Skills

Shit I think is straghtforward.

Racial Flaw Empathy 3 Ranks. Val is a listener.

Initiative 2. Never HAD to go fast.

MBAB (calling this mental bab for the character but its magic bab ) 2

Mental Armor dRanks for focus damage.  1

Toughness +ranks to vitality. 1

Shit I need DM input to move forward

Telepathy - send and receive cognition via will.  Im thinking this may need to be a base skill depending on how the world treats various aspects of the psionic arts. 

Sustain Self - Trading off food/water needs with meditation. Flavor-wise  I see it as the ability to psychically meet the bodies needs through a period of meditation. What that ratio is I wanted to leave to the DM and decide to move forward from there.

Know Thyself - Crucial for a race who are so open telepathically.  Re-roll a failed sanity check = ranks per day but only for issues that would make them do things that might offend  their sensibilities. 

I think this might be OP in a sense when compared against the first thing that comes to mind for say re-rolling 1s for any SkillName_Safety.

Uncommented stuff is good to go

Initiative 2. Never HAD to go fast.
- not actually straightforward?  the only standardized passive initiative bumps are "Reflexive Speed (+Init capAgi)" - which could be reflavored appropriately to a different attribute cap - or the often ignored Half Ranks tree which always stacks (AndInit gives +Init at half-ranks rounded down)

MBAB (calling this mental bab for the character but its magic bab ) 2
- i'm fine with a Psionic BAB, which might be or approximate your goal.  Too vague as described however.

Telepathy - send and receive cognition via will.  Im thinking this may need to be a base skill depending on how the world treats various aspects of the psionic arts.
- maybe as you expand but nothing triggering that so far. 

Sustain Self - Trading off food/water needs with meditation. Flavor-wise  I see it as the ability to psychically meet the bodies needs through a period of meditation. What that ratio is I wanted to leave to the DM and decide to move forward from there.
- how hardcore we're going with basic survival did not make the discussion last week, but is on the docket for this wed.  i'm not going to decide a specific ratio without that discussion, but i would expect a relatively favorable interpretation (esp with Luketic's guy also taking something similar)

Know Thyself - Crucial for a race who are so open telepathically.  Re-roll a failed sanity check = ranks per day but only for issues that would make them do things that might offend  their sensibilities. 
- conceptually this is fine.  how its treated mechanically may need to be played with when you are being directly attacked (i.e. you aren't the one rolling anything) if we are leaning towards the "offending sensibilities" as the triggering criteria.  or were you picturing this as more limited only for self-sanity checks (times of "roll under your own sanity")?  if so then the "offend sensibilities" clause could be dropped in favor of that being the more limited application criteria.

I think this might be OP in a sense when compared against the first thing that comes to mind for say re-rolling 1s for any SkillName_Safety.
- i cannot contextually make sense of this sentence, which raises the possibility i dont grasp your goal with the Know Thyself fully?

@jaquin

Initiative: My b didn't recall having to justify ranks in a skill that added to initiative. AFAIU any skills adding to initiative are capped by the  perception + intuition of the character.   

MBAB » PBAB: Agree with it being potentially too vague.   My intent was it have it act as an equivalent MBAB for when my character needs to roll to hit with his psionic abilities  which I think looks like guile + skill + PBAB. 

Sustain Self: I'm still interested in this as a skill pending conversation as you have identified.

Know Thyself:I've got no compunctions with the considerations you've introduced. Before addressing your points I will say that my thinking was that it would be OP to have a  "re-roll that cause I didn't like it" when we already have a "skillName_safety"  that works like "I rolled one of the twenty values possible and I don't like it and want to re-roll it" as an accepted paradigm.  If I understand what you mean by them I had only considered this skill within the context of "self-sanity checks" and would ask what kinds of situations you're regarding so I can weigh in more effectively as I may want to cover the difference with additional skills.

Posted by: @jaquin

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AndInit gives +Init at half-ranks rounded down

RE: init - this is the operative phrase yeah?

If I understand what you mean by them I had only considered this skill within the context of "self-sanity checks" and would ask what kinds of situations you're regarding so I can weigh in more effectively as I may want to cover the difference with additional skills.
- like charm/domination was the trigger based on the phrase "would make them do things that might offend  their sensibilities. "

Posted by: @danargo

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Posted by: @jaquin

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AndInit gives +Init at half-ranks rounded down

RE: init - this is the operative phrase yeah?

Operative phrase?  No.  It's one of the established basic ways to create passive stacking bonuses.  See the first section "some system basics" at this link if the remainder of this post doesn't clarify it on its own:
https://j8gaming.com/j8-system-resources/obscure-precedents-design-discussion/
Most skills are active skills.  Passive stacking skills always require some sort of caveat.  Half-Rank skills is one example of that.

"AFAIU any skills adding to initiative are capped by the  perception + intuition of the character. "
- Nope!  I don't even have a guess where this thought came from lol. 

"which I think looks like guile + skill + PBAB."
- Nope, same problem as the Init discussion  
A typical use of PBAB would be as a replacement accuracy skill.  The concept being, I'm about to have 20 different psionic abilities, but rather than have inconsistent accuracy with each one, I'm going to instead devote 1 skill as my accuracy with all of my psionic abilities.  PBAB + Guile regardless of the ranks in the individual psionic abilities.
Without something like this, every psionic ability will work off of its own "skill+G" independently
What you described (G + base skill + bonus skill) is a passive stacking bonus.  These do always need additional caveats.  A hard attribute cap.  Half-Rank payoff.  Stance rules.  Physical components.  maybe other stuff too but those are the main ways we've seen it.

Please follow up as needed to make sense of this if still confused.  I distinctly recall your rolls on your elemental-orc changing every week because the concept never seemed to get locked down.  We can get as verbose as needed to clarify that, especially if its in writing so you can reference it 😉

Posted by: @jaquin

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Posted by: @danargo

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Posted by: @jaquin

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AndInit gives +Init at half-ranks rounded down

RE: init - this is the operative phrase yeah?

Operative phrase?  No.  It's one of the established basic ways to create passive stacking bonuses.  See the first section "some system basics" at this link if the remainder of this post doesn't clarify it on its own:
https://j8gaming.com/j8-system-resources/obscure-precedents-design-discussion/
Most skills are active skills.  Passive stacking skills always require some sort of caveat.  Half-Rank skills is one example of that.

 

"AFAIU any skills adding to initiative are capped by the  perception + intuition of the character. "
- Nope!  I don't even have a guess where this thought came from lol. 

 

"which I think looks like guile + skill + PBAB."
- Nope, same problem as the Init discussion  
A typical use of PBAB would be as a replacement accuracy skill.  The concept being, I'm about to have 20 different psionic abilities, but rather than have inconsistent accuracy with each one, I'm going to instead devote 1 skill as my accuracy with all of my psionic abilities.  PBAB + Guile regardless of the ranks in the individual psionic abilities.
Without something like this, every psionic ability will work off of its own "skill+G" independently
What you described (G + base skill + bonus skill) is a passive stacking bonus.  These do always need additional caveats.  A hard attribute cap.  Half-Rank payoff.  Stance rules.  Physical components.  maybe other stuff too but those are the main ways we've seen it.

 

Please follow up as needed to make sense of this if still confused.  I distinctly recall your rolls on your elemental-orc changing every week because the concept never seemed to get locked down.  We can get as verbose as needed to clarify that, especially if its in writing so you can reference it 😉

 

Yeah very much trying to avoid anything like that this run( how does my skills do? What even is a blizzomancy?)

Posted by: @jaquin

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Posted by: @danargo

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Posted by: @jaquin

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AndInit gives +Init at half-ranks rounded down

RE: init - this is the operative phrase yeah?

Operative phrase?  No.  It's one of the established basic ways to create passive stacking bonuses.  See the first section "some system basics" at this link if the remainder of this post doesn't clarify it on its own:
https://j8gaming.com/j8-system-resources/obscure-precedents-design-discussion/
Most skills are active skills.  Passive stacking skills always require some sort of caveat.  Half-Rank skills is one example of that.

 

"AFAIU any skills adding to initiative are capped by the  perception + intuition of the character. "
- Nope!  I don't even have a guess where this thought came from lol. 

 

"which I think looks like guile + skill + PBAB."
- Nope, same problem as the Init discussion  
A typical use of PBAB would be as a replacement accuracy skill.  The concept being, I'm about to have 20 different psionic abilities, but rather than have inconsistent accuracy with each one, I'm going to instead devote 1 skill as my accuracy with all of my psionic abilities.  PBAB + Guile regardless of the ranks in the individual psionic abilities.
Without something like this, every psionic ability will work off of its own "skill+G" independently
What you described (G + base skill + bonus skill) is a passive stacking bonus.  These do always need additional caveats.  A hard attribute cap.  Half-Rank payoff.  Stance rules.  Physical components.  maybe other stuff too but those are the main ways we've seen it.

 

Please follow up as needed to make sense of this if still confused.  I distinctly recall your rolls on your elemental-orc changing every week because the concept never seemed to get locked down.  We can get as verbose as needed to clarify that, especially if its in writing so you can reference it 😉

 

I'm going to defer to asking dumb questions to make sure I'm not missing how core mechanics function because holy wtf me. 

With regards to initiative, I did a ctrl+f with "initiative" and didnt come up with anything on the supplied link( https://j8gaming.com/j8-system-resources/obscure-precedents-design-discussion/) , I even double checked for pagination.  Ill try to reread more and make this the last point I address before sending my response.

To the point of your clarification, holy crap I've been adding init on a 1:1 basis this whole system, I am very sorry for such a fundamental oversight.

Know Thyself

"- like charm/domination was the trigger based on the phrase "would make them do things that might offend their sensibilities. "

Yes that is exactly the kind of situation I was trying to cover but also saw resistance for defining character traits such as say the character is a generally  motivated hopeful and  person so effects that work by demoralizing the character ala https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1757 Wave of Despair.   Would be included. To be fair this  characteristic has to be built in at rank 1.

posthumous notation
Whereas after writing all this down I had the urge to delete it all I wanted to leave it as discourse for future  generations of players. And Ill go even further to offer that I think it'd be best handled as a sub skill gated by the Know theyself parent skill requiring a new skill for each handled aspect though ample scrutiny.

For example above the character would need a rank 1 in Know Thyself then  a rank in Know Thyself - Motivated or  a rank in Know Thyself - Hopeful if they wanted to be able to fight against an effect that would make them act against these charactaristics. 

So 1 rank in know thyself would afford a reroll against resisting   charm/domination attempts equal to ranks per day. 
If the character wanted to reroll against a demoralizing effect, they wouldnt be able to use their know thyself, they would need a sub specd skill like Know Thyself - Hopeful to do so. 

I think this is a good stopping point for these considerations.

So using rifts psionics as a conversational starting point, which I believe you mentioned irl  as the case, I was seeing this character operating out of the Sensitive bucket of powers. I am looking at the description of psionic powers which starts in the ultimate version of the handbook on page 164.

Skills Posted here for Ease
Astral Projection (8)
Clairvoyance (4)
Commune with Spirits (6)
Empathy (4)
Intuitive Combat (10)
Machine Ghost (12)
Mask I.S.P. & Psionics (7)
Mask P.P.E. (4)
Meditation (0)
Mind Block (4)
Object Read (6)
Presence Sense (4)
Read Dimensional Portal (6)
Remote Viewing (10)
See Aura (6)
See the Invisible (4)
Sense Dimensional Anomaly (4)
Sense Evil (2)
Sense Magic (3)
Sense Time (2)
Sixth Sense (2)
Speed Reading (2)
Telepathy (4)
Total Recall (2)

With the goal of building towards the ability to domineer other sentient consciousnesses which might look like drawing on the Super Psionic Powers  such as:

- Hypnotic Suggestion (6)

- Mentally Possess Others (30)

- Mind Block Auto-Defense (special)

- Mind Bolt (varies)

- Mind Bond ( 1 0)

- Mind Wipe (special)

I just grabbed the biggest contiguous thematic grouping for purposes of reproducing in this post. Suffice to say that the characters psionic focus will be on how they impact other minds.

I'm going to defer to asking dumb questions to make sure I'm not missing how core mechanics function because holy wtf me. 
 - pls do

With regards to initiative, I did a ctrl+f with "initiative" and didnt come up with anything on the supplied link(  https://j8gaming.com/j8-system-resources/obscure-precedents-design-discussion/)  
- Nothing in that link directly addresses initiative, so Ctrl-F is not going to help you.  It is talking about all skills, and how all skills work and interact.  It is only the first post "some system basics" that is relevant.

To the point of your clarification, holy crap I've been adding init on a 1:1 basis this whole system, I am very sorry for such a fundamental oversight.
 - i cant recall you even having a high init character so i doubt it became relevant.  The "stacking with attribute cap" is just as good for small bumps.

yeah most of your Rifts psionics dump i got a pretty good handle on and should be relatively easy to translate

I'm interested in a slightly modified familiar based around psicrystals from dnd. I choose an aspect of my personality to branch off and invest into a crystal. Same reqs around costs and timing. 

I omitted the +2 to whatever skill column here as I wasn't sure if that was in scope for campagin. 

Again, Added this here as a way to talk around certain things, please be forward if I am in the weeds.

I think the levelling can readily translate to the effects described but perhaps likely not the knowledge score  of the familiar.  You LMK when or where it doesnt jive in what way in terms of flavor or mechanics.

I thought the skills up to level 5  were on par / sub par for the investment of xp. I don't want a broken new thing, I want a psionically flavored familiar and how that comes into play I offer  these as a starting point unless there's a more appropriate thread to point myself at. 

Description of abilities table. 

so...  if i'm following this correctly...  you want a pet rock imbued with psionics?  on the surface that's fine; the amount of copypasta makes me unclear if i'm missing something.

far as i can tell, pet rock has emote-according-to-imbued-emotion, and eventually can walk around and telepathy to people?

@jaquin Nah dog, straight up pet rock. I copy pasted as context since I offer so little of my own but in retrospect fell into the same problem. Yes to all questions re pet rock here.

In the community of Zarael, Valorian stuck out amongst his peers. His psionic abilities were noteworthy as though many share the inclination to manifest various types of gifts as they age few demonstrate the aptitude for what is culturally referred to as "other-knowing".

Whereas psionics are expected to manifest in Zarael those with a gift for telepathy are even more common but rarely encouraged. Mostly due to a social predilection to nudge younglings away from that discipline given the natural tendencies and developmental issues it creates in unguided youths. However, as with each of the psionic vocations for the Zarael those predilections are put aside when a child demonstrates such a clear proficiency for this aspect of the art.

When one has been identified as gifted in that discipline, culturally it's seen as an obligation to further the bounds of what's possible through research or exposition regardless of it's nature. Even so, a community recognizes and takes quite seriously the need to come together to guide a youth with prowess lest their proficiency within telepathy create a individual who regards others who cannot resist their will as merely pieces in a game to be utilized  when they obey or worse,  replaced when they don't.

Dear God. Please correct or incorporate any racial cannon I introduced.

MOAR SKILLZZZZ

Knowledge Psionics: ala knowledge arcana but for this.

Psionic Familiar: 2 ( as discussed in previous posts of this thread, its my pet rock+)

Stance Hear Thoughts: affords choosing listening to one person per rank, 10ft/rank as a radius from the skill user as a passive ability. 

Open to your input if you think its over/under powered:

1. First round detect the presence or absence of thought within the radius.

2. Additional rounds can  detect specific thoughts.( EX.damn im hungry, look at dat ass, Ill bet I could get that )

3. Further rounds can identify who's thinking which thoughts which may look like discerning that the three thoughts above (damn im hungry, look at dat ass, Ill bet I could get that ) might be one lizard folk considering one humanoid as prey or several other peoples thoughts.

Without adding more to confuse the matter I see this as a fertile ground for exploration of psi within j8.

Earlier listings are fine but a lot of confusion on your stance.  The idea of a skill that does sequentially different things is rare.  Different things = different skills, typically.  although i know mark spent a lot of time building crazy intricate skills, there was never a benefit or point to doing so, mostly just unnecessary confusion and self-nerfing. So lets break this down as some of your goals are baked into existing skills

Your first round is effectively Presence Sense from the Rifts list.

Your second round would still just fall under your Telepathy bucket.

Your third round could be a new skill.  Taking your presence sense and telepathy data and mapping/connecting them could definitely be its own skill, more focused on Guile than the typical Intuition of sensitive psionics.  

So flip gears and look at the "passive/stance" aspect.  

A passive stance version of presence sense makes a lot of sense.  this is the psychic version of daredevil basically.  so two skills needed, regular presence sense, then the second skill to turn it into a stance; but totally feasible there.

Sequential skills are never going to be a stance.  a stance is by its nature static, not dynamic.

Passive telepathy is a disaster, and i game going to go verbose here to help illustrate.  Passive telepathy is jean grey going crazy, it is the fundamental basis of the Zarael favored flaw, and all of your teachers will warn against it.  But this isn't just an aspect of tradition, there is a real component here.  A passive skills removes any decision-making components.  This means you don't know when you are passing or failing at your checks until IRL results force you to.  you also have no way to filter something co-opting this process for its own reasons.  this means you are constantly incorporating bad intel into your basic operating procedure.
picture automated walking.  people "tune out" and go automated while walking all the time.  the proverbial joke of "can't walk and chew gum at the same time" however has merit.  and while someone with higher Agility might not have as bad of consequences as my sister who broke her arm "walking while texting," the ability to avoid the worst case scenario still doesn't make the situation desirable.  instead, now you just have 2-3 skills tied up in cleaning up your own mess rather than just doing things correctly from the start.  the programming metaphor should be obvious here.  
there are concrete reasons why every advanced religion, philosophy, martial art, etc emphasizes oneness, unity, and awakening greater awareness.  dividing consciousness is dangerous and pointless.  while there can be obvious game components that we are doing for the game's sake, not reality: for example my statement "a presence sense stance makes a lot of sense."  The difference might best be illustrated with the trigger atrtribute?  I'm not sure it ever really makes sense to have passive Guile/Agility skills... for a super broad guess at the source of the variance 😛

another reason i was so verbose in responding is i dont totally understand your goal in your original post of making this a passive stance.  this is applicable to a lot of your ideas in this thread.  if you state your goal, i can help find ways to work you towards it.  info-dumping your ideas of how to reach an unstated, unclear, or assumed goal is far more difficult to coherently break down.  Hopefully the exercise itself provides its own informational benefit on your end 🙂  

also 'fore i forget most of your race is vegetarian so the cannibalistic example is particularly poignant 😛

@jaquin Thank you for the robust reply. It helped a lot. 

TBH I saw val's mind powers to be pointed and active relying on guile rather than intuition. Ill keep thinking as I generate more background flavor.

@jaquin honest to goodness I was going veggie anyway!

Posted by: @danargo

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@jaquin honest to goodness I was going veggie anyway!

dude these are the synchronicities of RPing that I never get tired of enjoying 😀  luketic just had one over in the "oozen" thread as well.  we be rolling 20's on this one baby!!

MOAR SKILLLLLS

LMK any campaign specific tweaks for any familiar skill. 

Dominate
My biggest question is I want to telepathically dominate consciousnesses. Its unclear to me how to go from root of that tree (if it is one) or is there just a skill that does exactly that?  Ninja Edit: Would it be possible  to make a bot net of compremised minds that could be called on to enhance psychic abilities through magnitude or range or duration or unlocking a tier of what is possible now that Im using 3 minds instead of one? 

Perfect Recall: ol' reliable. 

K.Arcana
K.Psionics

Mental Armor: dRanks for focus damage. 

Mind Block: Closed for psychic buidness. 

Psychic projection: You remember that piece of equipment that would let us project what we imagined in a small 3d space? Can I do that?

Wanted to confirm about the  pet rock that I can expect it to scale as it reads from the source material at least through rank 7-8?

rank
1-2 Sighted, Empathic link
3-4 Telepathic link
5-6 Self-propulsion
7.8 Speak with other creatures

Intelligence: The psicrystal's Intelligence score. Psicrystals

are smart, but their personality trait colors all empathic,

telepathic, or verbal interaction.

Not sure increasing the things int or knowledge is a thing or not as I can't really forsee good or bad from that. I wouldnt expect it to scale as listed here starting at dnd  int of 6 at rank 1 ending on dnd int of 9 at rank 7-8

Sighted: Though it possesses no physical sensory organs, a

psicrystal can telepathically sense its environment as well as a

sighted, hearing creature can. Darkness (even supernatural

darkness) is irrelevant, as are areas of supernatural silence,

though a psicrystal still can't discern invisible or ethereal

beings. The psicrystal's sighted range is 40 feet.

Empathic Link: The psion has an empathic link with his or

her psicrystal to a distance of up to one mile. Psions cannot

see using the psicrystal's sighted ability, but they can

communicate empathetically. The empathic link between a

psicrystal and its owner limits communication to strong

feelings, such as confidence, fear, uncertainty, resolve, and so

on, so misunderstandings are always possible.

Telepathic Link: The psion has a telepathic link with his or

her psicrystal to a distance of up to one mile. Psions cannot

see using the psicrystal's sighted ability, but they can

communicate telepathically. The telepathic link allows actual

communication. For instance, a psicrystal placed in a distant

room could relay the activities occurring in that room.

psicrystals know all the languages their psion owners know.

Self-Propulsion: If the psion pays the cost of 1 power point,

his or her psicrystal forms spidery, ectoplasmic legs for a day.

The legs grant the psicrystal a speed of 30 feet. The psicrystal

can climb walls and ceilings with its legs like a real spider at a

speed of 20 feet. The legs fade to nothingness when their

duration expires, or if the psicrystal takes 1 or more points of

damage that penetrate its hardness.

Speak with Other Creatures: The psicrystal can communicate

mentally with its owner, other creatures, or psicrystals within

60 feet, using any language known to its psion owner (other

creatures must speak aloud to return communication, except

for the owner and other psicrystals). To those familiar with

the psion, the psicrystal's mental voice sounds very similar;

however, all exchanges are colored by the psicrystal's

particular personality trait.

That was tiring, adding another post with more skills for clarity of formatting.

Skills Cont.
Presence Sense as rifts.
See Aura as rifts
See the Invisible as rifts.
Psychic Invisibility as rifts.
Research.
Speed Reading as Rifts.

Mental Armor: dRanks for focus damage. & Mind Block: Closed for psychic buidness. 
* early feedback on mind block as rifts-listed was that it was far far too broke.  Mind Block now IS dRanks Focus DR.  so only one skill here

Dominate
- proper dnd dominate is going to require you to nuke the target's Focus into death-equivalent categories.  dominate attacks prior to that will still dmg Focus but won't see dominate reward until its -[maxFocus+1].  from there though its full bore old school Domination. 
- having a skill tree to take advantage of bonus brains to fuel psychic stuffs is cool

psychic projection - sure but its a steep roi of ranks to image size and complexity, you aren't stepping into illusion magic.

psi-crystal is cool.  some of those ranges would be tied to ranks rather than arbitrary 40'/60' w/e

all of the SkillsCont are gtg with the exceptions of the See/Turn Invisible.  i've not playing with those recently and have been avoidant of treating them as on/off switches, but rather as scaling camouflage bonuses.  i'll glance at the rifts book and check out the psychic versions to see what is appropriate here.

MY pet rock is meticulous:

Meticulous: The meticulous psicrystal has a hard time

discerning between important details and those that are

irrelevant. In describing itself, it would say it is “punctilious

in its attention to the roles of etiquette, and furthermore

marked by extreme care in the treatment of details.”

Sometimes maddening, this trait is sometimes useful to the

psion who attempts a precise study of his environment

what's your rock look like?  do you carry it around or is it just tucked into a bag?

@jaquin Pet rock looks like quartz crept when its rotated or viewed through more than one facet then   you get the  same effect as when rotating a moonstone.

If it’s alright with you I’d like to keep it on top of a walking stick until such time it can move on its own.