Advancement (CPsiH)

## Advancement

**Experience Levels and Awards**: A psionicist earns experience points and advances in level just as members of other classes do. Table 2 outlines a psionicist's advancement.

The *Dungeon Master Guide* includes an optional rule for individual experience awards (see DMG Chapter 8). Table 3 expands that rule to include psionicists.

#### Table 3: Individual Class Awards

 Create psionic item | 500 XP x level

**Gaining Disciplines:** Every psionic power belongs to one of the six disciplines listed previously. Before a character can learn a psionic power, he must have access to the appropriate discipline. *Psionic characters begin play with access to only one discipline*. As they progress to new experience levels, they gain access to additional disciplines. Table 4 shows how many disciplines a character has access to at each experience level.

**Gaining Sciences and Devotions**: Every new, first-level psionicist knows four powers within a single discipline: one science (major power) and three devotions (minor powers). With each new experience level, a psionicist gains new powers. Sometimes he gains both sciences and devotions; at other times, only devotions (see Table 4).

A player can select new powers for his character as soon as the psionicist reaches a new experience level. These new powers can be chosen from any discipline the character can access, including a discipline that was just gained. However, a psionicist is not compelled to fill a power slot with a power immediately upon advancing a level. Psionic powers, in this respect, are just like proficiencies. Note that psionicists who leave a power slot unfilled may suffer from experience penalties: A psionicist with unfilled power slots suffers a 5% decrease in earned experience until those slots have been filled (this is due to a slackening of the discipline that is so important to a psionicist). - *Errata from Mr. Steve Winter*

Note: If the optional training rule is in play, characters must train with a mentor until they reach 7th level. To find the training time in weeks, subtract the mentor's Wisdom score from 21. Beyond 7th level, psionicists can train themselves if they pass the necessary checks to qualify as instructors. The training time for a psionicist instructing himself is doubled.

Players must follow two simple rules when choosing new powers for their characters:

* Within a single discipline, the number of devotions that a character knows must be at least twice the number of sciences.
* The first discipline chosen is the character's *primary discipline*. A character can never learn as many sciences or devotions in another discipline as he currently knows in his primary discipline.

*Example*: Lena's primary discipline is clairsentience. She knows three sciences and seven devotions in that discipline. This means:

a) she must learn an eighth clairsentient devotion before she can learn a fourth clairsentient science, and
b) at her current level, she cannot know more than two sciences or six devotions in any other single discipline.
**Advancing Mid-adventure**: Most Dungeon Masters award experience points at the end of adventures rather than in the middle, so experience levels are rarely gained in midadventure. In the unusual event that a new level is gained in the middle of an adventure, however, the character should have to wait at least until he has a chance to rest and recuperate - long enough to recover all his psionic strength points - before gaining any new psionic powers.

**Raising Psionic Power Scores**: A character can increase a psionic power score

when he reaches a new experience level by "relearning it" (he repeats his studies, and learns something new about a familiar power). Instead of learning a new devotion, the character can add one point to his power score in a devotion he already knows. Similarly, he can exchange a new science for a one-point increase in a science he already knows.