Enjoys meat, bicycles, and the overlaps therein. The Psycho — which, yeah, is kind of problematic, there’s no getting around that — held onto their sanity for awhile before deciding, “you know what? I’d be better off without it.” Doling out incredible Melee Damage and willing to expose themselves to all sorts of pain in order to get the job done, the Psycho is not someone you’d like to make an Enemy of.

Typically shirtless, always wearing a cool mask, and often clad in the orange prison pants they were initially wearing when they first came to Pan’Dorah, the Psycho is dressed more for intimidation than practicality.

Bunkers & Badasses PHB, Psycho Class, by Nerdvana

This class is beefy (1d12 Hit Die) and is and amazing class that is perfect if you have that chaotic energy to bring to the table. Similar to a Barbarian from Dungeons & Dragons, the stat bonuses go into Damage first (+2) and then some bonus to Accuracy (+1) and Speed (+1).

Fittingly, the class gets the biggest bonus to Mastery (+2) which will help you use your action skill more often. Other than that, +1 to Damage and Speed on the stat modifiers.

Action Skill: Buzz Axe Rampage

The crazy looking weapon shown in most artwork for a Psycho is called a Buzz Axe and that is your main action skill. When you activate your action skill, you put away your gun and start running around for 2 turns hacking at things with your buzz axe, including being able to throw it up to 4 squares in addition to the melee attack. That makes for 4 attacks across 2 turns, doing 3d8 damage per attack. That’s pretty destructive!

You also get some decent health regen if you kill an enemy, which is likely during this rage. Definitely fits well dropping into a pile of smaller minions, as opposed to a single BBEG.

Backgrounds

The backgrounds on this one are ridiculous, as expected! Unsurprisingly, every background has a -4 on Talk Checks… except one: “STOP TALKING TO ME!” which has a bonus to talk checks?

• YOU’RE DEAD!: Choose this one if you want accuracy (+2)
• THUD!: Seems like a bit of a Gollum reference here, gets you +1 Mastery and +2 on Search Checks. The Mastery bit is good, since that helps you rampage more often.
• GRIND GRIND KILL!: This leans into the class stats (+1 Damage, +1 Speed). Not as strong as some of the others, but being able to move faster does allow you to reach more enemies during your rampage.
• BLOOD!: This is very focused on the rampage with the +2 Melee Damage, but you also get +2 on Traverse Checks. More specific in the bonuses, but more bonus overall.
• STOP TALKING TO ME!: I don’t know why somebody playing a Psycho would choose this, but if you want to talk as a Psycho, this is the only one that gives +2 to Talk Checks instead of -4 on Talk Checks. The downside? A -2 to Insight, interact, Search, and Sneak Checks. I don’t recommend this background for this class.

Skill Tree

The skill tree for the Psycho is sort of all over the place with a lot of options around grenades, or health regen, or increased damage. The only thing consistent is that it all leads to chaos at the table!

Just some of the chaos in the tree:

• Burn, Baby Burn: Tier 1 skill where you set yourself on fire and run around dealing fire damage to enemies and yourself.
• Pull the Pin: Tier 1 skill where if your shields drop to zero (meaning you are unprotected) you drop a grenade on the spot. That spot would e where you are standing. With no shields.
• Light the fuse: Tier 3 skill where, if you reach 0 health you pull out a set of explosives and set off a huge bomb blowing everybody up in site. You get a big health regen if somebody dies, but otherwise, you die.

Archetypes

You might be able to make the Guardian archetype work with this? But the Enforcer archetype has so much going for it in combination with the Psycho class. That’s probably the archetype you want to pick with this one.

Image credits:

• Cover image artwork copyright Gearbox, sourced from Borderlands wiki