psionic

[sinmaan]

If i understand, you can roll for psionic strength whenever you want...but why would not all characters roll before the first career? And would that mean that most people in the Traveller universe (at least pc material) are psi competent? That seems a little too much...i must be missing something.

Is the only limiting factor the 100,000 credits it costs to get trained? Otherwise, according to the corebook rules, pretty much anyone would have a psi score around 7, which is quite decent.



And if a pc decides to test for one of the psychic careers, do he need to pay the 100,000 credits to be trained?


And can a pc raise his psychic skills like any other ones?


Lots of questions...i just find the psychic rules a little unclear. In addition, psychic powers seem to be very powerful.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

If i understand, you can roll for psionic strength whenever you want...but why would not all characters roll before the first career? And would that mean that most people in the Traveller universe (at least pc material) are psi competent? That seems a little too much...i must be missing something.

Rule 1 concerning Psionics, found on pg 152:
"This characteristic cannot be rolled or bought during character creation without the Referee’s permission."

 

[alex_greene]

Rule 1 concerning Psionics, found on pg 152:
"This characteristic cannot be rolled or bought during character creation without the Referee’s permission."

Getting past that, assuming the Referee realises that psionics is pretty much everywhere in Traveller and it's impossible to run the 3I without it (Droyne, Zhodani, the Ancients) ... It's a good point, well made. What's stopping the player from seeking out a Psionics Institute right at the start and rolling for Psi straight off the bat?

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Is the only limiting factor the 100,000 credits it costs to get trained? Otherwise, according to the corebook rules, pretty much anyone would have a psi score around 7, which is quite decent.

And if a pc decides to test for one of the psychic careers, do he need to pay the 100,000 credits to be trained?

And can a pc raise his psychic skills like any other ones?

Lots of questions...i just find the psychic rules a little unclear. In addition, psychic powers seem to be very powerful.

You missed the Cr.5000 and two weeks to simply get the Rating per pg.152. So if the GM allows, you pay Cr.5000 and at that point you have a PSI rating, but you can't do anything with it. Then with the Cr.100000 and training you can make the rolls to see what talents you have at Level 0.

There are two things concerning training.
1.The rules and costs on pg 152 are primarily "during gameplay" training.
2.The career on pg 158 shows you more or less what a character gets in 4 years of training Note to qualifiy, you need to roll 6+ with your Psi Characteristic DM (from -3 to +3 per pg 6), so if either the GM must allow you to have one or let you roll somehow without one?

As to further training "during game", per pg.152
"There are several psionic talents, each of which works like a skill for the powers in question. A character trained in the use of psionics may develop his talents over time just as if they were normal skills (see page 59). Unlike other skills, psionic talents cannot be used untrained."

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Once you get past the referee part. I would suggest during character generation:
A character can get the rating and owe the Cr.5000 (like medical expenses during chargen). Two weeks seems a really small amount of time in a "4 year term" in a careeer, so I would let it go and proceed to a career term.

Note: Besides the money, some things might negatively impact you if you have psionic rating (even a rating of 0) as opposed to having no rating at all. In the 3rd Imperium setting, the Empress Wave comes to mind, but there may be others.

It is implied that the characters get "training". Note at the very bottom of page 159 in smaller print:
"Psionic Abilities: The Psion must still roll to acquire psionic talents when he determines his Psionic Strength. When rolling on the service skills table, if the Psion rolls the skill for a talent he does not possess, then he may make another roll to acquire that talent. If that roll fails then he gains no skill for that term. For example, Luka develops the Telepathy and Clairvoyance talents at the start of character generation. In her first term of Psion training, she rolls Teleportation
on the service skills table. She may now roll to acquire Teleportation by making a Psionic Strength check with a –2 DM (+0 for Teleportation, –2 for two previous talent acquisition rolls)."

I would make you owe the Cr.100000 (as another medical expense).

 

[CosmicGamer]

What's stopping the player from seeking out a Psionics Institute right at the start and rolling for Psi straight off the bat?

If the GM isn't stopping them, nothing.

I forget the details but I believe the Psion book 4 has more details and hurdles for starting off psionics.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

RAW everyone has a psionic strength, it fades by 1 point every 4 years after age 18 that you don't use them. So, if you are not tested/trained at age 18, you lose 1 point of PSI every term.

Also, the default assumption is that Psionics are not well received by the general population. However, if the Referee is using a home-brew setting that has lots of psions or some kind of PsiCorp (ala Babylon 5), then everyone would be tested at (or before) age 18.

The Supplement Psion, has some alternate rules for how common psionics is in a species and again, it is up to the Referee to decide how much s/he wants to include them in the game.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I'm adding the Psion rules to my CharGen code at this moment. So far, it is the most intertaining/interesting skill development when choosing careers. I have a flag that turns on/off the Psion career during CharGen.

I haven't finished the entire Psion career yet. But I'm seeing characters that:

1) Have PSI Strength, but have not been trained because they don't qualify to enter the Psion career

2) Are 18 and already tested and trained their PSI Strength

3) Are much older when they finally do have a chance to start training their PSI (they were tested positive way back when they were 18, but got drafted into the military before they could start their PSI training).

4) Couldn't develop any PSI skills during initial training after being tested positive (just bad rolls).

5) Find a Psionic Institute later in life (this unusual life event is very rare though).

 

[Hopeless]

When I ran my last game I had them roll up this intending to use it as a sort of Will attribute if they didn't make use of psionic abilities.

No degredation which was just as well as most of them used it as a dump stat!

Only one of them went for a Psion class and I had more problems figuring out what they could do once they noted what Psion skills they had...

Teleport without clothes... check :wink:

Thought about expanding the Awareness talent so they could do more with that than currently listed in the books.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Is there an advantage/reason for not checking for all PSI talent acquisitions first, in hopes of getting PSI talents by rolling on the Service Skills table later during the Psion career?

ADDED:
Nevermind. It looks like the initial PSI training (Institute Testing pg. 152) is not always available to players. Or is not performed at all if choosing the Psion career. But then the examples with Luka are wrong. ERROR! ERROR! MUST STERILIZE!

DEBUGGED:
Ok. I see. They are using Luka as an example of both training at an Institute, and adding PSI skills during Psion career terms. So I have to alter my program code slightly.

 

[locarno24]

If i understand, you can roll for psionic strength whenever you want...but why would not all characters roll before the first career? And would that mean that most people in the Traveller universe (at least pc material) are psi competent? That seems a little too much...i must be missing something.

As noted, it depends on the GM. In theory, however, you should only roll when specifically told to - i.e. you enter a psion career, or roll a "you're psionic!" event, or with the GM's permission if you've agreed you're going to try a psion career.

In settings where psionics are uncommon or illegal, he must find a teacher, normally one of the underground Psionics Institutes. Finding such an instructor is an adventure in itself.

I.e. something you shouldn't just be able to declare "I did that" during character generation without some level of discussion.

Is the only limiting factor the 100,000 credits it costs to get trained? Otherwise, according to the corebook rules, pretty much anyone would have a psi score around 7, which is quite decent.

If you're going to allow people to roll at character creation, then yes. Normally, though, people only roll the relevant life event some time into their career, when that penalty-per-term will keep them down to a lower level, if they ever roll it at all.

And if a pc decides to test for one of the psychic careers, do he need to pay the 100,000 credits to be trained?

And can a pc raise his psychic skills like any other ones?

In theory, I guess. They are skills, after all.

Lots of questions...i just find the psychic rules a little unclear. In addition, psychic powers seem to be very powerful.

It's deliberately so. Psychic skills aren't a 'spell' so much as a skill. By which I mean that rather than 'throw a fireball with range X, damage Y and Psi cost Z', pyromancy-type abilities are 'you can remotely apply heat to something. You figure out how best to use this.'

They both are and aren't powerful.

Teleportation is a good example - you can get literally anywhere, instantly, bypassing perimiter defences, doors and guards, provided you don't mind arriving as a hypothermic naked guy. Which kind of limits your ability to achieve much when you do.... :?

Telepathic assaults are awesome in theory, but you have Telepathy and Assail and I'll have Gun Combat (Slug Rifles) and an ACR and we'll see who wins. Telepathic interrogation is in theory very effective but no better than the scientific application of stabby things and burny stuff.

Awareness is probably the best single talent because all it does is make you better at what you're already good at.

Is there an advantage/reason for not checking for all PSI talent acquisitions first, in hopes of getting PSI talents by rolling on the Service Skills table later during the Psion career?

No. As with skills, if you roll up a skill you don't have, you gain it at level 1. So you can subsequently pick up talents you didn't get to start with.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

The Psion career is the most ambiguous, even though it's patterned from the Citizen career. I'll run some iterations through the computer to see where any unbalance occurs.

 

[alex_greene]

I've had some ideas on that score, to the point where I worked solo to create a project focusing heavily on psionics in Traveller. Lots of fascinating permutations.

That's all I can say for now.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I'm not going to worry too much about psionics in Mongoose Traveller. It's not like every Traveller character is psionic, has every psionic skill, stays in the Psion career for 7 terms, and has a PSI of 12+.

I have a bare-minimum Psion career sample on my YouTube channel right now. In a few days, I'll post a full-on psionics video, showing lots of sample characters from the Core Rulebook.

 

[F33D]

When I ran my last game I had them roll up this intending to use it as a sort of Will attribute if they didn't make use of psionic abilities.

In my game I use Willpower in place of SS. If I decide to use psionics it will be the stat used. The stat doesn't "fade" over time.

 

[CosmicGamer]

If i understand, you can roll for psionic strength whenever you want...but why would not all characters roll before the first career?

As mentioned, This characteristic cannot be rolled or bought during character creation without the Referee’s permission.

But yes, you could roll up Psi strength. The character should not have any awareness of it. The player should not alter play just because they know what it is. So there may be little need to roll at this point.

If during the characters childhood they decide they are going to try and be a doctor, then that's what career they go for, whatever psi strength is rolled shouldn't change that. If during the characters childhood they decide they are going to try and be a psion, then that's what career they go for (if allowed by GM), whatever psi strength is rolled shouldn't change that. It will however influence their qualification for a Psion career. "Sorry kid, we tested you and you're just not cut out for this" or "The Force is strong with this one."

And would that mean that most people in the Traveller universe (at least pc material) are psi competent? That seems a little too much...i must be missing something.

I'm not sure what you mean by psi competent.

You roll Edu, does that make too many Physicians? All characters with a high strength need not be barbarians with halberds.

The Traveller universe is big. The rules cover a variety of things. Like a Zho society where psionic potential is tested and those with potential are trained.

And if a pc decides to test for one of the psychic careers, do he need to pay the 100,000 credits to be trained?

Again, I'm not sure what you mean.
- Institute testing for a characters psionic abilities? This MAY cost 5,000cr.
- If by test for psionic career do you mean the Psion career Qualifification: Psionic Strength 6+. –1 DM for every previous career? I don't think 100,000 credits needs to be payed.

The only place the 100,000cr comes up is if a character somehow locates a psionic institute and buys training.

Note that this is not the only way to gain psionic skills. For example, you could be a Wild Talent if the GM allows it.

 

[AndrewW]

Generally you roll when you have the chance to get tested. This could be due to an event. Or you could be say Zhodani in which case this would be early. Of coures this does vary with the details of any given game. Where psionics are more common then the Imperium it's more likely to happen earlier.

The first step is testing a character’s Psionic Strength, which is determined as described above (2d6 – number of terms served). If the character still has any Psionic Strength remaining, he can be trained.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

The Cr100,000 seems to be for players that want to train for PSI talents after their character is created and has been adventuring. I'm not going to charge players Cr100,000 if they choose a Psion career. Just like I don't charge players for choosing any other career during CharGen.

 

[CosmicGamer]

The Cr100,000 seems to be for players that want to train for PSI talents after their character is created and has been adventuring. I'm not going to charge players Cr100,000 if they choose a Psion career. Just like I don't charge players for choosing any other career during CharGen.

Again, the 100,000cr is for Institute training, not entering a career. You do not need institute training to enter a career any more than you need to attend a university before entering a career (for supplements - I know the core rules does not have universities/college/academies) . For a Psi career, just roll for qualification if the GM does not have any other hoops for you to jump through.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

You do not need institute training to enter a career

How/where/when have you been handling the PSI characteristic assignment for a character?

Also, I thought I read in the rules somewhere that the PSI characteristic decreases as a character gets older. I know about the rule stating that older characters show a lower value of PSI Strength when tested. If you don't use it, you lose it sort of thing.

That would be interesting though if PSI never dropped during a character's life after testing positive, whatever its initial value was when tested.