Paul Farquhar
Legend
I’m not sure what you think that means, but in my parlance that means make it interesting/good.
D&D (2024) Githzerai Psion? Thri-kreen Psion? Where's My Psion?
- Thread starter Dragonhelm
- Start date
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
An excellent post overall, for which I have only one addendum on this specific part. That is, being a "good" designer here is about having good taste. Meaning there is (at least) one additional axis: being an effective designer, which is mutually unrelated to either a good designer or a forward-thinking one. An effective designer sets clear, testable goals, regularly reviews whether those goals are being met (or, at least, progress is moving toward them), and either accepts the result when it sufficiently achieves the goal, or returns to the drawing board if the goal remains stubbornly out of reach.
I say this because it's quite possible for someone to have good design taste, picking concepts and ideas that are worthy of pursuit, and for that same person to be a forward-thinking designer, trying to consider what prospective audiences desire, while still producing just...really poorly-done mechanics, because they just aren't very effective at making their design goals happen in reality.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
It sounded like an infantilizing of their interests. If that wasn't the intent, alright. In my neck of the woods that is the applied-to-someone-else equivalent of "ooh! a shiny!"--meaning, someone so scatterbrained and flighty, they drop conversations mid-sentence to focus on whatever thing just caught their attention.
"Do you guys know what psionics are?"
"No."
"Psionics are mind-powers like telepathy or telekinesis."
"Oh. Like Magic?"
"More like the Force."
"Ohhhhh..."
You see, "Magic" is finger wiggling and saying specific words in a specific order, possibly with a wand or material components, to make something happen. Particularly for D&D enjoying kids.
The Force doesn't do that. Ergo it is different enough to begin the very simple process of saying "Magic and Psionics are slightly different but related concepts."
And this might be a shock. But not every kid starts out thinking the Force is just "Space Magic". Lots of kids ARE exposed to Psychic Characters through movies, comics, sci-fi, and fantasy and thus have some understanding of different kinds of powers that are similar without being the same. Really, it's almost exclusively the older crowd who give me a bunch of pushback on the question of whether or not psionics are "Just Magic".
As far as "Bringing back the old style and being prepared to explain it and make it shiny"...
I did.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Beautiful art."Do you guys know what psionics are?"
"No."
"Psionics are mind-powers like telepathy or telekinesis."
"Oh. Like Magic?"
"More like the Force."
"Ohhhhh..."
You see, "Magic" is finger wiggling and saying specific words in a specific order, possibly with a wand or material components, to make something happen. Particularly for D&D enjoying kids.
The Force doesn't do that. Ergo it is different enough to begin the very simple process of saying "Magic and Psionics are slightly different but related concepts."
And this might be a shock. But not every kid starts out thinking the Force is just "Space Magic". Lots of kids ARE exposed to Psychic Characters through movies, comics, sci-fi, and fantasy and thus have some understanding of different kinds of powers that are similar without being the same. Really, it's almost exclusively the older crowd who give me a bunch of pushback on the question of whether or not psionics are "Just Magic".
As far as "Bringing back the old style and being prepared to explain it and make it shiny"...
I did.
More to the point, there's another equally-relevant touchstone for people born after the year 2000.
Superheroes.
Dr. Xavier is a psion. He uses psychic powers, not magic. With all the attention on Marvel right now, and the anticipated appearance of the X-Men in the current-generation Marvel movies, it's not even remotely weird to use this example.
TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
Yep. Anyone with even basic approach to fantasy can recognize the difference between "I learned word magic from studying books" and "I meditate to make my mind magic stronger."
WanderingMystic
Hero
@Steampunkette
How did I miss kibbles tasty's psion. While I love yours it feels so different from 5e that I have only used it with level up. Laser llama's is to spell caster for my taste but Kibbles hits that right spot of different enough that it is definitely not just a spell caster while close enough that it feels equal to other classes.
How did I miss kibbles tasty's psion. While I love yours it feels so different from 5e that I have only used it with level up. Laser llama's is to spell caster for my taste but Kibbles hits that right spot of different enough that it is definitely not just a spell caster while close enough that it feels equal to other classes.
LuisCarlos17f
Legend
The first D&D I bought was Monsters of Dark Sun, and my first no-MM D&D was the 2nd Ed of the complete handbook of psionic powers.
I can identify with my psion PCs because they aren't valued and understood by the rest, not even by the wisest spellcasters.
There is a lot of skins in Fortnite because somebody wants to wear that because it isn't used by the rest. There are too many toys of Little Pony, transformers or G.I.Joe but Hasbtro always created new characters if the sales of toys were good. We have too many cards of Magic: the Gathering, but WotC is publishing more and more.
And the psionic/mystic could fit better in settings inspired in Asian cultures like the "cultivators" from donghua
I imagine the ardent like the cleric or paladin but not always serving one deity, something like the vestige binder but with armour and pool of power points. The ardent would use two lists, the classic "devotions" and the "sciences". the list of science could change when the ardent chooses to server a different power.
The influence for D&D can't be the same after several editions because during decades the speculative fiction has showed a lot of new titles.
I don't mind the return of the battlemind class but I would rather the name "ardent".
What is the difference between a wizard and a psion? The wizard chooses the spells and the psion has got "frozen" list of power, everyday with the same list but she can choose how many times to use certain power.
* The videogame "Lucius" where the main character is, literally, a son of Lucifer, shows a good example of how with a little of telekinesis can cause a lot of damage. That in Ravenloft can be really terrible when the investigators can't discover the criminal.
tvtropes.org
* We can't create the ultimate psion class loved by everybody but D&D-Beyond could allow to create homemade variant classes.
I can identify with my psion PCs because they aren't valued and understood by the rest, not even by the wisest spellcasters.
There is a lot of skins in Fortnite because somebody wants to wear that because it isn't used by the rest. There are too many toys of Little Pony, transformers or G.I.Joe but Hasbtro always created new characters if the sales of toys were good. We have too many cards of Magic: the Gathering, but WotC is publishing more and more.
And the psionic/mystic could fit better in settings inspired in Asian cultures like the "cultivators" from donghua
I imagine the ardent like the cleric or paladin but not always serving one deity, something like the vestige binder but with armour and pool of power points. The ardent would use two lists, the classic "devotions" and the "sciences". the list of science could change when the ardent chooses to server a different power.
The influence for D&D can't be the same after several editions because during decades the speculative fiction has showed a lot of new titles.
I don't mind the return of the battlemind class but I would rather the name "ardent".
What is the difference between a wizard and a psion? The wizard chooses the spells and the psion has got "frozen" list of power, everyday with the same list but she can choose how many times to use certain power.
* The videogame "Lucius" where the main character is, literally, a son of Lucifer, shows a good example of how with a little of telekinesis can cause a lot of damage. That in Ravenloft can be really terrible when the investigators can't discover the criminal.
Psychic Powers - TV Tropes
The ability to alter (or remotely observe) reality, directly tied to the mind/brain of the character. This is a specific form of Magic by Any Other Name, where the magic is named for some pseudoscientific relationship with the caster's mental …
tvtropes.org
* We can't create the ultimate psion class loved by everybody but D&D-Beyond could allow to create homemade variant classes.
Dragonhelm
Knight of Solamnia
At one point in playtesting, there was the idea of a single mage class, with sorcerer, wizard, and warlock being subclasses. To some degree, I feel like this is the way they should have gone. Alas.
The sorcerer has become kind of a repository for inner magical power, which is fine. It's all about consolidation this edition, right? So the psion gets lumped in there, much like the favored soul class becomes the divine soul sorcerer. Fun fact, the divine soul works for the mystic class in Dragonlance.
By the way, thank you, everyone, for your responses. This thread grew far bigger than I ever anticipated. I'm trying to catch up.
Marandahir
Crown-Forester (he/him)
Psionics is magic without req components (material, verbal, or somatic), with a particular flavour toward the New Age, the Sci Fi, the Weird Fiction, and other non-medieval-high-fantasy assumptions.
Mechanically, the components question is what it leans on. The reason a "Psionics Tradition" Wizard didn't pass playtest is because ultimately it couldn't get away from components and the core resource of the spellbook to feel Psionic enough.
Aberrant Sorcerer feels better because Sorcery Points are an easy stand-in for a classic RPG resource of Psi Points, but it still faces the issue of only getting to ignore components some of the time. Great Old One Warlock feels psionic in flavour, but because Warlocks function so completely differently from other casters, it doesn't really have a capacity to mechanically reflect that psionic power. Soul Knife and Psi Warrior share the psionic dice that captures some of the swinginess of psionic powers, but as they're subclasses they're only reflecting that psionic element part of the time. The new UA for Purple Dragon Knight has some psionic flavour and mechanics but similarly only reflects it some of the time, and in none of these three cases are there directly spellcasting issues. The Psionic Talent feats for Telepathy and Telekinesis similarly capture the Psionic theme.
Monster Manual 2025 very clearly laid out that what Psionics do for monsters is that they cast without componenets.
If we want a Psion class, it really can't easily chassis onto the backs of an existing spellcaster without a serious downside to balance the components issue. That's very hard to work out.
So for now, yeah, I'd say use Aberrant Sorcerer but swap to Intelligence. As with customizing monsters advice in the 2024 DMG, swapping Int/Wis/Cha is relatively safe to do without a power balance shift; but swapping Str/Con/Dex are not as they affect a whole host of other issues like HP, Initiative, and physical damage. This case is safe to do. It still doesn't obviate the components problem beyond the Psionic Spell List or before 6th level.
Mechanically, the components question is what it leans on. The reason a "Psionics Tradition" Wizard didn't pass playtest is because ultimately it couldn't get away from components and the core resource of the spellbook to feel Psionic enough.
Aberrant Sorcerer feels better because Sorcery Points are an easy stand-in for a classic RPG resource of Psi Points, but it still faces the issue of only getting to ignore components some of the time. Great Old One Warlock feels psionic in flavour, but because Warlocks function so completely differently from other casters, it doesn't really have a capacity to mechanically reflect that psionic power. Soul Knife and Psi Warrior share the psionic dice that captures some of the swinginess of psionic powers, but as they're subclasses they're only reflecting that psionic element part of the time. The new UA for Purple Dragon Knight has some psionic flavour and mechanics but similarly only reflects it some of the time, and in none of these three cases are there directly spellcasting issues. The Psionic Talent feats for Telepathy and Telekinesis similarly capture the Psionic theme.
Monster Manual 2025 very clearly laid out that what Psionics do for monsters is that they cast without componenets.
If we want a Psion class, it really can't easily chassis onto the backs of an existing spellcaster without a serious downside to balance the components issue. That's very hard to work out.
So for now, yeah, I'd say use Aberrant Sorcerer but swap to Intelligence. As with customizing monsters advice in the 2024 DMG, swapping Int/Wis/Cha is relatively safe to do without a power balance shift; but swapping Str/Con/Dex are not as they affect a whole host of other issues like HP, Initiative, and physical damage. This case is safe to do. It still doesn't obviate the components problem beyond the Psionic Spell List or before 6th level.
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