More on Rick's Psionics for TFT.

[Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi all, 
  I've done a bit more work on the D&D style psionics for TFT.  

  In AD&D they had, in addition to the combat abilities of psions,
Minor Disciplines and Major Sciences.  These were 'spell like
effects'.  Basically, cool abilities that were chosen at random,
(you might not get any), that allowed the psion to cast a spell
or three.

  I was not happy with the AD&D system.  The abilities were 
random and arbitrary, some of them didn't feel very psionic-y,
and their was no balance between them.  (Some were trivial,
others were very powerful.  Altho a trivial ability was still better
than getting NO spell like abilities.)


  I wanted a suite of abilities that matched what sort of psion 
you were.  So if your ability was ESP, you had ESP type 
powers.

  I debated how they would be bought.  If you had to buy them
like TFT talents, the cost for a psion would go sky high.  (It 
already has a huge attribute footprint just for the basic psionics.)  
However, giving the players the whole suite of abilities at the 
start felt too generous.  Nor did I like the idea of randomly 
deciding how many of these abilities you could get.

  I eventually decided to make the cost linear, like George Dew 
did in his TFT reboot, "Legends of the Ancient World".  In that 
game, attributes do not go up geometrically as time passes.  It 
always costs the same amount to buy one level of a talent.  (It 
almost costs the same to raise an attribute, but it goes up 
linearly.)

  (So in Legends of the Ancient world, to raise an attribute,
costs the value of the new attribute.  If you want to raise your IQ 
to 14, it costs 14 character points.  If you want to raise it to 16, it 
costs 16 characters points, etc.)

  You would spend experience points to buy the disciplines,
but they DO NOT raise your attribute total.  They have a flat 
cost of 100 exp per skill level bought.  This felt like a nice 
compromise and fits into my desire to have more things that 
you can spend experience points on in TFT.


  I also was inspired by GURPS Psionics (for 3rd edition
GURPS).  I liked how the psionic abilities had both a skill,
and a power.  So a figure with a high power and low skill,
could mentally push an elephant across the street, but 
would have a hard time maneuvering it on top of a car.  But 
a figure with a high skill and a lower power could maneuver
a dime into a parking meter slot, while carrying on a 
conversation, but could only lift a few grams of mass.

  
  My psionics will have major sciences (Telepathy, ESP,
Astral Travel, etc.) and within those sciences disciplines
which allow you to do cool things.

  I chose NOT to add kinesis and pyrokinesis.  Being able to
lift up large masses with your mind, or set things on fire, felt
too magical for me.  I prefer to have the mind powers be more 
subtle.  (Tho lots of psionic fiction have these effects.)


  Each discipline has a skill level.  So if you have mind reading 
at skill level 16 and power 3, you will feel different than if you 
have mind reading at skill 7, and power 12.  Many of the 
descriptions for a discipline says "roll X dice vs THIS SKILL",
where This Skill, was what ever the discipline was.  (So if
you had the discipline, "Mentally Enter Astral Plane", and it
asked to you roll 3vs This Skill, you would roll 3d6 vs your
skill level in "Mentally Enter Astral Plane".


  The power was based on how many memory (mIQ) is 
spent on that science.  This power DOES raise your attribute 
total.  However, most of the time buying a modest power of 1 to 
4 would be plenty.


  Anyway, I doubt that anyone other than I will be using these
rules, but you are welcome to read thru them and give 
comments.

  (I'll send the rules for Telepathy science and its disciplines
in the next few emails.)

  Warm regards, Rick.