I think that was more complex than they wanted to go in 5e. But, like, fundamentally such things all still exist within the setting, the rules just don’t care as much about the differences between those categories and so don’t specifically define them.
Would you stop with this "for someone who otherwise hates psionics" slander. I don't hate psionics - indeed I think my first ever 5e character was a GOOlock because I wanted to play a psionic character and it was the first time in the history of D&D I had the chance of playing anything that started to feel psionic to me. (The only previous D&D psionic class I'd considered (not counting the 4e monk) was the 3.5 Psychic Warrior because at least for me it made a better gish than most possibilities in pre-B09s 3.x, and yes this does include the spam-tastic 4e psychics). And yes it wasn't great - and the OneD&D version is far far better - but even the OG D&D version started with telepathy, power that you could just do (Invocations), and high effort high power slot-magic.
The real answer is because a significant portion of the fanbase would say it “doesn’t feel like D&D” if classes with those names weren’t in the PHB. Is it irrational? Sure. But it is still true.
I'm not talking about you nor am I doing anything of the sort. And I believe that you are being disproportionately rude in reaction to what little I said. I'm only saying that this subclass may win over some people who dislike psionics but it doesn't win me over. This is to say, the Aberrant mind subclass leaves me deeply unsatisfied when it comes to scratching my itch for psionics.
You're getting pushback because saying you "like psionics" but don't like the 3.5 implementation puts you into a really niche position. The 3.X version (especially the quasi-official Dreamscarred Press adaptation of the material) was kinda awesome.
Tradition, tradition. And what has grown. My definition of whether something should be a class is does it inherently support an array of meaningful subclasses?
I really like the 3.5 and Dreamscarred Press versions. It's one reason why I am so amenable to making the Psion as a more thematically-focused spellcaster in 5e that uses spells. I just think that WotC has excluded a lot of middle ground between what they presented to playtesters and what we ultimately got.
The problem is that D&D may be a supernatural world, but it doesn't build that into its world building. Its NPCs are hopelessly mundane save for special individuals. It rarely does anything interesting with supernatural plants and animals beyond what can be used as monsters. Magic is everywhere and still somehow we still have superstitious peasants giving side eye to wizards and tieflings. Heck, druids are still limited to turning into Earth-based animals!
Precisely. WotC can split definitional hairs as much as they want... but that doesn't actually do anything.
My apologies. But people who don't like psionics can just ... not play psionic characters which is why I didn't even consider interpreting it this way. With the way 5e is set up there's little need to win them over to psionics; you only need to do that if you have entire classes or systems dedicated to psionics.
