Psi Warrior Fighter: D&D 2024 Optimisation Guide

Play jedi mind tricks with this psionic fighter class, refreshed for D&D 2024.

What is a psi warrior?

Highly trained martial warriors that have unlocked the psionic powers of the mind. These combatants are not only capable of slicing you apart with the swing of a sword, but also of launching themselves with powerful lashings, thrusting objects with telekinesis or enhancing their strikes with psionics.

The most exciting thing about the psi warrior subclass is that it lets you embody your inner jedi. Make huge jumps, summon your weapon to your hand and so on. Psionics are kind of like a more limited version of the force. The windrunners of the Stormlight Archive and some allomancers from the Mistborn series also have similar powers to a psi warrior. So now you can embody Waxillium Ladrian or Kaladin Stormblessed as well as Luke (or Anakin) Skywalker.

In D&D 2024, psi warriors makes a welcome return. They are mostly unchanged from the 2014 version but have had a few tweaks. The main fighter class has also seen some changes that alter a little how you might play your psi warrior.

My guide below will go through in detail how to build, optimise and play a psi warrior in D&D 2024.

At a glance

Highly skilled martial warriors
Top damaging martial class with some of the most attacks of any class
Enhance your swordsmanship with psionic powers
A fortified mind protects you from attacks of the mind

What’s changed for a psi warrior in D&D 2024?

Not a lot. Psi warriors are left largely unchanged in D&D 2024 but do benefit from some major changes to the fighter core class which will change how you play.

The 2 small changes you can expect from the psi warrior class are:

You now restore psionic energy die when you take a short rest
At 18th level, you always have telekinesis as a prepared spell

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Psi warrior features

Psi warriors have a bunch of features that grant them psionic abilities which I’ve explained along with tactics you can use below.

Psionic power – Lv3

How it works

You develop psionic powers which can be used by expending a limited pool of psionic energy dice. You have a number of these equal to twice your proficiency bonus. They start as d6s and grow with your levels, eventually becoming a D12 at level 17.

You can recharge all psionic energy dice on a long rest, one use on a short rest and once per rest, one use using a bonus action.

Your psionic dice fuel the following powers:

Protective field: When you or a nearby ally are hit, you can use your reaction to protect them. Roll one of your psionic dice and reduce the damage by the amount rolled + your intelligence modifier.
Psionic strike: Propel your weapon when you strike. Once per turn, you can enhance your weapon attack by expending and rolling a psionic die and adding the value + your intelligence modifier to the damage dealt (dealing force damage).
Telekinetic movement: Time to be a jedi. You can move an object or willing creature that is large or smaller up to 30ft. If the object is tiny, you can also move it to or from your hand. You get a free use of this between every rest and can use psionic dice to fuel the ability thereafter.

Tactics

While you can only use each psionic ability once per turn due to the action economy, there’s nothing to stop you using multiples of them in a single round. You could make an enhanced attack with psionic strike and then use your reaction to create a protective field. Just be aware that you will burn through your psionic energy dice quickly this way.
You have limited uses of your psionic energy dice, so prioritise them. Avoid using protective field against attacks where you could easily stop more damage than was caused (or you’ll waste some protection). Equally, save psionic strike for attacks against creatures that wouldn’t have died from your standard attack anyway.
You can recharge 2 psionic energy dice between each short rest. Just make sure you short rest between encounters, use your bonus action once for a recharge and use at least 2 psionic dice per encounter as you know you can get them back.
Psionic strike can be great against enemies resistant to standard damage types due to its rarely resisted force damage.
Telekinetic movement is primarily an out of combat ability. Great for getting allies to awkward spots or for grabbing cell keys when stuck in a jail cell or stealing difficult to access items.

Telekinetic adept – Lv7

How it works

You get a couple more abilities that are fuelled by your psionic dice:

Psi-powered leap: Use a bonus action to activate and for the duration of your turn, gain a flying speed equal to twice your movement speed. You can do this for free once per rest and can do it again by expending a psionic energy dice.
Telekinetic thrust: When you deal damage to an enemy using psionic strike, you can force them to take a strength saving throw and if they fail, either push them 10ft away or knock them prone.

Tactics

Telekinetic thrust enhances psionic strike turning it into the most effective use of your psionic die.
Use telekinetic strike on your first attack to knock an enemy prone then gain advantage on subsequent attacks. It’s also great for aiding your allies who want advantage on their attacks too.
Psi-powered leap is more of a utility option. Use it out of combat to access difficult to reach areas. You can do the same in combat to get to archers in hard to reach places or simply to increase your movement speed to close the gap between enemies.

Guarded mind – Lv10

Gain resistance to psychic damage and be able to end the charmed and frightened conditions using a psionic energy dice, enabling you to not be affected by these conditions.

Bulwark of force – Lv15

How it works

Protect a handful of creatures from attacks by using your psionic abilities to grant them half cover making them harder to hit. This lasts for 1 minute and can be used for free once per rest and used again by expending a psionic energy dice.

Tactics

As you get a free use between each short rest, if you know you can rest between each encounter, you might as well use this ability anyway.
Try and use this ability when you’re within range of your whole party to maximise its effects.

Telekinetic master – Lv18

How it works

You now have the telekinesis spell prepared and can use it once per rest for free and make subsequent uses by using a psionic energy dice. You can also make an attack as a bonus action when you cast this spell and when you’re concentrating on it.

Tactics

Keeping a dangerous enemy restrained and being able to move them is very powerful and allows you to prevent their effectiveness. If you’re clever, you can move enemies to places without line of sight of your allies for example.
You can also restrain creatures to allow your allies to hit with advantage.
You can also cause fall damage by lifting enemies into the air then switching targets, ending the effects of the spell. You can only get a creature a maximum of 60ft in the air by doing this though.
You’ll need to maintain concentration for this spell so it may be worth shooting with a longbow away from danger rather than fighting in melee combat.

Building a psi warrior

Psi warriors are the closest thing you’ll get to a jedi in D&D. With that though, comes a mix of abilities that require some juggling including spell-like psionics that rely largely on your intelligence.

Ability scores

Recommended options

Strength or dexterity: You need to invest in one of these but can’t afford to invest in both. Either go dexterity for ranged weapons and light armor, or strength for heavy armor and melee weapons.
Intelligence: The effectiveness of your psionics relies on this so you’ll need to get it high.
Constitution: You’ll need the resilience from this as a frontline warrior. It’ll also help you maintain concentration on telekinesis at later levels.

Options to avoid

Wisdom: Only useful for skills and saving throws but you’ve got too much else to focus on.
Charisma: Only useful for face skills and saving throws but you’ve got too much else to focus on.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	15	15
Dexterity	10	12
Constitution	15	14
Intelligence	14	13
Wisdom	8	8
Charisma	8	10

Skills

Recommended options

Acrobatics/athletics: Take this or athletics but not both as they tend to overlap. Go with whichever one you have the best ability score for.
History: You should have a good intelligence score and this is a decent knowledge skill.
Intimidation: Talk to your DM. They may let you use your strength for intimidation checks (the rules do allow for flexibility in ability checks like this).
Insight: A good skill for social situations. You may pick up on things your companions don’t.
Perception: Important for anyone in the party and highly used.

Options to avoid

Survival: Used far too little to be of much use.
Animal handling: Used far too little to be of much use.

Species/race

There are a couple of things to consider when choosing a species for a psi warrior:

Resilience: Fighters often take a beating so any resilience traits are going to help you out.
Innate spellcasting: You’re not an eldritch knight so can’t repeat cast innate spells, but you can use your intelligence modifier to cast spells making them a solid enough choice. The main problem here is if they consume an action, then you waste all your attacks on a single spell and no species offers any spells that deal enough damage to make this worthwhile. It’s not bad for out of combat spells or spells that don’t require an action, but if it’s the main thrust of the species, it’s likely best to avoid.
Damage dealing: You’re primarily there to deal a lot of damage to your targets making it handy to find more ways to deal damage.

Recommended options

Aasimar (2024): Resistance to necrotic and radiant damage increases your hardiness. For celestial revelation, I’d lean on inner radiance for the extra damage. Necrotic shroud requires decent charisma and you get a semblance of flight with your psionics anyway. A bit of healing is a decent emergency option.
Dragonborn (2024): You don’t get many AoE spells as a fighter so a Dragonborn makes a good option with their breath weapon. You can use it in place of one of your attacks too. Temporary flight may feel a little wasted, but in reality, allows you to avoid wasting psionic dice. Plus there’s a resistance for better durability.
Dwarf (2024): An extra hit point per level is great for frontline warrior. And for even more resilience, you have resistance against poison and advantage on saving throws against the poisoned condition.
Goliath (2024): Faster movement makes you even better at traversing the battlefield. Your giant ancestry grants some very useful options too. For a psi warrior, the durability of the stone giants and extra damage from fire giants are both great options. You can already knock enemies prone with your psionics so hill giant is probably not worth it.
Orc (2024): A couple of great endurance features here with temporary hit points and relentless endurance to save you when knocked to 0HP. Great for a frontline melee warrior.

Options to avoid

Elf (2024): A skill and some resilience to things like the charmed condition is useful, but there’s too much focus on spellcasting which will be a struggle to use effectively in combat. Out of combat spells are your best options here if you really want to play an Elf.
Halfling (2024): Lucky is great and works well for a fighter subclass, but naturally stealthy doesn’t and having advantage against the frightened condition is much less useful once you hit level 10.
Tiefling (2024): Too much focus on spellcasting that will consume your action. At low levels, this might be OK, but isn’t going to be better than other things in your arsenal. You get a resistance which is handy, but that’s about it.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 as the ability score increases previously tied to your race/species are now linked to your background. Remember that you can either choose to increase one of the ability score options from a background by 2 and the other by 1, or you can choose to increase all 3 ability scores by 1.

You also get an origin feat linked to your background too.

Primarily, you want to focus on increasing key ability scores with the associated origin feat being your next priority. As such, I’d suggest the below are your best backgrounds for a psi warrior:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Artisan	Strength, dexterity, intelligence	Crafter	Investigation, persuasion	One kind of artisan’s tools
Criminal	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Alert	Sleight of hand, stealth	Thieves tools
Farmer	Strength, constitution, wisdom	Tough	Animal handling, nature	Carpenter’s tools
Guard	Strength, intelligence, wisdom	Alert	Athletics, perception	One kind of gaming set
Merchant	Constitution, intelligence, charisma	Lucky	Animal handling, persuasion	Navigator’s tools
Noble	Strength, intelligence, charisma	Skilled	History, persuasion	One kind of gamin set
Soldier	Strength, dexterity, constitution	Savage attacker	Athletics, intimidation	One kind of gaming set

Farmer, guard and merchant offer some of the better origin feat choices so likely make some of your best options.

Weapons

The weapons you choose will depend largely on how you want to fight and what weapon mastery properties you want to be using:

Pure damage: Go for two-handed weapons like a greatsword, greataxe, glaive, halberd or maul.
Sword and shield: If you want to go heavier on defense, you’ll need a one handed weapon like a longsword, battleaxe, morningstar or warhammer.
Two weapon fighting: If you want to fight with two weapons for the extra offhand attack, you’ll need to use light weapons. Handaxes and scimitars are best for this. To maximise on this, you’ll want to grab a weapon with the nick weapon mastery property and grab the dual wielder feat for 2 offhand attacks instead of just one.
Ranged: Tridents and javelins can be thrown allowing you to make ranged attacks with your strength. If you’re a dexterity build, a longbow is your best option.

A big part of your decision-making around weapons should come down to the weapon mastery properties you want to use too. This mainly depends on the tactics you want to employ, but you can check out my weapon mastery guide to work out how best to utilise these properties.

Armor

You’ll either want to invest in strength and go with heavy armor (plate mail is best when you can afford it). Or invest in dexterity and go for light armor (studded leather is best. Going halfway with medium armor is too much of an investment in dexterity for this build when you also need to focus on strength, constitution and intelligence.

If you want some extra protection, a shield is a good option but it will diminish your damage output.