Your strength/will idea also sounds very appealing. If I can convince myself to drop container opening skills I might just go that route.
Actually, I meant putting points into Will
instead of strength --- you'd still have 5 or more int and high dex, so you wouldn't be sacrificing containers or anything like that. What you would be sacrificing is Wrestling and 10% bonus damage to fists from strength, but you'd gain damage from better Force Emission, and you would of course gain all of the other advantages that a high-will PSI build has. The build would work on the principle that you'd use your bare fists with force emission for 4-5 AP attacks versus enemies with
low mechanical resistance, and you'd switch to Neural Overload/Electrokinesis/Metathermics for enemies in metal armor.
In my opinion, strength is not a very important attribute for an unarmed build. I would only recommend strength on builds that rely on it for both offense
and defense, e.g. Assault Rifle builds that use Metal armor + Full Auto. With Lightning Punches, you won't be wearing Metal Armor, so you only get a bit of extra damage from strength. You get much better gains from Dex/Agi/Will, based on my own experience. For example, something like 5 int, 10 will, 11 dex (4 AP fists with tabi boots + lightning punches), rest into Agi (you could go for 10 agi if you want to, Blitz is 5 extra fist attacks if your fists are 4 AP). Dex could work at 8 too, for 5 AP punches --- which meshes nicely with your 5, 10, 15, 20 AP psi.
I did think about going with a Psi build as well, but I can't quite settle on a build. I don't want to take crafting but apparently you get some pretty crucial items through it (psi vest and such).
The crafting requirements for Psi equipment are pretty low (somewhere in the range of 20-50, I think), and well worth it if you frequently utilize Psi.
Is it generally recommended to focus on all 3 psi abilities since you're already heavily invested into Will stat? What about social, is one enough or should one generally get both persuasion and intimidate if going that route?
Psychokinesis is so good you want to max it on pretty much all psi builds. Thought Control should be a priority if you have 10 Will --- Locus of Control is an amazing feat. Metathermics
can be ignored, but it has some nice stuff in it like Cryostasis at 35 points.
Neither Persuasion nor Intimidate are
necessary, unless you're playing a non-combat build that relies upon having a silver tongue for survival. You should pick Intimidate if you want to pick dialogue options where you scare someone. Pick Persuasion if you want dialogue options where you convince someone to do something. If you don't want to do either, you can live without them.
The good thing about dex/will/agi/int is they all affect a lot of skills, so you can spread yourself among 10-12 skills without any particular problems: you don't need to max every single skill. Just pick the lowest points you need for psi headbands, psi armor, specific breakpoints in lockpicking/hacking (like 100 effective skill with a huxkey, or whatever the highest lock is these days), and only max the stats you need to.
