D&D 3.x Creature Catalog 3.5 Overhaul Project

[BOZ]

1. actually, the 2E description does infer that the baku has mind thrust and psychic crush, and all of the defense modes - that's where the " MT,PsC/All" fits in. we can add mental barrier and tower of iron will to the "baku sometimes have this" list to avoid overcrowding.

2. first edition DMG. I don't think you'll find them in the 2E Complete Psionic handbook, unless the names have been changed. Metamorphosis at will looks to be a fitting substitute for shape alteration, as long as it would allow a baku to change into, say, a human. I don't know that we have a good allegory for animal telepathy though, such as perhaps the speak with animals spell.

3.- 5. I agree that it is a tough call. I think the simplest solution would be to mimic the 1E description, throwing in some input from the 2E description. Thus, we would go with Psi-Like Abilities, which seems to be the standard nowadays anyway. Mostly, the 2E approach of assigning PSPs to psionic creatures has been abandoned in most cases. I think we will want to give the baku some powers at will, while limiting others.

 

[full_moon_draw]

1. actually, the 2E description does infer that the baku has mind thrust and psychic crush, and all of the defense modes - that's where the " MT,PsC/All" fits in. we can add mental barrier and tower of iron will to the "baku sometimes have this" list to avoid overcrowding.

Gotyah! Though "sometimes" does rather pose the question of WHEN

2. first edition DMG. I don't think you'll find them in the 2E Complete Psionic handbook, unless the names have been changed. Metamorphosis at will looks to be a fitting substitute for shape alteration, as long as it would allow a baku to change into, say, a human. I don't know that we have a good allegory for animal telepathy though, such as perhaps the speak with animals spell.

Ah - I see! Having looked, they're in my 1st ed PHB not DMG Found em though
Nope - Psionics as a whole never made it across to 2nd edition till the 2nd Edition Complete Psionics Handbook came out. And the two powers that we're interested in never made it across into 2nd edition <groan> that would be far too easy! Yeap, metamorphosis will allow the Baku to take human form! I'd say inventing "Psionic, Speak with Animals" would be the most sensible move! The plus point when you consider that in conjunction with taking the "Psi-like abilities" option is that we don't actually have to write it up as a psionic power! Mixibility of psionics & magic should cover us <whew>

3.- 5. I agree that it is a tough call. I think the simplest solution would be to mimic the 1E description, throwing in some input from the 2E description. Thus, we would go with Psi-Like Abilities, which seems to be the standard nowadays anyway. Mostly, the 2E approach of assigning PSPs to psionic creatures has been abandoned in most cases. I think we will want to give the baku some powers at will, while limiting others.

Sounds fair enough! Make the higher level ones say 3/day & say the level 1st through 3rd ones at will.

Cheers - FMD

 

[BOZ]

We can just tack on the secondary list afterwards and suggest that baku who advance in hit dice will gain access to some of these?

Here is the list of powers that I came up with from using just the 1E MM2 entry. We can determine the X/day stuff after we finalize the list.

aura sight, adapt body, astral traveler, body adjustment, body equilibrium, compression, intellect fortress, metamorphosis, mind thrust, personal mind blank, psionic etherealness, psionic speak with animals, psychic crush, thought shield

additionally, the 2E sources recommend the following as powers that all baku have:
animal affinity, lend health, superior invisibility, contact, invisibility, probability travel

now, of those, aura sight and animal affinity are obvious crossovers, so those was easy. I want to make invisibility into a separate ability - the baku can become invisible using its psionic capacity, and anything that cancels or ignores psionics will work on that as well. Cloud mind, or even mass cloud mind, could be a replacement for superior invisibility. Contact, as I understand it, has no purposeful use in 3E psionics.

Lend heatlh and probability travel have no allegories in 3E that I am aware of. We may replace them, but if there is nothing worth using, we can dump them altogether. maybe lend health becomes empathic transfer? Probability travel may become completely unnecessary when we already have astral traveler and psionic etherealness.

 

[full_moon_draw]

Here is the list of powers that I came up with from using just the 1E MM2 entry. We can determine the X/day stuff after we finalize the list.

aura sight, adapt body, astral traveler, body adjustment, body equilibrium, compression, intellect fortress, metamorphosis, mind thrust, personal mind blank, psionic etherealness, psionic speak with animals, psychic crush, thought shield

additionally, the 2E sources recommend the following as powers that all baku have:
animal affinity, lend health, superior invisibility, contact, invisibility, probability travel

Yeap - that's very similar to what I was suggesting! So (if I edit my original) something like this would be in order:

Psi-Like Abilities (Sp)
At Will: Astral Traveller (Will DC 11+Cha Mod), Animal Affinity, Body Adjustment, Body Equilibrium, Cloud Mind (DC 12+Cha Mod), Compression, Demoralise (Will DC 11+Cha Mod), Ectoplasmic Form, Empathic Transfer, Mind Thrust (Will DC 11+Cha Mod), Psychic Crush (Will DC 15+Cha Mod), Speak with Animals - Psionic, Thought Sheild.
(Level 4+ powrers?) 3/Day: Adapt Body, Aura Sight, Etheralness - Psionic, Intellect Fortress, Metamorphosis, Mind Blank - Personal.
- Manifester Level 12, Saves Are Charisma Based

Assumptions
1. Lend Health maps to Empathic Transfer
2. Invisibility & superior invisibility both map to cloud mind (sounds weird I know but it works - the 2nd edition superior inivisibility power was never truely equivalant of the superior invisibility spell) - personally, i'd stick to giving it cloud mind & leave it at that - I say this as even the 1st ed psionic invisibility power wasn't quite the same as the invisibility spell! So under the old systems the Baku never actually had the ability to fully mirror the capabilities of the invisibility spell! Your call, but it seems a bit odd to give it the ability now! (unless we really like the old boy that is )
3. Contact is indeed dropped under D&D 3.x - it has no relavence to the way psionics now work.
4. Probability Travel maps to Astral Traveller.


Hope that's of some help ? - FMD

 

[BOZ]

not sure why you add Demoralise & Ectoplasmic Form?

yeah, i want to add a regular sort of invisibility. from 1E MM2: "Baku have the power to become invisible at will and to remain thus until some action breaks the dweomer." it actually says nothing about that being the psionic power Invisibility; in fact, it says nothing about that being a psionic power at all. the 2E version was where that changed. i think by making it a sort of unique psionic ability, that strikes a sort of balance.


building the expansion list:

already had mental barrier and tower of iron will as stated earlier.

the 2E sources give me the following powers that not all baku have:
comprehend writing, danger sense, absorb disease, awe, conceal thoughts, mindlink, telempathic projection, truthear, dream travel.
conceal thoughts, danger sense, dream travel, mindlink, and telempathic projection all still exist in the game.

don't think absorb disease, awe, and truthear have direct corrolations.

i don't know what source comprehend writing came from!

 

[Shade]

i don't know what source comprehend writing came from!

A Google search yielded one place...the baku's description in Complete Psionics Handbook. Catch 22!

 

[BOZ]

guess we can skip that one then. any ideas for absorb disease, awe, and truthear?

 

[Shade]

Absorb disease could simply be remove disease as a psi-like ability.

Truthear sounds like nothing more than discern lies.

Awe sounds like aversion (which we can borrow from the yuan-ti for non-psionics writeup).

 

[full_moon_draw]

not sure why you add Demoralise & Ectoplasmic Form?

"Demoralise" - (trust me here, i know it sounds strange) mirrors the capabilities of "Awe"!

"Ectoplasmic form" - Included in the write up from the Psionics handbook & PSMC1

yeah, i want to add a regular sort of invisibility. from 1E MM2: "Baku have the power to become invisible at will and to remain thus until some action breaks the dweomer." it actually says nothing about that being the psionic power Invisibility; in fact, it says nothing about that being a psionic power at all. the 2E version was where that changed. i think by making it a sort of unique psionic ability, that strikes a sort of balance.

Tis a knotty one - the original 1st edition psionic invisibility is very much like the version that's written up in the Psionics handbook! In that it's pretty much used to convince one target at a time that you are invisible. There does seem to be this unwritten rule that psionic invisibility is not the same as arcane invisibility & it's an unwritten rule that's still with us today! In that there's no "invisibility - psionic"!

However, I think that you've got to spirit of the thing - 1E MM2 goes as far as calling it a dweomer!!! What more justification do you need? Rather sounds like we should call it a spell-like ability <just for clarity> to ensure that people know that it functions like arcane rather than psionic invisibility! I know it seems odd it give it spell like abilities & psi like abilities BUT it's the best way of clearly stateing what the power can do without writing a novel!

don't think absorb disease, awe, and truthear have direct corrolations.

The capabilities of "Absorb Disease" map across to "Empathic Transfer"

The capabilities of "Awe" <strangely enough> map across to "Demoralise"

The capabilities of "Truthear" do not map directly to any existing power, a conversion would be needed to play this power as a Psion under 3.5. But, for our purposes we can merrily call it "Discern lies - Psionic" & move on

The pescy "comprened writing" power is indeed given to the Baku in the Psionics Handbook write up & the power is rather elegently not mentioned anywhere in that book! May be this is another "Comprehend Languages - Psionic" type situation (I don't have the 3.5 PHB to hand & can't recall if the spell Comprened langauges still exists!)

Cheers - FMD

 

[BOZ]

you're absolutely right about ectoplasmic form - i just missed it there!

demoralize is good enough, but that is not on the "all baku must have!" list.

we already have empathic transfer on the "always have" list.

i think we should skip truthear and comprehend writing to keep things simple.


we gave our Eater of Knowledge conversion both psionics and spell-like abilites - as that's what the creature had in 2E! so it's exceedingly rare to mix such things, but it's hardly out of the question. maybe to make things simpler, i will just make the invisibility a regular supernatural ability and leave psionics out of the equation.