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

[Bill Zebub]

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.

Stop holding back. Tell us how you really feel.

Feel the anger flow through you.

 

[Bill Zebub]

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.

I mostly avoid D&D specific forums now, but when I pop in it seems like nobody actually likes it. Wall-to-wall griping.

So why not find a different game? There are so many of them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

Okay.

And that wasn't even why that vesion of the psion was "buried". It was unpopular, because it required learning a new subsystem in order to play something that most players don't think merits a whole new subsystem, and because it was an enormous class for no real benefit. Trying to put basically an entire group of classes into 1 class just because they are all psionic was a silly idea from the start, and it is wild that they ever thought it would pass.

As for "a lot"....I think that depends on your definition of terms, but by any usage that I would consider reasonable, I think you're completely wrong and such players are vastly and overwhelmingly outnumbered by people who don't particularly care about the fine details of how psionics show up in the books eventually.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Okay.

And that wasn't even why that vesion of the psion was "buried". It was unpopular, because it required learning a new subsystem in order to play something that most players don't think merits a whole new subsystem, and because it was an enormous class for no real benefit. Trying to put basically an entire group of classes into 1 class just because they are all psion.

That's essentially what I said? "Oh gosh, I have to learn how to use psionic dice." was too complex so instead let's just grab some paint and write psion on a sorcerer and call it a day.

Meanwhile a subclass of fighter and bards were already using "psionic dice" and it wasn't an issue.

All the psionic dice variant offered was expanding the use case of a pool of dice to make it a focused class mechanic....it wasn't even remarkably novel.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That's essentially what I said? "Oh gosh, I have to learn how to use psionic dice." was too complex so instead let's just grab some paint and write psion on a sorcerer and call it a day.

That isnt at all the same thing. Complexity wasn't the issue. And your characterization of the latest psion is off base to the point of being silly.

Meanwhile a subclass of fighter and bards were already using "psionic dice" and it wasn't an issue.

The psion literally still has a psionic energy die.

All the psionic dice variant offered was expanding the use case of a pool of dice to make it a focused class mechanic....it wasn't even remarkably novel.

And it is still there.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Hell I'm not sure that the Psion is even meaningfully less complex than the Mystic.

It has spellcasting, psionic energy dice, psionic disciplines, telepathy and telekinesis at will with the abilitg to improve them by spending dice, and subclasses.

They are more like a wizard/monk/warlock hybrid than a sorcerer, but they arent anything like those classes either.

No, complexity is not why the Mystic got ditched. Not wanting a class to behave like it belongs to a different game isnt a matter of complexity, it is a matter of wanting mechanical cohesion in the game.

 

[SkidAce]

Because of PF1's Psychic Magic, I really can't imagine a Psion not requiring any components for their spells. While they can cast spells that don't require words, physical gestures and items that cost a certain amount of gold pieces, they still need to put some thought (aka imagination) into how they want their spells to manifest themselves in the real world. And while they are doing that, they're feeling some kind of emotion (anger, love, despair, etc.).

Thought and Emotion spell components in PF1 replace a spell's verbal and somatic components. The former is replaced by a Thought component while the latter is replaced by the Emotion component.

Interesting...I like.

But what effect would it have?

 

[MGibster]

It could be…

It can't. Not even GURPS, hallowed be its name, can be all things to all people. It just isn't practical for WotC to print a version of D&D that will make every single person happy. Not that they're trying. Anyone who deals with the public knows you can't make everyone happy. Unless they embrace AI maybe. Then I'm sure they can produce unlimited D&D products that will make all of us happy.