This science allows the psionicist to project visions or images into the victim’s mind. In effect, it is like a psionic phantasmal force. The psionicist can make his victim believe he is seeing, hearing, or feeling almost anything. The psionicist can attack the victim with hallucinatory monsters or spells, deceive the victim by making a company of soldiers resemble a grove of palms, or even make him think that a flagon full of sand actually contains cool, refreshing water.

In general, the rules for adjudicating illusions on pages 84 and 130 of the Player’s Handbook are appropriate for determining the effects of any hallucinatory effects. If the psionicist carefully constructs the hallucination and provides the victim with what he expects to see, the victim may not even receive a saving throw. The physical effects of hallucinations are psychosomatic; the victim may believe he is being mauled by a tembo, but he is not really being harmed physically.

Maintaining a hallucination requires full concentration on the part of the psionicist. If he makes a physical attack or initiates another psionic power while maintaining this power, the victim instantly receives a saving throw versus spells with a +4 bonus to break free of the hallucination.

Power Score: The hallucination is so real that the victim suffers a –4 penalty on any saving throws and suffers 20% of any damage as real.

20: The psionicist believes his own hallucination for 1d6 rounds.

Mass contact is the High Science of Telepathy. It allows the telepath to establish contact with a number of minds at the same time instead of contacting each subject individually. The range and life order modifiers listed under the description of contact on pages 80-83 of The Complete Psionics Handbook all apply normally to mass contact, just as they would to contact.

The cost of mass contact is the sum of the regular contact costs for each subject. The maintenance cost is always 1 PSP per round per subject, but the initial cost varies with the levels of the subjects, as shown on the table below.

All minds to be contacted must be within 100 yards of each other, although the range can potentially be thousands of miles by linking distant subjects to even more distant ones. When the psionicist uses mass contact, he may choose which minds in the area of effect that he wishes to contact and which he does not. The psionicist must roll a power check on each subject and spend the PSPs to contact that person on a one-by-one basis, so mass contact could allow the psionicist to attempt dozens of contacts in a single round.

If the DM wishes, the statistical average may be used to save a lot of dice-rolling. If the subjects are 20 identical gith and the psionicist has a contact score of 18, he would affect 18 of them.

Once mass contact has been established, the psionicist can follow up with any other telepathic power he wants to use, such as invisibility, invincible foes, or id insinuation. The cost of the follow-up power must be paid for each individual that is subjected to it, but the power checks can be statistically averaged as described above. Note that the combination of mass contact and domination is much more effective than using mass domination by itself.

Mass contact is a High Science and cannot he selected as a science without first engaging in intensive meditation and research. See Chapter Seven.

Power Score: All established contacts are maintained for the first four rounds for free.

20: The psionicist tries for more minds then he can handle and is unprepared for the psychic backlash from so many subjects at once. He must save versus spells or fall unconscious for 2d4 hours, expending all his PSPs in the process.

Some psionicists can project a wave of deadly mental force that can destroy lesser intellects. The science of mindflame allows a psionicist to attack all creatures in the area of effect with a mental barrage that can incapacitate or even kill its victims. The area affected by the power is a cone 20 feet long and 5 feet wide, with its apex at the psionicist. Up to six victims in this area can be affected.

Victims who are psionicists can protect themselves against the effects of mindflame by throwing up a simple mind blank or other defense, but any creature that does not know a psionic defense mode can be affected. The effects vary with the victim’s level or Hit Dice:

Regardless of the effect, the victim is entitled to a saving throw versus death to avoid the effects of the mindflame. Creatures rendered comatose by the mindflame must make a second saving throw versus death or die at the end of their unconsciousness. Creatures rendered unconscious must make a second saving throw or lapse into a coma (without the risk of death).

Stunned creatures may not move, attack, initiate psionic powers, or cast spells, and suffer a –2 penalty to Armor Class. Dazed creatures may move at half normal speed, attack with a –2 penalty, and defend normally. They must make a successful saving throw versus spells to initiate a psionic power or cast a spell.

The effects of the mindflame can be corrected by psychic surgery, a limited wish, or a cure serious wounds or more powerful healing spell.

Mindflame is exhausting to the psionicist; if invoked more than once in a day, the psionicist suffers a –4 penalty on his power cheek. It is also a very dark use of one’s inner strength, and psionicists who maim lesser intelligence will find their alignments moving toward evil.

Power Score: The effects are advanced one category, so creatures of 8+1 Hit Dice or more would be stunned instead of dazed, and so on.

20: The psionicist burns out this power and may not attempt mindflame again for 2d8 weeks.

This devotion allows the psionicist to interfere with the memory of a contacted creature. As long as amnesia is maintained, the subject is unable to remember anything that occurred prior to the psionicist’s contact with his mind. The victim does remember events that occur in his amnesiac state, so he can recall conversations or events that have occurred since the amnesia began.

The exact effects of amnesia are left to the DM, hut generally the victims remember how to talk, how to walk, how to eat, and other physical skills. Knowledge-based skills such as spellcasting, psionics use, or lockpicking would be temporarily forgotten, but talents such as proficiency with the bow or tumbling would not be.

Making a monster forget everything does not necessarily make it a nice person. General personality traits remain despite the loss of memory.

Power Score: The victim remains an amnesiac for 1d10 days after the psionicist ceases to maintain the power, if the psionicist wishes.

20: The power backfires, and the psionicist becomes amnesiac himself for 2d10 turns.

With this power, the psionicist can establish a constant yet passive mental link with another character. The subject must be willing, and the psionicist must successfully initiate passive contact while the subject is in his presence. After the power has been established, the subject can go anywhere he likes while still maintaining a tenuous link with the psionicist.

This link allows the subject to get the psionicist’s attention by sending out a mental call. The psionicist gets a tingle in his mind that lets him know that his passive contact wants his attention. Presumably, the psionicist will then respond by trying normal contact and mindlink with the subject to find out what’s going on.

Passive contact is useful because it gives the psionicist’s nonpsionic friends a way to get in touch with the psionicist when they need his help.

Power Score: The psionicist knows if the subject is in trouble, even if the subject hasn’t tried to get his attention yet.

20: The psionicist believes he has successfully initiated the power, but the subject will not be able to get his attention.

With this power the psionicist attunes her mind to plant life. She gains a better understanding of the plant’s existence and can better deal with any intelligent or psionic plants she encounters. Normally, there is a –8 penalty for contact with a plant, but while plant mind is in effect, the psionicist does not suffer this penalty. Instead, she has a –8 penalty for contact with nonplant minds.

Plant mind does not allow the psionicist to communicate with plants, but it does give her a +2 bonus to her Charisma score when dealing with plants.

Power Score: The psionicist is especially well attuned to plant life and gains the benefits of the power for 24 hours without maintenance cost.

20: The psionicist slips into a vegetative slumber, remaining rooted to the spot for 2d10 hours.

This devotion allows the psionicist to temporarily blind or deafen an opponent by interfering with the brain’s reception of sensory information. The victim’s eyes or ears still work fine, but the mind cannot process the information. The psionicist must individually contact each creature he wants to affect and make a separate power check for each subject.

The victims remain blinded or deafened for as long as the psionicist pays the maintenance cost to keep the power going. Blinded characters suffer a penalty of –4 to all attacks, saves, and Armor Class. Deafened characters suffer a –1 penalty, but the penalty could he increased depending on the circumstances. (For example, a character trying to use his blind fighting proficiency to engage a foe in total darkness is very susceptible to being deafened.)

Power Score: The victim loses all sensory information for as long as the psionicist maintains the power.

20: The psionicist blinds himself for 2d8 rounds.

A psionicist can use this power to bolster a character’s courage. The psionicist can remove any fear effect that is currently affecting a character, automatically dispelling it. This use of suppress fear ends the terror created by the spells cause fear, emotion, eyebite, fear, scare, spook, and symbol, as well as the psionic powers of invincible foes and phobia amplification.

If the psionicist uses this power on a character who has not been frightened yet, the subject gains a temporary bonus of +4 to any morale checks or saving throws against magical or psionic fear effects. If the spell or power would not normally allow a saving throw, the psionicist may attempt a second power check to see if his fear suppression defeats the effect anyway. This protection lasts one turn, plus a number of rounds equal to the psionicist’s level.

Power Score: The psionicist so emboldens the subject to the point of foolhardiness that he gains a +1 to all attack rolls while the power is in effect.

20: Fear can be a contagious thing. The psionicist is entirely overwhelmed by the victim’s panic and flees as if affected by a fear spell himself.