D&D General What’s The Big Deal About Psionics?

James Gasik said:

Ok, so Psionics. Here's the problem with discussions about Psionics. Most people don't understand what Psionics are. Many people need to be able to file something in a box to understand it. And most discussions about Psionics boil down to what they are not.

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To decide if psionics is magic, requires a theory of magic. D&D generally avoids a theory of magic, and leaves it up to each setting to explain it. But most leave it vague.

Forgotten Realms has a theory, where magic is inherently present in all things that exist. This magic of things entangles each other to form a Weave, which can be torn to explain antimagic zones. The ambient magic inherent in things continues to exist in antimagic zones, but only the Weave is suitable for spell casting.

Notably, magic is a natural phenomenon.

An arcanist like a Wizard or Artificer studies how exploit its natural properties as a kind of protoscience. An arcanist such as Warlock or Sorcerer is engineered by means this protoscience, and constructed out of the magic of the Weave.

Greek magic (actually Hellenistic magic where much of it comes from Egypt) influences my take on the arcane power source. For example, Plinius mentions how agate stone prevents the spread of poison. I assume its a kind of sympathetic magic where the body under agate influence becomes encircled in stone thus protected. An island with much agate might repel scorpions and other venomous creatures away from the island. All of this is natural. In the same way that hot fire rises, agate repels poison.

So arcane magic calculates and combines different ingredients with different properties to produce specific effects. It is much like chemistry, which derives from alchemy. Presumably the Weave is what enables these separate ingredients to interact with each other as a cohesive whole. Normally, arcanism uses "magic ingredients", the material components. Alternatively, the wand or other arcane focus is a kind of hi-tech device, which itself was engineered by means protoscience to reproduce the effects of many material components. (The wand should probably be expensive.) Note, protoscience artificially engineers Warlock and Sorcerer to be arcane cyborgs, half human and half living hi-tech wand. These classes are protoscientific experiments. Modification, alterations, transformations, via the Weave.

Divine magic also relies on the Weave. However, a divine focus is a cultural symbol. It distinguishes from an arcane hi-tech device. Divine magic is the magic of symbols, meaning, language, archetypes, ideals, ethics, values, and a holistic sense of a sacred, meaningful reality.

The reason divinism influences the Weave is because of the nature of sympathetic magic. There is an inherent affinity between objects that conceptually relate to each other. Thus the arcanist treats the agate stone more like a chemical ingredient, whereas the divinist treats its encirclement in stone as a meaningful symbol. The divinist manipulates the Weave symbolically, like the meaningful events within a dream. Perhaps divinism is a kind of cultural poetry, that can conflate all the random events of daily life within a particular culture into a meaningful whole. The culture can be as big as a nation or as small as ten individuals who share a common set of ideals.

The sympathetic magic of the Weave can be manipulated by either arcane math or divine linguistics.



The astral plane is a realm of pure thought only. The symbols, ideals, cultural structures, dreams, exist collectively, as domains within the aster. The astral plane is strictly immaterial. Its inhabitants are thought constructs only, sometimes referred to as "intellects". Because of their immateriality, the thought constructs are sometimes referred to as "immortals". Distances between these astral constructs depend on how closely they relate to each other culturally and linguistically. Ethical affinity (namely the alignment Wheel of domains) is one way to link, organize, and structure the astral plane. But there are many other ways to reorganize the astral plane. If organizing the astral domains by culture, then the thought constructs of different alignments normally exist nearby each other, as members of the same cultural community forming a single astral domain. Sotospeak, the "shape" of the astral plane depends on whatever "sorting routine" one uses to reorganize the concept tags, that one uses to navigate the astral plane.

The astral plane is strictly immaterial. Matter cannot exist there. Material creatures that planeshift into the astral plane actually disintegrate while their information translates into a living astral thought construct. Planeshifting back into matter materializes a new body from the astral construct. Angelic intellects actually can materialize into a body of flesh and blood, but they rarely do because of the serious limitations that materiality incurs. Normally, angels manifest in the material plane as a conjuration made out of ether, the elemental forces of the ethereal plane.

The ability of astral thought constructs to symbolically manipulate the ether is an aspect of the sympathetic magic of the Weave.



I go so far as to say:

Ethereal plane = ether = the fifth element
= force = all forces, gravity and telekinsis
= conjurations, ghosts, force constructs
= magical energy = Weave

It is all the same thing. The ether is the Weave. All the forces of any kind that entangle spacetime and matter are the ethereal weave. Divinism mainly manipulates the Weave symbolically from the astral. Arcanism mainly manipulates the Weave chemically from the material. But both approaches are inherent within the magic of all things that exist.

Note, the astral plane is immaterial. However, when a culture in the material plane forms a meaningful linguistic system, that cultural construct exists simultaneously in the material plane and the astral plane. Some members of the material culture are more sensitive to the astral phenomena that the culture generates, and function as visionaries, prophets, and dreamers for the culture and tend toward divine magic classes.

In any case, the D&D traditions about the arcane and divine power sources are reasonably clear, and much can be inferred from them with regard to how they interact with the magical Weave.



The psionic and primal power sources benefit from further clarification. It would be nice if psi fans can come to some agreement about them, or at least figure out how to coordinate the differences.

It seems to me, the psionic power source is the mind itself. The mind is natural albeit mysterious. Psionicism is the natural magic that is inherent to any and every sentient being. The mind is an active aspect of reality itself, and able to influence and even reimagine reality, directly, without any intermediary.

What a mind can visualize subjectively, the strong mind can will into existence objectively.

It seems to me, the primal power source is also psionic. However, psionic typically focuses on the minds of animals, including humanoid and beast. By contrast, primal tends to focus on the minds of elemental objects, such as fiery sunlight, airy weather, watery river, and earthy mountain. Plant too is a kind of primal element. These objects are sentient beings. They dont have human minds but they are minds, alien tho the elements may seem. Primal magic derives from the interactive psionic activity within a neighborly community of primal minds. A primalist forms personal relationships with each of these objects of nature.



My impression is, @MoonSong wants "innate natural magic" flavor. But I feel they (?) are looking in the wrong place for it. Sorcerer and Warlock are artificial creations of arcane mad-science. What MoonSong seems to be describing is actually what psionic is. The mind is natural. Its magical power is natural, and fundamentally innate. It can even transform a physical body, psychometabolically. Psionic is the innate natural mysterious magic.



All power sources, arcane-divine and psionic-primal, can do magical effects including:

• magical effects that are spells
• magical effects that are not spells
• magically produce nonmagical effects

It is clear that psionic is magic, especially when a psionic spell implies a manipulation of the Weave.

Even so, these power sources are different from each other.

Yaarel said:

To decide if psionics is magic, requires a theory of magic. D&D generally avoids a theory of magic, and leaves it up to each setting to explain it. But most leave it vague.

Forgotten Realms has a theory, where magic is inherently present in all things that exist. This magic of things entangles each other to form a Weave, which can be torn to explain antimagic zones. The ambient magic inherent in things continues to exist in antimagic zones, but only the Weave is suitable for spell casting.

Notably, magic is a natural phenomenon.

An arcanist like a Wizard or Artificer studies how exploit its natural properties as a kind of protoscience. An arcanist such as Warlock or Sorcerer is engineered by means this protoscience, and constructed out of the magic of the Weave.

Greek magic (actually Hellenistic magic where much of it comes from Egypt) influences my take on the arcane power source. For example, Plinius mentions how agate stone prevents the spread of poison. I assume its a kind of sympathetic magic where the body under agate influence becomes encircled in stone thus protected. An island with much agate might repel scorpions and other venomous creatures away from the island. All of this is natural. In the same way that hot fire rises, agate repels poison.

So arcane magic calculates and combines different ingredients with different properties to produce specific effects. It is much like chemistry, which derives from alchemy. Presumably the Weave is what enables these separate ingredients to interact with each other as a cohesive whole. Normally, arcanism uses "magic ingredients", the material components. Alternatively, the wand or other arcane focus is a kind of hi-tech device, which itself was engineered by means protoscience to reproduce the effects of many material components. (The wand should probably be expensive.) Note, protoscience artificially engineers Warlock and Sorcerer to be arcane cyborgs, half human and half living hi-tech wand. These classes are protoscientific experiments. Modification, alterations, transformations, via the Weave.

Divine magic also relies on the Weave. However, a divine focus is a cultural symbol. It distinguishes from an arcane hi-tech device. Divine magic is the magic of symbols, meaning, language, archetypes, ideals, ethics, values, and a holistic sense of a sacred, meaningful reality.

The reason divinism influences the Weave is because of the nature of sympathetic magic. There is an inherent affinity between objects that conceptually relate to each other. Thus the arcanist treats the agate stone more like a chemical ingredient, whereas the divinist treats its encirclement in stone as a meaningful symbol. The divinist manipulates the Weave symbolically, like the meaningful events within a dream. Perhaps divinism is a kind of cultural poetry, that can conflate all the random events of daily life within a particular culture into a meaningful whole. The culture can be as big as a nation or as small as ten individuals who share a common set of ideals.

The sympathetic magic of the Weave can be manipulated by either arcane math or divine linguistics.



The astral plane is a realm of pure thought only. The symbols, ideals, cultural structures, dreams, exist collectively, as domains within the aster. The astral plane is strictly immaterial. Its inhabitants are thought constructs only, sometimes referred to as "intellects". Because of their immateriality, the thought constructs are sometimes referred to as "immortals". Distances between these astral constructs depend on how closely related to each other they are culturally and linguistically. Ethical affinity (namely the alignment Wheel of domains) is one way to link, organize, and structure the astral plane. But there are many other ways to reorganize the astral plane, especially by culture, so that constructs of different alignments normally exist together as a single community in the same astral domain. Sotospeak, the "shape" of the astral plane depends on whatever "sorting routine" one uses to reorganize the concept tags, that one uses to navigate the astral plane.

The astral plane is strictly immaterial. Matter cannot exist there. Material creatures that planeshift into the astral plane actually disintegrate while their information translates into a living astral thought construct. Planeshifting back into matter materializes a new body from the astral construct. Angelic intellects actually can materialize into a body of flesh and blood, but they rarely do because of the serious limitations that materiality incurs. Normally, angels manifest in the material plane as a conjuration made out of ether, the elemental forces of the ethereal plane.

The ability of astral thought constructs to symbolically manipulate the ether is an aspect of the sympathetic magic of the Weave.

I go so far as to say:

Ethereal plane = ether = the fifth element
= force = all forces, gravity and telekinsis
= conjurations, ghosts, force constructs
= magical energy = Weave

It is all the same thing. The ether is the Weave. All the forces of any kind that entangle spacetime and matter are the ethereal weave. Divinism mainly manipulates the Weave symbolically from the astral. Arcanism mainly manipulates the Weave chemically from the material. But both approaches are inherent within the magic of all things that exist.

Note, the astral plane is immaterial. However, when a culture in the material plane forms a meaningful linguistic system, that cultural construct exists simultaneously in the material plane and the astral plane. Some members of the material culture are more sensitive to the astral phenomena that the culture generates, and function as visionaries, prophets, and dreamers for the culture and tend toward divine magic classes.

In any case, the D&D traditions about the arcane and divine power sources are reasonably clear, and much can be inferred from them with regard to how they interact with the magical Weave.



The psionic and primal power sources benefit from further clarification. It would be nice if psi fans can come to some agreement about them, or at least figure out how to coordinate the differences.

It seems to me, the psionic power source is the mind itself. The mind is natural albeit mysterious. Psionicism is the natural magic that is inherent to any and every sentient being. The mind is an active aspect of reality itself, and able to influence and even reimagine reality, directly, without any intermediary.

It seems to me, the primal power source is also psionic. However, psionic typically focuses on the minds of animals, including humanoid and beast. By contrast, primal tends to focus on the minds of elemental objects, such as fiery sunlight, airy weather, watery river, and earthy mountain. Plant too is a kind of primal element. These objects are sentient beings. They dont have human minds but they are minds, alien tho the elements may seem. Primal magic derives from the interactive psionic activity within a neighborly community of primal minds. A primalist forms personal relationships with each of these objects of nature.

My impression is, @MoonSong wants "innate natural magic" flavor. But I feel they (?) are looking in the wrong place for it. Sorcerer and Warlock are artificial creations of arcane mad-science. What MoonSong seems to be describing is actually what psionic is. The mind is natural. Its magical power is natural. It can even transform a physical body, psychometabolically. Psionic is the innate natural mysterious magic.



All power sources, arcane-divine and psionic-primal, can do magical effects including:

• magical effects that are spells
• magical effects that are not spells
• magically produce nonmagical

It is clear that psionic is magic, especially when a psionic spell implies a manipulation of the Weave.

Click to expand...

I don't know enough of the FR, but I'd swear at least half of it is entirely your personal interpretation of unrelated pieces of lore taken out of context.

From the Forgotten Realms Wiki:

Psionics was fueled by the internal magic of one's own mind and life-force, similarly to ki, using this power to produce psionic effects. In contrast to the spellcasting of conventional magic, psionics did not draw power from the Weave (nor the Shadow Weave, or any other external power) and did not need it to function. Instead, a psionic creature was itself its own Weave. Not even deities of magic like Mystra and Shar could stop a psionic creature using its powers. Nevertheless, after the Year of Wild Magic, 1372 DR, the results of psionic powers were magical in nature and psionics and conventional magic were fully transparent to one another, interacting just as magic did with itself, though not all spellcasters were aware if this was possible.

Also attached, an excerpt from the Player's Guide to Faerun.

James Gasik said:

From the Forgotten Realms Wiki:

Psionics was fueled by the internal magic of one's own mind and life-force, similarly to ki, using this power to produce psionic effects. In contrast to the spellcasting of conventional magic, psionics did not draw power from the Weave (nor the Shadow Weave, or any other external power) and did not need it to function. Instead, a psionic creature was itself its own Weave. Not even deities of magic like Mystra and Shar could stop a psionic creature using its powers. Nevertheless, after the Year of Wild Magic, 1372 DR, the results of psionic powers were magical in nature and psionics and conventional magic were fully transparent to one another, interacting just as magic did with itself, though not all spellcasters were aware if this was possible.

Also attached, an excerpt from the Player's Guide to Faerun.

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This FR flavor interferes with the mechanics of transparency between arcane and psionic.

On the other hand.

Each mind generates an aura, that serves as a personal weave: seems a useful premise!

Presumably the stronger the aura the farther the range, except teleportation properties obviate such limits.

Hypothetically, arcane interacts normally with psionic spells (namely Dispel Magic to undo an effect), but cannot actually prevent psionic spells from being cast (namely Antimagic Zone yields to psionic bubbles within it)?

MoonSong said:

I don't know enough of the FR, but I'd swear at least half of it is entirely your personal interpretation of unrelated pieces of lore taken out of context.

Click to expand...

Mostly I am referring to the Weave mentioned in the 5e Players Handbook, and extrapolating from it and other information elsewhere in the book. For example, the astral plane is officially a realm of pure thought. Astral distances are psychological (linguistic), not physical. Things that are similar to each other and that relate to each other, and remind one of each other, exist closer together there. By extrapolation, this symbolic affinity is in fact an aspect of sympathetic magic.

@James Gasik



Notably, according to 3e FR, psionics is magic ("exactly as magic"). Psionic spells and arcane spells are both simply magic spells. This 3e tradition is where 4e core and 5e core are coming from as well. Psionic is one of the sources of magic.



Nevertheless, I find the psionic mind manifesting a personal Weave to be an intriguing concept.

What are the mechanical implications, if a "tear in the Weave" cannot affect the Weave around the mind because the mind continually emanates it?

In 5e, Dispel Magic causes a spell to "end". In other words, one spell effect undoes an other spell effect.

By contrast, an Antimagic Field works differently. It doesnt end an spell but causes a spell to be "suppressed". Moreover, the kind of spell that gets suppressed is the one that relies on the Weave, namely "the magical energy that suffuses the multiverse".

The psionic aura of each mind differs from this multiversal energy.

Arguably, the Antimagic Field is unable to suppress a psionic aura. Thus as long as the psionic spell effects remain within the aura, the spell effects function normally. Psionic spells ignore Antimagic Fields.

But because psionic spells are normal spells, the effects can be dispelled normally by other spells.

I am unsure if it is worth maintaining such a mechanical distinction, especially if only one spell, Antimagic Field, is relevant to the distinction. But it calls attention to how the psionic and arcane sources differ from each other.

A personal aura of mental influence feels psionic to me. The radius might be 10 feet or an entire domain, but a mind at the center feels psionic.

There are some mechanical differences though, to which the Forgotten Realms article goes into more detail, such as "Use of psionic power did not require spell components. Psionic power could be activated much faster than either divine or arcane magic."

Cadence said:

If we're talking official rules in 1e, didn't they have the highest level cleric spells being directly granted by a greater gods? So if you worshipped a demi&God or lesser god you couldn't even get spells past a certain level? (Which doesn't mean the gods in your own world had to care or pay attention except to rubber stamp the request if they were powerful enough to grant it).

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Yes and no.

The 1e Cleric can cast spells without gods. The 1e core rules are conflictive, but resolve in a way equivalent to the 5e formulation of a "cosmic power".

For example, the 1e Players Handbook says, "Clerical spells, including the druidic, are bestowed by the gods, ..." But we know from elsewhere that Druids dont have gods. "They hold trees, the sun and moon, as deities." In other words, animism. In context, the term "gods" doesnt mean gods. Term "gods" is being used improperly in a general sense as if any kind of sacred concept, including normal trees.

In context, the 1e Cleric class generally casts divine spells by means of any sacred concept of any culture.

The 5e formula in Xanathars communicates this 1e tradition best. A Cleric casts spells by means of any "cosmic force, such as life or death, or a philosophy, or a concept such as love, peace, or one of the nine alignments". Any sacred concept, symbol, worldview, or ethical behavior can power divine magic.

In other words, the divine power source is linguistic.

Yaarel said:

Yes and no.

The 1e Cleric can cast spells without gods. The 1e core rules are conflictive, but resolve in a way equivalent to the 5e formulation of a "cosmic power".

For example, the 1e Players Handbook says, "Clerical spells, including the druidic, are bestowed by the gods, ..." But we know from elsewhere that Druids dont have gods. "They hold trees, the sun and moon, as deities." In other words, animism. In context, the term "gods" doesnt mean gods. Term "gods" is being used improperly in a general sense as if any kind of sacred concept, including normal trees.

In context, the 1e Cleric class generally casts divine spells by means of any sacred concept of any culture.

The 5e formula in Xanathars communicates this 1e tradition best. A Cleric casts spells by means of any "cosmic force, such as life or death, or a philosophy, or a concept such as love, peace, or one of the nine alignments". Any sacred concept, symbol, worldview, or behavior can power divine magic.

In other words, the divine power source is linguistic.

Click to expand...

Actually, it turns out that the ability to gain spells is tied to Gods in 1e, here's a snippet from The Manual of the Planes:

I still look at psionics as science.

Clarke's Law and all...