Question about learning Psionics

[hivemindx]

I'm a little confused by the way a player gains psionic talents, particularly in relation to the learning roll.

This is what is says on p196 as the start of the Psionics chapyer.

Training requires four months of work, and costs Cr100000. As part of training, the Traveller may attempt to learn any of the common psionic talents on the Psionic Training table by making a PSI check. He may attempt the talents in any order, but suffers DM-1 per check attempted. If a Traveller learns a power, he gains that power at skill level 0.

Not taking anything else in to consideration that implies to me that the player goes through all the talents in any order they want and rolls for each one. They may end up knowing all five or none of them.

The example could be read that you attempt to learn one, and if you fail then you can attempt another, but you stop when you do finally learn a talent. Of course the example might be just truncated so that doesn't prove anything.

For example, Luka has just determined that she has a PSI of 9. She now rolls to determine powers. She can select powers in any order, so she begins with telekinesis. She roll 2D+1 (her PSI DM) +2 (the Telekinesis learning DM), but unfortunately, the dice roll is a 3 for a total of 6 – less than the number she needs, and so she does not develop telekinesis.

When these are taken in the context of the Psion career I get a bit more confused. As part of Basic Training you should get either one service skill (of your choice) or all of them (if Psion was somehow your first career, for example the character is a Darrian). Does this mean that you get those skills at 0 without a roll or just that you have the opportunity to try and learn those skills but you may fail the learning roll. If the former is correct is makes the whole learning roll a little redundant, although I guess someone could get psionic training without ever spending a term as a Psion. I would be tempted to say that your Basic Training just gives you the opportunity to learn (or find you have a natural talent) in those abilities.

Except if that was true I don't know what happens when you roll a talent on subsequent terms as a Psion. If you roll for Telepathy but you failed your learning roll earlier do you just get it at 0 with no roll? Do you get nothing? Do you get another opportunity to roll to learn and if you fail you get nothing?

For example, lets says I am in my second term as a Psion and through whatever mechanism I have Telepathy 0 and Clairvoyance 0 already. I choose to roll for Service Skills and I get a 3, Telekinesis. Do I get that at 0 with no learning roll needed or do I have to roll to learn it? If I fail to learn then what happens?

Obviously I can do whatever I like, but I'm interested to know what the intention of these rules is and what other people do?

Thanks.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Not taking anything else in to consideration that implies to me that the player goes through all the talents in any order they want and rolls for each one. They may end up knowing all five or none of them.

Yes.

When these are taken in the context of the Psion career I get a bit more confused.

Core, p203: Using the Psion Career

Unlike other careers, a Psion takes skills from the appropriate Specialist table instead of the Service Skills table in basic training.

The Psion must still roll to acquire talents when he determines his PSI. When rolling on the service skills table, if the Psion rolls the skill for a talent he does not yet possess, he may make another roll to acquire that talent.

Does that help?

 

[PsiTraveller]

What would the negatives be on the learning of a Talent that they gain during a career? Would the previous negatives still apply or do the DM modifiers on pg 196 apply or is it a straight roll?

 

[hivemindx]

I posted a reply to this a few days ago but it seems to have been eaten.

Thanks AnotherDilbert, that is exactly what I wanted. I didn't read the rules well enough so sorry for the foolish question. I don't usually use psionics but I was generating characters for Judge Dredd where those rules are more integral to the game and I had to get up to speed quickly.

PsiTraveller, I think you can read the rule either way. It could be read as only applying to acquisition roles during the initial psionic training where you roll for all the basic talents. Or your could read it as applying to every roll, including ones obtained later. My feeling is that it is already harsh enough to get a skill from your term and then miss out because you failed the roll without adding additional negatives. That would be at least DM-4 for every roll right? So a large reduction. My ruling would be that the DM-1 for each previous roll only applies to the initial training rolls.

As a side note in Judge Dredd you need an 11+ INT check to get be allowed roll for your PSI strength. This is a difficult hurdle similar to rolling to encounter a Psionic Institute during character generation in Traveller. My player who made this then rolled a PSI strength of 5 which was a bit disappointing. I think I should have applied the rule of cool (and I think I will do so retroactively) and said that if you actually manage to be accepted you should have a decent PSI strength and roll it as 1D+6 instead of 2D. This means that anyone who succeeds has at least an average strength. I think I would apply the same rule in Traveller but only for characters who roll a psionic encounter during their character generation, anyone who rolls PSI strength as a base stat (for example a Zhodani or Darrian) would just roll 2D as normal. If they roll low then they just won't choose the Psion career.

 

[EldritchFire]

To piggy-back on the psionic questions here, I have one.

Can you learn new psionic skills using the Post Career Education rules? Or are the skills only for those talents you successfully learned?

 

[legozhodani]

I'dsay that's up to your game world and ref. Doesn't say you can't, however every thing is in the lap of your ref and what fits into your Traveller world. We've found that PSI is no stronger than a good dose of hitech so it doesn't break the game mechanics, just if it fits your world view.

 

[steve98052]

I can't say I know the Mongoose version of the psionic rules very well, except to the extent that they're pretty similar to classic. Here's an approximation of the rules, based on memory because I don't have my books handy:

Roll for each of the five talent groups, choosing the order. The first roll is unmodified, the second at -1, the third at -2, . . ., and the fifth at -4. Apply anow additional -1 for each term of service before testing.

Awareness, 7+
Clairvoyance, 6+
Telekinesis, 8+
Telepathy, 5+
Teleportation, 9+
Special, 9+

(I don't remember how "Special" worked into those rules; I don't recall it ever being well defined.)

The main difference I could see between classic and Mongoose is that Mongoose adds the Psion career. As I read the rules, the Psion service can grant additional rolls for the five talents after the five rolls from initial training, and allows for characters to learn psionics without training.

 

[hivemindx]

To piggy-back on the psionic questions here, I have one.

Can you learn new psionic skills using the Post Career Education rules? Or are the skills only for those talents you successfully learned?

I agree with IegoZhodani that this is basically up to you. My feeling would be that I'd prefer to stop people from optimising their psionic powers and make them stick with what they got during character generation. The ones you get originally are the ones you have a natural talent for and those are the only ones that it is worth developing. A lot of fiction around mental powers assumes that. You rarely get someone changing their skill set.

My justification for this would be that the character improvement rules refer to 'skills' and the psionic abilities are usually referred to as talents. There is at least one place where they are referred to as skills too though so if your players are likely to be argumentative you might have a problem. In my relatively limited experience so far players are too busy to actually engage in post career character improvement anyway so it is likely to be irrelevant for me.

As an aside, there is a film on Netflix called Push which I found to be quite interesting from the point of view of wondering how psionics might actually work. That did tempt me to run a psionics focussed game to see what happened.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Personally, I think the PSION career skill tables are BROKEN and were in MGT1 as well. I think you should be able to develop the talents you have, but rolling for more talents should be an Event, not a skill table roll. The Psion career would then offer more "regular" skills that would compliment your psionic talents. YMMV.

ALL previous rolls should be accounted for in the DM. If you rolled for every talent initially (you don't have to), then kept rolling via the skill table, you will quickly reach the point where the negative DM for previous rolls is so high that you can NEVER roll a new talent and then the skill is wasted.

 

[steve98052]

In classic, a character had a power rating, which limited the total number of psionic acts one could perform before resting, a list of talents, and a skill rating for each talent. The player had a choice of the order to test for talents, each at a more difficult roll. It was never clear whether the character had that choice or if it was a game-play mechanism allowing players influence over their character's talents. There was also a negative modifier for age, which was stated to be part of the nature of psionics.

So, if the interpretation of the talent choice is that characters could influence what talents they had, it's reasonable to allow new talents to be developed with intense training. If it's interpreted as a game mechanic for players to choose, then the only way a new talent could be developed would be for it to be a discovery of a talent that was always there, but was missed by the initial examination.

Developing a new talent through intense training should be rare. Discovering a talent that was missed during initial training should be very rare.