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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ashanderai" data-source="post: 2556494" data-attributes="member: 13210">I just knew I was going to get lynched as soon as I bit that first carrot about psionics.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />What you state right here isn't strictly psionics either according to the Expanded Psionics Handbook.  Those internal projected energies are just as easily a form of magic.  To be precise, I never said that you cannot use psionics to simulate a ki-using magic system.  I said that psionics is not ki-use.  To quote the Expanded Psionics Handbook, page 4: "Simply put, psionics is the art of tapping the mind's potential."  That is about the mind's potential power, not the body and soul's.  There is a lot more there that supports my view also, but I see no need to quote it all.  Throughout the XPH, it goes on expounding upon that view of psionics and expanding it to grant the mind control over powers related to the body and over physics and even magic.  But at its essence it is not ki-use.  The mechanics can be used to simulate ki-use, however flawed, but for some of us who have researched ki in mythology, religion, and martial arts the psionics rules do not satisfactorily handle ki-use.  Psionics, to me, feels more like new age religion/magic/science of the mind and has very little to do with ki (especially when I think about the crystal stuff).The Players Handbook on page 39 in the characteristics paragraph of the Monk class description even shows us that Wizards of the Coast doesn't even define ki-use as psionics or vice versa; it is defined as a subtle energy related to magic.  Yes, I know the psionics book came out after the PH, but neither did the 3.5 revisions of both of these books change this definition.  If the terms are/were synonymous, then why use separate terms for characters with these powers?  Wizards of the Coast further emphasized the difference when they created a prestige class designed to merge the two concepts, the Fist of Zuoken.  It is my experience that many western, and even many eastern, people who do not consciously deal with the concept normally in some aspects of their lives, do not have a good understanding of what the concept of ki is.  Most learn from cinema, which is often filled with erroneous information (big surprise there, right).Ki, simply put, is breath.  Breath is air from the environment, processed by the body, which is in turn controlled by the mind; a mind which cannot exist without a soul.  Ki, ch'i, chi, qi or whatever other spelling you might want to use, in the mythology and religions of the world is not strictly a power that originates with the mind.  Most often it is described as the energy that is derived from a union of, primarily, the soul, the mind, and the body interacting with the environment; breath.  There are two aspects of ki; positive yang and negative yin.    Ki works best when it is in balance.  Ki is far less likely to be used by someone in ill health because if their ki were in balance they would not have become ill to begin with.  The mind only has as much to do with that as the soul and body; no more, no less.  Furthermore, blood has a great deal to do with the processing of ki since it distributes particular aspects of breath throughout the body, delivering nutrients that allows the body to live (an aspect of yang), while removing toxins from the body that then leave as exhaled breath (an aspect of yin).  Other important considerations for ki (again, depending on your research source) are chakras, mudras, and mantras.  Psionics has none of these and it has no positive or negative aspects to it that have an impact on how it works in the game system and neither does ki as it exists in WotC's take on it at present.  Psionics does not depend on breathing any moreso than does any other aspect of the game.  Ki is also defined as an energy that comes up from the earth that can reinforce the power, strength, and leverage of the body.  Modern science likes to define it as strictly a matter of a form of body alignment that structurally reinforces leverage, but even science falls short of explaining all manifestations of ki.  Also, depending on the myths you choose to use for research, you may find references to ki energy as an existing force in the natural world, often referred to as dragon lines.  Dragon lines are flows of ki that exist in the world flowing on its own while interacting with the environment.  There is nothing like this in psionics.In my opinion, in the absence of better rules for ki, most of the psionics rules makes an acceptable short-term substitute for powers derived from ki-use, but I can almost see an argument for using the standard magic rules (which at least have positive and negative energy descriptors, though using them as is would be a bit of a wrong fit, too).I have seen a lot of myths about what ki is, but yes, I would have to agree that different people (usually, but not always, only informed by cinema on the subject) have different opinions on what ki is and all opinions are equally valid for expressing point of view, however much or little fact is involved.  If, by your mind to mind comment, you mean 'in character', see above for my opinion on that.  For me, the monk as is, is not enough for a ki-use system.Open content was a poor selection of words, but you never know.  I meant to address the issue of whether or not Magic of Incarnum is added to the SRD.Don't get me wrong.  I like psionics, but for what it is and could be in an elegant way, not for how I can shoehorn it into something else.  In other words, I don't want my psionics in my ki and I don't want my ki in my psionics.*sigh*  Obviously, if I want a decent Ki-using system that uses the elements I discussed above with a round-by-round resource system, then I will have to create it from scratch rather than cobbling it together from the Incarnum system as I had previously hoped to do./hijackRegarding Magic of Incarnum:  I knew it would not cover ki-use, but my hopes were that it would have a system that I could easily adapt to ki-use; especially since the book was discussing souls, chakras, and round by round resource management.  What I have seen in the previews so far makes adapting the new system look more and more difficult.  I had also hoped that the totemist would somehow channel knowledge, skills, and abilities from the souls of ancestors and nature totems, but it does nothing like this.  Instead it creates objects from incarnum that have bestial abilities.  In itself pretty cool, but it falls short of my expectations.  The ideas with chakras still look promising, though, as does the round by round aspect of essentia, but not as promising as before.  The race entry was just totally disappointing for me.  I don't know why - maybe because, as someone else put it, they appear to be a new kind of elf, or maybe because they simply lack ooomph for me (I don't mind new elves necessarily because I don't have to use them anyway - just make them stand out more).  My real hope though hinged on the ideas of the soulborn and the incarnate, but the mention of them in the interview turned me off as far as any hope of using them for ki-users.  I think they sound cool otherwise - much cooler than the totemist looks.  But, then I remember the disappointment I feel with the totemist and I despair again.  That is why this book looks like a purchase from me will go 50/50 until I can flip through it in the store.</blockquote>

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