The Inner Eye
By Patrick Younts
Published by Ronin Arts
Pages: 7
Fully bookmarked
The Inner Eye is something of a rarity in the d20 industry, as it focuses entirely on psionic material. Specifically, it is a collection of 35 psionic feats catering primarily to psychic warriors and soulknives, that can easily be added or adapted to any campaign in which the 3.5 psionics rules are used.
The PDF itself is small, and the material covers 6 of its 7 pages, once the title art and the OGL License are taken into consideration. The artwork is limited to one piece, what looks to be a pencil-drawn and shaded portrait of a vaguely elfin young man. The piece is well done, not to mention printer friendly, but doesn’t seem to have anything to do with any of the psionic material the document is purported to be about. Perhaps the character in question is meant to be looking back at the reader with his “inner eye”. Beneath it, however, delimiting the art from the text below, is a thick band of toner-hungry black. Still, the remaining pages are simple, two-column text, without any border artwork to speak of, so if you do wish to print it out, after the initial hump it’s all smooth sailing. As well, the text is fully selectable, allowing you to copy and paste any of the material into your own house-rules documents, for example. There are several minor typos (apostrophes do not seem to be available in this reality revision) and the odd formatting glitch, but these are no more frequent than those found in Wizards of the Coast’s own material.
In addition to the feats themselves, the author takes several opportunities to expound on some of his decisions via designer notes. Not only does this give everyone the chance to look behind the curtain and see how designers try to balance character options, but it also allows DMs a clear rationale to tinker themselves with the material if they feel the author’s reasoning is somehow flawed, or they just want to do something a little differently.
There are two categories of psionic feats presented, one for psionic multiclass feats, as well as a general catch-all category. An example of a multiclass feat would be Beast Mind, which allows druids multiclassed with a psionic class to add their respective levels for purposes of the druid’s wild shape ability, or Beast Might, which enhances the druid’s physical stats while in wild shape. Oddly, however, there are several feats in the multiclass group that don’t actually require the character be multiclassed, only that the characters be focused, which is something that any character with a power point reserve can do. Blood Red Eye would be useful for any barbarian belonging to a naturally psionic race.
The remaining feats, which form the bulk of the PDF, are largely varied and interesting without going too far over the top. Many of the stronger feats have a sizable number of prerequisites, giving more experienced characters some novel options for their feat selection, while still trying to maintain game balance. Often, a feat can only be used while focused, limiting its availability in the heat of any given combat.
Without giving too much away, here are some examples: Chrysalis Armor provides the character with a small amount of damage reduction while focused. Mental Agility does for the tumble skill what Mental Leap does for jump. Psychic Guidance improves on Far Shot, quadrupling the range increment of a thrown weapon. Mental Finesse allows you to finesse one-handed weapons in addition to light weapons while focused. Steel Clad Grace helps a heavily armored combatant mitigate their armor check penalties somewhat, and Void Strike allows the character to make a melee attack through a small, intervening distance.
Other feats expand on common feat chains. Deeper and Deepest Impact improve critical threat ranges and multipliers on any use of the Deep Impact feat, and there are similar feats for natural and ranged attacks.
That said, I do have a few small niggling complaints. The feat Mental Strength is described in, what is to me, a muddled and confusing manner. The feat would have greatly benefited from a small section describing what is normally allowed by the rules. Also, the naming conventions for some of these feats needs a little tightening. For instance, while it is immediately clear that in one feat chain Deep Impact is followed by Deeper Impact and Deepest Impact, it is not quite so obvious that Unavoidable Strike is followed by Driving Strike and then Forceful Impact. Also, feats named Mental- or Psychic- something-or-other tend to turn into one big blur if used too often. And while I realize that it is often difficult to name feats appropriately, it is certainly worth the effort. If as a DM I give one of my NPCs the feat Mental Strength, I don’t want to have to go looking it up every time that I glance at the stat-block because the feat doesn’t try to give me any hints as to what it actually does! And finally, the first thing that the PDF tells you is that the Player’s Handbook is required, but it doesn’t tell you that you’ll also need the 3.5 Expanded Psionics Handbook (or access to the SRD), to make use of many of these feats.
It is so rare that options are published expanding on psionics, that when one does emerge, it is difficult not to expect it to come with the kitchen sink. The Inner Eye is very focused in what it presents, and naturally I wish that there was more of it, both in containing more psionic feats, as well as those less geared towards the more martial types of characters. The psionic feats that are presented inside appear to be reasonably well-balanced, flavorful, and interesting.
The Inner Eye is a welcome addition to what is otherwise a relatively poorly supported game option, and at a hefty $2, will certainly provide much more enjoyment than it’s equivalent dollar worth in coffee and/or chocolate.
Reviewed by Scott Benoit
