D&D (2024) Githzerai Psion? Thri-kreen Psion? Where's My Psion?

[I'm A Banana]

I think WotC was planning on putting out a psion when they released Dark Sun, but then Dark Sun fell through, and now...

The psion faces some big obstacles, but nothing deal-breaking. Certainly not more than the artificer faced.

 

[TwoSix]

Surprised you didn't include Eleven from Stranger Things, who is another modern example of a Psionics user.

I mean, telepathy, telekinetics, and precognition just make psions sorcerers with a way cheaper VFX budget.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, telepathy, telekinetics, and precognition just make psions sorcerers with a way cheaper VFX budget.

They don't, though. Sorcerers are fundamentally a weird little D&D concept. They don't exist outside D&D or D&D-derived games, or rather, the word is simply synonymous with "wizard" or "arcane spellcaster" (just with a somewhat pejorative vibe).

They're fundamentally different from people who can "naturally cast" magic - and Eleven is a great example of the difference - actually as are the other characters. Their powers are more less diverse than a Sorcerer's spells, but much more flexible. They're not as easy and casual to use as a Sorcerer's spells, but they are definitely faster and much harder to stop, and you can't see them coming because they don't use verbal or material components, and only use somatic ones for the benefit of the viewer, to connect what they're doing with what happens.

That's the whole point. This is a different thing - it's far more different than a Sorcerer and a Wizard, which are almost identical, just with a genuinely slight difference in how they get spells. If D&D had never had Wizards, only Sorcerers, Wizard would just be a Sorcerer subclass who used a book to like, boost how spells they had access to. The only reason Sorcerers exist at all is essentially cowardice on the part of 3E's designers, they should have just abandoned Wizards entirely if they were really committed, but the only things 3E's designers were committed to were LFQW and newbie traps (he said, unfairly).

 

[TwoSix]

They don't, though. Sorcerers are fundamentally a weird little D&D concept. They don't exist outside D&D or D&D-derived games, or rather, the word is simply synonymous with "wizard" or "arcane spellcaster" (just with a somewhat pejorative vibe).

Not sure I agree here. I've seen sorcerer more and more used to represent casters with some sort of internal flexible power, especially one based around a specific thematic (like an element). Since D&D introduced them as a Class (a quarter century ago!), I've seen the concept used more and more in fantasy RPGs and video game based fantasy.

AtLA Benders, Elsa, Eleven, or X-Men like Storm are the fantasy trope that Sorcerers are trying to hit. D&D's spell system just makes them not be able to do that, and the game is also a little schizophrenic in mixing "thematic magic" with "origin magic".

But there's absolutely a strong thematic division between "I studied gnostic tomes to learn magic" (Wizards, and Warlocks to a lesser extent) and "I possess magic" (Which Sorcerers and Psions both hit). Psionics and Sorcery also have more of a flavor of "The power I have is uncontrolled, and I must control it." Psionics just leans more towards the power is alien, and Sorcery is more natural and spiritual.

 

[Staffan]

But there are psions all over the 5th Edition D&D books. I've played several of them over the years...here's how I did it.

1. Petition my DM to use the Spell Points optional rule (in the DMG). Sometimes they say yes, but it's not a big deal if they say no. It just "feels" more like a classic D&D psion to me, but I can deal.
2. I like to start with the Githyanki ancestry species (from MP:MotM). This is a matter of personal preference; any species will do. I've also done Human and Shadar-kai.
3. I usually go with the Sorcerer class, and the Aberrant Mind subclass (from TCoE). It's really the only sorcerer I play these days.

• Some folks want psions be Intelligence-based instead of Charisma. If so, choose the Wizard class and the Graviturgy subclass (from EGtW). It's a pretty cool subclass even if you're not going for "5E psion."
• Some folks want psions be half-casters instead of full. I don't, but if I did I would probably just take some levels of Fighter, Monk, or Rogue. Less work for everyone, right?
• Some folks want psions to be non-casters. I've played a couple...the Fighter class with the Psi Warrior subclass, or the Rouge class with the Soulknife subclass (both in TCoE). The PW is more fun than the SK, IMO, but YMMV.

4. And then I would always refer to my "spells" as "powers," my chosen class as "psion," and so forth.

But I get it, some people want Wizards of the Coast to ensconce the Psion class in the list of "official" D&D classes, the way they did with the Artificer. I guess that to them, it's less about getting to play a psion, and more about having a psion listed in the official books...a way to make it more valid, more official. That's a good thing to want, but it has nothing to do with me playing the character I want to play.

There are two issues with your approach. One is that it requires a lot of DM buy-in, moreso than other characters. The other is that it allows you to play a psion. But there's no depth there. I want there to be just as much variety among psions as there is among wizards or clerics. That requires a class of its own with multiple subclasses (telepath, telekinetic, biokinetic, clairsentient) – not a subclass of sorcerer, warlock, or wizard.

 

[WanderingMystic]

This isn't a reasonable objection for anything but the original PHB, and "large" here is lifting the world like Atlas, because we're really not talking that many pages.

This was one of the reasons talked about with the mystic after it got axed. Yes in a Dark Sun book the 20-30 pages would be well spent but even in a Tasha's style book that is a large page count for one class that may or may not be used.

I personally fear that the best we will get is a wizard subclass since WotC loves to just give people spells instead of unique abilities and they call it a day. They are also happy with the concept of psi flavored subclasses and have stated that they think that that does the job as well as a new class would have. (Talked about when they were play testing the psi blade, psi knight and aberrant mind.

I still hope that they make a dedicated psion with a telekinesis, telepathy, metabolic, and teleportation themed subclasses.

 

[Steampunkette]

I love that the Esper got two callouts in one thread. <3

I did my best to create a class which doesn't just feel like a reskinned sorcerer, warlock, or wizard. It has a unique manifesting mechanic, unique power structure, and a class design best described as "Dual Wielding Psionics". The individual powers are less damaging than a spell cast by a character of the same level, but significantly more flexible in their use on the fly. So you get Bonus Action psionics, in the form of a ranged and scaling psionic attack, to offset the difference.

If you're interested in trying out the Esper, @Dragonhelm, I made the class, all subclasses, and powers PWYW on DTRPG.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

(Though if you'd like to buy the full PDF there's a heritage, monsters, subclasses, wild talents, and other goodies!)

And if that's not your cup of tea, well, there's always the Voidrunner's Codex, which represents a more traditional take on a Psionic Caster class and even has it's own Martial/Psionics hybrid class built separately in the same work and on the same ruleset!

The only way, currently, to get a copy is through late pledges to the Kickstarter, here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/enworld/the-voidrunners-codex-sci-fi-box-set-for-5e-and-level-up-a5e

 

[Chaltab]

I think WotC was planning on putting out a psion when they released Dark Sun, but then Dark Sun fell through, and now...

The psion faces some big obstacles, but nothing deal-breaking. Certainly not more than the artificer faced.

Not sure the timeline there works. Was Dark Sun ever planned for 5E (outside blowing it up in Spelljammer)? Because the Mystic UA happened nearly a decade ago now.

I think Psionics is one of the big roadblocks to Dark Sun. The other of course being that corporate is likely to be terrified of of a setting where oppression, genocide, and ecological devastation are essential parts of the status quo.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

AtLA Benders, Elsa, Eleven, or X-Men like Storm are the fantasy trope that Sorcerers are trying to hit.

Nah.

If that's the intent, Sorcerers are a total and complete failure. Like absolute failure.

None of those characters function even slightly like a D&D Sorcerer.

A D&D Sorcerer has to access to a wide variety of completely unrelated spells, with a loose theme-ing that it doesn't have to follow and in a lot of cases, it would be actively a bad idea to follow. Further, casting spells for a Sorcerer doesn't require physical effort or kata or the like.

D&D's spell system just makes them not be able to do that, and the game is also a little schizophrenic in mixing "thematic magic" with "origin magic".

D&D's magic system completely flubs it if that is the intent, but let me be clear - it isn't the intent. That's backfill/retcon.

The INTENT is to just provide an alternative to Wizards who MECHANICALLY (and this is more important to the designers than literally anything else) doesn't need to memorize spells. The flavour stuff is absolute backfill. They didn't look at someone like Storm or Elsa and say "We need Sorcerers to be like Storm and Elsa", they said "Well we have this class exists solely for mechanical reasons, what theme can we grab for it?".

This is really obviously when you stop firing the Neuralyzer from Men In Black at yourself and remember 3.XE. I know these may be painful memories! Once you stop retcon'ing D&D's Sorcerers, you see they're a dreadful example of coming up with mechanics and THEN needing to theme them.

If 5E's designers had been braver (but I understand why they weren't), they'd have just made Wizard a subclass of Sorcerer, where the spellbook just widened how many spells they could access.

But there's absolutely a strong thematic division between "I studied gnostic tomes to learn magic" (Wizards, and Warlocks to a lesser extent) and "I possess magic" (Which Sorcerers and Psions both hit).

This is simply not true. In most fantasy settings you need to be essentially a Sorcerer in order to become a Wizard ("gnostic tomes" is basically urban fantasy/horror stuff). A Wizard is in those settings simply a developed form of a Sorcerer. Your spellcaster will have like "raw magic" and be able to do stuff instinctively, then will be trained/tamed into being a wizard.

In D&D that's not the case at all, because D&D is a weird mess.

It's already made a mess with Sorcerers. Don't make it make another mess by trying to jam the large square peg of Psion through the round hole of Sorcerer.

 

[WanderingMystic]

Nah.
If that's the intent, Sorcerers are a total and complete failure. Like absolute failure.

None of those characters function even slightly like a D&D Sorcerer.

A D&D Sorcerer has to access to a wide variety of completely unrelated spells, with a loose theme-ing that it doesn't have to follow and in a lot of cases, it would be actively a bad idea to follow.


D&D's magic system completely flubs it if that is the intent, but let me be clear - it isn't the intent. That's backfill/retcon.

The INTENT is to just provide an alternative to Wizards who MECHANICALLY (and this is more important to the designers than literally anything else) doesn't need to memorize spells. The flavour stuff is absolute backfill. They didn't look at someone like Storm or Elsa and say "We need Sorcerers to be like Storm and Elsa", they said "Well we have this class exists solely for mechanical reasons, what theme can we grab for it?".

Back during the 2014 play test they tried going for a tighter theme for the sorcerer which I wish had made it into the core book. To me a shadow sorcer should be only casting shadowy magic just like a spellfire should only be manifesting spellfire. That ship has already sailed and while it is possible as a player to limit yourself or work with your DM to reflavor some spells so that you can keep a tight thematic feeling it is not even encouraged by WotC