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

[Weiley31]

While I'll always be a big fan/preferer of the Power Point Psionics system from 3.0/3.5, I will also say that I did enjoy the UA Psi-Talent Die from one of the 5E UAs and how it is with the current Psionics Energy Die for 5E Psi-Warrior and Soul Knife.

I also digged how the older Psionics from the older editions developed alongside your Character levels instead of taking it completely over. I honestly was hoping it would have been the same with 5E as well. Especially since the Wild Talent was a Feat and thought that each class should have its own Talent Progression that invoked the earlier editions take of developing alongside your class level.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Part of the benefit of building psi abilities with an entirely different system of mechanics (psi points) rather than magic with the numbers filed off is that wizards would not be able to plug spell slots into their psi powers to power them, they just wouldn’t interface, in the same way a wizard cant use spell slots to ‘cast’ flurry of blows, because you need monk ki points to do the monk power things

 

[James Gasik]

While the 5e OGL has the same language, the content of what is considered fair game is different, basically like 95% of the core rules, lacking only some sub classes, spells, magic items, and monsters- I'm not a publisher, so I have no idea why that's a problem, I only have some vague recollections of 3rd party developers being wary of touching it when the game came out. If that's not really a problem, then disregard my statement.

Cadence, there definitely were Psionic gods in 3e, such as Ilsensine, the Illithid God, and in the Forgotten Realms, Auppenser. Absolutely some magic should interact with Psionics, just as it has in 2e and 3e, either in the form of specific spells designed to screw with Psions, or just spells doing their regular things, like blocking mental control. The XPH even has a anti-psionic artifact, the Annulus, which can erase anything with active psionic powers.

 

[Jer]

While the 5e OGL has the same language, the content of what is considered fair game is different, basically like 95% of the core rules, lacking only some sub classes, spells, magic items, and monsters- I'm not a publisher, so I have no idea why that's a problem, I only have some vague recollections of 3rd party developers being wary of touching it when the game came out. If that's not really a problem, then disregard my statement.

IIRC the issues when 5e came out were more third-party publishers being leery of Wizards motivation after the GSL fiasco of 4e. They didn't want another rug pull from Wizards destroying their business. That dropped off after a few years but it did take a while to reach that point.

 

[nevin]

That's ok. If I'm wrong let me know

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not even sure there's a point to the Sorcerer anymore, since the other casters ate some of their versatility by allowing you to prepare a myriad of spells and then let you decide what slots to use on the fly. Like, ok, you get powers because your grandpappy dated a dragon. Your class features aren't any better than what a Wizard gets, so your one unique thing is Metamagic, which is fantastic, but you'll run out of Sorcery points fast while the Wizard easily has five times as many spells they can choose from each day.

And since anyone apparently can get magic powers from some shady guy offering pacts in a dark alley, they're not even all that special in-universe either.

You are absolutely correct. And warlock mechanics make more sense for sorcerer than the sorcerer mechanics do.

I would delete the sorcerer as a separate class, and merge its fluff and flavour to warlock (instead of bargaining with devil/dragon/fey whatever, you're descended from them.) And then, if a separate psion needs to exist, I would make them a meditation based mystic, a full caster equivalent of the monk. This seems appropriately fantasy instead of scifi. And you could use some of the now obsolete sorcerer chassis for it. But instead of there being separate slots and sorcery/psi/ki points, just make the class wholly point based and balance it around the idea. They still use spells, but power those spells with points instead of slots and then have matemagicy ability to further empower and alter those spells.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Narrowing the design space even more: an excellent plan for edition longevity.

 

[Yaarel]

I would delete the sorcerer as a separate class, and merge its fluff and flavour to Warlock (instead of bargaining with devil/dragon/fey whatever, you're descended from them.)

Merging the Sorcerer narrative into the Warlock helps the Warlock too. Because, now the player can choose whether the bloodline comes from descent from the bloodline or from a pact that TRANSFORMS the character to exibit the bloodline. In other words, the pact is meaningfully granting magical capability, that the character must learn to master.

 

[James Gasik]

Look, I like the Sorcerer. I liked them from the very beginning in 3e, despite the fact they were demonstrably weaker than Wizards- they ooze cool flavor. But rather than admit that the Sorcerer was shafted for no reason, they turned the class into a pure blaster (and having played one, not really even a particularly stellar one) in 4e (as much as I'm loath to admit it, the 'simplified' Elementalist was actually better than it's older brother). Then 5e's playtest promised a lot of cool ideas, but the end product was stripped of part of it's old special feature (spell versatility), it's spell list is stripped down in many regards for no good reason, it's really hard to play as you have to be very careful about spell choice, only a few subclasses stand out, sorcery points are great but too limited a resource, and...oh well that's it. I'll be straight to the point, you can disagree, that's fine, this is my opinion- the Bard got hugely stronger in 5e. The Cleric got stronger. The Wizard got stronger. The Warlock got stranger.

The Sorcerer got new toys too, but the base class got a lot less than the other casters did. Now some subclasses are nice, sure. But all of the other spellcasting classes have good subclasses, so that's a wash in my book. After my first and last experience of playing a Sorcerer for 8 levels, I got to say, next time? I'll play a Wizard and write "Sorcerer" on my character sheet.

 

[Maxperson]

Out of curiosity, I want to visualize what that 3e psionic power would look like using 5e mechanics. Note the DC would depend on whatever slot level gets used to cast the spell. Of course, a Psion has innate spellcasting that ignores any spell components. Something like the following:



CHARM
1st-level enchantment

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: 1 hour

You enhance the way an other mind perceives you. You attempt to charm a Humanoid that you can see. It must make a Wisdom saving throw, and does so with advantage if your team (including yourself) is fighting it. If it fails the saving throw, it incurs the Charmed condition toward you, and regards you as a friendly acquaintance. The spell also ends if your team does anything harmful to it. At the end of the spell, it knows you charmed it.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell:
For each slot level higher, you can target one additional Humanoid.
For two slot levels higher, the creature types can be any.
For two slot levels higher, the duration increases to one day.

Looks good, but I would make a few changes. I think a charm duration of a day goes against the balance levels for 5e. Even dominate monster at 8th level only works for up to an hour.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell:
For each slot level higher, you can target one additional creature.
At two slot levels higher, the creature types include aberrations, beasts, celestials, dragons, fey, fiends, giants and monstrosities.
At four slot levels higher, the creature types include constructs, elementals, oozes, plants, and undead with an intelligence higher than 3.

Edit: That's assuming a spell slot format. If it were spell points as I prefer, it would be similar, but would cost a varying amount of points instead.