Using psionics

This section covers the following areas:
  1. Learning psionics
  2. Psionic Manipulation skill
  3. Psionic Resistance skill
  4. Psi strain
  5. Maintaining a power
  6. Using more than one power at a time
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Learning psionics

    To use psionics a character must have the psionic manipulation skill; psionics cannot be used unskilled, at least not consciously (psionics not under a character's conscious control are discussed later in the section on psychic phenomena.)  The psionic resistance skill is suggested but it is not mandatory.
    During character creation psionic manipulation and psionic resistance are purchased in the same manner as other skills.  Once a character has at least one add in psionic manipulation he may purchase Power Groups at the cost of one skill point or one Possibility Point per Group. When a Power Group is purchased the character receives one of the Powers from that Group at no cost. Additional Powers from that Group may be purchased at the cost of one skill point or Possibility Point per power.
    Characters from races or cultures that do not have psionics even when the cosm supports it, such as the Gudasko and Lorbaat of the Star Sphere, who receive permission from the GM to start play with psionics must pay two skill points for the first add of psionic manipulation but all other costs are normal.
    Characters from realities that do not support psionics (see General axiom requirements) who have permission from the GM to start play with psionics must pay two skill points for the first add of psionic manipulation as well as for the first add of psionic resistance, and Power Groups cost either two skill points or two Possibility Points to purchase.  Additional Powers beyond the one received at no cost will also cost two skill points or two Possibility Points.  These characters will also continue to pay higher costs when learning new psionic abilities in play.
    After a character has entered play, he may learn the two psionics skills in the same manner as other skills. The first add will cost five Possibility Points if he has a teacher or ten Possibility Points if he has no teacher.  Power Groups cost the same as acquiring the first add of a skill, another five or ten Possibility Points.  Additional Powers within a known Power Group may be learned at the cost of one Possibility Point each. All costs are doubled if the character's reality does not support psionics.

Psionic Manipulation skill

    Psionic manipulation is the skill that allows a character to focus his concentration and the power of his mind to attempt to access or change the Akashic Record.  It is a Perception skill and cannot be used unskilled.
    When attempting to use a psionic power the character first generates a psionic manipulation skill total against a Power's Activation Difficulty Number.  If the total exceeds the Difficulty Number of the power then it is successfully activated.  An active power is a power ready to be used, it represents that the character has successfully focused his concentration and made a connection to the Record.  Once the power is put into use, any action values necessary for its use will typically use the psionic manipulation skill to generate them.
        Normally a character is able to activate and use a Power all in the same round.  However, characters may choose to increase the amount of time it takes to activate a power to decrease the Difficulty Number.  If a character chooses to do so he does not make his psionic manipuation skill check until the end of the increased concentration time.  To determine how much the Difficulty Number is reduced, find the value of the time taken and subtract five then subtract this from the Difficulty Number. No Difficulty Number can be reduced by more than half (rounded up) of its default value.

Example: a character declares that he is going to spend one minute concentrating on activating a power which has a Difficulty Number of 15. One minute has a value of 9, from which we subtract four to get a five.  We then subtract this from the Difficulty Number and arrive at a new Difficulty Number of 10.
    Another character declares that he will spend one hour concentrating on activating the same power.  An hour has a value of 18 so we would subtract 13 from the Difficulty Number.  But this gives us a modified Difficulty Number of 3, much less than half of the default Difficulty Number.  So instead of a final Difficulty Number of 3, it will instead be half of the default value rounded up, an 8.

    If the character is in a situation where concentration is difficult, such as in a noisy room, the gamemaster may choose to minimize the amount by which extended concentration reduces the Difficulty Number  if the character is unable to first make a willpower check against a difficulty based on the level of distraction. An Easy (DN 5) to ignore distraction might be conversation occuring in another room while an Average (DN 8) distraction might be someone trying to speak with the character.  If the character is involved in a combat situation the difficulty should be at least Heroic (DN 15).
    If the character has the meditation skill he may use it to enter a light meditative trance (see the skill description in the Nippon Tech sourcebook) which will let him automatically ignore most distractions.  The trance will not let the character automatically ignore severe distractions, that would still require the character making a willpower check as outlined above but the difficulty of the check is reduced by one step (i.e., in combat the difficulty would be 10:1 (DN 12) instead of Heroic.)
 
Specializations
    Players may choose to use the specialization rules (Torg rulebook, p58) with their character's psionic manipulation skill and take a Type Specialization in a particular Power Group.  Trademark Specialization may be used with an individual Power that the character possesses.  Because it is not normally possible for a character to lose one of his Powers a new restriction is placed on Trademark Specialization - it may not be combined with a Type Specialization.

Psionic Resistance skill

    The skill of psionic resistance is not required for the use of psionics, but it can be useful so it is recommended that characters take it.  Characters use the skill to resist psi strain from their own use of psionics, and also to resist the effects of some psionic powers that other people may use against them.  It is a Mind skill and cannot be used unskilled. Characters who do not have the skill have to rely on their base attributes to resist strain and psionic powers that are used against them.
    When resisting psi strain, the current psi strain rating of the power being used is compared to the character's psionic resistance skill value. Any positive result points (i.e., the difficulty is greater than the skill value) are read as nonlethal (stun) mental damage.  
    Characters may actively defend against psi strain as a multi-action instead of passively resisting with their base skill value.  As with any multi-action attempt, the player must declare that they will actively resist the psi strain before rolling the die for their action that round.  The player may choose which multi-action penalty is applied to their psionic resistance skill.  As with all active defenses the minimum bonus number from the die roll is always +1 but this will be offset by the multi-action penalty.  The current psi strain rating of the power plus the multi-action penalty assigned to the active defense is then compared to the psionic resistance skill total the character generates, with any positive result points being read as damage.

Example: a character with psionic resistance 14 is using a power that has a psi strain rating of 25.  The player declares that her character will actively resist the psi strain.  She decides to make psionic resistance her primary task so it receives the +2 DN and her other action that round (usually psionic manipulation to control the power) receives the +4 DN. The current psi strain rating of the power is now 27.
    The player rolls well and generates a bonus number of +9. Adding the bonus to her psionic resistance gives her a total of 23 for that skill.  Compared to the power's psi strain of 27 the character takes four result points of mental damage.  If she had not actively resisted, her base skill of 14 against the psi strain raiting of 25 would have instead caused eleven result points of mental damage!

Psi strain

    Psi strain is a measure of the mental fatigue and stress that a character experiences when using a psionic ability, it represents how difficult it is to actively use or control the power.  Like other damage, psi strain is measured in terms of shock damage, Knockdowns, Ks, Os, and wounds.  Psi strain is mental damage and goes against a character's Mind attribute instead of Toughness, though GMs may describe the damage with minor physical effects such as a nose bleed, blurry vision or dizzyness.
    Psi strain is normally based on either the Effect Value or Range of the power being used, though not all powers work this way.  (This is a change from the rules in the Space Gods sourcebook.)  The greater the desired effect, the more strain it puts on the psychic. Each power writeup will indicate how the psi strain rating is to be determined. Most powers cause psi strain every round of use, though some will have a Duration value and psi strain occurs in increments of that duration, not each round.
    To determine the damage a psychic takes from psi strain, compare the current psi strain rating against the character's psionic resistance skill, or against his Mind attribute if he does not have that skill.  For each continual round (or duration period) that a character has had a psychic power active, subtract one from his psionic resistance skill value or Mind before checking for psi strain damage. Positive result points are read as nonlethal (stun) mental damage:

Maintaining a power

        The rules for maintaining powers have been made much simpler than they are in the Space Gods sourcebook.  Once activated, a power can be held in its active state for one minute before the character must make another psionic manipulation roll to keep it active. Once put into use, maintaining a power imposes a -1 penalty on the character's psionic resistance skill or Mind attribute for the purposes of resisting psi strain per continual round or duration period of use. This penalty is removed one point per consecutive minute that the character does not have any powers active. A power in use does not require psionic manipulation skill checks to keep it active (another change from the Space Gods sourcebook.)

Example: a character is planning on using his Empathy power to assist in the interrogation of a suspect in a crime. Before entering the interrogation room the character successfully activates his power.  But there's a delay and the suspect isn't in the room yet.  To keep his Empathy power ready to go, the character must make a successful psionic manipulation check once per minute.  He does not have to check for psi strain damage yet because he has not actually used the power yet, he is merely keeping it active and ready for use.
    Finally the suspect is brought in and the questioning begins. Our character's Empathy has a duration value of 8, forty seconds.  So after the first 40 seconds of questioning, maintaining the active use of the power begins imposing a penalty on his psionic resistance.  After four minutes of questioning (six duration periods) his penalty has increased to a -5 and the strain starts to become too much for him. So he deactivates his power and waits two minutes for the throbbing in his temples to quiet down a bit, then he generates a psionic manipulation total to reactivate his power. He is still at a -3 penalty on his psionic resistance though and will not be able to operate the power as long before the psi strain damage forces him to stop again.

Using more than one power at a time

    Unless otherwise stated in a power description there are no restrictions against using more than one power at the same time.  Normally this is just a case of applying the standard multi-action rules.  Active powers, whether in use yet or not, require enough concentration that they do count as an action.  Multi-action penalties are also applied to the psi strain ratings of powers in use.

Example: a character using Remote Viewing to spy on someone wishes to also use Thought Scan to find out what the person is thinking.  Activating Thought Scan will be a multi-action since he must continue concentrating on Remote Viewing, so it is DN+2 to activate.  The psi strain rating of Remote Viewing is increased by +4 in that round due to the multi-action penalty.
    Now with both powers active, he attempts to use Thought Scan on the target.  Again this requires a multi-action so the difficulty of reading the target's mind is increased to DN+2.  Additionally, the psi strain rating of Thought Scan is increased by +2 and the psi strain rating on Remote Viewing is again increased by +4 in that round.

    When more than one power is in use at a time, psi strain is applied a bit differently.  After all of the multi-action modifiers have been applied to the psi strain ratings of the individual powers in use, the highest rating plus one for each additional power in use is then compared to the character's psionic resistance skill or Mind attribute to determine any damage taken.

Example: a character has three powers active at the same time and after applying the multi-action penalties their psi strain ratings are 12, 18 and 17.  A rating of 20 (18 + 2) is used to determine any damage the character takes from his psi strain.

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