D&D 5E If Psion is fixed and official does it belong into FR as basic and RAW?

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Coroc]

I came in at a weird angle to D&D, through Neverwinter Nights. So, y'know, given one of the first things you do in that game's (not the best) campaign is go and hunt down an intellect devourer among other creatures. So my D&D experience has that "Oh man there are brain-eating squid-faced psychics who have walking brain monsters as pets" right at the start

I definitely understand some settings not having it but when your introduction starts at the mind flayers, beholders, and finally putting a name to childhood inexplicable dinosaur toys that are now rust monsters, and going back from there, its always gonna be a weird path

That is funny, you stumbled across some feature namely mindflayers and intellect devourers, which was part of being typically for FR as compared to a pure vanilla setting back then.

Really, in the late 80s and 90s if someone asked me, what the difference between forgotten realms and greyhawk products I bought in the game store was, I would have told him:
See they both are quite normal settings but FR got the underdark prominent with drow and all those abberations like mindflayers and beholders. And most of these have magic resistance, can you imagine? They shrug of spells, some with an 80% probability!

The spider queen series was more known for being greyhawk with the folks starting with 1e, for me drow were totally a FR thing, existent in greyhawk but not that important.

 

[Coroc]

Weirdly, OD&D and 1e worked with intellect devourers and mind flayers just fine without the (optional) psionics rules. ...

As did 2e, the paralyzing power of the mindflayer was depicted as being a kind of at will spell wit ha saving throw, the brain eating required all four tentacles to hit.
Int.- devourers were protected, in that almost everything did cause no or minimal damage to them, I cannot remember right now how they could infect you though.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Back in the day, like 1e, Psionics were nearly invisible to non-psionic characters. There was only one attack, the infamous Psionic Blast, that'd crossover and affect non-psionics, apart from that psionics was just two characters squinting at eachother for maybe a round (because it was a 1-min round, and psionic combat progressed in 6-sec segments) before something pretty awful happened to one of them for no apparent reason. Some psionic monsters might not even be noticed by a party without a psionic character, others not display that psionics, for want of an actual Psionic blast or overt discipline. Those that did, like the Mind Flayer unleashing Psionic Blast, would just come off as having a special attack or ability.

So it was pretty plausible for psionics to exist in a setting, without overtly impacting or informing it. Which is lovely for a wholly-optional sub-system.

 

[Azzy]

So here is one for you sinkhole fans:

Assume there is finally some official product for a psion/mystic class, should it then become part of the base lore and part of all settings or only for those who have extensive lore for it like Eberron or DS?

I'd argue that it already is part of the base lore of D&D, what with duergar, mindflayers, aboleths, yuan-ti, etc.

I don't know about forcing it into all settings, but for many, it's already there (just not to the degree of Eberron and Dark Sun). The example you give for the FR, but GH also has Xuoken, and such. I think Dragonlance had it, too. And it would be present in most, if not all, 2e settings.

 

[generic]

Yes, but only if you want it to be in your game.

/thread.

 

[jasper]

I was only okay with Psionics in 1E. Did not keep up with lore, fiction books, or splat books in 2E. As an AL dm I don't want to have carry another book in my bag just for one class.

 

[Nikosandros]

Back in the day, like 1e, Psionics were nearly invisible to non-psionic characters. There was only one attack, the infamous Psionic Blast, that'd crossover and affect non-psionics, apart from that psionics was just two characters squinting at eachother for maybe a round (because it was a 1-min round, and psionic combat progressed in 6-sec segments) before something pretty awful happened to one of them for no apparent reason. Some psionic monsters might not even be noticed by a party without a psionic character, others not display that psionics, for want of an actual Psionic blast or overt discipline. Those that did, like the Mind Flayer unleashing Psionic Blast, would just come off as having a special attack or ability.

So it was pretty plausible for psionics to exist in a setting, without overtly impacting or informing it. Which is lovely for a wholly-optional sub-system.

Yes, I really liked the feel of 1e psionics (the implementation has several issues). The fast and "invisible" combats give me an Asimovian Second Foundation vibe.