D&D General please tell me about the old psionic classes?

[Clint_L]

I rationalize it that psionics is magic, it's just magic performed via purely mental exertion instead of through arcane ritual or divine inspiration. Which is a lot easier to claim now that all the pseudo-scientific names and telepathic combat are gone. That's why I have no problem with a handful of psionic themed subclasses in Tasha's Cauldron, but wouldn't want an entire parallel game mechanic framework for them.

Yeah, that's my approach as well. I mean, at a fundamental level, psionics as described in pretty much any text is magic cloaked in pseudo-scientific jargon. It just annoys me because it uses concepts that a significant number of people take seriously IRL - precognition, telepathy, telekinesis, healing touch, etc. New Age-y BS.

 

[James Gasik]

I never had a psionic character in 1e. I don't think anyone wanted to bother with the rules, and usually, what I heard from people who did have psionics was that it just meant a suite of psionic monsters like brain moles suddenly infested their games.

In 2e, I had limited experience with psionics. My DM loved them, and even had elite soldiers in an army who were all trained to use Death Field on the battlefield. Sure, there was always that one joker who claimed to have fairly rolled a page and a half of psionic wild talents, but my Dark Sun Gladiator only had the (terrible) Clairsentient Devotion of Combat Mind, lol.

For the most part, unless you wanted to play a specialist in a few powers, you needed some really high ability scores to reliably use your psionic powers in 2e*, and many powers people thought were busted, like Disintegrate, cost a ton of PsP's (40), had a difficult check (Wis -4), another Science and a Devotion as prerequisites, and finally allowed a straight up save vs. death magic to negate!

That didn't mean there weren't busted things you could do, however. As a thought experiment, I created a 1st level Psion with healing powers, did some back-of-the-napkin math on how many PsP's they could recover in a day, and discovered they could heal a truly ridiculous amount of hit points per diem- great if you're the kind of DM who wants players back in action ASAP, not so if time crunch is a serious factor in your campaigns.

EDIT: forgot the "*" comment I was going to make. It's interesting that I often see people claim that they want chances for magic to fail in D&D, including catastrophic failures- and here in 2e psionics we have exactly that- skill rolls required to cast "spells" and a chance for power to backfire or not work as intended.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

1st edition psionics was not a class based system. Characters of any class could develop psionics. It was inspired by Marion Zimmer Bradly’s Darkover novels (which I bounced off).

Psionic combat was a variant of Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock. You chose your attack and your defense, and compared them with your opponent using a grid that determined the outcome.

It also had some similarities to the “Mutant Powers” used in 1st edition Gamma World.

1st edition had a bunch of monsters that were designed for use against psionic characters. Mind flayers, for example where very difficult to harm if you didn’t have psionics.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I don't remember psionics being super divisive because there was pretty much a consensus that the system in the PHB was totally broken and didn't work. If you got (very) lucky to have a character with psionic ability, you had a massive advantage over everyone else in the party. Like quite a few systems in early D&D, it was very much a case of the rich getting richer, but in a particularly egregious way.

On a personal level, I hated it because it brought in a whole soft sci-fi feel that I just personally never liked, and particularly didn't like mixed with my fantasy. And the system used a lot of pseudo-scientific jargon that too many people took seriously at that time, which also irritated me.

To this day, I strongly dislike most psionics in my D&D. I tolerated a psy-knight in a recent campaign because a player was so keen on it, but it made me feel dirty.

why would it make you feel dirty, maybe it is my relative youth and the fact psionics is largely dead in sci-fi with most degrees of being serious but it at the furthest feels like science fantasy.

I get hating bad mechanics that is just sanity but how does psionics make you feel dirty?

 

[AnderNGmx]

The 1e and 2e classes were not that good or outright bad. At 2e a psionicist, the term for the class, could disintegrate himself by mistake at a very low level. 3.5 had good psionics with the Expanded version but only the Psion class was needed and the rest felt sort of superfluous. There was a fighter/psionic class all rolled up into one and some other ones. Lots of powers existed.

 

[cbwjm]

I think I liked the 2e psionics over 3e, mostly because psionics in 2e felt different. It may not have been the best system but it did give the psionicist a nicely different feel to the other classes. 3e psions and psi warriors just felt like wizards and fighter/mages with a different casting system, the fact that psionics were split up into 9 levels helped cement that feeling of just a different kind of spellcaster.

I quite liked 4e psionics, though never played them so my memory might be faulty, but I believe that your at wills could be boosted to for more power, I liked that idea.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

At 2e a psionicist, the term for the class, could disintegrate himself by mistake at a very low level. 3

Clearly overpowered. Most of us have to wait till high level in order to disintegrate ourselves.

 

[Longspeak]

Minor tangent: I seem to recall reading that psionics were the outgrowth of early D&D players who hated Vancian magic, wanting a spell-point system instead.

I would believe that. And I loved the idea of psionics. Hell as a kid (because I was. A kid), I even loved the psionics. But even when I was a little older, we saw the cracks appear.

They were first included in oD&D supplement III: Eldrtich Wizardry, so they definitely predate...

Woah! They predate me! I always thought they were new in the 1e PHB. I was 12 when we got the PHB and began being Advanced.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I would believe that. And I loved the idea of psionics. Hell as a kid (because I was. A kid), I even loved the psionics. But even when I was a little older, we saw the cracks appear.


Woah! They predate me! I always thought they were new in the 1e PHB. I was 12 when we got the PHB and began being Advanced.

what mechanically badly made, history of the hobby at this point

 

[Willie the Duck]

Yeah, that's my approach as well. I mean, at a fundamental level, psionics as described in pretty much any text is magic cloaked in pseudo-scientific jargon. It just annoys me because it uses concepts that a significant number of people take seriously IRL - precognition, telepathy, telekinesis, healing touch, etc. New Age-y BS.

why would it make you feel dirty, maybe it is my relative youth and the fact psionics is largely dead in sci-fi with most degrees of being serious but it at the furthest feels like science fantasy.
I get hating bad mechanics that is just sanity but how does psionics make you feel dirty?

Is it because relatively recent instances of IRL people believing in the supernatural feels more problematic than potentially people way back yonder* in the past believing in magic?
*if one feels that the quasi-medieval setting of the fantasy genre even is a parallel to the real farther-back past.