Battlemind

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.

Class Traits

Role: Defender. You are tough and fast, while your mastery of psionic magic allows you to outwit your foes. Depending on your choice of class features and powers, you lean toward either controller or striker as a secondary role.
Power Source: Psionic. You are a psionic warrior, a weapon master who combines physical might and a cunning intellect.
Key Abilities: Constitution, Wisdom, Charisma

Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide, chainmail, scale; heavy shields, light shields.
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, military melee, simple ranged.
Bonus to Defense: +2 Will.

Hit Points at 1st Level: 15 + Constitution Score.
Hit Points per Level Gained: 6
Healing Surges per Day: 9 + Constitution Modifier.

Trained Skills: From the class skills list below, choose 3 trained skills at 1st level.
Class Skills: Arcana (Int), Athletics (Str), Bluff (Cha), Diplomacy (Cha), Endurance (Con), Heal (Wis), Insight (Wis), Intimidate (Cha).

Build Options: Quick Battlemind, Resilient Battlemind.
Class features: Psionic Augmentation, Psionic Defense, Psionic Study.

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.

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.

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 Encounter Power: none (see Psionic Augmentation)
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.

Class Feature: Battle Resilience
Suggested Feat: Deceptive Mind
Suggested Skills: Arcana, Endurance, Intimidate
Suggested At-Will Powers: iron fist, bull's strength
Suggested Encounter Power: none (see Psionic Augmentation)
Suggested Daily Power: aspect of elevated harmony

Battlemind Class Features

Battleminds have the following class features.

Psionic Augmenation

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.

At-Will Attack Powers: At 1st level, you choose two at-will attack powers and one daily attack power from your class, but you don’t start with any encounter attack powers from your class. You can instead augment your class at-will attack powers using power points. These powers have the augmentable keyword.

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.

Power Points: You start with 2 power points. 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 At-Will Attack Powers Power Points
1 Choose two Gain 2
3 Choose one Gain 2 (4 total)
7 Replace one Gain 2 (6 total)
13 Replace one Gain 1 (7 total)
17 Replace one Gain 2 (9 total)
21 Gain 2 (11 total)
23 Replace one Gain 2 (13 total)
27 Replace one Gain 2 (15 total)

The Augmentable Keyword

A power that has the augmentable keyword has optional augmentations, which you can use at the cost of power points. An augmentable power follows these rules, unless the power's description says otherwise.

  • Decide First: You must decide whether and how to augment an augmentable power when you choose to use the power, before you make any attack rolls or apply any of the power’s effects.
  • Power Point Cost: An augmentation specifies its cost in power points. For example, “Augment 1” means you must spend 1 power point to use an augmentation. You must spend the required power points when you decide to use the augmentation.
  • One at a Time: You can use only one of a power’s augmentations at a time, so you can’t, for example, spend 3 power points to gain both the 1-point and the 2-point augmentation for a single power.
  • Replace Base Effects: When you augment a power, any change to the power is noted in the augmentation and replaces specific entries in the base power. An augmented version of a power is otherwise identical to the base power.
  • At-Will Attack Powers: When a power or some other effect lets you use an at-will attack power, you can choose to use one of your augmentable at-will attack powers, but you must use it unaugmented.

When a racial trait grants you an at-will attack power of your choice and you choose an augmentable at-will attack power, the power loses its augmentations. However, the power does not lose the augmentable keyword. This means the power is unaugmented when you use it, unless you augment it by some other means.

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.

Battlemind's Demand Battlemind Feature
You draw your foe's concentration, taunting the foe to strike at you.
At-Will ✦ Augmentable, Psionic
Minor Action Close burst 3
Target: One creature in burst
Effect: You mark the target until you use this power again or until the end of the encounter.
Augment 1
Target: One or two creatures in burst

Blurred Step Battlemind Feature
You bend reality with the power of your mind, flashing across the space between you and your enemy.
At-Will ✦ Psionic
Opportunity Action Personal
Trigger: An adjacent enemy marked by you shifts
Effect: You shift 1 square.

Mind Spike Battlemind Feature
You force your enemy to feel the pain that it inflicts on your friend.
At-Will ✦ Force, Psionic, Psychic
Immediate Reaction Melee 1
Trigger: An adjacent enemy marked by you deals damage to your ally with an attack that doesn’t include you as a target
Target: The triggering enemy
Effect: The target takes force and psychic damage equal to the damage that its attack dealt to your ally.

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.

Battle Resilience

You gain the battle resilience power, which reflects your ability to use your psionic power to bend your own body to protect yourself.

Battle Resilience Battlemind Feature
You steel yourself for battle, girding yourself against your foe's initial assault.
Encounter ✦ Psionic
Free Action Personal
Trigger: An attack hits or misses you for the first time during an encounter
Effect: Until the end of your next turn, you gain resistance to all damage equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
Level 11: Resist 6 + your Wisdom modifier.
Level 21: Resist 9 + your Wisdom modifier.

Speed of Thought

You gain the speed of thought power, which allows you to be always ready for a fight.

Battlemind Overview

Characteristics: Your heavy armor allows you to take on your enemies' attacks without fear, and your melee attacks that are augmented by psionic magic let you control your enemies like puppets and set them up for defeat. You excel at controlling the battle line and forcing enemies to fight you while your allies wreak havoc.

Religion: Battleminds who live up to this class's renowned arrogance rarely pray to the gods, and stories abound of battleminds whose ill luck could be placed at the feet of their impiety. Those battleminds who do follow the gods typically revere Tempus for his martial skill and strength, Bahamut for his practice of justice, or Oghma(?) for being the originator of psionic magic.

Races: Half-elves are ideal quick battleminds, channeling their natural Charisma into psionic alacrity. Goliaths' sheer physical power makes them well suited for this class, and many gnome and tiefling warriors are drawn to the guile and trickery of some battlemind powers.

Character Classes
Player's Handbook ClericFighterPaladinRangerRogueWarlockWarlordWizard
Player's Handbook 2 AvengerBarbarianBardDruidInvokerShamanSorcererWarden
Player's Handbook 3 ArdentBattlemindMonkPsionRunepriestSeeker
Setting-Specific Artificer (Eberron Player's Guide) ✦ Swordmage (Forgotten Realms Player's Guide)
Character Classes

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