Ultimate Psionics (PFRPG)

4.70/5 (based on 11 ratings)
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Ultimate Psionics is just that—the ultimate book on psionics, combining nearly all of the material in Psionics Unleashed and Psionics Expanded into a single hardcover book. But not only does Ultimate Psionics contain existing content, over seventy pages of brand new material has been added (separately released as Psionics Augmented for those who already have Psionics Unleashed and Psionics Expanded), giving more character options, advice for game masters on using psionics, and even an example of completely altering the theme of psionics from the power of the mind to runic magic, to help you understand how easy it is to change the feel of psionics without changing the system so that it can easily fit into any campaign.

Ultimate Psionics is an over-400 page hardcover book that includes:

  • Ten psionic races, including the brand new forgeborn and noral, with racial archetypes, advanced racial options, and more
  • Ten psionic classes from the psion and soulknife to the aegis and vitalist, giving everything you need to have an all-psionic party
  • Psionic skills and feats, including over forty brand new psionic feats such as Assassin's Venom, Deep Focus, and Telepathic Link
  • Over 100 pages of psionic powers, including 0th level psionic talents new powers like T’Nail’s Ardent Legion
  • Nineteen psionic prestige classes, including the brand new Dark Tempest prestige class
  • More psionic items than could ever be found in any treasure horde, including legendary items like the Heartstaff and the Dancing Robes of Sharatwan and over 10 pages of brand new psionic items like the greater psicrystal staff, the tactician's chessboard, and more.
  • An entire section for advice and tips for game masters on introducing and using psionics, including the most commonly encountered rules mistakes, how to handle transparency, and variant themes if you don't want mental power and prefer psionics to be a form of magic.
  • And much more!

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5/5

At the time of writing this review there are 10 reviews of it already. Plus each expansion has reviews and the first product has 13 reviews. There are threads on Paizo's forums and other places on the internet. The book is often on the top ten list of Paizo's third party sales. There are arguments about the power level and articles about it and the publishers have two more entire subsystems coming out with a Kickstarter money, forums of fans and is often quoted as the only third party publisher allowed at certain tables.

What the heck am I supposed to say after all that?! I can't review this. Its probably the most acclaimed third party product in all of Pathfinder. Everybody loves it, and if you don't you probably aren't going to be too thrilled with any other third party product or someone is going to come along to explain why you not liking it makes you a dirty poopy-head, and they're right! Well if you're okay with the very idea of psionics to begin with.

What's going on in this book is that it's a compilation of the psionic stuff that came out before it making for a fat book rivaling the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, detailing new races, new classes, magic items, feats, archetypes and prestige classes all supporting psionics. In fact it might as well be the core rulebook for psionics. If you get this book you have pretty much a core rulebook full of information on an entire class of magic and enough classes and subclasses and prestige classes and options to keep you busy for years.

But what are psionics? In a nutshell it's 'mind magic'. If you want to make a crystal ball massaging gypsy curse dealing psychic you're going to be disappointed. This is more like Esper or Psychic Pokemon variety mind magic making it feel kind of like psuedo-scientific ESP stuff than talking to spirits or new age tarot reading. But these guys aren't just bending spoons, they're generating mind-light sabers and shooting psychic lasers. This is all centered around a new way to cast their spell-like 'Powers' with a pool of points representing their psionic energy. Its a neat system, especially if you're tired of spell slots, but not each of the classes in here are based around the powers. you get a few that use their mind to do other things like create armor and weapons, plus you get some feats so anyone can tap into their mind and do a few tricks. Its a new world, a whole new way to play. Once you crack it open and start playing it's hard to dismiss. Its just a cool bunch of options.

So why did I buy this? What made me go "okay, I'm going to use this." Well for one you can see most of the options on d20pfsrd.com, which helps you figure out if you think this system is more broken than a core rulebook wizard. I went ahead and did the legwork of comparing the best powers to Magic spells and how well they can cast and found powers to be overall weaker than magic with superior casting options but way less variety so the strongest psionic class comes off about as powerful as a well made Sorcerer. I also liked having the option of presenting casting that felt less ole-timey for when I wanted to run a steampunk or space campaign. It's also the most 'complete' alternate system experience I've ever seen, and trying it with newer players they were able to pick it up much and understand it faster than vancian casting. So it won me over. Five stars all around. You just cant lose with this book.


Words can't describe.

5/5

This book is absolutely amazing. Dreamscarred Press show us once again that they're the undisputed masters of flavorful, balanced psionics. This beautiful book has a place of honor on my shelf right next to my Core Rulebook, and if I could only pick one rules supplement to use in a campaign, it would be this one by far.


The Essential Psionic Book

5/5

It's been said a hundred times, but Dreamscarred Press creates fantastic products. Where they shine the most is in their psionic material. This book is *the* book for psionics, hands down.

I don't have anything to add that's not already been said. So I'll keep this very short. This book's cover was done by Wayne Reynolds, appropriate for a book of this quality. However, plenty of the artwork in this book is less than stellar. I expected more from a giant of a 3pp company (as giant as they get, anyways).

Despite some of the underwhelming art, the text inside is filled with as much psionic crunch and flavor you could ever ask for. There's a reason this is the go to book for psionics. It has absolutely everything you need and more. If you're thinking about adding psionics to your game, don't wait. Get this book now!


Awesome Book!

5/5

Gotta say that having it in my hand makes it even more impressive than the PDF I fell in love with. Now that I can't rely on PDF word search I am really impressed by the formatting in the book.

Everything is easy to find. When I have a question it's very easy to find an appropriate answer by perusing the ToC. The title "Ultimate Psionics" really applies as just about all the character concepts I could want as a Pdionic can be made from all the Base Classes, Archetypes, and Prestige Classes detailed!

The only downside was that my mailman stuffed it too roughly into my mailbox and it bent in some of the back cover's corner. The damage is pretty minor and impossible to see on my bookshelf, so I'm not getting too down over it.

The only singular problem with this book is that the pages are a bit more fragile than I would like.

Edit: After about a year of using this book on the table I can say that it still deserves 5 stars, excellent book.


THE Definitive Psionics Book

4/5

This won't be a long review, because I can't compete with Endzeitgeist's excellent reviews. It's really a small list of glitches that affected my impressions of the books.

First, the good stuff. Fixes to original base classes are great and were necessary, as well as changing some of the feats and the addition of 0 level powers. All good. The expanded list of powers is amazing, and the new classes, for the most part, are pretty interesting. More on that in a second.

The artwork is good, not stellar but, but good. My only gripe with it is once again a female ophiduan was shown with hair and breasts. They're reptiles for Pete's sake, and it clearly says in their description they are hairless. Grr.

There are an uncomfortable number of typos and some awkward sentence structuring, but it's easy enough to extrapolate what's being said in each case. I wish that they'd proofread things a bit more thoroughly.

My biggest "gripe" is the Dread seems unnecessary in my book. It's focus is very narrow and would've made a better psion prestige class, in my opinion, just as the marksman would've been a better psychic warrior PrC.

Overall I'm going to give the book 4 stars, largely for the truly amazing amount of work that went into it. But the glaring typos and curvaceous ophiduan really bugged me.

Addendum. I received two copies 4 days apart with the same order number, though I only purchased one. I've been in touch with Paizo Customer Service and as soon as I get paid I'll be sending the extra copy back so that someone else might enjoy it.


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Unrealparagon wrote:
So is there any chance that we will be getting a Mythic path and mythic abilities for psionic folks?

Yes! It's coming:)


As a heads up to the Dreamscarred folks, the Wilder class is missing from the PDF bookmarks section in Ultimate Psionics.


Matthew Shelton wrote:
As a heads up to the Dreamscarred folks, the Wilder class is missing from the PDF bookmarks section in Ultimate Psionics.

Huh. Look at that. I've been working off of a prerelease PDF that I did some proofreading for, and the bookmark was present at that time. Looks like this slipped into release at some point.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

My character sheet making journey continues, this week with a Marksman sheet: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3dtvd57842q3qe5/marksman_sheet.zip?dl=0

Make sure to check my previous efforts by clicking on my name and reading the profile for the links!


glad I could help :)

I was looking at the races the other day and noticed that the Forgeborn and Norals aren't listed in the bookmarks either.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Another psionic character sheet, the Vitalist, is now available: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kn2j93u0qzdwpfm/vitalist_sheet.zip?dl=0

I hope it helps!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Now it's time for the Tactician character sheet: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jbqkbbj6fs9ck95/tactician_sheet.zip?dl=0

3 down, 3 more to go!

Publisher, Dreamscarred Press

Nice work!


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Jeremy Smith wrote:
Nice work!

Thank you very much!

The Cryptic gets her sheet this week: https://www.dropbox.com/s/d2vgkzm18as13br/cryptic_sheet.zip?dl=0

Only Dread and Aegis to go!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Cryptic is my favorite class.....


The Dread character sheet is up: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yhgxay2yxqh7lky/dread_sheet.zip?dl=0

Aegis coming next week!

Then I'll probably create some optional pages: one for detailing class features (for people who won't memorize all theirs terrors or insights, for an example), a expanded inventory with psionic items, and a psicrystal sheet.


The Aegis character sheet is done: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ufp2eykh44u12pu/aegis_sheet.zip?dl=0

And so are all the psionics classes. Just gotta finish those little extras I planned, and onward to another book! =)


3 people marked this as a favorite.

It's a wrap!

Extra sheets for psionics classes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/exu8twx4inuzkr3/psionics_extras_sheets.zip?dl=0

Containing:
Psicrystal sheet
Astral constructs sheet
Expanded inventory
Insights sheet
Terrors sheet
Blade skills sheet
Strategies sheet

It's been a blast digging so deep into these mechanics to come up with useful character sheets. Changed my impressions of some classes, like the cryptic and the tactician.

But it also made me realize the lack of a psionic pet class! Sure, anyone can have a psicrystal, shapers can build astral constructs, and there is that archetype for the aegis or that one prestige class. But no crystal-armored, ectoplasm filled, power point augmented, astral plane conected, capable of fighting on its own, psionic equivalent of the summoner/druid pets!

Anyway, I'll try to put all these psionics sheets on a single .pdf file and upload it here as well - I prefer to have them as images, but that format just dominates the charactet sheet scene.


very cool work The Ragi! Thank you for making all of these.


I'm going to develop a library of house rules and eventually make it public, but not immediately. More to the point, I need more Psionic Powers, but I don't know how to make them, or what guidelines I should follow. Basically, I would like some guidelines on not making my custom power too over-powered. Does anyone have some suggestions?


snuggles08 wrote:
I'm going to develop a library of house rules and eventually make it public, but not immediately. More to the point, I need more Psionic Powers, but I don't know how to make them, or what guidelines I should follow. Basically, I would like some guidelines on not making my custom power too over-powered. Does anyone have some suggestions?

Well, I've been doing some of that lately, and I'm certain the bosses have some ideas...but would you rather see a quick-and-dirty reply here in this thread, or d'ya think you could hold out for a blog post on the Official Site of Officiality that we link back this direction for ya?


Prince of Knives wrote:
snuggles08 wrote:
I'm going to develop a library of house rules and eventually make it public, but not immediately. More to the point, I need more Psionic Powers, but I don't know how to make them, or what guidelines I should follow. Basically, I would like some guidelines on not making my custom power too over-powered. Does anyone have some suggestions?
Well, I've been doing some of that lately, and I'm certain the bosses have some ideas...but would you rather see a quick-and-dirty reply here in this thread, or d'ya think you could hold out for a blog post on the Official Site of Officiality that we link back this direction for ya?

What? I don't understand. Whichever you think is better.


snuggles08 wrote:
Prince of Knives wrote:
snuggles08 wrote:
I'm going to develop a library of house rules and eventually make it public, but not immediately. More to the point, I need more Psionic Powers, but I don't know how to make them, or what guidelines I should follow. Basically, I would like some guidelines on not making my custom power too over-powered. Does anyone have some suggestions?
Well, I've been doing some of that lately, and I'm certain the bosses have some ideas...but would you rather see a quick-and-dirty reply here in this thread, or d'ya think you could hold out for a blog post on the Official Site of Officiality that we link back this direction for ya?
What? I don't understand. Whichever you think is better.

He's saying that he can give you an off-the-cuff answer in a forum post, or you can wait until a (apparently) upcoming official blog post from the developers of UP is posted.

In short, quality/thoroughness/officiality versus rapidity.


Prince of Knives wrote:
snuggles08 wrote:
I'm going to develop a library of house rules and eventually make it public, but not immediately. More to the point, I need more Psionic Powers, but I don't know how to make them, or what guidelines I should follow. Basically, I would like some guidelines on not making my custom power too over-powered. Does anyone have some suggestions?
Well, I've been doing some of that lately, and I'm certain the bosses have some ideas...but would you rather see a quick-and-dirty reply here in this thread, or d'ya think you could hold out for a blog post on the Official Site of Officiality that we link back this direction for ya?

:P Didn't post properly, I meant to say I don't know what that means.

EDIT: Didn't view properly, what I meant to say: Because I have no idea if the blog post is real, I would like an answer here.


snuggles08 wrote:

:P Didn't post properly, I meant to say I don't know what that means.

EDIT: Didn't view properly, what I meant to say: Because I have no idea if the blog post is real, I would like an answer here.

Am confused. Prince of Knives writes for Dreamscarred Press, the people who published Ultimate Psionics. He's saying that Dreamscarred will be posting a blog post covering the topics you're asking about (though no timeframe is given). It doesn't get more real than that.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Anguish wrote:
Prince of Knives

I daresay most people not visiting the DSP forums don´t know the acronyms of the developers/writers over there, less so over here.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

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Hayato Ken wrote:
Anguish wrote:
Prince of Knives

I daresay most people not visiting the DSP forums don´t know the acronyms of the developers/writers over there, less so over here.

Stormhierta - Andreas Ronnqvist, co-owner/founder

Jeremy Smith - Jeremy Smith, co-owner/founder
Prince of Knives / Lord Gareth - Jade Ripley, staff writer/designer
ErrantX - Chris Bennett, lead designer of Path of War line
Ssalarn - Michael Sayre freelancer/lead designer Akashic Mysteries line

Those are the ones I know off the top of my head. There's a few other guys like Elricaltovilla aka Anthony Altovilla, a designer for the Path of War line, and I know Novawurmson is also one of the PW guys, but the 5 people listed above are the ones who can generally make authoritative statements and/or rulings over their various product lines.


Does Power Stone Repository customization qualify Aegis for "Ability to manifest X power" PRCs? Harness Power Stone?


Is there a true errata for just people who have the Ultimate version? I noticed that some things I have found in random unleashed erratas are accurate but were never updated in the ultimate pdf.

For example, crystalized mind blade for the metaforge prestige class. It still does not list the action it requires to use it. I later found in a "unleashed" errata it was supposed to be a swift action so I use that now.

Also, the unleashed errata stated that the Aegis starting gold after errata was 5d4 ×10 (125 gp) however the actual ultimate psionics book says 2d6 x 10 gp (70 gp). Which one is correct?

A final random question if you don't mind. I noticed you also sell your books on your official website and that a wilder and mythic book was also released. How long does it usually take till they are uploaded to paizo's website for purchase?

Thanks in advance. Purchased most of the books you have published except bloodforge.


Another thing I forgot. The Errata for unleashed mentions wilders lose health if they cant lose power points from evervation but ultimate has so such information in it. Are they intended to still lose hp or was that removed?


Nyaa - No.

Yigg - we lost a bunch of errata when we had to transfer to a new host and CMS for our website. We will be rebuilding that over the coming months, such as in errata documents for the books.

We generally upload at all storefronts at the same time - but Paizo has a manual system for adding more books, which means that it depends on Paizo. Sometimes it's within 24 hours, sometimes it takes a week.

Wilder, Mythic and Lords of the Night should be up anytime soon at Paizo.

Wilders - yes they're supposed to loose health when there is no PP left.

Publisher, Dreamscarred Press

Wilders and Mythic are both available right now.


I got this today and downloaded the files, out of curiosity what is the difference between the "FULL" and "LITE" PDFs?


"Lite" pdf are less graphics intensive and use less ink if you want to print them.


I've been updating a thread with sample characters made with third-party classes for some weeks now, but decided recently to spread the love a little more. Here's a sample psionic warrior archetype for everybody who's ever looked at the mechanics, thought “I wonder how this would look like all prim and proper” but never took the jump – well, wonder no more.

She was originally used as a replacement for the last boss in a paizo scenario (I just run them outside PFS), so there's a spoiler box around her description – though it doesn't give out much other than “there's a last boss”.

Character on Google Docs

_______________________________________
Xiao Wen________________________________
XP 400
Female half-giant thunderjarl (psionic warrior) 1
LN medium humanoid (human, giant)
Init +1; Senses low-light vision, Perception +6
_______________________________________
DEFENSE_______________________________
AC 16, touch 11, flat-footed 15 (+5 armor, +1 dexterity)
hp 7
Fort +3 Ref +1 Will +2; +2 vs. fire spells and effects
_______________________________________
OFFENSE_______________________________
Speed 30 feet (while psionically focused)
Melee large heavy flail +2 (2d8+8/19-20)
Power Points 4
Psionic powers known (ML 1st; concentration +3)
1st - inevitable strike, stomp (DC 11 or DC 13)
0 (at will, when psionically focused) - blinding flash (DC 12), float
________________________________________
STATISTICS______________________________
Str 16, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 10
Base Atk +0, CMB +3, CMD 14
Feats Psionic Talent, Psionic Weapon, Speed of Thought, Power Attack
Skills intimidate +4, knowledge (psionics) +4, perception +6, profession (sailor) +6, survival +6
Languages common
SQ counts as large when dealing with combat maneuvers and special attacks that involve size
Combat Gear Psionic Tattoo of Vigor (10 temporary hit points); Other gear large heavy flail, kikko, 15 gp.

1st level psionic powers
- Stomp: as a standard action, stomp your feet to cause a psychokinetic shock wave that spreads through the ground in a cone for 20 feet. Creatures caught in this spread that fail their Reflex save fall prone and take 1d4 points of lethal or non-lethal damage, up to the user’s choice. As a half-giant, the thunderjarl can use it as a 1/day power for free (DC 11), or pay 1 power point per use (DC 13).
- Roshan’s Inevitable Strike as a swift action, your next attack roll gains a +5 insight bonus. It also ignores concealment. The weapon being used leaves an after image as a visual display. 1 power point.

Talents
- Float as a standard action, you mentally support yourself in water or similar liquid. Gain a 5 ft. swimming speed, or if you already have one, increase it by 5 ft. Lasts for 1 round. Free if you are psionically focused, or 1 power point.
- Blinding Flash as a swift action create a blinding flash of light up to 25 ft. away to dazzle (–1 penalty on attack rolls and sight-based Perception checks) one creature, if it fails a Fortitude save (DC 12). Lasts for 1 round. Free if you are psionically focused, or 1 power point.

Psionic Feats
- Psionic Weapon While you maintain psionic focus, your attacks with a melee weapon deal an extra 1 point of damage. Additionally, if you expend your psionic focus as part of an attack with a melee weapon, that attack instead deals an extra 3d6 points of damage.
- Speed of thought As long as you are psionically focused and not wearing heavy armor, you gain an insight bonus to your speed of 10 feet.

ROLE-PLAYING

Spoiler:
Xiao Wen is the last boss of the adventure The Quest for Perfection—Part II: On Hostile Waters, a fun little romp through the continent of Tian Xia, on Paizo’s Golarion campaign setting. The character originally was a human magus 1, and at first I thought I was changing her to a psionic equivalent, but the psionic warrior is much more like a paladin, but with, uh, psionic powers.

She’s the captain of a military ship that attacks the player’s own boat, currently carrying a de-powered artifact. She wants to to destroy them and steal the object and is helped by a posse of three lingshenese soldiers (human monk 1).

When she first boards the player’s boat, she’ll use the 1/day stomp ability to provoke them into coming closer, threatening to destroy the ship while they watch. She’ll then use Roshan’s Inevitable strike as a swift action, and spend her psionic focus on her psionic weapon feat as part of her attack to boost her damage up to 2d8+7+3d6. The following round she uses a full action to recover her focus. And then is back to attacking. She can do this 4 times before running out of power points, when her attack bonus fall really low, and the party’s chances of survival go up.

By the way, she activates her psionic tattoo before entering the enemy's’ ship. It lasts for 20 rounds.

She is a one trick murder pony, being a threat only in close combat, which she’ll try to be in at all times. I strongly advise to have her either take out an animal companion or NPC before going for the PCs. In my game she obliterated an automaton, and after seeing all those dice of damage being rolled, everybody scattered so fast I thought they were going to jump into the water. It made for a very dynamic combat, but also a near TPK.

I plan to roll one character from each psionic class available, but always archetypes. I figure Ultimate Psionics is the most popular compatible Pathfinder product out there, so the odds of having seen one of those guys on a table are bigger than average (not to mention Dreamscarred Press has a NPC book), but the alternatives not so much.

If you'd like to check out the other sample characters, please drop by http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2t61h?3rdParty-Character-Samples


There's a minor error in the random psionic item generation charts:
On page 390, it says that a roll of 82-87 for a "minor" item results in a psicrown. However, on page 402, the chart for generating random psicrowns only has columns for "medium" and "major" psionic items. Either
a)The chart on page 402 should have an additional column for minor psicrowns, or
b)The minor item column on the main chart on page 390 should not include the possibility for psicrowns.

Option (b) may be better, because every psicrown in Ultimate Psionics is quite expensive for a minor item.


I apologize in advance If I sound rude at any point during this post, or if this is the improper place to mention this. Around 7 weeks and 4 days ago on October 6th I ordered a color hard copy edition of Ultimate Psionics from the Dreamscarred Press website. As of now it has not arrived. I have emailed, called, and posted on Dreamscarred press’s forum about the long delay and have not yet received and answer. I was just wondering how much longer I might need to wait on this to get here. Thank you for any help anyone can provide.


I'm not with DSP, but I am sorry you're having trouble with your order. I've only had good results with my interactions with them, with them even replacing a copy that the cover came off of after only a few weeks of use. I hope you get some answers!


Hello Jack!

I'm very sorry to hear this and I'm looking into this immediately. We've been having some issues with our communication and hopefully, this can be resolved quickly. We will look into what order you placed and why it hasn't gone out and we will reach out to make sure that you are properly compensated for this long delay.


Thank you so much! I apologize again if I have been rude.

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