As a public service announcement, I tried to make a character built around offensive use of telekinesis. It worked well, but I aborted the play-through because it felt very unsatisfying.
Combat consists of nudging a barrel or chest around near an enemy, who can't dodge or block, until they die.
The idea of a telekinetic warrior is really cool in theory, but wound up not being very fun to play, in my opinion.
Yeah, I get what you're saying. I just tried it out on a level 3 character. I basically started a fight with the entire Cyseal market, which is a fight I have no business winning, since it's against like 12 people (and I hadn't even gotten the companions yet, so this was 12 v 2) and many of them were level 5. But I basically could one-shot, or close to one-shot, almost every enemy by dragging my barrel-filled backpack next to them. Sometimes I was able to hit two at once. There were a few random enemies that would not be damaged by the backpack of doom, so I killed them by somewhat normal means. I can see slinging around items with telekinesis getting old. There's not a whole lot to it.
However, I am trying to figure out if there are ways to make it interesting by using it semi-creatively. Here are a few ideas I have had.
- You might keep some crates or screens or something with you. For 2 AP, I think you could throw those (it seems that if you drop multiple items near each other, you can move them all at once) in strategic spots on the battlefield. For instance, you could use them to block an enemy archer/mage's view of you. The archer might move to get in view, but you could keep moving the cover.
- Similarly, you could use items to create chokepoints. Now, of course, you could do that before a battle without a telekinesis build, but battle situations can be dynamic, so you might want to create a chokepoint later. For instance, maybe you want to make sure the enemies closing in on you have to go through the wet patch you just Rained on or on your oil patch or poison cloud. If you have kept a few boxes in your inventory, you could just drop those for 0 AP, and then move them all at once for 2 AP.
- Another similar point: If there's a bridge or something, you could completely block it off for like 6 AP or so. Make the battle a ranged battle, and you are definitely more likely to win.
- This is a bit cheap, but it seems like with 12 AP, you can fairly easily position 6 boxes/barrels around you and make yourself completely inaccessible to melee attacks. Of course, this may seem silly for a strength-based character. I suppose, though, that you really only need the uber backpack to be somewhere on the battlefield within your range in order to use it. A different character in your party could carry it and just drop it near you at the beginning of a battle. This would allow you to be a mage or archer and be just as effective.
- You can use telekinesis to ignite stuff with candles. I think you could probably throw them far too, but at least this goes with the theme.
- You can throw around oil/ooze/water barrels of course. With a high enough telekinesis skill, I imagine you could drop a barrel, and then throw it far enough that you are outside its explosion radius and then explode it.
Basically, I see it as being possibly more than just a semi-unsatisfying way to get uber high damage. Telekinesis could also be a way to dynamically manipulate the environment to your advantage. And this is an area where having high telekinesis might really matter because you would likely want to do this sort of stuff from afar.
