Psychic Warrior... Easy to make super powerful?

[Zadam]

I haven't really had much experience with Psionics in 3E, and was mucking around with creating a 5th level Psychic Warrior. I liked the sound of "Claws of the Beast" so I thought I would go for a Psychic Warrior who doesn't carry weapons, but instead uses his Psychic Claws. I figured 2 attacks with 1d4 damage wasn't overpowered at all...

Then I started playing with combinations of Feats and Psionic skills designed to max out the power of this guys Claws.

To cut a long story short, I have a character now who has the Feats: Combat Manifestation, Psionic Body, Narrow Mind, Rapid Metabolism, Speed of Thought, Psionic Fist.

Psionic Body at this stage already gives him +12 HP!

He has the powers: Claws of the Beast, Painful Strike, Animal Affinity, Body Adjustment, Expansion.

Basically, if he uses his skills prior to combat like this:

Claws with 5 PSP's spent (to increase Claw damage)
Psionic Fist for each Claw
Animal Affinity for +4 STR
Expansion for 3 PSP's to increase duration
Painful Strike

This leaves him with just enough PSP's to cast Body Adjustment once.

His STR goes from 14->20
His Claws damage goes up to 2d6 EACH
Each Claw does an additional 2d6 damage for the first hit from Psionic Fist
Each Claw does an additional 1d6 damage for 5 rounds from Painful Strike
His attack goes from +5 to +7
His added damage from STR goes from +2 to +5.
His AC does drop by 2 however (the only penalty).

So basically in the first round he does 2 attacks at +7, each one does 5d6+5
For the next 4 rounds, each claw does 3d6+5 damage
After that, each claw does 2d6+5 damage

If things go badly (and I somehow don't see how they could), he can escape with his faster movement, and also heal himself for 1d12 damage. He will also regain 5HP each day naturally even without rest.

Anyone else think that is pretty darn powerful? Perhaps this character would make a good villain to scare the pants off my players?

 

[Jdvn1]

I'm not sure this is more powerful than a Druid with appropriate buffs.

Nor a Power Attacking Barbarian.

 

[Zadam]

I'm not sure this is more powerful than a Druid with appropriate buffs.

Nor a Power Attacking Barbarian.

Example? I've only just gotten back into D&D after a many year absence (used to the 1st and 2nd edition) and haven't yet had a chance to check out all character classes in much detail...

 

[sullivan]

1) He's heavily investing in melee. Select magic items can help over come this, and he could be a key part of a team, but he has limits to his application.
2) He's 12th level. At that point a lot of specialized builds can do dazzling things in their area of specialization.

EDIT: Oops, I got 12th by counting Feats, and assuming he is human. Forgot about the bonus feats. Still he just blew his PP for the day on one combat, that he knew was coming and could buff up for. He also probably shouldn't go toe-toe with some of the nastier melee half-orks with Great Swords. Some of those are just insane, especially at the next level when they get an extra attack and the Psi Warrior has to wait till 8th. Plus at 5th overcoming melee limitations is tougher.

 

[Jdvn1]

Bah, I don't like running numbers, but here's a starter.

A 5th level Druid can Wildshape into an Ape, giving:
Str 21, Dex 15, Con 14
Reach 10'
AC boosts of +4 (–1 size, +2 Dex, +3 natural)
and a full attack of 2 claws +7 melee (1d6+5) and bite +2 melee (1d6+2)

... That's before spells. With Natural Spell (or whatever it's called) he can cast buffs while wildshaped, like:
Magic Fang, Greater: One natural weapon of subject creature gets +1/four levels on attack and damage rolls (max +5).
Summon Nature’s Ally: Calls creature to fight. (also useful for flanking bonuses)
Call Lightning: Calls down lightning bolts (3d6 per bolt) from sky.
Barkskin: Grants +2 (or higher) enhancement to natural armor.
Bear’s Endurance: Subject gains +4 to Con for 1 min./level.
Bull’s Strength: Subject gains +4 to Str for 1 min./level.
Cat’s Grace: Subject gains +4 to Dex for 1 min./level.
Entangle: Plants entangle everyone in 40-ft.-radius.

... And that's not counting cure spells.

Throw feats like Power Attack and such in there, and you have cause to be worried.

 

[Jdvn1]

Oh, and my 19th level Druid is a force to be reckoned with. He could probably take down a Balor on his own.

 

[silentspace]

psionic fist only works on one attack

 

[Cyrik Skylark]

Well, Psychic Warriors can get pretty powerful. I speak from experience - I play a 23rd level Psychic Warrior. If you can find the specialty, and run with it, then in that particular speciality, you're likely to be one of the strongest characters out there - properly buffed, that is.

For example, my PsyWar is the party tank - his AC, when he goes full defensive, tops off around 100. Without wearing any armor. His HP are around 280. He has energy resistance 30 to everything, immunity to mind-affecting effects, DR 5/-, and Freedom of Movement. His saving throws are all around +23 or so - so even those magical effects that he's not immune to, he can likely shrug off.

However - when he's dispelled, he turns into a paper tiger. His AC drops down to a 21 - and that's only because he has a Monk's Belt. He's not as good as a fighter at fighting, and because he often gets into sticky situations - going melee with a great wyrm so that it doesn't kill everyone else, for example - he's going to be in a world of hurt. So, yes, you're powerful, but only until you get dispelled. And once you are dispelled, you don't have enough PP's to buff up again. My standard buff suite, for example, takes up about 60% of my PP's. So in addition to being effectively a subpar fighter for the rest of the combat (not as many bonus feats, not as many HP's, and worst of all, not as much BAB), I'll have to decide which buffs I'm going to do without for the rest of the day. (Needless to say, Dispelling Buffer is an absolute essential, and Tenacious Power will be mine as soon as I can get the cross-class Psicraft ranks)

Also, in your example - Psionic Fist requires psionic focus. Barring some epic feats, you can only use Psionic Fist once per round. And since you don't have Psionic Meditation in your build, you're going to have to spend a full round to regain focus. So you could get off one attack at +7 (+9 on a charge) and deal 4d6+5 points of damage, +1d6 nonlethal. After that, 3d6+5, coming out to an average of 15 points per hit.

A raging barbarian, assuming the same Str 14 you gave the PsyWar, wielding a greatsword, would be getting a +9 on normal hits, +11 on a charge. He would be dealing 2d6+6, for an average of 13 points per hit. If he power attacks for 2, giving him the same +7 to hit as your PsiWar, he'd be dealing 2d6+10 points, for an average of 17 per hit. While raging, he'd have, on average, 8 more HP than the PsyWar, even with the PsyWar's bonus HP from Psionic Body. Without that feat, the barbarian is up by 20 HP. However, the PsyWar is getting twice as many attacks as the barbarian, when he can get a full attack in. The PsyWar also has 10' reach from Expansion So it does appear that the buffed-out PsiWar is better than the barbarian, but I'm not a barbarian player - there could well be things I've overlooked.

However, as mentioned earlier, you've spent your entire PP reserve on one combat. Animal Affinity, Expansion, and Painful Strike all have durations measured in either minutes or rounds per level. So, yeah, for that one combat, you can shine. After that... well, the next combat had better happen within 5 hours, because in that combat, you'll have two attacks at +5, for 2d6+2 damage, average damage 9. After that, you're down to one attack at +5, with whatever weapon you happen to have.

So, basically - when specialized, and buffed completely, a PsyWar has the potential to be one of the best, if not the best, class in its area of specialty. Dispel them, make the duration on their powers run out, and they're just subpar fighters.

 

[Staffan]

Psionic Fist for each Claw

Each Claw does an additional 2d6 damage for the first hit from Psionic Fist

You seem to be misunderstanding how psionic fist works. Basically, you say "I'm going to use my Psionic Fist on this attack," and expend your psionic focus. If you hit on *that* attack, you do +2d6 damage (and if you miss, you wasted your psionic focus). The only way to get psionic fist bonus damage on two attacks in one round is to have a psicrystal and the feat that lets your psicrystal hold an additional focus.

So you only get the +2d6 damage on *one* claw attack.

Each Claw does an additional 1d6 damage for 5 rounds from Painful Strike

Non-lethal damage, which is useless against a decent proportion of opponents. Also note that this is considered "bonus dice" (as is the Psionic Fist damage), and thus won't get multiplied on a crit.

If things go badly (and I somehow don't see how they could), he can escape with his faster movement

No, you can't. You expended your psionic focus on doing extra damage with your first claw attack. Unless you took a full-round action to regain focus when things started going bad, you do not have your faster movement.

Oh, and I'd definitely recommend Psionic Meditation and Skill Focus: Concentration over Combat Manifestation and Narrow Mind. OK, you do lose out on 2 hp in the bargain, but you get +3 to all Concentration checks (instead of +4 to some), and you can regain your psionic focus as a move action.

 

[Zadam]

Hmm, some really interesting replies. Thanks for the info guys, it's quite amazing how flexible the new 3E rules are compared to previous editions

Like I said, I've only just started going over all the rules, having had a long absence from D&D so this char was really just a bit of a quick experiment. Thanks for the info about Psychic Focus, I didn't realize that Psychic Fist worked like that... Yeah that helps reduce the characters power slightly.

Anyway, yeah good point about all PSP's being expended in one combat, I forgot that in 3E your PSP's have to last you the entire day... I'm still thinking in 2E terms, where you recover X amount of them every 10 minutes or whatever it was.

But yeah, as a Villain which a party of a few 3rd level characters are going up against, u gotta admit he would be pretty challenging!

I also just noticed theres another power called "Disolving Touch" which he could take instead of Body Adjustment, which would give him another 4d6 points of Acid damage on one attack... Meaning in the first round, assuming both attacks hit, he does 12d6+10 damage all up (5d6+5 for the attack which uses Psychic Fist, and 7d6+5 for the other attack using Disolving Touch). After that its only 6d6+10 each round (assuming both hit) but still... A couple of party members might be dead already after just the first round by that stage.