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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010170" data-attributes="member: 18387">By Glenn Dean, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine RackSizing Up the TargetThe Quintessential Psion is a 128 page black-and-white sourcebook written by Sam Witt and published by Mongoose Publishing. It is available at a retail price of $19.95.First BloodThe Quintessential Psion is the 13th book in Mongoose Publishing’s Collector Series. This latest in the Quintessential line takes a look at all things psionic with a focus on the Psion, providing the Psion player and the GM with a range of character concepts, tools, powers, and game mechanics to enhance both the Psion and the use of psionics in the campaign.Much like the other books in the Collector’s Series, Quintessential Psion begins by providing a set of character concepts for the Psion character. These are a set of roles with a related history and set of attitudes that can be used to roleplay a truly deep and fascinating character. All of them provide some explanation for the character’s manifestation of psionic powers, like the Left For Dead, whose horribly traumatic past is forgotten but lingers in the form of tremendous psychic strength. Nine new prestige classes follow character concepts -- six full ten-level classes and three five-level classes. They classes provide a truly dizzying range of approaches from the Necropath who gains power from the psychic remnants of the dead, to the Ectoplasmic Constructor, who is a combatant specializing in the creation of weapons, armor, and other objects out of psychic ectoplasm. In contrast to many prestige class collections that I feel have potential game issues, this collection provides a nicely balanced set, with each specialty having made a clear sacrifice for its power. At the end of this chapter I felt a strong urge to roll up a Psychic Investigator and run a Ghostbusters! Campaign.The next four chapters, Trick of the Trade, Psionic Feats, Tools of the Trade, and Psionic Powers expand the powers and applications of psionics in the campaign. Tricks include psionic alchemy (“Psichemy”), psionic poisons, and the manipulation of psychic forces through essences, transfer solutions, and “the flux” – the psychic force that links sentient minds. Of greatest interest to Psion players, however, will be the alternate psionic combat system, which finally provides a simpler psionic attack and defense system that works for both psionic and non-psionic characters and is more in line with the normal d20 combat mechanics. Of the 18 new Psionic Feats and 20 new Powers, a number of them are devoted to this alternate combat system – feats like Psionic Cleave, Psi Focus, and Improved Psionic Critical work mechanically much like their traditional combat counterparts.New Psionic Tools include psibonded weapons that the Psion can create specifically bonded to his or her mental essence. This is a great mechanic to allow a player to truly personalize the character’s equipment. The same goes for psionic masks, the defensive counterparts to psibonded weapons.Players will also find the concepts of psionic power collapse and altered statess to be of interest. Psionic power collapse allows psionic powers to be “upgraded”, eliminating those that have been superceded by more powerful powers. Altered states describes the various effects that a range of mind-altering substances can have on the psion’s mental states.The GM also has the ability to influence the psion’s powers through the use of echoes, fragments, mind symbiotes, and memetic parasites. Echoes and fragments are the psychic remains of minds that may linger in an area, enabling the psion to tap them for extra power, or perhaps for the skills remnant in some long decayed personality. The mind symbiote is akin to a familiar with a twist, a being that both feeds and feeds off of the psion, with its own dark needs. The symbiote provides a much more interesting variation on the more traditional psicrystal familiar. Memetic parasites can cover a range of dark psychic forces preying on unsuspecting minds, that a psion might wish to both tap into for psionic power and avoid for potential loss.Quintessential Psion provides two other uniquely psionic creations. The Psionic Accord is a collection of Psions who pool their abilities to grant each additional powers, somewhat akin to a spell pooling mechanic. Crystal Palaces are the psion’s stronghold, a place where psionic power is cultured and harvested, to which the psion can retreat to for further preparation and mental development.The Quintessential Psion includes a complete set of quick reference tables at the rear of the book that provide all the basic mechanical tables. There is also a great character sheet with plenty of room to detail your own Quintessential Psion.Critical HitsWhat is a critical hit to some is probably a critical miss to others: if you dislike the dark, quirky nature of the tattooed, crystal-toting psion, you’ll dislike Quintessential Psion. If anything, this book dramatically enhances and deepens that dark mysterious flavor of the psionic character with some truly different concepts. There isn’t a healthy mind in the bunch, here, folks – the extreme introvert, the obsessive-compulsive, the split personality, and the character with imaginary friends -- all make their appearances in these pages. The chapter on altered states could almost be subtitled “The Complete Guide to Psionic Drug Use.” Quintessential Psion quite excellently captures the truly different fell of the mind-mage – if you’d thought that the Psionics Handbook didn’t go far enough, you should be quite satisfied with Quintessential Psion. Mechanically, the alternate psionic combat rules were sorely needed by the core rules system. While some may decry equating psionic attacks and defenses to weapons and armor, I felt that the alternate system effectively preserves the feel of “Ego Whip versus Mind Blank” mind-to-mind combat while making it mechanically simple to resolve, particularly with a mix of psionic and non-psionic characters.Critical MissesWell, not everyone is going to care for Quintessential Psion’s flavor, so consider yourself warned. Mongoose succeeds in presenting a very alien feel, an approach that I feel better fits the “Psionics are different” mode of play than the “Psionics and magic are the same” style. The GM who uses psionics only casually in the campaign will find some of these mechanics a little difficult to implement – it simply takes a fair amount of work to begin considering and keep track of all the possible psionic echoes and fragments that psionic players might find useful in play, for example. A psionics-heavy campaign, on the other hand, can be quite enriched by the same mechanics if the GM is willing to put in the extra work.Coup de GraceThe Quintessential Psion provides a deep look into playing the Psion character, with a large number of new ideas to enhance an already quirky character class. The essential mechanics and statistics are Open Content, along with a quite usable psionic combat system. Players and GMs who consider psionics an essential part of their campaign should consider putting this on their must-buy list; casual psionics users might rather consider a more traditional entry in the Quintessential line.To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=&topic=3" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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