Battlemind

Class Traits

As wanderers, mercenaries, and adventurers, battleminds are carefree warriors who seek only to test their skill against the mightiest and most dangerous opponents. Battleminds possess a potent combination of psionic and physical skill, allowing them to use their magic to manipulate and deceive their foes even as their fighting skill lets them carve a swath through enemy ranks. Battleminds tend to be bold and sometimes arrogant, an attitude earned through bringing ruin to enemies over the course of many conflicts.

You might not share your fellow battleminds’ arrogance, but you do have access to an array of combat abilities that let you manipulate, baffle, and defeat your enemies. Your mind is as deadly as your weapon, and with the aid of your psionic magic, your body can turn aside attacks as effectively as a suit of plate armor can.

Let those who would stand against your might quiver in terror when you approach, for you are a battlemind, and supremacy in combat is your birthright.

“Magic and steel are a fool’s weapons, for no attack will ever breach the armor of my mind.”

YOU ARE the invincible warrior, turning aside an enemy’s attack using only a single thought. You are the tireless champion, standing fast in the thick of battle as your foes fall to the power of your mind. You are the wild berserker, channeling your pain into a counterstrike that leaves the strongest enemy reeling. You are the battlemind—a warrior of thought and action, whose physical and mental fortitude are the equal of any foe.

Your combat prowess alone would make you a formidable opponent. But it is your mastery of psionics that grants you your edge in combat. You call on the power within to tear into an opponent’s mind, unearthing its secrets. You anticipate and avoid your foes’ attacks, then deliver a punishing response that batters both body and mind. Psionic power is not merely an accessory to your armament—it is the foundation of your combat skill.

Class Features

Battleminds have the following class features.

Psionic Augmentation

Through discipline and careful study, you have mastered a form of psionic magic that offers greater versatility than other characters command. You know a broad array of at-will powers, each of which is a conduit through which you can pour as much or as little psionic energy as you choose. You channel psionic energy into a reservoir of personal power—represented in the game as power points—that you can use to augment your at-will attack powers, replacing the encounter attack powers that other characters use. Because of this class feature, you acquire and use powers in a slightly different manner from how most other classes do.

You gain new at-will attack powers from this class, instead of new encounter attack powers, as you increase in level. At 3rd level, you choose a new at-will attack power from this class. At 7th, 13th, 17th, 23rd, and 27th level, you can replace one of your at-will attack powers with another one of your level or lower. Both powers must be augmentable and from this class.

You regain all your power points when you take a short or an extended rest.

• Level 1: Choose two at-will attack powers; gain 2 power points (2 total).

• Level 3: Choose one new at-will attack power; gain 2 power points (4 total).

• Level 7: Replace one at-will attack power; gain 2 power points (6 total).

• Level 13: Replace one at-will attack power; gain 1 power point (7 total).

• Level 17: Replace one at-will attack power; gain 2 power points (9 total).

• Level 21: No change to at-will attack powers; gain 2 power points (11 total).

• Level 23: Replace one at-will attack power; gain 2 power points (13 total).

• Level 27: Replace one at-will attack power; gain 2 power points (15 total).

Psionic Defense

Three powers—battlemind’s demand, blurred step, and mind spike—help you maintain tactical superiority in combat. You can use these psionic powers to demand your enemies’ attention, follow them if they try to avoid you, and punish them if they attack your allies. This combination of mental compulsion and psionic enhancement of your own capabilities makes you a force to be reckoned with in battle.

Psionic Study

Battleminds learn to fight using their bodies as weapons. Some battleminds alter their own form to fit their needs. Other battleminds use their psionic power to predict the best position for launching an attack.

Choose one of these options.

When you choose your Psionic Study, you can choose Persistent Harrier instead of another option such as those in Player’s Handbook 3.

Persistent Harrier is a Psionic Study option from Psionic Power.

Creating a Battlemind

Battleminds rely on Constitution, Charisma, and Wisdom for their powers. You can choose any powers you like, but many battleminds choose powers that complement their choice of combat style.

This section adds a new option to the battlemind builds presented in Player’s Handbook 3 and the Dark Sun Campaign Setting. This build also includes a new power choice for the battlemind’s Psionic Study class feature.

Harrier Battlemind

Time and space are inconstant. The world around you is mutable and fully within your power to alter as you need. Even a minor adjustment to the fabric of reality creates spectacular changes in the heat of combat, allowing you to move in the blink of an eye or to slow an enemy’s attempt to raise its weapon and block your incoming attack. You wield psionic energy to alter fate and circumstance, darting into the near future or stepping into the past to shape the outcome of the moment before you.

As a harrier battlemind, you are unfettered in combat. You might streak across the field to crash into your enemies, then dart away before they can mount a counterstrike. You harry your foes with such speed that they quickly lose track of you. As your mastery grows, you can even shape time during battle, striking, disappearing, then striking again. Your desperate enemies can only guess where you might attack from next.

Although many battleminds focus their efforts against a single enemy at a time, you prefer to strike multiple foes at once, thwarting their tactics and sowing frustration to give you and your allies an edge.

As a harrier battlemind, you move with ease across the battlefield, whether taking the fight to your enemies or falling back to draw them closer to you. Choose powers that facilitate movement, with teleportation powers being the most important. Your secondary role is controller, which can be strengthened by area powers that manipulate or hamper your opponents. Your feat selection should improve your defenses and mobility.

Make Constitution your highest ability score. Dexterity should be your second-highest score, getting you into the fight quickly and letting you avoid heavy armor to keep moving at full speed in combat. A high Wisdom allows you to improve your battlefield awareness, and Charisma remains important for the many battlemind disciplines that rely on that skill.

• Suggested Class Feature: Persistent Harrier

• Suggested Feat: Harrying Step*

• Suggested Skills: Athletics, Endurance, Insight

• Suggested At-Will Powers: renewed focus, world-slipping advance

• Suggested Daily Power: accelerating strike*

**New option presented in Psionic Power.*

Quick Battlemind

You use your psionic power to make yourself faster, increasing your speed and agility in combat. Make Constitution your highest ability score, followed by Charisma to reflect your ability to project your psionic power into the world. Wisdom should be your third-best ability. For daily powers, consider those that grant new opportunity actions to you, ensuring that your foes can’t outmaneuver you.

• Suggested Class Feature: Speed of Thought

• Suggested Feat: Improved Speed of Thought

• Suggested Skills: Arcana, Athletics, Insight

• Suggested At-Will Powers: demon dance, whirling defense

• Suggested Daily Power: steel unity strike

Resilient Battlemind

You use your psionic power to transform your body, altering it to take on the qualities of iron or stone, or to transform your weapon so it hits harder or bypasses your foes’ protections. Make Constitution your highest ability score, followed by Wisdom to reflect the strong mental control you have over your physical state. Charisma is a good third choice. For daily powers, consider those that alter your form and provide additional augmentations you can use for your other powers.

• Suggested Class Feature: Battle Resilience

• Suggested Feat: Deceptive Mind

• Suggested Skills: Arcana, Endurance, Intimidate

• Suggested At-Will Powers: iron fist, bull’s strength

• Suggested Daily Power: aspect of elevated harmony

Battlemind Overview

Playing a Battlemind

Half a dozen lightly armored figures lay scattered across the sun-baked grass, groaning as they cradled bruised limbs and ringing heads. Beneath the watchful gaze of Captain Halmont, half a dozen more battled back and forth across the field. Five of them gave thanks to Kord and Erathis that they were fighting with wooden practice blades. The sixth tried to smother her disappointment.

Imarra swept through her foes like a subversive thought, her feet scarcely seeming to touch the ground. Her wooden longsword cracked into one warrior’s ribs as she spun, but it was far more than the force of the blow that drove him backward. Imarra felt the power flowing through her limbs, riding the wake of her own elation. A feeling of ecstasy.

One of the guards raised his blade, but even before he could begin to bring it down, Imarra had stepped around him, her own sword grazing the small of his back. He shuddered at the touch—not of her blade, but of her mind. As he collapsed in a gibbering heap, two of the others lunged at her, but Imarra was already gone, seeming to vanish for an instant before she reappeared behind them. Two more quick spins, a leap that should have required wings, a thrust swifter than sight, and she stood alone on the field.

Casually dropping her battered blade atop the last fallen guard, she sauntered over to the table at the edge of the field, stopping to meet Captain Halmont’s dark stare. “My best soldier couldn’t have done that,” he murmured. Imarra stooped to retrieve her scabbard where it lay beside him. She grinned as she turned for the barracks.

“Actually, your best soldier just did.”

Other warriors train themselves to enter combat believing that death is the ultimate glory. They have no fear because they have nothing to lose. Not you. As a battlemind, you leap headfirst into battle without fear because you believe—because you know—that you’ve already won. All you need to do now is make the enemy understand it.

Combat flows in your soul with the pounding strength of the blood in your veins and the boldness at the center of your thought. You might be a professional soldier who discovered an untapped well of inner power, a brigand who learned you were destined for something greater, or a city guard whose oaths allowed you to tap into a force stronger than mere muscle when you heft your blade. Yet no matter the differences in your origins and goals, you recognize other battleminds as kindred spirits. For they, like you, literally live for battle—all of you recognizing that the only true strength comes from within.

Hearts and Minds

Battleminds have a reputation for an air of superiority. For many, it is a reputation that is well deserved. Battleminds carry themselves with a confidence earned from many victories, their skill and cunning winning the day over enemies of every stripe. But their fighting prowess is only part of the story.

Willpower is the core of every battlemind’s strength, but this willpower manifests in different ways. Some battleminds carry themselves with a distinct arrogance. Others center themselves in the quiet conviction that they are up to any challenge. The most reckless battleminds evince an inability to acknowledge defeat that borders on madness. Battleminds are hardened warriors, without a doubt. At the point at which a fighter or a barbarian’s endurance would begin to ebb, a battlemind’s psionic energy sees the fight through to the bitter end.

In thinking about your character’s personality, consider how your resolve manifests in your behavior and outlook. Are you an ego-driven warrior, gleefully testing your blade against any foe willing to stand against you? Are you a shining crusader, embracing any cause that feels right? And what happens when you realize that your cause is less just than you had first thought, or when you take on more foes than you can handle? Do you learn from your errors? Or do you mask your failure with greater bravado?

As important as your drive is to your character, you should never overlook your physical might. Many battleminds see their strength and durability as the channels through which their psionic energy flows. A battlemind’s body is a vessel for psionic power. All battleminds devote time and training to maintaining their physical edge, to ensure their bodies are up to the challenges they face.

The Art of War

A dedication to perfection is an integral part of your personality, and it carries over into all other aspects of your life. Although battleminds might see themselves as the pinnacle of the warrior’s art, however, few are self-centered enough to think of themselves as masters of every endeavor they attempt. Most battleminds are unlikely to claim expertise at architecture, lore, music, or similar pursuits—although some have no doubt that they could master any of these with enough time and attention.

It is typically only in combat that a battlemind’s drive and dedication manifest fully. Battleminds have a complete conviction of their martial superiority, trusting in their talents and tactics to defeat any challenge. If a battlemind suffers failure, it is never more than a momentary setback, easily overcome with renewed focus and more training.

What is it about combat that inspires nascent battleminds to develop their unique abilities? Why does your boldness not grant you the power to excel in other areas with as much ease? For the most part, few circumstances apart from combat inspire the rush of mental intensity that unlocks a battlemind’s latent psionic ability. Once that ability has been honed in the forge of battle, there is no turning back. The fury of combat becomes inextricably linked with your psionic powers, and so your mind continually shapes and hones those powers for the battlefield.

Your Life Before

A battlemind’s life is steeped in conflict. Even before their psionic talent manifests, most battleminds live a warrior’s life. You might have been a soldier or a guard in service to a noble or a temple. You might have been a gladiator or a common brawler. Your psionic power stayed hidden just beneath your conscious mind so that you could not exploit its strength.

Your potential need not have revealed itself in battle. Any physical exertion might have triggered your awakening, from the thrill of the hunt to exploring some unknown realm or ruin. Even simple burglary or a feat of athletics might have been the trigger that unlocked your power.

Some battleminds learn to harness their potential by thinking about or yearning for combat. You might have been a brilliant tactician or an advisor to a noble or a king, never picking up a sword until your power manifested and filled you with the hunger for glory. Alternatively, you might come from a background disconnected from the arts of war, even as you spent your life idolizing the legendary heroes of your people. A yearning to follow in the footsteps of a champion of your faith or country inspired you for many years, then finally showed you what you were capable of.

Roleplaying a Battlemind

With boldness as the driving force behind many of your powers, you might consider how that boldness defines your character’s state of mind. Between the extremes of simple self-confidence and towering arrogance lies the wider range of personalities that battleminds can adopt. Even if your skill and power do not manifest as ego, you are consistently first into battle, making sure that your enemies know what is about to befall them. You take on any challenge, never worrying about the outcome. Every victory is earned and deserved; every defeat is but a temporary setback.

In the end, however, even the most arrogant battlemind knows when to back down—particularly if doing so helps keep the party united. Your sense that you are destined for greater things means that you can be forceful without causing trouble, confident without bruising the feelings of your companions. Although battleminds have a reputation for recklessness, few are suicidally overconfident. Your belief in yourself and your abilities is the foundation of your strength, but you recognize that you fight with a purpose that cannot be served by your meaningless demise. Some foes have had longer to hone their abilities than you have. Some monsters are too powerful to be faced without the proper resources. Although you never abandon a fight, you acknowledge that some conflicts require a tactically sound retreat. Many of even the least egocentric battleminds are attention seekers. They place themselves in a leadership role, steering their companions toward situations in which their own abilities can prove useful. Be careful, though, not to steal attention from the other players around the table.

Portraying a glory-hog without actually becoming one takes a bit of effort. When you are pushing for something purely in character, make it clear to other players that this is the case. Keep a close eye on the line between in-character and out-of-character reactions. Make sure the other players know that you won’t take it personally when their characters don’t go along with your battlemind’s desires, and make it obvious that any objections you offer are solely on your character’s behalf.

In the end, the foundation of your battlemind’s leadership lies not only in demonstrating self-assurance in what you can do—it lies in fostering the same confidence in your allies. Take responsibility for your actions and attitudes, and use your power and insight to shepherd your companions to similar success. Boldness turns to rude, haughty, or arrogant behavior easily enough. Just reserve those traits for the creatures and characters you fight, not the people who fight beside you.

Discovering Your Power

If you’re starting a campaign at 1st level, or if you’re recasting an existing character by multiclassing into battlemind, think about playing through the discovery of your abilities, with the Dungeon Master’s permission. Many battleminds do not initially recognize that their newly discovered potential is psionic in nature. When these amazing powers first manifest, you might attribute their effects to physical prowess, divine intervention, or dumb luck.

Only gradually do you realize that these abilities are innate, recognizing the connection between your powers and your own strength of will. But a full understanding of the change being wrought within you takes time and self-reflection. By playing through this process, you can experience your character’s initial surprise and lack of understanding, followed by growing comprehension and a swelling of confidence as you accept the psionic power forged within your own mind.

Instinct and Intention

Your abilities developed more or less spontaneously, as has your fighting style. You might have had formal combat training before developing your psionic powers, but as a battlemind, your continued advancement is based more on instinct and experience than on discipline.

You are a great believer in natural talent. Formal instruction might improve the prowess of a great warrior, but it cannot create natural ability in one who lacks it. A character drawn instinctively to battle will always prove superior to one who takes up the sword by circumstance, not by choice.

This attitude sometimes puts you at odds with certain martial traditions—most notably with monks. The mindset of many monks is built around strict discipline and ordered instruction. You believe in an intuitive development that comes only by reacting to real combat as your instincts demand. Such differences of philosophy rarely extend to members of your own party, however. When battleminds and monks fight side by side, each focuses on demonstrating the virtue of his or her chosen path.

The Front Lines

As a battlemind, you are a defender first and foremost. You stand in the thick of the fight, absorbing punishment and dishing it out in equal measure. For some battleminds, this approach to combat is a deliberate choice. Such characters feel an obligation to protect their less robust (or, in the minds of the arrogant, less effective) companions. In contrast, many battleminds fall into the defender role almost by accident, by following their instincts and impulses. As a battlemind, you feel the burning need to be in the center of the action. You might charge ahead and draw enemy fire not from any sense of tactics, but because the enemy needs to know that you have no fear. By immersing yourself in the battle you crave, you show your superiority to a hated foe and give your companions a chance to fight with increased effectiveness behind you.

Aspects

Within the full range of powers available to battleminds, few are more indicative of your approach to combat than the aspects. When you assume an aspect, you fix an idealized state in your mind, using psionic energy to reshape your form to match that vision. The result is sometimes subtle, with only slight alterations to your physical or mental state. Other aspects are profound transformations into monstrous creatures that send your foes scurrying in terror.

Although any battlemind with the right mindset can adopt one or more aspects, not all do. Among those battleminds who use aspect powers, most focus on one or two aspects, allocating their additional resources to other areas that can strengthen their presence on the battlefield. Some battleminds reject aspects altogether, taking the fight to the enemy without falling back on “shapechanging trickery.”

These diverse attitudes toward aspect disciplines stem from a battlemind’s core identity. Like all battlemind powers, an aspect transformation results from a particular state of mind. As a result, the battlemind’s sense of self is critical to honing the psionic power needed to allow an aspect to transform body and mind.

Battleminds who adopt aspects choose aspect powers that speak to their own sense of who they are. A haughty battlemind who sees herself above her enemies might assume the aspect of elevated harmony, her idealized form made manifest by her mind. A silent brute of a battlemind might assume the aspect of living stone to reflect his hard personality and unwavering dedication. A battlemind who strives for perfection might find it easy to adopt a range of different forms, always seeking an ideal but never finding it.

These considerations have little mechanical effect on your power choices. Aspect powers are a useful touchstone for roleplaying, however. When picking aspect powers, think about what each says about your character and what insights it reveals into his or her personality.

Battleminds in the World

No members of any of the character classes are common in the world, but battleminds are particularly rare—or at least they seem to be. The trouble with identifying battleminds is that they are hard to distinguish from fighters and members of the other combat-focused classes. With the right set of disciplines, a battlemind might fight in a manner and style visually indistinguishable from that of a fighter or a paladin. Only those who become close to a battlemind learn to recognize the subtle signs of the character’s power.

Moreover, the number of battleminds—indeed the number of all characters with an aptitude for psionics—rises and falls in proportion to the severity of the Far Realm’s threat to the world. An imminent aberrant invasion might suddenly trigger the battlemind’s power and potential in knights of the realm, common thugs, and everyone in between. If the threat of the Far Realm ever ends, battleminds might even disappear from the world, vanishing into myth and legend.

Lore of the Mind-Fighters

Tales inscribed in ancient temples or on the oldest parchments tell of the first battleminds. These brave warriors harnessed their powerful will and psionic gifts to combat the horrors that spilled through breaches between this world and the Far Realm beyond. Fighting alone, these ancient guardians stood as a bulwark against the shadow cast across the mortal realm. In conjunction with the gods and their servants, they helped staunch the aberrant tide in those long-forgotten wars.

Through the ages, battleminds have come and gone. Each generation, some arise to combat a new threat, helping to contain the aberrant menace and safeguard the world from harm. The lack of common cause and custom between battleminds means that each such generation of new heroes knows little of the sacrifices or legends of those who came before them. What little information can be found is often apocryphal or misleading, mythologizing the deeds of only the brashest heroes. As a result, battleminds are forced to find their own way in the world, only occasionally discovering others who share their gift and the boldness that is their birthright.

Battleminds Today

Because of their individualistic nature and spontaneous development, battleminds are seldom organized into formal schools or open alliances. On occasion, small numbers of battleminds gather into mercenary companies or knightly orders. For the most part, though, a battlemind fights as an individual champion.

A battlemind might believe that his or her combat prowess is markedly superior to the skill or training of others. But even though battleminds forge their combat skills in their own unique fashion, they are quick to show their respect for the talents of other warriors. Fighters and paladins, rangers and wardens, barbarians and monks all fight with unique styles that a battlemind can learn from. As a result, most battleminds pay respectful attention to those who fight alongside them, watching their techniques to ferret out new maneuvers that might augment or perfect their own tactics.

To those battleminds who wholly embrace the internal discipline of their power, the formal approach to training favored by monks, psions, and other classes can be unsettling. In particular, the carefully honed maneuvers and otherworldly state of mind of the psion seem alien to many battleminds, who cannot dream of constraining their own power in such a formal fashion.

Only the most arrogant battleminds dismiss their more disciplined counterparts in the psionic arts without taking what they can from them. In the same way that battleminds can learn from other warriors’ fighting techniques, they also look to other psionic characters for the feats and other common ground they share. Although a battlemind’s disciplines are markedly different from those of a psion, the raw power of each is born of the same source. A battlemind’s relationship with his or her companions depends in part on the characters’ cultural and historical background, but all battleminds recognize their place and purpose within a larger group. A battlemind might be outspoken, brash, and supremely confident, but that confidence is backed up with unmatched bravery. Like their forebears, battleminds are the first into the breach, working to contain the enemy before it can wreak havoc in the world around them. A stalwart and driven warrior, a battlemind makes a powerful addition to any adventuring group.

Battlemind Lore

At the Vanguard

When advancing as a battlemind, consider choosing feats and items that enhance your ability to plant yourself in the center of combat—not because you’re a defender, but because that’s the way you like it. Feats that improve mobility, such as Powerful Charge or Fast Runner, have more of a battlemind flavor than feats such as Weapon Focus. Similarly, magic items that increase your speed or prevent you from being pinned down in combat are more thematically appropriate than items that boost your defenses. Battleminds are eager to hurl themselves into the thick of the fight, and your feat choices and magic item wish list can reflect this.

Battleminds and the Aberrant Menace

As detailed in Player’s Handbook 3, the prevalence of psionics in the world corresponds to the intensity of the Far Realm’s threat. Where breaches in reality allow the Far Realm’s alien nature to spill into the world, this nature corrupts and reforms mortal life in its own image. The natural world recoils from this contact, imbuing sentient beings with the ability to wield psionic energy. The way in which this history plays in your own character’s backstory is for you to decide.

In consultation with the Dungeon Master, you might see it as your character’s destiny to seek and destroy the aberrant threat, providing a thread that might run through the entire campaign. Alternatively, you might go your entire career without ever facing an aberrant creature in battle. Even a battlemind fully aware of the aberrant threat can choose to avoid the front lines of that conflict, focusing his or her achievements on weeding out corruption or shoring up the strength of a threatened world. After all, saving civilization from the aberrant menace does little good if the crumbling foundations of that civilization have already fallen.

Constitution for Attacks?

Battlemind attacks are based on Constitution for the same reasons that a paladin uses Charisma to smite his foes—both classes are built on a foundation of inner strength. When a battlemind attacks, he or she uses psionic energy to translate strength of body into aggressive force. The healthier and tougher your battlemind character, the more powerful your attacks. A battlemind shatters enemies through brute force guided by the power of the mind.

In game terms, this strength of self has the added bonus of allowing you to heal more quickly, maintain greater reserves of physical endurance, and soldier through nearly any ailment that might afflict you.

The Deathless Champion

Some battleminds believe that the psionic power from which their potent combat disciplines are derived is more than just an inanimate source of energy and strength. Legends tell that during the Dawn War, a powerful champion of the gods managed through sheer force of will to survive his own death. This champion, whose name has been lost to time, scattered his essence across the mortal world, where its shards nested in the souls of those potentially worthy of pursuing his example of bravery and greatness. By this act of immortal sacrifice, the first battleminds were granted their power.

Battleminds who subscribe to this legend believe that all members of the class carry within them a spark of this ancient champion. Such characters strive for personal perfection and glory in the name of a higher purpose, hoping that they might one day prove sufficiently worthy to serve as their lost progenitor’s true vessel. On this day, the Deathless Champion will manifest once more, reborn in the mind and body of his new host.

Finding Excuses

The innate confidence—some would say arrogance—central to a battlemind’s powers can make for memorable roleplaying. If your party is forced to retreat from a losing battle, or if you fall in combat and must be rescued by your allies, consider looking for excuses as to why the setback couldn’t possibly have been your fault. Point out circumstances in which the enemy clearly got lucky, when the terrain and the environment worked against you, or when your own allies dropped the ball with bad rolls or poor tactical choices.

This type of characterization is a fine line to walk. You want to make it clear that this is your character shoring up his or her own ego by making excuses to the other characters—not you criticizing your friends and fellow players for their luck or tactics. Likewise, make sure that you don’t take this approach too often or too severely. But when done well (especially in games that incorporate a certain amount of humor), this defensiveness can add to your roleplaying.

The Hidden Mind

Those versed in psionics lore sometimes speak of the Other, the Sleeper, or the Hidden Mind—a consciousness that dwells beneath all other sentient minds. Some scholarly psions believe the Hidden Mind is a collective consciousness—the amalgamation of all sentience in the world somehow developing an awareness of its own. In their view, the Hidden Mind is the source of all psionic power in the world. When a character wields that power, he or she draws directly from the Sleeper’s unseen knowledge. Given the wide range of ways that psionics can be employed, this notion is often dismissed as fancy. Still, more than a few battleminds and monks claim to experience memories that are not their own—memories of events they have never lived. If not originating within the Hidden Mind, then from where do such memories come?

The Iron Brigade

In the contemporary era, the wilderness between civilization’s last bastions is wild and dangerous. Only the greatest organizations and groups develop reputations that spread beyond their local environs. One such group is the Iron Brigade—a combat school and mercenary company known far and wide for the martial skill and tactical prowess of its members and students.

The instructors of the Iron Brigade travel throughout the former realms of Nerath, seeking out young warriors who show the potential for greatness. Would-be students must risk the dangers of the wilds, following the trail of rumor and reputation that leads to the Brigade’s Iron Hall in the city of Kaddastrei. There, they hope to be found worthy of admittance, and of learning the secrets of combat from the world’s greatest teachers.

Unknown to all except its leaders, the Iron Brigade has a secret and sinister agenda. Each of the masters and founders of the Brigade is secretly a battlemind, and all the organization’s efforts are geared toward locating other battleminds scattered across the world. The school’s reputation attracts warriors from all races and cultures, and its intense training and mercenary endeavors are designed to spark the appearance of battlemind powers within those who possess the latent talent.

The Iron Brigade’s leaders hope to one day control a force of battleminds larger than any previous conclave of these warriors by an order of magnitude. With this psionic army behind them, the masters of the Brigade will then send their full forces to rout lesser armies as they forge a psionic military dictatorship—a new empire to stand where Nerath fell.

The current high commander of the Iron Brigade is Mavthos Dorm, a human battlemind of high paragon level. He is the grandson of the Brigade’s founder, but neither he nor his inner circle understands that the real power in the organization belongs to the hybrid warlock/battlemind deva Parnyelle. Believing that her role in the Brigade’s schemes threatens to corrupt her into a rakshasa in her next life, Parnyelle uses her arcane and psionic power to wield subtle influence over Dorm and reshape the Brigade for her own purposes.

Established battlemind characters are unlikely to train with the Iron Brigade, since the order’s rank-and-file instructors remain unaware of its secret purpose. A new battlemind character roleplayed as being unaware of his or her psionic ability might, however, come to the attention of the order’s higher-level masters. Alternatively, rumors of the Brigade’s secret purpose could be the starting point for a series of adventures or an entire campaign.

Learning from Other Disciplines

Battleminds watch warriors of other classes, studying their techniques to hone new methods of taking the fight to their enemies. Although some battleminds consider their own techniques superior to those of other nonpsionic classes, few are so close-minded as to believe that they have nothing to learn from the example of others.

Using the game’s multiclassing or hybrid rules is the most common means for a battlemind to directly adopt the tactics and techniques of another class. But with the Dungeon Master’s approval, a character can take a more story-based approach.

Any class’s powers can be fine-tuned by adjusting their descriptive elements to mirror similar powers from other classes. As a battlemind, you might witness the success a fighter has using tide of iron. The battlemind power world-slipping advance has a similar feel. As a result, you might retrain for this power and incorporate some of the elements found in the fighter power—such as using a shield and pushing the target as part of the attack. You and the Dungeon Master can refine the power’s effects for when you use power points to augment the attack.

Lost Masters

To one degree or another, all psionic characters meld the intellectual and the physical on the battlefield. Although they are rare, certain individuals are said to be able to channel their will into noncombat endeavors through psionics, as well. Tales tell of legendary crafters who once forged weapons and armor of unsurpassed quality. Others are said to have created magic items without the use of rituals—or even without the intention of doing so. Works of art and performances by lost masters are said to have had a supernatural ability to move the viewer. Powers and abilities much like those of the psionic classes might well have played a part in the singular talents of such artisans. But in these dark and troubled times, art and craft have largely become secondary concerns next to the struggle for survival.

Methods of Defense

A battlemind wades steadily into the thick of the fray, turning aside attacks with heavy armor and shield, hacking through his or her foes with powerful weapon attacks.

Another battlemind fights like the wind in combat, moving so fast that no enemy can track her movements.

Yet another unleashes wild fury as he blinks in and out of existence, taunting his foes to attack if they can.

Each battlemind approaches combat from a different perspective. But all members of this class are united by their primary role as a defender—and by the three powers on which that role is based.

Battlemind’s demand allows you to mark enemies within 3 squares of you. Because it is a minor action, this power can be used in conjunction with a standard-action attack.

Moreover, your mark is hard for the foe to shed. It lasts until the end of the encounter or until you choose to mark a different enemy; even if you become dazed or stunned, your chosen opponent is hampered in its attempts to attack your allies.

Blurred step lets you keep the pressure on a marked foe by hindering its attempts to shift away from you. A marked enemy that shifts away from you in order to target one of your allies will find itself unable to escape you.

While you keep a marked enemy close with blurred step, mind spike becomes a potent power, compelling the foe to attack you or suffer a backlash from its own attack. This power is most effective against brutes, lurkers, and other creatures with high-damage single-target attacks.

The Power of the Mind

Psychic damage can be thought of as encompassing a range of damaging effects. Illusions that deal psychic damage work on the power of suggestion. By forcing the mind to believe that the body has been hurt, such powers make that damage real. This type of psychic damage can blister skin or break bones with ease.

For physical-style attacks (particularly powers that target a foe’s AC), psychic damage takes the form of pure pain—a suffering that has no physical cause but is no less real than the worst effect of any weapon attack. The stress of this agony wracks a foe’s body and mind, and can kill as effectively as any other damage type.

For many powers, psychic damage represents the wounding of the target’s sense of self. Memories grow blurred and untrustworthy, thoughts become jumbled, and the body stops responding properly to the will of the mind. Even its identity can be stripped away as its mind is temporarily but horrifically undone.

Psionics Without Psionics

You might find it compelling to play your battlemind character as if you have no idea what you can do or how this power has come to you. In fact, battleminds who acquire their techniques through trial and error might not even realize that their abilities are psionic in nature, at least initially. In many cases, you might be convinced that your disciplines are simply advanced martial exploits—the result of substantial training or latent skill. You might consider yourself a fighter, scoffing at the notion that you’ve somehow developed psionic powers. You might even take offense at the suggestion, with its implication that you got where you are by unexplained accident rather than raw talent and endless training.

No battlemind can maintain this point of view indefinitely, however. By the time you’re teleporting yourself or tossing foes around the battlefield when your allies hit them, it’s pretty clear that your disciplines are no longer obeying the laws of nature. But until then, this approach can give you an interesting hook on which to hang your roleplaying.

An Undisciplined Reputation

Battleminds and ardents are often lumped together as warriors driven by emotion and instinct. But every rule has its memorable exceptions. For every battlemind who epitomizes the brazen warrior, another is an enlightened combatant who takes on foes with reason and cunning. In some corner of the campaign world, battleminds might train in special schools in much the same way as other combat-focused classes. Likewise, holy orders of battleminds might follow a path reflecting that of the paladin or the avenger.

Battlemind Powers

Your powers are called disciplines; they combine your fighting ability with your mastery of psionic magic. You can plant images in a foe’s mind and use psionic power to lend unmatched speed and strength to your weapon blows.

The new powers presented in this chapter expand the available options for battlemind characters. Many reinforce themes expressed in the Harrier Battlemind build, but these powers are equally suitable for other battleminds.

Class Features

Each battlemind has the powers battlemind’s demand, blurred step, and mind spike. Your Psionic Study grants battle resilience, speed of thought, or (from Psionic Power) persistent harrier.

Level 1 At-Will Disciplines

Level 1 Daily Disciplines

Level 2 Utility Disciplines

Level 3 At-Will Disciplines

Level 5 Daily Disciplines

Level 6 Utility Disciplines

Level 7 At-Will Disciplines

Level 9 Daily Disciplines

Level 10 Utility Disciplines

Level 13 At-Will Disciplines

Level 15 Daily Disciplines

Level 16 Utility Disciplines

Level 17 At-Will Disciplines

Level 19 Daily Disciplines

Level 22 Utility Disciplines

Level 23 At-Will Disciplines

Level 25 Daily Disciplines

Level 27 At-Will Disciplines

Level 29 Daily Disciplines

Paragon Paths

At 11th level a battlemind may take one of these paragon paths. Each grants path features at 11th and 16th levels plus the encounter, utility, and daily disciplines shown.

Blackstone Guardian

“I have peered into the darkness clouding my soul, and it has found me worthy.”

Strange dreams are common among those who wield psionics. Your dreams, however, are different. You dream of a black monolith set within a cavern rimed with ice. This vision has haunted you for as long as you can remember, but until now, you have struggled in vain to discover its meaning.

The blackstone monolith has chosen you as its champion. In another age, noble champions of a distant land fought to contain a breach to the Far Realm. They sealed the rift with powerful psionic wards, behind elemental stone imbued with their own consciousness. Each generation, the wards they forged must be resealed by new champions. You are bound to the fate of the guardians you follow.

Blackstone Guardian Path Features

Blackstone Guardian Disciplines

Eternal Blade

“You face not only myself, but seven generations of the world’s finest warriors.”

The Order of the Eternal Blade is a secretive group, but you sought out its masters and gained entry.

Whatever drove you to the order, you knew you made the right choice when the masters first instructed you. On that day, you first learned to communicate with your blade guide, the psychic resonance of generations of eternal blades that came before you.

The order’s first members foresaw the emergence of psionic magic. When those members died, they cast their minds forward in time in search of worthy heirs to their cause. You are one such heir. Your blade guide lingers near you, teaching you the fighting arts of the eternal blades. Even if you fall in battle, your experience shall not be lost, for you too shall cast your mind forward in search of a new champion to guide.

Eternal Blade Path Features

Eternal Blade Disciplines

Iron Guardian

“You’re going to have to hit me a lot harder if you want to get my full attention.”

The mind is more powerful than the body, and none demonstrate this principle better than you. As an iron guardian, you have learned to channel psionic energy into your flesh and bones. With a thought, your skin becomes as hard as iron and your bones become as unbreakable as stone. In battle you’re a juggernaut, capable of withstanding the fiercest attacks and replying with shattering strikes of your own.

Your unmatched endurance allows you to stand at the forefront of any battle. You exult in the look of despair that crosses your enemy’s face as blade, arrow, and claw rebound harmlessly off you. With this confidence, you move to the center of any fight, daring your foes to match themselves against you.

Iron Guardian Path Features

Iron Guardian Disciplines

Quicksilver Demon

“Catch me if you dare!”

Your mind rejects all notions of what is possible and impossible on the battlefield. Psionic energy flows through you, imbuing you with an irrepressible need to move. You flow around your enemies, blurring past them before they can land a blow. As you move, your attacks slip through your enemies’ defenses with deadly effect. You goad a foe into following you, then wrack its mind and body as it gives futile chase.

You are quicksilver in living form, moving with such speed and grace that your enemies have no hope of pinning you down. Whether you fight alone or in the company of others who also race through the heat of battle, your enemies name you the quicksilver demon, never knowing where you will strike next.

Quicksilver Demon Path Features

Quicksilver Demon Disciplines

Steel Ego

“This contest can end only in your defeat.”

Confidence is why you always win. Even when you are faced with a setback, your resolve never wavers, and you’re certain you will overcome adversity no matter how severe. Some people mistake your confidence for arrogance or foolishness, but you prove the truth of your words time and again, showing your detractors your might.

You back up your confidence with your psionic mastery, wrapping your soul, body, and mind in a barrier of willpower to deflect any attack you face, whether it strikes your body or mind. With this unwavering resolve, you can dismiss a foe’s strikes, standing undaunted before its best efforts to hurt you. And with this security, you project your personality onto those you fight, flooding their minds with the imminence of their defeat.

Steel Ego Path Features

Steel Ego Disciplines

Storm Disciple

“I am the power of the never-ending tempest that crosses all planes. Do you think you can stop me?”

Your philosophy of life and battle is shaped by your belief in the infinite storm. In every corner of the world and every part of the planes, order and chaos contend for domination. Violent storms of elemental fury are the most potent sign of this struggle. At no time is all the cosmos ever at peace. Through study and diligence, you draw power from these infinite and endless storms, channeling their destructive fury. You represent the infinite storm in your travels, welcoming the violence that is a constant part of life. Like the power of the storm, you are everywhere.

Storm Disciple Path Features

Storm Disciple Disciplines

Talaric Ironjack

“My mind is awakened to a purpose greater than my own life.”

Since the Talaric Codex was first compiled to record the fighting techniques used against the horrors of the Far Realm, fragments from that lost tome have been scattered far and wide. Although the warrior society that conceived the codex is no more, their workings live on in the champions who have stumbled across these ancient writings and mastered their secrets.

During your travels, you have come across fragments of the lost codex. The full meaning of these scraps of lore escaped you at first. In time, however, you put the pieces together to master the lessons they contained. Although others might draw different conclusions, you have learned that life is an essential struggle between the natural world and the Far Realm. Whenever the madness of the Outside pushes into ordered reality, the natural world responds with violence. With your unique talents, you have come to embody the world’s wrath.

From the teachings of the Talaric Codex, you turn your mind’s eye inward to search out flaws and vulnerabilities. When you discover a gap in your defenses, you allocate your psionic resources to reinforce it against attack. Your extensive study also rewards you with increased clarity and focus in combat, allowing you to devastate your foes. By neutralizing opponents when they strike, you endure past the point when other warriors would fall.

Talaric Ironjack Path Features

Talaric Ironjack Disciplines

Unbound Nomad

“I sail the seas of possibility, bound for a fate I choose.”

Hidden pathways and secret portals riddle the world and the planes. You possess the keen eye and open mind that let you pick out these shortcuts and exploit them. Your understanding of planar mechanics might be instinctive, originating in an unusual knack for sensing and locating such anomalies. It might be the result of extensive training, in which you learned from a master unbound nomad how to circumvent the bounds of reality. However you came by your knowledge, you can travel unseen byways with ease.

As an unbound nomad, you are rarely in one place for long. You use your talent to slip through the cracks in the world around you, then reappear wherever you want. You can dodge through new gateways to escape a persistent enemy, or force your foes into the unseen spaces between the planes. Your unpredictability leaves your enemies confused, chasing after phantoms as you take charge of the battlefield around them.

Unbound Nomad Path Features

Unbound Nomad Disciplines

Zephyr Blade

“Can you stop the wind? Can you grasp it in your hands? If not, you stand no chance of stopping me.”

Without formal training, you learned your techniques in a haphazard fashion, unlocking your potential with each contest, awakening new techniques as you blended psionic power with your weapon strikes. At some point during your battles, you began to hear a faint wailing—subtle, quiet, but definitely present. Now when you fight, the breeze whips up into a storm, lending new strength to your attacks.

What you hear are psionic winds swirling around you. Your crude methods cause psionic power to bleed from you. Instead of dissipating, it swirls, blowing around you, unseen and unnoticed by any but you and the enemies who stand against you. When you reclaim this power, your body undergoes a strange transformation, becoming disjoined from reality for a moment or two before you snap back into place.

The more you work with this loosed psionic power, the more ephemeral you become. You can stir up the power to rip through your enemies’ minds, or you can draw it into yourself to vanish and reappear where least expected.

Zephyr Blade Path Features

Zephyr Blade Disciplines

Battlemind (PHB3 + Psionic Power) —