Secret Societies of NeoExodus–Section Omega

By Thilo Graf

This pdf from Louis Porter Design is 15 pages long with the 1 page front cover leaving 14 pages of content.

The pdf kicks off with 6 pages history of Section Omega in the world of NeoExodus, its membership benefits, short write-ups of the 3 facilities and so on. The basic idea is that psionics had been absent from the world for some time and then, suddenly reappeared, making the government of an empire create an elite cadre of hunters to quell and control the rising manifesters. Thus, Section Omega is a kind of secret police, with all the potential conspiracy-angles associated. If you don’t use psionics, you might even employ them as a kind of organization that hunts sorcerers. Enough information is given to make Section Omega good guys, bad guys, anything between and provide an intrigue-ladden backdrop.

Section Omega employs 2 new PrCs:

• Id Hunter (5 levels, d8, medium BAB, bad Fort-save, medium Ref+Will-saves, 6+Int skills per level): A kind of SWAT-officer for psionic foes, these elite soldiers can negate psionic abilities for a limited amount of time when hitting enemies, siphon their PSP and even knock them out cold. I LOVE this class.
• Psychic Overseer (5 levels, d6, bad BAB, bad Fort- and Ref-saves, medium Will save, 6+Int skills per level): The surveillance department of Section Omega, these people may mark targets, scan huge areas for psionic activity and are thus great hunters. However, I’d think twice before allowing players to take this class: The Combination of marking targets psionically and the huge sweeping scans for activity means that the DM potentially has to juggle with a lot of psionics and where they are at any given time. On the other hand, they make GREAT tools to instil paranoia on PCs on the loose and for NPCs, I’ll definitely use them.

After that, we get new psionic items:

• 1 new psionic weapon quality (Id Hunter): can use the siphoning of the IDhunters, additional damage against psionic creatures. “Id Weapon” should be printed in bold, though.
• Psychic Halo: A kind of helmet (though I’m not entirely sure how they look) that makes using psionics hard. I’m going to use this idea and also use a “magical” halo for sorcerers and wizards.
• Psychic Restraints: The little brother of the halo. NICE!
• Psychic Shocker: A grenade-like weapon, this does PSP-damage.

We also get a new psionic minor artifact, the psychic annihilator that Section Omega mass-produces, and which all but destroys psionic abilities in the subjected individual. Frightening, deadly, cool and morally ambiguous. I love it.

Finally, we get 27 new psionic feats:

• Cortical resonance: Choose a power that is no ray or touch. This power deals +2 damage.
• Crystal Psiweapon: You embed your Psicrystal in a weapon.
• Discover Psionic Power: Gain an additional Power.
• Empower Psychic Strike: Change Psychic Strike d8 to d10. This can be taken AT FIRST LEVEL. This feat is Op, sorry to say it, it just is. No Soulknife would leave home without it.
• Enhance Psicrystal: Count as +4 levels for powers of Psicrystal
• Enhanced Psi-like abilities: Count as +2 manifester levels for racial abilities.
• Favoured Energy: Choose a favoured energy: You deal +1 damage per die with it.
• Focused Psionic Power: +1 to overcoming resistance and DCs for your your powers of a chosen discipline, expend focus for +2.
• Force of Will: Once per round, when targeted by a psionic fort-or ref-save inducing powers, make a will save instead. I don’t like feats of this kind and frankly think it’s too strong. If it were usable only a limited amount of times per day, okay, but this is too much.
• Layered Defence: Expend your focus to manifest two of the following powers: empty mind, intellect fortress, mental barrier, thought shield or tower of iron will as an immediate action for +1 PSP. Total number of PSP cost by both powers cannot exceed your manifester level. First i thought: WTF? Then, due to the limitations, I’ve actually grown fond of this feat. Interesting idea.
• Mind Leach: When manifesting mind trap, you gain the leached points as temporal points.
• Mindspeak: Gain limited telepathy subject to language barriers in 30 ft. Nice idea.
• Mirror Mind: Expend your focus to send a power you saved against back to its manifester. this is so unbalanced I can’t even begin to describe it and will just say that it’s requisite of Manifester lvl 5 should rather read 15.
• Power Psicrystal: Psicrystal becomes a cognizance crystal capable of storing 1 point per 3 levels.
• Primordial Surge: When criting your enemies, expend your focus to demoralize them. I think enemies should get a save against this.
• Psionic Deflection: This lists “Armed Deflect Arrows” as a prerequisite, but I’m not entirely sure where this feat is supposed to be. The feats works as follows: Expend your focus to deflect rays. A nice idea, but another feat that is a bit strong for my tastes.
• Psionic Initiative: Gain +2 to Ini while focused, stacks with other effects.
• Psionic Multifist: Charge your fists for +1 damage for 2 PSP.
• Psionic Multishot: Same for ranged attacks.
• Psionic Rejuvenation: Heal 1+ Con-mod ability damage/burn per day. Nice!
• Psionic Strike: Your unarmed attacks deal 1d6, Psionic fist deals +1d6 damage.
• Psychic Sense: As long as you are focused, you can make a DC 20 Will save to avoid being flat-footed or surprised.
• Third Eye: +2 to spellcraft/psicraft and +4 to resist illusion spells and spell-like abilities.
• Vampire MInd: Expend focus, power that deals not energy damage grants you half the damage you inflict (hit points or abilities) as temporal points.
• Vigilant Psychic Defender: Gain new augment options for some powers.
• Wounding Cut: Deal +1d4 bleed damage on a critical when focused or expend focus for 1 point Con damage.
• Expend your focus and spend +2 points: You deal an additional +1 Con-damage with your power.

Conclusion:

Layout in this book is clear and the one piece of artwork is beautiful. It should be noted that LPjR Design has cooperated with Jeremy Smith of Dream-scarred press, thus ensuring that the material presented herein is actually fully compatible with “Psionics Unleashed” and it shows. Section Omega as a secret organization absolutely rocks – I love the writing, their morally-ambiguous nature, their tools and their PrCs (though I’d never let my players play a Psychic Overseer – I’m too lazy to keep track.). This section, up to the and including the items, I loved. Then came the feats and unfortunately, for me, the book went downhill there: Where before we had only minor editing glitches here and there, I encountered some in this section. I didn’t like most of the feats, as they either felt boring or too powerful for my rather conservative tastes when it comes to power-level of characters. On the other hand, as a DM you might limit their availability. The writing is top-notch and the idea of the secret police is well-implemented. Thus, I’ll settle for two verdicts: The first part of the book gets a 4.5-stars-rating from me, the feats get 2 stars.

My final verdict will thus be in between, 3.5 stars. Depending on what you’re looking for, round up or down. Personally, I’ll ignore the feats and settle for 4 stars.

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