backwards conversion (psionics)

[bloodymage]

Morrus has got himself a d20 forum, but there's a huge pool of experienced gamers here, me included. The trouble with my experience is that I never experienced 2e. The basic question is, what worked in 2e psionics and what didn't and how did you fix it? The adjunct question, to make it pertinent to ENWorld, is, what would you port into 2e psionics from 3e to make it better?

I'm working on integrating psionics into a non-d20 campaign, but that doesn't mean I won't use good stuff from 3e.

Two things:
No "just use the d20 system." It won't work.
And I don't like psionic classes. All my psions develop from a latent ability present at birth. Maybe .05% of the world's population has the latent ability and .02% know it and practice it.

 

[ciaran00]

Don't do it. Believe me, I've spent a bit of time on this to NO effect. 2e psionics is far gone, and IMHO it can't be revived. The massive number of problems I've encountered (and subsequently given up on):
* Not scalable. The high level psionicist has more PSPs but he doesn't do any more damage (if he did any at all)
* Powers unbalanced. Most don't list saves. Psionic/non-psionic issue about as bad as 3e.
* Powers too weak. Most psionic powers, as they stand, are not worth taking. I WAS in the process of doing some serious tweaks so as to make every power "attractive."
* Wild-talent mechanic is broken. I didn't manage to fix it. Problem: If everyone is a wild-talent then the psionicist still wins out because he can blast out their PSPs and take them over. If everyone is not, how do we resolve wild-talent vs. psionicists vs. non-psi's?
* Power check mechanic is bogus. Why does a class have chance of auto-fail written into all their abilities?
* MAC mechanic is also bogus. This stat doesn't scale at all with psionic attack.
* PSP cost list bogus. The costs for powers are totally inconsistent, whether you're checking 2nd ed psionics or 2.5ed psionics.
* Unusable without a complete rewrite. Now do you really want to do this?

My solution at present: Use 3e psionics. Eradicate 3e attack and defense modes and bring in Mindscapes mechanic by Bruce Cordell. I have altered Mindscapes to use the standard attack and defense modes in my own fashion.

Unfortunately 3e psionicists have no real character... though the Mindscapes book helps with this problem somewhat.

Good luck!

ciaran

 

[ciaran00]

Well, to answer your question directly: make the powers scale, make the powers good, and make the powers fair.

From 3e I've pulled into 2e: Microcosm, Genesis, Concussion, Time Regression, Thrall, Catapsi, Apopsi, Metafaculty.

E-mail me if you'd like the conversions I've done. They will soon be visiting the recycle bin......

ciaran

 

[Piratecat]

It's sad how you forget stuff, isn't it? I used to know 2e psionics like the back of my hand, and now? Poof. All gone.

I know that the major concern is that certain powers are available much too early. Since there are only two power levels of powers, it makes it much more difficult to balance out a PC.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Well, I did some Dark Sun and Planescape under 2nd Ed as a player. Here's my thoughts based on that:

I agree with Ciaran that the powers don't really scale well. It can fall one of two ways: either the peson doesn't really know what they're doing, and the character can never do anything, or they can twink the character out to the point where it can trounce the rest of the party.

The main problem is, at least for the Psionicist's Handbook, that the powers were pretty haphazard- they weren't really balanced against other classes, or each other. If a player (such as myself) were to happen upon certain deadly combinations, then that was it. For instance, the Double Pain power doubled the damage of a single attack to a person, although I believe it was technically illusory subdual damage. Several levels later, I took Amplify, to triple and eventually quadruple damage. Combined with x4 from my backstab ability (psionicist/assassin), things could get pretty ridiculous. Even if 80% of the damage were illusory, the enemy was still out cold and helpless.

Power point recovery was the other big issue I found- there were ways to recover power points very quickly, so that you could effectively use and recover your pool two or three times during the day. I can't give details, since I don't have the book any more.

One thing I will say- if you can get ahold of the second Dark Sun rules, take a look at those. They adapted the Psionicist's Handbook to a more usable format. MAC, for instance, never changed- but the Dark Sun psionicist was given a mental THAC0 that went up over time, so that eventually a higher-level psionicist actually could affect peasants more easily. There were probably other changes, too, but I don't have the rules.

That's my perspective- I don't really have any adaption ideas. At the risk of suggesting yet another third ed source (don't know if that's what your playing or not), you may want to check out Green Ronin's Psychic book:

http://www.greenronin.com/cgi-bin/product.cgi?prodid=1306

It's a skills and feats system, similar to force powers in Star Wars from what I've heard. As such it could be implemented outside of class systems, and might be what your looking for. You could make the entrance feat (I assume there's one) available only at first level to simulate the "must be born psychic" feel of your campaign.

Hope this helps!

 

[bloodymage]

Thanks for the info, claran00. Right now, the only book I have is "The Complete Book of Psionics". I've read that some stuff from Dark Sun psionics worked better (I think that MAC you mentioned is from there) and MAC and MTHACO(?) were mentioned as the big plusses. However, I really do think I can make something work with the resources I have (OAD&D, early Dragon and "Complete") if I make psionics rare and jettison the class(es).

If any of you think I really need another resource to develop a system for a grognard's game, please let me know. I'm wide open at this point.

I was thinking of using the Wild Talents section as the base for the system and building from there. I also wan't psi to be unique, so I'm looking at throwing out the "magic-like" powers and sticking with strictly mental disciplines.

I should mention that I'm not familiar with 3e's system either. I looked at the book once and wasn't impressed. I know the classes turned me off and I've never been a real fan of psi since Gary's patch. It's just that I now have a character class (non-d20) who, by the rules, has a Wild Talent (I didn't even know what the term meant until I DLed "Complete"!). Now I have to come up with a system and I've heard that 2e has problems and 3e isn't exeedingly brilliant either. I figure if I can take the best from OAD&D, 2e and 3e, I might be able to come up with something.

 

[Moleculo]

MTHACO(?)

newb!! heheh. Mental to hit armor class 0. don't ask.