Tips on how to Handle Psionics is different

[Katana1515]

Hi all!

I was looking to gather peoples perspectives about the Psionics is different rules in Expanded Psionics Handbook. I've proposed using them in my next campaign world as opposed to the default psionics-magic transparency situation and this was met by enthusiasm by the players.

But first I wanted to ask the playground about peoples experience with this variant. does it cause some serious problems that I might not be aware of? Is their anything I need to do to make sure all players are adequately challenged (its a pretty power gamey/ mid to high optimisation group) ? Basically just wanted peoples thoughts and suggestions

Thanks in Advance!

[RFLS]

Hi all!

I was looking to gather peoples perspectives about the Psionics is different rules in Expanded Psionics Handbook. I've proposed using them in my next campaign world as opposed to the default psionics-magic transparency situation and this was met by enthusiasm by the players.

But first I wanted to ask the playground about peoples experience with this variant. does it cause some serious problems that I might not be aware of? Is their anything I need to do to make sure all players are adequately challenged (its a pretty power gamey/ mid to high optimisation group) ? Basically just wanted peoples thoughts and suggestions

Thanks in Advance!

In short: Don't do it. It's an excellent way to break the balance of a game world. SR is far, far more common than PR, and removing transparency means that psionics are automatically bypassing a significant resistance for free.

[Segev]

The big problems come up where you have powers or spells that provide protections against effects. Do you count energy damage from spells as "magic" that thus bypasses the protections energy immunities from psionics provide? Or is energy immunity energy immunity no matter the source?

Is immunity to fear immunity just to magical or just to psionic fear, or to both?

What about Mind Blank and Psionic Mind Blank? Do they protect against psionic telepathy and magical mind-affecting powers, or not?

In my personal experience, the most solid way to treat the opacity variant is only where psi and magic are referenced directly. Anti-magic and null psionic fields don't protect against the opposite kind of source. Dispel/Detect Magic doesn't work on psionics, and vice-versa with Dispel/Detect Psionics.

As a note, that last bit makes Detect Psionics something that is a bit of a painful choice for your party psi-user. No psion has the flexibility of a wizard in choosing his powers, and Detect Psionics is a 1st level, rather than 0th level, power, making it eat far more valuable character build real estate.

But if somethign specifies protection against "mind-affecting" or "energy" or the like, don't use opacity to penetrate it; it does what it says it does. Just make sure to take note where the words "magic," "spells," "psionics," and "powers" are used, and take things literally when they say they affect one of these. They don't work on the other.

[Segev]

In short: Don't do it. It's an excellent way to break the balance of a game world. SR is far, far more common than PR, and removing transparency means that psionics are automatically bypassing a significant resistance for free.

This can be countered in two ways:

1) Make sure you bring out the PR monsters more readily so that they measure roughly equal in number to the SR monsters.

2) Give monsters with SR and PR a separate resistance rating for the other. Specifically, unlisted SR = listed PR-10, and unlisted PR = SR-10. Make sure, of course, to pay close attention to those monsters that have SR but are clearly psi-flavored; if they seem to have SR because psi is "spell-like," shift it to PR. If they seem to have SR because they're weak to their special talent with psi, leave it as SR.


The biggest thing about opacity is it's not supported, so you have to be careful and use good judgment in order to be consistent.

[AmberVael]

The big problems come up where you have powers or spells that provide protections against effects. Do you count energy damage from spells as "magic" that thus bypasses the protections energy immunities from psionics provide? Or is energy immunity energy immunity no matter the source?

Is immunity to fear immunity just to magical or just to psionic fear, or to both?

What about Mind Blank and Psionic Mind Blank? Do they protect against psionic telepathy and magical mind-affecting powers, or not?
:smallconfused:
This is probably one of the most confusing things I've read lately.

An Energy Resistance spell doesn't say you're resistant to magic energy. It says you're resistant to energy. You can resist a fireball, but you can also resist sticking your face in the fireplace. Why on earth would using psionic fire make any difference? By RAW, it would not. There is no distinction in the energy damage itself, only the delivery method. If you use psionic fire you might ignore spell resistance, but it's still fire, and if you fling it at a wizard protected by Energy Immunity it'll fail just as hard as if you flung it at a red dragon.

Same goes for all the other things you brought up here.

[Segev]

I agree; you analyze it correctly. It's a set of questions I've seen come up, so I wanted to bring them up and offer tips on handling them. Basically, make sure he knows the answer before they're asked by players so he's not blindsided.

[lsfreak]

The best way to make psionics different is fluff-wise rather than mechanics-wise. While I haven't really looked into it myself, I've heard others say that Eberron is an excellent example of psionics is different, while still maintaining mechanical similarity. Have people treat psionics and magic differently, or have it take different kinds of training. Maybe there are organizations that forbid psionics but allow magic because magic is more codified and controlled. Maybe demons hunt psions for circumventing some ancient pact granting humans magic, while angels laud them as paragons of human ingenuity.

[Arkusus]

The best way to make psionics different is fluff-wise rather than mechanics-wise. While I haven't really looked into it myself, I've heard others say that Eberron is an excellent example of psionics is different, while still maintaining mechanical similarity. Have people treat psionics and magic differently, or have it take different kinds of training. Maybe there are organizations that forbid psionics but allow magic because magic is more codified and controlled. Maybe demons hunt psions for circumventing some ancient pact granting humans magic, while angels laud them as paragons of human ingenuity.

Haha, sorry... I just laughed a bit at the part where magic is more codified and controlled than psionics. I do like the bit about demons getting pissed that humans figured out another way to do magic stuff though





But yeah, my general take is that it's fine. I usually prefer transparency rules though, because without it, it makes certain kinds of resistance a bit too exotic for most players to be interested in. Basically without transparency, players have to decide whether to protect against Magic OR Psionics, which may lead to the conclusion "Not worth it, I'll find something else to get".

[lsfreak]

Haha, sorry... I just laughed a bit at the part where magic is more codified and controlled than psionics.

Well, it is. If you take a wizard and have them cast fireball, you know what you're getting. Maybe if they take metamagic feats, but then, that's specific training. Something the organization can control. If you take a psion, who knows what they'll do? Maybe it's fire, maybe it's acid! Who knows what else they could do? Do you really want to risk letting someone like that run around free?

I'm not saying it's perfect, it's flawed reasoning, but then, most serious real-world organizations have some level of inconsistency, poor reasoning, contradiction, or hypocrisy at some level.

[pwykersotz]

My groups have opacity between magic and psionics. My GM uses an odd rule where Psionics don't get 10 + Stat + Power Level for a save, instead they get d20 + Stat + Power Level for a save. It certainly mixes things up a bit, and while the average roll is slightly higher, rolling a 1 or a 2 kinda sucks.

The group I GM simply splits it. No fancy systems, no nothing. It's another power in the world, and the group can make general assumptions such as "I just saw a ray of fire hit someone. Detect Magic didn't register it. Oh, it's probably Psionics."

So far I've had no problems whatsoever. The whole SR vs PR thing just doesn't come up much in my games. If there is one thing I kind of recommend against though, especially when using opacity, it's to disallow the Spell to Power Erudite. Even with rigid tracking and enforcing of the EXP costs, it just doesn't add anything to the game that should actually be there. This is just my opinion after playing one for 30 levels.

[Sith_Happens]

You know, it's not like reasonably competent spellcasters don't walk all over Spell Resistance already.

Anyways, the absolute crucial thing if you're using Psionics is Different is for magic and psionics to appear in the campaign with about equal frequency. If either one is particularly rarer than the other, then it automatically becomes more advantageous as a result (not unlike being left-handed in baseball).

[SassyQuatch]

If you do this, Phrenic template is your friend. You need to make sure that there are enough challenges in place for both magic and psionics users and that one side doesn't get major advantages.

[Dusk Eclipse]

My old DM used partial transparency and it worked great for us.

By partial it meant that affecting magic with powers was done at -4 (to check against SR, dispel effects, determine what power it was using spellcraft, etc) and powers also had that -4 against spells.

[Rubik]

If I'm ever in a psionics-is-different campaign, I always, always go out of my way to take the Magic Mantle. It avoids so very many headaches, even if the DM involved gets rather upset at first. Funny thing: in the end it's always led to the DM being far less annoyed with my character than other psionic characters in the group, especially when there are magic users also in the group. Psionics-is-different is that much of a pain.

[Segev]

I don't follow how Magic Missile impacts this in the way you imply. Pun intended.

[Rubik]

I don't follow how Magic Missile impacts this in the way you imply. Pun intended....Perhaps you should reread my post, assuming you were talking to me.

[Segev]

I did, in fact, misread that. Sorry!

[Rubik]

Honestly, there is zero benefit to having psionics-is-different. You can always simply fluff it as magic being alien and odd and gain just as much benefit, and it's already different enough mechanically that you can do so without much worry.