.Hyperconscious Sneak Peek: The Plangent Prestige Class

From a book by Bruce R. Cordell

During the course of the Hyperconscious adventure, the characters have an opportunity to meet a plangent. Here is that new prestige class reprinted from the book as a sneak peek. —Ed.

A cerebral lot, psions rarely trouble with the physical—less even than the war-minded psychic warrior or even the soulknife, who wields a "blade" of mind's energy. But despite these predilections, one psionic tradition sees the value in objects—especially in objects of pure mental structure. They understand the beneficial effect that resonances of specific objects have with psionic power. And, of all objects, few have more potency and symbolism than the sword, or in the case of the plangent, the mind blade.

The plangent is a psion whose use of a mind blade goes beyond that of simply using it as physical weapon; instead he combines it with psionic powers to forge a deadly duo. Most psionic characters, upon learning of the existence of lore of the plangent, laugh or disbelieve, until the time comes when they must match their powers against the unsheathed mind blade of the plangent.

Hit Die: d6

Requirements
To qualify to become a plangent, a character must fulfill all of the following criteria.
Manifesting: Ability to manifest 3rd-level psionic powers and knowledge of at least three psychometabolism powers
Weapon Proficiency: Must be proficient with one or more martial weapons
Feats: Combat Manifestation, Craft Psionic Arms and Armor, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (any exotic sword)

Class Skills
The plangent's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Autohypnosis (Wis), Concentration (Con), Craft (any) (Int), Knowledge (psionics) (Int), Profession (any) (Wis), Psicraft (Int), Ride (Dex), and Use Psionic Device (Cha). See Chapter Four: Skills in the Player's Handbook and Chapter Three: Feats and Skills in the Expanded Psionics Handbook for skill descriptions.

Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Intelligence modifier

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the plangent prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Plangents gain no proficiency in armor, but they gain proficiency in the use of the mind blade.

Powers Known: At every level indicated on the class table, the plangent gains additional power points per day and access to new powers as if he had also gained a level in whatever manifesting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (bonus feats, metapsionic or item creation feats, psicrystal special abilities, and so on). This essentially means that he adds the level of plangent to the level of whatever manifesting class the character has, then determines power points per day, powers known, and manifester level accordingly.

If a character had more than one manifesting class before he became a plangent, he must decide to which class he adds the new level of plangent for the purpose of determining power points per day, powers known, and manifester level.

Mind Blade (Su): As a move action, a plangent can create a semisolid blade composed of psychic energy distilled from his own mind.

The blade is identical in all ways to a soulknife's mind blade. Like a soulknife's blade, a plangent's mind blade is a Medium weapon that he can wield as a light weapon, and the blade deals 1d6 points of damage (critical 19-20/x2). Plangents who are smaller or larger than Medium create mind blades identical to short swords appropriate for their size, with a corresponding change to the blade's damage (see Table 7-4 and Table 7-5 in the Player's Handbook). The wielder of a mind blade gains the usual benefits to his attack roll and damage roll from a high Strength bonus.

At 4th level the mind blade gains a +1 enhancement bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls, and at 8th level it becomes +2. However, no other benefits that accrue to a soulknife's mind blade accrue to the plangent's mind blade.

Blade Resonance (Su): The character can resonate some of his powers through his mind blade.

Any power resonated through his mind blade is treated as if the plangent had a +1 manifester level. (It is a free action that does not count against other free actions in the round to resonate a power through the blade, but not a free action to manifest the power; the character must manifest the power normally.) The plangent must wield the weapon in at least one hand to use it for resonance.

The plangent can resonate a number of powers per day through the mind blade equal to his plangent class level.

Free Focus (Ex): Once per day, when a plangent resonates a power through his mind blade, he can gain the benefit of expending his psionic focus for that power, even if he is not currently focused. If the character is focused currently, using this ability doesn't expend the focus.

As the character gains additional levels in the plangent class, he gains additional free expenditures of focus per day.

Note that a plangent cannot use his free focus on a feat, power, or other activity that is already benefiting from focus expenditure.

Potent Resonance (Su): At 5th level, the save Difficulty Class of any power resonated through the plangent's mind blade increases by 1.

Sword of Mind's Might (Su): Once per day, a plangent can hurl his mind blade at a creature within 30 feet to which he has line of sight, striking it unerringly. If the struck creature fails a Will saving throw (DC = 18 + plangent's Intelligence bonus), the creature is transfixed (and helpless) for as long as the plangent concentrates; however, the plangent is equally vulnerable, since he is concentrating his entire being on transfixing the target creature.

* For those using the optional mindscape psionic combat system

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