Psions: Anchored Navigation

[9erik1]

Hey folks,

Found a funny thing going thru the XPH: the Seer power "Anchored Navigation" (pg 75). It's a 4th level power with the ability to set up a mishap free teleport beacon, in which you're aware of the exact distance/route to the starting point. It goes on further to tell you that you can use it before going into a potentially dangerous area, then instantly manifest teleport to return if something happens.

The only problem is, Psionic Teleport is only available to Nomads; everything else has to wait till they can use Greater Psionic Teleport, but in that case they'd have no chance of mishap anyways.

So, is this a poorly thought out power, or am I missing something?

Thanks

[Calthropstu]

There are other ways to gain it. Expanded Knowledge feat will grant it to you, as well as psychic chirurgery. But otherwise, yes. It's fairly useless.

[Psyren]

It has lots of uses besides mishap-free teleportation too. As mentioned, it can let you perfectly retrace your steps through a maze, even one where teleportation effects have been blocked. It also gives you all-day mindlink with a creature who stays near your anchor point, across any distance. That anchor point can be in your base, with the butler (who has a Soul Crystal of Reality Revision you made for him) ready to yank you out of any trouble.

[Segev]

I had entirely forgotten about the mindlink. Heck, I don't think I'd ever registered it before. Of course, staying within a particular 120' diameter sphere for hours on end might be a bit dull. Though it would cover most apartments and a large number of houses, I suppose.

Good in a library for keeping an apprentice on call to look things up for you for either automatic success on some knowledge checks, or at least a +2 circumstance bonus to the same.

If you're working with a sedentary quest-giver, it would let you stay in touch with him for at least a full day.

For such a reliable long-distance communication, though, I am finding it hard to find ways to exploit it. Reporting back to the king or other authority figure for whom you're scouting, maybe? I suppose it's useful for protecting your home base if your guard captain can telepathically tell you when it's under attack, letting you know to use your beacon to teleport home.

The non-teleportation-based ability to retrace your steps is pretty awesome, though. Not sure it's worth a power known on its own, since it's situational, but when it's useful, it's an encounter-solver.