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Violet Octopus
2009-10-04, 06:03 AM
Hi all, I've got two questions relating to how campaigns handle psionics, I'd appreciate any advice or anecdotes.

1) The default for determining how magic affects psionics and vice versa is to treat them as the same: power resistance can block spells, dispel magic works on powers, etc. However there's the variant that they function separately.

This variant is appealing to me, yet I've heard that it can cause the game to break down. Why exactly is this? I can see how it would be a problem if psionics suddenly crops up in a campaign without warning, but what about a psi-heavy campaign?

2) Are there any problems for the game if spellcasting is completely absent from the setting and replaced by psionics? Possibly with a few other refluffed supernatural classes, like the warlock, or Tome of Battle.

Thanks in advance.

Yora
2009-10-04, 06:21 AM
The problem, if you completely seperate magic and psionics, is that a spellcaster would have no spells to protect himself against powers, and a psion is as vulnerable to spells as a 1st level commoner. You COULD create some extra spells and powers to protect against each other, but that would just double the number of protection spells you need. And both slots and powers known are very valuable and you don't want to waste them on duplicate spells of which one protects against fireball and the other against fire blast.

Using only psionics is no problem at all. You would only have to convert some spells that don't have a power equivlaent yet. I don't think there's a power that lets you heal other characters, for example. But else, it would be just like playing a game only with sorcerers, bards, and favored souls and with no wizards and clerics. So I don't see any problems there.

TheEmerged
2009-10-04, 07:39 AM
We tried it 3 ways before ending in a compromise.

1> Totally different turned out to cause problems. The psion felt useless against magic, the wizard useless against psions, and most monsters that had spell resistance ended up getting psychic resistance anyway. So we scrapped it in favor of...

2> Total transparency. This actually ended up causing a problem with the 3rd level power Negate Psionics becoming the Reason For Existance for the psion. As the guy playing the psion in that campaign, I began to feel like the designated counterspeller - I was afraid to use any of my other abilities lest I run out of PP to counter something. So we switched to

3> "2 levels off". I understand something like this was the default for 3.5, which I never played psionics in. Psionics and magic are similar to effect each other, but took a 'penalty' of '2 levels'. So psions could Negate Magic, but it was a 5th level power instead of a 3rd level one. Similarly wizards could Dispel Psionics but it was a 5th level ability instead of 3rd. This sounded good in theory, but in practice it ended up having all the flaws of both systems instead of all the good parts.

We ended up going back to #2, and for the purpose of negate/dispel treated the other source as if it were 2 levels higher.

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With regards to completely eliminating magic (arcane & divine), we never tried it. Given that it should be easy enough to convert any necessary spells to psionic powers, any problems would stem from the lack of variety in power selection. Psions that took the local equivalent of the Cure <Insert Severity> Wounds for example would probably feel that was the only power they could use.

Yora
2009-10-04, 07:57 AM
With augmentation, you need only "cure". Then maybe "restoration" and "heal afflictions", and you have all the healing you'll ever need.

Vangor
2009-10-04, 08:04 AM
This variant is appealing to me, yet I've heard that it can cause the game to break down. Why exactly is this? I can see how it would be a problem if psionics suddenly crops up in a campaign without warning, but what about a psi-heavy campaign?

My suggestion, because I feel spells and psionics should be of slightly different flavors, is to determine a number whereby spells and psionics effect one another less by whatever number is determined. Let us say our number is three. Thus, if we are attempting to overcome a power resistance of 23 with our spell, we would need to only overcome 20, whereas if we were attempting to dispel a psionic effect with our spell, the DC would be 11+Power's Manifester Level+3.

Determining the number just depends on the level of the campaign. Low is a 1, Medium is a 2, High is a 3, generally.