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

[Minigiant]

No need to get personal.

I'm not getting personal. Wha I am saying you are fundamantally missing my point.

And bard and warlock and artificer.

Unless you think that an artificer is just another sorcerer or wizard. Is that the case?

The artificer is a half caster and heavily uses an secondary infusion system.
The bard is a full casters using normal slots progression.
The warlock is a full caster using normal progression is alternate delivery systen.

5e slots and spells are made to create the same types of casters. So without exclusive spells (cleric, druid, bard, warlock), a psion is made obsolete by the wizard and becomes a bad class (sorcerer) that nobody will want.

 

[Yaarel]

I'd actually prefer something like pathfinder with their 4 types of spells: Arcane, Divine, primal, and I think eldritch. The type of spellcaster determines which spells you get access to so a paladin and cleric will have access to the same divine spell list rather than each class having their own distinct spell list. One thing I loved about this is that sometimes a sorcerer that you'd assume was arcane was something else because their bloodline tapped into a different power source.

You can kinda do that.

I mentioned, the D&D spells divide well into themes and subthemes.

The broad themes are:

Spirit, Mind, Body, and Element

These themes can roughly correlate the power sources respectively:

Divine, Psionic, Primal, and Arcane



It isnt an exact match, because, for example, Divine would get the subtheme relating to telekinesis, not Psionic. And Arcane loses everything except elementalism including the plant subtheme. There is more to this.

The correlations are strong enough - and useful enough - it is worth redefining the power sources to mean spell themes.

There is also a Nonmagic theme, corresponding the Martial power source, that includes skills and tools, weapons and so on.

Classes tend to combine a few subthemes from more than one theme.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Scanners. The 1981 film is a reflection of the zeitgeist* of that era when the United States and the Soviet Union were supposedly seriously researching this stuff as possible weapons of war or tools of espionage (hey, exactly when did psionics enter Dungeons and Dragons?). We were excited about parapsychology (particularly extrasensory perception and telekinesis) and we thought it was cool. We also thought Dungeons and Dragons was cool, so we rolled it up in the game and we smoked it (even if it choked us a little). The same thing happened with monks and barbarians then, and superheroes and punk rock today.

But, the Cold War is not Dungeons and Dragons...'twas reality. We had other game systems for reality--like Star Frontiers**, Top Secret, and DC Heroes. But nobody played those games, so Dungeons and Dragons eventually had to become all things to all people with the simple disclaimer, "If you don't like it, you don't have to use it." Dirty Words! That's not how it works. If we put it in the game, then it's in the game. And, we play it. And we wonder, "Why is this in the game?"

* Is that the right way to use that word?
** Well, maybe not Star Frontiers.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Not everybody wants to wear always the same clothes than the rest, but to show special signs he is from a different urban tribe.

The wizard use the magic like a tool, the psion would rather to become the tool.

Later or sooner WotC will have to offer something new or different, because to use always only the classes from corebook may become boring. And if it is not the psionic powers then it will have to be the remake of the vestige pact magic, the incarnum or the (ki) martial maneuvers. Why does WotC create new planes for Magic: the Gathering if there are many worlds now? Because you can't be offer alway only the same than before.

Other point is to use the psionic powers as a hook for potential new players, the superheroes comics fandom.

D20 Modern had got a setting about psionic powers, Agents of PSI. What if "Dark*Matters", one of the forgotten IPs by WotC was adapted into an action-live teleserie for a streaming service by Entertaiment One?

The TTRPGs are modular, the DM chooses what appears or doesn't in the setting. If the DMs wants it, for example, the Ravenloft campaign has got two Falkovnia, the distopy from 2nd-3rd Ed and the zombie apocalypse from the 5th reboot (or possible sequel).

Today the Asian speculative fiction is becoming a serious influence (manga, manhwa and manhua) and here the psionic powrs fits better than the "vacian magic" from classic D&D. I wouldn't be surprised about a future Kara-Tur reboot with more psionic powers and (ki) martial adepts.

 

[Staffan]

I'd actually prefer something like pathfinder with their 4 types of spells: Arcane, Divine, primal, and I think eldritch. The type of spellcaster determines which spells you get access to so a paladin and cleric will have access to the same divine spell list rather than each class having their own distinct spell list. One thing I loved about this is that sometimes a sorcerer that you'd assume was arcane was something else because their bloodline tapped into a different power source.

That's actually one of the things I like the least about Pathfinder 2. I'm fine with "power sources", but I think different classes should express those power sources differently, and spells need to take the rest of the class into account.

As an example, the primal spell list in Pathfinder has a lot of polymorph spells that turn the caster into various things. These are tuned to be cast by a druid, with 8 hp per level and (if they're the kind of druid who specializes in these) an attack bonus when polymorphed. These are not as useful when cast by a primal sorcerer who has 6 hp per level, because the temp hp you gain from them are tuned with an 8 hp class in mind.

As a different example, look at 4e. 4e also used different power sources: martial, arcane, divine, primal, psionic (maybe some more in later supplements). But the powers available to each class were more about that class's role (defender, striker, leader/support, controller) than power source. A swordmage (arcane defender) had very different spells from a wizard (arcane controller), and a shaman (primal leader) was very different from a barbarian (primal striker).

 

[Hussar]

I'm not getting personal. Wha I am saying you are fundamantally missing my point.


The artificer is a half caster and heavily uses an secondary infusion system.
The bard is a full casters using normal slots progression.
The warlock is a full caster using normal progression is alternate delivery systen.

5e slots and spells are made to create the same types of casters. So without exclusive spells (cleric, druid, bard, warlock), a psion is made obsolete by the wizard and becomes a bad class (sorcerer) that nobody will want.

So, we make psion spells for psions. Seems a pretty simple answer. Since we have caster specific spells already (although with a LOT of cross polination), it doesn't seem too much of a stretch.

But, you're missing my point. All those casters still use the exact same mechanics. The only difference between a half caster and a full caster is the number of slots. That's it. Nothing else. The mechanics are identical for all casters.

So, again, why do we need incompatible mechanics for a psion?

 

[James Gasik]

Just so it feels like you're playing something other than a Bard/Cleric/Wizard, really. There's no reason you can't just make another caster with different class abilities and call it a day, but at the same time, if the playstyle is pretty much the same, it may be less exciting of an option.

 

[Minigiant]

I'd actually prefer something like pathfinder with their 4 types of spells: Arcane, Divine, primal, and I think eldritch. The type of spellcaster determines which spells you get access to so a paladin and cleric will have access to the same divine spell list rather than each class having their own distinct spell list. One thing I loved about this is that sometimes a sorcerer that you'd assume was arcane was something else because their bloodline tapped into a different power source.

I'm more in flavor of 6-7 types of magic and to allow for more mixing and matching.

So you can have the base ranger be Arcane and Primal with addition of Elemental, Divine, Eldritch, Psionic, Shadow, etc based on subclass.

Also having the Spell groups having their own schools.

So, we make psion spells for psions. Seems a pretty simple answer. Since we have caster specific spells already (although with a LOT of cross polination), it doesn't seem too much of a stretch.

But, you're missing my point. All those casters still use the exact same mechanics. The only difference between a half caster and a full caster is the number of slots. That's it. Nothing else. The mechanics are identical for all casters.

So, again, why do we need incompatible mechanics for a psion?

We don't need incompatible mechanics.

My point is that the option that uses the spell system requires WOTCs and the community to remove their bias towards wizards.

And in 50 years, that hasn't happened

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Separate wonky psionic mechanics in old editions was great fun. Back then.

Now I just want at psionic spell list with a handful of new spells, no need to overcomplicate an easy to play edition. A dedicated psionic class may be ok, but subclasses might be better.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Just so it feels like you're playing something other than a Bard/Cleric/Wizard, really. There's no reason you can't just make another caster with different class abilities and call it a day, but at the same time, if the playstyle is pretty much the same, it may be less exciting of an option.

It's what D&D mechanics are. Do all classes feel the same because they use the same combat rules for their weapon attacks? Would it be better if monks used dice pools or percentiles instead, and inflicted wounds on wound tracker instead of hit point damage? Unified game mechanics are absolutely good thing. If you don't like D&D mechanics (understandable) play some other game with different mechanics. But going back to AD&D style of riot of incompatible and incoherent mechanics is something I will definitely oppose.