D&D (2024) What Should a Psion Be Able To Do?

[Scribe]

Fair enough, but I am hoping to get as exhaustive a list as possible just to see what we view as psionically capable.

An exhaustive list? I'm afraid if it could possibly fall under the broad tropes I've noted it would apply. Its bordering on 'everything' just like Wizard Magic.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I want to do the things these characters do:

Firestarter (create and control fire, including immunity to fire eventually)

Professor X (telepathy, empathy, I’d prefer mind control be considered inherently monstrous and evil but I know that isn’t gonna happen so it’s in too, illusions by way of forced perception)

Green Lantern (create and use energy constructs)

Nightcrawler (teleport)

Mystique (control and transform one’s own body)

Jedi (all of it)

Plus these abilities:

Healing and harming via biokenesis

Psychometry and clairvoyance

Manipulating energy fields and disrupting “magic”

Communication with spirits

 

[dave2008]

I want to do the things these characters do:

Firestarter (create and control fire, including immunity to fire eventually)

Professor X (telepathy, empathy, I’d prefer mind control be considered inherently monstrous and evil but I know that isn’t gonna happen so it’s in too, illusions by way of forced perception)

Green Lantern (create and use energy constructs)

Nightcrawler (teleport)

Mystique (control and transform one’s own body)

Jedi (all of it)

Plus these abilities:

Healing and harming via biokenesis

Psychometry and clairvoyance

Manipulating energy fields and disrupting “magic”

Communication with spirits

I agree with about half of those, but I am not against people getting things I don't personally like as psionics

 

[Staffan]

And I'm not a superhero person, but doesn't Jean Grey as the Pheonix do any fire stuff???

She can burn things with "cosmic fire", but for the most part the Phoenix's fiery aura is cosmetic. For example, I'm pretty sure we've seen the Phoenix aura reach out and "grasp" someone in its fiery talons, but they didn't get burned by it – the grasp was primarily telekinetic in nature.

But I mean, as the Phoenix Jean has been various degrees of near-omnipotent, so she definitely can create fire.

 

[Reynard]

Right, but we (the community at large) might also want pyrokinesis and biokinesis, so they shouldn't be excluded, should they?

My point is, if you let them do everything "psychics" can do in media, they are just wizards. What's the point then?

 

[Scribe]

My point is, if you let them do everything "psychics" can do in media, they are just wizards. What's the point then?

This is why we need curated Spell/Power lists, the wide open approach of 5/5.5 isnt it.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I don't see those as fundamental psion abilities. I think I agree with @Reynard on this one that your just creating a caster with a different name if you include these. I mean fire and ice are not things of the mind (though I do understand how one could justify them to some extent).

fire psionics is common in media and it reverse could equally work.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

What should a psion be able to do? What shouldn't a psion be able to do!

 

[Flights of Fancy]

My point is, if you let them do everything "psychics" can do in media, they are just wizards. What's the point then?

To make them something other than wizards. Wasn't that the point of the other thread, about what people want from psionics?

 

[Reynard]

fire psionics is common in media and it reverse could equally work.

The question isn't "what can psychics do" it is "what should they be able to do?" And if we are talking about classed based games, you need to narrow that field to make them distinct.