Psychic Healing in Action

This power is generally associated with Communion. Characters with Dark or Broken Communion and Psychic Healing powers are required to either have the Perk "Dark Healer."

Recommended Powers

• Aura Reading: Very slow. Replaces diagnosis for Outbreak (page 40) and Overdose, Poison and Venom (page 41). Otherwise, offers the same benefits as Emotion Sense from Telepathy.
  
• Cure, Cure Disease, Cure Injury: All effectively variations of one another. Will only heal injuries (Medic! page 40) and diseases (Outbreak page 40). It is cumulative with First Aid (and automatically stops Bleeding (page 40), if that matters), but will not stabilize a mortal wound. Will also cure Afflictions, like Dazed or Confused (Ergokinesis).
  
• Disease Shield: Very situational, but handy during an Outbreak (page 40).
  
• Life Extension, level 1 only: Not useful for PCs, but its existence has implications for ancient psionic masters, which is totally in genre.
  
• Sleep: See Telepathy
  
• Empathy: See Emotion Sense from Telepathy.
  
• Metabolism Control: See below.
  
• Protected Power (Psychic Healing): To protect against Anti-Psi... though Anti-Psi trying to stop healing is likely rare.
  
• Recovery: Handy for dealing with a defeat.
  
• Regeneration: See Below
  
• Various Flavors of Resistant: Situational, but cheaper than Metabolic Control or Disease Shield, which do much the same thing.
  

Other Suggested Abilities

Perks

• Healing Bond
• Life Support: To better deal with mortal wounds
  
• Natural Doctor: Cure is better, but this is cheaper.
  
• Postmortem: Not as nice as Retrognition, but it'll do the job.
  
• Psychic Surgery: For dealing with mortal wounds and other, assorted problems.
  
• Soothing Touch: Thematically very appropriate.
  
• Auric Squint: Pyramid #3-69, page 6
  
• Psychic Medic: Pyramid #3-69, page 7. Allow the Psychic Healing or Psi Sensitivity Talent to apply to this as well.
  

Power Packages

• Empathic Bond: 25 points, Psis 26.
  
• Regulate Body: 25 points, Psis 26
  
• Restore Damage: 25 points, Psis 36
  
• Cellular Control: 50 points, Psis 37
  
• Lay On Hands: 50 points, Psis 37
  

Discouraged Powers Powers

• Life Extension, level 2 +: A character who has the ability to extend the lives of others would be rare... and highly sought after, but a macguffin, rather than a player character.
  
• Regrowth: Overpriced for what it does, and cybernetics already exist in the setting, thus a cheaper, and better, alternative.
  

Metabolism Control [4.5/level]

Metabolism Control is almost identicalin effect to the Body Control on B181, and fills the same niche. Expand the Metabolism Control skillto fill the same role: It also allows you to purge poisons from your body in the same way (“A successful” Metabolism Control “roll – adjusted by any modifier to the HT roll to resist the poison...”), and Martial Arts has an optional rule that allows Body Control to perform First Aid on yourself. We'll allow Metabolism Control to do the same. In both cases, the level of the power improves both rolls (but not the roll to “fool doctors.”).

You may not purchase more than 10 levels of Metabolism Control.

Statistics: Metabolism Control (Psychic Healing -10%) [4.5/level]

Techniques:

• Body Mastery: (Default: Metabolism Control-4). You may apply our level of Metabolism Control to any HT roll.

Regeneration [9/23/45/69]

This canonizes the suggestion for additional powers on page 49. Level 1 heals 1 HP automatically every 12 hours, level two heals 1 HP every hour, level 3 heals 1 HP every minute, level 4 heals 1 HP per minute or to instantly heal 1 HP per FP spent, up to a maximum of the character's HP stat in a secon (that is, a character with HP 12 can heal 12 HP per second). This power has no skill or techniques; it is a passive ability. 

Statistics: Level one is Regeneration (Slow, Psychic Healing -10%) [9], level two is Regeneration (Normal, Psychic Healing -10%) [23], level three is Regeneration (Fast, Psychic Healing -10%) [45], and level four is Regeneration (Extreme, 1-10 FP per second -50%, Psychic Healing -10%) [60] with Regeneration (Fast, Psychic Healing -10%) as an alternative ability.

General Psychic Healing Concerns

Defeating Psychic Healers

For the most part, the ability to heal is not something one wishes to defeat, except perhaps if the healer protects someone the characters wish dead. The ability to heal oneself, however, makes a character very difficult to defeat. While most Psychic Healers will be virtually immune to disease or poison, they can still be overwhelmed by sufficient firepower. To heal another character costs a great deal of FP, and to heal oneself requires the same. Abilities like Recovery and low-level Regeneration means that the character will be back on his feet fairly quickly, but in the meantime, you could put restraints on the Psychic Healer. Metabolism Control, with the Body Mastery technique, results in a character that can weather nearly any damage without dying or falling unconscious... but eventually, he too will run out of the fatigue necessary to keep using his technique. Thus, all Psychic Healers can be worn downto the point of defeat.

Improving Psychic Healing

Aura Enhancer (Psi-Tech page 23) makes Aura Sight much easier... though it should be noted the Aura Enhancer helps all medical characters.

Niche Protection

The Psychic Healer would step on the toes of a Medic character if we had one. Instead, healers have been relegated to supporting robot roles, freeing up this particular niche for whatever psion wishes to take it up. Psychic Healing effectively removes some of the danger of combat, but this is a desirable trait, as Psi-Wars combat isn't meant to be gruesome, lethal or gritty, so having a Psychic Healer wipe away your injuries after ever battle is completely in keeping with genre.