Psicrystals! Questions about them...

[Wolfix]

Greetings!
In last night's campaign where I play a 5th level Psychic Warrior, my poor Psicrystal got smashed by some evil spiders. After much insulting of the spiders IC, I started worrying OOC about the massive xp penalty for losing your crystal and not being able to get another one for a year and a day. Then I thought, wait a minute, is this true for psicrystals? Or only for familiars?

So I looked it up and couldn't find it anywhere. I also could have sworn that Psions automatically recieved a crystal at first level, and lo and behold, I couldn't find a reference to that either! (that had nothing to do with my current char, it was just something I was looking up as well).

So:
1) Is there some penalty for loosing your psicrystal like with familiars? (other than the fact that your char loses a cool friend who was good at scouting, could hold an extra psionic focus charge and was great for communicating with another teammate at a distance when carried with him... the spiders will die! Horribly!)
2) Do Psions recieve one for free at 1st level?
3) Is it possible to replace a shattered crystal, and how does one go about this?

 

[Thanee]

PSICRYSTAL AFFINITY [PSIONIC]

You have created a psicrystal.
Prerequisites: Manifester level 1st.
Benefit: This feat allows you to gain a psicrystal.

1) No.
2) No. You get one for free, if you learn the appropriate feat (see above).
3) No.

As a house rule, the DM could change this, of course:

One option would be to allow the character to take the feat again to create a new psicrystal.
Another option would be to let the character re-create the psicrystal in the same way a new familiar can be gained and then also give the same XP penalties for the destruction of the psicrystal.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Yair]

What she said.

 

[Scion]

When you lose your psicrystal all you need to do is get another one. Exactly what that means is up to the dm, but as you have not lost the feat then all you really need to do is say, 'I get another one' and you have it.

Some people like to say that it is now a wasted feat, but that is completely nonsensical. Much the same as if one lost the prereqs for a feat and then got them back again and trying to say the person could no longer use that feat.

With the feat you are able to gain a psicrystal. If for some reason you do not have one yet (you just got the feat, it was destroyed, some other randomness) all you need to do is just get another one.

In other words, there is little penalty for loseing a psicrystal with the current ruleset.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The rules say:

PSICRYSTAL AFFINITY [PSIONIC]
Benefit: This feat allows you to gain a psicrystal.

So if the psicrystal is destroyed, and the character still has the feat, then he may use the feat to gain a psicrystal. This seems to involve picking up a rock and saying "this is my psicrystal", since there are no rules for it.

The feat does not grant a psicrystal, but rather the ability to gain a psicrystal. So the destruction of the crystal does not render the feat useless.

 

[Thanee]

How many psicrystals can you have at a time then (with one feat)?

Bye
Thanee

 

[KarinsDad]

How many psicrystals can you have at a time then (with one feat)?

One.

If you do not have a psicrystal, the feat allows you to gain "a psicrystal".

Since feats do not stack (unless stated in the feat), you cannot do this a second time as long as you have a psicrystal.

If your previous psicrystal is destroyed, it is no longer your psicrystal and hence you can use the feat again.

 

[Thanee]

And where did you get that "if you do not have a psicrystal" part from?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Asmor]

And where did you get that "if you do not have a psicrystal" part from?

Bye
Thanee

It's implied.

The feat doesn't give you the psicrystal, it just gives you the option of having one. I guess it can kind of be likened to giving someone a recipe for a cake. You're not actually giving them a cake, but they can now have one.

Except, y'know, this is magic cake. You can only have one. Or the consequences... dire. Dire indeed...

Interesting aside: Everytime I try to type dire, I accidentally type fire and have to go back and correct it.

 

[DreamChaser]

And where did you get that "if you do not have a psicrystal" part from?

Bye
Thanee

From the same place the "not being able to cast a silenced spell" comes from with the Silent Spell feat. Feats grant you some ability or bonus you did not previously have.

When you take the psycrystal affinity feat you gain one psycrystal because it says "This feat allows you to gain a psicrystal." (emphasis mine) "A" is the singular, undefined article in English. It tells you that there is a specific number (one) thing of a general type (the noun in question). If it said "This feat allows you to gain psycrystals." then you could have as many as you wanted. But it doesn't.

Also, since the rule is feats don't stack unless they are specified as having this ability, nor can you take a feat multiple times without that ability being specified, this feat allows only one psycrystal, ever. Although a different feat could change this.

In addition, to my knowlege there is nothing, short of death I suppose, that can irrevocably and permanently deny you the benefits of a feat (temporarily due to ability loss or such, yes but there is a way to recover the use of it).

If the destruction of the psycrystal meant no more psycrystal ever, then this would count as the permanent loss of a feat. Because of this, and the fact there is nothing in the RAW to indicate that Psycrystal Affiinity is any different from any other feat, as per the phrasing of the feat, the ability is what is gained, not the psycrystal itself.

DC