Groups of150 Point Characters with and without PSI

[Yorunkun]

Would appreciate some advice from those who have experience using PSI in their campaigns.

I'm planning an Iron Age fantasy campaign with PSI as the only supernatural power source. While PSI would play a major role in the world, I don't want the campaign to be entirely about PSI or PSIs. The group would feature characters with and without PSI - a classic fantasy mix of martial types and (PSI-based) "mages", essentially.

With all characters built on 150 points, would the PSIs outshine the mundanes? How about at 200 and 250 points out? Any suggestions on how to keep PSIs from dominating the game?

[Mathulhu]

The point system is not perfectly balanced. It mostly breaks when GM and player expectations don't match. For example Amphibious is worthless if the GM never tracks hold your breath when swimming.

If one character spends points on Psi abilities then another can spend those points on something else.

If you have two characters, who are other wise identical, one with 40 points of Psi and the other with +2 IQ then they will have different niches to that they are most useful in.

In my experience Magic as Powers doesn't really break as the number of points the characters are made with increases. It breaks down when you try to duplicate things that are done easily with tools.

[weby]

In general at 150 points PSIs are more likely to be under powered than overpowered, as the powers cost fairly much and at those power levels doing things like raising an attribute by one or getting extra wealth to get better gear, tends to be more useful use of the points. Note that you CAN build useful PSIs at 150 points as seen in the templates in Psis, but alternative 150 point uses tend to be more powerful if well built.

As you raise the total points the "discretionary" part of the build budget raises by a significant part of those extra points. So PSIs gain more power compared to others.

There are however a few PSI powers that can be unbalancing at even lower levels when at low TL. That is specifically things like PK shield that can allow you to ignore most attacks at fairly low point cost. For DR I would suggest capping it at the value of good normal armor and make it not stack with such(add -40% cannot wear armor to the abilities) or to limit it to something like talent levels but allow it to stack.

Overall if you want the PSIs to be useful in anything except a specialist role but not overwhelming, I would suggest more than 150 total points and only allowing the 25 and 50 point packages from PSIs.

One option would be to have everyone build a template based character with the 125-150 point templates from say fantasy and/or banestorm and Psis. Then maybe allow them some extra points to raise the level to say 200 total points to allow the Psis to catch up, while not allowing the extra points to be used on psionic powers for the PSIs.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Mathulhu

In my experience Magic as Powers doesn't really break as the number of points the characters are made with increases. It breaks down when you try to duplicate things that are done easily with tools.

Of course, GURPS 4e psionics are "Magic as Powers," because they use the powers design system. Using that to duplicate things easily done with tools is usually a waste of points. That means that the powers that are most useful vary with TL.

For example, TK Bullet (Psionic Powers, pp53-54) is quite powerful at TL0-5. At TL7, if you can carry an assault rifle, TK Bullet is a waste of points.

I agree with weby, PK Shield is likely to be quite powerful at TL2. It's worth thinking about mundane countermeasures, such as a version of Deceptive Attack that penalises PK Shield rolls.

[JoelSammallahti]

At 150 points, you likely won't run into much trouble. Like weby suggested, I would cap DR at 5ish, and also cap attack abilities at 3d or so. Remember that the -10% limitation for psi includes a provision for mundane countermeasures and supernatural powers that neutralize the power. That's important. As long as the PCs regularly run into opposition that has some access, not necessarily free access, to countermeasures and anti-psi, you don't need to worry about the psionic guys overshadowing the mundanes. At 250 points, yeah, the psionic powers can be many times more impressive than at 150... but just look at the Dungeon Fantasy templates to see how badass a mundane 250-point fighter can be! And while a telepath can certainly wreak havoc on any kind of adventure you're planning, so can a 250-point non-supernatural social specialist with Charisma 5, Very Handsome, and 60 points in influence skills.

[Otaku]

How much Anti-Psi should he consider? This is one of those areas where I'm curious myself; under the old 3e (Revised) rules you could buy things like Psychic Resistance for 2 CP/Level so that direct applications of psi were much less effective and (unlike with Magic Resistance) psi didn't offer as varied of options as the [Basic] Magic System.

A question for Yorunkun is how is psi being handled in terms of available powers? Is this a more toned down approach, so that its mostly just telepathy, psychokinesis, and ESP? The full options presented in [Basic]? Or the more dramatic "As long as makes some sense when you turn your head and squint your eyes..." of typical superhero comics?

[Yorunkun]

Thanks for your replies, very helpful.

I'm considering taking out psychokinesis / tk powers altogether (along with ergokinesis and probability alteration) - I'm mainly interested in the mind-affecting powers and astral plane / turning into ghosts / spirits aspects of psi.

One of the core setting ideas is that there is an emerging theocracy that is based on giving its followers and leaders anti psi powers to protect them from psionicists, so there are countermeasures to psi where it matters.

I might start characters at 100 points, or limit their spending on psi powers later in the campaign ... maybe psi can only be improved through meditation, which takes in-game time in addition to cp.

EDIT: I'm working from Psionic Powers, btw.

[JoelSammallahti]

Originally Posted by Yorunkun

I'm working from Psionic Powers, btw.

Note that this will considerably increase the cost of psionic powers, especially for generalists, due to the requirement of spending on Hard skills to be any good at what you want to do. Specialists with 1 really good ability are going to be a little cheaper, conversely.

[AlexanderHowl]

In general, it is difficult to make a broken 150 point character as long as you limit negative characteristics. When you are talking about powered characters, it is even less of a problem because powers are expensive. Even if a character spends 100 points on powers, they are unlikely to be very effective with them (especially if you are using Psionic Powers).

[oneofmanynameless]

I'm strongly in agreement with everyone here. In the 150-250 point range you're unlikely to get broken Psis, especially if you're careful about making sure people follow your disadvantage cap and are actually building well rounded characters instead of one trick wonders.

TK powers need to be limited in terms of maximum power they can dish out to keep them balanced against the weapons and armors of the time, but other than that they shouldn't cause problems.

The thing that's going to cause you problems in that point range is Mind Control. I believe Kromm is on record somewhere saying something to the effect of, 'In a world of 10 wills, the man with mind control is king.' The most effective psi you can build when peoples wills are in the 8-12 range is always going to be to spring for mind control and a bunch of talent, then build the rest of your character around IQ skills and IQ.

If you want to avoid things like this and have Psis be more well rounded generalists then I'd limit the number of levels of any Psi power anyone starts off with, but let them pick up higher levels through play as they practice their abilities under pressure and meditate, etc. A rule like, "At character creation you cannot purchase more levels of an ability then you have talent for that power." would keep mind control and even excessive TK under control (although if it were me I'd make an exception for telekinesis and double or triple the cap.)