Mild Speculation

[No Name]

All of the powers under the Martial power source are called exploits. Arcane has spells, and Divine has prayers. I was wondering what they'll call the powers under other power sources. I can't come up with anything halfway serious.

Maybe for Shadow they'll call them at-will umbras and daily umbras or something. (Yeah, I know it's lame ).

Nothing comes to mind for Ki or Psionic though.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Actually, Umbras are pretty cool.

Paths might also work.


For Ki:

Techniques

Katas

Forms

Styles

For Psionic:

Knacks

Capabilities

Constructs

Patterns

Foci

 

[charlesatan]

Psionics = Talents
Ki = Katas/Kihos
Elemental = Focuses, Attunements

 

[Anax]

I'm kind of keen on the idea of elemental powers being "evocations". Not in the old D&D sense, but in the sense of "calling upon" a spirit--thinking in terms of the Eberron-style elemental stuff, you're calling upon a bound elemental to do stuff for you--so, you're evoking it.

Of course, everybody would scream in outrage at the use of the word evocation in a non-D&D-canonical way.

 

[Cryptos]

I was tempted to use 'Invocations' for an elemental class I was making.

I like Katas for Ki and Talents for Psionics.

For primal? I don't know. That's a pretty broad spectrum of abilities from Barbarian to Druid to Shaman. You've got one guy raging out with big, sharp pointy things and messing around with totems, possibly, and another guy hugging trees and turning into bears, and yet another guy channeling nature and/or perhaps even ancestral spirits.

Primal Entreaty? Primal Supplications? Sound too wimpy for the barbarian.

Maybe 'invocation' would work for them. Primal Attunements?

Oooh, wait: Primal Focus?

 

[Plane Sailing]

"Disciplines" could be a psionic version which nods back towards old-school.

 

[JPL]

Shadow = mysteries
Ki = techniques
Psionic = disciplines
Primal = powers
Elemental = invocations

 

[DemonLord57]

Maybe for Shadow they'll call them at-will umbras and daily umbras

When I first read this, I read this as "Maybe for Shadow they'll call them at-will umbrellas and daily umbrellas." That made me laugh out loud. Very hard. For about five seconds. Imagining those at-will umbrellas...

 

[NorthSaber]

Primal = powers

The problem here is that "power" is already used to indicate the class abilities you gain at each level...

I think Primal is the hardest source for this - perhaps something like 'aspect' or 'totem'?

 

[Cadfan]

Shadow = mysteries
Ki = techniques
Psionic = disciplines
Primal = powers
Elemental = invocations

I think the first three are very likely. Mysteries were used for shadow based magic in 3e, techniques seems obvious for a martial artist themed power source, and disciplines has history with psionics.

In fact, the only way I think that disciplines wouldn't be the term is if "disciplines" was used as a term for some other psionic related thing. Like if psions have something akin to the warlock's pact choice, perhaps.

The fourth doesn't seem likely because "power" is already being used as a prominent noun.

The fifth I am ambivalent about, as I lack any information on which to make a judgment.