D&D 5E People didn't like the Psionic Talent Die

[Weiley31]

I say the ONLY bad thing bout the Psionic Talent Die was how it was a reversal of the entire D20 concept. Other than that, I liked it and what they were doing.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

pretty shameful take, bud.
Hard to respect an opinion that is basically, “people that don’t like the thing I like are dumb and lazy.”
And the prodigy kid comparison is just gross, classist, a

Well....like....that's your opinion, man.

I listen to pop music sometimes, are you saying that I'm dumb and lazy? Pop is short for popular, which implies using a certain formula to sell units to the masses , but I think you probably actually already knew that and you just want to assert your "I'm more enlightened than you" superiority to "win" yet another opinion based discussion.

So how about you keep your personal attacks off the board and specifically not aimed at me...because I didn't level a personal attack at anyone with my comment and didn't mention your name once in what I said.

 

[Minigiant]

This kinda highlights some of the differences between D&D 5e fans and fans of other games.

You kinda see that that the majority of 5e fans only want to use the same 5-7 subsystems. Once they learns spellcasting, skills, ki, pact magic, etc.... the fans split.

Some don't want to lean more systems. They just want what they learned expanded.
Some want to learn and see more subsystems. They want to see more ways to cross-interact between the old and new.

 

[Weiley31]

But the entire system WASN'T just the Psionic Die, but also the fact each of the listed Subclasses had their own Talents. So the last UA Psionics 5E mechanics were Talents and how some of them were powered by the use of the Psionics Talent Dice. So by that theory, each Psionic Subclass would have its own talents unique to the Psionic Fighter/Rogue/Sorcerer/Etc, etc. Psionics would develop alongside the class.

That is all good. My fave version of the Psionics for 5E.

Now I'm hoping somebody DMGuilds it for working and expanding the system.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I find a limited resource with the ability to recharge works for us. For example, we allow our BM to "recharge" his maneuvers by spending one HD per use. It allows you to use them at will, until your completely exhausted (no HD).

LOL it is funny you mention that kind of system, I was thinking about it after supper and reminded of Jedi in d20 SW and how they spent Vitality to fuel their force powers. Spending a HD might work, and I am glad it works for you.

 

[Undrave]

Folks can learn a new thing, they just don’t want to when Psionics is literally just a kind of magic that doesn’t need its own special mechanics in a game where arcane and divine magic work exactly the same.

They messed up when they made Divine Magic just the same thing as Arcane magic but with a different color of sprinkles on top. No reason to repeat that mistake.

Wow. Today I learned that the majority of D&D 5e players (that actually respond to surveys) are boring people, that can't be arsed to learn an incredibly easy new mechanic. That's pretty depressing.

I know right?

Was it really that new of a subsystem though? I mean, it's basically superiority dice with a twist. It really looks like even the smallest deviation from the norm is seen as too much by the majority.

It was hardly different from other subclasses. It wasn't hard to understand and it was pretty self-contained to the subclass.

It may be that between "I don't want psionics" people, "I don't want to have to learn a new mechanic for something that doesn't interest me" people, "I love psionics but they need to be X way not Y way" people, and "where's my mystic!" people there is never going to be an overall positive response to any psionics system proposed.

I thought a minor unified mechanic between several subclasses was about the least invasive way they could have psionics feel like anything beyond some subclass flavor, and that the dice idea was a fairly elegant and modest approach to this.

You're right, probably too much assault from multiple angles for multiple reasons.

But, why? Why should they want an entire type of character to rely on a secondary subsystem that nothing else in the game uses?

Here’s the thing. The above is a mechanical preference. Unnecessary new subsystems annoy a lot of people, but when it’s a single subclass, or a couple, or soemthing like that, it’s easy to ignore. Even a single class, like the Sorcerer.

But if in the playtest they’d proposed every martial character using superiority dice, I’d have voted against that, too, even though I love the BM fighter.

You really seem to want to be able to dismiss preference as a sort of imaginative laziness, and that isn’t what happened here.

Again, it’s not that folks can’t be bothered to learn a new system. It’s that folks view it as bad design to use a whole new, unnecessary, subsystem that no other part of the game uses, just to make something stand out more.

And I’d wager that a lot of folks also just felt it was much too fiddly for absolutely no actual benefit.

DnD is already FILLED with arbitrary subsystem that only affect a few class, or even one subclass! Bardic Inspiration Dice, Channel Divinity, Rage, Wildshape, Battlemaster Maneuvers, Monk Ki Points, Paladin Smites, Ranger Beast Companion, Sorcery Points, Invocation, Wizard books, Artificer infusions... I don't get why adding anything to that list is suddenly bad for some reason. It's just one more thing you may or may not need to learn. It's not like the game was ONLY Superiority Dice and ONLY Vancian Casting, then anything else would be a big deal... It's been a weird mish mash of system since the begining...

DnD is exception based design, isn't that what we all signed up for when we decided to buy more books?! It's not like we're DROWNING in those 'new subsystem' that, honestly, aren't THAT new.

 

[DND_Reborn]

That's not actually realistic though, even in a fight one where you're sparring. You could try to do something neat and impressive, but a lot times you couldn't because these can only be pulled off under certain circumstances. Attempting to do some neat trick at the wrong time will get you stabbed in the face more easily. 3e might have actually had it more "real" with it's "try to do anything special and you provoke an opportunity attack" rule.

Oh, that is a good idea! If you are out of superiority dice, you can still try to do a maneuver, but if it fails--it backfires and the opponent gets and OA. I'll have to review the maneuvers and think that over.

Well... not that it really matters since I'll be done with 5E by the end of the year if not sooner.

 

[Parmandur]

They messed up when they made Divine Magic just the same thing as Arcane magic but with a different color of sprinkles on top. No reason to repeat that mistake.

No, they made the right move there.

 

[dave2008]

LOL it is funny you mention that kind of system, I was thinking about it after supper and reminded of Jedi in d20 SW and how they spent Vitality to fuel their force powers. Spending a HD might work, and I am glad it works for you.

It is something more to track (but we already track HD for healing anyway), but for us it just makes the game feel more alive.

 

[ZeshinX]

I applaud their continued attempts to get something that feels "right enough" for their audience (wish they could show that kind of devotion to the Ranger, but c'est la vie).

My gut tells me a psionic class, if they decide to go back to that concept, would be something like a bard/warlock mix (conceptually). Not literally a mish mash, but a limited pool of spell casting slots but with nifty Invocation-like things...and something like the Inspiration die (not the talent die...interesting though it was, it just felt backwards...struck me as something more at home in the oddball collection of 2e mechanics). You'd have its psionic powers (or spells) with very limited slots, like a warlock, but a psionic type of Invocation/Inspiration type deal (where some might use a die, some might not) rather than be similar to warlock invocations which, for the most part, are just at-will spell options (obviously not all of course).

Or perhaps that's just a psionic warlock subclass. I don't envy WotC this mental pickle.