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Closet_Skeleton
2006-09-23, 04:27 PM
An idea for a template based a process referred to in the anime Scryed.

Refined Psychic
Refined Psychic is a template that can be added to any creature with power power points.
Ability Scores: Either the base creature's wisdom or intelligence ability score increases by +2, +4, +6 or +8 depending on the degree of refinement. The three degrees of refinement are light, moderate, heavy and Extreme respectively. All except lightly refined psychics also gain +2 to any other ability score apart from consitution and their primary psionic ability score. The base creature also suffers a decrease to charisma and constitution equal to the sum of their bonuses. If the base creature's charisma falls below 3 he becomes a mindless slave, see below.
Manifester Level: The base creature gains a bonus to manifester level of +1 (light), +3 (moderate), +5 (heavy) and +10 (Extreme).
Age category: All the base creature's age catorgies decrease by 1 d20 per degree of refinement. If this reduces the character's maximum age category below his current age, he dies in 1d10 days.

Creating a Refined Psychic
A base creature Psychic can be refined in a process lasting 1 day per manifester level increase. At the end of each day a character with at least an effective manifester level of 5 must make a heal check (DC 23 light, DC 27 moderate, DC 36 heavy, DC 44 Extreme). This character may do nothing else for these days. The base creature must then make a fortitude save (DC 20 light, DC 25 moderate, DC 32 heavy, DC 40 extreme) or die. If he successfully makes his save he gains the refined psychic template.

Mindless Slave
Many Psychics who undergo refinement lose their minds completly. They retain all psionic abilities but lose all non-psionic skills and feats. Such psychics are usually enslaved through the use of dominate person by the organisation that refined them and used as cannon fodder.

Sanity
If using the sanity variant from Unearthed Arcana, instead of a charisma decrease, refined Psychics lose 1d20 from their maximum sanity per degree of refinement.

I was thinking of using these as the basic minions of an evil organisation. Possibly have them under the control of evil NPCs with the Thrallherd Prc. Recurring NPCs would have higher degrees of refinement. Could also work as minions for Illithids.

I_Got_This_Name
2006-09-23, 04:37 PM
Wilders base their powers off Cha. I'd probably have it weaken wisdom, anyway, since Wisdom is the ability score for your willpower to resist being controlled.

Closet_Skeleton
2006-09-23, 06:04 PM
Wilders base their powers off Cha. I'd probably have it weaken wisdom, anyway, since Wisdom is the ability score for your willpower to resist being controlled.

I wanted Psychic warriors to be able to benifit. It was a problem I had though.

Wilders use raw, untamed power. I thought this template would be too Lawful for them to benifit since it turns most people into mindless slaves. The template also increases raw power however so it was a bit of a problem desiding what to do about it.

Maybe allow it to weaken wisdom and improve charisma if done to a wilder would be a good idea. Another one would be to make it "count your primary psionics ability score as being x amount higher for the purpose of psionics" instead of "increase your ability score by x ammount".

If you're using sanity then that's an alternative to charisma drain, but I didn't want to make this something that could only be used in a variant.