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]

The problem I see with the new class thing is that historically it hasn't worked. Every edition has seen major issues when you start trying to bolt on completely new mechanics. 2e psionics is a perfect example here. Very new mechanics and very easy to break.

The more new class mechanics you add, the more moving parts there are and the easier it is for bad things to happen.

Granted I could be convinced that a new class might be the way to go. But I remain very, very skeptical that it won't be either over or under powered. History is not on your side.

Because WotC has shown to be adverse to extensive playtesting new mechanics in 5e due to its hectic release schedule, right?

Again, I don't see an advantage to re-writing a base class via a subclass when siloing it into their own class is so much more elegant. Lets take the wizard and turn him into the psion (psychic mage).

* You have to handle spellbook, unless psionics is something written down in a book and studied everyday. The spellbook is 90% of the wizard's power; without it he has no mechanic for gaining additional powers (or indeed, learning them at all, unless he just now learns any and every power he wants). He can also no longer use rituals due to how spellbooks work.
* If you use the standard spell progression from the PHB, then that is fine. If you opt to go with some form of spell points, you have to re-write both the spellcasting rules and the arcane recovery mechanic.
* How do we handled spell selection? I mean, if he just gets wizard spell pool, then that's not very psionic-y. Does he get some of those spells? Which? A whole new spell list? What happens when a new book (say EE Player's Guide) adds new spells to the wizard list? Does the Psionic wizard get them too? Can a normal wizard learn psionic "spells"?
* It could mess up magic item attunement, unless you want your psionic mage to be able to use a staff of the magi or a robe of the archmagi and other "attune by wizard" items. That doesn't even begin to address spell scrolls...
* Also, arcane implements? Casting in a silence spell?
* Right now, each class is fairly tightly focused. Without explaining everything, I know what a wizard can do just by saying "I play a wizard". Now, we're swapping out spellbooks, spell selection and possibly spell mechanics, two people can be "wizards" and play radically different, which adds confusion and misunderstanding.
* Finally, a wizard picks his tradition at 2nd level; unless he's a psionic mage where he picks it at first level and gets his powers then. Which makes it ideal for cherry picking via multi-classing.

By fitting psionics to a single class, psionics doesn't creep into the wizard, bard, or sorcerer, radically changing the dynamic of that class. We suddenly don't end up with "wizards that heal" or "bard's that are better blasters than sorcerers". Moreso, for me, it keep the flavor separate and reminds us a class is a profession or outlook, not a pile of numbers. Psionics deserves a new base class and appropriate subclasses with a proper list of powers.

 

[Dausuul]

I should have been more specific. Base classes in core are generally fine because they receive sufficient play testing that the kinks get ironed out.

3.5 had a profusion of new base classes, many of them using new mechanics. Yet out of all the base classes in 3.5, what were the four OMGBROKEN powerhouses?

Archivist
Cleric
Druid
Wizard

Three out of four were in the Player's Handbook. This does not support your thesis. At all. The base classes of late 3.5E were overall better balanced than the early stuff.

Moving on to 4E, we saw another spew of base classes. I don't recall any major balance issues, nor do I recall balance getting worse in the later years. 4E was the Balance Edition and it succeeded in holding the line quite well, even when it diverged from the AEDU standard.

In any case, the "class versus subclass" question is entirely separate from the "new mechanics versus existing mechanics" question. A subclass can introduce radical new mechanics and a base class can use existing mechanics. If your proposed subclass requires hacking out chunks of the base class, you are introducing new mechanics, because no existing subclass does that. Just build a new base class already and be done with it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The main downside with new classes isn't imbalance - it's bloat.

The lesson from 3e and 4e (and to a certain degree even 2e): a game will drown in its own bloat. Given 3-5 years with monthly releases and maybe 4-6 new classes each year, the game will drown in unused options and meaningless distinctions.

Nothing happens to the mechanics - and nothing happens to the folks who are using those new classes just fine, or to the people who can sort through the bloat, or to the folks who digest the steady stream. Their games work fine.

But to begin with, each new class is a brick in the wall separating current players from potential players. Every new mechanic, new option, new design scheme, is another thing to learn, another thing to sort through, another option that might not actually grant much meaningful distinction. Every thing you add is another step closer to having too many options to make any of them really relevant.

WotC was fairly open in late 4e with what they found in DDI: most people played the core four classes and the core few races and no matter how many options they released, only a few of them got used by most of the player base. That's more the cost of new classes: unused, irrelevant, unsupported, thousands of design dollars spent for ever-diminishing returns on things that never saw the light of day, they hang on as meaningless, useless cruft.

Psions, artificers, whatever - that's the price we all pay for them being full classes. It can be worth that price, but it's not obvious that it is. It's a choice that is made about each potential new class: if we make this a class, how does it enhance and grow the game as a whole?

There's a lot of versions of psionics that, if we simply lifted it up and dropped it into 5e, wouldn't do that. 3e psionics wouldn't. 4e psionics wouldn't. 2e psionics...generally wouldn't, but there's a few ideas in there. And before that, the idea of a psionic-specialist class isn't on the table, so of course they wouldn't.

You could make a version of psionics in 5e that did, but it wouldn't look a lot like psionics as it has existed before, mechanically. And since mechanics and fluff should reinforce each other, the new mechanics would suggest a new fluff, or at least a different fluff.

Which is part of why investigating the fluff is relevant. If it's science-y, it should feel science-y to use it (charges! energy! light!). If it's 1920's style occultism, it should feel that way, too. If it's ancient greeco-roman crystal spires, it should feel that way, too. And D&D isn't always comfortable with pulpy sci-fi in its fantasy. I mean I tend to think it's kind of amazing, and part of D&D's DNA, and something that medieval purists kind of need to lighten up about other people doing, but I'm not in iron-fisty control of D&D's desitny.

 

[Von Ether]

The main downside with new classes isn't imbalance - it's bloat.

The lesson from 3e and 4e (and to a certain degree even 2e): a game will drown in its own bloat. Given 3-5 years with monthly releases and maybe 4-6 new classes each year, the game will drown in unused options and meaningless distinctions.

Nothing happens to the mechanics - and nothing happens to the folks who are using those new classes just fine, or to the people who can sort through the bloat, or to the folks who digest the steady stream. Their games work fine.

But to begin with, each new class is a brick in the wall separating current players from potential players. Every new mechanic, new option, new design scheme, is another thing to learn, another thing to sort through, another option that might not actually grant much meaningful distinction. Every thing you add is another step closer to having too many options to make any of them really relevant.

WotC was fairly open in late 4e with what they found in DDI: most people played the core four classes and the core few races and no matter how many options they released, only a few of them got used by most of the player base. That's more the cost of new classes: unused, irrelevant, unsupported, thousands of design dollars spent for ever-diminishing returns on things that never saw the light of day, they hang on as meaningless, useless cruft.

Psions, artificers, whatever - that's the price we all pay for them being full classes. It can be worth that price, but it's not obvious that it is. It's a choice that is made about each potential new class: if we make this a class, how does it enhance and grow the game as a whole?

There's a lot of versions of psionics that, if we simply lifted it up and dropped it into 5e, wouldn't do that. 3e psionics wouldn't. 4e psionics wouldn't. 2e psionics...generally wouldn't, but there's a few ideas in there. And before that, the idea of a psionic-specialist class isn't on the table, so of course they wouldn't.

You could make a version of psionics in 5e that did, but it wouldn't look a lot like psionics as it has existed before, mechanically. And since mechanics and fluff should reinforce each other, the new mechanics would suggest a new fluff, or at least a different fluff.

Which is part of why investigating the fluff is relevant. If it's science-y, it should feel science-y to use it (charges! energy! light!). If it's 1920's style occultism, it should feel that way, too. If it's ancient greeco-roman crystal spires, it should feel that way, too. And D&D isn't always comfortable with pulpy sci-fi in its fantasy. I mean I tend to think it's kind of amazing, and part of D&D's DNA, and something that medieval purists kind of need to lighten up about other people doing, but I'm not in iron-fisty control of D&D's desitny.

It's anecdotal, but I've only found people to be interested in new options when it gave them a concrete mechanical advantage. Heck, I've even offered people certain builds that reflected their fluff and got refused because they'd rather stick with something else that offered them bigger bonuses in the end.

I've seen the same for psionics in the past and know that some old GMs psionics because of bad min/max memories.

 

[Celebrim]

In D&D, psionics have always been 'magic under a different name' with no coherent description of what it was if it wasn't magic. In 1e, psionics were simply, "Magic that is innate to your being rather than acquired through study." What was really unique about it as a rule set was that it was almost completely not tied to level or class.

This problem has become even more pronounced over time. In 2e, lost their in game distinctiveness and became in the main only mechanically different from other types of magic. (One used points, the other didn't. In fairness, GURPS division is even more metagamed. One is balanced through point buy with the ability to swing a sword or other low tech attack. The other is balanced through more effective powers for a given amount of point buy with the presence of high tech weaponry. On the other hand in GURPS, you really aren't supposed to use both rule sets at the same time, and instead choose the one that fits the setting you are emulating. GURPS doesn't guarantee equal point buy characters in two different settings - fantasy, sci-fi, supers, etc. - are balanced.)

By the time that the sorcerer was introduced in 3e and magic was divorced from needing to be a book worm but could be an internal power source innate to your being and blood, D&D has had no coherent separation between magic and psionics.

This is because Psionics as D&D uses the terms are just psyche powers, which are just magical powers given 20th century pseudo-scientific gloss by a bunch of believers that didn't want to give up believing in magic. Indeed, even the distinction between wizardry and psionics is no longer completely clear - both uses your mind to cause the universe to behave according to your volition, and both increase that capacity through discipline, meditation and study that increases the force of your will. Fans of psionics tend to favor the 'they are just different, because they are' explanation.

The Far Realm might be the closest you can come to giving psionics a coherent explanation, even if it is in fact a hand wave: "Ok, it's magic, but it's Alien Magic that works by completely different Alien Principles. Because, Aliens." Just don't ask what that means or how it actually works. For one thing it implies co-terminality between the prime and far realm which among other things makes the 'far realm' rather completely misnamed. (Note for example, that in HP Lovecraft, the alienness is co-terminal with perceived reality, it's just that humans are uniquely and from a human perspective mercifully blind to most of reality. But most people don't ask the 'how' or 'why' sorts of questions, and are happy to just answer, "It's magic.", so they can probably get away with it. Maybe they'll can say the mind of psionic users are actually in little pockets of broken off Far Realminess that they are carrying with them allowing their minds to function according to Far Realmy physics and that psionics is temporarily projecting your Far Realmy rules into the larger world, and thereby avoid the co-terminality problem. But I'm not sure that the psionic fans actually want an answer.

 

[Remathilis]

The main downside with new classes isn't imbalance - it's bloat.

The lesson from 3e and 4e (and to a certain degree even 2e): a game will drown in its own bloat. Given 3-5 years with monthly releases and maybe 4-6 new classes each year, the game will drown in unused options and meaningless distinctions.

Bloat is certainly an issue, but WotC seems to be on top of this. Since August, we've had four new races, 20 new spells, and bunch of unplaytested "use at your own discretion" articles. We are NOT seeing monthly releases nor 4-6 new classes this go around.

That said, the answer is not to avoid it altogether either. The PHB options will eventually wear thin; growth will need to happen. The issue WotC is attempting to avoid is not "too much" but "too much, too soon."

Nothing happens to the mechanics - and nothing happens to the folks who are using those new classes just fine, or to the people who can sort through the bloat, or to the folks who digest the steady stream. Their games work fine.

But to begin with, each new class is a brick in the wall separating current players from potential players. Every new mechanic, new option, new design scheme, is another thing to learn, another thing to sort through, another option that might not actually grant much meaningful distinction. Every thing you add is another step closer to having too many options to make any of them really relevant.

But really, that's true of ANY rules expansion. Already, the EEPG gives players races that can fly or live underwater, both things the PHB races cannot do. The Favored Soul is generally considered superior to the Draconic/Chaos sorcerers (even if its not overpowered, its much more versatile). Hell, those who use only the Basic document have hit a wall against those with the full PHB. Every addition, no matter how small, is going to silo the haves from the have-nots. Is the only solution then a iconoclast game that never expands or gains a new option?

WotC was fairly open in late 4e with what they found in DDI: most people played the core four classes and the core few races and no matter how many options they released, only a few of them got used by most of the player base. That's more the cost of new classes: unused, irrelevant, unsupported, thousands of design dollars spent for ever-diminishing returns on things that never saw the light of day, they hang on as meaningless, useless cruft.

Psions, artificers, whatever - that's the price we all pay for them being full classes. It can be worth that price, but it's not obvious that it is. It's a choice that is made about each potential new class: if we make this a class, how does it enhance and grow the game as a whole?

By that logic, the they should have skipped monks, dragonborn, and those other "options" no one played and stuck with just the Basic classes and races. Why waste space on a class like druid only a handful of player's play?

Well, because it means something to the player who likes monks, dragonborn, druids, psionics, or artificers. They have just as much right to play what they want as the cleric, elf, wizard, and fighter players. That option should be available to them, and it should be done with as much time and respect as those basic classes and races were.

Chasing what is popular and culling option is why Hollywood churning out nostalgic and comic-book based action schlock or why dozens of small mom-and-pop resteraunts can't compete against chains like Applebee's. Not everyone's tastes will be the same. Shouldn't those people have the option of an artificer or a psion, and those who dislike said options be allowed to just say "no classes beyond the PHB" if they want?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Bloat is certainly an issue, but WotC seems to be on top of this. Since August, we've had four new races, 20 new spells, and bunch of unplaytested "use at your own discretion" articles. We are NOT seeing monthly releases nor 4-6 new classes this go around.

That said, the answer is not to avoid it altogether either. The PHB options will eventually wear thin; growth will need to happen. The issue WotC is attempting to avoid is not "too much" but "too much, too soon."

I'm not convinced that's actually the issue they're trying to avoid, but regardless, this is them displaying a smart way of going about it - if you set the bar for a new rules option (especially one as significant as a class) high enough, only a few get through, and that is as it should be.

But really, that's true of ANY rules expansion. Already, the EEPG gives players races that can fly or live underwater, both things the PHB races cannot do. The Favored Soul is generally considered superior to the Draconic/Chaos sorcerers (even if its not overpowered, its much more versatile). Hell, those who use only the Basic document have hit a wall against those with the full PHB. Every addition, no matter how small, is going to silo the haves from the have-nots. Is the only solution then a iconoclast game that never expands or gains a new option?

By that logic, the they should have skipped monks, dragonborn, and those other "options" no one played and stuck with just the Basic classes and races. Why waste space on a class like druid only a handful of player's play?

That's a strawman. No one is saying that the game shouldn't add options, but people are saying that the game should be smart about what options it does add and how. There's degrees of additions as well - a subclass doesn't need to fundamentally change your mechanics, so the threshold for one of those is lower. A feat, lower still. A spell? A magic item? Yeah, toss it off. A race? Hmm...if it's warrented. A class? If we must.

It's not a matter of passing some arbitrary threshold of relevance, it's about doing the work to make it good, to make it worth the cost of adding it. Monks and dragonborn and whatnot were rather arbitrarily determined to be things they wanted to pour development dollars into and risk that option bloat, presumably in the interests of uniting the fans of older editions as much as possible. The Elemental Evil companion was likewise a choice made, and likely made to support the adventure more than anything else.

Well, because it means something to the player who likes monks, dragonborn, druids, psionics, or artificers. They have just as much right to play what they want as the cleric, elf, wizard, and fighter players. That option should be available to them, and it should be done with as much time and respect as those basic classes and races were.

And warlord and assassin players can just go screw?

Nah, there are multiple ways to present any given character type. If a class is the chosen vessel, it needs to be significant. If some other mechanic is the chosen vessel, it faces a significantly lower barrier for entry.

Chasing what is popular and culling option is why Hollywood churning out nostalgic and comic-book based action schlock or why dozens of small mom-and-pop resteraunts can't compete against chains like Applebee's. Not everyone's tastes will be the same. Shouldn't those people have the option of an artificer or a psion, and those who dislike said options be allowed to just say "no classes beyond the PHB" if they want?

False dichotomy based on a strawman.

The point I'm making is that the devs (who seem to agree) should not simply toss out classes because they were classes before. A class needs to add more to the game than new jargon and a coat of paint (or a different spell list and a few different proficiencies). A psion as a true class in 5e will probably not just be a sorcerer or wizard who calls their spells powers and uses points - as a true class, they will do things differently. What they do is going to depend on the fluff they have. The fluff is key because it will influence the mechanics they use to do things differently.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At the end of the day... isn't psionics really just going to live or die based upon the game mechanic they create for it, regardless of whether that mechanic is put in its own class or overlayed on an existing one? If the game mechanic ROCKS-- is original, is fun, is cool to use... no one's going to really care one whit whether it makes a Sorcerer into a Psionic Sorcerer, or if a Psion gets added to the twelve existing PHB classes.

Why does the Battlemaster work? Because they figured out how to design a game mechanic which layers onto weapon use that doesn't feel like casting spells (even though maneuvers and spells are virtually one and the same-- extra damage plus an ability that raises your AC or your attack bonus or knocks people down or lets you move around, etc. etc. etc.) And because that mechanic works... people accept this new version of the Fighter even though it looks quite different than the Fighters of old (pre-4E).

If the psionic mechanic they create can be just as well received... they're 95% of the way there to make it acceptable to the populace and it won't really matter those last 5%-- whether it's presented on its own, or put on top of some of the existing classes in the game.

 

[I'm A Banana]

At the end of the day... isn't psionics really just going to live or die based upon the game mechanic they create for it, regardless of whether that mechanic is put in its own class or overlayed on an existing one? If the game mechanic ROCKS-- is original, is fun, is cool to use... no one's going to really care one whit whether it makes a Sorcerer into a Psionic Sorcerer, or if a Psion gets added to the twelve existing PHB classes.

I think there's some truth in this, which is, I suspect, why Mearls is asking - the fiction should inform the mechanic. If folks are cool with a pulp sci-fi fiction for psionics, the mechanic will likewise be pulpy and sci-fi (maybe you evolve as you gain levels and you have mind over body and etc.) If folks want a more medieval take on it, the mechanic should be different (like, you discover the lost world of the Ancients beneath the ruins of mighty empires and their lost magic is crystals and togas?).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Easier sure, but is it a heck of a lot better? Especially for those who want the option of psionics being different?

Obviously, the two are in conflict. Really delivering on what fans of psionics want would take a lot more design work, playtesting, and probably a full-sized splatbook almost exclusively about psionics. And none of that looks like it's going to be happening with the D&D line anytime soon.

Why go for the less satisfying solution just because it's easy? That's a very disappointing road for the biggest and highest profile ttrpg to go down...

That's prettymuch what 5e /is/. It's taken a very traditional approach to just about everything, which is easy, because it's low-risk, and because the work has mostly been done before and it's just a matter of bringing it all together. While it went to the trouble of making each class arbitrarily different, mechanically, it didn't take those differences very deep. All classes lean on that big list of spells in the back for some of what they do, and 30 of 38 sub-classes are actual spell-casters, with a few more using spells to model not-technically-spell abilities.

Past performance is no guarantee, but the direction of 5e so far, early as it is, points to leveraging existing spells for any sort of supernatural abilities.

I'm convinced you don't know what a subclass is in 5th edition.

Look at the 36 examples of them in the Player's Handbook.

Pretty sure it's 38.

None of them change the nature of the base class.

Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster change martial classes into arcane casters. Totem Barbarians use magic while Berserkers don't.
Sorcerers are either Chaos-touched or have a Draconic heritage, that sounds like an essential difference in nature.
Warlocks can be using creepy Lovecraftian magic, capricious fey magic, or nasty diabolic magic.
Regular, Shadow, and Elemental monks seem pretty different in their natures, too.

You are proposing a new system where you choose your subclass levels before you should

Sub-classes already exist that are chosen at 1st level, so that's not a new thing.

In short, you're re-writing the subclass system to fit your own desire for some steadfast notion of "NO NEW CLASSES EVAR!" and your willing to change the Player's Handbook to do it.

IIRC, WotC has signaled an unwillingness to introduce new classes.

The problem I see with the new class thing is that historically it hasn't worked.

A few of the new classes introduced in 3.5 didn't cause any problems. The Scout was just fine. Some of the Bo9S classes were OK. In 4e, there were no particular problems caused by introducing the PH2 classes.

The more new class mechanics you add, the more moving parts there are and the easier it is for bad things to happen.

New mechanics can be a problem, yes - whether they're tied to a class or not. A new class, OTOH, may not introduce many new mechanics.