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Message: <blockquote data-quote="epithet" data-source="post: 6660582" data-attributes="member: 6796566">Mystic is pretty much perfect.Look, it's one thing for us to call a practitioner a psion, since we all know what it means. In the overwhelming majority of D&D settings, however, the fictional population wouldn't have a clue what that word means. Even those who have psionic ability awaken within themselves would probably not think of it in terms of the power of their brains. Illithid, of course, would understand it perfectly, but asking them to explain your psionic abilities to you would land you on the menu.The worlds of D&D are filled with magic, and even those with no ability to use magic will still hear about it and know (or think they know) what it is from the fireside tales they grow up hearing. Who on Oerth hasn't heard of the great Mordenkainen? Psionic ability, however, is rare in almost all of them. There are probably only a tiny fraction of D&D campaigns that have a PC or significant NPC with psionic ability. Psionics are mysterious and their practitioners mystical.The exception might be Dark Sun campaigns, since on Athas arcane magic has been heavily flavored with the whole despoiler thing. "The Way" serves as a mechanic by which "magic" classes can still function without magic, so instead of being a mystic you'd just be a bard, or a trickster rogue, or whatever.If an NPC in the World of Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms describes to your player characters a person or group able to perform seemingly magical tasks without casting a spell, is that NPC more likely to call the practitioner of these arts a psion, or a mystic?I understand the urge to hold on to the terminology from the days of Gygax, but just as we've come up with better names for classes that use magic than "Magic User," I think "Mystic" is a better term for a class that uses psionics than "Psion."</blockquote>

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