D&D 5E Psionics in Tasha

[Dire Bare]

Heh heh... so amongst all this talk about needing to add psions as a class we also have everyone throwing away all the existing classes at the same time "Don't need the Sorcerer!" "Don't need the Cleric!" "Don't need the Warlock!" "Game only needs 7 classes!" "Game only needs 4 classes!"

And people wonder why WotC doesn't take all of these "requests/demands" seriously and just produces some baseline, standardized stuff for everyone to use instead.

If people spent as much time designing the class they want as they did complaining about WotC not designing it for them... they'd all be better off. At least they'd have something they wanted to play.

Is it the same people though? Asking to add the Psion, but remove the Sorcerer, Cleric, or Warlock?

How many classes should D&D have? Which character archetypes should be full classes, subclasses, or some other design frame . . . . There is no right answer, which is why we'll never stop arguing about it.

I loved the addition of the Sorcerer in 3rd Edition, but since then . . . . I don't "need" it removed, but if it was, I might not notice. I love the addition of the Warlock! The Cleric . . . it's classic D&D, but is a weird class in that it doesn't really mirror any mythological or literary fantasy archetypes all that well. The "cleric" certainly shows up in literature and video games post-D&D. I have a hard time distinguishing between Clerics and Paladins in my games, they seem (to me) to be slight variants on the same theme, a member of a martial religious order from the Crusades.

Psionics has been controversial since it was first introduced in Eldritch Wizardry, so in that sense, arguing about it is about as classic D&D as you can get!

Personally, I don't think the existing classes model the Psion very well and won't be happy until we get a stand-alone class. Although, I'm fine with a strong third-party design, it doesn't have to be from WotC.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Psionics has been controversial since it was first introduced in Eldritch Wizardry, so in that sense, arguing about it is about as classic D&D as you can get!

Gygax never liked psionics; that's pretty well known. He always wished it hadn't been included, and continued to argue against it in D&D.


..... which means all those people arguing against the inclusion? Bunch of traditionalist grognards.

 

[BlueSasquatch]

Always liked Psionics, I suppose it's because they feel very Jedi Knight to me. Psionics as a sub-category of spells seems like a cheap way to make a Psion.

Psychic Warrior was a blast to play, the dice are no less confusing than those blood-hunter dice are, or the grit points and firearm misfire crap. The latest UA of psychic warrior I enjoyed a good deal, with the feats you could add on, I felt like I had some psionic ability to use every turn, felt like I had alot of utility outside of combat as well, honestly didn't feel like a fighter at all anymore. My only qualm was the stat Psionics played off of, for Sorc, Rogue, Fighter all seemed to be different, and some of the feats were a bit rough in that regard. Really looking forward to Tasha's Cauldron.

 

[Azzy]

Gygax never liked psionics; that's pretty well known. He always wished it hadn't been included, and continued to argue against it in D&D.


..... which means all those people arguing against the inclusion? Bunch of traditionalist grognards.

Actually both those arguing for and against its inclusion are both traditionalist grognards at this point. There are those that agree with Gygax's views and those that disagree with his views, but both views have a similar vintage. ¯\(ツ)/¯

I'm curious what Dave Arneson's views on this matter were.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I suppose it's because they feel very Jedi Knight to me

Yep. I loved how they did the Force powers in d20 SW. That approach would have worked for me, anyway, but of course others won't like it. shrug

 

[Mistwell]

I want to play a character who dedicates themselves to a high powered being, who in return for me doing their bidding grants me magical abilities.

Am I describing WARLOCK or CLERIC?

Paladin.

 

[Mistwell]

Sure, but it is how it works by RAW. How do you do magic if there's no interface between the PCs and wherever magic comes from?

Descriptions of how things work are not rules. The rules are the mechanics. The rest is just default setting details. I've never heard any of what you are describing as "rules as written" and I don't know what you gain by continuing to claim there is some special "RAW" association with those color details.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Heh heh... so amongst all this talk about needing to add psions as a class we also have everyone throwing away all the existing classes at the same time "Don't need the Sorcerer!" "Don't need the Cleric!" "Don't need the Warlock!" "Game only needs 7 classes!" "Game only needs 4 classes!"

And people wonder why WotC doesn't take all of these "requests/demands" seriously and just produces some baseline, standardized stuff for everyone to use instead.

If people spent as much time designing the class they want as they did complaining about WotC not designing it for them... they'd all be better off. At least they'd have something they wanted to play.

My theory that CLERIC and WARLOCK are the same thing is a tongue in cheek response to those saying a PSION and a SORCERER are the same thing. I am not actually advocating that any class be removed and in fact DO advocate for there being many more base classes that should be developed by now.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

It's not really standard D&D, but a game in which magic is something you learn about and acquire over the course of play would be very interesting.

Should anyone want to explore this concept, I'd recommend investigating (get it?) Call of Cthulhu. It wouldn't take much work to dial the setting back to middle ages timeframe.

We had a fun campaign set in Italy during the renaissance. My character was a poorly skilled wannabe rival to Leonardo Da Vinci. Over the course of the campaign his main contributions to society were....

1. Inventing something akin to the giant old school deep sea diving deathtrap suits.

2. Making it a habit to record lifelike drawings of all the strange creatures he encountered along with the facts we learned about them. This book went on to become an "official" book we added to our rules as something a 1920s character might find a copy of....compete with the resulting sanity check and Mythos Knowledge gain upon reading it.

3. Once, in a drunken revelry, my character accidentally drank some ectoplasm he had collected from some incorporeal Cthulhu beastie. I told the GM that I wanted to "dance off the end of the mantle ignoring the fall". He had me roll the dice and I scored a 01, the equivalent of a crit on a d100. The GM described that as I stepped off the mantle into the air these incorporate beasties phased in just enough to support my feet and I was able to levitate by dancing on their backs. I had inadvertantly self discovered the levitate spell that required downing the ectoplasm as a material component. The spell itself existed in the books but my method of acquiring it was exactly how you describe in your post.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There is always an interface between me and the sound that will be music. Whether it's the air interfacing with my mouth to whistle, my air blowing into an instrument, my hands interfacing with my leg or a drum to create a beat, or what have you. Without an interface of some sort there can be no music.


Have you also house ruled the background magic to not be everywhere, or are magic dead areas non-existent?

Magic dead areas are non-existant. They break too much crap, and cause too many headaches with "Well, My paladin's aura doesn't say it is a magical effect suppressed by anti-magic."

And, if you are talking a bit of nonsense in the terms of music. The sounds is the movement of air. Your mouth is moving the air. There is no middle step where you mouth interfaces with something and that something moves the air. The physical thing that is the sound is created directly by your actions, not by an intermediary force.