I have heard of Merlin and Gandalf, but the other books, not much at all.
Who got Psionics in my Dnd?
- Thread starter Oni
- Start date
I'm looking at it right now- 1Ed AD&D PHB p 110- 117.
Almost every power has a spell counterpart, they just have different names. Many are just different kinds of divination.
What is a "Psionic Blast" if not a more potent version of what 3.X calls "Daze?" What is What is "Telekinesis" (the power) but a version of "Telekinesis" (the spell).
Much of that language came from the mystics of the 1700's on, who were following the same paths as mages, orcacles and holy men of previous centuries. They just dressed up their "spells" in the new language of science, using greco-roman terminology to lend respectability to their claims. A spell that a wizard would use to move objects at a distance with his force of will thus becomes the psionic power of telekinesis- "tele"- far off; "kinesis" - movement.
Eventually, this language found its way into pulp fiction stories, and pulp spawned modern fantasy and sci-fi.
All Gygax & crew did is use the quasi-scientific lingo of the post-Renaissance con men and deluded pseudoscientists.
Interesting...I wasn't trying to be obscure.
Many people consider Brook's Shannara books to be a ripoff of Tolkien. They aren't- Brooks mined the same sources as JRRT (and admittedly JRRT himself).
Turtledove is a professor of history who writes sci-fi and fantasy, and is the master of alternative history type fiction of all kinds. His Darkness novels are essentially WW2 as fought in a typical fantasy world.
The Eternal Champion books- most notably the Elric cycle- are one of the major modern fantasy influences on the early D&D game (alongside Robert E. Howard's Conan and Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd & Grey Mouser fantasy stories).
The Diskworld novels are some of the most famous comedic fantasy in the world.
Tim? He's in Monty Python's Holy Grail.
Tim was an enchanter? My VCR no longer works and haven't found that to upgrade to DVD so recall very little about Tim actually except he does not even know his own favorite color.
Conan, and Fafhad I know of...Conan moreso, and see and think in terms of Mako as the wizard when thinking more old world magic, and he specifically used more than just mental power.
As with mention of the sci-fi, I think that is where the genre breaks down and separates and have found little liking for anything mixing magic and tech too much. Psionics that do not rely on components seem more to be an extension of the divine, and that is a far enough split for magic and metaphysics in general. Otherwise you could end up with a list of magic, for lack of a better name than that used in 4th edition, power sources as long as your leg.
But then most of those come from that of 2 places. The world around you, and the gods.
Druidic nature magic uses both nature and godly magic in order to perform its abilities.
So where do psionics really lie and are they needed and explainable as a difference from what is now known as arcane and divine magic?
As Raistlin said: "I am wresting power from the very fabric of the universe, not drawing it from the gods."
So where does psionics fit in at all?
Conan, and Fafhad I know of...Conan moreso, and see and think in terms of Mako as the wizard when thinking more old world magic, and he specifically used more than just mental power.
As with mention of the sci-fi, I think that is where the genre breaks down and separates and have found little liking for anything mixing magic and tech too much. Psionics that do not rely on components seem more to be an extension of the divine, and that is a far enough split for magic and metaphysics in general. Otherwise you could end up with a list of magic, for lack of a better name than that used in 4th edition, power sources as long as your leg.
But then most of those come from that of 2 places. The world around you, and the gods.
Druidic nature magic uses both nature and godly magic in order to perform its abilities.
So where do psionics really lie and are they needed and explainable as a difference from what is now known as arcane and divine magic?
As Raistlin said: "I am wresting power from the very fabric of the universe, not drawing it from the gods."
So where does psionics fit in at all?
Probably not in D&D terms, but that's what he called himself.
Divine Magic (and certain arcane magics) are derived from an agreement of some kind between the spellcaster and a powerful supernatural being.
Most Arcane Magic derives from a system of knowledge that is passed on from practitioner to practitioner. In a sense, its like science. It has rules, and its secrets are discoverable. In some cases, its a gift of your heritage- generally because you are descended from a being for whom magic was innate.
By and large, magics are directed outward.
Psionics, OTOH, is typically self-oriented. Your mind is a direct conduit and manipulator of the fabric of reality- in a way, you are doing what the gods do. However, in typical (non-D&D) psionics, the effects you can achieve with this path to power is more limited than through magic, except at the very highest levels of proficiency. A typical TK psi isn't all that powerful- see Gil "The Arm" Hamilton- but a TK like Jason Ironheart (Bab5) or Pheonix (X-Men) is as dangerous as any mage you can name.
IceFractal
First Post
The balance to using psionics is the same as the balance to using arcane magic - you have a limited amount of personal power, and once you use it up it's gone until you can rest and recover it. Material components have never been a balancing factor - bat guano is cheap, you can literally buy a cart of it - the reason you don't cast Fireball all day is because you have limited 3rd level slots. The reason you don't use powers all day as a Psion is because you have limited power points.
What I was trying to convey is that in many fantasy settings, magic works one of several ways:
* It's always difficult and/or dangerous to do, so it gets used very rarely.
* It can be used pretty much at will.
* It can be used at will, but has a significant cost - corruption, for instance.
* It can be used a limited amount, until the mage is tired out / has expended their store of personal energy.
D&D pretty much only does the last of those - all spellcasters: Wizards, Clerics, Psions - work the same way, limited in how much energy they have available in a given day. The difference is that while the Wizard and Cleric have that energy divided up into specific parcels and portioned out ahead of time, the Psion just has the energy as one big pool that gets drained as needed. This is more typical in fantasy than the "specific parcels" thing.
Incidentally, D&D magic isn't even Vancian, so much as "pseudo-Vancian" - mages in Vance's novels had much fewer spells prepared, and could use some of their weaker stuff at will. And many were good swordsmen, for that matter.
Fallen Seraph
First Post
Also, I think another distinction is that while Arcane is very; hocus-pocus in that, it follows much of the *out of thin air* (even with spell-components there is no reasoning behind why those spell components cause such a effect) trait. Psionics on the other hand while it is playing with the frabic of reality it is doing so in a somewhat understandable manner for many of its abilities, it is basically more scientific in lots of literature.
Like if I was to make up the reason behind Thermokenesis I would describe it as. The mind is causing the air molecules in a area to begin to vibrate at tremendous speed causing the air to heat up and causing anything combustable within that space to turn alit.
Like if I was to make up the reason behind Thermokenesis I would describe it as. The mind is causing the air molecules in a area to begin to vibrate at tremendous speed causing the air to heat up and causing anything combustable within that space to turn alit.
This is the way I heard it.
Bare in mind that D&D is older than I am. I retell this explanation that I read on these very boards. But the jist of it is this:
In the early days of pulpy novels, there was very little difference between "Bare chested man with sword saves damsel from evil warlock" and "Bare chested man with sword saves damsel from space aliens." It was easy to have something Conan-like, but Sci Fi.
Also at the time, movies like FireStarter were getting popular.
So it was easy for it to get muddled, or lumped in together.
Similar to how Gary put the Monk in 1e because he liked the show Kung Fu.
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Also, here's how it works:
Mages: Toying with the universe.
Priests: Using power of the Gods.
Psionicists: Tapping into the power inside themselves.
A 3e Sorcerer is more appropriate. Another example would be a Mutant from the X-Men.
The gist is "There's a lot of power inside of me. It's just brimming under the surface. I find the proper outlets for it, and pow." The power, and their will, is so strong that they make it happen. Not by hacking the universe, but that their belief in the reality of what they desire is so strong that they can will it into existence.
An alternative version of this is to look at Yogi and eastern mystics. They train their body to do all of that stuff. To slow their heart until they can survive under water for hours. Cope with mass amounts of pain. Go into a different state of consciousness, allowing them to focus more, or increase their perception.
One fantasy interpretation that I like is this: Belief equals power. Gods may not exist until people start believing in them; and if no one remembers them, the gods simply disappear. Thus, the prayers and simple BELIEF that it is TRUE give power and substance to the gods. This isn't limited to just gods; if a people believe in a myth, legend, or monster long enough, then it becomes truth. If you accept this notion that "Belief = Creation", then the Psionicist is just powerful enough that he can make things happen by believing in them. He has enough juice to believe it hard enough and it becomes substance.
Mages: Toying with the universe.
Priests: Using power of the Gods.
Psionicists: Tapping into the power inside themselves.
A 3e Sorcerer is more appropriate. Another example would be a Mutant from the X-Men.
The gist is "There's a lot of power inside of me. It's just brimming under the surface. I find the proper outlets for it, and pow." The power, and their will, is so strong that they make it happen. Not by hacking the universe, but that their belief in the reality of what they desire is so strong that they can will it into existence.
An alternative version of this is to look at Yogi and eastern mystics. They train their body to do all of that stuff. To slow their heart until they can survive under water for hours. Cope with mass amounts of pain. Go into a different state of consciousness, allowing them to focus more, or increase their perception.
One fantasy interpretation that I like is this: Belief equals power. Gods may not exist until people start believing in them; and if no one remembers them, the gods simply disappear. Thus, the prayers and simple BELIEF that it is TRUE give power and substance to the gods. This isn't limited to just gods; if a people believe in a myth, legend, or monster long enough, then it becomes truth. If you accept this notion that "Belief = Creation", then the Psionicist is just powerful enough that he can make things happen by believing in them. He has enough juice to believe it hard enough and it becomes substance.
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Arkhandus
First Post
You're missing part of what folks have said. They've already mentioned several times that the concept of a magician usually includes a limited power supply, but they can cast the same spell over and over again until it depletes that energy.
This is the concept of magic points, mana, ether, pneuma, chakra, chi, ki, or in D&D psionics, power points. What this energy supply comes from and what it represents is of little consequence, since it's all more or less very similar; internal energy or universal energy that a talented person can tap into with the right knowledge and application of willpower and belief. The magician can cast his augury or his fireball as often as he wants, but only up to the limits of his energy supply, and once that's depleted, he can't cast anything else (or at least nothing else significant) for awhile.
A lot of fantasy literature and such has magicians who either get weaker/older/crazier/corrupted with every spell cast, or are only able to cast a limited number of spells before they're too depleted to cast any more that day.
This is the kind of concept that D&D psionics are based on. A psionicist has a limited number of power points each day; each power (aka spell) depletes some of those, and once they're empty, the psionicist is too drained to use any more powers (spells) for the rest of the day.
You're getting hung up on semantics; although D&D uses a sci-fi term for psionics, the game could just as easily call it "mind magic" or "witchcraft" or "chi channeling" or whatever. And it only uses latinized names for psionic powers because of that stylistic choice of naming convention; telekinesis could just as easily be called "magic movement" or "magic grip" for example. D&D has just had bits of sci-fi (which used to be less distinguishable from fantasy) and other genres mixed in since very early on, so many designers just didn't have a problem with using such elements in D&D.
Despite the naming convention choice, D&D psionics still has a lot in common with the portrayal of magic in fantasy. Sure it's got some differences too, but D&D's magic system is far more different, and only has some minor stylistic element of spell components in common with magic in fantasy literature. And even that is limited in 3e, since metamagic feats and stuff can eliminate most spell components.
Only 3e D&D psionics uses the stupid focus of crystals and ectoplasmic snot, because of some wierd stylistic choices. Prior to that, there were only a few powers or less that utilized crystals, and I don't think there were any at all that used astral ectoplasm or ethereal protomatter.
Also, the things you mentioned about MTHAC0 and such are woefully outdated, abandoned relics of the thrown-together appendix that was the original D&D psionics rules. Psionics made more sense and was more streamlined in 2nd Edition, then further streamlined in 3e and again in 3.5e. 2e was just a refined and expanded version of 1e psionics, much better but still a very different system from D&D magic (the Vancian spell preparation stuff). 3e and 3.5e made psionics much more like magic, removing most of the alternate system factor from it and just making it like another flavor of magic, with only a few differences.
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