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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fralex" data-source="post: 6637228" data-attributes="member: 6785902">I mentioned this in the other thread, but I'll bring it up here too. I think I've worked out what makes the source of psionics different from other magic.Exposure to the Far Realm can incite a reaction in some individuals that allows them to use their minds to create supernatural effects as a way of fighting back against the disease trying to infect their mind. But the Far Realm is not where the power comes from.People have been saying psionics is special partly because the power comes from within. But not in the same way as a sorcerer. I think I know how to make the distinction now.Psionic power, in essence, is an understanding. A little-known Truth about the nature of reality. It's not really a secret, like the arcane is. It's just some mysterious bit of knowledge that is almost impossible to grasp. When you reach a full understanding of it, you've been "Awakened" and can suddenly manipulate reality as if it were an extension of your body. You have no need to study further to gain more power; there is nothing else you need to learn to use psionics better. From then on, you need only practice your new abilities to make them stronger. Whereas each arcane spell is like its own little secret that must be discovered and studied to use, new psionic techniques are merely different ways to wield the same weapon, and the only obstacle to gaining them is practice.Nobody can explain this psionic Truth to you; the nature of the Truth is so far beyond conventional wisdom that it is inherently unexplainable to those who are not yet Awakened. There are no words for it. You simply have to come to the Truth on your own. The most a psion can do to help you is try guiding you in the right direction and hope you figure out how to move that way. Exposure to the Far Realm forces a person to face the existence of facts so completely alien to their understanding that they either go insane or painfully Awaken themselves in their mind's desperate attempts to protect itself from the terrible knowledge that is inherently unknowable.If Sanity is being used as an ability score, I feel like making it the spellcasting ability for psions is especially appropriate. You can have mad wizards, mad priests, but it's really hard for me to imagine anyone with a mastery of psionics being insane. Their minds should be pretty clear and resilient to insanity, because understanding the impossible is where they got their powers in the first place.So yeah, sorcerers have innate magic because it's infusing their very being, while psions have innate magic because they learned something impossible, and that one piece of knowledge was all they needed to use their powers.</blockquote>

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