He invested 255 Karma in his Class to level-up to level 6 (3 level-ups) gaining 30 free attribute points; 15 free talent points and 1 potential point along with fixed stat increases (5*3 = 15 willpower; 4*3 =12 to all other stats except affinity; 3*3 = 9 to affinity). The potential point could be ignored for now as he needed a talent tree at level 10 before it was of any use. He invested 9 free attribute points in willpower; 0 free attribute points in affinity and 3 attribute points in all other attributes.
For the talent points; he first invested 4 talent points in Psionics: Metapsionics. Metapsionics changed the way psionic powers were manifested allowing faster, easier and (eventually) more power / varied psionic effects with the same powers. He choose Practiced Focus, Psionic Manifestation, Practiced Manifestation and Natural Psion as the Techniques under this talent tree. These choices were all passive talents which helped in the focus and manifestation of Psionic powers in combat.
He invested 3 talent points in Psionics: Psychometabolism to be talent level 5 in this talent trees. In Psychometabolism, he choose the powers Simian Might, Unending Vigor and Augmentation. Simian Might was the Physique version of the Feline Grace power, giving a flat boost to the Physique attributes while draining Psi Points. Unending Vigor was a nifty power which could restore stamina by consuming Psi Points; and could be very helpful in prolonged battle.
Augmentation boosted all the attributes under Strength and Finesse based on his Willpower and Insight. It was a sustain which reduced Maximum Psi capacity while it was active; but didn't constantly drain Psi Points like Feline grace. Also the most important thing was this stat boosting self-buff increased its effect with Willpower and Insight (unlike Feline Grace and Simian Might). Therefore this power was a core psionic power which would be useful throughout. While the initial boost at his current willpower, insight and technique/talent levels was lower than Feline Grace/Simian Might; it would quickly overtake them in its utility with several talent levels and increasing attributes.
If he had any gripe with Augmentation; it was that this power scaled on his base willpwoer and insight (i.e. using equipment/buff that modified willpower / insight would not change the effects of this pwoer) disabling a lot of potential synergies which would give stupidly high attribute buffs. But then again; this feature of scaling on base attributes (if there was any scaling at all) was a common feature of almsot every buff type technique which directly icnreased attributes.
He invested another 4 talent points in Psionics: Psychokinesis and selected the talents Psychokinetic Wall, Psychokinetic Shield, Force Resonance and Absorption Shield. Psychokinetic Wall erected a wall of energy (fire, cold, electric or force) and had different effects depending on energy type manifested ( fire = damage and burning; cold = damage and freezing/slowing; electric = damage and stunning/shocking; force = knock-back/no passage etc. ).
Psychokinetic Shield erected a hovering barrier for a limtied duration which had different effects depending on the energy type manifested. ( fire = burns melee attackers; cold = condenses a shield of frozen water vapor; force = chance to deflect projectiles; electric = deflects certain energy damage types and shocks attackers etc. ). Without heavy investment, it wasn't worth much; but this was a prerequisite he required so he took it anyways.
Force Resonance was a sustain that did additional distortion damage whenever the user made a successful attack in exchange for draining psi each hit. Initially it worked only with unarmed attacks; but at higher levels worked with other attack types such as melee, ranged etc. The damage wasn't very high and it was expensive if the Psi cost was taken into account (at lower levels with a low willpower and limited psi pool). But it was one of the earliest ways to access distortion damage with his talent trees.
Distortion Damage was a special type of physical damage which ignored most armor and resistances. This made it a very good tool to quickly deal with turtle types with very good armor protection. Unarmed attacks, by their nature had a low base damage and had difficulty dealing with heavily armored foes and this power which gave an option of dealing Distortion damage was one of the ways to make up this weakness.
Absorption Shield was also very significant for this build. It would give a flat damage reduction (based on willpower and insight) and convert part of the damage resisted to Psi points. At technique level 1 it only reduced physical damage; but higher levels would reduce other forms of damage! This was a very important link in his build and a very useful tool for survivability and Psi point management in battle.
He then invested 3 talent points in Psionics: Aspect of the Ooze to gain the powers Wild Growth, Primordial Growth and Hidden Reserves. All the three powers were situationally useful; more so with high willpower and talent levels; but Hidden Reserves was a potential lifesaver. This was an "oh-shit" psionic power and one of the main reasons he had gone for an Adventurer; as this talent tree (Psionic: Aspect of the Ooze) was not available to the Psychic Warrior!
Hidden Resources. Hidden Resources would restore a percentage of his Health, Stamina and Psi points. But it had a high cool-down and used Karma. The Karma cost increased with his character level and reduced with his willpower; talent and technique level. The percentage heals increased with talent and technique levels.
The remaining single talent point was invested into Unarmed Training to access the Technique Lightning Strikes. Lightning Strikes improved his unarmed attack speed (as long as no armor was worn. Higher technique levels gave this bonus with light armor and eventually medium armor) so it was very useful for most brawler/pugilist.
For the remaining 920 ish karma; Greg decided to invest them in his techniques for now. He leveled his Ranged Weapons and Powered Weapons to lev 3 and Light Armor to lev 2. The weapon masteries were raised so that he could wield the smg effectively and the armor mastery was raised because he felt a bit clunky using the cheap tactical vest at lev 1 of the mastery. This took around 110 Karma.
Greg adapted to the increased familiarity with his equipment and continued investing karma in his techniques. He increased his Unarmed Mastery to lev 3 at the cost of 66 karma. While he was by no means a pugilism expert now; but he felt much more confident beating the shit out of his foes bare handed.
He then invested a total of around 750 Karma total in the Psionic techniques of Reinforced Suit and Energizing Suit to bring them both to lev 5 and almost exhausted his free Karma. Reinforced Suit gave a flat damage reduction for physical damage and a flat physical damage bonus for unarmed attacks (scaling with willpower and insight). More damage reduction was always better. Energized Suit extended a portion of this physical damage resistance to other damage types! Level 5 reduced several other types of damage including fire, cold, electric, corrosion, biological etc. in addition to physical damage.
And lev 5 of Energizing Suit had a breakpoint which allowed a portion of damage reduction of the affected types to reduce Damage over Time (DoT) effects! This was of incredible use. If the threshold damage of status effects like burning and bleeding couldn't exceed a portion of the damage reduction of Soul Suit; he could simply ignore the damaging effects of status effects until they expired / he could cure it. This wouldn't help with the non-damaging effects of status ailments though; but still it could save him in situations of 'death by a thousand paper cuts'.
Of course, the amount of damage reduction for these other damage types was lower than the damage reduction for physical damage. And the damage reduction for DoT was even lower. But still this was an incredible boost to survivability. With proper investment in willpower and technique levels, it would make him near immune to many damaging strikes and effects even at higher levels.
'I think I was abit too enthusiastic for the DoT breakpioint of Energizing Suit. Oh well i guess kill more feral hounds and then use the xp to levelup to atleast level 10 before going for more technique leveling.' thought Greg as he reviewed his Status Screen.
STATUS SCREEN:
Spoiler: Spoiler
STATUS SCREEN Name: Greg Race: Human Male Character Level: 6 Free Karma: 5 Class: Adventurer (Lev 6) (Karma 320/455) Power Sources: Psionics; Martial Titles: --- Condition: Healthy; Soul Suit Character Resources HP: 388/406 HP Regen: 0.0702 / minute Stamina: 313/321 Stamina Regen: 4.8343 / minute Psi: 233/268 Psi Regen: 0.6658 / minute Free Development Resources Free Attribute Points: 0 Free Talent Points: 0 Free Speciality Points: 0 Free Potential Points: 1 Attributes Physique 45.00 Strength 45 Constitution 45 Endurance 45 Finesse 45.00 Control 45 Speed 45 Senses 45 Spirit 47.00 Affinity 28 Willpower 68 Insight 45 Characteristics, Specialties and Traits Special Prodigy Psionic Savant Graceful Finesse Brutish Physique Talents and Techniques Psionics: Psychometabolism Lev. (5/10) Animalistic Aspect (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Feline Grace (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Simian Might (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Unending Vigor (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Augmentation (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Psionics: Psychokinesis Lev. (5/10) Psychokinetic Blast (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Psychokinetic Wall (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Psychokinetic Shield (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Force Resonance (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Absorbtion Shield (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Psionics: Psychoportation Lev. (2/10) Slide (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Psionic Pounce (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Psionics: Telepathy Lev. (1/10) Mind Thrust (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Psionics: MetaPsionics Lev. (5/10) Psionic Focus (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Practiced Focus (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Psionic Manifestation (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Practiced Manifestation (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Natural Psion (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Psionics: Aspect of the Ooze Lev. (5/10) Steady Growth (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Sudden Growth (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Wild Growth (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Primordial Growth (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Hidden Reserves (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Psionics: Soul Suit Lev. (5/10) Reinforced Suit (Lev 5/10) (Karma 390/635) Enhanced Suit (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Energized Suit (Lev 5/10) (Karma 390/635) Vigourous Suit (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Regenerating Suit (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/33) Martial: Unarmed Training Lev. (2/10) Unarmed Mastery (Lev 3/10) (Karma 66/142) Lightning Strikes (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/22) Martial: Unarmed Techniques Lev. (1/10) Heavy Strike (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/22) Martial: Combat Training Lev. (5/10) Throwing (Lev 2/10) (Karma 22/66) Ranged Weapons (Lev 3/10) (Karma 66/142) Powered Weapons (Lev 3/10) (Karma 66/142) Melee Weapons (Lev 2/10) (Karma 22/66) Light Armor (Lev 2/10) (Karma 22/66) Martial: Superior Conditioning Lev. (1/10) Vitality (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/22) Martial: Acrobatic Mobility Lev. (1/10) Rush (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/22) Martial: Tireless Combatant Lev. (1/10) Quick Recovery (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/22) General: Survival Lev. (5/10) Lockpicking (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/11) Hacking (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/11) Stealth (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/11) Trapping (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/11) Perception (Lev 2/10) (Karma 11/33) General: Leadership Lev. (1/10) Persuation (Lev 1/10) (Karma 0/11)
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Greg then visited the armory to buy some spare 5mm magazines for his newly acquired smg. Each magazine of 30 5mm standard rounds cost him 22 credits. He shed tears of blood as he spent around 50 Sentinel credits (almost one fourth of his liquid wealth) to buy two spare magazines for his 5mm smg and a few loose rounds for his 5mm handgun. While convinient, he also washed and cleaned the silencer of his 5mm handgun in a nearby washroom before heading to the elevator and exiting.
He saw that the lights of the abandoned building where Old Jonas was scavenging were no longer lit and Old Jonas was nowhere to be found. He shrugged mentally and approached the tunnels which he was exploring. He manifested Animalistic Aspect (Cat's Vision) and his iris turned green with his pupils turned into slits concealed behind his tinted googles. He gained night vision, increased dynamic vision and the colors in his vision distorted a bit. He manifested Feline Grace feeling nimbler and faster. His skin also took a golden tint and a dark spotted pattern appeared on his skin. He then manifested Simian Might and immediately felt his physique becoming stronger and sturdier. His exposed arms grew a fine, dense layer of golden brown hair which could be mistaken for fur from a distance.
He didn't bother with Augmentation as it didn't stack with the Feline Grace / Simian Might and the stat buff at its present technique level was much lower. He then turned on the sustain buff Absorbtion Shield and a translucent shimmering aura of roughly 1 inch (~2.5 cm) appeared around him. Looking like a mutant in an enetrgy field; he resumed his exploration of the tunnels leading to the outposts.
'My buffs sure don't synergize with stealth' lamented Greg.