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Okay, so I'm a GURPS fan obviously, but that doesn't mean I like everything that comes down the line. How does GURPS Psionic Powers (which I'm going to abbreviate GPP) measure up?
The INTRODUCTION says that GPP is sort of an expansion for GURPS Powers. Like, GURPS Powers gives you thousands of options, and GPP takes those options and picks out the best ones for psi, and makes a system out of it. It also suggested skipping ahead and peeking at chapter 3 first, so I did.
CHAPTER ONE sets up the fundamentals. First, it explains - specifically for psi - what a power is, how the power modifiers works, and so on. I have to be honest: This is the first time that I really understood how "powers" work in GURPS 4th Edition. I've read GURPS Powers many times, along with the psi guidelines in GURPS Characters, but it never really "clicked" until I read GPP. Now I can go back into GURPS Powers and it all makes sense, but I needed something specific - an example - to make it clear.
GPP adds a bunch of things to the "power" concept, though - at least for psi. First, all psi abilities have to buy a skill, too. At first, this seemed to make psi a worse value, but then chapter one adds all this other stuff you can do with skills. (Examples: Skills add to gestalts (instead of just Talent adding like in Powers), you roll skill for extra effort and power defenses (instead of just Will), etc.) Plus, maybe it's the old-school GURPSer in me, but it just feels right to mate skills and psi.
The best part of this chapter is psi techniques, which let you pay 2 FP and take a skill penalty to bend the rules. Like, let's say I have a Mind Shield (so I have to buy "Mind Shield" skill). I can roll at -6 to protect other people, roll at -5 to trap intruders in my mind, and so on...and if I really like one of these tricks, I can buy off the penalty with character points. This is a totally cool and original idea that makes psi really unique -- I hope that newer GURPS books don't use this rule for any other power sources; instead, each source should have a new, equally cool, unique trick. (Like, a GURPS Chi Powers should figure out at least one thing that Chi powers can do that no other type of power can.)
Other rules include new combat moves like All-Out Concentrate and All-Out Mental Defense, plus rules for whether subjects can tell when they're the victims of psionic abilities. This is awesome stuff that, frankly, should've been in the Basic Set IMO. There are also lots of boxes full of advice on how to build psis and decide what abilities are psi and which are normal, and so on. Tons of good advice for GMs there, all really well written.
CHAPTER TWO is the "Advantages and Modifiers" chapter, just like chapter 2 of GURPS Powers. No real new advantages (unless you count a really neat variant on Enhanced Defenses), but tons of modifiers and some rules clarifications for the existing ones. The new modifiers are mostly to customize the stuff in chapter 3, but they're mostly really generic and useful. For example, Affliction has a new rule where you can pay triple for the Attribute Penalty enhancement, but then you multiply the effect by how much you win -- so, you're paying triple, but if you win the contest with your victim by 7, you get seven times the effect! This gets used later on for one of the abilities, but it's not restricted to that - anyone buying Affliction can use this new rule. All the stuff in this chapter is like that; it makes sense for psi, but it also fits other approaches just fine - there's no reason someone with a Magic power couldn't use that rule.
CHAPTER THREE makes up about 2/3 of the book, with about a hundred premade psi abilities. There are ten psi powers (Anti-Psi, Astral Projection, Electrokinesis, ESP, Probability Alteration, Psychic Healing, Psychic Vampirism, Psychokinesis, Telepathy, and Teleportation), and each one comes with between five to twenty premade abilities. Every ability comes in multiple levels, so you can decide how much power you need, and the description includes all the rules so you don't need to go flipping between eight books to figure out what each enhancement does. And every ability includes from one to seven custom psi techniques (see above). To see what I mean, there's a preview page available that has one of the sample ESP abilities, which is probably clearer than me trying to describe the layout.
That preview also has one of the ABSOLUTE coolest things about GPP: Perks! There are ten boxes of new perks (one for each power) for about 70-80 total! I love perks and I bought GURPS Power-Ups 2: Perks the day it came out, and this one book adds almost as many new perks as Power-Ups 2 did. I've got this urge now to run a "psi perks" game on 50 points, where each player gets 5 points to buy psi perks and that's it...because I know that with these cool perks, it would actually be fun! Like, a TK can buy perks that let him pull a dropped weapon back into his hand, or manipulate the air, or keep rain and weather off of him. A telepath can get a defense bonus against his subjects, or learn faster, or do better with Broken languages. Cool stuff, and arguably worth the price of the book right there.
There's other stuff in chapter 3, including four "extra" powers (Animal Telepathy, Biokinesis, Dream Control, and Psychometabolism) that don't really fit most views of psi, but might fit some campaigns. Each one only comes with two premade abilities and some advice on how to make more. After that, there's a sample character (the one from the "how to build a psi" box in chapter 1) and a really useful table that lists every ability in the book, sorted by power, in alphabetical order. I think it will make a good handout for players, so they can just skim down the list (which includes point cost, number of levels, etc.) and then flip open the book for more information if an ability catches their eye.
I'm giving this a STYLE of 4, because it was really clear and easy to read. The artwork is kind of cheap, but that's not why I buy GURPS books. It easily earns a SUBSTANCE of 5. This was well worth the money and packed so full of information that I'm still taking it all in. I felt like GURPS 4th Edition had taken psi away from the game, and it's only now that they've fixed it and put it back...but way, way better than before. Honestly, it was worth the wait. It's simple: If you're going to run a game with psionics, you don't want this book - you need this book.
