D&D (2024) We have Arcane, Divine, and Primal lists now. Why not Psionic?

[Yaarel]

Did it not ever occur to just...stop using the VSM stuff? My group abandoned that 5 years ago lol.

Recently went thru the 2014+ spell list, looking closely at and comparing the spells with costly components.

It is garbage.

It has nothing to do with balancing spells. Most are a few gold pieces at higher tiers, when characters are swimming in gold.

Spell components have nothing to do with balance.

Spell components are nothing but pain points.

 

[Parmandur]

Recently went thru the 2014+ spell list, looking closely at and comparing the spells with costly components.

It is garbage.

It has nothing to do with balancing spells. Most are a few gold pieces at higher tiers, when characters are swimming in gold.

Spell components have nothing to do with balance.

Spell components are nothing but pain points.

Yes, it those pain points can be key to setting the narrative expectations and flow of what spellcasters can do.

 

[Yaarel]

Yes, it those pain points can be key to setting the narrative expectations and flow of what spellcasters can do.

No, those "pain point" spell components CANNOT set narrative expectations.

For example, even Crawford himself talked about the Dancer Bard casting spells silently by semiotic body language. But the narrative that he was expecting is rudely contradicted by the stupidity of spell components.

Likewise he talked about pure music casts magic. WRONG! The stupid spell components say NO!


Nevermind the huge enormous endless frustration that the idiotic costly components cause "innate spellcasters".


And so on.


Spell components are balderdash.

 

[Emberashh]

Interesting tidbit: VSM didn't exist until 5e was published. It as far as I can tell it was never playtested and was added in the interim between Next and 5e.

Ie, its tacked on flavor at best. It was never an integrated system.

 

[Yaarel]

Interesting tidbit: VSM didn't exist until 5e was published.

Not sure what you are saying.

"V, S, M" is a vestige from the AD&D 1e Players Handbook.

3e has "V,S,M" too, but also adds "F" and "DF" for "Focus" and "Divine Focus".

The problem is, each class and certain subclasses and may the sources too, have their own concepts for how to cast magic. Cluttering the "V, S, M" and especially the "gp" components in the spell descriptions themselves gets in the way.

 

[Emberashh]

Not sure what you are saying.

"V, S, M" is a vestige from the AD&D 1e Players Handbook.

I mean in terms of 5es development it didn't exist. It wasnt present in Next at all and only appeared when 5e got published.

 

[Yaarel]

I mean in terms of 5es development it didn't exist. It wasnt present in Next at all and only appeared when 5e got published.

Ah. Yeah.

Heh. I wish I could fill out a survey about those stupid, stupid, spell components!

 

[The Shadow]

2) How would it be differentiated from the current spell lists? The easiest and most likely way would be cutting a lot of the classic Psionic stuff from the other lists, probably Enchantment and Illusion stuff along with a smattering of ESP, Telekinetic and other select stuff. Which might even be a good idea from a balance standpoint, but thematically means cutting out classic concepts like witches scrying through a mirror, wizards who specialize in illusion, which is a D&D staple, and maybe even stuff like Druids controlling animals, depending on what your putting on the new list.

Thing is, psionics does illusions and enchantments differently than magic does. Or at least it ought to.

A psionic illusion should be all in your mind, while a magical illusion usually manipulates the environment to produce an actual image.

A psionic "enchantment" should act like a (fictionally powerful) posthypnotic suggestion - the person isn't aware of what they're doing. With a magical enchantment, the victim might be aware but unable to help themselves... and so on.

Differentiate the spells enough, and I think they can coexist.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's people like this guy who make me wonder why I bother with this game.

Mod Note:

It’s fine to disagree with others as long as you’re not being disagreeable. Attacking the poster instead of the post is the exact opposite of that.

Do better in the future.

 

[Vael]

So, I'm aware that there's not a lot of commonality between different fans for Psionics, it's one of the problems with it. But, for me, I tend to balk a bit at Psionics as just spells ... or more that I don't think a Psionicist should pick Psionic spells the same way other Magic wielders do so.

While it wasn't quite there, I was a fan of the UA Mystic, and the main thing I think it got right was packaging a their "spells" and abilities into Disciplines. That's what a Psionicist is to me, my Psion or Mystic doesn't learn the Shield spell, but they learn the "Telekinetic Barriers Discipline" that grants them Shield and Wall of Force, and such. So, for that reason, a Psionic Spell list is also not necessary, but also not what I'm looking for from a Psion. Psionics should have something more like ability trees in CRPGs.