D&D 5E In your Years of Gaming, How many Psionic Characters did you See played

[Hussar]

Just thinking about the Jeremy Crawford quote that basically says the reason they didn't want to go with a new class for psions in 5e is because the previous versions, while they have their fans, just didn't get enough traction. And I can certainly see his point. 1e we saw quite a few psionic characters, but, that's because we cheated. Once psionics became a "class" in 2e and beyond, I almost never saw one played.

In fact, many of the DM's I played with flat out banned psionics for any number of reasons. So, I'm just tossing up a poll here to see how often people played in groups that had psionic characters. It's not meant to be exact, just a gut feeling.

 

[Lanefan]

In 3e, never saw any as PCs. There was one adventuring NPC Psion that ran with us for a short while, and that was it.

In 1e, without too much cheating, we've had our share* of psyonic types over the years; but many of those were very weak. Maybe 20 (at most) were powerful enough to make you sit up and take notice, but that few out of nearly a thousand characters ain't too bad.

* - some got psyonics by the d% roll, a few gained them by device, and as of last Saturday one gained them - or so it seems - by a wild magic effect.

 

[Coroc]

But your survey does not hit the topic from the right angle nor does Jeremies statement.

I seen 2 pure psionicist back in 2e with DS. BUT you need it as a class for DS anyway and I believe for Kalashtar in Eberon as well.
Plus every one of the DS group had a wild talent. and you got NPCs which also did require a sound ruleset.
Also some people want to use 5e for SF (not me) and for them it might be more essential of a class than cleric or wizard.
Even some FR fans like psionics within their FR campaign. For mind flayers they gave the non psionic and psionic version in 2e MM

Within the 2e menzoberranzan set there was one Matron who was Psionic / Cleric which gave her an edged on certain things. Gem Dragons might have had psi powers back then though I cannot look it up right now and might be wrong on this one.


And I did see less Bards than Psionicists in my overall RP career!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Only in Dark Sun.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Back in 1979 we used the 1e Psi rules, but I've never allowed them since.

 

[Yaarel]

My groups tend to have psionic classes or reflavor with psionics.

The flavor for the psionics is medievalesque, the power of mind and consciousness, and avoids technobabble.

 

[Ath-kethin]

In 2e psionics were pretty common in our games (even non-Darksun), but the WotC-era "wizard by a different name" approach hasn't resonated.

We had some in 3.5, especially in an Eberron campaign, but not much else.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Obviously none in 5E, but they were common in 2E and 4E games I played and ran, and I saw several in 3E. I've seen way more Psionic types than, say, Druids or Barbarians, heck, even than single-class Rangers.

I agree that the wizards by another name approach is weaksauce. The non-wizard style Psionics users always got more play (including the original, Roguish Psionicist).

 

[NaturalZero]

I ran a no-magic, psionics-only campaign in 3.5.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Started Fall of 1981 when I cornered Jay who would become my best friend/DM and forced him to tell me that game he and some other kids were laughing about in the lunch room.

I've seen one (1) psi class D&D character since then.