Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Timespike 10-24-04, 11:13 AM	I'm working on a nasty LE nation that's heavy on Psionics for my existing game. My PCs are all level 7-8 and wil probably have hit levl 9 by the time they show up in Zaryx (the name of the country). Because of my own personal biases, and because the setting is somewhat more modern than the norm, (I use material from a number of steampunk sources, including the Iron Kingdoms and Dragonmech) I tend to make city gards in the level 3-7 range and use PC classes (usually fighter, rogue, urban ranger, or sometimes paladin) instead of using level 1 warriors. In the modern world, being a cop is most assuredly an adventuring profession... Anyway, I'm trying to put together the "watch"/secret police/whatever for Zaryx and wanted to use a lot of psionic material. Problem is, I'm NOT all that handy with the XPH yet. I like it, but I haven't gotten much use out of it yet. I'd like to make patrols consisting of 4 or 5 psychic warriors and a telepath. Any advice on the kinds of powers, feats, etc. a totalitarian, cruel regime would train its operatives in the use of?
GRAOUH !!! 10-24-04, 11:52 AM	Count a seer with your telepath in a patrol. The seer will specialize in global perception powers (empathy, touchsight, clairvoyance and so on) and the telepath will specialize on mind perception and influence. You can use all the telepathic powers, Mind switch and True Mind Switch applications have more evil applications than neutral or good ones and Mind Seed is a must in a lawful evil society. The psychic warriors are a good idea, choose a different combat type for each one (ranged, reach, melee...) I would add a kineticist, nuke oriented + Control Air and Null psionic field. If mobility is important for some patrol there will be a Nomad. Shapers and Egoist are not as useful in this kind of patrol. But outside teamwork Egoist can specialize in healing to help between the fights or in infiltration (metamorphosis, ectoplasmic form…). Shapers are very useful outside, but it will be even more occasional than egoists.
Tempest Stormwind 10-24-04, 01:42 PM	You can get by without adding other specialists. A lot of things Graouh mentioned are general powers, for instance. Anyway, here's what I'd suggest, given that you want a group of psychic warrior guards and a telepath on patrol for an evil nation: Anything with "Crisis" in the name. They're not evil, but they're very cruel. Also, I fully support Hostile Empathic Transfer -- it fits with the 'surprise' notion I describe below. For some other rather evil combo/fun with the telepath, try Death Urge and Deja Vu. Report it in to your boss "Well, we tried to take him alive, but he killed himself before we could clap him in irons. On the bright side, we just saved a lot of gold in prison fees." The telepath's direct offensive attacks should probably involve Ego Whip and Attraction/Aversion, rather than direct damage-dealers -- yes, it doesn't overlap well with the psywars, but they overlap well enough with themselves. Depending on how many psionic characters you've got in the PC group, Theiving Mindlink is an option as well, plus it still works with the 'surprise' concept. For the psywars, favor powers that catch the enemy by surprise in some way, shape, or form. Reach (from The Mind's Eye) comes to mind, as does Vampiric Blade (or, for the truly sudden motion, Claws of the Beast (possibly with Claws of the Vampire). Remember that the claws can be hidden or displayed at any point during the power's duration as a swift action). Hustle is practically a must-have. If you're not fixed on races, xephs make decent choices for the suprirse issue, because they can close to melee in essentially no time at all. At least one of them could specialize in grapples and other similar tricks, as well -- use Reach and Grip of Iron, along with something like a spiked chain or a ranseur to trip at a distance. If your opponent tries to trip you, Catfall, by most interpretations, lets you avoid being tripped once in a round (I don't want to raise that argument again. Do a search and you'll see) As a group, they should probably have some way of spying. Psicrystals are great choices for advance scouts, especially since anyone can have them in that party. Furthermore, since they look exactly like gems, you can pose as someone else and give them away as a 'reward' to someone you want to listen in on, and simply make sure the psicrystal is within Sighted distance of your target. Who cares HOW you got the evidence in a LE regime, if you've got intelligence on a target, you can use it. Mobility isn't as critical for this gestapo as it is for an adventurer party. Sure, it's helpful when pulling off a midnight raid or an attack on insurgents, but most of the time you either want to be visible (and fearsome), or blending in to the crowd (no flashy teleports). If you can squeeze it (I'm going by memory here and forget this particular power's level), Dimension Slide is a passable choice for the psiwars, or even Dimension Swap. (IF all the psywars have Dimension Swap, I'm certain you can think of some interesting tactics there. Just remember that a psychic warrior using it can only swap himself and another guy. Very useful for making sure your telepath isn't in dire danger, or just for swapping specialties around the combat field.) Your mileage may vary, though. In terms of defense, psionic characters tend to use a slightly different defensive theme than other characters -- wizards use things like invisibility or flight to simply be untargetable, monks and rogues dodge and weave, fighters and clerics wear thick armor... psionic characters get hit and just don't care. Vigor and Biofeedback (or, later on, Inertial Barrier) are the major powers in question here. You'll notice I've left out Expansion. It's a wonderful combat power, but if you're trying to corner undesirables and take them out, it just isn't done to become a hulking colossus when doing so. Undesirable attention and all, very messy, very messy. As for the noncombat aspect of the secret police, the telepath has wonderful ways of making people 'confess.' Psionic Charm, Psionic Suggestion, Psionic Dominate, Attraction/Aversion, and so forth. I've already suggested Deja Vu before, but it comes in handy here ("You were about to say something. Come on, tell us."). Plus, they make great executioners, particularily if you hide your displays -- "I never touched him! No one here can say I laid a finger on him!" This all assumes you want to stick to base classes, which I think is a good idea for a huge group of NPCs. If you're going to use PrCs, you had better have a reason, and they'd better be significant, IMHO. If you're strapped for some ideas, see if you can find an anime called Witch Hunter Robin. It's a wonderful series, and I once went through the whole thing calling out all the similarities to D&D psionics. It's essentially a world full of wild talents -- and humanity just isn't ready for it. Some of these "witches" refuse to use them responsibly (in the second episode, for instance, a man literally gets away with murder simply because, to the law, 'cursing' someone to death isn't possible), which is where the witch hunters step in. You could probably take notes from both sides of the conflict on this one. Just ignore Robin's bad English voice acting at the beginning, or watch it subbed. Hope that helps.
Timespike 10-24-04, 02:08 PM	Hope that helps. You, sir, are awesome. thank you!
Tempest Stormwind 10-24-04, 04:13 PM	Not a problem at all. Glad I could help. I just remembered about Mind Seed, though. Could you imagine if each of the Psywars in the group were seeded copies? That's the ultimate indoctrination, after all -- mind seed all "potentials" with copies of your gestapo's loyal director (mechanically, you'd probably have to use "Manifest a power from another's Powers Known" or just cheat a bit with a specialized psionic item), and you have a powerful force to be reckoned with, as they're all absolutely loyal to each other and to the director, who himself is loyal to your dictator. I mean, a cynic looks at armed forces like secret police as an attempt to remove individuality and turn people into perfect instruments of the state... and what better way to do that then to delete who they once were and replace it with a person who is already completely loyal to the state? You get all the creepiness of enthralled forces, plus the creepiness of a clone army (multiplied since they don't look the same, but they think the same), and you truly epitomize the LE feel. I mean, if you've got a powerful rebel warrior chained up, are you going to let all that muscle go to waste and dispose of him when you could... retrain... him to being a copy of your most loyal servants? Naturally, all of this would be a secret from the general public, and if anyone ever came close to finding out about it, nab them and either Modify Memory or eliminate them before the secret is out. You'll have to work out some semantics, as Mind Seed requires XP IIRC, but it shouldn't be too hard. Maybe there's more than one, each seeding a different patrol, or maybe they've found a way to do it as an extended psionic ritual similar to Metaconcert that circumvents or distributes the XP cost. You're the DM, don't be afraid to make it insidious. If you do work with the different-seeder idea, it gives you a potential adventure hook -- what if one of the "seeders" had some small shard of goodness in his being, and the patrols he seeded share that, too? The PCs might find some unusual allies, or might be able to start an insurrection. If you work with the seeding idea in general at all, you have another potential hook -- what if one of the PCs gets caught, and is subjected to a Mind Seed? You've got one week to free him and figure out a way to reverse it -- normal reversal methods are not available to PCs of your level. Or maybe you don't want to do this at all. It's up to you. Psionics are very fun if you're going LE, far more than arcane magic is, IMHO. (Unless you're talking about kineticists or egoists, when you're more likely to end up like Akira, but we're talking telepaths here). This is coming from a guy who has severe issues playing a NEUTRAL character, too -- I can't realistically play anything but Good at the game table, yet I can readily plot and scheme up Evil if I'm allowed my psionics.
SahinTC 10-24-04, 04:15 PM	I'd have to say TS's is one of the best ideas I've seen for a psionics-heavy world. Kudos to you.
DwarvinJedi 10-24-04, 08:18 PM	All I have to say is *yoink*
GRAOUH !!! 10-24-04, 08:33 PM	I just remember the PrC Cognition thief from the Player's guide to faerun. My point of view was based on modern army units where each people are very specialized, and based on the fact that they will easily find support from local authorities assuming that a typical lawful evil place have a heavy military presence. But it sure doesn't match the gestapo type unit :) If you want to have a nazi type lawful evil society, telepaths would rely on fear and violence before to have to dominate or modify memories. A key to control population is to favorize the exclusion of a part of this population (religion, skin color, it doesn't have to make sense…) and with propaganda make them believe that all that is wrong comes from this part of the population. Adventurers can be of this rejected individuals :) To investigate minds they will use discretion with isolated telepath if it's just to control (no save when asleep against the first question during a Mind Probe !). If there's a danger they won't risk their precious telepaths but will bring the "criminals" as prisoners to them, leaving all the time they want to torture and "ask questions". Gestapo was "just" a a part of the nazi police. You can get an idea for a LE society police (remember that I'm french and that the translation can be very… very bad :P ) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NAZI POLICE : •GESTAPO ( GEheime STAatsPOlizei = secret police of the state) created to fight against communists, it will also arrest gays, jews and others minorities. •Le SD (Sicherheitsdienst = security service) like the NSA, its role is to gather informations. •criminal Police, nothing special, normal police •The Wehrmacht police (Military Police) •The Abwehr (army intelligence service) •SchutzStaffel or SS (Protection group) they are responsible for the organisation and supervision of the extermination camps. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Telepaths to massively control population is not possible without a very huge nomber of telepaths, the system must supports them. Before all, you must decide the hierarchy between the psionic NPC. Personally, I would vote this order : 1 - Telepaths (powers and skills to make them the best leaders) 2 - Kineticists (perfect power list for the army, and army is important in LE societies) 3 - Seers (they are the best to gather information and spy) 4 - Psychic warriors (soldiers, army is important…) 5 - Soulknives (soldiers, but the fact that they aren't manifesters can make them considered inferior in a society where psions ans psychic warriors are the reference) 6 - Egoists (healers) 7 - Nomads (army support) 8 - Shapers (army support) You will also need to have laws against spellcasters, need laws to decide who can use a weapon (forbid weapons to non psionic people for example), laws to decide who can go, buy, live where. You must decide the education level of the non psionic part of the population. If education is too low, this population can be easily manipulated with the downside that it's also true for your enemies. If it's too high, they will understand that the true power is in their hands. Favorise illiteracy is good, people can learn a lot of things but this general knowledge can't be "corrupted" by books. Psionics don't need to read, so you can limit this knowledge to the psions. In the case of a nazi like society, remember that most of the people live in fear or don't want to be excluded from the system and won't do anything against the rulers. Not because they are evil, but because they are humans. This kind of society is very dangerous for players, because if the ruler(s) is strong, it's near impossible to win from the inside. Remember german and french resistance, a lot of heroes who have done incredible things but it was impossible for them to win the war alone. If you send your player there as enemies, they will die unless you find them a powerful ally or teleport them far away… Oh, wilders are chaotics, they will be killed on sight if it can be wilder in a society that favorise psionic training.
The Livewire 10-24-04, 08:42 PM	A lowly power I've seen missed for the high speed escapees/evasion types... Entangling ectoplasm. Ego whip is a fighter's bane, as my DM will find out if my P-war hits higher levels. "And the half orc charges you..." "Ego whip... 12 points of damage." ".... And falls into a comatose heap."
Tempest Stormwind 10-24-04, 09:48 PM	I always was more of a fan of Ectoplasmic Strand (Mind's Eye), since that let you do a hell of a lot if you were creative. Try roping things together like others' legs, or the soldier's sword to his head. (It's only a touch attack, which helps with the generally accepted -4 on attack rolls for such called shots) Graouh: I was working on the assumption that psions themselves would not be part of the guard, or at least, not a common part. As in, most of the troops would be trained in combat techniques, as that's critical for a police job, but the psions would be superspecialists (like the guy with the bullhorn, standing behind the SWAT van with the team in armor in front of him). Besides, on their own, psions tend to get beat up physically. This is NOT the image you want to send if you're a dictator. Let's look at the standard D&D world, without PC classes in general roles. The guards are mostly warriors, occasionally accompanied by an adept or an expert depending on the situation. In a dictatorship (on any scale -- even the stereotypical mob setting), one of them might be permanant, likely a charismatic and intelligent expert. (Think to a gangster movie. The expert's the lead guy with the slick voice and the snazzy suit, while the warriors are the big guys with the lead pipes or tommy guns behind him) Applying this logic to the context of this setting, where the guards have PC classes, the guards would likely be fighters or urban rangers and the "face" would probably be a rogue, a bard, or a sorceror. In a high psionics setting (like this nation), there's no doubt -- the muscle would be psychic warriors (and possibly a soulknife, but see below), the face would be a psion. As for the other classes, I don't see the soulknife getting a lot of leeway here. See above -- you yourself said that they'd probably be discriminated against ("Hey, everyone! Look at the feeble-mind! Lot of good that knife'll do him against the [insert name of lesser race/nation/whatever that the nation is currently opposing]"). Wilders I see in one of two roles -- they'd either make very good versatile warriors (Yes, I did just say "versatile" and "wilder" in the same sentence. I seem them serving as a secondary rank to the psywars (probably with rays or bows), serving the same role kineticists would in your vision), or they'd be discriminated against. I mean, they can't control their powers to the same extent the other manifesters can. It's described as raw passion activating their powers, so it probably can't be taught, and it's for this reason they probably will NOT be in the police force. What good is an officer who you can't have complete control over, who relies more on their own self-taught powers? This sort of puts a bipartisian relationship between the classes (psion/psywar vs soulknife/wilder). You could possibly pull a resistance movement out of this, if you wanted ("We are the Free Thoughts Movement, and we will not be denied!"), or you could downplay it and simply have wilders and soulknives either rare or unheard of in this nation. I get the impression that psions and psywars are more of a taught class (as in, it's something one can learn) while the other two seem more like the X-men (an inborn ability that can be honed through training). For all we know, this nation is NOT inherently psionic, but they know how to teach it VERY well. In fact, this last option is ideal, in my opinion. It rids the whole psionic/nonpsionic conflict by putting all the psionic power in the hands of the dictatorship. Without wild talents showing up in the population, there's no need to discriminate between nonpsionics and psionics -- any more than there is to discriminate between civilians and government. As fond as I am of the whole inborn-psionics idea, you have to set it aside at times, particularily if you want any sort of organization of psionics. For instance, it doesn't make sense to call things "disciplines" if they're not a concious, studiable choice. Furthermore, it's backed up in the rules through Expanded Knowledge -- feats generally represent intensive training, after all, and if you can train a new power into your mind, it doesn't necessarily have to be inborn. In fact, in this hypothetical nation (the one I'm working with, not Zaryx's finalized form), there'd only be two types of recognized psionicist -- those specialized in delving into the mind's deep powers (akin to the modern military scientist, and just like the biologist/chemist/physicist/geologist/etc, the psions would specialize. I see Telepath as being the most common choice, but there's a role for everyone here), and those specialized in upholding the Word of the Law using the powers of their minds (which were developed in part by the psions). Both types would be under strict control of the government, just like how you can't recieve SEAL training without being part of the navy. Getting back to more mechanical things, Ego Whip works wonders when interrogating people as well as in combat. Typically there are two ways of measuring resistance to compulsions -- Will saves and the opposed Charisma check. I see interrogation as being more of the latter, possibly altered by skill ranks (Precedent: Watch Detective, MotW, Cooperative Interrogation. Essentially Good Cop / Bad Cop put in the rules, it uses two Watch Detectives altering between Bluff and Intimidate checks to interrogate a third party.). Ego whip is something like a mental cattle prod ("Private Jolan Turith, HG1054570." "Don't want to talk, eh?" "Private Jolan Turith, HG1054570." "Fine." *Flashy display* "...eh...whozis?") Plus, once you're in a coma, which 0 CHA will do to you, Mind Probe has no saving throw. So really, all the torturous interrogations are for show and for cruelty. Perfect for LE. There's no need to have the PCs targets on sight. In fact, ideally, they should never see more than the "face" side of this society, unless they're very good at digging deep or directly observe this psionic gestapo at work (I mean, come on, what LE villain worth his salt leaves a trail of blood? There's an Evil PC guidebook on the forums; look up "show them you're worth the E on your sheet" and you'll find it. No truly effective evil society leaves traces of its deeds -- whether you're talking about the rulers or about the henchmen). If the PCs do find out about it, have the gestapo try usual methods (such as Modify Memory) to contain things, as too many bodies is a bad thing. If it comes down to it, subdue and capture the PCs first, gloat over them, then do your worst mentally. Remember the option of Mind Seeding those who you want to help your cause -- I've decided that the best method I can think of is a special psionic item that Mind Seeds the entity in slot A on top of the entity in slot B, mitigated however you feel like it. This way, you can seed a psywar without having him delve into telepath or possibly muck up the seed himself). By the way, although they don't actually exist in the XPH, I'm sure that the spells Dream and Nightmare would fit wonderfully as powers, possibly as a single augmentable power (as they are purely mental and related). Keith Baker of Eberron fame AND BRC himself both make connections between psionics and dreaming, so why not exploit this? It's absolutely perfect if a higher-up in the government likes to use the psicrystal donation trick -- post the gem as part of a reward for taking out a target of importance, see who's capable enough to succeed (read: Dangerous enough to threaten you), and then use Channel Power to slip him any number of telepathic "conditioning attempts" overnight, or even Psionic Dominate if you can pull it. As a general note about designing LE societies, remember that there has to be some form of external conflict to rally the citizens behind to draw attention away from the government's shady activities. If there are none, start a rebellion in your own province! Say, an annonymous secret society dedicated to assassinating the head of state... started by the head of state himself, so he always stays ahead of their plans, and can always call where they'll be. As an added bonus, in a psionic state with Read Thoughts, you can read everyone who joins (and thus would want you dead), and find out who your enemies are. (I didn't get this idea myself, I borrowed it from Terry Pratchett. The Patrician started no less than half a dozen such societies, most of which just trip over each other. It's suspected that he occasionally slips info about them to the city watch, and to the public it seems like the local heroes in the Watch foiled another heinous assassination attempt on our beloved leader today...) Phew, long post, I know. I'll stop now. I hope I've written something useful here. Edits: I forgot to mention, no, I do not play Evil Genius. But I would if I had time. ^_^ Timespike, or anyone else using this -- feel free to share your LE psionic dictatorship with us once you define everything!
GRAOUH !!! 10-25-04, 05:05 AM	If you take the gestapo as an example, then you take nazi society as an example. And under nazi domination, army were in every town. Every act against nazis was punished by killing people in public places. The price for rebellion was 2 or more innocents killed for 1 killed nazi. The only things that weren't known from population (except in parts of Austria) was extermination camps. Exept that, there weren't shady activities. In USSR (no communism, just LE dictators), it was known that missing people were finishing their life in work camp or just dead, it wasn't wise to talk about this "shady activities" but they were known. Same for China now and more in North Korea and these are truly evil societies… what LE villain worth his salt leaves a trail of blood? Hitler and his followers were worthing their salt, yes, and they left more than a trail of blood, they have changed the world. If you want clean LE, then forget the nazi example and the GESTAPO. Here in Europe, we know that nazis left more than "a trail of blood". Remember nazi and stalinists societies "good faces". There were rules to respect to not be sent back home or in jail (time of peace) or killed (time of war). A party of PC have no chance to act freely in this kind of country without being in trouble, and it's worst if psions are added. If you want a "clean" LE society, then forgot real world (look at China, North Korea and a lot of african countries) and never take NAZI's GESTAPO as an example. The only example I see in real world is… a film : Matrix :bored:
smrtgmp 10-25-04, 07:11 AM	TS provided some excellent ideas, but I disagree with him on one issue. The Death Urge/Deja Vu combo is overrated IMO. Unless you are going to augment Deja Vu, the DC is fairly easy to beat. Personally, I think you're better off auugmenting Death Urge, as it not only makes it harder to resist, but it only takes one action to use and costs fewer PP. The only problem with that is that it requires an 11th level psion (or 9th level with overchannel). If the psions in the patrol are too low in level to pull that off, than the combo mentioned by TS is a better way to go. Otherwise, its likely a waste of both PP and an action.
Timespike 10-25-04, 10:10 AM	Thanks for the continued stream of ideas. Zaryx is becoming a scarier and scarier place by the minute. :devil: The evil society model I'm trying to emulate a little bit is Libria from Equilibrium. The Telepaths and psywars are very much like the tetragrammaton. Ice cold, unfeeling, remorseless, brutally efficient. The mind seed idea works really well for this. Psywars wear black clothing and armor and a black, spiky helm that covers their entire face except their glowing green eyes. Telepaths wear black leather armor, a black leather greatcoat (buttoned up), black leather gloves, ad a psychoactive skin that makes it look like they don't have a face and is a nice polished silver color. The Psywars use paired deep crustal batons (same stats as a light mace) the telepaths use a deep crystal shortsword and a bunch of shurikens. I took the idea for the psywars and used xephs, then tacked on burst and skate as psionic powers... Zaryx is ruled by a pit fiend posessing a powerful psion, by the way...
Tempest Stormwind 10-25-04, 11:01 AM	Burst and skate don't stack -- enhancement bonuses. I don't remember what sort of bonus the speed boost of the Xeph's ability gives. Other than that, and the potential feat sink that dual-weilding always is, it seems like a great work. Can't wait to see the finished thing! In quick respons to the earlier posts, since I have to get going soon: Yes, I knew that augmenting Death Urge would be too expensive, hence the low-level alternative. Besides, Deja Vu is a great power in any case, particularily when combined with any sort of behaviour influencer like Attraction or Suggestion. GRAOUH, I stopped working with the Nazi regime as an inspiration once I remembered how much international attention he drew. A better example would be Stalin's, actually -- yes, it was bloody, but far, far bloodier in reality than it ever seemed to those living there. You just have to go a few steps further. I just continued to use the word "gestapo" since it's easy to type and fits the secret police idea just fine (it's also a bit more generic than "KGB"). It is wiser to give the PCs enough leeway to act freely, so long as they don't attack the institutions. For instance, do your PCs, upon entering any new town, try to overthrow the government? No? Then why expect them to do it here, unless they already know it's an evil place? In fact, if they've heard rumors (a reasonable assumption), then make sure they don't see where the rumors are coming from without a bit of digging.
ShadowRanger 10-25-04, 12:23 PM	An interesting subject, allow me to add a few thoughts of my own and respond to some of the above posts. First Xeph's burst ability is a competence bonus (and Speed of Thought is an insight bonus), which if the Xeph is a monk he moves fast, very fast. Also a power not mentioned here:mindlink, the perfect communciation. Set it up and you can call in backup in a moments notice. Or use psicrystals for a similar effect, each patrol leaves one psicrystal back at base in a contact room and use the telepathic link combined with telepathic speech to call for backup. LE Psionic country? Make sure they max out concentration, hiding displays is nice, never know just who mainfested that power. As for patrols I would actually suggest adding a soulknife to the mix, their weapons leave no trace. Telepath could be the main discipline, but a secret police force would have their enforcer squads (backed by kineticsts, egotists, and shapers). Nomads would be used to dispatch squads to hotspots, though would mainly stay back at base. Seer's would possibly accompany patrols, they have some nice scrying type powers that could be useful in recon. They also would be keeping tabs back at base on possible troublemakers. Shapers are there to add reinforcments (constructs) and morph materials. Psions-Take Inertial Armor, Force Screen, Vigor, Ego Whip, Hustle (ethier expanded knowledge or as an egoist) Egoist-the stealth psion/healer-Chamelon (good for stealth), Metamorphosis(good for stealth and combat, don't forget you can turn into an item) Kineticist-the blaster/enforcer-Energy powers, possibly control powers Nomad-the transporter/driver-Diemnsion powers, Fly, Teleport, Levitate Seer-long range survellance/recon-Clairvoyant Sense, Object Reading, Sensetivity to Psychic Impressions, Escape Detection, scrying powers Shaper-the gadget man-Astral Construct, creation powers, Ectoplasmic Cocoon, Quintessence Telepath-the interrogater, point man-Charm, Mindlink, Read Thoughts, Brain Lock, Suggestion, Crisis powers, False Sensory Input, Dominate, Modify Memmory, Hostile Transfer PsyWar-the muscle/guard-Call Weaponry, Biofeedback, Force Screen, Vigor, Inertial Armor, Claw powers, Bite powers, powers for mobility, boost attack/defense/damage, Hustle, Lion's Charge Soulknife-the assasian- with 4+int in skill points and no need to tie up a stat for mainfesting purposes and hide and move silently as class skills, plus no need to worry about carrying weapons. They also have a good amount of HP, possible multiclass with psion/psywar to add some powers (such as vigor). Your secret police need a heavy squad to deal with major problems, and transportation, Kineticists and Nomads work well here. Also consider having them set up 'gate points' that allow them to move forces through a gate back at HQ to a predetermined point, a Shaper could churn out constructs while sitting safe at home. Telepaths and Seers have nice powers for spying on people and are good for accompanying patrols to keep tabs on people. Egoists could make a handy spy when teamed with a soulknife, metamorphosis into an object the Soulknife carries and provide a nice suprise to your opponet when he finds a second member there, plus don't underestimate some of the forms you can turn into (and still cast powers in any form). Monks would make good additions with their speed and grappling ability, combine with Xeph and Fist Of Zuoken and you have psionic monks that can run down opponets and buff themselves up (Force Screen and Inertial Armor are nice, plus some of the grappling powers).
Lord Zeb 02-19-05, 09:23 AM	:bump: and *yoink*
AntiDjinn 02-20-05, 01:30 AM	Well, if it is a Lawful Evil society then I would say it is probably not a free-fire kill-PC's-on-sight zone. It is unlikely the PC's will be seeing death rays, peasants being telekinetically flung through the air, or public executions by Death Urge for merchants who are 5 minutes late with their taxes, at least not on arrival. It is likely the place will be very orderly and citizens may actually enjoy a fairly high standard of living, if at the cost of all their civil liberties. It would probably not be an obviously horrific place to live; even the poorest citizens would claim to be happy (and mean it because those who don't want to be culled learn to school their thoughts and repress any feelings that might be regarded as treason). The government might do a very good job of seeing that the physical needs of all citizens are met and that they are shielded from wandering monsters and other outsiders, but would have no regard for such things as privacy and free will. George Orwell's 1984 comes to mind (doubly so), as does the society run by the "It" in A Wrinkle in Time. Even if psionics is common, most of the town guard will probably not be psionic. State telepaths may or may not wear a uniform. You could have some serving openly, while other comprise the much-fear secret police. Unless you plan on making all of these guys epic level they are soooo not going to be reading the minds of everyone they pass on the street; no one is going to want to spend the points or the time to do that. Suspicious activity might draw a Detect Thoughts or Sense Hostile Intent, but an inquisitor is going to have to have good reason to invest in a Mind Probe. Speaking of inquisitor, the feat of the same name would probably be required of all telepathic agents. The majority of ESPionage by these psionic police is probably done with Inquisitor, many ranks of Sense Motive, and good old fashioned Gather Information rolls; for the majority of the citizenry this is all they will ever need. The offensive powers other posters have listed are good examples of what a psion can do, but unless your characters are planning an open assault of this city they probably won't see these effects right off the bat. They may actually be in town for quite a while before they begin to suspect that something is horribly wrong. The town rulers will probably have detected and scanned the party long before the party figures out who is running the show, but they won't open up with unsubtle attacks until the party gives them a reason to do so.
AntiDjinn 02-20-05, 01:38 AM	One more point: It is very likely that peasants and other normal citizenry will be fearful of strangers. It just won't be healthy to be seen talking to outsiders because such will draw the attention of the thought police and that attention is always bad. Also, the governement probably instills a fear of outsiders in the populace such that they frequently equate "stranger" with "enemy" or at least so that they fear an outside attack more than they fear their leaders' own misuse of power. After all, the easiest way to take away a person's rights is to get him to hand them over willingly. A population that is motivated by fear of outside attack may willingly hand over freedom in return for safety. When you are looking at security for you and your family such things as privacy, personal identity, freedom of speech, and freedom of association seem like trivial exchanges. So you would need to find some model somewhere for a kingdom that is more technologically advanced and wealthier than its neighbors, has a somewhat insular attitude, and whose population has been trained to surrender their liberties to the government and love the government for taking those rights in return for protection. Well, I can't think of any real world examples, so just go with the ones from Sci Fi and your own imagination.
Tempest Stormwind 02-20-05, 01:59 AM	Hehehe.... "Thought Police." Never before has that term been so well used. And a double-entendre here as well, given the Orwellian context! I'd write more now but I'm exceptionally tired. This post will be revised when I get a chance.
FriendoftheDork 02-21-05, 02:21 AM	One more point: It is very likely that peasants and other normal citizenry will be fearful of strangers. It just won't be healthy to be seen talking to outsiders because such will draw the attention of the thought police and that attention is always bad. Also, the governement probably instills a fear of outsiders in the populace such that they frequently equate "stranger" with "enemy" or at least so that they fear an outside attack more than they fear their leaders' own misuse of power. After all, the easiest way to take away a person's rights is to get him to hand them over willingly. A population that is motivated by fear of outside attack may willingly hand over freedom in return for safety. When you are looking at security for you and your family such things as privacy, personal identity, freedom of speech, and freedom of association seem like trivial exchanges. So you would need to find some model somewhere for a kingdom that is more technologically advanced and wealthier than its neighbors, has a somewhat insular attitude, and whose population has been trained to surrender their liberties to the government and love the government for taking those rights in return for protection. Well, I can't think of any real world examples, so just go with the ones from Sci Fi and your own imagination. Ouch, that actually sounded like the US... techno advanced? yes. wealthy? yes. Insular? (oh yeah!) Trained to surrender rights? Well, perhaps not all and not completely. Yet this sentence seems to apply: "A population that is motivated by fear of outside attack may willingly hand over freedom in return for safety. " Not every freedom, not at once but a few here and a few there.... Ok sorry about veering off topic, and no offense to you americans that beleive in your democracy, but I thought Antidjinns words were so well formulated. US is no police state. The campaign concept is very nice though, and Psionics can really help to hold a police state together. Although the most dangerous ones would be the effective ones where people believe that they're better off as it is. The less oppressive, the more likely is it to endure. The only catch here is that scandals is so much more devasting compared to a more open brutal society. For example, if someone in Nazi germany cried out that the government were dissapearing people he would probably be arrested on the spot for inciting riots or simply shot. When people know that they'll be less eager to rebel openly, and silent opposition is just not that effective. A police state is just that - a society controlled through massive amounts of military and police precence. Telepaths and Seers would be best suited to reveal rebels, while shapers and kineticist would be the visible "muscle" to awe people. Psywars would be frightening combat machines (sort of like Grammaton-clerics in Equilibrium). I suppose Egoists could as well, but I have no idea how effective they are compared to psywars. Just imagine a Psywar buffed with insight bonuses, lions charge, hustle etc. Hiding display would almost be a sin in such a... display of power (no pun intended). Nomads could be useful... no doubt, but would not be essential in any way.
Wizard 04-08-05, 07:35 PM	Equating this to Equilibrium is just awesome. It fits perfectly---psywars as Clerics, psions as lie detectors. Mind-seeding is an expansion of the central idea of the movie, and....and...it's just cool!
Tempest Stormwind 04-08-05, 07:40 PM	Equating this to Equilibrium is just awesome. It fits perfectly---psywars as clerics, psions as lie detectors. Mind-seeding is an expansion of the central idea of the movie, and....and...it's just cool! Would you believe I have yet to see that movie? :D Thanks for the feedback! Personally, I wouldn't mind expanding on these ideas. See if we can create the ultimate psionic police state. (By the way, I try to avoid distinctions between separate psionic discipline classes a bit for this. You'll note that above I don't just say "oh, shapers would do this, nomads this..." opting instead for power manifestation.)
bgt 05-29-05, 10:22 PM	Has anyone out there read A Wrinkle in Time? That part where they're on the planet with It, and all the mothers step out of their houses simultaniusly to call their children in... to me, that's as Lawful Evil as anything can ever get. And to those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, what if the dictator were to have a item that manifested Mind Seed, doped up some poor slob on charms and dominates and what have you, and ordered the guy to Mind Seed himself with the item? Would he gradually turn into himself under the charms and stuff? If so, this guy could be the one that uses mind seed to reeducate all those free-willed rebels the thought police drag in. Ouch, that actually sounded like the US... techno advanced? yes. wealthy? yes. Insular? (oh yeah!) Trained to surrender rights? Well, perhaps not all and not completely. Yet this sentence seems to apply: "A population that is motivated by fear of outside attack may willingly hand over freedom in return for safety. " Sadly, this is becoming true of us Americans. :weep: If only we would heed Ben Franklin's wise words: "He who would give up his rights for safety deserves neither."
Lokiyn 05-31-05, 02:06 PM	You could add entrapment specalists only taking Entangling Ectoplasm Swarm of Crystals Energy Wall Ectoplasmic Cocoon(sh) Wall of Ectoplasm as a level 7 psion only ecto Cocoon is shaper but you can trap most anyone you want for the rest of the group to handle. Wall of ectoplasm is perfect for a little alley work. Lead the target in the alley close off the end while the rest of the squad goes to work. of course my favorite evil organization has a level 15 thrallherd at its head (5psi/10thrall) With the twofold master class feature and letting the thralls (just for the sake of an evil organization) bee also thrall herds you get a chain of command with... thralls Two each of level 14-5 so twenty thralls total Followers of the overlord 135 level 1 13 Level2 7 Level 3 4 Level 4 2 Level 5 2 Level 6 Followers indirectly controlled through the thralls 646 Level 1 58 Level 2 30 Level 3 16 Level 4 10 Level 5 4 level 6 All in all 947 people answerable to the overlord and unable to disobey. And any followers who die are replaced my loyal subjects who report for orientation. Number of thrall herds could be explained through a varient of the mind seed ritual talked about above. Problem with this is that if you kill one of the higher thrall herds the lower thrall herds are now free to react against the overlord. On the other hand if there was some polymorph (metamorph) twistedness comming into play all the thralls could have the same appearence as the overlord. So your quite confused pc's would (seemingly) face the same person over and over again and each time they kill him he comes back stronger than ever!. Course all this requires the dm bend a few rule to put it into place. but after the 15th time i (as a pc) killed a guy and his evil minions and had an exact duplicate walk in stronger than the corpse on the floor i would feel a little terrified. Once i thought about trying to swing a ritual to make me into an elan by sacrificing all of my thralls and followers at once. (and they'd do it willingly) I'm sure i could have gotten something out of 248HD worth of willing sacrificial lambs ;)
Wizard Random 06-07-05, 07:18 PM	WOW, thats all i can say to that, i mean this is truly amazing stuff, i emean first off u have a WHOLE campian that could come from this and be differnt for everyone who wants to use it. AND u even went in depth on it from differnt angle covering possibly all angles at which to customize it. i can only say Kudos to all of you. And yes A Wrinkle In Time, is a good book, and i am glad to see others who can pull off a thrallherd idea with such finesse. It puts me to shame.
Manyfist 06-07-05, 09:55 PM	;) I would think that if you want to control a larger group with out the wasting of PP, Propaganda works alot. The overlord could use propaganda, targeting children, basically stip them of their rights and give them a feeling of beening a whole. ;) Education can be a powerful thing, what you do is you let the children get an Education, then you brain wash them with Propaganda and you got more than willing children to help you. Whats scarier is that children would come out and more than willing blow them selves up for their overlord. If your PCs are good, it would be increadbly hard for them to harm a Child, that child weilding a Crossbow, or have several Mindseed Children weilding Energyballs, then doing a Suicide charge. That my friends is lawful evil, but that won't happen in the open unless you wage war against the Overlord.
DisposableHero_ 06-07-05, 11:11 PM	;) I would think that if you want to control a larger group with out the wasting of PP, Propaganda works alot. I'd like to provide a little emphasis and expansion on this, because I think propaganda is the true trademark of a lawful evil society, psionic or not. And Psionics (particularly the telepathy discipline) allow for some very distrubing propaganda. Mind seed is the purest form of this. If a rebel voices his concerns publicly, there is very little more distrubing than seeing the same rebel be the loudest voice shouting down the upstarts when the next would be savior arrives. Strictly controlled education and indoctrination, particularly among youth accomplishes this as well. The most horrific part of a lawful evil society is not that it needs to be saved, its that it doesn't want to be saved. A society ruled by fear is one way to accomplish things, but a society ruled by their blind faith in their oppressors is a far better way to do it by LE standards. Properly 'educated' citizens should respond to criticism of their society with the same zeal and vigor of a troll in a rules debate on these forums. They will state their belief, and no matter how much evidence is brought before them, or how compelling that evidence may be, they will simply restate their original point and determine the presenter of said evidence to be out of his mind, or sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. If PCs try to talk to the citizenry they should find them happy, appreciative of the protection the state provides them, and should find them ready to verbally defend the reputation or actions of the state with all the same zeal and ignorance they use to respond to complaints. They should be thuroughly convinced of their own inherent inferiority and worthlessness without the state, and be certain that their demise would be unavoidable were they not under its protection. The PCs should get the impression that not only are they not aware of the facts, they don't want to be made aware of the facts. A suitably isolationist catch phrase about outsiders not knowing what they are talking about, or sticking one's nose where it doesn't belong should be the standard response to any questioning of the states intentions or morals. On the psionic side of things, a few mind seeded spokespersons in among the common folk, routine Mass Missives from state telepaths reinforcing how lucky the citizenry is to be under the protection of their beloved director, Attraction powers driving non-believers to particularly compelling pieces of visual propaganda, Suggestion enhanced speaches by the psion director during regular public appearances, the routine mind seeding (re-education) of vocal protestors, and the public charm or dominate induced apologies from those who voice oppinions that do not jive with state policy should all be standard fare. The citizens should consider this activity commonplace and should be of the adamant opinion that those who are quelled in this fashion deserved everything they got.
The Livewire 06-08-05, 09:40 PM	Well maybe my take on the Lawful Evil Psionics is a bit different. My Lawful Evil Psi-nation actually relies on education and nationalism to maintain the power. Most children are tested at an early age for psionic aptitude, with the families of the children being paid a stipend for their child as he attends the various acedemies (Think of Valdamar and Heralds for how that works) Since the testers are often psions themselves, a little bit of suggestion or even telempathic projection goes a long way to let the parents see the wisdom of this choice. The fact that the psions/wilders/psychic warriors/soulknives/Drachenvulfs (P-war varient) take up all the higher int/wis/cha slots incidentally cuts down on the number of spellcasters. Incidentally in the empire the various cleric/mage druid/mage wizard/psion etc prestige classes are illegal. Between the prestige of having a psychic child, and the extra cash, and the schooling teaching even the commoners what it means to be heirs to the imperial legacy, who needs to try to mind control an entire populace?
Kremlin KOA 06-12-05, 01:56 PM	Would you believe I have yet to see that movie? :D Equilibrium in short... Take 1984, change thought police to Emotion Police (The Grammaton Clerics mentioned... Emtions are Illegal you must take emotion quelling drugs) Make the whole place grey and dreary and add in a director from the John Woo school of fight Coreography... there ya go
DisposableHero_ 11-28-05, 08:20 PM	Since I love this concept so much, I figure it bears mentioning that the society mind (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=445496) which is nearing completion makes an amazing addition to a psionic partol, or as a distant mastermind type.
Tempest Stormwind 11-28-05, 09:47 PM	Since I love this concept so much, I figure it bears mentioning that the society mind (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=445496) which is nearing completion makes an amazing addition to a psionic partol, or as a distant mastermind type. (I was wondering if someone'd bump this to save it from the pending prune...) I see them as node controllers. Each would remain in a location of safety, and from there coordinate with multiple patrols. For instance, one patrol could request the aid of another (say, since the first patrol's an investigative and the second's the muscle, or if the first patrol is simply outgunned), and the Society Mind could both direct the backup to them, and, if it's an emergency, ask the other patrols to engage certain buffs, which would likely be Echoed. This would require relatively high-level society minds, though -- the level 9 that most of this is based on would not be enough to make effective use of this strategy without a lot of them. That said, a single society mind in the center of power (or one off from it) could easily coordinate with, say, 20 patrols, or 10 patrols with two people in each (a leader and an MVP of sorts). If you're just joining us now, please read up on the Society Mind, as linked. The mechanics as they stand (barring minor revisions that have come up since then) are summed up nicely in this post (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=7827161&postcount=128), with the power list here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=7825149&postcount=127). The class thread will be updated soon. The general idea is that the class is a support-based connectionist psionic character, somewhere between the bard and the spirit shaman, that makes the entire party more powerful. At higher levels, it can even become one of the major archetypes that D&D hasn't explored -- the distant benefactor. And it can do this while still lending direct hands -- the examples above demonstrate how this can be done. (For your games, imagine your next stealth mission, the kind that you usually go "Let's buff up the rogue and send her in alone" on. Now imagine it with the rogue being in constant silent contact with the whole party, and able to request healing and buffs from them (generally at an increased cost), depending on how far away she is from them.)
DisposableHero_ 11-29-05, 12:07 PM	(I was wondering if someone'd bump this to save it from the pending prune...) :embarrass Guilty as charged. Thanks for the content bail out Tempest, I didn't have a lot of time when I bumped this :D
Loose 01-04-06, 04:27 PM	an idea i got from something mentioned towards the beginning of the thread... if, psions are trained and "controlled" mainly by the power in control of the state, then non-psionics would probably make up most of the population and, if another form of control was to limit weapons, then, SOULKNIFES are an awesome NPC insurgent/resistance class because, SOULKNIFES need not study heavily the art of psionics AND they create their own weapons. therefore, SOULKNIFES would be the people with a means to fight back against the power in control without breaking its weapon laws and without being active members in the psion-exclusive ruling hierarchy.
BardicEvil 01-10-06, 12:42 AM	*yawn* It's kinda late for me, so I'll make this brief. Remember, mind seed makes an exact duplicate, only 8 levels lower. Got too few psions to keep things running? Buy a bunch of slaves, clothe them, feed them, get them in shape, then have a powerful psion use Mind Seed on them. Suddenly, you have a new crop of psions, much weaker, but psions nonetheless and in good physical shape to boot. The best way to do this would be an item (maybe an artifact?) that allows you to do this. One loyal and heavily indoctrinated level 18 telepath + 10 slaves +1 artifact = 10 more loyal and heavily indoctrinated level 18 telepaths. And for those positions that don't require too much free thought? Sit a Psiwar down in the template side of the device. Now you have a squaf of 5 decent psiwarriors. Now give them an item that gives them mindspeech with each other while worn. Make it part of the mandatory uniform. You get something similar to a little hive mind. 4 scout, one stays with the telepath. Something happens, the one who stayed behind tells the telepath, and he talks to HQ if they need backup. Of course, said artifact would obviously be target of any resistance movement. Shielding one's mind could be considered a crime. After all, good citizens have nothing to hide from their benevolent ruler, do they? And it messes with the guy who always wears a ring of mind shielding or that mage who always has mind blank up. :devil: Make a psionic version of the mindrape spell from BoVD, add one mind seeding device, and now you have the ultimate spy. Capture a rebel, mindrip him, then mind seed over him and give him back the information he needs to play the role of his former self to infiltrate the rebels. Oh yeah, psions make for a fun and scary concept of a LE society. Don't forget the most important thing, indoctrination of the young means you have little spies everywhere. Read Orwell's 1984 for some ideas and imagine them with psionics. So much for brief. Oh well... EDIT: And if the country is really isolationist, outsiders like the PCs might be viewed with suspicion and make convenient scapegoats for anything that goes wrong. :D
Hariman 02-20-06, 04:34 PM	Wow Timespike, what a scary place you're building for your campaign. Does the ruler have a regular army? If he does, then Wild Talent and the various Psionic Feats that provide bonuses to attacks/damage/other stuff while focused would be good feats for the army regulars. An Uncarnate would make an excellent spy, capable of walking through walls and floors, among other things. The Psionic Assassin and Psionic Rogue would have their places as spies and informants. Will this kingdom be a place for PCs to avoid? Or will there be a campaign taking place in this kingdom? All in all, an excellent idea. I might just have to steal it for my own campaign. (You won't mind, will you?) Hariman PS: I wouldn't carbon copy the idea, there is a lot that can be adapted/added to the concept. Clerics with the Domination, Evil, Inquisition, Law and/or Tyranny domains, Lawful Evil Paladins from Unearthed Arcana, even The Body Leech. The Leech would be especially scary for a "hidden from the public" soldier. He could use former allies of the PCs as fuel for his psionics. This would also provide for a story point of freeing captured allies.
Dioxin 04-30-06, 06:16 PM	Remember, mind seed makes an exact duplicate, only 8 levels lower. Got too few psions to keep things running? Buy a bunch of slaves, clothe them, feed them, get them in shape, then have a powerful psion use Mind Seed on them. Suddenly, you have a new crop of psions, much weaker, but psions nonetheless and in good physical shape to boot. The best way to do this would be an item (maybe an artifact?) that allows you to do this. You won't even need an artifact for this. A powerful enough leader could get sufficiently devout telepath minions to craft pearls of mind seed for him. I haven't gone over the BoVD in a while, but if it works as I remembered it, the leader or loyal psions could even craft the items without spending xp if supplied with massive amounts of state produced liquid pain (extracted from "undesirables" and other enemies of the state). Of course then flavor wise you'd probably need a psionic extract pain power, but the concept fits well with truly sinister LE government and the inflicting torturous pain bit is already covered by existing powers. In fact, the drug itself or a more diluted form thereof could be another element of control used to pacify the masses. Liquid Soma might make you feel content and supportive of the government of this brave new world, but do you really want to know where it comes from?
Alratan 05-01-06, 06:39 AM	I really like the idea of producing the XP required for this from Liquid Pain, although all the state really needs is a couple of Rods of Excellent Psionics (Magic). It would make a great backdrop for a scene. A clinical psionic laboratory, all smooth white surfaces and softly glowing crystals inset into shining steel chairs. Very... respectable looking. Each chair has a room, and there are thousands of rooms, each containing a single occupant, sleeping apparently sleepfully. In the center of the facility, there is a room with a chair carved from a single block of deep crystal. Shing steel pipes sprout from the floor and ceiling, draining into the chair. And there is a glowing gem embedded in the head of the chair that is oddlt mirror like from some angles. There are 1500 of the first type of chair, each containing an enemy of the state locked in a modified Microcosm that locks the victim in a state of perpetual pain. The chairs produce a Distill Pain, Psionic effect, as well as functioning as a Ring of Sustenance. The Agony produced drains through the pipes to the central chair, where it fuels a linked Psychic Reformation and Mind Seed once per day The source of the mind seed is a personality stored in the gem embedded in the chair, the finest product of the nation's mental engineers, an 18th level character utterly loyal to the state. To ensure this does not change, the conciousness is stored in a crystal that is preserved in quintessance except for the few seconds a day that a Mind Seeding is in progress. When a mind-seeding has occured, the new 10th level character is Psychically Reformed into whatever configuration is required. The climax of a quest could be for the PCs to smuggle a good aligned psion into the facility and mind switch with the conciousness in the gem, so that all further minions that are produced are actually double agents, or to implant orders into the original conciousness.
Aubri 06-15-06, 10:52 AM	You'll have to work out some semantics, as Mind Seed requires XP IIRC, but it shouldn't be too hard. Maybe there's more than one, each seeding a different patrol, or maybe they've found a way to do it as an extended psionic ritual similar to Metaconcert that circumvents or distributes the XP cost. You're the DM, don't be afraid to make it insidious. Or maybe you use a huge obelisk containing a glowing crystal core (see Eberron's Sarlonan Monoliths) to feed off the dreams of the sleeping residents, sapping imagination and ambition to fuel the expansion of your super-soldier army... :evillaugh Hello, Prozium! The people shouldn't live in fear, but live contentedly at a high standard of living in a monochromatic, almost mechanical society... outsiders are simply outsiders, they come, they leave, and if they make trouble the police take care of it. I like the idea of a populace who is suppressed rather than repressed. Repression breeds rebellion. If you do work with the different-seeder idea, it gives you a potential adventure hook -- what if one of the "seeders" had some small shard of goodness in his being, and the patrols he seeded share that, too? Better yet, the copies would gradually diverge over time because they have different experiences... what if one of them started working against the system?
Darren_Stormsword 07-08-06, 02:45 PM	:bump: Reading through this, with the emotion control idea, and the whole white lab area, it's kinda starting to remind me of The Giver. The entire population is content, and when something that involves free thinking goes on, oh, well there's a medicine for that. Also, has anyone started a community psionic world-building thread/forum? With all the great ideas floating around out here, you could make an awesome world.
Anguirus23 07-08-06, 04:09 PM	This thread contains so many terrific ideas...I may have to steal quite a few!
Khan the Destroyer 07-08-06, 04:20 PM	To be honest, Wilders would most likely be hunted and killed in this sort of society. Not only do their abilities spring up naturally and without the training provided by the government, but with the new feats in Complete Psionics, a Wilder's Volatile Mind class feature can make it difficult for Telepaths to reign them in. Meaning that the government has no control over their power manifestation to begin with, and will likely never be able to control it. What about a sort of conditioning using an item like the Resonance Stone of Crushing Despair? Secretly place these items around populated areas days before a government-planned attack. When the attack happens, and the State Telepaths subdue it, the stones will be secretly removed as well. People will begin to associate despair with threats from the outside, and begin to associate the government with hope and salvation. Also, powers from Complete Psionics like Ethereal Agent and Psychometry will aid in information gathering for higher level agents. Psychometry can tell you quite a bit about possible rebels, including alignment, how many there are, and even in what direction they left. Ethereal Agent makes it possible to spy on them right after discerning the possible threat. And Control Sound. That way, no one hears the thought police beating some guy to bloody hell in an alley. And now the poor guy has nothing to distract him from seeing his teeth fall out, feeling his bones snap, and regretting ever thinking those blasphemous thoughts in the first place, whatever they were. And I'm thinking Scent would be a good power for Psychic Warriors to have if they are in the habit of tracking people down. It's just creepier to be in hiding, and then see your pursuer enter the room, pause, sniff the air, and then head straight for your location. EDIT: Also, between clairsentient powers, mind-reading abilities, and psychic reformation, State Telepaths and their croneys should be prepared for most encounters to best of their abilities. Potential victims should be horrified at their efficiency and seemingly unerring calculations.
Zubon 07-08-06, 08:09 PM	Between the prestige of having a psychic child, and the extra cash, and the schooling teaching even the commoners what it means to be heirs to the imperial legacy, who needs to try to mind control an entire populace? The other half of this equation is missing: the families keep the children loyal. That is, if the child does something wrong, the family is also punished or is punished instead. Psion failing in training? Family stipend is taken away, maybe retroactively. Rebels against the state? Family executed. As it honors a family to have a child on the elite psychic guard, so will it dishonor a family for anything to go wrong with that child. Are psions too valuable to the state to be damaged? In that case, all punishments will happen to the family instead of the psion; "we still need you for service, so your little sister will be fulfilling your punishment of a month in the Liquid Pain factory." This ensures that parents will instill in their children the importance of family loyalty and loyalty to the state. You might too if your life depended on your child's following the rules. In forming a LE society, it is helpful to look up how oppressive regimes do so in the real world without psionics. The family punishment above was something Saddam used to make sure soldiers followed orders. Mao, Stalin, Castro, and others are treasure troves of ways to design societies that reinforce their own oppression.
Dioxin 09-22-06, 04:38 AM	Looking back on this thread following the release of the XPH and other supplements, and once again my mind is abuzz with ideas. Here they are, in no particular order. Liquid pain creates an entire economy fuelled literally by life. It doesn't even especially matter what kind of life it is. Monstrous humanoids like orcs and goblins that would be hunted and killed by other nations become a resource that fuels the nation's psionic artifice industry. This could lead players to discover the deeply hidden signs of the country's true insidious nature, either via its thriving slave trade, or the mass "disappearing" or even artificial breeding of an entire underclass (monstrous or otherwise). Even mind seeded duplicates still have a mind of their own, but illusions created by Simulacrum are eternally obedient regardless of how they're treated. Like mind seed pearls, the cost of creating scrolls of Simulacrum can be covered by liquid pain. Unlike spellcasting simulacra, these guys can feed other psions their power points via Bestow Power. Forget cognizance crystals, a simulacrum gets its power points refilled every day and can provide up to 2/3 of it for anyone that's authorized. (I also remember an elixir that allowed anyone to create a simulacrum minus the disguise check, but I can't find the item anywhere in my books. If it exists, that would nicely sidestep the issue of the casting mage having control over them.) The psion/wilder 7 power Soul Crystal from Magic of Incarnum lets a psion quickly and easily create what amounts to a temporary no cost multi-use power stone of any power he knows that's usable by anyone. Combine this with the time stream stopping Quintessence, and it becomes insanely good from a logistics perspective. Imagine every squad captain and secret police station equipped with a handful of choice high level or normally unavailable powers (approved personnel only, obviously) and you can just see the possibilities unfolding before your eyes. Now, of course not every low level government goon is going to be decked out with 8th or 9th level powers, but the fact that both Soul Crystal and Quintessence costs only power points means there's nothing stopping the high level psion of the inner party from strolling into the psionics academy in the morning, whip off a dozen soul crystals, get his power points refilled by his personal retinue of simulacra, then head off for serious business for the rest of the day while other simulacra of sufficient level produce bead after bead of quintessence to encase the soul shards. Since Bestow Power is only second level, you can even have the psions-in-training feed the simulacra for the low intensity stuff. The end result of this in the field is the government can arm trusted captains and elite assault teams of the thought police with men in black level gear while everyone else is still stuck with swords and arrows, and maybe the occasional magic missile. Also, Soul Crystals of Psionic Fabricate and Psionic Moment of Prescience mean even the journeymen can turn out masterwork goods in bulk, while Quintessence as preservative means surplus food stores won't spoil, ever. The standard of living for the citizens of a nation with such means would probably be unthinkable for any foreign commoner. But since we're talking about a LE nation here, all you have to give up in return is every single one of your freedoms. Red Son anyone? Seriously, go read it if you have a chance. Oh, before I forget, two things. First, a simulacrum of a thrallherd leader with the proper build could also be a thrallherd, and if created via some wondrous magic item, would be absolutely loyal to the original. No chance of having a mental clone ever rebelling because it knows it's small potatoes. This way every village and every city can have its own "administrator," with its own group of completely loyal boots on the ground, dedicated by extension completely to the original supreme leader. Second, but perhaps more chilling, young, healthy bodies plus Soul Crystals of True Mind Switch makes the inner party essentially immortal. Since death of the old bodies causes level loss, the adventurers can get the chance to piece together what's happening at the top after they free a few of the life suspended or quintessence submerged swapped bodies kept at the storage facility/"mausoleum of heroes".
Dumat 09-22-06, 11:01 PM	Do not underestimate the role of seers in your nation, if not in your henchman group. The idea of the panopticon, the prison where there are no bars, just an eye on you all the time, is very powerful for a LE society. It's the ultimate Big Brother: the citizens inform on each other and display a fanatical loyalty to the cult of personality because they know that at any moment, someone may be using remote viewing on them. There is literally no privacy: any lifestyle considered "deviant" could be brutally suppressed, so people are paranoid and fearful that at any moment the secret police could burst in and secret them away to some place where they will be "seeded" as tempest mentioned above. Telepaths also could feed into this very well: where the seers know what you are doing, the telepaths know what you are thinking. Psions could be hunted very heavily for indoctrination, as only a psion can block the intrusion....this could put a renegade in the PC's world as an ally or as an asylum seeker.
MasonZII 09-23-06, 01:53 PM	An interesting discussion, if two years old. I could see a LE psi-heavy society getting more mileage out of Dominate than Mind Seed, as if someone is egomaniacal enough to make millions of copies of themselves, those copies would inherit that egomania and likely be uncooperative (you'd probably get a cycle of the little Seeds banding together to take out their progenitor, and the strongest surviving Seed then doing his own seeding, only to be struck down in like fashion). A Domination tree is much more stable. A level 11 Psion (or level 9, with Overchannel) of decent INT can fire off 12 11-day Dominates per day with full PP expenditure, for 132 persistent subjects (excluding Will saves, but if people grew up in a LE society where being Dominated was a sign of loyalty and status, telling them to fail their will saves wouldn't be "against their nature"). The higher-level Telepaths (under the control of a single ruler, perhaps) would dominate the lower level Telepaths, who would then dominate the armed forces, nobility, and bureaucracy. Have the trainee Telepaths do random Read Thoughts sweeps and the like, in order to detect rebellion the bulk of the populace (who wouldn't be worthy of domination). The obvious disruptions (dispel, NPF, prot from evil) make for decent plot devices. Inherently loyal soldiers/Telepaths wouldn't be subverted by a dispel, just cut off from their master, but friends could be rescued, &c., and any disruption would alert the whole command structure (although freeing a disloyal Telepath could give you some temporary fodder, if the subordinates are inherently loyal they'd all get will saves if told to do something disruptive). Thrallherd sounds like an alternative, but its mechanics are too open-ended in who gets enthralled. Since thralls respond to you rather than you selecting them personally, important and strong-minded people could go uncontrolled. Of course, if one wanted to write a scenario in which the populace could be controlled by Thrallherds, nothing would stop one, but the vague mechanics would make it tricky and perhaps not as much fun to play.
Khandar 09-23-06, 02:27 PM	Wow, this thread is exactly what I was looking for. Just the other day I had an idea for a campaign based on the concepts in the book 1984 I think it might be a bit too ambitious for my first attempt at DMing, but whatever. I'll probably start a thread on it once I figure out some of the basic ideas I want to have. Any advice would be appreciated, but I definitely like this thread.
Lokiyn 09-23-06, 03:46 PM	Thrallherd sounds like an alternative, but its mechanics are too open-ended in who gets enthralled. Since thralls respond to you rather than you selecting them personally, important and strong-minded people could go uncontrolled. Of course, if one wanted to write a scenario in which the populace could be controlled by Thrallherds, nothing would stop one, but the vague mechanics would make it tricky and perhaps not as much fun to play. In theory the limits on the call's range is limited to who can reach you within the 24 hours. So one could toss the thrallherd in a sealed demiplane with no existing life and the call would mechanically attempt to fill its quota of minions, as you toss more people in. Of course that as vague a method as any other.
PhaedrusXY 09-23-06, 08:41 PM	Fantastic thread. To add onto it a bit: there is no reason that the creature that is used as the "Template" for the Mind Seeded troops has to be humanoid. The real power behind the throne in a nation like this could be Mindflayers, (an) Aboleth(s), or some equally sinister race. This would mean that the Mind Seeded police force would seem especially inhuman... because in fact they wouldn't be human. The capture of one of these Mind Seeded agents and their subsequent magical interrogation by another society could be what leads the PCs into investigating this mysterious nation. Anyone reading the thoughts of such a creature would immediatly recognize that its mind is not human. However, upon complete physical examination, it would be revealed that its body is entirely human. And an outside culture with no knowledge of psionics would have no idea how such a thing could be done, and would find the existence of such a creature/technique even more horrifying than someone familiar with the powers responsible for it. Of course, these "secret police" squads should not be seen very often. The majority of the "normal" police would just be average joes, but of course the higher ups would either be Mind Seeded, Mind Switched, or continually Dominated. It is just too bad that Mind Seed only works on humanoids. I think it would be awesome if the government Mind Seeded not only dissidents and their own secret police, but also household pets, stray animals, monsters to make up "brute squads" (ogres, etc). A displacer beast with the mind of a Psion acting as an assassin is one thing that comes to mind... I guess you could get around this limitation by using Mind Seed on a humanoid, then having that humanoid swap minds with another creature via Power Stones of Astral Seed and Mind Switch. How does an ogre with the mental stats of a Mindflayer and 7-8 Psychic Warrior levels sound for an elite combat unit? :D Also, does a Mind Seeded individual keep the new body's hit points, or use its own? For example, would a level 1 commoner who's been seeded by a 20th level Telepath have 1d4+con hit points, or 12d4+12xCon hit points?
Lokiyn 09-23-06, 08:49 PM	It is just too bad that Mind Seed only works on humanoids. I think it would be awesome if the government Mind Seeded not only dissidents and their own secret police, but also household pets, stray animals, monsters to make up "brute squads" (ogres, etc). A displacer beast with the mind of a Psion acting as an assassin is one thing that comes to mind... I guess you could get around this limitation by using Mind Seed on a humanoid, then having that humanoid swap minds with another creature via Astral Seed and Mind Switch. This looks like a job for the Skin of proteus. Hm technically one could start the mind seed process with golems metamorphed into humans.
Tempest Stormwind 09-23-06, 09:20 PM	Lokiyn, polymorph and metamorphosis no longer change your type. Check the errata.
Lokiyn 09-23-06, 10:22 PM	Lokiyn, polymorph and metamorphosis no longer change your type. Check the errata. I'm looking at the official errata for the PHB (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/PHBErrata02062006.zip) and the XPH (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/ExpPsiHdbk_Errata02062006.zip), and the official SRD (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35) And none of them contain the update about type retention. However, i am aware that somewhere this information is supposed to exist. However it doesn't in the relevant sources. In fact checking the faq for info What kind of spells work on characters transformed into creatures of different types than their own by polymorph*? Can you cast hold person on a humanoid who is transformed into a dire bear or would hold monster be required? If a creature’s type changes (such as from polymorph*), it is affected by spells according to its new type. An elf polymorphed into a dire bear is immune to hold person (since she is now an animal), but could be affected by hold animal or hold monster. *The question and answer uses “polymorph” to refer specifically to spells that rely on the polymorph or alter self spell to adjudicate their effect (including alter self, polymorph, polymorph any object, and shapechange), psionic powers based on the metamorphosis power (including metamorphosis and greater metamorphosis), and any other effect based on either of these lists. If, while under the effect of a spell that depends on type (such as hold person), my character is transformed into a different creature type by polymorph*, does the spell’s effect remain? Yes. A spell only checks to see if you are a legal target when it is cast. If you become an illegal target later (such as via the polymorph spell), the spell remains in effect. *The question and answer uses “polymorph” to refer specifically to spells that rely on the polymorph or alter self spell to adjudicate their effect (including alter self, polymorph, polymorph any object, and shapechange), psionic powers based on the metamorphosis power (including metamorphosis and greater metamorphosis), and any other effect based on either of these lists. While i'm aware that some of the new books (i haven't purchased and new books recently or browsed any in a while) have something called the polymorph school What’s the difference between the polymorph spell and the polymorph subschool of the transmutation school (appearing in Player’s Handbook II)? The polymorph subschool was created to provide a central location for rules used by spells that change a character’s form. This allows new shape-changing spells to avoid reiterating the same information over and over again. Existing spells that change a character’s form (such as alter self and polymorph) might vary from the basic rules presented in the subschool. In places where a spell presents different information from the subschool, the spell takes precedence. In fact later in the FAQ Are racial traits considered extraordinary abilities for the purpose of alter self, polymorph, and similar effects? That is, do I lose my racial traits or keep them when I change my form? Unless a racial trait is specifically referred to elsewhere as an extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability (such as blindsense or damage reduction), it isn’t any of those. Unfortunately, the spells in question are silent in indicating whether racial traits are kept or lost. For alter self and the alternate form and change shape special abilities, it’s reasonable to conclude that they are retained (and new ones aren’t gained), since your type and subtype(s) remain the same regardless of the new form.However, the polymorph spell (and any other spell that specifically refers to it) does change your type and subtype(s) to match the new form. Thus, your existing racial traits should be lost (and new ones gained) when using such an effect. (It’s perfectly fine, as a house rule, to have the character retain his own racial traits in place of those of the new form, if the DM and players find that easier to track.) Other spells of the polymorph subschool replace the character’s existing racial traits (as well as virtually all other game statistics) with those of the new form, which makes the switch easier to adjudicate. See the polymorph subschool in Player’s Handbook II for details. Any racial trait specifically designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability follows the normal rules for the spell used. Since this specifically calls out that the polymorph spells and thier existing equivalents do not necessarily follow the polymorphs subschool (i haven't the new books to reference it.) and the errata makes no mention of said changes in either source. i must conclude based on existing information that polymorph and metamorphosis are exceptions to this current polymorph subtype issue.
Dioxin 09-24-06, 01:34 AM	In my mind there's no doubt Metamorphosis shares more than enough of an analogous effect with the pre-revision Polymorph to be included as a part of the errata. The morphing to creatures text of the power is a near direct copy of the spell text, except with minor differences mostly consisting of "you" and "your" replacing "the subject". Stating that the errata does not include Metamorphosis because it's not explicitly referred to by name is really splitting hairs. I can just as easily split hairs the other way by saying all of your justifications are irrelevant, because not once does any of the text refer to anything know as a "power," of which Metamorphosis is one, so therefore it really says nothing on the subject either way. But in any case the whole argument itself is somewhat irrelevant, since without the highly expensive Skin of Proteus that's most likely unavailable to a seed, the seeded personality is going to be spending the majority of its time for the rest of its life as a psionically handicapped walking monstrosity. If you want a seedling with any significant amount of psionic power, you're going to have to implant an original personality of above average power (minimum level 9, practically 12+). The original is most likely going to be someone with a high position in the ruling hierarchy. Nothing is going to breed resentment faster that by getting demoted from loyal government big shot (common past memories) to psionically feeble lackey stuck in the body of a displacer beast, or worse, a cat. Mentally controlling every single genius level previously loyal mind now prancing around in monster bodies is going to introduce a layer of unnecessary complications to a governing system devoted to maintaining control. Even worse, all constructs are immune to telepathic powers and most golem are immune to just about all powers. Psionically enforcing the continued loyalty of a seeded golem is going to be all but impossible, while putting down a rogue golem seed would cause massive headaches for the state. Even if it were possible, would the leader of our LE nation want to risk creating a free willed genius intellect with psionic powers and 5,000 pounds of psionically immune crystalline muscle that could one day decide it no longer wants to play second fiddle to its old self up in the high castle? The trouble is not worth the payoff, in my thinking, especially when any psion with access to Metamorphosis (now potentially at first level with soul crystals) can alternately turn their psicrystal or themselves into any imaginable object for hours at a time and become the perfect listening post, or into young dragons and other muscular beasties for action in the field. Psicrystals or even the psion themselves morphed into a document, valuable, weapon, or any other desirable item designed to be stolen by dirty anarchists can make for devastating counterintelligence, while the end result of "handicapped psion in permanent monster body" can be far more practically achieved with "full power psion in temporary monster body" and "psicrystal in temporary powerful monster body + psion with full round actions for backup" as need be. Imagine many, many DS9 Odos in every corner of the nation working to enforce the will of the state, and the knowledge that absolutely any object can be a disguised psion or psicrystal watching your every action and listening to your every word. For those who suspect the truth, that's going to make for a whole new level of control and paranoia in an already scary world.
MasonZII 09-24-06, 02:40 AM	In theory the limits on the call's range is limited to who can reach you within the 24 hours. So one could toss the thrallherd in a sealed demiplane with no existing life and the call would mechanically attempt to fill its quota of minions, as you toss more people in. Of course that as vague a method as any other. Hmm, the issue is there's still the vague "respond" mechanic, with no guarantee that any given person will necessarily have a "hidden psychic resonance connect" them to the Thrallherd simply because there aren't enough other people on the plane to meet the quota. I prefer the notion that after 24 hours his thrall and followers would pop into the demiplane from various other planes, claiming that they somehow devised a foolproof method to accomplish this impossible task, often using only the resources available to a commoner, but had forgotten the details of their mysterious transit (it seemed so simple at the time!), a failing for which they apologize profusely. It's as plausible as anything else. And from a play standpoint, a LE psionic empire which has the very real threat of adding PCs to its structure has a bit more edge to it (and well-understood rules for rescuing someone from the society, &c). I've got no idea if there are mechanics which explicitly forbid players from falling under Leadership or Thrallherd, but it would probably get a DM stabified to try it. And how could a bunch of lawful evil telepaths not go for the Dominate tree? It's basically a big malevolent org chart, authoritarian brutality in the form of a tricky logistical challenge. Total evilgasm.
AntiDjinn 09-24-06, 05:12 AM	If an LE settlement is headed by a thrallherd then I would assume it is not so much that he moved in and enthralled the town, as that the thralls answered and now comprise the population of the town. This might have happened a long time ago, but the original followers of this cult of personality were thralls and the current populace are their descendants. This gets around the problem of thrallherds not being able to pick individuals to be their thralls. In any given normal town there would be individuals who would not respond. But if you instead move through a region and accrue your thralls then go found the town you know that by definition everyone there is your thrall or cohort. This probably won't be enough people for a settlement, but if the area is dangerous and you succeed in carving out a safe niche then others will arrive. You then set things up so the original townspeople are in charge of the new arrivals and you will pretty much have a lock on the place. A slave mentality would be the norm for this town because their founders were all willingly enslaved and were generally weak-willed.
Lokiyn 09-24-06, 10:03 AM	In my mind there's no doubt Metamorphosis shares more than enough of an analogous effect with the pre-revision Polymorph to be included as a part of the errata. The morphing to creatures text of the power is a near direct copy of the spell text, except with minor differences mostly consisting of "you" and "your" replacing "the subject". Stating that the errata does not include Metamorphosis because it's not explicitly referred to by name is really splitting hairs. I can just as easily split hairs the other way by saying all of your justifications are irrelevant, because not once does any of the text refer to anything know as a "power," of which Metamorphosis is one, so therefore it really says nothing on the subject either way. Thats really missing the point. The point of the above post was that according to the errata that polymorph and metamorphosis and any other prexisting spells have yet to be changed. In other words. The official errata does not contain the supposed changes (no PHBII atm) listed in the [polymorph] school. and the Faq specifically calls out that existing unaltered spells can and will deviate from the polymorph school and take precedence. If you are using Hyperconcious. Puppeteer Reflexions for great fun.
MasonZII 09-24-06, 12:54 PM	If an LE settlement is headed by a thrallherd then I would assume it is not so much that he moved in and enthralled the town, as that the thralls answered and now comprise the population of the town. This might have happened a long time ago, but the original followers of this cult of personality were thralls and the current populace are their descendants. This gets around the problem of thrallherds not being able to pick individuals to be their thralls. In any given normal town there would be individuals who would not respond. But if you instead move through a region and accrue your thralls then go found the town you know that by definition everyone there is your thrall or cohort. This probably won't be enough people for a settlement, but if the area is dangerous and you succeed in carving out a safe niche then others will arrive. You then set things up so the original townspeople are in charge of the new arrivals and you will pretty much have a lock on the place. A slave mentality would be the norm for this town because their founders were all willingly enslaved and were generally weak-willed. Definitely an acceptable solution, but overall it doesn't add any mechanics that you couldn't get with any other xenophobic/fanatical population, beyond the bit where any killed followers could be replaced from surrounding settlements within a day, and killing the herder could free everyone. A good way to set up a crazy cult village in a psionic campaign, definitely. Hmm, on the other hand, surrounding settlements could be afraid to attack the thrallville, since any attack which didn't kill the herder would have a chance of leaving their loved ones enthralled. That's kind of cool, and could be a fun encounter for a stealth-capable party (getting commissioned to take out the thrallherd(s) without killing any thralls or followers).
Timespike 09-24-06, 01:07 PM	You could go one better. Have a group of lower-level Thrallherders that report to a high-level seer or telepath who in turn keeps tabs on them. Have a "rapid response team" of psychic warriors and soulknives ready to drop in by teleport at a moments notice and this gets even scarier!
Timespike 11-03-06, 11:45 PM	Zaryx is just one of many things that's getting updated for the relaunch ofmy campaign. This one takes place 10 years after the end of the last one, and some things have changed. Zaryx was in the throes of a nasty civil war when the last game ended, and the war has taken its course.* The law faction won, and has, predictably, both restored order and built up its military forces. I wound up going with kind of a hybridized approach to things: psionics are recruited and/or conscripted, and the ones that behave like good little soldiers keep their free will. Ones that get "out of hand" get mind-seeded. Now things have gotten interesting. Zaryx has invaded some nearby nations border areas, and has been doing some saber-rattling with Sentoria, the largest & most powerful good nation. Zaryxians have an exceedingly-high incidence of psionic talent compared to citizens of other nations. The reasons are many, but the two most important ones are: 1. Strong psionic bloodlines. Early in Zaryx's history, the ruling class (powerful, naturally occuring psions and some illithids) intentionally bred cerebrilith demons with some of their subjects. This left some undesirable chaotic traits, so they introduced bladelings to the mix. Children who possessed psionic powers were allowed to live and breed, those without them were killed, often as food for the illithids. Once they had created a race of psionic humans that bred true, they released a plague on their general, non-psionic population to decrease their numbers, and then freed the psionics they'd just made to help with the "reconstruction effort".This naturally ingratiated the psionics to the normal humans, and intermarriage came fairly quickly thereafter. That was some 150 or so generations back. Zaryxian humans now produce psionic talents at a much higher rate than any other race in the world. Psionic talent manifests in about .01% of the population worldwide, and about 90% of those cases are someone with the wild talent feat. About 15% of the Zaryxian populace is born somehow psionic, and divine minds and ardents can be trained out of the remaining 85%. 2. A psionics-conducive environment. The soil in Zaryx is about 4% pulverized psionics-grade crystal; the very earth is filled with veins of the stuff. The unique minerals this produces find their way into vegetables and the flesh of animals that eat them, further increasing psionic potential. *The two factions, while both LE, emphasized the two prongs of that alignment. There was the lawful faction, that was ruthless, disciplined, and extremely organized, and the evil faction that was less organized and was plagued by infighting, but had more powerful members and was actively malevolent and cruel, knew it, and gloried in it. This left the various forces of good in a bad spot; there was no group to support. If the evil faction won, the odds of some truly horrific rituals taking place and bringing in all sorts of powerful evil into the world greatly increased, and there was great potential for internal genocide, etc. If the lawful faction won, Zaryx would still be evil, and would likely become a much more powerful and possibly expansionistic nation than it had been.
Nomad_the_Odd 01-14-07, 10:54 AM	I know it only works at high level, but for an elite death squad, look at illithid slayer. No mind effects on them, so they are absolutely un-taintable magically or psionically. Full BAB and great Manifester progression, and most imprortantly, NOTHING SHORT OF METAFACULTY CAN FIND THEM. Think about that. There is no way to prepare for them, they move, strike, and fade with no magical or psionic warning at all. By extention of the rule, you can make it cover a lot of spells. detect evil and detect magic can both give away my location. Detect thoughts will tell you I am within the range,so no. Commune asking "will my home be attacked this week" will not only tell you where I will be, but give an idea as to when, so that's out. Really, this is one of the coolest psionic powers for a secret police. And if you use the SRD version, Illithids aren't SRD, so you don't even have to kill one to qualify. You need track, +4 BAB, 4 ranks in dungeoneering, and 1 power point. A ranger could actually qualify to take it as his 5th level, which is usually impossible. But you'd want a level in psion. That whole psionic progression thing.
Timespike 01-17-07, 12:56 AM	For the aforementioned death squad trooper, you'd actually want to do Ranger 3/Psion 2, rather than ranger 4/psion 1. Same BAB, higher manifester level. (Why yes, I do hang out on the CharOp boards. However did you tell?) And the real fun starts at Manifester level 9 when you can psychic crush some hapless unfortunate. Psychic Crush is a MEAN power.
MasonZII 01-17-07, 10:00 AM	Psychic Crush is a MEAN power. In a very narrow level range, perhaps. From a DC perspective, it's an unaugmentable 1st level save-or-die. And the damage on a save is pretty low, and still subject to PR.
PhaedrusXY 01-17-07, 12:33 PM	In a very narrow level range, perhaps. From a DC perspective, it's an unaugmentable 1st level save-or-die. And the damage on a save is pretty low, and still subject to PR.Yeah, it looks pretty terrible to me. I don't know why on earth it has the +4 bonus on the save. Slay Living is the same level, and very similiar in effects, and it doesn't have that +4 bonus. Slay Living is a Death effect vs. Psychic Crush being Mind Affecting, and protection vs. Death Effects (Death Ward) comes a bit earlier than immunity to Mind Affecting (Mind Blank). Slay Living is also a Touch spell, but that isn't a huge drawback for a cleric. So overall I guess Psychic Crush would be a bit more powerful without the +4, but I don't think it warrants a huge bonus to the save. They should have just bumped it up a level or two (like Finger of Death), instead of giving it a huge nerf, if they thought it was too powerful.
Timespike 01-18-07, 12:35 AM	Yeah, it looks pretty terrible to me. I don't know why on earth it has the +4 bonus on the save. Slay Living is the same level, and very similiar in effects, and it doesn't have that +4 bonus. Slay Living is a Death effect vs. Psychic Crush being Mind Affecting, and protection vs. Death Effects (Death Ward) comes a bit earlier than immunity to Mind Affecting (Mind Blank). Slay Living is also a Touch spell, but that isn't a huge drawback for a cleric. So overall I guess Psychic Crush would be a bit more powerful without the +4, but I don't think it warrants a huge bonus to the save. They should have just bumped it up a level or two (like Finger of Death), instead of giving it a huge nerf, if they thought it was too powerful. The player that failed his save against with was pretty scared, though. Watching your PC die slowly is more traumatic than having it all over at once. He was saved at -8 HP, though. Besides, imagine the effect of this on innocent commoners. We're talking secret police, here. The guy in black looks at you and suddenly you start bleeding from the eyes, ears, and nose, and collapse (flavor added by me). That's scary stuff!
nobodez 02-15-07, 04:16 PM	This is a very fun thread, and I'm glad I found it. As to the topic, remember that most of your population is going to be 1st level commoners, with a standard {10, 10, 10, 11, 11, 11} array, which means that even low-level powers are powerful against them. Really, a LE society would have the same uniforms for all of their police, the Storm Troopers of the Galactic Empire for instance, that way you have no idea if you're fighting the generic low-level warriors, or the elite 5th-level fighters (we're talking from a 1st level commoner standpoint). Heck, you can even make Deep Crystal Breastplate (based on the PHB image) along with deep crystal maces with some sort of shocking augment crystal (MIC), for standard armament. Of course, you can always have the empire be at a 2 PL system, with the higher echelons with PL 3/4 tech (Renaissance/Industrial) and the peons with PL 2 tech (Medieval). Anything you can grab from Star Wars I think helps for the image of LE.
AntiDjinn 04-01-07, 04:01 PM	To anyone thinking of making an LE psionic nation, do buy (or at least read) Secrets of Sarlona. Riedra is a prime example of a Lawful Evil society, and the Dreaming Dark is what an LE psionic organization should look like. The book does a good job of detailing how the Quori differ from other threats to Eberron. If the Lords of Dust win, then Eberron will be a blasted wasteland. If the Daelkyr win the world will be plunged into madness. By contrast, if the Dreaming Dark wins life in Eberron will be safe, stable, and eternally devoid of freedom. All people will be fed, clothed, their safety will be ensured, but they will be enslaved right down to their dreams. The section on page 15 ("The Struggle of Dal Quor") and the sections from page 53 ("State of the Nation") to 65 (especially the sections on laws in Riedra and dealing with dissidents) provide a roadmap for designing a psi LE society. If properly done the people you dominate will love you for taking the burden of free will from them.
Timespike 04-03-07, 08:42 PM	To anyone thinking of making an LE psionic nation, do buy (or at least read) Secrets of Sarlona. Riedra is a prime example of a Lawful Evil society, and the Dreaming Dark is what an LE psionic organization should look like. The book does a good job of detailing how the Quori differ from other threats to Eberron. If the Lords of Dust win, then Eberron will be a blasted wasteland. If the Daelkyr win the world will be plunged into madness. By contrast, if the Dreaming Dark wins life in Eberron will be safe, stable, and eternally devoid of freedom. All people will be fed, clothed, their safety will be ensured, but they will be enslaved right down to their dreams. The section on page 15 ("The Struggle of Dal Quor") and the sections from page 53 ("State of the Nation") to 65 (especially the sections on laws in Riedra and dealing with dissidents) provide a roadmap for designing a psi LE society. If properly done the people you dominate will love you for taking the burden of free will from them. If Zaryx were to win, it would be like Stalinist Russia covering the globe. People wouldn't just be enslaved, they'd be under the thumbs of vicious, cruel tyrants.
Runepriest 04-13-07, 10:58 PM	Deleted
Runepriest 04-13-07, 11:01 PM	I really like the idea of producing the XP required for this from Liquid Pain, although all the state really needs is a couple of Rods of Excellent Psionics (Magic). It would make a great backdrop for a scene. A clinical psionic laboratory, all smooth white surfaces and softly glowing crystals inset into shining steel chairs. Very... respectable looking. Each chair has a room, and there are thousands of rooms, each containing a single occupant, sleeping apparently sleepfully. In the center of the facility, there is a room with a chair carved from a single block of deep crystal. Shing steel pipes sprout from the floor and ceiling, draining into the chair. And there is a glowing gem embedded in the head of the chair that is oddlt mirror like from some angles. There are 1500 of the first type of chair, each containing an enemy of the state locked in a modified Microcosm that locks the victim in a state of perpetual pain. The chairs produce a Distill Pain, Psionic effect, as well as functioning as a Ring of Sustenance. The Agony produced drains through the pipes to the central chair, where it fuels a linked Psychic Reformation and Mind Seed once per day The source of the mind seed is a personality stored in the gem embedded in the chair, the finest product of the nation's mental engineers, an 18th level character utterly loyal to the state. To ensure this does not change, the conciousness is stored in a crystal that is preserved in quintessance except for the few seconds a day that a Mind Seeding is in progress. When a mind-seeding has occured, the new 10th level character is Psychically Reformed into whatever configuration is required. The climax of a quest could be for the PCs to smuggle a good aligned psion into the facility and mind switch with the conciousness in the gem, so that all further minions that are produced are actually double agents, or to implant orders into the original conciousness. (takes notes and puts in sig) I'd probably add an artifact allowing rebuilding to anyone who has gone under psychic reformation in the past 24 hours to rebuild. :D
Runepriest 04-14-07, 11:10 AM	Got new format stats for psychic warriors: Secret Policeman (CR 10) Xeph Psychic Warrior 10 LE Medium Humanoid (Psionic, Xeph) Init +2; Senses Listen +3, Spot +3 Languages Common, Xeph AC 19, touch 12, flat-footed 17 (+2 Dex, +7 +2 Breastplate) hp 78 (HD 10) Fort +9, Ref +5, Will +6 Speed Speed of thought: 40ft. (8 squares), Normal: 30ft. (6 squares) Melee +1 Shortsword +10 (1d6+3) Ranged Composite (+1 Str Bonus) Longbow +10 (1d8+1) Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft. Base Atk +7/+2; Grp +8 Atk Options Extend Power Power Points/Day 43; Psychic Warrior Powers Known (ML 10th) 4th— Inertial Barrier 3rd— Dimension slide, Empathic Feedback, Mental Barrier 2nd— Animal Affinity, Body Adjustment, Dimension Swap 1st— Force Screen, Prevenom, Skate Abilities Str 13, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 8 SQ Burst +30 ft. Feats Extend Power, Narrow Mind, Psionic Body, Psionic Meditation, Skill Focus (Concentration), Speed of thought, Up the Walls, Weapon Finesse Skills Autohypnosis +18, Concentration +18 Possessions +2 Breastplate, +1 Shortsword, 10 potions of cure critical wounds, Composite Longbow
Zemyla 04-14-07, 04:06 PM	I've got a couple things to say. First off, from the leader's perspective, if your citizens see violence, you have failed. A dissident is not to be dragged off in broad daylight. Instead, he should suddenly disappear in the middle of the night, or perhaps even vanish and then return, with no memories of their experience and no disloyalty to be found. Second, some of the expanded options in the Mind's Eye are great for this. Egoists with minor shape change are now spies, who could look like anyone. A telepath with telepathy and mindsight can watch high-traffic areas with his mind. Since he can detect type and intelligence, he can detect infiltrators who aren't what they seem to be. Third, not only are slayers deadly forces working with the government, there might be some slayers who are deadly forces working against the government. Stealthy, nigh-impossible to find, and powerful, they might be menaces the government has yet to stamp out. Fourth, I am wondering how non-psionic, non-magical classes, other PrCs and other base classes fit in in this nation. Erudites are a different, more versatile, but less powerful type of psion, lurks might be the spies and assassins, but I don't see where ardents and divine minds fit in anywhere. Fifth, two generic lower-level types for your collection of bad guys. Common Guard (CR 1/2) Human Warrior 1 LN medium humanoid (psionic, human) Init +0; Senses Listen +0, Spot +0 Languages Common AC 14 (+4 scalemail) hp 5 (1 HD) Fort +3, Ref +0, Will -1 Speed 30 ft. (20 ft. in scalemail) Melee halberd +2 (1d10+1) Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft. Base Atk +1; Grp +2 Atk Options Psionic Weapon Power Points/Day 2; Hidden Talent Powers Known (ML 1st) 1st - Precognition, Offensive Abilities Str 13, Dex 10, Con 12, Int 9, Wis 8, Cha 11 Feats Psionic Weapon, Hidden Talent Skills Concentration +3, Listen +0, Spot +0 Possessions scalemail, halberd Tactics: These guards consider it an honor to give their lives for their country. They will manifest offensive precognition to make it more likely that they will hit, and then they will charge, using psionic weapon to try and hit harder. After that, they will fight fiercely until killed or subdued. Psychic watchman Human Telepath 6 LE medium humanoid (psionic, human) Init +0; Senses Listen +1, Spot +1, mindsight 30 ft. Languages Common, (two others) AC 15 (+5 +1 mithril chain shirt) hp 22 (6 HD) Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +6 Speed 30 ft. Melee +3 masterwork morningstar (1d8-1) Ranged +4 masterwork light crossbow (1d8) Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft. Base Atk +3; Grp +2 Atk Options Overchannel Power Points/Day 44; Psion Powers Known (ML 6th) 3rd - Dispel Psionics, Energy Bolt, Psionic Blast, Solicit Psicrystal 2nd - Cloud Mind, Ego Whip, Read Thoughts, Psionic Suggestion 1st - Crystal Shard, Entangling Ectoplasm, Mind Thrust, Mindlink, Telempathic Projection Abilities Str 8, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 16, Wis 12, Cha 14 SQ telepathy 30 ft, psicrystal (friendly) Feats Inquisitor, Psicrystal Affinity, Overchannel, Mindsight Skills Bluff +11, Concentration +10, Diplomacy +17, Gather Information +11, Sense Motive +10, Psicraft +5 Possessions: +1 mithril chain shirt, masterwork morningstar, masterwork light crossbow, 20 bolts, dorje of energy ray (3rd level), tattoo of body adjustment Tactics: The psychic watchman not only watches for suspicious activity, but is the face of the government that most people see. He gives the people the (mostly censored) news, and is the visible sign of the government watching over them and giving them security. He reports in with his superior every hour, mindlink to stay connected; a typical shift for him is six hours long. He uses mindsight to know the locations of everyone nearby, and a discrepancy will have him investigating. He can use Inquisitor to sense lies, and he can use read thoughts, hand it off to his psicrystal, and use read thoughts again to scan twice the area. In the event of real trouble, he reports in with mindlink immediately. He prefers to use mental attacks (mind thrust, ego whip, psionic blast) against his foes. If those don't work, he will use the dorje of energy ray. His weapons are a last resort, since he knows he is not good with them.
Tempest Stormwind 04-14-07, 04:17 PM	I don't have much in the way of insight at the moment that hasn't already been mentioned, but I want to bring up an option in Untapped Potential that people might get a kick out of. One of the original ten PrCs in that book was the Sighted Seeker, designed as the penultimate psychic bounty hunter (a ranger/seer hybrid class in every sense of the term). When the book was expanded for print, we developed a concept that had been tabled for a while -- organizational substitution levels for PrCs. The Sighted Seeker got three substitution levels that turn it into the Psychic Watchman -- and though it wasn't designed for it, the psychic watchman makes the PERFECT secret policeman. Different combinations of the watchman sub levels and the seeker's original levels will result in different specialties, but these could include walking through a crowd and listening for dissident thoughts, blending into the foreground so as to be invisible while standing right in plain sight (non-magically), an always-on detect hostile intent, and an ability similar to 3.0 Inquisitor (that automatically detects lies and deciet). The information-gathering abilities of the seeker (the ones based on analyzing crime scenes) probably aren't the best for this type of character, since they might dig up a secret about the government that was meant to stay buried, but their replacements work wonders in finding dissidents. Although technically, the organizational chapter isn't Open Game, as the guy who wrote all the organizational subs, I give permission to reproduce it here so long as it's attributed properly (that is, it isn't Open, but you may as well treat it as it is). Just ignore the exact references to the organization it's attached to, and you're gold. If I can dig up my notes, I might be able to reproduce the seeker here (in Watchman form). I should note that one doesn't need to be a manifester to enter it, although a seer/ranger multiclass gets in fastest. If I have time later today, even if I can't find my notes, I'll write up a sample watchman NPC for use here.
Zemyla 04-14-07, 06:10 PM	I'm posting the Sighted Seeker so Tempest doesn't have to. I'll leave him to post the Psychic Watchman, though. “He fled the city yesterday and is currently on a boat to the Free Cities. He thinks he's lost me, too, the sorry fool.” - Miriam Tenneth, sighted seeker Fugitives and marks alike run from their would-be captors. The wisest of these hunters do not rely on mundane ways of tracking alone, instead combining those abilities with the information readily available through the powers of the mind. By blending clairsentient talents with the techniques of an inquisitive and a warrior, these sighted seekers become the worst nightmare of any criminal – or anyone they’re hired to find. BECOMING A SIGHTED SEEKER Because of the dual role of the sighted seeker, both as one who physically and mentally hunts for his target, those who look to become a sighted seeker tend to be multiclass characters with levels in ranger and seer. Members of either class individually can become sighted seekers, as can dedicated members of other classes (particularly rogues and society minds), although it is slightly more difficult. Despite the apparent focus on law enforcement, a sighted seeker does not need to be lawful – several see themselves as operating outside the law, and are thus free to do what they feel is ‘the right thing,’ even if the law would dictate otherwise. Hit Die: d6 ENTRY REQUIREMENTS Base Attack Bonus: +4 Skills: Gather Information 5 ranks, Listen 8 ranks, Spot 8 ranks, Survival 5 ranks Feats: Track Special: Power point reserve. Class Skills The sighted seeker’s class skills are Autohypnosis, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Gather Information, Hide, Knowledge (local), Knowledge (nature), Knowledge (psionics), Listen, Move Silently, Profession, Psicraft, Search, Sense Motive, Spot, Survival, and Use Rope. Skill Points at Each Level: 6 + Int modifier Class Features All of the following are class features of the sighted seeker. Max Powers Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special Manifesting Progression PP Level Known 1 +0 +0 +2 +2 Favored prey, - 2 1st 2 Urban Tracking 2 +1 +0 +3 +3 Passive seeking +1 level existing class 5 1st 3 3 +2 +1 +3 +3 Mark prey +1 level existing class 9 1st 4 4 +3 +1 +4 +4 Prescient tactics +1 level existing class 14 2nd 5 5 +3 +1 +4 +4 Seeker’s analysis +1 level existing class 22 2nd 6 6 +4 +2 +5 +5 - +1 level existing class 30 2nd 7 7 +5 +2 +5 +5 Sighted analysis +1 level existing class 42 3rd 8 8 +6 +2 +6 +6 Hypercognition - 54 3rd 10 9 +6 +3 +6 +6 The sight +1 level existing class 70 4th 11 10 +7 +3 +7 +7 Metafaculty - 86 4th 12 Weapons and Armor Proficiency: Sighted seekers are proficient with all simple weapons, plus the longsword, rapier, sap, short sword, shortbow and whip. Sighted seekers are proficient with light armor and shields (except tower shields). Manifesting: A sighted seeker gains manifesting ability if she did not already have it. Her power points per day, powers known, and maximum power level known are given on the table below. She chooses her powers from the sighted seeker power list. To learn or manifest a power, she must have a Wisdom score of at least 10 + the power’s level, the save DCs for her powers are Wisdom-based, and she uses her Wisdom score to determine bonus power points. Alternatively, if the sighted seeker was capable of manifesting psionic powers before becoming a sighted seeker, she may choose to forgo this training, instead opting to progress her existing manifesting class as described on the table below. At each indicated level, she gains power points, access to new powers, and an improved manifester level as if she had gained a level in whatever manifesting class she belonged to earlier. If she belonged to more than one manifesting class before becoming a sighted seeker, she must choose which class to add the level of sighted seeker to for the purposes of power points, access to new powers, and manifester level. Once the sighted seeker has chosen her manifesting path, it can never be changed – not even with effects such as psychic reformation. Favored Prey (Ex): Starting at 1st level, a sighted seeker may add her favored enemy bonus (if any) to the save DCs when manifesting powers (such as remote viewing) against her favored enemies. Favored prey only applies to powers the sighted seeker manifests from her own mind (it does not apply to those from a psionic item or to psi-like abilities), and if such a power would affect multiple targets, only favored enemies or marks face the increased DC. Urban Tracking: A sighted seeker gains Urban Tracking as a bonus feat at first level. See the Urban Seekers sidebar for the details of this feat, which originally appeared in Unearthed Arcana. Passive Seeking (Su): What makes the sighted seekers so efficient at their job is their ability to distill information from the passive thoughts and interactions around them, without arousing suspicion by asking any questions. While psionically focused and having a particular goal in mind, the sighted seeker may make a free Gather Information check relating to this goal every 10 minutes she’s in a crowd as she detects scraps of information from those around her. If her goal is to locate a mark (see mark prey, below), she gains a bonus on this check equal to her class level. Mark Prey (Ex): A 3rd-level sighted seeker can invest her own psionic power into actively seeking a specific individual target, known as a mark. This investment requires spending power points equal to 3 per specific target selected. While a sighted seeker does not need to know a mark’s specific name or appearance, she must be able to unquestionably identify the specific individual in some way – for instance, “the one who made these tracks” or “the Queen’s killer” would be sufficient, while simply looking for “the elf” would not. This cost must be paid immediately upon recovering power points on each subsequent day that mark is being actively hunted by the sighted seeker. A target remains a mark until the seeker ceases investing power points each day to hunt them. The sighted seeker may treat a mark as a favored enemy, as if she had the ranger class ability, with a +1 bonus. If that foe is already a favored enemy by virtue of race or organization, the favored enemy bonus improves by +2. Many of a sighted seeker’s class features function in an improved fashion if she uses them against a mark; see the individual abilities for details. Prescient Tactics (Ex): When a sighted seeker of 4th level or higher manifests the defensive precognition, offensive precognition, or offensive prescience power, she adds the following augment to the power. Augment: If you spend 2 additional power points, the duration increases to 1 hour/level, but you only gain the insight bonuses against your favored enemies. In addition, you also add the insight bonus to Survival checks made to use the Track feat, and to Gather Information checks made to use the Urban Tracking feat. Seeker’s Analysis (Ex): A 5th level sighted seeker has mastered the mundane aspects of the hunt, such that they become almost second nature to her. Add the following abilities to the Search skill: Find Evidence Normal time DC 10-20 Analysis 1 minute DC 15 Evidence is a physical clue which would provide information about her current task, such as the location or past deeds of a mark or the solution to a mystery. The DC to find a clue is based on how much the scene was disturbed from the act that left the evidence (with 10 being a perfectly undisturbed scene). However, it still must be interpreted to determine any useful information. Analyzing evidence to determine useful information requires a DC 15 Search check, +2 per day past the event. Failure of analysis provides incomplete and potentially misleading information, while dramatic success may reveal more information than the clue may initially suggest to a casual observer. Regardless of the success of analysis, though, it takes more dramatic means (such as object reading or related powers) to determine the authenticity of evidence (that fleck of kobold scales could have been planted at the scene, for instance). A sighted seeker can take 10 to find or analyze evidence, but cannot take 20 and cannot retry failed checks. 5 or more ranks in a relevant Knowledge skill provide a +2 bonus on Search checks made when analyzing evidence. Additionally, add the following abilities to the Knowledge skill: Research subject: At least 1d4 hours DC 10 Browse Records: At least 1d4 hours DC 10-30 Researching a subject involves perusing libraries or related sources for information about a particular subject, such as the nations which export the type of weapon found at a scene or what a particular symbol stands for. Difficult subjects require more time to research (up to the GM), but do not alter the DC – instead, you are limited by the amount of information present in the source you are browsing. Particularly good sources (such as royal archives or related specialists’ libraries) may provide a bonus of up to +6 on this check. A successful check results in a general understanding of the subject, while higher checks result in better information (to the limit of the source). Browsing records involves going over files or ledgers looking for a particular piece of information – trends in immigration, taxation patterns, the goals of documented experiments and the like. The complexity of the filing system sets the DC; more difficult systems also take longer to peruse (at the GM’s option). If a sighted seeker sets out with a specific goal in mind – such as the exact date a particular individual checked in at the inn – the DC may increase by +5-+15 (at the GM’s option), or may decrease dramatically if the filing system is particularly good. A sighted seeker may take 10, take 20, and retry these Knowledge checks as often as time allows, though she is still limited by the information present in the source. Sighted Analysis (Su): Beginning at 7th level, a sighted seeker learns to augment her deductive skills with her psionic powers. She may spend 3 power points to automatically determine if a source is authentic during analysis, or to gain a +2 insight bonus to a single Search or Knowledge check (whether using seeker’s analysis or not). If she increases her Knowledge check this way while browsing records or researching a subject, she is able to make such great leaps of insight that she is no longer bound by the limits of her source of information. Unlike most supernatural abilities, sighted analysis can be augmented by spending more power points. Each additional power point spent increases the insight bonus on Search or Knowledge checks by 2. Alternatively, by spending 2 additional power points, the sighted seeker gains the trapfinding feature (as a rogue) for the duration of her Search check, or she may treat any single Knowledge check as a trained check. The sighted seeker may not spend more power points on a single use of sighted analysis than her class level. Hypercognition (Ps): At 8th level, the sighted seeker gains the ability to use hypercognition once per week as a psi-like ability, with a manifester level equal to twice her class level. Additionally, she adds hypercognition to list of powers known as a 7th level power. If she is unable to manifest 7th level powers, she cannot manifest it until she is able to. The Sight (Su): Experienced sighted seekers develop the technique from which their name derives: the Sight. At 9th level, a sighted seeker learns the remote viewing power automatically (without having to select it). If she already knows remote viewing, she may learn any other clairsentience power from her class list of 4th level or lower. Additionally, when she manifests remote viewing on a mark (see mark prey, above), she treats her connection to the mark (if she has one) as if it were one step better (from a likeness or picture to a possession or garment, for instance), reduces the manifesting time from 1 hour to 1 minute, and increases the duration from 1 minute/level to 10 minutes/level. Remote viewing doesn't end if the sighted seeker attempts to manifest a power on her mark from her quasi-real viewpoint, although all other restrictions on such manifestations apply. Manifesting remote viewing on a mark does not cost any experience points (although the sighted seeker must still pay the XP cost if she uses remote viewing for other purposes). Metafaculty (Ps): At 10th level, the sighted seeker gains the ability to use metafaculty once per week as a psi-like ability, with a manifester level equal to twice her class level. Additionally, she adds metafaculty to her list of powers known as an 8th level power. If she is unable to manifest 8th level powers, she cannot manifest it until she is able to. Sighted Seeker Power List: 1st level: Blinding Flash UT, Burst, Call to Mind, Call Weaponry Chameleon Circumstance Shield HC, Compression, Destiny Dissonance, Detect Psionics, Detect Teleportation, Grip of Iron, Headcount UT, Judge HC, Precognition, Defensive Precognition, Offensive Precognition, Offensive Prescience, Prevenom Weapon, Psychic Tracking 2nd level: Clairvoyant Sense, Psionic Darkvision, Everyman UT, Feat Leech, Psionic Identify, Know Direction and Location, Object Reading, Prowess, Recall Agony, Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions 3rd level: Danger Sense, Escape Detection, Fate Link, Mental Barrier, Ubiquitous Vision 4th level: Anchored Navigation, Aura Sight, Detect Remote Viewing, Psionic Divination, Physical Acceleration UT, Remote Viewing (but see the Sight, above), Steadfast Perception, Trace Teleport
Runepriest 04-14-07, 06:50 PM	Do you apply bonuses before or after speed reduction? if after, for 3 3-round bursts per day, the secret policeman is going 90 ft. a round if going downhill. :D
Tempest Stormwind 04-14-07, 06:54 PM	Thanks! The Psychic Watchman, stripped of its direct connection to the Mindwatch organization, is as follows. This works COMPLETELY like a normal substitution level, except there's a roleplay requirement. I've reflavored it slightly -- this is to talior it to Zaryx, NOT to replace the "official" one in UTP. Organizational Requirement: Any Lawful alignment, [Other connections that, for our purposes, could be replaced with swearing unending fealty to the nation in question and/or surrendering free will. Essentially, become the perfectly loyal independent watchman]. Must complete a special ceremony involving psionic conditioning -- potential watchmen are bestowed with superior reasoning, observation, mental power and loyalty (reflected in the abilities below). However, there's a catch: this conditioning isn't perfect, and can break down if the watchman doesn't obey her code of conduct (see below). Code of ConductA psychic watchman places the safety of others before her own well-being. She does not question the authority of the government she is assigned to -- free will is free within the bounds it has set. She does not knowingly commit crimes (both as defined by her masters and any local authority) without an express pardon in advance from a legitimate authority, unless that crime is the only viable way to apprehend a suspect. She does not use unnecessary violence in the apprehension of suspects, and, whenever possible, brings suspects to justice without killing them. She values proof over suspicion, and only invokes her authority as a watchman if she has unimpeachable evidence or a confession of involvement. Supernatural evidence is not as 'solid' as tangible evidence to the watchman; psychic powers aren’t enough to convict someone, but they can guide the watchman to the right spot for her to legally capture him. Warrant Officer: Selecting any one of the psychic watchman specialty levels grants a candidate access to special training at any government security facility. Upon successful completion of this training (which takes 1d4+3 days), the watchman is granted special authority in the field. She may issue warrants for wanted criminals or dissidents (including those she herself locates) without going through the more conventional channels, provided such warrants do not conflict with her code of conduct. She may contact government offices to garner the aid of junior watchmen or mundane guards if necessary, although her superiors still need to approve their use on the mission at hand (watchmen doing something less public would be advised to do so alone). Organizations which respect government authority (or those that the government manipulates behind-the-scenes) may honor these warrants as well, and will cooperate with watchmen in hunting down and capturing wanted criminals. To organizations that are unaware of the watchmen or those who do not respect the government's authority, a warrant is little more than a scrap of paper with fancy words on it. Additionally, a watchman with warrant officer training does not take the standard -4 attack penalty when attempting to deal nonlethal damage. Ever Vigilant (Su): A psychic watchman may choose not to gain the passive seeking ability of a standard sighted seeker at 2nd level, instead gaining this ability. While she is psionically focused, she is treated as if under the effects of detect hostile intent, with a manifester level equal to twice her class level. Every two levels beyond 2nd, the range and radius of this ability increase by 10 ft (40 ft at 4th level, 60 ft at 6th, and so on). She may make Sense Motive checks as a free action against anyone within range of this ability, instead of within 30 ft. Watch from the Shadows (Ex): Instead of gaining Seeker's Analysis at 5th level, a psychic watchman may instead gain the Inquisitor, Mental Dampening*, and Mentally Inconspicuous* feats, even if she doesn't meet the prerequisites. Unlike the normal use of Inquisitor, she may choose to benefit from a +5 bonus on Sense Motive checks to oppose Bluff checks while she is psionically focused (she may still expend her psionic focus to gain the feat's normal benefit). Leaving the investigation of past crimes to the seekers, a watchman instead blends into the background and observes potential criminals directly, remaining undetected until she can catch them red-handed. For less physical crimes, a bit of interrogation gets the job done just as accurately. Psychic Inquisitor (Su): If a psychic watchman selected the Watch from the Shadows ability at 5th level, she may choose to either gain the Seeker's Analysis ability (as a 5th level sighted seeker) or this ability at 7th level. Those who selected Seeker's Analysis at 5th level may not gain this ability, and instead gain Sighted Analysis. A watchman with Psychic Inquisitor may choose to expend 1 power point instead of her psionic focus when using her Inquisitor feat. If she instead expends 3 power points while she is psionically focused, her Inquisitor feat supercharges: for the duration of her conversation, while she remains psionically focused, she automatically knows when an intelligent, living being intentionally lies to her. She may detect a maximum number of lies per conversation equal to her Wisdom modifier. Psychic watchmen would be wise to refrain from supercharging Inquisitor frivolously -- once a conversation with an individual ends, the watchman must wait 8 hours before being able to use this ability again on the same individual. She decides when, or if, to supercharge her Inquisitor feat during conversation as an immediate action. As her skills at interrogation improve, so too do her infiltration techniques; an experienced watchman gains the ability to blend into the foreground and strike without warning. If she spends 3 power points while she is psionically focused, she gains the benefit of the Out of Mind, Out of Sight* feat for three minutes. If she loses her psionic focus while this ability is active, she loses the benefit of that feat until she refocuses. Like Sighted Analysis, Psychic Inquisitor can be augmented. When supercharging Inquisitor, every additional power point spent adds one to the maximum number of lies per conversation a watchman can detect, and cuts the recharge time in half (4 power points for 4 hours, 5 power points for 2 hours, and so on). When blending into the foreground, every additional power point spent adds one minute to the duration of the effect, and grants the watchman a +2 bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks during this duration. As with Sighted Analysis, a psychic watchman cannot spend more power points on a single use of Psychic Inquisitor than her class level. The Shadow (Su): A master watchman can choose to favor the powers of stealth over the powers of perception, gaining this ability at 9th level instead of the Sight. A psychic watchman with the Shadow adds mass cloud mind to her list of powers known as a 4th level power. Furthermore, she may augment that power: For every 2 additional power points she spends, the save DC increases by 1, or by 2 against a mark. A psychic watchman with the Shadow may still learn remote viewing normally, but does not gain any of the Sight’s special functions related to it. Ex-Watchmen: All the special powers described above require special components of the psychic watchman’s conditioning to function. If this conditioning is violated (such as by breaking the code of conduct), the benefits of these levels is lost. An atonement spell or similar effect (available at any government facility in large enough communities) can reverse this, although such reversals are not given out lightly. In fact, they go on the permanent record of the watchman -- and after three infractions, they are cast out of the ranks of the Watchmen, never again able to regain their watchman powers (further atonements instead grant watchmen the replaced abilities of the sighted seeker). Such fallen watchmen are not accepted back into the ranks of the government agents, but several remain fiercely loyal and operate as sighted seekers, taking contracts with their government. Special note: Fallen watchmen are under no mental pressure to remain loyal, and are merely loyal because that's who they are. If they were to dig up some info on the government operations -- such as at the behest of a PC party who appears neutral or in the government's favor -- he may be an excellent contact for potential insurgents. It's for this reason that every ex-watchman is secretly under surveillance by the government, occasionally by other watchmen -- be advised of this should you seek to turn one rogue.There it is. The feats this refers to -- Mental Dampening, Mentally Inconspicuous, and Out of Mind, Out of Sight -- are from UTP, but were the work of BlaineTog. They have a few prereqs (in the skills in question and in Autohypnosis for the first two, while higher ranks in all skills and both feats for the last). Mental Dampening gives a +6 bonus on Move Silently while psionically focused, Mentally Inconspicuous gives a +6 bonus to Hide and Disguise (doesn't function against mind-immune targets), and Out of Mind, Out of Sight allows a psionically-focused individual to Hide in Plain Sight (doesn't function against mind-immunes).
Runepriest 04-14-07, 06:59 PM	Nice!
Runepriest 04-15-07, 01:50 PM	I'm statting the Pit Fiend Dictator as a Level 30 psion and advanced to 20 HD making it CR 51. 10 Great Intelligences, 8 Improved Manifestation, and 1 Epic Expanded Knowledge for Greater Metamorphosis so it appears to be a human psion. Any suggestions for other powers?
Runepriest 04-15-07, 08:41 PM	:bump:
Runepriest 04-16-07, 07:48 PM	:bump:
nobodez 04-17-07, 12:31 AM	Well, Mindsight is a must, since it has built in telepathy. As for the powers, I think that Mind Seed, Mind Switch, Metaconcert, pretty much the entire Telepath list, plus anything off the other lists. You might actually want to go with Erudite, as that way he can get a ton of powers known (he should just know all of them, period), but still not have to worry about which ones to worry about in combat, and you can tailor the combat to the combatants. Society Mind might also be a good idea. It's versatility is much like the Erudite, but he'd have to prepare ahead of time, rather than on the spot, plus the other cool stuff the Society Mind gets. Psion is good, but since you can get Expanded Knowledge/Epic Expanded Knowledge, if you want those great powers, you can grab them that way. Plus, you may want to re-grab the Pit Fiend's base feats (since Psychic Reformation can do that), as I doubt he'll be needing Great Cleave.
Runepriest 04-17-07, 09:01 AM	I'm thinking metapsionic feats and psionic feats like psionic body, psionic meditation, psicrystal containment and affinity.
Runepriest 04-18-07, 06:37 PM	:bump:
nobodez 04-19-07, 01:07 AM	:bump: :bump: :bump: Dude, Runepriest, calm down. This thread probably isn't going to die.
Runepriest 04-19-07, 09:38 AM	o.k.
Runepriest 04-28-07, 09:56 AM	:bump:
chipjamieson 06-29-07, 04:11 PM	Wow - very cool. If you can find some info on wiki or perhaps even a couple of the old GDW modules, your society has some linkage with the Zhodani of the Traveller universe. Now granted, they were benevolent - to their way of thinking. But they had a 3-tier class system (psionic nobles, psionically-potential intendants and non-psionic proles). An individual's strength in psionics dictated how far they could rise in society, although to be fair proles could assume powerful levels in technological or business-related areas. The society was somewhat socialist, as lying (i.e. bargaining) was considered a major crime, thus prices tended to be very controlled - and making a 20% profit was considered quite grand. Dissent was controlled via the Thought Police (or more accurately, Guardians of Our Morality) who would on patrols sense strong emotions of dissatisfaction or upset and knock on the person's door for a chat. Over tea and biscuits, the intendant thought policeman would learn what was upsetting the prole (bad job, stressful home life, frustrated artistic vision) and carefully re-write the proles neural pathways so they could realize how good their life was, or how to have a better relationship with the wife, etc. Now to the Imperial Humans (i.e. normal folks) - this was abhorrent. To the Zhodani, this was their enlightened society which cared for the well-being of even the lowest person. Who is right? Who is wrong? Perhaps you could have a truly evil society (and a complex moral tale) by dropping the sneering evil villains in their black clothing, and model a society that doesn't truly believe a loss of personal freedom and though is a bad thing! Taking THAT structure down would be quite and accomplishment...and in the end, when the demon is slain the corrupt government collapses - you suddenly have a huge population used to what they thought was a caring, controlled and deeply structured system blow up in their faces...how much pain, chaos and misery would that cause (just look at the recent 'evil' societies smashed in the past couple decades - and how seemingly irrational their response has been to their freedom - I shudder to think what a basketcase North Korea will be when its system finally collapses...) Personally - I never played the Zhodani as villains...but I sure as hell would not want to live in their society. See the quote from that freedom fighter in the "Demolition Man" movie...
Euclid 10-08-07, 09:49 PM	I love this thread. I'm bumping it for posterity and to post my own concept of a LE psionic nation later.
Euclid 10-09-07, 09:11 PM	Here goes. You need to be around If you're an evil overlord of a psionic nation, you want as many people as possible to be LG or maybe LN. You should be the only actually evil person, or at least have as few others as possible. Afterall, you hardly want your subjects to try to stab you in the back. As LE, you will rule through propoganda. And, as you would prefer to continue to rule, this means effective propoganda, i.e. Mind Seed. Obviously, since you are diabolically cunning and evil, and intelligent evil citizenry is about the worst possible thing for your empire, you won't be seeding them with copies of yourself, as egotistical as that may be. No, you want them LG. So, what you do is raise a naturally good aligned creature, preferably with poor mental abilities (Intelligent citizenry period is not very good), and raise it to be pacifistic, generous, self-sacrificing, and, above all, loyal. Be kind, you don't lose your evil liscence for being nice once in a while. Also toss in propoganda into its education painting you as a god of justice and wisdom. Then, when it matures, trap its mind in an unchanging state of blind loyalty (not outright zealotry, as violent citizenry is also bad, even if they are in support of you, though a bit of xenophobia wouldn't hurt). Confirm that it's mind is in a satisfactory state, then get to work. You'll need a bunch of devices that Mind Seed the creature in Slot A with the creature or "mindscan" in Slot B. This is kinda iffy rules-wise, but you'll likely be the DM, and, besides, it's a very specialized device. Then, during infancy (no annoying runaways that way), every single person is run through the device. They recieve "tune-ups" every ten years, or more frequently, depending on the level of paranoia you've got. To be updated.
The Ubbergeek 10-10-07, 12:20 AM	Hum... In Eberron, the LE plotters in Riedra instilled a LN philosophy/religion that lenified, controled the people's mind. I guess it's akin to what you suggested.