Is anybody actually playing psionics w. no magic?
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EyeontheMountain
First Post
I think it is possible to do, but with D&D's hit points system it is really hard, ad Psionics does not get good healing until about 11th level, and any Djore of healing will cost a lot more than the standard 750 gold for a CLW wand, for sure.
But all that is required is for the DM to invent a few healing methods, whether new powers, or some othere effect and I think iti s very doable.
But all that is required is for the DM to invent a few healing methods, whether new powers, or some othere effect and I think iti s very doable.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I've run a campaign like that, and it worked okay. I used "reserve hit points" from UA to ease up on the healing a bit, and I introduced a small handful of psionic healing powers, so the lack of cleric wasn't felt too hard.
Different sort of feel, I kind of went for a DARK SUN meets MAD MAX kind of setting that had some techy/sci-fi elements for it.
I mean, it worked okay, but going forward, I don't see much of a *reason* for it, unless you're really trying for a particular feel or just want to try the experiment. Psionics exists alongside magic in most of my campaigns comfortably.
Different sort of feel, I kind of went for a DARK SUN meets MAD MAX kind of setting that had some techy/sci-fi elements for it.
I mean, it worked okay, but going forward, I don't see much of a *reason* for it, unless you're really trying for a particular feel or just want to try the experiment. Psionics exists alongside magic in most of my campaigns comfortably.
SteelDraco
First Post
I'm playing in one right now.
We're all githzerai, working on retaking the gith homeworld. Unfortunately, the entire planet is a wild magic zone, so everybody is psionic. We're gestalt as well, so the group has some fairly strange characters running around. There are a few gith subraces, as well, just so everybody's not the same.
We have about the same party roles as any other game, though. Things don't play all that differently. The GM added some healing stuff so that we could avoid dying all the time - essentially, the upgraded the Life mantle of the ardent in the group, so they could heal others. She has a healing-based PrC, as well. Otherwise, we're a pretty normal group.
Monk/Kineticist, our blaster. He's almost completely a psion, ignoring his monk abilities and focusing everything on psionic feats and such. He's quite effective at it, too, with more flexibility than most blasters I've seen.
Monk/Telepath. She's a melee combatant, mostly focused on avoiding damage. She's got an AC of 29 pretty regularly, at 8th level. She can dish out a fair amount, too, though her attack bonus is pretty poor.
Soulknife/Fighter, the one who doesn't like psionics that much. I think he's taken a level of psychic warrior by now, so he can use dorjes of Body Adjustment. He's a straight TWF warrior. Does a fair amount of damage, since he's got four attacks a round, all of them with a bonus damage die or two.
Fighter/Ardent, the group's healer. She has, I believe, the Life and Travel mantles, though I don't know if she's picked up more by now. She's got mostly empathic powers - in combat, she'll usually go melee (sword and board) and then use Hostile Empathic Transfer when she gets hurt. She's usually got a Share Pain up with a group member or two, as well.
Scout/Psychic Warrior, a skirmisher. She runs around the battlefield at high speeds, hitting people or shooting them with her bow. Not a lot of damage, but good for attacking casters and such.
Me, a Ranger/Psychic Warrior with a couple of levels in the Sanctified Mind prestige class, which is focused on killing psionic entities. I'm a beatstick, with a Vicious two-handed sword and the Great Cleave feat chain. Not a very good AC, but a lot of hit points and a really high Strength. I'm having a good time with it.
We're all githzerai, working on retaking the gith homeworld. Unfortunately, the entire planet is a wild magic zone, so everybody is psionic. We're gestalt as well, so the group has some fairly strange characters running around. There are a few gith subraces, as well, just so everybody's not the same.
We have about the same party roles as any other game, though. Things don't play all that differently. The GM added some healing stuff so that we could avoid dying all the time - essentially, the upgraded the Life mantle of the ardent in the group, so they could heal others. She has a healing-based PrC, as well. Otherwise, we're a pretty normal group.
Monk/Kineticist, our blaster. He's almost completely a psion, ignoring his monk abilities and focusing everything on psionic feats and such. He's quite effective at it, too, with more flexibility than most blasters I've seen.
Monk/Telepath. She's a melee combatant, mostly focused on avoiding damage. She's got an AC of 29 pretty regularly, at 8th level. She can dish out a fair amount, too, though her attack bonus is pretty poor.
Soulknife/Fighter, the one who doesn't like psionics that much. I think he's taken a level of psychic warrior by now, so he can use dorjes of Body Adjustment. He's a straight TWF warrior. Does a fair amount of damage, since he's got four attacks a round, all of them with a bonus damage die or two.
Fighter/Ardent, the group's healer. She has, I believe, the Life and Travel mantles, though I don't know if she's picked up more by now. She's got mostly empathic powers - in combat, she'll usually go melee (sword and board) and then use Hostile Empathic Transfer when she gets hurt. She's usually got a Share Pain up with a group member or two, as well.
Scout/Psychic Warrior, a skirmisher. She runs around the battlefield at high speeds, hitting people or shooting them with her bow. Not a lot of damage, but good for attacking casters and such.
Me, a Ranger/Psychic Warrior with a couple of levels in the Sanctified Mind prestige class, which is focused on killing psionic entities. I'm a beatstick, with a Vicious two-handed sword and the Great Cleave feat chain. Not a very good AC, but a lot of hit points and a really high Strength. I'm having a good time with it.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Are you doing Gestalt, or some sort of crazy rule so that multiclassing casters doesn't suck?
Arkhandus
First Post
He mentioned in the first paragraph that they're all gestalt.
Me, I haven't run a psionics-but-no-magic campaign yet, but I do intend to at some point. Well, unless you count D20 Modern/Future; for that I've recently started an Agents of Psi campaign with no magic.
My Aurelia homebrew has a plane that's dead magic but allows psionics to work; I use the Psionics are Different rule in Aurelia. The transitive Plane of Brilliance, counterpart to the Plane of Shadow, was essentially reduced to a wasteland by wars between celestials and fiends, and after one divine cataclysm induced by that conflict, the entire plane's magical fabric was destroyed. No magic works there anymore, not any. Dieties can't go there. Most outsiders can't live there. Dragons and other magical creatures find their magical qualities nullified on the Plane of Brilliance.
No portals, gates, color pools, ethereal curtains, or other paths remain to the Plane of Brilliance, except for psionic Psychoportation powers, and psionic portals which are rare. A lot of magical creatures became stranded on the Plane of Brilliance and lost their magical nature, to where future generations of their bloodlines wouldn't even possess magical traits if traveling to the Prime Material through a psionic portal. Inhabitants of that plane, stranded or newly arrived, have become vicious scavengers competing for survival on a mostly-barren landscape that once teemed with life. They rely on psionic powers or physical might alone. And the plane's minor positive-dominant trait has faded with the destruction of its magical fabric; the plane is only held together by primeval planar forces and supports little life, since it no longer has any way to receive new positive energy from the Positive Energy Plane.
It's also now used as a sort of planar dump and prison for some creatures, tossed in through the rare psionic portals built by others (which are destroyed afterward) and left to rot in the 100%-dead-magic plane. Throw a lich there, and it'll perish for lack of any magic remaining in place to bind its soul to the corpse. Throw a demon in, and it'll become about as weak as an ogre, stranded and crippled. Throw in a magical or divine artifact.....and it'll become a useless trinket easily destroyed by physical force. Of course the problem is getting something into the plane to begin with, and there's always the possibility that some psionicist in the Plane of Brilliance might let the critter loose with a psionic Plane Shift for some kind of payment.
Me, I haven't run a psionics-but-no-magic campaign yet, but I do intend to at some point. Well, unless you count D20 Modern/Future; for that I've recently started an Agents of Psi campaign with no magic.
My Aurelia homebrew has a plane that's dead magic but allows psionics to work; I use the Psionics are Different rule in Aurelia. The transitive Plane of Brilliance, counterpart to the Plane of Shadow, was essentially reduced to a wasteland by wars between celestials and fiends, and after one divine cataclysm induced by that conflict, the entire plane's magical fabric was destroyed. No magic works there anymore, not any. Dieties can't go there. Most outsiders can't live there. Dragons and other magical creatures find their magical qualities nullified on the Plane of Brilliance.
No portals, gates, color pools, ethereal curtains, or other paths remain to the Plane of Brilliance, except for psionic Psychoportation powers, and psionic portals which are rare. A lot of magical creatures became stranded on the Plane of Brilliance and lost their magical nature, to where future generations of their bloodlines wouldn't even possess magical traits if traveling to the Prime Material through a psionic portal. Inhabitants of that plane, stranded or newly arrived, have become vicious scavengers competing for survival on a mostly-barren landscape that once teemed with life. They rely on psionic powers or physical might alone. And the plane's minor positive-dominant trait has faded with the destruction of its magical fabric; the plane is only held together by primeval planar forces and supports little life, since it no longer has any way to receive new positive energy from the Positive Energy Plane.
It's also now used as a sort of planar dump and prison for some creatures, tossed in through the rare psionic portals built by others (which are destroyed afterward) and left to rot in the 100%-dead-magic plane. Throw a lich there, and it'll perish for lack of any magic remaining in place to bind its soul to the corpse. Throw a demon in, and it'll become about as weak as an ogre, stranded and crippled. Throw in a magical or divine artifact.....and it'll become a useless trinket easily destroyed by physical force. Of course the problem is getting something into the plane to begin with, and there's always the possibility that some psionicist in the Plane of Brilliance might let the critter loose with a psionic Plane Shift for some kind of payment.
EyeontheMountain
First Post
Bacris said:With Complete Psionic, you have healing with psionics at 1st level. Egoists can be good healers from about 5th level on - or if you use the Mind's Eye alternate Egoist options, you can have a decent Egoist healer at level 1
Healing really isn't a problem anymore ^_^
Are you serious? Egoists got no extra healing from Complete Psionic.
If you mean Touch of Health, Egoists cannot use it by RAW, and 1 power point for 2 hit points is a terrible ratio. Granted Body Adjustment at 5:1d12 is not back, but it gets better at higher levels. 7:2d12, 9:3d12 is getting pretty good.
Now the power Mend Wounds is a good eal at 11psps for 55 points, and keeps jsut as good at high levels
But again, it is not for Egoists.
Psionics still needs mroe healing as I stated above
Beckett
Explorer
It's something I'm considering. Toss out basic arcane and divine, and work with psionics and magic of incarnum (well, once I get my hands on the book to read it over). By the time I get around to starting it, I'll have run through two adventure paths levels 1-20, so a "different" campaign seems like a good choice of what to do next.
EyeontheMountain said:
Please, please read my entire post
If you don't know what Mind's Eye is, just ask.From the Mind's Eye Expanded Classes Part Two - Egoist
And last I checked, a 3rd level Egoist can take Expanded Knowledge (Touch of Health).
Further, at 5th level, an egoist with Vigor + Empathic Transfer becomes a decent healer. Vigor for 2 pp to get 10 temp HP, then Empathic Transfer 3pp for 2d10 damage.
Average damage healed - 11 - for 5 pp. Soak up more by investing more PP, and you start getting more efficient. With Psionic Body, you can have the extra HP just in case that Empathic Transfer is higher than expected.
Later in levels, you can use Vigor + Share Powers (psicrystal) + Share Pain + Empathic Transfer to make healing even more efficient without ever using Body Adjustment.
