[Review] Psionics Handbook for Dnd3e

Well, fans of D&D 3rd Editon have been waiting for this book, to find out what they've done with that bastard child of 1st Edition AD&D, Psionics. Was it worth the wait? Kinda.

There are two new classes, the Psion (which is more like six classes, as you have to pick a specialty, and each specialty has different class skills and a different "feel"), which is your basic Psionicist class, and the Psychic Warrior, which is a watered-down fighter with some physically-oriented Psionic powers available. There are also some new psionic Prestige Classes, which are admittedly pretty neat: the Metamind (who trades powers for more power points), the Pyrokineticist (think Firestarter), the Slayer (for people who want to kill Mind Flayers), and the Soulknife (my favorite, those who can form a blade out of their mind). You don't have to be smart to be psionic anymore – you can even play a Psion who gets bonus Power Points from, say, their Strength; there are six different psionic specialties, one for each Attribute. The idea here is that being psionic is an inborn talent for drawing on the power of your mind; a psionic comes of age much like a Sorcerer does (complete with poltergeist phenomena).

In fact, a DM who doesn't like psionics in concept could easily use the Psion instead of the Sorcerer, declaring all the stuff in the book to be "magic" giving Sorcery a flavor all its own, though the book doesn't mention this, merely noting the similarities to a Sorcerer. I have to say that once I got my mind around it, I liked the idea that low-Intelligence and low-Wisdom characters could be psionic. There's nothing to say that the part of the brain concerned with the inner power of the mind is connected to being smart; I imagine a sort of idiot-savant, where one part of the brain is overdeveloped and other bits are atrophied. The book talks about how psionic power is really the power of "bioenergy," which comes from the body as well as the mind, which goes further to explain how having, say, a high Constitution can be useful to a psionic character. The direct comparison to the ki energy monks use is made, which made sense to me.

Regardless, Psionics work a lot like a variant magic system for D&D. Anyone who has used a spell point system will know what I mean. Psionic characters get so many power points, which they can use to power their abilities, which are rated in levels 0 through 9, just like spells. In fact, while many of the powers are new and interesting (like Graft Weapon and Sever the Tie, which mucks with an undead creature's connection to the Negative Material Plane and has a nifty piece of art associated with it), many are obviously cut and pasted from spell descriptions; take a look at Invisibility, for example. Psions can even have a "familiar" of sorts, shunting a bit of their mind into a crystal, which then becomes an intelligent companion, though admittedly the flavor of "intelligent, monomaniacal ruby" is different from "empathic owl". This feeling of "variant magic user" is further enhanced by the fact that, for balance, psionics and magic work on each other without a noticeable difference. That is, the Dispel Magic spell will also dispel psionics (the fact that psionic powers are rated in levels, just like spells, makes this easy), and the Negate Psionics power can negate magic as well; spell resistance is also power resistance (the psionic equivalent). To the author's credit, there is an excellent sidebar on making it so psionics and magic don't interact with each other quite so easily, while keeping things reasonably balanced, setting things up such that magic has an edge over unprepared psionics and vice-versa; mostly this bit tells the DM how to keep psionics in check and an integrated part of the world, rather than an add-on that no one has a defense against.

Psionic items, while named differently than and with slightly different powers than magic items, are more or less magic items under a different name. There are even Psionic artifacts. Psionic items require a Feat to create and have certain Power prerequisites; those who've read the Player's Handbook won't find much new here, though it seems the way to identify a psionic item is to see if it had a crystal in it somewhere. (The bit on Psionic tattoos was kinda neat, though; I would have liked to see more of those). The new skills show heavy use of cut and paste from the Player's Handbook; in particular, look at the "Use Psionic Device", which has the jarring comment "Bard, Rogue Only", obviously an error carried over from "Use Magic Device", which the skill was cut and pasted from.

The Feats section is the only place where psionics really shine compared to magic. Since the choice of powers is not as extensive as the choice of spells, some very interesting abilities become Feats, including Feats that give a psionic character an "always on" power so long as they maintain a certain reserve of Power Points. This sort of thing is especially nice for the Psychic Warrior, which is almost as Feat-heavy as a Fighter. I particularly liked Inertial Armor, which gives a psionic character a sort of invisible force-armor so long as they have a single power point left, and Up The Walls which allows for Matrix-style wall-running. (There are also Item Creation feats and Metapsionic feats which resemble magical Item Creation feats and Metamagic feats – more cut and paste.)

Those who remember the old 1st Edition AD&D rules will love the psionic combat rules; they maintain a similar flavor (with attacks like "Ego Whip") without becoming overly complicated, though the system is different from normal combat and takes some getting used to. After a couple of readings, though, it seemed clear enough, and easy enough to use – basically, one has to make a Will save verses a certain DR (determined by the choice of attack vs. defense; all non-psionics get a special "I'm not sensitive enough to be harmed" defense that works well against anything but Mind Blast). However, as a long-time player and DM, I was disappointed that when a non-psionic gets hit by a Mind Blast they're only stunned, rather, than, say, going insane. I admit I miss that weird table of brain-scrambling Mind Blast results – I would have been willing to make Mind Blast cost more (for game balance) to see that table again. Well, I guess I'll just have to make that Illithid a Psion and give him the Insanity power.

The final part, the Monsters section, is nothing to write to your gaming buddies about. Some of the creatures are interesting, like the Blue (psionic goblin mutants, complete with notes on how they integrate into goblin society), and many are dull (like the Folugub, which eats crystal items, i.e. a psionic-oriented Rust Monster). Some old favorites, like the Githyaki and the Githzerai, are back, and are even more dangerous than before. As a Planescape DM, I was surprised and disappointed to see that Cranium Rats were not here, which are a wonderful psionic "mass mind" monster that gets more powerful the more rats there are. Also, psionic creatures from the Monster Manual are not redone; there's a psionic template that can be applied to any monster, and one is supposed to imagine this template had already been applied to psionic creatures from the Monster Manual, giving the monster appropriate psionic attack and defense modes. This would be somewhat disappointing in the case of the Illithid (the Mind Flayers) if information on the Illithid (and how they relate to psionics) wasn't scattered throughout the book; as it is, it seems like every other example uses an Illithid in some way.

To sum up: I would give this book a B-. The page count is low for the price (about $27 US) compared to other hardback gaming books from other companies (tho, admittedly, it's in color, like the Player's Handbook), and psionics is just different enough to be interesting, but similar enough to magic to be easy to use. However, it barely makes that criterion, and there is obviously a lot of cut and paste going on here from the magic sections of the Player's Handbook, making large part of the book yawn-worthy. Also, some people (like myself) might find the whole "crystals, crystals, gems and more cyrstals" aspect of psionic items kinda goofy.