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Psionics. Just the sound of the word is enough to give me a grade A headache. It brings to mind ancient days with 1st edition D&D, where one of your players had scores for a character that qualified him to gain PSIONIC POWERS, or at least he claimed to, and after much badgering, convinced you to allow it. Thus began the many hours of planning adventures shot down the toliet in the first five minutes of play because of the "psychic" in the group. Psionic rules were hokey, cobbed together, unbalanced and above all, a major pain in the rump.

But now comes the new D&D Psionics Handbook, a nicely done hardbound tome adding the realms of the mind to your average 3rd edition campaign. But how does it fare??

Quite well, it seems. The Psionics Handbook starts out with two additional character classes for 3rd edition; the Psion, who are masters of mental powers, and the Psychic Warrior, who is a capable fighter who augments his might with psionics. Both these classes are the only ones capable of using the multitude of new Psionic skills, feats, talents and powers, of which there are a more than you can shake a wand of summoning at. Nearly all the psionics fit neatly into the D20 system, and don't feel like they've merely been tacked on. Most of them, anyway.

Psionic Combat is, well, a little different. Mental combat involves choosing one of five attack modes, and reacting to attack with one of five defense modes. All these modes have very familiar old names and should make any old grognard nostalgic for days gone by.(id insinuation, anyone???) All these attacks do damage, if successful, in temporary damage to your stats, much like diseases and poisons do. I wish the combat were a little more like regular combat, using the same mechanics like the rest of the psionic powers do. Could noone figure out a better way to do it? Maybe they just were focussed on keeping the kewl old names..

In addition to powers and skills, the Psionics Handbook also offers many psionic items to stump your players with and the coolest part of all, the monsters!! Ah, at last, the return of the Githyanki and Githzerai, my most favorite of extra-dimensional marauders. And if the creatures contained do not frighten your players enough, there's a psionic template that can make any monster a psionic nightmare. My only beef here is what about the mind flayer?? Instead of a new writeup for Illithid, the GM is instructed to simply apply the psionic template the the Mind Flayer stats from the Monster Manual. Given the Illithid's prominence in the Underdark, you'd think they would get a little more coverage than that.

I hate to admit it, but the book seems balanced, as do the character classes and the new prestige classes included as well. The book is so well done, I'm tempted to run my campaign with psionics alone, and toss out magic altogether!! (Oh, but that'd be mean..)

Overall, the Psionics Handbook is a must have for the D&D player and judge. It may annoy some that the book is thinner than the Monster Manual but six dollars more expensive, but other than that there is little to gripe about here. Go get one now.

Dungeons & Dragons Psionics Handbook