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

[James Gasik]

Firestarting is just an application of molecular agitation, which itself is nothing more than a precise application of telekinesis. Wait, maybe there is too much science in psionics...

 

[Yaarel]

The "Clerics of Philosophy" was introduced in 2e, with the Complete Priest's Handbook (or, at least, spelled out)*, but it is something I agree with. You have to believe in something. If there's enough belief, that something can grant basic spells. If there's more, that something can gain a Divine rank, and eventually become self-aware.

*at least to my knowledge, there may be an earlier reference to this topic I never saw, this is just where I first encountered it.

The centrality of "faith" is extremely ethnocentric, maybe peculiarly Christian. Other sacred traditions dont really care so much about what its adherents "believe".

5e Xanathars gets it right. A "cosmic force" - any sacred concept - is the divine power source.

 

[Minigiant]

Firestarting is just an application of molecular agitation, which itself is nothing more than a precise application of telekinesis. Wait, maybe there is too much science in psionics...

I'd go with mentally shoving energyinto stuff until it explodes.

Good old "Intense staring into Pop" but with fire.

 

[Staffan]

Firestarting is just an application of molecular agitation, which itself is nothing more than a precise application of telekinesis. Wait, maybe there is too much science in psionics...

"Molecular agitation" was precisely what the 2e Complete Psionics Handbook called its pyrokinesis equivalent. It was kind of slow though as I recall, taking numerous rounds to build up to something useful.

 

[James Gasik]

"Molecular agitation" was precisely what the 2e Complete Psionics Handbook called its pyrokinesis equivalent. It was kind of slow though as I recall, taking numerous rounds to build up to something useful.

It's why I used the term.

 

[Jer]

I'm not saying you're wrong, but that's at odds with what Gary said about Deities & Demigods. See clip.

To be fair - at that point in D&D Gygax was saying that about every book. He switched gears from "DM's it's your game to create" to "every book is essential and you should be reading every book carefully to see how to run the game" around the time TSR figured out that they needed to sell a continuous stream of new AD&D books to remain solvent.

(To be a bit more fair to him, I think he saw AD&D as his baby back then and wanted it run in a particular way. But also he was a businessman and knew saying "this book is completely optional, feel free to ignore it" would not be a great message to boost sales.)

 

[Maxperson]

The 1e books say many contradictory things. Fortunately, I never read that marketing pitch. I probably would have never played D&D if people were trying to push that ethnocentric misrepresentation of other cultures on me.

Anyway, I only consider the "core three books" to be 1e core.

You still haven't shown anywhere in a 1e core book where it says that trees, the moon and the sun are gods. There is only that line from the druid section that says that the druids consider them to be gods, which is not the same thing as them being gods. On the other hand, I've shown in multiple places where clerics, which includes druids, need actual gods to get spells of 3rd level or higher.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You still haven't shown anywhere in a 1e core book where it says that trees, the moon and the sun are gods. There is only that line from the druid section that says that the druids consider them to be gods, which is not the same thing as them being gods. On the other hand, I've shown in multiple places where clerics, which includes druids, need actual gods to get spells of 3rd level or higher.

@Yaarel has been beating this drum for years. They are taking the snippets from the rules that support their "I don't like gods" philosophy and leaving the rest as irrelevant or not really part of the "core" (a term that did not exist at the time these books were published). To be fair though, that's what we all do.

 

[MoonSong]

@Yaarel has been beating this drum for years. They are taking the snippets from the rules that support their "I don't like gods" philosophy and leaving the rest as irrelevant or not really part of the "core" (a term that did not exist at the time these books were published). To be fair though, that's what we all do.

Yeah, I've noticed, if I might quote myself:

at least half of it is entirely [Yaarel's] personal interpretation of unrelated pieces of lore taken out of context.

I mean Yaarel used the same technique to claim that all sorcerers are transhuman magical cyborgs, all of them are made through pacts, none of them have natural innate power, and somehow all of this is the intended cannon lore.

I mean some of these ideas are cool, but the method is madness.

 

[Yaarel]

I mean Yaarel used the same technique to claim that all sorcerers are transhuman magical cyborgs, all of them are made through pacts, none of them have natural innate power, and somehow all of this is the intended cannon lore.

Heh, I dont recall using the term "transhuman", but that is exactly right. The normal human body cant do sorcery. There must be some kind of alteration of it in order to gain the capacity. The sorcerous body can result from a pact with a dragon, fey hag, fiend demon, exposure to raw magic itself, or so on.