Mercule said:
Um... because your character gets coated in snot whenever he uses psi? I know that's a big one for me.
Even so, I agree that there is something else that turns me off about 3E psionics. In 1E and 2E, I loved psionic enough to make its manifestation an important part of the game world and turn my cliched "evil empire" into a psionic powerhouse. In 3E, I'm actually trying to figure out if there is some way that I can backpedal and edit history so that it isn't psi, but something else -- I'd just as soon have psionics gone at this point.
I can't put my finger on exactly why, though. Like I said, the ecto-snot is part of it, but not all. I think it's something to do with the system. It's too close to a Sorcerer with spell points.
And snot. 3E psionics are too much like a sorcerer with spell points and snot.
I think the problem with D&D3E Psionics Handbook for those who liked psionics in one or more previous editions can almost all be boiled down to feel. Psionics no longer has the "right" feel. First, there's the issue of niche protection: they changed the way psionics works to be considerably more like magic (same 9 levels of powers, roughly the same progression for gaining them, every power of the same level has the same cost), and they introduced the sorcerer, which works considerably more like previous psionics (learn a small fixed number of powers, decide which to use as you go). So the sorcerer and psion basically do the same thing, just with a bit different flavor. Likewise the monk and psychic warrior--too much the same conceptually.
Which then gets to the flavor bits. First, much of the distinctive flavor as it was embodied ni the rules is now gone. Activating a power and casting a spell are mechanically identical, right down to concentration/interruption, activation time, and the fact that both are reliable and have no side-effects. It used to be that psionics felt different at even the most basic of levels: die roll instead of automatic, on-the-fly rather than prepared, spend points instead of just do it, different powers of the same nominal magnitude had wildly different costs, pay maintenance cost for duration instead of getting it automatically. You can change a few of these (frex, priests in my old AD&D2 game picked their spells on the fly), but when you change basically all of them, it loses its specialness. Instead, they introduced some *new* ways in which it was different--but less different than before. Sure, the save DC vs. a power is random, instead of fixed (as for spells), but it's gonna average out to the same, and it's still the same mechanic at its heart, rather than something distinct (such as basing DC on point spent, thus allowing you to burn points to boost DC). Add displays to "balance" the lack of components--and, since the system is almost identical to spells now (including effectiveness at a given level), you do need something to make up for lack of components. Use variable stat to base things on, instead of just one (as the spellcasters do).
Which gets to the second flavor problem: 3E psionics seems to have lost most of what made it feel like psychic powers. IMO, psychic powers, at the default, should have a few traits in common: invisible/undectable to the non-psychic (or, at least, not without nifty lab equipment); requiring intense concentration; tiring/draining; very good (better than magic) at direct mental stuff, moderately good at manipulating other people (same as magic), poor at dealing with intangibles like energy and lifeforce (a bit weaker/higher-level than magic), and very poor at manipulating the nonsentient material world (much worse than magic). D&D3E psionics pretty roundly ignores those ideals, especially the relative magnitude of ability: mental control powers are only a bit lower in level than their equivalent spells, and physical manipulation/creation powers are all over the place, often the same level as their magical equivalent. Along the way, a bit too much has been borrowed from visual media, such as superhero comics and anime, which have gotten more and more in the habit of giving psychic powers cool visual effects--'cause it's boring to have three comic panels of the hero scrunching up her forehead, with no dialogue or anything else. Though you'll note that in many of these, the displays are for the viewing audience only, and other characters obviously can't detect them. Not only the displays element, but the flavor of what is possible seems to have more to attribute to supers than to scifi or fantasy mental powers.
Finally, there's the balance issue: psions get double-whammied all over the place, compared to spelllcasters. Displays are meant to be equivalent to components, but components only affect you casting, giving people a chance to detect it. Displays generally last for the whole duration, and are particularly egregious when they function as a dead giveaway on purely-mental powers ("Gee, Thron doesn't usually act that way, but he's generally trustworthy, so i guess it's ok to do what he says. Oh, except for the strange buzzing coming from him--maybe we should check him for enchantment, first."). And there are 5 displays, vs. 3 components, so it takes more feats to overcome them. Next problem is the stat-dependence. None of the spellcasters need more than one stat to do all their niftiness--and very few classes really depend on more than 2 stats, and none of them need them to the degree taht spellcasters/psions do. A psion has to have all 6 stats high (19s, if you're playing to high levels), or just kiss whole levels of powers goodbye.
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Anyway, since you seem to agree with me, might i suggest a third course of action for your campaign? Use psionics of a different flavor. You can see the psionic system i'm going to be porting to D20 System in my Ars Fantasia (
http://www.tiltingatwindmills/old/ars/). It needs to have a few more balance checks thrown in for D20 System, and the effect descriptions made more specific (and defined in D20 terms), but the bulk of it is there. It's based on some of the principles i've outlined above, and started out from the Complete Psionics Handbook, in terms of the conceptualization of what a psionic can do. I hope you'll like it.
