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

[Corinnguard]

If psionics does make a return to 5e, I hope some of the psionic species are also brought back.

 

[Remathilis]

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.

So, how does one stop a psychic spell from being cast?

A wizard can't cast spells if he's gagged or in handcuffs. More often, when he's in a silence spell or grappled. While not exceptionally common, it IS a check on casters who theoretically can't cast spells when captured or in certain situations. My problem with psionics (in general) is that there isn't a way to disable a psionic character short of unconsciousness or death. Gagging is useless. Strip them naked? Useless except in a few situations. Somantic is the only current check on psions, and that's still not 100%* effective.

So if a spell has a thought or emotion component, what is the counter-play? What is the silence or hold person equivalent? What is the gag-and-cuffed way of taking them prisoner? The checks on casting are few and not always effective as is, I really don't want psionics to ignore the last guardrails available.

* To be fair, using cuffs and gags aren't exactly 100% effective as is when containing a caster. But they do require some creative counter-play, be it a sorcerer spending SP to ignore components or a mage relying on spells with no V or S component. Having no components ever just seems like even the thin layer of counterplay left is stripped. Why bother having components then in the first place?

 

[Corinnguard]

So, how does one stop a psychic spell from being cast?

I would have it where any spell with the mind-affecting descriptor can prevent a psychic spell from being cast.

 

[Silam]

So, how does one stop a psychic spell from being cast?

A wizard can't cast spells if he's gagged or in handcuffs. More often, when he's in a silence spell or grappled. While not exceptionally common, it IS a check on casters who theoretically can't cast spells when captured or in certain situations. My problem with psionics (in general) is that there isn't a way to disable a psionic character short of unconsciousness or death. Gagging is useless. Strip them naked? Useless except in a few situations. Somantic is the only current check on psions, and that's still not 100%* effective.

So if a spell has a thought or emotion component, what is the counter-play? What is the silence or hold person equivalent? What is the gag-and-cuffed way of taking them prisoner? The checks on casting are few and not always effective as is, I really don't want psionics to ignore the last guardrails available.

* To be fair, using cuffs and gags aren't exactly 100% effective as is when containing a caster. But they do require some creative counter-play, be it a sorcerer spending SP to ignore components or a mage relying on spells with no V or S component. Having no components ever just seems like even the thin layer of counterplay left is stripped. Why bother having components then in the first place?

I think one potential path would be to look at it from the other perspective…

I mentioned, earlier in the thread, that rather than stipulating that psionic spellcasting requires no material components except when the material component has a cost, they could instead make the Psion spell list contain no such spells. Someone responded that this would be too restrictive and that psions really "needed" those spells. But do they really?

Let’s step back from Psions for a second and compare Sorcerers and Wizards. What’s the difference? Wizards get a fair amount of extra spells on their list compared to Sorcerers, including some that they share with Druids, Bards, etc, but also including Wizard-exclusive ones. I would argue that in exchange for this versatility, the Wizard class features are not that strong. The Sorcerer’s metamagic is pretty nice, while the Wizard’s Arcane Recovery and stuff like that is welcome but not super strong by any means. Ritual casting fits well in the theme of giving Wizards more versatility, but is not ultra strong either.

Now let’s bring back Psions into the mix. What if Psions are a more extreme form of Sorcery? In some ways, even better than Sorcerers (such as not being able to counter them by silencing them, paralyzing them, confiscating their gear), but in exchange for this resilience to adversity, they pay for it by giving up versatility. No spells with costly components on their lists. Or no spells with more than 1 out of 3 components (but which they then get to forego). Something like that.