Our last session featured two difficult combats. I fared particularly well and I will review the combat actions and the choices I made that allowed the Mystic to perform as well as she did.
Combat started shortly after we reached the center of the village of Kled. The village was suddenly under siege by two pair of strange elemental creatures which turned out to be xorn and elemental beasts.
Xorn and Elemental Beasts
Initial action: Activate strategic mind (5 psi points; concentration; 1 minute duration). This enables my allies within 60′ to use Dash or Disengage as a bonus action or add a d4 to each attack roll they make that turn.
The thinking behind this was to allow for greater mobility among my allies and then give them a boost when attacking. It got them into position perhaps a bit sooner though the d4 rolls didn’t help much due to physical resistances. I also shifted my psychic focus to Mantle of Command but didn’t get to use the movement boost this round since I ran to place my back against a wall.
Subsequent rounds consisted of using command to strike (3 psi points) to allow our higher damage party members to take another attack or using distracting figments to deal psychic damage (the biggest help) and grant advantage to those in melee. With strategic mind still in effect I was helping to push our party members to make more attacks that were more likely to hit which helped whittle the beasts down (their resistances were difficult to overcome).
The xorn were eventually defeated but not before they ate the little gold two of our party was carrying. The elemental beasts were driven/wandered off.
Chathrang and B’rohg
The next combat was a random encounter where Raddu was trying to kill us I think. It involved a pair of b’rohg and a pair of chathrang. Both groups happened upon on separately in search of a meal/supplies.
I believe the chathrang happened upon us first and surprised most of us and drew the attention of our warriors. I was initially set upon by the b’rohg when they showed up and a spear dealt some initial damage I did not want to take.
Initial action: Teleport up to the top of the ridge with step of a dozen paces (1 psi point 20′ teleportation) then broken will (5psi) to gain control of one of the b’rohg for it’s next turn. I directed it to charge and try to push it’s companion off a ledge, which failed. Boo.
Subsequent rounds consisted of distracting figment to deal some damage and grant advantage to our melee attackers and utilizing psychic grip (6 psi; concentration; 1 minute) to immobilize an opponent (which generally meant allowing a grappled/restrained ally to escape. The ability to move a creature help by psychic grip allowed me to eventually bring the two attacking parties into conflict with each other and then we escaped into the night.
I was contemplating phantom caravan (6 psi) to try a mass exodus of our party but it was unnecessary.
I was very much reacting to mitigate the actions of the attacking creatures. I was able to do this effectively real time but it ate up resources (psi points, actions) and made it so I was not able to help damage the creatures. In no way was I dominating the battles though I did prolong them enough for our eventual escape.
Takeaway
I have built this PC as a swiss-army knife. Tahireh has a number of abilities at her disposal that allow her to make decisions to support/aid the party. She can grant extra movement, extra attacks, advantage, even save bonuses (with forethought). And she can dish out damage when she wants, though not she isn’t optimized for it.
She is functioning exactly as I would have expected. I could have built a stronger damage dealing character but it would have been at the expense of something else. The ability to teleport myself out of danger? To hold enemies?
The short version is with these two difficult encounters I am quite happy with how she played. She was able to shine but was not overpowering and could not undo the harms the DM was presenting us with though she did mitigate them enough to be survivable.
The One World 