NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 7673328" data-attributes="member: 2067">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.</blockquote>

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