D&D 5E Is "Mystic" a bad class name?

[Tony Vargas]

It's funny how fluff text can fly right under your radar sometimes. Thanks for the quotes from the PH3. I'll still hold that Source was the more important distinction in 4e, though. A feat or item that affects the Arcane keyword would interact with Arcane powers, but would not interact with Psionic or Divine ones, for instance, even if they may be magic in a fluff sense.


As far as 3e, though, the 'psionics is different' was an explicit option, so however often it may mention transparency, the alternative option was still there. That's the way 'modular' 5e should go: explicit option, one way or the other.

 

[Remathilis]

Interesting.

I never even looked at PHB3 (by that time, I had long abandoned 4e) but apparently "psionic magic" is the repeated term for it, implicitly making psionics a type of magic. (IE Arcane Magic, Divine Magic, Primal Magic, Psionic Magic).

However, I think the 3e/XPH quotes are a little out of context. Psionic-Magic Transparency at no point says Psionics IS magic, merely effects that AFFECT magic affect psionics and vice-versa. I re-read the whole Psionics chapter in the XPH, and they nearly always are careful to avoid using spell-jargon to describe psionics (IE Manifesting a Power vs. Casting a Spell). I think a better way to view it is having a car vs. a motorcycle; both will get you somewhere fast and both must obey traffic laws, but nobody would ever say a motorcycle IS a car.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Interesting.

I never even looked at PHB3 (by that time, I had long abandoned 4e) but apparently "psionic magic" is the repeated term for it, implicitly making psionics a type of magic. (IE Arcane Magic, Divine Magic, Primal Magic, Psionic Magic).

However, I think the 3e/XPH quotes are a little out of context. Psionic-Magic Transparency at no point says Psionics IS magic, merely effects that AFFECT magic affect psionics and vice-versa. I re-read the whole Psionics chapter in the XPH, and they nearly always are careful to avoid using spell-jargon to describe psionics (IE Manifesting a Power vs. Casting a Spell). I think a better way to view it is having a car vs. a motorcycle; both will get you somewhere fast and both must obey traffic laws, but nobody would ever say a motorcycle IS a car.

Remember an important distinction, there: in 3e, as in 5e, 'magic' has a rules meaning. If spell or item, feat or feature, monster or trap, affects 'magic' whether psionics is 'magic' is critically important. In 4e, effects that 'discriminated' that way were rare, and based on Source or other keywords, not fluff text. Source keywords were the rules distinction. So if one DM decided 4e Psionics was magic, and another considered it different, it didn't matter, mechanically.

5e needs to follow the 3e model of psionics, because it's already following the 3e model for magic.

 

[Manbearcat]

For example, the 4e Players Handbook 3 routinely refers to ‘psionic magic’.

It's funny how fluff text can fly right under your radar sometimes. Thanks for the quotes from the PH3. I'll still hold that Source was the more important distinction in 4e, though.

I agree with Tony on this. 4e organized the supernatural via source and then subcategory of source. "Magic" is a general catch-all of supernatural phenomenon that interacts with the Arcana skill (magic-related lore, magic-related effects/phenomenon that is independent of source, whether Arcane, Divine, Primal, or "another source"; which would later come to be Psionic and the strange sub-categories of Elemental - primordial/Elemental Chaos - and Shadow - tapping into the raw power of he Shadowfell).

Arcane magic comes from the magical energy that permeates the entirety of the cosmos. It is accessed via study of or natural affinity for Spells.

Divine magic comes from the gods via Prayers and litanies granted to/performed by devotees.

Primal magic comes from Evocations that draw upon the spirits of nature that pervade the world.

Psionic magic is a bit difficult to pin down as they leave it a bit open. It appears to most likely be a mysterious force that came into being during the Dawn War. Its manifestation and maturation appears to be something like a response by the world itself after the Living Gate opened (or after it was destroyed and sealed off the open portal) and allowed the aberrant horrors and defiling energy of the Far Realm to invade "this" reality. Sort of like the immune system's response to a system/paradigm-disrupting disease. Those who have access to Psionics seem to have an organic, wild/latent talent to tap into this "corrective", magical response by the world when it was exposed to the "wrongness" of the Far Realm.

 

[Yaarel]

Is it possible for 5e to adapt the 4e approach?

• Arcane source = matter
• Divine source = language
• Psionic source = mind
• Martial source = body

 

[Remathilis]

"Some speculate that psionic magic is a force that originates in the Far Realm and came into the universe with the sundering of the Living Gate."

I guess Psionics is from Far Realm has more D&D pedigree than the mystic name?

 

[Yaarel]

"Some speculate that psionic magic is a force that originates in the Far Realm and came into the universe with the sundering of the Living Gate."

I guess Psionics is from Far Realm has more D&D pedigree than the mystic name?

Deeply disappointing, 4e linked psionics to the Far Realm setting cosmology.

Because of it, I never played a psionic character in 4e.

Despite psionics being - by far - my favorite flavor, the 4e flavor ruined psionics for me.

 

[Manbearcat]

Is it possible for 5e to adapt the 4e approach?

• Arcane source = matter
• Divine source = language
• Psionic source = mind
• Martial source = body

I mean, sure, it could "adapt" the 4e approach in terms of flavor/fluff. But the 4e approach was a synthesis of fluff/crunch that mattered within the resolution mechanics. 5e's resolution mechanics and PC build chassis was built sans that synthesis. However, if it was going to just take on the flavor/fluff of 4e, it would probably look more like this:

• Arcane source = matter
• Divine source = faith
• Primal source = spirit
• Psionic source = mind
• Martial source = body

 

[Yaarel]

I mean, sure, it could "adapt" the 4e approach in terms of flavor/fluff. But the 4e approach was a synthesis of fluff/crunch that mattered within the resolution mechanics. 5e's resolution mechanics and PC build chassis was built sans that synthesis. However, if it was going to just take on the flavor/fluff of 4e, it would probably look more like this:

• Arcane source = matter
• Divine source = faith
• Primal source = spirit
• Psionic source = mind
• Martial source = body

Divine seems to include the ‘words of creation’, ‘bene-dictions’, philosophies (Paladin alignments), the use of symbols, thematic domains, and other aspects of semiotics. In other words, the magic of language.

Primal might link closer to ‘nature’ as a collective lifeforce.

 

[Yaarel]

It seems too late to split up Divine and Primal in 5e?

At this point, maybe it makes more sense to define the Divine source as ‘lifeforce’ or ‘soul’?