Psion

Class Traits

Psions are the quintessential manipulators of psionic power. Psions unleash the potential locked within every conscious mind, move objects with just a thought, and assume command of even the least desire of their foes. Psions make manifest their secret wishes when others can only dream.

You know the mental pathways that lead to amazing edifices of altered reality. You could be a brash human youth flush with your mental ability’s first flowering, a tattooed cenobite enrolled in a secret psionic academy, a fey enchanter using ancient techniques to beguile your foes, or perhaps a specially trained inquisitor who has learned one secret too many.

A flare of mental energy warms you, the thoughts of friends and foes glitter like stars all about you, and your thoughts themselves are weapons half sheathed. If a god can reshape the world and you can enthrall a god, what does that make you?

“Your nightmares serve at my command, and nothing can save you now.”

THE POWER of the mind is yours to do with what you will. You can assume control of another creature, move objects and monsters with the merest thought, or reshape the matter of the material world into more useful forms. Although you recognize that psionic power can be focused and honed in many ways, your specialized training and your respect for the magic of the mind give you insights that few other psionic characters can match.

Your power is a perfect combination of natural talent and disciplined training. You might have always had a knack for piercing the veil of the material world with your mind. As a child, perhaps you caught faint fragments of the thoughts of those around you, or learned to nudge small objects by concentration alone. But it is only with the dedicated training that is your life’s work that you discover the full extent of your gifts.

Class Features

Psions have the following class features.

Discipline Focus

Psions focus their studies and meditations toward perfecting or understanding a particular concept or manifestation of psionic power. Choose one of these options. Your choice represents the focus of your studies.

Shaper Focus is a Discipline Focus option from Psionic Power; when you choose your Discipline Focus, you can choose Shaper Focus instead of another option, such as the ones in Player’s Handbook 3.

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 2 additional power points at 3rd and 7th level, 1 additional power point at 13th level, and 2 additional power points at 17th, 21st, 23rd, and 27th level. If you gain power points from another source (such as your paragon path), add them to your power point total. You can use your power points to augment any augmentable power you have, regardless of how you gained the power.

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).

Ritual Casting

You gain the Ritual Caster feat as a bonus feat, allowing you to use magical rituals (see Chapter 10 of the Player’s Handbook). You own a ritual book. Choose either Sending or Tenser’s Floating Disk. Your book contains that ritual, which you can use without expending components once per day. It also contains another 1st-level ritual of your choice.

Implements

Psions employ orbs and staffs to focus their psionic energy into their powers. When you wield a magic orb or staff, you can add its enhancement bonus to the attack rolls and the damage rolls of psion powers and psion paragon path powers that have the implement keyword. Without an implement, you can still use these powers.

Psion Overview

Creating a Psion

All psions rely on Intelligence. Psions also benefit from a high Charisma or Wisdom, depending on which expression of the class they favor. Psions often choose feats, skills, and powers to complement the ability score related to their choice of focus.

The shaper psion joins the psion build options presented in Player’s Handbook 3. This section also includes a new discipline focus geared toward shaper characters.

Shaper Psion

Psionic energy is a boundless sea of potential, limited only by the imagination. Objects that exist nowhere but in your mind can be made real with enough cre ativity and focus—whether born of fanciful dreams or mind-blasting nightmares.

You see the world as a canvas awaiting your mental brush, ready to be painted with the beauty and the terror of the mind. These creations live only as long as you bend your mind to keeping them real. The world is your canvas, and you are the artist of reality itself.

The world is yours to shape as you desire. You channel the latent psionic energy in your environment, molding it to serve your needs. You shape psionic power to unleash lethal attacks or conjure useful objects from your own mind. With the right focus and power, you can even create creatures that do your bidding.

Summoned creatures are the foundation of your shaper psion tactics. Such creatures are created only through your daily disciplines. Call on them spar ingly, and choose at-will and encounter disciplines that support this theme.

As it does for all psions, Intelligence powers your attacks, so it should be your highest ability score. Charisma is an important secondary ability for a shaper, since it helps you control or empower your creations. Since summoned creatures depend on your hit points, you should also keep your Constitution high. Conjuration and summoning powers allow you to make the most of your secondary role as leader.

• Suggested Class Feature: Shaper Focus*

• Suggested Feat: Bulwarked Construction*

• Suggested Skills: Arcana, Bluff, Dungeoneering, Perception

• Suggested At-Will Powers:force shard, static mote

• Suggested Daily Power: summon thought servant*

**New option presented in Psionic Power.*

Telekinetic Psion

As a telekinetic psion, you prefer to use mental force on creatures and objects. You choose powers that let you manipulate foes by flinging them around the battlefield or by binding them in place, as well as powers that create defensive barriers. Intelligence is the key ability for your attacks, so make it your highest score. Choose Wisdom as your next-highest score to increase the effects of your telekinetic abilities. Select powers that allow you to reorder the battlefield and that make the best use of your high Intelligence and Wisdom scores.

• Suggested Class Feature: Telekinesis Focus

• Suggested Feat: Controlling Advantage

• Suggested Skills: Arcana, Dungeoneering, Insight, Perception

• Suggested At-Will Powers: kinetic trawl, force punch

• Suggested Daily Power: telekinetic anchor

Telepathic Psion

As a telepathic psion, you focus on influencing your enemies’ minds. You choose powers that persuade foes to mistake friend for foe, that crush minds in your psychic grip, and that take control of an enemy’s will. Your attack powers use Intelligence; make it your highest ability score. Powers tailored for your build often use Charisma, so it should be your second-best score. Select powers that help you control your enemies and make the best use of your high Intelligence and Charisma scores.

• Suggested Class Feature: Telepathy Focus

• Suggested Feat: Precise Mind

• Suggested Skills: Arcana, Bluff, Diplomacy, Insight

• Suggested At-Will Powers: memory hole, mind thrust

• Suggested Daily Power: mental trauma

Playing a Psion

Sweat on his brow, hands tight on his sword, Gorna watched the shambling mass of creatures slouch forth from the darkness. Gaping mouths shrieked in eyeless faces, insectoid legs scuttling across unyielding rock. A dozen, a score, and still they kept coming.

At the head of the throng stood the creature they had come to find, the creature they had foolishly thought they could kill. Its writhing tentacles lashed the air as it raised its clawed hands, and in their minds, the illithid laughed. Itsfirst assault had taken out Rathelle, their best hope of countering the mindflayer’s power. She lay at itsfret now in a crumpled heap, no sign of l!fe in her eyes—but even !fGorna had wanted to leave her behind, they were sur rounded. There was nowhere to run.

As the aberrant horrors surged forward, Gorna and the others cast silent prayers to any gods they knew. They hoped at least that death might come cleanly, quickly. Then, swft as thought, the mindflayer’s armsfril. Its servants stopped, their inhuman eyes staring questioningly at their master. The creature turned as !fin thought, the air rippling around it. And then the power of the illithid’s mind blasted outward, sweeping over its own allies and render ing them senseless. The mindflayer stood rigid, its back to itsfoes.

“Hurry,” Rathelle whispered from the ground where she lay, face set in concentration as she struggled to speak. “I can’t control it for long…” Nothing is more potent than the mind. Arcane magic, primal spirits, even the divine power of the gods themselves—the potential of sentient thought is greater than all these things. It is a simple truth, but one that few have grasped. You are one of those few. You are a psion, devoting yourself to utter mastery of your thoughts and dreams, hopes and fears, identity and potential. Through the mastery of your mind, you master the world.

Although the rigorous path of the psion most commonly appeals to those who seek order and answers in their lives, your motivations are entirely your own. Did you start down this path for the knowledge and power it would bring? Did you have a natural talent that you could never fully master until you stumbled on the leg ends and teachings of the psions who came before you? Were you training your mind for some other purpose, only to discover that your efforts tapped a wellspring of power you never knew you possessed?

Intellectual Exercise

As a psion, your thoughts control your environment— but only as well as you control your thoughts. Your life is centered on intellect and understanding, logic and experimentation. The stronger your mind, the more controlled your thoughts. The broader your imagination and the narrower your focus, the greater the power you can project. Academic psions devote themselves to research and study; adventuring psions engage in various forms of meditation as a means of maintaining their intellectual edge.

Strict, methodical process is your preferred way of reaching your decisions and accomplishing your goals. You are likely drawn to rigid studies such as mathematics or alchemy. It is important for you to understand and master every step of any given task— be it translating an ancient codex, brewing a potion, developing a new discipline, or cooking a stew. For a psion, the process is just as important as the result.

Schools and Studies

The methodical attitudes at the heart of a psion’s technique lend themselves to formal study. Psions were the first psionic class to form scholastic tradi tions, and the first to develop unifying theories of psionic energy. A psionics college is not necessarily a specific location. It’s a combination of philosophy and methods of study, a means of teaching more than a place of teaching.

The various psion builds and focuses are an exten sion of these scholarly traditions. Are you a telepath, a telekinetic, or a shaper? Do you prefer orbs and crystals, or would you rather wield a staff? Do you practice ritual magic or alchemy? Which of the vari ous psionics origin theories do you support? These traits were likely shaped by the psionics college that instructed you.

The Life of the Mind

You recognize that the mind, composed in equal part of thought, memory, and emotion, is the most vital aspect of the self. The body is a vessel, a tool. Some psions discount the existence of the soul, seeing it as an aggregate of memories and personality viewed through the lens of worship. Most psions believe that the soul represents the catalyst that allows the intellect to burn bright. It is the mind that ultimately provides awareness, memory, and personality.

Your Life Before

Some individuals are drawn to the art of the psion because it fits their personality, aptitudes, and ambitions. You might have heard tales of the psion colleges while engaged in other scholarly pursuits and become intrigued by this mysterious path. You might have been actively learning the techniques of wizardry or some other class, discovering in the process that you carried the rare psionics potential within you.

You might have recognized that potential early on, seeking psion instruction to help you deal with it rather than following the largely self-taught path of the ardent. If you hail from a community in which psionics is viewed with suspicion or superstition, you might have thought you were learning arcane magic only to discover that your master was preparing you in secret for another path.

Regardless of your background, the one thing you almost certainly had in common with other psions even before you began your instruction is a strong sense of order and logic. Without such a mind set, few can master the rigid disciplines of the psion class.

Roleplaying a Psion

You see the world through a lens of order, but this does not imply any particular personality or align ment. Rather, you look for patterns in all things, the connections between events.

Whether it’s the study of psion disciplines or alchemy, rural economics or astrology, mathematics or the progression of history and culture, you need to comprehend how each step leads to the step that follows. You work constantly to expand your knowl edge of a wide variety of subjects, using what you’ve learned to anticipate what comes next.

You believe that all problems can be solved through the proper application of logical reasoning and the knowledge of what’s come before. You view people who act wholly on impulse to be irrational. Instinct, however, is another type of knowledge to you, and you respect those who properly respond to it. If you are like most psions, you work hard not to act on emotion. Though you have no need to sup press or conceal your emotional side, you make every effort not to let emotions influence your choices and decisions. Even when emotion does overtake you, you remain logical and methodical about how you pursue its goals. You are just as likely as any other character to seek vengeance against a foe that threat ens or harms your loved ones, but you are far more brutally thorough in planning out and executing that retribution.

The best psions use their powers to protect others. They share their knowledge, believing that with their power comes an obligation to use it wisely. Darker psions lose themselves in that power. They begin to see other sentients as puppets to be manipulated. To such psions, the strong are entitled—even obligated— to dominate the weak. Such a path is an easy one to follow without meaning to, and underlying all your training is the knowledge that you must tread care fully as your power grows.

Manifestation

The corona of power marks an ardent, just as a monk is identifiable by his or her unique combat tactics. But no single sign accompanies the manifestation of a psion’s disciplines. When manifesting a discipline, a psion’s eyes might blaze with silver or violet light. A discipline might be accompanied by a faint chiming or unintelligible whispers heard only in the minds of its target. In some cases, a psion’s power manifests as sensation fed directly into the mind.

Decide what form your own manifestations might take, and whether they are consistent or vary from power to power. For example, you might decide that powers dealing the most potent damage are accompa nied by a flare of light in your eyes, and that a charm is felt in its target’s mind as a wave of hazy memories. The average commoner sees no functional differ ence between a psion and a wizard. Those who do recognize the obvious difference in traditions and trappings between the two classes also typically know of the psion’s proficiency at controlling the minds of others. As a result, among the common folk who do distinguish between the two classes, psions are often viewed with more suspicion.

Psions in the World

Among scholars and adventurers, psions are well known and treated with an equal mix of respect and wariness. As a psion, you wield some of the most overtly impressive psionic powers, even if not necessarily the most powerful. You are highly knowledgeable, possessing methods of research and discovery that even other spelicasters lack. And most importantly for some, your numbers are growing.

The Birth of Understanding

Psions cannot claim the earliest formal psionics organizations, a distinction that belongs to the oldest monastic traditions. But those early traditions tended to be religious or spiritual in nature, leaving psions to form the first specifically psionics-focused orders.

Psionic power was poorly understood in the first generations following the Dawn War, and only rarely recognized as a form of power unto itself. The formal studies that would eventually grow into the psion class and its colleges are thought to have originated with a priestess of Ioun named Pharaelis.

Although she was not the first to study the pecu liar energy that empowered the earliest psionic characters, Pharaelis was one of the first to under take a significant and methodical analysis of it. Even though they recognized that psionic energy was dis tinct from divine magic, Pharaelis and her students took it on faith that these powers had their origins with Ioun and other gods of knowledge and the mind. Over the course of her studies, Pharaelis developed psionic ability of her own, though clerical magic remained her life’s work and focus. After her death, the acolytes who carried on her studies founded the earliest of the formal psion colleges.

Mind over Magic

The spread of psions was rapid at first, as those who demonstrated a natural talent for psionics found a formal means of channeling that power. But with that rise came unrest. The widespread clerical temples and established schools of wizardry did not care for this new challenge to their power. In many cases, those organizations sought to maintain the study of psionic power as a subset of the arcane or the divine. On the fringes of civilization, psions often failed to gain a foothold, or had to teach and learn their disci plines in secret.

In the dark ages between the earliest empires, psions had greater success. The common folk gave fealty to anyone who could protect them from the hor rors of those terrible times, or who could teach them to protect themselves. When later empires formed, established psion colleges and cabals were already in place, distinct from the divine and arcane factions that had fallen and risen again alongside them. A significant development in the psion tradition came in the tiefling empire of Bael Turath. Seeking advantage in its war against Arkhosia’s dragonborn, the empire encouraged psionics study among its people. Arkhosia, in turn, countered with new psion ics traditions of its own. Psions never became a major factor in that war, since both sides already fielded potent magic, but the open acceptance of psionics survived and flourished after both empires’ fall.

Psions Today

Just as in previous ages of darkness, the number of psions has increased since the fall of Nerath. As the influence of the Far Realm presses more heavily against the threshold of reality, psionics grows more pervasive throughout the world. Even in areas pressed by less sinister threats, the common folk typically welcome wanderers possessed of strange powers—and hope desperately that those powers can protect them.

The spread of the adventuring psion is a relatively recent phenomenon. For most of the class’s his tory, psions have remained largely devoted to study, research, and experimentation. They worked alone or gathered in colleges and cabals, and if they engaged in battle, it was in defense of their communities.

Although scholarly psions still outnumber adventur ers, a growing number choose the explorer’s life, braving the hazards of the wild alongside members of other heroic classes.

Some adventuring psions seek to counter the growing aberrant threat, or to push back against the more general darkness that threatens to overwhelm the scattered motes of civilization. Others hold the purely personal goals of fortune, glory, and power. Still others adventure as scholars, taking to the field in order to test and research their theories regarding the origin, nature, and purpose of psionics.

Psions get along well with other studious charac ters, including wizards, clerics, warlocks, and bards. Indeed, though a small number of wizard schools and psionics colleges still view one another as rivals, many work together, pooling their substantial knowl edge for the benefit of both.

The most academic of psions sometimes take a less than reverential view of other psionic characters. In the eyes of such elitists, the members of the other psionic classes are mere dabblers in psionic power, forever squandering their true potential. Adventuring psions see things differently. Although only monks share a dedication and a focus with which psions can easily identify, ardents and battleminds are equally well respected for their results. Some psions even maintain a secret envy of battlemind and ardent characters, recognizing that their emotional and instinctive approaches to psionics represent aspects of that power outside a psion’s control.

Psion Lore

Evils Most Ancient

recounted liii the oldest legends the Realm first breached the cosmos in the dark days of the Dawn War.

Pelor, Ioun, and agod whose.naméi now lost.we responsible for fIrst finding then sundering the Living Gate that once barred the Far Realm from the Astral Sea Sihce,tIiattimXhe influence of the Far Realm hs.4- - ‘..‘. i• •J• steadily iincreased rising anl,falling inlong cycles that hae begu9 to peak5aain during,the’currentgei The ñ örthtiskno.L.,nof.the’ Far,Real’.rêlation ship to the wrld, the becomes., Adventurers who,iave.dclyed,4eçp into..e Underdark and exloied the shores ’of its bla&and sunless seas claim to have found.évidênce that the aboleths were established in that realm since long before he Dawn War’s end. A small number of radical sages main tain that these horrors might actually have dwelled within the world from the moment of creation.

Such scholars question the widely held view that the world was shaped from raw nothingness, speculating that something must already have fexisted within the unformed stuff that was pushed aside to make room for the creations of the gods and primordials. For these scholars, the Far Realm’s pressure on the mortal world might not be a case of an alien madness seeking to invade and destroy a new realm. Rather, the creatures of the Far Realm might be seeking to take their old world back.

Faith and Reason, Mind and Soul

The dividing line between the mind and the so I ta -. is nothing D 1lilIr3 energy Iackingejjx part of ource of vigorous debate within different cabaIscoIleges, - creature’s personality or memories For them, ghosts an and psionics orders Among most folk, the soul is thougit other incorjoreal uidead consist of1inot’only the soul but as the sourc of what make; a personn individuaP ‘offramnts of the mind as well—, fr,,.-+-•-,.- ?W–. —.: Although certain aspects ofspersonalityaresmodlfiedby’ -• - A radical fewipsionics userst(most1ofwhom are dedi—r- -t memory andexperience, according-tothis.behef;the soul - cated academic psions).deny the. existence:of. the soul •‘-‘ • ••.•‘ • - - ——‘ - :4 -. – c-’-’- - - -. stands átevery sentient creature’s core The essential entirely They maintain that the mind is the center of nátue of-a!l indiid’uals—good or evil; kind or cruel– mortality and an entity unto itself, pointing to phenon resides in the spark ofdivinity that grants them life. When ena such as the Speak with Dead ritual as proof that a mortal dies, the soul retains this essence as it travels memory and sensation endure within a body even after to the domain of the Raven Queen, and on to whatever the so-called spirit has supposedly fled. Such psionics lies beyond. users consider the traditional beliefs of th mortal races An opposing belief maintains that the soul is the energy to be superstitious nonsense—the fears of folk incapable that powers life, and that all personality comes from the of understanding the mind. Some even blame the gods mind—each person’s unique combination of thoughts, themselves for such beliefs, accusing the deities of inventmemories, and emotions. Psionics users who adhere to ing the mythology of souls as a means of keeping mortals this philosophy believe that the soul that remains after beholden to them.

The Fey Perspective

Among the fey that dwell in th mortal world psi9nics isnöst often treated as just another form of spelkist iig The degree to which psionic power overlaps vith ’traditional fey:abilitiessuch ascharrns and illusions’is seen as simle hppenstance Elves eldrin and othe worldly creaturesthat have co’nnections to1the Feywild are no more or less likely to takeup the psi6ni arts than creaturesofanyotheriace… _’?

Creaturs that dwell deep in the Feywild hovever often viw psionics with a combination of resentment and suspicion Although they have no objection to mortals gaining mastery of fey magic by way of warlock pacts andsimilar traditions. many.fey see the growth of psionicsin the w rid as anattempt by the nonfey races to steal their power.

Some mortal scholars view the overlap from the other direction; Psionic energy is said by some to have existed in potential in the mortal realm since the beginning of time, even though it did not fully manifest until the threat of the Far Realm provided the necessary catalyst.

Such sages believe that planar echoes of that potential were what first granted the creatures of the Feywild their abilities. Since all elements of the natural world are exag gerated in the Feywild, the fey were able to tap into this potential power earlier and more innately than were the mortal races.

Some fey take severe umbrage at the notion that their innate inabilities were somehow handed down from the mortal world. Such creatures have been known to attack scholars and psionic characters who espouse this belief too vocally.

The Phrenic Planes

Many psionics scholars believe that psionic eneigy coms purest and most xaggerated form thei must be another from other planes—most commonly the Far Realm or the r source of more orderly thought in contrast to that madness Plane of Dreams Such scholars identd these as the phrenic This would be a realm of pure reason—of intellect nd logic plas (or planes of pure thought)jist as the Feywild the and undersi1ding itterl unmarred by the confrision f Shad6vefell añdthewôrld are th4lànes’of.mátter.-.. emotions.ltis from ’this realm that Thegifts of rason and [ke7all knoledgeaie sages 5ponics scholrs unter udgment come mixing withhe influence of tlte Fa1 ReIi stand that the Plane of Dreams isborn of the mind,of in thre Plane of Dreams, and in turn podiicing the sntient sentient creatures in the mortal realm—a kind of fantastic mind as it is known in the mortal world counterpart to the world Phrenic scholars, however, break A small number of psions and scholars even claim to with tradition by naming the Far Realm as a place not outhave communed with creatures from this plane of perfect side the cosmos but within it—a twisted reflection of the reason. Because such creatures are entities of pure thought, Plane of Dreams, as the Shadowfell is a dark reflection of according to these claims, the mortal mind is incapable of the natural world. As denizens of a plane of madness, the comprehending or observing their true form As a result, aberrant creatures of the Far Realm are nightmares given these alien entities are said to interact with mortals in the physical form. form of hovenng crystals of perfectgeometric shapes (cubes, Philosophers who take this view believe that just as tetrahedrons, spheres, and so forth). Obscure legends speak there exist two echo planes of the mortal world in the form of an order of psions dedicated to conjuring creatures of of the Shadowfell and the Feywild, there must be two echo pure reason within construct bodies. These hybrids were planes of the Plane of Dreams. Thus, if the Far Realm repsaid to appear as clockwork geometric figures of bizarre resents madness and uncontrolled emotion distilled to its countenance—pure logic and order given physical form.

Psion Powers

Your psion powers are called disciplines. You tap into your mental reservoir to affect the world around you and your enemies’ perception of it.

The powers presented in this section offer new options for psion characters. Many of these new powers are particularly useful for shapers, though psions of any build can benefit from them.

Class Features

Each psion has two encounter powers granted by the Discipline Focus class feature. A telepathic psion has distract and send thoughts. A telekinetic psion has far hand and forceful push. A shaper psion (from Psionic Power) has minor creation and shaped consciousness.

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

Alienist

“The power the Far Realm offrrs is worth any risk to my sanity.”

Some describe you as reckless. Others call you cor rupted, claiming that your work puts all the world at risk. The Far Realm is a dangerous place, to be sure, filled with horrors beyond imagining. But the power to be found there is too tempting to ignore.

Alienist Path Features

• 2 The last creature you attacked can teleport 5 squares as a free action.

• 3 If you are conscious, you teleport 5 squares. When you do, you gain a +4 bonus to all defenses until the end of your next turn.

• 4 You gain 20 temporary hit points.

Alienist Disciplines

Anathema

“Why create when destruction is so much more entertaining?”

Others of your kind shape reality as a potter works clay, but creating and reforming your environment has little appeal to you. Instead, your knowledge of the underlying patterns in the structure of the objects and creatures that make up the world around you that allows you to test and sunder that structure.

The raw stuff of life and matter are yours to toy with. Your power comes at a price, however. With each bond you break, the structure of reality is weakened to some small degree. Your work is minor compared to the ravages of time and the power of gods, immortals, and the Far Realm. But all things are connected, and your power might be the catalyst that unleashes destruction on the world.

Anathema Path Features

Anathema Disciplines

Cerulean Adept

“The walls of the world are thinner than most suspect. Demons and undead are bad enough, but things far worse seek to break through and feast on reality. I won’t allow it.”

An order of protectors called the Keepers of the Cerulean Sign formed long ago to face the threat of the Far Realm’s collision with reality. The keepers achieved a great victory and fenced out an invading sovereignty of madness behind potent seals. But as often happens, without an imminent threat to face, the protectors slowly faded from history, and their most potent weapons, artifacts known as the Seven Cerulean Seals, were lost or destroyed.

But the Far Realm remains. Its presence is a barb in reality’s side. Some say psionic power itself is the world’s answer to the Far Realm. Just as a body unconsciously fights off sickness, the universe prepares for some future battle by sowing psionic potential among its denizens.

Your psionic ability alerted you to the growing aberrant threat at a young age. Despite being a psionic weapon against aberrant spawn, you sought out even more potent weapons. While in the depths of a psionic trance, you glimpsed the original Cerulean Seals. There is little hope of recovering them, but you formed an image of them in your mind and created a copy. Like one of the seals, your copy—a Cerulean Sign—consists of a stylized white tree on a sky-blue background. You have taken up the sign and pledged yourself to the world’s defense.

Cerulean Adept Path Features

Cerulean Adept Disciplines

Dreamwalker

“When I dream, I give a whole new meaning to the concept of sleepwalking.”

Psions who devote their full attention to lucid dreaming can fashion themselves a dream form capable of acting in the waking world, even while the psion remains conscious.

Dreamwalker Path Features

Dreamwalker Disciplines

Firestarter

“By the power of my mind, you will burn…

The elemental flame and arcane fire can be devastat ing on the battlefield, but the power of the psionic fire you wield is more deadly by far. You can scorch your enemies or scour them from the inside out. You cloak yourself in flames to protect yourself from foes as you lash them with your fiery touch.

Firestarter Path Features

Firestarter Disciplines

Master Summoner

“The power ofmy servants is limited only by my imagination.”

Without form and order, all life reverts to its natural state of chaos. Without thought, there can be no life, and you prove this maxim by creating life from the power of thought. You are the master of summoning, shaping the raw possibility of your psionic power into whatever form you desire. The servants you fashion are granted a semblance of life, which they sacrifice willingly to fight on your behalf. Your creations are many and varied. Your focus allows you to bestow a consistent range of traits that mark them all as your children, and that grant unequalled usefulness on the battlefield.

Master Summoner Path Features

In addition, whenever you spend a healing surge, one summoned creature you control regains hit points equal to your Intelligence modifier.

Master Summoner Disciplines

Thrallherd

“Have you met my companion? I prize himfor his obedi ence and absolute loyalty.”

With the power of your mind, you compel service from another creature, subverting the subject’s will in favor of your own. Whether a beast from the wild or a sentient creature beholden to you by some dark bargain or threat, your thrall lives its life as your most devoted servant—a powerful puppet of flesh and bone.

Thrallherd Path Features

Obedient Thrall Statistics

The thrall’s statistics are based on your level and your abilities.

When you use your second wind, your thrall regains hit points equal to your healing surge value. Your thrall regains all its hit points when you take a short rest.

Ifyour thrall dies, you can restore it to life by using the Raise Dead ritual. The component cost is 500 gp, or 5,000 gp at epic tier.

The thrall has no actions of its own; you spend actions to command it mentally. You can command the thrall only if you have line of effect to it. When you command the thrall, the two of you share knowl edge but not senses.

As a minor action, you can command the thrall to take one of the following actions, if it is physically capable of taking that action: crawl, escape, fly, open or close a door or a container, pick up or drop an item, run, stand up, shift, squeeze, or walk.

Whenever you take a move action, your thrall can crawl, escape, fly, run, stand up, shift, squeeze, or walk as a free action.

In addition, you can issue the following special commands to your thrall.

A Puppet Master

The thraliherd paragon path builds on the conceptof a son who charms and conijels his or her foes controlling their every action As a thrallherd you truly earn the title’ mastermind because you are the master of1everyone eke’s mind.’.: When choosing powers for your chara’cter along with powers that allow you to dominate your fogs also consider ppwers that caus your enemies to attack one another Heroic tier powers such as betrayal and crisis of identity (both found in Players Handbook 3) allow you to control the actions of your enemies ven if only for a single attack. whEh Irther deñiónstrates your ability tô.treat all creatures as yourpujipets You can roleplay powers that grant your alliesattacks,such asforced oppor tunity, in such a way that suggests that you are controlliig your ally for that attack.

Your thrall is a manifestation of your ability to domi nate other beings. Since you are mentally controlling your thrall’s actions, the thrall’s attack rolls and damage rolls are based on your statistics. Other statistics, such as defenses and hit points, are based on your level and do not rely on the game statistics of the base creature.

Therefore, the thrall can be any creature that fits your character and campaign. Is your thrall a former enemy?

A tamed beast? A random stranger you met at the last tavern? The story of where your thrall comes from helps add more detail to your character’s place in the campaign world.

As a thrallherd, you compel others to fight for you, and you avoid being directly involved in violence. You can play this up by encouraging your companions to attack at your behest. After all, even though the other charac ters are acting of their own volition, there’s no reason to let them think they are. You can present your thraliherd character as controlling, domineering, and perhaps even a bit maniacal. Don’t overdo it with your fellow players, but help them understand that it’s only a matter of time before all the world is under your control.

Thrallherd Disciplines

Time Bender

“When you talk about the passage of time, how little you really understand. For me, time and space are interchangeable.”

Psions, especially those who prefer telekinetic powers to telepathic ones, instinctively recognize how the fabric of space is just one side of the swath; the other side is time. Objects, creatures, and worlds travel through both, though time is a direction that has only a single route—forward—while space allows movement any which way.

Or so it seems to most. But for those who are able to literally grasp the fabric of space to stretch, compact, and shape it, time is more malleable, within limits. Understanding this fact opens up new possibilities.

You recognize time’s pliability. You already have an arsenal of mental tools capable of gripping the seams in the material of space. You have discovered that you can also use your understanding of the nature of time as a springboard to greater power. As your knowledge of time’s intricacies has grown, so has your ability to affect time. You believe you’ll soon be wielding time like a sword to cut down your foes before they even understand they’re in danger.

Time Bender Path Features

Time Bender Disciplines

Uncarnate

“This shell of skin, organs, and bones is only a vessel—one I yearn to leave behind to be free of the limitations of matter.”

An uncarnate’s ultimate goal is to become a being of pure mind, unbound by the limits of corporeality. “The flesh is weak, but the mind is strong” is an aphorism among many psions, but uncarnates take it as their guiding truth. They seek to become discarnate, to grow into creatures of pure thought held together by psionic will.

Uncarnates don’t seek the paths of undeath that some arcanists choose. Though uncarnates using their abilities are sometimes mistaken for wraithlike spirits, such spirits are bound by the chill chains of undeath, not the self-generated will of psionic might. You set yourself possibly the greatest psionic challenge: to maintain the clarity and power of your mind as you slowly work at forgetting the flesh that supports it. In the end, it’s only the mind that matters.

Uncarnate Path Features

Uncarnate Disciplines

Psion (PHB3 + Psionic Power) — 1