When do you lose bonus power points?

Question

I'm looking specifically at the feat Azure Talent, from Magic of Incarnum. I've read various debates about whether or not one can combine it with things like Psycarnum Infusion to get infinite power points, but right now I'm interested in Azure Talent alone.

The relevant text is this:

Once per day, you can invest essentia into this feat. You gain bonus power points equal to twice the invested essentia. Once the amount of essentia invested is chosen, it cannot be altered and remains invested for 24 hours.

So, say I have 1 point of essentia. I invest it into Azure Talent, and get 2 bonus power points. Do those power points go away at the end of the day? They're bonus power points, not temporary power points, and as far as I can tell there's nothing that automatically recalculates your power points each day. As long as I'm not spending these power points, can I just keep accumulating them, 2 per day?

On a similar note, if I cast fox's cunning (assuming I calculate PP off of intelligence) before concentrating to regain power points (as described on page 64 of the Expanded Psionics Handbook), do I get extra PP even after the fox's cunning wears off? If I have a bunch of low-level psion followers or another manifester PC, can they just keep manifesting bestow power on me every day well past my normal daily PP reserve?

My current understanding is that bonus power points only get calculated when a manifester deliberately concentrates to regain daily power points, and even then they can only go up, but this has some weird implications, like psions spending their downtime stockpiling extra power points, that makes me think I've missed something. Is there a cap on power points, somewhere?

Answer 1

Bonus “power points” are kind of a misnomer. They aren’t extra “power points” that you get to spend, they are permanent improvements to your power points per day. You never “spend” them, because they are really a potential, rather than an actual resource. It would have been clearer if they had used “bonus power points per day” as the term, but they didn’t.

Because bonus power points increase your power points per day, they increase the amount you recover each day. You don’t spend them per se, because all power points are power points.¹ Instead, you just spend your power points as you like, and then recover your power points as normal, and it’s more than it otherwise would be because of the bonus power points you have.

For the most part, bonus power points shouldn’t change mid-day. Azure Talent is consistent about this, since essentia invested in it (like all incarnum feats) is locked for 24 hours. For simplicity, as a player, I would invest in Azure Talent when I recover power points—and as a DM, I would rule that this is how it always works, to prevent any headaches around the two becoming desynchronized.

1. _{Barring temporary power points, which you’re familiar with and which have their own dedicated rules that are not relevant here.}

Answer 2

The term "Bonus Power Points" does not appear to have a specific definition given, however certain implied rules can be extracted from the text of the Expanded Psionics Handbook.

Bonus Power Points are granted by races, having a high stat, and certain other methods. These points are added to the general pool of available power points permanently (in the cases of race and high stat, and certain other characteristics).

However, if a stat suffers long term or permanent damage, it seems likely that those bonus power points from the stat would have to be recalculated.

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Certain items can also grant bonus power points, such as the Skin of the Psion (when worn) or the Sutra of Tranquil Thought (permanently, only once).

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The Animal Affinity power mentions that one does not get bonus power points from its temporary effect on stat adjustments. While this is a specific rule, the phrasing implies it could be applied generally. The DM may rule otherwise.

If the duration of a stat change effect was made 24 hours or more, that perhaps could be ruled to be sufficient to adjust the bonus power points.

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There appears to be no cap on the total bonus power points one may have.

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Stacking Effects: Powers that provide bonuses or penalties on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and other attributes usually do not stack with themselves.

This statement (emphasis added) from the psionic stacking rules for multiple effects would seem to negate the idea of stacking the effects of Bestow Power to gain more power points than a single manifestation would grant when the bonus power points are coming from any power, even though it is an instantaneous effect in the case of Bestow. This assumes that the term 'attribute' as used here applies to anything on the character sheet, and not just the INT, WIS, CHA scores. The DM may rule otherwise.

Keep in mind that no matter how many power points one has in total, one still cannot normally exceed the Power Points per ML cap. (Unless combining with Wilder, Overchannel, and certain Kalashtar item, among others.)

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Generally speaking, bonus power points do not seem to expire, unless they are granted conditionally by an item or power or some other effect, in which case their existence is dependent upon the rules of said item, power, or effect.

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Applying these implied conditions to the Azure Talent feat, a likely conclusion is that the power points from the feat are added to the general pool of power points only once per usage of the feat, and those points last only until the feat resets, or are used.

Since the feat is not a power, the stacking rules technically do not apply. However, since the feat resets, I think that the points granted would also reset, thus one could not gain the allotted power points more than once per 24. It would be better if this feat explicitly stated the results of resetting.