Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 9770238" data-attributes="member: 7635">I think one of the things that needs to be addressed when dealing with a psionic system that isn't apeing magic is how exactly do you counter it. Magic has very few hard counters as it stands: you can't cast spells with verbal components if unable to speak, somatic if unable to move your hand(s) and material if you lack the proper component (focus, pouch, or costly gp). Additionally, spells can be countered with counterspell, detected and dispelled with appropriate magic, susceptible to wild and dead magic zones, and resisted by certain creatures (like raksasha). A psion character should run into these types of problems about as regularly as a caster should: IE enough to be a concern but not enough to be useless all the time. One of my biggest sticking points when psionics is different from magic is that you end up either in a situation where, since the game wasn't designed with psionics in mind, a Psion can run roughshod by ignoring the restrictions (a gagged, bound and naked psion using all his abilities with zero cost) or the game goes overly conservative and the Psion's abilities don't work on most things. (In 2nd edition, there were two different systems for psionics. In the first, every mind was assumed closed unless they had psionic ability and thus, psionic abilities like telepathy were difficult to do against an unwilling target. In the second version, the opposite was true, and all minds were open unless you were psionic and thus psionics could do what they wanted unless you had mental powers to stop them. Neither were particularly good systems). So I think in this discussion about what a psion should be able to do its worth thinking about how you stop a psionic character from doing them with impunity. What are the counters to psionics? What challenges their powers?</blockquote>

Verification