If you want a character who can influence minds or use telekinesis, the Pathfinder Psychic is ready to take control of the battlefield.
Coming from the source book, Dark Archive, the Pathfinder Psychic is a class that let’s your use your character’s mind as a weapon or tool all its own. The mind can uncover hidden truths, move objects, change minds, and house an unfathomable number of secrets. But this power comes with a lot of fine-tuning, training, and responsibility.
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The Pathfinder Psychic Basics
Using their minds and people skills more than other classes, Psychics get a boost to either Intelligence or Charisma at character creation. They start their adventure with Expert level training in their Will Saving throw. And to start, Psychics are trained in Perception, Fortitude, Reflex, Occultism, Simple Weapons, Unarmed Attacks, and Unarmored Defense as well as a number of additional skills equal to their Intelligence Modifier plus three. They also are specifically untrained in All Armor.
In combat situations, Psychics rely on their psychic powers and cantrips. They will layer basic spells with more complex magic and abilities in order to use their mind’s full power at the perfect times. Like many magic-using classes, Psychics are less likely to be right in the fray of things as opposed to keeping a safe distance or partnering up with a battle partner who can offer them some amount of physical protection.
In non-combat scenarios, the Pathfinder Psychic will let their subconscious guide them through most social encounters. it may make them come across as empathetic, sociable, or weird, but they will often accurately read a room, group, and situation. They’re probably keeping their third eye open for threats or traps that others may not notice. And in their downtime, they are always searching for a greater understanding of the universe and themselves.
Psyche and Psi Spells
The power behind a Pathfinder Psychic’s mind is manifested in psi cantrips and spells. Players automatically gain more psi spells as they level up. Psychics will also have Focus Points, which are used to add amps—or specialized thoughtforms that will alter the expression of their psychic power.
Characters can also unleash their psyche. this happens when they thin the barrier between their inner mind and the world in order to unleash their full psychic power. This level of concentrated power will be draining if not damaging to the Psychic, though.
Conscious and Subconscious Mind
The Pathfinder Psychic’s power comes from their conscious and subconscious minds. These various mind frameworks will determine the Psychic’s style, abilities, spells, and provide them with additional, specialized benefits.
The possible aspects of their subconscious mind include:
Emotional Acceptance: These Psychics access their power by throwing themselves headlong into their emotions.
Gathered Lore: Tutors have taught these Psychics how to harness their mind.
Precise Discipline: To bring their power to reality, these Psychics meticulously align their thoughts.
Wandering Reverie: These Psychics fuel their power through imagination and free association.
The manifestations of the conscious mind include:
The Distant Grasp: These Psychics manipulate physical objects via telekinesis.
The Infinite Eye: Users of this conscious mind observe the world around themselves and use their knowledge as a weapon.
The Oscillating Wave: These Psychics redistribute thermal energy to use heat or cold as a tool.
The Silent Whisper: This consciousness allows Psychics to tap into the minds of those around them in order to soothe or influence them.
The Tangible Dream: With this consciousness, Psychics can form creations of force and light.
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The Unbound Step: These Psychics can bend space around them in order to teleport or phase from place to place.
Multiclassing a Pathfinder Psychic
An adventurer of another class may find that they have awakened latent psychic abilities. These characters can take their first steps into wielding psychic magic and add a bit of occult power to their repertoire. This can be a good fit for other Intelligence or Charisma-based classes such as investigators and alchemists or bards.
Multiclassing a Psychic gives players access to the feats Psychic Dedication, Basic and Advanced Thoughtform, Basic, Expert, and Master Psychic Spellcasting, and Psi Development.
How to Play a Pathfinder Psychic
While many aspects of playing a Pathfinder Psychic are similar to any other spellcaster at their core, other aspects can be very unique. Be sure to keep track of your spells, cantrips, and focus points. And if you are playing in a campaign where things like components matter, make sure you’re keeping track of those too.
And for those of you with GMs who just assume your character has what they need unless one of the components is truly bizarre or specific, remember how nice and cool your GM is when their next birthday comes around.
But for the Psychics specifically, you’ll want to have a solid understanding of your character’s subconscious and conscious minds. They determine different abilities and aspects of the character and grant them different powers. But they can also be formative in building your character’s personality or backstory.
Having a good understanding of these may be important from the get-go for building the exact adventurer you want. Or, picking whatever you think sounds fun and jumping in may be helpful in forming specifics about your Psychic as you go through the first session or two.
Players will also want to have a good understanding of Psyche. Unleashing their Psyche will prove to be incredibly helpful and effective in-game, but can have some undesirable side effects. They are still absolutely worth the drawback, but make sure you know what to expect to avoid knee-capping your character during a key moment.
Happy adventuring!
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