D&D General [Poll] How do you prefer psionics to work?

What is your preferred approach to psionics?

  • Point based (similar to spell points). Powers based on levels like spells are

    Votes: 17 18.3%
  • Point based. Powers are not broken down into levels, but spell point investment power effects

    Votes: 42 45.2%
  • Inherent skills to be used more often, but you only get fewer of them in total, recovery is per hour

    Votes: 6 6.5%
  • Inherent powers, fewer in total, and cast them like Vancian magic (per day)

    Votes: 13 14.0%
  • Exhaustion based. Many powers don't raise exhaustion, but more powerful ones do

    Votes: 9 9.7%
  • Specialize at 1st level, those options grow as you level but you don't get more choices

    Votes: 6 6.5%

There are those of us with a persistent Homebrew campaign world that have, for decades, used psionics. While there has been a period in every edition where we had to wing it, the 5E lack of psionics has been a huge pain for me as a DM. I have my own psionic rules that I am using, but I will want to use the official psionic rules if they are released, and we've seemed to be 6 to 10 months away from that for the past 4 years. Releasing a psionics rule set is not just fir Dark Sun or Gamma World - it is a way to service long time members of the D&D community.

I guess that was me until not that long ago (ran or played in my homebrew from 1989 to 2016) but I got over it (and also moved on from that homebrew - but even if I were to go back to it, it'd be some kind of parallel world where psionics had died off in the Second Age for good - in the old version, there were always some hidden psionicists but it was really re-surging in the present day of the game). If I were to run a psionics focused game in that old setting I would set it back in time, where the roles of arcane magic and psionics were reversed and divine magic and churches as not as regimentedly established.
 

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Wait, actually, what? Where do I say there wouldn’t be a full caster version?
You indicated that it would be based on ki abilities. The model for that is the Monk class. I don't see how you could make it both Ki and full caster. Ki + full caster would probably be too powerful.
 

I voted for Vancian Magic, which was the least distasteful of the poll options, but still in the negatives. This poll begs for an "other, explain" option.

We playtested spell points at multiple level points, and it consistantly led to novas of high level abilities and then players unhappy with average length adventuring days. Even when the players are like "oh, that wasn't fun last time, I'm not going to do that again." So in my experience a spell point system is worse then a spell slot system in 5e with the context of how fast the other classes like rogue can "put out".

Point based but not level based seems all the problems of that, but removing the barrier of getting access to some challenge-negating abilities (like flight) at too early of a level. It's worse than spell points which is worse than Vancian which isn't particularly great in the first place.

Yada yad, recovery per hour. NO. The absolute last thing 5e needs is yet another different recovery mechanism besides long and short rests. There's already huge amounts of problems trying to balance short rest classes with long rest classes and both with at-will primary classes. Introducing another into the mix for 5e is a no-go.

Exhaustion based: Much like HD based, using resources that will put the character on a very different length adventuring day than the others makes no sense.

Specialize and 1st and they grow but no more choices. Well, there's tantalizing little detail there to be wrong in terms of resource recovery. But considering how players complain about limited spells known, having all of your options set at 1st level seems to be a bad idea. I will give the benefit of the doubt that the "and they grow" would still including things like no flight until 5th and the other limitations on certain abilities by level, otherwise this falls with the problem of getting access to some challenge-ending abilities too early. But in the end, it was just too vague and too limiting to get a vote. This might be a contender with more detail.

But that's a vote for Vancian style out of the poll options, chosen because it is the only viable one. Frankly, that's probably the most boring way to do it. For "psionics aren't magic" people, treating it just like magic mechanically will be a thorn in their sides. It does have "we don't have to design and balance anything new" going for it, but for something this big I would want a different feel. And there's plenty of them that would fit into the context of 5e.

I can say that whatever we get, I want multiple classes and subclasses, including half-psions and 1/3 psions. And for them to work out from a multiclassing point of view much around the same power level of the current "slots add but spells known don't" of casters where.
 
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You indicated that it would be based on ki abilities. The model for that is the Monk class. I don't see how you could make it both Ki and full caster. Ki + full caster would probably be too powerful.
It’s just a points resource. A Psion would have bigger bang that would cost more, and you’d prolly want a multiclass Ki/level chart to simplify MC between ki classes, but none of that would necessarily be more powerful than any existing class.
 

I wouldn't buy that. If there's not a full caster version, they aren't getting money from me for it.
Casters in 5e often are very multi-dimensional. I haste, fireball, web, heat metal, hypnotic pattern, animate object, and teleport. How do you picture a psionic full caster in a 5e context. Are they masters of a single discipline, or do they need to be able for a single caster class to cross multiple different types of psionic abilities?

Just curious about theming more than anything.
 

Casters in 5e often are very multi-dimensional. I haste, fireball, web, heat metal, hypnotic pattern, animate object, and teleport. How do you picture a psionic full caster in a 5e context. Are they masters of a single discipline, or do they need to be able for a single caster class to cross multiple different types of psionic abilities?

Just curious about theming more than anything.
I could see them with a primary discipline and some secondary and/or tertiary disciplines.
 

Mechanically, I liked the dice method they used in the last psionics UA with a major exception for the dice changing size if you rolled max or min (it's just my opinion but that mechanic was one of the dumbest things I'd seen in any 5e UA). I've toyed around with the concept and I liked that it's different and has a lot of ways to build off of it.

I chose the 2nd option from the poll (point based, no levels just cost changes). Leave the spells to everyone else and let me scale my powers with whatever mechanic is used.
 

Mechanically, I liked the dice method they used in the last psionics UA with a major exception for the dice changing size if you rolled max or min (it's just my opinion but that mechanic was one of the dumbest things I'd seen in any 5e UA). I've toyed around with the concept and I liked that it's different and has a lot of ways to build off of it.

I chose the 2nd option from the poll (point based, no levels just cost changes). Leave the spells to everyone else and let me scale my powers with whatever mechanic is used.
I liked it, because you were very unlikely to run out of dice quickly. It seemed pretty well balanced.
 

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