Angellis_ater wrote:

First of all, allow me to make a few things clear. 1. All opinions, no matter how deviant they are, are welcome on the boards. If someone wants our Psionics Handbook to be about psionic bullywugs, they are free to state this. So even if there has been a call to "censure" certain posts or moderate discussions to keep them "on topic", when we announced an OPEN design, it meant open to all.

I'd really love to drop this. However, I have to point out that I tried to retract that suggestion. Perhaps I wasn't explicit enough, but when I posted a second time I was trying to acknowledge that moderation can be pretty alienating and destructive when used except when absolutely necessary.

There might come a point when sifting through editorial opinion on whether the Core Rules themselves are flawed is not going to be fun or a productive use of time. Let me explicit this time: I acknowledge that it's your right and responsibility to decide when that point actually arrives. Not mine.

I realize that both this post and the one remarking on the Seven Deadly Sins might come across as argumentative. That's not my intent. But you've got some challenges here. You're attracting new potential customers and new people to your website. It's not the same audience you might be familiar with; and in the same vein.. you're not the same editors that I know and have come to trust. We're just getting to know each other is all.

Jeremy and Angellis,

I my apologies for the previous two posts. I woke up cranky.

Forgive the expression, but I've been doing some soul searching this morning; and I realize I'm just not your target audience.

I really want a system that I can use with the Golarion campaign setting, and without a partnership or relationship with Paizo.. I don't hold out any hope that we'll see any psionic support from them in their own products.

(I don't think there would be ever be a predominant role in any case, but there is a difference between modest support and none at all)

This was starting to become clear to me when I posted about the Runelords and Sin Magic. If I was talking to Paizo, they would know what I was talking about- and they'd probably have a few ideas to pass along.

I have every faith that you guys will do an awesome job developing a third party compatible psionic system. You're well known in the community and well spoken of.



But I use the campaign setting almost exclusively, and while I do modifications of adventure material.. I'm not a homebrew guy.

Best of luck! If you re-open talks with Paizo and get a deal going, we'll talk again.

Hi Watcher!

First of all, no need to think we deem you cranky or argumentative, not at all. You are quite right that if we had been Paizo we would've known every in and out of their Campaign Setting - but we aren't Paizo and we aren't writing material that is exclusive to Golarion either. Our intent, on the other hand, is to give you (and all others) a setting-neutral, Pathfinder RPG-specific system.

I do apologize, both to you and LMS, I was honestly not aware of the Golarion-specific implementation of the 7 Deadly Sins and how they interacted. Honestly though, it's still tied to a specific setting (albeit one many Pathfinder fans like and love), so it would have to be released in a separate release if that was the case.

My hope however, is that whatever we do, will be not only usable, but completely part of Pathfinder RPG. Hope to see you back here sooner rather than later, regardless of whether or not we can partner with Paizo.

Well.. Maybe I was hasty. I posted out of emotion.

I explained this on the Paizo Board, but it would fair to explain it here.

There have been insinuations and complaints that parts of the Campaign setting contain a covert 'Christian agenda.' Specifically by atheists who are put off by what happens to the souls of atheists in Golarion's afterlife. This came out of the publication The Great Beyond, by Todd Stewart who wrote for Planescape. The Great Beyond deals with the Inner and Outer Planes, and anything related to planar adventures.. and touches upon subjects like life after death.

All souls go to a place of judgment ruled over by the Goddess of Death, where they're sorted out and distributed to representatives of various Gods in a sort of neutral terriroty. Worshippers of specific faiths go to join their god on whatever appropriate plane. If you believed in multiple gods and an afterlife, the soul goes to whatever plane of existence that would be appropriate.

The souls of atheists have a peculiar fate. They sort of go to sleep in the form of crystalized soul gems. There is a deity called Groetus that hovers like a great moon over the Boneyard (where dead souls are sorted out). Groetus is attracted to souls of believers, and should he draw to close to the Boneyard, it is suggested that the End of the World will begin. Oddly enough, Groetus is repelled by the souls of atheists and their disbelief is nauseating to him. Thus the souls of atheists actually keep the end of the world at bay in a cosmology of deities.

And regrettably this went over poorly with some of the actual atheist PLAYERS, who interpreted that as disrespect to their own beliefs. There were personal calls for Paizo to revise that, or put a better spin on it. Finally there were remarks that this was some sort of "Christian plot". Insinuations were made that Todd Stewart, who himself is a self-proclaimed Christian, was writing with an agenda. Stuff of nonsense.

And that really pissed me off, because that was an uncalled for attack on the man's integrity as a writer. There is no Christianity in Golarion or the Pathfinder RPG.

As an honest disclaimer, I'm a Christian too. I also consider myself to be inclusive, progressive.. and I'm not a biblical literalist. I don't care for any sort of evangelism.. but neither can I deny my faith either. I recognize the harm that has been done in the name of organized religion, and for my part I regret it.

But honestly, when I read your remarks I mistook it as more push back against a non-existent Christian Conspiracy. Combined with my earlier frustration, I posted with emotion.

I should have withheld any such judgment.

Okay.. confessions and apologies are done.

Let's start over.

There's not a lot I can contribute in the way of mechanics. I'm not familiar with how psionics work in 3.5/XPH. I'm almost 42 and the last time I knew much about psionics was 1st edition AD&D.

One thing that confuses me about your products is that they appear very compartmentalized. I understand that you don't reject the XPH or feel that it is unbalanced (and I couldn't gainsay you if I tried). But your products seem small and address specific components of the existing Psionic System.

Would this Pathfinder Psionics Book be an entire system, and there for this wuld be a larger book?

Would it psionic creatures in it? Most of Paizo's Bestiary is going to be OGL. They're pretty much committed to OGL for their core products... That's how they've been able to continue to exist and they're not hypocritical about that.

First, let me say thankyou, with emphasis. I was unaware of the particulars of how Christianity/Atheism had been part of the discussion regarding Golarion/Pathfinder, as was evidenced by me not quite getting that the reference to 7 Deadly Sins was a reference to Sin Magic, not to Christianity.

Now, let's continue - Dreamscarred Press began as a way to publish supplements for the existing Psionics system in D&D3.5 and thus all of our previous products were based upon the XPH.

The current project however is meant to be a complete, around 250+ pages big, psionic rules system kinda like the Expanded Psionics Handbook. So yes, this would be a larger book, meant to give a player the entire system needed to play a psionic character.

We will mix a number of the original psionic creatures from the XPH with ones we have released ourselves and a few new ones. Everything we make will, naturally, be released under the Open Gaming License, as all our products have been and it is very probable that the book itself will be released under a generalized Creative Commons license too.

wow, last time you did a project that large it had numerous setbacks/ delays. are you sure your won't do it in smaller chunks and then compile it when your done? as far as actually contributing something useful to this thread, I think that the psychic warrior could gain the ability to choose a capstone ability from a small list; for example, he could choose something that had to do with mantras, or something that had to do with psionic focus, or even better make a caspstone ability that has to do with psionic focus as it relates to mantras.
Marksmen need something better as a capstone ability than a bonus feat, maybe make the feat come a level or two earlier, which means you'll have to shift the pattern slightly, and make something awesome. I was thinking of perhaps making the wind reader improve at some point so that you can also add wisdom to your damage, also, at a later level in the class the Evade Arrows class feature could expand slightly to include all ranged attacks, and eventually add your full wisdom bonus.
beyond that, not a lot more of that I can think about right now. although, with that said I am palying a xeph marksman for the first time (as in last night) and I love it... just wish I roled a higher wisdom score.

Gosh, lots of constructive comments over at Paizo. They're excited over there.

I'd love it if they did take your rules as offical.

Just joined and haven't had time to read any back-threads yet. I love the idea of psionics for pathfinder. A few ideas I have been tossing about for my homebrew rules, based heavily on Pathfinder, are:

1. Wilders are psionic bloodline sorcerers (yes, arcane casters).

2. Soulknives are just a collection of feats kinda like 'psionic weapon', and you have to be focused to manifest the weapon. You can get 'Throw Mindblade' and feats for the various blade shapes and modifiers. Good for a Fighter, Monk, or Rogue with the 'Wild Talent' feat.

3. Psions I was thinking of being similar to the Specialty wizard in Pathfinder, with the Specialties being Telepath, Seer, Nomad, and so on.
I use the magic and psionics are the same rule for dispelling and detection. It makes it easier to just have thing like Detect Magic as a first level spell for Cleric/Wizard/Psion and making the Psion 'Spell' list and casting as different as the Cleric vs Wizard. Maybe with power points and Must be psionicly focused to cast instead of a holy symbol or material components. Maybe they have to have a crystal, ala holy symbol, to cast.

Still in the very beginning stages with my concepts and no hard rules yet. Also still open to using a published set of rules if they come out before I get my butt in gear and start writing my own.

Silvereye wrote:

2. Soulknives are just a collection of feats kinda like 'psionic weapon', and you have to be focused to manifest the weapon. You can get 'Throw Mindblade' and feats for the various blade shapes and modifiers. Good for a Fighter, Monk, or Rogue with the 'Wild Talent' feat.

Hello Silvereye and welcome. About this you comment, Dreamscarred Press published a PDF titled "The Mind Unveiled: Mind Blade Feats", which contains feats for doing exactly what you propose.

Check it out at the PDF store.

Cool, I'll check it out. That will save me a lot of time.

Sheng_Gradilla wrote:

Dreamscarred Press published a PDF titled "The Mind Unveiled: Mind Blade Feats", which contains feats for doing exactly what you propose.

Add me to the list of people who suggest you look at the product. Good times, for sure.

Thanks for all the ideas people! Marksmen will get more progressive abilities once we turn our eye to revising our own classes to put them "in line" with how Pathfinder works (just the change in XP expenditure has changed one part of how the Halo Knight works for example).

The more I get responses that Soulknives should really be made into a feat-tree and the fact that I've heard not a single Soulknife-protector stepping up makes it even more clear to me that we should integrate the concept of Mind Blade Feats into the core feats and make it a "specific build" for the Psychic Warrior - leaving the Soulknife as part of the Alternaties (variant rules chapter).

I love the soulknife over feats. Granted a feats version could be tacked onto something like the rogue or psychic warrior, but it wouldn't be quite the same. It would take a while to moderately progress into soulknife feats with the rogue, while the psychic warrior wouldn't have as many skills. Although, as long as a variant is available for those who want the Soulknife instead of feats, I don't think I'd mind too much.

the only real soulknife defense you are going to get from me is this: the Soul Bastion rocks, and if nothing else should be kept around. otherwise mindblade feats all the way. of course if you were to ever do something that looked like star wars saga edition, you could split soulknife into various talent trees. but thats just a free floating idea that doesn't really have much of a home with the products you have produced so far.

tev, I'd like to hug you for that. I haven't seen too many people posting about the Soul Bastion, so it's nice to see some feedback. Glad you like it.

On topic, I'm in the process of dling Pathfinder right now. I should probably wait until I read it to post, but that said, I'm likely all for the idea of giving a hand writing stuff whether I really like Pathfinder or not because I really, really miss doing this stuff.

On a side note, I hereby also volunteer for pretty much anything soulknife related, as long as it's not the feat-tree set up (that's A_A's deal there...).

Angellis_ater wrote:

The more I get responses that Soulknives should really be made into a feat-tree and the fact that I've heard not a single Soulknife-protector stepping up makes it even more clear to me that we should integrate the concept of Mind Blade Feats into the core feats and make it a "specific build" for the Psychic Warrior - leaving the Soulknife as part of the Alternaties (va riant rules chapter).

while perhaps you might not see much defense of the SK here(it is a small community) i know that the SK in general is much loved. there was a giganitc thread over on WotC back in the day, discussing the SK revision by Blaine Tog. i'm pretty sure it got up over 30 pages, at least and i know there's been plenty of other threads or conversations about the SK, including talk on the Paizo thread for your DSP PF conversion.

Also, with the new feat progression(every odd level) things may play out weirdly. I'm not sure how, but this would be something to give some solid thought to.

I guess i just don't see the need to kill off a class(which since we're reworking them all, will become better) and turn it into a series of feats. the SK feats should be variant, not the class itself.

Since this is a revision, anything that needs to be changed, or added in or gotten rid of can be. Think they need more Skill Points? fine, give them more. need higher or lower HD, done. want less special abilities and more feats, totally possible.

We're trying to keep things backwards compaitible, no? ok you get rid of the SK and turn them into feats, what happens to the PrCs for it? how about the feats from Complete Psionic or Eberron? will they mesh well with the SK feats? This book needs to be made keeping all of that in mind, since it's to be(at least this is the impression i'm getting) the main book for Psionics in the PF system(until Paizo does otherwise, around 2012ish).

It seems to me that people shouldn't need to defend the SK, but rather prove exactly why the feats are so much better than the class that getting rid of it is the better move.

MaverickWolf wrote:

tev, I'd like to hug you for that. I haven't seen too many people posting about the Soul Bastion, so it's nice to see some feedback. Glad you like it. On topic, I'm in the process of dling Pathfinder right now. I should probably wait until I read it to post, but that said, I'm likely all for the idea of giving a hand writing stuff whether I really like Pathfinder or not because I really, really miss doing this stuff. On a side note, I hereby also volunteer for pretty much anything soulknife related, as long as it's not the feat-tree set up (that's A_A's deal there...).

although you could hug me, I am many hundreds of miles away, so unless you are a really strong telekinetic... well actually, if your a really strong telekinetic I'd rather you teach me how you do it!
With that in mind, feel free to make some more Soul Bastion related material. like racial varients and what not.
as for this thread something else occured to me: not only do we need powerful capstone abilities, but we need a desirable ability at 11th level too. I say this because I find that it makes it more likely that a person will stay in the class all the way. for example: the Barbarian gets greater rage, monks get diamond body and greater flurry, rangers get combat style mastery, warlocks get something that I'm too lazy to look for, and various other classes have great 11th level abilities. I think that all classes should have such an ability, and I don't mean a bonus feat (although that can be acceptable).

i think warlocks get the ability to make shiny new toys at 11th.

in any case, i agree completely; putting an ability at 20th just means you only care if you were planning on a pure single classed character, and even then only if you expect the game (and the character!) to last until 20th level.

edit: this also supports class 10/prestige class 10 builds, which i think are just as reasonable as class 20 builds. it's when you start seeing class A 2/class B 1/ Class A 1/ Prestige Class A 2/Prestige Class B 1/Prestige Class C 1/etc that you really have a problem

Nice to see more people speaking up for keeping a Soulknife, because even with all the love I have for my Mind Blade Feats, we are doing this mainly for the community.

Since we are on the topic of Soulknives, one of the ideas I have been considering is to merge some of the concepts from MaverickWolf's High Psionics release to create a more versatile class. Would you guys be interested in this concept rather than feats? Given, naturally, that the Mind Blade Feats are provided as Alternate Rules. MW, take this as an invitation to help develop the Pathfinder Soulknife.