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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 8557337" data-attributes="member: 6796468">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. 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?</blockquote>

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