Psionic Character Creation Mechanics

[Eddie T]

I asked about this last summer, but life got me busy, I didn't spend any time on gaming, and now I've confused myself again, but not in the same ways as the last time.

Using Psionic Powers, I understand Ability with Power Modifier + Talent (optional but recommended) + Skill (Att/H).

Where I'm lost...looking at the sample character on p. 77, she has:
- Oracle, ESP + ESP Talent + Oracle (IQ/H)
- Astral Sight + Astral Projection Talent + Astral Sight (IQ/H)
- Astral Travel + Astral Projection Talent + Astral Travel (IQ/H)
- Psychic Hunches + ESP Talent + Psychic Hunches (IQ/H)
- Retrocognition + ESP Talent + Retrocognition (IQ/H)
- Visions (Aspected, National Threats) + ESP Talent + Visions (IQ/H)

On p. 5, the book attempts to walk you through the process in Building a Psi. I'm lost.

1. If Visions is her primary ability, why isn't it the one with the ESP power modifier? For that matter, why don't all of the abilities have a power modifier (either ESP or Astral Projection as appropriate)? Was that just author shorthand?

2. I understand Talents "keep the door open" for additional abilities. So if during character creation the player only went with Ability + Skill, that's all he/she would ever have? You can't just buy new psionics during in-game character development like non-Psi advantages? Is that one of the methods used to prevent the overpowered PSIs of 3rd Edition that I've heard about?

3. Most of the Abilities have levels. If the Ability also has a Skill for success rolls, why spend the points on increasing the Ability beyond one level instead of just improving the skill (unless the Ability has different functions at higher levels, that makes sense; not all Abilities do that, though, example: Awareness, p. 39)?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Eddie T

1. If Visions is her primary ability, why isn't it the one with the ESP power modifier? For that matter, why don't all of the abilities have a power modifier (either ESP or Astral Projection as appropriate)? Was that just author shorthand?

because Oracle is an advantage from basic, while visions is a modified advantage given a special name in the Psionic powers book. If you actually write all of visions down, it has the modifiers (ESP -10%, One event -40%, passive only -20%). See page 39 of the Psionic Powers book.

2. I understand Talents "keep the door open" for additional abilities. So if during character creation the player only went with Ability + Skill, that's all he/she would ever have? You can't just buy new psionics during in-game character development like non-Psi advantages? Is that one of the methods used to prevent the overpowered PSIs of 3rd Edition that I've heard about?

That's just a genre convention, and it really isn't worth any points. Compare with taboo traits, which is pretty much the opposite. But with that convention, yes, you need to but talent to say "I'm a telepath. I may not do all the telepath things now, but I can learn them". But its really just convention.

3. Most of the Abilities have levels. If the Ability also has a Skill for success rolls, why spend the points on increasing the Ability beyond one level instead of just improving the skill (unless the Ability has different functions at higher levels, that makes sense; not all Abilities do that, though, example: Awareness, p. 39)?

It depends on the ability. For awareness, raising skill doesn't increase range. but increasing range doesn't improve your ability to use techniques.

I hope that helps.

[Anaraxes]

1. All the abilities in Psi Powers include their appropriate power modifiers. "Visions" is part of the ESP power; see p39 for the "under the hood" breakdown of how the ability was built.

2. The major mechanical function of Talent is just to add to related skill levels. It's a way to make characters better without inflating their base stats (IQ, DX) beyond all recognition, or needing hundreds of character points in skills.

Whether or not you can buy psi powers after the game starts is one of those setting and world-building decisions. It doesn't affect the cost of the abilities. The GM might be okay with adding them for any reason, or there might be in-game requirements such as finding the right guru in Katmandu, or you might be restricted to power groups that you had at start, which puts a real premium on having some sort of cheap placeholder ability to make sure the character can grow according to the player's plans and hopes -- hence the mention of Talent (which isn't an "ability") as a valid such placeholder. (The other major placeholders would be standard advantages that can have psi interpretations (like Danger Sense), particularly passive ones, or abilities built with additional Limitations like Unconscious and Unreliable, which are intended to be bought off as the troubled youngster learns to control their strange new abilities.

See also B254 (list of psi power groups, use of Talent to mark "latent" psis).
See B33, "Potential Powers", and GURPS Powers p34, "Adding and Improving Powers in Play" for a fuller discussion of ways to treat latent or potential powers.

This doesn't really have anything to do with 3e Psionics, which also had a rule for sticking in placeholder abilities in power groups you might want in the future. 3e psis were overpowered (where they were) simply because the character point prices for the fundamental abilities were too low, and you could do remarkable things with 100 or 200 points that simply gave such characters way too much effectiveness at influencing the game compared to any other way of spending 100 or 200 points on other, non-psi, abilities. Or just "overpowered", in the usual gamer parlance :)

3. Psi Powers aims for two axes of improvement, skill and power. "Power" is reflected in the levels of the abilities (which are often cleverly manufactured with Enhancements and Limitations under the hood, out of Advantages that aren't originally levelled.) In the case of Awareness, the additional levels increase the range of your ability. Skill can't do that. On the other hand, successfully activating your ability, or interpreting the results, or hit a target, or otherwise getting it to do what you want, is a matter of skill. You could have Awareness with a huge range (many levels), but not be able to invoke it reliably due to low skill, or notice those fine details or clues noted in the ability description. You might have lots of skill at your Awareness, able to spot the tiniest detail, but not be able to sense anything at all beyond 1 yard (level 1; see the Psi Range table on Psi Powers p22). Or you might have both, costing correspondingly more character points.

[MrTim]

Originally Posted by Eddie T

1. If Visions is her primary ability, why isn't it the one with the ESP power modifier? For that matter, why don't all of the abilities have a power modifier (either ESP or Astral Projection as appropriate)? Was that just author shorthand?

Any of the psi abilities given full writeups in the book already have the power modifier included. Since Oracle isn't written up, the power modifier is called out in the stat block.

2. I understand Talents "keep the door open" for additional abilities. So if during character creation the player only went with Ability + Skill, that's all he/she would ever have? You can't just buy new psionics during in-game character development like non-Psi advantages? Is that one of the methods used to prevent the overpowered PSIs of 3rd Edition that I've heard about?

It's technically up to the GM, but in general that's correct.

3. Most of the Abilities have levels. If the Ability also has a Skill for success rolls, why spend the points on increasing the Ability beyond one level instead of just improving the skill (unless the Ability has different functions at higher levels, that makes sense; not all Abilities do that, though, example: Awareness, p. 39)?

I can't find an ability that doesn't have additional functionality at higher levels. For Awareness, it's described on the following page.

[Eddie T]

Thanks, guys! That helped a lot. Especially the open your eyes and read one more page. :D

I swear I read that but I must not have had enough coffee yet because it definitely didn't register.

That said...

Originally Posted by ericthered

That's just a genre convention, and it really isn't worth any points. Compare with taboo traits, which is pretty much the opposite. But with that convention, yes, you need to but talent to say "I'm a telepath. I may not do all the telepath things now, but I can learn them". But its really just convention.

So, just to be clear about, I guess what would be in game description/design interpretation intent (using Telereceive as an example):
- Telereceive + Skill = "Sometimes I just hear voices in my head! They've had me in the asylum for years now."
- Telepathy Talent = "Herbert is a latent telepath. He registers on all of our scales, but he has yet to demonstrate any capabilities."
- Telereceive + Telepathy Talent + Skill = "I'm a telepath. Sometimes I hear things in my head and I'm learning how to make you hear me."

Unless I'm wrong in that, I think I understand. Truly thanks, guys!

[RyanW]

Personally, I would allow anyone with an ability that had a power modifier to buy more of the same, regardless of Talent. If you have Clairvoyance, you are an Esper, even if you lack the ESP Talent. However, if you have the ESP Talent, you're also an Esper, even if you have no abilities.

If someone had a good concept for a latent psi without Talent, I'd simply charge one point for "Talent 0" which could be traded in toward their first (non-perk) ability or level of Talent.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

powers usually require the Talent before you can learn any abilities

Where do you find this requirement? I didn't see it in Psi Powers. (It's not true of the Basic Talent, and Psi Powers does tweak that Talent a bit into its "Power Talent", removing the reaction modifier and including the note about "keeping the door open". But I didn't find a reference to having a minimum of one level of a Talent as a prereq for buying abilities.) The closest bits I did find:

Originally Posted by Psi Powers p4, "The Power"

A power is not a trait; you wouldn’t buy “Psychokinesis” as an advantage. Instead, once you buy one or more of the abilities in that power, you are said to “have” that power (or “know” that power).

Implies that you don't need Talent at all, as it's not mentioned, and you can clearly "have" a power without it and buy abilities without a mention of Talent.

Originally Posted by Psi Powers p5, "Talent"

Psis with at least one level in a power Talent can use earned character points to learn additional abilities within that power.

Implies, OTOH, that you do need at least one level of Talent, at least if you ever want to buy additional abilities. (Unless I want to be overly literal, that is. Strictly speaking, the sentence says nothing about what Psis with zero levels in a power Talent can do. But English isn't normally written that way.) Less pathologically, the phrasing still leaves open the possibilities of having initial abilities without Talent, as well as increasing levels of starting abilities, as opposed to buying new ones. That might work for certain character concepts, though I can easily imagine that some players would hate to paint themselves into a corner.

Originally Posted by RyanW

I'd simply charge one point for "Talent 0" which could be traded

Very similar to Psi Power's "Weak Latency" Perk (p19). (Also notes that in many settings, this might be just a 0-point Feature, so all PCs (if not everyone in the setting) would be weakly latent in all powers.)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Where do you find this requirement?

This is true of several published powers, so I probably just assumed that it was true of all published powers. I was incorrect.


Ability without Talent probably doesn't mean that you have Delusion (My powers aren't real) though.

[Eddie T]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Ability without Talent probably doesn't mean that you have Delusion (My powers aren't real) though.

I was making a joke about how people around the character would react in a non-mainstream psychic world.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Eddie T

I was making a joke about how people around the character would react in a non-mainstream psychic world.

There's no reason that Talent would make any difference there.