Psionics 4th ed Questions

[PK]

Originally Posted by rcarter

Imbuements are prohibitively expensive, though.

Not really. They're just IQ/VH skills instead of IQ/H. (As written, they're DX skills, but the rules support moving 'em to IQ for psis, mages, etc.) So that's just -1 to skill for the same price. That leaves the Imbue advantage, which is comparatively priced to most psi abilities -- Imbue 2 (PK, -10%) is the same price as a few levels of TK Grab, and cheaper than Pyrokinesis 2.

Also, it seems like all of the skills that could simulate "psychokinetic control over the bullet" are part of Imbue 2, with the sole exception of Homing Weapon. Still, Guided Weapon is almost as good, and it fits psis better -- it makes sense that you'd have to concentrate to guide the bullet to its target. So I'd just include the Arching Shot, Bank Shot, Far Shot, and Guided Weapon skills, which keeps the price down even more.

If you want to compensate for having to buy a bunch of skills, just bundle extra Imbuement Talent into the ability. If it only affects the Imbuement skills (no advantages), it's 5/level, and if you treat it as a special case and let it stack with PK Talent, you can achieve some large bonuses. (You could do the same by allowing lots of extra PK Talent, of course, but that opens the door for all psi -- bundling in Imbuement Talent lets you make it more of a "hidden exception" for Imbuement skills.) Like:

Psychic Gunslinging (12/17/22/27/32 points for levels 1-5)

Skill: Special (see description).

You can learn certain Imbuement Skills (see GURPS Power-Ups 1: Imbuements for rules and details) that let you do impossible things with bullets. You may only learn the Arching Shot, Bank Shot, Far Shot, and Guided Weapon skills, and only for specialties of the Guns skill. For example, you could learn Bank Shot (Pistol) and Far Shot (Rifle), but not Scattershot (Pistol) or Bank Shot (Bow). This ability is thus unique in that, theoretically, it could have up to 36 associated skills instead of just one. In practice, since all Guns skills (and thus all Guns Imbuement Skills) default to each other, it generally makes sense to buy skills for one specialty and default the others.

All such skills are IQ/VH (not IQ/H, like most psionic skills, or DX/H, like non-psionic Imbuement Skills). If you have Psychic Gunslinging at level 2+, add your (level-1) to all skills, cumulative with Psychokinesis Talent. For example, if you have Psychokinesis Talent 3 and Psychic Gunslinging 5, you'd add +7 to all Psychic Gunslinging skills.

In some campaigns, Gunslinger (p. B58) may be a prerequisite for this ability; ask your GM.

Statistics: Imbue 2 (Accessibility, Gun specialties only, -10%; Limited Skill Access, Four Skills, -20%; Psychokinesis, -10%) [12]. Further levels add Imbuement Talent, one level at a time [+5/level].

Innate attack similar to PK Bullet with the modifier requires a focus/delivery object. like breakable and can be stolen but not a unique item just one item class - arrow, bullet, gun. (This would be creating psi-bullets/arrows and using a gun/bow as a delivery object to channel/deliver the psi-energy and removing the damage of the original object all together)

Maybe a power structure more like your sword with incremental partial dice but instead of an innate attack it is a 'charge' attack that is temporarily passed onto an object - bullet, arrow and then delivered by the object when it hits it's target. (This would be using the original object, bullet/arrow damage and tacking on a limited 1pt/level damage modifier. Regardless of whether or not the rules cover it 1pt/level isn't going to break anyone's hearts.)

That would cover adding extra damage to the attacks, sure. You'd use Followup, Any Attack (+50%, from PU2).

so that would cover the basic damage portion and then enhancements like guided, homing, would be techniques that could be applied to either delivery method?

Not really. The techniques would only apply to the extra damage that you're adding, not to the basic damage. That's the whole problem -- GURPS breaks on this without Imbuements.