Ashrem Bayle
Explorer
And it's goood....
I got the new issue of Dragon today, and while I only had time to read the psionics article, I loved what I read. Points of interest:
1. MAD is gone. Well, pretty much anyway. When you create a psionic character, you must still select a primary discipline. Like the old system, the disciplines are tied to seperate ability scores. However, this is where we see a major change. The ability score that effects your primary discipline also effects all of your manifestations, no matter what discipline they belong too. So for instance, if I make a Telepath, his Charisma will effect both his Charm powers and stuff like Whitefire.
2. Here is the thing though. The powers your particular psionic character has access to are chosen from two lists. One is a generic psion list. The article claims that the generic list is loaded with powers of all levels so no psions are "one trick ponies" as they sometimes were in 3.0. The other list the psion has access to is based on his primary discipline. However, you do not get access to powers from the other discipline specific lists.
For example, if I played a telepath, I'd have access to the Psion and Telepath lists. However, I'd never get to select a power from the Egoist's list even though there are a lot of psychometabolic powers on the generic Psion list.
3. Augmentations. Brilliant.... As most die hard psionic fans know, Bruce Cordell released a little book called If thoughts Could Kill. In it he had a system for scaling damage dealing powers with additional PPs. The same system is carried a step farther with Augmentations. For a good example, see the Wheel of Time d20 game.
According to the article, a great many powers can be augmented. In the power's description, it gives information detailing what happens when a psion spends more power points on a power than is needed to manifest it. This effect is different for each power. Some can have the amount of damage they deal increased by spending more PPS, other increase range, area of effect, etc.
There is a limit however, the number of PPs you can use to manifest a power is limited by your manifester level. However, there is a feat that can be taken, called Overchannel, that allows you to take damage to increase the number of PPs you can spend. For 1d8 damage, you can effectivly increase your manifester level by 1 for the purposes of augmentations. This is also similar to a mechanic in the Wheel of Time game.
Finally, as if they had not stolen enough (great) ideas from the Wheel of Time game, one of the subclasses of psionics may be call a "Wilder". At least, that's the name of a power list as it is in some of the sample powers that appear in the article.
I've come up with two guesses as to what the Wilder list is. Either it is a list of powers that can be taken as a wild talent, or it is the new name for the Savant as the sample powers it was tied to looked pretty psychokinetic to me.
EDIT - An email to Bruce Cordell reveals that the above info is incorrect. All psions use Int as their primary ability score. Other psionic base classes use other ability scores.
I got the new issue of Dragon today, and while I only had time to read the psionics article, I loved what I read. Points of interest:
1. MAD is gone. Well, pretty much anyway. When you create a psionic character, you must still select a primary discipline. Like the old system, the disciplines are tied to seperate ability scores. However, this is where we see a major change. The ability score that effects your primary discipline also effects all of your manifestations, no matter what discipline they belong too. So for instance, if I make a Telepath, his Charisma will effect both his Charm powers and stuff like Whitefire.
2. Here is the thing though. The powers your particular psionic character has access to are chosen from two lists. One is a generic psion list. The article claims that the generic list is loaded with powers of all levels so no psions are "one trick ponies" as they sometimes were in 3.0. The other list the psion has access to is based on his primary discipline. However, you do not get access to powers from the other discipline specific lists.
For example, if I played a telepath, I'd have access to the Psion and Telepath lists. However, I'd never get to select a power from the Egoist's list even though there are a lot of psychometabolic powers on the generic Psion list.
3. Augmentations. Brilliant.... As most die hard psionic fans know, Bruce Cordell released a little book called If thoughts Could Kill. In it he had a system for scaling damage dealing powers with additional PPs. The same system is carried a step farther with Augmentations. For a good example, see the Wheel of Time d20 game.
According to the article, a great many powers can be augmented. In the power's description, it gives information detailing what happens when a psion spends more power points on a power than is needed to manifest it. This effect is different for each power. Some can have the amount of damage they deal increased by spending more PPS, other increase range, area of effect, etc.
There is a limit however, the number of PPs you can use to manifest a power is limited by your manifester level. However, there is a feat that can be taken, called Overchannel, that allows you to take damage to increase the number of PPs you can spend. For 1d8 damage, you can effectivly increase your manifester level by 1 for the purposes of augmentations. This is also similar to a mechanic in the Wheel of Time game.
Finally, as if they had not stolen enough (great) ideas from the Wheel of Time game, one of the subclasses of psionics may be call a "Wilder". At least, that's the name of a power list as it is in some of the sample powers that appear in the article.
I've come up with two guesses as to what the Wilder list is. Either it is a list of powers that can be taken as a wild talent, or it is the new name for the Savant as the sample powers it was tied to looked pretty psychokinetic to me.
EDIT - An email to Bruce Cordell reveals that the above info is incorrect. All psions use Int as their primary ability score. Other psionic base classes use other ability scores.
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