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

[Mind of tempest]

On an interesting note: As a backer of the Kickstarter, I have just received today, via Email, an early release of the Squeaks in the Deep PDF. (This basically gives you rules to play as Rats and Mice within the overall setting that is Pugmire/Monarchies of Mau.) The book is pretty much completed according to the email, but backers are given an early PDF copy for our enjoyment/to help out with errata/spelling errors. We won't get our Physical Books/Backer Rewards until later in the year

Now a clear distinction, that the book/PDF makes, is that Dogs/Cats cast Magic Spells. Mice/Rats, however, do not practice the art of performing magic. Instead, Mice/Rats are Psionics users that derive their Psionics from four overall colleges. (Think the Schools of Magic in DND and NOT Bardic subclasses.) The book swaps out the term for Spell Slots with a refluffed name called Power Slots.

The book seems to go with the idea that Psionics is most certainly NOT related to magic in anyway and calls out that something like Dispel Magic has no effect upon Psionics in any way or shape. Playing up the overall difference between the two fields. Likewise, components are out. Although, all Psionic users have a clear "Tell" that lets a person know that something funky is going on when somebody is using Psionics. Whether or not somebody is already familiar with the concept to recognize it is a whole different bucket of apples altogether. But outside of those mentions, the book really doesn't give any kind of clear rules on whether or not Psionics would still be affected by something like Spell Resistance or what have you. (Monarchies of Mau does have a monster that "eats/absorbs "spells so going by the logic of this book, Psionics are safe from such a thing happening.)

What makes this interesting, though with the take on Psionics, is that the Power Slots act like Power Points. Each Psionic power ranges from a Magnitude of 1 to 5. So, to cast a Psionic Power with a Magnitude of 1, you spend one Power Slot. If you wanted to use a Psionic Power with a Magnitude of 5, then that's 5 whopping Power Slots used to cast it. Your Power Slot allotment is determined via 2 Power Slots per Character Level+an additional number of Power Slots equal to their Constitution Modifier every level. Casting Magnitude Level 5 Psionics will quickly drain your Power Slots. Especially since in Pugmire/Monarchies of Mau/And assuming Squeaks in the Deep, the max character level is 10.

I must admit that I kind of do enjoy this take on 5E Psionics. It's pretty much a refluffed DMG Spell Points in some aspect but seems to fit the difference between Magic and Psionics.

interesting, what are the schools about?

 

[Weiley31]

interesting, what are the schools about?

Well, unfortunately, until I can get clarification upon something, I cannot say anything more until I know: see my prior post (#410) before which has the explanation.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The different spellcasters are also like styles of life. The classic wizard would be like the informatic or the scientific, power by means of the study. The artificier would be like the craftman or mechanic, power by means of the hardware, crafting your own gadgets. The sorcerers would be like the artistic talent, and the warlock like the businessman or the traficcer, the power by means of trading favors. Instead the psionic has got a different philosophy, closer to the spirit of the martial arts, and the xianxia literature, about the training and effort, like an olimpic athlete champion. The wizard wants to study the arcane forces, the psionic mythic wants to train her own aura as if these were ectomplasmatic muscles. A wizard muted and immobilized could cast spell with a great difficult, but a psionic mysthic shouldn't worry about that, and this is an important detail when we talk about escapes from the jail.

Xianxia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Weiley31]

Actually, does anybody know how to contact a Mod to ask a question on something for clarification?

 

[Guest 7034872]

Actually, does anybody know how to contact a Mod to ask a question on something for clarification?

You could just PM one of the mods, I think, but a really fast way of tugging their sleeves is to report your own post with the rules clarification request. I've done that on an AV forum and always get a reply within hours.

 

[Weiley31]

You could just PM one of the mods, I think, but a really fast way of tugging their sleeves is to report your own post with the rules clarification request. I've done that on an AV forum and always get a reply within hours.

Thank you. I'll try that.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Actually, does anybody know how to contact a Mod to ask a question on something for clarification?

I would post on the meta forum.

 

[Weiley31]

I would post on the meta forum.

Ya I just did that now.

 

[Weiley31]

On an interesting note: As a backer of the Kickstarter, I have just received today, via Email, an early release of the Squeaks in the Deep PDF. (This basically gives you rules to play as Rats and Mice within the overall setting that is Pugmire/Monarchies of Mau.) The book is pretty much completed according to the email, but backers are given an early PDF copy for our enjoyment/to help out with errata/spelling errors. We won't get our Physical Books/Backer Rewards until later in the year

Now a clear distinction, that the book/PDF makes, is that Dogs/Cats cast Magic Spells. Mice/Rats, however, do not practice the art of performing magic. Instead, Mice/Rats are Psionics users that derive their Psionics from four overall colleges.

(Update: got the go ahead so without any further ado!!

So as mentioned before, Squeaks in the Deep makes it clear that Magic and Psionics are two different things. One of the biggest differences is the way in which Mice/Rats cast them. First off, instead of using Spell Slots they use something that is known as Power Slots. Here's where it gets interesting. They use the word "Slots' but they treat it more like the 3.0/3.5 Power Points of older edition Psionics. Each Psionic power comes from four different "Colleges" which are more like the Spell Schools of DND and NOT Bardic Colleges. Unlike the Spell Slots of DND, you can determine the amount of Power Slots you have via the following calculation: Two Power Slots per level, plus an additional number of Power Slots equal to their Constitution Modifier every level.

So, Mice/Rats are hardy Psionics in regard to casting and a complete shift/difference compared to how Psionics have always seemed to key off of INT/CHA as seen before. Of course, the rules DO mention that when you gain Psionics, you can choose to have it key off either INT, WIS, or CHA in regard to DC calculations, meaning that CON is only good if you want more Power Slots.


The Four Schools of Psionics are as followed: Galvanism, Insight, Humorism, and Parapsychology.

Each power within the four schools is ranked on a Magnitude of 1-5. To cast a Psionic with a Magnitude of 1, you must spend 1 Power Slot. Casting a Psionic with a Magnitude of 5 costs a whopping use of 5 Power Slots. Two casts of Psionics with the highest Magnitude (5) will probably exhaust all your uses, while use of lower Magnitude Psionics can help you spread out your uses.

Again, the book makes it known that there is a clear difference between Magic and Psionics. Even so far as stating how a spell like "Dispel Magic" would have no effect upon Psychic Powers. The energy between them operate on a completely different level. In other words, there is very little overlap between the two. So going by that logic, things/monsters, in Pugmire/Monarchies of Mau, that have Spell Resistance would not be able to use it against Psionics. This probably also extends to special situations, such as a certain monster in Monarchies of Mau, that can eat/absorb magic, as it wouldn't be able to do the same thing if Psionics were used against it.

It's pretty much almost like a simplified version of the Spell Points system in the DMG.

 

[Neonchameleon]

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

Or, alternatively, we can give the psion unmatched ability with the spells that overlap with what we'd expect a psion to do. We could for example do this by making sure that psions had no verbal, somatic, or material components for their psionic abilities, just needing to think and exert themselves for the magic to work and making them better at these spells than any wizard. This would have the effect of not restricting the wizard but meaning that the wizard needed gestures and incantations to imitate what the psion could do naturally.

We could then give them the ability to tweak their psychic powers that no wizard could match. And then we could give the the flexibility to reallocate their spell slots for these powers, changing two first level spells into a second level spell or vise-versa and effectively making them a power point class.

All of which makes the psion simply better with psionics than the wizard is even if the wizard has spells that can imitate the psion.

The thing about this is that literally everything I have just suggested is what the Aberrant Mind sorcerer already does.

Psionics are in 5e and there is no need to add them again (except "Psionic Gifts" for Dark Sun alongside "supernatural gifts" and "dark gifts"). The Sorcerer is a psion. And better implemented than in most editions; it's a power point using class that is actually better at psionics than the wizard. The soulknife rogue blows the 3.5 soulknife out of the water (not that that's hard) while feeling like a stealthy psionic spy/assassin. The Psi Warrior is a Psychic Warrior and, like the Soulknife, they do it in a way that feels different from any spell slot caster (unlike the 3.5 Psychic Warrior who was Yet Another Gish).

5e has simply the best psychic rules of any edition of D&D - it doesn't have wonky classes or try to bury you in a whole pile of not!spells that are used to justify the existence of these classes, but does have almost all the actual psionic archetypes covered. And from what I can tell, remembering the old rules, the 5e psionics rules have been a spectacular success - and are both far less complained about and far less often banned than the psionics rules in any other edition.