Extra Effort Costs for Psionic Powers - pls help

[Shimmin Beg]

Originally Posted by Thökk

So, a consequence of this, as I understand it, going from Ability level 10 to 11 has a trivial -1 penalty, while from 1 to 2 gives almost impossible to beat -10 without a substantial Will or skill investment.

That's as I understand it. As with enhancing attributes, it ensures that you can't simply buy the first level of various abilities and rely on boosting them to full power. The psi rules are actually more generous, normal Extra Effort being -1 per 5% increase.

The system of levels does create a few break points where a high-Will character can save points by taking that risk. E.g. Damage Control 3 is 32 points, DC4 jumps to 64 points but is only a 33% increase in level, so if you're only occasionally dealing with (say) burning damage, you can save your points and gamble on making the roll to halve it.
(for those without Psionic Powers, DC3 doesn't help with burning, while DC4 halves it)