Alternative Psionics

[ericthered]

Yeah, talents just boost skill. The advantages are the real buy in.

The main trick with dropping the advantage part and just requiring talent and skill is that characters will always go for the absolutely highest possible level of the advantage. And most of the time there is a big difference. If you can solve that, I think it will work out fine.

One way to handle that is to declare all people have a given psionic power at the same level. This makes the ability yet more tech-like, as all telepaths have work at about the same range. You can set this to be at whatever level you like.

Another way is to say to tie the ability to the level of talent you have: perhaps 1 level of talent lets you have 20 points worth of abilities, or all abilities in your power under 10 points. Or you can do a decent amount of work to set all psis with the same talent to have the same limit on what they can use.

The above methods all basically give free points, from a classic gurps perspective. If its necessary to get your genre to work, then that's what it takes. Additionally, realize you'll want to give some kinds of ability more love in an ultra-tech setting, particularly physical defenses and TK.