OSSR: AD&D 2e Complete Psionics Handbook

[Darth Rabbitt]

OK, so I admit this kind of review is new to me, but I have boredom, booze, and bad books, so can I do any less than try?

The year is 1991. 2nd Edition is probably around its peak or something. And soon will the point where they start firing up the splatbook machine like crazy. And all of them will be crazy. This, however, is a fairly early splatbook, and one of the more popular ones since it's one of the ones that is heavy on crunch and about a popular part of D&D, for better or worse. So the bar is fairly high and fairly low at the same time; it's an interesting concept but it's 2e mechanics, so how good can it really be? Let's let the back cover speak for itself:

Are you ready for the mind-blowing potential of the psyche? This handbook describes over 150 paranormal powers—telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, biofeedback, out-of-body-travel—plus many amazing talents never before revealed. The psionicist is a completely new character class for AD&D® games, both for player characters and NPCs. Explore inner space! Now you can really put mind over matter with The Complete Psionics Handbook.

Hmm, that wasn't very useful. Looks like I'll need to actually go through the book again.

So now prepare yourselves for the:

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Player's Handbook/Rules Supplement: The Complete Psionics Handbook

Introduction

They mention again that "you can put mind over matter" and test the limits of "inner space" with this book. Well, if the booze doesn't test the limits of my inner space first. We're warned that this is a complete overhaul of the crime against humanity that was 1e psionics. There are 5 major revisions listed, which are (my notes in parentheses):

1. The psionicist is a character class.
2. The list of psionic powers is greatly expanded.
3. Psionic powers are organized differently.
4. Psionic powers are treated much like proficiencies. (they are a skill system.)
5. Psionic strength points are not divided into attack, defense, and generic batches. (there is just one pool of power points that everything draws on.)

As you can see, they devolve into game jargon very early on in this book. This is on the first page that isn't part of an index. I had forgotten about attack/defense modes. I think I need another drink.

One drink later...

We're reminded that these are optional rules, and then there's a page on, "Is Psionics Magical?" Apparently the answer is a resounding "No, because it's internal rather than external." This would make Sorcerers cry if they existed yet. Whatever. The real difference is mechanics-wise. Prepare to see a ruleset that laughs in the face of magic-psionics transparency, and thus already invalidates the claim that adding this has no reason to disrupt anything whatsoever (although let's look through again, maybe it'll work fine.)

Also, we get our first illustration and accompanying lame pun. Picture of a guard looking at an axe-wielding shadow facing him (which appears to be his shadow) and there is the caption "Animate Shadow: A watchman confronts his dark side."

Chapter 1: The Psionicist

So far so good. We're told that the Psionicist is the most self-sufficient class in the game and again that he uses great supernatural power stemming from his MIND!

And here come fun things like race/class restrictions, racial level and multi-class limits, and ability requirements. And alignment restrictions, but they're also in 3e.

Ability Requirements: CON 11 INT 12 WIS 15.
Prime Requisites: CON, WIS
There's some bullshit about needing a strong body and mind or something. Mostly just an excuse to make it have requirements about on par with the bard, although not as bad as the ranger or paladin.
Races Allowed: human, halfling, dwarf, gnome, elf, half-elf, i.e. everything listed in the Player's Handbook. So my idea of a Sleestak PC (lizard man psionicist) is straight fucking out. TT~TT
We get the whole Law = rigid adherence to an arbitrary self again, so you can't be a Chaotic psionicist. And rules to bone a psionicist who becomes Chaotic, because this is 2e.
And yay, racial level limits! (Halfling 10 Gnome 9 Dwarf 8 Half-elf 7 Elf 7. Yes, elves get the shaft for once. But still, fuck racial level limits.)

DOUBLE EDIT: d6 HD, Rogue THAC0, +2 on saves vs enchantments and similar effects.

The mechanics of psionic powers are surprisingly simple compared to what I remember.

Basically there are 6 disciplines, and they're basically the same as 3.x, only Metacreativity is replaced by Metapsionics, which is exactly what it sounds like (a proto-metamagic discipline.)

There are major powers (sciences) and minor powers (devotions.)

DOUBLE EDIT: You get one science at every odd level (beginning with 1 at 1st level,) and start out with three devotions, and gain two every level. You start out with access to just one discipline but at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th you gain access to another, and can start learning powers from that one just as you had the prior ones. Can't believe I forgot to put this one in; it's very important.

Power Points are spent to activate powers, just like 3.X. However, they're called Psionic Strength Points (or PSPs, which makes me think of a guy staring really hard at a portable Sony game system for psychic powers.) Each power has a Power Score, which is equal to WIS, CON, or INT +/- some number.

To use a power you need to make a power check. Roll d20, if the result is less than or equal to your power score, you succeed. Natural 1 auto-succeeds (with a note that a natural 1 often triggers a drawback because lol fuck you) natural 20 auto-fails.

(I love how fucking often 2e moves from roll under to roll over mechanics, it's not confusing at all. /sarcasm)

EDIT: Right in the middle of the Proficiencies page is another illustration with a bad pun: An illustration of a man fighting off one guard, while two others are fighting with a table and a curtain. The caption is "Animate Object: Raji turns the tables against his attackers."

Back to the class chassis: Psionicists are proficient with what would basically be simple weapons and light armor in 3e or onwards. Nonweapon Proficiencies (i.e. skills) are Gem Cutting, Musical Instrument, Reading/Writing, Religion, and four new ones:

Harness Subconscious is basically the Body Fuel feat from the XPH.
Meditative Focus is a temporary specialization in one discipline (meditate for 12 hours and get +2 to one discipline, -1 to all others.)
Rejuvenation is meditate to recover PSPs as if resting, no penalties to initiative or surprise, and not helpless if attacked. Incredibly vague in how long it takes to do, which makes this either amazing or terrible depending on how much you pleasure your MC.
Hypnosis is what it sounds, but is basically limited to what real-life hypnosis is traditionally used for, instead of cool mind control shit.

That's all for the Psionicist class chassis, we'll get to powers in a few chapters. For now we have the last part of Chapter 1, which is Wild Talents! Naturally humans are more likely than non humans, and people who don't have high ability scores can basically fuck off. Psionicists can't have wild talents, and mages and clerics (and presumably Druids) are as unlikely to have them as nonhumans are (half the chance of a human Muggle.) I have no fucking clue what chance bards, paladins, or rangers get, honestly (since they have casting, but are not magic-users or clerics.)

Naturally, there's a small chance to roll up a character that can manifest Psionic Disintegrate at level 1 and a larger chance for your wild talent character to die horribly at any level, depending on what you roll for %.
DOUBLE EDIT: I looked it over again and apparently you can't actually be killed, unless you repeatedly try to unlock psychic potential and are very unlucky. But there is still the likelihood that you get screwed really bad if you test for wild talents.

And that's all for now. Coming soon: Chapter 2. PSIONIC COMBAT

[Darth Rabbitt]

CHAPTER 2: Psionic Combat

Hoo boy.

This chapter is basically non-existent (it's 6 pages, one of which is an illustration,) and it doesn't actually do much to explain what it's supposed to (telepathic combat is still confusing without flipping to chapter 7 repeatedly, which begs the question, "Why have this chapter at all?")

We start with some legitimately badass (if trippy) looking art with a dude wearing a cloak and turban shooting some sort of beam at a guy wearing a horned helmet, loincloth, and cloak. For some reason eyeballs are floating in the background (they don't appear to be beholders, but just eyeballs with little optic nerves trailing behind them like tails) and some weird tentacled things are rising out of the ground. Also, they appear to be on Snake Mountain. The caption is "After months of trying, Hosni finally catches Gustafa at home." If that's a pun I don't get it; it might just be surreal humor or not intended to be humorous at all (just like the bad puns then, I suppose, but with less groaning.)

We are informed that one power can be used per round, with the exception of psionic defense modes (which are as far as I can tell, the equivalent of a Swift Action to activate) and maintaining previously active powers (which cost points each round.) Also, all powers require at least one power check (sometimes more.)

EDIT: Forgot to mention that you can only move at 1/2 speed/round if you are manifesting, but there are no initiative modifiers (as there are for spells in 2e.) A power being manifested can be interrupted like a spell can, but previously manifested powers that are being maintained can't be.

Now we get to Psychic Contests. It's not that this is confusing as much as incredibly poorly organized. But it is legitimately confusing as well. So I'll try to explain this (which is hard, because I barely understand this.)

There are 5 psionic attack modes and 5 psionic defense modes. Different defense modes are useful against different attack modes, and vice versa. The attacker has to win three tangents (which are successful attacks against an opponent) using psionic attacks in order to establish telepathic contact with a non-willing target. Having psychic defense modes require an extra check be made, with a modifier based on the defense mode.

At least one psionic defense mode is known by a psionicist (they learn all five by level nine, they don't count towards any powers known maximum) but each psionic attack mode needs to be learned as a devotion (other than psionic blast, which takes a science slot.)

There is also Psychic Lock, which is an opposed check by two psionicists in non-telepathic psionic contests (they give telekinetic arm wrestling as an example.) Why they couldn't just have the telepathic combat work the same way is beyond me; this literally takes up three paragraphs and makes more sense than the other 5 pages of telepathic combat.

Up next is Chapter 3: Clairsentience Powers!

[Voss]

There are 5 psionic attack modes and 5 psionic defense modes. Different defense modes are useful against different attack modes, and vice versa. The attacker has to win three tangents (which are successful attacks against an opponent) using psionic attacks in order to establish telepathic contact with a non-willing target. Having psychic defense modes require an extra check be made, with a modifier based on the defense mode.

This is the version with the chart of attacks vs. defenses, where the attack rolls/scores/something gets a bonus or penalty (and I can't remember which, since a negative number would be a bonus to a roll, but a penalty to a score) depending on how it cross references on the chart, yeah?
Basically:
Attack mode <X>: -3 +2 0 -4 +5...etc for each defense mode

and of course they carried the names from 1e (and they travelled on to later editions), ego whip, id insinuation, mind stab, psychic crush and psionic blast vs mind blank, thought shield, intellect fortress, tower of iron will and... that other one.

And Tower of IW was the only way to protect your non-psioncist friends from being mind raped at will by any passing critter, because the subsystem was tacked on and not integrated in any way.

[Darth Rabbitt]

This is the version with the chart of attacks vs. defenses, where the attack rolls/scores/something gets a bonus or penalty (and I can't remember which, since a negative number would be a bonus to a roll, but a penalty to a score) depending on how it cross references on the chart, yeah?
Basically:
Attack mode <X>: -3 +2 0 -4 +5...etc for each defense mode

Yeah, and all attack/defense apply adjustments to the attacker's power score.

and of course they carried the names from 1e (and they travelled on to later editions), ego whip, id insinuation, mind stab, psychic crush and psionic blast vs mind blank, thought shield, intellect fortress, tower of iron will and... that other one.

The last one is "Mental Barrier," and I understand why you'd forget it; it's the most useless of them (although thought shield is crappy too)

You seriously have to fucking flip through the pages to find out what attack/defense modes do what, and they're scattered throughout the "Telepathy" chapter (chapter 7.) And that's why there's no chapter 3 review yet. Because I really wanted to fucking find out what the fuck these fucking things do, but I've decided to give up on that for now.

And Tower of IW was the only way to protect your non-psioncist friends from being mind raped at will by any passing critter, because the subsystem was tacked on and not integrated in any way.

Actually, that apparently is/was Intellect Fortress, at least according to this book (I would not be surprised if different editions/printings had them work in the opposite way that they do in this one.)

Tower of Iron Will is much shorter range (3 feet instead of a 3 yard radius) and offers better protection for you, but it costs 2 points more than IF, so if you're with your party you'll probably just take the slightly smaller penalties to your opponent's power score in order to keep them from being mindfucked.

In a bit I'll put up Chapter 3 and when we get to Chapter 7 I'll go back into these fucked up attack/defense modes in more detail (flipping back and forth trying to figure out how all of this works is making my head hurt more than just ignoring all of the unexplained shit.)

[Voss]

Ah. That vaguely makes sense, I guess, since a fortress is bigger than a tower. It has been a long time, and I don't actually remember ever using the damn psychic combat rules. Just murdering people was a hell of a lot more efficient, in terms of actions and cost, if I remember correctly.

[Username17]

And yay, racial level limits! (Halfling 10 Gnome 9 Dwarf 8 Half-elf 7 Elf 7. Yes, elves get the shaft for once. But still, fuck racial level limits.)

Having recently done a review of Dragon Kings, I know that it is at least possible to get to 20th level as a Half-Elf Psionicist, because there are rules for what happens after you do in a book that very explicitly takes the level caps super serious. That might include an across the board level cap increase for Dark Sun, and maybe requires bonus level cap for having high stats, but it's definitely a thing you can do.

I genuinely have no idea if Dwarves or Gnomes or whatever can get to 20th level as a Psionicist, it was in the context of a rule about what happened if you got to 20th level as a Psionicist and got to 20th level as a Cleric or Magic User at the same time.

-Username17

[Tumbling Down]

Yeah, Dark Sun does have its own very different rules for racial level limits.
So for instance, everyone has unlimited advancement as psionicists; except dwarves, who can't be psionicists in Dark Sun for whatever reason.

[Rawbeard]

Because Dwarves don't want to turn into butterflypeople, so they banned psionics. Sounds legit.

[Darth Rabbitt]

So that's one good thing the Dark Sun rules did, then.

On to chapter 3!

CHAPTER 3: Clairsentience Powers

Fun fact: I had this half-written last night but passed out before I could finish. Drunken review indeed.

Other than the basics mentioned before, the only thing needed to know for this chapter is that some powers have prerequisites (usually a level or certain other powers known.)

So, Clairsentience Sciences:

Aura Sight: Costs 9 PSPs/round to either learn someone's alignment or their character level, or both (targets two people, can choose either option for either one, or both on one.) Higher level targets are harder to read. If you roll a 1 on your power check your information is flawed. If you roll a 20 you can't use it again for 24 hours. If you roll your power score (the "good" thing to roll) you get twice the number of auras.

Bad pun alert: Guy wearing chain mail is interviewing two hirelings. He has a shady adviser looking guy standing behind him, who is gazing at what are presumably auras emanating from the hirelings. Caption is: "Aura Sight: Mercenary hirelings reveal their true colors."

Clairaudience/Clairvoyance: Actually separate powers in this but they're so damn similar (and each has a power score result of "get both clairaudiance and clairvoyance") that I'm going to list them as one power. These do pretty much what you'd expect; your power score is modified based on how far you're trying to see/hear. Your sight/hearing is normal and can be fooled and/or distracted by whatever you would be normally. If you roll a 20 you're either blinded for 1d4 hours (clairvoyance) or deafened for 1d12 hours (clairaudience.)

And now, we get to one of my personal favorites: Object Reading! This power is too beautiful and too deadly to not quote verbatim (spoilered for the faint of heart):

Object reading is the ability to detect psychic impressions left on an object by its previous owner, including his race, sex, age, and alignment. The power can also reveal how the owner came to possess the item, as well as how he lost it. The amount of information gained depends on the result of the power check. If the psionicist's power check is successful, he learns the information listed beside that result in the table below, plus all the information listed above it:

Power Check Result/Information Gained
1-2 Last owner's race
3 Last owner's sex
4 Last owner's age
5 Last owner's alignment
6-7 How last owner gained and lost item
8+ All this information about all owners

An object can be read only once per experience level of the psionicist; additional readings at that level reveal no additional information. When the clairvoyant gains a new experience level, he can try reading the same object again, even if his object reading score has not changed.
Power Score—The psionicist automatically learns all information on the table above.
20—The psionicist becomes obsessed with the object; he strives to keep it until he can attempt to read it again.

Doesn't that sound like the most useful power ever? Not situational at all?

Two pages afterwards, we get another Bad Pun Alert. Bearded guy is concentrating on a spinning wheel, sees vision of crying guy kneeling over pile of dead women with wheel in the background. "Object Reading: A wheel spins a horrid tale of the past."

The other two sciences listed are Precognition (a divination which goes over great lengths to mention that the MC can screw over the player with it, and has many mentions to bone the player without MC intervention) and Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions (which essentially allows you to "dream" events that have happened in the area's past, with a chance of an angry ghost attempting to magic jar the psionicist using the power.)

Now for Clairsentient Devotions!

All-Around Vision is exactly what it sounds like.
Combat Mind is -1 Initiative to all allies (including the psionicist; this isn't 4e after all, and initiative bonuses are negative because 2e)
Danger Sense basically allows you to sense danger hostile opponents nearby and get a bonus to surprise rolls if you make a successful power check.
Feel Light, Feel Sound, Hear Light, and See Sound all do exactly what their names imply and are situationally useful, like most of these powers really.
Know Direction lets you know which way is north and Know Location allows you to have a general idea of where you are located (detail depends on check result.)
Poison Sense allows you to sense poisons. Spirit Sense allows you to sense spirits (which in this case are incorporeal undead.)
And Radial Navigation allows you to know exactly where you are in relation to one specific point. Interestingly it explains how the power could be useful, rather than boning the player in the description.

Next up is Chapter 4: Psychokinesis

[Red_Rob]

Ah, the second edition psionics handbook. This book was pretty much singlehandedly responsible for our group deciding that Psionics in D&D wasn't for us, a sentiment that continues to this day. I could never bring myself to read the XPH, and I attribute that solely to this book.

Now, we weren't prejudiced against the idea from the start. We'd seen psionic monsters in the 2nd Ed. Monstrous Manual with their arcane "Attack modes" listed and powers listed with exotic names like Body Equilibrium and Molecular Alteration and we were interested to find out what it was all about. However, as we read we found a confusing mess of under- and overpowered abilities given out seemingly (or actually in the case of Wild Talents!) at random. I think the point where we realised that a 1st level psionicist could set pretty much everything on fire to get a 1/day Disintegrate was when we realised this turkey wasn't going to fly.

Anyway, the power rules in this book were pretty ricockulous. Firstly, every power had a "Power Score", which was the number you had to roll under to get it to activate. This was usually a stat with some horrendous minus, like Wis-3 or Con-4. And this is 2nd edition so no upping stats at higher levels for you! You'll take your horribly MAD class and you'll like it. So right off the bat you had like a 40% chance whenever you tried to use a power that it would fail and you'd just stand there looking like a lemon (and still spend half the PSP points the power cost to activate because fuck you for trying to actually use your class abilities!). Then, just to add a turd topping to the shit sandwich every power has a 'critical success' result for hitting the power score exactly and a 'critical failure' for rolling a 20. These are as randomly assramming to your character as you would expect for 2nd edition, adding a nice 5% chance of a total fuckup to the mix for daring to try anything interesting. These basically have the effect of preventing a psionicist from actually wanting to use certain powers as anything other than a last resort, although of course the powers that fuck you over are totally random rather than being the more powerful ones. Attempting to gain simple all-around vision can leave you blind for D4 hours, whereas a critical Psionic Domination failure simply alerts the target to the attempt. Some are hilarious - 1 in 20 Disintegration attempts affect the psion rather than the target, which suggests manifesting this as a Wild Talent is rather hazardous to your long term survival chances.

Another problem was the powers all seemed horribly situational and of little use in a standard adventure. I mean, Feel Light? Really? The Psionic Combat rules were such a clusterfuck noone in our group wanted to use them so we were stuck trying to find a way to make Immovability or Suspend Animation relevant. I don't have any experience of 1st Ed. Psionics, but if they were anything like this I have no idea how they became a core part of the D&D experience.

[Voss]

Well, in 1e they were just wild talents buried in the back of the book. Vaguely near the monstrosity of dual classing that was the 1e bard. But for some reason because the piece of shit rules were in 1e (and sadly, I think they were even worse than the 2e version), they had to be ported over.

Personally mostly I think they happened because the 1e DMG had a half page of rules for D&D/Gamma World crossovers. Because.... reasons.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Fuck, Red Rob basically wrote a better review in a few paragraphs than I did in several posts.

In 1e psionics were definitely worse than in 2e, I can tell you that.

There was no class and the wild talents were even more screwed up.

Not that "not as bad as a massive steamy diarrhea dump over your face" is necessarily any good, mind you, and 2e psionics this is definitely the case.

Should get to writing Chapter 4; it'll be up in a bit.

I literally need to set down this book every once in a while, it's that bad.

[Darth Rabbitt]

CHAPTER 4: Psychokinesis Powers

Kineticists are fucking awesome if you are good at bullshitting your MC and willing to target objects all of the time. There's also Disintegrate. So basically you will be a Kineticist if you play a 2e psionicist, and therefore you will probably never ever use the fucking telepathic combat rules.

Most of the sciences here require prerequisites. Except telekinesis, which is usually that prerequisite. So telekinesis literally is the first science you take if you're a kineticist. No clairsentience powers (from last chapter, if you forgot like I did) had prerequisites, which is the other odd part.

Create Object: You have a 5% chance to permanently create diamonds from coal dust. That being said, this is 2e so unlimited wealth isn't a big deal. You also have a 5% chance to destroy a random personal possession. Depending on MC interpretation you might be able to make huge ass boulders to literally crush your enemies, but they will normally break after concentration.

Detonate: This does 1d10 damage to inanimate objects and mindless corporeal undead, but is completely silent on how it affects mindless constructs. Can't effect any living creatures (but can affect non-creature plants.) Even with the lower hit points in 2e, this power sucks in combat. Unless you use it to target stalactites, feet of statues, etc. to knock over heavy things onto opponents in which case it's awesome. Out of combat it's a good utility power.

Bad Pun Alert: A guy stares at a skeleton and makes it explode. "Detonate: Bodo eliminates a bone of contention." OK, so that one was actually a good action movie pun. The art is awesome too.

Disintegrate: The end-all, be-all, believe-all, RECOOME! Fun fact: While Disintegrate has prerequisites, none are level based and one is a science and the other is a devotion, so you can have Disintegrate at level 3. That's right, it's a save or die available at level 3. It costs 40 PSPs so you're useless for the rest of the day (at level 3, that is. At higher levels you don't care.) If you roll your power score it's a save vs. death with a -5 penalty. On a natural 20 it targets you, in which case you get a save vs. death with a +5 bonus. Despite the chance of boning, this still is a must have for any psionicist.

Molecular Rearrangement is said to be most often used to transmute metals to gold (although the book points out how this is basically useless because it takes 2 workdays to make 9 GP) and for some reason, steel into lead, despite the fact that the 2 hour prep time makes this useless for turning an opponent's armor or weapons into lead. It can also be used to spend shitloads of downtime to make a +1 weapon if the psionicist has weaponsmithing proficiency and makes a successful proficiency check and a successful power check. It transmutes by the ounce. There's probably cheese to be had here, but I'm too tired and possibly too drunk to notice it.

Project Force is Force Push, plain and simple.

Telekinesis is amazingly versatile and so far the best science that a 1st level psionicist can have (even a failure just "fumbles" an item being picked up; and if the object is big enough to kill you then you'd be better off using Detonate on it, unless you're 1st level.) It is costly though.

I will add Psychokinetic Devotions in a few.

EDIT: Psychokinetic Devotions
Animate Objects is not at all like the spell of the same name and basically can just be used to make pebbles dance and what not. Things can move slowly and attack with a THAC0 of 20.
Animate Shadow can be used to make someone's shadow move which may distract them or someone else.
Ballistic Attack allows you to throw rocks at your THAC0 for 1d6 damage. On a 20 you hit yourself. Or you could just use a sling.
Control Body: This is actually pretty awesome, as you can make someone your puppet. You need to make a power check vs. their Strength score and if you succeed you can make them move wherever and attack at -6 their normal attack. However like dominate if you try to make them do something dangerous they get another check. For a devotion this is actually pretty damn good.
Control Flames can be used to make a really shitty animated fire.
Control Light can be used to buff or nerf thieves or make people take -2 on attack rolls.
Control Sound allows you to fuck with sounds in fun ways and is actually also decent.
Control Wind is kind of like Gust of Wind.
Create Sound is Ghost Sound with less limits on how much sound you can make, but with a chance of failure.
Inertial Barrier can be used to soak damage or block acid, fire, missiles, gas, or half falling damage. Another really good devotion.
Levitation is levitation, almost exactly as the spell.
Molecular Agitation is good at damaging objects over time but sucks at damaging opponents.
Molecular Manipulation weakens objects at a certain point and is quite abuseable. Another good one.
Soften is like a crappy version of one of the Molecular devotions but is required for Disintegrate.

Next up is Chapter 5: Psychometabolism!

[tussock]

Check Detonate again. It auto-explodes Zombies (or the floor, should none be handy) and deals that d10 damage to chosen targets in a small area around them. High-level meta-psi tricks to multiply that all day are one of the better combos in the game.


The Clairsentient devotions are just ass. All that feel and see stuff isn't even worth one devotion slot. The only reason the whole discipline is worth anything is you can use some of the Telepathy powers through the Clairvoyance power to fuck people over who can't fight back. Which is probably worth quite a lot, really.


Psi combat is like getting one attack as a swift action, plus you can use another power or a 2nd attack with your standard action (that "half-move" is 6" just like d20's move action), and three hits essentially wins the fight (against that one target) because telepathy is kinda broken in how good it is.

Funny bit, against non-psi critters like Fighters and Wizards you just use Contact and then hit the contacted mind with all sorts of horror. Combat is just for Psi vs Psi, which basically never happened, ever, to anyone.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Oh, then that makes Detonate fucking awesome.

And really begs the question of what it does to Golems (since there's no magic-psionics transparency.)

That's what you get when you look over a power when both really drunk and really tired.

And yeah, my guess is that the two awesome disciplines are Psychokinesis and Telepathy.

So basically you want to be Alakazam.

But I haven't looked much more into Telepathy than the fucked up psychic combat rules.

[mds]

Molecular Rearrangement is said to be most often used to transmute metals to gold (although the book points out how this is basically useless because it takes 2 workdays to make 9 GP)

The book discusses turning 10 cp into 10 gp, and taking 16 hours because 10 cp and 10 gp both weigh 1 lb, and conversion goes at a rate of 1 oz/hour. Also, they mess up, because your net profit would 9.9 gp, not 9.0 gp. This is almost certainly a hold-over from 1E rules text, since in 2E coins are 50/lb (DMG p. 181), while in 1E they were 10/lb (and equipment weight was given in gold-coin weights, all the better to plan your Greyhawking). Still ridiculously heavy, but a bit more reasonable. With that change, we can now turn 25 cp into 25 gp in 8 hours for a net profit of 24.75 gp. You need to be level 3 to get the requirements, so at 600 gp/month for a level 3 wealthy lifestyle[1], that's about 24.25 days of work per month, secretly sabotaging the local value of gold. Honestly, this might not be a bad time to retire.

Of course, if you've turning copper into platinum (and the only reason why wouldn't you is because you've found something even more valuable; perhaps precious stones?), your profit is now 249.75 per day. Transmute 8 hours a day for a month, and you're set for the rest of the year with a a couple hundred gp left over for expenses your lifestyle doesn't cover.

Of course, things won't necessarily go that smoothly. Apart from DMs getting annoyed and trying to screw you over ("That's the third infestation by cerebral parasites this month!" "The guards are very curious about your means of support."), there are also a few other things that will slow you down.

First is the power check, which is INT-5. Assuming an INT of 15 (class requirement is 12), that still means you fail half the time. You make the check at the end, and a failure means you only converted half as much as you'd intended. Definitely not the screw-you I was expecting. 20 gives you a worthless result, a 1 gives you something that appears functional but is flawed, and rolling your power score gives you an extraordinary result to be arbitrated by the DM.

The greater limiting factor is the PSP cost. At level 3 you'll have either 40 pts, 44 pts, 48 pts or 52 pts depending on if your WIS is 15, 16, 17 or 18 respectively. Molecular Rearrangement costs 20 to fire up, and 10/hour to maintain. That means either 3 or 4 hour shifts, each of which has a 2 hour warm-up period. With a regeneration rate of 6/hour sitting around, or 12/hour sleeping or meditating, you can probably manage two shifts in a day, and the rewards are definitely worth it.

One way to work around this barrier is to pick up the Receptacle devotion at 2nd level. You'll need lots of expensive gems (100 gp worth per PSP you want to store), and you can't store more points than your PSP limit, but this will let you stay longer in the maintenance stage, and less time in the warm-up.

Assuming you have 15 WIS, 15 INT, and have managed to scrounge up 4000 gp worth of gems, your workday with receptacles will be something like:

• 6 AM: Wake up, and dump all 40 PSP into your gems (takes 1 round/minute per PSP)
• 6:40 AM: Snooze for 3 hours 20 minutes to refill your PSP to full.
• 10 AM: Spend 2 hours prepping for transmutation
• Noon: Spend 20 points to start the process, and converting the first ounce. 60 PSP left.
• 1 PM: First maintenance payment, start 2nd ounce. 50 PSP left.
• 2 PM: Second maintenance payment, start 3nd ounce. 40 PSP left.
• 3 PM: Third maintenance payment, start 4nd ounce. 30 PSP left.
• 4 PM: Fourth maintenance payment, start 5nd ounce. 20 PSP left.
• 5 PM: Fifth maintenance payment, start 6nd ounce. 10 PSP left.
• 6 PM: Final PSP payment, starting 7th ounce.
• 7 PM: Finish process. See whether you converted all 7 ounces, just 3.5, 0 oz (rolled a 20), or somehow made extraordinary platinum coins (rolled power score).
• Go to sleep until at least 10:20 PM to refill your PSP

Somewhere in there you'll also need to find time to eat, and preferably bathe.

7 oz of platinum is 218.75 gp, so ignoring the copper cost, our expected yield per day is between 147 gp and 170 gp, depending on how the GM interprets rolls of 1, power score and 20. (Lower amount: 1 and 20 give 0 yield, power score does nothing; Higher amount, 1 does nothing special, power score doubles value, and 20 still gives you nothing.) At this rate, it will take a bit longer to pay for the lifestyle that you so clearly deserve, but it's still enough to retire on. You'll just need to work 7 weeks per year instead of 4.

Each level you gain causes the process to take three more hours: 10 more minutes charging power crystals, 50 more minutes sleeping to regain PSP, and 2 more hours transmuting. Each extra hour transmuting yields 31.25 gp on a good day, but that's probably not enough to offset the increase in your cost of living (now 800 gp/month). You'll now have to work 50.25 days per year instead of the 49 you had to before, and each of those days is now 3 hours longer.

Level	Hours with receptacle	Time between shifts w/receptacle	Yield w/receptacle	Without receptacles	Time between shifts w/o receptacle	Yield w/o receptacle
3	13h00m	16h20m	7 oz	5h00m	8h20m	3 oz
4	16h00m	20h10m	9 oz	6h00m	10h10m	4 oz
5	19h00m	24h00m	11 oz	7h00m	12h00m	5 oz
6	22h00m	27h50m	13 oz	8h00m	13h50m	6 oz
7	25h00m	31h40m	15 oz	9h00m	15h40m	7 oz
8	28h00m	35h30m	17 oz	10h00m	17h30m	8 oz
9	31h00m	39h20m	19 oz	11h00m	19h20m	9 oz
10	34h00m	43h10m	21 oz	12h00m	21h10m	10 oz

[1] Lifestyle costs increase with level so even if you were getting by fine at 100 gp/month at level two, unless you can scrape together the extra 50 gp/month once you hit level three, you're back to living in squalor.

[Darth Rabbitt]

So there is cheese to be had there, glad to know.

Will write Psychometabolism in a few.

[K]

Molecular Rearrangement is said to be most often used to transmute metals to gold (although the book points out how this is basically useless because it takes 2 workdays to make 9 GP) and for some reason, steel into lead, despite the fact that the 2 hour prep time makes this useless for turning an opponent's armor or weapons into lead. It can also be used to spend shitloads of downtime to make a +1 weapon if the psionicist has weaponsmithing proficiency and makes a successful proficiency check and a successful power check. It transmutes by the ounce. There's probably cheese to be had here, but I'm too tired and possibly too drunk to notice it.

Clearly.

Transmute glass into diamonds. Transmute water into poison for your weapons. Transmute steel into mythril or other special materials (depending on which materials your DM was using, but if he was using FR then some of the materials had crazy powers like 100% reflects magic).

It was basically "all the moneys and special materials" at 1st level.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Between your response and and mds' response I realize that now.

Kineticists wtfpwn the world, especially at low levels.

[PoliteNewb]

Transmute glass into diamonds. Transmute water into poison for your weapons. Transmute steel into mythril or other special materials (depending on which materials your DM was using, but if he was using FR then some of the materials had crazy powers like 100% reflects magic).

It was basically "all the moneys and special materials" at 1st level.

This is actually one of the rare instances where 1E had better rules.
Molecular rearrangement only worked on metals, nothing else...it let you do gold from the ground floor, but you couldn't make platinum until 7th level or mithril/adamantite until 13th-16th. It let you do 1 gp weight per PSP (you had a max of 172, and probably a lot less than that), and you could only do it once per month.

Still free money, but a lot less crazy-go-nuts.

[Darth Rabbitt]

CHAPTER 5: Psychometabolism

Note: We're back to having no prerequisites for powers.

First is Animal Affinity. When you first learn it, you roll a d20 to choose an animal. From then on you can manifest this power to get one quality of that animal; listed are AC, movement rate/type, attacks/damage, THAC0, HP, or "any other special ability," which you might be able to get some mileage out of. The animal list is too broad in some areas and too specific in others (you can't be Spider-Man or grow tentacles, but there are three different types of birds of prey.) Also, some are straight out better than others (you could get the powers of a griffon or a lion.)

Next is Complete Healing, which is meditate for 24 hours and spend 30 PSPs for 3.0 heal. If your concentration is broken then you only use up 5 PSPs but don't heal (so those 5 are wasted.) Actually pretty good.

Bad Pun Alert! We see a guy in camouflage peeking out of a tree (from the leaves it looks more like a giant cannabis plant) at some goblins who appear to be searching for him, one of whom appears to have fallen. The caption is "Chameleon Power: Leif makes like a tree and fells a goblin."

Now we get Death Field, which is shitty. First of all it is listed as an EVIL power because it does naught but drain life force (even though Life Draining sucks life from an opponent and adds it to yours and isn't listed as such,) costs shitloads of HP and PSPs (40 PSPs, and you must sacrifice HP equal to the damage you want to deal) and everything in a 20' radius must make a save vs. death or take that damage (you get no such save.) It is also really hard to successfully manifest (power score is CON-8, meaning you need to roll less than or equal to your Constitution score -8, which is highly unlikely unless your Constitution is crazy high.

Energy Containment gives Improved Evasion and doubles your saves vs. energy attacks.

Life Draining is Vampiric Touch that heals if your HP is less than full.

Metamorphosis is a polymorph self that allows you to turn into objects as well as creatures (as long as they're roughly your size) but requires a system shock roll or pass out and has a chance to permanently turn you into what you're turning into (which could actually be pretty boss if you're turning into something really physically powerful.)

Shadow Form makes you incorporeal and invisible to anything less than true seeing or psionic detection but you're only able to travel in dark places and have a chance of permanently losing your most valuable item. So carry a ruby or something with you at all times and say it's your New Age psionic crystal. You also have the chance of getting all of the positive qualities of a shadow for the duration of the power, which might mean being able to move around in light.

EDIT: Can't believe I forgot this Bad Pun Alert. Guy with tiger arms scratches an ogre in the face, with another ogre behind him. Caption is "Animal Affinity: Two ogres have an eye-opening experience." OK, so that was a good action movie pun again, and the art is pretty awesome too. I probably forgot this because the art in these books is not even remotely close to being synched to the powers (they're in the same chapter as the power in question, but that's really it; whenever I list a caption in the review it's right where it appears in the book.

Now for devotions:

Absorb Disease allows you to absorb someone else's disease.
Adrenalin Control allows you to boost STR, DEX, or CON by 1d6 temporarily.
Aging is another [Evil] power even though all it does is age the target (no other effects.) Also has a 10% chance to age you. Fuck this power.
Biofeedback gives DR 2/- and reduces your AC by 1 (this is 2e, so that's good.)
Body Control is endure elements that works in other planes and underwater and shit (but it still can't protect you from energy attacks.)
Body Equilibrium basically allows you to walk on anything and feather fall.
Body Weaponry turns an arm into a weapon briefly. Whatever.

Bad Pun Alert: We see a turban-wearing Dhalsim from Street Fighter punking a man and woman both in chain mail with the caption "Expansion: Yuri will go to any length for a joke."

Catfall is a Dex-based power that allows you to halve falling damage and completely ignore it from falls of 30' or less.
Cause Decay ruins an inanimate object.
Cell Adjustment is an incredibly expensive remove disease/weak healing power.
Chameleon Power is basically the Ranger's Camouflage ability only it requires a power check instead of a skill check.
Chemical Stimulation allows you to ooze acid from your hands, but isn't actually that good despite having a name sounding like a band and having an awesome description.
Displacement is exactly the same as the spell of the same name.
Double Pain is mysteriously not [Evil] even though all it does is cause pain (literally.) It doubles damage dealt to a target for one turn but half of the damage is nonlethal.
Ectoplasmic Form makes you incorporeal.
Enhanced Strength allows you increase Strength by one point per 2 PSPs spent, up to 18. On a check result of your power score you can get that stupid percentile Strength.
Expansion can make you bigger or stretchier.
Flesh Armor is basically a variable mage armor (ranges from a shield to plate mail based on check result.) Stacks with rings of protection even though I think those don't have rules for stacking with armor in 2e.
Graft Weapon allows you to graft a weapon to your body. Is like Body Weaponry only it requires a weapon and gives you +1 to attack and damage with said weapon.
Heightened Senses basically gives you tracking by scent, a bonus to Spot and Listen, increased sight/hearing ranges, the ability to detect poison by tasting it (in amounts that don't affect you) and the ability to identify identical objects by touch.
Immovability makes you immovable unless a combined Strength score of 10 times your power score tries to move you; if you roll your power score you become an immovable rod for as long as you maintain it. Fun.
Lend Health allows you to lend health by sacrificing HP to restore the same number to someone else. Who'd a thunk it?
Mind Over Body acts as a Ring of Sustenance with a cost of 10 PSPs/day to maintain the power and a cap on usage of either your character level or 5 in days, whichever is greater, until you pass out from overuse.
Reduction is the opposite of expansion, literally.
Share Strength allows you to take temporary Str damage in order to give half that Str to someone else. Once you stop maintaining it the STR returns. If the recipient is killed before you stop, you permanently lose the Str. This power sucks super hard.
Suspend Animation allows you to go into suspended animation for a number of weeks equal to your power check result. You can use it on any willing target , which could make it useful if combined with psionic suggestion for ending combat for a really long time (but there's probably a better way to do that.)

Next chapter will be Chapter 6: Psychoportation.

[K]

Animal Affinity was basically "roll once, maybe get a broken power and maybe waste a power slot."

The guy who got rat basically just balled up his character and rolled up a new one, but the guy who got tiger or griffin got a joint injury from all the high-fives he was giving people.

[OgreBattle]

Just reading it, without fully comprehending how it's executed, makes psionics LOOK really fun

It has a logic to it that's more consistant than "level 1: grease, bullets, and seizure rainbows"

[phlapjackage]

How was Body Equilibrium different from Catfall? Doesn't seem like you would ever take Catfall over BE. BE sounds way better, with the feather-fall effect, in addition to walk-on-anything.

[K]

How was Body Equilibrium different from Catfall? Doesn't seem like you would ever take Catfall over BE. BE sounds way better, with the feather-fall effect, in addition to walk-on-anything.

The short answer is that BE is Con-based where Catfall is Dex, is slightly easier to use if your Dex and Con were the same, and doesn't have a chance to do something annoying on a 20.

The long answer is that BE has more applications, is cheaper, and can be maintained for several rounds, so taking Catfall will probably never happen.