[3.5] The Versatility of Psionic Powers

[jameswilliamogle]

...You know, Linked Power might be a way to get around that pesky 1 minute manifesting time of Psionic Minor Creation, too (or Fabricate, or whatever).  I think it can also reduce costs, if I'm thinking correctly...

Linked Power Metapower Synchronicity + whatever.  Synchronicity is the power manifest this turn: name the power to be manifest under normal situations as the readied action, to go off in the event that your turn ends (which is Synchronicity's effect).  Specify that next round, you want the linked power to be manifest.  This nets a -1 PP cost in the power to be manifest the following round, since Sync only costs one PP, which lets you manifest the power on the 2nd round augmenting it 1 pp further.

Example: 2nd level Psion with Synchronicity, Force Screen, Vigor, Linked Power, and Metapower: Synchronicity / Linked Power.  Round 1, Sync is used to manifest Force Screen, Round 2 Vigor with 15 HP is manifested.  The whole thing costs 1 Power Point and my focus.

Combined with Earth Sense / Earth Power, thats a net 4 PP reduction from 2 powers over 2 rounds.

(I'm actually trying to verify that it works this way over on the simple Q&A thread.)

Linked Power: THE metapsionic feat for Diversity.

[dark_samuari]

God I love psionics...

[Saeomon]

I find the prevailing view that Linked Power reduces the manifestation time of the second power to be a very generous reading of the feat. After all, there is this:

"The power that is manifested in this round is not altered in any way, nor is the linked power that goes off in the next round..."

In light of the bolded text in the spoiler, a DM could say that, yeah, a power that takes more than 1 standard action to manifest "goes off" in the next round, but it still takes the full duration in its individual description before the effect comes into being. In other words, the timer starts running down, but you still have to wait the full minute or whatever until you actually see something happen.

Another DM might say that you simply can't use the feat with powers that take more than 1 standard action or 1 full round action to manifest.

The bottom line is that a textual ambiguity exists. Not all DMs are going to be generous and interpret such ambiguities to the players' advantage.

[jameswilliamogle]

The counter argument to that is to say that the text is just there to explain how the power works compared to other metapsionic powers (which all alter the power in some fashion).  "nor is the linked power that goes off next round." is the rest of that line.  The power that manifests the following round is not being altered, but I can't find in the SRD where "manifest" means anything other than the power coming into effect (vs. "manifesting" which applies to the time between spending the points and the time the effect happens, see concentration under the psionics section, for examples of that).  It says "manifest", and I take that to mean the power is in effect, not that it still requires concentration, etc., and the effect hasn't happened yet.

Anyways, I don't think its necessary to speak about it here.  I agree that a DM will nerf it anyways.

[Psithief]

and that brings us back to defining 'go off'.

bleh.