[Psionics] A few questions.

[Frost]

A couple of days ago an old campaign (run by a someone else we have now lost touch with) came up in conversation and it got me wondering how I would implement elements of it in 4e. Straight away I have hit a bit of a stumbling block with a couple of things.

At various points in the campaign we had psionic characters projecting illusions and creating temporary barriers but I don't know enough to make more than a few vague guesses about how I could set these up.

Barriers seem the easier of the two, would an area effect binding work?

Illusion is more of a challenge would I be out of line reskining invisibility?

This is as far as I remember the first time I have done anything with psionic powers and I don't currently own Psionics so all I have is the basic set and a few guesses.

Thanks in advance.

[Aldric]

There is actually an Illusion advantage/power in Powers, as for barriers, there is the wall enhancement for Innate Attacks, they can all get the Psionic power modifier and can be limited with Cost Fatigue if that's what you need.

Of course there is also an entire book with psionics, so you could check that one. I haven't so I have no idea how good/bad or user friendly it is.

[Frost]

Ok, here is my first proper attempt at modelling the barrier effect:

Binding 10 (20)+ area effect (4 yards) (20)+ persistent (8)+ wall (12)
Telekinetic (-2)

So total cost 58 points. Which if I have read this right gives me a twelve yards of barrier for ten seconds with each use. Each stackable layer of barrier having ST 10 for grappling purposes.

Does this sound right?

[Anders]

An Innate Attack can be converted into a barrier using the Wall enchantment (p. B109). This gives walls with high DR and low HP. Since HP 5 [10] is equal to DR 2 [10] points-wise, it will probably not break anything if you switch the two at a 5:2 ratio.

[Anaraxes]

It often helps narrow down the possibilities just to think about how you imagine the power working. The flavor details can point one way or another.

Innate Attack (crushing, Wall) is good if you're thinking of a physical barrier. This would probably be an Alternative Ability to Telekinesis, if the character had some sort of TK.

Binding might better represent a psionic ability that freezes people in place ("Hold Person", as it were), but that has no effect on inanimate objects (like a sniper bullet fired from half a mile away). Not that Binding can't normally bind inanimate objects (that would be an extra limitation), but since we're talking psionics, it's a possible ability someone might want.

There's also Damage Resistance (DR) with Forcefield and Area Effect, which creates a bubble for the DR to protect anyone in the area from those outside -- the classic Sue Storm kind of forcefield bubble.

GURPS Psionic Powers has a bunch of pre-built abilities, usually with several levels of power and upgrades. Even if you're going to get into designing your own abilities that have nothing to do with psi, it's a useful book to study, because it has "Under the Hood" sections that show how all the abilities were built. So you can learn a lot of nice approaches and tricks for doing different things.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

GURPS Psionic Powers has a bunch of pre-built abilities, usually with several levels of power and upgrades. Even if you're going to get into designing your own abilities that have nothing to do with psi, it's a useful book to study, because it has "Under the Hood" sections that show how all the abilities were built. So you can learn a lot of nice approaches and tricks for doing different things.

Agreed. Much of PK's work falls into this category - Sorcery and Divine Favor are other examples with tons of pre-built abilities. Powers has a bunch of them as well.

I miss PK.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Anders

An Innate Attack can be converted into a barrier using the Wall enchantment (p. B109). This gives walls with high DR and low HP. Since HP 5 [10] is equal to DR 2 [10] points-wise, it will probably not break anything if you switch the two at a 5:2 ratio.

So modelling it as a crushing attack it looks more like:

Innate attack 4 (20)+ area effect (4 yards)(20)+ persistent (8)+ wall (12)
Telekinetic (-2)

Gives a DR 8 barrier, using the maximum roll on those four dice and rounding down, for the same price or making a cheaper 28 point DR 4 build possible.

Have I got this right or an I still overlooking something?

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

It often helps narrow down the possibilities just to think about how you imagine the power working. The flavor details can point one way or another.

From what I remember while the character could shape things a bit and could create them remotely the power basically created a magic wall- the couple of times it was used it was to deflect a volley of projectiles, barracade a door while we regrouped and delay a, fairly small, charging dragon.

Which when I say it out loud does support the crushing wall model.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Frost

So modelling it as a crushing attack it looks more like:

Innate attack 4 (20)+ area effect (4 yards)(20)+ persistent (8)+ wall (12)
Telekinetic (-2)

Gives a DR 8 barrier, using the maximum roll on those four dice and rounding down, for the same price or making a cheaper 28 point DR 4 build possible.

Have I got this right or an I still overlooking something?

No, each 1d attack gives you DR 3 and HP ½. So a 4d attack would instead of doing damage give you a DR 12, HP 2 wall. So it will take a lot to push through the DR, but if you can it will collapse almost instantly.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Anders

No, each 1d attack gives you DR 3 and HP ½. So a 4d attack would instead of doing damage give you a DR 12, HP 2 wall. So it will take a lot to push through the DR, but if you can it will collapse almost instantly.

Fair enough, this should do nicely. Actually I could bring the price down and still get a reasonable effect. I don't know why I got it into my head to trade off the damage for DR like that.