D&D 5E Is "Mystic" a bad class name?

[Yaarel]

It occurs to me, when psionics first came out in the 1e Players Handbook, the Wizard (Magicuser) was able to become a psionic, likewise the Cleric, and so on. Interestingly, learning a psionic power used up a spell slot. The class mechanics was integrating psionic features.

In 5e, allowing classes like the Wizard to select a psionic archetype with psionic features, continues this original tradition in a more balanced way.

 

[Remathilis]

Heh. I hope you enjoy playing D&D by yourself.

I'm sure the whole of D&D's player base is going to quit and take up Parcheesi because psionics didn't have a spell-based variant.

Obvious straw-man is obvious.

 

[Cleon]

Maybe it is an age thing, but Psychic has a clear meaning for Pokemon and Yugioh players, and it is more "powerful cool thing" than phony charlatan. The term psychic pops up liberally in contemporary fantasy. I can even remember an anime about mystic warriors were only some of them were psychics, and how two of them once fought a battle to decide "who was the better psychic". Even one very mystic and meditative character who was "closest to god" asked help from this psychic guy because "His psychic powers are unmatched".

Definitely!

When I read this I immediately recalled a TV series with Mystic that featured some of the "pretty macho armoured melee types" mentioned elsewhere on this thread.

They didn't seem like they had well developed mind powers, though.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Mystic is actually probably a good call.

Like the other base D&D classes we need a "real" word, that actually is somewhat evocative to mainstream culture. Everything in the PHB make some degree of sense to just about everyone. Psion(icist) doesn't do that (regardless of how you feel regarding any potential sci-fi tones to the term).

Now, the classes in D&D of course have their own take on the term that you have to be familiar with D&D to truly understand.

When non-D&Ders hear class names...
Barbarian: Might be Conan, but also might be non-Greek-speaking peoples in antiquity, or someone with atrocious table manners.
Bard: Could be a minstrel, might be Shakespeare
Cleric: Not someone in armor calling down miracles
Fighter: Full-contact fighting sports--not soldiers or mercenaries
Monk: A monastic religious devotee, whether western or eastern. The immediate connection "monk = martial artist" is pretty much D&D derived. Shaolin monks don't define the word "monk" for very many people.
Ranger: Park ranger
Rogue: Sometimes a scoundrel, often someone who "went rogue" in any of a variety of contexts. Almost never a thief or assassin.
Sorcerer: Generally a vague term for a "magic-user" of some sort, sometimes with sinister connotations
Warlock: A devil-worshiping "magic-user"
Wizard: A "magic-user" of some sort

Druid and Paladin (outside of D&D inspired fiction the term is extremely obscure) are probably the ones people are least likely to have alternate meanings come to mind for.

So basically, the names work about as well as could be expected. A non-gamer isn't necessarily going to get exactly what they are, though some of them might evoke the correct D&D meaning. Once it is explained to them it doesn't seem too terribly off. Rarely do you hear, "How in the world could you interpret sorcerer as some sort of high-powered magical sort, rather than as a diviner?" But some of them (such as monk, cleric, or rogue) might very well elicit a "huh?" response. It's a mixed bag, but about as effective as can be expected.

So let's look at...
Mystic: You get everything from someone generally associated with the occult in any sort of way, to a religious devotee whose practices emphasize direct experience with the divine, to a New-Ager, to a palm-reader, to however someone's particular fiction of choice happens to define it.

General conception of the meaning of mystic seems as close of a hit to the (proposed) 5e D&D meaning as a general conception of rogue or monk are to what they mean in D&D.

So it's definitely on the lower side general concept to D&D correspondence. But...what other suggestions do we have that...

1) Don't invoke sci-fi themes for many people (Psion)
2) Don't sound like an adjective more than a noun (Psychic)
3) Aren't too modern or specific sounding (Mentalist, Telepath)
4) Aren't made up terms that mean nothing outside of specific fictional contexts (Esper, etc)

I'm pretty sure that the designers are thinking about those sorts of considerations.

 

[RotGrub]

So, it's okay to change names, so long as we do it long enough ago?

Yes that makes perfect sense. Much like any word, after a while the term becomes part of the D&D dictionary.

And, note, a thief was a thief in 2e, it's just that the umbrella term of rogue appeared for thieves and bards. A wizard wasn't a wizard, he was a mage.


Look, again, you've asked the question and the question was answered.

A wizard WAS a wizard in 2e. Just as a thief is a rogue in 2e and a mage is a wizard in 2e.

If you're that confused with 2e class names and group names, I can't imagine why you wouldn't also be confused with the name Mystic, which is a class name that has been used 17 times in the past. Not once was it used to define any class that used psionics.

You might not like the answer but that doesn't make it wrong. There is a reason we don't call Rogues "Covert Operatives" and Artificers "Bio-mechanical Engineers" and Clerics "Theologians". Those names don't fit in a fantasy game. They are too modern, despite being entirely accurate. Psion or Psionicist is an SF term used by SF writers to add magic powers to their otherwise SF setting. IMO, it doesn't really fit in a fantasy setting. It's too modern. It's jarring and it was a bad idea twenty years ago and it's still a bad idea now. ((The name I mean, not the mechanics))

Psionics are a term that is still used in D&D. That term isn't going away. Mearls already made it clear that psionics are not magic in 5e. I don't agree with you that Psionicist or Psion is a term that is exclusively evocative of sci-fi.

A mystic is a name that fits perfectly well in a fantasy setting.

Never said it wasn't, in fact I provided a list of 17 D&D Mysitc classes/kits/prcs. My argument is that it's a class name that's NOT evocative of psionic power.

You asked about finding pictures of mystics and the first five Google image images I got were fantasy works. When I looked up Psionic character, I got D&D art. Understandable. The first fifteen or so images that come up on my Google Image search are all D&D works. The first non-D&D specific psionic character that comes up is this one:

Yes, but if you only search for the word Mystic you get no characters.

See, this is what I think of when someone says Psionicist.

I certainly don't think that. I'm reminded of various D&D characters from Darksun to the FR.

 

[Yaarel]

... Except for the last two editions of D&D, 3e and 4e, where magic and psionics are the same.

 

[IgnatiusJ.Reilly]

Obviously, it should have been Psionicist.

 

[Hussar]

Well apparently 5e has returned to 2e (and 1e?) and psionics is no longer the same as magic.

But it is "magic" I the sense of some sort of ill defined power which lets the user warp reality.

That was my point although I may not have been very clear. The original point I was responding to was that someone might be confused that a mystic didn't use spells.

My point is that they might not use "magic" spells but they aren't too far off either.

 

[Cleon]

But it is "magic" I the sense of some sort of ill defined power which lets the user warp reality.

Well, one could argue that there are LOTS of things in D&D that are an "ill defined power which lets the user warp reality".

Heck, that category includes hit points, which reliably allow an unclothed human to stand in dragon's breath without being baked to death. You just need to be high enough level.

Although that was probably an ill-chosen argument, since I don't want this thread to derail into yet another argument about what hit points are...

Anyhow, getting back on track. While I agree Psionics can be considered to fall under the bailiwick of "magic", I wouldn't want it to be considered "spellcasting".

To my mind, for it to deserve a separate treatment there should be at least some significant mechanical and flavour differences between Psionics and regular spell-based magic, else why bother giving it a different category?

 

[Tony Vargas]

... Except for the last two editions of D&D, 3e and 4e, where magic and psionics are the same.

Magic & Psionics were different in 4e. It just wasn't problematic, since magic was not being kept in check only by magic-countering/dispelling-magic, anti-magic, and magic-resistance/immunity. In 3e, psionics was optionally magic or not-magic. In 1e, it wasn't explicit: but it did a lot of magicky things. All I remember clearly about psionics in 2e was that it was broken and I didn't use it in my ongoing campaign, replacing it with a school of magic, instead.

Honestly, 3e had the best idea: leave it explicitly up to the DM.

Provide rules options for both and advice for using them (for instance, how to deal with a psionic PC in a world where psionics is both rare and 'not magic').

And, no 'mystic' isn't a great name - not if you're going to keep calling the powers 'psionic,' anyway.