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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7149135" data-attributes="member: 4937">So, my opinions - as everyone knows - are legion...I am completely indifferent to the idea of 'psionics' in a game.  If you want to play a psychic character or the in world equivalent of a Jedi Knight, then I'm completely OK with that.  What I absolutely detest is 'psionics' implemented with an entirely different implementation than the games magic system.  Let's be absolutely clear 'psionic' powers or 'psychic' powers or whatever you want to call them are just magic with a different word.   Psionics are just another sort of magic user.   In 3.X edition for example, I implemented them in my homebrew as a sort of sorcerer.   Things like body weaponry, thought shield, tower of iron will, and psionic blast are spells.   Some spells are marked with the 'psychic' descriptor, and you have feats you can take that make you a better 'psychic' wizard or sorcerer.  But I absolutely loathe with a loathing of great loathing the idea that psionics are fundamentally mechanically different from all other sorts of magic and that the attraction and interest in psionics is ultimately tied to arbitrary mechanical differences in the games implementation of them compared to magic.   I don't like having to try to balance to completely different systems.   I don't like having to mentally keep track of two entirely separate systems.   I don't like having to try to explain in world two entirely different systems of magic, especially when some many of the powers inherently overlap (telekinesis, clairvoyance, etc.).   In 1e it sort of made sense that psionics had a different implementation than other sorts of magic, because psionics represented an innate magical ability that was not tied to the character's class or experience.   You were either psionic or you weren't and your psionic abilities were in addition to and supplementary to your class abilities.  You couldn't train them.  You probably couldn't acquire them.   They seemed like a great thing at first, but the nature of the rules made them really a curse because human psionics were invariably weaker than pretty much any psionic monster that they'd ever face, and the first time you fought a psionic creature you probably lost your character.   It sort of made sense, it was kind of cool in a very 1e weird way, but it wasn't in any way balanced or in the long run fun.   Be in 2e and thereafter, psionics have been tied to class and as such are just a alternate mechanical system for magical abilities purely for its own sake that adds absolutely nothing to the game, and nothing to the game as a game.  It ultimately boils down to just mechanical preference for 'mana point' based systems as opposed to D&D's standard 'spell slot' system.  Once you have psionics as a class that studies their arts and develops their mental powers, they are just wizards or sorcerers by a different name and slightly different rules.If you as a DM want to only have psionic classes in your game, and drop the standard magical classes like Wizard and perhaps even Cleric, then that might make some sense as an aesthetic and mechanical choice.  I could totally see a game world where 'psionic' was the only spellcaster class.  But to have both systems available, purely for the sake of mechanical diversity, makes no sense to me at all.</blockquote>

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