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Just got this month's Dragon and it has a preview of the upcoming Expanded Psionics Handbook.
The following is confirmed by the article:
Multiple Ablility score Dependency, "no longer a concern."
Non-scaling powers, "many powers now scale and not just the damage dealing ones."
Psionic combat dealing debilitating ability damage, "nothing more to fear in that regard."
The focus of the preview is New Psionic Races. In the XPH you will find several new psionic races;
The potentially psionic Elan
The androgynous Dromite
The dangerous Maenad
The mentally invigorated Xeph
Also, there are racial stats for Duergar, Githzerai, Githyanki, Thri-Kreen and fresh from Dark Sun, Half-Giants!
Also, psionic creatures no longer have spell-like abilities, they have psi-like abilities!
Also included is an example psionic race, the Synad. They are a mentaly triptych race, normally looking like a tall thin human, but if they exhaust their power points two ghostly heads can be seen on either side of their real one.
They are an Aberation, so Humanoid targeting spells like Charm Person don't work on them.
They are a Naturally Psionic race and get 3 bonus power points, one for each mental aspect.
Mental Obfuscation (Su): +2 to Will saves due to their three aspects of mind.
Oracle (Su): One aspect is precognitive and grants a +2 insight bonus once per day on any choosen roll.
Collective (Su): Another aspect is focused on Knowledge and grants a +2 bonus to any Knowledge and Psicraft skill checks.
Multitask (Su): Once per day, a synad can seperate his mental aspects and gain a free standard action that can be used for any mental only action, including manifesting a power.
Next preview in Dragon# 316
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Most of the article is the new race and an emphasis that this an "adaption" of existing psionics rules, and the article has no new art.
"We've dug up every potiential and proven problem and examined each one in the revealing light of experience"
It also points out that the Psi Handbook is 160 pages, the XPH weighs in at 224 pages.
"Additions include new base psionic classes, new prestige classes, new power, new feats, guidance for epic psionic characters and much more. One of our favorite new additions is a chapter detailing new psionic races."
"To be considered a Psionic character or creature, one must possess either psionic power points (like characters who take a psionic class or some of these psionic player character races) or possess psi-like abilities (like many creatures in the monster chapter as well as some of these psionic character races). Any creature that is noted as having psionics in the Monster Manual is also considered a psionic creature."
As to level adjustment, the Synad is +0, Half Giants and Dromite are +1, Githzerai and Githyanki are +2, and Tri-kreen are +4 due to racial HD.
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