Wild Talent + Psionic Meditation + Diamond Mind

[Faerl'Elghinn]

I was just reading the rules for psionic focus when I realized that expending it allows a character to take 15 on any Concentration check. Thus, a human Swordsage or Warblade could take these 2 feats at first level and combine them with Diamond Mind maneuvers such as Moment of Perfect Mind and its ilk, Insightful Strike, and the Nightmare Blade strikes to great effect. The round after a character expended his or her focus to take 15 on the check for one of these maneuvers (except those requiring immediate actions), a Warblade with this build could spend a swift action to regain all maneuvers, attack once, and take a move action to regain his or her psionic focus. Of course, there are several other series' of events which could be similarly advantageous, such as executing a strike (expending your psionic focus to take 15 on the check) and regaining your psionic focus in the same round...

Thoughts?

 

[RigaMortus2]

I may be missing something, but how are you coming to this conclussion?

All Wild Talent does is give you 2 PP and you are considered to be psionic.
All Psionic Meditation does is allow you to get your Psionic Focus back as a Move Action (rather than a Full Round Action).

How are you "taking 15"?

 

[ohGr]

Expending focus to "Take 15" is a function of psionic focus. From the SRD, under Gain Psionic Focus in the Concentration write-up:

When you are psionically focused, you can expend your focus on any single Concentration check you make thereafter. When you expend your focus in this manner, your Concentration check is treated as if you rolled a 15. It’s like taking 10, except that the number you add to your Concentration modifier is 15.

It works nicely with the Diamond Mind "Concentration check instead of a save" maneuvers, as well. FWIW, though, you can't take Psionic Meditation until at least 4th level, which, in reality, probably means you end up waiting 'til 6th.

All in all, it's a neat trick, but, considering the feat and action cost, probably not worth worrying about.

 

[Slaved]

How much like taking 10 is it?

Taking 10: When your character is not being threatened or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. For many routine tasks, taking 10 makes them automatically successful. Distractions or threats (such as combat) make it impossible for a character to take 10. In most cases, taking 10 is purely a safety measure —you know (or expect) that an average roll will succeed but fear that a poor roll might fail, so you elect to settle for the average roll (a 10). Taking 10 is especially useful in situations where a particularly high roll wouldn’t help.

If it is just like it in how and when it can be used then you would have to be outside of combat and not threatened or distracted and somehow be attacking someone with a weapon while using this maneuver?

That seems tough.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Expending focus to "Take 15" is a function of psionic focus. From the SRD, under Gain Psionic Focus in the Concentration write-up:

Ok, I figured it was something like that, just couldn't find the wording/rules.

That's pretty sweet...

 

[Bacris]

How much like taking 10 is it?

It's like Taking 10 in that you don't roll - but it also specifically states "you can expend your focus on any single Concentration check you make thereafter". Not just outside of combat.

 

[Faerl'Elghinn]

Ok, I figured it was something like that, just couldn't find the wording/rules.

That's pretty sweet...

Yeah--I read it a few times to make sure it would work, and it appears that it should. Of course, there's also the Instant Clarity feat in the BoNS, which allows a character to regain his or her psionic focus as a swift action immediately after executing a martial strike, but considering the above scenario, doing so as a move action might even be better than doing it as a swift action in many situations. It might be a bit cheesy, as the Warblade is already pretty powerful, but it seems like a pretty tight combo to me.

 

[Nifft]

Remember that:

1/ You can't take Psionic Meditation until you have 7 ranks in Concentration -- so you're not going to qualify at 1st level.

2/ You still have to make a DC 20 Concentration check which provokes an AoO to regain your Focus -- though I think you can "concentrate defensively".

Cheers, -- N