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."

 

[aramis erak]

I only played psionic combat in 3.0 (as I didn't play earlier editions and it didn't appear in 3.5), but I am mostly of the same opinion here. What I would be willing to see would be combining the ideas of psionic combat forms with psionic focus. Like, just spitballing here, suppose you spent your action to enter psionic focus, at which point you have to maintain concentration, can only move at half speed, and all attacks have advantage on you. Then each round you can use powerful psionic attack forms that are either at-will or more powerful for the amount of power points they consume than other attacks of their level. Alternatively, perhaps some powers could have a special rider when where they have an increased effect when used within psionic focus. It feels a bit like the Avatar state from The Last Airbender (increased power combined with increased vulnerability).

My experiences with 1E are also RSPLS-ish...
2E, however, Psionicists were really quite potent, and it wasn't as much RSPLS.

 

[fuindordm]

Listening to some of the Know Direction coverage from PaizoCon. Right now I'm on the panel about the upcoming Pathfinder book Occult Adventures, which features the Paizo version of psionics:
http://knowdirectionpodcast.com/2015/06/paizocon-2015-occultism-with-brandon-hodge/

And the publisher, Erik Mona, talked about how they explicitly wanted psychic magic to use the same magic system. Otherwise it's asking people to learn a whole new, unfamiliar ruleset for psionics, adding this huge chunk of new rules. Which makes it harder to learn and incorporate into your game.

This makes a lot of sense to me, because learning a whole new rule system is often tricky. It's what kept me away from stuff like the 3e Tome of Magic and Magic of Incarnum. Having psionics be completely different with no spell overlap sounds exactly like that sort of thing.

Thoughts?

For me, if psionics doesn't introduce a unique mechanic, then there is no good reason to add a psionics ruleset. As everyone agrees, you can make a perfectly acceptable psion out of an enchanter wizard or a sorcerer bloodline, plus some fluff.

As a player of a game, I am looking for options that give me a new and different experience in play. Currently all casters share similar limitations in spellcasting, and have the same type of resource management. So the psion = (arcane+fluff) equivalency doesn't add anything to the game for me--it only suggests a hook for designing a PC. But my enchanter psion isn't going to provide a different play experience from any other wizard. If they put out an Unearthed Arcana article with a few spells, feats, and subclasses to support psionic play, then I won't turn up my nose at it, but I probably wouldn't bother to put it into a campaign.

So Erik Mona's viewpoint of psychic magic leaves me indifferent. It sounds like just another supplement along the lines of the elemental player's guide. The Expanded Psionics Handbook left me indifferent too--psions were mechanically a little different from spellcasters but not unique enough for me.

So yes, while I realize it introduces a learning curve, I would vastly prefer if WotC published a new and interesting, playtested psionics subsystem, one with limitations, exploits, and resource management very different from the basic PH magic system. I want a subsystem that could drastically alter the tone of a campaign, not just another flavor of spellcaster, so that I could run Athas with only wizards, sorcerers and psions, for example, or run Cthulhu with only wild talents and warlocks.

 

[Remathilis]

Remalthalis - did you miss the part where I said that Psions would pick their Subclass at 1st level? So, your Bard example would never happen. It's just like a Warlock picking his Patron at 1st level. I'd say that there is a fair mechanical difference between a Short Rest based Fear/Charm spell and an at will Telepathy that bypasses language requirements. And, just because there aren't that many differences between patrons doesn't mean you couldn't make stronger differences with our Psionic subclasses.

I mean, heck, I mentioned straight out that our Soul Knife Bard Subclass loses his instrument proficiencies at 1st level so your mayor example would never happen.

I get the feeling that you skimmed my post but didn't actually read it.

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.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Listening to some of the Know Direction coverage from PaizoCon. Right now I'm on the panel about the upcoming Pathfinder book Occult Adventures, which features the Paizo version of psionics:
http://knowdirectionpodcast.com/2015/06/paizocon-2015-occultism-with-brandon-hodge/

And the publisher, Erik Mona, talked about how they explicitly wanted psychic magic to use the same magic system. Otherwise it's asking people to learn a whole new, unfamiliar ruleset for psionics, adding this huge chunk of new rules. Which makes it harder to learn and incorporate into your game.

This makes a lot of sense to me, because learning a whole new rule system is often tricky. It's what kept me away from stuff like the 3e Tome of Magic and Magic of Incarnum. Having psionics be completely different with no spell overlap sounds exactly like that sort of thing.

Thoughts?

I think you can have a psionic class/classes without a new "magic system."

In this respect, the 3e model of psionics shows the worst-case scenario: it's an entirely new system with fiddly academic distinctions that don't often matter in play and entirely new verbiage. That'd be what we do not want, to avoid Erik's pitfall there.

But what we could have is a set of unique mechanics.

For instance, if the fluff of psionics is a sort of 1920s-era spiritism with mediums and seances and tarot cards and ESP and the like, we could have a system based around objects - items that are like arcane focuses, but used to hone the power of the mind and the planes themselves (and this is sounding a lot like regular wizard magic at this point, but lets put a pin in that). This might resemble, like, a 4e-era implement-wizard, who relies on their objects of power to channel magical effects. The magical effects themselves could take the form of enhancements to skills - you can use Diplomacy with your pocketwatch as a psion to charm people, or you can use Investigation with a crystal ball as a psion to see the past or future, or you can use Athletics and a mystical gem as a psion to transform your body circus-freak style. PSPs become what you spend to turn your skill to a metaphysical use, and the more points you spend the more extreme your supernatural use.

That might wind up replicating some of the effects of standard magic (A psionic diplomacy isn't much different in effect from charm person), but the experience of playing the character will be meaningfully distinct because of the mechanical distinction, and learning to play a psion in this mode wouldn't be any more work than learning to play a paladin or a ranger.

As long as these things don't just replicate spells (like, the psionic diplomacy and charm person might both grant advantage on CHA checks, but they do it with different costs and benefits and tradeofffs - maybe the psionic version is more reliable, but takes effort to maintain, for instance), there's enough distinction to make it worth the page count.

The awful thing from my perspective would be if they're just like "you cast Charm Person, but with points and crystals." But it sounds like they've got a good handle on that.

 

[Dausuul]

And the publisher, Erik Mona, talked about how they explicitly wanted psychic magic to use the same magic system. Otherwise it's asking people to learn a whole new, unfamiliar ruleset for psionics, adding this huge chunk of new rules. Which makes it harder to learn and incorporate into your game.

This makes a lot of sense to me, because learning a whole new rule system is often tricky. It's what kept me away from stuff like the 3e Tome of Magic and Magic of Incarnum. Having psionics be completely different with no spell overlap sounds exactly like that sort of thing.

Thoughts?

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. (It wasn't a deal-breaker for me, but I sure wasn't happy with it, and I was very glad when Essentials came out and gave me an alternative.)

People on forums talk as if there is a bright dividing line between "crunch" and "fluff," but in fact there is no such line. The two blend into each other. The mechanical rules for a game element shape how that element feels in play. 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.

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.

 

[Von Ether]

double post

 

[Yaarel]

Paizo does alot of smart things. By using normal rules for ‘psychic magic’, Paizo is doing it smart again.

Those psychic classes are going to see play at almost every table, become a staple of the game, and sell well.

 

[Von Ether]

So as this thread drags on and demonstrates how many different opinions there are about the "right" way to do psionics, you have to pity WotC, really. Unless they put out a book with about five alternate systems with a few sub-systems in for good measure*, there's no way they can please the majority of gamers.

I'm just as bad as anyone if not worse:

As a player, I'd like something with some different mechanical flavor.
As a world builder, I'd like something power-level wise that could replace magic
As a GM, you can't run something much simpler/manageable than Neo-Vancian magic.

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.

I know that I would be wishing for a spin on the Neo-Vancian system after about the 5th time a player "forgot" a rule or a math that would have denied them an edge in the heat of battle. I've got enough going on trying to herd the cats called players and their PCs and run the game while I minimize my prep time during the week.

*That sounds like a great idea, I don't think the numbers would justify the cost of labor ... especially since Hasbro is always pushing for a print it, stock it, sell it, and print it again mode. I'm sure a 3rd party PDF would do the trick though.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Actually arcane and divine are still things--just not mechanical. See "The Weave of Magic" sidebar in the spellcasting section where it talks about the whole multiverse D&D default position regarding there being a magical interface (which is called "the Weave" on Faerun), and regarding which classes use arcane vs. divine magic.

Both are still magic, though. And it's not like the difference between a Cleric & Druid or Warlock and Sorcerer aren't 'things' either, in spite of both the former being divine, both the latter being arcane, and all being magic. Presumably Ki and totems are both outside the arcane/divine dichotomy, while still being magic, as well.

Future products are just not going to ignore that.

Sounds reasonable. I think that establishing psionics as a set of supernatural powers that somehow aren't magic would be ignoring the way 5e has handled things so far. But, I do hope it will be presented as a serious options, and that them mechanics won't entrench one or the other, but be amenable to simple modification to support either.

 

[Yaarel]

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.