Vrecknidj said:
I'd like feedback from what will probably be a fairly small subset of the community here. Here's who I'm looking to hear from: people who liked psionics in either 1e or 2e (or both) but who didn't like the psionics handbook in 3e. Even more specifically, I'm looking to hear from people within this group that have looked at any skills-and-feats psionics systems.
Okay, now that you know who you are, hopefully you've seen the latest Dungeon and Dragon magazines (or have a crystal ball and have seen into the new book), and have looked at the recent stuff on the WotC site.
From what you've seen so far, what do you like / not like about the changes?
And, if you've already seen the book somewhere, please do tell.
Dave
1st ed psionics: fun, but horribly unbalanced, and a pain to actually play (the whole 10 rounds of psychic combat for one round of physical combat thing). With the psionicist class (Dragon #78?), they became playable, and we used them a bit.
2nd ed psionics: best D&D version to date, and the only one i'll recommend without reservation.
3E psionics: these aren't psionics. They do stuff that psychic powers shouldn't do, they're no better at mental stuff than spells, they're way too obvious, some of the attribute dependencies seem wrong, and they're underpowered, to boot. And the psion is too much like a sorcerer and teh psychic warrior is too much like a monk. If i want an alternate set of spells, the PsiH rocks. If i want psychics, it's useless.
Way of the Mind: well balanced, but a bit flavorless. Probably works fine in play, but haven't tried.
Ken Hood's stuff: excellent flavor, but bends and twists D20 System in ways that make it an odd fit for D&D3E. Other than that, looks fairly balanced, but i've, again, never actually played it.
I've seen one or two other skill-n-feat psychic systems (including skimming The Psychic's Handbook), but i'm not terribly familiar with them.
However, my only knowledge of the new (3.5E) Psionics Handbook is from a couple of threads here, so i'm not sure how much help i'll be.
IMHO, the Expanded Psionics Handbook is loads better than the original--which makes it, oh, let's say roughly half as good as The Complete Psionics Handbook. It's still too magic-like. If i understand correctly, the various psychic classes now only use one attribute for lal their stuff, and that's "wrong" in my book. 6 attributes was too many. 3 would be about right. I think the new focus thing for using the nifties from psionic feats is cool. In fact, it sounds like all the changes are actually for teh better. However, if you liked the Complete Psionics Handbook, i'd still skip it: grab The Psychic's Handbook, or wait for me to finish up my psionics system and post it online. Problems i have with 3E psionics that, AFAIK, aren't changed in 3.5E psionics:
First, things that i think violate the nature of "psychic powers", and would be wrong no matter what system:
- displays. IMHO, the fact that there's no clue to who's the psychic except that they're kinda distracted is iconic of psionic powers. Don't balance that by eliminating it, balance it in some way that doesn't destroy the psychic-ness of the powers. Such as limiting what they can do to iconicly psychic stuff.
- transparent magic/psionics interaction. Though, of course, that one's trivial to fix yourself.
- the metacreativity discipline as a whole, and damn near every power within it (a few would be ok, if the flavor text was changed and they were assigned to a different discipline). If psionics can do that sort of stuff at all, it should be *very* difficult--there shouldn't be anything to put in a metacreativity discipline below the equivalent of about a 7th level power/spell, so it should just be part of the psychokinesis or maybe psychoportation disciplines.
- mental stuff (especially clairsentience and telepathy/empathy) are too hard. That's what psychics are supposed to be good at, so the powers should be considerably easier/lower level than their magical counterparts.
- the psychometabolism and psychoportation stuff that's available is too flashy at too low of a level.
And then there's the stuff that bugs me because this is D&D
- psychics are no more flexible than sorcerers, and possibly less-so. That might be fine if they weren't also less powerful. They should be less powerful, but more flexible--that's the virtue of psychic powers: you get flexibility and hard to detect, but you give up power and flashy stuff, especially affecting non-sentient objects.
- 10 levels instead of 3 or 4 for powers, a la 1st/2nd ed psionics, or Monte Cook's alternate bard.
- the psychic warrior is no more needed than the mageblade, and with the added problem that it steps on the monk's niche.
- random save DCs are just silly, and do nothing to contribute to making psionics "feel different", much less make up for all the other efforts to make it the same. Oh, wait, that's been scrapped. Nevermind.
- Single attribute. One thing i've always liked about D&D psionics was the use of several attributes, which set them apart from spellcasters. For spellcasters, which attribute is used depends on the caster. For psionics, which attribute is used depends on the discipline. Now this actually *does* make them feel different from magic, but they scrapped it.
So, if you agree with me on what psychic powers "should be" like, i don't think you'll find eth new psionics a noticable improvement over the old. Better, to be sure, but still so far inferior to several other systems out there (for 3E and for 2nd ed) as to not be worth bothering with.
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