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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 7226266" data-attributes="member: 5142">This strikes me as a false dichotomy. This is not really an either/or scenario. For example, in your latter example of "psionics are different," psionics could use a spell system but not have dispel magic or other regular spells apply. But in the former example of "psionics-is-magic," dispel magic and such could still apply but with the hypothetical psionicist having different mechanics than the regular spell system. That said, I don't think that your suggestions of just reskinning or creating a new subclass of preexisting class (e.g., warlock, sorcerer, wizard) would work for a psion/mystic. At least no more than reskinning a fighter, bard, or cleric to make a warlord. (We wouldn't want you to look like a hypocrite, Tony Vargas.) It simply would require to much work in terms of adjustments to spells, mechanics, and re-fluffing of flavor to make it work. Wizard traditions, for example, are fairly terrible at encouraging a thematic spell list, but instead foster a lot of homogeneous or optimal choices that don't necessarily fit for a psionic class. This also applies for the warlock and sorcerer. D&D has some magic covered and within a limited scope, which have been largely defined and reinforced by its own traditions, and which also now include psionics for how many editions now? Perhaps psionics should be considered "different" in much the same way that arcane and divine magic are considered "different" from each other within the traditions of D&D? (I also do think that 4E probably had the right approach by grouping the monk and psionics together.) I'm of several minds with this issue. On the one hand, I agree that I would not mind the mystic if it did just opt for spell points and had its own spell list (cf. 3.5 era psionics). But on the other hand, I think that 5E likes to use new classes to explore alternative options for class mechanics. And the fact that we are seeing people look at the mystic and think, "this is what the sorcerer should have been like," or "this is what the warlock should have been like" also suggests to me that there is value in exploring these alternative mechanical venues. If it breaks your fiction, then maybe you had the fiction of the fantasy world you envisioned wrong to begin with. So perhaps it would be worth your time to reevaluate your own sense of the fiction as a player rather than accusing the class, the other player, or the world of being wrong or so insensitive as to break "your immersion." It's basic table etiquette. It's the GM's call and not the players'. If you sit a GM's table who has envisioned dragonborn or monks in their world, but you find dragonborn or monks as immersion breaking, then it strikes me as your problem and not theirs, unless you become THAT player who decides to disrupt things by accusing the GM (or player) of badwrongfun for having dragonborn or monks in their campaign world. But having to edit personal fluff at the table is nothing new at all. Nothing new, so acting like having to do this for psionics requires extra effort. A GM for one of my campaigns loves the big-headed halfling 5E art so much that all halflings now have ridiculously big heads in her campaign. I'm not a fan of it. It does not match my default conception of halflings, but I know that this is how halflings look in her campaign so I run with it. And there are all sorts of flavor and fluff changes across the board at her table and other tables that I run or that I am in. But I don't think that envisioning psionics as point-based casting requires much effort on your part to refluff in comparison to other refluffs that exist with pre-existing classes and races between settings and editions.</blockquote>

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