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."

 

[Remathilis]

Okay. I'm willing to accept that 2e psionics is not like 1e psionics, even if it's still mostly (but not exactly) duplicating many spell effects.

So what's your point?

Seriously, are you arguing that psionics should reference spells (so that the ESP power references detect thought) or that psionics should be spells (and a psion nothing more than a sorcerer who casts detect thoughts)?

If you're arguing the former, then all you're saving is page count (since your inserting "see PHB XXX" instead of reprinting the text). I guess if said power has a spell analogue, it might spare WotC some pages to force the psion (and DM) to open the psionic document AND the PHB at the same time (and heaven help a monster in an AP that references a psionic power like that!). Really though, its an inconvenience for the purpose of space saving and that will only matter depending on how the rules come delivered to us (there is infinite space in a PDF, in the back of a AP, space might be a premium).

If you're arguing the former, then we're back to the "yawn, another sorcerer wearing the psion's clothes" argument. Refer back over the last 15 pages on my thoughts on that.

 

[Remathilis]

I strongly dislike Trunamer mechanics.

They only work if you assume standard wealth-by-level and optimize aggressively around your Truespeak check -- at which point they are balanced against normal, non-optimized characters.

I really dislike when a class requires system mastery to not be horrible.

To be fair, I'm not familiar with it. But prior failure doesn't mean the concept is flawed, merely the execution. And in an age of Bounded Accuracy (TM), it might not be an insurmountable hurdle to fix it.

 

[Nifft]

So what's your point?

Here, I said it last page:

I'd prefer if we didn't worry about being different just for the sake of being different, and instead decided that Psionics can be cool as long as it's cool on its merits, even if part of the scaffolding is shared with almost every other supernatural powers class in the game.


The second thing is, in all the discussion about what is and isn't "magic" seems to overlook the fact that 5e changed how magic worked. Now a Wizard / Cleric has one set of spell slots, unlike in every previous edition. That's interesting, and it says something: Magic in 5e is not conforming to your 3e or 4e assumptions.

One thing 5e magic says to me is: hey, we're outright stealing the scaling mechanics from 3.5e Psionics.

Thus, putting 5e Psionics into the 5e spellcasting mold isn't removing psionic flavor -- it's just realizing that 5e magic was already kinda psionics flavored.

Let me know if any of that was difficult to understand, I'd be delighted to clarify.

If you're arguing the former, then we're back to the "yawn, another sorcerer wearing the psion's clothes" argument. Refer back over the last 15 pages on my thoughts on that.

Heh. Nah. It's more like, you didn't notice that the 5e Sorcerer is just a Psion wearing dragon accessories.

To be fair, I'm not familiar with it. But prior failure doesn't mean the concept is flawed, merely the execution. And in an age of Bounded Accuracy (TM), it might not be an insurmountable hurdle to fix it.

What did it have other than the flavor (which is easily moved elsewhere) and the mechanics (which were deeply flawed)?

What do you think exists to save?

 

[Staffan]

Ah. Well, that's what this is about, then. I guess you're trying to recreate 2e?

Not as such, but it does inform what I want in a psionics system. There's also a bit of this:

When I see someone claim that "ever edition of Psionics has referenced spellcasting", when the one that brought it to prominence did not, I have to object.

Now, I recognize that 2e psionics had problems. Not mixing with magic is one of them, primarily because the rest of the game system assumes that supernatural powers will be magic-based which leaves them defenseless against psionics (if psionics had been part of the core rules, I'm sure that some monsters and effects would be stronger or weaker defenses against psionics, just like some are stronger versus steel and others versus magic). Another is that the lack of "power levels" means that psionicists gained access to certain effects at very low levels - e.g. teleport (albeit short range on account of lack of PSPs) at 1st level.

But there were many aspects of 2e psionics I found enjoyable. One was that powers generally didn't have a duration - instead, you had to keep pumping PSPs into them to maintain their effect. Another was the disciplines and the prerequisites of many powers, which lead to something of an organic development of powers - for example, most telepathic powers required Mindlink (two-way mental communication) as a prerequisite.

Why do you think 2e ought to get more votes than 1e, 3e, 3.5e and Pathfinder combined?

I do see 2e psionics as the most influential, because that's what Dark Sun was based around, and if your psionics rules can't do Dark Sun they don't really do what they're supposed to. But then again, there were aspects of the Dark Sun fiction that didn't work very well with the 2e psionics rules either (like psionic beast masters keeping the giant lizards pulling caravan wagons docile, when any power requiring power expenditure by the minute would have them run out of juice in less than an hour), so meh.

Oh, and Pathfinder doesn't have official psionics. There's Dreamscarred Press' Psionics Unleashed, which is a fair adaption of the 3.5 rules to Pathfinder, but not really an independent thing. There's also Paizo's own upcoming Occult Adventures which will introduce "psychic magic", which is explicitly not the same as psionics but a closely related thing, but using the regular casting system.

 

[SkidAce]

Why does that argument not apply to wizard or cleric spells? Why are they "magic"? Why can't they be complying with the laws of physics in a way we don't understand?

There is no right or wrong in this issue. It actually depends on the campaign in part, and the d&d books a little (since they CALL it magic).
If you want to call psionics a type of magic, no worries, have fun.

But several posts in this thread say definitely that it is magic and go on to list various reasons that it is.
It might be, it might not be. But it doesn't have to be.


And for me it isn't. I could continue to list fluff reasons, and give mechanical variations to differentiate between it and magic.
Which seems to be a lot of people's argument. "If it functions the same it must be the same etc etc" "If there's no differentiation, then why bother etc etc.?"

Because I like chocolate ice cream, that's why.

 

[Nifft]

Not as such, but it does inform what I want in a psionics system. There's also a bit of this:
duty_calls.png

When I see someone claim that "ever edition of Psionics has referenced spellcasting", (...), I have to object.

Well that's fair enough. Being technically correct is the best kind of correct, after all.

Now, I recognize that 2e psionics had problems. Not mixing with magic is one of them, primarily because the rest of the game system assumes that supernatural powers will be magic-based which leaves them defenseless against psionics (if psionics had been part of the core rules, I'm sure that some monsters and effects would be stronger or weaker defenses against psionics, just like some are stronger versus steel and others versus magic).

When I look at the 2e Monstrous Manual, I see stuff like Aboleth, Brain Mole, and Couatl -- all with Psionics sections.

In the 1e Monster Manual, most serious fiends had Psionics sections. It's integrated to a degree, but only if your DM cared to use it -- although I do see how the 1e PHB did seem to consider the effects of Psionics when writing spell descriptions, while the 2e PHB did not.

Looking through the 1e MM2, even minor fiends like the Babou get Psionic powers. That's probably a holdover from 1e, when Psionics were better integrated.

IMHO it was the Fiend Folio which brought Psionics to prominence, via the Githyanki, who ended up being so influential that an entire character archetype was named for their tendency to multiclass ("Gish"). Nothing from Dark Sun has been that influential on the wider game.


Regarding the weirdness of 2e Psionic power scaling, that might also be a holdover from 1e. IIRC, the thing about 1e was that you weren't foremost a Psion. You were a Fighter, or a Thief, or whatever, and your Psionic powers were a "free" bonus (which you paid for by having more difficult fights against Psionic monsters).

I haven't run the math, but perhaps the 2e difficulties you found were from failing to change the scaling to compensate for being the only class feature, rather than being a "free" bonus feature on top of a whole 'nother viable class.

if your psionics rules can't do Dark Sun they don't really do what they're supposed to.

Right now, 5e magic can't do Dark Sun, because there are no rules for Defiling.

So that's an unfair standard to hold Psionics, since the way to do make Psionics correct for Dark Sun is incredibly trivial:

1/ Define what Defiling means. Write down the rule.

2/ "Psionics ignores that Defiling rule above."

3/ Yay!

 

[Yaarel]

There is no right or wrong in this issue. It actually depends on the campaign in part, and the d&d books a little (since they CALL it magic).
If you want to call psionics a type of magic, no worries, have fun.

But several posts in this thread say definitely that it is magic and go on to list various reasons that it is.
It might be, it might not be. But it doesn't have to be.


And for me it isn't. I could continue to list fluff reasons, and give mechanical variations to differentiate between it and magic.

Which seems to be a lot of people's argument. "If it functions the same it must be the same etc etc" "If there's no differentiation, then why bother etc etc.?"

Because I like chocolate ice cream, that's why.

Your comment is constructive and helpful.

Note, the setting - and only the setting - defines what magic itself is or isnt.

In some settings there is a ‘weave’, in other settings there is no ‘weave’.

In the settings of a number of players, all magic is psionic. So, Wizards and Clerics cast spells by means of preternatural influence of conscience.

Every setting has its own ‘theory of magic’. Until 5e, D&D core assiduously avoided a ‘theory of magic’ and was intentionally vague, so each setting could utilize the rules differently.

In the Dark Sun setting, psionics is natural and healing, but in the World Axis setting, psionics is unnatural and tainted.

If 5e psionic rules goes out of its way to define psionics as ‘not magic’, then that is equally problematic, inflexible, and less usable in other settings.

 

[Yaarel]

Probably, the 5e psionic rules can emphasize that psionics is inherent. In a setting that has an external ‘weave’, psionics is independent from it. Psi has no use for material components. Focuses are also unneeded. So, at least in these senses, psionics remains distinct from classes that use material components, without actually defining what magic is or isnt.

Even in a setting whose theory of magic relies on the assumption of a ‘weave’, psionics can telekinetically influence and manipulate the weave directly. Thus there can be Wizards, Clerics, Bards, Sorcerers, etcetera who do the ‘magic’ of these by means of their psionics, instead of by means of their spell components.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Nothing from Dark Sun has been that influential on the wider game.

At least part of that has to go down to the way Dark Sun was designed as a radical departure from standard D&D and mainstream fantasy settings. Look at its inherent "apartness"- existing outside the traditional cosmology, in a sealed crystal sphere if you use the Spelljammer rules.

Without knowing the actual sales numbers, I'd bet that Athas was among the lower selling settings because of it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I have to firmly disagree here.

Seems like magic and are magic are two very different things, ESPECIALLY when you're placing them writhing the context of an RPG system in which definitions of such things may have mechanical/gameplay repercussions & in-world implications.

In D&D, "seems like magic" and "is magic" are pretty much the same thing, at least whenever you want them to be.

Something that seems like magic may be outlawed and feared in some societies, but because it actually isn't, it may not be affected by the antimagical countermeasures they have enacted.

And a wise sage in such a world might make that key insight. "Verily, it looks like a drake, yet it neither strides nor bellows like one- mayhaps it is not a drake."

Again, I think you're kind of conflating "magic" and "spellcasting." An ageless monk steps into an antimagic field and doesn't suddenly age. A 20-ft long flying lizard flies through one and doesn't suddenly plummet to the ground. These things are obviously magical because it is not possible for people to stop aging or for 20-ft long lizards to have wings and fly, but they aren't affected by
"antimagic" because they don't quite work like spells or ongoing magical effects or magical items.

Not all D&D magic is casting spells - some of it is just the fact that dragons fly. Psionics may be closer to dragon flight than to wizard spellcasting, but that doesn't mean it's not magic, it just means we need to define how this supernatural stuff happens, and then we'll see if effects like these might apply to it.

refines and redefines the term "magic" with the claim that all magic draws power from "The Weave", and

This isn't functionally the case in 5e, as far as I can tell. Despite what that sidebar says about "all magic," monks literally cast spells and aren't included in that sidebar's explanation of how the "weave" is accessed. A tiefling casts spells and is likewise not indicated there. A dragon flies - not something that is physically possible, so it must be magical in some way - and there's nothing there about the weave. There's also no explanation of barbarian abilities there, or how a ranger can sense life-forms, or how a character channels divinity or warlock invocations (the sidebar specifically references "spells"). There seems to be puh-lenty of magical effects that are not "on the grid" in 5e that are obviously magic in many ways, but that aren't "the spellcasting class feature" and so aren't defined as either arcane or divine or weave-related.

My idea was that psionics is harder to use, but gives you a lot more flexibility in how you use it. Spells (even those you cast at higher level) are rigid; they tend to do one (or a small group) of effects where psionics is much more fluid at the cost of reliability.

I think, broadly speaking, I could get on board with your idea of psionics as a separate class.

Now to loop it back into the flavor considerations: this implies a bit more of a "skill system" than a list of effects (a certain ability that grows in power as you pump energy into it) - you have psionicists proficient at different things and at different levels. So you could benefit from a trainer, or you could just discover this within yourself. It's more like learning a tool or a language. Its inner, organic nature implies that it is natural, part of the natural world, part of nature as a vibrant and productive force - part of the wilderness.

The big challenge there is going to be to differentiate that flavor from the flavor of the sorcerer, who doesn't use the same system, but has fluff that is nearly indistinguishable from that. In terms of how they look and act in the world, what's the major differences between the organic, internal, instinctive, skillful sorcerer and the organic, internal, instinctive, skillful psionicist?