D&D 5E State of the mystic

CapnZapp said:

What is that supposed to mean?

If you mean the wealth of different spells you can choose, yes that makes them flexible, but it also has nothing to do with the matter at hand.

If you mean spell points isn't inherently much more flexible than spell slots, given everything else stays the same, you're plain mistaken.

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All the spell point Wizard can do with the points is cast the same Wizard spells. While there might be some efficiencies to be gained from gaming the numbers, they are not significantly different from slots.

Parmandur said:

All the spell point Wizard can do with the points is cast the same Wizard spells. While there might be some efficiencies to be gained from gaming the numbers, they are not significantly different from slots.

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You keep repeating the company line.

I keep telling you, no, the ability to choose the shape of your "pyramid" is a significant power upgrade. Allowing spell points is a real nova enabler.

Guess there isn't more to add.

CapnZapp said:

You keep repeating the company line.

I keep telling you, no, the ability to choose the shape of your "pyramid" is a significant power upgrade. Allowing spell points is a real nova enabler.

Guess there isn't more to add.

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Different /= significant per se. Significance in actual play is a different thing. Also, Wizards don't want to nova, as that can get them killed assuming standard gameplay is in action.

Parmandur said:

Different /= significant per se. Significance in actual play is a different thing. Also, Wizards don't want to nova, as that can get them killed assuming standard gameplay is in action.

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Now you're just rambling.

It's possible spell points adds no power if "standard gameplay" is equal to Parmandur's special snowflake rules" and if so, I couldn't know anything about it.

Meanwhile, if you take the average campaign and just swap out slots for points, you will find that to be a significant power upgrade, regardless of what you think WotC has promised you.

...DMG system is perfectly in balance, and can be plugged or unplugged from the game with no effect.

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You have likely misread something. I cannot remember WotC ever claiming this. Even if they have, it is definitely not so.

The collorary is: don't allow spell points unless you know what you're doing - the switch is not a small or inconsequential one.

CapnZapp said:

Now you're just rambling.

It's possible spell points adds no power if "standard gameplay" is equal to Parmandur's special snowflake rules" and if so, I couldn't know anything about it.

Meanwhile, if you take the average campaign and just swap out slots for points, you will find that to be a significant power upgrade, regardless of what you think WotC has promised you.


You have likely misread something. I cannot remember WotC ever claiming this. Even if they have, it is definitely not so.

The collorary is: don't allow spell points unless you know what you're doing - the switch is not a small or inconsequential one.

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Being better at a suboptimal choice (going nova) is not a power boost. Admittedly, it may make playing a Wizard well in standard play marginally more difficult.

Another advantage of using spells and spell slots, is that there will always be new spells coming into the game. The book might only originally say which PHB classes they're for, with the Psion and Artificer left out, but when someone realizes something like "This new enchantment spell is definitely something Psions should get" it'll be far easier to plug it in to the class through something like D&D Beyond, rather than reinventing it as a power every time like they had to do in 3.5e.

Aldarc said:

Yes, which still put it below casters like clerics and druids. But that was the best that psionics had to offer in 3.X so I would say that it did a better job then of power parity.

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I'd never complain about a class being 'only' Tier 2. The 3.x Sorcerer, for instance, Tier 2, but a better class design with more potential for engaging play and covering more potential character concepts than the Wizard, IMHO.

Regardless of its terminological origins, psionics basically has entered general parlance for a type or flavor of "magic" within both science-fantasy - because the moment you introduce psionics into a world, it essentially becomes fantasy (hello, Star Wars) - and more traditional fantasy as well.

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I can't agree. The point of psionics is that it is magic scrubbed of fantasy, religious, mystical or superstitious trappings, and draped with scientific ones, instead. Allow that "psionics is magic," and there is no difference between psionics and magic, at all, it's superfluous. You're down to psionics using different components or something to differentiate it as a different flavor of magic; or using novel mechanics to force a metagame difference where no meaningful conceptual difference exists.
That - and just plain the range of preferences among actual psionics fans - is why they really need to leave the magic-or-not decision to the individual DM.

However, psionics are generally not depicted as "spells," but as a subtle and mystical art.

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Depictions of magic often include both what D&D would call rituals (lots of time, elaborate outlays) and what it might call 'psionic' (sheer force of will) or deride as superpowers (with no gestured/incantations/materials to speak of, and clearly an act of will and an exhausting effort) - rarely ever anything that might map accurately to a D&D spell (especially a 1e spell).

Aldarc said:

The psion probably has more in common with a 5E sorcerer than a 5E wizard. No spellbook. Smaller range of powers known. The main overlap between the psion and wizard has been Intelligence. That said, I know that the psion is most commonly attached to Intelligence as its primary attribute, but I know a number of psionic fans who would wish that the psion was appropriately attached to Wisdom for a change.

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IIRC, the original D&D psionics was based on all three of your mental stats, wasn't it?

Though it'd be horribly MAD, and result in psions being dumped-all-3:STR/DEX/CON basket cases (like the other PCs might carry them around in a basket, because that slows the party down /less/) who look like grey aliens, the idea of having, say Attack Modes use CHA, Defense Modes use WIS, and Disciplines/Sciences use INT has a certain appeal.

Yaarel said:

In the 3e, the Sorcerer was early on the only option for nonvancian casting. Even then, at high tiers, the sorcerer was significantly underpowered compared to the Wizard

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You mean, noticeably less overpowered. ;P

Parmandur said:

Being better at a suboptimal choice (going nova) is not a power boost. Admittedly, it may make playing a Wizard well in standard play marginally more difficult.

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Thank you for undermining your credibility amongst those who would otherwise heed your assertion.

And thank you for no longer standing by the statement I quoted, the statement that forced me to correct an obvious mistake.

Meanwhile, being able to choose when and where to spend your energies is an obvious upgrade for the rest of us.

Take a look at the Star Wars d20 rules for Force users. It is just psionics with fewer schools. It is not spell-based, it is based on feats and skills, and it works pretty well. Update it and expand it with new fields like the 2E psionics disciplines, and you have psionics system that is not just re-flavoured magic.

Samloyal23 said:

Take a look at the Star Wars d20 rules for Force users. It is just psionics with fewer schools. It is not spell-based, it is based on feats and skills, and it works pretty well. Update it and expand it with new fields like the 2E psionics disciplines, and you have psionics system that is not just re-flavoured magic.

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I wish I could award you more XP for this post. A psionics system built with the rules for using the Force as presented in Star Wars Saga Edition would be great.