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

[Paul Farquhar]

I should clarify that there are a small handful of pyrokineticts in Starcraft, but it's rare. But a handful of psionists being able to do a bit with fire doesn't mean that a psionist is capable of every fire spell that a wizard has at their disposal. And in 3e psionics, for example, the pyrokineticist was a PrC rather than a base kit of the psion. As to why lightning and electricity, I think that stems from the origins of psionics: i.e., Psi - Electronics.

Fire is a ball/fire is a cone qualify as different spells in D&D but they are not different effects. It would be difficult to justify in lore why psionics could do cones but not balls.

As for "electronics" that's complete hogwash. It has more to do with blue matching the protoss faction's colour scheme. Down to the Dark Protoss sub-faction making red lightning.

 

[Aldarc]

Fire is a ball/fire is a cone qualify as different spells in D&D but they are not different effects. It would be difficult to justify in lore why psionics could do cones but not balls.

You may want to check my edit. I touch on this a bit.

As for "electronics" that's complete hogwash. It has more to do with blue matching the protoss faction's colour scheme. Down to the Dark Protoss sub-faction making red lightning.

So your rebuttal to my point about how electricity is historically tied to psionics is to point out that both protoss factions use lightning but with different colors? Thanks for the assist.

I said before that the Force in Star Wars likely had an impact on psionics as well, and what do we find there? Force lightning. So there is that too.

 

[Mordhau]

There is no hardline between magic and psionics, especially now that there is very little real belief in psychic powers and phenomena.

But there are a whole lot of little overlapping textual games going on.

You can get away with a little bit of mild psychic abilty in all kinds of media without the whole thing being taken as fantasy. Dreams of a loved one being in danger, or the psychic that happens to predict the future being two typical examples, while the viewer/reader may not believe in these things, they probably know people who do, so it doesn't seem too foreign (and could always be explained by coincidence anyway).

Then there's something like Dune that goes a little further and takes the above kind of phenomenom and extrapolates it as something that could be developed over time through eugenics. We're not quite in the realm of hard SF anymore, but it's still somewhat harder than outright fantasy.

There's also the game that doesn't get played much anymore, where you take a space colony have it lose track of it's history through disaster and then reach medieval tech again, except some people have magic, which is really psychic phenomena. This has fallen out of favour probably because a big part of the point of it is that is should feel more grounded and believable than straight fantasy, and that doesn't really work any more. However, if we want to reference this old subgenre (like say in Dark Sun) we need to look back to the way it presented itself in terms of psionics.

And then there is psionics, as someone pointed out earlier in the thread, that is linked to real world spiritualist movements as well as religious stories such as levitating yogis and the like. While most people probably don't believe this, it is at least linked to what some people in the real world believe and is therefore less of a stretch than completely made up fantasy powers.

And then there is psionics in space opera that has totally abandoned any real pretense to future plausibility and is just playing with the tropes of the genre for it's own purposes. In such a case you may just call your magic psionics for the same reason that you call your monsters aliens - because it seems more in genre.

 

[Hussar]

I should clarify that there are a small handful of pyrokineticts in Starcraft, but it's rare. But a handful of psionists being able to do a bit with fire doesn't mean that a psionist is capable of every fire spell that a wizard has at their disposal. And in 3e psionics, for example, the pyrokineticist was a PrC rather than a base kit of the psion. As to why lightning and electricity, I think that stems from the origins of psionics: i.e., Psi - Electronics.


You appear to be dashing past their point so you can make your own. Basically everything with a resource cost for their abilities in Starcraft uses Energy, including powering technological abilities. That technological Yamato Battlecruiser? Energy. That psionic High Templar? Energy. That biological attack from that Zerg? Energy. That is why @Minigiant says, "That's because the games use the same styles of engine spaghetti. I don't think anyone wants Extra Attack to be a spell using slots."

The point being though, it isn't necessary for a separate system of magic and psionics. The warcraft/starcraft series shows that it's entirely possible to do it.

 

[Hussar]

You may want to check my edit. I touch on this a bit.


So your rebuttal to my point about how electricity is historically tied to psionics is to point out that both protoss factions use lightning but with different colors? Thanks for the assist.

I said before that the Force in Star Wars likely had an impact on psionics as well, and what do we find there? Force lightning. So there is that too.

Ummm, Firestarter anyone? Fire as a psionic power is certainly thematically fine.

 

[Scars Unseen]

The point being though, it isn't necessary for a separate system of magic and psionics. The warcraft/starcraft series shows that it's entirely possible to do it.

LARP shows that it's entirely possible to represent magic and ranged weapons alike by throwing beanbags and shouting numbers at each other, but that doesn't mean that they are the preferable way to model a system of magic or ranged combat after. You could make a spell list for a monk class if you wanted to. You could give rogues "trick slots" to use for poisons, sneak attacks and the like. You can design any class in any way you want.

But that doesn't make it a great way to make a sci-fi psychic feel different than a fantasy wizard.

 

[Aldarc]

The point being though, it isn't necessary for a separate system of magic and psionics. The warcraft/starcraft series shows that it's entirely possible to do it.

The real point being though is that is an entirely separate argument from "what can a wizard do that a psion can't?" and we should treat the individual arguments with integrity rather than trying to shuffle them around to obfuscate the various points being made in the thread.

Ummm, Firestarter anyone? Fire as a psionic power is certainly thematically fine.

The original question pertained to Starcraft and not psionics in general. Moreover, I did clarify that (a) Starcraft has some pyrokineticts, but it's quite rare, and (b) that the pyrokineticst was a PrC in 3e psionics, though not really a significant part of the default package or kit of powers.

By the way, I voted for "reskinning magic" as I liked the approach in 3.5e, Blue Rose, Pathfinder 1 and 2, and Starfinder. But that approach does not require me to argue "we don't need psionics because we already have wizards."

 

[Hussar]

/snip
But that approach does not require me to argue "we don't need psionics because we already have wizards."

Who is arguing that @Aldarc? Other than you, apparently.

Not one single poster here has said that. No one has even remotely said that.

The only point that has been made is that we can model psionics using the existing magic system. For some bizarre reason, you repeatedly are looking for a fight when none exists. I have absolutely no idea who wee'd in your corn flakes, but, please, take it down several notches. This thread has been consistently productive and positive.

 

[Hussar]

LARP shows that it's entirely possible to represent magic and ranged weapons alike by throwing beanbags and shouting numbers at each other, but that doesn't mean that they are the preferable way to model a system of magic or ranged combat after. You could make a spell list for a monk class if you wanted to. You could give rogues "trick slots" to use for poisons, sneak attacks and the like. You can design any class in any way you want.

But that doesn't make it a great way to make a sci-fi psychic feel different than a fantasy wizard.

Again, who is arguing that? That's a pretty slippery slope you're crafting here - because we can use the magic system to model psionics, that means that we're going to use the magic system to model every single element of the game?

See, the problem is, the argument that it requires different mechanics in order to make an SF psychic feel different from a fantasy wizard needs a bit more proof than just your say-so. After all, we can model all sorts of very, very different concepts - from a artificer to a cleric to a wizard - using the existing system. Additionally, EVERY class in D&D uses EXACTLY the same magic system. So, I'm going to need a bit more than, "Oh, I want it to feel different" to sign off on the idea that this lone concept, out of the thousands of concepts that are covered by the D&D magic system, absolutely needs a new system in order to feel different.

Heck, 4e managed a pretty darn collection of psionic classes that didn't need unique mechanics whatsoever. They used the same system as every other class. 1e didn't even HAVE a psionic class at all. Just a bolt on system for all other classes. Something that has been continued in other editions with things like Wild Talents and whatnot.

I'll be the first to admit, I didn't pay much attention to 3e psionics - was a 3e psion using entirely different mechanics like the 2e psionic classes did? Or did it simply adapt the existing magic system.

The point being, psionics need unique casting systems hasn't always been true. At least one edition made no distinction between psionics and any other class. So far, no one has been able to make a very good argument other than appealing to the feels for why we need a class specific casting system for one class.

 

[Aldarc]

Who is arguing that @Aldarc? Other than you, apparently.

Not one single poster here has said that. No one has even remotely said that.

You may have glossed over them, but there are a number of posters in this thread who have proposed essentially "Use [pre-existing class X] and pick appropriate powers from their spell list instead of a psion. Done." Moreover, this sentiment has often been part of a common bait-and-switching rhetoric of "if it's just magic, then we don't need psionics as we already have wizards."

For some bizarre reason, you repeatedly are looking for a fight when none exists. I have absolutely no idea who wee'd in your corn flakes, but, please, take it down several notches. This thread has been consistently productive and positive.

For starters, you have repeatedly in many of our past conversations about psionics. Now that you have poisoned that particular well on a number of past occasions and interactions, it's pretty safe to say that I now distrust your motives and opinions regarding psionics each and every time you poke your head in these conversations. Your conversation here has done little to dissuade me from that suspicion. So maybe you shouldn't be asking who wee'd in my cornflakes while in the process of zipping up your fly.

The only point that has been made is that we can model psionics using the existing magic system.

I agree with the latter point that psionics can be modeled using the existing magic system, but not with your assertion that it's the only point being made in this thread.