Review of PX1 Basic Psionics Handbook

First, a nod

Yes, I’m making it a habit to thank those who have the determination to take an idea and bring it to life. Whether you’re releasing material as an indie author, or building up a new gaming company with others, it takes a LOT to get it out into the world. Thanks again to everyone, like the author of this material, for their contributions to the community.

What is the Basic Psionics Handbook?

Written by Richard J. LeBlanc Jr and released by New Big Dragon Games Unlimited, PX1 Basic Psionics Handbook brings the mental powers and abilities that many of us grey-haired gamers likely first encountered in the AD&D Player’s Handbook (aka 1e) to the B/X world (i.e. Basic Dungeons & Dragons, Old School Essentials, and the family of B/X retro-clones).

Note for the curious, psionics were first introduced in the 1976 release of OD&D’s Eldritch Wizardy, cover shown here:

PX1 is a re-write of the psionics rules and powers, with a few additions like the introduction of chakras to both group powers and provide a manner for allowing access to some and not others, allowing you to limit them for a class, race, etc. It also has two character classes introduced (both with psionic abilities): the Mystic and a Monk variant.

The Basic Psionics Handbook does a good job starting out with an overview and allowing you to get a basic understanding of what psionics are, how they aren’t magic, and how they can work. There’s clear effort to keep things both simple (as per Old School style) and be faithful to the original material. Here’s an example of how the powers are grouped into a Chakra:

For those unfamiliar with the term Sciences and Devotions, this ties back to the original material (in the 1e PhB at the very least).

The supplement then goes into details for each of the abilities across the six charkras as well as the attack & defense modes (i.e. standard mental attacks and defenses, think of it like ‘swing a blade’ and ‘block with a shield’ respectively).

There’s a section explicitly on Psionic Combat, which does a good job of breaking it all down, even updating the standard Combat Sequence to show where psionics would be included, as shown here:

The coverage for psionic combat is complete and a handy chart is provided to show the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of one particular attack mode versus a particular defense mode.

So, is it worth it?

If you’re interested in psionics, yes. It provided me with the clearest understanding of how psionics work, factor into combat, etc. I took a few minutes to go through my 1e Player’s Handbook and my 3e Complete Psionics Guide, and confirmed that PX1 Basic Psionics Handbook really does do a good job of staying true to how it was “first” released without borrowing much from later revisions.

Sometimes, I just have to share some of my shelfy materials.

So it is a recommended buy? IF you’re interested in psionics, yes. For me, at the end of it all, I’m left with a great understanding of a game mechanic that I never used, and honestly, am no less interested than I was before buying it. However, and this is important (to me at least), it’s a solid supplement, ready to be used, at a good price for the material that’s in it, and feels absolutely fitted for an Old School Essentials type campaign. Add the art, the simple writing style, and (as silly as it might seem) giving it an official reference tag like PX1, and you’re going to feel right at home with it.

Where is it available?

You can pick up PX1 Basic Psionics Handbook at DriveThruRPG.

WAIT! How does this compare to Planar Compass’?

Planar Compass is an Old School style zine with classes, astral-adventures, and more. They introduced a lighter weight version of psionics in issue number (here on DriveThruRPG). I picked it up when I was doing psionics research a few months ago, along with PX1 and some other sources. I’ve read through the Planar Compass material twice originally and went through my notes for it.

The Planar Compass version left me a bit lost. The material’s good, and there’s tremendous overlap between it and what you get out of PX1 (as expected, they are both leveraging existing material rather than really creating anything new). I have to say that whereas Planar Compass’ psionics (for me at least) gives you enough to get playing their adventure, you have to be willing to do the Old School “fill in the gaps as you go with your own rules and ideas” versus PX1 which fills more in. That all said, I see no issue being able to leverage what’s in PX1 with the classes and materials from Planar Compass. And for the record, I like the Planar Compass zine and materials. Might be worth reviewing zines…hmm, let me know what you think.