D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[Aldarc]

5e has psionics. It even has a power point Psion in the Aberrant Mind that can augment its abilities the way psions of yore could augment their powers by upcasting them and can trade slots for points losslessly.

What 5e does not have is literally 70 pages of spells to support its caster-psionicist the way 2e and 3.X did. And that's how a choice can be anathema. 5e just isn't interested in publishing 70 pages of rules outside the PHB just to support a single non-core class. And as a DM I'm not interested in letting you run a non-PHB class with 70 pages of rules.

And if you want psionics to be explicitly different to magic 5e also has the Soulknife, the Psi Warrior, and the Astral Self Monk - which unlike the Psion work more like the psionicists I read about in other sources than slightly tweaked mages. It's also made the consistent world building decision to tie Psionics to the Far Realm.

The Aberrant Mind has literally every feature of a Psion except the name and working off spells it doesn't share. It is much much more a Psion than the Battlemaster is a warlord.

There are so many times that I agree with you. Then you speak about psionics and say things like this, and I have to rethink every positive thing that I thought about your opinions elsewhere. It's so utterly heartbreaking.

 

[AnotherGuy]

What 5e does not have is literally 70 pages of spells to support its caster-psionicist the way 2e and 3.X did. And that's how a choice can be anathema. 5e just isn't interested in publishing 70 pages of rules outside the PHB just to support a single non-core class. And as a DM I'm not interested in letting you run a non-PHB class with 70 pages of rules.

Traditionally psionics has never been part of the original PHB. I think in 4e it was part of the 3rd PHB if I'm not mistaken.

When our table played AD&D (1e/2e) no one really looked into psionics, it was only when we played 3.x that I did an in-depth dive as I wanted to play an Elan Psion. I'm historically a life-long DM and this was one of my rare chances to be a player. As a player I found the rules gorgeous! In 3.x there were two books dealing with Psionics - the Complete and Expanded.
Sadly I only got to play a handful of times as the campaign never went anywhere.
However, I do remember as a player making an easy to read 2-page cheat sheet for the DM explaining the psionic system and my character's limitations. 3.x is far more complicated than 5e. Sadly for some of us, 5e is a little too simplistic. I can understand why the fans of Psionics would be upset to have everything fold into the base magic system.

 

[Minigiant]

There are so many times that I agree with you. Then you speak about psionics and say things like this, and I have to rethink every positive thing that I thought about your opinions elsewhere. It's so utterly heartbreaking.

The main thinks missing for 5e Psion is Psionic spells.

Metamagician is core and Spell points is an optional rule. So all you need to do is combine the 2 and add some mental spells with some tactile control.

It's easier than the Warlord as the community has an idea what a high level Psion is.

Warlords suffer from the fact that martials are unknown in image past level 12. And it's 5e system stops scaling in Tier.

It's Fixable.

5e can have a warlord, a beast tamer, a summoner, a psion and an elementalist.

The systems are there. And 5e fans as a majority support it. Not D&D fans as a whole but 5e fans. 5e fans are into wacky stuff. The fans who don't want it mostly don't play 5e and are screaming from the outside the crab bucket.

 

[Zardnaar]

The Aberrant Mind has literally every feature of a Psion except the name and working off spells it doesn't share. It is much much more a Psion than the Battlemaster is a warlord.

I like the Aberrant Mind for what it is.

The main thinks missing for 5e Psion is Psionic spells.

Metamagician is core and Spell points is an optional rule. So all you need to do is combine the 2 and add some mental spells with some tactile control.

It's easier than the Warlord as the community has an idea what a high level Psion is.

Warlords suffer from the fact that martials are unknown in image past level 12. And it's 5e system stops scaling in Tier.

It's Fixable.

5e can have a warlord, a beast tamer, a summoner, a psion and an elementalist.

The systems are there. And 5e fans as a majority support it. Not D&D fans as a whole but 5e fans. 5e fans are into wacky stuff. The fans who don't want it mostly don't play 5e and are screaming from the outside the crab bucket.

Can you prove any if those opinions to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you?

I suspect most 5E only players won't know or care about any of it. 4E came out anywhere between 6 to 15 years before they played D&D.

They may like goofy or gonzo they probably don't like 4E or 3E complexity if one had to guess.

They might ok healing should 20' radius I don't see them going for much more than that. They barely care about Battlemaster Fighter. It's one of the best but Rune and Echoknights seem to get the glory.

 

[Aldarc]

I can understand why the Psionic fans would be upset to have everything fold into the base magic system.

Being folded into the base magic system is less of an issue for me than the entirety of the psion being folded into the subclass and spell list of another class that has a different class fantasy. I think that one could make a good psion using the basic magic system and spells. WotC has chosen to explore the Mystic and its current subclass for existing classes rather than explore the excluded middle ground of a psion class that uses spells.

 

[Minigiant]

Can you prove any if those opinions to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you?

I suspect most 5E only players won't know or care about any of it. 4E came out anywhere between 6 to 15 years before they played D&D.

There are people in this thread who have said either "x doesn't feel like D&D" or "D&D can't please everyone" (in responses to aspects current D&D 5e fans want) or "X isn't popular" or "5e can't do it".

 

[AnotherGuy]

Being folded into the base magic system is less of an issue for me than the entirety of the psion being folded into the subclass and spell list of another class that has a different class fantasy. I think that one could make a good psion using the basic magic system and spells. WotC has chosen to explore the Mystic and its current subclass for existing classes rather than explore the excluded middle ground of a psion class that uses spells.

Ah, I jumped mid conversation.
You're right I agree with you 100% - being folded into the mystic is far worse IMO.

 

[Zardnaar]

There are people in this thread who have said either "x doesn't feel like D&D" or "D&D can't please everyone" (in responses to aspects current D&D 5e fans want) or "X isn't popular" or "5e can't do it".

Alot of that can be backed up though. Mechanically 5E won't support a 4E style warlord the base assumptions are to different. It could support a 5E warlord.

Or you get diametrically opposed goals someone's gonna miss out.

That's not projecting ones opinion over all the player base. I don't think 5E would do. AD&D multiclassing for example
The design assumptions are to different.

So sone of that is subjective sure but a lot does lean more into objective side of that slider. Eg 5E doesn't do low magic well.

That claim was very specific though eg new players like goofy stuff so I'll extrapolate that to support my argument over 4E mechanics. That's a very big logic leap.

 

[Minigiant]

Alot of that can be vacked up though. Mechanically 5E won't support a 4E style warlord the base assumptions are to different.

And again false.

The 4E warlord is literally just a medium armored warrior who grants buffs (advantage) to the combat stats of allies, debuffs (disadvantage) and action discouragement to the combat stats of enemies, healing, and thp.

All the stuff for it is already in the game.

It's just that some people don't want it as a full aspect of the game but don't want to openly say they just don't want it as to not take the heat.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Frogreavers on the money a lot of said long ago one needs to compromise on the warlord but no one did.

Here we are no Warlord. Or Psion. Or decent artificer. Or a good encounter system or a......

That's because the argument about the warlord isn't really about the warlord.

To be clear- I am not saying that the arguments about the warlord aren't in good faith. People really liked the warlord class in 4e. But the repeated invocation of the "warlord" isn't about the warlord itselt, per se, instead it's a synecdoche argument (an argument where a part stands in for the whole). What the "warlord" argument is really about is two things-

1. The "warlord" as a stand-in for the desire to have martials, generally, have powers that are equivalent to those of spellcasters. In other words, the argument about the warlord is a shorthand for, "Why can't martials have abilities that let them do all the things that spellcasters do, but, like, martial?"

2. The "warlord" as a stand-in for argument that 5e should really be 4e. In other words, because the warlord was one of the signature 4e classes, it's just a rehash of the usual, "Why doesn't 5e play the same way that 4e did?"

Note that you can tell that this is the argument, because we don't see the same ... enthusiasm ... for this argument when it comes to psionics, or other issues that 5e also doesn't fully mechanically support. To those who understand the 5e system, it's fairly obvious why 5e doesn't have a full "Warlord" class. In fact, there have been multiple attempts to create a warlord class, including here on EnWorld, and not only have they been a compromise (given 5e's system), but some of the same people who argue for a warlord class spent time torpedoing those efforts. Because it's not about trying to create a viable warlord class; it's about the systemic differences between 4e and 5e. Any "official" 5e warlord would necessarily fall short of what people are saying that they want, because 5e is not 4e.

IMO, YMMV, etc.