Psionics Toolkit

Introduction

The Psionics Toolkit is "a sourcebook for integrating and expanding psionics in your campaign". The back of the book (from which the quote was taken) emphasizes that even though this book contains "crunchy bits" its main focus is on ideas to help integrate psionics in your campaign.

Presentation

The Psionics Toolkit is a 56 page saddle-bound booklet of the same size as most d20 softcovers (10.78 x 8.42 inches).
The cover is a decent full-color piece done by Brian LeBlanc that shows some of the creatures and NPCs from the book. I thought this was a nice way of getting full-color illustrations of the monsters in an otherwise black and white product. Well done!
Interior art is by Claudio Prozas of ENWorld fame and is generally well done and relevant to the context it is placed in.
There are some borders in the book, but they don't take up much space and the font is easily readable, but not too big. Also, the book is ordered in a sensible way and includes an index, so it's easy to find what you're looking for.
There are a few minor errors in the book (most of them spelling related), but nothing that detracted from my enjoyment of this product.
All things considered, I would say that they did a fine job at presenting this product.

Content

The Psionics Toolkit is divided in 7 chapters and also contains a title page with an index, a short introduction, designer's notes and the obligatory OGL.
Something that drew my attention is that all material from chapters 2 though 7 (with the exclusion of the artwork) is open gaming content. At 44 pages from a 56 page booklet, this is way more than is the norm (in my experience you generally get 5 to 15 percent). I think this is pretty cool of Fiery Dragon and Mr. Mearls, who are essentially giving three quarters of their product away for free. Very nice.

I will now briefly discuss each chapter:

Chapter 1: Twelve Questions About Psionics

This chapter asks 12 questions that are intended to help you integrate psionics into your campaign in a believable and interesting way. It also gives you advise on the consequences of certain decisions and offers some interesting suggestions that you may not have thought of yourself. In short: food for thought.
This chapter will definitely safe you time and effort when integrating psionics into a campaign and will most likely be of interest even if you've already done so. Good stuff.

Chapter 2: People, Places and Things

This chapter presents a new race, the Vaniar, who are especially adept at psionics as well as Vinduil, a god of psionics, and several semi-developed adventure seeds.
Personally, I don't usually like races that are designed to be specifically good members of a certain class, as these will tempt players to always choose race X in combination with class Y. However, if you don't think that will be a problem then the Vaniar are not a bad race to include in your campaign. They're not uninteresting and are reasonably balanced with the core races.
As for the adventure seeds: many of these are related to the Vaniar or Vinduil, but they are generic enough to be inserted into most campaign worlds, yet detailed enough to be easily used. Again: good stuff.

Chapter 3: Classes

This chapter I was less enthusiastic about. It presents 2 new prestige classes, the Psychic Thief and the Beastmaster, and a Psionics clerical domain.
The Psychic Thief is basically a Rogue/Psion combination with very low requirements (6 ranks in Bluff and Innuendo, the feat Iron Will and a roleplaying requirement, so a rogue can qualify at level 3). My group decided that it was too powerful as it gets almost everything a rogue gets (sometimes even before the rogue would get it), a good Will safe, a bigger skill list and psionic powers of up to level 4 while the only things it loses are 2 skill points per level and Uncanny Dodge progression.
The other prestige class, the Beastmaster, is more interesting. Beastmasters are psionic warriors with abilities tied to a totem animal. I haven't had the opportunity to test this class in play, but it seems to be reasonably balanced, possibly a little underpowered.
The Psionics clerical domain is interesting, but is actually more of a Telepathy clerical domain. It would have been nice if some spells like telekinesis were included. Still, this is a minor complaint.

Chapter 4: Organizations

In this chapter we find a system for describing organizations in stat blocks. The stat blocks as presented here work pretty well. They're not too complicated or detailed, yet still contain all the essential information that you'll want to use that organization.
The chapter also includes a few example organizations and a small number of magical items related to one of those organizations (an organization that opposes psionics). These items are all interesting, but their usefulness will vary depending on how prominent psionics are in your campaign. If psionics are very prominent or uncommon, then you will probably want to adjust the prices of these items a bit.

Chapter 5: Psionics In Established Campaigns

This short chapter (2 pages) gives some advice on handling the introduction of psionics in a campaign that previously had none. It focuses in particular on how to handle players who wish to retroactively take levels in a psionic class.
While this chapter doesn't provide many options, it does give some interesting advice.

Chapter 6: New Monsters

You'll find three new psionic creatures here as well as three new psionic template creatures. These will all make interesting additions to a campaign and seem to be mechanically sound.
I do think that the Challenge Ratings of some of them are a bit too low. Especially the Psi-Killer template can result in an extremely dangerous opponent while it only adds 1 to the CR.

Chapter 7: Characters

In the final chapter you'll find 7 NPCs complete with story hooks. Some of these are more interesting than others, but if you're short on inspiration than you can easily find enough material here for a few sessions of play.

Conclusion

As a DM with an interest in psionics I found this sourcebook to be of great use. Like the blurb on the back of it says: it's full of ideas.
DMs who are thinking of introducing psionics to their campaign really can't go wrong with this product and DMs who have already done so can find enough story hooks to keep their players busy for a significant number of sessions.
On the other hand, players will probably be disappointed by this book. There are a few things in it that they may find interesting, but there's not much. If you're looking for a psionic splatbook a la Sword and Fist, then you'll have to look elsewhere (I hear Mongoose is doing a Quintessential Psion/Psychic Warrior).

I think the Psionics Toolkit succeeded in what it set out to do and I'll grant it a 5 for style and a 4 for content.

Psionics Toolkit
Psionics Toolkit Playtest Review by Jan-Willem van den Broek on 27/08/02 Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 4 (Meaty) The Psionics Toolkit is an excellent resource for DMs who intend to run a campaign in which psionics play an important role. Players looking for kewl new feats and powers will probably be disappointed, though. Product: Psionics Toolkit Author: Mike Mearls Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Fiery Dragon Productions Line: d20 Cost: 11.95 USD Page count: 56 Year published: 2001 ISBN: 1-58846-194-7 SKU: WW16006 Comp copy?: yes Playtest Review by Jan-Willem van den Broek on 27/08/02 Genre tags: Fantasy	Psionics Toolkit Introduction The Psionics Toolkit is "a sourcebook for integrating and expanding psionics in your campaign". The back of the book (from which the quote was taken) emphasizes that even though this book contains "crunchy bits" its main focus is on ideas to help integrate psionics in your campaign. Presentation The Psionics Toolkit is a 56 page saddle-bound booklet of the same size as most d20 softcovers (10.78 x 8.42 inches). The cover is a decent full-color piece done by Brian LeBlanc that shows some of the creatures and NPCs from the book. I thought this was a nice way of getting full-color illustrations of the monsters in an otherwise black and white product. Well done! Interior art is by Claudio Prozas of ENWorld fame and is generally well done and relevant to the context it is placed in. There are some borders in the book, but they don't take up much space and the font is easily readable, but not too big. Also, the book is ordered in a sensible way and includes an index, so it's easy to find what you're looking for. There are a few minor errors in the book (most of them spelling related), but nothing that detracted from my enjoyment of this product. All things considered, I would say that they did a fine job at presenting this product. Content The Psionics Toolkit is divided in 7 chapters and also contains a title page with an index, a short introduction, designer's notes and the obligatory OGL. Something that drew my attention is that all material from chapters 2 though 7 (with the exclusion of the artwork) is open gaming content. At 44 pages from a 56 page booklet, this is way more than is the norm (in my experience you generally get 5 to 15 percent). I think this is pretty cool of Fiery Dragon and Mr. Mearls, who are essentially giving three quarters of their product away for free. Very nice. I will now briefly discuss each chapter: Chapter 1: Twelve Questions About Psionics This chapter asks 12 questions that are intended to help you integrate psionics into your campaign in a believable and interesting way. It also gives you advise on the consequences of certain decisions and offers some interesting suggestions that you may not have thought of yourself. In short: food for thought. This chapter will definitely safe you time and effort when integrating psionics into a campaign and will most likely be of interest even if you've already done so. Good stuff. Chapter 2: People, Places and Things This chapter presents a new race, the Vaniar, who are especially adept at psionics as well as Vinduil, a god of psionics, and several semi-developed adventure seeds. Personally, I don't usually like races that are designed to be specifically good members of a certain class, as these will tempt players to always choose race X in combination with class Y. However, if you don't think that will be a problem then the Vaniar are not a bad race to include in your campaign. They're not uninteresting and are reasonably balanced with the core races. As for the adventure seeds: many of these are related to the Vaniar or Vinduil, but they are generic enough to be inserted into most campaign worlds, yet detailed enough to be easily used. Again: good stuff. Chapter 3: Classes This chapter I was less enthusiastic about. It presents 2 new prestige classes, the Psychic Thief and the Beastmaster, and a Psionics clerical domain. The Psychic Thief is basically a Rogue/Psion combination with very low requirements (6 ranks in Bluff and Innuendo, the feat Iron Will and a roleplaying requirement, so a rogue can qualify at level 3). My group decided that it was too powerful as it gets almost everything a rogue gets (sometimes even before the rogue would get it), a good Will safe, a bigger skill list and psionic powers of up to level 4 while the only things it loses are 2 skill points per level and Uncanny Dodge progression. The other prestige class, the Beastmaster, is more interesting. Beastmasters are psionic warriors with abilities tied to a totem animal. I haven't had the opportunity to test this class in play, but it seems to be reasonably balanced, possibly a little underpowered. The Psionics clerical domain is interesting, but is actually more of a Telepathy clerical domain. It would have been nice if some spells like telekinesis were included. Still, this is a minor complaint. Chapter 4: Organizations In this chapter we find a system for describing organizations in stat blocks. The stat blocks as presented here work pretty well. They're not too complicated or detailed, yet still contain all the essential information that you'll want to use that organization. The chapter also includes a few example organizations and a small number of magical items related to one of those organizations (an organization that opposes psionics). These items are all interesting, but their usefulness will vary depending on how prominent psionics are in your campaign. If psionics are very prominent or uncommon, then you will probably want to adjust the prices of these items a bit. Chapter 5: Psionics In Established Campaigns This short chapter (2 pages) gives some advice on handling the introduction of psionics in a campaign that previously had none. It focuses in particular on how to handle players who wish to retroactively take levels in a psionic class. While this chapter doesn't provide many options, it does give some interesting advice. Chapter 6: New Monsters You'll find three new psionic creatures here as well as three new psionic template creatures. These will all make interesting additions to a campaign and seem to be mechanically sound. I do think that the Challenge Ratings of some of them are a bit too low. Especially the Psi-Killer template can result in an extremely dangerous opponent while it only adds 1 to the CR. Chapter 7: Characters In the final chapter you'll find 7 NPCs complete with story hooks. Some of these are more interesting than others, but if you're short on inspiration than you can easily find enough material here for a few sessions of play. Conclusion As a DM with an interest in psionics I found this sourcebook to be of great use. Like the blurb on the back of it says: it's full of ideas. DMs who are thinking of introducing psionics to their campaign really can't go wrong with this product and DMs who have already done so can find enough story hooks to keep their players busy for a significant number of sessions. On the other hand, players will probably be disappointed by this book. There are a few things in it that they may find interesting, but there's not much. If you're looking for a psionic splatbook a la Sword and Fist, then you'll have to look elsewhere (I hear Mongoose is doing a Quintessential Psion/Psychic Warrior). I think the Psionics Toolkit succeeded in what it set out to do and I'll grant it a 5 for style and a 4 for content.