FearfulSalad

I'm struggling to build out a Psychic that primarily uses Imaginary Weapon in melee. It is so flavorful, yet at 6 base HP per level and no armor proficiency, it feels really dangerous to get up close and personal. Sure, Warp Space amps it to be at 30ft range, but there are only so many focus points available to spend amping.

I'm looking to have this be viable at level 6 (so Parallel Breakthrough is an option). Any heritages, feat chains, or items I should look into to make it feel good to use Imaginary Weapon?

I recently theorycrafted a Dex and a Str version of an Artillerist with the Gunner feat popping off a Booming Blade and a Force Ballista each turn.

Dex variant: Choose a race that gets a weapon proficiency (e.g. Githyanki) to weild a Rapier. Pick up Gunner at 4. Starting stats are somewhere along the lines of 8 15+2 14 15+1 10 8, aiming to max Dex and pick up a Headband of Intellect to cover the otherwise low Int. Rolling can get the starting Int to be more respectable, but otherwise this feels pretty bad early game.

Str variant: Can start with a feat race for Gunner, point buy stats of 14 13+1 14 14+2 9 8, aiming to max Int, get Resilient Wis, and pick up Gauntlets of Ogre Power to cover the otherwise low Str. Acquiring an All Purpose Tool can provide Shillelagh to not need GoOP.

Why do this at all? Arcane Firearm, whether you tap your rapier with it as your Artificer-required tool material component, or whether it itself is the staff you go bonking people with Booming Blade, provides an extra 1d8 Thunder damage. Force Ballista's built in knockback has no save. Put those together with Faerie Fire, and you have a pretty reliable chunk of damage every round alongside a semi-reliable BB rider proc.

Questions:

• is Shillelagh via APT viable here? Since you can't cast Shillelagh and Faerie Fire on the same turn, setup feels bad.
• would some other pushback, like Crusher, be more effective?
• is being ranged overall, with ranged cantrips, just better damage faster (i.e. by dropping Gunner and maxing Int faster)?

Much of the time I think of items as addons to a build, and focus on the race, class, and feat progression when planning. However, in both Westmarches and many standard canpaigns, it is not unreasonable to be able to buy, craft, or at least request some specific items, at least going up to Rare rarity. That got me thinking about trying to optimize a build around the item, rather than the other way around.

Out of the Abyss provides a unique and interesting Rare item, the Stonespeaker Crystal. It has 10 charges, regains ~7 per day, allows spending some charges to cast the three Speak With spells, and, most importantly, allows expending a number of charges equal to a divination spell's level to replace one consumed spell component. The following divination spells have consumed spell compoments:

• Divination (4) 25gp¹
• Fortune's Favor (2) 100gp
• Legend Lore (5) 250gp
• True Seeing (6) 25gp

¹uses two components with combined cost of 25gp, so the crystal can only replace one of them.

If you play with EGtW, the obvious use case for this is the Graviturgy or Chronurgy Wizard, getting Fortune's Favor (upcastable for more targets, letting you safely cover a party at least once per day with a 1-hour long Lucky d20 each). You also get Legend Lore (cast for free once per day to keep improving your results about the same thing) as well as True Seeing as a Wizard, and since TCoE expanded Wizard spells to include Divination, you don't even need Ritual Caster Cleric to get the full set. It's nice to have the crystal on a Wizard who normally doesn't get Speak with Animals or Speak with Plants too.

The most broken use of this item that I can think of is, conveniently, with Chronurgy's Arcane Abeyance on Fortune's Favor. Cast Fortune's Favor at 5th level on four members of the party, and then also save a bead with a 4th level casting to re-up three party members' Lucky dice mid-combat, increasing the likelihood they actually use them. Between that, Chronal Shift, Silvery Barbs, and Convergent Future, you might as well be the DM now.

Even without EGtW, a Divination Wizard can benefit greatly from the Stonespeaker Crystal thanks to Expert Divination, effectively reducing the total burned cost of Legend Lore to one fifth of a spell slot. Again, after enough castings, you at least know as much as the DM does, and with Portent and Silvery Barbs can control the outcome somewhat.

Did I miss any synergies worth exploring?

(In the absense of a WhatWouldYouBuild type of community, I figure 3d6 is the closest place here for such things, but correct me if I'm wrong.)

How would you build, in either D&D 5e or Pathfinder 2e, Cirilla of Cintra, based on her powers and abilities exhibited in the beginning of season 3 of The Witcher? She had the battle-prowess of a witcher, but she doesn't use her magic in combat. Her magic is powerful enough to stand against very strong sorcerers, but seems to mostly be reactionary rather than intentional.

5e's Fear has the added mechanic of requiring the target to take the Dash action and run away, unless there is nowhere to run. This can cause some DMs to rule Oath of Conquest's aura as allowing the target to use its action for other things. But with Sentinel's reaction causing movement speed to drop to zero, that wouldn't trigger until after the Dash action had been used--creating an optimizable opportunity.

My current build idea for this is a Hexblade 1 / Whispers Bard X, choosing to be Custom Lineage to grab Sentinel at level 1. This means that Cha can be maxed by 9 (rather than 13), the build is Cha-SAD, and you can augment your attacks with blade cantrips (yes, BB doesn't synergize with either Fear* or Sentinel, but it is still a nice chunk of scaling damage). Bard also provides Command, Dissonant Whispers, Healing Word, Psychic Blades, and eventually Find Greater Steed (to get another opportunity attack).

(* If your DM counter-rules that Fear, Command, Dissonant Whispers, etc should proc Booming Blade, definitely opt for a reach weapon. That way BB procs when they move 5ft away, and then you lock them down with Sentinel at 10.)

The primary drawback is a lack of reliable advantage, so even though Psychic Blades add another layer of damage, missing on an opportunity attack risks them breaking Fear.

Thoughts on how to optimize around Fear+Sentinel, either by improving this build, or through some other means?