Psionics in the Palladium books Megaversal game system work the same across all the different
settings; it is a point-based system with a few general power levels; it's also reasonably
easy to use in the game and quite versatile, even compared to the full range of spells,
wards, circles, runes and rituals of the magic system.
The power of the mind has always been of great interest to me, and Palladium handles the
subject very well, so settle back, grab yourself a tasty beverage; it's time to get deeply
nerdy.
It's a rare thing that a sapient species can't have at least the potential for psychic abilities,
so much so that it is always directly stated in the species description if this is the
case in the more recent Palladium sourcebooks.
Humans are known to have this capacity, young humans more commonly than adults, those adults
who do may have different capacity levels, with a very rare few having extremely powerful
abilities.
Other species in the megaverse are synonymous with psionic power, such as the Noro of the
Phase World setting and the Three Galaxies.
Increased technological abilities are not always associated with increased psychic powers.
Still, it seems to be a common evolutionary trend that more evolved species will have
a higher level of intellect and with it often comes increased psychic tendencies.
Erick Wujcik was an absolute genius; let me just get that in before anything else; he
was the creative powerhouse behind a lot of the fundamental aspects of the Palladium RPG
system, I mean, if you have not read all of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Roleplaying
game source books, you really should do so if you can get hold of them.
I love the TMNT Guide to the Universe and Transdimensional TMNT, not just for the game
mechanics, the Bio-Energy mutational point buy system is mastercraft game design, no,
the prose, the background story, the broad cosmic theoretical stuff in these books is
simply mind blowing!
Erick's ideas are right up there with Frank Herbert's Dune novels, David Brin's Uplift
Series, Arthur C Clark's explorations of the mysteries of the ancient and modern world,
Eric Von Daniken's theories on alien visitations in ancient history, you name it, Erick is
rightfully a lifetime ENNIE award winner, his work is on par with that of Dave Arneson
and Gary Gygax, without question.
I also think Bruce Cordell deserves similar recognition for his contributions to Tabletop
roleplaying, and it's fitting he gets a mention in a video all about psychic power in a roleplaying
game; he is the mastermind behind the Far Realm, and the Cthulhu mythos-inspired Mind
Flayers of Dungeons & Dragons.
Rifts doesn't include Bio-E point buy very much, but if you want an alternative system
for handling mutation and special powers, Transdimensional TMNT includes a system for
mutating Humans and giving them more restrained access to special powers as each needs to
be purchased with Bio-E points individually, and those points come at the cost of the physical
features that identify a creature as being a human.
You can end up with something a bit like a freaky floating brainy baby with some serious
mind powers, which is very much the probably evolutionary state of humans when you think
about it, and clearly, Erick thought about it quite intensely, no holds barred.
So Rifts players, don't forget the framework that the Rifts setting and megaversal system
was built on are those SDC titles and future writers of Rift's sourcebooks; PLEASE rescue
Erick's work from licence lapse obscurity and adapt it into some more generic titles,
it deserves to be enshrined forever as a core option within the Megaversal system in my
humble opinion.
OK, let's get into it; the basic categories of psychic power vary a little between different
world settings for the megaverse, for example in the Nightbane setting, one can be of the
Psychic Player Character Class, end of story, there is only one in the main sourcebook,
but it Rifts, there are Minor psychics, Major psychics and multiple types of Master psychics.
I think the progression of psychic powers in the evolution of Rifts can certainly be
traced back to Beyond the Supernatural, the Stranger Things, X-files, real lift but all
the urban legends and folklore is secretly real-world setting, its a hell of a lot of
fun to play and was integral to how my group played the game, combined with Ninjas & Superspies
for martial arts stuff and high tech gadgets, plus Heroes Unlimited for all the metahuman
and alien stuff we wanted to throw in there, Beyond the Supernatural features a lot of
psychic character classes, from ordinary people mixed up with weird events, latent psychics
who use their mental powers without really understanding or accepting they even have
these special powers and Nega-psychics who's power is such intense disbelief in the paranormal
it actual shields them from it and can nullify stuff going on around them, which is just
amazing to roleplay, believe me.
The nuts and bolts of Psychic power are Potential Psychic Energy or P.P.E points, Inner Strength
Points, or I.S.P, the character's Psychic outlook, their mastery of different psionic
powers within the different power categories and their level of experience, so let's go
over those terms in more detail.
Latent psychics don't feature in Rifts, they are from Beyond the Supernatural and represent
the fact that one doesn't learn psychic powers in the Palladium system, one is born with
them.
Latent psychics are born with the potential for psyhic power but never develop or truly
master any of it, it may come in flashes, at times of extreme stress, or manifest as
an unusual sensitivity to supernatural goings-on that normally only animals and children can
pick up on.
Minor psychics and Major psychics fit into the niche of those who have natural-born psionic
powers.
About 25-40% of all humans on Rifts Earth have some capacity for psionics, but if you
want to try your luck and roll for it during character creation, you need to roll percentile
dice and get below 26% for minor psionics or below 10% for major psionics.
The other option is to pick an occupational character class that assumes the character
has at least minor psychic powers, such as the Cyber-knight, Operator and those with
Cerebral cybernetic implants called Crazies.
Other than that, you will need to be a Racial character class with automatic psychic abilities
or a Psychic character class.
In the game system, we shorten these terms to O.C.C, R.C.C or P.C.C, so we can confuse
D&D players with our techno-jargon.
Minor Psychics must pick from the categories of Sensitive, Physical or Healer powers and
gets two abilities from that category only, they also have a pool of Inner Strength Points
or I.S.P, based on a mental attribute called Mental Endurance, basically their brain Constitution
score or Willpower, and add up to a dozen points to it, gaining up to six per additional
level of experience, so, not a big deal, they can select any Occupational character class
on top of this.
Major Psychics ramp this up considerably, they select up to eight abilities from One
power category or select six abilities from any of the three categories available, a trade-off
for that versatility.
The Major psychic gets up to 24 points on top of their Mental Endurance score in Inner
Strength points and adds up to seven per level of experience.
However, while they can select an Occupational character class as per usual, their skill
bonuses are all halved and they only get half the usual number of skills normally learned
in relation to that occupation because they can't split their time between learning psychic
abilities and academic skills perfectly, their schooling always suffers, plus, if they are
citizens of the Coalition states on Rift's Earth, they have to get microchipped and registered
with the Coalition government, which can be a real pain in the ass.
The next level of psychic power are what we call the Master Psychics, a player selects
from these psychic character categories and they don't need to worry about occupational
character class stuff; their profession is Master Psychic, but, there are many flavours,
first though, I thought I would mention this fun character class from Beyond the Supernatural,
and excuse me while I get the pronunciation right here... they are called a Nega psychic,
a negative psychic, in Warhammer 40K this is similar to the Null characters, these are
individuals who so adamantly deny the existence of the supernatural that they will just shrug
off all kinds of stuff, walk through magic barriers, resist spells, ignore psionic attacks
and can cause a suppression effect on supernatural creatures and characters or techno-magical
devices around themselves, which can be hilarious and is one of my favourite character types
to play in Beyond the Supernatural.
They also, finally, showed up in Rifts with the addition of the Psyscape sourcebook, and
we get an additional type called Psi-Nullifiers, which is much less problematic for my accent
to pronounce, thank you.
In Rifts, we have general-purpose master psychics called Mind Melters.
We have bio-organic manipulators called Mind Bleeders.
We have Pyromancers called Bursters, Psi-druids, Psi-Ghosts, Psi-slayers, Psi-techs, Psi-warriors,
Zappers, Psi-Stalkers (which are one of the main psychic character classes in the coalition
states which are very cool and usually get to work with Mutant humanoid canines called
Dog Boys) and there are probably others I have missed, but you get the idea, there are
a lot of options, each with their own quirks and coolness.
Master Psychics get access to the Super Psionics category (Mind Bleeders get their own somewhat
gruesome powers over the actual blood flow and biological functioning of other creatures,
a bit like the psychics in the Scanners movie series or Stephan King's Firestarter novels
and movies.. a lot of nose bleeds, occasional eye bleeds and sometimes heads exploding),
the Super psionics are super abilities, essentially.
Psionic powers may have prerequisite abilities before they can be selected, they generally
don't have a huge range, certainly nothing like that of a firearm and often a bit less
than spell magic, they have a duration limit, even if that is based on their mental or physical
endurance, and they have an Inner Strength Point cost and often a saving throw that a
potential target gets to make, based on the target's own resistance.
Master psychics usually have special bonuses for various aspects of those traits and also
special resistances and such of their own.
I won't go into detail on all the different psionic powers as there are a lot of them,
plenty enough to make the master psychics some of the most versatile and fun characters
to play in the game.
Palladium's psionics rules have been around a long time, they have stood the test of decades
of game play with relatively few changes and nothing really dramatic, which is amazing
considering they still hold up perfectly fine today, so back in the 1980's you can imagine
how advanced and easy to use they were compared to Dungeons & Dragons.
Palladium continues to crank out fantastic world and dimension sourcebooks, they don't
concentrate so much on adventures, but usually provide a lot of short and easy to extrapolate
game ideas in a format they call Hook, Line and Sinker, the Hook is the situation that
draws the player characters in, the Line is the set up and the Sinker is the twist or
special feature of the adventure, combine that with a well covered and consistant information
resource about the adventuring environment the player characters are in, and no unecissary
leaps forward 100 years in the world setting's timeline, and you have a damn good RPG formula
that you can literally play game is for decades.
I can personally attest to that.
Now, if you would like some bonus content on this subject, head over to my patreon page,
link down below, and I will have a bonus video for you reviewing the Psycape sourcebook for
the Rifts RPG and the horrifically powerful alien intelligence known as Nxla, The Harvester
of Souls!
My name is AJ Pickett, as always, thanks for listening and I will be back with more for
you, very soon.