[3.5] Psionics for NPCs Only?

[Unusual Muse]

I've never played with psionics in 3.5, but I have a concept for a campaign I'm brainstorming that would involve them for NPCs only. The idea is that there is an organization in the campaign world that has worked out how to develop psionics, but the PCs will not be able to level in psionic classes. Not having used them before, I'm wondering if this would present an unbalanced challenge for the PCs? As an aside, I'm also considering making this E6.

[Lateral]

Nah, not at all, as long as you're using the standard rules (which include psionics-magic transparency). As long as this is in effect, your PCs shouldn't be at any excessive disadvantage, and Psionics isn't any kind of broken, so you should be fine.

[Morph Bark]

The thing you should be aware of though, is that psionic characters can more easily "go nova" and unleash a bunch of their highest level powers in quick succession. This burns them out quickly, which is why as a player you ration things more, but for an NPC you could easily go all-out if they start with no pp expended, ending up making the encounter a lot more challenging that way.

This is only slightly more troubling than an NPC Sorcerer unleashing all his highest level spells shortly after one another in a single encounter, so don't sweat it much.

[Unusual Muse]

So magic-psionic non-transparency would be a bad idea? Part of the appeal of this idea is throwing something at the players that is "unknown and unknowable;" they witness spell-like powers but Spellcraft checks and Knowledge(Arcana) rolls avail them nothing. I'd like to keep as much of an element of mystery and inscrutability as possible, without being overwhelming.

[Khosan]

So magic-psionic non-transparency would be a bad idea? Part of the appeal of this idea is throwing something at the players that is "unknown and unknowable;" they witness spell-like powers but Spellcraft checks and Knowledge(Arcana) rolls avail them nothing. I'd like to keep as much of an element of mystery and inscrutability as possible, without being overwhelming.

You could up the DC for those checks and then gradually lower them over time as they become more familiar with the psionic organization. It makes sense as well, since this is something they're supposed to be completely unfamiliar with.

[sonofzeal]

So magic-psionic non-transparency would be a bad idea? Part of the appeal of this idea is throwing something at the players that is "unknown and unknowable;" they witness spell-like powers but Spellcraft checks and Knowledge(Arcana) rolls avail them nothing. I'd like to keep as much of an element of mystery and inscrutability as possible, without being overwhelming.
Making the checks at a hefty penalty is fine.

The issue comes with "Spell Resistance", "Dispel Magic", "Antimagic Field", etc. If Psi suddenly bypasses all of those, then that's suddenly a huge advantage. I'd very much recommend against it.

[Lateral]

The thing you should be aware of though, is that psionic characters can more easily "go nova" and unleash a bunch of their highest level powers in quick succession. This burns them out quickly, which is why as a player you ration things more, but for an NPC you could easily go all-out if they start with no pp expended, ending up making the encounter a lot more challenging that way.
Oh, speaking of which, remember:

you can’t spend more power points on a power than your manifester level
This is quite possibly the most important single line in the entire Psionics system. Remember this. This single rule is what prevents Psions from instantly annihilating one threat by spending their entire PP reserves to hit their enemy with a 200d6 crystal shard.

[eggs]

So magic-psionic non-transparency would be a bad idea?
Usually, it's a very bad idea. The more difficult it is for characters to just ignore one another's defenses, the less the conflict resolution mechanic just boils down to opposed initiative rolls.

[Unusual Muse]

So if psionics and magic are essentially transparent, does that leave any functional uniqueness to psionics? Are there niches that psionics fill that magic doesn't, or is it just changing the fluff and keeping the mechanics essentially the same? Are there any differences in functional dynamics that can help distinguish psionics, crunch and/or story-wise? Exactly what does psionics give us to work with here?

[Squark]

Let's see... Psionics has no penalty for manifesting in armor, and there are a few individual tricks that powers can do but spells can't (or at least, psionics can do more easily). Let me think...

Nomads (Psions specializing in teleportation) have the earliest available form of planar travel that I know of (Astral Caravan is a 3rd level Nomad-specific power. However, everyone has to be under the affect of Astral Traveler, a 1st level power. All astral traveler powers and the astral caravan power need to be manifested at the same time, and it's a 1 hour manifesting time). Psychic Reformation is one of the few available ways to retrain feats and power/spell choices outside of the PHB II, Blasting is slightly easier because your fireball equivilent can be a fireball, coldball, lightningball, or sonicball, and of course there a decent number of powers that are really just alternate forms of save or dies, but they're much cooler fluff wise (Microcosm traps someone in a fantasy inside their own head, rendering the catonic, while Decerebrate puts someone into a vegetative state by teleporting part of their brain stem out of there head).

[Andreaz]

Making the checks at a hefty penalty is fine.

The issue comes with "Spell Resistance", "Dispel Magic", "Antimagic Field", etc. If Psi suddenly bypasses all of those, then that's suddenly a huge advantage. I'd very much recommend against it.


Even that isn't necessary...The results can be simply inconclusive. Most usual ways of recognition would give you transmutations, divinations and the like, but it'd sitll be things they never saw before. They'd be able to glean the rough effects, but that's no problem...it's how it already works with spells the characters never saw before!




So if psionics and magic are essentially transparent, does that leave any functional uniqueness to psionics? Are there niches that psionics fill that magic doesn't, or is it just changing the fluff and keeping the mechanics essentially the same? Are there any differences in functional dynamics that can help distinguish psionics, crunch and/or story-wise? Exactly what does psionics give us to work with here?Psionics are more of a third "type" of magic, making the "arcane-divine-psionic" triad. It's functionality resembles sorcery more than wizardry. Psionics have its own brand of effects, but they won't surpass arcane simply because arcane's been around for so long there's literally spells for everything you need.

They handle energy damage better, but less efficiently. They handle personal modifications better.

So focus on something else: If arcane magic is hard to find, maybe psionic is easy, and thus everyone from the aforementioned corporation exploits that.

[KillianHawkeye]

So magic-psionic non-transparency would be a bad idea? Part of the appeal of this idea is throwing something at the players that is "unknown and unknowable;" they witness spell-like powers but Spellcraft checks and Knowledge(Arcana) rolls avail them nothing. I'd like to keep as much of an element of mystery and inscrutability as possible, without being overwhelming.

Um... even with magic-psionics transparency in effect, you still need to use the Psicraft and Knowledge (psionics) skills for that. Transparency mainly deals with how magical and psionic effects interact.

[Lateral]

So if psionics and magic are essentially transparent, does that leave any functional uniqueness to psionics? Are there niches that psionics fill that magic doesn't, or is it just changing the fluff and keeping the mechanics essentially the same? Are there any differences in functional dynamics that can help distinguish psionics, crunch and/or story-wise? Exactly what does psionics give us to work with here?

...What do you mean 'functional uniqueness'? It isn't Vancian, for one thing, and the majority of powers are unique and not, to my knowledge, duplicates of any spells.

[Urpriest]

Psionics has a lot of thematically sci-fi stuff. At low levels, you've got things like Touchsight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/touchsight.htm) and Synesthete (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/synesthete.htm) to mess with perception in weird and wacky ways, Astral Construct (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/astralConstruct.htm) for weird shapeable "summons", Ectoplasmic Cocoon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/ectoplasmicCocoon.htm) for some interesting single-target goo-based control, or Object Reading (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/objectReading.htm) for a fun psychic-detective style character. Psionic characters can easily be built to do things that will look weird and inexplicable to inexperienced players.

[Squark]

Object reading and Hypercognition are definitely two fun ones for building a Holmes-level thinker. True Mind Switch is another good one for a villain who needs to lay low or infiltrate somewhere.


Perhaps the leaders of this organization could be a cabal of 6 psions, each specializing in a different discipline.

[Suddo]

You might also want to look at this: http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/
You could easily have a mad dictator show up as a society mind or something and start networking a bunch of people together and force them to give up their individuality towards the collective.

Oh and even with Psionic Magic Transparency isn't Psicraft & Spellcraft checks different. Its annoying but I always thought them to be different like theirs another check in Tome of Battle for stances and strikes.

[Rubik]

Psionics has a lot of thematically sci-fi magic stuff.FTFY.

I've never seen any magic in popular literature that was closer to Vancian magic than psionics. Most of it functions in a way far closer to psi than arcane or divine.

[Novawurmson]

I love psionics, while my players are "meh" about them; I've been running a campaign with full transparency, and it's worked out fine for me.

I agree that Psionics are actually closer to how magic works in most fantasy stories, but every is given New Age-ish names.

[Psyren]

Um... even with magic-psionics transparency in effect, you still need to use the Psicraft and Knowledge (psionics) skills for that. Transparency mainly deals with how magical and psionic effects interact.

This guy is right. Your players will have a very hard time identifying powers even with transparency unless they take ranks in Psicraft and Know Psionics.

You could tweak it though for a sort of "half-transparency." i.e. give them a better chance of identifying things by using spellcraft/arcana. A quick and easy way to do this is to crib the ID rules for shadowcasting from Tome of Magic - standard spellcasters can still identify mysteries and shadow items, but at a penalty. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to extend that penalty to psionics, or even make it steeper if you chose.

[JoeYounger]

I think one of the most important things you can do to not break game balance is to only use the expanded psionics handbook and dream scarred press books for psionics. The other third party psionics stuff is stupid. You'll end up getting things like DR 25/+7 weapons at level 14.

[Psyren]

You'll end up getting things like DR 25/+7 weapons at level 14.

That stat sounds like 3.0, which is heavily, heavily not advised for psionics anyway.

[Urpriest]

I agree that Psionics are actually closer to how magic works in most fantasy stories, but every is given New Age-ish names.



I've never seen any magic in popular literature that was closer to Vancian magic than psionics. Most of it functions in a way far closer to psi than arcane or divine.

Did neither of you guys read past that first sentence? I agree that the power point system is closer to most published magic (though it's still quite a distance off: fantasy magic and simulationist gaming are generally incompatible), but the actual powers are neck-deep in sci-fi and new age tropes, and not just in the names.

To say something a bit more productive: if the OP is doing this in E6 then (barring Psionic monsters since E6 is unfair like that) things like Mind Switch and Hypercognition won't apply. A lot of the weirder, more sci-fi stuff at lower levels is in Clairsentience and Metacreativity, for sense-screw and ectoplasmic goop respectively. Clairstentience won't work too well if the NPCs are all enemies of the players, since at most they'll just wonder how they got some piece of information, but if you sprinkle in a few allies it could work. Psionics also has a lot of "hurt me and you also hurt yourself" powers at low levels.