Unearthed Arcana Why UA Psionics are never going to work in 5e.

[Hussar]

We're no stranger to psionics. You know the rules, and so do I. A full conversion's what I'm thinking of. You wouldn't get this from any other psi. I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling. Gotta make you understand...

It depends on how you are defining "non-D&D derived setting." Even then, I'm not sure how you are struggling unless you are neither familiar with other games or not actually putting good faith effort into thinking of any. Let's start with two obvious mainstream ones: Marvel and DC. Now your struggle is over.

In TTRPGs, there's Runquest/Mythras, which has Mysticism that is similar to Psionics, but alongside Theism, Animism, and Sorcery. There's Call of Cthulhu. Does Modern AGE (and Threefold) count? Or is that considered D&D derived? There's the upcoming Chronicles of Future Earth for Fate, which distinguishes between divine magic, sorcery, and psionics. There's Savage Worlds (admittedly not a setting, but a rules system) that separates Magic, Miracles, Weird Science, and Psionics. Numenera has both, but it's all Arthur C. Clarke level stuff.

Now I'm cool with calling Psionics a form of magic, but I suspect that many fans of psionics in D&D would prefer if it at least existed as a separate and distinct magical tradition, much like Divine and Arcane. Pathfinder 2 may go this way since it created the Occult tradition that exists alongside the Arcane, Divine, and Primal magical traditions.

I kinda get the feeling that devs are somewhat reluctant to answer or make a hardline stance on that question.

Considering how others have shown how your interpretations are not as iron clad as you make them here, are you willing to accept that I was arguing in good faith?

In the comics, generally, superpowers and magic interact with each other and can be countered by the other. Not always, true, but often. And, at the end of the day, there isn't that much of a difference between the two.

Pretty much. I do think for D&D, we should really be thinking of psionics as just a source of magic, as opposed to it being an output.

So wizards gain magic through research and study. Sorcerors are born with innate magical power, usually from a bloodline. Warlocks are gifted magical power from an external powerful source.

Psionics should just be considered another source; from mental conditioning and training, and simply how frickin strong a creature's brain power is.

The output however, is just more magic.

This is generally how I view it as well.

How about we just turn this argument in the opposite direction? There is no Arcane magic. It is all really just Psionics, with the people thinking it is magic having to use the crutches of verbal, somatic, and material components or a focus, to make it work. Arcane casters use and manipulate the power within themselves and within the environment around them. Take away the components and it is all just done with the mind. So maybe in a fantasy setting, everything is really Psionic and Divine, instead of Arcane and Divine.

An interesting point, but, counter to the history of the game.

I know you mean published setting, but my campaign ha had both since 1st edition.

BLUF: Psionics is sciency and a higher order of magic used by the "Ancients".
Gods don't like it, it steps on their toes. Abberations from the Void love it.
Magic is the normal route to power and changing the world.

I wasn't actually referring to published settings honestly. I honestly was wracking my brain for genre fiction where you have magic and psionics in the same setting. Comic books was one I overlooked. And apparently there's a Jhereg (sp) series? Fair enough. Considering the huge number of genre fiction novels and short stories pumped out in a year, there's probably going to be some. But, I'm fairly confident in saying, outside of comic books, that they are vanishingly rare.

Spock may not have been using magic, but, that's because they added magic into an otherwise SF setting with "mind powers", allowing for telepathy and the like. But, if you'll note, Star Trek doesn't have magic. Nor does Star Wars. Psionics is just a device in SF for adding magic into a setting where it otherwise wouldn't belong.

Which, at the end of the day, makes D&D somewhat unique. There really aren't any strong genre conventions to lean on here other than what D&D has created for itself and, frankly, those conventions are all over the place. Is psionics something you can add onto any character? Well, we have wild talents in every edition, so, yeah, it is. Or is it a devoted class? Well, in some editions, yes it is. Does it use outside foci? Well, sometimes. Is it purely the power of the mind? Yes, no, maybe, depends on which edition tradition you come from. So on and so forth.

 

[Mercurius]

That's a nice sound bite, but also not true. There will be future content, future editions, and they will build upon what is published...what is "official"...from the past. And that will impact people who want to play the game.

Take 4e as an example. Your argument could be thrown at 4e fans: "Play the game you want. What do you care about what other tables are doing, or what WotC is publishing?"

Except that almost everybody else wants to play a different version of the game, and there's no new 4e content being published.

That's a false equivalency. As I said before, I'm talking about psionics as an optional sub-system, with two variations: Psion class and psionic abilities as add-ons. Let me ask you: If WotC publishes psionics as an optional rule set with those two options, how does that impact the future of D&D publications in a way that is at all negative or limiting?

 

[Weiley31]

I feel 5E Psionics would be best handled as Talents and as something that develops alongside the character. Or like how the current UA supports it. At least, I like that direction alot.

Or introduce the UA Psionic rules as a new variant rule, and make the Psion a class. Both sides win.

 

[Ashrym]

The monster manual already has psionics. It's called innate spellcasting (psionics) and anyone who thinks psionics for PC's won't be a variation of magic is likely going to be disappointed.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

This is the first version of psionics I've seen that actually feels like 5th Edition to me. It's not my favorite version of any edition, but it feels appropriate for what 5e does well. It doesn't overcomplicate or add extraneous layers like previous editions. And that is all that matters. As much as I might prefer that kind of detail and depth, this is a good fit for this game.

 

[Asisreo]

I understand the pain of not having a psion fit exactly your idea of one, but that's probably because it's not being given room to be something new in the sense of a different edition. Alot of the classes and subclasses have been adjusted to 5e that has drastically changed their playstyle from even 4e. I'm sure if the cleric wasn't a base class, people would be in a fit that they're decent in the frontline depending. They wouldn't want the cleric to be an almost paladin. How could they roleplay the meek preacher boy they're used to if the god he worships gives him heavy armor proficiency?

Likewise, necromancers should be different from a basic wizard, right? Maybe not but I can see an argument for it. It's like a separate archetype where you should roleplay one way and the spells shouldn't necessarily be shared with a wizard. They'd hate being a warlock too since they don't want to be stuck with choosing a patron.

But ultimately, it doesn't really matter how they implement psionics. If any of the UA psionics were built in and balanced in the system prior to release, people might've complained a bit but it would've died down by 2017 at most because it scratched the itch. We would then be begging WoTC for a true dragoon class or something because we can never not want. That being said, it's clear the want for psionics is there. I just think that the people who want it should not expect it to perfectly align with you preconception of the class/subclass.

 

[cbwjm]

And NOBODY was happy when the last Psionic UA did that.

I was happy with it, I quite liked the psionic wizard subclass though I admit it probably needed polishing and I would have liked to have seen them update it with the new psi dice mechanic. They didn't even call it a psion, it was what others called it. All WotC said was that it was the psionic arcane tradition, no mention (that I could find) of them being called a psion. But people took it to be something that it wasn't and that is probably part of why it had such a bad response in the survey leading to WotC dropping it.

 

[Aldarc]

To do Psionics like they do it in Savage Worlds would quite literally just be taking the wizard class, completely as written, and calling it a psion.

Well, not quite. The Mentalist edge requires the Arcane (Psionics) background and the Wizard edge requires the Arcane (Magic) background. But I am not arguing that I want Psionics as per Savage Worlds. I was pointing out that Magic and Psionics co-exist in Savage Worlds as per the initial point that there are prominent non-D&D settings that have both.

That is the "different tradition" as done by Savage worlds. And that isn't what anybody wants. They want actual mechanical differences between the Wizard and the Psionics.

Of course, because D&D embraces and values class-based archetypes and niche protection. Savage Worlds puts "weird science" on the same level as "magic," and it's solution is to reskin things. That would likely also be how it works if we had psionics and magic in games like Mutants & Masterminds, Hero System, or Fate.

Considering how others have shown how your interpretations are not as iron clad as you make them here, are you willing to accept that I was arguing in good faith?

(1) I'll be honest here. I'm confused how the validity of my interpretations (presumably of the settings) have any bearing about whether you are arguing in good faith?

(2) Only a few "others" have responded to my interpretations, namely just Chaosmancer. Chaosmancer pointed out what I already knew about how it works in Savage Worlds and noted how these things developed inconsistently in comic books. TwoSix lamented the difficulty of toolkit classes vs. narrower narrative classes that coexist in D&D. That's basically your "others."

(3) The initial prompt of this was you "struggling" to think of settings where psionics and magic exist side by side. I named them. Saying that they more or less operate the same or anything else moves the goalposts by trying to shift the argument to a different point other than whether there are prominent non-D&D settings where psionics and magic co-exist.

I personally think that genre fiction is more fluid than the tendency that some critics of psionics in D&D have that "it's all magic" or even advocates of psionics in D&D have that "it's no magic." This sort of reductionism is often begging to be disproved with counter-evidence.

Sometimes it is a form of magic. Sometimes "magic" is considered something that wizards do, and things like "miracles" and "psionics" are the purview of others. This goes back to the excellent point that @DEFCON 1 made about what constitutes magic in D&D as well as my point about how a tacit part of the debate seems to be the idea that wizards want to gobble up everything magical as "theirs." I can say this, and I suspect that you would agree: in fiction where magic exists or there is no formal distinction between psionics and arcane magic, there is nevertheless often a distinction of depictions between the archetype of wizards (or however the fireball-inclined are called) and those with psychic powers. And I think that on that basis alone, psionics (mysticism, occult magic: a rose by any other name) justifies a legitimate place in D&D.

If we look in the context of D&D where "divine," "primal," and "arcane" are all classified as magic, then I am cool with "psionics" being considered a tradition of magic like the aforementioned traditions. (Just like it was in 3.5E and Dreamscarred Press!) I just don't want "psionics" to be slapped onto a sorcerer or wizard and then WotC calls it a day. "Primal" magic gets its druid class. "Divine" magic gets its cleric class. "Arcane" magic gets its wizard class. I want "psionics" to be given its psion class.

 

[Guest 6801328]

That's a false equivalency. As I said before, I'm talking about psionics as an optional sub-system, with two variations: Psion class and psionic abilities as add-ons. Let me ask you: If WotC publishes psionics as an optional rule set with those two options, how does that impact the future of D&D publications in a way that is at all negative or limiting?

I don't buy the "optional sub-system" argument.

In 15 years when we're arguing about 7e, nobody who is a proponent of, say, multiclassing is going to say "Well, I guess you're right. Multiclassing was optional in 5e so I can't really use that as precedent."

 

[DEFCON 1]

If I had to make some predictions... I think enough people have given their tacit approval here on the boards to the psi-die that it will be a good indication of its acceptance by the gamer populace at large. Which means that in whatever form the next "player-facing" book we get... whether that be a full Xanathar-esque player-splat, or a planar handbook with some player-facing material (which I think will probably come out in late autumn following the release of early autumn's planar adventure path)... we will see the Psi Knight, Soulknife, Psionic Soul, and the Wild Talent feat (I don't think the Telepath, Telekinetic, Tower of Iron Will or Metabolic Control feats will appear, those features will end up being used elsewhere) for use with that planar adventure. Mainly so that players who want to roll githzerai and githyanki can have psionic options available to them. This will also give WotC time to see how those three psionic options play in action.

That would allow them plenty of time to determine... in preparation for a Dark Sun setting release in 2021... whether a full psion class is warranted for that setting book. And thus also give plenty of time to design and playtest that class in early 2021 (right around the time where we are now.)

Finally... one other prediction... if they do decide to go ahead with a psion, I would expect to see two things:

First... the psi-die would be a part of the design. Probably a larger part actually, maybe even incorporating additional dice that also go up and down in size. But in order to tie the psion to the other psionic subclasses released this year... I really think they would have to maintain that style of mechanic rather than change to spell points or something else. That does no one any good (except for the people who hated the psi-die mechanic.)

And second... I would imagine that the full psion class would probably be build more along the lines of the warlock chassis, rather than the nine spell level wizard/cleric/sorcerer/druid/bard chassis. One, because we would already have that nine-spell level chassis in the Psionic Soul, and two, the concept of Invocations (side abilities running parallel to spell slots) are the kinds of things that could readily be the kinds of features that the psi-die manipulates. This is where we could probably see the talents listed in the four other feats they made showing up, as the four subclasses of the Psion. So you'd have a Psion spell list with all the standard spells that are psionic in nature (plus several more new ones I'm sure)... and then the list of "Talents" (IE Invocations) that the Psion can use via the psi-die for Telepaths, Telekinetics, Metabolic Controllers, and Iron Will subclasses.

Now the case could be made by some that even this Psion would be too close to the Psionic Soul sorcerer to really be necessary... but that'll end up being what the six months between the player-facing book and the testing of a full class for Dark Sun will be used for... seeing how most players really feel and if they really care. For that? I have absolutely no idea.