i've recently started a campaign, and in my moorpg-like vision of the party, i fit the role of the dps.
I'm in a very unbalanced party, mostly because of the laziness of the players in looking for classes, where we have a ninja, 2 warriors, a thief and wizard. Let's say that the only people around here accustomed to D&D are me (class yet to be chosen), the wizard and the DM, who costantly throws encounters which almost kill this melee- centred team.
Unfortunately for me, the best way to fix this would be rolling a cleric and buff-heal. This for me, it's not an option, since i find this veeery boring.
So i was thinking about a dps who could "think for himself" in the battle (also considerating ethereal/ incorporeal and flying enemies) and was undecided between Crusader (dps- wise, even if perhaps enroling a tank would help) and Tashalatora build.
I honestly cannot think of more classes, and i have excluded from the options the "big 5(6)", because pure caster has always been boring.
Every 3.5 manual is allowed but the uber-caster one (miser magic feat? don't remeber the name).
EDIT: Oh, and I made a Weretouched Master build that might fit the bill, too. I'd have to link that later, because I don't remember the name of its thread.
see, my DM when it comes to multiclass and prestige classes it's something like:
DM :"fine, to find the NPC teaching you the stuff, you'll have to climg the Everest, jump without rope from it and land safely in Sahara desert."
ME: "well this would be possible with a teleportation and a safe fall spell..."
DM: "nono, i said YOU and i mean YOU"
so it's already an exception for him to allow a "tashalatored" psywar.
i'm looking for a build mostly, expecially feats suggestion, as i can arrange a strategy for the situation.
if you can find it useful: those are the stats that are to be distributed. 15 15 15 14 14 13. not counting race bonuses (suggestion accepted).
btw, it is possible to "tweak" bonuses, moving +x and -x bonuses to needed stats. (e.g. a catfolk having +2 dex +2 wis -2int -2 car can be turned in a dogfolk +2dex +2 str -2wis -2 car, he considers a certain logic for such things).
Judging by your description of the DM's attitude, I'd go with one of 2 things: either PsyWar 20 or Druid 20 with a focus on Summons and Wild Shape.
befoe starting the campaign i said to everyone that i had the "bible of base classes" so they could check the best for them (newbies...) but they claimed "nah we go for warr hurr durr"
but also the rogue and the ninja go for straight melee stuff, so it's me and the wizard to raise the survival odds.
i was thinking of a: 1 monk -19 psy warr (multiclassing and prestige classes issues with DM as said above), with a dex based build since i gues i'd have serious issues with str.
the crusader is appealing for the seriously new way of playing melees (never tried ToB classes), but i feel limited against flying and ethereal/incorporealc reatures. magic equip it's hard to find and veeery costy in our campaign.
about the more info, what it's needed?
@cyclone: water orc lion spirit what? 200 dmg by lvl 6? and i thought 16d6 dmg by lvl 5 was great D:
EDIT: i don't like big 5 classes. >.<
Psychic Warrior is fine all by itself, though if you wanted a Tashalatora PsyWar, nobody would stop you. Another option would be the Duskblade from PHB2, but it's probably worse than a Psychic Warrior.
(CoDzilla? what is it?)
(CoDzilla? what is it?)
A term coined by RadicalTaoist:
It bears saying: if up against a logic-impervious DM who thinks Core is balanced and Psionics* isn't, then the most powerful way to disprove that is to play a C.o.D. (Cleric or Druid). Noncore material will not be necessary unless you are going for pure overkill (Draconic Wildshape? Divine Metamagic?). So by all means, if you must win that argument, take you C.o.D. to town. Annihilate the opposition. Make the NPCs and other players scream "Oh no, it's C.o.D.zilla!!!!!" in badly dubbed English. Breathe radioactive fire. Knock down buildings. Then stomp out of the burning Tokyo that is the ruins of the game and swim off into the ocean, seeking a DM with some basic cognitive functions
(The asterisked bit moved on to discuss other balanced noncore things, but the thread was in the context of psionics.)
It's not hard to steamroll the other players and the DM as a straight-up cleric 20 or druid 20 unless the other players or the DM are up to the bar that Cyclone Joker suggests, at least. (And yes, it's not hard to get a straight-up barbarian charger up to around that damage point by level 6, although I'm not sure how CJ's getting all the required feats by 6 without bonus feats, as two of them require base attack +6.) Even then, a competent cleric or druid can hold their own, and a good one can remain on top against pretty much anything except other Tier One classes (and of the tier ones, CoDs are the simplest to build and play - you can sometimes go so far as to take an amateruishly-built cleric, simply change out the spells prepared, and move to full-on Weapon of Mass Destruction territory.)
(I tend to avoid ludicrous effects like Simulacrum chaining and recursive astral projections, meaning our games don't have the same arms race that the game allows, but that race is part of the game as written. Sadly it tends to reduce a lot of the game to just wizard, cleric, druid, archivist, and artificer (plus erudite if you use the horrifically-designed spell-to-power option).)
jeez, i almost forgot a couple of details.
see, my DM when it comes to multiclass and prestige classes it's something like:
DM :"fine, to find the NPC teaching you the stuff, you'll have to climg the Everest, jump without rope from it and land safely in Sahara desert."
ME: "well this would be possible with a teleportation and a safe fall spell..."
DM: "nono, i said YOU and i mean YOU"
so it's already an exception for him to allow a "tashalatored" psywar.
i'm looking for a build mostly, expecially feats suggestion, as i can arrange a strategy for the situation.
if you can find it useful: those are the stats that are to be distributed. 15 15 15 14 14 13. not counting race bonuses (suggestion accepted).
btw, it is possible to "tweak" bonuses, moving +x and -x bonuses to needed stats. (e.g. a catfolk having +2 dex +2 wis -2int -2 car can be turned in a dogfolk +2dex +2 str -2wis -2 car, he considers a certain logic for such things).
Sorry I'm not going to be much if any help with your build. Because I've learned that people don't like to hear negative things on these boards I'll just
Show
DSP is certainly NOT a standard DnD term and at times really doesn't relate well to any kind of DnD character. There are many ways of dealing damage but many of the most effective builds also don't worry about how much actual damage they can do. I'm not well studied on them but something from the TOB may be the closest you can get with the criteria I'm seeing.
Your party looks like it may be highly incompetent. I do wonder what your "warriors" actually are and can say that Ninja is not a class someone should ever take but I do see a possibility of a light group of adventurers. This looks like a case where the players should get together to do some character building together.
What's a Tashalatora build?
I really HATE you're DM's rules which I have quoted. For starters multiclassing and PrC are really halmarks of 3.5 especially if you are not a spellcaster. To me, restricting a character to a single base class is terribly harsh and would definitely force me to look at only a few classes; the sad thing is those may be some of the "stronger" classes that I'd normally stay away from as a whole. While not nearly as broken as some stat arrays I've seen the listed array equates to PB41 which I believe shoots a number of game balancing mechanics away. On top of the great starting ability scores it looks like your DM is giving you free reign to move point arround as you want (potentially pushing up the PBe); any DM who think that +2 STR/DEX -2WIS/CHA is the same a +2DEX/WIS -2INT/CHA may need to check how balanced his game is.
As much as I'd like to play when I look at those restrictions I feel like I'd walk away.
Your party looks like it may be highly incompetent. I do wonder what your "warriors" actually are and can say that Ninja is not a class someone should ever take but I do see a possibility of a light group of adventurers. This looks like a case where the players should get together to do some character building together.
What's a Tashalatora build?
I really HATE you're DM's rules which I have quoted. For starters multiclassing and PrC are really halmarks of 3.5 especially if you are not a spellcaster. To me, restricting a character to a single base class is terribly harsh and would definitely force me to look at only a few classes; the sad thing is those may be some of the "stronger" classes that I'd normally stay away from as a whole. While not nearly as broken as some stat arrays I've seen the listed array equates to PB41 which I believe shoots a number of game balancing mechanics away. On top of the great starting ability scores it looks like your DM is giving you free reign to move point arround as you want (potentially pushing up the PBe); any DM who think that +2 STR/DEX -2WIS/CHA is the same a +2DEX/WIS -2INT/CHA may need to check how balanced his game is.
As much as I'd like to play when I look at those restrictions I feel like I'd walk away.
What, exactly, ARE you interested in that you couldn't find in the PsyWar handbook?
[Edit: We did a pretty basic ardent Tashalatora build a while back on the showcase. Generally I think psywar is the better choice for this approach, but the nice thing about ardent is that it allows you to fit into a wider variety of roles, and you can use Practiced Manifester to keep pace with maximum power levels.]
@draco: i'm intrested in a multiclass-free build for psywarr. there are plenty of feats out there and i lack the knowledge of the psionic part. with build i mean, stats, feats, and ways to improve the power list or class' general effectiveness.
i actually believed that the best way to play psywarr was with tashalatora build, since i'm forced to a single-class campaign.
on a second thought: it'd be ore versatile a psywarr or a crusader? the enemy range is pretty variegated. they managed to find a huge sandworm at level 3 in the desert. i'm sure our DM would love to throw us in the middle of a ghost processione without notice. (character's level is 6 atm. and i guess ghost touch weapon costs too much for us)
idiot crusader is out of list, too many classes and my DM, i fell it, it's already frowning at me.
i'm not compeltely set, let's say it was the first idea that came to my mind which didn't involve too many classes. i was thinking of being a huge dps dealer to overcome the other's low utility.
I honestly wouldn't like to go for a big 5 class since i don't like the overpowered aura sorrounding them. on the other hand i also have medium stats and nothing expecially big.
@draco: i'm intrested in a multiclass-free build for psywarr. there are plenty of feats out there and i lack the knowledge of the psionic part. with build i mean, stats, feats, and ways to improve the power list or class' general effectiveness.
i actually believed that the best way to play psywarr was with tashalatora build, since i'm forced to a single-class campaign.
on a second thought: it'd be ore versatile a psywarr or a crusader? the enemy range is pretty variegated. they managed to find a huge sandworm at level 3 in the desert. i'm sure our DM would love to throw us in the middle of a ghost processione without notice. (character's level is 6 atm. and i guess ghost touch weapon costs too much for us)
Psychic warrior is more versatile than a straight-up Crusader 20, easily - the crusader is harder to screw up, but also harder to make truly exceptional. (See, for instance, Cyclone Joker's example Idiot Crusader build above - if you can't spot what the trick is, it's to have more maneuvers granted than maneuvers known, so all of your maneuvers refresh every round, basically becoming at-will.) If you're overly concerned about ghosts or the like, look into Expanded Knowledge (or consider an ardent) and grab some force effects.
[Basically, crusaders are more narrowly focused in Tier Three - both new and experienced players will find it hard to leave that band without relying on stunts like the Idiot Crusader. Psychic Warriors are also Tier Three, but they're easy to screw up with poor power choices - and also easier to make exceptional if you're experienced. A badly-built psychic warrior will be on par with the other characters mentioned in your team, but a good one will leave them in the dust. An average Crusader will outperform them too, and certainly outlast them in a fight, but you'll probably need more than what the crusader can offer to stay alive with your DM.]
[Edit: You don't actually need that many classes to make use of the idiot crusader trick - Cyclone Joker's example is how you build a character centered around that trick. You can bascially make use of it in any build that uses Crusader, one other martial class, and at least one martal prestige class (depending on how many crusader levels you take). We used a tiny splash of idiot crusader in the Flashmaster build (see our article on the Flash Step) simply because it was easy to do there, for instance. (Do note: the flash step builds are all more proof-of-concept than hardcore optimization.) However, this is moot in your game since your DM can't conceptualize "class" as a descriptive component separate from the character it's used to build.]
I find it funny that you're considering Tashalatora - a multiclass feat - in a game where multiclassing is shunned, particularly because psychic warrior is a perfectly fine class to take to 20. The psychic warrior's big drawback is stamina - if you can find ways to compensate for this, you will carry the day in combat. (The Psycarnum Warrior build in my signature is one example of this.)
That said, I would only consider this if your wizard is very good at his job (you say he's got some experience, which is nice, but the wizard is a very, very complex class to play). A good wizard basically only needs cover from unforeseen attacks (assuming you aren't being paranoid with divinations and contingencies), and ideally gets this from a teammate who's tough enough to not need adult supervision. A psychic warrior can manage this well enough, but given your team's focus, they might serve as fodder anyway, being better served by a second Tier One character (wizard, cleric, druid, archivist, or artificer). This way, you'd let the newbies have their fun in melee without overshadowing them in their own domain, but you'd still have the strength to meet just about anything your DM can throw at you. And all of those classes are perfectly fine 1-20 as well. (Archivist and Artificer bear special mention: Archivists get immense divine versatility, which is something you're lacking, and come with class features that can make the melee suck slightly less, while artificers can churn out powerful upgrades on the cheap, in effect keeping your team alive through superior equipment).
Another option is to be a grapple monster; you still want to threaten as large an area as possible, but now your tactic is to squeeze the life out of them. RT and Tempest have access to a fun build I've taken to calling the Rasta Hugger that uses Sea-kin as its base class.
For both tactics, you'll also want a Psicrystal that you can use Vigor/Share Pain shenanigans with.
I was going for tash because i fancy the idea of being my fists my primary source of damage and not a weapon. I' m reading the various links and suggestion that has been given me so far.
RT and Tempest have access to a fun build I've taken to calling the Rasta Hugger that uses Sea-kin as its base class.
Just a quick elaboration on this: It's RT's, not mine. The reason he went with Sea Kin was because it's not a bad race if you can get past the ability score damage from dehydration, and psychic warriors have access to ways of healing ability damage. You can also make unusual use of the hold breath ability: near water, you can grapple and dive, and away from water, you can, i.e., trigger a noxious smokestick on your belt and grab someone while holding your breath. Along the way the rest is pretty straightforward psywar with a subfocus on grappling and AoO use.
As for building it? It'd work with nearly any race and basically hits all the major points of a basic psychic warrior without multiclassing, except for its slightly lower stamina. Nothing terribly special for a psywar grappler, but I'll put it up nonetheless.
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1 Psychic Warrior Grip of Iron Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple
2 Psychic Warrior Expansion Combat Expertise
3 Psychic Warrior Catfall Improved Trip
4 Psychic Warrior Body Purification
5 Psychic Warrior Strength of My Enemy Combat Reflexes
6 Psychic Warrior Power Weapon Dodge
7 Psychic Warrior Vampiric Blade
8 Psychic Warrior Greater Concealing Amorpha Mobility
9 Psychic Warrior Dimension Swap Spring Attack
10 Psychic Warrior Dimension Stride
11 Psychic Warrior Dimension Door Elusive Target
12 Psychic Warrior Detect Hostile Intent Whirlwind Attack
13 Psychic Warrior Psionic Scent
14 Psychic Warrior Ubiquitous Vision Martial Study (Foehammer)
15 Psychic Warrior Steadfast Perception Martial Stance (Thicket of Blades)
16 Psychic Warrior Inconstant Location
17 Psychic Warrior Form of Doom Bounding Assault
18 Psychic Warrior Dispelling Buffer Stand Still
19 Psychic Warrior Personal Mind Blank
20 Psychic Warrior Adapt Body Overwhelming Assault
If you're sticking with light armor, I'd use Serpent Armor and rotate Combat Reflexes (which the armor gives you) for Evasive Reflexes, to add more mobility and slipperiness to the style (on top of your teleports and Elusive Target). See the Flash Step article in my sig for more on this. It's optional though.
"Fists are not two-handed, which actually prevents them from being very useful as a primary source of damage. The main reason we like Tashalatora is not the unarmed damage dice (which might be big, but you aren't using Power Attack well with them, so you will lag on the damage front), but rather because it gives quite a lot of other benefits (Wis to AC, speed, and extra attacks to combine with other effects) for a reasonably low cost. "
in a brief explaination?
As in all things, there are both advantages & disadvantages to using Tashalatora, though I think that the advantages (monk goodness, including natural attacks) outweigh the disadvantages of slightly diminished manifester level (easily made up with Practiced Manifester), less power points (also offset by PM, and possibly race), and fewer powers known (which isn't as easy to make up).
in the end, i'm modifying briefly the psicarnum warrior to match my unarmed fetish and tash, i guess it will be enough for the campaign. thanks to everyone.
The most recent encounter we faced was pretty clever and probably lasted a grand total of 5 rounds, but I could be wrong, it may have lasted longer. It involved different monster types, including some more tank like undead and some stealthy attackers that used them as bait to break up our ranks.
My experience in D&D, and other Table top, as well as MMO's (From where the term DPS comes), tells me one thing... everyone's DPS. If your character can't do whatever it is they do (Tank, Heal, Control, Skill Monkey) well, AND dps effectively they're probably letting the party down in encounters frequently. This discussion, as well as so many others comes back to RT's Breaking the Four Boxes thread.
)! No, now I know that in any game that goes past level 5, if I'm not playing a tinfoil celerity wizard, ahmduinitrong.i've always been fairly concerned about melee limits. psionic warrior suffers some restrictions about supernatural stuff. I've found protection for death effects, mind affecting ones. I guess against ethereal/ incorporeal the solution is ghost touch equip. and will have to tweak things a bit to suit my unarmed playstyle. I miss a couple of things. I've seen that there's no specific rule for re-acquiring a psicrystal after it's destroyed and there's no 24-hour power empowerment.
Following the psycarnum build it looks like i have to spend some turns on boosting low-term buffs and i have to start chewing the mechanics yet. I feel there's an incredible loss of power without the 2-hander build since cobalt power, lion's charge and power attack are not as effective as planned in the archetype.
Should i replace those feats completely? Like grabbing a practiced manfiester for smoothing out the gap caused by the 2 level spent in monk?
A better choice for lion's charge?
I'll also agree regarding Tashalatora that you can take it or leave it. It's good defensively, and offensively yes you can combine a full unarmed attack with all your other claw and tenticle attacks as one gigantic full attack (even using lions charge!)
i've always been fairly concerned about melee limits. psionic warrior suffers some restrictions about supernatural stuff. I've found protection for death effects, mind affecting ones. I guess against ethereal/ incorporeal the solution is ghost touch equip. and will have to tweak things a bit to suit my unarmed playstyle. I miss a couple of things. I've seen that there's no specific rule for re-acquiring a psicrystal after it's destroyed and there's no 24-hour power empowerment.
Following the psycarnum build it looks like i have to spend some turns on boosting low-term buffs and i have to start chewing the mechanics yet. I feel there's an incredible loss of power without the 2-hander build since cobalt power, lion's charge and power attack are not as effective as planned in the archetype.
Should i replace those feats completely? Like grabbing a practiced manfiester for smoothing out the gap caused by the 2 level spent in monk?
A better choice for lion's charge?
any other opinion about these poitns?
EDIT: Oh, and I made a Weretouched Master build that might fit the bill, too. I'd have to link that later, because I don't remember the name of its thread.
see, my DM when it comes to multiclass and prestige classes it's something like:
DM :"fine, to find the NPC teaching you the stuff, you'll have to climg the Everest, jump without rope from it and land safely in Sahara desert."
ME: "well this would be possible with a teleportation and a safe fall spell..."
DM: "nono, i said YOU and i mean YOU"
so it's already an exception for him to allow a "tashalatored" psywar.
i'm looking for a build mostly, expecially feats suggestion, as i can arrange a strategy for the situation.
if you can find it useful: those are the stats that are to be distributed. 15 15 15 14 14 13. not counting race bonuses (suggestion accepted).
btw, it is possible to "tweak" bonuses, moving +x and -x bonuses to needed stats. (e.g. a catfolk having +2 dex +2 wis -2int -2 car can be turned in a dogfolk +2dex +2 str -2wis -2 car, he considers a certain logic for such things).
Judging by your description of the DM's attitude, I'd go with one of 2 things: either PsyWar 20 or Druid 20 with a focus on Summons and Wild Shape.
befoe starting the campaign i said to everyone that i had the "bible of base classes" so they could check the best for them (newbies...) but they claimed "nah we go for warr hurr durr"
but also the rogue and the ninja go for straight melee stuff, so it's me and the wizard to raise the survival odds.
i was thinking of a: 1 monk -19 psy warr (multiclassing and prestige classes issues with DM as said above), with a dex based build since i gues i'd have serious issues with str.
the crusader is appealing for the seriously new way of playing melees (never tried ToB classes), but i feel limited against flying and ethereal/incorporealc reatures. magic equip it's hard to find and veeery costy in our campaign.
about the more info, what it's needed?
@cyclone: water orc lion spirit what? 200 dmg by lvl 6? and i thought 16d6 dmg by lvl 5 was great D:
EDIT: i don't like big 5 classes. >.<
Psychic Warrior is fine all by itself, though if you wanted a Tashalatora PsyWar, nobody would stop you. Another option would be the Duskblade from PHB2, but it's probably worse than a Psychic Warrior.
(CoDzilla? what is it?)
(CoDzilla? what is it?)
A term coined by RadicalTaoist:
It bears saying: if up against a logic-impervious DM who thinks Core is balanced and Psionics* isn't, then the most powerful way to disprove that is to play a C.o.D. (Cleric or Druid). Noncore material will not be necessary unless you are going for pure overkill (Draconic Wildshape? Divine Metamagic?). So by all means, if you must win that argument, take you C.o.D. to town. Annihilate the opposition. Make the NPCs and other players scream "Oh no, it's C.o.D.zilla!!!!!" in badly dubbed English. Breathe radioactive fire. Knock down buildings. Then stomp out of the burning Tokyo that is the ruins of the game and swim off into the ocean, seeking a DM with some basic cognitive functions
(The asterisked bit moved on to discuss other balanced noncore things, but the thread was in the context of psionics.)
It's not hard to steamroll the other players and the DM as a straight-up cleric 20 or druid 20 unless the other players or the DM are up to the bar that Cyclone Joker suggests, at least. (And yes, it's not hard to get a straight-up barbarian charger up to around that damage point by level 6, although I'm not sure how CJ's getting all the required feats by 6 without bonus feats, as two of them require base attack +6.) Even then, a competent cleric or druid can hold their own, and a good one can remain on top against pretty much anything except other Tier One classes (and of the tier ones, CoDs are the simplest to build and play - you can sometimes go so far as to take an amateruishly-built cleric, simply change out the spells prepared, and move to full-on Weapon of Mass Destruction territory.)
(I tend to avoid ludicrous effects like Simulacrum chaining and recursive astral projections, meaning our games don't have the same arms race that the game allows, but that race is part of the game as written. Sadly it tends to reduce a lot of the game to just wizard, cleric, druid, archivist, and artificer (plus erudite if you use the horrifically-designed spell-to-power option).)
jeez, i almost forgot a couple of details.
see, my DM when it comes to multiclass and prestige classes it's something like:
DM :"fine, to find the NPC teaching you the stuff, you'll have to climg the Everest, jump without rope from it and land safely in Sahara desert."
ME: "well this would be possible with a teleportation and a safe fall spell..."
DM: "nono, i said YOU and i mean YOU"
so it's already an exception for him to allow a "tashalatored" psywar.
i'm looking for a build mostly, expecially feats suggestion, as i can arrange a strategy for the situation.
if you can find it useful: those are the stats that are to be distributed. 15 15 15 14 14 13. not counting race bonuses (suggestion accepted).
btw, it is possible to "tweak" bonuses, moving +x and -x bonuses to needed stats. (e.g. a catfolk having +2 dex +2 wis -2int -2 car can be turned in a dogfolk +2dex +2 str -2wis -2 car, he considers a certain logic for such things).
Sorry I'm not going to be much if any help with your build. Because I've learned that people don't like to hear negative things on these boards I'll just
Show
DSP is certainly NOT a standard DnD term and at times really doesn't relate well to any kind of DnD character. There are many ways of dealing damage but many of the most effective builds also don't worry about how much actual damage they can do. I'm not well studied on them but something from the TOB may be the closest you can get with the criteria I'm seeing.
Your party looks like it may be highly incompetent. I do wonder what your "warriors" actually are and can say that Ninja is not a class someone should ever take but I do see a possibility of a light group of adventurers. This looks like a case where the players should get together to do some character building together.
What's a Tashalatora build?
I really HATE you're DM's rules which I have quoted. For starters multiclassing and PrC are really halmarks of 3.5 especially if you are not a spellcaster. To me, restricting a character to a single base class is terribly harsh and would definitely force me to look at only a few classes; the sad thing is those may be some of the "stronger" classes that I'd normally stay away from as a whole. While not nearly as broken as some stat arrays I've seen the listed array equates to PB41 which I believe shoots a number of game balancing mechanics away. On top of the great starting ability scores it looks like your DM is giving you free reign to move point arround as you want (potentially pushing up the PBe); any DM who think that +2 STR/DEX -2WIS/CHA is the same a +2DEX/WIS -2INT/CHA may need to check how balanced his game is.
As much as I'd like to play when I look at those restrictions I feel like I'd walk away.
Your party looks like it may be highly incompetent. I do wonder what your "warriors" actually are and can say that Ninja is not a class someone should ever take but I do see a possibility of a light group of adventurers. This looks like a case where the players should get together to do some character building together.
What's a Tashalatora build?
I really HATE you're DM's rules which I have quoted. For starters multiclassing and PrC are really halmarks of 3.5 especially if you are not a spellcaster. To me, restricting a character to a single base class is terribly harsh and would definitely force me to look at only a few classes; the sad thing is those may be some of the "stronger" classes that I'd normally stay away from as a whole. While not nearly as broken as some stat arrays I've seen the listed array equates to PB41 which I believe shoots a number of game balancing mechanics away. On top of the great starting ability scores it looks like your DM is giving you free reign to move point arround as you want (potentially pushing up the PBe); any DM who think that +2 STR/DEX -2WIS/CHA is the same a +2DEX/WIS -2INT/CHA may need to check how balanced his game is.
As much as I'd like to play when I look at those restrictions I feel like I'd walk away.
What, exactly, ARE you interested in that you couldn't find in the PsyWar handbook?
[Edit: We did a pretty basic ardent Tashalatora build a while back on the showcase. Generally I think psywar is the better choice for this approach, but the nice thing about ardent is that it allows you to fit into a wider variety of roles, and you can use Practiced Manifester to keep pace with maximum power levels.]
@draco: i'm intrested in a multiclass-free build for psywarr. there are plenty of feats out there and i lack the knowledge of the psionic part. with build i mean, stats, feats, and ways to improve the power list or class' general effectiveness.
i actually believed that the best way to play psywarr was with tashalatora build, since i'm forced to a single-class campaign.
on a second thought: it'd be ore versatile a psywarr or a crusader? the enemy range is pretty variegated. they managed to find a huge sandworm at level 3 in the desert. i'm sure our DM would love to throw us in the middle of a ghost processione without notice. (character's level is 6 atm. and i guess ghost touch weapon costs too much for us)
idiot crusader is out of list, too many classes and my DM, i fell it, it's already frowning at me.
i'm not compeltely set, let's say it was the first idea that came to my mind which didn't involve too many classes. i was thinking of being a huge dps dealer to overcome the other's low utility.
I honestly wouldn't like to go for a big 5 class since i don't like the overpowered aura sorrounding them. on the other hand i also have medium stats and nothing expecially big.
@draco: i'm intrested in a multiclass-free build for psywarr. there are plenty of feats out there and i lack the knowledge of the psionic part. with build i mean, stats, feats, and ways to improve the power list or class' general effectiveness.
i actually believed that the best way to play psywarr was with tashalatora build, since i'm forced to a single-class campaign.
on a second thought: it'd be ore versatile a psywarr or a crusader? the enemy range is pretty variegated. they managed to find a huge sandworm at level 3 in the desert. i'm sure our DM would love to throw us in the middle of a ghost processione without notice. (character's level is 6 atm. and i guess ghost touch weapon costs too much for us)
Psychic warrior is more versatile than a straight-up Crusader 20, easily - the crusader is harder to screw up, but also harder to make truly exceptional. (See, for instance, Cyclone Joker's example Idiot Crusader build above - if you can't spot what the trick is, it's to have more maneuvers granted than maneuvers known, so all of your maneuvers refresh every round, basically becoming at-will.) If you're overly concerned about ghosts or the like, look into Expanded Knowledge (or consider an ardent) and grab some force effects.
[Basically, crusaders are more narrowly focused in Tier Three - both new and experienced players will find it hard to leave that band without relying on stunts like the Idiot Crusader. Psychic Warriors are also Tier Three, but they're easy to screw up with poor power choices - and also easier to make exceptional if you're experienced. A badly-built psychic warrior will be on par with the other characters mentioned in your team, but a good one will leave them in the dust. An average Crusader will outperform them too, and certainly outlast them in a fight, but you'll probably need more than what the crusader can offer to stay alive with your DM.]
[Edit: You don't actually need that many classes to make use of the idiot crusader trick - Cyclone Joker's example is how you build a character centered around that trick. You can bascially make use of it in any build that uses Crusader, one other martial class, and at least one martal prestige class (depending on how many crusader levels you take). We used a tiny splash of idiot crusader in the Flashmaster build (see our article on the Flash Step) simply because it was easy to do there, for instance. (Do note: the flash step builds are all more proof-of-concept than hardcore optimization.) However, this is moot in your game since your DM can't conceptualize "class" as a descriptive component separate from the character it's used to build.]
I find it funny that you're considering Tashalatora - a multiclass feat - in a game where multiclassing is shunned, particularly because psychic warrior is a perfectly fine class to take to 20. The psychic warrior's big drawback is stamina - if you can find ways to compensate for this, you will carry the day in combat. (The Psycarnum Warrior build in my signature is one example of this.)
That said, I would only consider this if your wizard is very good at his job (you say he's got some experience, which is nice, but the wizard is a very, very complex class to play). A good wizard basically only needs cover from unforeseen attacks (assuming you aren't being paranoid with divinations and contingencies), and ideally gets this from a teammate who's tough enough to not need adult supervision. A psychic warrior can manage this well enough, but given your team's focus, they might serve as fodder anyway, being better served by a second Tier One character (wizard, cleric, druid, archivist, or artificer). This way, you'd let the newbies have their fun in melee without overshadowing them in their own domain, but you'd still have the strength to meet just about anything your DM can throw at you. And all of those classes are perfectly fine 1-20 as well. (Archivist and Artificer bear special mention: Archivists get immense divine versatility, which is something you're lacking, and come with class features that can make the melee suck slightly less, while artificers can churn out powerful upgrades on the cheap, in effect keeping your team alive through superior equipment).
Another option is to be a grapple monster; you still want to threaten as large an area as possible, but now your tactic is to squeeze the life out of them. RT and Tempest have access to a fun build I've taken to calling the Rasta Hugger that uses Sea-kin as its base class.
For both tactics, you'll also want a Psicrystal that you can use Vigor/Share Pain shenanigans with.
I was going for tash because i fancy the idea of being my fists my primary source of damage and not a weapon. I' m reading the various links and suggestion that has been given me so far.
RT and Tempest have access to a fun build I've taken to calling the Rasta Hugger that uses Sea-kin as its base class.
Just a quick elaboration on this: It's RT's, not mine. The reason he went with Sea Kin was because it's not a bad race if you can get past the ability score damage from dehydration, and psychic warriors have access to ways of healing ability damage. You can also make unusual use of the hold breath ability: near water, you can grapple and dive, and away from water, you can, i.e., trigger a noxious smokestick on your belt and grab someone while holding your breath. Along the way the rest is pretty straightforward psywar with a subfocus on grappling and AoO use.
As for building it? It'd work with nearly any race and basically hits all the major points of a basic psychic warrior without multiclassing, except for its slightly lower stamina. Nothing terribly special for a psywar grappler, but I'll put it up nonetheless.
Show
1 Psychic Warrior Grip of Iron Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple
2 Psychic Warrior Expansion Combat Expertise
3 Psychic Warrior Catfall Improved Trip
4 Psychic Warrior Body Purification
5 Psychic Warrior Strength of My Enemy Combat Reflexes
6 Psychic Warrior Power Weapon Dodge
7 Psychic Warrior Vampiric Blade
8 Psychic Warrior Greater Concealing Amorpha Mobility
9 Psychic Warrior Dimension Swap Spring Attack
10 Psychic Warrior Dimension Stride
11 Psychic Warrior Dimension Door Elusive Target
12 Psychic Warrior Detect Hostile Intent Whirlwind Attack
13 Psychic Warrior Psionic Scent
14 Psychic Warrior Ubiquitous Vision Martial Study (Foehammer)
15 Psychic Warrior Steadfast Perception Martial Stance (Thicket of Blades)
16 Psychic Warrior Inconstant Location
17 Psychic Warrior Form of Doom Bounding Assault
18 Psychic Warrior Dispelling Buffer Stand Still
19 Psychic Warrior Personal Mind Blank
20 Psychic Warrior Adapt Body Overwhelming Assault
If you're sticking with light armor, I'd use Serpent Armor and rotate Combat Reflexes (which the armor gives you) for Evasive Reflexes, to add more mobility and slipperiness to the style (on top of your teleports and Elusive Target). See the Flash Step article in my sig for more on this. It's optional though.
"Fists are not two-handed, which actually prevents them from being very useful as a primary source of damage. The main reason we like Tashalatora is not the unarmed damage dice (which might be big, but you aren't using Power Attack well with them, so you will lag on the damage front), but rather because it gives quite a lot of other benefits (Wis to AC, speed, and extra attacks to combine with other effects) for a reasonably low cost. "
in a brief explaination?
As in all things, there are both advantages & disadvantages to using Tashalatora, though I think that the advantages (monk goodness, including natural attacks) outweigh the disadvantages of slightly diminished manifester level (easily made up with Practiced Manifester), less power points (also offset by PM, and possibly race), and fewer powers known (which isn't as easy to make up).
in the end, i'm modifying briefly the psicarnum warrior to match my unarmed fetish and tash, i guess it will be enough for the campaign. thanks to everyone.
The most recent encounter we faced was pretty clever and probably lasted a grand total of 5 rounds, but I could be wrong, it may have lasted longer. It involved different monster types, including some more tank like undead and some stealthy attackers that used them as bait to break up our ranks.
My experience in D&D, and other Table top, as well as MMO's (From where the term DPS comes), tells me one thing... everyone's DPS. If your character can't do whatever it is they do (Tank, Heal, Control, Skill Monkey) well, AND dps effectively they're probably letting the party down in encounters frequently. This discussion, as well as so many others comes back to RT's Breaking the Four Boxes thread.
)! No, now I know that in any game that goes past level 5, if I'm not playing a tinfoil celerity wizard, ahmduinitrong.i've always been fairly concerned about melee limits. psionic warrior suffers some restrictions about supernatural stuff. I've found protection for death effects, mind affecting ones. I guess against ethereal/ incorporeal the solution is ghost touch equip. and will have to tweak things a bit to suit my unarmed playstyle. I miss a couple of things. I've seen that there's no specific rule for re-acquiring a psicrystal after it's destroyed and there's no 24-hour power empowerment.
Following the psycarnum build it looks like i have to spend some turns on boosting low-term buffs and i have to start chewing the mechanics yet. I feel there's an incredible loss of power without the 2-hander build since cobalt power, lion's charge and power attack are not as effective as planned in the archetype.
Should i replace those feats completely? Like grabbing a practiced manfiester for smoothing out the gap caused by the 2 level spent in monk?
A better choice for lion's charge?
I'll also agree regarding Tashalatora that you can take it or leave it. It's good defensively, and offensively yes you can combine a full unarmed attack with all your other claw and tenticle attacks as one gigantic full attack (even using lions charge!)
i've always been fairly concerned about melee limits. psionic warrior suffers some restrictions about supernatural stuff. I've found protection for death effects, mind affecting ones. I guess against ethereal/ incorporeal the solution is ghost touch equip. and will have to tweak things a bit to suit my unarmed playstyle. I miss a couple of things. I've seen that there's no specific rule for re-acquiring a psicrystal after it's destroyed and there's no 24-hour power empowerment.
Following the psycarnum build it looks like i have to spend some turns on boosting low-term buffs and i have to start chewing the mechanics yet. I feel there's an incredible loss of power without the 2-hander build since cobalt power, lion's charge and power attack are not as effective as planned in the archetype.
Should i replace those feats completely? Like grabbing a practiced manfiester for smoothing out the gap caused by the 2 level spent in monk?
A better choice for lion's charge?
any other opinion about these poitns?