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

[Yaarel]

I personally think it should be stronger at... whatever they focus on. The metabolic should be an A tier shapeshifter/self buffer, beating out the druid.

Versatility should have a price. Honestly the wizard should be the B tier at whatever they want to do because they get to change what they can do after a nap. The swiss army knife should never be the best tool.

Yeah.

My first impulse is the psionic should be best at mental effects. But then, telekinesis isnt mental but is especially psionic. And then the concept that thoughts can transform the physical body is an important trope in my culture, whence healing and shapeshifting.

Even the themes that I feel are least psionic, turn out to make sense with the right flavor. Like, undead. At first glance, not psionic. But what is a ghost if not a disembodied mind, or a poltergeist if not a telekinetic? While they exist as a shadow creature, it is their mind that refuses to rest. Meanwhile, "psychic" spiritualists that sense ghosts. Indeed, Pathfinder dialed the undead flavor to blaring.

Ultimately, the psionic is best at whatever ones mind focuses on.

The psionic excels in anything, it doesnt excel at everything. The price for the specialization is having less access to spells outside that focus.

 

[Yaarel]

Or at the very least, have a smaller general wizard list and each of these sub-themes has a two-per-level list of extra spells going on (which wouldn't be automatically known, but would be added to the spell list), like just about every other caster class has. Potentially going up to 9th level instead of 5th.

I think its ok if there can be no general list. Each subtheme has its own spell list, and the Wizard picks any subthemes.

The concept of a Wizard is that it has access to moreorless every spell. Maybe a way to do this is, the highest spell slots (or maximum spell points) can only be used for spells within the chosen subthemes. Spells outside the chosen subthemes can only use lower slots. In other words, the Wizard casts nonthematic spells at two levels behind the thematic spells.

 

[Maxperson]

The point is a wizard has a whole bunch of ways to bypass the chance based portion of any given challenge, a fighter and a wizard want to get past a stone wall, a fighter has to make a probably very high skill check if not multiple and that’s if the DM doesn’t just say ‘no it’s just too hard to deal any significant damage to it’, the wizard can just say ‘i cast stoneshape’, or passwall, or dimension door, or stone to mud, or disintegrate, or any other number of spells they have available that don’t require a dice roll
So sure your fighter can try to destroy the wall, it doesn’t mean you’ll achieve anything

I see posts like this and the first thing I wonder is how all these wizards not only have every single spell in the D&D books in their spellbook, but always have the perfect spell for every situation memorized. It's astounding!

 

[Vaalingrade]

I see posts like this and the first thing I wonder is how all these wizards not only have every single spell in the D&D books in their spellbook, but always have the perfect spell for every situation memorized. It's astounding!

It's not hard to have Fireball memorized.

 

[Staffan]

There is no reskinning costly gp spell component.

"Manifesting this power requires an altered state of mind, which can be achieved momentarily by inhaling a small quantity of dried and powdered lotus, worth X gp."

 

[Yaarel]

"Manifesting this power requires an altered state of mind, which can be achieved momentarily by inhaling a small quantity of dried and powdered lotus, worth X gp."

Innate!

 

[Maxperson]

It's not hard to have Fireball memorized.

It's hard for a fireball to be useful in many situations other than combat, and won't be useful in a great many combats. Love the strawman, though. Way to twist the argument from non-combat applicability and then argue combat as if that was what was being discussed.

 

[Cadence]

It's hard for a fireball to be useful in many situations other than combat, and won't be useful in a great many combats. Love the strawman, though. Way to twist the argument from non-combat applicability and then argue combat as if that was what was being discussed.

But if it was a psionicist doing the fireball they could augment it into a useful damage type for the combats fire isn't good, or augment it into cool fire shapes outside of combat for uses there (fire bridge, fire wings, fire letters in the sky, fire welding to repair armor).

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's hard for a fireball to be useful in many situations other than combat, and won't be useful in a great many combats. Love the strawman, though. Way to twist the argument from non-combat applicability and then argue combat as if that was what was being discussed.

There not a single problem that can't be solved with the proper application of Fireball.

Except not getting jokes.

 

[Maxperson]

But if it was a psionicist doing the fireball they could augment it into a useful damage type for the combats fire isn't good, or augment it into cool fire shapes outside of combat for uses there (fire bridge, fire wings, fire letters in the sky, fire welding to repair armor).

Maybe and maybe not. It really depends on the form psionics takes. I've also never been fond of the energy emission powers that 3e put forth. I liked that system the best, but not that aspect of it.