I've been saying we need a list for bard since the second UA. The overlap of psionic spells and bard spells are close enough to a single circle that I wouldn't object to them being a single list.
D&D (2024) We have Arcane, Divine, and Primal lists now. Why not Psionic?
MGibster
Legend
I don't know what's racist about THAC0, but okay. The only equivalency I was pointing out is that things that were once part of the game are no longer part of the game today. You want to point to the fact that ray guns and robots were once part of D&D? You're right, but how deeply is that entrenched in game play and the setting? Not very.
To be fair, we have Golems, which are basically just robots running on magic instead of electricity. The blaster Artificer uses wands to shoot beams of light (magic missile) at enemies instead of ray guns.
And we have Aberrant Mind Sorcerer instead of psions.
So no one can be happy! Yay!
And we have Aberrant Mind Sorcerer instead of psions.
So no one can be happy! Yay!
Yaarel
He Mage
That is the definition of spell components being useless superfluous clutter.
Remove the spell components, and there is little or no loss.
The game is better.
In earlier editions, encumbrance were a pain point a hassle to track, and not worth tracking. 5e removed encumbrance from the default game.
To compare spell components with encumbrance tracking suggests the 5e design does well to remove spell components from the default game.
But spell components are worse than encumbrance. The spell components are extraneous clutter. More, spell components aggressively interfere with the mechanics of the rest of the game.
Spell components contradict the spellcasting methods of many classes. The Dancer Bard cannot cast spells by a magical dance. The vocalist cannot cast spells by song. The musician cannot cast spells via playing a musical instrument. The commander cannot create magic by words of power. The Sorcerer cannot cast magic by being innately magical. The spell components are an ongoing aggravating pain point for many psionic fans. The innate magic of the Fey and other magical creatures stumble over the spell description and often lose access to many spells because of the useless costly component that falsely claims to be a balancing method.
The routine "spell focus" of most classes already contradicts the material component of the spell descriptions. The material component "M" is strictly useless most of the time − and is actively interferesome otherwise.
Many different character concepts need to use the same spell descriptions. Almost all classes as well certain subclasses already officially reject the spell components, by listing a focus to replace part of it. Some classes and subclasses offer other methods to replace the somatic component, such as warrior spellcasters who have weapons occupying their hands, and some cast silently. The spell components strictly contradict the rest of the game, and fail to function as a balancing mechanic, and fail to offer any benefit to the 5e game.
The spell descriptions must be agnostic about which sources and which classes are casting them. The same spell descriptions are for the spell lists of different magical sources with different theories of magic, and for the spell lists of different classes with different spell casting methods.
Spell components need to get out of the way of the D&D players.
The spell components are like an infected appendix, and appendicitis that designers need to surgically remove from the D&D game.
The spell components actively interfere with many character concepts. The spell components are an official, intrusive, ubiquitous, useless, complicating, eyesore that is impossible to ignore.
It is wrong to make the D&D game inferior because of a disruptive sentimentality that (most?) players already agree to ignore.
The spell components are worse than something useless and ignorable to track as an accountant.
The spell components are a problem.
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Vaalingrade
Legend
Once? They're still right there.
It's not like there's been an edition of two with them gone. We've got antimatter rifles in the DMG.
And 5e had psionics until they stopped trying. Not just with psionics, but new classes in general.
Clint_L
Hero
I don't have a problem with most sci-fi elements (BTW, robots and spaceships are not soft sci-fi). Psionics bug me because there is huge overlap with IRL pseudo-science, and back in the late 70s, when they were introduced, they very much had that smell, and it lingers. Plus, the psionics system in AD&D was completely unbalanced and unfair. And yeah, I don't want it in my D&D. Add psionics all you want to yours.
They aren't going to be in the base game, anyway, so it's a moot point, and I don't care if they are featured in Planescape or whatever. That's a fine way to bring more psionics in, so folks who love them can have them and folks who hate them (I am definitely not alone) can ignore them.
Ondath
Hero
I have to say, I find this argument to be a bit disingenuous. Sure, spaceships and lasers were a thing in Early D&D, but so was indiscriminate killing of "monstrous" races, level limits for demihumans and prostitution tables (edit: seeing that you objected to these examples as a potential false equivalence, I'll add other, morally neutral things that existed in early D&D and have since been excised: dying at 0 HP, different XP progressions for different classes, THAC0). Yet nobody goes "D&D had a table for finding a saucy tart from a very early stage, and you don't want brothels in your game? Puh-leze.", because every D&D table has also been wildly different from the start. So acting like people excising parts of the game they didn't like isn't part-and-parcel of the game is fairly misguided.
As for me, as a latecomer I never really "grokked" how psionics are supposed to work. So keeping psionics as a different flavour for spellcasting (or perhaps a different power source that exists in lore, but doesn't interact with game rules that much a la arcane/divine distinction) is pretty alright by me, but I'm happy to be convinced otherwise if I can find a good, parsimonious rendition of psionics rules (waiting for Voidrunner's codex for that one). But I'm actually a fan of future-proofing through power source-based spell lists, and I think it wouldn't take too much effort to add a Psionics spell list, so I'd be pretty okay with this idea.
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Aldarc
Legend
I find your counter-argument disingenuous and more than fairly misguided too so let's talk about that. I think that there is a difference of comparison between the problematic aspects of the game (e.g., racism, monsters, prostitution tables, comliness scores, etc.) and the presence of science-fiction elements or psionics in the game, which are (generally) not problematic in the same degree or reasons. Moreover there is also a difference of comparsion between the game mechanics that changed and whether science-fiction elements or psionics are in the game. A more apt comparison would be people who don't want monks in their core D&D and talk about much they hate them because it doesn't mix with their sense of "European fantasy."
So maybe before you declare my genuine argument to be disingenuous or that I'm acting in a misguided way, that you would check your own argument. Thanks.
I would prefer if having psionics in the game was not determined based upon whether you can grok psionics or not. I enjoy psionics. I'm happy to talk about psionics with people who are willing to approach it with an open-mind and not just haters who want to pee in my breakfast cereal.
To be clear: unlike a number of other psionic fans who are non-spellcasting or nothing, I wouldn't mind if it was a spell list, much as it basically was in all but name in 3.5e. I'm just not really a fan of having to play a sorcerer/wizard/warlock which have different aesthetics and magical baggage, in order to play a psion or similarly psionic-empowered characters. The Occult spell list in Pathfinder 2, for example, is effectively a psionic spell list.
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The rest of us seem to do it just fine.
Out of curiosity...
If they made a psionic spell list, and gave the sorcerer the ability to pick what spell list to use (and spell points instead of slots), would you enjoy the aberrant mind sorcerer as a psionic option?
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