Expanded Psionics Handbook
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Expanded Psionic Handbook Review
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
The Good: All the old demons have been exorcized; Multiple Ability Dependancy, Psionic Combat and the complaint that the Psion was just a Spell Point Using Mage have been dealt with.
Each Psionic class has a single ability modifier (Psion = Int, Psychic Warrior = Wis & Wilder = Cha) and all your powers manifest based on that ability. Also, the random aspect of setting the DC of the power is gone.
Psionic Combat, the vestigial tail of 1st edition AD&D, is gone. The Attack & Defense modes are now powers.
One complaint that Psionics just was not different enough from Magic has also been dealt with. Many powers can now be Augmented, or boosted with additional power points. For some this is a built in metapsionic feat (manifest as a Swift Action) for others it can enhance the power’s DC or damage and for others it can alter it’s effects. Consider psionic charm, at 1st level it is just like the charm person spell for 1 power point. But for +2 power points, you can now target animal, fey, giant, magical beast or monstrous humanoid. For +4 power points, you can target aberration, dragon, elemental, or outsider. For +4 power points, the duration changes from 1 hour / level to 1 day / level and for +2 power points, you can increase the save DC by 1. And yes, you can combine the above augmentations up to your manifester level in additional power points.
With just one power, you get a great number of effects.
There are two new psionic classes (three if you include the Erudite in Dragon magazine #319), the Soul Knife and the Wilder. The Soul Knife was a prestige class, but is now upgraded to a core class and it is an unusual psionic class in that it does not manifest any powers. His psionic potential is based through his Mind Knife, a blade of psionic energy. The greatest advantage is that his blade is always a thought away, especially after he gains the ability to create it as a free action.
The Wilder is a wild psion, one who didn’t get or choose not to take the training of a Psion. They get fewer powers, but can do more with them, as they can use their emotions to surge their powers.
There are several new races as well as a few old ones brought back. The new races are Maenads (D&D Vulcans), Dromites (First Man in the Moon), Elan (Born again Psychics) and Xephs (They are quick and agile). The old ones are the Githyanki and Githzerai, Duergar, Thri Kreen and Half Giants.
Another new aspect is Psionic Focus. Instead of having reserve power points, now you just need to focus your mind to use your feats. I really like the concept, but will need to play with it more to really see how it feels. The problem is that so many of the psionic feats require you to expend your focus and it takes a standard action to refocus. The bad thing is that you really need three of the new feats ( Psionic Meditation: Refocus as a move action, Narrow Mind: +4 to Refocus and Expanded Knowledge: To gain a bonus power from any list and take hustle for a bonus move action) to make full use of this ability and after spending those three feats, you have few left to take the psionic feats.
The Bad: Well, the first bad thing is that the new classes and races don’t get any support. There are no new feats for Soul Knives to use on their Mind Blades, nothing for Wilders to make them truly different from Psions, no racial or regional feats for psionics and the new races are virtual ciphers, with very little information to flesh them out. If Elans are reborn into their new bodies, how about a few feats to represent the residual knowledge from their old life?
Another problem are the References in this book. Powers that are the same as spells are referenced to the Player’s Handbook, creation of new powers refers you to the DM’s Guide on creating new spells and the monster section only provides an errata like mention for Couatl, Illithid and Yuan-Ti, referring you to the Monster Manual for the rest. While it is expected that you will have all of these, having to constantly reference back an forth between four books is very annoying.
The reference to the DM’s Guide is especially bad since the new rules for psionic powers includes a discipline list and augmentations. What decides if a new power is a general or specialist list power? How may a power be augmented? Can augmentation be added to an existing power? There are no answers since the questions are never asked in the first place.
Many of the powers that are referenced to the Player’s Handbook could easily be augmented (psionic fly could add speed or maneuverability for example), but because they are referenced, they may not have been considered for augmentation.
It is also a simple fact of gaming that there will be far more material made for Magic users than for Psionics, so a section on converting spells and prestige classes to psionics would have been especially helpful here.
Next we have the prestige classes, and well, they are just bland. The Cerebremancer is a Mystic Theurge for Wizards and Psions and aside from the fact that they use the same stat, it is kind of *yawn*. The Elocator is based on motion and speed. The Fist of Zuoken allows a Monk to give up some very nice class abilities and get just 10 powers, all 5th level and lower, in exchange. The Illithid Slayer is still a great class, only losing one manifester level, but this makes the Metamind seem even worse, since it gains only 5 manifester levels. Oh, but he is a master at manifesting low level powers. The Psion Uncarnate is just plain strange, he is “unmaking” himself to become pure psionic consciousness. The Pyrokineticist is a waste of paper as he gains no additional manifester levels. This means that all his Fire based powers never get any stronger and his class abilities just don’t match up with what a Kineticist would get if he just stayed a Psion. The Thrallherd manipulates the minds of others, well one thrall and a few believers and unlike Cohorts and Followers, you can’t chose who you get. A Telepath with the Leadership feat is better off. The last is the War Mind and I just can’t figure exactly what this is supposed to be. If it is for Psychic Warriors, they loose a lot of feats and instead of continuing their power progression, this class starts it all over from the beginning.
The real problem with these Prestige classes is that they are no better or actually worse than just staying with your current class. Also, in the Complete Warrior, the PrCs have sample NPCs and this does help to visualize the new PrC. If there were some here, it might help me and others understand them better.
As I come to the Psionic items I am reminded about another very annoying aspect of this book, name changes. For some reason Savants are now Kineticists, Crystalline armor is now Gleaming armor, Crystal Capacitors are now Cognizance Crystals. Exactly why so many names needed to be changed I cannot figure out. And along with the name changes are the Missing In Action powers and feats. Many mainstay powers are gone; Augury, Inkling, Foresight, Thrall, Sever the Tie, and many more. Do they think we will just let these go?
Also in the item section, I am reminded again that there are no new items for Wilders and Soul Knives. This really stands out to me. When this book was first released, there were some that had problems with the Soul Knife and I think the biggest problem is the lack of support for it. No feats, skills, or psionic items just for them. Without some variation, all the Soul Knives out there might end up looking alike.
The Ugly: I heard that this book has been over a year in the making, It is a pity that more of that time was not spent on editing it. There are a lot of editing mistakes in this book, starting with the Soul Knife’s Base Attack Bonus being off. The power psionic dominate seems like a terrible power because several of its augmentations are missing.
This is the errata;
4. If you spend 1 additional power point, this power’s duration is 1 hour rather than concentration.
If you spend 2 additional power points, this power’s duration is 1 day rather than concentration. If you spend 4 additional power points, this power’s duration is 1 day per manifester level rather than concentration.
There are many more mistakes; Maenads get 2 bonus power points in the character section, but only 1 in the monster section. In a previous version, Kineticist had to specialize in an energy type. While this was dropped, the Astral Construct’s menu abilities still mentions it. The psionic moment of prescience power has a duration of 1 round / level instead of 1 hour / level (that’s 2 minutes vs. 20 hours at 20th level). The Soul Knife gets base 4 skill points in its class description, but base 2 in the Skill description. Blue Goblins have a level adjustment of +0 in their monster entry, but +1 in their “As Characters” entry. The Psicrown of the Crystal Mind is referred to as a Staff in its entry. The Elocator’s requirements include “BAB +3 & the feats Mobility and Spring Attack”, but Spring Attack requires a BAB of +4 and the Dodge feat as well as Mobility.
I can easily forgive simple spelling and grammar mistakes, especially considering how many I am making just writing this, but when it comes to game mechanics, it is unforgivable. Yes, you and I have internet access and know which message boards to go to get answers and errata, but what about those who don’t? There are those who may never pick up this book again because of a stupid editing mistake that they think is an actual rule to the game.
Lastly, there are those who have referred to psionics as “the red-headed step child of D&D” and this book continues that trait. There are several anti-psionic feats; Psionic Hole: Powers cost more against you and attacks against you cost a psion his focus, Chaotic Mind: Insight bonuses can’t be used against you. I wonder how well a feat that caused spells to “cost” more to be used against a PC would go over? In the back of the book are also a few anti-psionic spells; Psychic Turmoil: (5th level) leaches away power points, Mental Pinnacle: (6th level) gain power points and five powers (the old Attack Modes). But where are the anti-magic powers? How about a power that lets a Psion use scrolls? Too powerful and unbalanced? But a single spell that grants 13 levels worth of psionic powers is not?
Final Judgement: It is hard to really give this book any grade other than Incomplete I gave it 4 {Good} for the content, but knock off one point for the lousy editing.
All in all, this book is a definite improvement over the previous Psionic Handbook, but there are just so many editing mistakes and areas where needed information is missing. I have to wonder if it is now Wizards of the Coast policy to push the books out before editing is complete, knowing that we gamers will finish the job for them on various message boards for their 2nd printing.
Yes, we can just fill in what is missing, but you know after a while doing everything yourself, you just get burned out on it. Gaming is supposed to be fun, but I’ll bet when many people stop playing it is because it became more a chore and less a hobby.
There is a lot of room for more material here, the races need more background, the new classes need feats, Prestige classes and some sample iconic NPCs. The new races could use the Paragon class levels from Unearthed Arcana, D20 Modern’s Agents of Psi now needs updating to incorporate some of the new rules and one thing I really liked in the recent Player’s Guide to Faerun, Psionics could incorporate stuff from the Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Exalted Deeds and the Manual of the Planes.
But I do not see a Complete Psychic on WotC’s upcoming list.
It is up to the other publishers to come through once the XPH goes OGL. We are out here just waiting to buy the books, just be sure to edit them first, OK?
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
The Good: All the old demons have been exorcized; Multiple Ability Dependancy, Psionic Combat and the complaint that the Psion was just a Spell Point Using Mage have been dealt with.
Each Psionic class has a single ability modifier (Psion = Int, Psychic Warrior = Wis & Wilder = Cha) and all your powers manifest based on that ability. Also, the random aspect of setting the DC of the power is gone.
Psionic Combat, the vestigial tail of 1st edition AD&D, is gone. The Attack & Defense modes are now powers.
One complaint that Psionics just was not different enough from Magic has also been dealt with. Many powers can now be Augmented, or boosted with additional power points. For some this is a built in metapsionic feat (manifest as a Swift Action) for others it can enhance the power’s DC or damage and for others it can alter it’s effects. Consider psionic charm, at 1st level it is just like the charm person spell for 1 power point. But for +2 power points, you can now target animal, fey, giant, magical beast or monstrous humanoid. For +4 power points, you can target aberration, dragon, elemental, or outsider. For +4 power points, the duration changes from 1 hour / level to 1 day / level and for +2 power points, you can increase the save DC by 1. And yes, you can combine the above augmentations up to your manifester level in additional power points.
With just one power, you get a great number of effects.
There are two new psionic classes (three if you include the Erudite in Dragon magazine #319), the Soul Knife and the Wilder. The Soul Knife was a prestige class, but is now upgraded to a core class and it is an unusual psionic class in that it does not manifest any powers. His psionic potential is based through his Mind Knife, a blade of psionic energy. The greatest advantage is that his blade is always a thought away, especially after he gains the ability to create it as a free action.
The Wilder is a wild psion, one who didn’t get or choose not to take the training of a Psion. They get fewer powers, but can do more with them, as they can use their emotions to surge their powers.
There are several new races as well as a few old ones brought back. The new races are Maenads (D&D Vulcans), Dromites (First Man in the Moon), Elan (Born again Psychics) and Xephs (They are quick and agile). The old ones are the Githyanki and Githzerai, Duergar, Thri Kreen and Half Giants.
Another new aspect is Psionic Focus. Instead of having reserve power points, now you just need to focus your mind to use your feats. I really like the concept, but will need to play with it more to really see how it feels. The problem is that so many of the psionic feats require you to expend your focus and it takes a standard action to refocus. The bad thing is that you really need three of the new feats ( Psionic Meditation: Refocus as a move action, Narrow Mind: +4 to Refocus and Expanded Knowledge: To gain a bonus power from any list and take hustle for a bonus move action) to make full use of this ability and after spending those three feats, you have few left to take the psionic feats.
The Bad: Well, the first bad thing is that the new classes and races don’t get any support. There are no new feats for Soul Knives to use on their Mind Blades, nothing for Wilders to make them truly different from Psions, no racial or regional feats for psionics and the new races are virtual ciphers, with very little information to flesh them out. If Elans are reborn into their new bodies, how about a few feats to represent the residual knowledge from their old life?
Another problem are the References in this book. Powers that are the same as spells are referenced to the Player’s Handbook, creation of new powers refers you to the DM’s Guide on creating new spells and the monster section only provides an errata like mention for Couatl, Illithid and Yuan-Ti, referring you to the Monster Manual for the rest. While it is expected that you will have all of these, having to constantly reference back an forth between four books is very annoying.
The reference to the DM’s Guide is especially bad since the new rules for psionic powers includes a discipline list and augmentations. What decides if a new power is a general or specialist list power? How may a power be augmented? Can augmentation be added to an existing power? There are no answers since the questions are never asked in the first place.
Many of the powers that are referenced to the Player’s Handbook could easily be augmented (psionic fly could add speed or maneuverability for example), but because they are referenced, they may not have been considered for augmentation.
It is also a simple fact of gaming that there will be far more material made for Magic users than for Psionics, so a section on converting spells and prestige classes to psionics would have been especially helpful here.
Next we have the prestige classes, and well, they are just bland. The Cerebremancer is a Mystic Theurge for Wizards and Psions and aside from the fact that they use the same stat, it is kind of *yawn*. The Elocator is based on motion and speed. The Fist of Zuoken allows a Monk to give up some very nice class abilities and get just 10 powers, all 5th level and lower, in exchange. The Illithid Slayer is still a great class, only losing one manifester level, but this makes the Metamind seem even worse, since it gains only 5 manifester levels. Oh, but he is a master at manifesting low level powers. The Psion Uncarnate is just plain strange, he is “unmaking” himself to become pure psionic consciousness. The Pyrokineticist is a waste of paper as he gains no additional manifester levels. This means that all his Fire based powers never get any stronger and his class abilities just don’t match up with what a Kineticist would get if he just stayed a Psion. The Thrallherd manipulates the minds of others, well one thrall and a few believers and unlike Cohorts and Followers, you can’t chose who you get. A Telepath with the Leadership feat is better off. The last is the War Mind and I just can’t figure exactly what this is supposed to be. If it is for Psychic Warriors, they loose a lot of feats and instead of continuing their power progression, this class starts it all over from the beginning.
The real problem with these Prestige classes is that they are no better or actually worse than just staying with your current class. Also, in the Complete Warrior, the PrCs have sample NPCs and this does help to visualize the new PrC. If there were some here, it might help me and others understand them better.
As I come to the Psionic items I am reminded about another very annoying aspect of this book, name changes. For some reason Savants are now Kineticists, Crystalline armor is now Gleaming armor, Crystal Capacitors are now Cognizance Crystals. Exactly why so many names needed to be changed I cannot figure out. And along with the name changes are the Missing In Action powers and feats. Many mainstay powers are gone; Augury, Inkling, Foresight, Thrall, Sever the Tie, and many more. Do they think we will just let these go?
Also in the item section, I am reminded again that there are no new items for Wilders and Soul Knives. This really stands out to me. When this book was first released, there were some that had problems with the Soul Knife and I think the biggest problem is the lack of support for it. No feats, skills, or psionic items just for them. Without some variation, all the Soul Knives out there might end up looking alike.
The Ugly: I heard that this book has been over a year in the making, It is a pity that more of that time was not spent on editing it. There are a lot of editing mistakes in this book, starting with the Soul Knife’s Base Attack Bonus being off. The power psionic dominate seems like a terrible power because several of its augmentations are missing.
This is the errata;
4. If you spend 1 additional power point, this power’s duration is 1 hour rather than concentration.
If you spend 2 additional power points, this power’s duration is 1 day rather than concentration. If you spend 4 additional power points, this power’s duration is 1 day per manifester level rather than concentration.
There are many more mistakes; Maenads get 2 bonus power points in the character section, but only 1 in the monster section. In a previous version, Kineticist had to specialize in an energy type. While this was dropped, the Astral Construct’s menu abilities still mentions it. The psionic moment of prescience power has a duration of 1 round / level instead of 1 hour / level (that’s 2 minutes vs. 20 hours at 20th level). The Soul Knife gets base 4 skill points in its class description, but base 2 in the Skill description. Blue Goblins have a level adjustment of +0 in their monster entry, but +1 in their “As Characters” entry. The Psicrown of the Crystal Mind is referred to as a Staff in its entry. The Elocator’s requirements include “BAB +3 & the feats Mobility and Spring Attack”, but Spring Attack requires a BAB of +4 and the Dodge feat as well as Mobility.
I can easily forgive simple spelling and grammar mistakes, especially considering how many I am making just writing this, but when it comes to game mechanics, it is unforgivable. Yes, you and I have internet access and know which message boards to go to get answers and errata, but what about those who don’t? There are those who may never pick up this book again because of a stupid editing mistake that they think is an actual rule to the game.
Lastly, there are those who have referred to psionics as “the red-headed step child of D&D” and this book continues that trait. There are several anti-psionic feats; Psionic Hole: Powers cost more against you and attacks against you cost a psion his focus, Chaotic Mind: Insight bonuses can’t be used against you. I wonder how well a feat that caused spells to “cost” more to be used against a PC would go over? In the back of the book are also a few anti-psionic spells; Psychic Turmoil: (5th level) leaches away power points, Mental Pinnacle: (6th level) gain power points and five powers (the old Attack Modes). But where are the anti-magic powers? How about a power that lets a Psion use scrolls? Too powerful and unbalanced? But a single spell that grants 13 levels worth of psionic powers is not?
Final Judgement: It is hard to really give this book any grade other than Incomplete I gave it 4 {Good} for the content, but knock off one point for the lousy editing.
All in all, this book is a definite improvement over the previous Psionic Handbook, but there are just so many editing mistakes and areas where needed information is missing. I have to wonder if it is now Wizards of the Coast policy to push the books out before editing is complete, knowing that we gamers will finish the job for them on various message boards for their 2nd printing.
Yes, we can just fill in what is missing, but you know after a while doing everything yourself, you just get burned out on it. Gaming is supposed to be fun, but I’ll bet when many people stop playing it is because it became more a chore and less a hobby.
There is a lot of room for more material here, the races need more background, the new classes need feats, Prestige classes and some sample iconic NPCs. The new races could use the Paragon class levels from Unearthed Arcana, D20 Modern’s Agents of Psi now needs updating to incorporate some of the new rules and one thing I really liked in the recent Player’s Guide to Faerun, Psionics could incorporate stuff from the Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Exalted Deeds and the Manual of the Planes.
But I do not see a Complete Psychic on WotC’s upcoming list.
It is up to the other publishers to come through once the XPH goes OGL. We are out here just waiting to buy the books, just be sure to edit them first, OK?
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Expanded Psionics Handbook updates psionics for the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons. The book includes core and prestige classes, psionc powers and magic items, monsters and campaign advice. Unlike some updates, this book takes many things and tosses them on their ear.
The book is a combination of the Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide in its organization. For example, it starts with races, and then moves into classes, then skills and feats, then psionics (instead of magic), powers (instead of spells), and then prestige classes, items, monsters, and some spells and deities.
The races are a mixed bunch. Unlike the Player’s Handbook where all of the races are a level adjustment of 0, we’ve got some powerful folks here. My personal favorite, the half-giant, is only +1, but others like the githyanki, githzerai and thri-kreen, are +2. The poor thri-kreen also has two hit dice so he’s a total of +4. The good news is that there’s something for everyone here. For example, if you want to try a psionic-based race but don’t want a level adjustment, you could try the élan. In some ways, these individuals remind me of Monte Cook’s mojh in that it takes a normal human and turns it into another race.
The élan suffer a charisma penalty due to their change and are considered aberrations. They have bonus psionic points to start off with, as well as the ability to spend those points for a bonus to their saving throws or even get damage reduction in addition to sustaining themselves without food or water though power point expenditure.
Now why though, is the half-giant my favorite? It’s not that powerful physically, having only a +2 to strength and constitution with a –2 to dexterity. It’s not their giant blood, which makes them giants for consideration for spells like charm person, nor their bonuses to saving throws against fire based effects. Heck, it’s not even their bonus power points at first level. Rather, it’s their ability, powerful build. This lets them use weapons as if they were one size category larger, in addition to some other neat effects like being considered one size larger for various opposition checks ranging from bull rush to trip attacks.
In terms of classes, WoTC has expanded the lineup. We now have psionics, psychic warriors, soulknives, and wilders. The first two should be familiar to fans of the old system. It’s been a while since I’ve used a psion in 3.0, but if I’m remembering correctly, they’ve changed how you get bonus points. Now, all psions get bonus points from their intelligence. It also looks like the psychic warrior gets more overall power points. Lots of little things here and there. For instance, the classes don’t have a preset number of powers of each level learned. Rather, they have a list of # of powers known, and another column that provides the maximum power level that they know. This allows a psionic character to trade off some higher power for more versatility, but will probably only be used by the psion as they know a lot of powers and most other classes will concentrate on getting those higher level powers ASAP.
Some things I don’t like include the soulknife. It’s a sound class that masters a blade of pure mental energy, but as they don’t have any psionic abilities outside that, they’re a little limited. Once again, I may be remembering things wrong, but I recall this former prestige class also had more of an assassin feel to it. Now it boasts 1d10 hit dice per level, two good saves, and four skill points per level. Like other masters of a single weapon, the soulknife is eventually able to grant his weapon special abilities but unlike those individuals, because the blade is psionic in nature, this weapon can never really be taken from the character. Indeed, the soulknife is able to even change the type and shape of his weapon insuring that despite the fact that the class is in essence a one trick pony, it’s a fancy one trick pony.
The wilder didn’t do anything for me either. While the psion gets lots of points, powers known and a few bonus feats similar to the wizard, the wilder gets the ability to increase her manifester level with a wild surge in addition to a euphoria effect that provides a bonus to attack, damage and saving throw rolls with a little bit of a defense against telepathy via volatile mind, which requires any telepathic power to pay more power points to make contact.
One thing I was impressed with was the epic-level psionic character section. It’s a small one and more of a nod to the epic level handbook, but it’s here and covers all of the core classes. Now if only it covered the prestige classes and provided more unique epic feats…
Anyway, the skill section looks pretty similar to the old book. It includes a few no-brainers like knowledge psionics and the use of concentration for psionics in a manner similar to wizards, but the one that’s far different than a standard skill is autohypnosis. You can control your body to do anything from memorize a set of numbers or a book passage, to use your skill instead of a saving throw versus any standard poison’s secondary damage effect. There are some other things there as well like resist dying where you become stable by making a DC 15 Autohypnosis check instead of rolling % dice.
Psionic feats are an interesting lot. A few of them depend on you having what’s called a psionic focus. This is where you hold “a reservoir of psionic power points in mind” to give yourself special energy. That’s a concentration check requiring a full-round action with a DC of 20. The pay off though, is worth it for some of these feats. Take Deep Impact. By expending your focus, you treat your next attack as a touch attack. Psionic weapon lets you expend your focus and do an extra 2d6 points of damage.
There are some feats here that anyone could use though. Take Deadly Precision, a feat that requires you to have a Dex of 15 and a BAB of 5+ but allows you to reroll any result of 1 on your sneak attack’s extra damage dice or if you just want a taste of psionics, Wild Talent, where you gain 2 power points and can now take psionic, metapsionic and psionic item creation feats.
The section on psionics is a mixed bag in some ways. It starts off with some discussion on how you manifest psionics and how different types of damage can effect your concentration check but then moves into how psionics and magic effects can be combined and moves into the description of how powers are laid out. It then talks about keeping psionics and magic different, and gives some advice on using psionics in the campaign. A little cluttered as the layout for how psionic powers are listed and used should be right before the powers and the campaign information should be put into a GM section with some more advice on using them.
Powers are broken up much like spells. We’ve got lists that are broken up by psion and wilder, then by discipline, which is much like a domain with a few powers at each level, then by psychic warrior. The powers are broken down by level and in alphabetical order.
The first thing I noticed is that they’ve removed the 0 level powers. Not bad as I don’t thing I’ve ever seen those take a big hand in things. Another thing I noticed is that they ditched psionic combat. Hurray! Not that it’s totally bad mind you, but I thought Mindscapes, a Malhavoc product, just did a better and easier job of the whole thing.
The one thing I didn’t like when I first read through it was the use of two powers for many of the psychic warrior’s abilities that referred the reader back to one or the other power. For example, Metaphysical Claw and Metaphysical Weapon. In each case, you gain a +1 bonus. Most of the statistics are the same for each, but one effects a natural weapon, most often created though a power like Claws of the Beast, and the other a weapon. It’s like those cheap feats you see in a book where they kill a couple of pages with feats that are essentially +2 to two skills or do this for that but reworded differently each time. What’s worse is that in the case of the weapons, in some instances they’re on more than one class list. This limits the overall effectiveness of a psychic warrior who wants to use a weapon in combat as opposed to just claws but I haven’t playtested it enough to see how it pans out in the long run. It’s highly unlikely that psions are going to hop into combat to prove themselves.
On the good side, it’s impressive to see how versatile these psionic powers are. Many of them can be augmented by using additional psionic points. In some cases, the results might need some playtesting as it makes the psion a devastating choice of character with their variety not only in terms of damage, but also the energy type of damage they can inflict. Take Dissolving Touch. It’s a 2nd level psychic warrior power that does 4d6 points of acid damage. For every additional 2 power points you spend, you can inflict an extra 1d6 points. Now it requires you to touch the creature but doesn’t provide a saving throw or power resistance.
What then keeps such an attack in check? Your augmentation is limited by your manifester level. “The maximum number of points you can spend on a power is equal to your manifester level.” The example given shows that a 5th level manifester could improve the 1st and 2nd level powers, but not the 3rd level ones, as a 3rd level power is 5 points. Now a psychic warrior, to know this power, has to be 4th level, and has a base of 5 power points. He’s not going to be augmenting it too much.
After the powers, we get prestige classes. Some of these are old friends like the Illithid Slayer, a warrior specializing in hunting down mind flayers, while others, like the war mind, are brand new. The interesting thing about some of these character is that they don’t necessarily rely on the character to either be psionic in nature or focus just on psionic powers.
For example, someone could enter the war mind with either a race or a feat that provides them power points and knowledge of psionics. While they then gain psionics afterwards, it’s not a requirement to know any powers before hand. In terms of being psionic in nature but not in power, the pyrokineticist is to fire what the soulknife is to melee. These individuals gain no power points of psionic knowledge, but can make weapons of fire in addition to fire resistance and control. By making PrCs like this, the author improves their ease of use. I don’t have to bring out all knew psionic creatures or powers every time I want to use something psychic. On the other hand, if a player with power points but no powers decides that he wants to investigate psionic PrCs, he has options.
For psionic items, these are similar to magic items but focus on replicating psionic abilities. For example, dorjes are in essence, wands. They’re “elongated crystal imbued with the ability to manifest a specific power”. The good news is that there are numerous special abilities for shields, armors, and weapons that can be used that you’re players never have to know are psionic in nature. Take the Seeing property. This provides the user with a better range of vision, lowering the flanking bonus to +1 in addition to providing a +1 to Spot Checks and a –2 to saves against Gaze Attacks. I was a little disappointed in the specific weapons though. The old Silver Swords of the Githyanki are old news at best and some new psionic-based weapons would be a welcome addition to the various abilities.
In addition to dorjes and power stones, my favorite section is psionic tattoos. These designs are written onto the skin and the power depends on what was crafted into it. The tattoo’s fade after use, and the character can only have twenty upon his person at any one time. Like potions, these tattoos are for lower powers, 3rd level and under. The bad news is that it’s a standard action to touch the tattoo and it provides an attack of opportunity.
Another favorite or mine are the psychoactive skins. These “fist sized globs of psionically character ectoplasm” have various powers that almost turn the character into a superhero. How about Skin of the Claw where you can automatically activate Claws of the Beast with no attack of opportunity? How about Skin or Iron, where you have the psionic Iron Body power up to three times per day for fifteen minutes each time?
Of course no book meant for players and GMs would be complete without some monsters. Most, if not all of these, are old favorites, These range from the good old Blue, a psionic goblin, and the Githyanki and Githzerai (psionic versions), to the Phthisics and Neothelid. Then again, I’m an older GM and player and remember the Monstrous Arcana and its series of adventures and don’t recall which of these originally appeared in the Psionics Handbook. The good news is that they’ve all been updated to 3.5 standards and we have a good range of lower level creatures from ½ all the way up to 15, with most of them between 3 and 7.
The appendix that wraps things up includes a few spells that help counter psionics or work with them. For example, we have the Mind Domain for the two deities written up, as well as Psychic Turmoil and Greater Psychic Turmoil, spells that steal psionic power points away and in the greater version, turn them into temporary hit points.
The deities are Zuoken, a ‘human martial artists’ that attained physical and mental perfect and became a demi-god. Short enough entries that in most generic worlds like Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms, it shouldn’t be a problem to use. The other is an old favorite of the mind flayers, Ilsensine, a greater deity.
The book does include a one page, four-column index that seems pretty complete. Between this and the table of contents, most readers should be able to find what they need quickly.
The art in the book is full color, but isn’t the best WoTC has fielded and the book isn’t packed with it. This isn’t to say that there aren’t some favorites from the 3.0 version that didn’t make it over, or that there is no new art. It’s just compared to some of their other books, I’m not as impressed as I’ve been with their Forgotten Realms books. The editing is fair for a book this size, but I’m anxious to see the errata ASAP. From what I’ve seen thus far though in our own boards, nothing is too broke or world shattering, but a few things might bear discussion.
That’s pretty much the way I felt about the whole book. Some things I enjoyed right away. Others I can’t wrap my head around. The soulknife with d10 hit dice? Those artifacts that have been detailed time after time with no epic style weapons? The epic support that covered the core classes and not the prestige classes? Good stuff but a few steps short of the old 5 on the rating scale.
I’ve mainly used the book as a GM in the creation of NPC allies, enemies, monsters, magic items and a few plot lines that will revolve around Zuoken and the prestige class his followers can take. I’m hoping that with the new WoTC campaign setting using psionics, that we’ll see some more third party support outside of the upcoming book from Malhavoc that’s meant to update Mindscapes.
If you’re looking for something to add a little diversity to your campaign or want to take your campaign in a new direction, the Expanded Psionics Handbook is for you.
[a] http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=91567[a]>En World Discussion[/a]
The book is a combination of the Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide in its organization. For example, it starts with races, and then moves into classes, then skills and feats, then psionics (instead of magic), powers (instead of spells), and then prestige classes, items, monsters, and some spells and deities.
The races are a mixed bunch. Unlike the Player’s Handbook where all of the races are a level adjustment of 0, we’ve got some powerful folks here. My personal favorite, the half-giant, is only +1, but others like the githyanki, githzerai and thri-kreen, are +2. The poor thri-kreen also has two hit dice so he’s a total of +4. The good news is that there’s something for everyone here. For example, if you want to try a psionic-based race but don’t want a level adjustment, you could try the élan. In some ways, these individuals remind me of Monte Cook’s mojh in that it takes a normal human and turns it into another race.
The élan suffer a charisma penalty due to their change and are considered aberrations. They have bonus psionic points to start off with, as well as the ability to spend those points for a bonus to their saving throws or even get damage reduction in addition to sustaining themselves without food or water though power point expenditure.
Now why though, is the half-giant my favorite? It’s not that powerful physically, having only a +2 to strength and constitution with a –2 to dexterity. It’s not their giant blood, which makes them giants for consideration for spells like charm person, nor their bonuses to saving throws against fire based effects. Heck, it’s not even their bonus power points at first level. Rather, it’s their ability, powerful build. This lets them use weapons as if they were one size category larger, in addition to some other neat effects like being considered one size larger for various opposition checks ranging from bull rush to trip attacks.
In terms of classes, WoTC has expanded the lineup. We now have psionics, psychic warriors, soulknives, and wilders. The first two should be familiar to fans of the old system. It’s been a while since I’ve used a psion in 3.0, but if I’m remembering correctly, they’ve changed how you get bonus points. Now, all psions get bonus points from their intelligence. It also looks like the psychic warrior gets more overall power points. Lots of little things here and there. For instance, the classes don’t have a preset number of powers of each level learned. Rather, they have a list of # of powers known, and another column that provides the maximum power level that they know. This allows a psionic character to trade off some higher power for more versatility, but will probably only be used by the psion as they know a lot of powers and most other classes will concentrate on getting those higher level powers ASAP.
Some things I don’t like include the soulknife. It’s a sound class that masters a blade of pure mental energy, but as they don’t have any psionic abilities outside that, they’re a little limited. Once again, I may be remembering things wrong, but I recall this former prestige class also had more of an assassin feel to it. Now it boasts 1d10 hit dice per level, two good saves, and four skill points per level. Like other masters of a single weapon, the soulknife is eventually able to grant his weapon special abilities but unlike those individuals, because the blade is psionic in nature, this weapon can never really be taken from the character. Indeed, the soulknife is able to even change the type and shape of his weapon insuring that despite the fact that the class is in essence a one trick pony, it’s a fancy one trick pony.
The wilder didn’t do anything for me either. While the psion gets lots of points, powers known and a few bonus feats similar to the wizard, the wilder gets the ability to increase her manifester level with a wild surge in addition to a euphoria effect that provides a bonus to attack, damage and saving throw rolls with a little bit of a defense against telepathy via volatile mind, which requires any telepathic power to pay more power points to make contact.
One thing I was impressed with was the epic-level psionic character section. It’s a small one and more of a nod to the epic level handbook, but it’s here and covers all of the core classes. Now if only it covered the prestige classes and provided more unique epic feats…
Anyway, the skill section looks pretty similar to the old book. It includes a few no-brainers like knowledge psionics and the use of concentration for psionics in a manner similar to wizards, but the one that’s far different than a standard skill is autohypnosis. You can control your body to do anything from memorize a set of numbers or a book passage, to use your skill instead of a saving throw versus any standard poison’s secondary damage effect. There are some other things there as well like resist dying where you become stable by making a DC 15 Autohypnosis check instead of rolling % dice.
Psionic feats are an interesting lot. A few of them depend on you having what’s called a psionic focus. This is where you hold “a reservoir of psionic power points in mind” to give yourself special energy. That’s a concentration check requiring a full-round action with a DC of 20. The pay off though, is worth it for some of these feats. Take Deep Impact. By expending your focus, you treat your next attack as a touch attack. Psionic weapon lets you expend your focus and do an extra 2d6 points of damage.
There are some feats here that anyone could use though. Take Deadly Precision, a feat that requires you to have a Dex of 15 and a BAB of 5+ but allows you to reroll any result of 1 on your sneak attack’s extra damage dice or if you just want a taste of psionics, Wild Talent, where you gain 2 power points and can now take psionic, metapsionic and psionic item creation feats.
The section on psionics is a mixed bag in some ways. It starts off with some discussion on how you manifest psionics and how different types of damage can effect your concentration check but then moves into how psionics and magic effects can be combined and moves into the description of how powers are laid out. It then talks about keeping psionics and magic different, and gives some advice on using psionics in the campaign. A little cluttered as the layout for how psionic powers are listed and used should be right before the powers and the campaign information should be put into a GM section with some more advice on using them.
Powers are broken up much like spells. We’ve got lists that are broken up by psion and wilder, then by discipline, which is much like a domain with a few powers at each level, then by psychic warrior. The powers are broken down by level and in alphabetical order.
The first thing I noticed is that they’ve removed the 0 level powers. Not bad as I don’t thing I’ve ever seen those take a big hand in things. Another thing I noticed is that they ditched psionic combat. Hurray! Not that it’s totally bad mind you, but I thought Mindscapes, a Malhavoc product, just did a better and easier job of the whole thing.
The one thing I didn’t like when I first read through it was the use of two powers for many of the psychic warrior’s abilities that referred the reader back to one or the other power. For example, Metaphysical Claw and Metaphysical Weapon. In each case, you gain a +1 bonus. Most of the statistics are the same for each, but one effects a natural weapon, most often created though a power like Claws of the Beast, and the other a weapon. It’s like those cheap feats you see in a book where they kill a couple of pages with feats that are essentially +2 to two skills or do this for that but reworded differently each time. What’s worse is that in the case of the weapons, in some instances they’re on more than one class list. This limits the overall effectiveness of a psychic warrior who wants to use a weapon in combat as opposed to just claws but I haven’t playtested it enough to see how it pans out in the long run. It’s highly unlikely that psions are going to hop into combat to prove themselves.
On the good side, it’s impressive to see how versatile these psionic powers are. Many of them can be augmented by using additional psionic points. In some cases, the results might need some playtesting as it makes the psion a devastating choice of character with their variety not only in terms of damage, but also the energy type of damage they can inflict. Take Dissolving Touch. It’s a 2nd level psychic warrior power that does 4d6 points of acid damage. For every additional 2 power points you spend, you can inflict an extra 1d6 points. Now it requires you to touch the creature but doesn’t provide a saving throw or power resistance.
What then keeps such an attack in check? Your augmentation is limited by your manifester level. “The maximum number of points you can spend on a power is equal to your manifester level.” The example given shows that a 5th level manifester could improve the 1st and 2nd level powers, but not the 3rd level ones, as a 3rd level power is 5 points. Now a psychic warrior, to know this power, has to be 4th level, and has a base of 5 power points. He’s not going to be augmenting it too much.
After the powers, we get prestige classes. Some of these are old friends like the Illithid Slayer, a warrior specializing in hunting down mind flayers, while others, like the war mind, are brand new. The interesting thing about some of these character is that they don’t necessarily rely on the character to either be psionic in nature or focus just on psionic powers.
For example, someone could enter the war mind with either a race or a feat that provides them power points and knowledge of psionics. While they then gain psionics afterwards, it’s not a requirement to know any powers before hand. In terms of being psionic in nature but not in power, the pyrokineticist is to fire what the soulknife is to melee. These individuals gain no power points of psionic knowledge, but can make weapons of fire in addition to fire resistance and control. By making PrCs like this, the author improves their ease of use. I don’t have to bring out all knew psionic creatures or powers every time I want to use something psychic. On the other hand, if a player with power points but no powers decides that he wants to investigate psionic PrCs, he has options.
For psionic items, these are similar to magic items but focus on replicating psionic abilities. For example, dorjes are in essence, wands. They’re “elongated crystal imbued with the ability to manifest a specific power”. The good news is that there are numerous special abilities for shields, armors, and weapons that can be used that you’re players never have to know are psionic in nature. Take the Seeing property. This provides the user with a better range of vision, lowering the flanking bonus to +1 in addition to providing a +1 to Spot Checks and a –2 to saves against Gaze Attacks. I was a little disappointed in the specific weapons though. The old Silver Swords of the Githyanki are old news at best and some new psionic-based weapons would be a welcome addition to the various abilities.
In addition to dorjes and power stones, my favorite section is psionic tattoos. These designs are written onto the skin and the power depends on what was crafted into it. The tattoo’s fade after use, and the character can only have twenty upon his person at any one time. Like potions, these tattoos are for lower powers, 3rd level and under. The bad news is that it’s a standard action to touch the tattoo and it provides an attack of opportunity.
Another favorite or mine are the psychoactive skins. These “fist sized globs of psionically character ectoplasm” have various powers that almost turn the character into a superhero. How about Skin of the Claw where you can automatically activate Claws of the Beast with no attack of opportunity? How about Skin or Iron, where you have the psionic Iron Body power up to three times per day for fifteen minutes each time?
Of course no book meant for players and GMs would be complete without some monsters. Most, if not all of these, are old favorites, These range from the good old Blue, a psionic goblin, and the Githyanki and Githzerai (psionic versions), to the Phthisics and Neothelid. Then again, I’m an older GM and player and remember the Monstrous Arcana and its series of adventures and don’t recall which of these originally appeared in the Psionics Handbook. The good news is that they’ve all been updated to 3.5 standards and we have a good range of lower level creatures from ½ all the way up to 15, with most of them between 3 and 7.
The appendix that wraps things up includes a few spells that help counter psionics or work with them. For example, we have the Mind Domain for the two deities written up, as well as Psychic Turmoil and Greater Psychic Turmoil, spells that steal psionic power points away and in the greater version, turn them into temporary hit points.
The deities are Zuoken, a ‘human martial artists’ that attained physical and mental perfect and became a demi-god. Short enough entries that in most generic worlds like Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms, it shouldn’t be a problem to use. The other is an old favorite of the mind flayers, Ilsensine, a greater deity.
The book does include a one page, four-column index that seems pretty complete. Between this and the table of contents, most readers should be able to find what they need quickly.
The art in the book is full color, but isn’t the best WoTC has fielded and the book isn’t packed with it. This isn’t to say that there aren’t some favorites from the 3.0 version that didn’t make it over, or that there is no new art. It’s just compared to some of their other books, I’m not as impressed as I’ve been with their Forgotten Realms books. The editing is fair for a book this size, but I’m anxious to see the errata ASAP. From what I’ve seen thus far though in our own boards, nothing is too broke or world shattering, but a few things might bear discussion.
That’s pretty much the way I felt about the whole book. Some things I enjoyed right away. Others I can’t wrap my head around. The soulknife with d10 hit dice? Those artifacts that have been detailed time after time with no epic style weapons? The epic support that covered the core classes and not the prestige classes? Good stuff but a few steps short of the old 5 on the rating scale.
I’ve mainly used the book as a GM in the creation of NPC allies, enemies, monsters, magic items and a few plot lines that will revolve around Zuoken and the prestige class his followers can take. I’m hoping that with the new WoTC campaign setting using psionics, that we’ll see some more third party support outside of the upcoming book from Malhavoc that’s meant to update Mindscapes.
If you’re looking for something to add a little diversity to your campaign or want to take your campaign in a new direction, the Expanded Psionics Handbook is for you.
[a] http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=91567[a]>En World Discussion[/a]
Messageboard Golem
First Post
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Psionics have always had an interesting place with in the world of D&D. They never quite made it to be in the standard game always just hanging around on the fringe. First edition had them as a character add on based on a percentage chance assuming one had stats good enough to even make the attempt. Second edition brought in amore organized if a bit out of balance with the rest of the game. Now third edition has brought us a more balanced version and a revised and expanded version of that of which this review is of.
The Expanded Psionics Handbook is by Wizards of the Coast and written by Bruce Cordell. It is full color, nicely layout and even has an index. It is so much nicer to see books with indexes in them, makes finding things that much easier. The book is hardbound like most of the book Wizards makes these days and the price is a little on the high side at thirty five dollars.
The Psionics Handbook has a lot of very interesting ideas and uses in it. There are new races, new classes, new skills, new feat, new monsters, and of course pages upon pages of new powers. However, I think that psionics in general really should have been created more differently from normal magic. The powers have levels from first to ninth just like spell casters. The pretty much have the same option of feats like Empower, Quicken, Extend, etc just like the other caster. Psionics do use a point system instead of a spell slots making them a little more versatile but for me it just is not enough.
One are that they did do a good job with is the feats. There are the metapsionic feats as I mentioned above like extend and the others, but there are other psionic feats that are interesting and allow the character to do things not otherwise possible. There are movement feats like Mental Leap, Speed of Thought, and Up the walls that allow for tremendous movements. I think the feel of psionics is really shown in the feats more then anywhere else.
The classes are pretty standard. The Psion is the main psionic user and Psychic Warriors are more fighter oriented with some psionic powers to back that up with. The Soulknife can create a psionic like weapon and is great at fighting with that. The Wilder is lie the psion but relies more on chaos and emotion then deep thought. There are epic version s of the classes presented as well, and that is very nice to see included. More companies I feel should be doing this. There are a number of prestige classes as well, but for the most part they like the base classes just failed to really excite me about the whole psionics thing. There is the Metamind which is the super powerful psionic, the Illithid Slayer a hunter of those foul creatures.
Overall I just feel that Psionics was not made different enough to really warrant having them. They just feel like a not so different form of magic in mechanics and approach. The book does the job of covering psionics well and offering a few options for people to use. So, it is psionics that people will already be a bit familiar with and should make it fast and easy to add into a game.
Psionics have always had an interesting place with in the world of D&D. They never quite made it to be in the standard game always just hanging around on the fringe. First edition had them as a character add on based on a percentage chance assuming one had stats good enough to even make the attempt. Second edition brought in amore organized if a bit out of balance with the rest of the game. Now third edition has brought us a more balanced version and a revised and expanded version of that of which this review is of.
The Expanded Psionics Handbook is by Wizards of the Coast and written by Bruce Cordell. It is full color, nicely layout and even has an index. It is so much nicer to see books with indexes in them, makes finding things that much easier. The book is hardbound like most of the book Wizards makes these days and the price is a little on the high side at thirty five dollars.
The Psionics Handbook has a lot of very interesting ideas and uses in it. There are new races, new classes, new skills, new feat, new monsters, and of course pages upon pages of new powers. However, I think that psionics in general really should have been created more differently from normal magic. The powers have levels from first to ninth just like spell casters. The pretty much have the same option of feats like Empower, Quicken, Extend, etc just like the other caster. Psionics do use a point system instead of a spell slots making them a little more versatile but for me it just is not enough.
One are that they did do a good job with is the feats. There are the metapsionic feats as I mentioned above like extend and the others, but there are other psionic feats that are interesting and allow the character to do things not otherwise possible. There are movement feats like Mental Leap, Speed of Thought, and Up the walls that allow for tremendous movements. I think the feel of psionics is really shown in the feats more then anywhere else.
The classes are pretty standard. The Psion is the main psionic user and Psychic Warriors are more fighter oriented with some psionic powers to back that up with. The Soulknife can create a psionic like weapon and is great at fighting with that. The Wilder is lie the psion but relies more on chaos and emotion then deep thought. There are epic version s of the classes presented as well, and that is very nice to see included. More companies I feel should be doing this. There are a number of prestige classes as well, but for the most part they like the base classes just failed to really excite me about the whole psionics thing. There is the Metamind which is the super powerful psionic, the Illithid Slayer a hunter of those foul creatures.
Overall I just feel that Psionics was not made different enough to really warrant having them. They just feel like a not so different form of magic in mechanics and approach. The book does the job of covering psionics well and offering a few options for people to use. So, it is psionics that people will already be a bit familiar with and should make it fast and easy to add into a game.
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