D&D General What’s The Big Deal About Psionics?

[ART!]

Personally, I dislike D&D's decision to use the same mechanical model for all types of magic. I would love to see more diverse mechanics, not just for psionics but for sorcery, wizardry, divine magic, and others. I enjoy roleplaying, but I also like engaging with mechanics for their own sake; I don't regard them as disposable and interchangeable. Class mechanics should evoke the flavor of that class.

I agree completely. Are there 3rd-party products that provide an alternative divine magic system that's mechanically different from arcane, or vice versa?

I don't need the systems to be radically different. I'm sure there's a way to split the two but still using the basic way magic works in 5E. the problem might be in making sure arcane isn't inherently better overall than divine, and vice versa.

I would prefer a non-spell-based psionics system.

Spells are discrete things. You cast fireball, and you get a 20-foot-radius ball of fire somewhere far away doing X amount of damage. You cast haste, and the target moves faster and can do more stuff. It is trivial to create a character who can do both of these things.

Psionics, at least to me, lean more on sci-fi and superhero tropes. In those, it is more common to have one (or rarely multiple) core power(s) that can be expressed in different ways. Xavier is a telepath. He can communicate telepathically, read minds, create mental blasts, create mental illusions, project astrally, and use his telepathy in a number of other ways. In the OG Marvel RPG, this was expressed as having the Telepathy power and a number of "Power stunts" based on that power. But he can't move things with his mind, or see the future, or walk through walls, or heal his legs.

Honestly, I would like most or all magic to be like this. You should have to make a choice about what kind of magic you're going to focus on, be especially good (powerful, flexible) in that area, and less so in others. I guess this is true to some degree already in 5E, but all told it comes across as not very different, in my experience.

 

[Maxperson]

They’re just different spells. They’re spells, but from a different source and maybe a lil weird, but not really that special. Near as I can tell. I am sure I’m missing something because every time Dark Sun comes up there’s a grip ton of hand wringing about getting Psionics right. It just seems like spells to me. Spells with a different but not much different rule system. Sorcerer, but with unique spells. I don’t get why it’s a big deal and why it’s not just a different spell list. Help me understand. Or confirm, it’s just spells With a new name.

What's the big deal about magic? What's the big deal about martials? What's the big deal about treasures? If you have to ask the question in that manner, you aren't going to be able to understand the answers.

 

[James Gasik]

I think the argument there is, unless it's a 3rd party company like Dreamscarred Press, it would potentially take away development time that could be spent on something else the game needs. Better adventures, or guidance for high-tier play. Or actually fully fleshing out a setting beyond "Oh uh, here's a coastline of one continent of an entire planet!"

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think the argument there is, unless it's a 3rd party company like Dreamscarred Press, it would potentially take away development time that could be spent on something else the game needs. Better adventures, or guidance for high-tier play. Or actually fully fleshing out a setting beyond "Oh uh, here's a coastline of one continent of an entire planet!"

How likely is WotC to actually do any of those things? Maybe better adventures.

 

[MoonSong]

Except the people who study from books, the people who have dragon blood, the magic guitar guys, and the people who worship gods all get their own classes.

If it's all just magic and spells, and all the same, why not make them into subclasses?

It's not for lack of trying. The designers tried very hard, but the book guy is too rigid to leave room for the other classes and too iconic to be changed. Under these circumstances, the result is either 99% book guy with a splash of something else, or there are four subclasses so encompassing that they are independent classes for all purposes but multiclassing.

 

[James Gasik]

The Wild Magic Sorcerer has a unique system for magic. Too bad it's terrible; you use your subclass to get an ability that triggers 5% of the time you cast a spell, and it's basically 33% good, 33% meh, and 33% bad. Oh sure, you can trigger it if the DM allows you to refresh your ability to get advantage on a die roll, but who wants to play "Mother May I?" with your own darned class abilities?

 

[Minigiant]

I think one of the other hurdles is that psionics and other mind powers conjure n idea of fine "control and manipulation" that D&D spells dont do well.

D&D spells are very gun and bullet like that you just fire off an effect. Maybe you concentrate to keep it going.

Psonics, like elementalism, has this concept of the user doing a lot with the effect. Changing parameters. Chaining into other effects. Bestowing effects.

You just don't levitate someone. You pick them up, crush them into a pretzel, slam them into an enemy, pull them back, slaw them into the floor, then toss them out a door.

You just don't awaken a fork. The fork's name is Frank. Frank the Fork. And he will spy on the orc for you during chowtime for troop movements. Telepathically.

 

[see]

They’re just different spells. They’re spells, but from a different source and maybe a lil weird, but not really that special. Near as I can tell. I am sure I’m missing something because every time Dark Sun comes up there’s a grip ton of hand wringing about getting Psionics right. It just seems like spells to me. Spells with a different but not much different rule system. Sorcerer, but with unique spells. I don’t get why it’s a big deal and why it’s not just a different spell list. Help me understand. Or confirm, it’s just spells With a new name.

Yeah, the issue is that the people who make the most noise about psionics 1) don't want it to be just spell magic and 2) want it to be as powerful and flexible as spell magic.

I mean, sure, a psionics system fully equivalent to the 3.5 XPH is easy. You rename the 5e sorcerer class "psion", use the DMG spell point option, create new subclasses for different flavors of psion, modify the spell list a bit, and replace the spells' verbal components with audio manifestations and somatic components with visual manifestations.

But anyone who would be satisfied with that mostly doesn't spend a lot of time talking about psionics on message boards.

Similarly, except for psionic combat (which was always a broken pile of brokenness), a system basically equivalent to OD&D or AD&D 1st edition psionic powers is pretty easy . . . because the obvious 5e mapping is single-power feats, maybe some psionic subclasses. But that sort of psionics is too restricted and weak to support a psion class (note neither OD&D or AD&D 1st edition had one), and well, as of Tasha's, we already have it anyway.

Rather, what the loudest psionics fans want is a whole alternate power system as powerful and flexible as spells but mechanically distinct, like the AD&D 2nd edition psionicist. Which means, in the practical realm of actual game design, something that will be too complicated and too unbalanced to be allowed at the vast majority of D&D tables, like AD&D 2nd edition psionics. And thus something with an inherently limited sales potential, and thus vanishing small likelihood of WotC ever publishing.

(Anything new, but merely just as complicated and just as unbalanced as the existing spell system, is too complicated and too unbalanced to gain wide acceptance. A new system inherently doesn't have the spell system's advantages of already being known and having been designed around. As a result, it would have to be simpler and more balanced to get wide acceptance, criteria that are in tension with each other and with the system being simultaneously as powerful and flexible as spell magic.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's not for lack of trying. The designers tried very hard, but the book guy is too rigid to leave room for the other classes and too iconic to be changed. Under these circumstances, the result is either 99% book guy with a splash of something else, or there are four subclasses so encompassing that they are independent classes for all purposes but multiclassing.

Delete the wizard? Immediately improve all other classes by doing so?

I keep saying it as a joke, but every thread makes the sentiment less so.

 

[Yaarel]

It's a fine line, maybe? I always saw innate spellcasting as a magical ability that is just built in to a race with magical origins.

In 5e, psionics is a kind of innate spellcasting. One can say, psionics is "a magical ability that is built into (the mind of) a race with magical origins". Some races, and some individuals, have a mind that is magically strong.