Psionic Sorcery (and psionics questions)

[Gearloose]

I request the aid of the mighty hive-mind!

Psionic Sorcery
I've been thinking about making a psionics campaign for a while now and one thing that was bothering me about Psionic Powers is how specialized a psi must be. I rather have psis having the option of a larger breadth of abilities, mainly because in my setting psionics is something that anyone can learn, so I thought of mixing up the psionic rules with the sorcery rules. I also like the idea of having an advantage that represents the character raw power so it will fit nicely.

Since both Psi and Sorcery limitations are both -10% and think making skill rolls is a nice replacement for the 1FP cost. I also like the idea of having a VH skill for each power and the abilities themselves are A or H skills that default to the power skill and are capped by it (like thaumatology for RPM). Would this work? Is there some issue that I'm not seeing that could cause trouble during play?

General psi and powers questions
I'm confused with three psi abilities:

• TK Grab: When using TK grab, can a character move the object in the same round he used the ability, like just throwing something far away? Or you must always wait the time for lifting the object?
• Astral Sight: Astral sight is made with see invisible and medium, isn't that the same as Medium (Visual)? Also, in my setting every sort of spirit is an astral entity, should I remove the "Specialized, Astral" limitation?
• Healing: This is less an issue with the ability from Psionic Powers and more with the Healing advantage itself. I generally don't like instant healing powers that can be used over and over again, because that pretty much removes all of the recovery time for an injured character. Is there a way to make a first-aid power? Something that can be used in the same situation as the skill, but can only heal 1d or something like that?

Thanks in advance!

[Anders]

I thought about this, and it should work fine. You may want to add some other things like the ability to Gestalts and stuff like that.

[DangerousThing]

One problem with making an advantage indicate the raw power of a psion is that sometimes this is built into the power (tk grab) and sometimes the range is built into the power (telepathy). I've been wrestling with a way to put power uniformly across so that, for example, there could be a low-skilled but powerful telepath that could RIP somebody's mind apart without subtlty.

[DangerousThing]

One of the most interesting things that Sorcery provides is the ability to use improvised spells at low power.

[Gearloose]

I thought about this, and it should work fine. You may want to add some other things like the ability to Gestalts and stuff like that.

Yeah, I'll be using all the normal psionics rules, I just wanted to change how the powers are bought. I will use the extra effort rules from psionics as well, because I think it scales better than the once from sorcery.

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

One problem with making an advantage indicate the raw power of a psion is that sometimes this is built into the power (tk grab) and sometimes the range is built into the power (telepathy). I've been wrestling with a way to put power uniformly across so that, for example, there could be a low-skilled but powerful telepath that could RIP somebody's mind apart without subtlty.

I did some fluff to justify that. Psi is pretty much running "astral program" in your head. Psi Power (equivalento to Sorcerous Empowerment) would be like a psi's CPU, how much power his brain can handle. Each ability is like a program, you can make them more powerful but only up to how much your brain can handle. You would still need the skill, just because you have a piece of software doesn't mean you now how to use it.

Ah, another thing. Since psionics is pretty much computing, I'll make "psychotronic software" available for quantum computers, but they are limited by complexity, like every 5 points (rounding up) increases the software complexity by one.

[Plane]

The more I read on Sorcery the more I think the -10 could be thought of as more than -5 -5 summed.

Like the way magic works isn't just "the user must be in mana" but also "the target must be in mana" I think, which is Environmental -10%, but then there is also the benefit not mentioned in Mana-Sensitive which magic enjoys: next-second FP refunds in Very High, which perhaps we could think of as +10% so it still works out to the same final price.

Especially if you borrow the fun-fun crit tables magic has (or thaumatology) which can cause more interesting problems than your usual crit fail tables. If those were -5% then the VH refund could be +15%

Another aspect of magic we don't see in sorcery is how non-knowledge spells with FP costs are reduced to 1 FP on normal failures and 0 FP on critical successes. That might be a benefit that cancels out the "I accidentally summoned a demon" problem of the crit tables

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Gearloose

General psi and powers questions
I'm confused with three psi abilities:

• TK Grab: When using TK grab, can a character move the object in the same round he used the ability, like just throwing something far away? Or you must always wait the time for lifting the object?
• Astral Sight: Astral sight is made with see invisible and medium, isn't that the same as Medium (Visual)? Also, in my setting every sort of spirit is an astral entity, should I remove the "Specialized, Astral" limitation?
• Healing: This is less an issue with the ability from Psionic Powers and more with the Healing advantage itself. I generally don't like instant healing powers that can be used over and over again, because that pretty much removes all of the recovery time for an injured character. Is there a way to make a first-aid power? Something that can be used in the same situation as the skill, but can only heal 1d or something like that?

Thanks in advance!

TK Grab - Usually you need to pick up an object with a Ready Maneuver before you can use another maneuver with it.

Astral Sight - Medium(Visual) would be a viable alternative, but note that the range is quite short [Powers mentions an assumed one yard range], and also that Exclusive is not a RAW modifier for Medium.

Healing - Not sure I'm understanding you correctly. Do you just want Healing with Injuries Only and Capped?

[Gearloose]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

TK Grab - Usually you need to pick up an object with a Ready Maneuver before you can use another maneuver with it.

Astral Sight - Medium(Visual) would be a viable alternative, but note that the range is quite short [Powers mentions an assumed one yard range], and also that Exclusive is not a RAW modifier for Medium.

Healing - Not sure I'm understanding you correctly. Do you just want Healing with Injuries Only and Capped?

I thought you needed to pick up the object first. Just wanted to be sure.

Ah, I must have missed the part about the range from Medium(Visual), I thought it was a line-of-sight thing.

About the healing, more or less... with Injuries Only and Capped you could still heal the same person every day, maybe even two or more times a day, if your skill is high enough. I was thinking of a power that works like Bandaging and Treat Shock, something you can do after the danger passes, but you can't keep using it to heal 8 extra HP per day. I like the danger and drama of characters being taken out for a long time and would rather that grievously injured characters weren't back at their feet after two or three days of almost dying. Maybe it could be an accessibility limitation for Healing, but I think that would reduce it's cost too much.

[Ejidoth]

Originally Posted by Gearloose

Maybe it could be an accessibility limitation for Healing, but I think that would reduce it's cost too much.

I tend to go for a conservative -20% Accessibility for 'removes a big chunk of what you use the ability for, but also leaves a big chunk of it available', since -20% is the 'useful half the time' limitation.

Basically, you can think of Healing as being used for both First Aid and for longer-term treatment. The first aid style use is going to happen more often, but the longer-term treatment is going to involve using it multiple times. It's hard to guess what percentage of uses each of those two options would need, but just fudge it and say they roughly balance out, so the first aid use is half of the ability and the repeated treatment is the other half. Thus: Accessibility, First aid only, -20%.

Probably also add Injuries Only and Capped, to match First Aid better.

[Refplace]

Medium with Visual is very different than See Invisible (Spirits).
Medium is really under the spirits control, they can become visible (or solid with Manifestation) if they want to, so you wont see them unless they want you to. Also, as noted, the range is only a yard.

For Healing you could cap it but if what your really looking for just a one time thing than put that limitation on it. Accessibility, only those not previously healed in any manner, including First Aid, -20%. I think -20% is fair.