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

[James Gasik]

Ok not to start a fight, but I LOATHE how people point to Pun-Pun as an "example" of 3.x's balance. Pun-Pun was not a thing anyone could do easily. It required several factors.

1) that a certain sourcebook was in use in the campaign.
2) that "scaled ones", which is not a type or subtype of creatures in 3.x is being applied to any creatures, let alone kobolds in the campaign.
3) that a method of acquiring the special ability of a monster is allowed in the game (I think originally Pun-Pun was "achieved" by using a Psion with a Feat that allowed you to assume a supernatural ability when polymorphing).
4) that the player has sufficient knowledge to transform into a Sarrukh, a practically extinct ancient race that most players would never encounter even IN a Forgotten Realms campaign.
5) alternately, that a DM is perfectly fine with someone making a Kobold Paladin with the specific goal of falling to gain a Wish for a Candle of Invocation from Pazuzu (knowledge of Sarrukh's is still required).

I think that's enough to show that "theoretically possible if your DM allows every step of this process" is the only way to look at Pun-Pun. The existence of any powerful build, from an Ubercharger to an Omnificer, to the "Cheater of Mystra", has these criteria attached.

Compare and contrast the Coffeelock, which originally only required the core rules* to accomplish, rather than the truly arcane steps of getting a Wish from a Demon Prince at stupidly low level.

*Core Rules-ish, I should say, since there was quite a debate on how Elven resting worked.

EDIT: forgot to clarify that Pun-Pun the Kobold started life as a Paladin.

 

[Minigiant]

Most unbalance comes from unrelated mechanics, which by itself is fine but becomes broken when combining in unpredicted ways. Because of combos, increasing complexity within the system inherently destabilizes it and causes unbalance.

Again. The unbalance comes from the designer's errors and not the idea itself.

"It was broken before so it's broken now" is a poor excuse not to do something. That's just letting those who messed up before off the hook by claiming they did the best job.

I don't think many here gave specific effects by level for psionics like Magic has. Just no Slots and no Spells. So you have untold freedom to balance it. It is preferable that psionics is not attached to magic. So the wizard class can't get any of it.

I mean. If you want unbalanced: make psionics spells and let wizards cast it.

 

[James Gasik]

At one point Ed Greenwood said Elminster had psionic powers, does that count? : )

 

[Yaarel]

You're looking for Occult magic in Pathfinder (as of 2e) technically, it compresses the magic of the mind and soul into the normal magic system, but as its own spell list and category alongside arcane, primal, and divine. It still uses spell slots and stuff, and is fully integrated into the magic system in the world.

There's a great in-universe essay in secrets of magic that delves into its true nature and why its different, but how it works, and the flavor is all massaged to fit just fine, its the 'weird stuff' hags do and that the lovecraft stuff runs off of-- but in reality its like the magic of belief and narrative and the connections between things. Its less rigorous than Arcane because its so heavily influenced by the emotions, thoughts, and beliefs of the caster but it also touches a very different part of the universe.

You have Psychics coming out, but Bards are naturally Occult as well, and some Witch Patrons, and some Sorcerer Bloodlines, and some Summoner Eidolons are Occult. My personal favorite Occult thing is the high level Dream Council spell that lets you gather people from across the planet in their dreams to have a conference.

Occultism is mainly 1800s and modern but it revisits premodern concepts. The Pathfinder psionics has "occult" flavor that is too "spooky" for my interest. Once psionics stops being the mind, then it stops being psionics. To be fair, the soul is an aspect of mind, and viceversa.

The power of an individuals own mind is the foundation of any and all psionics. If Celestials or Aberrations, or Undead, happen to have a strong mind, that is fine. But these flavors are not in themselves psionic.

In a way, psionic is the opposite of "occult", which literally means "hidden". Ones own mind is immediarely evident: "I think therefore I am".

You mention, hags are "occult", and that is fine because I relate them to Norse animism, troll, and the minds of features of nature. These mind if unusually "strong" are psionic.

And you mention Bard, whose magic is definitely psionic, the mind of an artist or scholar or shaman shaping reality.

 

[Hussar]

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?

I think this brings up a great example though (even if people may or may not LIKE the Wild Magic (I happen to, but, I can see it's not for everyone)). Here's a baseline class -sorcerer - that with one fairly small rules addition plays entirely differently from other sorcerers. I mean, does anyone think a Wild Sorcerer is the same as other casters? That trigger refresh mechanic is probably the baseline for the class - it's nearly presumed that you're going to do it. Which means that wild surges were happening in our games nearly every session. It was great. And hilarious.

Which kind of brings me around to my point. I have no problems with 5e getting a psionic class. Heck, I don't really have a problem if they do 3 baseline classes - full and half caster and non-caster like a monk or soul knife. No problems with that at all. There's more than enough design space for that. Good grief, how many psionic classes has D&D had in the past? Other than lots and lots.

What I do not want. And, if they go this way, I will simply not allow it in my games, is a 200+ page tome of psionic rules for the game that are not really compatible with existing casting rules, and force me, as the DM, to wade through the entire book just to have one player play a psionic character. No thanks. I do not want psionic rules that rewrite swaths of monsters, add a bunch of incompatible mechanics and so on and so forth.

If it is not 100% compatible with existing mechanics, I am not interested. So, to me, psionics use the same rules as all other casters. I really hope they add it to core as well. That way it's finally integrated into the system instead of being this frankenstein's monster, dangling off to the side.

 

[James Gasik]

I liked my Wild Magic Sorcerer, warts and all, right up until the DM either decided that A) I was abusing the ability to get Advantage on any darned die roll I pleased* and B) that my wild magic surges were becoming too much of a spotlight in his game. Then I became a one surge per day sad Sorcerer who wondered why he didn't take something with always on benefits like Dragon.

*I guess starting combats by giving myself advantage on Initiative was a little much.

 

[Minigiant]

If it is not 100% compatible with existing mechanics, I am not interested. So, to me, psionics use the same rules as all other casters. I really hope they add it to core as well. That way it's finally integrated into the system instead of being this frankenstein's monster, dangling off to the side.

The issue is...
That only works if you build psionics with arcane, divine, primal magic.

Useless you can 20,000% promise that nonpsionic classes can't get the psionic spells without being multiclassed majority in psionic classes. Otherwise you get massive power creep. "My wizard is going to use a psionic spell that targets something the BBEG wasn't designed to defend against and I'll apply a bunch of spell feats and class features on it. Ooops his mind is goo."

Psionics as Spells is Power Creep
Psionics as Not Spells is Buttload of Extra Reading.

Choose one.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Occultism is mainly 1800s and modern but it revisits premodern concepts. The Pathfinder psionics has "occult" flavor that is too "spooky" for my interest. Once psionics stops being the mind, then it stops being psionics. To be fair, the soul is an aspect of mind, and viceversa.

The power of an individuals own mind is the foundation of any and all psionics. If Celestials or Aberrations, or Undead, happen to have a strong mind, that is fine. But these flavors are not in themselves psionic.

In a way, psionic is the opposite of "occult", which literally means "hidden". Ones own mind is immediarely evident: "I think therefore I am".

You mention, hags are "occult", and that is fine because I relate them to Norse animism, troll, and the minds of features of nature. These mind if unusually "strong" are psionic.

And you mention Bard, whose magic is definitely psionic, the mind of an artist or scholar or shaman shaping reality.

Yeah I have a player who feels similarly that it dilutes the 'psionic' flavor too much to link it those other things, it essentially encapsulates a few different ideas and mixes them in the same way elementalism is primal but still somewhat distinct from plant magic and life force healing.

You've got the psionics, you've got the shadow stuff, the 'raw spirit power' stuff, the cosmic horror stuff, even ki is allowed to be Occult.

 

[Yaarel]

Again. The unbalance comes from the designer's errors and not the idea itself.

"It was broken before so it's broken now" is a poor excuse not to do something. That's just letting those who messed up before off the hook by claiming they did the best job.

I don't think many here gave specific effects by level for psionics like Magic has. Just no Slots and no Spells. So you have untold freedom to balance it. It is preferable that psionics is not attached to magic. So the wizard class can't get any of it.

I mean. If you want unbalanced: make psionics spells and let wizards cast it.

I want a fullcaster Psion that gets Wish spell at the same level the Wizard does. And Foresight, and Shapechange, and other thematically appropriate psionic spells. That kinda needs normal mechanics. The Warlock chassis feels the best mechanically (albeit its flavor is all kinds of external wrong). The chassis has powerful at-wills, effects that require rest, and even daily novas at highest levels. This spell chassis feels psionic.

The entire history of D&D, edition after edition, since even before 1e, is a cautionary tale for why designers must stop forcing psionics into weird mechanics. These weird mechanics have always failed, again and again, edition after edition. I am sick of weird mechanics.

5e - lets see psionics actually work well for the first time ever! Normal D&D mechanics.

 

[nevin]

I never played 2e. But 3e doubled down on the Greek technobabble names instead of standard D&D spell names. It made psi sound like scientific names for animals. It doesnt need to be like that. Psi can use normal D&D terms, like "teleportation" (not psychoportation), "shapeshift" (not psychometabolism), "conjuration" (not metacreativity), and so on. Use normal D&D terms and flavor.

but the problem is Psionics is deeply attached to Sci Fi culturally. The name itself is like D&D, in modern entertainment since the beginning of the 19th century at least it's been defined as a Scifi, and people have been trying to prove it as Science for at least as long. Changing the names of the abilities to match the spells just illustrates the problem. It's not magic so we need to make it sound more like magic. it's really hard to mess with things that are that embedded in culture already, most poeple on either side of the change aren't happy.