[3.5] What exactly can you do with a Shaper psion?

[newbDM]

I am about to start stating up a PC for a Darksun 3.5 campaign which might be starting tonight. He will be crafting oriented in the hopes of giving my group an edge in the gritty and survivalist setting I believe Darksun is, so I decided to reread the Shaper discipline of psion. However, I am not quite sure what the point of said discipline is.

Aside from the Astral Seed and Demiplane powers you get near level 20, which would fit my favored recurring character who is obsessed with immortality nicely, I am not grasping what this discipline is intended for. As someone who prefers roleplaying over rollplaying I am trying to picture ways of using such a character for roleplaying purposes, but aside from making an improv weapon for the meleers every once-in-a-while I've got nothing. You can not even make things such as food and water, which would be crucial in a Darksun game.



Can the psionic veterans here please enlighten this poor fool who has played one-too-many kineticists over the years?

[Arcane_Snowman]

While it's not something you need to focus on a Astral Construct is definetely awesome, I also believe they have the memebrane thing that gives 50% concealment. If you're into some more cheesy stuff, you could create some nasty poisons (namely Lotus Extract) using Minor Creation.

[dyslexicfaser]

Astral Constructs, especially if you take Boost Construct feat and/or the Constructor PrC, can be amazing.

You can also heal warforged, if that happens to be important in your group. The crystal shard and crystal storm stuff isn't great, but they can be ruled to work on people inside AMFs, since they're just launched bits of crystal.

Also don't forget the ability to cocoon people, which takes them out of battle until they can be disposed of at your leisure.

And if you're creative enough, the ability to create cloth, wood, stone, and especially plant matter (poisons?) can be damn useful, as the above poster pointed out.

[1of3]

(Greater) Fabricate is definitely colorful. Quintessence is cool, too. Just make sure you make some of it in advance.



For combat purposes, Astral Construct is pure awesome especially with the Constructor PrC (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625b). Make sure you have the Overchannel (and maybe Talented) feats to make your buddy a little bigger.

If you want to do this, there are also the so-called Ectopic Form feats in Complete Psionic. One of them will make your constructs even better. (It's not really useful to get a second one.) I recommend the Avian something because Flight and Deflection are always good.

Note that Astral Constructs got errata: You can have only one at a time.

[lord_khaine]

Note that Astral Constructs got errata: You can have only one at a time.

you can ignore that errata, to start with just about every fan of psionics try to pretend the book it came from doesnt exist.

[Arcane_Snowman]

you can ignore that errata, to start with just about every fan of psionics try to pretend the book it came from doesnt exist. That and it is by no means broken to have more than one.

[Chronos]

you can ignore that errata, to start with just about every fan of psionics try to pretend the book it came from doesnt exist.Selectively ignore, at least. The Practiced Manifester feat is also from Complete Psionics, and that works well enough.

[The Glyphstone]

It's easier to just ignore the book entirely and pretend that you've just houseruled Practiced Manifester out of nowhere as a logical extension/mirror of Practiced Spellcaster (it really should have been in the XPH to begin with). It's not like The Book That Shall Not Be Named has any actual redeeming features in it besides the 'duhobvious' things like Practiced Manifester.

[tyckspoon]

It's easier to just ignore the book entirely and pretend that you've just houseruled Practiced Manifester out of nowhere as a logical extension/mirror of Practiced Spellcaster (it really should have been in the XPH to begin with). It's not like The Book That Shall Not Be Named has any actual redeeming features in it besides the 'duhobvious' things like Practiced Manifester.

Ardent and Soulbow. The book isn't all bad; it just has some completely idiotic things that give it a bad overall rep. Same thing happened with Complete Champion; the existence of the Pouncing Barbarian substitution level doesn't require ignoring the entire book.

[AmberVael]

To try and hit the roleplay aspect since no one else appears to covering it...

In terms of mechanics and fluff (from what I've seen, at least) Shapers are a bit different than you might expect a creation based magic/psionic wielder to be.

Shapers are not so much masters of crafting so much as they masters at harnessing psionically related materials (and sometimes non psionic-esque materials). While other disciplines do stuff like make bright explosions or warp through space or mess with people's minds, Shapers work with ectoplasm and crystal, using them as their defense and weaponry. It isn't creation, just a different form of fighting.

Theoretically a shaper could create things like buildings, barricades and other structures, and do all kinds of other creative acts, but the unfortunate truth is that the psionic powers created were almost all focused on combat. If you want to give them an out of combat purpose, you'll likely have to make some powers up on your own.

[The Glyphstone]

Ardent and Soulbow. The book isn't all bad; it just has some completely idiotic things that give it a bad overall rep. Same thing happened with Complete Champion; the existence of the Pouncing Barbarian substitution level doesn't require ignoring the entire book.

true, I had forgotten the Soulbow - fantastic PrC. Never seen the Ardent mentioned much though, so I can't comment on that.

[sonofzeal]

Ardent and Soulbow. The book isn't all bad; it just has some completely idiotic things that give it a bad overall rep. Same thing happened with Complete Champion; the existence of the Pouncing Barbarian substitution level doesn't require ignoring the entire book.
The fact that the rest of CChamp is total bollox may have something to do with it.

CPsi had quite a number of truly unnecessary nerfs, and seems to be just about the most erratic source of PrCs (some total fail, and some way too awesome). The base classes involved are all mediocre, but not terrible. I've used a few of them to good effect; Ardent's a fun one if not too powerful, Lurk is a fun Rogue replacement, and Divine Mind is a good passive buffer for when you need bonuses without wasting combat rounds.

As to Shapers, there's a lot of Astral Contruct forms, but it's pretty weaksauce. You'll do just fine playing by normal Psion rules (ie pureclassing or jumping to Slayer for BAB/hp) and just manifesting Astral Construct a lot.

[Draz74]

Never seen the Ardent mentioned much though, so I can't comment on that.

Consider it mentioned. I think it's the single best-designed full-caster type class in the entire game.

It's basically the same thing as a Cleric, except:


non-religious fluff (which you can of course make religious again if desired).
built on Psionics mechanics instead of Vancian mechanics. :smallbiggrin:
has a limited number of powers known (so no automatic splatbook creep).
d6 hit die and bad Fort save -- while it's decent in melee if you build it right, it won't outshine the Fighter at his own game. :smallyuk:
"Domain" choices ("Mantles" in this case) matter more, since they restrict your choice of Powers Known.

Overall its power level comes out to be about the same as well-built Tome of Battle characters.

EDIT: To get back on topic ... a Shaper really doesn't have any really powerful abilities at middle levels, no. (Except Astral Construct, which is awesome even with the CPsi nerf, but which any psionic character can copy with Expanded Knowledge.) Unless you do rather questionable things with Quintessence.

But if you just use the mid-powered tricks that it does have -- pretty much everything on your list -- they're fun and not too lame. My favorite is maxxing your Craft (trapmaking) skill and creating nasty traps mid-battle for your opponents, making the Combat Trapsmiths of the world wet themselves with envy. Note that, technically, psionic powers never have Material Components, so you can get the DM to waive (or at least be lenient with) the value of the "raw materials" you're using to build traps.

Cocoon is a decent save-or-lose that targets Reflex. Nifty. Greater Concealing Amorpha is great for psion/skillmonkey hybrids to hide without cover/concealment, and it's a decent defense buff too.