Monk/Psy Warrior Tashalatora builds

[AirTony7]

My DM is starting a new campaign soon, and I thought it would be a good time to try out some builds I've always wanted to try. The first being a monk/psychic warrior. I have some basic ideas of what I want but could use help filling out the rest.

Its 32 point buy, starting level is 8. I thought I would be an Elan for the extra PP. Other than Monastic Training and Tashalatora what feats should I go for. I could also use help in picking powers. (besides the obvious psionic lion charge, expansion, and vigor) Also what stat spread should I aim for if I wanted to be mainly an unarmed fighter? Thank you all for the help

[Sinfire Titan]

My DM is starting a new campaign soon, and I thought it would be a good time to try out some builds I've always wanted to try. The first being a monk/psychic warrior. I have some basic ideas of what I want but could use help filling out the rest.

Its 32 point buy, starting level is 8. I thought I would be an Elan for the extra PP. Other than Monastic Training and Tashalatora what feats should I go for. I could also use help in picking powers. (besides the obvious psionic lion charge, expansion, and vigor) Also what stat spread should I aim for if I wanted to be mainly an unarmed fighter? Thank you all for the help

If you're going Elan for the PP, I recommend using Kalashtar instead (Eberron Campaign Setting). There's no reason the DM should allow Secrets of Sarlona and not the ECS too, considering Tashalatora is Eberron specific.

[Person_Man]

This thread and this thread might help you. Also, I suggest Wisdom as your primary stat. You can run pretty much everything off of it. Consider some play on this build:

Sir Wisdom the SAD

Spoiler

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Elan Paladin 4/Sanctified Mind 1/War Mind 5/Sanctified Mind 2-6
A Paladin using the Serenity feat (Dragon Magazine, also on Crystalkeep) uses Wis instead of Cha for all of his class abilities. So now your Wis improves all of your Saves (and it effectively doubles up on your Will Save), and you can use it for Smite (bonus to hit) and Turn Undead uses (various Divine feats).

Sanctified Mind (Lords of Madness) is 6 level, full BAB PrC which provides 5/6 caster or manifester progression (player's choice, and you can explicitly change which you take each level) with the dead level being the first level of the class. Unlike most other classes, you can enter it at ECL 5. It also has some semi-useful class abilities, including Power Resistance based on your HD, which counts as Spell Resistance if your DM is using the transparency rules.

War Mind is a nifty PrC. His best class feature is Sweeping Strike, which can be abused all kinds of ways with Attack of Opportunity combos. But he also gets Wis based Psychic Warrior power progression. It's relatively fast progression, too. At ECL 15, you essentially have the same powers as a 15th level Psychic Warrior.

Intuitive Attack (Book of Exalted Deeds) which allows you to use your Wis bonus for your To-Hit bonus with simple or natural weapons.

Enhanced Elan Resilience (Complete Psionic) improves your Elan ability to spend your Power Points (based on Wis) to negate damage to 4 points per power point spent. You can also burn 1 point to get +4 to your Saves for 1 round. Though you need to be careful about this, as both are an Immediate Action, and thus can be done once per round. Alternatively or in addition, you can also get temporary hit points with the Vigor power, and/or heal with Hostile Empathic Transfer when you need to. And/or you can set up the standard Claws of the Beast + Claws of the Vampire + Expansion combo. Just be mindful that you have very limited power points (though you're helped out by bonus power points from a high Wis).

And Mage Slayer feats have no effect on caster levels, as the transparency rules have no effect on feats (otherwise a Psychic Warrior could take Practiced Caster and metamagic feats, which they can't). So casters have a lot to fear from you.

Buy a Monk's Belt, and you get Wis to AC (including Touch AC). Improve both AC's even higher by using the Shield and Inertial Armor powers. And since you're not wearing armor, you can buy a Ring of Evasion, just to be extra cautious.

To top it off, take a look at the Travel Devotion (Complete Champion) to get free movement every turn, so that you can make a full attack every round. (Not that you need it. You have Hustle. But it's nice to be thorough).

Put it all together, and you get a PC who has Wis based Turn Undead, Saves, To-Hit, AC, and (essentially) hit points, with full BAB, 15th level Psychic Warrior abilities, plenty of divine and psionic options, and numerous useful class abilities.

[deuxhero]

Try passive way (think it was passive way) monk (SRD), the bonus feats are better than the norm, and you don't need int 13 for combat expertise.

[AslanCross]

I recommend Kalashtar as well---they get a LOT more PP (1/level) than the Elan.

[riddles]

do not elan and kalashtar take xp penalties for monk/psywar builds?

if you can get level buy off, half giant is fun, especially with passive way monk.

[Ecalsneerg]

Kalashtar is better pp-wise, but Elan do get nice benefits like Aberration type. I'd probably recommend the former like the above posters, as psychic warriors could do with more pp, but it's not worth totally discounting the Elan. At lower levels especially, immunity to spells that target humanoids is pretty nice.

[Keld Denar]

If you plan on doing any grappling at all, Scorpion's Grasp from Sandstorm is pretty good. It gives you what is essentially Improved Grab, and is one of the VERY few ways to get Improved Grab. Grappling synergizes well with access to Expansion and Grip of Iron.

An important feat for you is Link Power, one of the only good feats from Complete Psionic. It allows you to manifest 2 powers at once, except one doesn't come into play until the next round. Ups the PP cost a little though. This is really great for tossing out your low level powers like Grip of Iron or such, because the PP cost will be really low. So, in one round, manifest Expansion linked with Grip of Iron, and at the start of your next turn, you'll be large AND have a +4 to grapples. Action Economy is king!

Improved Natural Attack is also pretty good. It increases dice by once size for your UAS. Expansion increases it a 2nd time, and if you get any other buffs, they'll further increase your effective size. Stacking size is all about what makes Tashalatora characters effective meleers.

[AslanCross]

do not elan and kalashtar take xp penalties for monk/psywar builds?

if you can get level buy off, half giant is fun, especially with passive way monk.

I really doubt any DMs actually take the favored class rule seriously. I think it would be worth it in any case.