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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
So what do you guys think of 2nd edition psionics?
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<blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 9093837" data-attributes="member: 32740"><p>In a sense I agree with Celebrim in that the word "psionics" itself isn't entirely correct as D&D uses it, and that D&D <em>doesn't </em>need another magic system. However, the word sounds cool and nobody <em>doesn't</em> get how D&D is using it, and they couldn't care less about being accurate to its original meaning. And new kinds of magic systems are all over D&D. The game doesn't <em>need</em> cleric magic to be at all different than wizard magic. It doesn't <em>need</em> warlock magic, as opposed to wizard magic. Nor do illusions, druid magic, rune magic, spellfire, and whatall need to be DIFFERENT. ONE size fits all. Magic is magic.</p><p></p><p>So, since the game obviously IS going to play silly buggers with magic systems and all, lets set those concerns aside. 2E psionics is better implemented than 1E psionics, but that's not very f'n hard to do. 2E's approach is certainly geared to get EVERYONE deeply involved in its workings. As a DM you need to fully grok 2E psionics or you're gonna flounder. As a player, you need to BUILD your character at the start. You can't just haphazardly flitter your way through the game like a butterfly unless your characters psionics just don't matter much in the first place. There are SO many prerequisites that must be met that you have to work backwards and plan your PC's advancement from the very start. You have to look at which of the most powerful abilities you would want your psionic PC to have and then note all the prerequisites it needs, and then all the prerequisites that those prerequisites will need, and so on, and so on. If you're LUCKY you might have a couple psionic powers that you can acquire on a whim, but otherwise every power your character gains is aimed at enabling some specific future power. On the way to achieving those future powers, there were likely to be periods where, again due to prereq's, you just weren't going to be as good as you might want to be, or otherwise could be. IME, that sucked.</p><p></p><p>It left huge numbers of abilities orphaned by the need to commit to other prereq's, or finding that your psionic character is hamstrung in their power, improvement, and flexibility. I also found that psionics worked far better with the psionic PC prepared to go one-on-one with opponents, even soloing bosses, but groups of opponents were FAR more challenging for them to adequately handle. And again - they had to be built from the outset to achieve specific capacities and were then committed to those <em>end-game</em> goals.</p><p></p><p>In its design it also seemed to have been little concerned with coordination with non-psionics. It left me with the feel that it assumed that there really weren't any wizards, clerics, fighters, thieves, etc. That psionics NEEDED to essentially be a potential replacement for ALL OF THEM. Sometimes generalist magic is like that - trying to usurp the powers of any/all other classes, especially if you concentrated on just one particular class to out-do. Maybe it even should have been used that way and it would have worked better. I won't even get into the stupidly complicated procedures for mental combat with establishing multiple "contacts" (or whatever it was...) with opponents whose brains you wanted to break into.</p><p></p><p>Overall it <em>had potential</em>, and was vastly better than 1E as-written had been, and the sheer number of abilities created for it was exciting to see, but it was all just NOT satisfyingly implemented for anything like a generalist D&D game setting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Man in the Funny Hat, post: 9093837, member: 32740"] In a sense I agree with Celebrim in that the word "psionics" itself isn't entirely correct as D&D uses it, and that D&D [I]doesn't [/I]need another magic system. However, the word sounds cool and nobody [I]doesn't[/I] get how D&D is using it, and they couldn't care less about being accurate to its original meaning. And new kinds of magic systems are all over D&D. The game doesn't [I]need[/I] cleric magic to be at all different than wizard magic. It doesn't [I]need[/I] warlock magic, as opposed to wizard magic. Nor do illusions, druid magic, rune magic, spellfire, and whatall need to be DIFFERENT. ONE size fits all. Magic is magic. So, since the game obviously IS going to play silly buggers with magic systems and all, lets set those concerns aside. 2E psionics is better implemented than 1E psionics, but that's not very f'n hard to do. 2E's approach is certainly geared to get EVERYONE deeply involved in its workings. As a DM you need to fully grok 2E psionics or you're gonna flounder. As a player, you need to BUILD your character at the start. You can't just haphazardly flitter your way through the game like a butterfly unless your characters psionics just don't matter much in the first place. There are SO many prerequisites that must be met that you have to work backwards and plan your PC's advancement from the very start. You have to look at which of the most powerful abilities you would want your psionic PC to have and then note all the prerequisites it needs, and then all the prerequisites that those prerequisites will need, and so on, and so on. If you're LUCKY you might have a couple psionic powers that you can acquire on a whim, but otherwise every power your character gains is aimed at enabling some specific future power. On the way to achieving those future powers, there were likely to be periods where, again due to prereq's, you just weren't going to be as good as you might want to be, or otherwise could be. IME, that sucked. It left huge numbers of abilities orphaned by the need to commit to other prereq's, or finding that your psionic character is hamstrung in their power, improvement, and flexibility. I also found that psionics worked far better with the psionic PC prepared to go one-on-one with opponents, even soloing bosses, but groups of opponents were FAR more challenging for them to adequately handle. And again - they had to be built from the outset to achieve specific capacities and were then committed to those [I]end-game[/I] goals. In its design it also seemed to have been little concerned with coordination with non-psionics. It left me with the feel that it assumed that there really weren't any wizards, clerics, fighters, thieves, etc. That psionics NEEDED to essentially be a potential replacement for ALL OF THEM. Sometimes generalist magic is like that - trying to usurp the powers of any/all other classes, especially if you concentrated on just one particular class to out-do. Maybe it even should have been used that way and it would have worked better. I won't even get into the stupidly complicated procedures for mental combat with establishing multiple "contacts" (or whatever it was...) with opponents whose brains you wanted to break into. Overall it [I]had potential[/I], and was vastly better than 1E as-written had been, and the sheer number of abilities created for it was exciting to see, but it was all just NOT satisfyingly implemented for anything like a generalist D&D game setting. [/QUOTE]
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So what do you guys think of 2nd edition psionics?
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