Let's continue with the psi-drugs. I'm still laughing at this ridiculous name: Thongamonganite. Available in pill and liquid form, no less. The pill is a double-dose, boosting your psi-power by 6 points if you're at full-strength, and 4 if you're down a bit. I'm sure that will cost a pretty penny.
The 'Special' is thongamonganite's liquid form, that gets your PSI-strength up to an insane level, adding 15 points(!) at the rate of 1 point per hour. It's an injection-only drug. And it has its downsides, too. First, the boost lasts for four hours (unless you use the points first), and then you start losing one point per hour. Not one bonus point, but one point, until you're down to zero points at all. Which means, after you use this, you're going to end up psionically useless for a while. The second, and nastier side effect is that there's a chance (11+) that using Special will permanently drain one PSI-rating point. Yikes.
So, the psionicists aren't all that popular in the game world, and the psi-drugs are tough to get. And insanely expensive; if you can find them, the odds are pretty good that having any will be a crime on a given world. So, that will make it even tougher to find them, since nobody wants to risk getting caught selling the stuff to a stranger who might be a space-narc.
If you can find one, though, dealers can be located on any world on an 8+ throw, with Streetwise as a modifier. The most common psi-drug will be booster (one die for number of doses). Double is only available on a roll of 10+, and Special is only on a straight roll of 2. If you are lucky enough to find one of the latter two psi-drugs, you get half a die worth of doses available.
As I suspected, these things are pricy. Even the booster is a cool thousand Cr per dose. Double is 4,000, and Special is 10,000 Cr per dose. And that's the base price; it could be higher, and it won't be lower.
Even if you stay away from Special, you can still fall into the typical drug-abuse pattern. Three doses in three days or four doses in a week earns you a 9+ throw to overdose within 6 hours of the last dose. An OD will mean you're unconscious and taking 3D in wounds, and you need to roll a 10+ to avoid losing a permanent PSI-rating point.
So, that's the basics of psionics. There's a final section on public prejudice against psionicists. People won't often admit that they even have psionics, since it's so unpopular. Unless they know that the person approaching them is psionic themselves, they'll keep quiet.
This means that there's a chance that you could hire a psionicist and not know it. It's a throw of 12 (secretly by the referee) to see if the hireling has some talent; if they do, the referee rolls it up normally. There's also a chance (another roll of 12 on 2D) that the person hired is actually an informer who will report on any psionic activity they witness. That would be a dangerous job, since the odds are pretty good that a psionicist will be able to detect their treachery. And someone who can tear minds apart with their thoughts might not react very well.
Oh, and we close the page with a list of potential punishments for being detected as a psionicist. Roll two dice. 12+ is a lobotomy. Ouch. 10+ is a lynching. No, that doesn't have negative connotations these days. 8+ is tarring and feathering...what is this, the late 1700s in space? 6+ means you're thrown in jail, and 4+ means they just kick you off the planet. So, psionics has some pretty good benefits, but the drawbacks, especially the social ones, are nasty.
That's it for this page, but the final page just has a table of psionic range costs, so I'll throw that in. Awareness is internal only, so it doesn't have any range costs. Telekinesis doesn't go beyond Very Long range, which is up to 500 meters, according to Book 1. No, I didn't memorize it; I just opened it up again to page 28. At that range, TK costs 9 additional points, so it's likely to be a short-range ability. Telepathy, Clairvoyance, and Teleportation can go across the entire planet, at a maximum cost of 6, 4, and 5 PSP for range, respectively.
And that's it for Book 3. It's been quite a trip, but it's not quite done. I'm going to do a review of all three books, now that I've read through the whole game. It's quite a different perspective now that I've seen the entirety of the original rules. I still haven't had a chance to play, but when I do, I'll be more prepared for it. And, I still have the Hub to work on. So, there's plenty of Traveller left to talk about. But for now, the rules are done.
In the meantime, there's a really cool science-fiction book you could check out. It's got spaceships, pirates, daring rescues, and a square-jawed hero. What more do you want? Check out Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System, available at an Amazon website near you.
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