Psionics Toolkit

[Messageboard Golem]

If you’re anything like me, when you first read over the psionics rules for the d20 system you couldn’t wait to play a psion or a psychic warrior. The GM in me was also intrigued by the promise of creating all sorts of psionic monsters to unleash upon my hapless players. Finally, after literally decades of waiting, we had rules for psionic powers that were balanced against other character options and that fit with the game’s core mechanic.

But then, just when all seemed perfect, the cold wave of reality hit me. How the heck was I going to introduce psionics into my campaign? Oddly enough, while psionics has been a part of fantasy gaming since the earliest days of RPGs, psychic powers are typically linked to science fiction rather than fantasy. The brave fighting man, the crusading cleric, the wily thief, and the mysterious wizard are all archetypes with plenty of precedents in fantasy literature and games. Telepathic investigators and telekinetic warriors, on the other hand, while established character types in certain settings, don’t have such a rich tradition. After all, no one’s morphing his limbs into living weapons in The Lord of the Rings. Integrating a science fiction trope into a fantasy campaign can be a tricky task.

So what is a GM to do?

The Psionics Toolkit holds the answers you seek. Within these pages are a series of options and tools that allow you to integrate the powers of the mind into a fantasy game with minimal fuss. Chapter 1 presents a series of questions and resulting considerations to help direct you integrate psionics into a new or an established game world. Chapter 2 takes the foundation built in chapter one and uses it to present several story-based options for introducing psionics into a fantasy world, including a new monster template (detailed in Chapter 6) and a new character race; these options are useful even if you’ve already decided on many of the nuts and bolts of psionics in your game. Chapter 3 presents two new specialized psionic prestige classes and a new clerical domain. Chapter 4 provides a system for designing and describing NPC organizations and details one such organization, complete with a stat block and several new magic items crafted by its members. Chapter 5 details a unique system for retroactively refitting existing characters with psionic class levels. Chapter 6 offers several new psionic creatures and templates. Chapter 7 offers a selection of psionic characters, with plot hooks that can easily be expanded into adventure ideas, for use as NPCs in your game.

So unbelt that broadsword, hawk your holy symbol, pocket that lock pick, and seal those spellbooks. It’s time to open your mind and explore the strange new vistas of the psychic landscape.

And don’t worry. We’ve already done all the hard work for you.

 

[Psion]

Psionics Toolkit

The addition of the Psionics Handbook material to the System Reference Document invited the creation of new products from various d20 system publishers. Fiery Dragon has already published its popular Of Sound Mind psionic adventure, and Malhavoc press has put out its adventure/accessory If Thoughts Could Kill. Online publishers like Ambient Inc. and Chainmail Bikini Games have included psionics-related prestige classes in their products. However, the Psionics Toolkit -- by prolific d20 system author Mike Mearls -- is perhaps the first accessory fully devoted to psionics.

Psionics Toolkit is a book with ideas for using psionics in a game as well as new additions for such a game.

A First Look

The Psionics Toolkit is a 56-page staple-bound softcover book. The Psionics Toolkit is priced at $11.95 US. This gives a price per page of about 21 cents, which is slightly better than normal for products of this size and format.

The cover is color. The painting by Brian LeBlanc depicts characters and creatures depicted in the book. As prior reviews of FDP products show, I am not a big fan of LeBlanc's style. The psionic drake depicted on the cover looks rather goofy, albeit fact it fits the description in the book. The

The interior is black and white, and the art is all by Claudio Pozas. The interior art is somewhat sparse. The interior art is generally well done and evocative.

The typeface is a bit larger than previous FDP books, but close to typical for the industry. The book is an average value for the size.

A Deeper Look

Psionics Toolkit is divided into seven chapters.

The first chapter is Twelve Questions About Psionics. Basically, the author provides the reader with twelve topics to consider when integrating psionics with their game. Questions include "how common are psionic characters?" and "what is the relationship betwen psionic characters and arcane spellcasters?" Each question has several paragraphs detailing possible answers to each questions and things that the GM should consider when making these decisions.

This chapter is of special use to GMs who are new to psionics and have not yet considered many of these things. This section will likely be of less use for GMs who have already integrated psionics into their games.

The second chapter is People, Places, and Things. The chapter introduces a new race, a psionic artifact, two organization, and a deity of psionics. The chapter has a few mechanics, but consists mostly ideas for use in a campaign. The chapter's main weakness is organizational. There is no shift in header size between sections, so it is difficult to eyeball where one item ends and the next begins.

The race is the Vanair. They are an ancient offshoot of humanity that lives in the frozen northern wastes, and have a racial affinity for psionics. The race has complete PC style statistics; they receive inner strength as a bonus feat and have one psionic talent. They can choose psion or psychic warrior as a favored class, and receive an experience penalty if they take levels in the sorcerer or wizard class. The chapter provides some ideas for using them as adversaries, PCs, or as neutrals to introduce the players to psionics.

The artifact is the Monolith of Maurimar is an unusual item that the PCs may stumble upon. The Monolith is the anchor point for a race of beings composed of pure thought energy known as the Lyphillians; the Lyphillians have the ability to switch minds with people that invoke the power of the Monolith. The Monolith can be used as a potential threat in a campaign, or as a means of introducing psionics into the game.

The new organizations are Olvic's Gang and the Monks of the Invisible Fist. Olvic's Gang are a band of youths that were the subjects of experiments that turned upon their creator; they can be used as sympathetic villains in a game. The Monks of Invisible fist are an order of monks that study the mysteries of the mind. Monks of the Invisible Fist are a variant of the monk class with some skill alterations and that may freely multiclass with the psychic warrior class.

Vinduil is a deity whose sphere of influence is psionics. The material on Vinduil relates a legend that when all the primordial deities granted one gift to the thinking species, Vinduil's gift was a secret; that gift was the power of psioics. The faith of Vinduil is described, including various splinter factions ranging from sympathetic to villainous in nature.

The Classes chapter contains two new prestige classes as well as a new domain. The new prestige classes are Psychic Thief and Beastmaster. Both classes have their own PP progression and list of available powers. The Psychic Thief is a member of an elite order to thieves that use psionics to perpetrate their crimes. They have access to many rogue-like skills and class abilities, as well as a power list that aids in such endeavors.

The Beastmaster is a psionic class that is specialized in dealing with animals. The class has a power list that deals with animals, as well as recieving animal friendship as a power. The Beastmaster's class abilities enhance its psionic powers to be more useful for dealing with animals.

Finally is the new clerical domain, the Psionics domain. The Psionics domain may only be selected by a character who already has at least one level in psion or psychic warrior. In addition to a list of spells related to thoughts and mind control, the domain ability allows the character to convert prepared divine spells into psionic power points.

The fourth chapter is entitled Organizations, but also contains a smattering of items used by one of the organizations. The chapter begins with a sort of stat block definition for organizations. A short sample organization is provided, the Band of the Opened Eye, an academic order of psions. Most of the chapter is devoted to the Order of the Broken Staff, an order composed primarily of arcane spellcasters devoted to discrediting psionic characters.

Chapter five is entitled Psionics in Established Campaigns. It is rather short, and provides advice for retroactively converting existing characters to use psionics. The recommended method is to allow an existing character to convert up to half of their levels to psion or psychic warrior levels. Most of the guidelines are straightforward, but it recommends altering HP as if the character had rolled maximum for both the old and new class levels. This method exaggerates the difference between different hit dice types, and for more general characters, the difference between the averages would be more accurate.

The chapter doesn't leave you high and dry explaining this shift, though. It provides the idea of a plague that affects many creatures. Most never reawaken from the coma caused by the plague. Those that do reawaken suffer memory loss, but have new inexplicable powers.

Chapter 6 introduces new monsters for use in a campaign with psionics. The new animals are:
- Solarian cat: An intelligent psionic great cat, the solarian cat make great hunters, scouts, and companions. They have psionic powers to create sound an feather fall.
- Cryscorn: The cryscorn is a psionic unicorn with a crystal horn. The creature can heal others with its horn, and has a variety of psionic clairsentient abilities as well.
- Psionic Drake: The psionic drake is a comparatively small breed of dragons with great psionic power to compensate for their physical inferiority to other dragons.
- Lyphillian: Mentioned in the second chapter, the Lyphillians are creatures of pure thought. Lyphillian is a template applied to a creature that the Lyphillian uses the mind swap ability on.
- Psi-Killer: Another template, the psi-killer is a character that has been infected by a magically engineered virus called the Zarth War Virus. A character with the virus can sense psionic, and when it does so it enters an involuntary rage and attacks such creatures.
- Mind Flayer Battle Trall: A battle thrall is a creature that has been subjected to a horrid procedure by the mind flayers. This leaves the creature a thrall, with a spikey armored hide and weapons grafted to its hands.

Chapter Seven is an assortment of psionic character for use in your game as NPC allies, foes, or neutrals. In brief, the characters include a rampaging psychic warrior exiled from another plane, a gnome shaper operating as a charlatan, a dwarf shaper who sales her psionic items, a justice seeking paladin/expert/seer, a human beastmaster, and a pair of small time crooks, one of which is a telepath.

Conclusion

There are many useful ideas for fleshing out the role of psionics in your game. These will be most useful for GMs who have never taken the time to consider how to integrate psionics into their game. Even if you already have psionics well established in your game, the book may give you a few ideas of things to flesh out a little more and adventure ideas, as well as some interesting material for your games to terrorize your players with.

-Alan D. Kohler