D&D 5E Psionics in a sci-fi D&D

[Paul Farquhar]

River Tamm seems pretty in-line with Starcraft's "ghosts" who were the terran government's secret psionic assassination program. A lot of psionics (and Star Wars Force-users) feature psionic body enhancement and hyper-precognitive reflexes.

Starcraft throws an awful lot of additional powers into the psionic bucket, rather undermining the idea that it's "narrow and focused". Look at what the protoss can do with psionics: summon lightning, go invisible, summon monsters, transform their bodies into giant energy beings, etc etc. Pretty much anything magic can do in D&D a Protoss can do in Starcraft.

 

[Aldarc]

Starcraft throws an awful lot of additional powers into the psionic bucket, rather undermining the idea that it's "narrow and focused".

It doesn't undermine anything. Those powers in Starcraft are fairly consistent with what we typically find in D&D psionics. And it's still a helluva lot more "narrow and focused" than D&D's arcane and divine powers.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It doesn't undermine anything. Those powers in Starcraft are fairly consistent with what we typically find in D&D psionics. And it's still a helluva lot more "narrow and focused" than D&D's arcane and divine powers.

We'll just have to disagree on that one.

 

[Aldarc]

We'll just have to disagree on that one.

Or maybe you can cite actual evidence to support your assertion.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Or maybe you can cite actual evidence to support your assertion.

Maybe you could cite an example of what you believe a character in D&D could do that a character in Starcraft cannot. I've read most of the tie-in novels, although I don't have them available to reference directly.

 

[Aldarc]

Maybe you could cite an example of what you believe a character in D&D could do that a character in Starcraft cannot. I've read most of the tie-in novels, although I don't have them available to reference directly.

Here is a grand list of psionic powers in the Starcraft universe, including hero abilities from Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm. This list is even separated by the psionic abilities demonstrated between each species. This list is completely dwarfed by the psionic powers list in D&D, which is in turn dwarfed by the list of spells cast by divine and arcane casters. If you believe there is nothing that a D&D character could do that a Starcraft psionic character couldn't, then you must be playing D&D like an ostrich with your head buried in the sand.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

For the Trek fans who think magic and psionics are different and/or that magic doesn't belong in sci-fi: How do Q and Kevin Uxbridge fit into what would classically be considered science fiction?

It is the case of Clarke's “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

My stance is that this whole magic/mystical vs psionics/scientific divide is not a division that exist in the underlying reality, it is mainly one that says something about the attitudes of the practitioners. Stat Trek, or at least good Star Trek, mostly presents the setting, even ludicrous aspects, via scientific realism, and that is the attitude of most of the main characters. Though in DS9 they start to flirt with spiritualism. Is Q a god? He (probably in jest) claims to be, but Picard rejects the notion outright. He treats Q as a powerful alien that, sure is far more advanced than humans, but not some sort of supernatural entity. It really is no different than Picard seeming akin to god to the Mintakans. Sisko has his own encounters with powerful aliens in the wormhole. And he eventually starts to have more spiritual relationship to them, he starts to treat them more like actual gods, like the Bajorans do. But I don't think this says anything about the actual objective godhood of said creatures. Q is probably way more powerful than the Wormhole Aliens, he certainly meets the technical definition of 'god.' The difference does not lie in the objective reality, it lies in the attitudes of those who experience it, and as this is fiction, in how the story is presented.

So similarly if one can manipulate the forces that objectively exist in the setting to levitate objects with their mind, they can contextualise this as mystical or scientific. And whether they do depends on the culture, traditions and the level of scientific understanding they have. But the underlying mechanics remain the same.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Here is a grand list of psionic powers in the Starcraft universe, including hero abilities from Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm. This list is even separated by the psionic abilities demonstrated between each species. This list is completely dwarfed by the psionic powers list in D&D, which is in turn dwarfed by the list of spells cast by divine and arcane casters. If you believe there is nothing that a D&D character could do that a Starcraft psionic character couldn't, then you must be playing D&D like an ostrich with your head buried in the sand.

That only includes powers actually used in the game, not powers used or alluded to in the novels. And if you look at what the powers actually do, rather than spells that have different names but do much the same thing, they cover all the bases in D&D magic: damage, healing, summoning, control, transmutation, transportation, divination, reality alteration etc.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

As for psionics in most fiction being way narrower in scope than D&D magic, that indubitably is true. However, the same applies to magic in most fiction.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As for psionics in most fiction being way narrower in scope than D&D magic, that indubitably is true. However, the same applies to magic in most fiction.

Fiction only presents what characters actually do, not what they might potentially be able to do.

If you look at the number of different spells a typical wizard casts over a D&D career it is only a small subset of what they could potentially cast.