Once upon a time there was little old me, that got hit with a jolt of inspiration, and thought up a custom setting for my group. Although the tropes were all there (faster-than-light travel, ignorant Earth being at the edge of a neutral zone between two warring factions, one a mix and match of all manner of decidedly 'non-human' species such as insectoids, lizardmen and even a shapeshifter species, the other a faction of technologically advanced humans and a couple of allies (including the mysterious and friendly-for-now grey aliens). This setting also had psionic powers. We had a blast in this campaign, where unfortunately the group fell apart as more and more players were overtaken by 'adult life'.

Then came Genesys, and it peaked my interest in my old notes and adventures.

Part of the setting was psionic power. Especially in awakened humans and the grey aliens. And it made me wonder how to implement them in a Genesys adaptation. Skills? Talents? Combination? Import the Force Die from Star Wars?

I came up with (something like) this:

Psionic Strength Level

A single, ranked, talent called P.S.L. would fit the talent pyramid. Basically, this talent's rank sets the cap on any psionic skills the character has. No psionic skill could have a greater rank, than the number of ranks the character has in the P.S.L. talent, and no charater can develop more psionic skills than the P.S.L. rank.

Psionic Power Skills

A couple of skills would suffice, noneed for skill bloat by introducing each and every different power as a different skill. But broad categories such as " Telepathy ", granting the power to read thoughts, project thoughts, dominate minds, falsify an opponent's senses with psionic cloaking or adding illusory perceptions. Or a category such as " Telekinesis " to be able to move objects my strength of will alone, or blasting somebody with psionic force (maybe with a knockdown effect in there as well), levitation (by telekinetically lifting yourself off the ground). " Pyro/Cryokinesi s " would allow manipulation of agitation of matter, altering temperatures up or down, even into hazardous levels (yet not something magical and flashy such as summoning a fireball or ice bolt, and not sure of this would be one or two separate skills). " Biokinesis " would be the manipulation of one's own bodily functions. Rapid healing, shaking off critical effects, increasing strength and/or nimbleness, or inrceasing he effectiveness of one's own senses. " Electrokinesis " would be the manipulation of electrical currents and energies, overloading electric systems, shock-kickstarting a heart, causing electric lights to go on in the same room.

Of course, the specific effect one wants to reach when using a psionic skill determines the difficulty of the dice pool. Not being able to concentrate would add the setback dice, mindcontrolling a very disciplined individual would be an opposed check where the challenge die might pop up. That sort of thing.

Thoughts and advice on this (still rather rough) draft?

Don't the magic rules exist? I mean, being called "magic" doesn't mean they can't be reskinned into psionic rules.

Yes, the magic rules do exist. A reskin might be possible.

However, the three different magic skills as represented do not match up with the seven or eight disciplines we had established in the original adaptation of another RPG system we used to play in the custom setting mentioned. Hence, new skills. Call them reskins, call them whatever you like. But as I presented them, they more closely match the established lore of the custom setting we gamed in for well over two years in total, over three separate campaigns.

The other game system had a limit on the amount of (magic/psionic) skills available to choose. It was a hard limit of 3 different disciplines, where one could not start to develop a new one until the previous one had been maxed, which I intended to be a little more flexible with. We used a custom rule then to allow for a character to grow in psionic power and break the 3-power limit. We have a talent system now, which (inspired by the Force Rating talent from Star Wars) can be used to simulate the growth. Hence allowing a character to take more different skills with the aforementioned P.S.L. talent.

The other system limited powers to three separate disciplines max, and you had to fully develop one before being able to take the next discipline. While clunky, it limited power gaming (theoretically, for I had the fortune of having not a single player that tried to break the system). With the P.S.L. ranked talent I presented as a skill/discipline rank limit, I tried to open more options (such as developing two or three psionic powers at the same time) while still putting down a heavy investment of XP for characters that 'want it all'.

Come to think of it, by limiting the P.S.L. talent to rank 5 (Tier 5), a character couldn't 'get it all', due to the limit on amount of disciplines in the P.S.L. talent.

As such, I didn't simply reskin magic rules, I tried to adapt, within the FFG Dice Pool system with Genesys as its base, the psionics as we (sort of) played them then. Thoughts on that? Does it seem balanced? Is it open to abuse? Is it too much to have more than three skills dedicated to psionics? Will the talent be a problem?

I don't really see the point of the talent. Buying ranks in skills already has a cost, and is therefore already self limiting. The power of spells is limited by the ranks in skills and knowledge, so power is also limited by cost. The talent just makes things more expensive, which may be fine for the balance of your homebrew, but seems clunky. Why not just make magic skills more expensive to buy?

Honestly, having to buy up three or more magic skills is going to be extremely expensive for characters by itself.

Disciplines are covered by talents. Three characters may all have three ranks of Mechanics, but talents are the differentiation between a garage mechanic, a craftsman, and a demolitionist.

I'm playing around with a setting that only needs a single magic skill. To make up for this, spells are split into differentiating categories, and I introduced talents that allow characters to specialize in one category while being deficient in another. Do much the same: Translate your disciplines into different psionic powers, divide the powers among your psionic skills (you may only two of the three suggested, Intellect and Willpower), and create talents that give incentive for favoring a discipline over another.