Silva Stormrage
2020-03-14, 01:28 AM
When playing around with some ardent build ideas I came across an interesting combo for recharging power points that works a tad bit differently than most other recharge mechanics and couldn't find mention of it anywhere so i figured I would share it. It's a bit interesting in terms of power point recharge because I could see a lot more DMs allowing this combo to fly than other ones involving reducing bestow power's cost below it's output.
The Combo: Psionic Glyph of Warding is only slightly different than its spell counterpart. However, it is different in a key way, it doesn't require any material or XP components to manifest. With the power option you can simply set Psionic Glyphs of Warding to store and then manifest a minor harmful power such as a non augmented energy ray and then with the Linked Power metapsionic link it with a fully augmented bestow power. You then set the ward to trigger on anyone who opens a drawer, hitting them with both powers. If they are immune to the minor effects of the harmful power they get the saved power points. A psionic character who simply knows these two powers and Linked Power can spend their unused power points each night "warding" an item with bestow power and create a battery of powerpoints to draw upon in crisis times.
And that's basically the basis of a glyph battery. Since Glyphs of Warding have no restriction on being moved after being created you can craft a sphere or some other portable object with hundreds of tiny drawers in it. And since each drawer can be warded with a seperate glyph of warding you can have a single object holding hundreds of power points. If necessary, you can simply create a mechanism to open multiple at once (Handles attached to a string?) if you need to recharge in a hurry.
Edit: Originally I had the combo just use Glyph of Warding and Bestow Power but it turns out that that doesn't work due to Glyph of Warding's restriction on "Harmful Powers". This requires the use of Linked Power to bypass and makes the trick a lot more annoying to get working.
I think DM's might be more willing to allow this trick to fly as it makes more sense fluff wise than somehow getting more power points out of a bestow power than you put into manifesting it. And it actually allows some counter play from the DM (Less Downtime, More Encounters, Attack their batteries or attack them during the night when they have spent all their PP's). Though with Linked Power being required some DMs may see this as similar to "Buffing" or similar traps and ban it for those reasons.
Pros vs Other Power Point Recharge Mechanics.
You can recharge your power pool much faster than normal. Setting up a mechanism to trigger multiple glyphs of warding is pretty straight forward and can recharge hundreds of power points at once if necessary.
It doesn't have RAI issues with bestow power somehow generating more power than it costs to manifest. Yes D&D has no conservation of energy but usually it isn't this blatant to allow a 2nd level spell to function as a perpetual motion machine that powers magic.
Super great in downtime heavy campaigns as you can stockpile a lot of power points
You can teach NPCs the trick and they can create similar glyph batteries or you can sell your glyph batteries to other psionic characters
Low build investment cost. Simply a 2nd and a 3rd level power and an already good metapsionic feat and you can create a glyph battery.
Can be combined with other recharge mechanics to make super efficient batteries or to make a lot of them.
Cons vs Other Power Point Recharge Mechanics
It takes a lot of downtime, in campaigns without downtime you can't realistically pull off this trick. Likewise if you are always ending each day with 0 power points due to slogging through a lot of combats it is tricky to pull off. And once you use your batteries you need to recharge them again. Going nova multiple days in a row is difficult without heavy downtime.
It's also not an efficient process. 5 PP's for Glyph of Warding and a minimum of 5 PP's for the Harmful Power + Bestow Power Linked to it means 10 PP to create a 2 PP battery.
It requires items that can be dispelled or stolen from you
Leaves you pretty vulnerable if your DM tends to attack you when resting.
It's not actually infinite power points unless combined with another recharge mechanic.
Further notes: While I think this works best with bestow power in downtime for recharge purposes you can also use psionic glyphs of warding to create things similar to beneficial traps. While many psionic buffs are personal only and not valid options there are plenty that aren't such as Intellect Fortress or Mend Wounds. You can also save utility powers such as teleportation powers readied to be triggered in case of an emergency.
The harmful only aspect of Glyph of Warding makes the above aspect of the trick not work but you can still can simply save up powers that you are willing to activate when necessary, AOE psionic dispels, energy bursts set to energy types you and your allies are immune to, etc . Psionic Glyph of Warding essentially lets you save a wide variety of attack powers each night which can be easily triggered later.
Frankly I am kinda surprised I haven't heard much more talk about psionic glyph of warding. Pretty much every psionic handbook I found either doesn't mention it or just mentions it in passing with a shrug.
Edit: The addition of Linked Power being required makes this trick significantly less efficient . It's a shame there isn't a Flash Frost metapsionic feat or something similar with a low cost we could add to bestow power to make it "Harmful"
The Combo: Psionic Glyph of Warding is only slightly different than its spell counterpart. However, it is different in a key way, it doesn't require any material or XP components to manifest. With the power option you can simply set Psionic Glyphs of Warding to store and then manifest a minor harmful power such as a non augmented energy ray and then with the Linked Power metapsionic link it with a fully augmented bestow power. You then set the ward to trigger on anyone who opens a drawer, hitting them with both powers. If they are immune to the minor effects of the harmful power they get the saved power points. A psionic character who simply knows these two powers and Linked Power can spend their unused power points each night "warding" an item with bestow power and create a battery of powerpoints to draw upon in crisis times.
And that's basically the basis of a glyph battery. Since Glyphs of Warding have no restriction on being moved after being created you can craft a sphere or some other portable object with hundreds of tiny drawers in it. And since each drawer can be warded with a seperate glyph of warding you can have a single object holding hundreds of power points. If necessary, you can simply create a mechanism to open multiple at once (Handles attached to a string?) if you need to recharge in a hurry.
Edit: Originally I had the combo just use Glyph of Warding and Bestow Power but it turns out that that doesn't work due to Glyph of Warding's restriction on "Harmful Powers". This requires the use of Linked Power to bypass and makes the trick a lot more annoying to get working.
I think DM's might be more willing to allow this trick to fly as it makes more sense fluff wise than somehow getting more power points out of a bestow power than you put into manifesting it. And it actually allows some counter play from the DM (Less Downtime, More Encounters, Attack their batteries or attack them during the night when they have spent all their PP's). Though with Linked Power being required some DMs may see this as similar to "Buffing" or similar traps and ban it for those reasons.
Pros vs Other Power Point Recharge Mechanics.
You can recharge your power pool much faster than normal. Setting up a mechanism to trigger multiple glyphs of warding is pretty straight forward and can recharge hundreds of power points at once if necessary.
It doesn't have RAI issues with bestow power somehow generating more power than it costs to manifest. Yes D&D has no conservation of energy but usually it isn't this blatant to allow a 2nd level spell to function as a perpetual motion machine that powers magic.
Super great in downtime heavy campaigns as you can stockpile a lot of power points
You can teach NPCs the trick and they can create similar glyph batteries or you can sell your glyph batteries to other psionic characters
Low build investment cost. Simply a 2nd and a 3rd level power and an already good metapsionic feat and you can create a glyph battery.
Can be combined with other recharge mechanics to make super efficient batteries or to make a lot of them.
Cons vs Other Power Point Recharge Mechanics
It takes a lot of downtime, in campaigns without downtime you can't realistically pull off this trick. Likewise if you are always ending each day with 0 power points due to slogging through a lot of combats it is tricky to pull off. And once you use your batteries you need to recharge them again. Going nova multiple days in a row is difficult without heavy downtime.
It's also not an efficient process. 5 PP's for Glyph of Warding and a minimum of 5 PP's for the Harmful Power + Bestow Power Linked to it means 10 PP to create a 2 PP battery.
It requires items that can be dispelled or stolen from you
Leaves you pretty vulnerable if your DM tends to attack you when resting.
It's not actually infinite power points unless combined with another recharge mechanic.
Further notes: While I think this works best with bestow power in downtime for recharge purposes you can also use psionic glyphs of warding to create things similar to beneficial traps. While many psionic buffs are personal only and not valid options there are plenty that aren't such as Intellect Fortress or Mend Wounds. You can also save utility powers such as teleportation powers readied to be triggered in case of an emergency.
The harmful only aspect of Glyph of Warding makes the above aspect of the trick not work but you can still can simply save up powers that you are willing to activate when necessary, AOE psionic dispels, energy bursts set to energy types you and your allies are immune to, etc . Psionic Glyph of Warding essentially lets you save a wide variety of attack powers each night which can be easily triggered later.
Frankly I am kinda surprised I haven't heard much more talk about psionic glyph of warding. Pretty much every psionic handbook I found either doesn't mention it or just mentions it in passing with a shrug.
Edit: The addition of Linked Power being required makes this trick significantly less efficient . It's a shame there isn't a Flash Frost metapsionic feat or something similar with a low cost we could add to bestow power to make it "Harmful"