Author Topic: Erudite with Favored Discipline(s).  (Read 4593 times)

Offline Mnemnosyne

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Erudite with Favored Discipline(s).
« on: November 07, 2011, 05:38:58 PM »
I'm planning to build an Erudite to play soon, hopefully.  Going to avoid the Spell to Power variant since that's just so overpowered I don't feel I would be capable of playing down to the rest of the party without constantly second-guessing myself.  I'm trying to work out a good build without going too far, but I'm often not a good judge of what 'too far' is.

Right now, my biggest question would be, what the best Favored Discipline to pick would be.  Or possibly what the two best ones, since favored discipline trades bonus feat, and the free psicrystal is referred to as a bonus feat, meaning that depending on the interpretation, you might have two bonus feats to trade for favored disciplines.  I'm leaning toward Psychometabolism being the best, but some other opinions on that would be welcome.  As for the second best, I'm unsure.  Telepathy seems good since it allows Schism access at 7th level instead of 9th, as well as access to Metaconcert at 9th instead of 11th.  Plus the telepathy is very thematic for psionics, so there's that.  However, Clairsentience and Metacreativity both have their draws (such as access to Genesis before epic in Metacreativity, or Metafaculty in Clairsentience).  Cross-referencing discipline to the other class's lists is somewhat annoying since I know of no listing of psionic powers by discipline.  ...maybe I'll wind up making one.

I should note that for this particular character, it'll be starting at low level (3-4) and I'm unsure how high the campaign might go.  But I'm also interested in general erudite building for the future as well.
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Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Erudite with Favored Discipline(s).
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2011, 06:36:02 PM »
Yeah, the Bonus Feat swap of the Psicrystal was the most recent find.
At higher levels, having another cheese route, is of course wonderful.

1b or flaw) ... Elemental Envoy
1h or flaw) ... Powerstone
1) ..... The +1 unique per day feat from Dragon #(?)
3) ..... Linked metapsi
if human or original E you could retrain a 4th level 1 feat into Linked at level 2 from something else
Astral Construct on EK at 3, is another possibility.

5) ..... Psi meditation
5r) .... retrain the +1 uniques feat if you are so inclined
Craft Uni Items and make/improve a Hustle item
6) ..... start working back to a Psion build
6r) ... retrain the EE to psicrystal (perhaps)


7) ... start looping PsyRef to get powers into your Repertoire.
Original Erudite is clearly weaker at this point.
The one feat advantage early on, isn't significant around this level.
Do you want level 3 powers, duplicating the effect of EK feat?
Or do you want access to those Juicy level 4 powers?
Class ability Retrain away into X.

Magic Mantled MGA is good, but UMD requires helpful Arcanes and Divines.
Discipline is good enough, but Chameleon Crafting from Dr#349
can get arcane and divine spells over to your repertoire.
Two Disciplines instead of the psicrystal or StP , feels rather tasty.

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Offline Kajhera

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Re: Erudite with Favored Discipline(s).
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2011, 06:52:41 PM »
Metacreativity, is simply the most lovely discipline ever. Just ... so you're aware. It can be pretty amazing. I still haven't gotten over psionic minor creation, not to mention fabricate and genesis.

Offline Mooncrow

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Re: Erudite with Favored Discipline(s).
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2011, 07:06:56 PM »
Metacreativity, is simply the most lovely discipline ever. Just ... so you're aware. It can be pretty amazing. I still haven't gotten over psionic minor creation, not to mention fabricate and genesis.

+1 for this.  Psychometabolism and Metacreativity are pretty much hands down the best disciplines.  Metacreativity probably wins if you aren't playing with the terrible Complete Psionic updates, Psychometabolism wins if you are.  Telepathy is probably third, but you run into a lot of the usual limitations of mind effect later on. 

Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Erudite with Favored Discipline(s).
« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2011, 07:12:22 PM »
+1 for this.  Psychometabolism and Metacreativity are pretty much hands down the best disciplines.  Metacreativity probably wins if you aren't playing with the terrible Complete Psionic updates, Psychometabolism wins if you are.  Telepathy is probably third, but you run into a lot of the usual limitations of mind effect later on. 
Yeah, Metacreativity took a big hit there. Why metacreativity powers are subject to DR in certain cases and conjuration spells aren't is beyond me. Then there's the Astral Construct nerf which I'm confident only happened so the Ectopic Shaper had a capstone.
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Offline Mnemnosyne

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Re: Erudite with Favored Discipline(s).
« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2011, 07:31:42 PM »
I doubt I'll have access to retraining very often if at all (DM's I've played with tend to not like that feature) but psychic reformation eventually makes that a moot point, just with an xp tax.  It's likely I won't abuse the psyref loops too much either, unless I run into a power I simply must have that the DM is telling me I can't buy anywhere.

Why Elemental Envoy?  As far as I can tell, they don't gain hit dice like psicrystals do, so in the long run they're inferior, and I'm honestly not seeing any major advantages they have.
I presume that by 'powerstone' you mean Imprint Stone, to create powerstones, yes?  Otherwise I'm uncertain what feat you mean, as I didn't find any named Powerstone.

Metacreativity I'm still not sold on.  The main powers I like are Astral Construct and Minor Creation, which are both available to an Erudite at level 3 anyway.  Then there's fabricate (not sure it feels like a big deal to wait until 9th level instead of 7th to get that one to be honest) and greater fabricate (same issue, waiting a couple levels doesn't seem like a huge deal with that sort of power).  Only Astral Seed and Genesis feel like really big ones to get asap.  But that's just the discipline list.  I've been trying to go through the lists of other classes for powers that would normally not be available at all, to see if any of them provide a major advantage somewhere.
-Do you honestly think that we believe ourselves evil? My friend, we seek only good. It's just that our definitions don't quite match.-
Ailanreanter, Arcanaloth