Psionics - meditation method

[drealmer7]

I'm not sure if I made this suggestion here before or not but a search has me thinking I did not.

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The doc at the beginning mentions this method that has been "lost" and so you just take a pill if you want to do psionics.  Very interesting but what if:

you could wait just a little while to unock psi powers and go about it differently, simply for the option to do it differently because flavor and options are fun. 

Something like, find an old shaman type guy hiding in an ancient sacred cave area, inquire about his knowledge in unlocking mental depths.  And then he gives you a simple quest like "Collect 10 mindshrooms", then you bring them back and consume them in the cave, trip out, and unlock the psi-powers that way.

A delayed gratification for an alternate choice in doing something not the 'easy take a pill chemical way."  I'd love it.

[noobrzor]

As roleplaying perspective, I'd like that. Psi Empathy pill I see as a permanently crippling shortcut to an ability that *can* be attainable through milder means.

Gameplay perspective though...It's free 25% health. Juggernaut without armor penalty.
However, since no respec or backtrack levelling...It'd force a player to spend points in one or two literally useless skills, until Psi is unlocked. If the quest would be available somewhere late game...it's a rather worthy reward for a rather ardurous endeavor.

Alternatively there could be two forms of Empathy...the pill one, decreasing health, or the learned one - but weaker. Maybe with less max Psi, or perhaps slower regen, or maybe higher cost per spell.

[UnLimiTeD]

You could create Veteran Feats, or maybe just feats not available earlier, that unlocked a single school of PSI.
Then you could pick it, but instead of health it'd cost you feats. I think that could be a reasonable expression of spending a lot of time and effort on that.
Could grant a skill point bonus or something else useful so you could still use it to specialize with Psi-Empathy, maybe then limited to a single of those feats - so taking the shortcut would allow the character to specialize in one field in the time it takes the more traditionally minded person to learn the basics, but learning everything from the ground up would make you above average in more areas.