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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 9609276" data-attributes="member: 6677017">I was fine with 3.5e psionics. I think giving it a bit of its own flavor, more like the mystic in its later playtests would help, but my version needs to be comparable in power to a full caster. There needs to be the equivalent of 9th-level psionic effects--not just power levels. For example, astral projection and plane shifting sorts of things.I'm very okay with effect overlap (ie, powers that mostly look like similar spells) but the creation of those effects is something I like different. With the possible exception of some sort of "psionically resonant crystals" or such as substitutes for costly material components, I need there to not be components necessary for manifesting. No verbal, no somatic, etc. For me, the absence of such components is what makes it feels like psionics instead of magic. On the other hand, I like "displays" like 3.5 had so others can (sometimes) tell that you are manifesting psionics. I think well-designed and flexible displays can also give a lot of cool flavor to psionics.I prefer magic and psionics to interact with each other completely normally, but I'd be okay with slightly hampered interaction. I'm just not sure it's worth the effort. That goes into my idea about whether psionics is magic or not. The way I run it, even in-world, whether it should or should not be considered magic is debated. But it isn't arcane or divine, and it doesn't use the Weave (or another setting's equivalent) so it is at least a different kind of magic.I like feats (and half-feats) as ways to represent wild talents. In addition the Telekinetic and Telepathic feats that already exist in 5e (though I change how they work), I'd include a psionic version of Magic Initiate.I'm okay with subclasses for some classes, but I don't see a need for there to be psionic archetypes and versions for everything. I suppose on a world like Dark Sun it makes more sense to have extra subclasses, but that's probably one thing that can be a hard sell for some people--having the existence of psionics mean everything has psionic versions and options. Heck, that isn't even true for divine magic (or druidic/primal)! Okay, it is for arcane, but outside of someplace like Dark Sun, I don't see psionics being as pervasive as arcane magic.And that makes me think of something that might be useful in a presentation of psionics. There could be a couple different degrees of psionic campaign presence you choose between, with recommendations for which options to use in each of them. I'd go with "high psionic" (Dark Sun or equivalent) and "low psionic" (everything else, with an emphasis that even the low psionic options might only be present rarely or in certain cultures) for simplicity.I haven't checked out the Esper yet (I bounced off the name...sorry, I'll give it look), but there was a Psionicist class on DMsGuild that isn't there anymore (it looked like the document may have borrowed some WotC IP it wasn't entitled too, but I'm sure it was fixable if they wanted to). (This is not to be confused with the unrelated 2e conversion Psionicist class on DMsGuild.) It's too bad, because other than doing a few things I needed to house-rule (displays instead of components, not preparing powers), its basic setup and its details were closer than anything else I'd run into.</blockquote>

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