D&D 3E/3.5 Kulan: Psionics and Psionic Organizations

Okay, so I've been slowly adding psionics to my World of Kulan campaign setting and I'm wondering if there are any detailed psionic organizations that have been created for 3rd Edition?

I'm mainly looking for official ones, but if someone has a homebrewed organization dedicated to psionics I'd like to hear about it. I don't have the complete book for psionics, as I'd heard that book was horrible -- full of nasty errors. I do have the Malhavoc book dedicated to v.3.5 psionics, but I haven't had a chance to go through it in detail.

The continent of Harqual is very limited when it comes to psionics. Less than 1% of the population has the potential for psionics, and I only use the psion (restricted), psychic warrior, and wilder base classes for the region. Several of the psionic prestige classes are available for the region but they're even more rare than the psionic base classes.

Note: On Harqual, arcanists are a bit afraid of psionicists and, as a result, psionic characters tend to be recluses and a bit paranoid. Even the good-aligned ones

Anyway, just looking for some advice and suggestions.

Knightfall1972

Good question. Hmmm... I can't think of any official organizations off the top of my head but I have to figure that they have appeared somewhere. Secrets of Sarlona has to have something although it's obviously Eberron specific. I think the Players Guide to Faerun has a prestige class (cognition thief). I don't know if they develop it into a full fledged organization though.

You might want to reconsider Complete Psionic because it has an entire chapter on character options that include Psionic Houses and a couple guilds. There's a preview here.

I'll offer a second vote for Complete Psionic. Those who are so vocally opposed to it are ignoring the good bits in it by wasting time bashing the rest.

The Hidden Houses are very cool, and I plan to incorporate them into my Eberron campaign as descendants of long forgotten Sarlonan nobility.

You might want to scavenge content from this Greyhawk-based article, too. It specifically relates to the Scarlet Brotherhood, but you can work around that easily enough.

You'll find several new psionic orders detailed in the 'Appendix' of the Players Guide to Faerûn.

In Aquerra, the Archaics are a cult of psionicists obsessed with the culture of the Ancients, the mystic masters of mental powers that had a vaulted empire that suddenly disappeared thousands upon thousands of years ago.

They emulate the culture based on various theories of what it was like and are always looking information, sites and artifacts related to their obsession.

There's also an overview of how the psionic classes (including the ardent, divine mind, erudite, and lurk of Complete Psionic) fare in Faerûn at the Class Chronicles Archive here, here, here, and here.

For me, it wasn't so much that Complete Psionic was bad, as it was that it just wasn't good. It seemed like a collection of new powers, feats, PrCs, etc.; no more, and no less. None of the new material there really seemed to innovative, or cool from a flavor standpoint.

I instead heartily recommend that you purchase Untapped Potential: New Horizons in Psionics (Expanded Edition) from Dreamscarred Press. The book has a number of brand new psionic organizations, which also have substitution levels and PrCs specifically to support them, along with a lot of new crunch that's not only flavorful, but really exceptional for how new and interesting it is. You can buy their PDFs at their site, or over on Paizo, e23, and RPGNow/DTRPG (once it comes back up).

I believe there was an organization known as the Colorless Lodge in If Thoughts Could Kill, with a Colorless Adept PrC. The PrC was updated in Hyperconscious.

I think that's what it was called.

Alzrius said:

I instead heartily recommend that you purchase Untapped Potential: New Horizons in Psionics (Expanded Edition) from Dreamscarred Press. The book has a number of brand new psionic organizations, which also have substitution levels and PrCs specifically to support them, along with a lot of new crunch that's not only flavorful, but really exceptional for how new and interesting it is.

Click to expand...

Is it really that good? I checked out a preview and it seemed overrated. Did I miss something? Also, how are the other supplements such as the Psionic Feats, Psionic Diseases and Mental Maladies, Races of the Mind: Elan, etc.?

amaril said:

Is it really that good? I checked out a preview and it seemed overrated. Did I miss something? Also, how are the other supplements such as the Psionic Feats, Psionic Diseases and Mental Maladies, Races of the Mind: Elan, etc.?

Click to expand...

I think it really is just that good. The only preview I'm aware of is that they made the new Society Mind base class, as well as related feats, powers, etc. available as a free download; I personally love that new class, as it has both a very innovative idea, and superb execution (it's about a hundred times better than the Psibond Agent PrC in Complete Scoundrel). Likewise, the new monsters, powers, etc. all seemed really new and exciting. I honestly think that any fan of d20 psionics should pick the book up.

The Dreamscarred guys currently have eleven other books out (not counting freebies and expanded editions of books), all of which are pretty good, though some are better than others.

The Untapped Classes series each present a new PrC. Three of them are for the Marksman (a new base class in Untapped Potential; the one for The Talon of the Thrush) also has a new organization. The last one presents a more invasive version of the Society Mind - the Soulbinder is a Society Mind that prefers to take slaves, rather than partners.

The only Races of the Mind out right now is for the Elan. It does a good job of getting inside their head, going over their approach to life, etc. It's got a fair amount of new crunch also.

The High Psionics stuff is a medley. Countermeasures is pretty good, Phrenic Diseases wasn't too bad, though it was a different take on diseases. Psicrystals Expanded had some great new options if you're serious about having different kinds of psicrystals. Psionic Feats has a lot of different stuff, but I found a lot of it to be really cool - there were feats in there to let you naturally detect psionic auras, for example, and be able to identify who they belonged to (that immediately made me think of Darth Vader sensing Luke via the Force). Soulknives has some neat variant base classes, but they seemed a bit too specialized. However, the new feats and equipment more than made up for that (crystal hilts let you project your mindblade through them for added power, for example).

Finally, The Mind Divine is perhaps the most unique. It expands on the concept of psionic godminds (introduced in Malhavoc's Hyperconscious), presenting them in a format similar to (but still different from) gods, along with plenty of options and organizations for their followers.

Personally, I like a lot more of Dreamscarred's stuff than I don't, and even the stuff I'm not too keen on is still a lot more interesting than psionic material I see elsewhere. As a d20 company specifically dedicated to writing psionic material, they do one heck of a job.