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1 year ago ::
Mar 15, 2012 - 5:10PM
#231
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2012
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The whole Qi, Chi, Ki, Prana, Odic Force, Jedi Force thing overlaps exquisitely, which means you have a really solid mechanism for several character classes. I recall the gods of AD&D having all sorts of spells as innate abilities to simulate their godlike abilities, but also thinking some of them lacked a divine flavor, and were almost tacky. They didn't feel godlike to me, they weren't familiar. Yet I could say the opposite about the way many psionic powers worked in a variety of scenes from books and films.
There's no difference between the 'casting style' of a god and a psionicist. They are both only limited by their faculties, and where the psychic has attained epic stats, they will be identical, and indistinguishable, and there's no logical reason not to do it that way.
In Deities and Demigods, a level 0 god already has 20 levels of Unknown power. I'm suggesting making those 20 levels of a specialized Psion, even if their Psionic Type (Telepath, Psychokineticist, Psychometabolist, Traveller, Esper, etc.) is unique. It's a bit strange, but it balances well, especially when we start defining powers like Insight and Intution that evolve into other things like Cosmic Awareness and Alter Reality.
Options are Liberating
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1 year ago ::
Mar 15, 2012 - 6:29PM
#232
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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Gods are the corrupt psions.
They are the Ori, the Sorcerer-Kings, they have forgotten what it means to be mortal and are content to sit upon their laurels and play cruel games with those they claim to care for. They care for naught but their own agenda and exemplify all that is wrong with whatever faucet of existence they claim as their portfolio.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 15, 2012 - 6:50PM
#233
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2012
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Gods are the corrupt psions.
They are the Ori, the Sorcerer-Kings, they have forgotten what it means to be mortal and are content to sit upon their laurels and play cruel games with those they claim to care for. They care for naught but their own agenda and exemplify all that is wrong with whatever faucet of existence they claim as their portfolio.
I can agree with that. It's more or less implied in the Mahabharata, when Krishna uses his Chakra to block Indra's lightning bolt - he's a "mortal' but the gods are still inferior to his awesomeness. The Sorcerer Kings is a great example in D&D of how Psionics can go both godly and wrong.
Options are Liberating
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1 year ago ::
Mar 20, 2012 - 10:42PM
#234
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2012
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Skill Tree Samples for Telekinesis 1. Motion ( Telekinesis, Wis bonus as Str) a. Accelerate b. Rotate ( Spin) 2. TK Crush 3. TK Strike/Punch 4.Precision ( Int bonus as Dex) a. Controlled Flight ( Int As Dex) b. Missile Weapon ( As Wizard, c.f. Accelerate) i. Missile Weapon ( As Rogue) ii. Missile Weapon ( As Archer) c. Melee ( As Wizard, c.f. Accelerate & Rotate) i. Melee ( As Rogue) ii. Melee ( As Warrior) d. Surgical ( Add Wis Mod to Int As Dex, Check at -1/+1 to Dex) 5. Long Range a. Range of Sight b. Unseen Target ( Sight Beyond Sight) 6. Contact Affinity ( Touch Bonus) 7. Massive Object ( Wis As Str, Check at -2/+1 to Str) a. Super Massive Object ( Add Int Mod to Wis As Str, Check at -1/+1 to Str) 8. Collective Target ( Many as One) a. Multi-Target b. Mass Melee ( c.f. precision) c. Missile Volley ( c.f. precision) 9. Telekinetic Barrier ( Force Field) a. Telekinetic Weapon ( Force Blade, c.f. Psychic Blade) i. Force Bolt (c.f. TK Strike) b. Telekinetic Fortitude ( Force Armor, c.f. Telekinetic Barrier) i. TK Strength ( Force Sheath, c.f. Massive Object, TK As Str) 10. Levitation a. Telekinetic Flight This is what I've come up with so far for telekinesis. Note that Psychic Blade connects to Telepathy, and Sight Beyond Sight (The ability to target objects you cannot see) connects to Clairvoyance. The ten larger spheres connecting to the smaller spheres represent core Telekinetic abilities. Most of them do not have any prerequisite except Telekinesis/Motion itself. Each sphere, larger and smaller represents a feat/power in a Tree, some being prerequisites or helping others. Many can work synergistically with each other, such as extended range, greater masses, acceleration, and various levels of precision. Feats not depicted in the Image include: Super-massive Object, and the Rogue and Warrior Precision levels of Melee and Missile, which as you might have guessed, provide attack bonuses with telekinetically wielded or fired weapons according to the listed class, as if equal level. Thus if you had Melee (Rogue) Precision, you could telekinetically wield a Short Sword, for instance, with the same attack bonuses as a normal rogue equal to your Psion level. Massive Object and Supermassive Object assume attribute Ranges into the supernatural range will permit weights ranging from several hundred pounds to extremely heavy objects such as boulders and trees.
Options are Liberating
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1 year ago ::
Mar 21, 2012 - 11:45AM
#235
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2012
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Ah, I spaced, Apparently Multi-target is also missing from the Diagram.
That puts the total I missed at
1. missile/warrior
2. missile/rogue
3. melee/warrior
4. melee/rogue
5. supermassive object
6. multi-target
I think I would have to use a much larger diagram, although I recognize developers will have their own charts and ideas about what Psionics should do. Rather, I was trying to illustrate how the feat tree might look, and how the flow of powers might feel.
Telekinetic Strength/Force Sheath is that effect some versions of Superman and Magneto used, where they covered themselves in an invisible skin-tight forcefield that allowed them to simulate superhuman strength and endurance. It's even possible this forcefield would have volume, and not just surface, so that you could reinforce your bones, muscles, and organs, so as to not break, crack, or liquefy from heavy weights or sudden acceleration from a great fall or high gravity.
Collective Targeting is when you perceive a collection of things, such as the junk on a desk, as one "group", and then move all objects in that area at the same time, relative to each other. This is much easier than moving the same number of objects in different directions.
They call these different directions and speeds that each object is moving "vectors", but call the relative space to each "inertial frames", the latter being the idea behind collective targeting.
Options are Liberating
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1 year ago ::
Mar 21, 2012 - 12:59PM
#236
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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I think I'm missing context to understand the details, but it looks like a talent tree for telekineses.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 21, 2012 - 2:30PM
#237
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2012
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I think I'm missing context to understand the details, but it looks like a talent tree for telekineses.
Right on both accounts. I didn't want to scare off readers with a wall of text.
When you have Telekinetic "Motion", I'm assuming you've gotten past the training wheels of 1-3 Prep feats/talents like ESP or whatever makes you "Psychic". In the same way a Monk doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity, and does lethal damage, I'm assuming Psions as a class start with these "Prep" feats for free.
Motion is the general ability to move objects, making them twist, topple over, or shake. As you gain skill with motion, you can cause the object to move, generally slowly, probably up to the speed of your hand, and objects in weight up a Strength equal to your wisdom bonus. So if you had a Wisdom bonus of +3, you would have a Strength of 3 to move around the object, unsteadily, as if you had 0 Dexterity with it (a -5 to hit with it).
Accelerate is the ability to speed up or slow down objects along a line or path, suddenly, or by concentration, if you can keep up with them. By means of this talent, you can make a peanut into a bullet or stop an incoming arrow from stabbing you. Higher speeds have higher difficulties, but as long as you can keep track of the object, there's no technical limit to how fast you could make it go by concentration over several rounds. Objects have their own momentum once released - i.e., if you sped it up to 100mph, it's still going 100mph when you let go.
Rotate/Spin is the ability to make an object rotate faster or slower about an axis. The bigger the diameter, the higher the penalty, but in general, all else being equal, Spinning stuff is about 3 times slower than accelerate (+10acc = +3spin). Remember the size tables in 3e? They had str modifiers from fine (-16) to colossal (+16). These apply to spinning objects in terms of difficulty. You can use spin to make whirlpools in water, to make buzz-saws, turn windmills, or play jokes on ice-skaters. Used on enough Air, you could make a Tornado.
I can cover more if you like, such as Precision and TK Crush.
Options are Liberating
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1 year ago ::
Mar 21, 2012 - 2:55PM
#238
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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The problem is that those are all basically the same thing.
I mean when it comes to TK there's two general techniques, sustained vs. impulse.
A sustained action is something like a slow force choke, or pinning a target. It requires less immediate power than than breaking the neck at the same range, or stopping a charging enemy cold, but greater focus.
An impulse action is a quick burst of power such as flinging a rock or hurling a tk blast, it's quick powerful and gets results fast.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 21, 2012 - 3:13PM
#239
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2008
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Gods are the corrupt psions.
They are the Ori, the Sorcerer-Kings, they have forgotten what it means to be mortal and are content to sit upon their laurels and play cruel games with those they claim to care for. They care for naught but their own agenda and exemplify all that is wrong with whatever faucet of existence they claim as their portfolio.
Or ascended Ancients looking after the Big Picture...
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1 year ago ::
Mar 21, 2012 - 3:24PM
#240
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2008
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The problem is that those are all basically the same thing.
I mean when it comes to TK there's two general techniques, sustained vs. impulse.
A sustained action is something like a slow force choke, or pinning a target. It requires less immediate power than than breaking the neck at the same range, or stopping a charging enemy cold, but greater focus.
An impulse action is a quick burst of power such as flinging a rock or hurling a tk blast, it's quick powerful and gets results fast.
All motion can be created by pushing and pulling different parts of an object at different rates...
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