Song of Dirt and Wind: Psionic Powers

More rules crunch for my post-apocalyptic hack of the Chronicle/Song of Ice and Fire rules system.  I hope to have a few more powers to post in a few days, but I figured this was a good start.

Updated with more powers and better defined rules.

Psychic Powers

While rituals require preparation and forethought, psychic powers are more freeform but have a high cost.  Psychic powers require the expenditure of Composure or Health or the suffering of injuries or wounds, representing the physical and mental cost of using psychic powers.  Various benefits can offset this damage.  Health and Composure damage suffered in such fashion heals at a rate of one point per hour unless other means are used; damage done to your mind and body by pushing both beyond their limits through sheer will can take some time to get over.  

Psionic powers are primarily concerned with affecting the minds of others and controlling kinetic forces.  Generally those powers that affect the mind inflict composure damage on the user, while those of a more physical nature inflict Health, while both can inflict injuries. Each psionic power, learned separately as a benefit, gives the character a general area of expertise, such as Pyrokinesis or Telepathy.  Some example uses of that power with target numbers and costs are included to give an idea of what those uses cost in terms of Health, Composure, Injuries, or Wounds.  Players and Narrators are encouraged to come up with other uses for the powers along these lines.  

Note that for campaigns that want more psionic powers without paying such a high price for them, the narrator could instead allow players to purchase the Psionic Vigor benefit below and gain double the normal psionic points, using those exclusively to generate psionic powers.  In such a campaign, two psionic points can be expended in place of an injury and four in place of a wound.  

Psionic Benefits

Combat Sense Ability

You have developed your senses to a superhuman degree, allowing you to perform feats of skill in combat that are beyond the limits of normal humans.

Requirement: Psionic 1+, Fighting 3+

• 1 Health: As a Lesser action, you heighten your senses and reflexes, adding your Psionc level to your initiative checks for a number of rounds equal to your Psionic level.  .  
• 2 Health: As a Lesser action, you can focus your senses to cut out interference, ignoring any penalties due to darkness for a number of rounds equal to your Psionic level.  
• 3 Health: As a Lesser action, you may synchronize your senses and your muscles, making easy you to detect and avoid attacks.  You may add your Psionic level to your Combat Defense for a number of rounds equal to your Psionic level.  
• Injury: As a Lesser action, you focus your senses outward and tune them to driving your attacks home with maximum efficiency.  You may add your Psionic level to all Fighting and Marksmanship tests for a number of rounds equal to your Psionic level.  
• Wound: As a Lesser action you shut the world out except for you and your target, focusing all your will into striking that target.  You may add bonus dice equal to your Psionicspecialty to one Fighting test made on the same round.  

Cryokinesis Ability

You can use your mental powers to slow the motion of atoms, lowering the temperature of items with intense concentration.  

Requirement: Psionic 1+, Endurance 3+

• 1 Health: As a Lesser action, you can lower the temperature around you, adding your Psionic level to any tests to resist heat or fire, and can chill drinks or food on command.  
• 2 Health: As a Lesser action, you can condense water from the air around you, allowing you to generate one gallon of water per level of Psionic, or create a fog 10 yards across per Psionic level  if the area is already damp.  
• 3 Health: As a Lesser action, you can freeze water or other liquids with a touch, freezing one gallon of liquid per Psionic level.  It may be used on living beings if they are helpless, inflicting one Health per Psionic level.  
• Injury: As a Lesser action, you may freeze an object within ten yards per Psionic level, making it brittle and breakable.  If such a broken item is struck it’s Armor Value is decreased by your Psionic rank, and the target numbers of any Athletics tests to destroy the item are decreased by your Psionic rank.  
• Wound: As a Greater action, you may freeze the internal fluids of a living being within ten yards per Psionic level.  This requires a Will (Psionic) test against the target’s Intrigue defense.  This is treated as an attack with a damage equal to your Psionic level that ignores armor.  

Dream Walking

You may enter the dreams of others, communicating with them, or helping or hindering their sleep.  

Requirement: Psionic 1+, Cunning 3+

Note Dream Walking can only be used on targets that are actually asleep and you too must be asleep.  This psionic power may only be used out of combat, and generally requires at least half an hour to get into a deep enough sleep to reach the proper dreaming level.  

• 1 Composure: You may view the dreams of others known to you within 100 yards per Psionic rank and can communicate with them.  You must know the target’s name and location, or be able to see them.  
• 2 Composure: Your communication range increases to 1000 yards per Psionic level, and you can choose to aid in the sleeping process of your target.  This adds your Psionic level the Healing or Endurance test to heal injuries or wounds made by that character.  
• 3 Composure: Your communication range increases to 1 mile per Psionic level, and you can choose to hinder the sleeping process of your target. This requires a Will (Psionic) test against the Intrigue Defense of the target; if successful the target suffers a penalty to Cunning, Will, and Awareness tests equal to your Psionic level until he gets a good night’s sleep.  
• Injury: Your communication range increases to 10 miles per Psionic level, and you can actively stop characters from sleeping.  This requires a Will (Psionic) tests against the Intrigue Defense of the target; if successful the target is treated as not having slept.  Note characters can go a number of days equal to their Endurance without sleep without penalty, but after that they suffer -1D to all tests per day without sleep and will eventually collapse once their penalty equals their Endurance.  
• Wound: You can actively hurt people by putting them in nightmares so frightful they have a heart attack.  Once per night you may make a Psionic (Will) test against the target’s Intrigue defense.  This is treated as an attack that inflicts damage equal to your Psionic level; with a good roll you may force an Injury or Wound on the target.

Empathy

You can both sense the emotions of others and project your own onto them.  

Requirement: Psionic 1+, Persuasion 3+

• 1 Composure: As a Lesser action, you can sense the emotions of others, granting you a bonus to Intrigue Defense equal to your Psionic level when engaged in an intrigue.  
• 2 Composure: As a Lesser action, you can project your emotions onto others with a successful Will (Psionics) check against their Intrigue Defense within 10 yards per Psionic level.  If successful you gain a bonus to Persuasion tests equal to your Psionic level.  
• 3 Composure: As a Lesser action, you can use your ability to project emotions to assist others in making Persuasion tests.  
• Injury: As a Greater action, you may instill great hope in your allies.  You may seek to rally a unit’s morale, adding your Psionic level to any attempts to issue the unit a Organize, Rally, or Regroup order for a number of rounds equal to your Psionic level.  If used on a single target, that target can ignore penalties due to Injuries and Wounds equal to your Psionic level for a number of rounds equal to your Psionic level.  
• Wound: As a Greater action, you can instill great fear in your enemies.  If used on a unit make an attack against the unit using your Will (Psionic) against a target number equal to (21-the unit’s Discipline).  If successful the unit suffers Health damage equal to your Psionic level, but this damage heals at one Health per round.  If used on a single target make a Will (Psionic) attack against the target’s Intrigue Defense.  This is treated as an attack with damage equal to your Psionic level; if this attack only inflicts Health damage, that damage heals at one Health per round.

Psi-Baffler

You are able to cancel out the use of psionic powers in others.  

Requirement: Psionic 1+, Will 3+

• 1 Health: As  Lesser action, you can scan the surrounding area for psionic activity.  You can detect if Psionic powers are in use within 10 yards per Psionic level.  This lasts for ten minutes per Psionic level.  
• 2 Health: As a Lesser action, if you know Psionic activity is occurring in an area you can pinpoint the source with a Formidable (12) Will (Psionic) test if the target is within 10 yards per Psionic level.  .  
• 3 Health: As a Lesser action, deflect psionic attacks made against you.  For one round per Psionic level, against psionic based attacks increase your appropriate defense by your Psionic level.  
• Injury: As a Greater action, you can target an individual within 10 yards per Psionic level with psionic feedback.  Roll your Will (Psionic) against theirs; if you win they suffer an additional point of Health or Composure each time they use a psionic power.  This lasts for one round per Psionic level.  
• Wound: As a Greater action you establish a psionic dead zone around you, reaching 10 yards per Psionic level.  Any Psionic power activated in that area, including your own, has it’s Psionic level reduced by your Psionic level.  If this reduces the power’s Psionic level to 0, the power does not function.  If it is above 0, the power functions at suitably reduced effectiveness. This dead zone lasts for one round per Psionic level.  

Psionic Training 1 Ability

You have been trained in the use of psionic powers, making them much less dangerous for you to use.  

Requirement: Will 4+, Psionic 2+

You reduce the damage inflicted by psionic powers by one point of Health or Composure, but this has no effect on Injuries or Wounds inflicted.  

Psionic Training 2 Ability

You have mastered the concentration needed to activate your psionic powers without harming yourself through intense focus.  

Requirement: Will 5+, Psionic 3+, Psionic Training 3

You reduce the damage inflicted by psionic powers by two points of Health or Composure, but this has no effect on Injuries or Wounds inflicted.  

Psionic Vigor 1 Ability

The development of your psionic powers allows you to use them without harming your mind or body.  

Requirement: Will 3+, Psionic 1+

You gain two psionic points that can be expended instead of Composure or Health to power psionic abilities.  

Psionic Vigor 2 Ability

You have unlocked previously untapped resources of your mind, allowing you to channel more psionic power.  

Requirement: Will 4+, Psionic 2+, Psionic Vigor 1

You gain two more psionic points that can be expended instead of Composure or Health to power psionic abilities. Also you may spend three psionic power points to reduce an Injury suffered from using a psionic power to inflicting three Health.  

Psionic Vigor 3 Ability

You have reached a level of mental mastery few every even perceive, letting you bend the world around you while suffering little for the effort.  

Requirement: Will 5+, Psionic 3+, Psionic Vigor 2

You gain two more psionic points that can be expended instead of Composure or Health to power psionic abilities. Also you may spend fivepsionic power points to reduce an Wound suffered from using a psionic power to inflicting an Injury..  

Psychic                                                           Ability

You have some inkling of psychic talent with enough raw ability to turn it into something more.

You can learn other benefits that allow you to learn specific psychic powers.  You add your Psionic specialty rank to your Awareness tests.  

Psychometabolic

You are able to control your body through force of will, changing the needs of your body and its limits with a thought.  

Requirement: Psionic 1+, Healing 3+

• 1 Health: As a Lesser action, you can marshal your regenerative powers, adding your Psionic level to Endurance tests for natural healing or Healing test made to tend to your wounds.
• 2 Health: As a Lesser action, you can push back the forces of Fatigue, reducing any penalties due to lack of sleep by a number of dice equal to your Psionic level.  
• 3 Health: As a Lesser action you can focus your energies on purging your system of impurities, adding your Psionic level to any Endurance or Healing tests to resist the effects of poison or disease.  
• Injury: As a Greater action you can focus your will towards accelerating your natural healing rate.  With a Formidable (12) Will (Psionic) test you can heal one wound.  
• Wound: As a Greater action you can push past your wounds to keep acting when your body would otherwise fail.  With a Formidable (12) Will (Psionic) test you can remain active for one round per success when you have suffered enough Wounds to render you defeated, but doing so increases the target numbers of any attempts to heal you by the number of rounds you remained active.  

Psychometry

You can sense the psychic impressions left on physical objects or locations by those who come into contact with them and the actions these items or places are witness to.  

Requirement: Psionic 1+, Knowledge 3+

Note this power only works when you are in physical contact with the item or location to be sensed.

• 1 Health: As a Greater action, you can sense the single most important person to hold the item in question or the single most important act it was used in.  
• 2 Health: As a Greater action, you can sense who were the most recent people to hold the item, up to a number of people equal to your Psionic level.  
• 3 Health:  As a Greater action, you can sense the last tasks the item was used in, up to your Psionic level in tasks.  
• Injury: As a Greater action, you can see a number of important events in an item’s history equal to your Psionic level.  Doing this multiple times allows you to stack events, letting you reach deeper and deeper into an item’s past.  
• Wound: As a Greater action, You can sense the entire history of an item, allowing you to discern any owner, any act it was used in, and search them easily via time, importance, emotion, type of action, etc.  

Pyrokinesis

You can use your mental grip on molecules to agitate them, causing them to heat up and even burst into flame with nothing but willpower.  You can also suppress this agitation, but not so much as to actively create cold.  

Requirement: Psionic 1+, Agility 3+

• 1 Health: As a Lesser action, you can heat the area around you, granting you a bonus to resist cold equal to your Psionic level and you can heat up food on demand.  
• 2 Health: As a Lesser action, you can light small fires with flammable materials, like firewood or paper.  You can keep a small torch level light burning in your hand indefinitely, providing light similar to a torch.  You can immediately put yourself out if you catch on fire.  
• 3 Health: As a Lesser action, you can suppress fires within a number of yards equal to 10 yards per Psionic level.  This requires a Will (Psionic) test against the Catch on Fire target number for the fire.  If successful the fire goes out immediately.  
• Injury: As a Lesser action, you can wreath your hands, or items in your hands, in fire.  This will burn or melt items that are not strong enough to resist fire, like wooden weapons, though your hands are immune.  This increases the damage of any attacks made by your Psionic level and any target of a successful attack must succeed in a Routine (6) Agility test or catch on fire.  This lasts for a number of rounds equal to your Psionic level.  
• Wound: As a Greater action, you can cause fire to spontaneously erupt from anywhere within 10 yards per psionic level.  Against inanimate objects they automatically catch on fire.  Against living beings make a Will (Psionic) test against the target’s Combat Defense; treat this as an attack with damage equal to your Psionic level.  That target must make a Formidable (12) Agility test or catch on fire but suffers a penalty equal to your Psionic level.  .  

Remote Viewing

You can see distant locations, including the past if you are powerful enough.  

Requirement: Psionic 1+, Awareness 3+

• 1 Composure: As a Greater action, you can view locations up to 100 yards away per Psionic level if you know the location, have someone describe it to you, or know any item or person in the location.  You cannot hear anything at the target location.  The viewing lasts for one round per Psionic level.
• 2 Composure: As a Greater action, you can view locations up to 1 mile away per Psionic level if you know the location or have someone describe it to you, or know any item or person in the location.  You can hear what is happening at the target location.  The viewing lasts for one minute per Psionic level.  
• 3 Composure: As a Greater action, you can view locations up to 100 miles away per Psionic level if you or anyone you can touch know the location or an item or person in the location.  If you view a person or item, you know their exact distance and direction from your current position.  Anyone you touch may also see what you see.  The viewing lasts for ten minutes per Psionic level.  
• Injury: As a Greater action you can create psionic bugs that you can always sense the location of and view regardless of distance.  You can only have a number of psionic bugs active at a time equal to your Psionic level.  
• Wound: As a greater action you can view locations up to 1000 miles away per Psionic level and up to ten years in the past per Psionic level, but you must know a specific time frame you want to look at.  The viewing lasts for up to one hour per Psionic level.  

Technopathy

You are able to interface with machines on an instinctual level, communicating with them as if you were a machine as well.

• 1 Composure: As a Lesser action, you can tune yourself into the operation of a computer or other device you can touch such that you can use it regardless of language difference or unusual inputs, such as telepathic controls.  This lasts for ten minutes per Psionic level.  
• 2 Composure: Asd a Lesser action, you can focus your psionic talents on a single device, adding your Psionic bonus to tests involving a single specialty of Technology.  This lasts for ten minutes per Psionic level.  
• 3 Composure: As a Lesser action, you can set yourself into a technological trance, granting you a bonus to all Technology tests equal to your Psionic level for ten minutes per Psionic level.  
• Injury: As a Greater action, you can convince machine or device to keep running even when it should be nonfunctional.  This restores a number of Health to the target item equal to your Psionic level, or can remove one Wound from the target device.    
• Wound: As a Greater action you can work to sabotage any technologically complex item using your psionic gifts.  You can make an attack against the device using your Will (Psionic) skill, inflicting your Will +4 in damage that ignores armor.  This has a range of 10 yards per Psionic level.  

Telekinesis

You can move objects with a thought, acting on a larger scale than most other psionic powers by moving entire objects instead of just moving molecules.  

Requirement: Psionic 1+, Athletics 3+

• 1 Composure: As a Lesser action, You can move loose items weighing less than a pound at a rate of speed of 10 yards per round per Psionic level.  You can move the item for one round per Psionic level and can only affect items within line of sight and 100 yards per Psionic level.  
• 2 Composure: As a Lesser action, You can nudge yourself upwards when leaping, climbing, or lifting, granting you a bonus to Athletics checks equal to your Psionic skill.  This lasts for one minute per Psionic level.  
• 3 Composure: As a lesser action you can lift a single item weighing up to ten pounds per Psionic level at a rate of speed of 50 yards per round per Psionic level.  If you use this to throw items, you use your Will (Psionic) as the attack skill and your Will in place of Athletics or Agility for determining damage.  
• Injury: As a lesser action, you can shield yourself with an aura of telekinetic energy, increasing your Armor Value by your Psionic level.  This lasts for one round per Psionic level.  
• Wound: As a Greater action you can release a bolt of telekinetic force capable of smashing doors and crushing opponents.  This is treated as an attack using Will (Psionic) against the target’s Combat Defense and inflicting Health damage equal to your Will+2, but armor is effective against this attack.  If used to break an object use your Will (Psionics) instead of Athletics to see if the target item breaks.  

Telepathy

You can read the thoughts of others and project your thoughts to them.  

Requirement: Psionic 1+, Will 3+

• 1 Composure:As a Free action, you can project a single sentence or image into a target you can see or you know within 100 yards per Psionic level.  
• 2 Composure: As a Lesser action you can attempt to read the thought of an unwilling target with a Will (Psionic) test against their Intrigue Defense.  Each success nets you one surface thought.  The target is not aware of what is happening.  
• 3 Composure: As a Greater action, you can link up a number of people equal to your Psionic level, allowing them to all instantaneously communicate silently as long as they remain within 100 yards per Psionic level.  They must be willing participants and must be known to you or within line of sight.  This lasts for ten minutes per Psionic level.  
• Injury: As a Greater action you can try and root around in the memories of a target to find thoughts deeper than surface thoughts.  This requires a Will (Psionic) test against the target’s Intrigue Defense; if successful you can extract one memory per success.  The target is aware something has stirred up his memories.  
• Wound: As a Greater action, you can fire a bolt of telepathic pain at a target using your Will (Psionic) in an attack against the target’s Intrigue Defense.  The attack inflicts your Will-2 in both Health and Composure damage but ignores armor.