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

like being able to walk through security with a loaded bandolier of grenades and guns with nary a glance while everyone else gets their weapons taken.
But with the chance of the bandolier of grenades exploding if you aren't care on your way through. ;)

Or getting through with your guns only to find out later on the ammunition disappeared or the gu jams unexpectedly. :)

To myself, anyway, psionics should carry a greater inherent risk than magic--because you aren't relying on anything external to do the impossible, you are relying only on the internal--which often involves pushing your limits to the breaking point or beyond.
 

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After a further review, I dont see any "fire/electricity etc type spells.

So should be easy enough for me to make a Firestarter subclass by just altering the subclass spell list.
 

Psionics in fiction is effectively what magic is in that particular fiction, and is the nature of the supernatural in that world. Most fictional universes don't have both, or are a kitchen sink universe (Superheroes, Rifts, etc.). Some people want only tele-powers. Many want kinetic powers. Others want all magic to work that way, as they like the fiction of altering reality with their minds.

The way I see it, designers from older TSR/Wizards eras tried to shoehorn psionics in as an option for people who preferred magic that looked like that instead of Vancian magic, but kept them both in the game.

How are those "powers" presented in a TTRPG? If previous D&D editions are any measure, they are packaged abilities that pretty much look like Spells!

This is D&D. D&D isn't "every other universe". I'm fine with Psionics being a different type of magic, as compared to Arcane, Divine, Primal, and other variants. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. I'm fine with them refining what they've presented in the new UA. It's a good list of powers can be justified as psionic.

As a rule of thumb, I don't think they should have "divine/occult-like" powers that obviously come from outside sources, like Hunger of Hadar. And I don't think they should have Animate Dead, that is currently on the list. And even though it is only descriptive, "Devilish Tongue" needs re-named.
 
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Also, for those debating if energy spells, like say fireball should be in the psion's kit;

Its not included in their spell list in the UA.

I fact the more I look at the list, and considering their "subclass" spells, I think they did a decent job of giving it its own identity.
I recall 3e had a pyro kinetic prestige class in one of the books that's just begging to be a subclass.
 

Telekinesis
Telepathy
Psychometry
Clairvoyance/Clairaudience
Mind Control
Precognition
Psychomanifestation
Perception Manipulation/Alteration
Empathic Interference
Body Manipulation
Astral Projection
Communing with the Dead
Aurasight
Automatic Writing/Drawing
Bilocation
Extra-Sensory Perception
Atmokinesis
Chirurgery
Pyrokinesis
Hypnosis
Levitation
 


Aberrantics (invoking aberrant aspects of the outside)
Astrapathy (enforcing the Astral plane on the world)
Glamour (tying the would to dreams and making the dreams real)
Psychometabolism (transforming the body with your ming)
Pschometry (reading past and future of touched objects and gaining their characteristics)
Psychoportation (teleporting people and objects with one's minds)
Clairsentience (sensing things with extra senses)
Metacreativity (creating crystalline, ectoplasmic, or ghostly objects)
Telekinesis (moving things and creating energy with your mind)
Telepathy (sending, influencing, and reading thoughts from afar)
 

My point is, if you let them do everything "psychics" can do in media, they are just wizards. What's the point then?
If wizards can do everything they can do in media, what's the point of any other class? Just make a Summon Barbarian spell.

But I agree that having them be full caster is very uninteresting.
 

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