Here's the Alpha release for the Phrenic Slayer.

Some of the ideas from the design thread were used in the revamp, but we're hoping to hear some good discussion regarding the class!

Does the favored enemy ability stack with ranger's favored enemy ability if there's overlap?

Also, are there any plans for a Pathfinder version of the psionic ranger from Third Dawn?

Greatbear - both good questions! I don't have a good answer for the first one... my inclination would be yes - they're both untyped bonuses, so they'd stack.

I think a psionic ranger variant is something we definitely need to release, tho!

in most cases, favored enemy bonuses stack, but i'd suggest saying it outright, to avoid confusion.

just curious, but why does it require only one rank in K(psionics) to end the class? seems very odd. Also, why is the kill requirement "in a group of fewer than 7?"

I think Enemy Sense should allow, at a higher level, the Slayer to pinpoint a favored enemy, provided she expends her psionic focus and the enemy is within say short range?

You need to include the word expends in front of psionic focus in the Brain Nausea ability

for Breach PR, does this lowering stack? sounds like it does, but again, its always a good idea to say outright if does.

Finally, for Rebound Attack, it seems like its useless against Range Touch attacks, which doesn't make any sense, as most of those are single target, ray attacks. perhaps you meant to say touch attacks, which makes more sense.

Lordmonkeysama wrote:

7just curious, but why does it require only one rank in K(psionics) to end the class? seems very odd. Also, why is the kill requirement "in a group of fewer than ?"

My guess is that it's replacing the K(dungeoneering) 4 ranks prerequisite for the illithid slayer PrC. The rule in Pathfinder is to subtract 3 from the number of ranks you need in a prerequisite skill.

The reason why I asked about the favored enemy bonus stacking is because I always hate assuming bonuses stack unless it explicitly says so. It heads of confusion later. And it leads into my second question because if Jeremy and Andreas do update the psionic ranger, then that class would be an easy one to qualify for this PrC. A psionic ranger could qualify for this PrC by 5th level easily. Whereas a psychic warrior would need six levels to meet the BAB requirement.

Lordmonkeysama wrote:

just curious, but why does it require only one rank in K(psionics) to end the class? seems very odd. Also, why is the kill requirement "in a group of fewer than 7?"

Item 1 greatbear answered.

Item 2 is how the illithid slayer's entry requirement was worded.

greatbear wrote:

And it leads into my second question because if Jeremy and Andreas do update the psionic ranger, then that class would be an easy one to qualify for this PrC. A psionic ranger could qualify for this PrC by 5th level easily. Whereas a psychic warrior would need six levels to meet the BAB requirement.

The ranger was already an easy way to enter Illithid Slayer. Ranger 2 / Psion 4, Ranger 1 / PsyWar 4, Ranger 5 with Wild Talent or Naturally Psionic.

From that regard, nothing has really changed. The class was intended to be available as early as 6th level.

ok, what about my other points/questions?

Sorry!

I've added verbage that the power resistance penalty stacks.

As for range: touch - check energy ray. Range is close, not touch. Touch range = melee touch attack, so we're arguing semantics here

The idea for enemy sense has merit - scaling the ability would work given that we took away a manifester level from the original version.

Jeremy.Smith wrote:

The ranger was already an easy way to enter Illithid Slayer. Ranger 2 / Psion 4, Ranger 1 / PsyWar 4, Ranger 5 with Wild Talent or Naturally Psionic.

Which is very cool. I saw right away that a ranger could easily meet the requirements with a 1 or 2 level dip into a psionic class or by means of a race or Wild Talent. I just asked about the psionic ranger because, well, I really like the class. A very simple variant that allows people who don't want to play a ranger as a divine spell caster to have some nice abilities.

Anyway, I like the phrenic slayer as a replacement for the illithid slayer. A shame certain iconic monsters can't be included in the official Pathfinder rules.

Yup - I just thought you were worried about it

One of the things I like about Pathfinder base class vs prestige class is they gave all the base classes better reasons to stay to 20, without hamstringing if they went PrC. 3.5 left it too much of "you always multiclass" for most of the classes, while psionic PrCs were really the only ones that seemed to give a real balance between the two.

I'd like to think even with a psionic ranger variant, this prestige class is properly balanced.

Jeremy.Smith wrote:

I'd like to think even with a psionic ranger variant, this prestige class is properly balanced.

I think the abilities mesh really well with either version of the ranger class.

Pathfinder did do a good job of making it worth staying with one class for 20 levels. Personally, I'd like to see Pathfinder avoid the PrC overload that plagued 3.5. So, my main view with each prestige class right now is, "is this really necessary?" Does it fill a campaign niche that can't be fulfilled by some other way, like a feat tree?

This is a good class that a player can sit down with the DM and say, "I want to try this PrC, what monster would be a good choice for me to choose as my favored enemy?" Of course, if the DM turns around and never includes that monster in the campaign, the player is kind of rooked.

It's also a good class if the DM says, "this is a campaign where the world is under attack by X and you're goal is to defend the world against the growing threat of X".

Of course, the same can be said about the ranger in general.

greatbear wrote:

Anyway, I like the phrenic slayer as a replacement for the illithid slayer. A shame certain iconic monsters can't be included in the official Pathfinder rules.

There is a monster called Phrenic Scourge, which is not exactly like the Illithid, but fills the role nicely. That one is third party OGL content, and Dreamscarred Press embraced it in the Third Dawn Campaign Setting and another book. I guess it's going to be included in the PF XPH.

Yup, I would expect to see the Phrenic Scourge in the Pathfinder Psionics book, but I didn't think it really made sense to re-tool the slayer to fit that monster specifically. I may be wrong in that regard, but you can always make your slayer a phrenic scourge slayer

oh, I plan on it. complete with resistance to being all scourgified.

You could also kinda throw out some of this class and retool the whole thing into a Ranger/Psionic blend class instead. Take out the emphasis on hunting psionic monsters and replace it with one of using psionics to hunt monsters (or, ya know, whatever). While it's certainly not what the "Slayer" class is in the SRD, I think it might turn out to be a more universally useful class that fills an interesting niche in the game.

Also, maybe make it somewhat compatible with a Soulknife? Give level stack to their Mindblade ability the same way that psions get to stack their manifester level.

Just my 2 cp.

sprainogre wrote:

Also, maybe make it somewhat compatible with a Soulknife? Give level stack to their Mindblade ability the same way that psions get to stack their manifester level.

That will already be in place. Soulknives easily qualify for this class, and there will be a rule that says any increase to manifester levels in a PrC may also be applies to the effective soulknife levels for determining the enhancement bonus of the mind blade.

Awesome! I always felt that was lacking in many a psionic PrC in the past. (Just found the post about that... hehehe, my bad, just got here...)

Considering the Favored Enemy ability--you might should specify what you mean by "type of psionic creature." I'm pretty sure you mean a specific race/species/whatever, like Dromite or Maenad, but doesn't "type" usually refers to things like Humanoid or Aberration? I think it would actually be interesting to have it apply to all psionic aberrations, or all psionic humanoids, or even all psionic creatures (IF you're not playing in a high-psi campaign, anyway).

That's actually a really good point, wynterknight, and something that's been rattling around in my head since I started working on the Phrenic Slayer.

My inclination is that you'd pick a specific creature - not a unique creature, but say "elans are my favored enemy" or "phrenic scourge are my favored enemy".

The benefits of the phrenic slayer are more powerful than the ranger's favored enemy ability, which is why my inclination is to be more restricted with what the favored enemy could be.

Considering sprainogre's point (above), do you think that there's a risk that this PrC could become primarily an NPC PrC? Specifically, a hunter optimized to track, stalk and oppose the party's psionic PC(s)?

Several times that I've seen a characters used that used the "favored enemy" idea, the player got frustrated when said ability wasn't relevant. There are adventures (e.g., Red Hand of Doom) where you're reasonably confident of going up against the same enemy type over and over; more often than not, however, you focus on a particular type of monster for only so many levels, then move on.

Thoughts?