D&D General So… psionic powers are no longer purely mental?

[Remathilis]

If you don't trust them or like their designs, why would you buy anything from WotC at all?

I liked baby purple dragon rider. A heckuva lot more than the banneret. And maybe if the Lore Police hadn't nuked the survey, we'd have gotten them instead of the wannabe warlord that barely holds it's own weight.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My homemade solution is simple:

Mystic class can spirit magic. Spirit magic is like reverse engineering of psionic powers. D&D mystics are like cultivators from xianxia fiction.

Psionicist are the true psionic manifesters and they don't need verbal, somatic either material components but their displays (strange smells or noises, a light headache when some is trying telepathy against you..). Psionicist can spend spell slots to load power points but these can't be spent for the highest level powers. This means you could cast lower-level powers more times but you can't spend spell-slots of lowest levels to cast more times the best powers.

 

[Minigiant]

Trust your designers.

I trust their skill.

I dont trust their design alignment.

Like I said.

D&D has 4 or more ideas of what psionics is.

So there is literally a 75%+ chance of them being wrong.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I trust their skill.

I dont trust their design alignment.

Like I said.

D&D has 4 or more ideas of what psionics is.

So there is literally a 75%+ chance of them being wrong.

More a case of they are going to be wrong for 75%* of players no matter how they do it.

*Not that many really, there are a great many don't cares.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And now we're stuck with the worst of all worlds: psionics that are very literally just more spells that work exactly like all other spells.

Far from the worst of all worlds. A tiny minority of players hate it, a plurality would like somwthing more different but only if it isnt more complex, and the majority dont want classes with another conpletely different set of "totally not spells" abilities just for the sake of it being different, and would rather they just be spellcasters with some defining class features.

 

[Reynard]

Far from the worst of all worlds. A tiny minority of players hate it, a plurality would like somwthing more different but only if it isnt more complex, and the majority dont want classes with another conpletely different set of "totally not spells" abilities just for the sake of it being different, and would rather they just be spellcasters with some defining class features.

How are you confident that is how the "majority" feel?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

How are you confident that is how the "majority" feel?

Because all indicators about player feedback point to it.

Regardless it is funny to me to see someone claim that the simplest solution that aligns with how 5e works is the worst of all worlds.

 

[Reynard]

Because all indicators about player feedback point to it.

Ah, Schrodinger's Players, who do not interact with D&D online, but somehow simultaneously make their preferences known (and always align with the one invoking them).

Regardless it is funny to me to see someone claim that the simplest solution that aligns with how 5e works is the worst of all worlds.

I don't have any preference, other than to just let the designers do their jobs without bringing in public playtest marketing nonsense.

 

[mearls]

Nah, the real issue is that Hazbro suits are so out of touch they think asking the players for feedback on the direction of the game is a bad look.

FWIW, my impression is that this is no longer the case. I've heard nothing but good things about the new leadership that came in last summer.

 

[mearls]

Public playtesting has transformed into a brute force tool. Here's the game. Tell us what you think!

It's a lot more subtle than that. It works best when you can present people multiple versions of something over time, or a stack of options from which they pick the ones they like best.

I don't think this scenario works:
"Here are three subclasses for an upcoming book. Give us feedback on them."

This works much better IME:
"Here are 10 subclasses. Rank them in your order of preference." The top three are then published.

The core 5e playtest, and the one for Xanathar's, followed the second model. Stuff like the ship rules from Saltmarsh followed model A and delivered meh results.

The trick is building a content pipeline that is focused on volume up front (make lots of stuff!) and refinement at the bottom (few things survive, but the ones that do are highly polished).