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

[Chaosmancer]

Learning how to do magic is literally learning how to manipulate the Universe! To bend it to your will! Of course it's harder to learn to do than Quantum Physics! You don't just say the magic words and cause magic to happen, like in Eragon or Harry Potter, you have to understand how the world works in order to bend it. This guarantees that it is harder to learn magic than quantum physics.

His likely reply will involve either the Magic Initiate feat or multi-classing.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I did not know this, glad something fun came from this discussion

Yes, knowledge gets lost and forgotten. Back in Ancient Mesopotamia it didn't matter if people knew calculus, when you could die of starvation, but nowadays, calculus is much more widespread because we don't have many better things to do than learn more about math a lot of the time. If you could make money and support yourself and a family working as a mathematician, it wouldn't have died out most likely, but after hundreds of years the knowledge was lost because people had more important things to do than study calculus.
The same can apply to Wizardry. Knowledge of magic can become more rare and lost if something more important comes up, like survival.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

His likely reply will involve either the Magic Initiate feat or multi-classing.

Yeah, probably. Too bad that NPCs can't get feats RAW, and multiclassing isn't required to be in the game.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Max, how about this? You say exactly what your point is so that we can stop doing "He said, she said, they said" so we can actually move somewhere. You keep contradicting yourself, and I think it would be better if you said what you actually mean, because you tend to disagree with every summary that pops up in the thread.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes, knowledge gets lost and forgotten. Back in Ancient Mesopotamia it didn't matter if people knew calculus, when you could die of starvation, but nowadays, calculus is much more widespread because we don't have many better things to do than learn more about math a lot of the time. If you could make money and support yourself and a family working as a mathematician, it wouldn't have died out most likely, but after hundreds of years the knowledge was lost because people had more important things to do than study calculus.
The same can apply to Wizardry. Knowledge of magic can become more rare and lost if something more important comes up, like survival.

I was more talking about the invention of it in Mesopotamia. The fact that knowledge can easily be lost is pretty easy to prove.

Look at the Dark Ages until the Renaissance.

On of the big things that moved the era was that the Middle Eastern Scholars started sharing some of their favorite works, particularly the works of Greek and Roman writers. Knowledge that had been lost to the West for centuries after the fall of Rome and Constantinople centuries later.

Heck, the Bronze Age collapse did the same thing. A massive loss of knowledge on metal smithing, trade, diplomacy, economics.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I was more talking about the invention of it in Mesopotamia. The fact that knowledge can easily be lost is pretty easy to prove.

Look at the Dark Ages until the Renaissance.

On of the big things that moved the era was that the Middle Eastern Scholars started sharing some of their favorite works, particularly the works of Greek and Roman writers. Knowledge that had been lost to the West for centuries after the fall of Rome and Constantinople centuries later.

Heck, the Bronze Age collapse did the same thing. A massive loss of knowledge on metal smithing, trade, diplomacy, economics.

Yes, knowledge is easy to lose. This is another limiting factor on magic, or at the very least Wizards.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Max, how about this? You say exactly what your point is so that we can stop doing "He said, she said, they said" so we can actually move somewhere. You keep contradicting yourself, and I think it would be better if you said what you actually mean, because you tend to disagree with every summary that pops up in the thread.

The last couple dozen pages of this thread are a case study in why it's better to propose a thesis for a topic of discussion, rather than die on the hill of insisting that something you just made up is incontrovertibly true. "If magic is so powerful, why aren't there more magicians?" would be an interesting topic.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

How would you scale something like Telepathic bond or Detect Thoughts?

If it is something like number of targets or duration, it would be easier to add in something like metamagic to play with that aspect rather than creating a new version of those abilities from scratch

(I'm going back to the original topic here a bit, continue on your discussion until you get tired of arguing with Maxperson)
So, how would you scale something like Telepathic Bond or Detect Thoughts? Easy. You just have more people be effected as you gain levels, and add on additional mechanical benefits to using those abilities. Possibly someone who you're bound to telepathically can use your Intelligence score for Intelligence Saving Throws, and other stuff like that when you reach certain levels.

It's fairly easy to "replicate" these spells and abilities, but cause them to be minor at lower levels, and when you get higher level they're more powerful and have additional perks.

 

[Chaosmancer]

(I'm going back to the original topic here a bit, continue on your discussion until you get tired of arguing with Maxperson)
So, how would you scale something like Telepathic Bond or Detect Thoughts? Easy. You just have more people be effected as you gain levels, and add on additional mechanical benefits to using those abilities. Possibly someone who you're bound to telepathically can use your Intelligence score for Intelligence Saving Throws, and other stuff like that when you reach certain levels.

It's fairly easy to "replicate" these spells and abilities, but cause them to be minor at lower levels, and when you get higher level they're more powerful and have additional perks.

But, you can do that with the spells though

"When you cast the Detect Thoughts spell you can affect a number of targets equal to your Int mod" or "While you are connected to someone via Telepathic bond they get a bonus to Int, Wis and Cha saves equal to your Int mod"

Both those are quicker to to write and easier to see the balance for compared to rewriting new abilities in the place of spells.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

But, you can do that with the spells though

"When you cast the Detect Thoughts spell you can affect a number of targets equal to your Int mod" or "While you are connected to someone via Telepathic bond they get a bonus to Int, Wis and Cha saves equal to your Int mod"

Both those are quicker to to write and easier to see the balance for compared to rewriting new abilities in the place of spells.

Except, I don't want them to cast spells. The subclass focused on telepathy would have access to at will telepathy at level one, with additional benefits and abilities as you level up. There would be features that refer to your level in order to function as an ability.