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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7673414" data-attributes="member: 4937">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.</blockquote>

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