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

[Minigiant]

I still haven't seen anyone come up with an answer for why D&D needs a psion. What's it for? The way I see it, it was only included in AD&D because Gygax was a fan of (awful) Marion Zimmer Bradley. There is a place for Space Magic in Science Fiction RPGs, since it gives an alternative to equipment-based character abilities. But in a fantasy setting? Telepathy, Telekinesis etc - we can do all those things with regular magic, so why do we need space magic as well? The way I see it, psionics if for alien magic, magic that does not belong in this (genericfantasyland) world. And so a good psionic class should double down on alienness

The only real reason to have a Psion is if you're going to go deep into mental pseudoscience or have very in-depth telekinesis and telepathy powers that you would not want to give access to any other class.

Or in layman's terms, detailed telekinesis and telepathy is too strong to give a wizard class.

 

[TwoSix]

If I were to homebrew my own Psion class, I think I would base the class after the metapsychics in The Galactic Milieu series. There are five categories of metapsychic powers in that series- creation, coercion, psychokinesis, farsensing and redaction (healing).

Galactic Milieu Series - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I read this series when I was 13; it had a major impact on how I view fantasy, especially psionics.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

okay, so what do you mean by theme?

More than a circular psionics is psionics. What does it bring to the setting?

the overall theme or each subclass theme?

Overall. There needs to be a theme to connect the subclasses, otherwise they could be subclasses of some other class.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The only real reason to have a Psion is if you're going to go deep into mental pseudoscience or have very in-depth telekinesis and telepathy powers that you would not want to give access to any other class.

Or in layman's terms, detailed telekinesis and telepathy is too strong to give a wizard class.

I don't think that's the "only" reason. But really, what you are saying is that psion would have to be a core class, with mind magic having the same degree of protected status that healing gets.

 

[Steampunkette]

If they want their Psionics and their D&D too, their only choices AFAIK are Pathfinder (where it has been rebranded as another form of magic) or Level Up (courtesy of @Steampunkette 's Paranormal Power)

The VRC contains both a Psion and a Psyknight class.

There's also Kibbles Tasty's Psion, LaserLlama's Psion, BlackBando's, and a dozen other third party versions of the class.

Sure, I like mine better than all of those, and Pathfinder's, (Otherwise I wouldn't have written it!) but there's a lot of options out there!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The VRC contains both a Psion and a Psyknight class.

There's also Kibbles Tasty's Psion, LaserLlama's Psion, BlackBando's, and a dozen other third party versions of the class.

Sure, I like mine better than all of those, and Pathfinder's, (Otherwise I wouldn't have written it!) but there's a lot of options out there!

I mean, this in an excellent example of when I would use psionics - if I wanted a science fiction/science fantasy reskin (or genre crossover). And this book is definitely on my to buy list (when I have time to run another campaign).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I mean, magic is fundamentally different to anything in the real world, so you are saying, magic that is fundamentally different from magic. A difference that makes no difference is no difference.

The number 7 is completely different from the number -3. That doesn't mean pi is now equal to 7 because it is also completely different from the number -3. Chocolate is completely different from orange, but that doesn't mean chocolate is identical to mint because mint is completely different from orange. Etc. Three things can each be mutually "completely different" from one another.

No, I like it just fine, where there isn't any other kind of magic that does the same thing.

So in D&D you don't like it being sci-fi. There are other folks who very much want it to only be sci-fi, even when other kinds of magic can do similar things.

Psionics usually does not do absolutely literally all the exact same things with no differences whatsoever.

The D&D tradition is that psionics is completely different in each edition.

Only if you are overly precious about the very specific methods. Since at least 2nd edition, there's been at least one class focused around the power of psionics. Just as many things have changed about various classes over time, but a core concept remains the same. Bards have been a lot of things, but they have stabilized pretty well since 2nd edition.

Or are you saying, it should be like 1st edition?

No.

You could do something like that using feats and/or divine gifts. I think only three editions have had psionics as a class.

....

Only three editions?

Are you even listening to yourself here? That's 2e, 3e, and 4e. In other words, every prior edition of main-line D&D other than 1e. Your argument is facially ridiculous, and I'm not exactly convinced of your seriousness if you're making statements like "only three editions have had psionics as a class".

1st edition. Wizards don't heal because that is a protected cleric mechanic. Bards heal because they take their spells from the druid spell list, which includes some healing (weaker than clerics though).

Sure. Long-term traditions, where the reason that tradition formed in the first place is long forgotten (Cleric is a bizarrity that directly descended from a weird coincidence of old-school play!), is a commonplace thing in D&D design. Psionics being its own class is a tradition that started with 2e and has been maintained since then. That's a significant part of why people want psionics--because for three editions running, it has been.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Psionics usually does not do absolutely literally all the exact same things with no differences whatsoever.

I haven't seen anyone come up with a convincing explanation as to what is different. I want to read minds? There is a spell for that. I want to move something at a distance? There is a spell for that. And so on.

Since at least 2nd edition, there's been at least one class focused around the power of psionics.

2nd edition is Johnny-come-lately to me, and the last edition to have a psionics class ended 11 years ago. That's before 2/3 of my group played D&D. And there was never any psionics in Original or Basic D&D.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't think that's the "only" reason. But really, what you are saying is that psion would have to be a core class, with mind magic having the same degree of protected status that healing gets.

Well for 5e the "only" reasons to create a new class this either due to lack of mechanical space or mechanical balance in injecting into a new class.

Detailed Mind Magic would hit both and qualify for protected status for 5e.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well for 5e the "only" reasons to create a new class this either due to lack of mechanical space or mechanical balance in injecting into a new class

That doesn’t fit the artificer, which doesn’t have much mechanical difference to other classes. It is the magitec theme that makes it distinctive.