The Alternate Psionics Project

[GnomeWorks]

Hello, all.

This is a project that was started over on the WotC boards by a poster called PSIandCO. You may have heard of him.

Despite his (in)famous reputation out there, he has started a project to fix 3e psionics, and turn it into what psionics should have been from the beginning - balanced, but psionics (ie, isn't the 3rd type of magic).

The project takes all of the ideas from 2e, throws them in a blender, and takes the cream of the crop. Throw in some balancing factors (for instance, each power has three stages - at each level past 3rd, you get development slots to develop a power of your choice to the next stage), a little neutral flavor text and ideologies true to the original intent of psionics, and you have...

The Alternate Psionics Project.

Note that I'm not a very good marketer, Nor a good speaker. But don't let this crappy blurb lessen your opinion of the idea... if you have any questions, I (or Dalamar, who's also involved in this) will do my (our) best to answer them.

 

[Crothian]

What's being changed? The point system The Powers? THe classes? The psionic Combat? The Psionic feats? THe psionic level system?

 

[GnomeWorks]

Answer - yes, all of the above.

The point system is very similar to the system used in 2e. Bonus power points are based upon your philosophy, of which there are two - a physical aspect, and a mental aspect. The physical aspect bases bonus PSP's on constitution, while the mental bases them on wisdom.

The powers are 2e powers converted into 3e format. Each power has 3 stages, and the usage of development slots allows access to higher stages.

The psionicist from 2e has been blended with the 3e psion. With two aspects and six specializations in the six disciplines, there are a total of 12 'subclasses' of the psionicist. There is no psychic warrior, nor any other psionic class.

Psionic combat is one system that is still being worked out. However, we have removed the common 10 modes and replaced them with 13 new modes, 6 attack and 7 defense.

Psionic feats... is another section I am unsure of. There are a multitude of psionic feats, although they are not too similar to those in the PsiHB.

There are no longer levels of psionic powers. Instead, the old denominations of 'devotion' and 'science' are used. In addition, a 'high science' term is used to describe very powerful powers (I believe this is a term from Dark Sun, but I'm not sure).

Hope that helped.

 

[zorlag]

zorlag

I'd be extremely interested in hearing about your progress on the project... Any guesses when first version is coming out? Do you need playtesters or more contributors? I'm one of the people who felt that 3e psionics system is too much "magic"-like, ie. dumbed down. While this is a good way of introducing the concept to those who never used it on their games, veteran players get quite irritated when they see they could play sorcerer and be just about similar. Actually sorcerer would be more powerful as well but that is besides the point...

And feel free to email me if there is something confidential stuff to take care of. (Zorlag@iobox.com)

 

[GnomeWorks]

I'm afraid that I can't give even a general date for when it will be done. We have a lot to do - the project was only started in late January/early February, and there is a lot of work to be done. We are converting every power produced in 2e in every product.

If there is a need for contributors or play-testers, I will be sure to alert any who are interested in fulfilling either of those roles.

---

A question that some may wish to ask is: what is the 6th discipline? Between 2e and 3e, there are only five disciplines shared. In the project, we have decided to go with Metacreativity as the sixth discipline. of course, this discipline wasn't in 2e - thus, many of the powers have been written from scratch, and a few (namely Create Object) have been taken from other disciplines and heavily modified.

Metapsionics have been turned into feats, as WotC did in the PsiHB.

 

[jkantor]

I'd like to find out more about it, since I am working on a sci-fi setting for publication which needs "real" psionics and not just magic by another name. I have been making notes on my own interpretation.