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DaTedinator
2010-03-18, 01:27 PM
Alright, first, a new feat:

Sublime Soulknife [Psionic]
Your mastery of the Sublime Way has only increased your proficiency and deadliness with your mind blade.
Prerequisite: Blade meditation (any), mind blade.
Benefit: You may add your Soulknife levels to your initiator level (rather than one-half your Soulknife levels as usual), and you may use your initiator level to determine your mind blade's enhancement bonus. You may treat your mind blade as a discipline weapon for any discipline you have the Blade Meditation feat for, and if you have the ability to reshape your mind blade, may reshape it into a discipline weapon for such a discipline (you may reshape it into two identical copies of a light weapon, following the normal rules for splitting your mind blade).

Now, the class!

DARK MIND

Let your anger flow.

Emotion is a powerful motivator, to be certain. Fear can make even the strongest warrior flee like a child, and love can drive a man to do things he would never even consider doing otherwise. Soulknives must respect emotions even more than the average person, as their minds are already, quite literally, carefully honed weapons; if they lose control of their emotions, it can be dangerous indeed.

Dark minds are practitioners of the Mental Grip who, rather than avoid letting their emotions control their power, embrace it. They have seen the additional power that emotion can give to their already impressive abilities, and want even more of it.

This class makes use of the Mental Grip (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7669158#post7669158) discipline.

BECOMING A DARK MIND

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Feats: Blade Meditation (Mental Grip), Sublime Soulknife
Skills: Autohypnosis 8 ranks
Martial Maneuvers: Must know at least one Mental Grip maneuver, and at least one Mental Grip stance
Class Features: Must be able to manifest a mind blade.

Class Skills
The dark mind's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Autohypnosis (Wis), Balance (Dex), Concentration (Con), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (psionics) (Int), Martial Lore (Int), Move Silently (Dex), and Tumble (Dex).
Skills Points at Each Level: 4 + Int

Hit Dice: d10


Level
BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Special


1st
+1
+0
+0
+2
Improved mind blade (Despair)


2nd
+2
+0
+0
+3
Stance of passion


3rd
+3
+1
+1
+3
Improved mind blade (Fear)


4th
+4
+1
+1
+4
Psychic strike +1d8


5th
+5
+1
+1
+4
Improved mind blade (Rage)


6th
+6
+2
+2
+5
Furious retort


7th
+7
+2
+2
+5
Improved mind blade (Hatred)


8th
+8
+2
+2
+6
Psychic strike +2d8


9th
+9
+3
+3
+6
Improved mind blade (Suffering)


10th
+10
+3
+3
+7
Absolute power






[tr]
Level
Man. Known
Man. Readied
Stances Known


[td]1st
1
0
0


2nd
0
1
0


3rd
1
0
0


4th
0
0
1


5th
1
0
0


6th
0
1
0


7th
1
0
0


8th
0
0
1


9th
1
0
0


10th
0
1
0

[tr]
[td]


Maneuvers: At each odd-numbered level, you gain a new maneuver known from the Desert Wind, Mental Grip, Shadow Hand, or Tiger Claw discipline. You must meet a maneuver’s prerequisite to learn it. You add your full dark mind levels to your initiator level to determine your total initiator level and your highest-level maneuvers known.

At 2nd, 6th, and 10th level, you gain an additional maneuver readied per day.

Stances Known: At 4th and 8th level, you learn a new martial stance from the Desert Wind, Mental Grip, Shadow Hand, or Tiger Claw discipline. You must meet a stance’s prerequisite to learn it.

Improved Mind Blade (Su): Your emotions are a literal weapon; you use them to fuel your mind blade to be more deadly than any mere sword. Additionally, you gain a benefit based on the current emotion you’re channeling; at first level, you only have access to the emotion of despair, but at every odd level you gain access to another emotion. You may switch which emotion you’re channeling as a swift action. Each emotion has one universal benefit, one benefit as long as you maintain psionic focus, and one benefit that can only be gained if you expend your psionic focus; these benefits only affect your mind blade.

Despair: You let a violent, desperate despair fill your mind blade, that hungers for success at any cost.

You gain a +4 bonus on rolls to confirm critical hits.
As long as you maintain your psionic focus, your critical threat range doubles (this stacks with effects such as Improved Critical).
You may expend your psionic focus to automatically confirm a threatened critical.


Fear: Fear claws at your mind blade, and a heightened sense of caution shoves your mind blade in between you and your opponents’ attacks.

You add your mind blade’s enhancement bonus to your AC as a deflection bonus.
As long as you maintain your psionic focus, you may add your Charisma bonus to any rolls involved in using a martial counter.
You may expend your psionic focus as an immediate action to replace your AC with an attack roll for a single attack; you may choose to do this after hearing the result of the opponent’s attack.


Rage: Anger bubbles from beneath the surface of your mind blade, fueling it with a deadly flame.

Your attacks deal +1d6 fire damage.
As long as you maintain your psionic focus, your attacks deal +2d6 fire damage.
You may expend your psionic focus to have all attacks deal +4d6 damage until the beginning of your next turn; half of the damage is fire, half of it is pure anger given form, and is not affected by fire resistance.


Hatred: Sheer, passionate hate of your opponent guides your mind blade to draw their blood.

You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls against opponents who were within your reach at the beginning of your turn.
As long as you maintain your psionic focus, your attacks ignore miss chance from concealment, but not total concealment.
You may expend your psionic focus to ignore all concealment effects for a single attack, including incorporeal miss chance.


Suffering: All the pain you’ve ever experienced rushes from your blade to your opponents.

Your melee attacks bleed for 1 point of damage per round until your opponent receives magical healing, or a DC 25 Heal check is made on them as a standard action; creatures immune to critical hits are immune to this damage, and it does not multiply on a critical hit. This damage stacks.
As long as you maintain your psionic focus, you instead deal 2 points of bleeding damage.
You may expend your psionic focus upon making a successful attack to force your opponent to make a Fortitude save (DC 19 + your Charisma modifier) or else be stunned for 1d4 rounds.


Stance of Passion (Su): You know how to let your emotions drive you, so that you can remain standing far past the point where an ordinary person would be slain. When in a martial stance, you may forgo the normal benefits of the stance to gain the effect of a stance of passion. This ability lasts as long as you would maintain the stance normally. You may voluntarily end the stance's effects and resume the benefits of your previous stance as a swift action.

While you use this ability, you close wounds at an extraordinary rate. A number of points of lethal damage equal to your class level turns to nonlethal damage every round. Additionally, it becomes harder to hurt you in the first place, and you gain DR/- equal to half your class level (round down).

Psychic Strike (Su): As the http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/soulknife.htm#psychicStrike]soulknife ( [url) class feature[/url], including the ability to trade it for bonus feats (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a).

Furious Retort (Ex): For an opponent to hit you is a grave mistake on their part. Whenever you are dealt damage by an opponent within 150 feet, you may make an attack against them as an immediate action. You must use your mind blade for this attack.

Alternatively, you may expend your psionic focus to use a martial strike against the instigating opponent instead of a standard attack. The opponent must be within range, and the strike must normally require no more than a standard action.

Absolute Power: A dark mind will sacrifice anything for power. At 10th level, whenever you use a martial maneuver, you may expend your psionic focus and take an amount of damage equal to the level of the maneuver as a swift action. If you do so, you immediately recover the maneuver. You may not reduce this damage in any way.

DaTedinator
2010-03-18, 01:28 PM
CALM ONE

You will find your hatred to be your undoing.

There are some who would tell you that passion is the pathway to victory on the battlefield. While the Calm One would admit that is a path to power, he feels he knows an avenue that allows for not only greater prowess, but also for satisfaction outside the battlefield.

This prestige class makes use of both the Mental Grip (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7669158#post7669158) and Sleeping Goddess (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5408244) disciplines.

BECOMING A CALM ONE
Most Calm Ones are either multiclass Psychic Warrior/Swordsages, for the Wisdom synergy, though Psion/Warblades are by no means unheard of. Occasionally a single-classed manifester, especially a psychic warrior, will qualify with the Martial Study and Stance feats.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Feats: Psionic Meditation
Skills: Concentration 8 ranks
Martial Maneuvers: Must know at least one Diamond Mind maneuver, and at least one Diamond Mind stance.
Psionics: Able to manifest 1st-level powers

Class Skills
The calm one's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Autohypnosis (Wis), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge (Psionics) (Int), Martial Lore (Int), Psicraft (Int) and Sense Motive (Wis).
Skills Points at Each Level: 4 + Int

Hit Dice: d8


Level
BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Special

Powers Known


1st
+0
+2
+2
+2
Serenity

+1 Level of existing manifesting class


2nd
+1
+3
+3
+3
Shield of composure (HD + 5)

+1 Level of existing manifesting class


3rd
+2
+3
+3
+3
Perfect counter

--


4th
+3
+4
+4
+4
Shield of composure (HD + 10)

+1 Level of existing manifesting class


5th
+3
+4
+4
+4
Absolute Peace

+1 Level of existing manifesting class



[tr]
Level
Man. Known
Man. Readied
Stances Known


[td]1st
1
0
0


2nd
0
1
0


3rd
1
0
1


4th
0
1
0


5th
1
0
0

[tr]
[td]

Maneuvers: At each odd-numbered level, you gain a new maneuver known from either the Diamond Mind, Mental Grip, or Sleeping Goddess discipline. You must meet a maneuver’s prerequisite to learn it. You add your full calm one levels to your initiator level to determine your total initiator level and your highest-level maneuvers known.

At 2nd and 4th level, you gain an additional maneuver readied per day.

Stances Known: At 3rd level, you learn a new martial stance from either the Diamond Mind, Mental Grip, or Sleeping Goddess discipline. You must meet a stance’s prerequisite to learn it.

Manifesting: At every level indicated on the table, you gain additional power points per day and access to new powers as if you had also gained a level in whatever manifesting class you belonged to before you added the prestige class. You do not, however, gain any other benefit that class would have granted (bonus feats, metapsionic or item creation feats, psicrystal special abilities, and so on). This essentially means that you add the level of calm one to your levels of whatever manifesting class you have, then determine power points per day, powers known, and manifester level accordingly.

If you had more than one manifesting class before you became a calm one, you must decide to which class you adds the new level of calm one for the purpose of determining power points per day, powers known, and manifester level.

Serenity (Ex): Your inner calm suffuses your entire being, bringing clarity of thought and action. You may add your Wisdom modifier instead of your Charisma modifier to save DCs of martial maneuvers and psionic powers normally modified by Charisma, if your Wisdom is higher. As long as you maintain psionic focus, you also add your Wisdom modifier as a bonus on Concentration checks and melee damage rolls.

Shield of Composure (Su): Your control over your thoughts and emotions is a reliable defense against supernatural assault. As long as you maintain psionic focus, you gain power resistance equal to your character level + 5; this improves by +5 against any effect that allows a Will save, and improves by an additional +5 at 4th level.

Perfect Counter (Su): Your keenness of perception lets you see the flaws in others’ actions, and exploit them. As an immediate action, you expend you psionic focus to attempt to counter a spell, power, or even maneuver being cast, manifest, or initiated by an adjacent opponent. For spells and powers this functions as though you had readied an action to counterspell with a dispel effect; you use your manifester level to attempt the counter.

Countering a martial maneuver functions similar, except that you and your opponent make opposed initiator level checks; if you succeed, his action is lost.

When you use perfect counter, you lose the use of one Diamond Mind maneuver exactly as if you had initiated it (except that you do not gain the maneuver’s normal effect). You may recover the maneuver as normal.

Absolute Peace (Ex): Whenever you successfully make a saving throw that normally has a reduced effect for a successful save (e.g., Fortitude Partial, or Reflex Half), you may expend your psionic focus as an immediate action to instead take no effect on a successful save.

DragoonWraith
2010-03-20, 09:23 AM
Sublime Soulknife [Psionic]
Your mastery of the Sublime Way has only increased your proficiency and deadliness with your mind blade.
Prerequisite: Blade meditation (any), mind blade.
Benefit: You may add your Soulknife levels to your initiator level (rather than one-half your Soulknife levels as usual), and you may use your initiator level to determine your mind blade's enhancement bonus. You may treat your mind blade as a discipline weapon for any discipline you have the Blade Meditation feat for, and if you have the ability to reshape your mind blade, may reshape it into a discipline weapon for such a discipline (you may reshape it into two identical copies of a light weapon, following the normal rules for splitting your mind blade).
I like this.


Martial Maneuvers: Must know at least three Mental Grip maneuvers, at least one of which is 2nd level or higher
For a multiclass PrC, this requirement is kinda high. Most such PrCs require one maneuver and one stance - and thus can be gotten into reasonably using Martial Study/Martial Stance. Since you already require two Feats, that's 4 and the limit on getting in on 6th (and then only if you are a Bonus Feat Race)...


{table="head"]Level|Man. Known|Man. Readied|Stances Known
1st|1|0|0
2nd|0|1|0
3rd|1|0|0
4th|0|0|1
5th|1|0|0
6th|0|1|0
7th|1|0|0
8th|0|0|1
9th|1|0|0
10th|0|1|0[/table]
Their progression is slightly better than other PrCs, you know. Most PrCs offer maneuvers known on 5/10 levels, maneuvers readied on 3/10 levels, and stances on 1/10 levels. A couple do maneuvers readied on 2/10 levels while stances also at 2/10 levels. Nothing crazy, but it is something to be aware of.


Despair: You let a violent, desperate despair fill your mind blade, that hungers for success at any cost. You gain a +4 bonus on rolls to confirm critical hits. As long as you maintain your psionic focus, your critical threat range doubles (this stacks with effects such as Improved Critical). You may expend your psionic focus to automatically confirm a threatened critical.
I like it. But then I really dislike the non-stacking nature of criticals in 3.5. Others may disagree.


Fear: Fear claws at your mind blade, and a heightened sense of caution shoves your mind blade in between you and your opponents’ attacks. You add your mind blade’s enhancement bonus to your AC as a deflection bonus. As long as you maintain your psionic focus, you may add your Charisma bonus to any rolls involved in using a martial counter. You may expend your psionic focus as an immediate action to replace your AC with an attack roll for a single attack; you may choose to do this after hearing the result of the opponent’s attack.
This is good.


Rage: Anger bubbles from beneath the surface of your mind blade, fueling it with a deadly flame. Your attacks deal +1d6 fire damage. As long as you maintain your psionic focus, your attacks deal +2d6 fire damage. You may expend your psionic focus to have all attacks deal +4d6 fire damage until the beginning of your next turn.
This is fine. Poor fire damage. Maybe half-fire/half-"fury" damage, or something?


Hatred: Sheer, passionate hate of your opponent guides your mind blade to draw their blood. You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls against opponents who were within your reach at the beginning of your turn. As long as you maintain your psionic focus, your attacks ignore miss chance from concealment, but not total concealment. You may expend your psionic focus to ignore all concealment effects for a single attack, including incorporeal miss chance.
This is cool.


Suffering: All the pain you’ve ever experienced rushes from your blade to your opponents. Your melee attacks bleed for one point of damage per round until your opponent receives magical healing, or a DC 25 Heal check is made on them as a standard action. This damage stacks. As long as you maintain your psionic focus, you deal 1 point of Constitution on a successful attack; creatures immune to critical hits are immune to this damage, and it does not multiply on a critical hit. You may expend your psionic focus upon making a successful attack to force your opponent to make a Fortitude save (DC 19 + your Charisma modifier) or else be stunned for 1d4 rounds.
Whoa! Con damage per attack, every attack? That's far and away the most powerful ability you're offering from just maintaining Psionic Focus; why would anyone use anything but this? The rest seems fine, but that seems extremely powerful.


Stance of Passion (Su): You know how to let your emotions drive you, so that you can remain standing far past the point where an ordinary person would be slain. When in a martial stance, you may forgo the normal benefits of the stance to gain the effect of a stance of passion. This ability lasts as long as you would maintain the stance normally. You may voluntarily end the stance's effects and resume the benefits of your previous stance as a swift action.

While you use this ability, you close wounds at an extraordinary rate. A number of points of lethal damage equal to your class level turns to nonlethal damage every round. Additionally, it becomes harder to hurt you in the first place, and you gain DR/- equal to half your class level (round down).
Solid, I like it.


Psychic Strike (Su): As the soulknife class feature ( http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/soulknife.htm#psychicStrike).
If only that feature was good for anything... It has to be here, it's fitting, but meh, is that feature weak.


Furious Retort (Ex): For an opponent to hit you is a grave mistake on their part. Whenever you are dealt damage by an opponent within 150 feet, you may expend your psionic focus to immediately gain an attack of opportunity against them. You must use your mind blade for this attack. If you successfully hit them, you gain a bonus to attack and damage rolls against them equal to half your class level. This benefit lasts for one minute, or until you regain your psionic focus, whichever comes first.
The range is huge, which is nice, but you can't use it until after the action has completed (nullifying the ability to counter that attack), and it's just a single attack. I dunno. Allow the use of a Strike, perhaps? Or allow it to happen first, so you can disrupt spells or something. Of course that would require changing the trigger...


Absolute Power: A dark mind will sacrifice anything for power. At 10th level, whenever you use a martial maneuver, you may expend your psionic focus and take an amount of d6s of damage equal to the level of the maneuver as a swift action. If you do so, you immediately recover the maneuver. You may not reduce this damage in any way.
That seems like a lot of damage for a single maneuver. Plus it burns a Swift action. I love the flavor, but I'm just not seeing a situation where this is really the way you want to be recovering maneuvers.

DragoonWraith
2010-03-20, 09:30 AM
Martial Maneuvers: Must know at least three Diamond Mind maneuvers, at least one of which is 2nd level or higher
Again, this is a little high.


{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |
Powers Known

1st|+0|+2|+2|+2|Serenity|
+1 Level of existing manifesting class

2nd|+1|+3|+3|+3|Shield of composure (HD + 5)|
+1 Level of existing manifesting class

3rd|+2|+3|+3|+3|Perfect counter|
--

4th|+3|+4|+4|+4|Shield of composure (HD + 10)|
+1 Level of existing manifesting class

5th|+3|+4|+4|+4|Absolute Peace|
+1 Level of existing manifesting class[/table]
All good saves? Those are typically reserved for only the weakest of characters. I dunno... it's fitting, but it's also sort of out of place.

Also, the lost ML should happen at 1st. That's just kind of like a rule for Psionic PrCs. The only ones that don't are Elocator (which requires a stupid number of crap feats to enter, and loses at 2nd), and Anarchic Initiate (which is just a horribly written PrC).

Finally... it seems like a dual-progression class should extend as many levels as possible, just to maintain that goodness. On the other hand, you can get in single-classed and the requirements aren't as high as normal dual-progression classes, so it's possible.


{table="head"]Level|Man. Known|Man. Readied|Stances Known
1st|1|0|0
2nd|0|1|0
3rd|1|0|1
4th|0|1|0
5th|1|0|0[/table]
Is fine.


Serenity (Ex): Your inner calm suffuses your entire being, bringing clarity of thought and action. You may add your Wisdom modifier instead of your Charisma modifier to save DCs of martial maneuvers and psionic powers normally modified by Charisma, if your Wisdom is higher. As long as you maintain psionic focus, you also add your Wisdom modifier as a bonus on Concentration checks and melee damage rolls.
I like it all. This is good.


Shield of Composure (Su): Your control over your thoughts and emotions is a reliable defense against supernatural assault. As long as you maintain psionic focus, you gain power resistance equal to your character level + 5; this improves by +5 against any effect that allows a Will save, and improves by an additional +5 at 4th level.
Solid.


Perfect Counter (Su): Your keenness of perception lets you see the flaws in others’ actions, and exploit them. As an immediate action, you expend you psionic focus to attempt to counter a spell, power, or even maneuver being cast, manifest, or initiated by an adjacent opponent. For spells and powers this functions as though you had readied an action to counterspell with a dispel effect; you use your manifester level to attempt the counter.

Countering a martial maneuver functions similar, except that you and your opponent make opposed initiator level checks; if you succeed, his action is lost.

When you use perfect counter, you lose the use of one Diamond Mind maneuver exactly as if you had initiated it (except that you do not gain the maneuver’s normal effect). You may recover the maneuver as normal.
I like it, this is very good.


Absolute Peace (Ex): Whenever you successfully make a saving throw that normally has a reduced effect for a successful save (e.g., Fortitude Partial, or Reflex Half), you may expend your psionic focus as an immediate action to instead take no effect on a successful save.
Sweet.

Yeah, I really have no complaints about this one, it's very good.

deuxhero
2010-03-20, 09:34 AM
Can a Sith Lord Dark Mind trade his Psychic Strike for bonus feats like a soul knife can?

DaTedinator
2010-03-21, 10:08 PM
Thanks for the feedback!

Dark Mind:

Yeah, the prerequisites do seem high for a multiclass, I was using Shadow Sun Ninja as a bit of a base, but you're right. I'll tweak that.

I think I'm okay with the maneuver progression. I'm willing to change if others think it's too much though.

Do you think bumping Hatred's damage up to d8s would be okay? Also, I like the idea to make it half fire/half not.

You're right about the Con damage. I'd initially allowed it because of wounding weapons and the feat for Shifters that gives it on every bite attack, but wounding weapons are expensive, bites are infrequent, and it is definitely better than all the other options.

Psychic Strike... Yeah. I feel the same about it as you do. deuxhero, that's a good idea, I'll throw that note in.

I don't think Furious Retort really needs a change. I mean, Robilar's Gambit lets you hit at the same time, but requires you taking a hit to AC. This requires no hit to AC, can be used at range, and gives you a bonus to attack rolls in the future. Yeah, it requires expending psionic focus, but it also doesn't require a feat. I dunno. I guess I do think you're right, it needs something, but... what? Maybe letting you use a strike, that's a good idea. I'll think on it.

Absolute Power... needs work. I'll try to think of something, and am more than open to suggestions!

Calm One:

I'll fix the prereqs, but, these guys are supposed to be defensive people, thus all good saves. They're sorta along the lines of monk. But... I dunno. You're probably right. Perhaps I'll make them all average? Or should I reduce Fortitude to poor?

And I know the lost manifester level isn't given at a usual place, but I do what I want. :smalltongue: The first level ability just isn't good enough to make up for losing a manifester level, the third level is.

But hey! All the class abilities solid? That's what I like to hear! :smallcool:

DragoonWraith
2010-03-21, 10:51 PM
The difference between Furious Retort and Robilar's Gambit is that Robilar's Gambit can be used 1+Dex times per round because it keys off of Attacks of Opportunity. Furious Retort is, at best, once per round, because you expend Psionic Focus. The former is good, the latter is thoroughly meh.

Master_Rahl22
2010-04-26, 08:55 PM
Uh, what is the Calm One's HD?

DaTedinator
2010-04-26, 09:28 PM
Oh man! I was literally just thinking about these guys yesterday. The HD is a d8, I guess when I was updating the table I accidentally pasted over the HD too. Fixed! Thanks for pointing that out!

Also finally added the note to Psychic Strike that you can trade it for bonus feats, and tweaked Furious Retort and Absolute Power.

Master_Rahl22
2010-05-02, 07:59 AM
Very cool. I just noticed that the table and text for Stances Known as a Calm One don't match. Table says 3rd, text says 5th. I really like this PrC, and I'm making a character that aims for it out of Warblade and Ardent.