But I still want to play a Monk-like character.
I'm torn between the Psychic Warrior (Meditant archetype) and Soulknife (Deadly Fist archetype).
I guess really what it boils down to is this:
Which is better, the 3/4 BaB, 6 level Psionics character with the Monk physical abilities and poor saves, or the full BaB character with decent saves and a special psychic fist thing you can get new abilities from and that gets free enhancement bonuses?
I'm not too familiar with the Psychic Warrior powers list (or any Psionics really) so a quick analysis of what spells might be good (at a cursory glance all I could see was Psionic Lion's CHarge as being a "Must have").
I kinda want more of a bruiser, but if self buffing works out as better than having solid combat abilities from the start I may wanna go that route.
So, any suggestions from those of you that have played with the Dreamscarred Press Psionic books?
If you are going to go with Psychic Warrior you should be aware of Expanded Knowledge. That lets you take a power of up to one lower than you can use from ANY power list. That said I haven't looked at the lists in a while but I'll be back with any suggestions.
I looked at Aegis and nothing ever struck me as very Monk-like.
Then again, it was the first I looked at and I kinda skimmed over it because it sounded really neat, but not precisely what I was looking for.
If you've got suggestions for making the concept work with Aegis I'm open to hear them. It just seemed more like a Synthesist than a Monk.
1. Hustle seems like it could be better than Psionic Lion's Charge; it's the same level and let's you use a swift action to gain a move action. It could function about the same as Lion's Charge but could also be used to draw an item essentially as a swift or to move away from an enemy after full attacking.
2. Animal Affinity is essentially Bull's/Cat's/etc's Whatever but you can make it +8 for 8 pp total.
3. Sidestep - immediate action negate an attack against you
4. Dispatch - get plusses to a disarm/trip and then get an attack of opportunity if successful
5. Hostile Empathic Transfer is just amazing.
6. Backlash - immediate action make a full attack if you get damaged but are then dazed for 1 round
7. Inertial Barrier - get DR 5/-
That's what looked really nice to me up to 4th level powers.
Have you considered Wilder at all? For a Monk theme it makes me think Fire Bender as per Avatar the Last Air Bender. It also has a a billion power points, 3/4 BAB, a scaling AC bonus, and an archetype that's more melee focused.
I hadn't considered Wilder. It looked like a blasty casty focused class more than anything.
I had considered for a while going Wilder and then Pyromancer (PrC), but decided against it.
I may keep that idea in my back pocket though. As of yet nobody's made any sort of caster (We've got me, another guy after me decided he wanted to be a Monk, and a Ranger, with 3 undecided).
However, for the time being I want my main focus to be punching things into next week (and before you ask, the PrC from 3.5 that lets me literally do that isn't available, I asked), possibly with some extra goodies on the side.
So the choice is really between being able to punch things really well (the full BaB/D10 HD Soulknife), with some extra goodies (Free enhancement bonuses to the weapon, and an incentive to get some of the other weapon properties) or being able to punch things okay with soem extra goodies (psychic powers).
Though while we're discussing other options, there must be a Psionic class that's very well suited to dealing telekinetic attacks (Force damage powers and such). Which would that be? Still a Wilder, or something else?
Oh, and if I go with Soulknife, is Gifted Blade worth it? Gets 4th level Psionics in exchange for giving up the thingamajig. +1d8 per X levels thing. The powers list looked kinda lackluster to me (mostly because of how long it takes to come online, there do seem to be some good powers there), but so does 1d8 extra damage on a single attack (that rises a bit).
You don't even know how many times I had to correct "casting" to Psionics and "spells/spell list" to Powers/Power list.
So I'm looking at the Psion.
They're literally incapable of learning powers of other disciplines without Expanded Knowledge?
I just want to make sure because that seems insanely limiting with the small number of spells each discipline possesses.
Psions essentially have two lists, the base list and the discipline list. They can take anything from the base list with no restriction but can only take things that match their discipline from the discipline list (unless they take Expanded Knowledge).
So I'm looking at the Psion.
They're literally incapable of learning powers of other disciplines without Expanded Knowledge?
I just want to make sure because that seems insanely limiting with the small number of spells each discipline possesses.
Yep, that is part of the trade off for being able to scale your abilities as you want. The flip side of that is, choosing your abilities carefully you generally don't need as many powers (especially damaging ones, as low level spells tend to max out at a certain level, powers will scale to level just about every time).
As for the classes, the Aegis might actually be a good choice for all the extra abilities it grants. It has things like evasion and stalwart(?) As well as boosts to melee weapon damage, the ability to make held weapons 'magic' (assuming transparency), speed/movement increases, AC increases, stat increases. Even though the 'suit' may be armor, doesn't mean you have to wear it as anything other than the skin. It could be very monk like, just take TWF line and the feat that allows you to deal full damage on offhand attacks (double slice?) and there is your flurry.
Add to that a DR and the ability to alter the suit choices on the fly a few times per day (boost CON and switch to full plate and all defensive abilities to play tank if needed), the class is very fun to play. If you decide to look into it further make note of the crystal spaulders (I think that is what they are called) they grant an enhancement bonus to the aegis suit AC as well as a bonus number of construction points equal to the enhancement bonus.
Have you considered Wilder at all? For a Monk theme it makes me think Fire Bender as per Avatar the Last Air Bender. It also has a a billion power points, 3/4 BAB, a scaling AC bonus, and an archetype that's more melee focused.
Also, if you want to abuse frontloaded PrC and make gravity your b~+#$ go right to elocator. You can grab the +hit and+damage powers with all the surge you can and rock everything without touching the ground.
Psions essentially have two lists, the base list and the discipline list. They can take anything from the base list with no restriction but can only take things that match their discipline from the discipline list (unless they take Expanded Knowledge).
Ohhhh!
I had no idea there were two LISTS.
I was looking at level 1 spells and was like "So there's roughly THREE Psychokinesis spells on the 1st level list, why would they even let me choose the three I wanted?"
This helps a lot. I wanted him to be a sort of "Package Deal Psychic" and I thought I was going to have to take Dual Discipline to do that.
Though I may do that anyway, some of the Telepathy Discipline spells are really cool, and look very good (Crisis of Breath especially caught my eye).
Edit: Actually, looking at the Kineticist Discipline powers, I'd probably be better off just taking Telepathy as my discipline, none of them look all that good.
I decided to drop the Monk idea because we have no casters (closes we've got is a Firebomber Alchemist) and some other guy wanted a Monk. I hate being the same class as someone else.
So I went Psion (Mindbender) and decided to go for a mind control/foce magic sort of build.
1st level powers of Unearthly Terror, Slumber, Inertial Armor, and Entangling Debris.
0-Level powers of NONE, because it seems we're using the linked powers option and none of those are linked.