Eberron adaptation AND detailed review of Hyperconscious

[classy one]

Most psionics lovers have heard of Burce Cordell's excellent 3rd party module. While psionics is the best supported alternative systems, it pales in comparision to arcane and divine magic. That being said, Hyperconscious provides a slew of new psionics stuff and is a welcome addition to any campaign. The fact that it is written by the same guy that wrote XPH is certainly a bonus.

There is a not very well discussed adventure that Cordell uses to introduce the materials. I started this thread as a plead for help in adapting it for Eberron but after several days with no reply I figured no one knew the module or Eberron well enough to feel comfortable in giving advice. I have decided tackle this on my own. I still welcome any feedback and advice.

Please enjoy

[Kol Korran]

i can't help you, since i don't knwo the module and some of the stuff you talk about (haven't delved to deeply into psionics) but this does sounds interesting. please inform us how it went if you've done this.

[classy one]

Thank you Kol for your interest. I have decided to make this into a detailed guide/review for Hyperconscious AND a Eberron conversation of the adventure that is attatched to it. This thread is going to have spoilers and is meant for follow DMs. Players who will be playing this adventure should not read it.


At it's core, this adventure is a basic fetch quest with an end boss. What makes this module stand out are the setting and a slew of new psionic options including a streamlined psionic combat, new powers, feats, items, PrC and dreamworld physics. All of which are showcased in the module adventure and that I will go over at a later time.

The module can be easily placed in any campaign setting, but Eberron presents a special challenge. Unlike other campaign settings, Eberron has a defined realm of dreams called Dal Quor. This means several aspects of the fluff will need to be altered to accomadate Eberron.

Where:
The two places to consider is where the physical Orculus is located. The Orculus is the site where 6 sages meditate on dreams and use that knowledge to divine the future. There is more than meets the eye, the Orculus is really an interface with a region in Dal Quor called the Shallows (more on that later) and the source of the sages' visions.
I set the Orculus is Xen'drik. As the old front lines of the Quori-Giant war, it seemed a natural place for dream scrying and new dream related items. Someplace close to Stormreach so it has logistical support in the wild as well as wealthy patrons. I selected the Obsidian City, a giant city ruins that is capable of hiding and supporting such wonder in the past.

The Shallows itself is problematic. In Cordell's original conception, it is an island located in dreams that has a direct connection to an elder evil level Baddie called the Dark Plead. It is this enity that provides the visions and knowledge to make dreamstained items. I have already stated that the Orculus is a relic of the age of giants, but Dal Quor has undergone at least cycle of destruction and rebirth, meaning that the Shallows should have been destroyed long ago. I decided to place the Shallows in the dreamspace, on the fringes of Dal Quor and the ethereal plane (introduced in secrets of Sarlona). This places the Shallows in a dreamspace, but not explicitly in Dal Quor. Dal Quor is completely removed from the Prime so placing the Shallows in Dal Quor is not feasible.
Now the problem is dreamspaces form when people dream and dissipate when they wake up. So how can the Shallows continue to exist even when there is no psychic power to support it? How did it survive the destruction of the old Dal Quor? I decided to keep this a mystery. It did survive the collapse of old Dal Quor, it is stable is dreamspace. Somehow. The Inspired would be very interested in a structure that could remain so stable and maybe incorporate it into their grand plan of stabilizing Dal Quor. The Quori have no idea who built it (giants or the old Quori) but it's very existentance is a wonder and would revolutionize politics of the Dreaming Dark.
When:
The campaign year is 998 YK. Stormreach has been in operation since 800 YK so that is 200 years to play with. I want the Orculus to be in operation for only about 10-20 years at the most. This is because Reidra (and the Dreaming Dark) has been in Xen'drik for centuries prior to the modern Stormreach. It would be unlikely that the Inspired in Dal Qat would not notice an oracle that used dreams to detect the future after too much time. So I will have the Orculus in operation since 970 YK with the height of prominence in 980-995 YK. I will have the Inspired take notice of the Orculus around the years 984, and take action now (at the start of the module).

Who:
The sages: you have 6 sages who are mid level seers with some esoteric PrCs that use dreams to achieve various goals. I will keep most of them the same except for the last sage, who will be changed to a half-giant instead. As a half-giant whose family were Reidran slaves, she will be motivated to destroy the Orculus/Shallows just to deny it from the Dreaming Dark. As a person with giant heritage, it would be more plausible for her to have that relic once owned by the Fire bastion giants. The story starts with a meteor hitting the Orculus, shattering the Orulus and the Shallows that it is connected to it. The relic of the Fire Bastion rains down a meteor. Perfect for my needs.

much more to come

[mikau013]

Personally I'm really interested in your review of hyperconsious since I have a player who likes using psionic stuff and who I think will like some of the prcs in there. But he is mostly a I don't want to use homebrew / 3th party stuff much so I can just show him that to well see if he likes it enough to read it.

But your eberron adaption sounds interesting too :smalltongue:

[classy one]

Personally I'm really interested in your review of hyperconsious since I have a player who likes using psionic stuff and who I think will like some of the prcs in there. But he is mostly a I don't want to use homebrew / 3th party stuff much so I can just show him that to well see if he likes it enough to read it.

But your eberron adaption sounds interesting too :smalltongue:

No cares about the story? I'll get to the crunch soon enough, there are some very interesting concepts that make it stand out instead of an alternative to magic.


Who (con't):
The Dark Plead is the main puppet master, an powerful evil psychic thingy from the future that designed the Shallows to influence the past by providing visions of the future (via the Abyss of possibilities) and how to make dreamstained items.
This won't work in Eberron since there is no way such an entity could exist in Dal Quor without upheaval from the Quori. Instead the Dark Plead will be the Dreaming Dark itself and its prophet, the Devourer of Dreams. The Dreaming Dark is the heart of the nightmare that is Dal Quor, it is not really a sentient being, but rather a malestorm of dreams and visions. This allows our 7 sages to glean clues about the future based on the massive amounts of information without attracting attention. The sages' scrying is passive and hence not likely to attract attention from the natives. The Devourer of Dreams, the head honcho of the Dreaming Dark however, is someone who pays attention and will be the one directing the action in the background.
The PCs will not encounter such an overwhelming foe but will find some others manipulated by him.

What:
In the simplest terms the Oruclus is an artificial manifest zone to the dreamspace (not Dal Quor).
Dreamstained items are new psionic items that are powerful, cheap but come with the side effect of "becoming an insane thrall under the Devourer's influence" over time. It does this by warping the dreams of the wearers slowly, rather than outright possession. It could have been used during the giant-Quori war to undermine morale back in the day.
Now, only the sages and their students know how to make them, since the secret of their creation is whispered to them in their dreams.

Hows:

How is the Devourer influencing the sages?
The Shallows are surrounded by dream traps and ethereal defenses, the Devourer recently discovered that he had a fast track into the owners' dreams and uses it to convince the sages to undermine the defenses around the Shallows.

How was the meteor called down? (the initiating event for the module)
The Siberys meteor was called down by the only non insane sage using either a built in self destruct mechanism or a long lost relic.

How will the Kalashtar PCs enter dreamspace?
This problem solves itself; the Orulcus basically a portal to the dreamspace, so the PCs will just be walking into the dreamspace as physical beings rather than projecting a dreamself like most people.


Whys:
Why does the Dreaming Dark want the Shallows?
As stated above, the Dreaming Dark want this piece of this because it is a permanent real estate in the ever evolving dream plane. This could be the key to stabilizing Dal Quor. They also don't want mortals peaking at them and gaining information on them.

Why haven't the Dreaming Dark noticed the Shallows earlier?
Because it is easily mistaken for just a plain dreamspace created by something that dreams. Every hour literally millions or even billions of creature go to sleep, dream, and wake up. This creates a huge turn over in a literally infinite landscape. It is impossible to monitor things at such a scale even for the immortal Quori. They only started taking notice of this non-descript, but remarkable dream structure after the sages started gaining renown for their fortune telling.


Why did the last half-giant sage try to destroy the Orulus?
Because she realized what the Inspired planned to do and how it was manipulating her follow sages. As it turns out she is not successful, as she only shatters the Shallows.

Why is the quest starter (an NPC called Thales) trying to do by hiring the PCs?
He wishes to restore the Shallows and continue his fortune telling business. What he doesn't know is that he is manipulated by the Devourer into doing this. The Devourer just wants control of the Shallows and is using Thales' greed to accomplish this.


Conclusion:
If the Dreaming Dark succeed, they will research the Shallows in earnest, hoping to replicate it and buffer the Dreaming Dark with it to make the current dream of the age permanent. They also gain the knowledge of creating "looking ports" in the dreamspace, which tightens their hold on Sarlona and frees them up to do other things (like hunt kalashtar). This is a big deal because unlike Dal Quor, the Quori have no control over the dreamspace which scares them. The Kalashtars will need to be more pro-active in their rebellion since the original idea of just surviving to the next age would not be feasible.

If the kalashtar PCs are successful, they will be hated enemies off the Dreaming Dark for all time and hunted ruthlessly. They also gain the knowledge to make dream infused items. Since they are immune to nightmares and don't dream normally this is a huge boon for any psionic crafters (especially psionic artificers). The Siberys meteor itself is worth over 100,000 gp, but might be more valuable as an ingredient for making a powerful magic item instead.

Both conclusions could be possible, such as the PCs prevail but the Quori still get bits of rubble off the Shallows to engineer something similar but without the knowledge to make looking ports in the dreamspace. I will modify the results depending on how I want the campaign to progress and what choices the PC picked.

After the above mentioned mods to the background, it should run as written from there. I put it in spoilers since I'm not sure if I want to run it in PbP and don't want others getting spoiled. Next up are psionic combat and powers. Stay tuned.

[classy one]

Psionic combat:
Cordell reintroduces the concept of psionic combat that was removed from the XPH. I never used the psionic handbook and it has been a LONG time since I played 2e so I can't really compare them. On it's own, this new system is pretty streamlined requiring only one extra roll each round with noticeable effects for the winner.
The basics are similar to duel of wills that is present in ToB but with more varied effects and complex. Rather than use a skill check, it uses a base bonus that progress with the character much like BAB and saves. The book covers the progression of the classes and PrCs found in XPH (but not CPsi).

When two psionic character meet their mental avatars meet in a mental plane called a mindscape. This is not a voluntary process (unlike duel of wills). If two psionic characters are within 60' of eachother and they are aware of eachother, then a mindscape will form between them.
Once formed, the people (and their avatars) in the mindscape can opt to drop out of it as long as both agree. However, if one wishes to engage in a psionic fight then the other unwilling party is forced to particiate. There are 8 different mindscapes, each of which give bonuses of penalties and can be changed by the person with a high base bonus (at least +5) and who has won init.

Once a mindscape is formed, the person who lost init will select an attack/defense mode and then the winner of init selects a mode. Both sides roll an opposed check against eachother and the winner gains benefits in the real world. This is calculated by using the the base bonus, mindscape bonus mode bonus and a d20 result.
The bonuses you gain in the physical world are based on what mode you picked. Some give you a bonus on saves, damage, attack, DR and DC of powers. These bonuses last for one round. And another round of psionic combat starts once the participants' physical round start.

Now the actual review.
The good: it's very flavorful and only amounts to one extra roll each round even if more than 2 people are in a mindscape. It is also quite versatile in that while certain modes have higher chance of succeeding in certain mindscapes, they won't give you the bonus you want which forces you to decide if it is worth the risk of losing a round of psi combat. Their are feats that even allow you to engage in psi combat with non psionic characters that provides no benefits to your opponent even if he wins, effectively making it risk free (against non psi users).

The bad:
The fact that a mindscape is formed as long as conditions are met (two psionic creatures within 60 feet, aware of eachother and has LoS) make it an automatic detect psionics at will. This might not be a problem if psionics is rare, but what if you are in a place like Sarlona where even the rats are psionic? You have to deal with everything that you see? What if I don't want people to know I am psionic? A power like mind blank or brain lock would stop both but have limited duration and are high level powers. Another way to avoid mindscape formation is a feat that delays the formation of you mental avatar. Of course you just had to use a feat to do give you a chance of avoiding detection.

Conclusion: an interesting way to integrate psi combat back into the game and easy to use. It's biggest weakness is the fact that it is not voluntary. A big improvement would be to just make it more like duel of wills. This isn't as easy as it sounds since you don't know if a character is psionic or not unless they use a power or PLA. As it stands I don't think I will use it for PbP games but would use it on the table if the player want it.

[classy one]

Now for the feats. I will start by saying that there are some great feats in here and definitively worth any psionic user's time, but especially for wilders, and ardents.

The big winners are the metapsionics, and where I will start.
Persistent power

The most famous one persistent power. Needs extend power. For the added cost of 12 extra PP one power with range of personal lasts all day. The weird thing is you need 2 psionic foci to make use of this feat, since it states you need to maintain a focus to persist a power. So you need one to initiate the feat and another to maintain it. You can get by this by 1) having psicrystal containment or levels in psionic weapon master to treat your crystal weapon as a psicrystal, 2) have Dominant ideal ACF where you don't need to expend focus on metapsi or 3) have the feat permanent focus (more on this later). With the feat tax (due to need of 2 foci) and no DMM equivalent in psionic, this feat is hard to break but still nice with low level powers like Strength of my enemy, or animal affinity.

A wilder really shines for this because they can boost their ML to extreme heights to persist a power at the start of the day and/or out of combat. Who cares if he dazes? He'll just try again. Thanks to wild surge a wilder 20 can persist a level 7 power (or level 8 with metapower), while a psion 20 can only persist a power of 6 and still have to pay full price for it.

Sequester power
Lose access to a power and gain that amount of extra power points. Not all that great but it is a preq for a PrC listed in this book
Subconscious and Preconcious Power
Another reason why wilders come up big in this book. Both feats need unconditioned power and let you manifest powers while dazed. Subconscious power lets you target yourself, while preconscious power let's you target others. The big thing is that you don't expend your focus. Very big deal. This means you can fully use your wild surge for this feat without worrying that you might daze again and not be able to use unconditioned power next turn (even if the chances of that happening is only 10%). With both of these feats psychic ennervation only stops a move action, rather than leaving you useless.

Continual Power

Any power that deals damage to a single target changes its duration to "concentration" instead. This comes at the cost of 2 damage dice and 4PP. You don't pay any PP for the continued blasts, but they only deal unaugmented damage. The best part is you can change targets each round. Use this with solicit psicrystal for added effect and more actions.

Other feats worth mentioning:

Skill finesse
This lets you use your primary ability to modify a chosen skill. I can see this being key for classes like psychic rogue and lurks who are INT based, but even more so for a class like psionic artificer or even a plain artificer. For most artificers, CHR is useful for the bonus to UMD/UPD but INT is used for everything else. With this feat and a dip into psion, psyrogue or lurk, an articifcer can treat CHR as a dump stat as well put more into say DEX. Very useful.

Creature capacitor
Great feat for any PC but especially good for psywar. You treat yourself as cognizance crystal, able to store as much PP as your ML. This means you always have one extra power that you can manifest fully.

Permanent focus
I know the name sounds too good to be true, and that is because it is. It doesn't make your focus permanent, rather a selected feat that requires you maintain focus no longer requires you to. For example, say you make your focus for the feat Up the Walls permanent. Now you can make use of Up the Walls even when you don't have focus. Not broken, but still very useful, especially for persistent power.

Item creation feats:

Craft dreamgift and infuse dream both create items that deal temp CON damage and give you bad dreams. The benefit is that they are dirt cheap in terms of XP, time and money. For kalashtar who don't dream, these are great additions.

Tattoo feats in this book are obsolete thanks to the Mind's Eye web enhancement, where not only are the tattoos permanent but you can make even higher level tattoos

Others:
Critical hit feat: 3 feats here allow you to do more with your crits when you expend your focus. The effects are: shaken, cower, CON damage. If you built your PC around crits then these, esp the Wounding cuts feat, will be worth looking into to.

Mindscape combat feats: If you plan to use mindscape combat then you will want all 5 feats. Overwhelm buffer lets you enter psi combat even when your opponent isn't psionic. Needless to say, you hold a huge advantage in that case.

Powers and item coming up next

[classy one]

Sorry for the long delay, I will be getting to what i think is the best part for in the book the new psionic items .

However, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed in the lack of interest in this book, I am a bit discouraged at this point but figured I will finish up the items, powers and PrCs since I will be using them in a campaign and will be referring my players here.

The most prevalent addition to item creation is dreamstained items which cost 1/2 the cost and time for the same effect. It does have it's side effect of CON damage and nightmare effect to make up for it.

The CON damage has a low DC to avoid (13 initially and 10 each night), making them dangerous for low levels users (who would benefit the most from them) and safe for mid to high levels. For races that don't dream like the Kalashtar and elves, these items are only concerning for the initial CON damage (which reveres once the item is not in use). So while Kalashtar can't make dream items, they can certainly use them freely.

The items to really pay attention to are the psicrystal staves and synapse masks.

Psicrystal staff: place a psicrystal on the tip of one and it acts as a psicrystal two levels higher than it's actual level, including INT boost, AC boost feats etc. Pretty good for only 2000 gp. But the goodies don't stop there. You can also place one setting stone and up to ten companion stones.
3 setting stones are listed, one that boosts your manifesting (DC, ML etc), one that let's you do cast apopsi as a ray and the last one which duplicates a power you manifest.

Companion stones orbit your psicrystal like ioun stones. They give some utility, some boost skills others give you damaging powers and still others boost your saves.

My favorite new items by far are the synaptic masks. You can place a shard into them and not worry about the shards disentigratng afterwards. As a reminder; shards are one time use items that boost a certain skill and then turns to dust. Synaptic mask allow you allows have a healthy boost to a skill just by switching shards.
Meld stones give boost to 3 different related skills. And are only effective when placed in a synaptic mask. Synaptic masks and meld stones will see plenty of use from skill monkeys, truenamers and artificers. Any class that requires skill. They are cheap (the mask only costs a little over 3000 gp and a +10 shard is 1000gp) and use to use and I think all campaigns would benefit from them.

[Caliphbubba]

*delurk* just posting to say thanks for doing the review/adaptaion. I enjoy reading it, but don't have much in the way of input. your efforts are appericated *relurk*

[classy one]

Thanks for the support Caliphbubba, I think it might just be enough to hold me over until I get the powers and PrC done.

What I tried to do here is not just say "this power is good" and "That power is bad" but also to try and integrate them with the base classes in CPsi. I will make some suggestions as to which mantle they might fit in as well as if they can go into a Lurk's/psychic rogue's power list. If I don't list a recommended list or mantle, it means I can't think of one.

Now for the powers.
Usual color codes:
navy= great
blue= decent
Black= so-so
red= not so good
Skill boosting powers::

Avaunt: You gain a +2 bonus on your Intimidate check.
Aver: You gain a +2 bonus on your Bluff check.
Bound: You gain a +2 bonus on your Jump check.
Broker: You gain a +2 bonus on your Diplomacy check.
Jigger: You gain a +2 bonus on your Open Lock check.
Judge: You gain a +2 bonus on your Sense Motive check.

All powers are level 1, have a duration of "one xxx check" and augmentation of "+1 for every 2 PP". Which means that you can boost the mentioned skills at the start of the day and it will be effective until you actually use it minutes or even days afterwards. The augment feature keeps this handy as you level. I would recommend these powers be placed on the lurk/psychic rogue list, Broker in the communication mantle, Judge in justice mantle and Aver in deception mantle.

Power name (list level)

Alloyed skin (psion/wilder 2, psywar 2): gain DR 5/bludgeoning or 5/+2. Total amount prevented is 5/ML to a total of 150. Duration 10/ML
Augment +2 PP= 5/magic or DR 8/+3.
Augment +4 PP= 5/mithral or DR 15/+6 (epic DR already!!)
Augment +6 PP=10/adamantine or DR 20/+7 (!!!)
Note that the total amount prevented DOESN'T increase with augmentation. So while putting more PP into this power makes it more effective, it doesn't prevent more damage in the long run, but will cover more types of damage. Compared to inertial barrier, which is 5/- and only 4 PP more, with the same duration, but without a limit on how much total damage it can receive. I'd skip this one.
I'd put it in guardian mantle.

Apopsic Hemorrhage (telepath 9): Just like apopsi but -10 on DC to delete 4d4 powers. If you optimized you DCs this might be more worth while than apopsi. Still very powerful, especially if you apply magic-psionic transparency, but will the -10 on your DC will require some work to make up.

Brutalize Wounds (Psion/Wilder 6, Psychic Warrior 6): Very nice power since it adds significant damage even on a successful Will save. This is a buff power that is used on allies or yourself. While active (duration 1 round/ML), each time the buffed creature deals damage their victim rolls a Will save, if they succeed then they only take 1 extra damage per dice rolled. If they fail, then they receive max damage. This is what you want to manifest on allies that roll lots of dice like blasters and sneak attackers. Great power.
I'd put this in conflict or pain and suffering mantle, and lurk's power list (psyrogue only goes up to level 5).

Call Beast of the Id (Psion/Wilder 2): Requires me to get into what the beasts of the Id are, which I might do later if people want to hear about it.
I'd put this power in mental might mantle.

Causal Loop (Psion/Wilder 3): On a failed Will save the target will repeat it's last action for 1 round/ML. Great save or suck, with good range (100 ft + 10/ML) and even an AoE to top it off.
This belongs in Time mantle.

Chrysalis (Psion/Wilder 1, Psychic Warrior 1): Gives DR 1/- and DR +1 for every 4 PP. Since this has the same duration as Alloyed skin and Inertial barrier, I'd say this power is a loser, and just here to take up space.

Circumstance Shield (Psion/Wilder 1, Psychic Warrior 1): Boosts your Reflex save by 2, with a duration of 1 hour/ML makes this a keeper. It augments at 5PP for an additional +1. Use this at the start of the day at level 5-8 and forget about it.
Could go in Lurk/psyrogue, and chaos mantle.

Clot (Psion/Wilder 1, Psychic Warrior 1): manifested as an immediate action to prevent CON damage. A bit niche but if you plan on encountering lots of wounding attacks, this might just save your life.

Construct Toughness (Psion/Wilder 2, Psychic Warrior 2): As a swift action you ignore critical hits and take only half damage from bludgeoning weapons. Still take damage normally from sneak attacks though. Good duration but rather lackluster defensive power.

Crawling Cromlech (Psion/Wilder 7): This basically creates a circle around you that expands by 10 ft each round (on your command), these caught inside it are dealt 50 points of damage while they are in it. A reflex save negates the damage if the Cromlech overtakes you but once inside you just sit there taking 50 points of damage each round. Oh and it bypasses DR as well. It can be augmented to deal 10 more damage/round for just 2 PP. Very powerful "back off" power.

Crownfire (Psion/Wilder 6): Cool name with a cool effect. First, it will affect your target in a devastating way even if it makes its Will save. Second, it will affect its allies within 30ft in a devastating way. Third, it will continue to devastate them as long as it lasts (1 round/ML). So what does it do? It deals 9d6 damage and 2 points of INT damage on a failed save and 5d6 damage and 1 point of INT damage on a successful save. It spreads to another victim (of your choosing) who fails their Will save and take 5d6 HP damage and 1 INT damage. And on the next round they have to make their saves all over again. Oh and you can augment your DC and damage with PP, as if it wasn't bad enough. If this sounds evil, that's because it has an evil descriptor on it. I might just use this power on my PCs *chuckle.
Naturally, this belongs in the Evil mantle.

Correspond, Persistent (Psion/Wilder 5): Just like the regular Correspond but with duration lasting 1 day/ML OR utilized. I guess this could see use if you plan on separating the party for extended periods of time. Another nice feature is that it does cross planer boundaries.
I'd put this in communication mantle.

And that's all powers from A-C. Long way to go.