Cyber-Psicrystals and other questionable things.

[Captnq]

Okay, so a psicrystal is this:

(click to show/hide)

Diminutive Construct
Hit Dice: As master’s HD (hp 1/2 master’s)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares), climb 20 ft.*
Armor Class: 16 (+4 size, +2 Dex*), touch 16, flatfooted 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +0/–17
Attack: —
Full Attack: —
Space/Reach: 1 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: —
Special Qualities: Construct traits, hardness 8, psicrystal granted abilities (improved evasion, personality, self propulsion, share powers, sighted, telepathic link)
Saves: As master’s saves
Abilities: Str 1*, Dex 15*, Con —, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 10
Skills: Climb +14*, Listen +6, Move Silently +6, Search +2, Spot +6
Feats: Alertness Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: Included with master
Treasure: None
Alignment: As master
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
*With self-propulsion ability activated.
This glowing crystal is the size of a small human hand. A psicrystal is the artificial externalization of a small portion of a psionic character’s consciousness. It is found only as the creation and companion of a psion, wilder, or character with similar abilities. The psicrystal described here is that of a 1st-level manifester.

Combat: A psicrystal’s characteristics depend on its master. Its Hit Dice are equal to its master’s Hit Dice (counting only levels in psion or wilder), its hit points are equal to half its master’s, and its saving throw bonuses are the same as its master’s.
Construct Traits: A psicrystal has immunity to poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects), and any effect that requires a Fortitude save unless it also works on objects or is harmless. It is not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy drain. It cannot heal damage, but it can be repaired. Psicrystals do not have the usual construct traits of darkvision and
low-light vision.

Psicrystal Granted Abilities: The psicrystal described here has the special abilities of self-propulsion, alertness, improved evasion, share powers, telepathic link, sighted, and personality, as described in Chapter 2 starting on page 21. (If its master chooses not to activate the self-propulsion ability, the psicrystal reverts to a speed of 0 feet and has no Strength score and no Dexterity score.)

Skills: A psicrystal (with its self-propulsion ability activated) uses its Dexterity modifier instead of its Strength modifier on Climb checks. It has a +8 racial bonus on Climb checks and can always choose to take 10, even if rushed or threatened.

Okay questions:

1) It doesn't say anything about what the crystal looks like. So Can I carve my crystal to look like tiny humanoid?
1a) Can my tiny Crystal Humanoid Wear Equipment?
1b) Can I chop off parts of my Crystal Humanoid and add grafts?
1c) If I graft enough warforged parts onto my psicrystal, can my psicrystal get warforged feats?
1d) I can graft inorganic parts onto an organic creature. Can I graft organic parts onto my psicrystal? You know... because it's MAGIC?

I found an obscure entry in the old Mind's Eye entries about the creatures known as Crystalmals. Apparently, if you get a 20 gp gem from the crystalmal and somehow "craft" it (apparently spending 100 gp in the process, it becomes a normal psicrystal, but gains some perks and drawbacks. (Bonuses to combat, tries to kill you.) The entry is a little vague.

There are no rules on replacing your psicrystal.

So, I have read as much as I can and I believe that you "craft" your psicrystal. Which means you have to follow the crafting rules. Which means it costs you 100 gp, can be any rock you wish to invest 100 gp into, and since it's crafting, it takes a minimum of 8 hours. (standard for crafting anything.)

2) Would it be out of line, regarding the precedent regarding Crystalmals, that if someone loses a psicrystal, they just need a rock, 100 gp, and 8 hours to replace it?
2a) My psicrystal is killed. I'm rebuilding him. Can I choose to respend his stats, or does he always come back the same way?
2b) Do I need to raise dead my psicrystal to get him back with his grafts? Resurrection? If he "loses a level", what does that mean? Does that mean True Resurrection Only?

3) Can my Psicrystal get inherent bonuses from wishes/stat gain books?
3a) Does he keep them if he dies and I "rebuild" him?

4) I'm confused about a construct having hardness and how it's handled in combat. Anyone know where I would find rules on this? Specifically the Vigor/Share Pain with your psicrystal combo. Nothing under share pain indicates that the secondary subject gets to apply any damage reduction or energy defense from the damage.

"You take half damage from all attacks that deal hit point damage to you"

4a) That means the damage is halved after defenses. Would that not indicate that the damage to your psicrystal is also after the psicrystal's defenses, and thus the psicrystal takes the damage without applying hardness?

I understand I can share the vigor with the psicrystal, which doubles it's effectiveness. But I'm talking about some claims that the psicrystal's hardness applies as well.

5) Can my psicrystal use an ioun stone?

6) Can I make my psicrystal into a wondrous item?

7) Back to grafts. If I get a weapon, make it flying (+1 WSA), so it's now an animated object, then use illithid weapon graft to graft it to my psicrystal. Can my psicrystal use the flying weapon to attack?
7a) What if it's a light ballista/crossbow bayonet enchanted to be self-loading as a free action and an extradimenional space for holding 100 bolts?

8) I understand if I can't get eye grafts normally for my psicrystal. Lets say I graft a crown of eyes (Beholder graft) on my psicrystal. Any reason I can't get eye grafts now?

9) Warforged grafts require  donor warforged. My Psicristal is very very VERY small in comparison to a warforged. If I graft say... Mighty Arms from a medium sized warforged onto my psicrystal, how does that work?

10) I get a stone spitter from the Maug grafts. Now my Psicrystal can shoot rocks for 1d1 points of damage as a natural attack. Spike stones "in conjunction with an unarmed or natural attack, the spike stones deal an additional 1d4 points of piercing damage with each hit". If my psicrystal gets both, it shoots stones for 1d4+1 damage? What happens if I use halfling Skip rocks so they hit two targets? I know I can enchant the ammunition, but is there any reason I can't enchant my Stone Spitter?

11) From the pirate grafts. Is there any reason I can't get my psicrystal a pegleg? Say, a Leg of Squid and a golden dancing pegleg? Can it get replacement eyes even if it has no eyes to begin with?

12) Can I graft undead parts on my psicrystal? Specifically the enervating arm (The +4 inherent bonus to strength for 40,000 gp is hard to pass up. Hence the previous question about inherent bonuses.)

13) If I get a Yuan-ti Serpent Arm graft on my psicrystal, its "arm" does a flat 1d4 bite damage, because it's an actual snake. Can I then get the undead graft vampire fangs and give them to my snake arm?
13a) If my level drain vampire fang snake armed psicrystal drains someone completely, what form of undead does the body return as?

That covers just about all my questions for now. Looking forward to feedback. Posting this on a few different boards to get as many replies as possible. Please take this seriously. It's going into the psionomicon.

[Captnq]

New Question:

Is there any way to inflict a disease on a psicrystal? Specifically warp touch.

[Jackinthegreen]

Some disclosure first:  I am a firm believer that D&D, and all roleplaying games really, are meant to be played by humans and not robot rules lawyers.  In my opinion, any DM who would enforce that monks are not proficient in unarmed strikes (and indeed they aren't if going strictly by the rules) does not deserve to have anything to do with D&D and in fact should be taken to a therapist.  The game is not perfect and thus rules as written should be taken with at least a grain of salt, but definitely a mountain of common sense.

You have a knack for taking things way too far when it comes to how some of these rules work, don't work, or were never intended to work but the designers didn't give quite enough information so people come to strange conclusions because if you twist the rules juuust right then you can get something else out of them.

Do you have a rules quote for crafting normal psicrystals?  Despite one kind of psicrystal being craftable, that does not mean any others can be.  For all we know upon taking the feat the psicrystal spontaneously comes into existence.  So far the only text I've seen on how they might come into being is with the Erudite text saying "Additionally, an erudite can seed a crystal or gem with a fragment of his personality, creating a psicrystal as a class feature."  How that's done is anybody's guess and might have even been intentionally left vague so different players could do different things and make it interesting or entirely uninteresting as they saw fit.

It should be noted that all official depictions of psicrystals show them as being either like quartz crystal or more of a rough crystal like with this.  There are no depictions of them resembling anything close to humanoid.



The answers I'd give:

1) There are enough pictures to give an idea.  Look at page 33 of the XPH for a really good example of the variety (or lack thereof) of what psicrystals look like.  Given that there are no rules for even modifying psicrystals in any way except the specific cases of a Changeling Psion sub level or the crysmal, no, you can't carve your crystal to look like a tiny humanoid.  The rest of the 1) questions are thus null and void.

2) Out of line for a DM to allow, no.  Out of line to assume the rules strictly support it, yes.
2a) Obviously the group should come to an agreement on how to "rebuild" psicrystals, but strictly by the rules there seems to be absolutely no way to get the psicrystal back, or change its stats.
2b) There are no rules for this.  For actual games and such, it's just something the participants come to an agreement on if it comes up.

3) Wish, as far as granting inherent bonuses goes, only requires that the target be a creature.  Thus, it would work since a psicrystal is indeed a creature.
3a) There are no rules for this.  It's up to the DM/group.  Full Stop.  I'd personally allow it because it's a douche move not to.

4)  My understanding of Share Pain (and the Shield Other spell) is that it does indeed ignore the DR, resistances, hardness, and other defenses of the creature the damage is being split to.  If both Creature A and Creature B have DR 2/-, for example, then if Creature A gets hit with an attack that does 6 damage then the total attack would do 4 to the target, but it gets split in into 2 for each creature.
4a) Yes, the damage ignores hardness.

5) It seems like that is technically a yes since the psicrystal is a creature and an ioun stone is a slotless item, thus it works regardless of what form the creature has or doesn't have.

6) The precedent for making any items out of creatures is that the creature is killed/dismantled first or that the part being used to make the item is somehow taken off.  So no, the psicrystal itself cannot be made into an item.

7) The ruling I'd go with is a psicrystal cannot use any grafts.  It simply doesn't have the capability to support them unless the DM is really, really lenient.

8) See 7.

9) It doesn't.

10-13) Grafts.  Don't.  Work.

[linklord231]

New Question:

Is there any way to inflict a disease on a psicrystal? Specifically warp touch.

Hit it with Greater Humanoid Essence. 

[Captnq]

You have a knack for taking things way too far when it comes to how some of these rules work, don't work, or were never intended to work but the designers didn't give quite enough information so people come to strange conclusions because if you twist the rules juuust right then you can get something else out of them.

Gonna let you in on a secret: They aren't making any more d20 3.5

The only way to "make" more is to take what we got and push it as far as we can. Then, we step beyond into the impossible. Once we have found the impossible, we record the last possible thing and work our way back, demonstrating every increment of change from the outer limits to the most mundane. And everything from RAW to RAI must be reviewed, analyzed, and quantified.

Then, when it is all recorded and all the implications have been explored and recommendations made, I will move onto the next. And the next. And the next. And the next.

And As I advance, I will backtrack to the work I have already done and see what interactions I can make. If those interactions are silly, brain warping, pointless, or will never be allowed in a game, that's fine. When someone else tries to pull this crap, I have sections called (For DMs) where I explain in detail, exactly why one should NEVER allow the things I work out.

I have no problem destroying everything I work towards and starting over from scratch. The result is it's own reward. I must fight tooth and nail to prove my point, then work twice as hard to disprove everything I stood for. That is the purpose of this. Where ever the data takes me.

Do you have a rules quote for crafting normal psicrystals?

Of course not. They don't exist. However, like a scientist can't directly observe DNA, I can infer it's existence and attempt to determine what DNA would have to exist to create a rule like this. An obscure rule from a 3.0 publication is the best I have to work on. From there I can create a theory. A theory that can be listed right along side other theories, such as:

• You only get one.
• It poofs into existance as soon as the other one dies.
• You have to craft a new one.
• You have to wait six months and suffer a -2 to Int the whole time.
• You never get a new one and have to buy a new feat
• You don't get a new one, but when you advance in level, you can retrain the old feat to switch out the feat for the exact same feat, thus getting a "new" psicrystal.

Like I said. Every possible permutation and outcome must be examined and explored, each in turn, one at a time, line by line, preferably in alphabetical order, then numerically, then right to left and top to bottom, the subjected to peer review, then ignored for a while. After looking at other interests, one should return to previous material and begin the process again from scratch.

Periodically empty your cup, before you try to fill it.

[Leviathan]

Unlike physics, D&D is not meant to run a universe on its own. It's a bunch of guidelines to help a group of people run part of a universe. The better real world analogy is laws. In the United States (and most similar democracies), the laws require three branches of government: the legislature (equivalent to WotC and other publishers), the executive (equivalent to the players), and the courts (equivalent to the DM). When the legislature writes a law that leaves room for interpretation, the courts (DM) decides how to interpret it. Courts include RAW and RAI in their decisions (the letter and spirit of the law, respectively), and also a considerable sense of balance (whether balance means fairness or game balance).


By the way, they are making more d20 3.5. It's called homebrew. You can find it here, or at GitP, or at any number of other places on the internet. While it isn't formally published and doesn't bear any official seal of approval, it's often just as balanced and fun to play with, if not more so, than anything anybody ever paid money for.

[Captnq]

By the way, they are making more d20 3.5. It's called homebrew. You can find it here, or at GitP, or at any number of other places on the internet. While it isn't formally published and doesn't bear any official seal of approval, it's often just as balanced and fun to play with, if not more so, than anything anybody ever paid money for.

You know what happens when you include homebrew in a handbook? People mock you. I've seen it. I've dumpster dived into the far reaches of angelfire and back for handbooks and guides and anyone who includes homebrew in a handbook is openly mocked.

Why? Because 9 times out of ten the homebrew creator doesn't have idea ONE about how the rules work. They eyeball it and just "wing it". Which is nice, except that people want to know HOW you got to a given conclusion.

For example: I have a severed head that is kept alive with a helmet. HOW?

I could just home brew it.

Or, I take the rules on vorpal weapons. I apply what happens if said head had certain ioun stones to keep it alive. The Ioun stones could be combined into one stone. The one stone could be put in an ioun blade. The ioun blade WSA could be extrapolated and put in a spiked helmet. The helmet could be made as a illithid weapon graft. The ioun stone could be placed in the ioun stone spiked helmet weapon graft and now I can have a head that no longer needs a body.

Tah-Dah, Extrapolated Immunity to Vorpal.

Now I can just work out the total cost, add it up, and make up a helmet that keeps you alive after your head gets cut off.

Which "homebrew" are you more likely to accept? The homebrew I pulled out of my ass, or the homebrew I extrapolated?

Part of what I do it "homebrew", but it's homebrew in so much as "where can the rules take us." Not in, "Hey, lets make up something completely NEW!" When I look at most homebrew, I find the math behind it often wrong. The methodology is shotty. The implications of what amounts to "new rules" are not thought out.

My biggest regret is allowing third party binder material into my game. I didn't read it through all the way. I didn't take the time I should have. Now entire CITIES vanish at the whims of the players. If the campaign had not reached epic level 14 levels ago, I'd be considering a reset. While It has forced me to up the ante and take the campaign to a whole new level (In effect, my campaign is about multiverse God Politics now.), I regret not keeping it on the low side of epic a bit longer.

No. There are no new products in my opinion. Pathfinder is, in effect, a new d20 system entirely. And while I dislike it, I wish them the best of luck. Every system has problems, at least they are consistantly screwed up. But the material they make isn't always backwards compatable, much to my chagrin. I guess that's my point. Internal consistency. I don't see it in any 3rd party crap. Hell, I don't even see it in 2nd party crap.

For now, I don't consider any homebrew to actually be worthy of going in the EVD. I have read HUNDREDS of third party stuff and while some ideas are neat, and a few people actually try to extrapolate, they have flawed methodology. The few times I have said, "That doesn't look bad." I find when I actually allow it in my game, it has always resulted in disaster.

Take Rapan Athak. It was toted as this MONSTER of a dungeon. I ran it with four of my players from 1st level. NONE of them took anything other then core classes. It was a joke. They systematically destroyed that place. I vowed to run it exactly as written and I will admit, I had to cheat to make it any sort of challenge. Do you know the "indestructable" Elder brain is not immune to being digested? Guess how I found out. Didn't the designers ever hear of ooze puppet? Orcus laughs for the first two rounds? Orcus died before his initiative on round two.

They THINK they make good products, but the 3rd party stuff is almost always unbalanced, either too high or too low. Play testing is non-existent, or if it does happen, is not with true Min/Maxers who care only about the truth. Or the editor takes a perfectly balanced book and butchers it.

No. There is no new 3.5 material being created. Nothing that could pass any sort of stress test. Nothing that is worthy of the EVD. Even material that is in the EVD is not worthy of the EVD. I frequently have to go in and change things, remove things, take a step back. But it must be hammered without mercy all the same.

Although, I must admit, I have this idea for a Homebrew Body Augmentation book. I think it might be possible to consolidate the various graft/modification rules into one system. But that will have to wait. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the last time I tried to get my work published. The butchers turned a perfectly balanced low-level campaign supplement into a joke. My publisher turned a five course dining experience into a filet-o-fish value meal with a coke.

I will admit, the artist was spot on. Very good illustrations.

[Leviathan]

When you ask a question that starts with "Can I ...", it doesn't sound like you want to extrapolate. It sounds like you want an answer strictly within existing rules. Strictly within the existing rules, the answer to the questions you have asked is "There is no answer." The rules don't have answers to the questions you have asked, because the rules are finite and a creative person such as yourself has an infinite capacity to ask new questions. Better questions to ask might include "Which of these should I be able to do?" or "Which of these require the smallest, simplest changes to the rules to accomplish?"

With that in mind, here is my answer to the questions you posed in your first post: A psicrystal is the psionic analog of a familiar. Therefore, a psion should be able to do with his psicrystal the sorts of things that a wizard could do with his familiar. A lot more has been written about familiars than about psicrystals (in published books and in forum handbooks); you can leverage that to develop a philosophy for psicrystals.

Because of the role that a psicrystal is supposed to play, I don't think you should be able to put grafts on your psicrystal. This is just one person's opinion, but it doesn't feel right. I guess you could carve your psicrystal into an approximately humanoid shape (using an appropriate Craft skill), but it would be a purely cosmetic change. It wouldn't even be able to move like a humanoid, because physically, it's just a hunk of crystal that's been carved like a humanoid. When you use its Self-Propulsion ability to make it walk, it grows new legs (described as spidery and ectoplasmic); it doesn't walk with the legs you carved on it.

In the SRD, the Sorcerer's description lays out how you get your familiar and what happens when it dies. By analogy (psion is to wizard as psicrystal is to familiar), here are my proposed rules for psicrystals: "Acquiring a psicrystal takes 24 hours and uses up materials that cost 100 gp. If the psicrystal is destroyed or dismissed, it cannot be replaced for a year and a day, after which a new psicrystal can be acquired in the same manner as the old one. Because a psicrystal is a construct (not a magical beast, like a familiar), it cannot be raised or resurrected."
The only part of that in the actual rules is the "cannot be raised or resurrected" bit, which is a trait of the construct type.


All Share Pain says (in the SRD, at least) is that "You take half damage from all attacks that deal hit point damage to you, and the subject takes the remainder. The amount of damage not taken by you is taken by the subject." Here are some possible interpretations that I think make sense:

• Figure out how much damage you would take from the attack (before your defenses). Calculate half of that. Apply your defenses to one half; you take that much damage. Apply the subject's defenses to the other half; the subject takes that much damage.
• Figure out how much damage you would take from the attack (after your defenses). Calculate half of that. You take that much damage. The subject applies its defenses to the other half, then takes that much damage.
• Figure out how much damage you would take from the attack (after your defenses). Calculate half of that. You take that much damage. The subject takes the other half, and never gets to apply its defenses.
• Figure out how much damage you would take from the attack (before your defenses). Calculate half of that. Apply your defenses to one half; you take that much damage. Then calculate the difference between the original damage and the damage you actually took (this is "the amount of damage not taken by you"). The subject takes that much damage, modified by its defenses.

I personally favor interpretation number 1.


The rule for hardness is "Whenever an object takes damage, subtract its hardness from the damage." Damage reduction, on the other hand, says "A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. ... The creature takes normal damage from ... spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities." By the rule on psionics-magic transparency, DR also doesn't apply to psionic powers or to psi-like abilities. So the question is, when the subject of Share Pain takes damage, what is the source of that damage? Does Share Pain just shunt damage around (so that the source is unchanged), or does Share Pain itself deal the damage to the subject? If Share Pain deals the damage (and the subject gets to apply its defenses), then it ignores DR but is still reduced by hardness; if Share Pain just moves damage around (not changing the source), then the damage is reduced by hardness, and might be reduced by DR if it comes from a weapon or natural attack that doesn't bypass the DR.

Now, about homebrew: There's a big difference between 3rd party publishing and homebrew, namely, the motivation. Any sort of publisher works on a profit motive. Their goal is to make money, and typically a lot gets sacrificed in order to make as much money as possible, as fast as possible: editing, playtesting, author's intent. Your own experience with publishing reflects some of the worst of this. Good authors find their work butchered, and many of the authors just aren't that good.

The homebrewers I'm talking about don't do it to make money. The best of them do it because they want to improve the game. Their work is peer-reviewed, and it undergoes considerable revision before they're willing so call it finished. Both the writers and the reviewers are experienced players with a sense for what works and what doesn't, what's balanced and what isn't. I'd rather have them writing and editing material than most people who work at "official" publishers.

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

Captnq, you've noticed other's resistance to taking things to the edge of CO. I feel your pain. Soldier on!

You've noticed the new (okay, really old, but never posted) handbook. By RAW the unfortunate answer is 'yes'  to everything graft related since you're clearly remembering the 'must have the part' rule. This is why old grafts are way too powerful and new grafts are way too nerfed. Hence the sensible changes I've considered in the handbook.

a spiked helmet

This is listed as a weapon. It 'resembles' a normal helmet. Does I can't find anything more. Does it occupy the head slot? Can it be added to more normal helmets?

Also what Ioun stone?