Psionics Psimplified

[jester47]

I agree with Thanee. Charisma. Its all about force of will.

It sounds like you might just want to use the sorcerer as a psion.

Makes sense to me. Why use an additional set of rules?

IMC if you want to play a psion, you are directed to the sorcerer.

Here is my argument:

The sorcerer is a class that gets their magic from within. A Wizard gets thier magic from without. Structurally the sorcerer and the psion are the same. They both have a power that operates off of spell descriptions. They both get talents/spells that don't change from day to day. One is points, the other slots.

So why the redundancy? To any character in the game, the psion and the sorcerer look alot alike. There is no need for psionics rules, really. Even if you want the "psionics are different" you just file the name off the sorcerer, call it a psion, and state that any "spell" cast by a psion is a psionic power.

Need a wild talent? Take a level of Sorc.

The "Psion" done this way still gets telekinesis, pyrokenisis, telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, and all the differing degrees of those. Depending on how you do the spell selection, you can still get specialised characters.

Makes more sense to me to do it this way than to spend money on it.

IMC you have slight sorc varients, most are from mixed blood, but one is you are a psion. These have minor effects on the abilities like summoning etc.

Aaron.

 

[Voadam]

Almost all of it -- except for a few monsters, it's pretty well complete.

While it has all the mechanical stats for the psionic races it is pretty tough to include some of the new ones like Xephs in an actual campaign without any of the flavor descriptions for the races. I'm playing in a pbp game where one of the other PCs is a Xeph psion and I have no mental image of him, its a bit disconcerting.

 

[The_Warlock]

I wasn't particularly fond of the Wilder in XPH, so I just made a Mindbender Sorcerer - uses charisma as his primary stat - works like a sorcerer but only chooses psi powers of the appropriate levels, I turned the familiar into a bonus Psionic feat, and as a psionic character he can take psionic feats. It was a pretty simple transition, and it works well.

 

[Spatula]

I'd think Charisma makes more sense, projecting one's will and all that.

Psionics is much more about having a fundamental understanding of your mind and your body, and your place in the universe, and how it all interacts, than projecting one's will IMO.

 

[Staffan]

So, in the XPH, do Psions *have* to pick a favoured school because I wasn't very keen on this. I like the idea of being a "generalist".

They do, but the power structure is different. There's a pretty big list of generalist powers (42 powers at 1st level, 29 at 2nd, 22 at 3rd and so on until you only have 7 at 9th level), and then you have an additional 1-3 powers per level and discipline that you need to be a specialist to choose. However, you can take a feat called Expanded Knowledge that lets you choose any one additional power, regardless of discipline or even class, and learn that power. It has to be one level lower than your normal maximum power level though (so for a telepath to learn the 4th level kineticist power Energy Ball, he has to be at least 9th level).

 

[Psion]

Psionics is much more about having a fundamental understanding of your mind and your body, and your place in the universe, and how it all interacts, than projecting one's will IMO.

I don't think anyone is going to come up with one objectively true definition of psionics. Depending on the way you define it to yourself, you can come up with a way to define any stat you want for yourself.

That said, casting/manifesting stats in 3e are more representative of the class not the magic/psionic style. Under that convention, what "psionics" takes a back seat to consideration like what the character's methods and regimen are like.

I got the "any stat" thing to work because it implied some eastern mysticism. That said, intelligence works better with the way I had historically depicted psions in my game world -- I saw them as scholarly and contemplative.

 

[jester47]

While it has all the mechanical stats for the psionic races it is pretty tough to include some of the new ones like Xephs in an actual campaign without any of the flavor descriptions for the races. I'm playing in a pbp game where one of the other PCs is a Xeph psion and I have no mental image of him, its a bit disconcerting.

They look like this.

[Sorry missed that bit bout the flavor descriptions....]

Aaron.

 

[Henry]

A Xeph? Human with pointy ears.

See? Jester just proved it!

Honestly, I can't get behind this race (or the maenad, or the el-something or other) because they have no archetype, nothing to really hang the hat on. Gith have been used all over the place, Half-Giants and Thri-kreen I've seen in Dark Sun, Duergar have been around for 20 years, but those three have very little to distinguish them.

Heck, I'm almost as likely to describe Maenads as "Vulcan-like."

And Dead, I highly recommend the www.d20SRD.org site P-Kitty pointed out.

 

[Spatula]

That said, casting/manifesting stats in 3e are more representative of the class not the magic/psionic style.

How so? The original casting stats were:
Arcane Magic (prepared) - Intelligence
Arcane Magic (spontaneous) - Charisma
Divine Magic - Wisdom

Then the 3.0 psi book added:
Psionics - All stats

So it was based on style and not on class. 3.5 has muddied the waters a bit, and the XPH does tie the manifesting stat to class rather than style, but IMO that runs contrary to the original design, and I don't personally care for it. So I tie the manifesting stat to discipline, with psychic warriors being counted as egoists.

I got the "any stat" thing to work because it implied some eastern mysticism. That said, intelligence works better with the way I had historically depicted psions in my game world -- I saw them as scholarly and contemplative.

I would associate "contemplative" more with Wis than Int, myself. I look at it like this: for higher-level characters, the casting/manifesting stat will be boosted into the stratosphere, leaving the character's other stats in the dust. Should the archtype of a high-level psion be super-wise or a super-genius? Perhaps this is just my western stereotype of eastern mysticism speaking, but I far prefer the former to the latter.

Something along the lines of dead's original suggestion (where all the mental stats, or maybe all the stats, period, are used) would be ideal, but it's not simple enough and it handicaps psions compared to arcane & divine casters.

 

[Psion]

How so? The original casting stats were:
Arcane Magic (prepared) - Intelligence
Arcane Magic (spontaneous) - Charisma
Divine Magic - Wisdom

If you go by styles:
Arcane magic -- intelligence or charisma (depending on class)
Divine magic -- wisdom or charisma (depending on class)
Psionics -- intelligence, wisdom, or charisma (depending on class)

As psionics is an expansion, I think you are remiss to omit other expansions

See, you create more "styles" by breaking out different types of magic, but that is an aspect of the class, not the magic style from my vantage point.

So it was based on style and not on class. 3.5 has muddied the waters a bit, and the XPH does tie the manifesting stat to class rather than style, but IMO that runs contrary to the original design,

I don't think so. The original design was minimal by necessity, but even it had arcane casters of two different sorts. The way the classes handled magic differed, but they work off the same spell lists and their magic has the same strengths and weaknesses.

I would associate "contemplative" more with Wis than Int, myself.

So would I. But psychic warrior is part of the class structure.

But that is sort of besides my point. I am sorry I used general terms to describe a specific concept in my game. For the guild and academy like psionic organizations in my game, which are rife with characters that researched psychic abilities (that's the angle I was coming at contemplative from), intelligence is a pretty good match.

I look at it like this: for higher-level characters, the casting/manifesting stat will be boosted into the stratosphere, leaving the character's other stats in the dust.

Does this mean the old way is too strong or the old way is too weak? Prevalant opinion in the pre-XPH world (do a search for "MAD" on the psionics boards at WotC) suggest the prevalent opinion was the latter. It was commonly felt that making a psion spread their competancy about and gave them a slender selection for high level abilities made the psion weak (I don't perfectly agree with this as there were many redundant powers in different disciplines, but that's how the argument goes.)

Should the archtype of a high-level psion be super-wise or a super-genius? Perhaps this is just my western stereotype of eastern mysticism speaking, but I far prefer the former to the latter.

Once again, there is no objectively right answer that is going to convince everyone. If wisdom works better for you, then by all means use it. I don't think it's going to break anything.