Anyone here use the Psychic's Handbook in place of Psionics in their D&D game?  

Can you tell me how it works out for you and if it captures the flavor of 2E psionics (I hate 2E psionics)?  

I don't have an access to a copy and want to collect as much info about it before ordering a copy.  I have read a couple of favorable reviews.

In case, you are curious - I am looking for something that works for 3.x but has the flavor of 2E psionics w/o the glaringly broken stuff.

Do you like the Force System in Star Wars d20? If you do this is a great product.

It better captures the flavor of Powers in Literature by a long shot than 2.0,2.5, 3.0, or 3.5 Psionics.

I've used it and it works great being feat based it also works well for wild talents and little perks that could use a mechanic in any character development or design.

Yeah, it seems more like the psychic powers and abilities talked about in popular culture than the psionic abilities of D&D. D&D's psionics don't seem much at all like what you read and hear about in the fringe media.

I have it but haven't used it.  It looks really good though.  It makes it quite a bit different than spells.

It's also the structure template (in terms of feats and skills) for magic in Blue Rose/True20 - if you like one, you'll probably like the other.

I should be getting kickbacks from Green Ronin for all the times I've pimped this book.

It is feat-and-skill based, as noted.  In the default rules (which are easily customizable), using the abilities does subdual damage, which I've found to be a great way of balancing them.  I wouldn't like that for magic, but it fits the theme of psionics perfectly.

As for 2e feel -- yeah, it's got wild talents, and you could do most of the cooler things from 2e psionics.

One of the neatest aspects is that the powers don't (in most cases) have ranges.  Instead, your familiarity with a subject/object/place determines how difficult it is to contact/teleport to/whatever.  So you can teleport anywhere -- but it's much easier to teleport a thousand miles home than it is to teleport to the room you were just in (but only glanced around at).  You can customized this, too, though -- there are rules for putting ranges back in.

I could post more about it tonight when I'm home, if you want.  

Someone sent me a PDF of a preview of it and I really liked what I saw - I guess I will be ordering it.

Quote from: el-remmenSomeone sent me a PDF of a preview of it and I really liked what I saw - I guess I will be ordering it.

Cool.  It really is a neat psionic system.  I didn't feel *too* gyped about buying the Advanced Player's Manual 'cause it has a reprint of the book as an appendix.  I don't mind having two copies of the book.  

So I got the book and spent part of my conscious hours home from work reading through it and thanks to everyone who recommended it - since it is almost exactly what I wanted.

however, I am not sure how I feel about non-lethal damage being the balancing factor - just doesn't fit flavorwise for me.

I was thinking of using a combo of two of the suggested variants - where there is a separate pool of PSPs (psionic strength points) that are determined by class level and strain is subtracted from that - and each time you reach 0 PSPs you have to save or become fatigued - each time in a day you reach 0 PSPs you make another save with an increasing penalty and a chance to eventuallly become fatigued or even unconscious.

Thoughts?  Suggestions?

That would work and it's got more flavour than just a pool of magic points.  

So you'd have a Fort save or be fatigued/exhausted/unconcious?  That still keeps the strain feel, but it's not quite so easy to go down in combat.  I think I might even like that better than the default rules, the more I think about it.  You've still got real consequences for overusing your power, but they aren't as likely to get you killed in a fight.  

I don't use it in D&D. It seems to have a flatter power curve (more powerful at lower levels, less powerful at higher levels) than core magic or XPH psionics, so the power of the characters is a bit out of whack from the rest of the characters unless you are using other tweaks to, or are excluding, magic.

OTOH, I think that it goes great with a modern or futuristic d20 setting.