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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9673001" data-attributes="member: 6799660">I think you are both right at times. IMO, psionics in AD&D (particularly playing a Psionicist class in 2e) did feel different, but the powers (especially in 1E) also were very much spell-like. There were other factors at play, including:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">At the time, slight changes to the framework were larger because no other class/option had them. Simple things like picking (with constraints) your abilities at level-up -- when all arcane casters collected spells in books and all divine casters selected  from the whole class list (barring their god overruling a selection) -- seemed like a bigger deal. So picking disciplines, sciences, and devotions (with prerequisites) was a whole new framework. Once things got added like the 2e arcane specialists or priestly spheres and then 3e sorcerers and warmages and so on, this doesn't seem so significant, but at the time it was.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The qualities of the class (or being a class that has the abilities, in the case of wild talents) other than the spells/powers had a huge effect. Being a paladin had a huge impact outside of their granted abilities just by making you put that 17 you rolled into Cha instead of Str. Being a 2e fighter-mage meant you were spending your entire career looking for a suit of elven chain (because other avenues to a decent AC were much rarer). Being a wild talent fighter who could 'cast' clairvoyance was going to feel different from a magic user casting the same spell because being a magic user in AD&D was a very specific curated experience (same for cleric, illusionist, druid, and bard).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The 2e psionicist class, in particular, was itself a very specific experience outside of the powers it used. In addition to their spells, they were a d6 hd class that wore up to hide armor and a shield and used shortbows/shortswords/spears, advanced kinda at the rate rangers/paladins did, and their nonweapon proficiency slots taken up mostly by a set of extra powers hidden in their nonweapon-proficiency section (ranging from nice-but-optional to you-want-this). That, as much as any specifics about their power set, made them distinct from any of the spellcasting class options available. The demihuman races that could rise to decent level with them (dwarves and halflings, for once), which classes they could multiclass with (fighter and thief), and which multiclasses actually played well together is decidedly different from either mages or clerics.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Occasionally the specifics of 'casting' did make a difference. The PSP/round cost of most ongoing powers definitely made you change your when-to-cast decision. The 2e check to manifest influenced whether you relied upon having the power (having a parachute you are unsure will work is only marginally better than not having one at all), but given that a single point of damage while casting did that for any spell, this was hardly unique to psionics. Certainly the dreaded possibility of targeting oneself made psionic Disintegrate wildly different from the spellcasting version (although that ends up being the exception that proves the rule in that everyone always mentions that one example, showcasing how little other powers had that going on). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Despite what I said above, there were some psionic powers that were very much not spell-like. The psionic combat ones (and the whole new subsystem inherent to their use) in particular, but also Dream Travel, Hear Light/Feal Sound/etc., Graft Weapon, and others. In part that was because the AD&D spell list was not so expansive as it is now. Worth noting though is that a lot of those powers are the ones that you tried once and then didn't select again, instead going for Animate Object, Biofeedback, Detonate, Dimension Door, Invisibility, Metamorphosis, Molecular Agitation, Teleport, and others that look and feel very much like like-named or mostly-equivalent spells. A lot of the more inventive stuff, much like the really imaginative spells in 2e's Tome of Magic or the like, didn't really integrate well with the existing game (ex. the perceptible groans from the rest of the table when a psion entered/got dragged into psionic combat, and they and the DM went off to resolve that while the rest of the party rolled up netrunners for their next Shadowrun game or something). </li> </ul>So, yeah. IMO most of the psionic powers (particularly the ones that ended up getting used) were very similar to spells. That did not stop the experience of playing a psionic (full on psionicist or definitely a wild talent) be a wholly distinct experience from playing another caster.</blockquote>

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