Tiers for Mind's Eye Psionic PrCs

[Aharon]

I would put Meditant at tier +0.
The benefits are cool, but 4 feats is too hefty a cost, in my opinion.. (Which is a shame, I really like the flavor of the class).

[Saeomon]

I would put Meditant at tier +0.
The benefits are cool, but 4 feats is too hefty a cost, in my opinion.. (Which is a shame, I really like the flavor of the class).

I agree that the feat cost is high, but, combined with the class features, is it only on par with the average single-classed Psion? If you wait to take those feats until after you get PsiReform then you can swap out other feats that are better for low-level survival. The benefits you get from the center activations provided by Psychic Meditation and Deeper Psychic Meditation really start to kick in around level 8-9, anyway. At Psion 7/Meditant 1, if you only activate your Third Eye center, you can get up to 21 temporary PP/day. Alternatively, if you only use your heart center, you net 42 temporary HP/day at 14 HP per activation. That's almost as good as a 3 pp Vigor buff without any PP spent. Once you get to Psion 7/Meditant 3 and net Intense Meditation 1 then the PrC really starts to take off. Want to focus on Save or Die powers? Use Intense Meditation to increase the bonus to your Throat center, activate it, and the DC for powers you cast go up by 2 because of your +4 untyped bonus to Int. But that's not all you get for that one activation: you also get an untyped +4 bonus to both Cha and Wis. Those Cha-based SLAs and Ex abilities you get from using Metamorphosis/Metamorphic Transfer just got even better. Plus you're even tougher, thanks to an increased Will save. Or, if you'd rather wreck house with natural attacks, put the bonuses in your Heart and Base centers and you're suddenly an even more efficient melee machine when you Metamorph.

The fact that you get Medium BAB to help out your ranged touch attacks, etc., is just icing on the cake.

So, while I agree that the cost is high, I think the average Psion is going to be outclassed by the average Psion/Meditant.

[PhaedrusXY]

I would put Meditant at tier +0.
The benefits are cool, but 4 feats is too hefty a cost, in my opinion.. (Which is a shame, I really like the flavor of the class).

Those feats are actually pretty good, though.

[Lycanthromancer]

There's an error in the meditant's BAB, though. I'll leave it to you guys to figure out what.

[Saeomon]

I would put Meditant at tier +0.
The benefits are cool, but 4 feats is too hefty a cost, in my opinion.. (Which is a shame, I really like the flavor of the class).

Those feats are actually pretty good, though.

Agreed. Psychic Meditation plus Deeper Psychic Meditation (1) at level 1 may not be the best choice. But by level 5 it will beat the pants off Psionic Talent and Psionic Body, and offer more flexability to boot.

[Havok4]

Meditant does look rather good although it is a very large investment to get in. I agree with the +1 ranking.

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

There's an error in the meditant's BAB, though. I'll leave it to you guys to figure out what.

level 4 should be +3

[PhaedrusXY]

Would the OP mind putting links to the PrCs in the first post?

[Lycanthromancer]

Constructor, crystal master, variant pyrokineticists, sangehirn, meditant, psychic weapon master, psychic theurge, body leech, and the soul manifester.

[Saeomon]

Would the OP mind putting links to the PrCs in the first post?

Added.

Thanks to Lycanthromancer for the links!

[Aharon]

@Saemon

If you wait to take those feats until after you get PsiReform then you can swap out other feats that are better for low-level survival.

I thought you have to continue fulfilling the prereqs of Prcs? Wasn't that the reason for the Schrodinger Half-Dragon?

=> Temporary PP
I admit I never looked very deeply into how the tier systems work, that might have been a problem. I see unlimited pp tricks thrown around quite often on these boards, so I assumed those were the norm we compare to, and some of them rely on feats, if I remember correctly - feats you won't have if you plan on going into Meditant.

=> Cha-Based Abilities from metamorphosis+metamorphic transfer
I didn't consider these, good point.

[Saeomon]

@Saemon

If you wait to take those feats until after you get PsiReform then you can swap out other feats that are better for low-level survival.

I thought you have to continue fulfilling the prereqs of Prcs? Wasn't that the reason for the Schrodinger Half-Dragon?

=> Temporary PP
I admit I never looked very deeply into how the tier systems work, that might have been a problem. I see unlimited pp tricks thrown around quite often on these boards, so I assumed those were the norm we compare to, and some of them rely on feats, if I remember correctly - feats you won't have if you plan on going into Meditant.

Re: fulfilling the prereqs for Meditant
What I mean is that if you're concerned about investing 4 feat slots into the prerequisites then you could wait to enter the class until level 8. You can get PsiReform at level 7, at which point you can swap out 4 of your already-gained feats for Psychic Meditation and Deep Psychic Meditation (x3) in preparation for entering the PrC at level 8. I'd argue that 8th level is the earliest any single-classed Psion should enter a psionic PrC, since level 7 and PsiReform is the most pivotal point in any Psion's career. The exception being, of course, if the PrC increases powers known at first level. I only know of two PrCs that do that, though, Elocator and Anarchic Initiate.

Re: Meditant gaining temporary PP
Just to be clear, Meditant doesn't use any tricks or exploits to gain infinite PP. Rather the Psychic Meditation feat that is one of the prerequisites for the class offers a method for gaining temporary power points, which are similar to temporary HP. What the PrC does is increase the number of PP you can gain through each use of the feat...IF you choose to use that aspect of the feat. A Psion 10/Meditant 10 with Practiced Manifester (to make up for the one lost ML) who does choose to go that route would be able to get up to 120 temporary PP/day at 30 temporary PP per use of the ability. Of course this would be at the expense of other abilities of the feat and PrC...

[GawainBS]

I'd actually say that the soul manifester is quite good. You can actually get away with taking only one level of an incarnum class if you use your feats to shore up your prereqs (and they're good and solid feats, to boot); you can technically get away with going full manifester with feats, but you won't get the bonus to your incarnum class.

With access to the psionic powers in the back of the book, you can bind at a much higher level than you'd expect to be able to (meaning those soulmelds you get are a lot more powerful than you'd expect). Add in Practiced Manifester for the levels you DO lose, and I'd rate it as easily a +1 class.

Incarnum is awesome for psionic characters (just look at those feats!).

I'm not at home with Incarnum; could anyone explain the big synergy please?

+ 1  Have you READ the description for CHARMING VEIL?  It's kinda HAX.

[Lycanthromancer]

I'm not at home with Incarnum; could anyone explain the big synergy please?

Partly, one of the weaknesses of psionics is that it's REALLY easy to blow through your power points. Incarnum duplicates a lot of psionics' more hum-drum abilities, and they're at-will, multi-use powers, and losing one or two manifester levels for nearly full-strength all-day uses of those abilities frees up a half-dozen powers known or so, AND can seriously boost your skills. Not to mention that there are a lot of unusual combinations available using those [incarnum/psionic] feats, if you look closely, such as expending your psionic focus to treat any soulmeld or incarnum feat as being full of essentia for 1 round (though feats are filled for 24 hours whenever filled at any point).

You also can gain rather substantial DC boosts for charm and compulsion powers, reduce the cost of augmenting powers, and can gain at least one power point recharge setup.

It's also great for turning you into a defensive and offensive beast.

[Surreal]

I really like the build of Ardent 10/Incarnate or Totemist 2/Soul Manifester 8.

[GawainBS]

I really like the build of Ardent 10/Incarnate or Totemist 2/Soul Manifester 8.

How so? For some reason, I fail to see a lot of the goodness of Incarnum. I never got what was so great about Totemist, despite reading Sinfire's handbook several times.

[Bastian]

The Kineticist possibly trumps it's later versions by providing +7 ML during it's progression (which includes all the benefits of the current class). It's a hard sell to the DM but if you present it as an alternative and perhaps better way than just maybe...

Actually it provides +10 ML since text trumps table. It does, however, only gain power points as if it had 7 levels of psion.

Powers Discovered: At 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 10th levels, the kineticist discovers powers as though she gained a level of psion. Powers are chosen from the psion power list. When choosing a power that falls outside her primary discipline but that possesses an energy type descriptor that matches her chosen energy type, she does not need to meet the minimum required key ability score to manifest these powers since these powers now use the kineticist's primary ability as their key ability. The kineticist's effective manifester level is increased by one for each level of the prestige class.

[Surreal]

I really like the build of Ardent 10/Incarnate or Totemist 2/Soul Manifester 8.

How so? For some reason, I fail to see a lot of the goodness of Incarnum. I never got what was so great about Totemist, despite reading Sinfire's handbook several times.

Lycan makes some good points a couple posts up about the use of Incarnum with psionics. Ardent is especially nice since with practice manifester you lose almost nothing. When combining incarnum with psionics/casting, you plan it out to use the soulmelds to complement and/or shore up your weaknesses and/or expand your versatility without using up your known powers and pp reserve.

Charming Veil to crank the DCs of your save-or-sucks. Totemist multiattacking pouncer with psionic buffs. Soulmelds for good spell resistance, immunity to charms, low level tanks (soulspark familiar, necrocarnum zombie), force effect melee attacks, etc.

[awaken DM golem]

Vacations suck ... back to D&D !!

**

Inc or Totem combos take advantage of the 4th level Psi power in Moi.
It's better than the magic combos; something that doesn't happen very often.
The general versatility is offset by the need for a Diviner build to tell you what to do; sounds kinky, no?


3.5e PsyWar with Int of 10 or less, and Cha of 10 or less,
can use 3.0 Kineticist to -fest powers in a weird way ... and I haven't thought about it yet.
1 rank in Psicraft with a +4/+4/+4/+4/+4 item gets almost all of the powers onto Power Stones, useable.
Very strange but I like it.

[Sinfire Titan]

Soul Manifester

Pro: Unlike other dual-advancement classes, your abilities on one side are Con-based almost exclusively. And they function off of Swift actions if you get the defense-boosters (Incarnate) or off of your Standard action (of which you can easily get two, and can manifest powers as a Swift action fairly easily). In other words, the only thing you really lose are a few feats and a level of manifesting (or not, if you go the pure-Psion entry). In exchange, you have all of the glorious psionic powers you need in conjunction with a solid defense/offense buffing combat system. Oh, and Psycarnum feats ROCK. And it's a dual advancement class with class features.

Con: It's a dual-advancement that requires a minimum of 1 level loss in order to get the maximum benefit of the class features, and your capstone isn't that good. 2 levels are needed if you enter via Totemist and want your soulmelds to be powerful. Still considerably less than what you normally need for a dual-class.

Recomended Entry: Psion 3/Incarnate 1 or PsyWar 6/Incarnate or Totemist 2. Possible entry with Warmind is also recommended.