How do we WANT magic to work (Forked Thread: ... medieval war...)

[Doug McCrae]

How about 'natural magic', 'thought magic', 'internal magic', 'psyche', 'psychomancy' or the somewhat Tolkienesque 'unseen craft' or 'unseen art'.

I've realised I answered the wrong question, these are alternate terms for psionics. Psychics -

'Natural magician', 'Mind mage', 'Internalist', 'Psychomancer' or 'Practitioner of the unseen art'.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Damn, now I have to do some work instead of just criticising.

How about 'natural magic', 'thought magic', 'internal magic', 'psyche', 'psychomancy' or the somewhat Tolkienesque 'unseen craft' or 'unseen art'.

Examining each in turn:

Natural magic: I get where you're coming from. However, since "Natural Science" was a blanket term for science & religious studies, this term would probably be (mis)understood in the same way. Not good for a special subsystem.

Thought magic: Not bad, but since both divine and arcane systems already have thought magics, and psi has abilities that aren't directly thought related, this would only be confusing.

Internal magic: Similar problems to Thought magic. Some powers, even iconic ones like telekinesis, don't really fit the label.

Psyche: better, but incomplete. It needs a suffix like -onics, -ology, -mancy or -sophy to make it descriptive of a system. (see below)

Psychomancy: This could work.

Unseen craft/Unseen art: Those are both terms for witchcraft or wizardry in general- not a good one for a subsystem.

To continue in this more constructive vein, how about:

Automancy- a power deriving exclusively from the will of the manifester?

Psychodynamics: "Power of the mind"

Psychothaumatics: "miracles of the mind"

 

[siliaris]

For me, i can have both – magic is essentially scientific, but is so complex that while the basics are rather elementary few even come close to real mastery. These people then seem mysterious...

 

[Herobizkit]

From wikipedia:

Psychokinesis is the umbrella term for various related specialty abilities, which may include:

* Telekinesis; movement of matter (micro and macro; move, lift, agitate, vibrate, spin, bend, break, or impact)
* Speed up or slow down the naturally occurring vibrations of atoms in matter to alter temperature, possibly to the point of ignition if combustible (also known as pyrokinesis and cryokinesis respectively).
* Self levitation (rising in the air unsupported, flying)
* Object deformation (including metal softening and bending).
* Influencing events (in time).
* Biological healing.
* Teleportation (disappearing and reappearing elsewhere).
* Phasing (ability) through matter.
* Transmutation of matter.
* Shape-shifting.
* Energy shield (force field).
* Control of magnetism.
* Control of photons (light waves/particles).
* Thoughtform projection (a physically perceived person, animal, creature, object, ghostly entity, etc., created in the mind and projected into three-dimensional space and observable by others; for thought images allegedly placed on film, see Thoughtography).
* Body swap

Psychokinetic sounds science-y, I suppose...

Mind mage works for me.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

You know, making an angry face at the use of the word "psionics" seems off when there's an arcane spell called Telekinesis.

 

[Spatula]

Doug, putting aside "psion" for a minute- but keeping our discussion of it in mind for context- let me ask this question:

Given that "psychic" has modern connotations of hucksters, con artists & 900 numbers, or that "mentalist" has modern connotations of a stage magician, what term would you suggest for the overall umbrella term under which we'd group the classes from the XPH and CompPsi?

One of the (later, I think) elements of Dark Sun that I always liked was that psionics was often called "the Way" or something like that. Psionics were referred to as mindbenders, although that defines a certain focus on telepathy.

 

[El Mahdi]

How about "Mystics" and "Mysticism"?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mmmmm, I think that is still too closely linked to magic in general.

OTOH, I had been doing a HR/homebrew in which I conflated Ki with Incarnum...but linking Ki with Psi works just as well- perhaps even better.

Ki and Psi both represent mastery of one's inherent powers of mind over reality, after all.

 

[Starfox]

How about "Mystics" and "Mysticism"?

This already has a defined meaning RL that also happens to work very nicely in the game; it is about seeking the arcane secrets buried in divine scriptures.

 

[lutecius]

I'm not sure about that. I'm confident 4e psionics will use the same system as every other class.

Oops