Help with Psionics...

[kentma57]

I am working on a campaign setting and it is placed far in the furture (civilization has risen and fallen again) because of the time people have had to evolve I feel Psionics should exist. I have never used them before and I was wondering what the best resources would be?

Note: Psiconics are not the main power magic is, but the option should be open to the players. It should be in its begining stages with at most 1 in a 100 possesing it. Can you sugest class/power limitations?

[dman11235]

No limits. Seriously, the party could be all psionic, and even if 1/1000 had it, they could just be unique.

As for sources, I've heard goo things about Untapped Potential (I have no money, therefore don't have it) and Hyperconscious. Mind's Eye (WotC website articles) has some nice things, but a lot are 3.0 (shudder). CPsi is a terrible book, but does get a couple new PrCs, and I believe the Ardent isn't bad. Don't use the Divine Mind though, it's not psionic (not anymore, since they killed the flavor). And don't use Flayerspawn Psychic, cause just no. The Elemental Steward feats also just don't work, and do NOT use any nerf in the book. In fact, just read Vorpal Tribble's thread on CPsi. I'll see if I can find it here in a second.

Now, is there anything in particular you need to know?

[martyboy74]

The most important thing to remember about psionics is that the number of power points used can't exceed the user's manifester level. If you miss that, you'll have a horrible experience.

[CockroachTeaParty]

My only advice for you is not to fear psionics. It is a grand and wonderful system, and shall enrich your game if you let it. Too many DMs fear it is too complex, or broken, but it is none of these things. If you grew up with video game RPGs, in many ways it makes more sense than Vancian casting.

[kentma57]

Is there a good core book I could use?

[FlyMolo]

My only advice for you is not to fear psionics. It is a grand and wonderful system, and shall enrich your game if you let it. Too many DMs fear it is too complex, or broken, but it is none of these things. If you grew up with video game RPGs, in many ways it makes more sense than Vancian casting.
Quoted for truth.

And on the whole, CPsi could be worse. It's not that broken, really. Elemental Envoy is stupid and broken, though. That's true. Too strong, then too weak, is not balance.

[The_Snark]

The Elemental Steward feats also just don't work, and do NOT use any nerf in the book.

Merely a couple of minor quibbles with that—the Energy Missile and Energy Stun powers kinda needed the errata they got. Their save DCs simply get too high otherwise.

I also think the Flayerspawn Psychic and Illithid Heritage series are salvageable. Just ignore any nonsense about being descended from illithids; reflavor them as being the subject of illithid experiments (or the descendent of such a subject). They're not great, but they're useable.

As for a good core book, the Expanded Psionics Handbook isn't core, but it's the psionic equivalent. Most of the rules in it are OGL, and are available here (http://www.d20srd.org/)

[Da Beast]

Keep magic/psionics transparency. The psionics are different variant reeks havoc with balance for an inexperienced DM and is the source a lot of the psionics are broken claims that get thrown around.

[dman11235]

I said nerfs, not erratas. Nerfs include the Astral Construct thing. Erratas are the Energy Missile things (I believe there was actually an errata that came out that clarified that).

Now, please tell me how on earth Illithid are sexually active? That's wrong on so many levels. It's not at all how they reproduce, so they can not possibly exist. Vorpal goes into more depth than I did, but I can't seem to find that thread. Grr. Also, the Half-Illithid template does explain in a slightly reasonable manner how it works, so that is exempt from this argument.

And finally, the XPH is core. And on the SRD (minus a couple things). That's really all you need, but some more sources are welcome of course (more variety).

[The_Snark]

I said nerfs, not erratas. Nerfs include the Astral Construct thing. Erratas are the Energy Missile things (I believe there was actually an errata that came out that clarified that).

Now, please tell me how on earth Illithid are sexually active? That's wrong on so many levels. It's not at all how they reproduce, so they can not possibly exist. Vorpal goes into more depth than I did, but I can't seem to find that thread. Grr. Also, the Half-Illithid template does explain in a slightly reasonable manner how it works, so that is exempt from this argument.

Astral construct nerf? What astral construct nerf? I assure you, no such thing exists. Doesn't exist, I tell you! Does not exist!

And I specifically said to drop any nonsense about illithids breeding; like you say, their life cycle precludes that. (Thankfully. That's one breeding possibility the world will happily go without.) By experiment, I meant illithids employing things such as psionic warping and grafts to alter a subject horribly, trying to create a psionically active thrall-being. Rather than being the inexplicable descendent of non-sexual entities, the flayerspawn psychic would be an escaped lab subject.

XPH isn't generally accepted as core, I don't think; the three core rulebooks have Core Rulebook (number) written on the front. There was a big argument about this a while back, but the only source I know of that implies it's core is Complete Psionic. XPH describes itself as a supplement.

Not that it's really an important distinction, but there it is.

[AslanCross]

Is there a good core book I could use?

A lot of the Expanded Psionics Handbook's content (which is the primary reference for 3.5 Psionics anyway) is available on d20srd.org. It has the classes, the power list, races, items and monsters.

Psionics is not as horrifying as people think it is. I think most of their fear is a holdover from 3.0 Psionics, or comes from a misunderstanding (ie, power augmentation). I've allowed it for a one-shot adventure, and the party psion took the place of a wizard. She was very effective, without overshadowing the other blaster in the party (the Duskblade).

And yes, keep Magic/Psionics transparency. Basically, Spell resistance = power resistance, and dispel magic works on both psionics and magic, and dispel psionics works on both as well (among others).

[dman11235]

It's core in my book. And some others too. Technically it's not though (core is PHB+DMG+MMI).

Okay, now you have a start, but how do you explain the fact that they are descended from Illithids and gradually realize their heritage? It just doesn't work, and the minds required to think up the possibility of sexually reproducing mindflayers doing it with other species, well, that's Ted the mindflayer for ya. Oohh, that's wrong.

[The_Snark]

Okay, now you have a start, but how do you explain the fact that they are descended from Illithids and gradually realize their heritage? It just doesn't work, and the minds required to think up the possibility of sexually reproducing mindflayers doing it with other species, well, that's Ted the mindflayer for ya. Oohh, that's wrong.

I explain the descended-from-illithids bit by vanishing it. They aren't descended directly from illithids. Possibly, they've been part of secret illithid manipulation projects to place strains of illithid traits into humanoid races; possibly they're escapees from illithid laboratories, and their new capabilities are the result of extensive physical grafts (including some in the brain) and other weird alterations. The advancement in illithid-esque traits would be a result of lingering side effects, or possibly long-term changes that had been made while they were in captivity finally coming to fruition.

In the former case, it might be illithids manipulating psionic individuals completely unbeknownst to the subjects, using selective breeding to get increased psionic potential. Those with drastic physical changes might have have been altered in the womb or later in life. The character in question almost certainly wouldn't know that much of his life has been carefully orchestrated by mind flayers.

In fact, I rather like that idea if you use the origin Lords of Madness gave for mind flayers—perhaps a group illithids are attempting to develop a way to slowly turn members of existing races into illithidkind, in an effort to become the progenitors of their own race; they need to have had a glorious future empire to travel back from, after all. Possibly the mind flayers in this campaign keep a much lower profile, so that very few would even know what they were or that they existed; that way, the newly created illithid race wouldn't be wiped out and would have a chance to thrive (with the guidance of the future-illithids, of course). Enter the flayerspawn psychic, who is either one of the culminations of the project or an unexpected success; either way, the character is now a living McGuffin undergoing a transformation into something completely unknown, and the mind flayers want to secure him for study/use him in their plans.

It's not for use in every campaign, because it works better if it's central to the campaign rather than a side element, but the idea definitely has potential, I think.

[CASTLEMIKE]

I like the Erudite using the Spells to Power variant with a +1 ECL Dark Sun Human. The Educated Wilder variant can be interesting with AI and a Dark Sun human.

[leperkhaun]

just remember you cant pump more power points into a spell than your manifester level (caster level).

Alot of people forget that.

[kamikasei]

Is there a good core book I could use?

Okay, let's see.

There is no "core" book; psionics exists outside core, like Incarnum, ToM, or ToB. The book you want is the Expanded Psionics Handbook, or XPH (not the Psionics Handbook, which is 3.0 and very different). Most of its rules are available at d20srd.org under the psionics section. This is the bulk of 3.5 psionics. If you want to run a game with psionics, then you need it (or the SRD version of its contents).

There is one major splatbook for psionics besides the XPH, which is Complete Psionic, and less well regarded. You do not need it to run a game with psionics, it just gives new classes, feats, powers etc.

There are third-party books, Hyperconscious written by the author of the XPH before he did CPsi, and Untapped Potential by the Wizards' psionics forum. These I believe are considered quite good, but I don't really know anything about them besides that.

As far as books that is it, with just a few bits of psionic content in some other supplements the way you would get new spells or feats in most books. I think Dragon Magic, for example, is unusual in having new material for a lot of the extended systems in 3.5, including psionics, Incarnum, and ToM.

As various people have pointed out there are a couple of things to bear in mind about psionics that seem prone to being overlooked and souring people's experience.

You can't spend more power points on a single manifestation than your manifester level. As in, a first-level psion can only spend one power point per manifestation. A twentieth-level psion can spend twenty. So if you look at a first-level power and think "but if you spend twenty power points augmenting it, you can do something totally overpowered for a first-level spell!" what you're really seeing is "a twentieth-level psion could get the effect of a ninth-level spell out of that power, by spending points on it as if he were casting from a ninth-level spell slot". This is a hugely important limit and a lot of abuse/confusion around psionics is rooted in someone overlooking it.
Lots of psionic feats require you to expend psionic focus. Result: for example, you generally can't use more than one metapsionic feat on a single manifestation. Again, an important limit.
Use psionics/magic transparency. It's the default suggested, but so many people seem to miss that... essentially, treat psionics (mechanically) as another sort of magic, like the arcane/divine divide. Let dispel magic dispel psionics, spell resistance resist powers, and so on. Otherwise, as psionics are not built in to the game from the ground up, you have a set of powers which most of the material in the game can't deal with very well, and you make a lot more work for yourself to balance it. Transparency keeps psions at the lower end of the full-caster power bracket.


There are good and useful links for this; a psionics appreciation thread on these boards from a while back, started by Vorpal Tribble, is a good place to start. There're also various resources on the Wizards boards, which I think are linked in VT's thread. I'll see if I can dig up the link for that now here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31225) is is.

[kentma57]

Thanks... I think what I will do is leave Psionics up to each DM but make suggestons as to what books to use, it is after all a campaign setting not an actual dungen.

[kamikasei]

Ah - I think most people understood you to be looking for advice on how to use psionics in your own game (and its homebrew setting).

Writing a setting for use by others is a different kettle of fish.

[Drascin]

Yeah, if you want to use Psionics, technically the Expanded Psionics Handbook would be everything you needed - it's a pretty much self-contained system, and a pretty balanced one when compared to core D&D.

So, if this is for other people, just do what the Eberron setting did: mention in the stuff that "having the Expanded Psionics Handbook is neccessary to get the full extent of this material, but it's usable without it" and you're golden.

As for splatbooks... CPsi is not really worth the money - it has a few good things, but it's not something that deserves a 30$ expense. I personally would recommend going with Untapped Potential more, given it's barely 5$ and holds much more usable stuff (yay for Mantra feats).