Post/Author/DateTime	Post
echoota 04-20-07, 06:16 PM	I've got a 3rd level hengeyokai psion (with sparrow as my shapeshifting animal, and shaper as my discipline for the psion) and now I have to pick two additional powers. Looking over the list of 2nd level powers I'm a bit underwhelmed... nothing really stands out and so a bit more deliberation is in order. My character's race is a hengeyokai (from Oriental Adventures) and so most of the time I'm in the form of a sparrow. Since I'm a manifester this doesn't cause any problems with invoking my powers, and to boot my AC is set at 23, I can fly, and my hide is through the roof. My feats are: Improved Flight (puts me at good so I can hover) Boost Construct Psionic Endowment I've got an Int of 18 so my base DC is 15 + power level We also have a 3rd level Druid in our party so I don't want to overlap with abilities she can perform. So far the powers I have are: 1st Level: Entagling Ectoplasm Astral Construct Crystal Shard Psionic Sleep (from the 3rd party Hyperconsciousness book) Vigor Now I'm looking over the 2nd Level options. None of the powers really stand out as must haves. Some things are useful, but nothing seems to be as helpful as Psionic Sleep and Astral Construct. I guess I'm trying to find something that will be indespensible, but I'm not seeing it right now.
saidin0111 04-20-07, 07:04 PM	Concussion Blast is a must if you think you will ever encounter ethereal/incorporeal enemies, it is the only low level force attack power available, the only other force attack that I usually look at is a force mantle power, acts like a force energy ball, therefore requiring the Expanded Knowledge feat, plus it is several levels higher, I too am usually at a loss when picking 2nd level powers, while most are better than 1st level powers, they're not so much so that I'm completely against using some of my powers learned to pick some more 1st levles
sir_dwar 04-20-07, 07:17 PM	Ego Whip. Cha damage= Unconscious enemy. 'nuff said. Try to pick up energy missile some time, its the best direct damage power psionics has. Cloud Mind is always fun (It can be even more usefull than invisibility in some cases, in some cases less). Feat Leach can be murder against your fellow psions (go for Expanded Knowledge). Energy Push and Stun are also not that bad, and Cp (*gasp*) has a couple of nifty things, like Crystalstorm (Con damage is always great, but it will lose effectiveness later on) and Larval Flayers (think ego whip, then think Int damage). Actually, those are the only two from CP I can think of. I'm sure Untapped Potential has some nifty ones too. EDIT: I feel compelled to mention that most of these are things other board members have mentioned.
periscope 04-20-07, 07:34 PM	I like clairvoyent sense myself but you'ld need expanded knowledge to get since its on the seer list. Dont know whats on the other side of the door? CS it (since it says you can only look at places you've seen or that are pretty obvious (like around corners). Heck is their a gorgon and you didnt grab the synethesete or touch sight power? Pull a CS (your seeing with your minds eye not your eyes so you shouldnt have to much of a problem beyond a possible penalty to ac, saves, and attack rolls since your perception is off by 5 ft).
saidin0111 04-20-07, 07:35 PM	wow, completely forgot Cloud Mind, useful for the stealth minded psion, Ego Whip and Larval Flayers are good, too, I used to like Energy Push and Stun, but I started ending up with so many energy powers that were only marginally better than the one before them that I started to cut those out in favor of some utility at 2nd level, also, knock at any time is useful if you lack a lock picking stealth type, such as if you have a scout, unfortunately, many of the low level powers are more useful for theatrics than for continued use throughout a campaign, therefore, more useful to an Erudite than a Psion, though I'd recommend having some theatric value to your character, as that makes them memorable and keeps people coming back for more
sir_dwar 04-21-07, 10:40 AM	Well said. The main low-level powers people want are Astral Construct and Energy Missile, both of which are very handy.
Nifft 04-21-07, 12:32 PM	Since you already have crystal shard, my recommendation is energy stun. It's versatile, in terms of energy damage and how much you care about the secondary effect, and (despite the double save) the DC scales very well with Augmentation. Take a look at psi tongues (if you want to remain in bird form while communicating with your party). Are you the only caster in your party? Then psi identify may be necessary in the future; no harm in getting it now. You can always earn a living as an item ID service, since you have no expensive material component to worry about... ;) Cheers, -- N
carnivore 04-21-07, 01:15 PM	since you have Vigor.....might as well take this: Share Pain Psychometabolism Level: Psion/wilder 2 Display: Material and mental Manifesting Time: 1 standard action Range: Touch Targets: You and one willing creature, or two willing creatures; see text Duration: 1 hour/level (D) Power Points: 3 This power creates a psychometabolic connection between you and a willing subject so that some of your wounds are transferred to the subject. You take half damage from all attacks that deal hit point damage to you, and the subject takes the remainder. The amount of damage not taken by you is taken by the subject. If your hit points are reduced by a lowered Constitution score, that reduction is not shared with the subject because it is not a form of hit point damage. When this power ends, subsequent damage is no longer divided between the subject and you, but damage already shared is not reassigned. If you and the subject move farther away from each other than close range, the power ends. You can manifest this power on two willing subjects, one of which you designate to share its damage with the other. the nice thing is ....it is not limited to you and your Psicrystal......you can Share Pain with your Warhorse, or between your Friends and thier Warhorse Mounts......it has a long duration, so you can help your entire party for a few PP...especially just before combat as has already been mentioned: Psi Identify...................as Nifft said Energy Stun..................nice 2 save power Concussion Blast............very good Multi Target Force effect, very useful Ego Whip......................Ability damage always good, non lethal also Crystal Storm................NO save/NO SR_PR and Ability damage=EXCELLENT. since you are a Shaper......i would have suggested: Minor Creation insead of Psionic Sleep.....Sleep will lose its effectiveness as you gain exerience...Minor Creation will remain effective thru ALL your career(much more Versatile) other good 2nd lvl powers: Detect Hostile Intent...........very long lasting and useful power, especially early in your career, remains useful even later Psychoportive Shelter....very handy power, much better than Rope Trick Damp Power....very nice Defensive power...especially if you run into a lot of Spell casters or creatures with Breath weapons :D
Nibbler 04-21-07, 02:22 PM	Damp Power helps you and later your party by minimizing any damage (energy damage, ability damage, negative levels, etc.) from spells, powers, and spell-like abilities, assuming you play with magic-psionics transparency. As an instantaneous action, it requires no preparation. This can be very useful.
crizhII 04-21-07, 02:37 PM	Damp Power....very nice Defensive power...especially if you run into a lot of Spell casters or creatures with Breath weapons :D AFAIK Damp Power has no effect on Breath Weapons or other similar Su effects.
saidin0111 04-21-07, 03:36 PM	okay, yeah, totally forgot about damp power, that is a must for defensive power, watch the evil wizard cry when his empowered, maximized delayed blast fireball barely singes your cloak, crizhII is right though that it does only affect powers, spells, psi-like, and spell-like abilities (assuming transparency), supernatural abilities are not subject to this power, if they were, it'd probably be like a 3rd or 4th level power at the least
Kiklio 04-21-07, 04:29 PM	Share Pain, Damp Power, and Energy Stun are all solid choices. The psion I'm about to play has all three. The most important thing affecting your choice is the effectiveness of your constructs. Do they grapple? You might not need Energy Stun. Do they block for you? You may not need Share Pain. Damp Power is just generally awesome, because it shuts down so many things you'd otherwise need to manifest Energy Adaptation for. Though, if you know you're facing a certain energy type, Specified Energy Adaptation is more cost-effective, can eventually be used as an immediate action, and might negate all of the damage. It's a trade-off.
saidin0111 04-21-07, 04:42 PM	latter on there is also the wonderful Energy Nullification Field and at 10min/lvl, it is just great when you expect to encounter certain energy types, or you could manifest it several times to Nullify all energy types and then run around blasting with force effects like concussion blast
AntiDjinn 04-22-07, 12:09 AM	Between Astral Construct, Crystal Shard, and Sleep you already have a good set of attack powers for a 3rd level psion, so don't worry about damage. Your only defense is Vigor (and having a construct act as a bodyguard) so your method of dealing with damage is to suck it up. Time to expand with defense, movement, or utility. For defense, your options are: Biofeedback: DR is never bad, but Vigor already effectively does this for you. Concealing Amorpha: Not bad, but wait for the Greater version. Damp Power: Very powerful, but don't forget that it only applies vs. spells, powers, and similar; it does nothing against a weapon attack or other physical hazards. It is also useless against harm that does not come in variable amounts. Energy Adaptation, Specified: A winner, better once you can use it as an immediate action. For movement: Body Equilibrium: Useful in a variety of situations. Earthwalk: I like Body Equilibrium better. Knock, Psionic: If you don't have a competent rogue then someone in the party needs it. Levitate, Psionic: Meh, your flying construct can carry you to places you need to reach off the ground. For utility: Control Sound: Silence's cousin, if you are aware of its limitations. Detect Hostile Intent: Very useful low level detection power. Identify, Psionic: Skip this one unless your DM does not allow the spell version to identify psionic items. You don't need a 100 gp pearl, but 1 full day of your time is worth more than 100 gp. Psychoportive Shelter: Actually useful for overnighting in the dungeon rather than running back to town. It also allows you to hide from most scrying attempts. Sustenance: When you need it you need it, but I have yet to have a PC starve to death. It does allow you to travel lighter. For attack, other than damage (debuffs, and such): Feat Leech: If psionic feats are very common, otherwise skip it; this power works out better for the PsW. Inflict Pain: Actually a decent debuff. Remember: The -2 penalty is automatic even if the save is made. Drop it on an enemy fighter and you may force him to chose not to use Power Attack in favor of having a decent chance to hit (or at least using 2 points less). Mental Disruption: An offense/defense hybrid. Nice that you get to pick your targets in the area. Only really effective if you have multiple teammates who need to get into flanking positions; dazing the foes in the area for that round will spare party members lots of AoO's.
echoota 04-22-07, 08:53 AM	Thanks for all of the suggestions. We played last night and so I had to choose and settled on the Share Pain and Energy Stun. Share Pain works well with our group because we have a Goliath Monk who's basically built to be a grappler and so she's always tumbling into trouble, being right on the front lines. With Share Pain I can link her up to the other front liner, a fighter with "crystal warrior" template from Underdark, who currently has DR 5/Adamantium and walks about in full plate. The fighter tends to not take much damage regardless of the situation and halving the monk's damage really helps her keep those pins. Last night she pinned a medium size black dragon for the whole encounter, absorbing zillions of attacks with attempts for it to break from the pin. I picked Energy Stun for two reasons. First I'm always trying to find ways to buff the rest of the party, rather than being a direct damage dealer and the stun effect, within the bounds of what psions can do, might as well be considered a buff for the rest of the party. Anything that keeps the Goliant Monk and Crystal Warrior up and running is good. The second reason is that there have already been numerous situations where I wish I could create some fire, either because we wanted to burn something up like a Gnoll's greathall, some horrible animated robes were constricting half the party, or a good old troll just rose above the ridge. Each time I'm wish I could generate fire. So the Energy Stun solves that problem. Looking over some of the other suggestions it looked like some interesting things were there, though I found they won't really be useful until higher levels. Such as the Psychoportive Shelter, that would be handy, but only when I get to level eight and the healer in the party can have a proper night's sleep to recharge her spells. Until then it seems like it will at best be a fixed group invisibility so we can ambush something. It would be fun, but not used all that much. Damp Power looks great, though my DM isn't that bloodthirsty, and it would only be really useful when I'm 7th level and I can protect the whole party. Being in sparrow form from my racial ability I tend to be very small, inocuous and flying or hovering most of the time in a corner. So I'm not targeted all that much. I'm definitely waiting for the Greater Concealing Amphora, since the total concealment there will essentially give me "hide in plain sight" ability with my high hide bonus in sparrow form. Identify would be pretty good, however, playing to my DM's ways, identification isn't that big of a deal for our group. The DM wants us to know what the latest widget does as quickly as possible, so he doesn't make it too complex of a puzzle to figure out. My DM is pretty flexible and will let us retrain at appropriate times, so I'm not totally stuck. I think I will need to pick something offensive soon that I can target while in a grapple though. Last night there was only so much I could do with our goliath monk grappling the dragon. Most of my offensive stuff potentially could affect our party member and not just the dragon. My biggest short term goal is to get Ectoplasmic Cacoon at 5th level. It's a race to get to the quickest save-or-die. Along with it I'll be taking Greater Psionic Endowment and so at that point my DC will be 19 (or perhaps 20 with item enchancement). Then I can properly shut down some encounters quickly.
saidin0111 04-22-07, 09:56 AM	also, when you reach 5th level don't ignore psychic blast, cone shaped stun, 1 round to start, but can latter be lengthened in duration some of the nice save or dies later on include crystallize, decerebrate, fuse flesh, and microcosm and note that decerebrate, a psychoportation power, bypasses any immunity to a specific spell school, since psychoportation has no equivalent spell school, it is also not a mind-affecting effect, it is a teleportation effect, not much out there immune to teleportation, though it is limited to living creatures, so worthless against constructs and undead, probably oozes, too, though I'm not certain
Grizzled Gryphon 04-22-07, 08:29 PM	Ego Whip also has the added benefit of stunning the target. This aspect of the power saved my parties bacon for sure on one occasion. Well, that and bad rolls on the DM's part. Basically, we had been warned about the dangers of taking on a Dragon out in the open. When the party saw one flying off in the distance, and coming our way, they all prepared for battle instead of hiding. I couldn't believe this, but that was the situation. So, it strafed us, of course, and then I hit it with Ego Whip. It failed its save, and thus was stunned. I hit it every turn, and becuase it failed its save so many times, it only breathed twice on us, and managed a single attack on the Barbarian. That power kept it to a single bite, and two breaths. It also had the added affect of making it easier to hit. I now swear by it.