A few Psycarnum Definitions

[Raendyn]

I admit i have not read the MoI book cover-to-cover, so I need to ask the playground because I am out of time for a char.

I would like to ask a clarification about "Psycarnum Infusion" and "Psycarnum Crystal"

The Crystal says that you gain an essentia if your psicrystal is within arms reach. Does that mean that you loose it with it is not? what happens if you go away from the crystak and back again? you gain a new point of essentia? If i invest this point to my "midnight Augmentation" feat.
What happens if I go away from the crystal & then near it again. Does MNAugmentation works normaly? Can I put the essentia into an other feat?

Same question with Psycarnum infusion. Can I treat my Azure talent feat as if I had put essentia into it every turn? Does this recharge me?
Can I treat my Midnight Augmentation as charged with essentia? How does this works? Do I pick the power to apply MNAugmentation only once every 24h?

What happens when a point od essentia is lost, or stolen?

Thanks in advance for your time & your replies mates.

[Andreaz]

The Crystal says that you gain an essentia if your psicrystal is within arms reach. Does that mean that you loose it with it is not?
correct, you lose the essentia

what happens if you go away from the crystak and back again? you gain a new point of essentia?
You regain the point and can reallocate it as normal. The rules don't explain any further, so for the sake of simplicity and exploits assume that the point you "regain" is always the same, thus permanent allocations(like feats) are only restored to their former level and not reused.
Example: You charged Cobalt Rage with 2 essentia, one of which was the crystal's. Crystal goes away, cobalt rage drops to 1. Crystal comes back, cobalt rage raises to 2.


Same question with Psycarnum infusion. Can I treat my Azure talent feat as if I had put essentia into it every turn? Does this recharge me?
Can I treat my Midnight Augmentation as charged with essentia? How does this works? Do I pick the power to apply MNAugmentation only once every 24h?

It is a common exploit, actually, to use the Infusion to fill feats "without really using them", so yes. I don't think it's the writers' intention, though, and I don't use it like that. Most of the infinite-resource-recursion from incarnum sources rely on psicarnum infusion.


What happens when a point od essentia is lost, or stolen?
Again, the lack of clarifications lead me to use the ruling I suggested above.

[Big Fau]

What happens when a point od essentia is lost, or stolen?

Essentia cannot be stolen, but it can be damaged like ability scores can. When damaged in this way, it regenerates over time just like ability scores do (see Healing Essentia Damage, page 50).

[Keld Denar]

copy/pasta from RAW thread:


In the text I quoted:

If a character loses essentia, this loss is deducted first from any non-invested essentia in the character's pool. If this does not cover the entire loss, remove the invested essentia from a randomly determined soulmeld or other essentia investment. Continue until the entire loss has been accounted for.
Emphasis mine. Other essentia investment is all inclusive, whether its a feat, a class feature, an item, a spell, a racial feature, or a soulmeld. That overrides the normal rule stating that you can't willingly redistribute essentia invested in a feat. If you lose essentia, whether because your maximum allowable essentia goes down or you take essentia damage, it doesn't matter, just the same as it doesn't matter if you lose HP because your Con score was reduced or you took a greatclub upside the head. You've still lost HP, and they have to come from somewhere.

Think of essentia like water. You don't have feat essentia and class essentia and essentia from source X, Y, or Z. You just have essentia, an amporphous pool that fills various containers. If for some reason you have more essentia than you are supposed to, you lose that excess essentia, per the rules I've cited. That seems to over rule the fact that you can't willingly redistribute essentia from a feat. Imagine a bucket that is 12" high full of water. Now imagine you increase the wall height of the bucket by 3", giving you a 15" high bucket that can hold more water. If you put 3" of water in the bucket, and then the height of the bucket is reduced back to 12", the 3" of water you put in the bucket spills out. When you use something like Psycarnum Infusion, you are temporarily increasing the amount of essentia you have and the amount of essentia you are allowed to have. When the effects of the feat end, you aren't able to contain the extra essentia, and so you lose essentia until you reach your normal maximum. Where that essentia comes from doesn't matter, as long as you lose it.

Again, there is no exact rule for what order essentia is lost from recepticles other than the fact that unassigned essentia is lost first. I would interprete, however, that essentia would be first lost from a source you are normally allowed to redistribute, with sources you normally are NOT allowed to redistribute being drained last.

Think of it this way. You are not an incarnum character, but you take Cobalt Rage (which gives you +1 essentia). You invest that 1 essentia into Cobalt Rage, which you normally can't redistribute for 24 hours. You are later attacked by a foe who casts a spell which causes essentia damage. Because of that, you are forced to lose 1 essentia. The 1 essentia you have invested in Cobalt Rage is the only essentia you have, so you would lose it. This overrides the fact that you can't consiously redistribute that essentia voluntarily.
EDIT: I'd even go so far as to say that unless the source of essentia states where it goes (such as Psycarnum Infusion), the essentia comes into your pool unallocated. Thus, if your pet rock goes more than 5' from you, you'd lose 1 essentia. When it flies back to you, you'd gain 1 essentia which would be unallocated. If it flew away, you'd lose 1 essentia again.

[Raendyn]

your interpretation is what I fear most.

You see midnight augmentation ( thats what I care for) states you can choose a power once per day. if the point I loose when the crystal goes away is unallocated then i can't use my feat any more...:smallannoyed:

[Keld Denar]

How much other essentia do you have? If your only source of essentia is from your psicrystal, then yea, that would suck immensely. If you have other soulmelds (for instance, if you are a Soul Manifester (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20060217a)), you could opt to lose essentia from one of your other soulmelds, leaving Midnight Augmentation filled.

Alternatively, consider getting your extra essentia from the Extra Essentia feat, rather than the Psicrystal feat. As far as I can tell, they are pretty much identical (both give +1 essentia in most cases), and then you don't have to worry about your pet rock flying away.

[Andreaz]

2 if you already have an essentia pool. Or was it meldshaper levels? Either way it's a +1, often +2.

[Keld Denar]

Its only 2 if you can shape a meld, irrelevant of whether it comes from a class or feat. So, Shape Soulmeld + Extra Essentia would give you 2 essentia (0 from Shape Soulmeld and 2 from Extra Essentia). If you just take Psycarnum Infusion and Extra Essentia, you'd have 2 (1 from Psycarnum Infusion which comes with 1 bonus, 1 from Extra Essentia). If you had Psycarnum Infusion, Extra Essentia, and Shape Soulmeld(Psychic Focus), you'd have 3 essentia (1 from Psycarnum Infusion, 2 from Extra Essentia).

[Raendyn]

I have Midnight Augmentation & i am thinking of geting the psycarnum crystal.

Can my psicrystal take an incarnum feat to gain an essentia pool?

[Andreaz]

I have Midnight Augmentation & i am thinking of geting the psycarnum crystal.

Can my psicrystal take an incarnum feat to gain an essentia pool?

Incarnum feats require a CON score, don't they? So no.
Plus, that also depends on whether or not your psicrystal is intended to gain feats. It's not, by designer decision, but that ain't official.

[Yuki Akuma]

All Incarnum feats require a Con score of at least 13, and Psicrystals, as Constructs, have no Con.

From a strict reading of how Psicrystals function, they do gain feats, although it's probably best to treat them like familiars (who gain 'virtual' HD and therefore no feats).

[Raendyn]

well, I am new to the psionics & near-completely unfamiliar with MoI.

It seems Crystal can't take incarnum feats, thatnks.

DM likes playing RAW, so his reading of psicrystal is that it gains feats.