I've been working on the rules for my DELVE setting, but I figured this was quick and easy enough to share right now: my rules for Mentalism/Psionics. I'm not using Runes in my setting, but I did want to incorporate psionics because two of my homebrew races are known for using them.

Certain races, as well as some exceptional individuals, have the potential to manifest tremendous mental powers. Through intense training, focus, and force of will, they can perform feats that rival those of any arcane spellcaster. This power is known as Mentalism, or psionics , and its practitioners are known as mentalists or psionicists.

Mentalism is treated as a magic skill like Arcana, Divine, Primal, or Verse, though it is not, strictly speaking, magical. Mentalism is wholly exclusive from the other forms of magic: you cannot learn Mentalism by any means if you already have ranks in another magic skill, whether from your career or race. If you choose a career that grants Mentalism as a career skill, you may not subsequently acquire any other magic skill.

Mentalism (Intellect) allows you to use the following types of spells: Attack, Augment, Barrier, Curse, Heal, and Utility. When using Mentalism, the spellcaster uses their ranks in Discipline, instead of any Knowledge skill, for determining spell effects.

Mentalist Career

These characters have harnessed the power of their minds to perform incredible feats. The Mentalist counts the following skills as career skills: Brawl, Coercion, Discipline, Knowledge (Forbidden), Knowledge (Lore), Mentalism, Perception, and Vigilance.

Looks pretty good for introducing psionics to a fantasy-type game that also has magic. I'm thinking that for a campaign where psionics are the only type of paranormal powers available, there might be several psionics skills, similar to the different magic skills. The various "magic" actions could be divided among them. For instance, it would make sense to tie something like Telepathy to Intellect, but Tele-empathy would more likely be Presence, and Telekinesis could be Willpower.

Just some thoughts. I like your solution for a simple way to inject psionics into a sword-and-sorcery setting.

This caught my interest. I've been wanting to do a campaign similar to the movie Push for a while. I'll be coming back to this thread when that time comes.

57 minutes ago, SavageBob said:

Looks pretty good for introducing psionics to a fantasy-type game that also has magic. I'm thinking that for a campaign where psionics are the only type of paranormal powers available, there might be several psionics skills, similar to the different magic skills. The various "magic" actions could be divided among them. For instance, it would make sense to tie something like Telepathy to Intellect, but Tele-empathy would more likely be Presence, and Telekinesis could be Willpower.

Just some thoughts. I like your solution for a simple way to inject psionics into a sword-and-sorcery setting.

Yeah, this is just for a fantasy setting, I would tune it differently for a sci-fi or paranormal setting. I will add some focus items later, I'm running a game in an hour.

That seems very similar to what I was trying to do here: Psionics as Magic

I was trying to expand on that for incorporation into my Morrow Project setting....

For the split of 3 skills, I would do something like Ergokinesis [energy manipulation], Psychometry [involving the senses], and something to do with the body.

The Dissonance Talent from Realms of Terrinoth makes a great template for a psychic blast type attack, you could perhaps increase the damage a touch, but it’s easier than a Blast Attack at close range and doesn’t care about Soak which is fitting for psionics

The rules as written don't discuss how Dispel and Counterspell interact with Mentalism (I would guess they don't). Also, casting magic has a table of drawbacks based on things like armor and whether you have a hand free. I assume these also don't affect Mentalism. If that's the case, does the skill come with any sort of compensatory drawback to balance it out?

33 minutes ago, Zenferno said:

The rules as written don't discuss how Dispel and Counterspell interact with Mentalism (I would guess they don't). Also, casting magic has a table of drawbacks based on things like armor and whether you have a hand free. I assume these also don't affect Mentalism. If that's the case, does the skill come with any sort of compensatory drawback to balance it out?

I intended for the same drawbacks to apply, and for the same Threat/Despair results to apply when generated. I have no issue with Dispel or Counterspell working against Mentalism, either... for mechanical purposes I'm treating it like another form of casting. If Dispel/Counterspell can work against divine empowerment or the primal forces of nature, no reason it can't work against the powers of the mind. A Mentalist could use Counterspell as well (although you can call it Intellect Fortress or something else more psionic-y).