Psionics in 4th Ed: I'm not getting it...

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Do you mean Gurps Psionic Powers? There is no 4e Gurps Psionics.

yes well noted. I will edit it too

[MissAmber]

Quick clarification: I have GURPS Psionic Powers for 4th edition.

Thank you, everyone. I was not expecting to come home to 4 pages of replies with some really good explanations in there. I think I have I have an understanding.

Thank you!

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Not a direct quote... The meaning of "optional", as it applies to a power skill, is on p78.

Ah-HA! ...I swear, that's an In Nomine Core Rules-worthy placement of explaining a term far after the term shows up. *snicker*

Originally Posted by MissAmber

Thank you, everyone. I was not expecting to come home to 4 pages of replies with some really good explanations in there. I think I have I have an understanding.

Hooray! (Yeah, it took me a little head-wrapping to figure out how the 4e version worked, too. But I could bug PeeKitty in playtest. *evil grin* Now I feel bad for not noticing the placement of the "optional" thing, though. O:( )

[PK]

Originally Posted by Archangel Beth

That makes lovely sense! Is there a page ref I'm missing for it, though?

It's part of the skill description itself, on p. 26: "optional, used for power defense, psi techniques, etc." In other words, you don't need the skill, but you can buy it anyways to use for Getting Tricky.

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

It's part of the skill description itself, on p. 26: "optional, used for power defense, psi techniques, etc." In other words, you don't need the skill, but you can buy it anyways to use for Getting Tricky.

You know, that's obvious when you say it, and I was obviously interpreting it that way subliminally, and now I know why I didn't carp when it was in playtest. For some reason, when I read it the time before this, though... I guess I was somehow interpreting the "used for power defense" as "this is what the power does." And I'm not sure why.

Perhaps I'll go with "I was hopped briefly into another timeline where the text was more confusing." Because that's very weird how I was quite confused then and now it's clear. Maybe I was sick? Huh!

(Still, if you ever felt like making it totally hyperclear even to sick or time-jumped readers, something like "Some abilities are always on; having skill is optional, useful only for getting tricky, etc." in the book might be useful (Ideally on p. 22, but it looks like there's a little more whitespace on p. 5 that could be sacrificed for a sentence.) )

[Captain-Captain]

Well, the psionics book is one of the higher crunch books 4th edition has.

Basically RPK took the existing traits in GURPS that had in his opinion Psionic Basically RPK took the GURPS traits he felt had Psionic potential and systematically modified them using limitations and enhancements and renamed them as distinct new traits complete with level costs.

In some cases a new level added a new ability to the mix. You should read the descriptions closely.

He basically restored 3rd edition's concept that advantages that are consciously used are governed by Skills where the current Basic Set used Attributes.

THEN he brought in techniques (known in 3rd edition as maneuvers) for those new skills.

My suggestion: Step back from the crunch. Build your psi abilities using the Powers book, use Psionics as a guide and it's skill system since you prefer skill operated powers.

It's like learning to eat very hot spicy foods after a decade of not doing so. You have to build up your tongue's resistance to hot. A few 'borrowings' of Psionics built via Powers should get you acclimated to it's crunch.

Welcome back to the Fold!

[carllarson]

Its only high crunch if you go into the nuts and bolts of how to build each ability. If you set that aside, and only deal with prices of the abilities, and their descriptions, you don't have to understand all the crunch. You can play right from that using the Talent/Power/Skill paradigm.

And, if you are familiar with 3E, its a good fit, giving you costs for 4E with the style of 3E.

And when you feel ready to upgrade the designs, the crunch is there to assist you.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by carllarson

Its only high crunch if you go into the nuts and bolts of how to build each ability. If you set that aside, and only deal with prices of the abilities, and their descriptions, you don't have to understand all the crunch. You can play right from that using the Talent/Power/Skill paradigm.

And, if you are familiar with 3E, its a good fit, giving you costs for 4E with the style of 3E.

And when you feel ready to upgrade the designs, the crunch is there to assist you.

Personally, what I really like on Psionic Powers is that it shows the flexibility and power of the system. Personally I feel that GURPS is lacking more books like Psionic Powers, that present the Powers system in bite sized chunks, precooked and ready to eat.

SJG seems to be accepting requests for other Powers PDFs, paterned on Psionic Powers... That's something i might try...

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Personally, what I really like on Psionic Powers is that it shows the flexibility and power of the system. Personally I feel that GURPS is lacking more books like Psionic Powers, that present the Powers system in bite sized chunks, precooked and ready to eat.

SJG seems to be accepting requests for other Powers PDFs, paterned on Psionic Powers... That's something i might try...

Yeah I did that too and since it doesn't seem to have been accepted was considering offering part of it for a Pyramid article. Maybe I should write Fox, to confirm that since all the contracts gone out. Regardless I love how Psionic Powers seemed to be a complete waste of money and a valuable book all at the same time.
It took a concept already explained and fleshed it out with examples in a way that made you just slap yourself on the head for not really giving it that much consideration before. There are several things I would like to see get that kind of work over and examination and others have posted similar on the forums.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yeah I did that too and since it doesn't seem to have been accepted was considering offering part of it for a Pyramid article. Maybe I should write Fox, to confirm that since all the contracts gone out. Regardless I love how Psionic Powers seemed to be a complete waste of money and a valuable book all at the same time.

I'd say that chapters 1 and 2 make it a valuable book whether or not you find chapter 3 useful.