Psionic Potency, Are they THAT bad? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[rlemansky]

Greetings.

SR, IMHO, is about teamwork. It's about judicious appilcation of the appropriate type and amount of force at the right moment for maximum effect at minimum effort. Subtlety makes it SHADOW-Run.

A Street Sam should try to do double duty as a Mage/Shaman. Your Decker shouldn't do PhysAd work. Specialization is the word in the Sixth World-right?

A variety of skills is good, but a Jack-of-All-Trades will be Master-of-None. If I were a Johnson hiring a team, I'd know what skills I needed and get a team that had them (Why pay for more than what you need, correct?)

Why do I bring this up? Well, I was looking at MitS, and when I tried to figure out which spells could be used by Psionic characters, I came up with an impressive list, WITHOUT doing a lot of over-rationalizing. And these are supposed to be severly limited characters (according to what I've seen and read-even on Dumpshock)?

Sure, no access to Spirits could be rough (unless you use Thoughtforms)-but who needs them? Spirits CAN burn through Karma rather rapidly, so a Psionicist can focus on developing his/her Power with Karma.

Look at the Spells...

Combat Spells-TK Blasts or Mental Blasts (so poular in comics)-easy enough

Detection Spells-pure Psi, naturally

Health Spells-a bit of a stretch, but Psychic healing is very common (I'm a Massage Therapist and know lots of Healers that use Enrgy Work and Reiki-some to good effect)

Illusion Spells-Mental Manipulation, natch

Control Manipulations-ditto-Telepathy all the way

Elemental Manipulations-Probably not, unless you get into Pyrokinesis and the like

Telekinetic Manipulations-nuff sed

Transformation Manipulations-This one's hit or miss. Ignite=pyrokinesis, the Astral Spells would work, but probably not much else

All in all, I'd say it makes for a well rounded, competent character that has plenty of room for advancement within his/her specialization. With some Initiation and some well spent Karma, they could be quite puissant.

Any comments?

R