Babylon 5 campaign: some questions

[TorgSmith]

Originally Posted by Bookman

Psi abilities are generally contests of will; one could call Will+Psi Talent-8 your P rating if you were so inclined.

Psi Corps training, as it is depicted in the Bester B5 books, would certainly books willpower. A P12 would then be someone with something like IQ-12, Will-16, Telepathy Talent IV.

Just an off-the-cuff thought.

I was thinking about using Will but it is only 5 points per level to increase. Intelligence costs 20 to increase per point but I did not want to require the player to be super smart to be a Psi. I am planning on running a high CP game so I want the cost of a P12 to be quite high. This is what drove me to think about using an advantage as Psi strength.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Harald387

I'd also note that, with two notable exceptions, it doesn't seem like B5-verse psis could do much in terms of training or practice to *increase* their abilities or add new ones;

I think the B5 universe just has a very limited skill set for Psis ... it's not like the magic in drag psi that appears in so many RPG rules: most Psis seem to be some combination of telepath/empath with a bit of object-reading thrown in in some cases.
The only other Psi we see that I can remember is Centauri precognition and a bit of TK - no fancy stuff, force knives, flying or what have you.

Unless, of course, what Lorien does is Psionics...

[Dragondog]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Lower than the Minbari and Centauri, but not the Narns IMO. I have the impression that Narn tech is cobbled together from whatever they could steal from the Centauri during their revolt, and that they've only backwards-engineered something slightly less advanced than what humans have. They don't seem to have artificial gravity, for example.

Earth bought weapons from the Narn during the Earth Minbari war. Perhaps they got those from the Centauri from the beginning, but they seem to be able to do it themselves now.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Dragondog

Earth bought weapons from the Narn during the Earth Minbari war. Perhaps they got those from the Centauri from the beginning, but they seem to be able to do it themselves now.

IIRC (I think it was in one of the movies) the Narn were selling salvaged Centauri weaponry to the EA, both for the foreign exchange and in the hope that the Minbari would find it and blame the Centauri.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Yes, they were stolen Centauri weapons. The possibility of framing the Centauri amused G'Kar. Also, Earth wasn't necessarily buying arms just because they were of a different technology. They probably were just running short, and having trouble keeping up with the demand.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Yes, they were stolen Centauri weapons. The possibility of framing the Centauri amused G'Kar. Also, Earth wasn't necessarily buying arms just because they were of a different technology. They probably were just running short, and having trouble keeping up with the demand.

The Centauri were higher tech than Earth before the start of the B5 series though. For example, the Centauri Primus class battle cruiser had artificial gravity and propulsion 200 years before Earth built the Warlock class with the same feature.

That superiority no doubt evaporated rapidly as the series went on but Centauri tech appears to have stagnated for 200 years.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Did humans ever get artificial gravity without rotation? Maybe they did on Excalibur and it's twin (which were built with alien help) but not on their regular ships and stations.

I think the Centauri gave humans jump drives, though.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Did humans ever get artificial gravity without rotation? Maybe they did on Excalibur and it's twin (which were built with alien help) but not on their regular ships and stations.

I think the Centauri gave humans jump drives, though.

http://www.b5tech.com/earthalliance/...k/warlock.html

...says the Warlock class was built for artificial gravity and it certainly doesn't have any obvious rotating sections.

Of course, it was a late development built with some alien technology. However, this was Dilgar and Centauri tech. The Excalibers were built with even more advanced Minbari and Vorlon tech.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Somehow I totally forgot about those... I still don't remember them.

I remember some weird Shadow-tech-hybrid destroyers that Earth built towards the end of the civil war, though.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Somehow I totally forgot about those... I still don't remember them.

I remember some weird Shadow-tech-hybrid destroyers that Earth built towards the end of the civil war, though.

The warlocks don't appear in the series IIRC, although I think Ivanova got appointed to command one when she transferred off B5 - don't recall if they said as much on screen though.
The Excalibur class were from the abortive spin-off series Crusade.

The Shadow hybrid destroyers were something else - Epsilon model of the Omega class I think...

And as for the EA buying Centauri jump engines ... I think that's mentioned in "In the beginning".