Class Struggles

Divine Mind

Introduced in Complete Psionic, the divine mind is the psionic equivalent of a paladin. They focus on melee combat for the sake of their deity, while receiving a small number of psionic powers based around the aspects of their deity that they choose to exemplify. Divine minds also learn to project a series of auras that they can use to power the allies around them, providing them with many different abilities and bonuses.

While divine minds might act like paladins, or some other kind of holy warrior, they are more rooted in teamwork. The more allies they have around them working together, the better the divine mind's contribution to the party.

Divine Mind Strengths

Access to low and mid level psionic powers.

Access to several psychic auras.

Access to a number of psionic mantles.

High Fortitude and Will saving throws.

High number of hit points.

Divine Mind Weaknesses

Low Reflex saving throws.

Selection of psionic powers is extremely limited.

No access to high-level powers.

Manifester level is four lower than class level.

Playing a Divine Mind

While you play a divine mind, keep one thought paramount in your mind: keep close to your allies. Especially at early levels, the divine mind's aura is painfully small, and he will only be able to affect a few party members at a time, unless they are close together. At later levels, as the aura expands, the divine mind can afford to become more tactical and spread out, allowing for both maneuverability and effectiveness.

Divine minds have access to heavy armor and martial weapons, so they should be equipped as much as possible. A well-protected divine mind is a living divine mind. Since they don't have access to many psionic powers, they will need to pick ones that can be effective in several situations. Luckily, the mantles the divine mind will have access to can provide the gamut: from offense to defense to healing and everything in between.

Divine minds will need a minimum Wisdom score of 16 to take advantage of their meager psionic abilities. A high Charisma score can help improve all their saving throws. Strength and Constitution are important because of the class's reliance on melee combat, although a ranged divine mind focusing on defense and ranged weapons is possible given a higher Dexterity score.

Race Suggestions

Humans, like with many other classes, are very prevalent within the ranks of the divine minds. Their diverse cultures and beliefs mean that they can easily be found in the worship of several different deities, meaning that human divine minds can be just as varied from one another.

Elans (from the Expanded Psionics Handbook) make an interesting choice for a divine mind. Their racial abilities can help shield them from harm, making them excellent defensive-based characters. Although their protective racial powers cost power points, divine minds benefit from the added diversity they provide.

Half-Giants (also from the Expanded Psionics Handbook) make for very good divine minds. Their innate physical prowess and ability to use larger weapons make them extremely proficient in melee combat. They're racial stomp ability also provides the character with a little extra 'oomph', especially in those early levels where they lack it.

Thri-kreen (yet again from the Expanded Psionics Handbook), although possessing a fairly high level adjustment, can use their large number of psi-like abilities, exoskeletal armor, higher Wisdom and natural weapons to their advantage as divine minds. They make a great combination, but can never gain some of the more powerful class features unless they become epic-level characters.

Aasimars (from the Planar Handbook) have a lower level adjustment than thri-kreen, but possess high Wisdom and high Charisma, meaning that they will have higher saving throws and more powerful psionic abilities as divine minds. Their ability to produce daylight is less helpful, but can be combined with the Light and Darkness aura to help dispel more powerful darkness magic than before.

Dwarves at first glance don't appear to make good divine minds, but their weapon familiarity and ability to move in heavy armor without being slowed make them excellent tactical characters. Dwarven divine minds also make fine defensive characters, for the exact same reason.

Feat Suggestions

Divine minds have several different avenues of feats that can benefit them greatly. Offense, defense, psionics and auras can all be enhanced to provide the character with some truly unique and powerful options.

Offense

Divine minds, like many melee characters, can easily focus on offense. Feats like weapons focus and improved critical can improve the character's prowess with weaponry. The power attack, and combat expertise feats and their related feats (such as spring attack, or improved trip) are also beneficial and provide several new avenues in combat.

Drawing from the Expanded Psionics Handbook can provide even more options. Psionic weapon and greater psionic weapon can help the character deal more damage. Deep impact can help the character hit heavily armored foes with ease. Aligned attack can allow the character to both bypass damage reduction and deal more damage in the bargain.

Defense

The divine mind already had the ability to protect themselves greatly, but can use some feats to help guard them even further. Psionic body (Expanded Psionics Handbook) can provide the character with extra hit points, not a huge concern with this class, but still quite welcome.

Complete Psionics provides several other feats to assist in defense. Invest armor can allow the character to boost the protection their armor provides, while energize armor can provide them with a measure of energy resistance. Focused shield also benefits divine minds by enhancing the armor class bonus their shield provides.

Psionics

Divine minds are, frankly, poor psionicists. They have only mid-level powers, and only learn a small handful. Using the practiced manifester feat from Complete Psionics can provide them with the manifester level equal to that of a psion or wilder of their class level. While this doesn't give them any more power points or powers, it does make what they have more difficult to resist.

Psionic talent (Expanded Psionics Handbook) provides the character with a couple of extra power points, which could translate into an enhanced power or the extra manifesting of a lower-level power.

Expanded knowledge, also from the Expanded Psionics Handbook, is very useful though, in that it allows the divine mind to learn a new power, even one from outside the class's limited number.

Mantle focus (Complete Psionics) provides the character with a bonus to the Difficulty Class for saving throws against powers manifested from one of their mantles. Since the divine mind's default powers list is restricted to mantles, this can help make their powers difficult to resist, especially combined with practiced manifester or even psionic endowment (Expanded Psionics Handbook).

Auras

The ability to project auras is one of the divine mind's most powerful abilities, and several feats are available to enhance that. The dilate aura feat from the Fiendish Codex II allows the divine mind to double the range of one of their auras for a short period of time. At low to mid levels, this can be extremely useful, and even at high levels can allow the divine mind to assist others at a huge range.

Complete Psionics provides several more feats. Enhanced beneficence improves the radius of the divine mind's aura by five feet. Although this may not seem like much to begin with, if combined with dilate aura (see above), it can allow the character to project auras up to a maximum of 110 feet.

Tap mantle wouldn't appear to provide the character with any benefits to their aura, as it just expands the list of psionic powers that divine minds can select from to those of a new mantle. It is the prerequisite for don mantle, which allows the character to use the gain the granted ability of the mantle they selected with the previous feat and also for extra aura, which provides the character with the ability to project the aura associated with the same mantle. This full combination of feats can be selected up to two times on a non-epic leveled character, allowing them full access to two more mantles and all the benefits that come with them.

The draconic aura feat (Dragon Magic) can provide the character with an extra aura, which would work alongside their psychic auras. If the character has the dragonblood subtype (such as a dragonborn or through the dragontouched feat), the aura's power scales in power to your character level. Combine it with double draconic aura for the ability to project two extra auras. All draconic auras are useful (except for power, which is less powerful than the attack aura the divine mind learns automatically), but energy shield and vigor can be especially useful.

Multiclass Suggestions

Divine minds multiclass best with classes that possess a high base attack bonus. The higher base attack bonus means that they don't lose the ability to dish out damage in melee combat, which they may lose by multiclassing with other mid-base attack bonus classes.

Rangers provide combat feats, some minor divine magic and an animal companion, which can benefit from the psychic aura class feature.

Although the divine grace class feature of the paladin doesn't stack with the one provided by divine mind, the class does provide several abilities that mesh well thematically. The ability to turn undead opens up many divine-based prestige classes and feats which would otherwise be closed to the divine mind, and the ability to smite evil can be combined with the power of the good mantle to deal a great deal of damage to an evil opponent.

The fighter class can provide the character with bonus feats, which can then be used to improve the character's attack options or unlock access to special feats like weapon specialization, or melee weapon mastery (Player's Handbook II), providing the character with even more ability to connect and deal damage.

Soulborn (Magic of Incarnum) provides the ability to create and bind soulmelds, extra defensive capabilities and a smite attack to boot. Since this class has the potential to create their own weapons out of the ether, a divine mind/soulborn need never worry about being unarmed for very long.

The crusader (Tome of Battle) provides both the ability to shrug off attacks that the character can avoid from a successful Fortitude or Will save (which the divine mind excels in) and the ability to make counter attacks based on damage dealt to them. Since the divine mind is such a defensively-minded character, this can be a match made in heaven, especially with the instant clarity and psychic renewal feats (from the same book) allowing the character to use their psionics and martial maneuvers to work off of one another.

If you're multiclassing to learn more auras, you have the options of the dragon shaman (Player's Handbook II), which teaches you a number of auras (see the section on the draconic aura feat above for more information) as well as some additional armor and a breath weapon, or the marshal (Miniatures Handbook) which provides both a minor and a major aura as well as the ability to grant extra actions to allies. The dragon shaman is a great choice for an offensively minded character, while marshal helps appeal to the tactical nature of the divine mind class.

Prestige Class Suggestions

Divine minds have access to several psionic prestige classes, but don't really mesh all that well with them. They do best in prestige classes that emphasize combat abilities over psionics.

The storm disciple (Complete Psionics), is probably the only prestige class made with the divine mind in�well, mind. It provides an additional aura, a built-in weapon enhancement, and electricity resistance, along with a high base attack bonus and some extra manifesting levels. It's an excellent choice for a chaotic, storm-focused divine mind.

Divine minds can meet the requirements of the pyrokineticist (Expanded Psionics Handbook) fairly easily, and can gain a number of useful offensive abilities through the class. Combine with the elements mantle and the energy aura for additional fire damage.

The cryokineticist (Frostburn) is another option, very similar to the pyrokineticist, although the requirements for entry are very steep. A 12th level divine mind with the expanded knowledge feat can learn the energy emanation power required to enter this class. As cold is a much less used element than fire (and thus less protected against by most monsters), the inability to complete the prestige class may not be important.

Any chosen, inspired or kalashtar divine mind in the Eberron setting can meet the prerequisites for the fist of Dal Quor (Secrets of Sarlona) quite easily. The ability to make sudden strikes and stun enemies is quite useful, although the class's other abilities are somewhat lacking.

Charismatic divine minds may want to consider the dragon lord from Dragon Magic. This class provides the character with a draconic aura (see above) along with some tactical abilities and the possibility of getting a powerful draconic cohort.

New Material





Emotions Mantle

Granted Ability: While psionically focused, you gain a +2 competence bonus to Autohypnosis checks. You can expend your focus as a free action to gain a +5 bonus on a single Autohypnosis check.

Psychic Aura: While you are psionically focused, you and allies within your aura are immune to fear effects.

1 - Attraction 1 - Primal Fear* 2 - Id Insinuation 2 - Serenity* 3 - Cerebral Phantasm* 4 - Death Urge 5 - Psychotic Break* 7 - Insanity 9 - Microcosm

Powers can be found in the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Powers marked with an * can be found in Complete Psionic.

Divine Minds in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting

The absolute prevalence of psionics on Athas is a given. It permeates through every aspect of daily life, no matter how mundane. Every man, woman, child and creature seems to possess even a modicum of psionic power.

Athas has no true gods left. Instead, elemental powers and the dragon kings control all the divine energy available, meting it out to their worshippers in exchange for worship and obedience. It's no wonder that some worshippers instead choose to channel psionic energy instead of divine. These divine minds are no less fervent in their worship than clerics, they've simply chosen a separate path to power, one which they believe to be more pure than the alternative.

Divine minds who choose to worship the elemental powers, throw themselves to the mercy of the elements. If they happen to survive their ordeal (which may be throwing themselves off a cliff, setting themselves on fire, walking into the middle of a sandstorm or any number of other suicidal actions), they come to an epiphany concerning the world around them and begin to develop psychic abilities granted by their elemental patrons.

Other divine minds worship the dragon-kings and are treated as templars in most cities. The result of centuries of experimentation, these worshippers are granted their psionic insights through servitude to their rulers. The dragon-kings can cower, but not fully control psions like they can divine minds, a distinction that they are quick to remember.

In the Dark Sun setting, divine minds function as described in Complete Psionic.

Table 1-01: Mantles by Deity

Deity Mantles Elemental Elements, Energy, Natural World, Pain and Suffering Andropinus (Balic) Conflict, Evil, Freedom, Law Atzetuk (Draj) Destruction, Evil, Light and Darkness, Magic Dregoth (Raam) Chaos, Death, Evil, Knowledge Hamanu (Urik) Evil, Guardian, Law, Physical Power Lalali-Puy (Gulg) Evil, Law, Life, Natural World Shadow King (Nibenay) Chaos, Conflict, Deception, Evil

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