Empower
Name
Empower
Type
Science
Field
Telepathic
MAC
4
PSP (Initial)
Varies
PSP (Ongoing)
0
Range
Touch
Area of Effect
1 item
Prerequisites
10th level
Power Score
Critical (20)
If three 20's are rolled during the empowering process, the item is a complete and utter failure.
Description
This is not a tool for weak or inexperienced characters. Empower allows a psionicist to imbue an item with rudimentary intelligence and psionic ability. The process, which requires extraordinary time and effort, is described below. Item Requirements. An item must meet two requirements before it can be empowered. First, it must be of exceptional quality-worth 250% to 500% of the normal cost for an item of its type. Second, it must be new. The process of empowering must begin within 48 hours after the item is manufactured. If it is delayed longer, the item cannot be empowered. (If the psionicist still tries, he automatically fails Step One below, expending 50 PSPs.) If the item meets these two requirements, the psionicist can begin the empowerment. Step One. At the start of each day, the psionicist must first prepare the item to receive psionic power. This costs 50 PSPs and requires a power check. If this check fails, the day is wasted; no further progress can be made until the next day. Step Two. If the item has been prepared, the psionicist can give it access to a discipline. It can have access to only one discipline, never more, and the psionicist himself must have access to it. This step costs 100 PSPs and requires a power check. Step Three. The psionicist can attempt to empower the item with any single power he knows within the chosen discipline. (The item must have been properly prepared on the same day.) The psionicist must make two successful power checks: first, a check for the chosen power (using the appropriate power score), and second, another empower check. If both checks succeed, the item has that psionic power, with a score two points below the psionicist's. If Step Three is successful, the psionicist expends another 100 PSPs. (Failure means he expends half that amount, as usual.) Step Four. The psionicist can imbue the item with other powers by repeating Step Three. The item can acquire one power per day, provided it has been properly prepared (see Step One). Step Five. When the item has acquired all the powers which the psionicist intends to give it, the psionicist can seal those powers within the item. To do this, he must prepare the item one more time (expending 50 PSPs), and make an endowment power check one last time. If the item is sealed successfully, it can never gain any additional powers-but it can't lose them, either. An item that has not been sealed will lose one power per month until it is just a normal object again. An empowered object has 8 PSPs per devotion and 12 per science. It has Intelligence equal to its maker's Intelligence minus Id6 points, with a minimum of 12. Its ego is 2 points per devotion and 3 points per science. Unless it was empowered with another telepathic power, it communicates as indicated on Table 113, 'Weapon Intelligence and Capabilities" in the Dungeon Master's Guide (p. 186, A&P 2nd Edition). Its alignment matches its creator's. The weapon has its own personality, however, and like all intelligent weapons, it will try to assert its independence at every opportunity. The empowering process must be unbroken. If a day passes in which the psionicist does not at feast try to prepare the object, it is finished as is. He cannot even try to seal the powers; they will wear off over the course of time.
