I meant classes.
90% of the time, the best solution is more classes.
My coffee was brewing as I posted.
90% of the time a new class is proposed a new subclass or two would be better. Far lower mechanical overhead and far fewer rules added.
Every rule added is a cost to the wider game. This doesn't mean that it is never worth it - just that it is a cost. And subclasses have an inherently lower cost because if people don't take the subclass I don't have to care about it.
One book doesn't torch a game.
No. It takes an attitude. The one size fits all attitude that more classes and spells are inherently better.
The D&D community has to come to grips that it's WAY TOO DIVERSE for one size fits all.
Indeed. One size fits all solutions like "It must be a class" and "Spells are always good" are something that should be rejected.
The D&D spell system works because there are tons of spells that many different fans can latch on to. That mentality has to spread across the whole game understanding that what one person likes one thing, another person like another thing.
The D&D spell system also collapses under its own weight when there are too many spells. Every single spell is a new rule - and you use a lot more spells than you do subclasses.
Every single spell adds a burden.
There is a huge demand for psionics but the community is divided.
There is a
small demand for psionics, the community is catered to with numerous subclasses, but there are a few very vocal members who want something else and can't agree on what they want.
I work in sales. Every work I sell multiple variants of the same things that have different applications. I can choose to not offer one variety and my customers will get that somewhere else. Probably for higher cost or lower quality. That happens for the things I don't sell
Meanwhile no shop in their senses stocks every single possible product. There are overheads to stocking more. And often even if there is something perfect location matters. So this is an argument that presents only one side of the coin.
And D&D is not as modular as you think, and DMs need to be able to understand the entire line they offer.
We split up the fighting man, cleric, and magic user due to demand.
And made them fundamentally different play experiences with fundamentally different play objectives.
Why not the psionicist? You just have to do it early like how the artificer was done.
The psionicist
has been split up. Into the Aberrant Mind, the Great Old One Warlock (the OneD&D version is
way better than the PHB version), the Soulknife, the Psi War, the Astral Soul Monk, and the College of Whispers bard.
If you want to play a Psion and think that the 3.5 psion was anything other than a travesty what you want to do is go around casting "Psychic Spells" that are sometimes literally wizard spells except you cast them with a pool of psionic power points and cast them using the power of your mind, ignoring most components. You want to do it spontaneously, and you want similar baseline stats to the wizard. This is
literally what an Aberrant Mind does. The only thing they do differently is a tiny splash of Far Realm flavour.
Meanwhile the Soulknife actually suits me better as a low-mid grade psychic who can do things with the power of their mind, but uses that in support of a honed body and mind for an excellent spy/assassin subclass. It is a better representation of the type of psychic I want to play than going all out Professor X the way the Psion/Aberrant Mind does. (And don't get me started on the travesty that was the 3.X Soulknife that was basically a fighter-but-worse).