Psionic Career and Basic Training

Life Detection is, by far, the most frequently used ability by the psion in my group. She's never bothered with a psionic "attack" given how ineffective they are. She has a good skill in Teleport and Telepathy, but lvl 0 in Awareness and Clairsentience. Even with a decent by normal skill standards bonus in Teleport, it is unreliable. And the low skill level in Awareness and Clairsentience means those are basically 50/50 to pull off. Succeeding on a psionic assault would be a fluke.

Most of the Telepathy abilities I rule as being chain skills for other skills rather than doing a lot on their own. So Telempathy, Suggestion, and Read Thoughts boost social/investigation skills. Like Deanne Troi more than Emma Frost. And Probe is basically about as subtle as a Vulcan Mind Meld. That makes them useful without dominating play.
Don't forget the reach for Probe is 5m, so you don't have to touch the person being interviewed. It's difficult to do, however when my psionic character used, it was for interrogating prisoners during a jump. So a whole week of interviewing. Not that I found out anything useful.

The difficulty is 12, but by taking time you can reduce it to 10 and because the first attempt of the day is at +2, then all I needed to roll was an 8. The biggest risk was other Travellers realising what I was doing!
 
Sure, you can play it however you want. I was just saying how I did it in my campaign. Read Thoughts could be subtle, but Probe wasn't.

Don't know what you mean about +2 on the first attempt. Unless you had a 12 PSI, so your stat DM was +2 until you spent the 4 PSI and were down to 8 for the next attempt?
 
Sure, you can play it however you want. I was just saying how I did it in my campaign. Read Thoughts could be subtle, but Probe wasn't.

Don't know what you mean about +2 on the first attempt. Unless you had a 12 PSI, so your stat DM was +2 until you spent the 4 PSI and were down to 8 for the next attempt?
I had training in Telepathy (+1) and a Psi score of 9.

After the first attempt, you\d need to roll higher. But then you can probably do two sessions a day.

Yeh - how subtle psionics are and if people can spot you using this very illegal thing is part of the fun.
 
Spending your PSI reduces your PSI stat. IIRC, Probe is 4 PSI. So if you have a 9 PSI, after the first use, you'd have a 5. So that would be a -1 stat bonus. So that tracks.

I just was wondering where that 'it's harder the second time" thing came from. I hadn't seen the effects of PSI drain expressed that way before.
 
My uncertainty arises from the insert text on p229,

"The Psion must still roll to acquire talents when they determine their PSI. When rolling on the Service Skills table, if the Psion gains the skill for a talent they do not yet possess, they may attempt another roll to learn that talent."
Which book are you looking in?
 
Which book are you looking in?
Core. Unchange in the latest update...

N.b. p229 as indicated on the page itself. P230 of the pdf file.

Still no indication that the accumulative -1 DM does not apply to these rolls. So by RAW this mechanic is an annoying tease (imo).
 
I don't get the 100k credit charge for institute testing and training. My character was at university and was approached by an underground psi group. It sounds like a con job: Hi, I'm Mr X and we can teach you psionic powers. All you need to do is give us £100k. But he's a student and has no money yet but he signs up and does the psionic career till he is 38 then does two terms as a merchant ......where was he going to get 100k from to pay them back before becoming a traveller 20 years after he started training?

Oh, and do you put any limits on the Inspiration power e.g. could you use it for broker skill, diplomat, streetwise skill?
 
I don't get the 100k credit charge for institute testing and training.
Maybe someone thought psionics would be too powerful otherwise. They also might have been influenced by the ads you saw in magazines those days for folks offering to teach you supernatural powers for a low, low introductory cost, mention this ad for a discount on your first course. (In no way were those ads a scam and the reason I'm not naming names is because I can't recall them right now [1] and not because their lawyers might be watching.)

[1] A lie.
 
I don't get the 100k credit charge for institute testing and training. My character was at university and was approached by an underground psi group. It sounds like a con job:
I'd say, for my games, the 100k is a charge for those who approach an institution. It's partly a test for how serious the applicant is, and partly a screen for scammers and Imperial agents.

If the institution approaches someone, like with your character, they might either waive the fee or have another type of repayment.
And that's where becoming an adventurer begins!
 
I think whether Basic Training occurs depends largely on what pre-career option you were pursuing. If you were going to University then your first regular career term includes Basic Training. If you were going to a Military Academy, however, you received basic training in your first career, so basic training as a Psion would be one skill, as for second careers.
 
I think whether Basic Training occurs depends largely on what pre-career option you were pursuing. If you were going to University then your first regular career term includes Basic Training. If you were going to a Military Academy, however, you received basic training in your first career, so basic training as a Psion would be one skill, as for second careers.

FYI: Although this is perfectly reasonable house rule - limiting full set 'Basic Training' to once - this is not RAW.

p16 of the Core, Pre-Career Education, Military Academy:

"Skills: Gain all Service Skills of the military career the academy is tied to at level 0, as with basic training."

p18 of the Core, 'Basic Training' is:

"For your first career only, instead of rolling for a skill, you get all the skills listed on the Service Skills table at level 0 as your basic training. For subsequent careers, you may pick any one skill listed in the Service Skills table at level 0 as your basic training."

So any character who gets into a military academy and then takes a difference first career gets two full sets of 'Basic Training' - by RAW.

N.B.

"As with" is a phrase used to compare or show similarity between two things. For example, "As with his earlier movies, the special effects in his latest film are brilliant".

So the text draws attention to the similarity between the skills gained at military academy and in a first career, but in so doing makes clear they are not the same.
 
I'd say, for my games, the 100k is a charge for those who approach an institution. It's partly a test for how serious the applicant is, and partly a screen for scammers and Imperial agents.

If the institution approaches someone, like with your character, they might either waive the fee or have another type of repayment.
And that's where becoming an adventurer begins!
'Adventure' is somebody else in deep shit, very very far away from your comfy chair and beverage of your choice ;)
 
I don't get the 100k credit charge for institute testing and training.

Being underground, they're not just charging for four months of lectures at a community college, there's a risk premium for them, probably lower class size so higher cost per student, and either the cost of periodically relocating or just cutting a few well chosen officials in on the action.

Or - lean into it. Maybe the "campus" is an abandoned factory where it's not clear if it's been leased or just broken into, the instructors all appear to be skeeves, carnies and grifters, and they seem to have gone nuts with a crystals and incense catalog... except they really are psionic, and they really can teach you. If YOU'VE got what it takes, they say. But yeah, 100,000cr non-negotiable. And they'll probably be gone in a year, before word gets around too much and they get raided.
 
Just remember that unless you are in a bespoke setting or outside the Third Imperium:

"Psionic individuals who are detected by the public or the authorities are subject
to a variety of responses, based on a two die throw: 12+ Iobotomy, 10+ Iynching, 8+
for tarring and feathering, 6+ for imprisonment, 4+ for immediate deportation."
 
Going all the way back to the OP on this one...
It occurs to me that another thing that the 100k 'fee' does is hide the PC while they're undergoing their 3-month training.
Most Psi Institutes are in hi-population worlds. High population generally means higher law levels [with rare exceptions here and there]. The higher law level means that each person and their whereabouts are generally accounted for by officialdom in some way. Even on a moderate law level world, a records check can find out a person's address, their workplace, their vehicle licenses, and so on. If somebody comes up missing for 3 months people will notice... employers, school administrators, friends, etc. Part of the institute training fee is providing a plausible reason for PC Bob to be missing for 3 months... including documentary evidence of that reason. And good document forgery and/or data hacking into official records doesn't come cheap.

Also addressing the OPs question about that 100k fee in character generation, I usually handwave that kind of expense in character generation. Unlike medical injuries, that kind of expense is 'under the table' and isn't part of official records. And the referee can later use that debt as a plot harpoon.
 
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