Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Psionics: Magic or Not
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Andor" data-source="post: 6182135" data-attributes="member: 1879"><p>For me the stumbling point with Psionics not being magic is the anti-magic field.</p><p></p><p>The anti-magic field always has seemed to me to represent an area where "real world" physics apply. In the real world I cannot lift a mug without touching it. Therefore if the mages levitation spell doesn't work but the Psions levitation power does it is distinctly disjarring to have this impossible action taking place in what is otherwise an impossibility free zone.</p><p></p><p>Or if the Psion really is using his internal energy to levitate that mug then I expect hiim to burn just as many calories as he would holding it in his hand. Similarly if he starts flinging boulders at high speed he's better have large fat reserves or a henchmen with an energy drink on standby. If not then you are violating the law of conservation of energy without the use of magic and your game world becomes a lot less accessable to my intuitive grasp. </p><p></p><p>As a literary example of this in Lawrence Watt-Evans "Ethshar" series one magical tradition called witchcraft has access to a traditional variety of tricks including levitation but they really are powered by your own energy, I think they call it vital essence. So you can levitate if you want to but you are doing as much work as if you were holding yourself over your own head. The trick was they didn't have good feedback on how much energy they had left. An overly ambitious witch could easily kill themselves by exhaustion. Another group called warlocks seems to employ the same bag of tricks but they call upon an outside energy source, which happily grants them essentially unlimited power. The trouble is that the energy source wants something from them and the more power they draw from it the harder it becomes to resist its call. Eventually they disappear, drawn off by the alien being calling in the debt of it's loaned power.</p><p></p><p>That world also contains other mystical traditions including Deism, Demonology, Necromancy, Sorcery, and most prominantly Wizardry which uses arcane rituals to achieve... almost anything really. But it's tricky and dangerous and you can screw up in bizzare ways. Wizardry can produce an anti-magic field in which wizardry simply ceases to operate. But it doesn't effect other forms of magic in the least because they draw upon different powers using different principles.</p><p></p><p>So the question really becomes, why does a single effect turn off both arcane AND divine magic but not psionics? If arcane and divine magic are far enough apart to warrant the split why don't they have seperate anti-blah zones? 3.5 dabbles with the concept of splitting out the anti-psionic zones from the anti-magic zone and I personally think that's a more cosmologically interesting way to go. However if you don't split out the zones by power or principle then it remains jarring to me conceptually to have a hunk of land with the special property of "Physics Only. 186,000 mps isn't just a good idea, it's the law." and then allow impossibilities to stroll on in if they only change the nametag and wear their hat on backwards.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Andor, post: 6182135, member: 1879"] For me the stumbling point with Psionics not being magic is the anti-magic field. The anti-magic field always has seemed to me to represent an area where "real world" physics apply. In the real world I cannot lift a mug without touching it. Therefore if the mages levitation spell doesn't work but the Psions levitation power does it is distinctly disjarring to have this impossible action taking place in what is otherwise an impossibility free zone. Or if the Psion really is using his internal energy to levitate that mug then I expect hiim to burn just as many calories as he would holding it in his hand. Similarly if he starts flinging boulders at high speed he's better have large fat reserves or a henchmen with an energy drink on standby. If not then you are violating the law of conservation of energy without the use of magic and your game world becomes a lot less accessable to my intuitive grasp. As a literary example of this in Lawrence Watt-Evans "Ethshar" series one magical tradition called witchcraft has access to a traditional variety of tricks including levitation but they really are powered by your own energy, I think they call it vital essence. So you can levitate if you want to but you are doing as much work as if you were holding yourself over your own head. The trick was they didn't have good feedback on how much energy they had left. An overly ambitious witch could easily kill themselves by exhaustion. Another group called warlocks seems to employ the same bag of tricks but they call upon an outside energy source, which happily grants them essentially unlimited power. The trouble is that the energy source wants something from them and the more power they draw from it the harder it becomes to resist its call. Eventually they disappear, drawn off by the alien being calling in the debt of it's loaned power. That world also contains other mystical traditions including Deism, Demonology, Necromancy, Sorcery, and most prominantly Wizardry which uses arcane rituals to achieve... almost anything really. But it's tricky and dangerous and you can screw up in bizzare ways. Wizardry can produce an anti-magic field in which wizardry simply ceases to operate. But it doesn't effect other forms of magic in the least because they draw upon different powers using different principles. So the question really becomes, why does a single effect turn off both arcane AND divine magic but not psionics? If arcane and divine magic are far enough apart to warrant the split why don't they have seperate anti-blah zones? 3.5 dabbles with the concept of splitting out the anti-psionic zones from the anti-magic zone and I personally think that's a more cosmologically interesting way to go. However if you don't split out the zones by power or principle then it remains jarring to me conceptually to have a hunk of land with the special property of "Physics Only. 186,000 mps isn't just a good idea, it's the law." and then allow impossibilities to stroll on in if they only change the nametag and wear their hat on backwards. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Psionics: Magic or Not
Top