D&D 5E Psionics in a sci-fi D&D

[cbwjm]

So, the same as the Mystic.

Similar to, but not quite. The mystic expend points from a larger pool when using powers. The psychic from stars without number has only a few points to spend and may end up burning then for the day or commit a couple of points for a long as that power is in use. For example, a powerful telekinetic can fly but once they're done the point of effort they spent comes back and can be used for something else. It creates a different feel to the psychic than just spending points. You also have to learn your techniques rather than just having access to everything in a discipline at a given level.

 

[see]

Here are the options as I see them:

1) Reskin magic. For example, take the sorcerer chassis, refluff, make thematic subclasses, customize the spell list, and use something like the DMG spell point rules. For another example, take the 3.5 SRD psionics and adapt to 5th edition (which means, not particularly different from the first example).

2) Create a totally new system competitive with magic. Discover it is a hugely broken mess people* don't want to learn. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn. Discover it's a largely broken mess people still don't want to learn. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn. Discover it's a moderately broken mess people still don't want to learn. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn. Discover it's a mildly broken mess. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn.

In the end, see that because "less broken" consistently moves your design toward emulating the existing magic system (since existing systems are already tested and are the baseline for "broken"), and because "easier to learn" consistently moves your design toward the existing magic system (since people have already learned it), that you have reduplicated the process by which TSR/WotC went from the 2e Complete Psionics Handbook to the 3.5 Expanded Psionics Handbook, and you could have saved a lot of time by just taking option #1 to start with.

*Here read "most DMs". A complicated system that only players of psionicists had to learn would be fine, but if the DM doesn't know the rules, they aren't going to allow them. If you make the DM learn something new and complicated to allow psionics, you've reduced the tables that will use your psionics to the ones with a) players interested in learning and using the new system, and b) DMs willing to invest in learning the system rather than just saying "no psionics". If you were just selling a psionics book, that'd be fine, since your intended market is "fans of a psionics system". If you're going to use psionics as an integral part of your sci-fi D&D, you've radically reduced the appeal of your sci-fi D&D.

3) Make a totally new system, but make it so limited (thus avoiding learning load and breakage points) that it isn't competitive with magic, and accordingly unpopular with all the people who are voting for a totally new system. See Tasha's Cauldron of Everything psionics for an example.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Here are the options as I see them:

1) Reskin magic. For example, take the sorcerer chassis, refluff, make thematic subclasses, customize the spell list, and use something like the DMG spell point rules. For another example, take the 3.5 SRD psionics and adapt to 5th edition (which means, not particularly different from the first example).

2) Create a totally new system competitive with magic. Discover it is a hugely broken mess people* don't want to learn. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn. Discover it's a largely broken mess people still don't want to learn. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn. Discover it's a moderately broken mess people still don't want to learn. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn. Discover it's a mildly broken mess. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn.

In the end, see that because "less broken" consistently moves your design toward emulating the existing magic system (since existing systems are already tested and are the baseline for "broken"), and because "easier to learn" consistently moves your design toward the existing magic system (since people have already learned it), that you have reduplicated the process by which TSR/WotC went from the 2e Complete Psionics Handbook to the 3.5 Expanded Psionics Handbook, and you could have saved a lot of time by just taking option #1 to start with.

*Here read "most DMs". A complicated system that only players of psionicists had to learn would be fine, but if the DM doesn't know the rules, they aren't going to allow them. If you make the DM learn something new and complicated to allow psionics, you've reduced the tables that will use your psionics to the ones with a) players interested in learning and using the new system, and b) DMs willing to invest in learning the system rather than just saying "no psionics". If you were just selling a psionics book, that'd be fine, since your intended market is "fans of a psionics system". If you're going to use psionics as an integral part of your sci-fi D&D, you've radically reduced the appeal of your sci-fi D&D.

3) Make a totally new system, but make it so limited (thus avoiding learning load and breakage points) that it isn't competitive with magic, and accordingly unpopular with all the people who are voting for a totally new system. See Tasha's Cauldron of Everything psionics for an example.

Congratulations! You have successfully logiced your self out of doing anything interesting.

 

[Hussar]

We're asking for a nod to scientific plausibility, not a full explanation. I want to believe it could be described scientifically, even if I dont know the details. Your insistence that everything is just made up and it doesn't matter is an insult to that concept, and to fiction as a whole. WHAT you make up, and HOW, matters.

But, you just contradicted yourself.

If the "HOW" matters, and your nod to scientific plausibility does not in any way actually address "HOW", then by your own definition, it's not SF.

So, how am I being insulting to the concept of SF by insisting that your telepathy in a setting be actually given any sort of explanation as to how it works? After all, in Star Trek, there is no explanation for how telepathy works - it just does. Which is perfectly fine, by the way. SF in no way actually HAS to explain the how's, that's something that @Minigiant and apparently you have insisted on.

By your definition, most SF, like Doctor Who, isn't actually SF.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Here are the options as I see them:

1) Reskin magic. For example, take the sorcerer chassis, refluff, make thematic subclasses, customize the spell list, and use something like the DMG spell point rules. For another example, take the 3.5 SRD psionics and adapt to 5th edition (which means, not particularly different from the first example).

2) Create a totally new system competitive with magic. Discover it is a hugely broken mess people* don't want to learn. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn. Discover it's a largely broken mess people still don't want to learn. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn. Discover it's a moderately broken mess people still don't want to learn. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn. Discover it's a mildly broken mess. Revise it to be less broken and easier to learn.

In the end, see that because "less broken" consistently moves your design toward emulating the existing magic system (since existing systems are already tested and are the baseline for "broken"), and because "easier to learn" consistently moves your design toward the existing magic system (since people have already learned it), that you have reduplicated the process by which TSR/WotC went from the 2e Complete Psionics Handbook to the 3.5 Expanded Psionics Handbook, and you could have saved a lot of time by just taking option #1 to start with.

*Here read "most DMs". A complicated system that only players of psionicists had to learn would be fine, but if the DM doesn't know the rules, they aren't going to allow them. If you make the DM learn something new and complicated to allow psionics, you've reduced the tables that will use your psionics to the ones with a) players interested in learning and using the new system, and b) DMs willing to invest in learning the system rather than just saying "no psionics". If you were just selling a psionics book, that'd be fine, since your intended market is "fans of a psionics system". If you're going to use psionics as an integral part of your sci-fi D&D, you've radically reduced the appeal of your sci-fi D&D.

3) Make a totally new system, but make it so limited (thus avoiding learning load and breakage points) that it isn't competitive with magic, and accordingly unpopular with all the people who are voting for a totally new system. See Tasha's Cauldron of Everything psionics for an example.

following your rationalisation to its logical conclusion just end with us not making anything and just playing a weak wizard, to seek to do something is important regardless of how likely we are to succeed.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But, you just contradicted yourself.

If the "HOW" matters, and your nod to scientific plausibility does not in any way actually address "HOW", then by your own definition, it's not SF.

So, how am I being insulting to the concept of SF by insisting that your telepathy in a setting be actually given any sort of explanation as to how it works? After all, in Star Trek, there is no explanation for how telepathy works - it just does. Which is perfectly fine, by the way. SF in no way actually HAS to explain the how's, that's something that @Minigiant and apparently you have insisted on.

By your definition, most SF, like Doctor Who, isn't actually SF.

Yeah, people in the setting presumably know how telepathy works, but no attempt is made to explain it to viewers. And that is probably for the best, as any explanation would most likely sound like bollocks. Star Trek is (or used to be) somewhat harder scifi than Doctor Who in a sense that real science was often alluded to in vaguely correctish context. But details still obviously were left blank. When Star Trek technical adviser Michael Okuda was asked "How does the Heisenberg compensator work?" his answer was: "It works very well, thank you." I assume the same is true for telepathy.

 

[cbwjm]

Something else I think about psionics, and I know many will disagree with me, is that I don't think it needs to be as powerful as magic. Instead, the psion class itself has to be roughly on par with the other classes. I don't think you need to have a high level psion running around thinking the equivalent of the wish spell. I'd probably balance the psion against the half casters with psychic effects topping out in power around the same as 5th level spells. So long as it's fun to play and psionics feels different (I know that's a nebulous term) I think it would be a fine addition to the game, whether in a sci-fi setting or regular dnd.

I think this was essentially the power level of the mystic.

 

[tetrasodium]

Something else I think about psionics, and I know many will disagree with me, is that I don't think it needs to be as powerful as magic. Instead, the psion class itself has to be roughly on par with the other classes. I don't think you need to have a high level psion running around thinking the equivalent of the wish spell. I'd probably balance the psion against the half casters with psychic effects topping out in power around the same as 5th level spells. So long as it's fun to play and psionics feels different (I know that's a nebulous term) I think it would be a fine addition to the game, whether in a sci-fi setting or regular dnd.

I think this was essentially the power level of the mystic.

there is no guarantee that magic will be a thing. Much of this thread has operated on the assumption that magic is still a thing & talked about how psionics exists alongside d&d/levelup magic but very little has even touched on if it's just tech & psionics.

 

[Yaarel]

Officially, psionics is magic.

This thread sometimes distinguishes between magic and psionics perhaps because of 1e and 2e.

However, 3e officially uses "transparency".

4e makes arcane, psionic, divine, and primal different power sources.

5e does the same. Psionic, arcane, divine, and apparently in the future primal too, are all officially "magic" power sources.

In 5e, psionics are magic, and specifically a form of "innate spellcasting", but can also appear as non-spell features.

 

[Minigiant]

But, you just contradicted yourself.

If the "HOW" matters, and your nod to scientific plausibility does not in any way actually address "HOW", then by your own definition, it's not SF.

Yes.

The HOW has to be suggest by a mention of scientific plausibility to be Sci-Fi.

The level of plausibility required is dependent on:

1. The subgenre of SciFi (Hard Scifi requires more explanation and ties to actual science than Soft Scifi)
2. The focus of the element (The science of food replicators is less important that the unlimited ammo guns in a Military Scifi)
3. The impact of the element (The science of terraforming and transportation is important in a story about living on different planets)

So, how am I being insulting to the concept of SF by insisting that your telepathy in a setting be actually given any sort of explanation as to how it works? After all, in Star Trek, there is no explanation for how telepathy works - it just does. Which is perfectly fine, by the way. SF in no way actually HAS to explain the how's, that's something that @Minigiant and apparently you have insisted on.

By your definition, most SF, like Doctor Who, isn't actually SF.

Because there are levels.

That's how Star Wars got kicked out of Sci-fi. The story is all about Jedi using mind powers to reflect blasters and make perfect shots then it takes 20 years to explain any of it via the weakest science excuses.

Whereas Star Trek can get away with "Telepathy is something some members of few races can do" because Telepathy is a minor element of Star Trek. More frequently used items like transporters get more details.


That's the issue of just reskinning spells. D&D spells are little bits of "detailed powerful reality warping". If you reskin in the most basic terms, you are limiting yourself to the solfest sci-fi imaginable. It would be hell to add any plausibility to all the various effect. To get to a medium level of hardness, you've have to cut, rewrite, and create so much than the effort would be the same as creating a new system. And you wouldn't be saving any time in creation nor teaching it.

Reskinning only saves time if you want to use the weakest and softest sci-fi subgenres.