Which Psionics rules do you use?

[kirinke]

i agree. in the core rulebooks, they're treating psionics exactly like another form of magic. when in actual fact, the rules should be completely different. i kinda liked the 2e psionic rule-book. it was a bit cleaner.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

i agree. in the core rulebooks, they're treating psionics exactly like another form of magic. when in actual fact, the rules should be completely different. i kinda liked the 2e psionic rule-book. it was a bit cleaner.

can you descrbe that system in brief? I didn't play 2nd ed and while my husband has the psionics handbook kicking around somewhere, I'd like a feel for the usefulness to me before I go hunting.

kahuna burger

 

[kirinke]

here is the description....
Psionics: with psionics a character can read the minds of others, move objects without physically touching them or travel across vast distances in an instant.

Essentially, there were two classes, the psionisist and the wild talent. the psionisist could chose between different disaplines, usually focusing on a primary disapline.
still, its a pretty good system and wouldn't take much to push it to 3e.

 

[glass]

can you descrbe that system in brief? I didn't play 2nd ed and while my husband has the psionics handbook kicking around somewhere, I'd like a feel for the usefulness to me before I go hunting.

kahuna burger

There were actually at least three versions of the 2e psionics system (the CPsiHB one, the Dark Sun one, and the one in the Skills and Powers book) but they all had some things in common.

There was none of the psionic/magic transparency stuff, and the powers seemed more psionic (to me, at least), sometimes at the cost of complexity. For example, psionic invisibility was (in current parlance) a mind-affecting effect that made one creature invisible to one other creature. If you wanted to make yourself invisible to three other creatures you had to activate the power three times.

That's about all I can say without referring to other 2e concepts, which would presumably be meaningless. Hope this helps.


glass.

 

[Stalker0]

***

I'm sorry, when you crticize the rules by saying they're "gay," you're not just being derogatory about the rules; you're being derogatory about gays. I'm afraid the the etymological connection between the two uses of the word "gay" is just too recent and too direct for it not to be nasty. It's not like it started getting used in high schools by accident, because it was an acronym for "Gunky And Yucky" or something, and then someone said, "isn't that weird? It's the same word we use for homosexuals!" No, people started using "gay" to mean "not very good" simply because they thought gays weren't very good. And they just started doing it a few years ago. Stop helping them out.

I don't normally like to get off topic but I have to say something. You are correct, using gay as it is now probably did come about by dissing gays. But let's face it, so did a lot of words in the english language- "do you think the fact that mute people are called dumb is exactly nice?"

Gay has become (just as about 10,000 other english words) a word with multiple meanings. In this case, it was used to indicate something bad. To say its derogatory is like saying I'm cursing when I say that dog is a bitch.

As someone who was teased a lot when I was younger, I know words hurt. But I also know words only hurt if you let them. I feel it is the responsibility of individuals to rise to a level where they become insensitive to words... not society's to adapt their language to other's sensistivity.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I feel it is the responsibility of individuals to rise to a level where they become insensitive to words... not society's to adapt their language to other's sensistivity.

I feel almost the oposite. To me thats pretty much the same as saying "Its an individual's responsibility to learn to duck fast enough to not get hit in the face, not society's responsibility to promote rules of conduct where we don't hit each other in the face." While being able to defend yourself is a good thing, the wrongdoing in a deliberate assualt of any sort is the one doing the hurting, not the one who was "weak enough to be hurt". Note I say deliberate, because when pain, be it physical or emotional, is unintentional, education and a second chance are the rule of the day for me. But not a third and fourth chance, and not a pass on accepting the education.

The old "it only hurts because you let it" idea has never held water with me, even when I got past "letting it" to a large degree. It is far more the responsibility of a moral actor to not hurt people than it is the responsibility of everyone else no matter what their circumstances to just learn not to be hurt.

kahuna Burger

 

[DonaldRumsfeldsTofu]

Am I the only one here that likes the talking rocks? Them, and the mental battles are the only redeemable parts about the class, which will probably get a serious revamping if I ever motivate myself out of the pits of inertia and create a home-brew world. Everything else about psions gives me a big headache, although I do think the monsters in the back of the book are pretty awesome, such as the Blue and the Brain Moles, and those leech things.

As for the whole "gay" thing, on the one hand, I find the use of the phrase "gay" as an insulting adjective to be not only reactionary and heterosexist, but lazy and poetically void, and I wish people would take the Internet as a written medium more seriously and evolve past the idiom of using maxims coined by high-school jocks who can't coherently form their thoughts and opinions into specific reasons other than that they "suck dick". On the other hand, people who use the phrase "gay" are being irreverent rather than malicious, and I go against the common opinion in thinking that you can't accidentally be bigoted. Someone once told me in response to my scrutiny of them for using the term "gay" that it's just a figure of speech, and that I'm more than likely not gay, and if I am, he'll wholeheartedly apologize to me.

 

[ciaran00]

Anyone remember empowered items? They used to always have a fraction of the psionicist's personality, and could be intelligent?

I was thinking of bringing those back...

ciaran

 

[Krieg]

I just read a review of the Psionics Handbook on amazon.com and, after this one guy thrashed it about, he highly recommended the psionics system found in the "Forbidden Kingdoms" book by Otherworld. Does anyone here agree with him?

Also there is a Sleeping Imperium system, but last time I looked the site had gone away.

The Forbidden Kingdoms book uses essentially the same Skills and Feats Psionic system that was fetaured on the Sleeping Imperium system.

It is also known as "Ken Hood's" Psionic system after it's creator.

Alas Ken Hood is no longer working within the D20 system.

 

[Spatula]

can you descrbe that system in brief? I didn't play 2nd ed and while my husband has the psionics handbook kicking around somewhere, I'd like a feel for the usefulness to me before I go hunting.

I'm only familiar with the original Complete Psi Handbook version, not the later Skills & Powers psionics. That said...

In 2E, psionic powers were not as numerous but generally broader in application. Instead of a power that would (frex) create a temporary crossbow bolt, and only a temporary crossbow bolt, you would have a power that allowed you to create a small item. And you could probably create bigger items with the same power, by spending more points. The psionic powers were thus generally more flexible and more powerful than spells. The downside is that a psion wouldn't have as many powers as a wizard would have spells.

The other thing about 2E psionics was that power activation was not automatic. You had to roll a d20 and score lower than a target number (based off your ability scores) to get one of your powers off. Stronger powers were harder to get off. So to use ESP, you might need to roll lower than your Wisdom - 2, but to Disintigrate something, you'd need to roll lower than your Constitution - 6. If you rolled a 20, bad things happened. And if you rolled a 1, good things happened.

The problems with the system were numerous.
A) There were no level prereqs for the vast majority of powers. Your 1st level psion could have abilities normally reserved for 7th or 9th level spellcasters. Of course, you'd have so few power points at that point that you couldn't use your powers more than once a day, but then the 1st level 2E wizard only got a measly single 1st level spell each day.
B) Only a handful (if that) of the powers allowed saving throws, and there was no equivalence to spell resistance. Without any way to defend against psionics, the insta-kill powers could take out just about anything as long as the psion made his activation rolls.
C) A more minor point, but there was no real limit to what the psion could do in any given day. If you run out of power points early in the day and have some downtime, you could meditate and get your points back.

The 3E psion/magic transparency likely resulted from B, above. I don't think it's as big as an issue now, since in 3E psionic powers that affect others allow for a saving throw, and there's also Power Resistance. But the transparency is also a convenience. What a pain it would be to have a character with magic & psionic items and buffs get hit with a targetted dispel magic (or negate psionics). Or to have to double up all your defensive abilities - you'd need both a magic and a psionic see invisibility if you're worried about invisible attackers.

3E psions are underpowered and I don't care for overly specific power effects and the arbitrary power selection. 2E psions had a better feel to them but were overpowered.