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

[TwoSix]

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.

Oh absolutely, no disagreement there.

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.

I agree that was the intent 25 years ago. But, in the wider fantasy space, the concept of "internal powered thematic mage" absolutely exists, and "Sorcerer" is a pretty common label to put on them.

Basically, the wider player base understands what the Sorcerer concept wants to be, despite the game never really hitting it mechanically. (Although Paizo managed to hit it with the Kineticist.)

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.

A concept I argued for during the playtest! If psionics can have the controlled Psion and the raw energy Wilder, then arcane magic can have the controlled Wizard and the raw energy Sorcerer.

This is simply not true. In most settings you need to be essentially a Sorcerer in order to become a Wizard. A Wizard is in those settings simply a developed form 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.

I'm assuming you're talking about the trope of inborn magical talent, and Wizardry only being learnable by those with the gift?

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

Sorcerers aren't even close to the worst of it (why can the champions of storm gods heal and bless?), but yes, it definitely is.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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

Yeah I remember well. We'll never know how popular it was, but it sure seemed very popular, and WotC never said otherwise. But they just reverted to the 3E Sorcerer without even playtesting that. Had they playtested it, I guarantee, stone-cold 100% guarantee, it would have been less popular than the strongly-themed version. There's no question in my mind on that, and I think its strongly borne out by later discussion of the class (including from WotC people!).

But they had two constraints:

1) They were in a gigantic rush. So literally didn't have time for another proper playtest, they had to get something out.

2) 5E was an "apology edition" for Getting Weird With It with 4E, and so any class which was a huge change from earlier takes was a big risk. We're pretty lucky we got the full-caster Bard even - I suspect that connects to how they were in 2E (where they weren't full casters, but they advanced so fast compared to Mages, they almost might as well have been!).

 

[CleverNickName]

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.

I don't disagree, especially to your point about the lack of depth.

I think DM buy-in is a feature, not a bug. So if that lack of depth is an issue for you, you should absolutely talk to your DM about ways to incorporate more psions in the campaign setting. Perhaps your psion could be a member of an order of psychic mages, or maybe the local Mage's Guild has a professor of Psionics. You don't need to wait for Wizards of the Coast to tell you how to incorporate them.

 

[Shardstone]

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.

This is my stance. Any class will have people with multiple views on it as well as ways to achieve the fantasy with other options. It seems silly this means we cant have the psion, but we can the ranger and artificer.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I agree that was the intent 25 years ago. But, in the wider fantasy space, the concept of "internal powered thematic mage" absolutely exists, and "Sorcerer" is a pretty common label to put on them.

It's absolutely not a common label.

Almost all of those "innate magic" characters have a different label - usually wizard or mage or the like.

In fact, I can back this up - if we look at characters called "sorcerers" in fantasy fiction, they are almost always "book casters". In fact, they tend to be the most extreme form of "book casters" - i.e. people who don't have any innate magic, but have to cast spells from books (or, ironically, through pacts with demonic or other supernatural beings! The role of Warlock in D&D). The reason for this is because the term sorcerer is used most in older fantasy fiction, particularly sword and sorcery, where sorcerer tended to be much closer to the "gnostic tomes"-types, to a powered-up Aleister Crowley or John Dee, rather than Merlin or Gandalf (who generally seem like they've never read a spellbook in their life, yet get seen as Wizards).

In fact, I'd say D&D has essentially reversed the common usage of the terms. If there's been any shift in the last 25 years, it's only been in people exposed to D&D, I would suggest, and because of D&D.

5E's Sorcerer 100% is 3E's Sorcerer. They had an alternative with D&D Next, and rejected it favour of the more conservative approach of just re-implementing the previous edition. 5E's Sorcerer further, has no consistent theme, only consistent mechanics.

Also, in most fantasy settings, they split the difference - magic is in-born, but you have to be taught how to master it. D&D does not do that. D&D rejects that. D&D has magic you are taught, which isn't in-born, and magic you don't need to be taught, which is.

There's a real distinction, too, in fantasy fiction between "Do anything" spellcasters and "Do a narrow range of specific things" psionicist-types, which D&D has generally ignored.

 

[TwoSix]

It's absolutely not a common label.

Almost all of those characters have a different label - usually wizard or mage or the like.

In fact, I can back this up - if we look at characters called "sorcerers" in fantasy fiction, they are almost always "book casters". In fact, they tend to be the most extreme form of "book casters" - i.e. people who don't have any innate magic, but have to cast spell from books. The reason for this is because the term sorcerer is used most in older fantasy fiction, particularly sword and sorcery, where sorcerer tended to be much closer to the "gnostic tomes"-types, to a powered-up Aleister Crowley or John Dee, rather than Merlin or Gandalf (who generally seem like they've never read a spellbook in their life, yet get seen as Wizards).

We're probably looking at different fantasy sources, then.

I look at it this way; if we had a poll here (or on Reddit, or another D&D oriented source) asking what class should Elsa be, I would be shocked if Sorcerer didn't win. Raw magic, loosely controlled, tightly themed = sorcerer for the D&D player base, despite the fat that the mechanics have never hit that mark.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I look at it this way; if we had a poll here (or on Reddit, or another D&D oriented source) asking what class should Elsa be, I would be shocked if Sorcerer didn't win.

That's putting the cart before the horse though, isn't it? You could ask the same question of any fictional character, no matter how poorly suited to D&D, and people will just choose the closest one, even if it's absolutely a total trash-tier fit. You could have asked that in 2E, had Elsa existed, and people would have said Wizard instantly, because Psionicists didn't have elemental powers.

There is not much D&D posters on the the internet love more than pigeonholing a fictional character into a class or and/or alignment that is a terrible fit for them lol.

Also, ask the same thing with Eleven or the other three ladies from anime (all of whose names escape me, despite me being familiar with them and being able to name the anime they're in - Dandadan, Spy X Family and One-Punch Man respectively), and there'd be an absolute scuffle because a bunch of people will keep saying "Well Psion but WotC don't have Psion anymore!". You've brought Elsa into this mess, isn't her life already enough of a mess lol? Why she gotta be incorrectly pigeonholed by D&D nerds too?

 

[Staffan]

We're probably looking at different fantasy sources, then.

I look at it this way; if we had a poll here (or on Reddit, or another D&D oriented source) asking what class should Elsa be, I would be shocked if Sorcerer didn't win. Raw magic, loosely controlled, tightly themed = sorcerer for the D&D player base, despite the fat that the mechanics have never hit that mark.

Also, she doesn't wear a hat.

 

[TwoSix]

That's putting the cart before the horse though, isn't it? You could ask the same question of any fictional character, no matter how poorly suited to D&D, and people will just choose the closest one, even if it's absolutely a total trash-tier fit. You could have asked that in 2E, had Elsa existed, and people would have said Wizard instantly, because Psionicists didn't have elemental powers.

Sure, but that's kind of my point. Tropes change, and the nomenclature we use to corral them also changes. And sometimes tropes can grow and mutate if they're put into a categorization that doesn't quite fit them.

I'm trying to look at the current class concepts through a descriptivist lens, not a prescriptivist one.

Also, ask the same thing with Eleven or the other three ladies from anime (all of whose names escape me, despite me being familiar with them and being able to name the anime they're in - Dandadan, Spy X Family and One-Punch Man respectively), and there'd be an absolute scuffle because a bunch of people will keep saying "Well Psion but WotC don't have Psion anymore!". You've brought Elsa into this mess, isn't her life already enough of a mess lol? Why she gotta be incorrectly pigeonholed by D&D nerds too?

I think that's the interesting quertion here. How many classes should you need to hold those character concepts? One? Two? Three? More?

 

[Staffan]

I don't disagree, especially to your point about the lack of depth.

I think DM buy-in is a feature, not a bug. So if that lack of depth is an issue for you, you should absolutely talk to your DM about ways to incorporate more psions in the campaign setting. Perhaps your psion could be a member of an order of psychic mages, or maybe the local Mage's Guild has a professor of Psionics. You don't need to wait for Wizards of the Coast to tell you how to incorporate them.

It's not just setting depth, but mechanical depth. I'm assuming your we-have-psion-at-home is fairly selective with what spells/powers they take. So mind sliver or catapult yes, infestation or chaos bolt no. But that gives a rather limited selection of possible spells, so every psion will look pretty close to every other psion.