Psionics

The eight foundational powers. Each lists range and duration, and grows through five ranks as the psion advances.

Autonomics(1 action, biokinesis, fortitude)

Range: 30 feet · Duration: instant

1. 1Cause one organic creature to experience an autonomic nervous response for one round: fear, adrenaline, sneezing, hiccups, spasms, urination, etc. Alternatively, you can calm a panicked creature, improve digestion, induce sweating, or similar effects. If used in combat, this is sufficient to force an immediate morale check or impose disadvantage on attacks, saves, and skill checks on its next turn.
2. 2While you take an interlude or full rest, concentrate on a single creature and boost its natural healing. This causes it to regain your level plus Arete in lost health. If the target is diseased, it can make an immediate fortitude save of variable difficulty to overcome its illness.
3. 3Cause one organic creature to experience a rush of adrenaline and energy, granting advantage on the next attack roll, athletics check, or fortitude or reflex save it makes during the next minute.
4. 4You can erode or overload the life force of organic creatures directly, dealing PROF d8s of necrotic or radiant damage (save for half).
5. 5You can briefly force one creature’s body to react as you wish for one round, as the command spell. This does not require speech.

Optics(1 bonus action, clairsentience)

Range: Self · Duration: concentration

1. 1Close your eyes to perceive the world around you with psychic senses. This form of vision is 360-degree and offers darkvision to a range of 100 feet. While using this ability, you have advantage on perception and empathy checks.
2. 2While concentrating on this power and studying a creature, object, or location, you can detect the presence of magical enchantments or effects. This power reveals the general nature (school) of the magic, but discerning its exact effects requires an appropriate skill check.
3. 3Gain advantage on the next ranged attack roll you make during the next minute.
4. 4Correctly perceive all illusions and invisible creatures within 60 feet of you.
5. 5Concentrate to look across the planar membrane into coterminous planes (ethereal, faerie, shadowland, etc.).

Congeal(1 action, ectoplasmics)

Range: Touch · Duration: concentration

1. 1Manifest a single object made of glassy green ectoplasm with the hardness of steel, weighing a number of lbs up to your arete. Items with mechanical components or moving parts cannot be made unless you possess the necessary craft or tool skills to produce them by normal means. If used to create a weapon, you may use your arete for the attack roll. The weapon deals a GD of damage plus your arete, and others may use it.
2. 2Manifest up to two ectoplasmic items simultaneously while concentrating.
3. 3Manifest ectoplasmic armor around your body. This armor is weightless and may look like anything you choose, and grants soak equal to half your arete. Sustaining damage no longer runs a risk of disrupting your concentration while using this power.
4. 4You may now manifest items weighing a number of lbs up to 2x your arete.
5. 5You may manifest powers through items you have manifested as though you were present.

Amplify(1 reaction, metapsionics)

Range: 30 feet · Duration: instant

1. 1Amplify the strength of any power or spell you notice another creature use within range. You cannot amplify your own abilities this way. This increases the numeric potency of the effect by 1d6.
2. 2You can “take over” the concentration of a spell or effect created by a willing ally within range. While you maintain concentration, the power becomes yours but continues to function as though its creator were still maintaining it.
3. 3The numeric potency of your amplification is now a GD.
4. 4You can “upcast” any power or spell you notice another creature using within range by 1 level. This does not increase its energy cost.
5. 5You can “upcast” any power or spell you notice another creature using within range by 2 levels. This does not increase its energy cost.

Warp(1 reaction or bonus action, psyportation)

Range: 10 feet · Duration: instant

1. 1Create a subtle twist in the fabric of space to deflect incoming attacks. This increases the target's defense against that attack by your arete. If the attack misses, you may redirect its effects to another creature within range.
2. 2Teleport up to 10 feet to a location you can see as a bonus action. When teleporting, you can trade places with one willing ally in range.
3. 3You can teleport one willing ally within 30 feet instead of yourself.
4. 4Teleport up to 30 feet to a location you can see as a bonus action.
5. 5You can redirect one incoming missile attack to another target in range, regardless of whether it hits or misses.

Incinerate(1 action, pyrokinesis, reflex half)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: instant

1. 1Hurl a bolt of fire as an arete ranged attack, dealing a GD of damage plus arete.
2. 2This power hurls two bolts of fire instead of one.
3. 3Project a 5’ wide jet of flame out to 60 feet, damaging all creatures and objects within. This looks like a flamethrower.
4. 4Cause a single creature or object in range to spontaneously combust. This requires a fortitude save for half damage, not reflex.
5. 5This power hurls three bolts of fire instead of two.

Kinesis(1 action, telekinesis)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: concentration

1. 1Move or manipulate one object in range. The might and agility of this force are equal to your level plus arete. Objects move up to 100 feet per round.
2. 2Make a single attack by striking enemies with heavy objects. Such an attack uses arete and deals a GD plus your arete in damage.
3. 3Your telekinesis allows fine manipulation of small objects and now includes tactile sense.
4. 4Maintain concentration on two objects simultaneously.
5. 5Your telekinesis can now affect creatures. Resisting this power is an athletics roll made against your save DC.

Telepathy(1 bonus action, telepathy)

Range: 100 feet · Duration: concentration

1. 1Mentally communicate with any intelligent creature in range, as long as it has a language.
2. 2Your mental communication now bypasses the need for language. You may communicate with any creature.
3. 3While using this power, you may roll Arete for diplomacy, intimidation, and empathy.
4. 4By concentrating on a single creature for a full minute, you can determine its level and moral alignment. Creatures targeted with this use of telepathy gain a subconscious will save to resist. If you fail, you cannot try to read a creature’s aura this way until you complete a full rest.
5. 5Communicate with as many minds as you wish, out to a range of 100 feet.

Healing(1 action, biokinesis)

Range: Touch · Duration: instant

You restore a GD plus arete health to a single target.

Hypersense(1 bonus action, clairsentience)

Range: Self · Duration: 10 minutes

You amplify any one of your senses to inhuman levels. This can grant binocular vision, advantage on perception, blindsight out to 60 feet, the scent ability, or enhanced sense of touch.

Ectoslick(1 minute, ectoplasmics)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: 1 minute

You create a micro-thin sheen of ectoplasm on a solid surface in a 5’ path up to 100’ long or a 20’ radius. If used to create a path, it does not need to be straight. The ectoplasm is nearly frictionless, so creatures standing or moving on it will fall prone. A prone creature can use this surface as a slide to move from one edge of it to the other in a single move action (up to 100’). Heavy objects on this surface can be easily pushed or slid, regardless of weight. This ability has both combat and utility applications if used creatively.

Quintessence(1 minute, metapsionics)

Range: Touch · Duration: special

You collapse time from the continuum to create 1 lb of a silvery crystalline gel called quintessence. If this gel is completely molded around an inanimate object, that object becomes suspended in time and ceases to age. Violently striking or subjecting quintessence to any sort of energy attack causes it to vanish, returning it to the timestream. If more than 10 lbs of quintessence are lumped together in one mass, they vanish. Quintessence can be used to preserve objects (food, books, medicine, bodies, etc.), but it is also used to create artwork, psionic items, psi-steel, and psionic tattoo ink.

Expansion(1 reaction, psyportation)

Range: 100 feet · Duration: instant

You warp space, increasing the effective range of a missile attack or the radius of a power or effect by 50%. This power also negates any penalties for obscurement, cover, or long range.

Firebending(1 action or reaction, pyrokinesis)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: concentration up to 1 minute

You control the movement and intensity of pre-existing flame within range. You can control their direction and spread by up to 30 feet per round, extinguish them completely, or amplify their intensity and strength. You can also selectively ward spaces within this area from heat, making them safe to pass through. Alternatively, as a reaction, you can use this power to dispel or counter fire-based attacks or powers with a successful arete check.

Forcefield(1 action, telekinesis)

Range: Self · Duration: concentration up to 1 minute

You cloak yourself in a telekinetic shield, gaining soak equal to your arete. The damage you sustain while maintaining this field has no chance of breaking your concentration.

Mindspy(1 bonus action, telepathy, will)

Range: Self · Duration: concentration up to 1 minute

You can read the surface thoughts of any creature within 60 feet by focusing on it for one full round. While actively listening to a creature’s thoughts, you cannot take any other bonus actions. Creatures targeted with this ability receive an automatic subconscious will save to resist. If they succeed by 5 points or more, they become aware of the attempt. If the attempt is unsuccessful, the psion cannot try to read the creature’s thoughts again for 1 hour.

Rehabilitation(1 minute, biokinetics)

Range: Touch · Duration: instant

You cure one subject of disease, poison, radiation, parasites, or remove one level of exhaustion.

Sagacity(1 action, clairsentience)

Range: Self · Duration: 10 minutes

You draw knowledge from echoes in the astral plane, gaining proficiency in one skill for the duration.

Phlogiston(1 action, ectoplasmics, reflex)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: 1 minute

You produce roiling clouds of ectoplasmic fog in a 20’ radius, blinding and providing heavy obscurement to all within. This fog cloud remains for 1 minute before fading away. The particles are luminous and slightly sticky, clinging to and exposing invisible creatures that come into contact with the area. These particles remain for the duration, even if the creature leaves the area. The fog is also highly flammable, and if exposed to open flame it will explode into emerald flames that deal a GD plus arete fire damage to all creatures in the area of effect. If an open flame is present when the fog manifests, it explodes immediately.

Cannibalize(1 action, metapsionics)

Range: Touch · Duration: instant

You convert your health into mystical power, cannibalizing the strength of your body to fuel your powers. Once per full rest, you can convert your level in health into energy points. Alternatively, you can touch a creature killed within the last minute to siphon the ambient remnants of its life force into yourself, regaining your LVL in points of health.

Coplanar(1 bonus action, psyportation)

Range: Self · Duration: concentration up to 10 minutes

You make yourself paradoxically two-dimensional, like an impossibly thin piece of paper. Creatures can only interact with you from two directions: front or rear. You do not exist to creatures directly on either side of yourself. While in this state, you can quickly turn away from attacks or area effects to minimize their potency. This means that attacks against you have disadvantage, and you gain advantage on reflex saves.

Forging(1 action, pyrokinesis, fortitude)

Range: Touch · Duration: concentration up to 10 minutes

You can agitate the molecules in metal, heating it up to become red hot or even molten. If used against a creature wearing metal armor, it takes a GD of damage per round of contact on a failed save. If used on the head of a metal weapon, it deals PROF extra fire damage per blow. This power can also be used for working metal or purifying ore, without the need for a forge or fuel.

Propulsion(1 bonus action, telekinesis)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: concentration up to 10 minutes

You increase the speed of a willing creature within range by 10 × PROF. This power also multiplies the jumping distance of the target by PROF.

Mindblast(1 action, telepathy, will half)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: instant

You can attack the mind of a single creature within range, dealing PROF d10s in psychic damage. If the target fails its save, it also has disadvantage on attacks, saves, and skill checks on its next turn. Upcasting this power allows you to target one additional mind per level.

Oakheart(1 action, biokinetics)

Range: Self · Duration: 10 minutes

You gain your LVL × 2 temporary health. If you use this ability again, the pool of health renews.

Clairvoyance(1 action, clairsentience)

Range: Self · Duration: concentration up to 10 minutes

You can remotely perceive a spot you are familiar with, as though you were physically standing in it. The site must be one you have seen before or know the general location of.

Ectowall(1 action, ectoplasmics)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: concentration up to 10 minutes

You create a wall of glittering green ectoplasm up to 50’ long and 20’ high. The wall does not need to be connected to solid ground. It can sustain PROF tons of weight and/or withstand your LVL × 20 points of damage before vaporizing, and has the tensile strength and consistency of steel. It can be opaque or transparent as you desire.

Naturalize(1 minute, metapsionics, will)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: 10 minutes

You force an extra-dimensional creature fully into the plane you currently occupy, severing its connection to its plane of origin. This sickens the target and forces it to make an arete check against your power every time it wants to use an innate magical ability. If you kill a dimensional creature under the effects of this power, its spirit does not return to its plane of origin to reform. It is treated as though it died on its home plane.

Anchor(1 action, psyportation, will)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: 10 minutes

You cause a creature to become dimensionally locked for the duration. During this time it cannot dimensionally travel by any means: teleportation, plane shifting, moving through portals, and similar efforts all fail. If the creature has the natural ability to move dimensionally, this ability is suppressed and it becomes sickened.

Nimbus(1 action, pyrokinesis)

Range: Touch · Duration: concentration up to 10 minutes

You wreathe yourself in a 15’ radius aura of swirling spectral fire. Creatures entering this area or beginning their turns there suffer a GD plus arete points of fire damage. The aura moves with you.

Shards(1 action, telekinesis)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: instant

You unleash a storm of sharp shards of telekinetic force against enemies in range. You can throw PROF bolts as ranged arete attacks, dealing 1d10+Arete piercing, slashing, or crushing damage per hit.

Suggestion(1 action, telepathy, will)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: 10 minutes

You plant a hypnotic suggestion into the mind of a single target in range. It must be phrased to sound reasonable, and not be suicidal or directly contrary to the target’s nature or values. If the suggestion is a course of action, the target attempts to carry it out to the best of its ability within logical limits. When this power’s duration ends, the target may become aware it was mentally influenced depending on the suggestion.

Shapeshift(1 action, biokinetics)

Range: Self · Duration: 1 hour

You can assume the form of any humanoid or beast, ranging in size from tiny to large. Your equipment melds into your body and becomes part of your new form. You gain the base physical statistics of your new form, but all your other statistics and abilities remain the same.

Psychometry(10 minutes, clairsentience)

Range: Self · Duration: instant

You can enter a meditative trance to see the past of your immediate surroundings. You must specify a 1-hour window of time to look at, after which you receive a flood of hazy memories and impressions relating to that window of time. You can look a number of years into the past equal to your arete. Events that significantly impact destiny (a decision affecting thousands) or have powerful emotional resonance (such as violent murder) leave strong echoes, which can be sensed and focused on with a successful arete roll. The difficulty of this roll depends on how strong the echoes are.

Formation(1 action, ectoplasmics)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: 10 minutes

You can manifest a structure or mass of greenish steely ectoplasm, with health equal to your LVL × 5. This mass can fill a space up to a 15’ radius, and be of any shape you wish. If you attempt to create buildings or vehicles, you must have the necessary skills to manufacture them normally. If the structure sustains enough damage to destroy it, it vaporizes and dissipates immediately. Unless otherwise specified, constructs created with this power have an organic and porous look, like calcified coral or spiderwebs.

Endowment(1 minute, metapsionics)

Range: Touch · Duration: 1 hour

You grant a “self” power to another willing creature for the duration, allowing it to use your ability with your energy pool at your level of ability. While this power is lent to another creature, you cannot use it yourself. You can reclaim your power at any range as a reaction.

Portal(1 action, psyportation)

Range: 10 feet · Duration: 2 rounds

You open a 10’ diameter portal which connects to a similar portal at another location you are familiar with. The other side of the portal can appear a number of kilometers away equal to your arete, but must also be within line of sight. Areas warded against dimensional movement or enclosed in a ½-inch thick layer of lead are ineligible.

Pyroclasm(1 action, pyrokinesis, reflex half)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: concentration up to 1 minute

You create a roiling cloud of spectral fire in a 20’ radius. This cloud deals PROF d10s of fire damage to any creature entering or beginning its turn within, and does not spread around corners. The cloud provides heavy obscurement and destroys any missiles passing through it. On your turn you can use a bonus action to move the cloud up to 30 feet in a direction of your choosing.

Detonate(1 action, telekinesis, reflex half)

Range: 100 feet · Duration: instant

You can cause the ambient potential energy inside nearby matter to explode, including air. If this power is focused on a single solid (not liquid or gas) non-magical unattended object of no larger than huge size, the object is automatically destroyed. This explosion fills a 20’ radius and deals your arete in d8s of crushing damage.

Probe(1 minute, telepathy, will)

Range: 10 feet · Duration: concentration up to 10 minutes

You attempt to hack into the deep thoughts and memories of a sleeping or incapacitated creature, viewing a number of hours of memory equal to your arete. Creatures targeted with this ability receive a subconscious saving throw to resist, and if successful, they cannot be probed this way until the next full rest. If successful, the target can also choose to “fight” the intrusion and deal PROF d10s of psychic damage to both themselves and the probing psychic. Use of this power on an unwilling target is traumatic and runs the risk of major psychological damage.

Immovability(1 reaction, biokinetics)

Range: Self · Duration: concentration up to 10 minutes

You make yourself completely immovable. You freeze and become rigid, during which time you can speak but take no other actions. In this state, you are immune to all non-psychic damage and gain the same durability as a wall of force. While using this power can be done “instantly”, you cannot discontinue it until your turn the following round. So an oncoming car would crash and wrap around you like a telephone pole, leaving you completely unharmed, but you could not walk away for several seconds.

Hypercognition(1 minute, clairsentience)

Range: Self · Duration: instant

You accelerate your thoughts to perform a powerful “divination”, using computer-like logic and masses of data processed by your subconscious mind. This divination provides you with the answer to a single problem or question you meditate upon. If there isn’t enough data for the technique to utilize, you develop a sound hypothesis instead. Certain elements of this power draw information from the astral plane to supplement your solution.

Construct(1 action, ectoplasmics)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: 10 minutes

You create a servitor made of hardened ectoplasm in any shape you wish, ranging from size tiny to size large. The construct has speed 40, defense 10+arete, health 6 × LVL, your initiative, your saves, two attacks per round using your arete, and damage of 1d12+arete. It can travel up to 100 feet away from you before discorporating.

Multitasking(1 bonus action, metapsionics)

Range: Self · Duration: 10 minutes

You empower your mind to maintain concentration on two powers simultaneously for the duration. While this power is active, you cannot have your concentration disrupted by sustaining damage. You also become capable of manifesting powers requiring a standard action as a bonus action instead. This still does not allow you to manifest two powers of Tier 1 or higher a round.

Teleport(1 action, psyportation)

Range: Self · Duration: instant

You teleport yourself and one other willing creature to a location on the same plane of existence that you have personally visited and studied before. This power cannot transport you into areas that are dimensionally warded or enclosed in at least ½ an inch of lead.

Conflagrate(1 action, pyromancy, fortitude half)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: instant

You cause a number of creatures within range equal to your PROF to burst into flame, sustaining PROF d8s of fire damage. If this damage would be sufficient to kill the target, they are reduced to ash and destroyed.

Disintegrate(1 action, telekinesis, fortitude half)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: instant

You reduce one freestanding object or mass of matter filling a 5’ radius to dust. If the target is a creature, it sustains your arete in d8s of force damage. If this damage is sufficient to kill the target, it is reduced to dust. If the target is larger than the affectable area, this power disintegrates a 5’ radius mass out of its center—which is usually fatal.

Dominate(1 action, telepathy, will)

Range: 60 feet · Duration: 10 minutes

You take control of a target’s mind, forcing it to obey you for the duration. If ordered to do something utterly inimical to its nature, the target gets an immediate save to shake the effect. Otherwise it carries out its orders to the best of its ability. Dominated targets cannot use magic or supernatural powers.

Maturation(variable, biokinetics, fortitude)

Range: Touch · Duration: permanent

You artificially alter the biological age of a target. This alteration cannot change a target’s weight or underlying body structure, so it cannot reduce an adult to infancy or similar. Beyond this limitation, you can increase or decrease the target’s biological age by 1 year for every 10 minutes of work.

Metacognition(1 hour, clairsentience)

Range: Self · Duration: instant

You tap into the universal subconscious to divine the answer to a single question. This science is mentally taxing, and cannot be attempted more than once per week. Your answer may be veiled in metaphor or symbolism, but it always contains truth. Using this power to divine information kept hidden by divine powers runs a risk of contacting those beings instead. In that case, there is a 50% chance you sustain 10d10 psychic damage and learn nothing.

Incorporeality(1 action, ectoplasmics)

Range: Self · Duration: 10 minutes

You become an incorporeal specter made of ectoplasm for the duration. While in this form you cannot interact with physical objects or creatures (including passing through walls), gain a fly speed equal to your foot speed, and physical attacks from non-magical weapons cannot harm you. Certain forms of energy damage (radiant, necrotic, fire, lightning, thunder, cold, force) can still harm you however.

Timeskip(1 action, metapsionics)

Range: Touch · Duration: instant

You can catapult yourself and/or one willing creature into the future, to a time of your choosing. You cannot determine the state of the world when you appear, so this is a measured leap of faith. You reappear in the same location you left. If this spot is filled with matter, you are shunted to the nearest available safe space.

Planeswalk(1 action, psyportation)

Range: Self · Duration: instant

You transport yourself and up to PROF willing creatures to another plane of existence. You appear in a safe location on the target plane, and if you have a specific location that you are familiar with in mind you can appear there.

Firesoul(1 action, pyrokinesis)

Range: Self · Duration: 1 hour

You transform yourself into a fire elemental of up to size huge. In this form you gain the physical statistics and innate abilities of a fire elemental of that size, including the ability to shape or manipulate fire at will.

Reconstitute(10 minutes, telekinesis)

Range: Touch · Duration: permanent

You can restructure matter with time and effort, transforming materials of one type into another of comparable or lesser value. This means gasses can be changed into other gasses, liquids to liquids, metals to metals, and similar. You can transform 1 pound of material after 10 minutes of effort. This ability cannot be used to create organic or supernatural materials.

Mindscaping(1 hour, telepathy, will)

Range: Touch · Duration: permanent

You can restructure the mind of a willing or incapacitated creature, changing its alignment, beliefs, and personality traits to whatever you wish. With extreme effort you can even change a creature’s identity. This alteration is permanent if the target is willing. If the target is not willing, a rejuvenate or wish spell will restore its original mind. If the target commits acts that grossly violate its ethos while altered, the restoration of its mind causes amnesia to block out the traumatic memories.