First things first - part of this Book is a recap of psi powers included in the Basic Rules, nothing unreasonable about that and it's only about 5% of the product - what's new is greater detail on "Defining Psionics" including a reference to Tech Levels and several new Skills (found on page 54), how to acquire psi powers in "Doors of Perception" which dovetails nicely with some of the new Careers such as the Dedicated Psion Agency, Psi Scholar and Mystical Order (and those Careers plus several more get a full treatment with d66 Events table). Latent psychic potential is also covered nicely.
This Book is clearly going to be useful with Hammers Slammers and the Babylon 5 versions of MT, plus Cthulhu !
Psionic Trauma is given a chapter and it includes reference to insanity and phobias, but here I would have liked to see an optional link to Psi combat or assault - I expect not every ref' or every milieu wants a psychic attack to translate into just the equivalent of a gunshot or swordcut, but to do that of course would have needed a rewrite of the earlier Basic Rules for Telepathic Assault so instead there's "Psionic Attack", a distinct Advanced Talent, and only it includes a way to induce Trauma. The aforementioned phobias run from Ablutophobia to Zoophobia, 4 dense summary pages, many are rather obscure and will probably prove difficult to make relevant.
The New Equipment section didn't thrill me as much s some other parts, way back in the beginning of this Book there's reference to even Average Stellar tech levels of the Imperium making common use of Psi - I would have liked to see some Megacorp products laid out, only from other sources do we know SuSAG produces Psi drug, but how does Makhidkarum or Sternmetal Horizons engage Psi tech ?
This was part of my first purchases from DriveThru, which by the way was quick and easy and most satisfactory - I'm a traditionalist and collector and I'd prefer to have the hardcopies but there was no easy way to get the Mongoose Traveller books I wanted at a reasonable price (no local store had the correct supply chain) so I gave this system a try and got several products for the price of one real book.
I'm quite pleased with the Mongoose Traveller line, I've been a fan of Traveller since its beginning and I appreciate this "reboot" of the original even more than some of the intermediate editions. Kudos for the folks who wrote and play tested Psion, and the editor too.
I definitely going to include some of the "advanced" powers into my ongoing (non-Imperium) campaign as it grows, we recently had two new characters achieve Training and that's going to add a new dimension to the game.
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |