D&D 5E Psionics in Tasha

[The Mirrorball Man]

I think this was a miscalculation from WotC. They've decided to pick a system that a majority of people don't hate. But psionics are a niche system and they should have picked a system that a strong minority of people love.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If psionics cannot be countered or dispelled, they are not magic. That is my view point on them.

This is where I think WotC went wrong and a lot of people just view psionics as another branch of magic (arcane, divine, "primal", and psionic?).

For example, this is from the Mind Flayer:
View attachment 126573
Clearly, this aspect is "magical" because they treated it as such since the beginning. These spells could be countered or dispelled, so they are treating this aspect as magical.

But...

View attachment 126574
Also from the Mind Flayer, cannot be countered or dispelled. It has no spell level equivalent. Yet, it is "magically" emitted, so Magic Resistance would still impact the Intelligence saving throw. If you take the word "magically" out of the description, it is no longer a magical effect, it becomes a "mental" effect.

So, IMO, WotC just handled it wrong from the beginning. We've had psionics since 1E and it doesn't have to be complex or difficult to use, but I don't think we'll see a non-magical psionics until 6E, unfortunately.

This is an interesting point, but it fundamentally misses the design of the game.

Look at the Solar's Blinding Gaze, the Banshees Wail, the Ghosts possession, the Vine Blight's Entangling Plants, The Charm effect of Cambion's, Vampires, Succubi ect, Displacer Beasts Displacement

All of them are magical effects, that cannot be countered (some can be dispelled, but the mind blast is an instanteous effect, and those can't be dispelled anyways) and have no spell level equivalent. Yet, those effects aren't psionics. They are unique monster abilities.

So, there is no reason to say "look at the mind flayer using this ability, if it weren't magical, it would be psionics." Honestly, I think there are a lot of effects that should be magical, that aren't. As a Ancients Paladin you run into this constantly were there are effects that you can't reduce the damage from, because it only applies to spells, not magical effects.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the whole "Psionics should be a totally separate mechanic and system for doing mystical stuff that has most of the limitations of regular spellcasting removed, can't be dispelled or countered; and--oh yeah--magic resistance has no effect! Mindblanked? Too bad, you're my puppet bitch!" attitude that seems to pop up around psionics in some circles. Especially since 5e has used the base spell system to represent virtually every other mystical concept or class so far. I mean, why does my divine miracle working cleric need to use the same system as the eye of newt using wizard?

Yeah, this is such a fundamental problem with trying to make psionics completely seperate from magic. Not only have we over the year shown time and again that most psionic effects are already spells, we have certain certain spells that are tailor made to resist psionic effects like Mindblank, that thematically have to work as advertised.

Someone mentioned Superheroes a while back, and that really brings home this exact problem. Comic books did not used to be all set in the same universe. Doctor Strange did not live in the same place as Professor X. Yet, both could mentally project an image of themselves into the mind of another person. And, the general consensus that has been reached in the comic book community is that everything interacts with everything else.

You can build tech that defends against magical and psionic assualt. Mystic wards will block a psy-beam as easily as a plasma beam. In DnD terms, everything is magic, it is just a different expression of it, given from a different source. Which was about the only way they could go, in comics, to have anything stay coherent, when you have people born with the genetic ability to open portals to other dimensions, and other people who do it with tech, and other people who trained with an asian monk under a waterfall doing the same thing, it has to be more about "what is the effect" than "how is it they are trying to achieve this effect"

Well, this is just looking more uninspired with each preview they're releasing.
If this is their answer to psionics, I shudder to see what a 5e Dark Sun would look like.
I would wager several folks on these boards could homebrew something more evocative and creative in a weekend.

Sure, and just like the last five times WoTC tried to make psionics, it would get shot down for not being the right thing.

Honestly, I'm on the side of being a bit sickened by all these attacks on WoTC here. Psionics and the Mystic were the 6th UA released for 5th edition DnD. Since people seem to have forgotten, here is a link to that article: Awakened Mystic | Dungeons & Dragons

Note, it was released in 07/2015. That was over five years ago. Most recent psionic UA? That would be this one from April of this year: Psionic Options Revisited | Dungeons & Dragons


So, go ahead and whip up your weekend warrior effort. Declare yourself superior to WoTC. Take your design to them and get a job as a professional game designer. But acting like they slapped a spell list together with no effort, when there has been a concerted evolution of Psionic playtesting for FIVE YEARS is.... I don't even know. How arrogant do you have to be to dismiss their efforts over all these years of trying to please the community as something you yourself could do better in less than 48 hours.

Don't you think that if it was truly that simple, they would have done it? I mean, how many billable hours do you think went into this when I can count seven UA's that directly or indirectly touched upon psionics over the last five years? I'd say more than 48. Easily. By people that have expeirence in game design and are professionally hired to make games.

 

[humble minion]

I think this was a miscalculation from WotC. They've decided to pick a system that a majority of people don't hate. But psionics are a niche system and they should have picked a system that a strong minority of people love.

It's a tough call though. The psionics-as-sorcery system is certainly the least adventurous implementation, but it's also the simplest. A completely new subsystem for psionics is a big investment in design, playtesting, page count in Tasha's (which is already including the entire Artificer base class and all its subclasses, spell list, and infusions), and an additional system wanting to be supported in future supplements.

The proof will be in the pudding. For my taste, the Psionic Soul sorcerer was close but not quite there, just needed a few tweaks to do with components and a specialist spell list to be more psionics-y. Given the psionic dice seems to have gone away, presumably the psionic classes will be compensated in some other way. I hope WotC are willing to push the envelope of what constitutes a subclass a bit when it comes to psionics. A specific spell list is a huge deal for me, that would make me much happier with the sorcerer version, but I'm not sure WotC will be willing to go down that path, sadly.

 

[Todd Roybark]

The strong majority of people love spells. That is what their surveys showed.

The 20 or so people on this board that always want something else, no matter what was presented, are a rounding error statistically, at best.

In 1e Psionic powers were largely spells, with a Psionic Combat table that was a pain to use, and being Psionic was completely random, (well unless you cheated).

2e had wild talents and Psioncists...most Psionic powers were basically spells.
The system is commonly called "broken" by those, that loved the Complete Psioncist.

3e...basically spells again. 5e like in that powers had to be upcast. In the end of 3.5 adding Auras to new classes was the rage..so a Dragon Shaman played rather similarly to the Psionic Class that also had Auras. Not a 'Unique system', psionics were D20 thru and thru.

4e..despite people claiming that 4e Psionic classes "worked differently than other classes", I don't remember my Battlemind being all that different.

5e...Psionics are,(likely), like spells. The arc of history continues, (especially if the spells are Unbalanced).

Just like Cold Fusion is the technology of the future, and always will be...
....the next iteration of Psionics is always the one where all the pieces will work, while being completely different from all other system elements, but still easy to use.

History has shown, Psionics have never been easy to use, and frankly have never been very differentiated from spells.

Accept History..Accept your Destiny...Luke....Psionics are spells.

 

[Mecheon]

4e..despite people claiming that 4e Psionic classes "worked differently than other classes", I don't remember my Battlemind being all that different.

Psionic classes didn't really have Encounter powers, instead they got a bunch of At-Wills and could boost them up with points. Said points recharged like Encounter powers, so they were different and had that unifying thing as the psychic power, but not too different.

My go-to for Psion has been "Take sorcerer chassis, add Ki-point style boosts from monk, meld together into class with suitable archetypes" and remains as such though

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Accept History..Accept your Destiny...Luke....Psionics are spells.

Alright, but let's be coherent and give spells to Fighters, Rogues and Barbarians, because right now they look like they belong in a completely different game than the all spells, all the time D&D 5e.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Psionic classes didn't really have Encounter powers, instead they got a bunch of At-Wills and could boost them up with points. Said points recharged like Encounter powers, so they were different and had that unifying thing as the psychic power, but not too different.

My go-to for Psion has been "Take sorcerer chassis, add Ki-point style boosts from monk, meld together into class with suitable archetypes" and remains as such though

You mean metamagic?

 

[Todd Roybark]

Alright, but let's be coherent and give spells to Fighters, Rogues and Barbarians, because right now they look like they belong in a completely different game than the all spells, all the time D&D 5e.

Fighters have the Eldritch Knight, and the Echo Knight for non-spell based Warrior Magic.
Psi Knight might be in Tasha's.

Rogues have the Arcane Trickster. Psi-Subclass might be in Tasha's.

Barbarians have the Ancestral Guardian and Storm Herald, both rather magical...just not spell users. Tasha's has the Wild Magic Surge Barbarian subclass.

The Magic Initiate feat is available to everyone... so the 5e PHB met your expectation quoted above, and was coherent from day one, on the PHB's Release Date.

 

[Todd Roybark]

My go-to for Psion has been "Take sorcerer chassis, add Ki-point style boosts from monk, meld together into class with suitable archetypes" and remains as such though

The Cleric class works fine as well. Replace the word Divine with Psionic...and a Knowledge Cleric is a Pyschometric Reader, a Light cleric is a Pyrometric, so on and so forth.

The 2e Psioncist, (as well as the 1e Dragon magazine class), used the cleric tables for attacks and saving throws.

 

[Mistwell]

I think this was a miscalculation from WotC. They've decided to pick a system that a majority of people don't hate. But psionics are a niche system and they should have picked a system that a strong minority of people love.

For an edition which is not about the mechanics as much as it's about the story, it's probably the better calculation to choose systems that people don't hate over a system that only a small minority love, because it's not about systems.