self-power is not the problem.
sorcerers suck for me on two levels mechanically they are uninteresting and are clearly the middle child of arcane classes.
Oh look! It's a Psion!
Seriously, both the 2e/3.0/3.5 psion and the 3.0/3.5 sorcerer written by an unimaginative student who went through plagiarising the wizard's homework, changed the spellbook, added one idea went through things with a thesaurus, and presented the copied work as their own.
Both had about one good idea each in their replacement for the spellbook that made it into core casting for 5e (taking away what was special about them) - whether spontaneous casting (of which spell points are a form) or upcasting.
There are two key differences between the two; the sorcerer was made copying the wizard's homework to give an excuse to squirrel more wizard spells into the game, while the psion was made copying the wizard's spellbook as a cash grab to sell more shovelware books. And the fact that the
4e and
5e sorcerer then had people work out how they could be different and useful to cover a wider range of concepts while the psion predates subclasses.
thematically I hate them as it is either by blood or exposure to a magical thing that they gain powers that read like a protagonist backstory, not the ensemble character that dnd parties have to be built out of.
I hate backstories that amount to the inexplicably special in characters I play.
So why do you put up with the "I am so special I get to cast weird customised spells by the power of my mind unlike normal casters, making me too special for normal magic school"? The psion is the
poster child for inexplicably special characters in D&D - right down to 1e giving you a percentage chance for psionic powers.
sure I could re-fluff but I will not as that is not who I am.
one day I read the mystic document it was love at first sight, it was like coming home which is impressive as I do not feel at home even in my own room.
The mystic is much better. Partly because it's not Yet Another Caster (with spells cribbed off the wizard) except the lazy student has looked up an alternative to Caster in the thesaurus and come up with Manifester. Instead their things aren't presented, formatted, and contain the guff of spells. Partly because they haven't just lazily copied the wizard basic features.
But mostly because the blocks of powers you get from disciplines add theming, interest, and allow for interesting things done with design synergies.
the thing is not all magic should work the same,
And this is why the psion is a truly sucky class. It takes an interesting concept (psionics) and homogenises it into a generic power point spellcaster where the differences other than just splurging minor variants of spells over the sytem have been folded in ot the core casting method of 5e or into the Aberrant Mind.
like was mentioned simplicity is the albatross around 5e's neck for interesting mechanics, and we don't want psionic abilities to 'just be psionic 'spells'', we want these things to fundamentally play and be different to what is already there, i mean, look at the warlock! it's still the same fundamental spell system but people love it for it's different take on the mechanics which truly makes it it's own class.
And if you want that then
don't even look at the Psion. We've had three core versions and as mentioned the good ideas have been folded into the core casting or the Aberrant Mind.
The
Mystic is at least getting somewhere.
the soulknife and the psi warriors are the eldritch knights and arcane tricksters of psionics and you don't go in hoping to play a wizard and be satisfied when you come out with an eldritch knight.
Depends on the system. If it's one that isn't drowning in magic then you might.
