Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - originally by kalaskaagathas

[Endarire]

Larval Harvest:
Summon Larval Flayers (a Psion2 power from Complete Psionic) and get a +1 Mindfeeder Arrow, the equivalent of a +4 weapon.  (A scythe does more crit damage, but we're giong for economy.)  As ammo, it costs only 1/50 as much, or about 646G.

The SRD limits a Mindfeeder weapon to 1/day, but the Magic Item Compendium version of Mindfeeder removed the 1/day limit.

Order your larval flayers to go unconscious and therefore helpless.

Coup de grace 'em (in melee of course) for more PP!  Assuming average HP, each flayer can take 21 damage before going totally dead.  Thus, expect no more than 21 PP per dead flayer.  Your GM may rule that negative HP go down infinitely, thus allowing you to break the 21 PP per flayer cap.

[kalaskaagathas]

i have a master psionics power list now.

includes every official source i can find that has psionics.

note exactly in topic, but would you find it useful?

Absolutely.

Larval Harvest:
Summon Larval Flayers (a Psion2 power from Complete Psionic) and get a +1 Mindfeeder Arrow, the equivalent of a +4 weapon.  (A scythe does more crit damage, but we're giong for economy.)  As ammo, it costs only 1/50 as much, or about 646G.

The SRD limits a Mindfeeder weapon to 1/day, but the Magic Item Compendium version of Mindfeeder removed the 1/day limit.

Order your larval flayers to go unconscious and therefore helpless.

Coup de grace 'em (in melee of course) for more PP!  Assuming average HP, each flayer can take 21 damage before going totally dead.  Thus, expect no more than 21 PP per dead flayer.  Your GM may rule that negative HP go down infinitely, thus allowing you to break the 21 PP per flayer cap.

So net 18 per manifestation?  Or do you get more than one larval flayer?

[Endarire]

The power summons d3 larval flayers.  Also, each flayer lasts 1 round per ML.

[nijineko]

plus, they are temp pp, so they do not stack, but overlap.

so only the highest value would be gained.

which formula is (damage/5=pp), as per the quality description.

most arrows are only 1d6... x3 crit for a bow without extra shenanigans, and that gives you a total of 18 max possible crit damage.


or 3pp. and since the don't stack, that's all you get.


also, a mindfeeder arrow is a +2 weapon equiv. the quality is only a +1 equiv in mic.

[Azoriel]

I've worked out a variation of this trick - I suppose I'll call it Larval Harvest II.

Take a powerleech weapon from Lost Empires of Faerun (+8,000 gp, gives you 1 pp every time you hit a psionic creature, drains 1 pp from the target every time you hit a creature with a power point total).  Whack the larval flayer for nonlethal damage every round - if you're 4th level or higher, you should have a net gain of at least 1 pp per summon.  (Works out even better if you use Elemental Steward as a 1st level power, especially the earth variant.)

If you've got Bestow Power, though, you may be better off with the mindfeeder weapon since it can be a lot faster at generating power points.  Just manifest Bestow Power on yourself, and then transfer those temp PPs into your power point total.

[nijineko]

wow. a whole new use for beating your head against a wall... er... weapon. ^^

[Azoriel]

wow. a whole new use for beating your head against a wall... er... weapon. ^^

Unless your only intent is to convert temp power points, striking yourself with a powerleech weapon doesn't work at all - each time you hit yourself, you'd also be draining a power point from your own reserves with every swing.  The net difference would then be zero (minus some hit points).   

Even if you did want to convert temp PP's (like from a mindfeeder crit), you're much better of just targeting yourself with Bestow Power, since then you won't need to worry about healing.

In order to actually gain power points with a powerleech weapon, you'd need to swing at a psionic creature with either (1) a power point total above zero or (2) psi-like abilities.  #2 is preferable, because then you continue to gain power points even after the target's power point total is reduced to zero.  Thus, the trick necessitates a larval flayer or some other summonable creature with psi-like abilities.

(editted for readability)

[nijineko]

quite so, but the image was amusing.

make it a character with a necklace of natural attacks and you could beat your head against monsters instead....

[sreservoir]

hm, was there ever any sort of consensus on what midnight augmentation's cost applied to, the per-augmentation or the net augment cost?

[Azoriel]

Psychofeedback Exploit:

Dunno what to call this - "Sleep It Off"?  "Feel The Burn (But Not Really)"?

Take the feats Mind Over Body and Persistent Power, as well as the power psychofeedback.  Wait until you're able to manifest psychofeedback as a persistent power - this will require things like a torc of psionic might and other cost-lowering items/abilities to accomplish before epic levels.

Manifest a persistent psychofeedback immediately before you go to sleep for the night; make sure to distribute the ability burn such that you can heal it all up in one night.  (Ex: if you've got a +4 constitution bonus, you can put 5 points of ability burn into your int, wis, and cha for a +15 bonus.)  Upon waking, the ability burn from this power will be gone completely and you'll have a massive all-day bonus to one physical ability score.  (Thus demonstrating yet another reason why giving psychofeedback ability burn vice a temp ability penalty was a VERY bad idea.)

For maximum cheese, if you can rely on not getting dispelled for several days, I'd put everything into constitution to begin with, and then start doing multiple persistent psychofeedbacks each night, taking full advantage of your newfound ability to sleep off massive amounts of ability burn.  This trick doesn't work nearly so well if you've dumped multiple mental stats, if you habitually eat ability burn from some other source, or if you're prone to getting dispels thrown at you.  Or if your DM is fond of midnight ambushes.  (Hope whatever you're getting ambushed by can be clubbed to death, because you'll probably be too hungover to manifest anything in response.)

[kalaskaagathas]

Siege Mode: a corollary to the Psionic Dreadnaught -

By the combination of the Mad Minute trick and the Psionic Dreadnaught, the Dread may enter into "Siege Mode," by which the character may continue to manifest any power they choose (so long as it may be manifested with a standard action), and their followers may continue manifesting Bestow Power, as their Fission's Synchronicity is shared by the Affinity Field.  As this power allows an arbitrarily large number of standard actions (and therefore HP damage or other such effects), I contend this particular trick is Theoretical Optimization, and therefore generally inappropriate for most games.

[Nytemare3701]

quite so, but the image was amusing.

make it a character with a necklace of natural attacks and you could beat your head against monsters instead....

(click to show/hide)

I wanna make Adam Blade now >.>

[nijineko]

Updated handbook to include a few more tricks.