Psychic Duels, Psionics, and Spheres

[legomaster00156]

Hey, Playgrounders. A friend and I in my group are trying to figure out how to balance psionics and Spheres of Power against traditional casters in psychic duels (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-rules/psychic-duels). Any advice, conversion tips, etc.?

[digiman619]

Well, you'd obviously need a way for psions and eliciters (I'm using psions as examples of psionic characters and eliciters as examples of spherecasters; any manifester or spherecaster (preferably with the Mind sphere) will do) to instigate psychic duels; a power for psions is obvious, but I have my doubts about whether or not it's worth a talent.

Anyway, once you had them in a psychic duel, we'd need to worry about their maximum manifestation points. Magic/Psionic Transparency lets us use powers known for this no problem, and SoP already defines the spell level of a sphere ability as CL/2, so that;s easy enough. Now technically this means that Eliciter 20s have the advantage because their sphere abilities count as 10th level spells, but it balances out, as you'll soon see.

When it comes to generating manifestation points, the psion obviously needs to spend power points as though they were manifesting a power rather than saying PP is a class feature you can spend at a 1-to-1 ratio. Eliciters can use SP as such a class feature however. You'll notice that that does limit their effective use if not for another rule; you can sacrifice a SLA to gain manifestation points. This is the part that requires DM discretion, as how many of your dozen or more talents you can sacrifice will alter your options greatly.

The rest of the rules don't seem to care about how you get your manifestation points, though a power equivalent of mindscape door, or some other way to escape if the duel is going south needs to be added to both systems for this to work.

Perhaps the following would do:

Instigate Psionic Duel
Discipline: Telepathy [mind-sffecting]
Level: Telepath 2
Display: Olfactory

You start a fight minid-to-mind. This functions as instigate psychic duel (Occult Adventures), except as noted here

So psychic duels remain part of the telepath's wheelhouse unless they take an Expanded Knowledge feat to dabble in it. And for spherecasters:

Psychic Duelist
Prerequisites: Mind sphere, Caster Level 4
You may spend a spell point to attempt to initiate a psychic duel. This functions as a instigate psychic duel spell (Occult Adventures). Furthermore, while participating in a psychic duel, you may spend 1 spell point to exit the duel as a full-round action. This functions as a mindscape door.

It fits better as a feat, as all mind talents are worded with 3 levels of charms.

[Eldaran]

Well, for Psionics it's quite easy, just use manifester level in place of caster level, and use the power point cost of a power in place of a spell level, so instead of sacrificing a 7th level spell they'd sacrifice 13 PP.

For Spheres, I'd probably say use their base caster level, not counting staves and the like. For sacrificing spell points, you could treat it like Ki Points, but another option would be something like 2 MP per SP sacrificed, up to 1/2 caster level in MP. Because 1 SP is a lot more valuable than 1 spell level.

[Thealtruistorc]

I actually made some rules for this (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PYGhh4rRnRI7OqojPSdD3GCjVR8TYq2S3rD5CgnE1nY/edit) a while back. I think they work pretty well.

[legomaster00156]

Awesome, all of this should really help us out! Thanks! :smallbiggrin:

[137beth]

Potentially dumb question: what are "psychic duels?" What book are they in?

[digiman619]

Potentially dumb question: what are "psychic duels?" What book are they in?

Occult Adventures. You can see the rules for it here. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-rules/psychic-duels)