[Psionic Powers] If Tesla were a Psionic

[Engurrand]

In a modern earth game without the gadgeteer advantage, what psionic powers would a secret society of psionics devoted to developing advanced technology, (and understanding the universe) employ? How effective would that be?

Or, in other words, my GM has recently switched to psionic powers nearly exclusively for a game in which I've been playing a gadgeteer (230cp). Obviously, I have to retool the character, which is fine, but I'd like to keep the "How does it work?" tag-line and the flavor of an inventor.

Thoughts? Mega-thanks!

Edit: forgot to mention that we're not using ergokenesis... which limits the scope of the conversation a little

[vierasmarius]

Why couldn't you keep Gadgeteer, and just give it a Psionic power modifier?

Of the power groups in Psionic Powers, Ergokinesis is the most "technological", though that's mostly in regards to interfacing with and controlling computers or disrupting electrical devices, not so much inventing things. Psychokinesis could help an inventor perform fine manipulations, while Probability Alteration could help him get his devices to function (for him, at least). However, one unique aspect of Gadgeteer however is that it lets the inventor make the Concept roll with a penalty of a mere -0 to -8, rather than the -6 to -22 given for realistic inventing. As far as I know there's no trait in Psionic Powers that would help in this regard. Again, you should see if you can just take Gadgeteer as an ESP or Probability Alteration power.

[Langy]

He could have an instinctive understanding of mechanical concepts, machines, etc. Ergokinesis gives you electricity-control, but you may want a special form of ESP instead.

Personally, I'd model that with something like:

Visualization (Reflexive, +40%; Takes Less Time 6, +120%; Reliable 10, +50%; ESP, -10%) [30]

Add in an Aspected limitation if you can't use it for other things, but I think it'd work great for general 'awesome by analysis'-isms, which is another thing an inventor-type is great at.

Add in some talents (granted by ESP) and you can get a super-inventor pretty quick. Problem is that your super-inventor will still need to shell out lots of money and time to invent things if you can't have Gadgeteer. I'd do like vierasmarius suggests and try and take Gadgeteer with the ESP power modifier.

[Engurrand]

Originally Posted by Langy

Visualization (Reflexive, +40%; Takes Less Time 6, +120%; Reliable 10, +50%; ESP, -10%) [30]

This is cool...

Originally Posted by Langy

Problem is that your super-inventor will still need to shell out lots of money and time to invent things if you can't have Gadgeteer. I'd do like vierasmarius suggests and try and take Gadgeteer with the ESP power modifier.

Gadgeteer is specifically taboo in the campaign world. So are gizmos, and a handful of other things.
As to spending time and money, that may be unavoidable - and thus push the actual inventing part to the background. Which is fine as long as the powers are useful outside of a specifically inventing context.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Engurrand

In a modern earth game without the gadgeteer advantage, what psionic powers would a secret society of psionics devoted to developing advanced technology, (and understanding the universe) employ? How effective would that be?

It ought to be pretty effective, as long as they are reasonable self-aware and anti-psi is available to screen out extraneous psi when necessary.

Telepathy allows scientists to communicate their findings and ideas directly mind-to-mind and verify their colleagues truly understand what they've communicated. It would also allow educating students better and faster to swell their ranks as well as screen them for loyalty, aptitude, and motivation to keep the ranks productive and secure.

TK, EK, and ESP are a providence for the necessary testing steps, it's much easier to build a vacuum chamber without view ports or power mains or probes to manipulate the spherical chicken under study.

Julian May's Galactic Millieu covers this in moderate detail, with the secret society part in the early book(s) INTERVENTION, also published as SURVEILLANCE and METACONCERT. Uncle Rogi is no scientist but is able to follow his family's research mentally and contributes to it as his rapport allows them to easily gestalt with him, multiplying their own psychic output at crucial times.

The scientific understanding also helps advance the psionic powers; Rogi's great-nephew Marc invents a cryogenic amplifier that allows him to survive power boosts that would otherwise inspire spontaneous combustion in his nervous tissues.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Langy

He could have an instinctive understanding of mechanical concepts, machines, etc. Ergokinesis gives you electricity-control, but you may want a special form of ESP instead.

Good call on ESP, although Visualization is more properly a Probability Alteration skill. That, and TK (as mentioned by jeff) would all be of help to engineers in a setting like the one posited.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Good call on ESP, although Visualization is more properly a Probability Alteration skill. That, and TK (as mentioned by jeff) would all be of help to engineers in a setting like the one posited.

No, the Visualization build in Psionic Powers is a Probability Alteration skill. The Visualization advantage can be co-opted to represent several things, including an intuitive grasp of what'll happen when a character does things or the ability to see and react to future events (something I'm using for one of my characters).

[Lamech]

Invention is a penalty, it can be made into a technique. If your really lucky you can even convince the GM to let "engineering: invention (X)" default to the technique "engineering: intention(y)-4". Then just take 25 points in the technique.

[Engurrand]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

Telepathy allows scientists to communicate their findings and ideas directly mind-to-mind and verify their colleagues truly understand what they've communicated. It would also allow educating students better and faster to swell their ranks as well as screen them for loyalty, aptitude, and motivation to keep the ranks productive and secure....
... it's much easier to build a vacuum chamber without view ports or power mains or probes to manipulate the spherical chicken under study....

This and your examples are thorough in the case of fairly common and reliable psi. For the purpose of the exercise let's assume the gameworld features no more psi then is claimed in real life - that is to say rare, difficult to master, secret, and mysterious OR extremely unreliable.

[Engurrand]

Originally Posted by Lamech

Invention is a penalty, it can be made into a technique. If your really lucky you can even convince the GM to let "engineering: invention (X)" default to the technique "engineering: intention(y)-4". Then just take 25 points in the technique.

This is a cool idea. But, I don't know how it relates to psi.