D&D (2024) We have Arcane, Divine, and Primal lists now. Why not Psionic?

[Vaalingrade]

I'm a bit surprised that this is a topic that makes people angry. And I mean in both the pro and anti side.

One side being dunked on a trashed for forty years and one side seeing their defeated foe standing up again and again after every sound thrashing they've doled out?

Can't imagine why.

 

[SkidAce]

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?

I am not whom you asked, however...

Sorcerer, Subtle Spell, Curated Spell List, and Spell Points (currently testing spell points on a short rest variant from Larry2233*) is currently how we are running Psionics.

It works satisfactorily, with some flavoring and judgement calls, and will suffice until/when/if WotC does something.




*By Larry2233
Discord: @Larry2233#8327
Reddit: /u/Little-Mist-Walker

 

[Emberashh]

I'm a bit surprised that this is a topic that makes people angry. And I mean in both the pro and anti side.

I liken it to a general tug of war between those who still appreciate Appendix N as a genre and those who never did.

Its a lot easier to accept Psionics when you embrace them just being what they are in Scifi and that they aren't incompatible with fantasy magic.

But thats also why for my own game I went through the lore-writing to solidify a better fantasy-first approach to its inclusion. (Ie, magic is only ostensibly conventional and is actually much more niche in what it truly is, while psionics are closer to truly conventional magic)

 

[SkidAce]

In addition, we can use Magic Initiate for Wild Talents.

And multiclass for gishes.


Haven't tried using a paladin frame yet, thinking we like multiclass better.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

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?

Not directed to me, but my answer would be no. I am one of the people who has a problem with psionics for the entire life of the game. And I've played them in every edition because we thought they would be fixed every time a new edition were released. They weren't. Almost every time, it didn't work out like we had hoped. 4E was the only edition we didn't have a mechanical problem, but we had a preference problem.

1. I played in 1E when another player rolled randomly and got a broken wild talent. Even they became unhappy because they felt awkward about being so much more powerful than the rest of us.
2. I played in 2E in a Dark Sun game. We had hope because it was a full system for everyone to participate in! But it had terrrrible mechanics that leaned into mindscape battles on completely different initiative than the rest of combat. The Contact system and pretty much everything leaned into unnecessary complexity. The sci-fi flavor was so discordant too.
3. I DM'd in 3E in and the power point system was BUSTED. In just one Eberron campaign, one player would use all kinds of RAW broken combos to great effect that made everyone else feel small (like creating copies of himself who could each manifest two primary powers, to overwhelm enemies with crazy alpha strikes). He said "It's balanced because all the PPs come out of my pool." When he alpha striked one BBEG and it just released something worse (it was a cascading 3-tier encounter), he got so pissssed. While that was the worst, I never had a good experience in 3E. Psionics was used as a way to subvert power and expectations and surprise people (but never did it in a good way).
4. I DM'd in 4E. To be honest, power-wise, it wasn't bad to me because classes were so similar. But it was never picked up and played in a long-term campaign because the one guy who considered it said it didn't feel different enough, and psionics had to be different.
5. For 5E, no one in my groups wanted to playtest the UA Mystic, so I did some white-room play. It was different. But it didn't seem like it was going to make the majority of psionics fans happy.

Anecdotally, most people who seem to LOVE psionics seem do so because they want a full alternative to magic. It seems they prefer the way psionics works (or more accurately, they prefer how they think psionics should work) over the way that D&D magic works. Subtle, powerful magics that alter reality without V,S,M components, and fit neatly into Discipline themes that make better sense than magic schools (some like the way 3E tied them to ability scores too.) More like the Force in some Star Wars RPGs. Some want it to not count as magic at all, and ignore magic resistance.

But that vision doesn't fit alongside D&D magic. Psionics is its OWN way of presenting an entire replacement system for Magic. Psionics deserves to be the primary way "magic" works in a game, and needs inherent rules and monsters that follows those rules so they interact well. It's too big to be an alternative that is shoe-horned into balancing against the D&D magic system. Not one edition has done it well.

Looking at the history of D&D, there is enough Psionic design space to dedicate a large sourcebook to it. They literally did that in 3E. But it still didn't work for our tables. Now if Wizards creates a sourcebook and campaign setting that leans into Psionics, maybe they can get it right. And if they got it right, I might play around with it for a campaign. But the concept itself is too big to shoehorn in to the base rules. I don't have faith that it can be done right.

 

[Yaarel]

More than the Vancian / pseudo Vancian mechanic itself that lets you play zero of the spellcasters currently in the pop cultural zeitgeist?

As you may remember, I am a fan of the short-rest spell point system. I prefer it to be the default for every spellcaster.

I hope it will at least be in the 2024 DMs Guide as the spell casting variant.

 

[Yaarel]

The rest of us seem to do it just fine.

Are you a psionics fan?

 

[Incenjucar]

As a long-time psionics fan, I enjoy psionics as its own thing, not just different magic. It's closer to super powers, and has an interesting relationship with magic, especially in how it tends to form a rock/paper/scissors relationship with magic and martial beings.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Are you a psionics fan?

I am ambivalent towards psionics. But I AM a fan of just pretending certain words in certain books don't actually appear. So if they do and I don't like them... I pretend that they don't. It's very easy. That way I don't have to worry about whatever words Wizards of the Coast decides to include in their books for those people who might like those words.

I think more people should try it some time.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Or just not pay people to produce content you're not interested in and expect you to do their job.