Abjurant Champion -> Psionics conversion

[danzibr]

I was wondering if anyone's done or knows of a psionic version of Abjurant Champion, homebrew or otherwise. I've seem bits and pieces of this done, but not the whole thing, and even then there's quite a range. The first thing you have to decide is what to replace abjuration with (or maybe make it more generic? Hmm, that'd be different). Anyways, thanks in advance.

[Essence_of_War]

Whatever school gives inertial armor?

In seriousness, the general concensus I've seen is to replace abjuration w/ psychokinesis.

The other part is how to handle the "burn spell slots for effect" mechanic. An Nth level spell slot corresponds to 2*(slot-level) - 1 power points. And then to reflect the added utility psioncs users have of NOT having limited slots, you toss in a "must burn psionic focus also".

manifest
psychokinetic
power

So the abilities might look like (with some comments in [] )
1) Psychokinetic Armor (Su) - Any time you manifest a psychokinetic power that grants you an armor bonus or shield bonus to AC, you can increase the value of the bonus by your psychokinetic champion class level. Psychokinetic champions rely on shield, and similar powers instead of actual armor. [Possibly extend psi focus also]

2) Extended Psychokinesis (Su): You depend on your psychokinetic powers to protect you in combat. Double the duration of psychokinetic powers you manifest, as if you had applied the Extend Power feat to them (but without any change in level or casting time). [Possibly expend psi focus also]

3) Swift Psychokinesis (Su): Beginning at 2nd level, you can manifest psychokinetic powers as a swift action, as if you had applied the Quicken Power feat to them (but without any change in level). The maximum level of spell you can quicken in this way is equal to 1/2 your class level (rounded up). [Possibly expend psi focus also]

Psychic Boost (Su): Beginning at 4th level, you gain the ability to burn psionic energy to empower your martial abilities. As a swift action [+ psionic focus], you can spend 2*N - 1 pps to get:
• +N Bonus on attack rolls
• +2N Bonus on weapon damage rolls
• +N Bonus to AC (untyped? Touch?)
• +N Bonus on saving throws
• +5*N Resistance to acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic

Martial Psionicist (Ex): At 5th level, you master the art of combining your militant and psionic training. From this point on, your ML in a chosen psionic manifesting class is equal to your base attack bonus (unless it would otherwise be higher). For example, a 7th-level fighter/1st-level psion/5th-level psychokinetic champion has a base attack bonus of +12 (and thus a manifester level of 12th). You can apply this benefit to only one psionic class to which you have added manifesting levels by your advancement as a psychokinetic champion

[Rejusu]

The easiest adaptation is to change it to Psychokinesis because Force Screen (Shield) and Inertial Armour (Mage Armour) are both in that discipline so it meshes well with the Abjurant armour ability. If you do that then it's a simple conversion. Abjurant armour becomes Psychokinetic Armour and gives you a bonus to powers which give you an armour/shield bonus equal to your PC (Psychokinetic Champion) level. Swift, and Extended Abjurations become Swift/Extended Psycokinetics and apply to your Psychokinesis powers.

Arcane boost is a little trickier but still an easy conversion. It becomes Psionic Boost (naturally) and you burn the power points needed to manifest a power of X-level and gain X as the bonus. Martial arcanist becomes martial manifester and is based on manifester level as opposed to caster level.

The issue is though it's not really a great fit because Psionics doesn't have an equivalent discipline for the Abjuration school. Psychokinetics is closer to Evocation for a start. Secondly the "Abjurant armour" ability is design wise intended to make up for the AC lost by eschewing armour to avoid an ASF chance. But psionics has no such equivalent and you can manifest in full plate if you want to.

Finally the most obvious entry class for a Psionic Abjurant Champion would be a Psychic Warrior, but PW's have barely any Psychokinesis powers that'd benefit from it.

Personally flavour wise (Abj Champ is meant to be a gish) I think Psychometabolism works better. There isn't any good way to adapt the Abjurant armour class feature though. I'd say the cheap and easy way to adapt it to a discipline that isn't Psychokinesis would just be to remove Abjurant Armour (it's still a pretty great PrC without it) or replace it with a bog standard bonus feat (choice of fighter bonus feats or psionic feats, same as Psy Warr).

Oh and the prerequisite changes from "Combat casting" to "Combat manifestation", it's psionic equivalent.

It's also worth noting that I disagree with having to expend Psionic focus for any of these features. If necessary I'd add a per day usage limit. But having to expend your psionic focus for these doesn't make them any better than metapsionics (despite the fact they're designed as improved versions of metamagic in the original).

[Essence_of_War]

Rejusu makes some good points.

In particular, The XPH/SRD made some guidelines for how to treat the psionic powers vs. spell schools, and there is no explicit counterpart to abjuration.

In that light, I would stand by the stuff I suggested, but make them apply only to psychokinetic powers that have a range of personal/centered on you AND a duration. Alternatively, just give an explicit list.

From the kineticist list, for example, the following seem inappropriate for a psi-gish:

• Energy X (missile, cone, ball, current)
• Control Air/Object/Body (maayyybbeee for Control Body, but certainly only if used on yourself!)
• Fiery Discorporation
• TK Sphere
• Tornado Blast

While the following do seem appropriate:

• Inertial Barrier
• Dispelling Buffer
• Null Psi Field
• Reddopsi

And looking over them, it looks like the rule I suggested sorts all of those.

[Rejusu]

Rejusu makes some good points.

In particular, The XPH/SRD made some guidelines for how to treat the psionic powers vs. spell schools, and there is no explicit counterpart to abjuration.

In that light, I would stand by the stuff I suggested, but make them apply only to psychokinetic powers that have a range of personal/centered on you AND a duration. Alternatively, just give an explicit list.

From the kineticist list, for example, the following seem inappropriate for a psi-gish:

• Energy X (missile, cone, ball, current)
• Control Air/Object/Body (maayyybbeee for Control Body, but certainly only if used on yourself!)
• Fiery Discorporation
• TK Sphere
• Tornado Blast

While the following do seem appropriate:

• Inertial Barrier
• Dispelling Buffer
• Null Psi Field
• Reddopsi

And looking over them, it looks like the rule I suggested sorts all of those.

That kind of makes the Extend/Swift features kind of rubbish though. It isn't even in line with how Abjurant Champion works since it wouldn't apply for "Dispel Psionics" (which is a psychokinesis power) where as the AC can do this with "Dispel Magic" (Abjuration).

[Essence_of_War]

Ugh, good point, I didn't even think about Dispel Psionics which should have been WAY obvious.

I think you may be stuck with a problem that's only solved by "make a list of powers that seems appropriate".

[Rejusu]

Well this is why I made a thread recently suggesting to turn it into an Egoist (Psychometabolism) Champion. It's not a perfect mechanical fit, but it fits well with the Gish theme of the class. I also disagree with using psionic focus for the abilities. You're right in that Psionics doesn't have the limitation of spell slots. But they still have a cap on their power points. It's also worth noting that the Swift/Extend from AbjChamp are special because they don't require you to use a higher level spell slot.

While a psionic version wouldn't require you to spend more power points making you expend your focus puts a cap on how often you can use it. An abjurant champion could extend or quicken as many spells as he had slots for. But a Psion would have to spend a full round action (or a move action if they took the PsiMed feat) every time they wanted to use it.

Really though if you wanted a perfect fit for it, you'd have to create a custom power list for it that contains all the psionic equivalents of Abjuration school spells.

[Essence_of_War]

...I also disagree with using psionic focus for the abilities. You're right in that Psionics doesn't have the limitation of spell slots. But they still have a cap on their power points. It's also worth noting that the Swift/Extend from AbjChamp are special because they don't require you to use a higher level spell slot.

While a psionic version wouldn't require you to spend more power points making you expend your focus puts a cap on how often you can use it. An abjurant champion could extend or quicken as many spells as he had slots for. But a Psion would have to spend a full round action (or a move action if they took the PsiMed feat) every time they wanted to use it.

I think there is a pretty reasonable case for getting the extend/quicken for free, but I feel like the "Boost" class ability should probably cost psi focus.

The flexibility of being able to boost for lots w/o having to be capped by your highest level spell slots, only by your total PP reserve is noticeably more powerful than the arcane version.

[Rejusu]

I think there is a pretty reasonable case for getting the extend/quicken for free, but I feel like the "Boost" class ability should probably cost psi focus.

The flexibility of being able to boost for lots w/o having to be capped by your highest level spell slots, only by your total PP reserve is noticeably more powerful than the arcane version.

Well the first thing would be to cap it by the highest level power you can manifest. But again the problem with Psi focus is action economy. An arcanist may be capped by how many high level boosts they can get, but they can use it as often as they like. I think the best way to handle it would be just to cap the total PP per day you can burn with it. So you could get a bunch of small boosts or a few big boosts. This would put it more in line with the Abjurant Champions limitations (though the Abj Champ could still burn ALL his slots on boosting if he wanted).

[Jodah]

What if you needed to be Psionically focused but didn't need to expend it. It still helps with their being a slight limitation, but it doesn't make it too awful for action economy. Then you could have the kineticist powers able to extend beyond self/personal by expending the focus. It seems like a decent compromise.

[Rejusu]

I guess it depends on whether you want to convert it to have a power level in line with the abjurant champion or give it a lower power level. Having to maintain a psionic focus isn't an unreasonable limitation (given that with the free metapsionics you won't have to use it as much) but having to expend it just to quicken dispel psionics puts it beneath the Abjurant Champion, who can do that for free.

I agree that the boost feature needs limiting because Psionics doesn't have a cap on how many high level powers they can manifest. But I don't think the Swift or Extend features need any such limitations.

Even then it's kind of debatable whether the boost should be limited. Remember that unlike magic psionics doesn't get free scaling on their abilities. A 10th level wizard can still cast 10d6 fireballs with a third level spell slot, but a 10th level psion needs to spend 5 extra power points to get a 10d6 energy cone compared to the 5 PP it'd cost to manifest it normally.