Introduction

The Psi Warrior Fighter is a martial psionics user, making use of a semi-magical mechanism known as “psionics” to produce effects which are borderline but technically not magical. Mechanically, it’s a pool of dice that works very similarly to the Battle Master’s maneuvers, but you get a predefined set of powers on which you can spend your dice. The abilities provide an interesting mix of offensive, defensive, and utility options, resulting in a capable, versatile fighter. You’re still primarily a combat monster, but it’s a bit more versatile than trading hit points.

The Psi Warrior shares some capabilities with the Eldritch Knight, and uses a resource pool similar to the Battle Master’s Superiority Dice. Unlike those two subclasses, the Psi Warrior has no decision points within the subclass, instead using a fixed set of built-in options.

This lack of decision doesn’t mean that the Psi Warrior is ineffective. The Psi Warrior is much easier to build and play than either the Battle Master or the Eldritch Knight, and, if you manage your Psionic Energy Dice to last through the day, you can be very effective. The options are generally very good, and the scaling of both the number and size of the dice makes progression feel significant.

This guide is for the 2024 Psi Warrior Fighter. For help with the 2014 rules, see our 2014 Psi Warrior Fighter Subclass Guide.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the 2024 DnD Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

Psi Warrior Fighter Features

  1. Psionic Power: Your pool of Psionic Energy Dice are your defining resource. You get from 4 to 12 dice over your career, and the size goes from d6 to d12 over the course of your career. That sounds like a big pool, but they mostly recharge on a Long Rest, and between Long Rests you can recharge just one die per Short Rest.

    If your DM adheres to the Adventuring Day rules in the DMG, that means you can recharge just two dice per day. Across a full day of adventuring, that’s a small pool to work with. You need to be cautious about spending your dice rather than burning through them in the first encounter. The initial options for spending your Psionic Energy Dice are easy ways to quickly burn through your dice for modest amounts of damage or protection.

    • Protective Field: Preventing some or all of the damage from an attack can keep you or an ally fighting, and can help allies maintain Concentration on spells. Save this for when hit points are low or when an ally’s Concentration is crucial, otherwise you risk running through your Psionic Energy dice in a hurry.
    • Psionic Strike: A modest burst of damage. The damage is a separate source from your attack (it deals damage on its own rather than adding damage to the attack), so it’s not multiplied on a critical hit.

      I wouldn’t consider this a go-to option until you add Telekinetic Thrust at level 7 because your pool of dice is too small and too precious to spend on something as mundane as a tiny bit of damage. However, you might make an exception in cases where the extra damage could kill the creature or cause it to lose Concentration (since it’s a separate source of damage it forces a second saving throw).

    • Telekinetic Movement: Situational. You get it once per Short Rest, which is often be enough, but you can use it again for a Psionic Energy Die if you need to. This is forced movement (even though the target is willing), so you can use it to pull allies out of melee (even if they’re grappled) without provoking Opportunity Attacks.
  2. Telekinetic Adept: Two new options for using your Psionic Energy Dice.
    • Psi-Powered Leap: Even though the flight only lasts until the end of your current turn, that’s enough to get into melee with flying enemies and beat them up (consider using Action Surge to maximize the benefits) or Shove them prone to force them to fall. You can also use this to fly over pits, high walls, and other barriers. You get this once for free, but if you need it again you can recharge it with a Psionic Energy Die.
    • Telekinetic Thrust: Unarmed Strikes and Topple mastery weapons are typically sufficient for Strength-based fighters who want to knock enemies prone, but this is a great counter to flying enemies for Dexterity-based builds. Flying creatures that are knocked Prone fall, which can both cause a lot of damage and bring them into melee range.

      While this doesn’t consume a Psionic Energy die on its own, this is an optional rider effect that you add to Psionic Strike, which does consume a die.

  3. Guarded Mind: Charm and Fear effects are common and annoying across the full level range, and can take you out of a fight. They’re especially good counters to martial characters (like you) because they tend to require Wisdom saving throws which martial characters are usually bad at. Indomitable does make this somewhat redundant, but in a long adventuring day you might prefer to dip into your Psionic Energy Dice rather than spending precious Indomitable uses.

    Resistance to psychic damage is nice, but only situationally useful because psychic damage is rare.

  4. Bulwark of Force: +2 AC and +2 on Dexterity saves to you and possibly the rest of your party for 1 minute, activated as a Bonus Action. This is a great buff at any level, but remember that it won’t stack with other sources of cover. You only get to use this once per day, but you can recharge it with a Psionic Energy Die, and I recommend doing so. The +2 AC to your whole party will mitigate a huge amount of damage in a typical fight. +2 on a 20-point scale is 10% of the scale, so a +2 AC bonus will negate roughly 10% of all attack damage to your party in that encounter.
  5. Telekinetic Master: By this level it’s entirely possible that you have raised both your Strength/Dexterity and your Intelligence to 20, so your Intelligence checks may be very good. That makes Telekinesis a useful option in combat, especially against foes with poor Strength like many spellcasters. You can use this to lift foes into the air and drop them, to move them over pits or into hazards, or just to pull them into melee range.

    The ability to make a weapon attack as a Bonus Action while concentrating on Telekinesis is very exciting. The obvious intent is that you use your Action to use Telekinesis, and that can be a powerful combination: lift your target into the air and shoot them, or drop them to force them to fall prone before attacking them in melee.

    However, you’re under no obligation to actually use Telekinesis while you’re concentrating on it. The spell has a 10-minute duration, so you can easily use it as a buff to add an attack as a Bonus Action. If you enjoy this strategy, I think you’ll agree that spending a Psionic Energy Die to recharge this ability is well worth the cost to get an additional attack with little effort.

Psi Warrior Fighter Backgrounds

With the Psi Warrior’s need for Intelligence, our Background choices shift a bit compared to most Fighters. We look more like an Eldritch Knight than other Fighters.

  • Artisan (PHB): Crafter is useful to help you buy the Plate armor you desperately want, and then largely never again. The skills, meanwhile, offer one passably interesting option and one that is almost always tied to your dump stat.
  • Criminal (PHB): If you’re going to be the Scout, just take Criminal and build around Dexterity. It gets you three proficiencies you want for the roll, including Thieves’ Tools, and a great starting Feat.
  • Noble (PHB): With a bit of Intelligence, you can serve as your party’s Scholar. History, plus three skills from Skilled mean that you can get all of the knowledge skills. If you’re building around Dexterity, you might take a mix of Intelligence-based skills and Dexterity-based skills. However, not having Constitution as an ability may be a problem depending on your other build choices, so Scribe is likely a better choice for the same goal.
  • Scribe (PHB): Two decent skills for the build and more proficiencies. Criminal is a better choice if you’re planning to be your party’s Scout, but this may allow you to serve as your party’s Scholar.

For information and advice regarding Origin Feats, including those granted by your Background, see the Psi Warrior Fighter Feats section, below.

Psi Warrior Fighter Species

No different from other Fighters.

Psi Warrior Fighter Ability Scores

You need to balance your Ability Scores between Strength or Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence. I don’t recommend dumping Wisdom because Wisdom saves are so prominent.

I do not recommend building a Psi Warrior using the PHB recommended ability scores. 10 Intelligence is not enough.

Str: This or Dexterity will be your primary ability score.

Dex: This or Strength will be your primary ability score.

Con: Hit points and saves. If you’re building to fight at range, consider reducing your Constitution slightly to focus more on Intelligence and Wisdom.

Int: You need Intelligence, but you are still a Fighter first. 14 Intelligence is a safe bet to meet your needs without dumping Wisdom.

Wis: Saves and skills.

Cha: Dump.

Point BuyAdjustedStandard ArrayAdjusted
Str8 or 158 or 1710 or 1510 or 17
Dex15 or 817 or 815 or 1017 or 10
Con15161414
Int14141314
Wis10101213
Cha8888

Psi Warrior Fighter Feats

Mostly the same as other Fighters, but the additional emphasis on Intelligence opens up some new options.

  • Fey Touched (PHB): Misty Step is consistently one of the best spells in the game, and grabbing Hex is an easy way to up your damage. Also, in social situations, you can Hex a random rat from your bag of rats and kill it so you can move the Hex onto a creature at a later time without performing spell components in front of other creatures. This will let you give someone Disadvantage on, for instance, Perception (Wisdom) checks to spot you or Wisdom (Insight) to spot the lies your Face is telling.
  • Magic Initiate (PHB): Druid spells to get Shillelagh is great for a sword-and-board build, allowing you to build around a single ability score rather than splitting your focus between Strength/Dexterity and Intelligence. However, this does lock you into using either a club or a quarterstaff, and with the appeal of Weapon Mastery you may not be willing to make that trade.

Psi Warrior Fighter Weapons

No different than other Fighters.

Psi Warrior Fighter Armor

No different than other Fighters.

Psi Warrior Fighter Multiclassing

This section briefly details some obvious and enticing multiclass options, but doesn’t fully explore the broad range of multiclassing combinations. For more on multiclassing, see our Practical Guide to Multiclassing.

  • Rogue: Soulknife’s pool of psionic dice and powers are very explicitly separate from the Psi Warrior’s. You can’t share dice between the two. That said, 3 levels to get a second pool of psionic abilities does feel very cool.

Example Psi Warrior Fighter Build – Githyanki Warrior

Because the Psi Warrior has changed so little, you can use our 2014 Psi Warrior build largely unchanged. But that doesn’t make for a very good article, so let’s build something different.

Gith are iconic psionics users, but we definitely haven’t seen any iconic gith characters in recent media, so let’s build a melee-focused Githyanki Fighter who leans into their psionics.

We’ll build around using a greatsword as our primary weapon because every Githyanki warrior aspires to wield one of the legendary silver swords. The Graze mastery is nice insurance if we roll poorly, so we’re going to lean into that theme. This will be a simple, reliable build to play with a good mix of utility and combat capabilities.

Ability Scores

We’ll go for the ability scores recommended above, focusing on Strength.

BaseAdjustedLevel 20
Str151721
Dex888
Con151616
Int1414
Wis101010
Cha888

Background

Farmer. Tough’s additional hit points will help compensate for our lack of a shield, and it gets us an Intelligence-based skill. Animal Handling is outright useless, unfortunately.

Guard and Soldier would also work well here, only changing your origin feat without changing anything else about the build.

Species

Monsters of the Multiverse Githyanki. As per the 2024 Player’s Handbook, we ignore the ability score increases, but otherwise use the Githyanki’s traits as written. This gets us proficiency with one skill and one weapon or tool of our choice, plus some innate spellcasting.

Skill and Tool Proficiencies

We have a splash of Intelligence, which expands our usual skill options. We’ll use our two class skills to take History and Perception. We’ll get Animal Handling and Nature from our background. We’ll use our additional proficiency from being a Githyanki to get Arcana or any other Intelligence-based skill that your party is missing. Our background also gives us proficiency in carpenter’s tools.

Feats and Ability Score Increases

At level 1 we take Tough.

At level 4 we take Heavy Armor Master and increase Strength to 18.

At level 6 we take Great Weapon Master and increase Strength to 19.

At level 8 we take Mage Slayer and increase Strength to 20.

At level 12 we increase Intelligence from 14 to 16.

At level 14 we increase Intelligence from 16 to 18.

At level 16 we increase Intelligence from 18 to 20.

At level 19 we take Boon of Irresistible Offense and increase Strength to 21.

Levels

LevelFeat(s) and FeaturesNotes and Tactics
1Fighting Style: Defense
Second Wind
Weapon Mastery
– Greatsword
– Trident
– Any
Defense’s +1 to AC offsets our lack of a shield. Paired with Tough, we’re very durable, which makes it much safer to use two-handed weapons. If we take a big hit, Second Wind will keep us going until we can rest.

Our primary weapon is always our greatsword. Graze ensures that we do damage even on a miss, so we’re always making an impact, even if it’s a small one.

The trident is for dropping flying enemies out of the sky. Our other slot is free. I recommend a Sap weapon like a Longsword or a War Pick.
2Action Surge (1)
Tactical Mind
Action Surge is great.

Tactical Mind is great outside of combat, especially on days when you don’t expect to be in a combat situation. Adding 1d10 to an ability check can rescue a failed check, easily making up for your Intelligence between slightly behind a Wizard when you’re making Intelligence checks.
3Subclass: Psi Warrior
Energy Dice (4d6)
Psionic Power
Protective Field
Psionic Strike
Telekinetic Movement
Protective Field adds a good option for mitigating damage, while Psionic Strike adds a damage boost. Both are 1d6+2 at this level, so it’s not doing anything crazy, but if you can keep an ally conscious or kill an enemy that would otherwise be left at pitifully low hp, it’s worth the dice. You do get your dice back every Short Rest, but don’t rush to burn through them by adding Psionic Strike to every attack.

Use Telekinetic Movement to rescue allies. Enemies will rarely drop important items, so it’s very difficult to use it offensively. Outside of combat, this can be

At this level our Githyanki Psionics allow us to cast Jump once per long rest. This allows us to jump 30 feet once per turn (horizontally, vertically, or at an angle), allowing us to easily traverse many obstacles.
4Feat: Heavy Armor Master (Str 17 -> 18)
New Weapon Mastery
A consistent and reliable reduction to most incoming damage. This will provide good protection for our entire career. Between this, Tough, and Fighting Style (Defense), we can comfortably focus all of our other resources on offense.

We add yet another weapon mastery. Consider the Maul. Remember that you can draw or stow one weapon with each attack during the Attack action, so once you get Extra Attack you can attack, stow a weapon, draw a weapon, then attack again.
5Extra Attack
Tactical Shift
Energy Dice (6d8)
Double our damage output, and Tactical Shift gives us another great mobility option.

At this level our Githyanki Psionics allow us to cast Misty Step once per long rest, allowing us to bypass obstacles that we can’t simply jump over.
6Feat: Great Weapon Master (Str 18 -> 19)Great Weapon Master provides an easy, consistent bonus to our damage output. We don’t need to think about it much, but if we manage to crit we can make an additional attack as a Bonus Action.
7Telekinetic Adept
Psi-Powered Leap
Telekinetic Thrust
Psi-Powered leap fills a very similar to casting Jump, but the ability to fly means that we can change direction in the air. Use Jump when you can, but don’t hesitate to use Psi-Powered Leap if it suits the situation better.

Telekinetic Thrust is fun. It works with Topple weapons in an especially fun way: You choose to use Psionic Strike after your attack deals damage, while Weapon Mastery applies immediately when you deal damage. You can hit with a Topple weapon, see if the target passes the save, then use Psionic Strike if they do. You won’t need this all the time, but it’s fantastic when you’re throwing a trident at flying enemies.
8Feat: Mage Slayer (Str 19 -> 20)Max out our Strength, Concentration Breaker to stop troublesome spellcasters, Guarded Mind to protect us from the ghaik since our mental saves are poor.
9Indomitable (1)
Tactical Master
Energy Dice (8d8)
Indomitable gives us another option for when we fail saves. Use Mage Slayer’ Guarded Mind first if you can since it’s a guarantee and it only applies to some saves.

Tactical Master lets us change Weapon Mastery without changing weapons. Hit an enemy with Sap to debuff their first attack, then revert to Graze for reliability unless their AC is low enough that you’re not worried about missing.
10Guarded MindIf something manages to get past both Mage Slayer and Indomitable, you can use Guarded Mind to end the effect. Of course, you might just let the effect go through, end it with Guarded Mind, and reserve Mage Slayer and Indomitable for other effects. Regardless, you’re very resilient.
11Two Extra Attacks
New Weapon Mastery
– Any
Energy Dice (8d10)
More damage, another mastery, and your Energy Dice get bigger.
12Ability Score Increase: Int 14 -> 16At this level we pivot to focusing on our Intelligence to boost our subclass features and to get ready for Bulwark of Force.
13Indomitable (2)
Studied Attacks
Energy Dice (10d10)
More Indomitable, more Psionic Energy Dice, and Studied Attacks makes us even more reliable with our attack.s
14Ability Score Increase: Int 16 -> 18More Intelligence!
15Bulwark of ForceOur Intelligence modifier is +4, which will cover a regular-sized party.
16Ability Score Increase: Int 18 -> 20
New Weapon Mastery
– Any
Even more Intelligence!
17Action Surge (2)
Indomitable (3)
Energy Dice (12d12)
More! MORE!
18Telekinetic MasterOur save DC is as good as a typical full caster, so we’re pretty good at using Telekinesis to drag our enemies into the air and poke at them with pointy objects.

Even if you never actually use Telekinesis, you can concentrate on it so that you can always make a weapon attack as a Bonus Action, giving you 4 attacks per turn. At the cost of one Psionic Energy Die, that’s pretty great.
19Epic Boon: Boon of Irresistible OffenseBoon of Combat Prowess feels like it’s on theme for this build, but our primary weapon has Graze and we have Studied Attacks if we do miss an attack. Irresistible Offense makes our damage reliable when we do hit, and with 4 attacks per turn (assuming Telekinetic Master) we have a good chance to roll a natural 20 on any given turn.
20Three Extra AttacksThis is a lot of damage. Even if we miss, we’re still doing 5 damage, and then we get Advantage on our next attack. When we hit we’re dealing 2d6+11 damage, which we can boost by 1d12+5 by spending a die, which then might knock our target prone. If we get a foe on the ground, we can Action Surge and pile on the damage in a hurry, potentially adding +21 damage on a natural 20 since we’re rolling a mountain of d20s for all of those attacks.

Defensively, we shave 6 damage off of every source of B/P/S damage, which is still common even at this high level. For saves we have Mage Slayer to handle one mental save per rest, plus Indomitable 3 times per day. Our AC hasn’t changed since we got full plate (unless you got magic items), but we can buff our whole party’s AC with Bulwark of Force. We also have a ton of hit points and can further mitigate damage with Protective Field, making us very difficult to kill.