Psionics in Hyboria

emirikol

Mongoose
I've been running in Hyboria for some time now. I've seen what works and doesn't work in actual gaming for D&D, but I'm not sure how things like Psionics would do in the Conan RPG system. In our regular gaming, we had a Khitan psionist-monk. Of course, psionics tend to be pretty weak in D&D, and multiclassed, it was even less powerful, so it definately wasn't game-breaking.

The Serpent races seem to me like they would hold the great secrets of the mind, so I allowed a 'serpent-blood' much like the "spawn of dagoth hill' feat in the game. ALso, wasn't there some psionic action going on in the Conan pastiches that were set in Brythunia?

jh

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No, No, No.

Thats just not right. :shock:

It may work in "enter your name here"'s Hyboria but not REH's Hyboria.

If you have to have some sort of Psionics in your Hyboria use one of Mongoose's other games takes on it, stay away from D&D Psionics at all costs. OGL Horror from Mongoose could work for the unique Psychic, maybe the system from Call of Cuthulu d20 but I havn't looked at that in a long time. You could probably make the telepath rules from either Babylon 5 or Judge Dredd workd since they aren't over powering (well JD can get pretty powerful though) if you have to have that sort of thing.

My advice though leave it out.
 
Call of Cthulhu d20 reduced psionics to a feat chain, and required you to spend one feat just to be psionically "sensitive". I think the worst you could do with psionics was healing, telepathy, telekinesis, detect thoughts, psychometry and suggestion (one psionic power per feat). Making them a feat chain certainly puts them in the realm of being rarer and less powerful than magic. I don't think Cthulhu's psionics would necessarily be unbalancing to Conan, and would be the way I would do it if I were so inclined.
 
rook111 said:
No, No, No.

Thats just not right. :shock:

It may work in "enter your name here"'s Hyboria but not REH's Hyboria.

I disagree - while D&D-style Psionics aren't really at home in Hyboria, a school of magic called Mesmerism, for example, would be certainly suitable there.
 
Jason Durall said:
I disagree - while D&D-style Psionics aren't really at home in Hyboria, a school of magic called Mesmerism, for example, would be certainly suitable there.

And I would agree with that. If you or someone else made up a school of Mesmerisim and it was compatable with the existing sorcery types (assuming that there isn't one coming in the Scrolls Of Skelos) that would be very good.

I can very easily see a Khitain Mesmerist who uses his mind instead of normal spells but not a Psionicist class with all that that entails, which is what the original poster was talking about. I think. :wink:
 
By the strictest meaning, yes. But in broader Pulp Terms any sort of mind powers could fall under that title. Mind Reading, ESP, any of that sort of stuff.
 
Sounds easy enough to convert form mesmerism then.

So, those of you who have read all of the stories (I haven't), did REH never put a mind-power creature in the game?

jh
 
Not that I can recall. There are a lot of things that cause a great deal of fear but I don't off the top of my head remember anything which could be described as Psionic. The closest would be Conan's Dream trip in Pheonix on the Sword.

Anyone esle got anything?
 
Green Ronin's new Master Class "Psychic's Handbook" would be an excellent start for using psychic (not psionic) abilities in the Hyborian setting. There are a couple of powers that would have to be disallowed, and the ranges would have to be reigned in for sure, but, if you don't like the sorcery system presented in Conan, the psychic system would be far better than standard D&D magic or psionics.

And if you are running a standard D&D campaign, the Master Class psychic system smacks the D&D psionic system around like a red-headed stepchild. If you are running a David Gemmell style campaign, it is *perfect* to represent the psychic abilities of Drenai sorcerers and Source priests.
 
rook111 said:
If you or someone else made up a school of Mesmerisim and it was compatable with the existing sorcery types (assuming that there isn't one coming in the Scrolls Of Skelos) that would be very good.

Nah... no such luck. More Hypnotism spells though.

During the playtest, I recommended they retitle Hypnotism "Mesmerism", but it didn't stick.
 
rook111 said:
Not that I can recall. There are a lot of things that cause a great deal of fear but I don't off the top of my head remember anything which could be described as Psionic. The closest would be Conan's Dream trip in Pheonix on the Sword.

Anyone esle got anything?
The events in, PotS seem more like uncontroled astral projection then any real form of psionics.
In, Queen of the Black Coast, Conan is rendered unconcious by the effects of the black lotus. While in the drug induced dream state he relives the histroy of the location up to the point of his falling into the dream.
This I would term a form of post-cognition, several REH characters have had this experence. Usually in an area where strong mystical or supernatural energies have been in play.
I'm sure that there are a few others in the Conan stories, but these are the only ones I can remember off the top of my head.
 
Thing is:

What, mechanically will be the difference between what you can do with Psi and what you can do with sorery?

There certainly won't be any difference to the outside observer.

Is this just a way of sneaking in corruption free sorcery powers by the back door, and not having to be a Scholar to get them?
 
Mythos said:
I'm sure that there are a few others in the Conan stories, but these are the only ones I can remember off the top of my head.

In Shadows in Zamboula, the big strangler Baal-Pteor does a few things which Conan calls "mesmerism", mostly just illusions and trickery of that sort.
 
I reckon Sorcery in Howard's & Lovecraft's works _is_ psionics, as in 'powers of the mind' - that's certainly the impression I get from the stories. So I wouldn't separate them D&D-style.
 
In most S&S fiction (REH Conan being foremost) there is little difference drawn between "Magic", "pscionics", and even "technology."

Seriously, do you need another system when Sorcery will work just fine with some entirely stylistic changes? Mesmerism covers most of the mind-trick things (needing only a psychic invisibility spell and a psychic illusion spell), and Prestigitation covers the more external physical stuff, and Oriental Magic covers the more internal-psimonk stuff.

It's all there already... just differing only in how you describe it.

-B
 
rook111 said:
No, No, No.

Thats just not right. :shock:

It may work in "enter your name here"'s Hyboria but not REH's Hyboria.

If you have to have some sort of Psionics in your Hyboria use one of Mongoose's other games takes on it, stay away from D&D Psionics at all costs. OGL Horror from Mongoose could work for the unique Psychic, maybe the system from Call of Cuthulu d20 but I havn't looked at that in a long time. You could probably make the telepath rules from either Babylon 5 or Judge Dredd workd since they aren't over powering (well JD can get pretty powerful though) if you have to have that sort of thing.

My advice though leave it out.

Dredging this thread up . . .

You can do whatever you please with the Conan RPG. It's your game, it's your world to play in. REH might not have any thing remotely like the psionics in the Expanded Psionics Handbook, but you can certainly add it. There is no reason why you can't. Unless you rather have somebody brow beat your game into what they think it should be.
 
IF you decide to incorporate psionics into your Hyborian world, I would recommend not using the XPH specifically. It is way over the top on power level and scholars will shortly be a thing of the past. Use the 3.0 psionics instead. Because of their MAD (multiple attribute dependancy), they can't go gang busters in all realms. Power points are more restricted and # of powers known is fewer. There would still be several modifications to be made. The area of effect damage powers will be one of the biggest revisions as well as having to tinker with saves, ranges, and durations. It WILL change the entire dynamic of the game. Its easy to think you can just pick it up and and drop it in, but you'll find there will be much more work to it to keep it balanced.
 
JamesMishler said:
Green Ronin's new Master Class "Psychic's Handbook" would be an excellent start for using psychic (not psionic) abilities in the Hyborian setting. There are a couple of powers that would have to be disallowed, and the ranges would have to be reigned in for sure, but, if you don't like the sorcery system presented in Conan, the psychic system would be far better than standard D&D magic or psionics.

I've used the Psychic's Handbook in D&D. Granted it is much much better than the Psionics Handbook (don't know about expanded psionics) but at the hands of an experienced player it has a whole lot of potential for abuse. Trust me on that. My DM (who actually got it so I could use it) was not too happy with the creative uses I came up with for many of the skills there.
My advice would be to either use the psychic feat chain from CoC, or "adjust" the spells from the Hypnotism school from standard Conan. Trying to adjust the powers in the Psychic Handbook would just be too difficult (you'd either completely neuter the character or leave a lot of openings for him to exploit).

Just my 2 cent...

Dimitri
 
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