FuturePSI - the new psionics in town

[Ymdar]

Roudi:

I can see that all of the Telekinetic talents are Int based. That's good. I never liked "you can't manifest a power because your body is weak". IMHO all of your talents should be based on mental characteristics (Int, Wis, Cha, or just one of them)

 

[Dalamar]

That's why I added the 'retains Dex mod', changes one balancing factor for another. And makes sense, since the reason that a character didn't keep their Dex mod to Defense was that they had no way of seeing the attack coming.

Besides, by the time that a character can have Object Attack, they are either 9th level and only have one base class, have a level in five different base classes (to nip a talent each level since PsiTalents can be picked with any class), or something along those lines.
And by that point, the enemy's defense with their Dex mod intact is going to vary anywhere from 12 (unarmored Strong with a Dex mod of +0) to 20 and over (a Fast with some decent medium armor and a good Dex, or anybody with forced entry unit -armor), and since they haven't picked Telekinetic Combat Mastery (and have a BAB of +1 in the case of the five classes pal) with the average Defense probably around 15 or 16, they'll start to have a hard time hitting anything.
And Firearms are way better at dishing out the damage anyway: a Strong 3/Soldier 2 can easily get their hands on a Remington 700 hunting rifle by these levels, dealing 2d10+2 points of damage with a far better range and attack bonus than a psychic with Object Attack (probably d6+d8 within a range of 40ft at most).

 

[Roudi]

Point taken. Let me digest this some more and see where we can go with Object Attack.

 

[Dalamar]

Now that I've been thinking about it, I think that just Improved Object Lift would be enough of a requirement for Object Attack. The psychic won't be able to move too big objects at lower levels due to the Concentration check, and at higher levels strong firearms will be common enough that it won't make that much of a difference.

Oh, should Telekinetic Attack's damage be classified as Concussion damage?

 

[Dalamar]

So I'm starting to think about a Telepathy tree, and was wondering if you thought this would fit for the basic ability.

TELEPATHIC ABILITY
Telepathy (Cha) [Mind-affecting]
Manifestation Time: Attack action
Effect Time: Concentration
Rest Time: 1 round, and see text
The character can initiate a telepathic conversation with any creature that has an Intellegence score of at least 3, this does not require a psionic check, and the two of you can understand each other even if you don't share a common language.
If the other creature does not explicitly wish to iniate a telepathic conversation with the character, the other creature is allowed a Will saving throw (DC 10 + the Characters Cha mod) to block the character out for 1 round. If a conversation has been established, either willingly or forcibly, the creature can take an attack action to gain a new saving throw to block the character out, and keep trying as long as many times as it wishes.
Concentrating on the power is a move action on the character's part, and requires the same amount of attention as talking on the part of the other creature.
The character can take an attack action to initiate telepathic conversation with another creature, and can converse with a number of creatures up to his or her Charisma modifier at one time. Additional creatures can't communicate with each other, but the character can relay what they are saying. Each creature past the first increases the rest time by 1 round.

 

[Roudi]

That's a pretty decent start to telepathy, and certainly is more versatile off the bat than I was planning on - which is good, I think I might be nerfing powers early on. Run with it - see what other talents you can think of to enhance that first basic ability or add new ones. You seem to have a pretty good handle on the FuturePSI mechanics.

 

[arscott]

Now that I've been thinking about it, I think that just Improved Object Lift would be enough of a requirement for Object Attack. The psychic won't be able to move too big objects at lower levels due to the Concentration check, and at higher levels strong firearms will be common enough that it won't make that much of a difference.

Oh, should Telekinetic Attack's damage be classified as Concussion damage?

Yeah. The non-lethal damage should probably be concussive damage and the TK attack proficiency should be scrapped. the way non-lethal is handled in d20Modern, a 1d4 attack will have no effect even on a critical hit (if tk attacks even have those).

 

[Roudi]

Hmm. Excellent point about nonlethal damage - it's pretty useless under standard Modern rules. I'm not sure about this "Concussive" damage bit, though... is "Concussive" a standard damage type under Modern? Has it been used before?

 

[Dalamar]

The concussion rifle uses it in d20 Future, a Tough hero can get energy resistance against it, and I think there are other things that have deal concussion damage.

Hmm... yeah, forgot that nonlethal damage is all or nothing in d20M. Maybe make the initial damage 2d6 and take away the automatic ability to deal lethal damage. Make Advanced Telekinetic Combat increase the damage by 1d6 each time taken, and then add add Lethal Telekinetics, which allows the dealing of lethal damage at the cost of 2 dice of damage?

 

[dream66_]

energy types in modern are Acid, Fire, Electricity, Cold, Sonic/Concussion. Concussion damage is simple another way of saying Sonic damage in Modern. It's the type of damage that Dynamite and other explosives deal. That shockwave of force, good choice for Telekinetic attack.