Future Imperfect chapter 8
WORK IN PROGRESS!
Contents
Psionics
The Operative: "Key members of Parliament." Key. The minds behind every military, diplomatic and covert operation in the galaxy, and you put them in a room with a psychic.
Dr. Mathias: Look... even if River Tam did, by any chance, read the minds of any of the visiting Parliament members here, whatever government secrets she may have read she may not even remember any them, for they are all probably buried under layers of psychosis...
The Operative: Secrets are not my concern. Keeping them is.
--Serenity
Psionics is the pseudo-mystical science of the mind and the underlying energies of the universe. When one is attuned to these energies, and their mind has been trained, a person may sense their influence just as we can see when we open our eyes; he can manipulate them by projecting these energies from his own mind, just as we can turn a knob with our fingers. Psionics is the manipulation of the universe by normally unseen forces. It is easy for the unschooled to pass if off as magic or sleight of hand, or for information gained from telepathy or psychometry to be discounted, but the psionicist knows the truth. Because of the fear, hatred and mysticism within many cultures that surrounds psionics, its practitioners are known by many epithets: Warlocks, witches, Psykers, etc. The more neutral term we shall use in this text is Psion or Adept. This struggle against ignorance will likely play a role in the life of any adept. The story often lies in how they deal with it.
Of course for some, ignorance is bliss, and many adepts couldn’t agree more. Dependent on the views of the local culture or government, an adept may be seen as a witch, heretic or enemy of the state; some adepts may choose to wear their mundane lives like a cowl and cape, always keeping the secret of the power beneath from those around them at all cost. To do otherwise might risk persecution or worse, and the chains will ever be stronger and tighter on those who may have the means to break them…
Psionic Ability
Chosen during character creation, there are 5 ranks of psi ability. These are weak, normal, null, latent and adept.
- Weak—Sentient beings with psionically weak minds are like an open book to a psion. While a psion may sometimes struggle to focus energies to activate a talent, a weak mind acts like a beacon, allowing talents targeted against these people to trigger with ease. While it gives the character no direct disadvantage, per se, any psion directly targeting a psi-weak character will gain a +1 bonus to the activation roll of his talents. Luckily for the psi-weak, psions are a rare breed. Unless they are not. These characters will never have access to psionic abilities.
- Normal— This is just what it sounds like—nothing. The character is no more or less susceptible to many psi abilities than the average sentient being. These characters will never have access to psionic abilities.
- Null—Psionic nulls are those rare people whose minds are resistant to psychic meddling. Some aspect of their biology or sometimes arduous mental conditioning will proof their minds from being read, having thoughts or feelings implanted, or even make them resistant to mental attacks. When making resistance checks against psi abilities, these characters earn significant bonuses, equivalent to starting their check as though they had rolled the max for the resistance check. They will also be resistant to any kind of psionic aid one can render, but it’s the price they pay. Psionic nulls can never use psionic abilities.
- Latent—A Hero with latent psionic talents has the ability to use psionic abilities. Maybe they know of their gift, maybe they do not. They have likely suspected things have been different for them their whole lives compared to the experiences they have heard from those around them. Latent psions can use experience gained to purchase psi abilities. If the Master chooses, latent psions may allocate skill points to psi foci and talents during character creation, but the character will not have the ability to use them until his “awakening.” Once they have spent enough experience, adventured enough or whatever method the Master and player(s) choose to resolve the issue, opportunity will come knocking, and they may have the opportunity to find a PK crystal (see below). This is the field from which the vast majority of psions in the wild will likely hail; whether the majority of Heroes hail from this group is up to the tastes of the players in your group!.
- Adept—A psion is one who can wield psi abilities. An Adept, however, is a particularly talented type of psion. An adept is not an adversary to be taken lightly. These individuals can wield great natural talent, and often discovered their abilities—or were discovered—years ago, giving them plenty of time to train and hone their talents. Adepts can use skill points to purchase psionic foci and talents during character creation. Adepts have already been awakened, and begin the story with a PK crystal and the ability to use their talents out of the gate.
Psionic Foci
There are four fields of Psionic focus. Each one harnesses specific energies, and for each Focus, there are two that are considered "adjacent" and one that is considered in opposition" to A latent or adept must choose a primary focus during character creation (for adepts) or during their awakening (for latents). A psion will most easily learn talents that fall within their focus. Talents from adjacent foci may be learned, as well, but these require more training to achieve similar power levels. Talents from an opposing focus will be the most difficult to learn as the energies used to harness them are so fundamentally different than what the psion is used to dealing with. It is not impossible to learn opposing talents, but the investment may not be worth the end results. The foci are as follows:
- Telepathy--This is the art of detecting and influencing the minds of other sentients. Telepathy is adjacent to Clairvoyance and Discipline. It is in opposition to Telekinesis.
- Clairvoyance--This focus deals with attuning oneself to the energies of the universe around them, allowing them to perceive events that no normal sentient can. Clairvoyance is adjacent to Telepathy and Telekinesis. It is in opposition to Discipline.
- Telekinesis--Students of this focus attune themselves to matter and energy. They can manipulate and move objects and create various types of disrupting fields. Telekinesis is adjacent to Clairvoyance and Discipline. It is in opposition to Telepathy.
- Disipline--This field of psionic study focuses on pushing the practitioner beyond normal limits by conditioning his mind and body. With enough knowledge of the self and the energies of various organic systems, students of this art can also manipulate living tissues, mending them to heal wounds and disease, or breaking them down to inflict grievous wounds. Discipline is adjacent to Telepathy and Telekinesis. As the art of the self, it is in opposition to Clairvoyance, the art of the other.
Learning Psionic Talents
Psionic characters have access to special abilities called talents. In other genres these may be referred to as "spells" or "powers." Learning these talents can involve quite an investment in time, mental energy, study and practice. In much the same way that a non-psion would hone mundane skills, so too does an adept cultivate and hone various talents. As such, acquiring psionic talents uses a Hero's precious skill points (during character creation) or experience points if developing talents during the course of a campaign. Psions who are wholly dedicated to psionic studies may find themselves lacking when it comes to more worldly skills, but they will have access to abilities that no amount of worldly study and training will allow.
Because of the nature of psionic abilities--namely, the psion being able to tap into otherworldly energies, detect them and manipulate them with the power of his mind--most talents cannot be "cast" on another being to lend them abilities that the psion has access to; being able to use the ability at all requires much training. It would be like an Olympic athlete handing her skates over to someone who has never stepped into an ice rink and expecting them to pull off a triple-axel. Some talents may be used on others to their benefit, but generally the control of the talents will reside with the psion who activated the talent.
Psionic talents are acquired using "psi points." During character creation, each skill point can be exchanged for 3 psi points to assign talents. During game play, 1 experience point can be exchanged for 3 psi points to learn new talents or improve existing ones.
Talents by Focus
Each of the four foci will focus on various aspects. Some foci overlap others to some degree. More details will be given later, but here is a brief overview of the more common general talents broken down by focus. This is not an exhaustive list, but it does cover a lot of bases. If you would like to create a custom ability not listed here, the examples and guidelines later in the chapter should aid the process. Work out the details with the Master and go to town.
- Telepathy
- Mental attacks (stun, disorient, pain)
- Mind control (terrify, dominate, confuse)
- Mental projections (Illusions, words, ideas, images)
- Mind reading
- Mental-based detection (detect/locate living, sentient beings)
- Communication (emotional and verbal telepathy)
- Mind shield
- Sensory block
- Social combat defenses (detect lie, detect aura, danger sense)
- Telekinesis
- TK attacks (melee, ranged, disorient, hold, slow, EMP, ARPO)
- Pyro/Cryokinesis (temperature manipulation)
- Physical/energy/radiation defenses
- Levitation
- Flight
- Remote skill use
- Remote speaking (audio "illusion" or voice/sound projection)
- Identify/exploit material weaknesses
- Detect motion
- Power generation
- Physics hax (such as simulating or nullifying gravity or atmospheric pressure)
- Clairvoyance
- Sense/locate danger
- Enhanced senses
- Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP) such as detect lifeforms, Psi activity, auras, etc.
- Defense against some telepathic abilities
- Mind shield
- Clairaudience
- Remote viewing
- Direction sense/tracking/pathfinding
- Psychometry
- Mental projection
- Retrocognition
- Astral projection
- Discipline
- Boost traits/derived attributes
- Increase combat initiative/number of actions
- Healing (injuries, poison, crippling wounds, regeneration, revivification)
- Mental attack (pain/injury)
- Reduce biological requirements (food/water, sleep, breathing)
- Temporary skill edges
Designer's Note: This portion of the manual is not intended to be a "Tome of Spells," and we hope that Psionic talents within your game can be creatively applied to cover a wide range of uses and circumstances, rather than listing hundreds of different talents, many of which do almost exactly the same thing as several other talents except for certain variables. Even in sci-fi films and literature that include some form of psionics (whatever name it takes), the abilities shown to the audience often fall into a surprisingly narrow range of categories. That being said, many of the talents listed here are inspired from popular films and literature. Others are considered "traditional" mental abilities, the pop-culture perception of the CIA's MKUltra research. Some abilities listed here are also the bread and butter of the "Psychic Medium" set, however we have intentionally omitted any overtly ghost-y or religious/supernatural material. If that's up your alley, feel free to include it yourself. For the purposes of this set of rules, we shall attempt to endorse more mainstream sci-fi faire.
The R/A/T/E/D System
The cost and capabilities of any particular talent are determined by the levels assigned to several categories:
- Range
- Aura
- Targets
- Effect strength
- Duration
Each category starts at 1 for a basic talent, and generally goes up to 4. For most talents, these categories will be fairly consistent; two different attacks that produce different results (say, a painful mental blast and a telekinetic bullet attack) will have the same effective range if assigned a 2 in the R category. Some talents may use the various categories to reflect different capabilities; for illusions or enhanced senses, the T category (# of targets) may refer to how many senses are affected (how realistic an illusion is or how immersive a clairvoyant talent is). For telekinetic flight, Range may determine how far one can travel in one combat round. Some talents may have one or more categories that are not used, or essentially will not benefit by any value greater than 1. Categories that are unused or default to a value of 1 are considered to have a value of zero. For example, telekinetic flight only works on the psion using the talent, so there is no need to increase the A category beyond 1 (self), so under A, flight would always have a value of zero. Flight does use the R category, so if you only applied a value of 1 to it, it would remain at 1. This distinction is made for calculating the psi point cost for talents (explained below).
- Range
Some talents can reach a distance from the psion and affect targets other than the Psion. The range category determines how far out and how "accurate" the talent is. The list below is standard distances. Some talents may use a different scale. If so, this will be noted in the general talent description.
| Value | Effect |
| 1 | Touch |
| 2 | Pistol (10m) |
| 3 | Rifle (25m) |
| 4 | Heavy Weapon (100m) |
- Aura
Some talents can affect targets other than the psion. If the talent can be used on another, the Aura ranking should be 2 or greater. Some talents may also affect those within close proximity to the psion; this is used to reflect the powers of some telepathic talents where the target need only be close enough to hear the psion's voice. If aura is combined with range, the psion may project the source of his power outside his own body. Note also that levels in the Aura category greater than 2 are not compatible with increased levels in the Targets category for most talents (notably mental attacks); if a talent's A rating is 3 or more, the T value will default to 0. The list below is standard distances. Some talents may use a different scale; The A category may be used as a range multiplier. If so, this will be noted in the general talent description.
| Value | Effect |
| 1 | Self |
| 2 | Other |
| 3 | Speaking distance/Grenade (5m radius) |
| 4 | Shouting distance/Bomb (25m radius) |
- Targets
Some talents, often mental attacks, can be used to affect a group of targets within close proximity and in the same "line of fire," or to deliver multiple psionic blasts on one target. For some talents (such as non-attack talents), the Targets category may be used to reflect a different series of options. If so, this will be noted in the general talent description.
| Value | Effect |
| 1 | Single target |
| 2 | Burst 3 |
| 3 | Burst 5 |
| 4 | Burst 10 |
- Effect Strength
Psions with a high Essence trait will have naturally more potent effects to the talents they employ. However, a psion can hone a talent to more effectively channel the forces he employs and see improved results. Some talents may use a different scale for effect strength. If so, this will be noted in the talent description.
| Value | Effect |
| 1 | Essence trait @ base training value (XdY) |
| 2 | Essence +1 row |
| 3 | Essence +2 rows |
| 4 | Essence +3 rows |
- Duration
The effects of some talents are instantaneous or non-persistent. Others may have an extended duration. The "Effect A" duration column should be used when the talent is activated during an encounter (such as social or physical combat). "Effect B" duration column should be used if the talent is activated outside of an encounter, and is on for "normal adventuring" purposes. If an encounter occurs while the talent is still active, the psion may begin the encounter with the talent active, but its duration would then shift to the "Effect A" column. Talents that cause damage subtract 1 from their effective combat duration (i.e., you cannot have a talent that causes damage until the target is dead or incapacitated). For attacks with duration, damage beyond the initial attack occurs on the source's action (the action of the psion that activated the talent causing the damage). This extra damage is always "reduced" by shifting up one row and left one column compared to the initial strength of the attack. For example, a pyrokinesis attack that burns over time starts at 3d10 damage. On each subsequent action the psion gets, the fire from the attack deals 2d8. On each of the target's actions, he may make an attempt to resist further damage by making a TN 7 Toughness or Mental Conditioning check (depending on whether the attack is physical or mental in nature).
| Value | Effect A | Effect B |
| 1 | 1 action/check/test | 1 extended action |
| 2 | Actions x Essence Training | Minutes x Essence Trait Value |
| 3 | Rounds x Essence Training | 10 minutes x Essence Trait Value |
| 4 | Duration of the encounter | Indefinite (active until dropped/neutralized) |
The values listed above are general guidelines, and may not fit for every talent. Where necessary, variations will be noted. With Master approval, some categories for some talents may exceed 4. For example, for Range, a value of 5 might be "Line of sight" (to imply that the talent works as far as the Psion can see and that there are no range penalties). A range of 6 might be something outlandish, such as the ability to use a talent regardless of the range, so long as the Psion can see the target through either psionic or technological means. For example, being able to choke out an admiral that has displeased you just by seeing him on a video monitor, even though he is on an entirely different ship, or the ability to target a telekinetic blast on an enemy you have spotted through remote viewing. R/A/T/E/D values in excess of 4 should be approved by the Master, not just to determine the new effect, but to ensure that the proposed talent will not disrupt game balance.
Enhancing Talents
Mastering powerful talents can be exceedingly difficult (i.e., expensive!). One way of increasing the power of your talents is to enhance them with the power of other talents. Each psionic focus is geared toward enhancing specific aspects of various talents:
| Category | Focus |
| R | Clairvoyance |
| A | Telepathy |
| T | Telekinesis |
| E | Special* |
| D | Discipline |
*Effect can only be boosted if one is a psionic adept (rank 5 Psi purchased during character creation).
Certain basic talents within each focus will be identified as "enhancing" talents, and they can be linked to other talents to boost one of its R/A/T/E/D categories by one level, if the enhancing talent is properly activated. This can be a cost-effective method to eke a bit more mileage out of a lesser talent, but it is not without its drawbacks: In use, enhanced talents are more likely to fail, they will cost more to activate, and they are slightly more costly to purchase/learn (though not nearly as costly as permanently boosting a R/A/T/E/D value for an already-potent talent can be). The sections on cost calculation and use will explain more about enhancing talents.
Calculating Talent Cost
To determine the cost of a talent, multiply all of the non-zero R/A/T/E/D values and add any modifiers. This is the total cost in Psi points. The cost of powerful talents can easily skyrocket, so be mindful of your budget!
| Modifier | Psi Point Cost |
| Secondary trait activation | +1 |
| Each enhanced R/A/T/E/D value | +2 |
| Linked to skill (cause) | +1 |
| Linked to skill (effect) | +1 |
| Linked to skill (cause and effect) | +3 |
If you wish to improve an existing talent by improving the rank in one or more of its R/A/T/E/D categories, calculate the new cost and subtract the original cost. The difference is the cost in psi points for the improvement.
Using Psionic Talents
Psionics are fueled by energies of the universe that the psion can channel through his body and mind. Tapping into these energies will eventually exhaust the psion by draining his Concussion Threshold points. These will quickly return, but in the heat of a battle or while the psion is under stress or time pressure, the loss of CT may have dire consequences.
To use a talent, the hero must successfully activate it. Depending on the talent, this involves trait and/or skill checks and the expenditure of CT points. All talent checks will require two checks, made on the same card draw. All talents will require an Essence trait check. Some talents may be designed such that they have a "secondary trait activation." For these talents, check the Essence trait and the secondary trait (if the secondary trait and the Essence trait have the same training level and trait value, bump one row up (one die less) to determine the result for the secondary check, as per the Double Tap rules). For talents that use a secondary trait, check the values for both Essence and the secondary trait against the talent's activation TN. If both checks succeed, the talent activates at the normal CT cost. If only one succeeds, the talent may still be activated, but the CT cost is doubled. Alternatively, the psion can voluntarily choose to abort the activation and lose only 1 CT. If both checks fail or one of the results is a critical failure (CF), the talent does not activate, and the psion loses the full CT cost to activate. If both checks come up with a CF result, the talent spectacularly backfires somehow.
If one chooses not to have a secondary trait activation for a talent, it just checks twice against the Essence trait; the first check is at full value while the second is bumped one row up (one die less), the same as per the Double Tap rules.
The TN to activate a talent that is within your psionic focus is 5. For an adjacent focus it is 6. For the oppositional focus, the TN is 7. For every R/A/T/E/D category of 3, add +1 to the activation TN. For each R/A/T/E/D category of 4, add +2. If the TN is uncomfortably high for your tastes, or you want to minimize the risk of having to expend extra CT to allow a talent to activate, each action spent concentrating will reduce the TN by 1 to a minimum of TN 3.
When other talents are used to enhance the R/A/T/E/D levels of a talent, each one is activated (Check at TN 5) using its own secondary activation trait. Again, if the secondary activation for the enhancing talent refers to a cell on the cause table that has already been checked, bump one row up. More than one enhancement may be applied when a talent is activated. Each attempted enhancement costs 1 CT. Check the activation of each enhancement on the original card drawn to activate the primary talent. If the enhancement check(s) is(are) successful, the talent activates at the increased R/A/T/E/D values. If any enhancement check fails, its R/A/T/E/D category is not increased. If the activation check for the enhancement is a CF result, you lose the enhancement and the talent's CT cost is doubled (unless the entire primary activation is aborted at a cost of 1 CT).
Using other talents to enhance primary talents can make them increasingly powerful, but more difficult to pull off without a hitch, and more draining, even when things go right (and exceedingly so when they do not!)
Psionic Talent Descriptions
The following is a basic list of suggested, general psionic abilities. As mentioned previously, this list is not exhaustive, but covers a lot of the field and should serve you and your players well. If there is an ability you would like to see that is not on the list, making additions should be relatively easy.
In relation to the above, minutiae regarding the abilities listed here can, for the sake of sanity, only be described so far. Anticipation of what purposes any large number of players might attempt to put them toward is beyond our abilities as authors to predict, and too fine a ruling on how a talent may or may not be used (in our opinion) stifles creativity. For some applications of psionic talents, the players may just have to work more closely with the Master and vice-versa, and judgement calls may sometimes have to be made.
Telepathy
Mental Attacks: The psion can focus the energies of his mind to inflict harm on another person. This damage will originate in the target's mind (so any kind of mental conditioning or tech that protects one's mind can help mitigate the effects), but the effects on the target can be very real and incapacitating, even deadly. Mental attacks can be touch-based or ranged.
- Stun: The damage done with a stun attack is pure CT damage with no wounds inflicted (as per a stunner). Target must make a stun save.
- Disorient: The psion attempts to overwhelm the senses of the target, making it very difficult to focus their attention. Every wound inflicted (each full 6 points of effect) will cause the target to lose one action card. Cards may be kept if the target spends story chips. A white chip would prevent the loss of one action, a red chip two and a blue chip three. No stun save required.
- Pain: The psion taps into specific portions of the target's mind. By tweaking certain key synapses, the psion can inflict debilitating pain, wrack muscles and even stop the functions of vital organs. Pain attacks deal damage like normal attacks, they cause wounds that must be repaired or allowed to heal naturally, and the target must make a stun save after suffering damage. The wounds inflicted by pain attacks affect the target like regular wounds (penalties to rolls), and the location of the hit determines what kind of damage is being inflicted (hits to the head and vitals cause increased damage).
Mental Influence: The psion can instill ideas and thoughts into the mind of another hidden within their spoken words. This greatly enhances a psion's capabilities in social/psychological combat. This talent has several different forms, each linked to a different social combat technique.
- Terrify: Linked to the psion's Intimidation skill.
- Convince: Linked to the psion's Argument skill.
- Charm: Linked to the psion's Persuasion skill.
- Deceive: Linked to the psion's Deception skill.
- Confuse: Linked to the psion's Blather skill.
Mental projections (Illusions, words, ideas, images): The psion can project thoughts, feelings and images into the minds of others. This can allow the psion to make the targets sense things that aren't there, make people look or sound different in the mind of the target, make them hear things that were not said, etc.
Mind Reading: The psion can lift thoughts from the target's mind. The greater the effect, the deeper and more detailed the reading. If the Mind Reading talent is used with one of the Mental Influence talents, the psion can add the effect value of his mind reading to the effect value of his Mental Influence. As the psion can read what the target is thinking about, it can make his influence into their mind even more effective.
Sense Mind (detect/locate living, sentient beings): This basic talent allows the psion to detect living beings nearby by the energies given off by the workings of a sentient mind. This is the enhancing talent for Telepathy. If a talent is able to have its "A" category enhanced, use the Sense Mind talent to do so. This talent gets +1 to the R category for free. The range denotes the distance out to which this sensory ability operates. The A category for this talent can remain at 1, however when the R category is maxed out, the A category may be increased, which multiplies the detection range, doubling it at A/2, x5 at A/3 and x25 at A/4. The Targets category refers to the number of targets the psion can be simultaneously aware of; if there are more targets than the T value, he can "flip" between them (he can ignore targets known to him or that he can detect with normal senses), which may be relevant in a combat situation. The Effect category is used to determine how accurate the level of detection is:
| Value | Effect |
| 1 | Presence & number of targets |
| 2 | Distance of target(s) |
| 3 | Direction of target(s) (accurate enough for suppressing fire) |
| 4 | Pinpoint location of target(s) (accurate enough for direct weapons fire or to be targeted by psionic talents) |
Telepathy (verbal and emotive communication): This talent allows a psion to communicate with another sentient being regardless of language barriers by establishing a link directly to the target's mind. If the psion is familiar with the target (spent at least a day around them), or has detected the target's mind with the Sense Mind talent, he can communicate with the target using telepathy. The target will not automatically know the source of the telepathic communication unless the psion chooses to reveal himself; as far as the target knows, the voice he hears is coming from inside his own head! Only another psion with the proper talents may be able to detect and identify the source of a telepathic projection, though, in your campaign, there may be technological devices available that can do this as well. The range denotes the distance out to which this sensory ability operates. If taken at R/1, the psion can only communicate telepathically if maintaining physical contact with the target! The A category for this talent can remain at 1, however when the R category is maxed out, the A category may be increased, which improves the range by orders of magnitude, increasing the range to 100km at A/2, x100 LS at A/3 and x100 LY at A/4. Targets denotes how many beings the psion can be in contact with at the same time, and targets the psion is in contact with can telepathically speak with each other through him. Effect strength is not used with telepathy, and defaults to 0. Telepathy will allow a psion to use Mental Influence talents at range, and without interacting with the individual; this begins to tip-toe into the realm of actual "mind control." If the target tries to resist the telepathic link, they can make a Mental Conditioning skill check against the Psion's Telepathic focus skill.
Mind shield: Allows the psion to shield his mind from other psions. While the talent is active, the psion and all others affected by it defend against unwanted psionic talents as though they were psionic nulls.
Sensory block: This allows the psion to manipulate the sensory input that the target receives in much the opposite manner of the Mental Projection talent. Using this talent, the psion can edit what input the target consciously perceives. This can make it possible for the psion to make a target not notice obvious details right before his eyes such as a person walking in front of him, the smell of a fire, the sound of gunshots or the touch of someone picking his pocket. If applicable, each full effect level (6 points of effect) can increase a skill check against a target (such as stealth or sleight of hand) by +2.
Telepathic Senses (detect lie, detect aura, danger sense)
- Detect Lie: While the talent is active or immediately after a target speaks, the psion may use this talent to determine if what was said was true or deceptive (as far as the target knows). In a social combat, this talent will prevent your opponent from successfully using a deception maneuver. You may not know what the truth is, but you can tell if someone is lying.
- Detect Aura: The psion can attempt to read the psychic aura a person emanates. This will manifest as an understanding of the target's feelings or intent, and can often sway wildly depending on a person's thoughts. It can give an indication as to what a person is thinking, planning on doing, or their reaction to stimuli. If used in conjunction with Mental Influence talents, it can increase the cause by one per level of Effect strength.
- Danger Sense: The psion has developed an acute sense of when and how others mean to do him harm. While this talent is active, the psion may draw and additional card per level of Effect strength during the first round of an encounter. Additionally, add the Effect strength to the step of your action cards in an encounter to resolve ties (and if the step number is still equal to an opponent, the psion wins ties).
Clairvoyance
Danger Sense: The psion has developed an acute sense of when and how others mean to do him harm. While this talent is active, the psion may draw and additional card per level of Effect strength during the first round of an encounter. Additionally, add the Effect strength to the step of your action cards in an encounter to resolve ties (and if the step number is still equal to an opponent, the psion wins ties).
Locate Danger/Hazard: This basic talent allows the psion to detect likely dangers or hazards nearby by means of quantum precognition. The definition of what constitutes a danger or hazard may vary. Some generally accepted triggers are hostile lifeforms that intend the psion harm, mines, traps and structurally unsound scenery. This talent gets +1 to the R category for free. The range denotes the distance out to which this sensory ability operates. The A category for this talent can remain at 1, however when the R category is maxed out, the A category may be increased, which multiplies the detection range, doubling it at A/2, x5 at A/3 and x25 at A/4. The Targets category refers to the number of targets the psion can be simultaneously aware of; if there are more targets than the T value, he can "flip" between them (he can ignore hazards known to him or that he can detect with normal senses), which may be relevant in a combat situation. While this talent may give the psion a feeling of unease about some things, it does not reveal the nature of the hazard. It may indicate that an envelope is a hazard, but it may be because it contains a toxic powder or because if the psion reads the documents inside assassins will hunt him to keep him from spilling company secrets. The Effect category is used to determine how accurate the level of detection is:
Enhanced Vision: The psion can tap into the energies flowing between this universe and the tachyon universe to perceive it as never before. Each level of effect adds +2 to visual awareness checks. The range category allows the psion to focus his vision on something out to the range listed and examine it as though it were within arm's reach.
Enhanced Hearing: Effects as per Enhanced vision.
Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP): This describes a broad range of abilities wherein the psion can receive information about the world around them through means beyond normally understood senses. ESP is the enhancing talent for Clairvoyance. If a talent is able to have its "R" category enhanced, use the ESP talent to do so. Some examples of ESP might include the ability to detect lifeforms, Psi activity, auras, hidden objects, secret passages, personal belongings, the contents of hidden packages, the faces of playing cards the psion cannot see, etc. When the talent is activated, check for effect. If attempting to detect the presence or location of a target, every level in the E category gives a level of detail as described for Sense mind. For other forms of ESP (such as identifying cards or detecting the contents containers, the psion can make a Clairvoyance Focus skill check using Acuity at TN 9. For these types of checks, Each level in the E category adds +1 training dice to the skill roll. Activating the Enhanced Vision or Hearing talents may also aid in certain types of ESP checks.
Mind shield: Allows the psion to shield his mind from other psions. While the talent is active, the psion and all others affected by it defend against unwanted psionic talents as though they were psionic nulls.
- Clairaudience
- Remote viewing
- Direction sense/tracking/pathfinding
- Psychometry
- Mental projection
- Retrocognition
- Astral projection
Telekinesis
- TK attacks (melee, ranged, disorient, hold, slow, EMP, ARPO)
- Pyro/Cryokinesis (temperature manipulation)
- Physical/energy/radiation defenses
- Levitation
- Flight
- Remote skill use
- Remote speaking (audio "illusion" or voice/sound projection)
- Identify/exploit material weaknesses
- Detect motion
- Power generation
- Physics hax (such as simulating or nullifying gravity or atmospheric pressure)
Discipline
- Boost traits/derived attributes
- Increase combat initiative/number of actions
- Healing (injuries, poison, crippling wounds, regeneration, revivification)
- Mental attack (pain/injury)
- Reduce biological requirements (food/water, sleep, breathing)
- Temporary skill edges
