Psychic Rogue or lurk for gestalt?

[geniussavant]

I'm getting ready to start a gestalt campaign with a couple of friends and I want to play a psionic manifester. I want erudite on one side and either psychic rogue(web) or lurk(Cpsionic) I realize that neither are great combinations, but I'm not too worried about power level with my group. Really I just wanted the boards opinions on the psychic rogue and lurk in gestalt with a psion. The psychic rogue can be found here http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b

[Dusk Eclipse]

Psychic Rogue progressing into psychic assassin (mind's eye version) to get the yummy mind cripple ability.

[geniussavant]

The lurk gets an ability called mental assault that does 2 int or wis +1/ 2 pp spent at 5th level. Thanks for being the first to reply, though.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I am not familiar with lurks, so that is partly the reason I suggested Psy-rogue; what I do remember about lurks is that they got some weird Sneak attack mechanic... I think they need to spend PP to use that ability, IIRC then I say that is worthless, sneak attack is a much more better mechanic in my opion.

[geniussavant]

Lurk SA mechanic is really wonky, they only get a base of + 4d6 sa, but can increase it by 1d6 per 2 pp spent, with no apparent cap, so  you could in theory spend all of your pp to make your sa +87d6 and have one pp left over(this is with and 18 int) and still use your lurk augments to get temporary pp for the next round.

edit:thats an extra 304 damage from sa, and if the victim has the pp you could steal 152 pp from them and deal another + 80d6 the next round

edit: I found the cap, they cant spend more pp than their lurk level kinda like manifesting powers. don't know why i didn't see that before

[Zombieboots]

Having experience with a Lurk, they are generally all around just bad without a lot of work. Go Psy-rogue for flexibility alone.

[geniussavant]

Not that I'm disagreeing(I don't have much of an opinion about which is better hence the thread) but do you mind elaborating on why the lurk is bad, and why the psy rogue is better?

[Maat_Mons]

It takes a swift action to use a lurk augment and only the first attack made after the swift action gains the benefit.  That's not first successful attack either.  Missing wastes the daily use of lurk augment, the power points, and the swift action. 

Mind cripple applies to every sneak attack, so you can deal a lot of int damage on a full attack.  (It also has no daily limit on use.)  Mental assault has some advantages (it doesn't require a sneak attack and it can deal wisdom damage), but it only applies to one attack per use.  This means you'll have to pump a lot of power points into it to make it keep up with mind cripple on a full attack. 

If you intend to use swift action powers, lurk augments create conflict.  Psionic sneak attack requires psionic focus.  If you intend to use metapsionic feats or any other abilities that require expenditure of psionic focus, that's another conflict. 

I'm not wowed by lurk augment and taking full advantage of lurk seems to conflict with taking full advantage of erudite, so I'd say psychic rogue. 

[bananaphone]

I say Psychic Rogue as well. 
You have more overall sneak attack dice (un-augmented).  A roughly comparable amount of PP's.  Although, the Psychic Rogue gets 5th level powers compared to the Lurk's 6th, that's not that big a deal.  Psychic Rogues get more skill points, trapfinding, evasion (sooner), uncanny dodge, special abilities starting at 11th.
Basically, since you have Erudite on the other side, I like Psychic Rogue since it gives you all kinds of passive abilities.

Maat_Mons already compared Mind Cripple and Mental Assault so I won't get into that.  But both abilities are great and will let you take down almost any animal/magical beast in one shot.

[carnivore]

since you have Erudite on one side.... i would suggest this:

DONT USE PSYCHIC ROGUE

just use regular Rogue(Feat Variant) instead

regular Rogue gives a lot more for what you are doing at all times, and does not require any PP ...... then add a Different Manifesting Class like this:

Erudite 20// Rogue 2/ Psychic Warrior 2/ Fighter 6/ Warmind 10

gain all of this:

Full Erudite Manifesting
lots of PP(Erudite+PW+Warmind + Bonus for Int,+ Bonus for Wis(PW lvls),+Bonus for Wis(Warmind lvls))
lots of Bonus Feats
BAB +18
Trapfinding

 

[geniussavant]

Thank yous to Maat_Mons and Bananaphone for both of your comparisons. I'm still looking to see what other board members think, but after their posts and a little of my own research on the topic, I have come to the decision on the subject and will be taking psychic rogue. And if wants to help with feats for my character they can, but as I said in the op I'm not too concerned with optimization, but it's always nice to be able to pull my party out of a sticky situation. My stats array is 18, 16, 16, 14, 12, 10, and so far I was going to focus on sneak attacking with my powers, And out of curiosity should I take a single dip of monk and tarsolona(sp?) and can you sneak attack with touch powers.

Edit: somehow I missed carnivores post, I'll look over it after I eat lunch, sorry,

Edit 2: I've looked at carnivore's suggestions, and I have a couple of questions:

1: no pixie?
2: why take levels in psy warrior?
3: is there any way to maintain a semblance of rogue-iness with warmind? 

[awaken DM golem]

The Lurk augments get kinda juicy, with all the extra powerpoints, the Erudite side provides.
The True Thief variant from Mind's Eye, gets Trapfinding early.
You can PHB2 retrain into one of the other variants, when the T is no longer all that useful.
Since the Gestalt erudite side, overwhelms the limited powerpoints of either Psi-Rogue or Lurk,
I'd say the Lurk offers more versatility from start, to switch, to finish, than the Psi-Rogue.


There goes carnivore, crushing the life out of Psi-Rogue or Lurk ... 

[geniussavant]

Out of curiosity more than anything, is there a way to get a lurk augment to apply to my powers? And on a side note concerning a monk dip I might take, is there a way to deliver a power through a monk's unarmed strike?