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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7710328" data-attributes="member: 996">I know you're trying to be funny, and cat-herding is never a bad analogy to dealing with gamers, but that's abject nonsense.  There's only been one Warlord in D&D's history, there's nothing to be at odds about, really, if you want to see the class in 5e.  This topic, psionics, OTOH, is much more varied.  Psionic has been magic, it's been not-magic, it's been a magic substitute; it's been a random gift, it's been a trained class, it's been multiple classes; it's been tongue-in-cheek Freudian science-fiction, it's been spellcasting, it's been a cosmic immune response to Far-Realm incursion; it's been a grafted-on system that seems like it came from another game, it's been utterly broken, it's been needlessly complicated, it's been somewhat balanced.  Depending on which things you like from which edition, what constitutes psionics for you may vary quite wildly.  A few things have popped up as issues for some fans of psionics, magic vs not magic and Far Realm influence, particularly, the insistence that it be different from spellcasting even if it is possible to regard it as magic.  And, there was very little groundwork laid for it in the core game, too.  So it's clearly a challenge, three drafts in and it still feels a little brain(npi)-stormy. Aparently it either bears a lot of repeating, or inspires a lot of trolling.  ;( The Skald was a lot closer, but then it's a leader sub-class, being at least part-martial, including it's 'aura.'    As opposed to taking the bizarro Vancian thing, and a pile of mechanics and ideas lifted from genre, mythology, and even the bible, and just saying "it's magic?"  I mean, I get that 2017 is not 1974, and you can't necessarily get away with pulling the same tricks anymore.  ("Hey baby, wanna see my etchings?")  Even though this is a game that's trading heavily on it's own past... Perfect!  It's evoking the feel of 1e AD&D psionics!   No, of course not, its just yet more supernatural powers for existing martial options to be strictly inferior to.  It is, however, more practical to completely re-skin, not that 5e is particularly encouraging of re-skinning, with it's flavorful concept-first class designs, but it might make a fair addition to the fractional stop-gap options a really determined player might resort to while waiting for an actual Warlord. And, of course, it does satisfy those interested only in cheesing their way around anti-magic effects.  A side effect of satisfying the legitimate desire for psionic to be/feel /different/ from magic is giving anyone who wants the unlimited range of effects open to supernatural abilities a get-out-of-anti-magic free card.  "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Beholder, I'm not magic, I'm psionic, eat lambda-variant waves." And of course, what's a Beholder - a bug-eyed alien who shoots raybeams from it's eye stalks - supposed to do, it can't exactly plead 'but that's science-fiction!'  ;P</blockquote>

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