Level Up (A5E) A Unique Psionics System Structure

[Steampunkette]

So this is a thing I've been postulating about pretty often, usually on these boards... Psionics should feel different from magic.

So there's a few ways I wanna make it different:

1) A lot fewer powers that have wider flexibility.
Rather than having a dozen pages of individual spells most of which are meticulously drawn out to have very specific functions, a broader baseline power concept that you can customize with power point expenditures and use to create a variety of effects as you level up.

2) A Tree structure to make it feel more like sci-fantasy.
Spells in Level Up are super haphazard. You get level ranges to use them at, sure, but their types mean very little except as a keyword. Martial Maneuvers create a narrowing of schools which is interesting, but what if we took it a step further and said 'You must have one of these two schools to get this higher level school?". That's kind of where I'm going with this.

3) The tree structure isn't about increased power, per-se, it's more about increased theme.
Some stuff 1st level characters probably should not have access to, like Teleportation. But we can set that up to a slightly higher 'Level' by saying "You have to take this power first before you can teleport", but the damage isn't based on what type of power you have access to, but how many power points you have available, and what your current point cap is.

For the moment I'm looking at 4 Disciplines.
Empathy: Emotional Control, and Manipulation.
Kinesthetics: Mind over Body.
Telekinetics: Mind over Distant Matter.
Telepathy: Mental Contact and Manipulation.

Which in turn give us 4 'Basic' powers, and then a set of 6 'Advanced' powers.
Chiurgery: Kinesthetics/Telepathy Healing allies and altering bodies.
Energy Manipulation: Empathy/Telekinetics. Pyrokinesis, for example, is tapping into anger/rage and directing it.
Psychoportation: Kinesthetics/Telekinetics. Transporting your body (And other bodies) from place to place.
Reality Warping: Empathy/Telepathy. Illusions of the Mind.
Empathy/Kinesthetics and Telekinetic/Telepathy are two powers I just haven't thought of a name for.

To get Chiurgery you need to have a Basic power which is from the Kinesthetic or Telepathic discipline, for example.

And then the next tier is the intersection of 3 different Disciplines. Of which you must have powers in at least 2 of the 3 disciplines to gain.

And then every time I come up with a new Discipline, you wind up with, like, 6-7 more individual powers spread out across the different tiers.

So that's the plan, there... and here's an example of the power structure I'm looking at... I wanna know what you all think of this kind of design and whether I'm on to something interesting or not.

Telekinesis (Telekinetic Discipline)
Power Rating: 1st
Range: 30ft
Target: 1 Creature or Object.
You use telekinesis to strike a creature or manipulate an object you can see within range. As an attack this deals 1d8 + your psion level points of Bludgeoning damage with a Strength Save for half damage. If you choose to move an object you can manipulate it as if holding it in one hand, and it may weigh up to your Psionics Ability Score in pounds.

By expending 1 Power Point you can alter the following aspects of the power in different ways:
Range: +60ft per point spent
Damage: +1d8 per point spent.
Weight Limit: +50lbs per point spent

By expending 2 Power Points you can add the following effects to the power:
Grapple: A creature that fails its strength save against this discipline is also grappled so long as you maintain concentration, though it may attempt to end the grapple normally.
Manipulate: A creature that fails its strength save against this discipline is pushed or pulled up to 15ft in a direction of your choice.
Split: You may target an additional creature or object with this power, or a large number of small objects within a 5ft square. Each further point spent in this way creates a multiplier. 3 points allows you to target 4 creatures, 4 allows you to target 6, and so on.

By expending 4 power points you can add the following effect to the power:
Flight: You, or another target within range are lifted off the ground and carried a short distance. You gain a flight speed of 40ft for 1 round. If you do not land before the end of the round you may hover long enough to expend additional power points to maintain your flight, but if you do not spend those points you immediately fall.
Lift: A creature that fails its strength save against this discipline is instead lifted into the air for one turn, up to 15ft. While suspended in this way the target cannot move from its current space. This effect ends at the start of your next turn unless you immediately spend 4 power points to continue the effect.

For the sake of argument, let's say you've got 5 points to spend on a given turn. You could Split for 2 points, put the other 3 points into damage, and Telekinetically strike two targets for 4d8+Psion Level damage. Or you could put 4 points into Lift, 1 point into Damage, and render your target incapable of meleeing your party or moving to cover while your allies pump magic arrows into them while doing 2d8+psion level damage, yourself. Even if they're a creature that can normally fly, this stops them.

Let's say you're right on the cusp of going from 5 points per round to 6 points per round. You use the Flight variant of the power to affect yourself, and the next turn you apply it to an ally. That's 8 points spent out of your pool... Gain a level, and now it costs 6 points to use Flight and Split in the same round, and you can still use the base effect of the power to hit an enemy for 1d8+psion level or manipulate an object at a distance. Split that flight on you and your Berserker friend, then pull the lever on the far side of the room to make the floor drop open and send an ogre tumbling into an acid pit, below, while you two hang in the air, safe as houses.

Split a Manipulate for 4 points for a total of 6 targets shoved 15 feet off a cliff. Wheeeeee!

What do you think? Should I keep messing with this idea?

 

[RangerWickett]

I'm heading out the door right now, but I should send you what I wrote up for the psion before I found out someone else was working on the class.

 

[Steampunkette]

I'm heading out the door right now, but I should send you what I wrote up for the psion before I found out someone else was working on the class.

I'm on the Discord with this as my username 'cause I use it all the time!

 

[Faolyn]

How many points were you imagining here per level? Because having too much math might not be great. As it is, this seems kind of complicated. You mention maneuvers, but those use exertion which is based on your prof bonus (except for fighters and adepts, who get extra), and is a very low number.

Personally, I'd make the psionic powers to be a bit more like the maneuvers. But instead of letting you spend extra psionic power points to increase abilities, make each ability have 1-3 powers that are of similar "level." Optionally, the powers unlock more things when you go up in level.

To keep the idea of power surges and extra effort, then you could maybe use the psi die idea--even allow it to explode--to increase range or damage. Perhaps the archetypes (assuming psion class and not psion archetype for other classes) would allow the psi dice to be used in different ways or grant extra abilities.

Other possible power ideas: psychic vampirism and probability manipulation. Although the latter might be a type of reality warping.

 

[Faolyn]

OK, expanded thoughts on this.

Your powers are basically cantrip-level, maybe 1st-level-level, in terms of power. You can either use them X times per rest, or at will. But you also gain a number of psi dice. Perhaps equal to your PB, or your Int mod +1, or simply a set number based on your level. You regain spent PB after a (long?) rest. You can then spend one or more of these dice to increase your power's level. The die probably starts out as a d6 and increases as you go up in level.

Basic TK is the equivalent of mage hand in terms of power level (10 pounds). Spend a die to up the amount you can carry. Maybe by a set amount, maybe by number rolled times 5 or 10.

Or, you can throw the object you're lifting, as per catapult. Damage would be on par with other cantrips, say 1d8. You can also roll psi dice to add to that damage or increase the range.

You can spend multiple psi dice at a time. You can also have the dice explode, which is definitely useful if you're rolling multiple dice.

As you go up in level, the base ability increases as well. At 5th level, your mage hand can carry 25 or 50 pounds, plus whatever the psi die does; the thrown object's base range increases and it does 2d8 damage now.

Yes, this is similar to your original point-based idea, but somewhat more random (due to rolling a psi die) and uses fewer points, since you'd only get a small number of dice.

 

[Steampunkette]

Right now the idea is Power Points are a sort-of short-rest recovery mechanic that range from 4pp at level 1 to 13pp at level 20.

You recover PP by expending hit dice. Let's say you're down 3pp and 6 hit points and you roll a total of 8 on a hit dice roll during a short rest. You can do 3pp and 5hp or 2pp and 6hp, or however you wanna allocate those points, just as another way to spend those hit dice.

As for how many you can spend on a turn, the current cap starts at 1 and reaches 7 at 19th level.

But. Body Manipulation (Kinesthetics) and Chiurgery (Kinesthetics/Telepathy) both allow you or a target to expend hit dice during combat, as the Psionic form of Healing, which means you could target another Psion and let them recover PP instead of HP in the middle of a fight.

Psi dice are neat, though.

 

[Kinematics]

The first thought I had on how I'd construct the mechanics is a little jumbled, but here goes...

You start with 2 power usage points. These act similar to O5E's druid's Wildshape, or a combat maneuver stance, but use concentration (so also similar to Hunter's Mark). You can use 1 point to activate a discipline, and it remains on for a certain duration after that, or until concentration is broken.

Then, while it's active, you can do things related to that power set in a sort of free-form way, but with effect caps determined by level and individual power selection (there's no point in activating Empathy if you have no empathic powers). Damage scales like cantrips. Telekinesis could lift 50 lbs per level (enough to make flight reasonable by 5th level). Elemental powers can do stuff similar to Move Earth or Shape Water, in addition to damage. Mental or emotional control would be resisted similar to Charm type spells. Etc.

You can also double the effect for a turn for the cost of a level of fatigue (or strife?).

There's a lot of flexibility, but since it's all gated behind a concentration effect, you can only do one type of action at a time. So no flight + fireballs, though you're free to fly around and swing a sword at the enemies you pass.

Having a tree structure for certain types of effects is a reasonable build framework. It would be similar to how a druid's Wildshape opens up new creature types over time.

This is largely similar to the OP's proposal, but extracting the power points out of the general usage to remove a busy and fiddly mechanic that I think drags the whole thing down. In place of a mechanic like 'split', you just are limited to, say, 200 lbs you can lift. That's fine for a handful of halflings, but not so much for multiple half orcs in plate mail.

It does remove doing something like the suggested lifting someone in the air and poisoning han at the same time, but I think that's a fair limitation for a very free-form power structure.

 

[VenerableBede]

I like it! I also don't mind a little more complicated systems, so I say go for it, full-throttle, and make it feel very much like it has its own identity.

 

[RangerWickett]

What do you think? Should I keep messing with this idea?

I dig the premise of "There's a path where you unlock higher level powers by learning the right lower level powers."

I'm not sure you need a specific tree, though. It could be as simple as giving each power a prerequisites that is usually "know a power of the same discipline at the next lower level." Turn some powers could have a second, optional prereq of a specific power that maybe lets you jump two levels without needing something in between? Hm.

Lemme tinker.

 

[Steampunkette]

I dig the premise of "There's a path where you unlock higher level powers by learning the right lower level powers."

I'm not sure you need a specific tree, though. It could be as simple as giving each power a prerequisites that is usually "know a power of the same discipline at the next lower level." Turn some powers could have a second, optional prereq of a specific power that maybe lets you jump two levels without needing something in between? Hm.

Lemme tinker.

That's what the disciplines are for, yeah.

To get a power that is Kinesthetic and Telekinetic, you need either a Kinesthetic or Telekinetic power to be eligible to take it. So you could use Telekinesis, above, or Body Modification (Kinesthetic) as your pre-requisite.

The next step up, where it has 3 disciplines working together, requires you to have 2 powers, one from any of the disciplines in the high power, and one from another discipline in the high power.

So, like... if you wanted Astral Construct (Kinesthetic, Telekinetic, Telepathy) you'd need one Telekinetic and one Telepathic power. Or one Telepathy/Kinesthetic. Or one Telekinetic/Kinesthetic. Or one Kinesthetic and one Telepathic, or one Telekinetic and one Kinesthetic.

So if you had Psychoportation (Kinesthetic/Telekinetic), you would already meet the requirements for Astral Construct and already have a Kinesthetic or Telekinetic power you used to get access to Psychoportation in the first place.