Time Dilation
Name
Time Dilation
Type
Devotion
Field
Psychoportive
MAC
8
PSP (Initial)
varies
PSP (Ongoing)
Range
0
Area of Effect
Personal
Prerequisites
time travel
Power Score
The rate of dilation is increased one step at no additional cost.
Critical (20)
The psionicist fails the dilation and must save versus spells or age 1d10 years.
Description
This power allows the psionicist to affect the time-stream itself, speeding up or slowing down its flow relative to herself. Slowing down the flow of time effectively hastes the psionicist, while speeding the time flow slows the psionicist. The amount of the dilation affects the initial cost of the power, as shown below.
Haste
Slow
Cost
Check Modifier
x 2
x 1/10
18
–3
x 3
x 1/20
36
–5
x 4
x 1/50
54
–7
If the psionicist hastes herself by slowing down the timestream, she can maintain the power for a number of rounds (her own, not everyone else’s) equal to her level. Movement, physical attack rates, and even spellcasting and psionic powers increase as well. However, any spell or psionic power that leaves the psionicist’s accelerated timestream (for example, casting magic missile at or attempting to contact a nontime-dilated target) stands a chance of being disrupted. Each time the psionicist tries to do this, she must make a saving throw versus spells to successfully use her spell or devotion in the normal timestream.
If the psionicist slows herself by speeding up the timestream, the power lasts a number of her own turns equal to her level—so a 6th-level psionicist with a 1/20 factor of dilation can make 6 of her own turns stretch out for 120 turns (20 hours!) in the outside world. She can end the power at anytime, but her perceptions are slowed so much that she is automatically surprised by any enemy that approaches. Note that the psionicist consumes food and water and is affected by things like poison at her own pace, so this power can be used to reduce water consumption to zero or toslow poison.
If the psionicist is maintaining any other psionic powers, they are paid for only on her subjective rounds. If a psionicist was on a ship that sank, she could use levitation and time dilation to hover over the sea until another ship came along, since she is only paying the maintenance cost for levitation in her own creeping time frame.
