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

[Cadence]

4e has the best conceptual space for psionics. There are different power sources, and psionic is one of them: psionic, arcane, primal, and divine, even martial.

Never saw the psionics for 4e. What was the difference in how they actually worked compared to the other power sources? (As that sesnto be the big ask for quite a few folks).

 

[Hussar]

Yup.
Mind Sliver lets you target Int with a rarely resisted damage type.
Mind Whip is too.
Big power boosts for Wizards and Sorcerers.
Imagine if there were Psychic spells for every spell level that a Wizard could take.

How is this different from Force damage, something wizards can do pretty much any time they want?

If you think targetting Intelligence is a "big" power up, then, yeah, we're just not going to agree here.

But let's work with this. According to D&D Beyond, in the Basic Rules ,

10 monsters are outright immune to Psychic

Only 2 are immune to Thunder

LOTS are immune to fire.

REALLY a lot are immune to Poison.

NONE are immune to Radiant.

So, again, how is dealing Psychic damage a big power up?

 

[James Gasik]

So the deal with 4e Psionics was that there were no Encounter Powers. You had a few At-Wills and you had a small amount of psionic points that refreshed after a 5 minute rest. You could spend one point to slightly upgrade an At-Will, and for two, it was as good as a regular Encounter Power. This gave you more versatility and let you fine tune your response to encounters.

 

[Yaarel]

Never saw the psionics for 4e. What was the difference in how they actually worked compared to the other power sources? (As that sesnto be the big ask for quite a few folks).

I need to doublecheck, as I said I never got into the 4e psionic classes. If I recall correctly, instead of using the same atwill, encounter, and daily structure that all other power sources and classes use, they introduced nonnormal mechanics that required points to spend to use atwills. Whatever the details are, the weird 4e mechanics ended up making psionic suck (again!). 4e was a missed opportunity to mainstream the psionic power source.

 

[Maxperson]

My preference would be for a psionics system that used that as a core idea. The closest was 2e, where psionicists started out with a single discipline (telepathy, clairsentience, psychoportation, psychokinesis, or psychometabolism – I don't recall if you could take metapsionics as a primary discipline, but it would likely not have been a good idea even if you could). Even then you could branch out, but one discipline would always be primary.

Now, 2e psionics were far from perfect. The telepathy powers were too punishing for non-psionics, and the system was mostly too flat (1st level psychoporters could have, and probably would have, Teleport as a power – far shorter range than the spell, but still). But deep down, it's what I think of as being "right" for D&D psionics. Perhaps because that's where I started, but also because of this approach of powers being different expressions of a core discipline.

2e psionics balanced out, though. A lot of the effects were based on various stats minus a number, so if you had a con of 14 and the ability was Con -2, you failed on a 13+ when you rolled. That and many powers had critical fumbles when you rolled a natural 20.

Take that teleport ability. Even if the psionicist took it, he could only use it on himself and it was very costly to use. To go even 10 miles took 40 power points and was Int -2, so you would fail 25% of the time even if you were lucky enough to roll an 18 Int. It only got harder and more costly from there. There wasn't really a limit on range, though. You could go from planet to planet with 100 points and an Int -6 roll.

I personally liked the 3e version of psionics best and 2e second best. I'd love to see a similar form to 3e made for 5e.

 

[Hussar]

So the deal with 4e Psionics was that there were no Encounter Powers. You had a few At-Wills and you had a small amount of psionic points that refreshed after a 5 minute rest. You could spend one point to slightly upgrade an At-Will, and for two, it was as good as a regular Encounter Power. This gave you more versatility and let you fine tune your response to encounters.

I have to admit, I did like the 4e implemetation of psionics. Worked well with the system. The only problem I found with it was that it was FIDDLY. The players often wound up getting a bit of analysis paralysis trying to decide whether to burn points or not. And, wasn't that teleporty fighter thing a psionic class? That thing was freaking annoying - FAR too many interupt powers that let you move around on other people's turns and take attacks. HUGE time sink.

 

[Maxperson]

How is this not a sorcerer?

Sorcerers don't really have power to cast the spells themselves. They just have an intuitive understanding of how to cast spells from the weave(the source of their power) like a wizard does. They don't need spellbooks. The power they have inside is just sorcery points to modify the spells.

 

[Maxperson]

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!"

That's not really an effective argument, though. While I agree with you that FR needs something more than one coastline as a campaign book, making it would take away from something else the game needs, like Psionics.

Since it works equally in both directions, it doesn't really do much as an argument.

 

[Yaarel]

I'd love to see a similar form to 3e made for 5e.

5e spell points in the DMG are less practicable. To make 3e fullcaster Psion work, would need to make the 5e spell points work well first.

On the other hand, the 5e spontaneous spell slots are excellent, and I like 5e slots better than 3e power points. So I am comfortable with a 5e fullcaster Psion using normal 5e spell slots.

 

[Maxperson]

That's literally the sorcerer though.

No it's not. The sorcerer's sorcery points are all that's really internal power. The rest is just intuitive knowledge of how to cast wizard spells. The power for that is drawn from the weave, not put out internally by the sorcerer.