Author Topic: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper  (Read 7575 times)

Offline Icyfire

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[3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« on: November 15, 2015, 02:17:48 AM »
So, my character was unceremoniously murdered by another PC (evil campaign). I need to make a new one, but all the other PC's are optimized to hell and back. I've read the handbooks (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10238) and multiple threads, but I still feel like it's missing something. Here's what I have in mind, but it would be nice to get some feedback!

Warforged Psion Shaper
Lv. 9 (starts there, will go higher)

Ability Scores
Str: 8
Dex: 16
Con: 12 (+2 racial)
Int: 22 (18+4 from items)
Wis: 10 (-2 racial)
Cha: 4 (-2 racial)

Feats: Psicrystal (Nimble), Overchannel, Adamantine Body, Personal Construct

Powers Known:
1: Vigor, Minor Creation, Inertial Armor, Entangling Ectoplasm, Astral Construct, Crystal Shard, Energy Ray
2: Share Pain, Control Sound, Psionic Repair Damage
3: Energy Wall, Time Hop, Touchsight, Telekinetic Force, Telekinetic Thrust
4: Psychic Reformation, Fabricate
5: Plane Shift, Anticipatory Strike

Items:
Animated Mithral Shield
Headband of Intellect +2
Arcanist's Gloves (Ruled to boost the PP I can spend as well as ML)
Scarlet/Blue Ioun Stone +2 int
Torc of Power Preservation (-1 PP Cost)

Main Conceits:
1. Overchannel+Arcanist's Gloves+Torc of Power Preservation gives ML+5 on augmenting damage powers like energy ray.
2. DM has ruled that I can "wear" my constructs around me like a second armor, allowing me to tank and getting extra actions in addition to the share pain+psicrystal+vigor combo (not that this saved me the first time around)
3. Anticipatory Strike fixes initiative issues at the cost of PP, and AC as a swift action means I won't get caught off guard.

Things I'm Considering:
1. 1-level dip into factotum for that +6 bonus to attack rolls and saves seems quite attractive, but I'm not sure if it's worth the ML loss.
2. 1-level dip into mindbender might be nice for telepathy.
3. Expanded Knowledge: Schism might be worth it, but I'm not 100% sure.

DM rulings are super loose, and other PCs are, like I said, absurdly powerful. Do you guys have any suggestions on how I can better optimize my character? Any source is ok, just let me know where things come from. Pre-emptive thanks for the help!
« Last Edit: November 15, 2015, 02:53:20 AM by Icyfire »

Offline Lycanthromancer

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #1 on: November 15, 2015, 03:09:01 AM »
Just how "high op" are we talking here? Some of my suggestions below are Tippy-level optimization, so choose your op-level carefully.

Skip personal construct. Replace it with Link Power, from Complete Psionic, (to manifest as a swift, immediate, or standard action, depending on the power you Link it to). Manifest, say, Synchronicity (from C.Psi) Linked with Astral Construct. That'll give you an extra standard action you can use right away, and your construct will appear at the beginning of your next round. Also, Link Power will let you manifest any power within 1 round, so long as it's linked to another power, and you don't have to concentrate on it. So you can manifest, say, Grip of Iron as an immediate action right before your turn, Link it to Astral Construct, Psionic Minor Creation, Psychic Reformation, or some other power, and it'll go off right after, on your initiative count.

I like taking Metapower (Synchronicity + Linked Power), all from C.Psi, to lower manifesting costs by 2. Metapower + Linked (Synchronicity + Astral Construct) gives you an extra pp to use with the Astral Construct power, since the cost is increased by 1 for Synchronicity and lowered by 2 for Metapower. May or may not be worthwhile. Depends on how nuts you go with cost reducers and ML boosters.

Buy or craft some chronocharms, from the MIC. You can wear several at once, and each one can be enhanced with additional neck-slot properties. I like the necklace of adaptation, myself, though it's less important for you, since you don't breathe. However, feel free to pay for several chronocharms of the archmage so you can add additional charges to a single chronocharm. Want to manifest a power with a 1-round manifesting time (like, say, Astral Construct) as a standard action 20x per day? Now you can.

Also look into http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625b. Best shaper PrC bar none. Early entry is possible if you abuse the Primary Contact feat, from Cityscape. Get that extra skill point, enter the class early, and then PsyRef out the feats you don't want once you have enough HD to have enough skill ranks without them. That way you can be a psion 5/constructor 5, rather than a psion 6/constructor 4. Buy the prereqs if you have some spare cash after everything else you want; see below for how to buy feats and powers.

Consider using PsyRef to nab some crafting feats to craft with. It'll save you 50% on all your magic item costs, and 66% on mundane item costs. More, if you go all out and get in some crafting cost reduction going. http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1000.0 Imagine spending a handful of XP and GP and crafting several thousand GP in equipment in return.

If you can use some highly regarded 3rd party sources (Hyperconscious and Untapped Potential), there's a feat (Durable Construct, Hyperconscious) that makes your constructs last a flat 10 minutes, and it can be taken at level 3. Combine with Extend Power for 20 minute constructs.

There's more stuff in The Mind's Eye, as well, some of which is 3.0, but a lot of it is still usable, like most of this: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pse/20020727c

Consider paying another psion (especially an erudite, from C.Psi -- a mentor, perhaps?) to manifest Psychic Chirurgery on you to get more powers known in exchange for cash. Note that this applies to spells, too, with the convert-spells-to-powers ACF, from The Mind's Eye. Any arcane spell, and this includes practically every divine spell, too, through options such as rainbow servant, the Child of Eberron dragon archetype, and the Southern Magician feat. Use a thought bottle (C.Arc) to massively reduce the XP cost from lots of manifestations of Psychic Chirurgery.

Especially good spells to take are Heal, Dweomer of Transference, Mental Pinnacle, Divine Power, Draconic Polymorph (Draconomicon), Polymorph Any Object, and (Greater) Consumptive Field (Spell Compendium). Also consider Wall of Salt, from Sandstorm. Each casting of WoS creates an absurd amount of salt. Now go look in the PHB at the cost of salt, and consider that it's a trade good -- which can be spent exactly as if it were money. IE, salt is literally worth its weight in silver, and you can spend it as such. AND you can use it as an actual defensive/BFC wall spell. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17939807&postcount=30

And get as many ML boosters and cost reducers as possible. Binding a metapsionic rod (psionic version of a metamagic rod, as per the MIC) to your hands, a few pairs of psionic arcanist gloves (which you already have), Overchannel, and (later) an orange ioun stone. There's a torc in the 3.0 Psionics Handbook that does the same as the torc of power preservation for less than 1/3 the cost. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?131499-DnD-3-5-Power-Point-Cost-Reduction

Speaking of a metapsionic rod, add several rods in one for a +50% markup, as per the MIC. Add those rod powers to your psionic arcanist gloves so you can have all of those bound to your hands chakra simultaneously (via the MoI's Psionic Open Chakra power). And since a power's level does not increase as you augment, you can use the lowest level rod you think you can get away with for the powers you want to use it with. If you do this, make sure you add the cost of several arcanist gloves to your glove/rod so you can use lots of charges per day without having to swap out your gloves.

Also, make ALL of your items warforged components (Eberron Campaign Setting). It doesn't cost anything extra, and your items cannot be removed from your person without your permission as long as you're conscious. You can still remove them yourself, however.

And don't forget a handy haversack from the DMG and some anklets of translocation from the MIC!

If you have a good UPD score, consider adding the horseshoes of a zephyr and horseshoes of speed enhancements, from the DMG. UPD your race as "horse" to make use of them for an hour at a time.

A panther mask from the MIC will add +5' to your base land speed, and Shaundakul's boots, from Magic of Faerun, will add +10' to that, as well. Likewise, you can get yourself a horned helm, from the Arms & Equipment Guide, to double your speed, and a rapid wrath weapon, from the Ghostwalk Campaign Setting, likewise doubles your speed (for really, really cheap). Note that distance and speed multipliers are cumulative, so X * 2 * 2 = X * 4, as per the RAW for bonus multipliers.

Headband of Int doesn't stack with the ioun stone, so you'll have to knock that out. Perhaps craft a headband +4? How about raising your age category to Middle Aged? It'll knock your physical stats down a bit, but it'll raise your mental scores.

For a cheap way to massively boost your Int (both definitions of "cheap"), manifest Mind Switch with another target, followed up by two castings of Polymorph Any Object into a super-high Int form (such as sarrukh, from Serpent Kingdoms), then cancel the Mind Switch. The other creature will be in a new body, but you keep the Int boost. The two castings are to make the duration permanent. Now just store the other creature in a vat of quintessence or something, and you won't have to worry about it. You can use this to dump Int, add those points into other ability scores, and still have a base Int score of 30. If you're worried about Dispelling, go look in Ravenloft: Legacy of the Blood. In there is a feat by the name of Craft Device. Devices are fun little items that are basically nonmagical magic items; they require charges from batteries to run, but can be any magic item at all, but -- I reiterate -- are entirely nonmagical. Get a nonmagical "scroll" device of PAO to make the effects of the second PAO permanent -- and nonmagical, meaning it can't be Dispelled or Disjoined. Ever.

If you take Faerie Mysteries Initiate from Dragon Magazine, that'll give you +Int to hp, instead of Con, so you can compensate for your lower Con score. If the DM asks how you can maintain an "intimate relationship with a fey," point out that Data kept one up with Tasha Yar in Star Trek: TNG. Also, pen pals, since emotional intimacy counts.

If you can put a few hundred gp towards power stones of Inertial Armor and can buy more when you need them, CPsi allows you to use your own pp instead of the charge in the stone to manifest the power at your manifester level. Since you only need one or two manifestations per day, Inertial Armor might be better used through power stones, instead of as a power known. Replace it with something you'll use more than 2 times per day. Trade I.A. for the Synchronicity power from C.Psi to combine with Link Power for extra standard actions.

...Wait a minute. Why bother with Inertial Armor, since you have Adamantine Body? Alternatively, why bother with Adamantine Body if you have Inertial Armor? You're wasting either a power or a feat, here, and both could be more useful elsewhere. Instead of Adamantine Body, how about using that feat slot for Item Familiar (SRD) or Ancestral Relic (from BoeD) or something for your basic composite plating, and use a bag full of power stones of Inertial Armor (using your pp and manifester level) for your AC? Do note that if you take Ancestral Relic (which shouldn't have an alignment prereq; that's stupid), you can feel free to sacrifice your castings of Wall of Salt to it.

A ring of sustenance grants all the physical and mental benefits of 8 hours of sleep in 2 hours. One of the benefits of 8 hours of sleep is enough rest to recharge power points. So get yourself a ring and only need to rest for 2 hours to recharge. You can even recharge several times per day, if you want. You don't need to sleep, so you and your psicrystal can keep watch while the rest of the party sleeps. You can recharge during first shift, and if something attacks during the night, you can nova the hell out of it, and then rest another 2 hours on last shift to recover all the pp you spent.

Buy a double-handful of +1 arrows with the manifester property, from the XPH. Each arrow will have 5 pp per day in it. USE THEM FOR UTILITY MANIFESTING, NOT SHOOTING FROM A BOW. Note that the cost per arrow is 1/50 that of something like a +1 manifester longbow.

Will you be using Plane Shift much, or can you PsyRef it in when you need it?

Are flaws allowed?

Since this is high op, buy a bunch of feats via magical locations, items that grant feats, and the dark blue ioun stone, then pay for someone to use the Dark Chaos Feat ShuffleTM on you. Plus, if you multiclass, armor and shield proficiencies are granted as proficiency feats, which you don't need -- check the Armor and Shield Proficiency feats in the SRD for details. You can also devote yourself to an elder evil, or abuse feats that grant more feats than what you put in, such as Planar Touchstone: Catalogues of Enlightenment (war domain) and Planar Touchstone: Catalogues of Enlightenment (metal domain), which give you two feats each to DCFS out. More feats! http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6624.20
and http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?119456-What-is-a-quot-Chaos-Shuffle-quot
and http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=6248.0

There are several items that grant feats, such as the battleax of the bull, the helm of the hunter, the dark blue ioun stone, the panther mask, and the headband of pursuit. Crafting these and DCFSing out the feats for ones you want can get you a lot of feats if you can sneak your way around the XP costs.

If you weren't Evil, I'd suggest going Dragonborn of Bahamut, from Races of the Dragon. The template works really well on a warforged. You'd keep everything but your slam attack and your natural armor plating -- but you'd keep your Adamantine Body feat. Will the DM waive the Good prereq so you can become a Dragonborn of Tiamat or something? +2 Con, -2 Dex, and low-light/darkvision, wings, or a breath weapon would be really nice. The biggest downside is that you do lose your composite plating, so no optimizing that if you don't take Adamantine Body.

Psicrystals gain actual hit dice equal to yours, RAW, which means they get BAB, feats, and ability score boosts that are NOT included in the psicrystal ability chart. So give your psicrystal metapsionic feats (or take Hidden Talent on your psicrystal to take psionic feats) that you can Feat Leech away, and take the Feat Leech power. Replace the Alertness feat your psicrystal gets for a better feat. Note that this is not the same Alertness feat that your psicrystal gives you when within 5'. One is the psicrystal's feat, and the other is what it gives you for proximity.

Since you've got Crystal Shard, try buying access to Control Body through the Psychic Chirurgery power and abusing the hell out of this trick. If you want to blast, that's a good way to do so. If you buy some +1 manifester arrows, note that Solicit Psicrystal costs 5 pp, which is a good reason to use them thar arrows. Control Body on yourself costs a bit more, but it's still pretty cheap if you like blasting. Overall, you have better things to spend your pp on than blasting, though. This is just an option for if you reeeeally wanna blast. To make blasting even cheaper, combine the Control Body trick with the Gemstone Breath power, from Races of Stone. Once every two rounds, you get a breath weapon as a standard action for 1 round/lvl. +Int to damage isn't too bad when you're attacking lots of creatures in the AoE and getting multiple standard actions to attack with blasty powers in each round.

And for the love of the gods, get the Soul Crystal power from Magic of Incarnum ASAP! ...But that's not for a few levels yet. Combine with Quintessence for permanently stored, multi-use power stones.

If you want to go ethereal any time you move, the phase cloak soulmeld will let you bypass all sorts of obstacles, including doors, walls, enemies (along with AoOs), difficult terrain, trees, and pretty much anything you'd otherwise have to climb or fly over. Shape Soulmeld (Phase Cloak) will get you there, and the Psionic Open Chakra power (with several ML boosters and cost reducers) will bind it to your shoulders easily. Combine with major speed boosters, and it's basically like flying. All of this is from Magic of Incarnum. Use a metapsionic rod of Extend Power, and you can bind to your shoulders chakra for 2 days straight, and if you'd bound that rod to your hands chakra, you get an additional +1 ML, too.

Boost your Craft (Alchemy) skill, and use Psionic Minor Creation to craft poisons on the fly. Combine with Linked Power and a power with a low manifesting time to manifest PMC in one round instead of one minute. You're 100% immune to poison, after all. You can also use PMC to make a hamster ball for yourself any time you expect AoEs to be flying around. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=8305463&postcount=12

You might want to consider using an armor crystal, from the MIC, on your body armor. Since your armor is actually YOU, you should get the benefits of whatever you have on the armor crystal. Make sure to stack as many armor crystal qualities as you can onto one crystal; that way you get all the benefits at once. Adamant armor crystals for stacking hardness? Sure. Also, give yourself plenty of fun armor qualities. Blueshine (from the MIC) is nice, because it makes you immune to acid and rust attacks. This only works on warforged, as far as I know.

Don't take damaging powers that overlap. For instance, you probably don't want both Crystal Shard and Energy Ray. One or the other should be fine. Then find a damaging AoE power that relies on a save, such as Hail of Crystals or Energy Burst. If you take Supernatural Transformation (see below), damaging powers with Power Resistance: Yes become MUCH more valuable, because now they're PR: No. Crystal Swarm doesn't deal much damage per pp, and it's really close range, but there's no way to prevent damage from it other than super-high hardness or flat-out immunity to slashing damage. It becomes much better if you add +Int to the damage output, though.

If you really want to get into the high end optimization, know that you can use spell-like ability feats on powers, because powers are defined in the rules as innate psi-like abilities, and the rules say that you can use feats like Quicken Spell-Like Ability on them. So feel free to get those feats to act like Auto-Quicken, or whatever. Also, grab the Supernatural Transformation feat (from Savage Species) for your psionics, turning your manifesting into a (Su) ability and boosting your manifester level up to your HD (to cover for any MLs you lose via PrCs or multiclassing). You also -- and here's the real kicker -- get to ignore Spell- and Power-Resistance. Completely. Forever. Wanna hit that epic golem with a Time Hop? Now you can. You also no longer provoke AoOs for manifesting.

Another really cheap thing to do is to install quori power link shards in your body, from Magic of Eberron. You can install one shard per level, and each one allows you to boost the number of pp you can use on a power by +2, 3/day. You can use multiples at once, and they break the normal pp cap. You do need to use UPD to trick the shards into thinking you're a quori, though, and each one permanently reduces your hp by 1. However, this is ridiculously powerful, essentially tripling the number of pp you can spend on three powers per day, if you use them all at once. Or you could spread them out through the day. http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=10296.0

Three levels in cleric qualify you for Initiate of Mystra, which allows you to cast (and manifest) in dead magic zones and AMFs. However, this costs you three levels and a feat, which is a hefty investment all by itself.

PS, you might want to lower your Dex score; Adamantine Body limits how much you can use a high Dex to a mere +1, so add it onto your Cha score for higher Bluff and UPD checks. That's if you keep Adamantine Body. Changing this to Mithril Body or getting rid of Adamantine Body altogether means you can keep that Dex high.

PPS, the arcanist gloves actually do work like you think they work. They boost your ML, which automatically raises the number of pp you can spend on the boosted power.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2015, 04:56:19 AM by Lycanthromancer »

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #2 on: November 15, 2015, 12:00:01 PM »
Well... warforged shapers are one of my favorite "trick" characters, but I see Lycanthromancer has already been here and said pretty much everything I could have contributed and more. :P You might dig through here to find more ideas.

I've played a few such characters and really enjoyed them, though.
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Offline Lycanthromancer

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #3 on: November 15, 2015, 02:51:44 PM »
Well... warforged shapers are one of my favorite "trick" characters, but I see Lycanthromancer has already been here and said pretty much everything I could have contributed and more. :P You might dig through here to find more ideas.

I've played a few such characters and really enjoyed them, though.
The thread the post you linked to...uh...links to...is gone.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #4 on: November 15, 2015, 03:01:12 PM »
Well... warforged shapers are one of my favorite "trick" characters, but I see Lycanthromancer has already been here and said pretty much everything I could have contributed and more. :P You might dig through here to find more ideas.

I've played a few such characters and really enjoyed them, though.
The thread the post you linked to...uh...links to...is gone.
Yeah, but most of the actual info is inside the spoiler in the one I linked to. I guess I should just edit out that old link...

Edit: As far as survivability, the feat Psionic Body can add quite a bit of resiliance in the really early levels, especially if you're allowed to use flaws, as the majority of your feats will likely be psionic ones anyway. Since it also adds hit points to your psicrystal, which you get to share via Share Pain, you basically get a +50% bonus on hit points gained like this.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2015, 03:05:17 PM by phaedrusxy »
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Offline Lycanthromancer

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #5 on: November 15, 2015, 03:14:48 PM »
Edit: As far as survivability, the feat Psionic Body can add quite a bit of resiliance in the really early levels, especially if you're allowed to use flaws, as the majority of your feats will likely be psionic ones anyway. Since it also adds hit points to your psicrystal, which you get to share via Share Pain, you basically get a +50% bonus on hit points gained like this.
Not a huge fan of Psionic Body outside the early levels. I'd much rather have Faerie Mysteries Initiate, if it's available. Psionics is pretty feat-intensive in general, and if you have a decent Con, Psionic Body's not all that worthwhile after level 5 or so.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #6 on: November 15, 2015, 03:27:27 PM »
Edit: As far as survivability, the feat Psionic Body can add quite a bit of resiliance in the really early levels, especially if you're allowed to use flaws, as the majority of your feats will likely be psionic ones anyway. Since it also adds hit points to your psicrystal, which you get to share via Share Pain, you basically get a +50% bonus on hit points gained like this.
Not a huge fan of Psionic Body outside the early levels. I'd much rather have Faerie Mysteries Initiate, if it's available. Psionics is pretty feat-intensive in general, and if you have a decent Con, Psionic Body's not all that worthwhile after level 5 or so.
It's usefulness runs out around the same time that you can pick up Psychic Reformation as a power. Coincidence, or not? :P It definitely depends on how lethal the game is, though, and what level you start at.
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Offline Lycanthromancer

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #7 on: November 15, 2015, 03:56:48 PM »
Since we can get so much out of money, we need to figure out more ways to start with more money -- or at least, effectively more money. Skipping blatant infinite money schemes (like Wall of Salt abuse) for now.

Item Familiar effectively gives you free magical enhancements.

Ancestral Relic, while having "Good alignment" as a prereq (which I still think is stupid), allows you to sacrifice objects for their GP value. Take Ancestral Relic prior to the start of the game, but don't sink any money into it. Just buy a portable altar and start sacrificing buildings, traps, and other landmarks that can't be moved or removed, but which are still worth massive amounts of money. Do it while the rest of the party is sleeping, or while they're in town. Camp out on the roof of City Hall and sacrifice the building while the bulk of the town is unconscious.

Crafting can multiply your effective WBL by a huge amount (20x or more), which is made even better with Psychic Reformation, since it lets you swap out your feats for crafting feats and back again. Thought bottles and negative level/Restoration tricks make this even better. http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8649.msg290557#msg290557

The Mercantile Background feat (Player's Guide to Faerun) gives you +300 gp at character creation (woo) and allows you to buy and sell items at much better rates. Need an item you can't craft? Buy it as your monthly reduced item.

The Wish spell lets you spend 5,000 XP in exchange for 25,000 GP in nonmagical or magical items. If you are willing to spend more XP, the worth of the magic item can increase. But if you summon an efreeti or Shapechange into a zodar, the XP cost no longer applies, and you can get as many magic items as you want, as expensive as you want them.

This trick can multiply your WBL instantly, and it can be repeated over and over again.

A +1 morphing/sizing shuriken allows you to get weapon enhancements at 1/50 the cost, and you can use morphing and sizing to turn said shuriken into any other weapon you want.

Astral Projection doubles your WBL, and any consumables you use while Projected give you their normal effect, but the original isn't expended, so abuse the hell out of this as much as you can. For instance, get a scroll of Wish. Now cast Astral Projection. You now have a copy of your Wish scroll. Cast the spell from the copy. Your original scroll is still whole and well. Cancel Astral Projection and cast it again. Repeat.

A level in psychic warrior with the soulbound weapon ACF plus taking Call Weaponry as a psion power allows you to summon a very powerful weapon with variable abilities in exchange for some power points.

Any other ways? More money equals more items, more feats, and more powers known, and we could always use more of all three.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2015, 10:14:27 PM by Lycanthromancer »

Offline Icyfire

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #8 on: November 15, 2015, 10:16:17 PM »
Wow, thanks! These are great. I'm still working through each specific thing, but I appreciate all the detailed help.

Offline Lycanthromancer

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #9 on: November 16, 2015, 01:56:09 AM »
Oh, and you're missing two feats.

Psion 1,5
HD 1,3,6,9

Plus the psicrystal.

HD 1,3,6,9

I'd only take constructor up to 9. You can emulate the capstone easily enough by that level, and a lost ML really isn't worth it. You can follow constructor up with more shaper or anarchic initiate (CPsi) or crystal master or ghostbreaker (from Hyperconscious) or incarnate 1/soul manifester, from Magic of Incarnum. You should be able to take the jade phoenix mage PrC from Tome of Battle and convert it really easily to psionics.

If you really want to push the optimization level out the wazoo, Supernatural Transformation (Psionics) affects all of your manifesting classes, so take psion/PRC up to ML 17 for 9th level powers, Then start dipping into additional manifester classes. Every manifesting class will start out with ML = HD, due to Supernatural Transformation, giving you a huge number of bonus pp, and ardent in specific can start out taking 9th level powers, so you won't lose anything on psion. There's a feat from Bastards and Bloodlines called Lost Traditions that allows you to change the ability score you use for one of your casting classes. Boosting the hell out of your Int, taking a level in ardent, and Lost Tradition (Ardent/Int) will give you a ton of bonus pp. Same goes with every other manifesting class you dip and take Lost Tradition (Int) for.

I received this as a PM some time ago, and this is how I responded:

Greetings, Lycan!

You've mentioned in various posts that you've found ways to get L9 Astral Constructs at low levels.  What build(s) do you use for this?

Just shaper psion (with or without PrCs) works. It's a matter of a bit of optimization in other areas.

--Overchannel (+1 to +3 ML)
--Orange ioun stone (+1 ML)
--A psionic version of arcanist gloves - see the MIC where it says you can make psionic versions of arcane and divine items (+2 ML)
--Combine the gloves with a psionic version of a metamagic rod, bound to your hands chakra - either via a feat or the Psionic Open Chakra power (+1 ML)
--Magic Mantle + Reserves of Strength (+3 ML)
--Earth Power (-1 to pp cost)
--Torc of power preservation (-1 to pp cost)
--The 3.0 torc of psionic might (-1 to pp cost)
--Metapower (Linked Power + Synchronicity) - Synchronicity costs 1 pp, but Link an augmented Astral Construct to it and use Metapower, and it not only gives you an extra standard action and yet goes off next round as it would normally (without the need to concentrate for a round), but it also lowers the cost by 2. So +1 pp (Synchronicity) - 2 pp (Metapower) = (-1 to pp cost)
--Midnight Augmentation (-1 to pp cost)

If all are used, that's +8 MLs and -5 to your pp costs, which grants an effective +5 to augmentations, as you're still free to spend up to your ML in pp (5 of which are free). So if you can afford a way to buy the equipment and bind the metamagic gloves to your hands, you can manifest a 9th level astral construct by level 4.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2015, 05:14:34 PM by Lycanthromancer »

Offline nijineko

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #10 on: November 18, 2015, 11:53:20 PM »
nice summation!

i won't even argue about the psicrystal feats this time. ^^

Offline Lycanthromancer

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #11 on: November 20, 2015, 01:25:38 AM »
You might also consider looking at the [Quicken/Empower/Etc] Spell-Like Ability feats in the next few levels, since they explicitly work on psi-like abilities, and manifesting powers is explicitly a psi-like ability.

http://dndtools.pw/feats/?name=spell-like&description=&benefit=&special=&normal=&prerequisite=&_filter=Filter

i won't even argue about the psicrystal feats this time. ^^
Just as well.

nice summation!
Thanks.

Offline Endarire

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #12 on: November 23, 2015, 05:19:21 AM »
Lycan: What's the source and page for the magic/psionic item conversion, like psionic Arcanist's Gloves?

Offline Lycanthromancer

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #13 on: November 23, 2015, 05:37:26 PM »
Lycan: What's the source and page for the magic/psionic item conversion, like psionic Arcanist's Gloves?
Sidebar in the Magic Item Compendium, pg 232.

Oh, and for Icyfire: if you want 100' telepathy, take Shape Soulmeld (Shedu Crown) and the Psionic Open Chakra power. You won't lose any MLs, and you also get immunity to being forcefully moved (magical or mundane), bonuses vs mind-affecting effects, and the telepathy you want. You'll have to add Incarnum Focus to your headband of intellect to wear it with the soulmeld, but it's less expensive if you (ab)use crafting cost reducers.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2015, 05:44:12 PM by Lycanthromancer »

Offline Endarire

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Re: [3.5] Help me optimize my warforged psion shaper
« Reply #14 on: November 26, 2015, 11:19:29 PM »
Lycan: Thankee!