Just How Nerfed are Psionics?

Since I have my old psi rules out, let's actually take a look at the
question. Suppose for example that you have a budget of 35 points
(after buying stats and other skills) and want to build a telekinetic
character. If you bought single skill telekinesis then you could get
up to say level 8. You spend the remaining points on actually getting
telekinesis skill. How good are you? Well you have infinite range.
That's something. And you can lift 2lbs. Not do any damage, but you
could for example make a gun or a ring of keys float into your grasp.
Basically it's useless in combat most of the time though

Compare that to dumping the same amount of points into the Telekinesis
advantage from 4th edition. You get 7 levels of Telekinesis for 31
points. Now you can lift about 20 pounds if you take one second,
40 pounts if you take 2 seconds and 80 pound if you strain for 4
seconds. You can punch someone for 1d-3 damage rolling against DEX or
unarmed combat skill, whichever is better or throw an object to use
throwing skill.

Back to the original rules You'll probably want to go with the full
psychokinesis talent since its only 1 point more per level. So, level
6 then (with 5 points for skills) Since you still want to be a
telekinetic you'll spend a point or two on that skill and then also
get pyrokinesis so you'll have something to attack with. That's a bit
more effective as an approach. You can now lift 8 ounces but you can
also raise the body temperature of a human being by 1 degree per
second. 22 seconds later, he's out. Keep it up and he's dead and
eventually you'll reduce him to ash. But effectively useless unless
you are watching him remotely so he can't counterattack.

How much would it cost to get a comparable capability under the new
rules? Well, one level of telekinesis gives you that at least much
lifting ability (half a pound). You could get an invisible Burning
Innate Attack that could do 5d6 damage, or you could get a invisble
2d6 Malediction that gives your victim a roll on their HT versus your
Will but ignores armour.

I'd say new rules are pretty competitive at that point level.

On Sat, 27 May 2006 07:45:28 GMT, David Johnston <rgorman DeleteThis @block.net>
wrote:


>
>I'd say new rules are pretty competitive at that point level.
>

Continued...so at what point do new era psychokinetics start to lag
behind in terms of punch per point?

Well as far as telekinesis goes, there's a pretty sharp dividing line
between power level 15 and 16 in the old rules. Suddenly you can
inflict about the same damage and lift about the same size object as
the 4th edition rules will let you do for the same points. Once you
hit level 20 you can do 3d of damage while the telekinetic punches of
the new edition only deal 2d-1 damage. Although you can pick up
swinging weapons with your telekinesis and still do 3d of damage from
then on newstyle telekinesis lags behind with each level of oldtype
telekinesis adding 1 to the damage, while it takes two levels of
newstyle tk to increase strength enough to add 1 to the damge.
However since telekinesis in the old systme only increase lifing
strength by 250 lbs per level and in the new system it increases
geometrically, the result is that newstyle tk goes from roughly equal
maximum lifting about at level 18 to steadily increase the the amount
it can lift by comparison even as the damage of thrown objects lags
behind.

However, assuming you got the full pychokinesis package in the old
rules once past 20 you fairly easily reached the point where you could
incapacitate anyone with a glance. No defense possible except for
Anti Psi. Of course if you dumped half that many points into a
Malediction you'd get pretty much the same result in the new rules.
What you couldn't do is simulataneously get that much lifting and that
much lethality for the same number of points. I'm guessing the
balance point is roughly 16. After that you have to choose between
whether you want more lifting or more lethality.