You...Change the Psionic System

[Sureshot]

Borrowing the idea from Lenwen magic thread. How would you personally if at all change the current psionic system being used as canon by Palladium ?

[The Baron of chaos]

Oh boy! You don't know what pandora's box you've opened
Lets get it started

1) I will change how ISP recovery work. Essentially I will tie it to the ME rather than a fixed value. Master Psionic like Bursters or Mind Melters get also a bonus of 1d4 per level. So a 15th level Mind melter with ME of 13 will recover 13+1d6x10 ISP per hour of meditation. Keep in mind that is a 15th leve mind melter we are talking about, at third level he would have recovered 13+3d4 per hour
2) I will make range, MDC and damage of ALL psionic power increase wiht experience and not just some. Or as alternative allow to use ISP to increase it. 2 ISP increase range by 5 ft, 10 ISP increase damage by 50% in case of SDC damage, 20 ISP for MDC damage.
3) Mind control powers require a battle of will, and not just saving throw, at least against characters with ME greater than 10
4) Mind bolt had to be revised completely

Yes is all for what I'm concerned

[The Galactus Kid]

certain powers of certain classes need to go up by level. See the many discussions in the Burster thread.

[keir451]

Oh boy! You don't know what pandora's box you've opened
Lets get it started

1) I will change how ISP recovery work. Essentially I will tie it to the ME rather than a fixed value. Master Psionic like Bursters or Mind Melters get also a bonus of 1d4 per level. So a 15th level Mind melter with ME of 13 will recover 13+1d6x10 ISP per hour of meditation. Keep in mind that is a 15th leve mind melter we are talking about, at third level he would have recovered 13+3d4 per hour
2) I will make range, MDC and damage of ALL psionic power increase wiht experience and not just some. Or as alternative allow to use ISP to increase it. 2 ISP increase range by 5 ft, 10 ISP increase damage by 50% in case of SDC damage, 20 ISP for MDC damage.
3) Mind control powers require a battle of will, and not just saving throw, at least against characters with ME greater than 10
4) Mind bolt had to be revised completely

Yes is all for what I'm concerned

I can agree on these, I would add the ability of a Mind Melter to get two Psi-swords. They are THE most powerful psi in the game yet a wimpy Cyberknight now gets two but not the Melter?
Boost the Burster.

[Jay05]

I'd agree some powers need upgrades. I'd also agree about the Mind Melter and the psi-swords. However , melters aren't the most powerfull psi in the game. See Achilles Neo-Human-SA2. Unless of course the Melter has been updated as of RUE. The Neo-Humans have the same abilities as Mind Melters and then some.

[runebeo]

First off more psionics powers are needed like the ones in Rifter 25 but the one power which made the character only take half damage from energy needs to be a super psionic as a minor it will then be open too many creatures like dragons, demons, alien intelligences, etc... and since most damage in Rifts is energy based boss battles could take an extreme amount of time.

Mind control power like the vampire's power.

Old Palladium Fantasy had teleport as a power.

Wheres a psychic power to summon & control demon & the supernatural, not only shifters should be able to do this.

Take some of the powers from the mutants in South America and tone them down and make them super psionics.

Mind Bolt should be revised to do same damage but after the first blast the psychic should do a roll vs M.E./will to do additional blast for free and perhaps a third one for another M.E. roll with a reduced penalty of say 2.

more ways to restore I.S.P. pools like group meditation or some I.S.P. return from early cancellation of powers durations. psi-sword costs 30 and last 30 minutes cancel it after 10 minutes get say 10 i.s.p. back. Could make this a simple power with lots of value to mind melter.

How about an ability to increase the psionic saving number as too many creatures are almost immune to psionic with the psi save bonus and high M.E. make this a super and maybe let them take it a second time to get a -2 to save against, still not too abusive.

A counter magic psionic power to negate other powers or spell but needs to be costly to do say equal to the I.S.P. or P.P.E. spent. Still be great for stopping Magic Net and stupid carpets of adhesion. This power should be linked to telepathy, sixth sense or clairvoyance to make sense out of knowing whats going on.

Just a few ideas nothing too major and easy to add in down the road.

[johnkretzer]

I can agree on these, I would add the ability of a Mind Melter to get two Psi-swords. They are THE most powerful psi in the game yet a wimpy Cyberknight now gets two but not the Melter?
Boost the Burster.

Un...they already can have two psi-swords. It just requires them to manifest twice. Now if you mean that they should be able to get two psi-swords for only one manifestation...maybe.

But what really needs to happen is the length of time it take to mainifest the power. Especialy for Psi-Warriors...though that whole class needs to be reworked.

[keir451]

I can agree on these, I would add the ability of a Mind Melter to get two Psi-swords. They are THE most powerful psi in the game yet a wimpy Cyberknight now gets two but not the Melter?
Boost the Burster.

Un...they already can have two psi-swords. It just requires them to manifest twice. Now if you mean that they should be able to get two psi-swords for only one manifestation...maybe.

But what really needs to happen is the length of time it take to mainifest the power. Especialy for Psi-Warriors...though that whole class needs to be reworked.

I don't remember it being said any where that they could manifest two Psi-swords. Of course I may have been having a case of tunnel vision on that subject and just not thinking properly.

[johnkretzer]

I can agree on these, I would add the ability of a Mind Melter to get two Psi-swords. They are THE most powerful psi in the game yet a wimpy Cyberknight now gets two but not the Melter?
Boost the Burster.

Un...they already can have two psi-swords. It just requires them to manifest twice. Now if you mean that they should be able to get two psi-swords for only one manifestation...maybe.

But what really needs to happen is the length of time it take to mainifest the power. Especialy for Psi-Warriors...though that whole class needs to be reworked.

I don't remember it being said any where that they could manifest two Psi-swords. Of course I may have been having a case of tunnel vision on that subject and just not thinking properly.

I don't remember anything that says you could not manifest a psi-sword if you already have one. Granted you have to have a hand free(or whatever you use in its place.)

For example my mind melter has pair weapons. Her sixth sense goes off...she uses Psi-sword...after another that she uses it again. I mean it does take 60ISP and 30 Seconds...but I don't see a rule against it or a reason why you couldn't do it that.

Now if you are saying that they should be able to use the power once and get two swords...that I don't know if it would be too powerful...I will have to think about it.

[runebeo]

I can agree on these, I would add the ability of a Mind Melter to get two Psi-swords. They are THE most powerful psi in the game yet a wimpy Cyberknight now gets two but not the Melter?
Boost the Burster.

Un...they already can have two psi-swords. It just requires them to manifest twice. Now if you mean that they should be able to get two psi-swords for only one manifestation...maybe.

But what really needs to happen is the length of time it take to mainifest the power. Especialy for Psi-Warriors...though that whole class needs to be reworked.

I don't remember it being said any where that they could manifest two Psi-swords. Of course I may have been having a case of tunnel vision on that subject and just not thinking properly.

I don't remember anything that says you could not manifest a psi-sword if you already have one. Granted you have to have a hand free(or whatever you use in its place.)

For example my mind melter has pair weapons. Her sixth sense goes off...she uses Psi-sword...after another that she uses it again. I mean it does take 60ISP and 30 Seconds...but I don't see a rule against it or a reason why you couldn't do it that.

Now if you are saying that they should be able to use the power once and get two swords...that I don't know if it would be too powerful...I will have to think about it.

Your so right I see no reason for a GM not to allow you to summon a second Psi-Sword if an armature like a Cyber-Knight can I'm sure a mild melter or someone from Psyscape with the their Third Eye open could.

[Sureshot]

Great stuff Rogue_Scientist. I would like to see it in a Rifter artcile someday.

[Lenwen]

Borrowing the idea from Lenwen magic thread. How would you personally if at all change the current psionic system being used as canon by Palladium ?

Great idea

[TechnoGothic]

More ISP Alot more ISP.

MEx10 + 3d6x10 ISP = Base for the Master Psionic Classes.
Limit PSI-Sword to ONLY Cyber-knight and Mind Melters. No other Psi-Class should have it ever IMO.
ISP recovery = ME ISP Minute.
Eleminate BURSTERS from the Psychic Classes. Remake them into Super-Ability Class (HU2).

[Bearslayer]

There are some interesting psi-powers in Nightbane that I let my players use.... I also allow some Chi powers to cross over as Psionic powers in my campaigns.

[Ziggurat the Eternal]

Great stuff Rogue_Scientist. I would like to see it in a Rifter artcile someday.

I'd love to see it in any way shape or form. But as palladium hates psionics, he probably wont be allowed to post it, or turn it in.

[MaxxSterling]

I would allow Full Conversion borgs to still utilize psionics... Magic, I can somewhat pretend to understand there is some bs physical body connection. But Psionics are from the mind baby, and deep inside my 1000mdc borg body lies a human brain.

[The Beast]

Aside from a few of the powers needed to be upgraded, I really don't have much of an issue with psionics. A few could use clarifying. The only real issue I have is with Sixth Sense. It should work as follows:

Danger about top happen to you = from 1 minute out your SS is triggered.
Danger about to happen to a friend = same as above, but they also have to be within 90ft.

[Captain Shiva]

I would like to see TK clarified,as to what exactly can and cannot be done with it,as far as manipulating objects goes. Perhaps A skill called Telekinetic Manipulation should come with the power.

[Aerv]

Just a few things our player group has done:

- Massively increased the number of psychic powers available in each category. Some have prerequisites and some are considered "Legendary" powers that work much like spells of legend.
- Used psychic powers from other Palladium games. (The Palladium fantasy version of Mind Bolt is about 50x better than the Rifts version)
- Used altered versions of Psychic OCCs from other Palladium games. (My favorite is still the TK Freak.)
- We use a system similar to spell power strength for psychics, based off their ME attribute.

It's taken several years for our group to come with all of these ideas and changes and balance them out, mostly because myself and the GM are big fans of the psychic classes.

[Rallan]

Borrowing the idea from Lenwen magic thread. How would you personally if at all change the current psionic system being used as canon by Palladium ?

Scrap the hundreds of existing psionic powers and strip it back to a core set of powers which become more powerful and have a broader range of effects as they go up in level. Make purchasing new powers and new levels of existing powers a point-buy thing. Make the applications for a given level of a given power reasonably flexible, so you don't actually need (for example) ten million hyper-specific "Telekinetic X" powers.

Although I'd still be stuck with the rest of Palladium's system, so at that point I'd be tempted to just pick up a generic system like GURPS or BESM and use it to run the Rifts setting.

[Dog_O_War]

Borrowing the idea from Lenwen magic thread. How would you personally if at all change the current psionic system being used as canon by Palladium ?

I would do alot of different things;

Different categories;
Telepath, Kinetesis, Biomorph, Pre-cog, and Empath would be the new kinds of psionics, instead of Sensitive, Physical, Healing, and Super.

From here I would divide up the current powers into the new categories, disregarding whether or not they were minor or super. Players would get a points-value to "buy" powers with (like 20, 35, or 50) from a category they selected. Buying powers outside of their category would cost them double the points. The points are used to buy a power, with the initial cost being the cost to cast that power. For instance, it would cost 4 points to buy induce sleep if you had the appropriate category with that power, or 8 points to get that power if it's outside of your specialty.

Any unused points would add to your overall ISP at a ratio of 1 point =1d6 additional starting ISP. At additional levels players would be allowed to buy additional powers; one additional power per level (bought with their remaining ISP). They needn't need to purchase a power every level, but once the choice of whether to buy a power or not is made, it cannot be undone.

For trained classes such as the burster, they get their class powers, but any additional powers (like that detailed under step 8 of the PCC) are instead purchased using the above method.

Using different points methods you can determine the difference of a minor, major, and master psychic by allotting them different purchase-point values, like having minor psychics given 20 points, major psychics 35 points, and master psychics 50 points to buy powers with.

Obviously since meditation is free, everyone will have it.

This is but a few of the many changes I would make. The rest though concern the powers themselves and how they interact with the world, but I haven't yet set aside the time to pull them apart.