Nomad

[Sobolev]

Inspired by the new Psionics guide, and in particular Personal Space, I have the urge to make a Nomad.  However, most of the Nomad only powers seem mostly useless.  Not sure what sort of thing should be done with a Nomad then.  I mean, I can just take things from the guide (and I'll post something when I get back to my room), but no idea of some coherent idea to reach for.

[Praef]

Geez, I was just thinking about the nomad.

Seems to me there was a fairly competent build that revolved around the nomad's ability to influence and move the players on the battlefield, and it did it fairly well too. 

[Lycanthromancer]

The best part of the nomad is its ability to use dimension swap on multiple allies, but you're right; the discipline powers are woefully-lacking in any sort of synergy. If he was a master of party-mobility on the field and off, with extra augmentation options for dimension swap, dimension door, and others, then it would be good to actually make a nomad, rather than simply using the power list to cherry-pick from.

However, the ACF is a really nice one, though I'm not sure it's worth actually taking nomad as a discipline, rather than as a pick-list for powers.

[X-Codes]

http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/psion-devotion-powers

There's a few cool powers in there.

Expanded Knowledge [Astral Construct] should be used in order to have more, expendable chess pieces to move around the board, and using Synchronicity for reactive Dimension Swaps (replacing living teammates with Astral Constructs when attacked) is given.

I think the best way to leverage the rest of your powers is to style yourself as a sort of Psionic Skillmonkey, take a few levels of some sort of Psionic Unseen Seer for a few key powers from the Seer's list and then use the lot of them for infiltration purposes (looking around corners, through walls, teleporting into places where nothing is around, etc.).

[Lycanthromancer]

If you pull the astral construct/synchronicity/dimension swap combo, this may be a good time to take Ectopic Form: anathemic carapace. It's the only halfway-decent ectopic form (aside from MAYBE the burrower, though it's doubtful as to how often you'd actually use that one), and it's only worth the feat if you plan on using it a lot. Watching it explode in your opponents' faces will be totally worth it.

...Aaaaand now I've actually endorsed an Ectopic Form.

Someone needs to kill me. Now.

[X-Codes]

If it's any consolation, it's probably the single most useful Ectopic Form out of the lot.

[Lycanthromancer]

If it's any consolation, it's probably the single most useful Ectopic Form out of the lot.

It's not much consolation, really, but thanks for trying anyway.

*Commits suppuku*

[jameswilliamogle]

Can you use transdimensional power with dimension swap to trade places with an ethereal creature?

[Lycanthromancer]

Can you use transdimensional power with dimension swap to trade places with an ethereal creature?

It looks like it, actually.

[jameswilliamogle]

hrm.  That power is pretty decent. 

[Saeomon]

Consider taking either Hidden Talent or Expanded Knowledge to unlock this power, and pick another, more useful discipline instead:

[spoiler]Dimensional Pocket
Psychoportation
Level: Psychic rogue 1
Display: Mental
Manifesting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: One unattended object, weighing up to 1 lb./level
Duration: 1 hour/4 level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Power Resistance: No
Power Points: 1

Your touch transfers an unattended object to an extradimensional pocket hidden in the palm of your hand. The dimensional pocket is invisible and weightless, regardless of its contents. When the power ends or is dismissed, the object returns to your hand, or next to your hand if you cannot hold it.

Augment: You can augment this power in one or both of the following ways.

1. For every 2 additional power points you spend, you can store an additional pound per level (but still only one object).

2. If you spend 4 additional power points, the duration increases to one day, regardless of your manifester level.[/spoiler]

Like Personal Space, it's Mind's Eye content. It's both better and worse than Personal Space in many ways.

I need to add a section on Useful Powers from Other Classes' Lists to the guide.

Update: carnivore developed a build called the False Nomad. It gets many Nomad powers without being a Nomad, and carnivore just added it to Page 2 of the guide.

[Sinfire Titan]

If it's any consolation, it's probably the single most useful Ectopic Form out of the lot.

It's not much consolation, really, but thanks for trying anyway.

*Commits suppuku*

Here. *Hands Lycan the knife*.

Here are, in my opinion, the best Nomad Powers:

Dimension Swap
Psionic Teleport (only if you don't have another caster in the party)
Teleport Trigger (Far less useful than its name implies)
Time Regression


Dimension Swap can be replaced with a magic item, as can Time Regression but that is incredibly expensive. Really, if you go Nomad, you are pretty much only getting Psionic Teleport and Teleport Trigger, the latter of which isn't that effective.

[jameswilliamogle]

I also like Evade Attack (augmented), but its hardly a good thing to base a build around.

What about a Synchronicity-linked-Time Regression?  Relive the round in which you manifested it without spending XP?  That seems hilarious, somehow...  Maybe Time Hop (self) -linked-TR would be funnier...  Pushing yourself both forward and backward in the timestream simultaneously...

I'm sure that's been abused before.  What kind of crap can you do with that?

[Sobolev]

I am actually still sort of working on this, so I figured I'd just resurrect this rather than make a new thread.  Current ideas are something like

Synad Nomad 5*/Squire of Legend (Reikhardt) 3**/XYZ 12

*Personal Space and Temporal Grace ACFs
**Adapted to give Psionic progression rather than casting progression.

Feats:
Improved Synad Multitask
Expanded Knowledge [Astral Construct]

I'm going to go scope out the False Nomad build

[awaken DM golem]

Nomad strikes me as a kit-like concept carried over from 2e.
Except for the fact that it's weaker than the others, and yet strong enough anyway.

... What about a Synchronicity-linked-Time Regression?  Relive the round in which you manifested it without spending XP?  That seems hilarious, somehow...  Maybe Time Hop (self) -linked-TR would be funnier...  Pushing yourself both forward and backward in the timestream simultaneously...

I'm sure that's been abused before.  What kind of crap can you do with that?

One of the Abominations in the 4e Monster Manual,
does exactly this ... just to eliminate one ongoing effect.
 

[Lycanthromancer]

You won't be able to hit the time regression until you're out of the time hop, since you technically don't exist for the duration.

[CantripN]

You won't be able to hit the time regression until you're out of the time hop, since you technically don't exist for the duration.

If I get it right, you can jump through time very strange, indeed. You can jump 2 rounds into the future, and then go back a round, acting again in the 2nd round? Or is time not objective for you? It's confusing.

[Lycanthromancer]

Depends on how the DM rules it. If it's subjective, you go back to before the time hop. If it's purely objective, you go back during it, but you are once again under time hop's effects, so you've just wasted the manifestation.

[CantripN]

Depends on how the DM rules it. If it's subjective, you go back to before the time hop. If it's purely objective, you go back during it, but you are once again under time hop's effects, so you've just wasted the manifestation.

So if it's subjective, you just peeked at a point in the future, and went back to tell everyone about it. Does that change causality? We can just assume the you that came back and told you things is from a parallel time-stream, but then we're still stuck as to what happens to the "real" you next.

[Lycanthromancer]

Depends on how the DM rules it. If it's subjective, you go back to before the time hop. If it's purely objective, you go back during it, but you are once again under time hop's effects, so you've just wasted the manifestation.

So if it's subjective, you just peeked at a point in the future, and went back to tell everyone about it. Does that change causality? We can just assume the you that came back and told you things is from a parallel time-stream, but then we're still stuck as to what happens to the "real" you next.

You peeked at a very real future that you can change. It's not so much subjective in the sense of parallel universes as it is in the sense of 'from the point of view of the target'.

You ARE the 'real' you. You just went and peeked into the future, which gives you information that's both better and worse than divination. You were there, but only for a moment, which means you have all of the information that can be gathered within 6 seconds, but ONLY that information. And you don't have any info on what happened in the interim except for what you can discern and what (if anything) has been told to you.

In any case, this is the basis for using mass time hop to turn your psicrystal into a Save Game Crystal, much like in Final Fantasy.