Elans in your campaigns?

[danielxcutter]

No, not :elan:, Elans, the psionic race from XPH(and also on the SRD). They're often mentioned for psionic builds, as they have several abilities that all psionic characters can benefit from, and they're Abberations so they can get Rapidstrike.

However... I don't hear that much about them outside of char-op.

So I made this thread to ask about what Elans you've had in your campaigns. You know, their lore, what elan PCs/NPCs you've made, what role they played in one of your games... this and that.



I'd also like to know more about them in D&D canon. I think there's more information about them outside the XPH.

[Quertus]

Fine, I'll go first. I made Darian, the impossible Elan, with Trigger Power infinite PP cheese. Aside from identifying items (which, under this DM, they wouldn't do anything until identified), he was bloody useless. Seriously, his largest contribution to battle was carrying a torch. :smallfrown:

At least until the DM have him a bloody Green Lantern Ring. Say what you want about personal power vs powered by items, I liked being Green Lantern. :smalltongue:

[danielxcutter]

Fine, I'll go first. I made Darian, the impossible Elan, with Trigger Power infinite PP cheese. Aside from identifying items (which, under this DM, they wouldn't do anything until identified), he was bloody useless. Seriously, his largest contribution to battle was carrying a torch.

At least until the DM have him a bloody Green Lantern Ring. Say what you want about personal power vs powered by items, I liked being Green Lantern. :smalltongue:

Trigger Power? Is that PF material? I mean, I'm fine with that, it's just that I don't play it so I lack the knowledge.

[Quertus]

Trigger Power? Is that PF material? I mean, I'm fine with that, it's just that I don't play it so I lack the knowledge.

Now, this is interesting. It was a 3.0 feat that only appeared in some of the 3.0 Psionics Handbooks. Even though they have the same item number blah blah blah, there were apparently two different printings of the same book.

Trigger Power, which required Inner Strength and Talented, allowed you to pick a single power, level 0 through 3. When triggering that power, you could attempt a stat check (3.0 psionics had different powers tied to different stats, like in older editions) to activate the power without spending PP. The DC of the stat check was 11 + 2 power level of the power.

So, with a DC 13 Strength check, you could try to activate Lesser Body Adjustment for free. Lesser Body Adjustment let you heal 1d8 damage, gain +1 to a Fort save vs poison or disease, or heal 1 point of temporary ability damage.

Well, as it turns out, the Cannibalize Body Fuel feat, as printed in that same book, which also required Inner Strength and Talented, let you "burn" stat points, taking temporary ability damage to gain extra PP (1 PP per 2 ability damage). Later printings put limits on this (EDIT: max 60/day, and limited your ability to heal this burn, IIRC). :smallfrown:

Soooo... Put it all together, get a high enough strength to semi-consistently hit DC 13, and you can use powers indefinitely*. :smallcool:

Now, bear in mind that this DM would, among other things, give people racial HD to "compensate" for LA (so, for example, a half-dragon monk would get 3 dragon HD to make up for the +3 LA on half-dragon), so don't expect anything from this game to make sense from a Playgrounder PoV.

* with a bloody huge recharge period in between uses.

[danielxcutter]

Now, this is interesting. It was a 3.0 feat that only appeared in some of the 3.0 Psionics Handbooks. Even though they have the same item number blah blah blah, there were apparently two different printings of the same book.

Trigger Power, which required Inner Strength and Talented, allowed you to pick a single power, level 0 through 3. When triggering that power, you could attempt a stat check (3.0 psionics had different powers tied to different stats, like in older editions) to activate the power without spending PP. The DC of the stat check was 11 + 2 power level of the power.

So, with a DC 13 Strength check, you could try to activate Lesser Body Adjustment for free. Lesser Body Adjustment let you heal 1d8 damage, gain +1 to a Fort save vs poison or disease, or heal 1 point of temporary ability damage.

Well, as it turns out, the Cannibalize Body Fuel feat, as printed in that same book, which also required Inner Strength and Talented, let you "burn" stat points, taking temporary ability damage to gain extra PP (1 PP per 2 ability damage). Later printings put limits on this (EDIT: max 60/day, and limited your ability to heal this burn, IIRC). :smallfrown:

Soooo... Put it all together, get a high enough strength to semi-consistently hit DC 13, and you can use powers indefinitely. :smallcool:

Now, bear in mind that this DM would, among other things, give people racial HD to "compensate" for LA (so, for example, a half-dragon monk would get 3 dragon HD to make up for the +3 LA on half-dragon), so don't expect anything from this game to make sense from a Playgrounder PoV.

I think this could be adapted to 3.5 to some extent, as a matter of fact. What does Inner Strength do?

[Quertus]

I think this could be adapted to 3.5 to some extent, as a matter of fact. What does Inner Strength do?

Promote a class of fail?

It gives you +1 PP.

But, you can take it multiple times! The Xth copy of the feat gives you X PP.

This was so good, that they built a prestige class, the Metamind, around it. This 10 level long healing pile of fail gave up standard progression, and learned level 0-4 spells powers. And what did it get for this tremendous sacrifice? 4 copies of Inner Strength, and fewer base PP than if it had just taken levels in Psion to begin with.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I was going to play an Elan Erudite and just fluff him as a normal guy using his psionic powers to keep his body young and vital, but I wound up dropping that game because of a That Guy. So... Not much practical stuff to say, I guess, apart from reporting that there's some real fun stuff you can Alter Self into. (How would YOU like to be a rust monster?)


I think this could be adapted to 3.5 to some extent, as a matter of fact. What does Inner Strength do?
Body Fuel, odd physical ability scores, and a one-level Binder dip for Naeberius lets you regenerate 1pp/3 rounds, all day long. It's probably the simplest psionic recharge mechanic.

[tedcahill2]

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I'm working on a game setting where none of the typical fantasy races exist (basically any PH race). Whereas elves, dwarves, and the like make up the ancient/races of this world (i.e. those ancient ruins that you might explore are very likely from elf and dwarf cultures), humans on the other hand didn't actually die out. Over many thousands of years interspecies relations between humans became so common place that pureblood humans became a rarity. A plague, that pureblood humans were most susceptible too, killed what was left. To survive the plague, some humans, opted to become Elan, which were immune to the disease.

[Fouredged Sword]

The only Elan I played was in Pathfinder as a Life Leech sadists vitalist. With the temp PP flowing in he was a tanky MF. His whole thing was he wanted immortality and accedentlied himself into an Elan trying to fix his mortality. Now he is looking for a way to undue the memory loss. He wasn't evil though. No, see, he gave up on his own memories. He wanted a way to make EVERYONE immortal.

And Metamind is a pile of hot mess until you hit the capstone and go book diving. Then you mix in the one power that as a swift action prevents the timer on all duration effecting you from ticking for a round. Realize you can have unlimited PP for a duration and can spend PP to extend that duration. You get glowing eyes and unlimited PP and unlimited duration on every buff you can layer on yourself. You buy scrolls or NPC spellcasting and layer every buff in the game over your character. By the time you pass through beastland ferocity and some of the other "you can't kill me" tricks you become a god.

[martixy]

Now, this is interesting. It was a 3.0 feat that only appeared in some of the 3.0 Psionics Handbooks. Even though they have the same item number blah blah blah, there were apparently two different printings of the same book.

Trigger Power, which required Inner Strength and Talented, allowed you to pick a single power, level 0 through 3. When triggering that power, you could attempt a stat check (3.0 psionics had different powers tied to different stats, like in older editions) to activate the power without spending PP. The DC of the stat check was 11 + 2 power level of the power.

So, with a DC 13 Strength check, you could try to activate Lesser Body Adjustment for free. Lesser Body Adjustment let you heal 1d8 damage, gain +1 to a Fort save vs poison or disease, or heal 1 point of temporary ability damage.

Well, as it turns out, the Cannibalize Body Fuel feat, as printed in that same book, which also required Inner Strength and Talented, let you "burn" stat points, taking temporary ability damage to gain extra PP (1 PP per 2 ability damage). Later printings put limits on this (EDIT: max 60/day, and limited your ability to heal this burn, IIRC). :smallfrown:

Soooo... Put it all together, get a high enough strength to semi-consistently hit DC 13, and you can use powers indefinitely*. :smallcool:

Now, bear in mind that this DM would, among other things, give people racial HD to "compensate" for LA (so, for example, a half-dragon monk would get 3 dragon HD to make up for the +3 LA on half-dragon), so don't expect anything from this game to make sense from a Playgrounder PoV.

* with a bloody huge recharge period in between uses.

That's not even elegant like MoI recharge, that's just... broken.

As for elans... well, I like them for the fluff more than their abilities.
Part of which is that they're effectively immortal. Don't even need to take Wedded to History.
They're basically non-evil Illithids.
Their method of "procreation", in a manner of speaking, is very similar to Mind Flayers and you'll note elans are considered aberrations as well.

Their actual racial abilities are very eh.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Their actual racial abilities are very eh.
If Resistance was a 1st level power, I'm pretty sure every psionic character would take it. Resilience is more mediocre, and Repletion isn't likely to come up much, but +4 to saves as an immediate action is pretty intense.

[Zanos]

Body Fuel, odd physical ability scores, and a one-level Binder dip for Naeberius lets you regenerate 1pp/3 rounds, all day long. It's probably the simplest psionic recharge mechanic.
3.5 body fuel says that it deals "ability burn", which only returns naturally.

It is specifically a "form of ability damage", though, so strongheart vest should work.


Their actual racial abilities are very eh.

I think they're pretty good myself. Repletion isn't super useful because in my experience food/water concerns don't come up very much, but handwaving any attempts to poison your food or whatever is pretty funny, as is just meditating to live forever.

Resilience and Resistance are both pretty good. Resistance lasts until the beginning of your turn, at least.

[Psyren]

Naberius + Body Fuel doesn't work, because vestiges are magic.



Their actual racial abilities are very eh.

Disagree - they're immortal and effectively get bonus spell slots, and it only gets better from there.

Fluffwise, I love the Eberron versions - they are basically a way of punishing a quori, binding it inside a walking prison. This means that Elans in Eberron count as being hosts (like Kalashtar and Inspired) and can thus qualify for all the same goodies like Host feats and Quori shards.

[martixy]

Disagree - they're immortal and effectively get bonus spell slots, and it only gets better from there.

Disagree with your disagreement on account of you not reading my entire post.

Also, I said eh, not bad. Me, I actually like repletion(again for the fluffy reasons of being very self-sufficient).

[Psyren]

Disagree with your disagreement on account of you not reading my entire post.

Also, I said eh, not bad. Me, I actually like repletion(again for the fluffy reasons of being very self-sufficient).

Except I did, other than their immortality you didn't actually comment on their racials at all before concluding "eh." Hence the disagreement.

[Anxe]

I have an Elan in my campaign, but I've significantly modified the lore.

Elans are magical creatures that Dionysus creates from living beings. As a reward for their loyalty, service, whatever, he replaces the recipient's blood with wine. The recipient goes a little insane in the process and becomes immortal. Insanity explains the changes that come from restarting as a new character.

[Telok]

I did an elan wizard, abrupt jaunt conjurer with psionic body and everything else going to psionic talent.
Very simple build, very difficult to kill, still a wizard.

[Nifft]

I've given them as valid choices for a bunch of my games, but never had any takers.

My experience is that Psionic stuff => not played.

[danielxcutter]

I did an elan wizard, abrupt jaunt conjurer with psionic body and everything else going to psionic talent.
Very simple build, very difficult to kill, still a wizard.

...Pretty unusual character, I say. When I saw "wizard" I was expecting a Wizard/Psion/Cerebremancer.


I've given them as valid choices for a bunch of my games, but never had any takers.

My experience is that Psionic stuff => not played.

At your table, perhaps. Everyone has different experiences, after all. I haven't heard about many tables that don't play with psionics without banning it or saying it's OP, admittingly, but I'm perfectly willing to accept it.

And while psionics are fun IMO, you don't have to add them if you don't want to. I know that some tables don't need or want it, and I'm fine with that.

[Nifft]

At your table, perhaps.

Perhaps? I just explicitly said that it was the case at my table. That's the entire content of my post.

I really like the Elan, and I'm sad that it's never chosen.

[danielxcutter]

Perhaps? I just explicitly said that it was the case at my table. That's the entire content of my post.

I really like the Elan, and I'm sad that it's never chosen.

Eh, probably shouldn't have worded like that. Sorry for the misunderstanding.




By the way, wasn't there more canon lore for Elans outside the XPH? I saw the one for Secrets of Sarlona, but I don't know if there's more.

[WhiteBread]

Once played an Elan and build my own religion. I had Thrallherd as a Prc but didn't use the lvl 1 minions except for building on my own territory. The character itself was pretty strong despite 2 random thralls. I was basically allowed to take two random npcs as thralls if I managed to dominate them and of course I had to transform them to elans too.
The elan race is really awesome. Nobody of my group knew that i was an elan which made the random "I try to charm you" or similar useless. The ability to use PP to reduce dmg is really awesome too. Saved my arse at least a hundred times below lvl 12.

Story wise I was a test subject that managed to destroy the laboratory where I was kept in and also kill all scientists. I had found a new world which I of course wanted to explore. My inborn powers made me a tyrant building his own organisation of modified beings in the shadows.

My PC still lives in our DND world as we agreed that all campaigns are somehow connected despite 3 different DMs. They all use a different timeline though. My Elan is currently a new BBEG but despite me nobody realised it so far because they do know its a psion and he is an abberation but they didnt know I was an abberation xD.

[Telok]

...Pretty unusual character, I say. When I saw "wizard" I was expecting a Wizard/Psion/Cerebremancer.

We're a mid/high practical op table. Wizard is easy mode gaming for me so I traded all the feats for survivability in order to have more fun. Essentially it was a (very) little more challenging playing with unaltered/unbuffed magic and the character had much better hp/save durability*.


* at our table about 100 damage or 50 + rider effect is normal around level 10. Hp and saves never go out of style.

[The_Jette]

The only time that I ever encountered an Elan inside a game was when I played one myself. And, it was for a game that probably should never have been. We were playing with our DM of many years who was consistently denying the group xp, gold, or useful magic items. Seriously, this was the guy who said the monk was overpowered, and led a group from level 3 to level 12 over a course of almost a decade, and the most powerful magic item we had was either the single glove that could store a medium item until called upon or the hand wrappings that offered a +1 to AC and let me take someone else's damage from a hit just suffered twice a day. Anyways, we decided to make our DM suffer, by creating powerful characters that weren't dependent on WBL or magic items. So, I made a psion. Of the group, I was the only one who succeeded in completing the concept of not magical item dependent, and overshadowed the group. I had to hold back in fights, and only unleash my true power when the group was getting overwhelmed, in which case the fight would go from "hopeless" to "cakewalk" as fast as you could say "mind blast."

[Professor Chimp]

Elan exist in the campaign setting I've created with another player/DM, mostly by request of said player, because he wanted to play an Elan Psion when I'm on DM duty.

They're mostly the same as in the XPH fluff-wise, with some key difference.

In our setting there is a dormant gene present in a fair percentage of humans that, when active, grants the Elan abilities. So the Elan ritual doesn't really create a new Elan, but rather awakens what was already present. In very rare cases, it is also possible for someone to spontaneously awaken into a 'true' Elan. Furthermore, the gene is not natural, but was planted there secretly, while the ritual has a sinister secondary purpose the Elan as a whole don't know about.

The player Elan Psion is one of the spontaneous 'true' Elan and a major plot thread is learning the truth behind his people and gathering allies to prevent a fate worse than death.

[mabriss lethe]

In one of my games, Elans are a race that predate the current world. They warred against the newborn gods to retain their rule of creation and lost. The gods then remade reality to suit them, severely limiting psionics and magic alike. (pre war magic/psionics was more of a deus ex machina. )Most of the old elan didn't survive, and the few survivors are a bit insane and possess only a fraction of their current power. Younger elan created after the war have a better grasp of their power. Mindflayers are an offshoot of the same group, long ago corrupted.

[The Viscount]

The only lore about Elans I know of besides the Eberron stuff is the bit we get in the story for Arete, the first Elan. Because it's a vestige, the story is not necessarily true, but easily could be. It's found in this article for the psionic vestiges (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070119a). He's not a very good vestige for his level, but he's still leagues better than Abysm, who is a garbage vestige that I hate.

[StreamOfTheSky]

There's an Elan Shaper Psion in the game I DM.

In my campaign world, they're practically non-existent. The PC's mentor was one and transformed him into one after he requested it repeatedly, before vanishing off (for reasons that came up later in the game).
In the setting I'm using, there's a temple of psionic monks who used to hold as the ultimate ideal to become a disembodied soul inside them temple, immortal and forever connected w/ all other souls in it.
Elans were the creation of monks from that temple who were unable to master the teachings of the temple enough to become spirits but were unwilling to succumb to mortality. From the start, they were looked down upon by the other monks of the order, and eventually one of the Elans who proved to be exceptionally evil was banished from the temple and had all his memories erased. However, he eventually managed to recover them and attacked the temple in revenge, taking control of it for himself and corrupting it to his will as the monks fled and became refugees, moving on from one country to another for the next 100 years or so. Unable to ascend as pure souls anymore, and embittered by the evil elan's conquest, they lived on and died as regular humans from then on and the knowledge for both processes was thought lost (the latter because they refused to create any more elans).
Meanwhile, the evil elan continued to improve his artificial body, seeking the perfect physical form to match his sharp mind. I basically gave him an "enhanced elan" custom race/template. Which the PC elan could have acquired if he wanted once the party liberated the temple, but the LA made that a non-starter :)

[mabriss lethe]

The only lore about Elans I know of besides the Eberron stuff is the bit we get in the story for Arete, the first Elan. Because it's a vestige, the story is not necessarily true, but easily could be. It's found in this article for the psionic vestiges (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070119a). He's not a very good vestige for his level, but he's still leagues better than Abysm, who is a garbage vestige that I hate.


I've found that all of the psionic vestiges are pretty terrible, but there is a place for them in the toolbox if you go nova with them and then use one of the various means available to swap them out with something else after an encounter.

[Psyren]

If you use the Anima Mage variant that makes it psionic, the psionic vestiges are useful because (a) you can then use your own PP pool on the powers they grant, and (b) the powers they grant are still supernatural even though you're paying for them, so they don't provoke, can't be dispelled, can't be disrupted etc.

The vestiges themselves also grant PP of their own, which you can always just steal for your own manifesting.

[Karl Aegis]

There was some Elan mentioned in the Simple Longbow (or something) Weapon of Legacy. Didn't really say much, just a generic "I'm not an elf, but I am an elf. Just kidding, I am not an elf" type deal.

[The Viscount]

I've found that all of the psionic vestiges are pretty terrible, but there is a place for them in the toolbox if you go nova with them and then use one of the various means available to swap them out with something else after an encounter.

I don't know about that. Arete is very hard for me to justify. +4 resistance on one save and dr 5/- are ok I guess, but I could already get dr and saves from pact augmentation, and his power choice is poorly planned. Sustenance solves a problem very few care about, and there are plenty of low level spells to make food. Body adjustment is worse than Buer (who is unlimited) and is only personal, and body purification is leagues behind Naberius (who is also unlimited). I could live with Arete if he weren't a 4th, which is a competitive level.

Abysm is abysmal. Read thoughts can I guess get multiple targets, but is in other respects worse than Dantalion's read thoughts, and he's a 5th. Animal affinity is an enhancement bonus; you will have boosted the stat you care about by the time you are level 17. As for psionic levitate, you should have a means of flight at this point, whatever you choose. Clairvoyant sense's low level scrying means you're better off either using Malphas's bird or letting a proper scryer do the job. I can't complain about astral construct, that's a good power, but at level 17 you are really feeling the ceiling on their power. Agares's elemental isn't as strong, but isn't super far behind, and lasts longer. If you augmented it all the way you've burned 17 of your 21 PP. That's not exactly nova, since it's what a regular psionic character would be doing in a round. Energy Missile is the only other offensive power that you get, and I guess you can kind of go nova with it. At the level you access, you can spend 17 of your 21 pp (so your next turn is doing something much weaker) for 17d6 of damage, maybe 17d6+17 if you choose fire or cold, the most common resistances, especially at this level. At level 20 you can spend 20 of your 21 to deal 20d6+20 to up to 5 targets in a 15 foot area, and clumping that tight means it's unlikely to hit more than 2. I can't tell you whether the DC increase applies because there's already a rule about the DCs for effects, but if it did, it's a max 29+Int (31+int with electric), and compared to the 20+Cha with items, it's likely the same, potentially a few points higher. It's a nova in the sense that you've used up all your pp, but you're not doing more than a regular manifester would do in a normal round. Compared to Orthos, who can deal 20d6 in a 60 foot cone, with the rider to knock prone and away. Yes, average 90 damage is more than average 70. I just don't think it's enough to justify only doing it once and then switching out after.

You are potentially doing more damage than Orthos one time, but it's after this round that the differences become more apparent. The following round, someone who has bound Orthos can't breathe again, but still has major displacement and blindsight. Someone who has bound Abysm can... manifest the base astral construct. There are only 2 ways to get rid of Abysm in the middle of the day: Expel Vestige and a Vestige Phylactery. The first isn't a guaranteed success and imposes a penalty on 2 later binding checks you must keep track of, and also resets the timer. The second has a higher rate of failing the check. Both work, but you're sacrificing the ability to switch later in a crisis.

Absym's crucial design flaw is that all of his psionic powers are 2nd level. On a 9th level vestige that's too low. The design article on vestiges, which was published before this, we have the following text

Abilities with the 5-round delay should be about as useful and powerful as the highest-level spell a wizard of the same level as the binder can cast (assuming the vestige grants just one such ability.) If the vestige grants more than one such ability, you’ll need to scale both powers down. A good rule of thumb is to lower the effective spell level by one for each additional 5-round-delay ability that the vestige grants.
Even treating these powers as 5 round delay instead of the shared pool they are, 5 abilities would mean they should be at least 4ths.

The Triad have the most promise of the three, though I'd still only rate them as fair. The clustered abilities make it seem as if you're supposed to shift between them every hour like the sign and influence, but there's nothing in the text to go with this so we just have an awkwardly large number of things. Call to Mind is fine I guess, but you don't really have the skill points to do lots of Knowledge rolls, and you have other things to spend points on. Bardic knowledge is limited and DM dependent, and I can't pretend to care about the Psicraft boost. Empathy is nice, and worth the 2 point augment. Smite Evil shouldn't be so restricted at 3/day, and has no right to also be on a 5 round recharge. It's simply weaker than Andras's smite good or evil, and he's 2 levels lower. Detect Hostile Intent is pretty good, some overlap with Paimon's uncanny dodge but still pretty nice. The bonus to Diplomacy and Sense Motive I can't complain about, those are cool. You almost have enough PP to keep detect hostile intent up most of the day and use the other two a few times, but not enough to use them much. I feel like they could have just given you always on detect hostile intent and empathy, with it and call to mind taking 5 rounds to recharge, or maybe a binder level/day cap like dantalion's thought travel. Weapon Proficiency is of course, pretty much the only reason the Trio gets any discussion. You can have some fun with all exotic weapons. But like all the psionic vestiges, it really seems like the level is too high. 6th is a busy level, with big boys like Haures and Chupoclops, and it's hard for the Triad to keep up.

If you use the Anima Mage variant that makes it psionic, the psionic vestiges are useful because (a) you can then use your own PP pool on the powers they grant, and (b) the powers they grant are still supernatural even though you're paying for them, so they don't provoke, can't be dispelled, can't be disrupted etc.

The vestiges themselves also grant PP of their own, which you can always just steal for your own manifesting.

I hadn't noticed that bit about them, that certainly does help. It's mostly just that the PP are so few you can cast like one or two powers, and they're mostly ones you don't care about. It's one or two you couldn't before, but it seems counter to the spirit of binder to me. Hey also, if you have a psicrystal, and are subject to Abysm's sign... what happens? Can you just put it in a sack and say you're "not using" it for the day or do you just eat that penalty? Because if you do that's a very annoying problem for otherwise psionic characters.

The psionic vestiges always seemed to me to be written up by someone who didn't quite understand vestiges, especially Abysm. They all have seals that don't look anything like the regular ones, and I know that Desharis's doesn't either, but at least that one is something besides just letters. It's hard to tell if Abysm's seal is actually even there, or if those cracks are just the blank template. And I know I'm just whining now, but why couldn't Abysm's at least be in some sort of order, alphabetical or by level?

I went on a bit of a tear, didn't I. Sorry if any of that came off as confrontational, I just really like binder, and these vestiges are a bit of a sore spot.

[Psyren]

I hadn't noticed that bit about them, that certainly does help. It's mostly just that the PP are so few you can cast like one or two powers, and they're mostly ones you don't care about. It's one or two you couldn't before, but it seems counter to the spirit of binder to me. Hey also, if you have a psicrystal, and are subject to Abysm's sign... what happens? Can you just put it in a sack and say you're "not using" it for the day or do you just eat that penalty? Because if you do that's a very annoying problem for otherwise psionic characters.

That sack would need to be extradimensional. Like familiar abilities, psicrystal buffs apply if the two of you are within one mile of each other. So to avoid Abysm's influence, you would need a greater distance than that (or, in this case, for your psicrystal to be on a different plane.)



The psionic vestiges always seemed to me to be written up by someone who didn't quite understand vestiges, especially Abysm. They all have seals that don't look anything like the regular ones, and I know that Desharis's doesn't either, but at least that one is something besides just letters. It's hard to tell if Abysm's seal is actually even there, or if those cracks are just the blank template. And I know I'm just whining now, but why couldn't Abysm's at least be in some sort of order, alphabetical or by level?

I went on a bit of a tear, didn't I. Sorry if any of that came off as confrontational, I just really like binder, and these vestiges are a bit of a sore spot.

I think Abysm's was intentional. It kind of looks like cracks in a crystal, which would fit the mythal and psicrystals from the legend.

Arete is weak and rightfully maligned . The Triad isn't bad though - gain Bardic Knowledge, reroll knowledge checks, never be surprised, smite evil, and proficiency in all martial and exotic weapons are all pretty useful. Abysm is pretty much only useful if you're theurging binding and psionics, but if you are, his supernatural psionic powers can get you out of some sticky situations, especially if there are a lot of enemies running around with PR/SR.