Author Topic: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - originally by kalaskaagathas  (Read 74978 times)

Offline snakeman830

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #40 on: November 28, 2011, 10:24:58 AM »
Quote
Psi-Like Abilities And Feats
Creatures with access to psi-like abilities can use the feats Empower Spell-Like Ability and Quicken Spell-Like Ability.

These are two very specific exceptions to the general rule. It does not write us a blank check to go hunting for SLA-only feats to apply to psionics; that includes Supernatural Transformation.


I'm sorry if it seems like I'm running this into the ground, but I pointed out this issue to KA in the original thread on GitP when we started this guide and he hasn't got around to removing it from the list yet. I think the trick is cool and all, but if we start allowing houserule tricks in the guide there's no telling how long and unwieldy it could end up. There's more than enough RAW exploits in the psionics rules without resorting to things that simply don't work by any true reading.
A problem with this is that the XPH had to go off of only Core rulebook material at the time.  The other meta-spell-like feats weren't printed there, so they couldn't be referenced.  This was back when Wizards had the notion that every book should be entirely useable with only the core books and that book.
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Offline kalaskaagathas

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #41 on: November 28, 2011, 05:28:02 PM »
I'm sorry if it seems like I'm running this into the ground, but I pointed out this issue to KA in the original thread on GitP when we started this guide and he hasn't got around to removing it from the list yet. I think the trick is cool and all, but if we start allowing houserule tricks in the guide there's no telling how long and unwieldy it could end up. There's more than enough RAW exploits in the psionics rules without resorting to things that simply don't work by any true reading.

Sorry, I've been meaning to get around to updating it, but I've been busy lately.
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Offline Psithief

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #42 on: November 29, 2011, 05:29:05 AM »
Regarding 'Erudite Concerto', mindconcert is Telepathy (Mind-affecting). Psicrystals are immune to all mind-affecting effects, regardless of whether they wish to be, aren't they?

If you're going to mention this problem in some tricks shouldn't it be mentioned in all of them?
« Last Edit: November 29, 2011, 05:30:49 AM by Psithief »

Offline littha

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #43 on: November 29, 2011, 05:36:17 AM »
Specifically:
Quote
Share Powers (Su)

At the owner’s option, he can have any power (but not any psi-like ability) he manifests on himself also affect his psicrystal. The psicrystal must be within 5 feet of him at the time of the manifestation to receive the benefit. If the power has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting the psicrystal if it moves farther than 5 feet away, and will not affect the psicrystal again, even if it returns to its owner before the duration expires.

Additionally, the owner can manifest a power with a target of “You” on his psicrystal (as a touch range power) instead of on himself. The owner and psicrystal cannot share powers if the powers normally do not affect creatures of the psicrystal’s type (construct).

Offline Psithief

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #44 on: November 29, 2011, 10:07:17 AM »
Pffft. Explain why the spoiler above Erudite Concerto reads as below, then.

Quote
Use energy conversion, a psicrystal (with metamorphosis to remove immunity to mind-affecting effects), schism, Chain Power, Split Psionic Ray, Overchannel, Greater/Psionic Shot, and Aligned Attack/a chasuble of fell power, along with energy wall to charge it up, to deal up to (8x[ML+3]x3)+7d6 damage (and half damage to tons of secondary creatures) every single round, and all for the cost of one energy conversion and one energy wall (both manifested beforehand) and a schism (a psychoactive skin can take care of the metamorphosis bit).


Offline littha

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #45 on: November 29, 2011, 10:22:49 AM »
Metamorphosis retains special qualities, Construct traits is listed in the Psicrystals special qualities section independent of its type and RAW should be retained.
Quote
You retain all supernatural and spell-like  special attacks and special qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have, if any. You keep all extraordinary special attacks and special qualities derived from class levels, but you lose any benefits of the racial traits of your normal form. If you have a template, special abilities it provides are likewise not retained. If the assumed form is capable of speech, you can communicate normally. You retain any manifesting ability you had in your original form.

Quote
Special Qualities:  Construct traits, hardness 8, psicrystal granted abilities (improved evasion, personality, self-propulsion, share powers, sighted, telepathic link)

Offline snakeman830

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #46 on: November 29, 2011, 10:48:39 AM »
Metamorphosis retains special qualities, Construct traits is listed in the Psicrystals special qualities section independent of its type and RAW should be retained.
Quote
You retain all supernatural and spell-like  special attacks and special qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have, if any. You keep all extraordinary special attacks and special qualities derived from class levels, but you lose any benefits of the racial traits of your normal form. If you have a template, special abilities it provides are likewise not retained. If the assumed form is capable of speech, you can communicate normally. You retain any manifesting ability you had in your original form.

Quote
Special Qualities:  Construct traits, hardness 8, psicrystal granted abilities (improved evasion, personality, self-propulsion, share powers, sighted, telepathic link)
Immunity to mind-affecting is Ex in this case, so it isn't retained.  Note that the power calls out supernatural and spell-likes and not all.
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Offline littha

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #47 on: November 29, 2011, 10:55:24 AM »
Well, it is actually of an unlisted type. Probably a natural ability if anything but the point is taken.

Offline nijineko

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #48 on: November 30, 2011, 03:54:31 AM »
(click to show/hide)

So, not finding any more rules than I previously found, I did my usual and asked Mr. Cordell.

His reply was that, "...psicyrstals weren't intended as a way for a PC to gain access to more feats."
He also added a caveat saying to trust DM instincts and if you thought it was cool, go for it, but if you found it made psions so much better than other classes then nix it.

So the psicrystal-feat myth is hereby officially (or unofficially, depending on DM) busted.

Offline kalaskaagathas

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #49 on: November 30, 2011, 01:37:44 PM »
(click to show/hide)

So, not finding any more rules than I previously found, I did my usual and asked Mr. Cordell.

His reply was that, "...psicyrstals weren't intended as a way for a PC to gain access to more feats."
He also added a caveat saying to trust DM instincts and if you thought it was cool, go for it, but if you found it made psions so much better than other classes then nix it.

So the psicrystal-feat myth is hereby officially (or unofficially, depending on DM) busted.

While I appreciate that you're able to ask Mr. Cordell, I would like to point out that his statements can only be taken as an interesting note on the author's intent, rather than as definitive rules text (except, of course, when he is writing the rules text).  So I will, in the handbook proper, include a note with the text of your query and his response (if you are willing to give a copy of that, I don't mean to demand access to your correspondence) and the inevitable "YMMV" tag (which, to be honest, probably belongs on any trick in any system, since not all GMs/DMs/STs/&c.s will allow everything, even if it works by RAW) but I will still contend that, because Psicrystals gain HD, and creatures which gain HD also gain feats relative to those HD, and because Psicrystals are creatures, Psicrystals therefore gain feats relative to their HD by RAW.

I appreciate all of your help in going over these, by the way.  We'll need to discuss each trick (and the wording of each trick's entry) before the first edition of the handbook can be codified, just so we can be as certain as possible with what we put out.  In fact, I appreciate all of your help in the crafting of this handbook, at every stage - submitting tricks, discussing them, porting it here, everything.
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Offline nijineko

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #50 on: November 30, 2011, 05:36:03 PM »
well, i guess i don't have anything else to offer on the psicrystal-hd bit. i agree that not all dms will accept a post-publication commentary from the original author as authoritative. i'll be happy to provide copy-pasted quotes of his exact wording in both the psicrystal-hd and the ardent cases.

so how do i get the thread turned over to you? i would love to discuss and really understand how all the tricks work; even better would be having spoiler-ed text containing the essence of both sides of any debate for any particular debatable trick.

if all else fails, i could rename this thread as the debate / pre-handbook thread, and then you could make a bright-new handbook.

i think it would be fun to rate each trick in the old grimtooth style, with varying numbers of skulls representing just how out there it is. skull smilies anyone? grimtooth used 1-5 skulls for most things, reserving the sixth skull for the mega-outre items. would be nice to have such a quick reference outside of the spoiler-ed text.

Offline Endarire

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #51 on: June 05, 2012, 01:03:01 AM »
Erudite Chameleon
-Be an Erudite.  Spell-to-Power is optional.
-Take 2 levels of Chameleon.  (Remember, it's for Humans, Changelings, and Dopplegangers only unless your GM says otherwise.)
-Use your floating feat on Expanded Knowledge.   Learn every power you want (and can), one day at a time.  If your GM rules that Expanded Knowledge works on spells converted to powers (and you're Spell-to-Power), go ahead!

This trick is costly in terms of time (one power per day), requires the level 1-only feat Able Learner, and puts you behind one power level compared to a full Psion or Erudite.  It may be worth it for a low wealth game, or if you really want to learn a lot of powers you couldn't otherwise.

Offline nijineko

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #52 on: June 06, 2012, 03:12:18 PM »
so, learn a power, dump it into a power stone to retain it after you reset your feat, then learn it the normal way?

Offline Endarire

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #53 on: June 06, 2012, 06:11:44 PM »
Yep.

Offline nijineko

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #54 on: June 07, 2012, 03:09:19 AM »
would that not also be costly in terms of crafting power stones? time/gp/xp, and so forth? not so bad at the lower levels, but rough at higher levels.

Offline Endarire

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #55 on: June 07, 2012, 08:53:21 PM »
It's not perfect, but it's there.

Upon reevaluation, it's downright painful to do this on a large scale.  Psychic reformation just seems far better.

Offline nijineko

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #56 on: June 08, 2012, 02:41:19 AM »
speaking of this sort of thing, i have a psi-artificer who is about to pick up leadership and i was intending to select an erudite.

since a psi-artificer can emulate any power (from any class, no less) the arti can make powerstones. with the right feats it costs a little over 9gp and 1 xp per 1st level stone. less if i can somehow convince the dm to let me make the powerstones only usable by a single class.

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Offline kalaskaagathas

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #58 on: June 19, 2012, 08:14:48 PM »
Learn every power.  Slowly.

So, for completionists, it's fortunate that WotC supported Psionics so poorly.

Also, I'm back to work on this little project, mostly formatting and stuff so that it looks like a proper handbook.  With that in mind, I've got a little request - I'd like to go over the tricks, one by one, just to make sure that everything works (and to make sure that the descriptions are clear and correct).  Also, I could use some help organizing the tricks themselves - coming up with different categories, e.g. for action economy tricks, damage tricks, etc. (there's likely to be some overlap, but we'll work it out).

I'll post more later tonight.
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Offline nijineko

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Re: Psionic Tricks Handbook: Brainstorms - by kalaskaagathas
« Reply #59 on: June 20, 2012, 04:00:01 PM »
i have a master psionics power list now.

includes every official source i can find that has psionics.

note exactly in topic, but would you find it useful?