Modifying Powers by Meditation (WatW)

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: Urdan studied the stone wall, his dark eyes impassive. He knew that he could create a small breach by disintegrating a portion of the wall, but the hole would be too small to allow his allies to storm the desert fort quickly. The dwarf frowned, trying to think of a better way to bring the wall down.
: The raiders behind him began to shift and mutter restlessly. "Silence, "he ordered. "I'm thinking." The men fell quiet again. Urdan considered the wall again, and it occurred to him that it was heavy enough to collapse under its own weight.
: The base, he thought. Instead of blasting a hole through the wall, I'll destroy a narrow strip along the bottom. The wall will topple over by itself. Closing his eyes, he summoned the Way, hoping that he had accurately judged the wall's strength...
Many Athasian psionicists seek to increase their understanding of powers they have already learned. A familiar devotion can be tailored to create unexpected results or augmented to a higher level of effectiveness. A psionicist can modify existing powers through meditation, and even develop new ones.
Modifying powers is difficult and the results are often uncertain. The base meditation time is 80 days.
Before the character attempts to modify an existing power, the player must state what result the character is seeking. The possibilities include: decreasing the power's PSP cost; increasing its range or area of effect; increasing the effect itself; increasing the power score; or altering the way the power works.
Once the player has decided what effect his character is attempting, the DM should assign a difficulty to the task. For example, modifying ballistic attack to increase its range is not very difficult—the character is not tampering with the essential nature of the power. However, modifying molecular manipulation or detonate to affect living tissue is a major enhancement and very hard to do. Difficult modifications entail a penalty of -2 to -8 on each progress check, depending on how difficult the DM decides the modification is.
Decreasing the PSP Cost. A power's initial cost or maintenance cost can be cut by 25% with an easy modification, or both can be cut with a moderate modification. Decreasing the PSP cost of any given power by 50% is a very difficult modification.
: Example: Urdan wants to be able to disintegrate things more easily so he researches to cut the initial cost from 40 to 30. This is relatively easy and suffers no progress check penalties.
Increasing Range or Area of Effect. A power's range or area of effect can be increased by 50% with an easy modification, or by 100% with a difficult check. A power with a range of self can be increased to a range of touch (to affect another person) with a difficult check, and a power with a range of touch can be given a range of 10 to Nyards with a very difficult check.
: Example: Urdan wants to share the joys of levitation with his friends. He wants to be able to use it on others. The DM rules that this must be initiated by touch, and after that maintained as long as Urdan can keep the target in sight. This is a difficult research with a -2 penalty to progress checks.
Increasing the Effect. The general effect of a power can be increased. too. This could apply to damage inflicted, penalties inflicted on the victim. or duration. For example, a character increasing the effect of ballistic attack could increase the damage inflicted by a projectile to 2d6 instead of 1d6, while a character enhancing ego whip could increase the victim's attack and save penalties from -5 to -8.
It's also possible to increase the power of a devotion's effect. A power such as phobia amplification could be enhanced to the level of a fear spell. while post-hypnotic suggestion could be increased to the power level of a suggestion spell.
: Urdan wants to make his disintegration nastier. Unfortunately, disintegration is disintegration—it can't get any worse than that. He settles for researching his project force attack to increase the damage to 2d6+AC.
Increasing the Power Score. A psionicist can attempt to enhance his abilities by raising a particular power score. He can attempt to raise his power score 1, 2, or 3 points with an easy, hard, or very difficult meditation respectively.
The character also gains a special benefit with his modified power: the power score results now apply to both his original and his new power score. If a character had a power score of 14 and then raised it to a 16, he would achieve the results listed under "Power Score" with a power check roll of 14, 15, or 16.
Altering the Way a Power Works. A character may also attempt to change the way one of his psionic talents operates. This requires the DM to make some judgment calls.
Some possibilities might be expanding the uses of a power (for example, allowing chemical simulation to produce bases, oils, or glues as well as acid), altering the sphere of a power's effects (allowing soften to affect a living creature's carapace or bones), or splicing two powers together (perhaps combining detonate and ballistic attack to make exploding missiles).
The DM should be careful about allowing extensive modifications. As a rule of thumb, the more spectacular the change, the harder it is to successfully research the altered power. If a player wants his character to forge an altered power that will completely unbalance the campaign, the DM should exercise his right to say no—or at least rule that the research is very difficult and assign an appropriate penalty to the attempt.