Psychic Character Help

[icefyer]

I apologize if this is in the wrong subforum or anything. So, I'm new to GURPS. I understand most of the stats and such, but a lot of the rest of character creation has me absolutely stumped. Frankly I'm starting to feel burnt out just trying to make a character, but that might just be because this is my first attempt at a character period and I'm suffering from a frustrating mental block.

Anyway, our GM, Storyteller, whatever term you want to use, is running a sci-fi game and I pitched an idea of the Esper, ala https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXiD-kEDWKg I've already got the basics of the particular alien species in mind, such as resistance to toxins / radiation, a thick tail for balance, high IQ, enhanced smell and such, but I'm stumped on how to actually stat it out as far as that and the psychic powers go, like if the healing is restricted to one target at a time or if I could area-heal, or how a psychic damage-reduction barrier would function.

[nerdvana]

Knowing what books you have available will be helpful as there are options that open up if you include more books than the core rulebook(s).

[icefyer]

Originally Posted by nerdvana

Knowing what books you have available will be helpful as there are options that open up if you include more books than the core rulebook(s).

Oh. Well, He's allowing me access to all the 4E rulebooks if it makes sense in a sci-fi setting with magic, so for example a friend's playing a mage that channels his magic through a plasma pistol, so his spells are limited not just by FP but also by how much ammunition he has available. His only restriction is 'no rediculous gamebreakers like having altered time rate'

[sir_pudding]

Are you using the psionics rules from GURPS Psionic Powers?

[nerdvana]

Originally Posted by icefyer

Oh. Well, He's allowing me access to all the 4E rulebooks if it makes sense in a sci-fi setting with magic, so for example a friend's playing a mage that channels his magic through a plasma pistol, so his spells are limited not just by FP but also by how much ammunition he has available.

Ok, Psionic Powers gives a lot of pre-made abilities, but you are looking at applying advantages from the Characters book and Powers.

Powers I see from that video would include those based on Illusion (from Powers), Teleport, Telekinesis, Ally (summonable), Healing and Innate Attack... others as you wish.

How many points is your GM giving you to build your character?

[Anders]

You can heal more than one character at a time if you add the Area Effect enhancement...

...but it will cost a crapload of Fatigue unless you also add the Reduced Fatigue enhancement. This may be more advanced than you want to get at this stage, but it is possible with just the Basic Set.

[McAllister]

First, it is way easier to make a Dungeon Fantasy character, a Monster Hunter character, or any other "build to a specific set of rules" character than it is to just make a character. You're probably burning out because there are so many options. It helps to restrict your scope.

Second, there are at least two ways to do psychic powers in core. I support just buying them as Advantages with a "Psi [-10%]" or "ESP [-10%]" modifier.

Third, for the specifics you listed, you could add Area Effect to Healing if you wanted to heal more than one person at once, but that might get expensive; Reduced FP Cost is helpful. For a damage-reduction barrier, you want the Damage Reduction advantage: it's either got the Force Field Enhancement if it's limited to protecting you, or maybe the Wall Enhancement* if you can throw it up like a wall, and making these Alternate Abilities (the cheaper one has a flat 1/5 cost modifier, but they can't both be active and it takes a Ready action to switch between them) might help. There's also an Active Defense Limitation in Powers you might like. Actually, you might like Powers in general.

Let us know if you have any more specifics you need help with.

*I can't remember if this Enhancement works with Damage Reduction per RAW, but it's easy enough to imagine it would.

[nerdvana]

Also (and I hope this doesn't sound trite) I would ask your GM to help you because any GURPS GM should be aware of how easily it can be overwhelming to a new player.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by nerdvana

Also (and I hope this doesn't sound trite) I would ask your GM to help you because any GURPS GM should be aware of how easily it can be overwhelming to a new player.

- Give any and all required assistance to all players, during character creation, short of actually creating the characters for them, ought to be a mandatory element of Code of Honor (GM). But it isn't (and most GMs don't have CoH anyway).

As for GURPS Psionic Powers, which Sir Pudding referred to, I get the impression the OP isn't using it, but I think he ought to. It's an excellent resource.

Also, there are supplements to GURPS Psionic Powers. I haven't read them closely (to put it mildly), but it's my impression that one of them is heavy on Templates and on slot-in abilities for Templates. I don't know which one, but given how few supplements there are in the Psionic Powers series, it's easily to determine which one (or to determine that that particular supplement doesn't exist and that I'm misremembering).

[Gedrin]

You're probably looking at a collection of Powers. If you don't have that book, it's probably a good buy for this character. However, before looking at Powers, it's a good idea to break up what you want to do into specific abilities. There are also rules in the Characters book, but they aren't as robust.

You might phrase your healing as: I can heal people's wounds, crippling injuries and illnesses. In combat I can restore HP at range, either a big heal on a single person, or a wide heal on a number of people. I can even grant people a HoT effect.

In Powers this probably would be a few abilities.
Heal HP to Target
Heal HP over AoE
Cure Diseases
Temporarily grant a Regeneration Advantage

As an example, your single target heal could be built with Healing as it's base. This gets you the ability to cure diseases and crippling injury as well.
Healing 30pts
Given your campaign, you'll probably be able to heal all PC's at the base cost, but you want to be able to heal animals and such as well, essentially "All Earthly (or whatever) Life." Depending on your GM, you might want to bump to "All Carbon Based" or just plain everything (Tholians, AI's, Ghosts).
+ 40% for all earthly life
Healing is normal physical contact only, but you want to use it at range
+ 40% for making a contact power ranged
You're "psychic" so you can use that as your power base, meaning that psi blocking and enhancing magic/psi/tech/fnord works in relation to your powers. Since this is WildStar, and all "clenses" work on all abilities, your GM may just decide everything is "Super", but that would still be the same point value.
-10% Psychic
Total Cost: 51pts

Your AoE heal would be all of the above plus the ability to heal everyone in a 4 yard radius.
+100% 4 yard AoE
However, you don't want to heal enemies, just selected targets in the area
+20% Selective Area

Total Cost: 87pts

Looking at these powers, it looks like you could just buy the AoE version, and use it on 1 or more people as you like (Selective Area). So I'd just buy the AoE version.

Proceed as above for the rest of the abilities you want. I'm sure there are all kinds of ways to save points on the various powers, but I'll leave that to your exploration and the other advice you'll find. Point saving ideas include making your powers "Alternate Abilities", adding restrictions like meditation or codes of conduct, or maybe tying them to the character's Psy-Blade as a focus or source of power using the Gadget rules.