Thoughts on Mind Stuff: Who's your Psychic?

[steeldragons]

Still on hiatus from my usual in person group (thanks COVID). So, I've been working on, picking at, revising and revising, and revising my homebrew world and accompanying game: world specific classes, species (nee "races"), diving deeper into some legends, cultures, and societies I hadn't detailed much before, and so on.

Long story short[ish], working on my Psychic class (which has been in the setting and game from the get go), and waxing nostalgic for my first PC with the group, who plays Pathfinder 1e, and so my first foray into PF and first PF character (who was a Psychic). I enjoyed the character thoroughly, but always felt like the "psychic powers feel" was secondary to the "magic/spell caster" feel.

So, I was just wondering, for folks hereabouts...

What is your favored style, type, game, system, setting, mechanics, etc... for characters with psychic/psionic/mental powers?

Go.

 

[John Dallman]

I've played fantasy games with psi powers, but as you say, they seemed like "another kind of spell caster." My most successful game with such powers was set in a variant of 1960s England, where powers were suddenly breaking out and rapidly becoming involved in crime, the Cold War, and so on. Campaign web page here.

 

[Umbran]

What is your favored style, type, game, system, setting, mechanics, etc... for characters with psychic/psionic/mental powers?

Setting: Katherine Kurtz's "Deryni" books. The characters in the works don't think of it as "psychic/psionic/mental" - it is just their form of magic. And it is the only magic in the world. But, as a reader who gets the descriptions, that's how it comes across to me.

Game/mechanics.. I really want to see it done with some form of spell-points mechanics, but they all seem to fall a little flat.

 

[GMMichael]

I was always enchanted by the Psionics Handbook of AD&D 2e, with its own psionics rules, but I never got to use them. Then I was excited when they came back in 3e, using the same rules as the magic rules, if I recall correctly. The Soul Knife was cool, but yeah, it was "magic/spell caster feel."

I'm excited to try a psionics module for my game, in which characters have mental resources that are separate from their magical resources, but yup, the trick is to make psionics that aren't just Other Magic . . .

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I want to be Gary Spivey, complete with spaghetti hair.

one power I want is a mind charm that helps to generate cash.

unarmored of course with a flowing shirt.

 

[Drazen]

I was always enchanted by the Psionics Handbook of AD&D 2e, with its own psionics rules, but I never got to use them. Then I was excited when they came back in 3e, using the same rules as the magic rules, if I recall correctly. The Soul Knife was cool, but yeah, it was "magic/spell caster feel."

I'm excited to try a psionics module for my game, in which characters have mental resources that are separate from their magical resources, but yup, the trick is to make psionics that aren't just Other Magic . . .

Ah! I loved how they did Psionics with PSI, Thacos, and whatnot.
I really believed it separated magic from psionics.
Nowadays, the line between them is a little blurred.

 

[cbwjm]

I loved the complete psionics handbook, though I do like the various systems they've created for 5e. The mystic was cool. The psi dice are pretty cool as well. I was thinking of creating a psychic using the warlock as a base, invocations as psionics powers could work quite well I think.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I like how psi stuff is done in HERO system. But then I like how HERO does most things.

 

[MGibster]

Setting: Katherine Kurtz's "Deryni" books. The characters in the works don't think of it as "psychic/psionic/mental" - it is just their form of magic. And it is the only magic in the world. But, as a reader who gets the descriptions, that's how it comes across to me.

The Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan are like that. The description of how the One Power works seems more like a form of psychic power than your traditional fantasy spells.

When I think psychic I think science fiction or modern horror. Spock has some psychic powers and so did Stephen King's Carrie.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It's a tie between Athena Asamiya and Bison. Both make heavy use of short-range teleportation, bright pink energy barriers, and projectile orbs.

Coincidentally, Bison's power source is known as "Psycho Power"; while Athena is a member of "Team Psycho Soldier."