Restless Dreams: Modern Psionics review

Dark Psion

First Post
I was going to post this over in the reviews, but this product is not set up yet. So I'll put it over here where it might actually be seen ;)

Restless Dreams is a pdf product avialable at RPGNow!. and weighs in at 129 pages in three pdf files (Color with art, B&W with art and B&W without art)
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Restless Dreams: A Guide to Modern Psionics

Basically this is the Expanded Psionic Handbook converted to D20 Modern rules, well the SRD parts at least.

At first glance, much of this book looks like the XPH copied to a pdf, but a closer look reveals several nice conversion ideas. This book converts all the psionic disciplines, psionic focus, psicrystals, (augmentable) psionic powers up to 5th level and psionic items.

To convert to D20 Modern, the base classes become Advanced classes and the Psion actually becomes six classes. This adds a nice twist to the standard psionic rules, as you can now multiclass between Seer and Telepath or Shaper and Kineticist. The Wilder is not a class, but presented as both an Occupation and Feat. The Battlemind from D20 Modern core rulebook continues to serve as a Psychic Warrior, but is not updated to the new rules. Also as per other Advanced classes, these gain special abilities that the D&D version do not, for example;

Egoist: Natural Armor bonus, Temporary immunity to Critical hits & Death attacks and the Unconditional Power feat.
Kineticist: Damage bonus to attacks, Inertial Barrier, Kinetic flight and the ability to ignore armor when attacking.
Nomad: Psionic Dodge(better version than the XPH feat), Psionic Mobility and Up the Walls.
Seer: Insight to initiative, Bonus to Reflex saves and Foresight.
Shaper: Boost Construct, Item Creation feats and Craft XP reserve.
Soul Knife: Basic Soul Knife for 10 levels and gets one 1st level power from their Wild Talent feat.
Telepath: Modify Reputation +/-, Gather Information from Telepathic scan and Leadership.

Next we have some Prestige classes, these are only 5 levels each, but in some ways better than the ones in the XPH.
Metamind: Much better than the XPH version, can learn powers from any list and automatically qualifies for any other Psionic class.
Nightshade: A psionic thief that can use Shadow strike, fast sneak and hide in plain sight.
Psionic Fist: A martial artist that has achieved enlightenment.
Psychal: An enhanced Soul Knife with the ability to enhance and improve their mind blade.

Skills and feats introduces psionic focus to D20 modern and converts the psionic feats from the XPH. The next section is powers, but only up to 5th level as they were in D20 Modern rules, but the powers are now Augmentable. There are a few new powers and a couple of spells converted from Urban Arcana. One interesting note, there is list for each discipline, but only one power per level and each Advanced class gets these as a bonus power every odd level.

Psionic items covers Dorjes, Weapons, Armor, Psicrowns, Tattoos and introduces Psionic Circuits. A psionic circuit is a “stored power” like a scroll.

Astral Constructs and Psicrystals get an entry as do several of the psionic races. One nice touch here is that the races get both an Urban Arcana and a D20 Future description. Races covered are Blue Goblins, Dromites, Duergar, Elan, Half-Giant, Maenads and Xephs.

Over all this is a good book. There are a few typos; Kineticist’s list has Quicken Power feat but he actually gets Maximize power feat at 10th level, the Psychic Warrior is mentioned in the Power section and a couple of the converted spells still say “spell” in their description. Also, the question of what to do with the old Zero level Talents is not addressed. Since the previous classes like the Psionic Agent in Urban Arcana do include them, as do the psionic classes from RPObjects books, a conversion guide would have been nice.

A lot of people say that psionics belongs more in a sci-fi setting than in fantasy gaming, but unfortunately it was left out of D20 Future. This book can definitely fill that void. One thing this book does is save you a lot of time converting rules and let you get on with playing the game.

I would give this book a Good 4/5 rating.
 
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Christopher Lambert said:
What do the skill requirements look like?

Wild Talent feat and either Two skills at 6 ranks and one more feat, One skill at 6 ranks and two more feats or Three skills at 6 ranks.

Of course if you take two levels at a Metamind, you now automaticaly qualify for any and all psionic classes, despite requirements.

Soul Knife requires BAB+3 and Archaic Weapon Proficiency and Wild Talent feat. When you consider the six basic classes you have to choose from first, it allows for some interesting Soul Knife variations.
 

Dark Psion said:
Over all this is a good book. There are a few typos; Kineticist’s list has Quicken Power feat but he actually gets Maximize power feat at 10th level, the Psychic Warrior is mentioned in the Power section and a couple of the converted spells still say “spell” in their description. Also, the question of what to do with the old Zero level Talents is not addressed. Since the previous classes like the Psionic Agent in Urban Arcana do include them, as do the psionic classes from RPObjects books, a conversion guide would have been nice.

Hi, this is the author of RD. It's just been updated to fix the problems listed here (kineticist problems, psychic warrior references, spell references, and a new appendix on converting psionic characters fom d20 Modern, Urban Arcana and the Modern Player's Companion, volume 2). Just thought I'd let anyone who was interested know.
 
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red eyed antipaladin- As someone who caught your work on the WotC boards, I must say, it is pretty cool to see you publishing. The Nomad Advanced Class, it whatever form it was on the internet, got some nice work in my campaign. Thanks a lot for the cool stuff, and I'll check out the PdF.
 


No, since I based it on 3.5 psionics, it's all intelligence-based (unless you take the Wilder feat, which makes you use your charisma modifier instead, as well modifying how you learn and augment powers somewhat).
 

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