D&D 5E (2014) Psionics in Tasha

[Leatherhead]

Live with WotC representing it by spell slots?

To be fair, every other edition has it's own take on psionics. Why not continue the trend by making it different, again?

 

[Magister Ludorum]

I was working on rewriting 3.5 XPH with 5e flavor and Psionic power slots. Now I don't have to. I'm still rewriting the powers as spells however.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Dragon Magazine agreed the Deryni series was psionics. So we have clear precedent for psionics as not sciencey.

So what do we do with diametrically opposed views on what psionics even is?

We come up with a system that supports both interpretations. But instead, they went for the spells system.

 

[DND_Reborn]

To be fair, every other edition has it's own take on psionics. Why not continue the trend by making it different, again?

By making it the same mechanic as spellcasters? No, thank you.

Personally, I wouldn't mind the use of a slot mechanic similar to spells, but I don't want psionics to just be another branch of magic... boring!

 

[Mistwell]

We come up with a system that supports both interpretations. But instead, they went for the spells system.

There is no system which can support both interpretations. For example, psionics as spells supports that Deryni intepretation, but not the science one. And I can think of no system which supports the science one which would also support the Deryni one sufficiently to be popular enough. They're mutually exclusive. So, they just picked the one which worked for the most people currently playing the game.

I am guessing they will come up with optional rules and/or discussions about refluffing these rules to support the science interpretation, at some point.

 

[humble minion]

I can live with psionics as spells, and even as psionics as a sorcerer subclass, but i really hope that they do it this way, they give the psion its own spell list rather than just defaulting to the sorcerer list. There's stuff there that just doesn't fit the psionic flavour, and that's much more of a concern to me than power sources, or even the interaction with dispel etc between psionics and non-psionic magic. Psionicists shouldn't, in my mind, be using Magic Missile, or Sleet Storm, or Fireball, or Creation, or Circle of Death, or Chill Touch, or Stinking Cloud, etc etc. And conversely, the sorcerer spell list misses out on some abilities that should be right up the psionicist's alley. Modify Memory, for example - surely if ANYONE can use that, a psionicist can? Dissonant Whispers, Awaken... there's lots of quintessentially psionic-type effects that are accessible to bards or even clerics, but that sorcerers don't get access to.

A specialist psion spell list that takes some of the big flashy evocations and necromancies off the sorcerer list in exchange for some of the bard's enchantments would make a huge difference towards making psionics feel like psionics rather than just a coat of paint over a bog-standard sorcerer, i reckon.

 

[Charlaquin]

I mean, I’m with y’all in thinking a unique psionics subsystem would be preferable to psionic spells. But that ship sailed when we couldn’t settle on a psionic class we liked in the playtest. Nobody could agree what we wanted out of psionics then, so we got psionic spells in the monster manual and a vague promise that they would come up with proper psionics “eventually.” If it wasn’t obvious then that such a system would never materialize, I don’t know what to tell you.

 

[Remathilis]

To be honest, this seems like a punt. That may not be a bad idea.

Psionics is now a descriptive term, like Arcane and Divine. We still think of certain classes as "arcane" (wizard, bard, sorcerer, warlock) or "divine" (cleric, druid, paladin, ranger), but really, those terms are holdovers from earlier editions and fluff; both terms are mechanically meaningless. Further, classes are mutable: a sorcerer or warlock might normally be considered arcane casters, but the divine soul and pact of the celestial make them divine powered with no change to their mechanics. Lastly, plenty of abilities could be considered Arcane or Divine without actually being spells; a cleric'c channel divinity or a Eldritch Knight's weapon bind.

Psionics is the same: it describes the power source of certain casters and effects without changing the mechanics. An aberrant soul sorcerer is the psionic equivalent of the divine soul; a change in power source with some new subclass features and spell options but ultimately mechanically the same. Certain powers and abilities (like a mind flayers psychic blast or a kalshatar's telepathy) are likewise "psionic flavored" but the descriptor has no mechanical bearing.

Perhaps down the road, a full psionic spellcaster class will come to exist (Dark Sun?) But I think it will be a spellcaster and not a new mechanic. However, until then think of psionics as fluff, not rules much like how arcane and divine are fluff and not rules.

 

[Todd Roybark]

What I find terribly amusing is for all the cries of wanting a unique Psionics system, the base spell system of 5e is essentially the 2e Psionics system, filtered through bounded accuracy.

Spells, now, like the Psionics of 2e Do Not Autoscale with level..you have to upcast.
Basically Psionics lovers got exactly what they wanted in 5e...a balanced 2e Psionics system...only it wasn't called psionics so the revanchist psionics crowd hate it.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

There is no system which can support both interpretations.

Nonsense. Many systems could support both interpretations. In fact, all psionics systems used in the past could.