Mind Over Matter

Now part of the official CDDA repository! Leaving this here for previous versions--if you're playing 0.G stable, get 0.5.2 here

If you're looking for a Guide For Mind Over Matter, check the ReadMe in the in-repo mod here

A WIP Psionics mod for Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (current status: finishing up mapgen, adjusting power scaling to account for intelligence. Current version, 0.7 Beta for latest experimental.

This mod adds (currently) seven separate psionic power paths to Cataclysm, including:

1. Biokinesis - Control of the body. Biokinetics can become stronger and faster than an ordinary human, and even change their form in limited ways. (starting profession: Star Athlete)
2. Clairsentience - Extending the senses beyond the body. Clairsentients can see in the dark and through walls, and eventually gain a bird's eye view of their surroundings, as well as perform in combat by anticipating their enemies' movements. (starting profession: Doomseer)
3. Pyrokinesis - Manipulating fire and heat. Pyrokinetics can start fires and protect themselves from heat, and even cover their whole body in raging flames to discourage attack (starting profession: Firestarter)
4. Telekinesis - Moving objects at a distance. Telekinetics can pull objects to them and hurl their enemies away, and even collapse buildings or shield themselves with a barrier of telekinetic force. (starting profession: Test Subject, Project ONYX LIGHTNING)
5. Telepathy - Control of the mind. Telepaths can become more persuasive and shield their presence from their enemies, and a powerful one can seize control of their enemies' minds. (starting profession: Government Interrogater (DECEASED))
6. Teleportation - Moving without crossing the intervening distance. Teleporters can escape danger and move quickly, and at higher levels they can travel long distances across the ravaged earth or hurl their enemies away to the space between dimensions. (starting profession: Itzcuauhtli Corps Liaison, Yohualli Èhecatl Division)
7. Vitakinesis - Control of health and injury. Vitakinetics can bind their own wounds and speed healing, eventually recovering from even near-crippling injuries. (starting profession: Faith Healer)

If you would like a random power path, pick the profession "Awakening Psion."

The goal is for each path to be upgraded through usage, since sitting and studying a book for hours doesn't really fit the fiction of improving psychic powers. Powers are gained progressively, with increasing mastery of lower-tier powers unlocking new ones. Powers are based on a new skill called "metaphysics" which you can learn through recipes found from appropriate books in the world.

ADVANTAGES

1. Psionic powers are fast. Many powers take less than 100 moves to use, with high-level powers sometimes taking much less (a level 10 Telekinetic Hand takes only 10 moves!), reflecting that they are as fast as thought
2. Powers use Stamina as their power source, meaning that a fully-charged psychic is only a five-minute breather away.
3. Powers are generally very quiet (generally. Pyrokinesis is very loud)

DISADVANTAGES

1. Powers use Stamina as their power source. This is also a disadvantage because every power use reduces your ability to run away.
2. All powers require concentation and thus are affected by Focus. It's very difficult to concentrate enough to lift a pursuing boomer if you've just fought off a grappler in close range and there's blood all around you.
3. Long-term power use is debilitating--powers have a chance to cause Drain, which will gradually reduce your maximum Stamina, Strength, Dexterity, and Perception as well as make you hungry and tired. Drain goes away naturally on its own with rest. (I would have used weariness but that's impossible)

LORE

When the government began noticing that some XEDRA explorers of alternate dimensions returned with anomalous capabilities, Project PHAVIAN was founded to study these in full. Within the year, this led to the discover of latent psychic powers in a portion of humanity. On Earth these were minor, almost trivial--the ability to always find your lost keys or know the next sentence someone is going to say moments before they do are useful powers but not lifechanging--but exposure to extra-dimensional energy seemed to increase psionic power. A PHAVIAN test subject who on Earth could manipulate a quarter to make sure it always landed heads up could sometimes throw large objects on the other side of a portal, or even lift a person. Soon after, it was discovered that specific crystalline formations found in extra-dimensional locations had the effect of amplifying psionic power even further, and that exposure to these crystals could awaken powers in previously mundane individuals.

Soon after that, the world ended. The weakening of dimensional barriers has made psionic power much stronger on Earth, but there's no longer anyone around to conduct any experiments on it. It's just one more method that survivors use in the wake of the Cataclysm.

GAINING POWERS

The easiest way to gain psionics is to pick a profession that starts with them (or debug them in). There are also some strange crystals you might find in places with a strong connection with the Nether, or which are carried by psychic ferals. Or you could walk out into a portal storm unprotected.

Listen to the voices.

Bathe in the energies of the Nether.

We have such sights to show you.

WAIT, STAMINA?

I realize it's a bit counterintuitive that taking Indefatiguable or mutating mouse will make you a better psychic, but this was the best solution I could think of for compatibility. There's no way to implement cooldowns for individual powers and I don't want to use mana and make it regenerate very fast for psychics because that breaks compatibility with every single magic mod out there. Fatigue or Weariness would also fit but it's not currently possible to use Fatigue as a spell power source without adding a custom extra effect for every single power, and not possible to interact with Weariness at all, so until that's an option or there's a way to make a custom power pool, Stamina it is.

Weariness is still my goal here, but until it's possible to use it in spells Drain (described above) is the substitute.

FUTURE PLANS

1. Add electrokinesis if they ever let spells interact with battery charge.
2. Add Project PHAVIAN test site.