D&D 5E Do you want psionics in your D&D?

[BrockBallingdark]

I only like Psionics in Eberron because of the Kalashtar, otherwise don't care for it in my D&D games.

 

[Celebrim]

Well, if you're trying to balance psionics against magic your first issue is that magic itself is horrifically unbalanced.

The imbalance of magic could never be used to justify psionics. I can't speak to 5e, but it seems magic has been highly nerfed compared to earlier editions. And to a large extent there was no such thing as a 'full caster' in 4e.

Casters always dominate play, and have since I first started gaming back in 2nd edition. I've never seen a campaign that wasn't dominated by the full casters in my lifetime.

I have limited experience with 2e, but in my experience, 1e AD&D post Unearthed Arcana was absolutely dominated by fighters and various fighter subclasses, both at high level and low level. I can't speak much to the way things worked before Unearthed Arcana, as I have too limited play experience (and was too young) to judge that period, but I can certainly see with a limited spell-list and adhering to the rules, casters would have a hard time of it without truly cheesing up illusions or other somewhat vague areas of the rules. Fighters on the other hand have enormous advantages both in the early game and the late game. In my experience, spell-casters tended to act mostly as a utility class that enabled fighters, who dominated the game in terms of damage output over time and survivability.

3e indeed broke the full caster, and the scope of dealing with that is outside this thread.

Now, psionics is neutral in itself, it's just a word.

I'm not sure you understand my point. You argued that diversity is a virtue. I argued that it is neither virtue nor vice. You can't make the same argument with respect to something like 'psionics' because unlike diversity, 'psionics' are not something that is normally adopted by some normative ethical theory as a virtue.

However, that doesn't mean that will continue to be the case when they get around to releasing psionics as an expansion next year or the year after.

The quality of the implementation of psionics has no bearing on my points. Presumably a tremendously good psionic implementation might cause me to advocate for eliminating the wizard class and renaming the psionic class 'wizard' and renaming 'psionics' magic. But regardless of the quality of implementation, I'd never want them side by side.

 

[Ninja-radish]

I'm really not sure where you see that "justification" is needed from WOTC. Psionics is a creative enterprise they wish to embark on and as the development team they have every right to do so. No justification is needed at all.

Some people like it and some people don't, and I get that. But in the end we're talking about a book. Nobody will be forced to buy it if they don't want to, and nobody will be forced to add psionics into their campaign if they don't want to. The people who will buy the book are the ones who want more choices in what they can play or who love the idea of the power of the mind.

 

[Celebrim]

[MENTION=6888828]Ninja-radish[/MENTION]:The title of this thread is "Do you want psionics in your 5e D&D?". My answer is that I don't want psionics at all. I fully understand other people have different opinions than myself, but the fact that other people want psionics in their D&D in now way influences my desire for psionics in D&D. By "justify" (my word), I mean "justify [to me]".

I know who the audience for the book is. It is people who don't like the Vancian magic system. The "power of the mind", that is, achieving things by your will because you willed them, is almost by definition magic (in that many persons have defined that as the essential quality common to all magic).

 

[Ninja-radish]

[MENTION=6888828]Ninja-radish[/MENTION]:The title of this thread is "Do you want psionics in your 5e D&D?". My answer is that I don't want psionics at all. I fully understand other people have different opinions than myself, but the fact that other people want psionics in their D&D in now way influences my desire for psionics in D&D. By "justify" (my word), I mean "justify [to me]".

I know who the audience for the book is. It is people who don't like the Vancian magic system. The "power of the mind", that is, achieving things by your will because you willed them, is almost by definition magic (in that many persons have defined that as the essential quality common to all magic).

Ah gotcha. I understand now.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The imbalance of magic could never be used to justify psionics.

:shrug: If you're going to have psionics, I suppose you need to decide how it's going to stack up to magic, be that roughly equally, superior or inferior (though still superior to non-supernatural abilities)...

I can't speak to 5e, but it seems magic has been highly nerfed compared to earlier editions.

It's a mixed bag, really. Magic is much more available (and even a little less restricted in some other ways) and potent than it was in the last edition. Relative to 3e, casters are more flexible in structure, combining the best aspects of 3e Prepped (Tier 1) and Spontaneous (Tier 2) full casters, plus at-will cantrips & rituals, MC together more efficiently, face no AoOs for casting, & use the same save DC regardless of slot level, OT1H; while, OTOH, they also find themselves with fewer daily slots, a concentration limitation on a few specific spells, a lower/harder limitation on spells/round, and finding the most broken 3e spells 'nerfed' (often by that same concentration limitation. Overall, I'd say casters are less out of control than in 3e, but hardly nerfed into the ground. In some ways they're better off than ever.

I have limited experience with 2e, but in my experience, 1e AD&D post Unearthed Arcana was absolutely dominated by fighters and various fighter subclasses, both at high level and low level.

Certainly at low level - high level AD&D depended very much on the DM and what magic items showed up, but IMX, even with the best fighter goodies in post-UA & 2e, casters dominated at high level...

I can't speak much to the way things worked before Unearthed Arcana, as I have too limited play experience (and was too young) to judge that period, but I can certainly see with a limited spell-list and adhering to the rules, casters would have a hard time of it without truly cheesing up illusions or other somewhat vague areas of the rules

There was certainly no shortage of vague areas! But, the general pattern, back in the day, IMX, was that fighter (& sub-classes, when you could meet the stat requirements) and mutli-classed casters (including fighter in that multi-class) dominated at low levels (and Clerics might have, if not for the healing burden), mainly because of the AC of heavier armor and higher hps (assuming max hps @ first or a decent roll). Starting around 3rd casters had enough spells and useful enough spells that they started contributing more consistently (not that CLW wasn't vital, nor sleep, if you happened to be lucky enough to have it wasn't downright OP the 1/day you got use it) and significantly, in a way that could be called balanced or at least playable, and that state of affairs lasted through at least 7th level or so, maybe right up to name level, by which time caster dominance would certainly have kicked in. Magic items were critical though, in that a fighter's high hps, saves, and ability to use any armor & weapons made him quite the magic-item platform if the DM was sufficiently generous.

I'm really not sure where you see that "justification" is needed from WOTC. Psionics is a creative enterprise they wish to embark on and as the development team they have every right to do so. No justification is needed at all.

Some people like it and some people don't, and I get that. But in the end we're talking about a book. Nobody will be forced to buy it if they don't want to, and nobody will be forced to add psionics into their campaign if they don't want to. The people who will buy the book are the ones who want more choices in what they can play or who love the idea of the power of the mind.

Well, sure if you want to be all reasonable about it.

5e's 'modularity' is more more attitude than design, but adding psionics as an option at some point will certainly be in keeping with it.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Making the Monk a psionic class, which I believe helped further ground them in the D&D world and gave them context as a source for Orientalism/New Age/Third Eye/Chi/Eastern Mystic powers. It acknowledges its "foreign/exotic" appeal and is actually in keeping with the protrayal of Psionics in Dark Sun and Eberron- settings where they have been most readily embraced.

Yes. I think I understand where people are coming from when they think of D&D psionics as sci-fi (with power names like "Id Insinuation" for instance) but I think they are giving too much credit to that flavor and not enough to the way other editions have represented it.

Is there really anything un-D&D about the Eastern Mysticism flavor? No, of course not. It's extremely appropriate in a fantasy game.

Maybe that's the question I would ask:

"If you envisioned psionics as a type of Eastern Mysticism, in some ways akin to Ki, and it is mechanically implemented in a way that appeals to you, would you want it in your D&D?"

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

What do we want? PSIONICS! When do we want them? NEVER!

Sadly, never been a fan of psionics. They've just never seemed to fit. Either they balance with magic, in which case they're redundant to magic, or they are different, in which case they tend to imbalance.

Plus the pseudo-science terms for psionics seem out of place with some many of the other medieval fantasy elements.

YMMV, of course.

 

[SailorNash]

I'm okay with it being just another type of magic. I mean, we have Wizards and Sorcerers. There's not a whole lot of thematic difference there. Why not one for "mind magic" as well?

 

[Horwath]

Yes!

Because I hate verbal and somatic components of the spells that are too abvious and negate almost any aspect of stealth that a caster would atempt.

And most DM's think of verbal and somatic components as yelling from the top of the lungs and flailing with hands like you are at a bad mime artist competition.

IMHO, most spell should have visual/sound effects from their results. I.E. fireball is visible at night from few kilometers away. Invisibility...not so much.