Mike Mearls on D&D Psionics: Should Psionic Flavor Be Altered?

WotC's Mike Mearls has been asking for opinions on how psionics should be treated in D&D 5th Edition. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that he'd hinted that he might be working on something, and this pretty much seals the deal. He asked yesterday "Agree/Disagree: The flavor around psionics needs to be altered to allow it to blend more smoothly into a traditional fantasy setting", and then followed up with some more comments today.

"Thanks for all the replies! Theoretically, were I working on psionics, I'd try to set some high bars for the execution. Such as - no psionic power duplicates a spell, and vice versa. Psionics uses a distinct mechanic, so no spell slots. One thing that might be controversial - I really don't like the scientific terminology, like psychokinesis, etc. But I think a psionicist should be exotic and weird, and drawing on/tied to something unsettling on a cosmic scale.... [but]... I think the source of psi would be pretty far from the realm of making pacts. IMO, old one = vestige from 3e's Tome of Magic.

One final note - Dark Sun is, IMO, a pretty good example of what happens to a D&D setting when psionic energy reaches its peak. Not that the rules would require it, but I think it's an interesting idea to illustrate psi's relationship to magic on a cosmic level."

 

[Tony Vargas]

I absolutely loathe this idea. It's the same line of thinking that led to the unified AEDU system in 4E, and I'm a bit surprised Paizo would get drawn into it. Among the folks who abandoned 4E for Pathfinder, AEDU was high on the list of things that they hated like poison.

'Hated' is the key word. The rejection of 4e by h4ters was not an entirely rational reaction. There were a lot of factors driving it, from the perceived 'early' rev-roll, to the behavior of WotC, to rejection of change, to feeling betrayed by the invalidation of hard-won system mastery, and many more rationalizations, excuses, talking points, even the odd real as well as imagined slight here or there. It was a perfect storm, of sorts.

Leveraging an existing system that is already imbalanced and already mastered by optimizers, is thus a non-issue, even if it does, in fact, constitute one of the proxy issues that h4ters rallied against in the edition war. Pathfinder is imbalanced and lavishly rewards system mastery, already, so it can afford to introduce a form of psychic magic efficiently by leveraging existing systems. Besides, Pathfinder is extremely complex and bloated, already, so they have to be thinking about keeping it playable.

5e is also imbalanced, but it's rewards for system mastery haven't risen to the level of 3.5/Pathfinder, for want of 15 years of bloated material. So it's debateable whether it'd better-serve the h4ter sub-culture of D&D fans to bloat 5e out , further imbalancing it and adding the kinds of needless complexities, unintended synergies and broken combos that reward system mastery, or to leave it at it's current level of imbalance and exploitability to hold the line on a professed goal of relative 'rules lite' simplicity, which seems to be appealing to the sub-culture of Classic D&D fans (even though most of classic D&D - all of it but, perhaps, B/X - was actually quite complicated).

People on forums talk as if there is a bright dividing line between "crunch" and "fluff,"

There /can/ be, it's all a matter of how the game is designed and presented. In 4e, there was such a dividing line. Fluff was in italics in one part of a text block, keywords and other crunch in regular or bold type in other parts. In classic D&D, the two were mixed so freely and thoroughly it was hard to say either really existed - 'rules' were as often phrased entirely in the manner of vague, evocative 'fluff' with no consistent interpretation possible, 'fluff' could incidentally take on the character of a rule, mechanics could be seen as defining the setting, and so forth. In 5e, rules are written more like they were in classic D&D, but spells, at least, do have a descriptive section preceding a more rules-focused one - a cosmetic 'compromise' that is functionally no different from the classic approach.

If two classes use the same rules, they will feel "samey" even if they are described as wildly different. If psionics is to feel different from magic, then it needs to use different rules.

Not remotely true, but an understandable misconception. It is easy to differentiate two game elements by giving them radically different mechanics - at the price of increasing complexity. It takes a little more thought and subtlety to differentiate mechanically similar elements - but doing so limits bloat, broken combos, and the like, and makes future design easier. So it's a balancing act in how the lead developer uses the available design resources.

The nice thing about D&D is that if you don't want to learn the psionics rules, you don't have to! Just stick with wizards and sorcerers. The DM should have a vague sense of how psionics works, but the only person who needs a really firm grasp of the psi rules is the person who chooses to play a psion.

That trick worked in 4e, when basic mechanics were consistent, and it was easy to evaluate a power or class ability in the moment, with each player really only needing to be really familiar with his own character and the DM able to focus on the encounters. In all other editions, and particularly in intentionally-DM-empowering 5e, it is critically important for the DM to know everything the PCs can do, at least as well as the players know it. Heck, in 1e, EGG advised the DM know all the rules /better/ than his players, and if he didn't, that he'd 'lose control' of his campaign.

That's a challenge, but it's one most long-time DMs are well able to handle.

All that said, I think it's a wash. Mr. Mearls is relatively free to handle psionics as seems best or most expedient. That 5e doesn't seem poised for the usual flood of splatbooks, and WotC farms out so much of the little that is published for it, though, argues for limited design resources, which makes a UA sub-class seem more likely than a complicated separate/mulitiple- sub-system splatbook. FWIW.


tl;dr - Neither Pathfinder nor 5e face an edition war, so either or both could afford to re-cycle existing sub-systems for psionics, even at the risk of mechanical 'sameyness.'

 

[I'm A Banana]

Power source is purely cosmetic in 5e.

I don't care if its prayers to gods or study from a tome or magic infused into a wand or the power of your mind or a neat trick or a wand of unicorn horn or a deal with the devil or gummiberry juice or Synergy your holopgraphic earring or the Power of Greyskull or stones formed from the souls of the dead or words of true power or some sort of magical poo-gas, none of that comes with anything significant except for narrative conceit. It's different in the fiction but it isn't necessarily distinct in terms of gameplay.

So I can make a wizard tomorrow who uses magic with particular kata she practices in the morning and it's fine.

Power source need not be purely cosmetic. For instance, 5e makes a mechanical distinction between "magic from my blood" and "magic from a book" and "magic from worshiping some greater being" (sorcerer vs. wizard vs. cleric). But this is opt-in, and requires more substantial design work, because you can't just loot the spell list and call it good.

 

[Yaarel]

I want everyone to have what they want. Perhaps it is possible in this case.


Make ‘psionics’ and ‘psychic magic’ two different things.

Psionics (also called psi) is ‘nonmagic’. It has unique mechanics to ‘manifest’ ‘powers’. The Psion is a separate class, and is psionic.

Psychic magic is ‘magic’. It uses normal mechanics to ‘cast’ ‘spells’. The various archetypes of the core classes are psychic.


Psychic magic uses the power of the mind as the source of magic (replacing the weave, gods, nature, dragons, etcetera). Psychic magic is distinctive for having no material components, and so on.

A DM can use both psionics and psychic magic (which I would probably do). Or a DM might prefer to use only one of the two.

Psionics versus Ki

I am comfortable using the term ‘ki’ in Nonasian settings, to mean, ‘psychic magic’.

Ki corresponds to bodily lifeforce, aura, and soul, but its mystical cosmic quality can include mental aspects of mindforces, including Telekinesis and so on. Note, the Greek term ‘psyche’, in fact, means bodily lifeforce and corresponds to ki.

Normal classes like Bard, Wizard, and Sorcerer can have archetypes that use ‘ki magic’, using the power of their mind to replace dependence on the arcane weave, divine gods, etcetera, when casting spells.

Interestingly, identifying ‘psychic magic’ with ki, might emphasize the somatic component to cast a spell, using the body as a mental focus. Not sure if necessary but worth considering.

Thus two systems:

‘Psi’, also called ‘psionics’, is nonmagic and uses unique mechanics to manifest powers.

‘Ki’, also called ‘psychic magic’, is magic and uses normal mechanics to cast spells.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Note, the Greek term ‘psyche’, in fact, means bodily lifeforce and corresponds to ki.

....another point in favor of making the Psi-flavor the flavor of Ancient Greece.

 

[Yaarel]

Greek culture rarely emphasized the power of mind.

Greek magic is all about material components, divine, or both.

By Greek, I mean, Hellenistic.

 

[Yaarel]

Heh ...

Psi + Ki = Psyche

:-D

 

[Savage Wombat]

If Psi worked like Ki, you'd want a "caster-like" class that works like monks do - here's the things you can do all the time, and here's the things you can do by expending one or more points from your Psi pool.

The trick would be making them not feel like warlock clones.

 

[Yaarel]

With regard to a Wizard archetype that uses ki instead of arcane, the purpose would be to use the same familiar mechanics, and to ‘cast’ ‘spells’, like a Wizard that uses arcane.

But if the desire is to have completely different mechanics, the better option would be to use ‘psi’ instead of ‘ki’, and go with the Psion class.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I would vastly prefer if WotC published a new and interesting, playtested psionics subsystem,

Based on the sorts of things the designers have said last year, I assume we (the fans) are going to have psionic playtest rules first, and it might even be a big deal (ie, not just a small article that they poll us about after a month or two).

The Bard is ambiguous in terms of source. Its class description says nothing about being arcane or divine. It is straightforward enough to make the Bard class utilize arcane, divine, psychic, or psionic.

"The spells of wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, and bards are commonly called arcane magic...Eldritch knights and arcane tricksters also use arcane magic. The spells of clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers are called divine magic." Player's Basic Rules p. 81 / PHB p. 205.

 

[Hussar]

But that's not how 9 out of 12 subclasses in the PHB work. You never get the features of your sublcass before you are of the level to get those powers. You can plan ahead (in the case of role-playing to a paladin oath or putting a high score in Int for an EK), but nothing changes about your character before you pick that level. Which is why Valor Bards get their martial weapon and armor proficiency at THIRD and not FIRST level, or why Assassin's learn disguise and poisoner's kits automatically at third, rather than first, or why a ranger spontaneously summons his animal buddy at third and doesn't have a dog before that.

You're asking (effectively) to rewrite the PHB classes to allow your subclass choice to effect you at first level (which raises all sorts of questions about things like multi-classing) and that changes the dynamic of sublcass and class (which currently augments base classes, not changes anything about them), which seems like a HELL OF A LOT more work than adding a simple new base class and being done with it.

So no, I didn't skim your post, I assumed you knew how the D&D 5th edition rules actually worked, opposed to how you want them too.

What? Three of the nine subclasses DO work that way. That's what precedence means. Warlocks choose their patrons at 1st level, which, in a large way, defines a lot of their class. Clerics choose their domains at 1st level.

You simply write the new subclass with a couple of filters to strip out some of the unwanted goodies (music playing, spell book) from the base class at 1st level and replace it with other stuff. This isn't rocket science and is a heck of a lot easier to deal with than writing an entirely new system, complete with "different" mechanics that has to interact with original mechanics without causing anything to break.

I'd say this is a heck of a lot easier.