D&D 3E/3.5 Psionics and Action Points (3.5)

[DrOct]

In our campaign we've recently introduced Psionics (with my character, and now a few NPC's). We've also been using Action points for a while now, mostly in the same way they're presented in the SRD, with a few modifications here and there. Mostly the rules as they relate to Psionics are fairly straighforward, but my DM and I were recently discussing it, and realized we weren't sure what the best way to handle a "spell recall" equivilent for Psionics was. I had originally presented the idea of simply getting the powerpoints back, but he pointed out that was potentially much more flexible/powerful than the spellcasting equivilent. I couldnt' find anywhere in any of the books I have, or in the SRD anything that actually addressed this, and while we aren't slavishly devoted to "official" rules, it is at least a starting point to see how other people have thought about it.

So my questions are as follows:

First question: Is there any "official" publication in 3.5 that explicitly talks about using Action Points and Psionics? Maybe Eberron (that setting uses both action points and psionics right? I'm not too up on most of the official campaign settings as I've just about always played in home-made worlds)?

Second question is this: How do you handle Action Points and Psionics (or how would you propose doing so?). I have no doubt that we can come up with something fair and relatively balanced, but I'd like to hear other peoples thinking too, as it might lead us in directions we might not have thought of before.

Third Question: Well less a question, but just want to encourage you to not just limit yourself to what the "spell recall" equivilent would be, but any other situations you've encountered, or ideas you've had for how action points can be applied to Psionics in ways that are both balanced and fun.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I don't know if there's an official answer, but why not just treat it like a spontaneous caster does? Get the same power back to manifest again for free. Probably with the same exact level of augmentation, I'd think.

 

[Thanee]

Well, the most simple, though maybe not the most satisfying, approach is the literal one... "spell recall" doesn't work for you, since you have no spells.

I don't know if there's an official answer, but why not just treat it like a spontaneous caster does? Get the same power back to manifest again for free. Probably with the same exact level of augmentation, I'd think.

This sounds like a good way to handle it.

Bye
Thanee

 

[DrOct]

I don't know if there's an official answer, but why not just treat it like a spontaneous caster does? Get the same power back to manifest again for free. Probably with the same exact level of augmentation, I'd think.

We had actually discussed that breifly, and it seems likely we will essentially go with that, but I just wanted to gague other ideas, especially as we just started discussing it this morning and haven't really spent much time thinking about it.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

The only possible restriction you might want to add is limit the PP of the power you are recalling to your normal manifester level, in the case of abilities that let you go higher than it such as Overchannel and Wild Surge. It might be ok to allow that, might not, I have no idea. Just a possible issue.

 

[DrOct]

The only possible restriction you might want to add is limit the PP of the power you are recalling to your normal manifester level, in the case of abilities that let you go higher than it such as Overchannel and Wild Surge. It might be ok to allow that, might not, I have no idea. Just a possible issue.

That had occurred to me, and I would think we'd almost certainly implement restrictions like that (just as we'd almost certainly restrict altered spells in similar ways, though so far it hasn't actually come up with any of our spell casters as our group is generally pretty good at sticking to the spirit of rules without trying to rules monger too much).