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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
So what do you guys think of 2nd edition psionics?
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<blockquote data-quote="Jack Daniel" data-source="post: 9064426" data-attributes="member: 694"><p>2e psionics? I loved 'em. I only have experience playing with the original (CΨHB) system and never saw the revised Dark Sun/Skills & Powers version in action, but one player in particular in my old high school group consistently played psionicists in our 2e games, and we never ran into any overwhelming balance problems. (Granted, we also played in a very loose, narrative way back then and never did anything that might stress the system, let alone break it.) Power checks were fiddlier than they needed to be, and psionic combat was something of a nightmare to figure out, but the flavor that psionics brought to the table made it all worthwhile. And even though my group converted to 3e immediately and used both the 3.0 and 3.5 psionics rules as soon as they were available, I think we all agreed that they were only a pale shadow of the 2e rules.</p><p></p><p>At some point between the release of Castles & Crusades and the early OSR clones (OSRIC, BFRPG, etc.), I gave up on 3e and went full BECMI/RC. When that happened, I went through a very minimalistic phase, where I was rejecting the inclusion of psionics in my campaigns based purely on a principle of parsimony — part and parcel of accepting Basic D&D's paradigm of race–classes and general lack of specialist subclasses (though I did keep the ones in the RC). I took it as axiomatic that psionics were unnecessary in a game where magic already filled their "niche."</p><p></p><p>The reason I did keep using the RC subclasses (paladin/avenger, druid, and mystic/monk) was that I just <em>loved</em> monks. I considered them so essential to the identity of D&D that it would never do to run a campaign without them. Therefore, it should probably come as no surprise that even back in my 2e playing days, I was flirting with psionic versions of the monk class, like <a href="http://www.drexxell.net/dnd/monk.html" target="_blank">this one</a>, which was one of at least three fan-written monks that I found on the internet back in the day (before I had a 1e PHB or a copy of OA, and well before <em>The Scarlet Brotherhood</em> had come out). I never got the chance to play 4e, but if I had, I would've wholeheartedly approved of its having made the monk a canonically psionics-powered class.</p><p></p><p>So nowadays, I do use psionics in my Basic games — the version found in <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/163446/PX1-Basic-Psionics-Handbook" target="_blank">PX1: The Basic Psionics Handbook</a>, by New Big Dragon Games. It is, in a word, <em>excellent</em>. Structurally, the powers look just like 2e; but mechanically, they're both simplified (e.g. no power checks or other super fiddly bits, PSP costs are regularized) and have their power-level reined in. Also, in a major improvement to game balance, the disciplines by default have to be learned in a strict order by every psionicist — psychometabolism first, clairsentience second, psychokinetics third, etc. It really helps the game to have the powerful telepathic and psychoportative powers kept out of the hands of low-level PCs. That said, while PX1 has both a mystic class (that resembles a nerfed 2e psionicist) and a monk class (one that resembles the RC mystic more than either the Blackmoor monk or the 1e monk), for my own games I combine them into a single psionics-using martial artist class called the <em>ascetic</em>.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jack Daniel, post: 9064426, member: 694"] 2e psionics? I loved 'em. I only have experience playing with the original (CΨHB) system and never saw the revised Dark Sun/Skills & Powers version in action, but one player in particular in my old high school group consistently played psionicists in our 2e games, and we never ran into any overwhelming balance problems. (Granted, we also played in a very loose, narrative way back then and never did anything that might stress the system, let alone break it.) Power checks were fiddlier than they needed to be, and psionic combat was something of a nightmare to figure out, but the flavor that psionics brought to the table made it all worthwhile. And even though my group converted to 3e immediately and used both the 3.0 and 3.5 psionics rules as soon as they were available, I think we all agreed that they were only a pale shadow of the 2e rules. At some point between the release of Castles & Crusades and the early OSR clones (OSRIC, BFRPG, etc.), I gave up on 3e and went full BECMI/RC. When that happened, I went through a very minimalistic phase, where I was rejecting the inclusion of psionics in my campaigns based purely on a principle of parsimony — part and parcel of accepting Basic D&D's paradigm of race–classes and general lack of specialist subclasses (though I did keep the ones in the RC). I took it as axiomatic that psionics were unnecessary in a game where magic already filled their "niche." The reason I did keep using the RC subclasses (paladin/avenger, druid, and mystic/monk) was that I just [I]loved[/I] monks. I considered them so essential to the identity of D&D that it would never do to run a campaign without them. Therefore, it should probably come as no surprise that even back in my 2e playing days, I was flirting with psionic versions of the monk class, like [URL='http://www.drexxell.net/dnd/monk.html']this one[/URL], which was one of at least three fan-written monks that I found on the internet back in the day (before I had a 1e PHB or a copy of OA, and well before [I]The Scarlet Brotherhood[/I] had come out). I never got the chance to play 4e, but if I had, I would've wholeheartedly approved of its having made the monk a canonically psionics-powered class. So nowadays, I do use psionics in my Basic games — the version found in [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/163446/PX1-Basic-Psionics-Handbook']PX1: The Basic Psionics Handbook[/URL], by New Big Dragon Games. It is, in a word, [I]excellent[/I]. Structurally, the powers look just like 2e; but mechanically, they're both simplified (e.g. no power checks or other super fiddly bits, PSP costs are regularized) and have their power-level reined in. Also, in a major improvement to game balance, the disciplines by default have to be learned in a strict order by every psionicist — psychometabolism first, clairsentience second, psychokinetics third, etc. It really helps the game to have the powerful telepathic and psychoportative powers kept out of the hands of low-level PCs. That said, while PX1 has both a mystic class (that resembles a nerfed 2e psionicist) and a monk class (one that resembles the RC mystic more than either the Blackmoor monk or the 1e monk), for my own games I combine them into a single psionics-using martial artist class called the [I]ascetic[/I]. [/QUOTE]
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So what do you guys think of 2nd edition psionics?
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