New D&D Monthly Survey: Mystics & Psionics

The new D&D monthly survey is up - it asks about last month's Unearthed Arcana psionics rules. Additionally, WotC reports on the results of the last survey about settings, classes, and races. It turns out that the top tier settings in terms of popularity are Eberron, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Planescape, and the Forgotten Realms, followed by Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer. Additionally, popular character types were led by the artificer, shaman, and alchemist; while the most popular races were thri-kreen, goblin, and aasimar.

Find the new survey here. "This month, our survey looks at the mystic character class and our first draft of psionics rules for fifth edition. Your input is an invaluable tool that helps shape how we develop new material for D&D. If you love the rules, hate them, or have a specific issue you want to address, let us know."

 

[MoonSong]

"How it was" amounts to more than just the casting system. I thought that would have been obvious, but apparently not. It's the flavor, the aesthetics, its classes (psion, psychic warrior, etc.) and disciplines (e.g. nomad, psychometabolism, etc.), and the general feel of psionics.

Ok, Aldarc are you sure you aren't my sock puppet? Cause you sound a lot like me.

 

[epithet]

"How it was" amounts to more than just the casting system. I thought that would have been obvious, but apparently not. It's the flavor, the aesthetics, its classes (psion, psychic warrior, etc.) and disciplines (e.g. nomad, psychometabolism, etc.), and the general feel of psionics.

That still doesn't mean it is being marginalised. The flavor and aesthetics seem to be similar, and the classes seem to be restructured into sub-classes. The general feel, as I mentioned, is being shifted away from "mind caster," but none of that seems to qualify as marginalizing psionics. Instead, it seems like he's willing to put in the effort to make psionics and the mystic into a fully realised system and class in its own right, as opposed to copying what a magic class does, only with brain magic.

In any event, a faithful transcription of the psionics rules or psionics classes from previous systems probably can't and certainly shouldn't work, so it stands to reason that the process of translation would look for ways to improve on what's gone before. That's anything but marginalization.

 

[dream66_]

"How it was" was a caster. He specifically stated that he wanted to move psionics away from casting spells, but that's not marginalization--that's turning the class into something distinct as opposed to a magic-user with different flavor text.

That's true if you look at 3rd edition and maybe 4th.

That's not true if you look at older history of psionics, it used to be more than just a different kind of caster.

 

[EvanNave55]

I would love to see a new Aasimar. The example in the DMG was a bit weak IMO.

Same here, Aasimar was definitely my favorite race. Though since there is atleast sortof an Aasimar already it's probably more important to work on some other races people really want.

 

[Aldarc]

That still doesn't mean it is being marginalised. The flavor and aesthetics seem to be similar, and the classes seem to be restructured into sub-classes. The general feel, as I mentioned, is being shifted away from "mind caster," but none of that seems to qualify as marginalizing psionics. Instead, it seems like he's willing to put in the effort to make psionics and the mystic into a fully realised system and class in its own right, as opposed to copying what a magic class does, only with brain magic.

In any event, a faithful transcription of the psionics rules or psionics classes from previous systems probably can't and certainly shouldn't work, so it stands to reason that the process of translation would look for ways to improve on what's gone before. That's anything but marginalization.

The flavor and aesthetics of the 'mystic' feel different from what we saw of psionics in 3E and 4E. D&D has inherited an enormous amount of depth surrounding psionics, particularly psionic classes between the various classes devised for 3E, 4E, as well as Dreamscarred Press's rebalancing/expansion. To try pushing them into a single 'mystic' class would be akin to getting rid of the wizard, warlock, bard, and sorcerer for a single 'arcanist' class and expecting that fans of the preceding classes should be satisfied. Or imagine if the wizard had come without its arcane schools? That is what we are seeing now in the mystic but with the psion and its disciplines. And all of that is what makes the 'mystic' a complete garbled mess of flavor and mechanics. Yes, that is the marginalization of psionics regardless of whatever well-intentions Mearls & Co. have towards making psionics more distinct in terms of its magic system.

 

[doctorhook]

That still doesn't mean it is being marginalised. The flavor and aesthetics seem to be similar, and the classes seem to be restructured into sub-classes. The general feel, as I mentioned, is being shifted away from "mind caster," but none of that seems to qualify as marginalizing psionics. Instead, it seems like he's willing to put in the effort to make psionics and the mystic into a fully realised system and class in its own right, as opposed to copying what a magic class does, only with brain magic.

I don't really see how you might think that the flavour and aethetics of psionics might seem similar, except in the most cursory way.

Psionics was already a fully realized alternative casting system in 3E/3.5E, and a fully integrated set of classes in 4E. I don't mean to infer your motive, but if you know anything about psionics as it's been in D&D for the past fourteen years, how can you honestly say that UA psionics and the mystic class represents a "fully realized system and class in its own right"? It's demonstrably the opposite of a fully realized system, and it already had a strong tradition of classes "in their own right".

In any event, a faithful transcription of the psionics rules or psionics classes from previous systems probably can't and certainly shouldn't work, so it stands to reason that the process of translation would look for ways to improve on what's gone before.

Why wouldn't it or shouldn't it work? If 5E can handle eight schools of wizardry, plus two different sorcerous origins, plus three different warlock pacts, plus bards, eldritch knights, and arcane tricksters, all representing different manifestations of "arcane spellcasting", why try to jam all of psionics exclusively into a single class? Moreover, why decide that such a class should discard the most recognizable aspects of its most popular predecessors?

 

[doctorhook]

I agree entirely, but with a precision: The wilders-empaths-whatever you want to call them deserve some place too, a more emotional and raw counterpart to the meditative and disciplined psion. And the order thing won't exactly fit with that.

D'oh, I always forget about the wilder. I like the concept for sure, I'm just not sure if a 5E version would be better as class of its own or as a "wild-magic" subclass of psion.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's true if you look at 3rd edition and maybe 4th.

That's not true if you look at older history of psionics, it used to be more than just a different kind of caster.

3e & 4e psionics were not just 'different sorts of casters,' 4e psions didn't cast spells and shared exactly 0 powers with classes that did. Now, that's a little facile, because only arcanists cast spells, and virtually no classes shared even a single power. But still, they weren't casters in the 5e sense, at all.

OTOH, a number of 1e disciplines and science were mechanically similar to and/or referenced actual spells.

But, yes, overall, there's a lot more tradition behind psionics not being just another form of casting the same spells lifted from the same long list at the back of the PH, even though, inevitably, there will be some specific mechanics that will be present in both some psionic ability and some spell, somewhere.

 

[epithet]

... how can you honestly say that UA psionics and the mystic class represents a "fully realized system and class in its own right"? ...

I can't, and I didn't. I'm saying that it represents work in that direction, which is by Mike's admission just beginning.

 

[doctorhook]

I can't, and I didn't. I'm saying that it represents work in that direction, which is by Mike's admission just beginning.

It's possible I misunderstood you, but that was a quote I took directly from your post above. At any rate, whether it's Mike's perspective or not, I'm not satisfied with the UA psionics and the mystic, and I said so (politely but strongly) in the survey.