New Psionic Powers 

 

 

Psychoportive Sciences

Planar Transposition (High Science)

Power Score: Int –4

Initial Cost: 65/130

Maintenance Cost: 1/turn

Range: 150 yards

Preparation Time: 6

Area of Effect: 30 foot cube

Prerequisites: summon planar energies, summon planar creature

Planar transposition is the High Science of Psychoportation. This powerful ability allows the psionicist to switch a portion of the Prime Material Plane for a portion of another plane. If the psionicist transposes his surroundings with one of the Inner (Elemental) Planes or the Ethereal or Astral Planes, the initial cost is 65 PSPs. If he actually summons a portion of an Outer Plane, the initial cost is 130 PSPs.

The psionicist may attempt to switch a larger area than the normal 30-foot by 30-foot cube. For each additional 30-foot cube he attempts to transfer, he suffers a –1 penalty to his power score. The psionicist may instead transpose a donut-shaped ring 10 feet in diameter on the inside and 10 feet wide. The transposed planes remain switched for as long as the psionicist pays the maintenance cost.

The exact effects of this power are left to the DM, but some guidelines apply. Inanimate objects can be partially transposed, so a castle may be half in the Prime Material Plane with the psionicist and half in the Elemental Plane of Fire. However, living creatures are either all in or all out. If a creature wanders away from its transposed area into the new surroundings, it doesn’t return when the psionicist drops the power. Note that the psionicist may accidentally transpose an extraplaner creature when he grabs a chunk of its home plane and brings it to Athas.

The planes are not interrupted by their transposition; a piece of the Elemental Plane of Fire remains a roaring source of heat, transposing the base of a tower will not cause its top to fall, and so on. However, the new surroundings may affect the transposed areas eventually. A portion of Athas sent to the Plane of Magma would return a scorched wasteland.

Some possibilities with planar transposition include: creating a temporary oasis by transposing bare desert for a piece of the Elemental Plane of Water, opening a passage through a mountain by transposing a portion of the Ethereal Plane; sending a tower filled with enemy soldiers to the Abyss for a time (no telling what’ll he in it when the tower comes back…); or hiding by surrounding oneself with a donut-shaped area of the Demiplane of Shadow or the Quasielemental Plane of Steam.

As noted above, planar transposition is a High Science. The psionicist cannot select this power as part of his normal advancement.

Power Score: The area of effect can be doubled if the psionicist desires.

20: The psionicist blasts himself into the plane he was trying to transpose.

Summon Planar Energies

Power Score: Int

Initial Cost: 32

Maintenance Cost: NA

Range: 60 yards

Preparation Time: 1

Area of Effect: special

Prerequisites: summon planar creature

Some psionicists can use their minds to unlock the alien energies of other planes. A character with this ability can summon energy from the planes and use it to attack her enemies. Some planes are more useful than others for this purpose—the Para-elemental Planes and Quasi-elemental Planes are most useful for summoning harmful energy.

Plane

Attack Type

Damage

Modifier

Fire

Flame

2d8

0

Sun

Heat Ray

1d12/1d12

–2

Magma

Lava

3d8

–2

Radiance

Incandescent

1d20/1d20

–4

Lightning

Lightning

3d8

–4

Salt

Dehydrating

4d4

–4

Ash

Cold

5d4

–4

Positive

Energy

3d12

–6

Negative

Energy

3d12

–6

Flame attacks fill a 10-foot cube and cause 1d8 additional points of damage in the following round.

Heat rays strike two times, inflicting 1d12 points of damage per hit. They can affect two targets.

Magma affects one target, but inflicts 2d8 points of damage in the following round and 1d8 in the third round.

Incandescent attacks strike twice in a round and can affect one or two targets.

Lightning affects all creatures in a path 5 feet wide between the psionicist and the target.

Dehydrating attacks affect all creatures in a 10 foot cube and affect victims as a ray of enfeeblement.

Cold attacks affect all creatures in a cone 20 feet wide, with its point at the psionicist’s location.

Energy attacks affect one target. Undead creatures must save versus spells or be destroyed by positive energy attacks, and negative energy attacks cause living creatures to save versus spells or lose a level.

Regardless of the form of energy used, the victim may attempt a saving throw versus spells for half damage. This power is very taxing, and if a psionicist attempts to summon planar energies more than twice in a single day, she must save versus spells or fall unconscious for 1d6 turns.

Power Score: The psionicist taps a particularly potent source of energy; add one die of damage.

20: The psionicist accidentally summons a planar creature native to the plane whose energy she was trying to tap.

Time Travel

Power Score: Int + special

Initial Cost: 20+

Maintenance Cost: 8/hour

Range: 0

Preparation Time: 8

Area of Effect: special

Prerequisites: teleport, time shift

Some psionicists can extend their teleportive powers into the time stream and journey to different times. The psionicist may jump a day or two into the past or future, or he can attempt a mind-boggling journey across millennia. Generally, the farther a psionicist travels in time, the more costly it is to make the trip.

If the psionicist also knows the teleport other power, he may attempt to bring along one companion per level for an additional cost of 20 PSPs each. While the psionicist is gone, time keeps running in his normal setting—if he spends eight hours in the past, he must return to a point eight hours after the time he left.

Distance

Initial Cost

Power Score Modifier

1 day or less

20

0

1 week

30

–1

1 month

40

–2

1 year

50

–3

10 years

60

–4

100 years

70

–5

1,000 years

80

–6

10,000 years +

100

–8

The Past: In the short term, the psionicist may wish to alter recent events by warning someone not to do something that he knows will turn out badly. He may travel back an hour to tell his companions (and his past self) not to storm the fortress, or whatever. The party may get a chance to replay the events in question—but the psionicist had better remember to go back and warn himself, even if things do turn out better, otherwise he will never receive the warning.

In the long term, the psionicist may try to recover lost information by speaking to people long dead. He may try to kill his enemies by assassinating their forebears. If the character tries to alter history, the DM should decide if he succeeds or fails. Sometimes the character’s actions may have unexpected ramifications. For example, by killing Kalak the Tyrant in his youth, the PC may pave the way for an even more terrible despot to arise.

The DM should be guided by two principles: once an event has been changed once, it can never be changed again; and secondly, events tend to have a historical inertia. In other words, things have a way of working themselves out to he the same no matter what the psionicist does. The more important the event, the more difficult it is to change it.

The Future: The psionicist can journey to the future to see how an action will turn out or to uncover information not available in his own day. Like the past, the future is malleable; even the fact of the psionicist’s visit changes the course of events, in innumerable ways. Once the psionicist has glimpsed the future, historical inertia takes over and begins to bend events to follow the revealed timeline. This destiny can only be avoided with great difficulty once it comes into being.

Whatever happens in the past or the future, the DM should use this power to make things more interesting. Ignore or apply paradoxes as desired to make the PC’s, life more entertaining and to keep the story going.

Power Score: No effect.

20: The psionicist must save versus spells or become dislocated in the timestream, landing at a random point in his proposed journey and assuming that as his native time. So, going too far might make for a long road back.

Wormhole

Power Score: Int–2

Initial Cost: 24+

Maintenance Cost:8+

Range: 20 yards

Preparation Time: 1

Area of Effect: special

Prerequisites: dimensional door

With this power, a psionicist can open a door between two points, no matter how far apart they may happen to be (at least theoretically). It resembles the devotion dimensional door, but on a much larger scale. The psionicist must open one end within 20 yards of himself, although the portal may have any orientation and be any size up to 10 feet by 10 feet square. If the psionicist wishes to, he can try to make the wormhole larger; each doubling in portal size adds an additional –2 penalty to the power check.

The other end of the wormhole will he of identical size and can be placed at any point the psionicist has ever seen. It can also he positioned at any place he can reference from here he currently is—for example, “10 miles east of where I am now”—whether or not he has ever actually been there.

The distance spanned by the wormhole will affect its PSP cost as shown below.

Distance

Initial Cost

Maintenance Cost

100 yards

24

8/round

1,000 yards

36

12/round

10 miles

48

16/round

100 miles

60

20/round

1,000 miles

72

24/round

10,000 miles

100

30/round

Interplanetary

150

50/round

Once created, the wormhole’s entrances remain motionless. Anything can pass through, to he instantly transported to the other side. The psionicist could conceivably transport an entire army or a mekillot wagon by spending enough PSPs. if an object cannot fit entirely within the wormhole’s mouth, it cannot be transported.

If the psionicist tries to use this power to transport an unwilling creature, the victim gains a saving throw versus spells to avoid being affected.

Power Score: The maintenance costs are cut in half.

20: The psionicist creates a dimensional vortex that transports him 10 to 100 miles in a random (horizontal) direction if he fails a saving throw versus spells.

Psychoportive Devotions

Blink

Power Score: Int+1

Initial Cost: 7

Maintenance Cost: 3/round

Range: 0

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: personal

Prerequisites: teleport

By using the blink power, the psionicist initiates a series of random, short-range teleportations that make him very hard to hit in combat. Each round, the psionicist will automatically blink once at a randomly determined time in the initiative order, roll 1d10 and note the initiative number of the blink. In order to strike at the psionicist, his opponents must have a better initiative then his blink time.

Each blink carries the psionicist 3d10 feet in a random direction. (Roll 1d8: 1 = right ahead, 2 = ahead and to the right, 3 = to the right, and so on.) However, the psionicist’s blinks will never carry him into a solid object or any kind of danger, such as a fire or cliff-edge.

The psionicist may attempt to strike before he blinks, in which case he must beat his own blink initiative, or he can hold his action until the end of the round.

Power Score: The psionicist will automatically blink away before his enemies can strike at him.

20: A bizarre series of instantaneous blinks leaves the psionicist stunned for 1d4 rounds at a distance of 3d10 feet from his starting location.

Dimension Blade

Power Score: Con–1

Initial Cost: 6

Maintenance Cost: 5/round

Range: 0

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: one weapon

Prerequisites: duo-dimension

A psychoporter can use her control of dimensions to make her sword into an infinitely sharp blade by making it two-dimensional. Almost any hand-held weapon can be altered with this power, even bludgeoning weapons such as hammers or maces. Only jointed, chain, or rope weapons (such as whips, flails, or nunchuks) cannot be made into dimensional blades.

While this power is in effect, the psionicist’s weapon ignores any armor worn by the victim. Only Dexterity and magical protection apply. For example, a gladiator with an 18 Dexterity in hide armor is AC 6 instead of AC 2. In the case of monsters, the DM must decide if the creature’s Armor Class is due to thick, armor-like hide or natural quickness. In addition, the blade gains a +2 to hit and a +2 to damage rolls. The dimension blade can also be used to cleanly sever inanimate objects, such as an opponent’s weapon, a stone pillar, or the axle of a wagon. Any object struck by a dimension blade must make an item saving throw versus disintegration or be sliced in half.

Power Score: The dimension blade scores double damage in addition to all other benefits.

20: The weapon the psionicist is trying to affect shatters, inflicting 1d4 damage on the psionicist.

Dimensional Screen

Power Score: Con–3

Initial Cost: 9

Maintenance Cost: 6/round

Range: 0

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: special

Prerequisites: dimensional door

This power allows the psionicist to wrap a dimensional door around his body to protect him from his enemies’ attacks. The screen is a shimmering cylinder as tall as the psionicist that surrounds him at a range of two feet. Any missile or hand-held weapon that strikes the screen is instantly transported to a corresponding point on the other side—so arrows and spears pass through the space occupied by the psionicist without harming him, or even being impeded in their flight.

The protection of the screen also applies to creatures trying to attack with tooth or claw, or other characters trying to grapple the psionicist. They pass through the screen, emerging on the opposite side. Most forms of energy, such as lightning bolts or flames, will also be diverted by the screen.

The dimensional screen has two limitations. First, the psionicist can’t pierce his own screen with any weapon or form of energy (although some psionic powers may be used to mount indirect attacks on opponents outside the screen). Secondly, the screen fails if an object larger than the screen moves into contact with it—so the psionicist can’t run through a mountain, or ignore the charge of a raging mekillot.

Clever opponents may find ways to attack the psionicist inside his screen. Magical spells like charm person, sleep, or cloudkill project no energy. Psionic powers also may penetrate the screen, as described above.

Power Score: The psionicist is protected from large objects or creatures by being harmlessly “bounced” away by the dimensional screen.

20: The psionicist is dimensional doored 30-300 (3d10´10) yards in a random direction and stunned for 1d10 rounds if he fails a save versus spells.

Duo-Dimension

Power Score: Con–2

Initial Cost: 11

Maintenance Cost: 4/round

Range: 0

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: personal

Prerequisites: none

With this power a psionicist can alter her own dimensions so that she has height and width, but no depth. She becomes a two-dimensional image that has no thickness; her third dimension is transferred to another plane and remains there as long as she maintains this power. The advantage of this lies in the fact that she simply does not exist if seen from the side, and is thus completely invisible and immune to any attacks from that direction. She can fit through the thinnest cracks by edging sideways, as long as there is vertical clearance for her.

The psionicist can move and attack as normal, and she is not invulnerable—she can be attacked normally by any opponent in front of or behind her. While she is two-dimensional, she suffers double damage from any successful attack.

Power Score: The psionicist’s weapon is affected by the dimension blade power at no additional cost.

20: The psionicist vanishes into a weird pocket dimension for 1d6 rounds.

Phase

Power Score: Wis–1

Initial Cost: 6

Maintenance Cost: 6/round

Range: 0

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: personal

Prerequisites: none

This power allows a psionicist to shift his body’s molecules into a different frequency of motion, making him ghostly and transparent to the unphased world around him. The psionicist can walk through solid matter; his enemies’ weapons will pass right through him, and no physical force or energy can harm him. He can he affected by other phased objects or creatures, though.

A phased character is not affected by gravity. He will retain any falling momentum he has, but when he arrives at the ground he is not harmed. He can move over solid ground at his normal movement rate, over water or quicksand at one-half normal, and through solid matter at one-quarter his normal move. He moves vertically at 10 feet per round. If the character fails to maintain phasing while passing through matter, he takes 3-30 points of damage, falls into a coma for 1-6 hours, and becomes trapped in the Ethereal Plane.

It is difficult to achieve contact with a phased mind. Any psionic attacks suffer a –4 penalty on their power checks, and the psionicist saves at +2 versus any mind-affecting magic or effects. Of course, these same penalties affect the psionicist’s own attacks while phased.

Power Score: The psionicist’s phased movement rate doubles.

20: The psionicist saves versus death at +4 or disintegrates.

Phase Object

Power Score: Wis–3

Initial Cost: 10+

Maintenance Cost: 5/round

Range: 20 yards

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: one object

Prerequisites: phase

With this devotion, the psionicist can extend her phasing powers to an object. A boulder blocking a tunnel can be phased in order to allow passage, an enemy’s sword can be rendered harmless, or a building can be forced to collapse by reducing its supports to an insubstantial form.

The larger an object, the more difficult it is to phase. The rule of thumb is 1 PSP per 10 pounds, with a minimum cost of 10 PSPs. Phasing an object does not harm it. An object being phased cannot be affected by any physical force, but can be affected by other phased objects. A psionicist can use this power on his own sword to make it capable of harming another phased character.

Phased objects retain any momentum they had when they were affected, so a catapult missile will continue in its trajectory—it just won’t do any damage when it strikes its target. Phased objects that were not moving stay where they were.

If the object is being worn or carried by an unwilling subject, the victim may attempt a saving throw versus spells to avoid the effect.

Power Score: The psionicist may disintegrate the item if he so chooses.

20: The psionicist must save versus spells or disintegrate a random piece of his own equipment.

Pocket Dimension

Power Score: Wis

Initial Cost: 14

Maintenance Cost: 3/turn

Range: 10 yards

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: special

Prerequisites: none

This devotion allows a psionicist to create a small storage area in extradimensional space. This storage area is a 5-foot cube, and can contain any amount of weight that will fit in the space provided. The storage area is accessed by a glowing doorway or hatch about 2 feet square. The access always stays in the same place relative to the psionicist, much like a Tenser’s floating disk follows a wizard around. The access can be changed in size from fully closed to 5 feet square at will by the psionicist.

Any objects placed in the pocket dimension have no weight or bulk; the psionicist could carry 1,000 pounds of rock in his belt pouch, if he desired. However, when the psionicist ceases to maintain the power, the contents of the pocket dimension appear at the location of the access and drop to the ground. It is possible to damage things by placing a large object in a pocket dimension, putting the access in a tight space, and then ceasing to maintain the power.

Living creatures in the pocket dimension exhaust the air supply in about 15 minutes; however, the psionicist can leave the access partially open to allow air to circulate. The psionicist cannot enter his own pocket dimension, but can reach in and retrieve anything inside.

Power Score: The pocket dimension may be up to 10 feet on a side, if the psionicist desires.

20: Anything the psionicist places in the pouch drifts off into an alien dimension and is lost forever.

Shadow Walk

Power Score: Con+1

Initial Cost: 9/18

Maintenance Cost: NA

Range: 1,000 yards

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: personal

Prerequisites: none

Shadow walk is a devotion that allows the psionicist to use the Demiplane of Shadow to instantly cross a space between two shadows. The psionicist can step into any shadow larger than his own body and teleport to any other shadow in range. If he can see the shadow he is teleporting to, the cost is 9 PSPs; if he is teleporting blindly to a shadow that he cannot see from his current location, the cost is doubled. All of the psionicist’s equipment and anything he is carrying is transported as well.

This power is usually ineffective in bright daylight or on very dark nights. It works best in twilight conditions. The psionicist may use his own shadow to shadow walk.

Power Score: The psionicist may travel to any shadow within two miles.

20: The psionicist must save versus spells or accidentally summon 1d4 shadows, who appear from his own shadow and attack him.

Spatial Distortion

Power Score: Int–4

Initial Cost: 8+

Maintenance Cost: 4+

Range: 100 yards

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: special

Prerequisites: none

A psionicist with this power can affect the dimensions of an area, making it larger or smaller than it appears. The base area of effect is a 20 foot cube, but the psionicist can affect a larger area by paying an initial cost of 4 PSPs per extra 20 foot cube he wishes to affect. The maintenance cost is always half of the initial cost. The area of effect can be tailored to the surroundings; for example, the base area of effect applied to a 10 foot wide underground passage would affect an 80 foot length of passage.

Within the area of effect, the psionicist can choose to make the distance twice or one-half what it should be. In the passage above, he can make it appear to be 40 to 160 feet in length. A chasm could be made smaller, so as to he easily crossable, or greater to act as a defense. A friend’s fall could he shortened to cause less damage.

Objects must he either wholly in or wholly out of the area of effect. The transition into the area of effect is unnoticeable.

Power Score: The psionicist may alter distances from 25% to 400% normal.

20: The psionicist doubles all distances for himself only for 2d4 hours.

Summon Object

Power Score: Int–4

Initial Cost: 30+

Maintenance Cost: NA

Range: special

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: one object

Prerequisites: teleport object

This devotion allows a psionicist to bring a distant object to him. The item must be a single piece and weigh no more than 100 pounds. Metal is harder to teleport and costs twice as much as normal, while obsidian is very hard to teleport and triples the PSP cost. The actual cost of summon object varies with the distance of the item from the psionicist.

Distance

Initial Cost

Power Score Modifier

10 yards

30

+1

100 yards

35

0

1,000 yards

40

–1

10 miles

50

–3

100 miles

60

–5

1,000 miles

70

–7

10,000 miles

100

–9

The psionicist must be able to either see the object he is teleporting, or he must know exactly where it is. If the psionicist left a steel sword hanging above the fireplace in his home, he can summon the sword—but if someone had moved the sword across the room, he could not summon it unless he used clairvoyance to see where it was.

If the psionicist tries to use this power to remove an object from someone else’s person, the victim receives a saving throw versus spells to avoid the effect. Note that any summoned object will appear in the psionicist’s hand or on the ground beside him, so it is not possible to use this power to drop boulders on the heads of one’s opponents.

Power Score: The psionicist pays only half the PSPs required.

20: The psionicist moves the object from its resting place, but it doesn’t show up. It is teleported from its current location a distance equal to its distance from the psionicist, but in a random direction.

Teleport Lock

Power Score: Int–1

Initial Cost: 8

Maintenance Cost: 2/round

Range: 30 yards

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: one creature

Prerequisites: time/space anchor

By using this power, a psionicist can prevent another creature within range from teleporting. All forms of teleportation, both magical and psionic, are blocked by teleport lock. A creature attempting to teleport while under a teleport lock must win a psychic contest against the blocking psionicist, using its teleport score (or level for wizards) against the psionicist’s teleport lock score.

In addition to interfering with teleportation, this power also prevents magical or psionic blinking and plane shifting. Teleport lock does not prevent travel by dimensional doors or dimension walk, but does prevent shadow walking.

Power Score: The psionicist automatically wins any psychic contests he must fight with this power.

20: The psionicist must save versus spells or he dragged along behind the subject when the subject teleports. The psionicist suffers 1d8 points of damage and is stunned 2d6 rounds at his new location.

Time Dilation

Power Score: Int

Initial Cost: varies

Maintenance Cost: NA

Range: 0

Preparation Time: 0

Area of Effect: personal

Prerequisites: time travel

This power allows the psionicist to affect the timestream itself, speeding up or slowing down its flow relative to herself. Slowing down the flow of time effectively hastes the psionicist, while speeding the time flow slows the psionicist. The amount of the dilation affects the initial cost of the power, as shown below.

Haste

Slow

Cost

Check Modifier

x 2

x 1/10

18

–3

x 3

x 1/20

36

–5

x 4

x 1/50

54

–7

If the psionicist hastes herself by slowing down the timestream, she can maintain the power for a number of rounds (her own, not everyone else’s) equal to her level. Movement, physical attack rates, and even spellcasting and psionic powers increase as well. However, any spell or psionic power that leaves the psionicist’s accelerated timestream (for example, casting magic missile at or attempting to contact a nontime-dilated target) stands a chance of being disrupted. Each time the psionicist tries to do this, she must make a saving throw versus spells to successfully use her spell or devotion in the normal timestream.

If the psionicist slows herself by speeding up the timestream, the power lasts a number of her own turns equal to her level—so a 6th-level psionicist with a 1/20 factor of dilation can make 6 of her own turns stretch out for 120 turns (20 hours!) in the outside world. She can end the power at anytime, but her perceptions are slowed so much that she is automatically surprised by any enemy that approaches. Note that the psionicist consumes food and water and is affected by things like poison at her own pace, so this power can be used to reduce water consumption to zero or to slow poison.

If the psionicist is maintaining any other psionic powers, they are paid for only on her subjective rounds. If a psionicist was on a ship that sank, she could use levitation and time dilation to hover over the sea until another ship came along, since she is only paying the maintenance cost for levitation in her own creeping time frame.

Power Score: The rate of dilation is increased one step at no additional cost.

20: The psionicist fails the dilation and must save versus spells or age 1d10 years.

Time Duplicate

Power Score: Int–1

Initial Cost: 22

Maintenance Cost: NA

Range: 0

Preparation Time: 0

Area Of Effect: personal

Prerequisites: time travel

This power allows the psionicist to travel forward in time to borrow a future self, bringing it back to aid him in the present and creating an identical duplicate of himself. The psionicist only travels a round or two into the future, and creates a strange hiccup in his own existence. The net effect looks something like this:

First Round: The psionicist initiates the power. To observers, it looks as if nothing has happened.

Second Round: The psionicist’s self from round three arrives, so there are now two psionicists. Both can act normally during this round, but the future self gains some advantages since he’s already lived through this round once and knows what to expect.

Third Round: The psionicist journeys back to round two to help himself, so there are no psionicists here. He has no existence at all during this round.

Fourth Round: The future psionicist who was borrowed from round three returns at the same spot and in the some condition he was in when round two ended. The time duplicate has ended.

In the second round, the future self has the option of automatically winning the initiative (since he knows what’s going to happen) or holding his attacks until the end of the round. In any event, the future self gains a –4 bonus to Armor Class, +4 bonus to saving throws, and a +2 bonus to any attack rolls he makes.

If the future self is injured or killed, there is no effect on the present psionicist, other than the fact that he can cringe in anticipation of the wounds he’s going to get and possibly die from. However, any injuries to the present self are immediately duplicated on the person of the future psionicist.

Power Score: The future self finds the time to warn the present self of any dangers, so that the present self gains the combat bonuses of the future self.

20: The psionicist taps a possible future in which he has been slain in the next round. He must save versus spells or become catatonic for 1d6 hours.