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

[Belen]

Is there any reason you cannot take the 3e powers and retrofit them to 5e?

They both use a d20 kernel.

It’s been 15+ years since I looked at the 3e Psion but it may be an option.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

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.

I play D&D still. My contempt for the psionics solution doesn't show up in your data.

1. I'm not upgrading to 5.5

2. Pre 5.5 I stopped engaging with the play tests when the psionics-die version of the psion was buried because it was "too complex".

I think there are a lot of 5e players like myself who have just given up on trying to get the game they want and instead are just making do with the tool at hand.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I play D&D still. My contempt for the psionics solution doesn't show up in your data.

1. I'm not upgrading to 5.5

2. Pre 5.5 I stopped engaging with the play tests when the psionics-die version of the psion was buried because it was "too complex".

I think there are a lot of 5e players like myself who have just given up on trying to get the game they want and instead are just making do with the tool at hand.

Have you heard of OtherRPGs(TM)?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Have you heard of OtherRPGs(TM)?

Holy crap!! There are other RPGs besides Dungeons and Dragons? I have never once encountered such a thing in the 40 years I've been into the hobby. Can you suggest a few? /s

Funny thing though....what I DO see is that like it or not, D&D is the "speaks common" of role-playing as a hobby. I have 6 players at my table and 4 of them are there specifically because they "Want to learn how to play D&D". They want to learn to speak common so they can go off and teach that to their friends.

I WISH that it was equally likely I could find a group that wanted to play WEG Star Wars or TORG instead of D&D....but it very clearly isn't going to happen.

Source: Formed a group because of a post on a social media site that isn't safe to mention around Eric's Grandma but which had a bunch of wayward "interested in learning DnD" folks.

Source: Im on session 10 and they still struggle with basic things like to hit and damage numbers or the difference between ability checks and saves. I'm not gonna try rolling out Pathfinder or 3.5 so someone can play a psion.

 

[MGibster]

I think there are a lot of 5e players like myself who have just given up on trying to get the game they want and instead are just making do with the tool at hand.

D&D really can't be all things to all people. No game can, so it's unreasonable to expect such a thing D&D. If you're not getting what you want out of D&D then the best course of action is to find another game. I've found over the years that D&D scratches a particular itch for a certain style of fantasy roleplaying. But I have to engage D&D on its own terms. It's very, very silly terms.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

The idea of Psionic disciplines back in 2e and carrying over into 3e and beyond has some basis in the Hindu concept of Siddhis

With the 8 classical Siddhis as an example:

• Aṇimā: the ability to reduce one's body to the size of an atom.
• Mahimā: the ability to expand one's body to an infinitely large size.
• Laghimā: the ability to become weightless or lighter than air.
• Garimā: the ability to become heavy or dense.
• Prāpti:the ability to access any place in the world.
• Prākāmya: the ability to realize whatever one desires.
• Īśitva: the ability to control all material elements or natural forces.
• Vaśitva: the ability to force influence upon anyone.

Which is how things like Psychometabolism and Psychoportation have often been included in the idea of Psionics since at least 2e. 3e included a bunch of Victorian concepts like Ectoplasm and the Tibetan idea of Tulpas which were called Astral Constructs

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Source: Im on session 10 and they still struggle with basic things like to hit and damage numbers or the difference between ability checks and saves

Which is why D&D is the way it is - easy mode. You aren’t going to add a new system for psionics when players are still struggling with wizards.

Although WEG Star Wars is easy enough, so I guess there just aren’t enough Star Wars fans out there.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Which is why D&D is the way it is - easy mode. You aren’t going to add a new system for psionics when players are still struggling with wizards.

Although WEG Star Wars is easy enough, so I guess there just aren’t enough Star Wars fans out there.

This group is truly novices at gaming. The fighter has used his combat superiority dice exactly one time. The sorcerer has never yet used metamagic. The rogue only uses sneak attack if I gently remind him to.

I don't mind functioning as the GM in this game because I get a lot of enjoyment from teaching and bringing people into the hobby.

If a psion existed it would be invisible to them the same way that is true of anything not basic and found in the core PHB. They don't know what the Forgotten Realms is or why that's different than Greyhawk. They aren't aware there is an artificer, or tortles, or any other sddition to the game past 2014.

Except the 2 players that have system mastery. Those two players would be excited to try out a new class with novel mechanics....and they could handle it as easily as they can handle helping me gently teach the others.

And while I have given up on the idea that 5e of any sort is never going to be "in my wheelhouse" it's good enough to bind together a bunch of nice people to sit down and tell funny stories for an evening.

I can criticize the direction of 5e but still find parts of it that are great. I've said here many times the basic bones of the system are my favorite iteration if D&D. I just wish I was in the alternate reality where 5e came out as it did, but also devoted it's progress to a greater degree of additional crunch.

 

[Silam]

D&D really can't be all things to all people. No game can, so it's unreasonable to expect such a thing D&D. If you're not getting what you want out of D&D then the best course of action is to find another game. I've found over the years that D&D scratches a particular itch for a certain style of fantasy roleplaying. But I have to engage D&D on its own terms. It's very, very silly terms.

It could be…

There are plenty of options most tables don’t use. And there could be even more such options.

Most tables don’t have an Artificer or other Eberron thingies. Most tables don’t have firearms. Most tables don’t even get to the level where the loot might contain a legendary item. And yet these things all exist with clearly defined rules.

Even in the PHB there are many different experiences of D&D. I found out recently that a player who is only slightly motivated to learn can have a really hard time getting into the game if their first character is a Wizard. They’re significantly more complicated than Fighters or Monks or any non-casting class, really. In retrospect, it was a bad move on my part to have someone’s first character be a spellcaster.

And yet, for expert players, maybe the Wizard is not even sufficiently complex and sophisticated for their taste. For these players, maybe you reach for A5E or other mods. Maybe you homebrew stuff. Maybe you bring back Vancian magic, with a twist: if you dedicate a slot to a spell, it doesn’t count in your total of prepared spells. So you get to have a greater variety of prepared spells, but fewer "flexible slots" left to use them with. It probably won’t break the system, and it might even be penalizing in some cases, but those deep in the rules might enjoy these extra tradeoffs. And those who don’t care could ignore them.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I would like to play with a psion because they are different. Some players want to play with "exotic" PCs in the same way the members of certain urban tribe would rather a different fashion style.

Without displays (smell, noise, headache, pieces of ectoplasm in the floor, flashes of light) an enemy psion can be very dangerous because this could be infiltrated into a dinner of high society and nobody could notice her using her psionic powers. Let's imagine a Ravenloft game where the PCs have to investigate a murder and they have discover the killer is a psionic manifester before being the next victims.

I hope the future spirit magic could be easy to be homemade adapted to the classic version of power-points.

* Other point is the cultivators from Asian fiction are becoming popular, but also the "anomalies", bizarre creatures whose origin isn't easy to be explained, for example the monsters from the videogame "Once Human" but also the mythology of SCP fundation and Backrooms. There are also Asian videogames where the enemies are "anomalies", for example the comingsoon "Control: Concordant", "Ananta", "Neverness to Everness" and "Varsapura" and here the psionic could find some space.