D&D General What’s The Big Deal About Psionics?

[Cadence]

I am fully aware of ether being the fifth element.

The issue is this element is force. It relates exactly to telekinetic, which is psionic rather than primal. Force constructs like the Shield spell are made out of ether. Likewise Eldritch Blast force damage.

In some way every power source uses ether. Psionic wields it as telekinetics. Primal might engage its sense of spiritual forces of ethereal fey and shadow.

I view the "Weave" of arcane and divine as the ether.

I thought you had posted earlier about both being weave? Why shouldn't psionic be able to reach all of it in any case? Especially if there are literary inspirations for it.

In any case, in many Asian systems, plant (to move like a tree expanding outward) is an element.

And in D&D, organizing plant as a kind of element is useful, especially because the traditional primal Druid is both plant and the four elements, but is less about telekinesis and flight.

Given the Wuxing's focus on movement and interaction, it always feels bad to me to make wood and metal work just like the other elements. Is it better to not even call those five "elements" and avoid tangling them with the classic Greek ones that they don't seem related to, and go with something like "phases" instead?

(If one is going for a big mishmash, why not a system with four elements and five phases?)

 

[Cadence]

To divide psionics between psionic and primal is a useful and vivid way to organize mind magic themes.

Except it forces psionic to embrace primal and steals it from those who want them separate. Why does the psionicsist causing fire with his mind need to be drawing on the same thing as the mage conjuring a fireball from the weave, or the druid pulling it from the nature of the prime material plane, or an elemental it connecting directly with the elemental plane of fire?

 

[James Gasik]

Wait I thought the Fifth Element was love?

 

[Maxperson]

This FR flavor interferes with the mechanics of transparency between arcane and psionic.

How? It said this.

"Nevertheless, after the Year of Wild Magic, 1372 DR, the results of psionic powers were magical in nature and psionics and conventional magic were fully transparent to one another, interacting just as magic did with itself, though not all spellcasters were aware if this was possible."

That's the 3e transparency. The powers and spells interact with each other, but the origins are different. The deities of magic could not stop someone from using their psionic powers, but they could dispel the effects once they were used.

 

[Maxperson]

For example, the 1e Players Handbook says, "Clerical spells, including the druidic, are bestowed by the gods, ..." But we know from elsewhere that Druids dont have gods. "They hold trees, the sun and moon, as deities." In other words, animism. In context, the term "gods" doesnt mean gods. Term "gods" is being used improperly in a general sense as if any kind of sacred concept, including normal trees.

1e Druids viewing the sun and moon as deities does not mean that they get their spells from the sun and moon. D&D is polytheistic and the druid could view the sun and moon as gods, while still getting spells from Silvanus or another nature deity.

The 1e Deities & Demigods says this about the Celtic gods.

"The clerics of most of these deities are druids, which are fully detailed in PLAYERS HANDBOOK."

 

[Minigiant]

Pyrokinesis is too firebally for psionic flavor. Also it is exactly primal fire element flavor. A fire theme can easily be a primal Druid subclass, conjuring and wildshaping into fire.

Telekinetic force is mind over matter, directly, and feels psionic.

Pyromancy is more indirect. Weilding fire (and only fire) is more like affinity with fire, in tune with the mind of fire, thus more elemental, more animistic, more exactly primal.

Both psionic and primal are mind magic. The thematic distinctions seem prominent.

Fire is fine for psionics. Fire is the element of Rage and Passion.

To me a true pryokineticist would not be solely limited to pyrokinesis.

They'd have:
Pyropathy
Pyroaudience
Pyrocognizance
Pyrovoyance
Pyroportation
Pyrometabolism

A pyrokineticist can set anything one fire with their mind: air, hair, clothing, people, spells, minds, tempers, passions, addictions, hopes, dreams, souls, destinies. And once it's burning, they can control it.

You could make an elemental psion of any element and its associated emotion really.

 

[Yaarel]

I thought you had posted earlier about both being weave?

Ether is weave.

And a mind emanates a weave, an aura of influence.

Why shouldn't psionic be able to reach all of it in any case?

Do you really want an other Wizard that does anything and everything?

Dividing psi into two power sources allows for a better thematic organization.

Especially if there are literary inspirations for it.

Emphasize that the primal power source is mind magic. The pyromancer is mental.

And this is also true for primal Druid, and why different from Cleric.

Given the Wuxing's focus on movement and interaction, it always feels bad to me to make wood and metal work just like the other elements. Is it better to not even call those five "elements" and avoid tangling them with the classic Greek ones that they don't seem related to, and go with something like "phases" instead?

(If one is going for a big mishmash, why not a system with four elements and five phases?)

The substances and motions somewhat correspond, and in the IChing, tree relates to air in the sense of gas expanding and encompassing.

ether (gravity) ~ soil (space, no motion)

earth (solid) ~ metal (contraction)
air (gas) ~ tree (expansion)
water (liquid) ~ water (descension)
fire (plasma) ~ fire (ascension)

 

[Yaarel]

1e Druids viewing the sun and moon as deities does not mean that they get their spells from the sun and moon.

Gygax says exactly that Druid gets spells from trees, sun, moon, and nature.

D&D is polytheistic and the druid could view the sun and moon as gods, while still getting spells from Silvanus or another nature deity.

The 1e Deities & Demigods says this about the Celtic gods.

"The clerics of most of these deities are druids, which are fully detailed in PLAYERS HANDBOOK."

Wizards can have deities too.

 

[Yaarel]

By the way:

The primal Druid is elemental:

Tree (plant)
Sun (fire) (air-fire?)
Moon (earth) (earth-water?)

 

[Yaarel]

How? It said this.

"Nevertheless, after the Year of Wild Magic, 1372 DR, the results of psionic powers were magical in nature and psionics and conventional magic were fully transparent to one another, interacting just as magic did with itself, though not all spellcasters were aware if this was possible."

That's the 3e transparency. The powers and spells interact with each other, but the origins are different. The deities of magic could not stop someone from using their psionic powers, but they could dispel the effects once they were used.

The original flavor conflicts with transparency.

Despite that I view psionic as one of several sources for normal magic, I still like the original flavor that any and every mind has an aura of influence, a personal Weave sotospeak.