[3.5] Battle Telepath [PrC, Psionic]

[ErrantX]

The Battle Telepath

Elizabeth Braddock, a battle telepath

Some wielders of psychic power seek to extend and stretch the depths of their psionic power to assist their abilities in many different ways. Some small select few, those who are quite gifted in the telepathic arts, find that they are able to distil certain psionic powers into a weapon of great potency as a psychic blade. This psychic blade may be used as a delivery medium for their telepathic abilities as well as a potent melee weapon. Battle telepaths, as they are called, learn to use their telepathic mastery as both offense and defense in pursuit of greater psionic knowledge and personal glory or power.

Most battle telepaths hail from the ranks of single classed psions or multiclassed psion/fighters. Others are wilders who have taken the Expanded Knowledge feat or ardents with the Mental Power mantle.
Hit Die: d8

Entry Requirements:
Skills: Concentration 8 ranks, Knowledge (psionics) 6 ranks, Psicraft 6 ranks
Feats: Narrow Mind, Psionic Body, Psionic Meditation
Psionics: Manifester level 5th, ability to manifest mind thrust and read thoughts.



Class skills: Autohypnosis (Wis), Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (psionics) (Int), Profession (Wis), Psicraft (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), and Tumble (Dex).
Skill Points per Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Class Features:

Weapons and Armor proficiency: The character gains no new weapon or armor proficiencies.

Powers Known: At every level but 1st, a battle telepath gains additional power points per day and access to new powers as if he had also gained a level in whatever manifesting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (bonus feats, metapsionic or item creation feats, and so on). This essentially means that he adds the level of battle telepath to the level of whatever manifesting class the character has, and then determines power points per day, powers known, and manifester level accordingly.
If a character had more than one manifesting class before he became a battle telepath, he must decide to which class he adds the new level of battle telepath for the purpose of determining power points per day, powers known, and manifester level.

Telepathy (Su): The battle telepath has specialized deeply in the telepathy discipline through his knowledge of the read thoughts power, gaining the telepathy special ability with a range of 100ft. A creature with this ability can communicate telepathically with any other creature within a certain range that has a language. It is possible to address multiple creatures at once telepathically, although maintaining a telepathic conversation with more than one creature at a time is just as difficult as simultaneously speaking and listening to multiple people at the same time.

Psychic Blade (Su): The battle telepath’s skill in the discipline of telepathy allows him to distill his knowledge of the psionic power mind thrust into creating a potent weapon as a swift action. This weapon may take the form of any melee weapon the wielder wishes, but it always inflicts 1d10 points of damage plus the manifester’s primary manifesting attribute modifier (Intelligence for psions and lurks, Wisdom for ardents and psychic warriors, and Charisma for wilders). This weapon functions as a one handed weapon that may be used in conjunction with the Weapon Finesse feat, and has a critical threat range of 20/x2. The psychic blade may not be used in combination with Strength-based feats such as Power Attack; the ethereal nature of the weapon contains no substance with which to put forth physical strength with (which also makes it invulnerable to sunder and disarming attempts), but feats such as Psionic Weapon work normally.

Even in places where psionic effects do not normally function (such as within a null psionics field), a battle telepath can attempt to sustain his psychic blade by making a DC 20 Will save. On a successful save, the battle telepath maintains his psychic blade for a number of rounds equal to his class level before he needs to check again. On an unsuccessful attempt, the psychic blade vanishes. As a swift action on his turn, the battle telepath can attempt a new Will save to rematerialize his psychic blade while he remains within the psionics negating effect. This is a mind-affecting ability.

Telepathic Defense (Su): The battle telepath’s skill within his specialty grows to assist him in combat by reading the surface thoughts and intentions of his foes that lie within the range of his telepathy. He gains an insight bonus to his armor class equal to his primary manifesting attribute modifier to a maximum of his class level. A battle telepath must be capable of reading the thoughts of a creature to gain this bonus to armor class, thus he does not gain telepathic defense against mindless creatures such as oozes, most constructs, and some forms of undead. This bonus to armor class otherwise functions as the monk’s bonus to armor class, save that it functions in light armor as well.

Discipline Focus (Ex): The character’s focus on telepathic powers grants you a +2 DC on telepathy powers that he manifests, and a +2 insight bonus to resist powers of that discipline.

Improved Psychic Blade (Su): The character’s skill with his psychic blade has improved, granting the weapon greater substance and potency. The psychic blade inflicts 2d10 points of damage plus his primary manifesting attribute modifier. Additionally, the weapon gains a degree of realism by becoming partially ectoplasmic, gaining an enhancement bonus equal to half the character’s class level. The weapon gains a hardness score equal to the battle telepath’s primary manifesting attribute modifier and gains hit points equal to twice that amount. Due to the psychic blade’s semi-real composition, it may now be used with Strength based feats as well. If the weapon is ever sundered or disarmed, it may be recalled again by the battle telepath as a swift action on his next turn. As it possesses this semi-real nature, it may inflict half damage to creatures who are immune to mind-affecting abilities.

Bonus Psionic Feat: The battle telepath gains a bonus psionic or metapsionic feat of his choice at 4th level. He gains an additional bonus psionic feat or metapsionic feat of his choice at 8th level. The character must qualify for the feat to select it.

Focusing Strike (Ex): A battle telepath’s success in battle with his psychic blade grants him strengthening mental clarity. Any time the character strikes the same foe twice in the same round with his psychic blade, he may regain his psionic focus as a swift action.

Mindreaver (Su): A battle telepath of 6th level has gained incredible control over his telepathic abilities. The character may manifest a power of the telepathy discipline (maximum level of the power cannot exceed half of your manifester level) through his psychic blade as a swift action as part of an attack. The power manifested only affects the target of the psychic blade, regardless of the power’s normal area or augmentations that would allow for multiple targets.

Greater Discipline Focus (Ex): Your strength with telepathic abilities grows due to specialization, granting you an additional +2 DC bonus to the saving throws of any telepathic power you manifest. Additionally, you gain a +2 bonus to manifester level checks to overcome power resistance when using a power of the telepathy discipline.

Superior Psychic Blade (Su): A battle telepath of 9th level has mastered the manifestation of his telepathic might in the form of his psychic blade. The psychic blade now inflicts 4d10 points of damage plus the character’s primary manifesting attribute modifier. The physical nature of the weapon increases as well, making the weapon no longer a mind-affecting ability, and extending its critical threat range to 18-20/x2.

Soulreaver (Su): The potency of the battle telepath’s psychic blade becomes crippling to enemies upon critical hits. Upon a successful critical hit, the weapon does damage as normal plus an additional 2d4 Charisma damage as if the victim had been subject to an ego whip (no save allowed).

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So, what do you think? PEACH!
-X

[DaTedinator]

Strikes me as a lot of what the soulknife should've been. I always hated how little psionic flavor the soulknife had, and how easy it was to just make it arcane or something. This, though, in addition to getting a mindblade type thing - one that's actually better than a sword - has plenty of class features that are solid and flavorful.

A couple of notes on specific abilities:

Telepathy/Telepathic Defense - I approve, and it's perfectly solid as-is, but maybe consider implementing a bit of the mindspy? Giving benefits for actively reading thoughts in combat, that sort of thing?

Psychic Blade - Nice. I like the improvements, and I really like how it's a mind-affecting ability (until that last improvement). The one thing I think I want to see, given that it's a power rather than some supernatural ability, is augments.

Solid class! I like it!

[Cieyrin]

It's certainly interesting, though I wonder if this would perhaps just become a dipping class for the Telepathy, much like Mindbender is.

2nd level's Telepathic Defense, which doesn't have a level limiter on how much you can actually take advantage, like Invisible Blade and Bladesinger, which makes this seem even more dippable. Plus both of the discipline foci abilities seem on the 3.0 scale of DC increases, which even Red Wizard doesn't do anymore. Scaling back the DC increases to +1 per ability would probably be decent, though the other halves of the abilities seem nice, as-is.

Otherwise, yeah, it is very Soulknifey but in a good way, kinda what I would've liked Soulknife to be, though still distinct enough to be its own thing. Good job, I look forward to more of your work.

[sscheib]

With the Psychic Blade, I'm just a little confused as to how it works.

Do I use mind-thrust and, instead of it happening as it normally would, it turns into the weapon? Are power points expended as normal? Does this weapon last the entire encounter, or just on your turn?

[Stycotl]

sweet, errant. very nice remake of the soulblade, but with some heft to it. i think i've only ever made two soulblades before, but this will make me want to retrain them and probably make a few others.

a few points:
-as sscheib mentioned, clarification of the mind thrust use would be nice. by your wording, it sounds like you just manifest the power and decide to make it a weapon instead of a single attack.
-if i missed it, my bad, but i didn't see a duration on the ability, and mind thrust is instantaneous.
-again, i might have missed it, but what are the blade's interactions with an antimagic sphere? same as soulblade's?

good job.

[ErrantX]

@DaTedinator
Thank you for your support on this class, I'm a fan of your psionic homebrews as well.

I sat and seriously considered your suggestion about mindspy like abilities, and I decided that to do that I would have to seriously start cutting into the manifester progression of the class to do that. All in all, I see that there are two primary types of characters that are going to go through this class. More caster-typed characters that want to focus on telepathic potency and strong manifesting, or more warrior types who are going to go into Mindspy. That progression looks something to me like a Psychic Warrior who's spent a couple feats on Expanded Knowledge and goes PsiWar 5 / Battle Telepath 10 / Mindspy 5. Even on a full manifester type, it's still worth while to go Mindspy! It would be very complimentary, but I'd prefer to keep more manifesting due to the class's ability to channel telepathy discipline powers through the psychic blade.

Additionally, the psychic blade is generated from the knowledge of a power, not the actual power itself. It's an expansion upon that, like saying I know how to use a hammer and nail to put two boards together, so I used that knowledge to build a desk. Psychic blade is a specialized extrapolation from knowledge of mind thrust, and is thus unaugmentable. That's why it gets periodic increases though.

@Cieyrin
I see what you mean dip-wise, so I changed the Telepathic Defense class feature to be more like the Bladesinger/Invisible Blade's defense. I considered your suggestion on the DC reductions, but due to your comment about it becoming a dip-class, I decided to leave it; people who stick with the class should get some significant reward. I always liked the soulknife as a prestige class conceptually, and I thought it was incredibly poorly executed in the rules.

@sscheib & Stycotl
The psychic blade is a class feature that works very much like the soulknife's mind blade. You learn to manifest one due to your knowledge of mind thrust, just like you learn telepathy and such from your knowledge of read thoughts. I cleared up some of the wording, and added in the bit I forgot regarding AMF's and all. Hope that clarifies things.

Thanks everyone!
-X

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

So its a psionic warmage, or a psionic paladin?

[ErrantX]

So its a psionic warmage, or a psionic paladin?

Not at all on either case, actually. It's more like what a soulknife should have been. It has no righteous "smite the wicked" component like a paladin (psi-pally's are Divine Minds/utter fail) and psionic warmages are kineticists.

This is a moderately mobile warrior-telepath who functions on the same principle as a Swiftblade (tagline of Haste Personified). A Battle Telepath is Mind Thrust / Read Thoughts Personified. By focusing on those two powers specifically, they develop a telepathic weapon capable of short-circuiting the minds of their foes through melee combat (and as a delivery system for telepathy powers), telepathic utility and defenses, and good melee ability.

-X

[sscheib]

Ok, thanks for the clarification on Psychic Blade.

Now, Telepathy...is that a Supernatural Ability usable at will or does it just extend the range of read thoughts?

[ErrantX]

Ok, thanks for the clarification on Psychic Blade.

Now, Telepathy...is that a Supernatural Ability usable at will or does it just extend the range of read thoughts?

Telepathy (Su): The battle telepath has specialized deeply in the telepathy discipline through his knowledge of the read thoughts power, gaining the telepathy special ability with a range of 100ft. A creature with this ability can communicate telepathically with any other creature within a certain range that has a language. It is possible to address multiple creatures at once telepathically, although maintaining a telepathic conversation with more than one creature at a time is just as difficult as simultaneously speaking and listening to multiple people at the same time.

Emphasis mine.

Telepathy just is. It's the ability to speak mind to mind, just as if you were speaking but without the need of actual verbal communication. Just as speaking is a free action, telepathy is as well. It's not expressly stated because it doesn't need to be. Just as speaking isn't listed under every creature with an (Ex) next to it stating that it may speak as a free action, telepathy is just simply communicating. Battle Telepaths derive this supernatural ability through their knowledge of read thoughts, just as they derive their psychic blade through their knowledge of the mind thrust power. By studying and practicing with those powers specifically, they learn how to use these abilities in addition.

-X

[jiriku]

I don't know psionics well enough to judge balance, but this reeks of cool. In fact it cries, sweats, and bleeds cool. Plus, I love telepathy as a class feature as that opens up the ever-tasty Mindsight feat.

I'm a little bummed not to see the ability to add +x equivalent powers to the mindblade, but I suppose the ability to easily channel psionic powers through the blade makes up for that.

Sexy!

[sscheib]

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. I knew what telepathy was, I just wasn't sure on how it was being used. Linking it to the SRD really helps those who might not know that telepathy is a special ability that has already been established.

Anyway, really cool PrC. I think I'll be using it :)

[ninjaneer003]

Would the Telepathic Defense work against constructs and other mindless creatures that are immune to telepathy?

[sscheib]

I would say no. If something doesn't have surface thoughts, or thought at all for that matter, then Telepathic Defense is rendered useless against it. Since you wouldn't know their intentions, you shouldn't get the bonus.

Then again, that's just my personal opinion. It's not my PrC.

[ErrantX]

Would the Telepathic Defense work against constructs and other mindless creatures that are immune to telepathy?

Good question, one I had not thought of. No, it would not. I will clarify that in the rules, thank you!

-X

EDIT: Added into Telepathic Defense.

[ninjaneer003]

Actually now that i think about it up until Superior Psychic Blade the blade is considered a mind effecting attack so anything not affected by mind effecting abilities would not take any damage from this.

Is this logic right?
If so I'd say that Improved Psychic Blade since it's semi-real should do at least a fraction of damage to enemies immune to mind effecting abilities. Like maybe half or something

[ErrantX]

Actually now that i think about it up until Superior Psychic Blade the blade is considered a mind effecting attack so anything not affected by mind effecting abilities would not take any damage from this.

Is this logic right?
If so I'd say that Improved Psychic Blade since it's semi-real should do at least a fraction of damage to enemies immune to mind effecting abilities. Like maybe half or something

That is correct, yes.

And that is a fairly logical conclusion. I think I will add that in.

-X

[Krazddndfreek]

I don't know much about psionics, but there seems to be no reason to actually multiclass fighter or something to get into this class, which I initially thought was the point.

If the character did not belong to a manifesting class before taking this prestige class, he does not gain manifesting levels.

Also, that line is somewhat redundant, as you have to be a manifester of at least 5th level to get in.

[ErrantX]

I don't know much about psionics, but there seems to be no reason to actually multiclass fighter or something to get into this class, which I initially thought was the point.

Also, that line is somewhat redundant, as you have to be a manifester of at least 5th level to get in.

Copy/paste error. Oops.

And yeah... there is almost never a reason to multiclass fighter, but someone who did could multi for fighter for bonus combat feats. Some merit there for the free feats and BAB.

-X

[Vaynor]

Hmm, this seems very similar to my Psychic Slayer PrC (gish cerebral stalker/psion), except yours focuses more on the Telepathy discipline. We even both used a picture of Betsy Braddock.

A good option for those who don't wish to take the cerebral stalker class, though. A bit more like a PrC soulknife.

[ErrantX]

Hmm, this seems very similar to my Psychic Slayer PrC (gish cerebral stalker/psion), except yours focuses more on the Telepathy discipline. We even both used a picture of Betsy Braddock.

A good option for those who don't wish to take the cerebral stalker class, though. A bit more like a PrC soulknife.

*nods* I see a lot of commonalities, but there are some definite differences in execution. I am a fan of your cerebral stalker class, it seems like some serious fun to actually play. I see this class kind of like I see the Swiftblade; two powers blended together and personified into a 10 level fighting class. And it's hard not to love Ms. Braddock

Your psychic slayer definitely says to me more of an assassin oriented class, not unlike the cerebral stalker, if you don't mind my saying so. Either way, I think that those classes are brilliant and I have been actively looking for an excuse to use them in my game since I saw them

Thanks for commenting!
-X

[Vaynor]

*nods* I see a lot of commonalities, but there are some definite differences in execution. I am a fan of your cerebral stalker class, it seems like some serious fun to actually play. I see this class kind of like I see the Swiftblade; two powers blended together and personified into a 10 level fighting class. And it's hard not to love Ms. Braddock

Your psychic slayer definitely says to me more of an assassin oriented class, not unlike the cerebral stalker, if you don't mind my saying so. Either way, I think that those classes are brilliant and I have been actively looking for an excuse to use them in my game since I saw them

Oh I know they're quite different in execution, I do like this class a lot. Like I said, yours is more of a PrC soulknife/psion gish, while mine is more assassin oriented, like you said. I just thought it was funny that we both used ol' Betsy for the picture.

Thanks though, if you do end up using them let me know how it goes!

[Lix Lorn]

Whoah, very cool. (nods)

[Morrolan]

I'm adding this to my favorites.
This PRC is perfect for a psionic gish/telepath, which I both enjoy playing

[ErrantX]

Thank you Lix Lorn and Morrolan, I'm glad you enjoy the class.

As an aside, I've got a player in my current campaign that is a Lurk 2 / Telepath 3 / Battle Telepath 10 / Sanctified Mind 1 right now (using my Master Psithief feat, posted below) and he is enjoying the heck out of this class. For those of you who may be interested in using this class, thus far in my own playtesting this has stood up very well while not overshadowing my other players. This is exactly what I was hoping for, a soulknife done right.

-X

---
Master Psithief [Psionic]
You have learned to combine your training as a lurk with the abilities of another psionic medium.
Prerequisites: Psionic sneak attack +1d6, lurk augment, manifester level 3rd.
Benefit: Your lurk levels stack with levels of other manifesting classes (that is, levels of any class that grants manifesting other than the lurk) for the purpose of determining what level of augment you can use (but not uses per day). For example, a 4th-level lurk/4th-level egoist could use his lurk augment class feature as an 8th level lurk. Your lurk and manifester levels also stack when determining your manifester level for all psionic powers. The character described above would have a manifester level of 8th for both his lurk powers and his psion powers.

The above feat is in my homebrew feat compendium.

[Witty Username]

this is a bookmarkable offense.

No glaring brokenness and good flavor. This should be called the true soulknife.

[ErrantX]

this is a bookmarkable offense.

No glaring brokenness and good flavor. This should be called the true soulknife.

Heh, well then guilty as charged. Thank you very much!

-X

[AShadowofLife]

If I were one for drugs I would say...

This is like cheesecake on crack!

Since I'm not, I'll just say.. cheesecake is delicious and this class is like cheesecake. Superb.