D&D 5E Unhappy with Psionics requiring Far Realms flavor

[Dausuul]

I am no fan of the Far Realms, and would have preferred that psionics have no connection to them. If psionics were as tightly tied into the Far Realms as, say, the warlock's Great Old One patron, I would have major problems with that.

However, a few throw-away lines in the class intro is no big deal. You don't have to rename a slew of powers and rewrite the text of a bunch of spells. If this is the level of connection psionics will have to the Far Realms, I can live with it.

 

[Patrick McGill]

I don't think it's fair to dismiss his entire thread subject like that. Of course it's a very minor quibble over some throwaway lines, I'm sure the OP is aware of that. All fluff is always changeable, I'm sure the OP knows that too. It doesn't mean he doesn't have a right to start a discussion on the fluff if he doesn't care for it without suffering ever present forum snark and non-discussion, sheesh.

If it helps, I'm in agreement with the OP. I feel like it makes Psionics a little too magicky for my taste. Then again, I loved the pulp sci-fi theme of earlier psionics! Sword and Planet sci-fi is fun, and Dark Sun is a great example of doing that without being insanely cheesy.

Mystics and mysticism to me brings forth ideas of complicated magical rituals, usually dealing with trying to find divine or cosmological truth. Occultists and mystery schools and other fun eldritch stuff is magical in nature.

I think they really should try to embrace the inspiration for psionics in it's oldest forms, and I think it can be done seriously and be a lot of fun. As far as theme, however, this just cleaves too closely to magic and it's origins and inspirations.

(Mechanically, though, I think it looks dope. Obviously probably needs toned down though.)

 

[Dragonsbane]

I like the reference. I myself use the Far Realms in my custom gameworld, a dark part of the Plane of Dreams, the place all aberrations came from. It is where Illithids are from, which works well for me.

Of course, anyone can ignore the fluff. My gameworld has no "weave" or even drow (the most overused villains IMHO, with sooooo many PCs imitating Drizzt. Yawn. Yawn. Yawn.)

For me, it will be for villains anyhow. It has been my experience that the people who want to play psi PCs are usually after powergaming advantages via mechanics when psi was added and usually surpassed magic. Dark Sun, a different story. But after a player made a psionic Thri-kreen of absurdity way back when . . .

 

[bganon]

Honestly, all the fluff really seems to say is that people are more likely to discover Psionics in places influenced by the Far Realm. It never says that psionic power comes from there; in fact it's repeatedly described as coming from the mind alone.

I may be biased toward this interpretation since it makes the Eberron reference make a bit more sense. Yes, psionic power in that setting is heavily connected to Dal Quor, but realizing that and being able to tap into it might be a bit easier if you've felt the influence of Xoriat...

 

[Sunseeker]

I think it was one of the results of the playtest that the majority wanted the rules baked in fluff as opposed to mechanically clean rules without fluff

An unfortunate holdover that I remain unhappy about.

 

[variant]

I think this is how psionics in D&D should be, if it's in it at all. It has a very D&D flavor and connected heavily in a way that makes sense for D&D. The whole "power of the mind" generic psionics just doesn't fit.

 

[Dausuul]

I don't think it's fair to dismiss his entire thread subject like that. Of course it's a very minor quibble over some throwaway lines, I'm sure the OP is aware of that. All fluff is always changeable, I'm sure the OP knows that too.

Some "fluff"--a term I loathe to the core of my being, incidentally--is more changeable and some is less. In 4E, I had a player who wanted to use the artificer rules. The artificer concept didn't work for my campaign, so I told him, "You can use the mechanics, but you have to reflavor them as something else." It was a total failure. The player kept using the existing names for powers, and his efforts to change the descriptions were desultory and unconvincing. (In fairness to him, he was using the 4E character builder, which offered no support for such things.) I was left in the position of either living with it, rewriting all that stuff myself, or telling the player he had to rebuild his character. That experience made me a lot more skeptical of the airy, wave-of-the-hand "Just re-fluff it!" suggestion often heard on these forums. "Re-fluffing" can be a lot of work.

Likewise, as a non-fan of the Far Realms, the Great Old One warlock patron grinds my gears. You really can't take the Lovecraft/Far Realms theme out of that subclass--it's woven through every bit of it. Spell names, special abilities, everything ties them together.

If the psion (excuse me, "awakened mystic") class ends up being like that, I'll be the first to complain. And I agree with the OP that it bears watching. However, what we have right now is different. The Far Realms stuff is all contained in the introduction, which is pretty much never referenced in play. It's still not ideal, but it's a lot easier to excise. To me, this is tolerable.

I think they really should try to embrace the inspiration for psionics in it's oldest forms, and I think it can be done seriously and be a lot of fun. As far as theme, however, this just cleaves too closely to magic and it's origins and inspirations.

I agree with this. I don't mind the current theme, but I'd rather it moved a bit more away from magic and a bit more toward pseudoscience. The dead hand of J.R.R. Tolkien lies far too heavily on D&D as it is. (The irony here is that the Far Realms is copied straight out of Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, which is nothing but pseudoscience. They kept the tentacled extraplanar horrors and got rid of the science fictional elements, which IMO is exactly backward.)

 

[Uchawi]

I dislike the far realms as a concept and setting, so anything that supports it from a classic D&D standpoint (including psionics) would be disappointing. Psionics existed long before the far realms was introduced.

 

[Mirtek]

Likewise, as a non-fan of the Far Realms, the Great Old One warlock patron grinds my gears. You really can't take the Lovecraft/Far Realms theme out of that subclass--it's woven through every bit of it. Spell names, special abilities, everything ties them together.

You can take it out in literally 5 minutes tops

1st level - Awakened Mind - Fiendish Whispers
6th level - Entropic Ward - Abyssal/Hellish Ward
10th level - Thought Shiield - Gaze into Hell/Abyss
14th level - Create Thrall - Possession

Spells like Arms of Hadar become Summon Swarm of Imps/Quasits, etc. and done, your GOO patron becomes just annother fiend

 

[Minigiant]

My setting doesn't have psionics come from the Far Realm. The immortal in charge of knowledge invented it out of envy of the immortal in charge of magic. THEN far realm folk stole it.

The GOOs in my game are just dead or imprisoned immortals. Hadar isn't Lovecraftian, the other immortals stopped feeding him. He's too hungry to make clerics.

But whatever. I'll ignore it.