For our Wrath of the righteous group our gm allowed psionic classes and after taking a look at them I decided to play either an aegis (aberrant), a soulknife or a mix of both.
The mythic path I aim for is the guardian. But I want a pc with balanced offence and defence (not pure "tank" so opponents have a reason to not ignore me)
For race I'm thinking about either elf/half-elf with treerazer's bane trait or a lizardfolk following Apsu for natural attacks.
The options I am seeing now are:
1: Aegis (aberrant) 2/ soulknife x
2: Aegis (aberrant) x/ soulknife (armored blade) 1
3: Pure aegis (aberrant)
4: One or both combined with a prestige class
I like the aegis better because I prefer the fluff and because it its bonuses are permanent and don't have to be activated.
1: This combination gives me the powerful build and increased damage customizations, combined with a twohanded soulblade this gives me a 3d6 weapon with a +3 damage bonus (not including the free brawn customization) This would be a heavy hitter with a little DR and an natural armor bonus
2: This would basically be like a pure aegis (see below) but with the option of summoning a psionic weapon and armor as backup. And with medium armor prof.
3: With only light armor prof he would have a rather low AC unless I spend feats on additional prof. This one is able to shape himself to get a good combination of offence and defence. Could either be used to go the twohanded weapon route or (depending on race) a natural attack route with whatever my race gives me + tentacles and stinger from customization.
4: The metaforge comes into mind. But some of its abilities will not help the aberrant as he has no astral armor. So it would increase both the mind blade level and the aberrant's transformed body customizations but gives little else.
Some other prestige classes might work but most would be better for single class pcs.
Some questions arise:
a) When using improved damage will natural weapon or unarmed strikes count as light or onehanded?
b) when using the armored blade archetypes mind armaments to summon a suit of armor, can I combine it with an armored kilt?
c) If I have multiple tentacles (max 4) from the aberrant's customizations, do they all give natural attacks or do the additional ones only give the bonus on grapple checks?
More questions might arise later.
On idea I had was taking the deadly fist archetype and combining it with a shield and armor. But didn't remain there because it didn't want to invoke the Captain Andoran image and wasn't sure if it works out well.
You said psionic and we are all evidently recoiling in the rememberance of how broken they were in 3.5.
You said psionic and we are all evidently recoiling in the rememberance of how broken they were in 3.5.
Everything I read about the psionic classes here on the forums until now suggested that at least the melee types seem not to be a problem when compared to the stronger core and basic classes.
Yeah, I know that.
Old wounds run deep, as the saying goes.
As I would really like to get advice and suggestion on my pc, would you mind doing the discussion about psi in 3.5 elsewhere?
If you do I might chime in with my opinion based on my Psi warrior.
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My advise is to stick with one class. While it is nice that power points make one pool of points from different classes Nd can.be ed to activate powers from either list, you end up gaining very ffew from multiclassing that way, especially with Soulblade.
I also recomend you be careful with what you do. We don't want other players seeing what you do and complaining that Psionics are broken. You may want to.explain how your stuff works when you do it. For example. Explain how you have to expend Psionic focus to get the big bonus and you cannot do that every round since it takes an action to gain Psionic focus.in.the first place. If you can do a.lot of damage because you dumped a stat, point that out and how it us common for ftr/bbn to do the same so they don't tnink you are doing all this damage just be aide you are using Psionic rules.
XD
At the very least it is keeping your post at the top.
The aegis and souldblade combine rather well and don't need lots of power points. If I am not missing something with my option 1 I don't get any ability that uses up power points.
On others thinking psionics are overpowered: One of the other players often builds the strongest pc in the party and then picks on the second strongest for being broken, so it might happen whatever I build.
But I have no problem with pointing out what I can do and how I do it.
About expending focus: As having focus gives a lot of bonuses (at lot of abilities state: While you have focus) and it is an action to regain focus I don't think I'll be doing lots of stuff that need focus to be expended.
Seems I used the wrong forum and gut moved. As this is about a wrath of the rightous pc using psionic classes I thought the advice forum would be ok.
Besides that, any advice from people having already played
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I still think sticking with one class is the better option so you can get stuff the class focuses on sooner than later. Does the Soulblade or aegis have Nything to over come stuff like dr/metal? Magic +3 weapons can bypass silver and cols iron, +4/5 bypass other stuff. Does the Soulblade or aegis have a similar Answer? Consider that when taking backup weapons into consideration. Is thY ap known to have a certain DR on a regular basis? I RBI.k it does, I think it is Cold iron for demons and electricity immunity. I Uggezt people walk around with a masterwork alternate metal to their main weapon as a backup weapon.
If you are wanting to combine with soulknife, I'd avoid the Aberrant archetype. Many of the weapon specific customizations are Aegis only, whereas if you are more into natural weapons, the aberrant is the way to go.
In basic terms, Aegis = weapons, Aberrant = Natural attacks.
You can't qualify for the Metaforge prestige class as an aberrant.
Why aberrant:
I feel that it is more flavourful than the standard aegis. Especially with wrath of the righteous and its "you become godlike" aspect. I'd be transforming my body into a mean killing machine to keep up with the demons we would have to battle.
The first concept of aberrant 2/ soulknife x was taking into account that the aberrant doesn't get all weapon customizations but it gets two strong ones, powerful built and increased damage which when combined with the twohanded soulblade give me on average 6.5 damage per hit (2d6 weapon becomes 3d6 and gets +3 to damage) When taking into account the free +2 enhancement bonus to strength it is +4 damage.
About DR: First the soulknife's soulblade gets a free enhancement bonus as I level and by that can overcome some DR sooner or later. Second I'll be doing big damage and by that can hurt beings with DR by just "overloading" the DR.
Lizardfolk
Aegis (aberrant) 2/ Soulblade 1
Str. 20 (+2 racial +2 enhancement)
Dex: 13
Con: 16 (+2 racial)
Int: 12
Wis: 10
Cha: 10
Feats:
1: Toughness
3: Power Attack (bonus), Furious focus
Traits:
Not decided
Customizations:
Powerful build, increased damage
Attack:
With power attack: Soulblade +7 (3d6+13) bite +2 (1d3+5)
W/out Power attack: Soulblade +8 (3d6+10) bite +3 (1d3+3)
Defence:
Chain shirt +4, Dex+1, natural armor +2
AC: 17 Touch: 11 Flatfooted: 16
DR 2/-
I'll take a look at student of the astral suit and psionic knack
@Quintain: Why should I not be able to qualify for Metaforge?
To qualify to become a metaforge, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Skills: Craft (any) 3 ranks.
Psionics: Enhanced Mind Blade class feature, Invigorating Suit class feature
Taking the standard aegis would not change much in the beginning, so I could go that way, too.
In astral armor form my stats and abilities would be very similar because I get brawn and improved damage free and can take powerful build as a chosen customization.
In fact it would even be stronger because I would not waste my racial natural armor, would have a higher armor bonus and more flexibility.
By wearing a light armor I could, as a free action drop my suit and swift action create an astral skin if speed is important.
Now I'm waiting for my GM's answer on psionic knack and student of the astral suit.
If the trait is ok I'll go aegis 2/ soulknife x for sure, with the option of a 3rd level of aegis if the feat is allowed, too.