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.
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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.
So here is the idea for this build. I loves me some Psychic Warrior, I feel like they are one of the most fun classes ever designed, but the struggle of the psychic warrior is and always will be their power point pool, and managing it to maximize your power usage in a day. To this end I am making use of the Psychic Warrior's most abundant resource, bonus feats, to improve his manifesting efficiency through one of the most ill considered abilities of all time, Psycarnum Infusion. Particularly, we'll be focusing on using two focus expenditures with Psycarnum Infusion to power a pair of Psionic/Incarnum feats, Azure Talent, and Midnight Augmentation. For an essentia capacity of X, infusing these talents will provide us with 2X temporary power points, and X points of free augmentation on the power of our choice. Essentially this means, as long as we have sufficient buffing time to focus both the warrior and his crystal, we reduce the cost of a power by 3 times our essentia capacity. While this doesn't allow us to a lot of flexibility in combat, where we will still have to rely on gas guzzling combat option powers like Lion's Charge, it does give two important things: 1) an enormous increase in long term buff efficiency, 2) the ability to "run on empty" with powers that cost less than twice the essentia capacity of our feats as long as we maintain a single real power point to refocus with.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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…
18 – Psychic Warrior – (Expanded Knowledge) (Form of Doom, Power Resistance) *Show
…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.
19 – Psychic Warrior – (Personal Mind Blank) *Show
Yes, we can manifest it for free. No, you can’t dominate our uber buffed self into beating on our buddies.
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:
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)
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!
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.*Show
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?
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.)
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.
These are NOT all my creations! The lead authors are identified as follows: [TS] Tempest Stormwind, [AR] Andarious Rosethorn, [RT] Radical Taoist, [SN] Sionnis, [DH] DisposableHero_, [SH] Seishi.
[TS] The Pinball Brothers: Large And In Charge (Melee, Lockdown, Charge, Juggling) [TS] Ashardalon Reborn: I Will Swallow Your Soul (Melee, Fear, Negative Levels, AoE, Theme) [AR] "A"-Game Paladin: Play That Funky Music, Knight Boy! (Team Support, Melee, Theme, Single-Class) [RT] Uncanny Trapsmith: Get in, make it look like an accident, get out. (Skillmonkey, Stealth/Scout/Infiltration, Unorthodox Methods, Theme) [AR] Wizsassin: *Everything* is permitted. (Spellcaster, Support, Sneak Attack, Utility) [TS] Phantom Rush: General Gish Gouda. (Gish, Theme, Setting-Specific(Eberron), Early-Entry PrC) [TS] Storm Knight: Another kind of gish. (Melee/"Gish", Theme, Setting-Specific(Eberron), Unorthodox Methods) [TS] Inevitable Nightmare: The weapon you only have to fire once. (Melee, "Unorthodox" Methods (no charging), Reliability) [AR] Captain Constitution: The number one threat to America. (Melee, TOUGHTOUGHTOUGH, Defense, Theme) [AR] Nuker: I casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down! (Spellcaster, damage, blasting, damage) [TS] Dread Lord of the Dead: Let the Reaping Begin! (NPC-only, Variable (combat/casting/leadership), Iconic Villain, Theme) [AR] Heavy Crusader: No Rest. No Mercy. No Matter What. (Melee, Damage (No charging), Variable, Theme). [TS] Gun Fu: It's bullet time (Ranged, THEORETICAL, Twin weapons, Theme) [RT] Face First: We should talk. (Psionic, social, mind-control, info-management) [SN] Chaingun Porcupine: Never Enuff Dakka. (Ranged, Skirmishing, Spike Damage, Incarnum) [RT] Always On Edge: The Mortal Draw deals death. (Melee, Generalist, Dungeoneering, Stunt) [AR] Feral Druid: Real feral taste. Zero druid calories. (Melee, offense, damage, murder) [RT] Rusty!: Man's Best Friend (Sentry, Support, Backup, Rearguard) [RT] The T3 (Tashalatora Triple Threat): My Kung Fu is More Powerful (Hybrid, Flex-Function, Melee, Caster) [RT] The #1 Snoipah: Boom. 'Eadshot. (Caster, Theme, Spike, Trapscout) [AR] Dreamblade: Rest in Pieces. (Melee, Damage, Single-Class, Combo/Momentum) [AR] Evasion Tank: “When fighting angry blind men, is best to stay out of the way.” (Melee, Tank, Unorthodox Methods (attack negation), Theme) [DH] Psycarnum Warrior: ↑↑↓↓←→←→BA Start (Melee, Tank, Psionics, Incarnum, 1337 h4x) [AR] Heavy Weapons Elf: WHO TOUCHED MY BOW? (Ranged, Cohort, Damage, Unorthodox Methods (ranged ToB)) [RT] Gnowhere Gnome: A little man who wasn't there (Caster, Stealth, Single-Class, Elusive) [AR] Uberflank: I got your back. (Melee, support, stunt, teamwork) [TS] Flip the Bird: Everyday I'm shuffling (Ranged, harrier, unorthodox methods (ranged ToB / off-turn movement), support) [DH] Eat Sleep Gank: Real Ultimate Power (Stealth, Assassination, Spike, Magic Versatility) [AR] Slash and Burn: Mind, Body, Blade, Flame / Aspects of a greater whole / which delivers death. (Melee, Theme (flex-style), Damage, Stunt) [RT] Edge of the Light: Cut, Fade to Black (Melee, Defense/Offense, Momentum, Tactical) [RT] Quiet Murder: Cut throats, not corners. (Melee, Stealth, Harrier, Tactical) [TS] Wand Overdrive: Say Hello to my little friends. (Caster, support/artillery/variable, wand specialist) [RT] God Hand: What did the five fingers say to the face? (Melee/Gish, Unarmed, SAD, Theme) [AR] Zero Buff Time Gish: Try to keep up! (Gish, Speed, Movement, Opportunity) [TS] Robo Tackle: I Am Iron Man. (Melee, setting-specific (Eberron), positioning, theme, stunt)
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.
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 don't think the above trick is saved anywhere except the thread you linked and those boards are going to be deleted some day.
