a REALLY nice chasis for a charger as well. Changing out a few of the feats starting at level 11 will quickly realize potential as a rather well protected and potent charger.
Originally posted by Caker:
It's like someone took all my hopes and dreams for psychic warrior being good, and made them come true! Powerful single class/1 PrC builds make my all warm and fuzzy inside.
I vote for heavy weapons elf as well.
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
EDIT: Thanks to Andarious for catching how Improved Essentia Capacity can't be taken until level 6.
Love the Skill notes!
Feats for levels 2 & 3 need to be switched, since Psicrystal Containment requires a maniftester level of 3.
How much would it hurt this build to lose a feat in order to use a Half-Giant? The bonus pp isn't a big deal, but Expansion + Powerful Build +4 Str = Win! Or did I get my math wrong?
I vote for the Heavy Weapons Elf.
- It's always nice to be clear and right to the point.
- Ah, good catch.
- It could be done, but the loss of a feat sucks, and without LA buyoff it will cost you another feat, a power, and an ML on top. You also get a bit less into Cobalt Power if you don't go Azurin; that'd be the feat to drop if you switch races.
- Duly noted.
Originally posted by 123456789blaaa:
I vote for eat,sleep,gank.
Was the psycarnum fusion-midnight augmentation-azure talent combo created by DH?
Originally posted by 18DELTA:
Heavy Weapons Elf
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Since you aren't actually using real essentia all that much (it helps, don't get me wrong!), and Azure Talent is one of those incarnum feats that doesn't require essentia to take, any bonus-feat race can pull this off to a greater or lesser degree. This is just one example - arguably the best, but not necessarily the only one close to this caliber.
Non-bonus-feat races such as half-giant are much trickier to work with, since you need several infrastructure feats to begin with (Azure Talent, Midnight Augmentation, Psycarnum Infusion, Psicrystal Affinity, and Psicrystal Containment, plus ideally Improved Essentia Capacity), and if you look at how ML advances as compared to how many "free" power points you get (largely a function of when your feats come online and your maximum essentia capacity), you'll see that it serves you VERY well to consider getting them online as soon as possible.
I'd like to note one other interesting effect here - in addition to the obvious effect (namely, free max-augmented psywar buffs), since the cost reductions are so extreme, and what costs exist are shuffled to temporary power points, this build effectively gets Persistent Spell for free simply because re-manifesting those buffs outside of combat is so trivial. And this is real Persistent Spell, not the Hyperconscious (Bruce Cordell) version of Persistent Power.*
[sblock]If you haven't read Hyperconscious, Bruce (the XPH's author) made Persistent Power cost +12 PP (so six spell slots equivalent) and, curiously for metapsionic, made the effect last as long as you maintained psionic focus. Thus, the tradeoff was "Permanent power in exchange for all your expend-focus feats, including further metapsionics". THAT would have made Persistent Spell somewhat less problematic, no?[/sblock]
RT: Really? "↑↑↓↓←→←→BA Start" isn't the perfect tagline for this? Aww fudge. Well, I do have control over how it's shown in my sig block...
(PS: I should have mentioned that pasting from Word into Firefox messes with the spacing like this; similar but less noticable problems happen if you paste into Chrome. I've been manually fixing the spacing on each showcase.)
Yes it was; he also discovered the original psycarnum metamagic trick (the one I've taken to call "metapsycarnum") back in the day. Dude's freaking scary (on either side of the screen) because of stuff like this.
The big difference between this and psycarnum metamagic - besides psionics/magic differences - is that here, Psycarnum Infusion + Azure Talent gives you a small but consistent flux of temporary PP (which can be spent on base power prices, instead of just augment costs), very similar to the Stone Power Crusader.
Originally posted by frost.fire:
Would there be a point to trying to squeeze in metamorphisis or would it be too heavy and investment
Originally posted by 123456789blaaa:
See stuff like this is the reason I (and probably everyone else who remembers you guys) want you guys to migrate (or at least post) to/on the other boards. We really miss the expertise and optimizing experience of you guys
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
Far be it from me to dictate the content's of someone else's signature
I wouldn't hesitate to say that he's the most mathematically inclined of our optimization group. Not mentioned in this showcase are the levels of calculation he put into the most optimal power point expenditures for manifesters of all levels WITHOUT psycarnum; it shows up when he plays Xander.
Actually, it wouldn't be difficult at all. You could replace just about any one of the post-level-15 Expanded Knowledge feats with that. We tend to avoid polymorph effects because they're too freaking powerful to be fun, most of the time. I mean, does this guy need war troll stats on top?
See stuff like this is the reason I (and probably everyone else who remembers you guys) want you guys to migrate (or at least post) to/on the other boards. We really miss the expertise and optimizing experience of you guys. i don't think the above trick is saved anywhere except the thread you linked and those boards are going to be deleted some day.
I spend too much time on the Internet already, I don't need to join another forum.
Originally posted by draco1119:
Just noticed another nitpick: I assume IUS is to power some touch-based powers? If not, why use it? If so, why are you using a SPIKED gauntlet?
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
It's being used to threaten the area adjacent to you with grapple attempts while wielding a glaive. The spiked gauntlet is so we can do so with lethal damage. It's also a prereq for Improved Grapple; and speaking of which, I miscalculated his grapple bonus with all the buffs up. It's even high than I anticipated.
Originally posted by draco1119:
I feel like I'm missing something here... Why do you want to grapple, versus just punching them in the face?
Originally posted by Caker:
I think it is so that you can protect your squishy caster buddies by giving the bad guy a hug.
Originally posted by frost.fire:
Or to potentially stop the squishy caster on the enemy team? Also I'd like to put my vote in for eat sleep gank
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
It's also for antimage stunts and counter-grappling on Improved Grab or Swallow Whole fighters, but the real reason?
You're a psychic warrior. One thing you do REALLY well is grapple (Expansion + Grip of Iron). You do this exceptionally well here since you get those powers fully-augmented without really paying for them. With a grapple bonus brimming 50 without really trying for it (including no charge-ups on Strength of My Enemy), you're a pretty damn good wrestler.
The real logic behind this build is that the psychic warrior gets bonus feats in excess (second-greatest amount of bonus feats in the game, next to the fighter), but lacks PP. This build uses some of those bonus feats to bypass PP; the remainder can be used for general combat, using powers to do to the real heavy lifting. The later feats beyond the Psycarnum Warrior infrastructure are actually wide open - Andarious points out you could switch to a charger if you wanted, for instance. (I wouldn't, though - you're rewarded for getting the infrastructure early, so the charge feats would be late, which is when charging gets less effective due to circumstances).
Originally posted by draco1119:
That makes sense, but it brings me back to my original question: why use a SPIKED gauntlet? Spiked gauntlets are armed attacks, not unarmed. If you plan to grapple, why not use regular gauntlets, which are still unarmed attacks?
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
In all likelihood? Typo. No one ever uses gauntlets, instead favoring the spiked variety, and it's a small aspect of this build so it's not likely to see as much scrutiny as the main trick anyway.
Alternatively, spiked gauntlets are still light weapons, and without monk unarmed strike, they'll be better in a grapple than a standard gauntlet anyway. You're picking Improved Unarmed for Improved Grapple, not for any actual unarmed striking.
Originally posted by draco1119:
My character was based on the concept of "avoid grapples at all costs" due to traumatic experiences with illithids and a troll, so I'm going to have to ask a stupid question: why is a spiked gauntlet better for grappling than a regular one?
Originally posted by frost.fire:
The spiked does lethal and can be used in a grapple where the normal gauntlet doesn't creat your attack as being lethal iirc
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
It's a moot point after you get Form of Doom all day long and have tentacle attacks to use instead.
Originally posted by The_Fred:
Of course I like this, it has both "psy" and "carnum". However, I'm always a bit dubious about Psycarnum Infusion. It doesn't take a great leap of creativity to start wondering about applying it to Midnight Metamagic or Azure Talent, but it's not 100% clear how it actually works. A a DM I'd be tempted to say Azure Talent gives you the PP per essentia once per day, regardless of how often you fill and empty it.
Regardless, would your bonus PP necessarily be spent first? Example, you have X PP, you use Psycarnum Azure Talent and get X+6 PP. You spend those 6, so you're now on X PP... but when the essentia goes out of AT, wouldn't you drop back to X-6 PP? This would pose quite a serious problem, since when you hit 0 PP you wouldn't be able to use your Psionic Focus, and thus wouldn't be able to use Psycarnum Infusion to give yourself any PP back.
Of course, it all boils down to your DM, but the latter interpretation is certainly well within RAW, and the RAI seems for this combo never to have been used, so I think you'd need a relatively lax DM (or, more likely, one who simply isn't familiar with Incarnum... which seems to be a lot of them).
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
I think it'd be unfamiliarity with psionics that would lead to that conclusion, as we have precedent for gaining bonus power points from short-term effects, problematic as it is. And, although Azure Talent doesn't use temporary PP (though it really should have...), precedent there shows it's burned off first too.
(Seriously, what is it with psionics having mechanics that the developers themselves forget about? Temporary PP and ability burn solve so many mechanical problems - Bestow Power and the Hellfire Warlock come to mind.)
Originally posted by The_Fred:
True, but Azure is not quite like Bestow. That just flat-out gives PP, and it's permanant (well, technically instantaneous). As a DM I'd be tempted to stomp on Psycarnum Infusion abuse anyway, much as I like the feat, but by RAW it's just the investing of the essentia which grants you the PP.
The real problem with this is that - by that interpretation of the RAW - you could, in theory, simply get up in the morning and keep using your Psionic Focus to Infuse Azure over and over and get infinite PP, because there's nothing to say they don't stack (they should probably be temp PP).
A better interpretation is that the PP rely on the essentia being invested. That's obviously the RAI, especially given the line about the +2 for having the crown chakra. However, that suggests that when the essentia goes, so do the PP, and unless there's a distinction between those PP and your other PP (which there isn't) I would expect it to work more like the Totem Avatar or Heart of Incarnum.
Originally posted by aelryinth:
It would also be reasonable for the DM to say they are temporary power points, and when they expire, any effects they power also expire.
So, you could power round by round effects, but you could not power effects that last more then one round...they would collapse as the extra PP used to power them vanish.
That's probably how I would handle it. If you want God Mode long duration, spend the power. If you want a temporary buff for one round, I'm okay with that.
Of course, this still falls down when applied to Metamagic and blasting feats, but you can't have everything!
Nice straight 20 level build, even if it does build upon an exploit. See, this is why no one should ever play a non-caster.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by The_Fred:
It's a shame, because Midnight Metamagic is not so great on its own (I guess it's OK, and it's good in that you can reuse the essentia, but it's somewhat limited to Soulcasters who can get the most use out of it), and Psycarnum Infusion really isn't (I guess there might be some uses for e.g. filling up an attack soulmeld at a high level without having to have a lot of manifester levels). The two together, however, are pretty broken. It'd be nice to have some kind of middle ground.
Originally posted by zylo_drizzt:
this has made me think, what if you had access to off published books like from dreamscared press, what sort of shenanagans could you get into
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Funny you should mention that. You know who Dreamscarred Press is? In essence, the majority of our group started DSP. The original presentation of this trick used Untapped Potential's powers, most notably Physical Acceleration and Zealous Fury (note the synergy here with natural attacks, and the duration augment.)
That said, we took pains when writing the books to be careful on the power levels. Virtually everything was balanced with other effects of the same level. The only ones that had an extra balance point were the "formbinding" powers (a variant take on shapeshifting); due to the unbounded effect of copying monsters, we added an extra balance point of making the powers expensive. A Psycarnum Formbinder might produce devastating effects. (Although I sincerely believe it'll be weaker than Polymorph - big surprise).
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
Yeah, DH, Tempest, and I were three of the original four authors. DH mused about using Mantra feats with this too.
Originally posted by zylo_drizzt:
oh sh** i didnt realize, thats awesome love almost everything from dreamscarred aka you guys. hey maybe you guys could help me out on a character i got coming up. which seems to be right up your guys ally in optimizing. if your interested in helping i pm you about my character
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
Why not make a thread? Surely the rest of the community can help out too. I'd be happy to help, but we're not the true gods of optimization and it's entirely possible others will pick up on stuff we miss.
Originally posted by zylo_drizzt:
well i was sure you all know dreamscarred press and not so sure everyone else does as well
Originally posted by zylo_drizzt:
hmm was just pondering the thought of actually storing the pp from these feats instead of using them right away, would they still dissapear, if not then maybe you could not use any pp for your buffs at all, just a thought
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
You can't store 'em normally; Infusion lasts for only one round. You might be able to pull some funny stuff with Soul Crystal, but that's not a trick the psywar can pull.
Originally posted by zylo_drizzt:
yes I figured that but the reason i asked is because in the original context of azure talent was perminent until used, well you are using your pp to fuel powers that have long durations, why dont those go away after the round when you used the feat? i figured if you could use them on powers then you could use them on items, maybe my logic is faulty but i figured you just shuffled them to a diffrent source and now they are stored pp but idk i guess that would be too powerful though the combination seems a bit powerful as well lol
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
Mantled PsyWar could have that MoI power on it's list,
via Substitute Powers from the Ardent acfs (this is the shakiest part)
but he'd have to use the CPsi powerstone nerf.
And it's expensive, and basically not worth doing.
Of course if a helper wants to cheese it up, the more the merrier.
Originally posted by radicaltaoist:
Psycarnum Infusion can be used more than once per day. If you never actually invest real essentia in Midnight Augmentation, you never trigger its 1/day limit on power selection.
Yes, it's cheesy as hell.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
This argument was covered when psycarnum infusion was first discussed. There's a link on the first page to an archive discussion on the subject. As I recall, some saw the limit as a function of investing essentia, and others saw it as separate. It came down to order of operatons in an English clause. It was never clarified by wizards.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Except "that" is a referral, not part of the limit itself. If you're skipping the 1/day limit on essentia investment (which Psycarnum Infusion pretty clearly does), and the power selection is a function of investing essentia, then the "that" refers to the power that's "effectively" chosen when you "effectively" fill the feat with essentia.
It seems the long, involved discussion on the 339 heyday has been absorbed by the internet; the link I provided earlier was to a BG discussion on the topic, and this point is brought up there (though in less detail than I'd hoped). We have discussed this before.
It comes down to two direct readings: One that links the power selection to the act of investing essentia, and one that "distributes" the Once Per Day to the essentia investment and the power selection independently. Both are legitimate readings of the feat. The consequences of the first interpretation are a dramatic increase in power level (particulary if it's applied to magic via Midnight Metamagic or Pearls of Psycarnum Power), albeit at the cost of a lot of infrastructure feats; conservative DMs are more likely to select the second interpretation as a result, but that does not make the first interpretation any less legitimate.
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
minor tangent
... about the Warlock Invocations on M.O.I. p. 107.
2 of them could be targetted by the Psy Infusion trick.
The level 8 gets a meh. The level 6 one looks promising.
