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

[jgsugden]

Heh, I am relieved that you recognize that 3e psionics is spellcasting with a paintjob...

Wow. I tried. You're absolutely not getting what I'm saying.

Good luck.

 

[Yaarel]

I appreciate your overview of the 2e Psionicist. The sensibility of organizing psionic powers thematically, into disciplines, continues alive and well. I am familiar with the themes from 3e psionics. The 2e mechanics discontinued. They characterize as something like a feat chain whose features require skill checks, but more convoluted and ad hoc.

What I want is the feel: something distinct from magic,

The 3e Psion feels like magic, like how magic should be.

So, it is hard for me to relate to what "not magic" means. Do you mean no ceremonial rituals or what?

and something that feels cerebral and enlightened.

Psionics can be angelic disembodied minds, and Platonic, despising the human body and the material world.

Oppositely, psionics can be this worldly, active, and animistic, celebrating the features of the nature to the exclusion of anything beyond nature.

A berserkar intentionally visualizes the mindset (the mental self-image) of an animal, for ferocity in combat. A mind whose visualization is strong can even shift ones physical body into this animalistic mental form. Psychometabolism.

The feel of psionics is versatile.

They should feel like a mind that has achieved a higher state of consciousness,

Yeah, that is true for both Platonism and Animism. The mind is in an altered state when manifesting effects.

not a mind that has been corrupted by foul influences (I'd be willing to entertain the latter as an option, perhaps connected to particular powers, but not as the default mode).

Heh, if the imperfections of the human body are foul, then I want to be foul.

But more seriously, for psionics, the power of the mind is clearly beyond any limitations of the body. That is true for the monotheistic mystic and the animistic shaman.

Ideally you should also have the feel of a small number of core abilities that manifest in different ways: while Awe, Daydream, ESP, False Sensory Input, and Inflict Pain are all mechanically distinct powers, they feel like you're using the same telepathic ability to achieve a particular thing.

I like character concepts that are thematically tight. This might even be the only thing that all psi fans agree on?

The difficulty is.

I want to play the character concepts that I want to play. I dont want to play the player character that the designer wants to play. The psionic options need to be like Lego bricks, so I can mix and match the options to build my psionic concept for my player character. I want my player character to be a salient archetype that is conceptually tight (like superheroes often are). But I dont want a "package deal" where to get what I want means get stuck with stuff that I hate because its flavor is wrong for me or its ribbon mechanics are crappy. There might even be something excellent in the package, but not appropriate for my character concept. (Unwanted bundling is one of my several objections about the UA Mystic.) I need a class that that is freeform enough for me to construct a satisfying character concept. one of the reasons I like spells is because they are freeform. I can pick and choose exactly which ones I want for my character concept.

The mind can imagine anything. In some ways one might expect a psionic class to be even more all over the place than the Wizard. But when I think of examples from various real life traditions that feel psionic, each individual that exemplifies it is archetypally salient, with vivid focused themes.

Psionics is about a personality. Each personality is unique, yet a salient assemblage of tropes that relate to each other in meaningful ways.

 

[Yaarel]

Wow. I tried. You're absolutely not getting what I'm saying.

I am trying to get what it is that you find appealing.

Are you honestly trying to get what I find appealing?

In my eyes, any uselessly complex mechanics of pre-3e psionics are less appealing, and 3e to 5e psionics are magic. It is challenging to perceive the benefit you are trying to describe.

I am trying to see it. I dont need to agree, but it helps if I can make sense of why you like what you do.

I'm not fan of pre3e Psionic mechanics.

Yeah.

But I am a fan of Psionics not using 9 levels,

Ok.

At the same time. The 3e Psion uses 9 spell slot levels for its full spellcasting. I am a fan of the Psion full caster. Slot levels are the most balanced way to gate extremely powerful effects like Wish.

But. There are different kinds of psionic classes. Not all of them are fullcasters. It makes sense for a second psionic class to have experimental mechanics.

If there are two classes, one for a psionic caster and one for a psionic noncaster, that should resolve the diversity of preferences.

9 schools,

I find the nine spell schools unhelpful too.

I prefer to reorganize the spell list by "themes", each spell gets a theme tag. ... And these themes happen to be the exact same thing as psionic disciplines.

4/3/3/3/...

Spell points would be an easy solution, if the 5e DMG spell point system didnt hurt the eyes.

Still, the Warlock has a different chassis for spellcasting, so there are other ways to go about spell casting.

magic rules.

3e, 4e, and 5e have all made psionics a form of magic. That ship has sailed.

On the other hand, there is designer talk about different power sources in 5e: arcane, divine, psionic, primal, and martial. Each source has its own spin on what its powers are.

Contrary to popular belief, it isn't the best system. It's ported in for nostalgia and forged to "work"

5e is a democracy. The designers implement the mechanics and flavors that pass the 60% approval rating threshold. 5e is what it is. The DMs Guild is an avenue for more niche content.

5e uses 4 tiers of play

Yes.

Even so, I find it more helpful to count 5 tiers, corresponding to the proficiency bonus improvements: 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, and 17-20.

The 9-12 tier feels very different from 5-8, and is important for ballparking the appropriate levels of an adventure, for discussions about the Fighter, 1e "name" levels when creating an institution of some kind depending on the class like stronghold or magic academy, and other topics that concern this tier of mid-levels.

so the best magic system would have levels of a number divisible by 4.

It kinda is like that with spells.

Tier 1-4 is slots 1 and 2.
Tier 5-8 is slots 3 and 4. Fireball and Revivify.
Tier 9-12 is slots 5 and 6. Wall of Force and Heal.
Tier 13-16 is slots 7 and 8. These spells tend to be lame, noniconic.
Tier 17-20: Wish! Slot 9 spells are what make this tier this tier.

And since D&D psionics has 6 specialties, it should 6 schools.

I like disciplines. I see 4 main disciplines, each subdividing into sciences. We can dicuss what the disciplines should be. I definitely want disciplines.

5e assumes 6-8 encounters. So the baes psioinics would have a number of powers used per day divisible by 6, 7, or 8 or one of their factors. Since all the proficiency bonuses except +5 are factors of 6 or 8, multiples of it works.

6 disciplines X 4 tiers = 24 psionic powers.

• 6 Psionic Disciplines
• 4 Psionic Powers per Discipline,one per tier of play
• 24 total Psionic Powers
• Psionic Power Dice equal to 3 times your Proficiency Modifier

It helps if there is a 5e model to compare to, whether Bard or Warlock, or Paladin or Monk.

 

[Staffan]

The 3e Psion feels like magic, like how magic should be.

So, it is hard for me to relate to what "not magic" means. Do you mean no ceremonial rituals or what?

It should do other stuff than spells. There is a very strong element of "I know it when I see it" there, which I realize is not helpful.

Part of it is that spells, at least in D&D, are discrete units of power. An analogy might be that a spell feels like a program you run on reality (that is of course not an analogy anyone in-setting would make). The program/spell does the thing it does, and while you may have control over certain parameters, there's not much room for improvisation. It can do some pretty powerful things, and since it's pre-programmed some of those things can be exceedingly complicated. Many spells also manage themselves once cast – for example, arcane lock keeps a door closed forever unless it gets dispelled. Mage armor lasts all day long.

A psion instead has a more direct command over some aspect of reality. They should be able to control this in a more flexible fashion, particularly as they develop their abilities, but they should stay in their overall wheelhouse. Psions generally shouldn't be able to create things ex nihilo the way magic easily does, but should be limited to manipulating that which already exists (I am convinced that the only reason metacreativity was a thing in 3e was that the 3.0 psion had different disciplines based on different stats, which meant that six disciplines were needed, and unlike 2e they couldn't use metapsionics because all had to be available at 1st level). If they create something, it should likely be force-based and only last as long as it is actively maintained. An all-day-long effect like mage armor should be beyond the abilities of a psion – a telekinetic might be able to create a suit of force armor, but not one that lasts all day.

But in exchange, they should have a lot more flexibility with the abilities they do have. A wizard can have a spell that opens a lock (knock), another spell that can lift an object and slowly move it from one place to another (unseen servant or mage hand), and a third that throws a small object with enough force to hurt or possibly kill (catapult). For a psion, those would all just be expressions of telekinesis. A bard has one spell that inspires feelings of friendship and loyalty (charm person), another for bravery (heroism), and a third for placidity (calm emotions), but for the psion those would all be part of a telepathic ability to control emotions.

Psionics can be angelic disembodied minds, and Platonic, despising the human body and the material world.

Oppositely, psionics can be this worldly, active, and animistic, celebrating the features of the nature to the exclusion of anything beyond nature.

I'm kind of neutral on "animistic" psionics. I think a psion can certainly use their abilities to affect or emulate natural things (think Treeshapers in Elfquest), but I like to keep primal magic as a separate thing where you're dealing with or emulating spirits of the elements/nature. A psion could certainly grow wings to fly, but they wouldn't be "the wings of an eagle".

Heh, if the imperfections of the human body are foul, then I want to be foul.

I was mostly referring to the aberration/far realm stuff some people like for their psionics. I could see this being a pathway to open up other avenues of psionic ability. Using the previous analogy of supers, this would be the domain of the Shadow King, a psychic entity that possesses people and uses their own abilities combined with his own to manipulate reality, often on a more fundamental level than psionics normally can do.

 

[Yaarel]

A psion instead has a more direct command over some aspect of reality. They should be able to control this in a more flexible fashion, particularly as they develop their abilities, but they should stay in their overall wheelhouse. Psions generally shouldn't be able to create things ex nihilo the way magic easily does, but should be limited to manipulating that which already exists (I am convinced that the only reason metacreativity was a thing in 3e was that the 3.0 psion had different disciplines based on different stats, which meant that six disciplines were needed, and unlike 2e they couldn't use metapsionics because all had to be available at 1st level). If they create something, it should likely be force-based and only last as long as it is actively maintained. An all-day-long effect like mage armorshould be beyond the abilities of a psion – a telekinetic might be able to create a suit of force armor, but not one that lasts all day.

But in exchange, they should have a lot more flexibility with the abilities they do have. A wizard can have a spell that opens a lock (knock), another spell that can lift an object and slowly move it from one place to another (unseen servant or mage hand), and a third that throws a small object with enough force to hurt or possibly kill (catapult). For a psion, those would all just be expressions of telekinesis. A bard has one spell that inspires feelings of friendship and loyalty (charm person), another for bravery (heroism), and a third for placidity (calm emotions), but for the psion those would all be part of a telepathic ability to control emotions.

Ah. That helps to see where you are coming from. I tend to agree with much of it. For example.

To me the Mage Hand cantrip feels nonpsionic. I dont care if its "spectral hand" is "invisible" or not. The wrongness is having a floating hand in the first place.

I mentioned earlier in thread, real telekinesis is fluid. The telekinetic can look at a cup of water, make its water flow up into the air, separate into droplets and strands to form patterns and shapes that then drift around the room. And so on for other kinds of objects. A hand cant do this.

In this particular case, the solution is to write a new at will cantrip that is more flexible, and feels more psionic, probably using higher level slots to boost the size, distance, and strength of the telekinetic influence. Maybe call it the "Psychokinesis" cantrip to distinguish it from the (terrible) Telekinesis spell.

Now, this Psychokinesis cantrip is gentle and only affects objects and willing creatures. I would love to use it to shave my face every morning. Force combat that deals damage, telekinetically grapples, and flings targets around, feels different, and is more like a different spell - a different way of thinking.



It is difficult to balance flexible spells. I sympathize with the challenges that the designers face. Consider the beloved/notorious 3e Prestidigitation spell. At a minor scale, it can do anything that a player can imagine. There have been many ingenious uses of it by players thinking outside of the box. There are concerns about its balance. Designers have broken it, into the pale semblance that is the 5e Prestidigitation cantrip that itemizes the only things that it can do. Yet the 5e Minor Illusion cantrip retains the kind of psionic flexibility, as do illusion spells generally, so it is possible to balance flexible spells.

Some spells are nonnegotiable. Telekinesis must feel like telekinesis, or it isnt telekinesis. Telepathy must feel like telepathy, or it isnt telepathy. And it must be available at level 1. Telepathy must convey words, images, sensory experiences, feelings and thoughts in both directions. If a mind can think it, telepathy can communicate it. Preferably it is a cantrip at will. Designers simply must make these work in a flexible and balanced way.

So far we are only discussing cantrips and low levell spells. But at the highest levels Psions and other psionicists are wielding world-shaking powers. Access to the highest level spell slots secures access to this scaling of power and plurality of choices. Slot 9 spells like Wish, Shapechange, and Foresight, feel psionic.



Regarding metacreativity. There is a fine line between illusion and conjuration. It might be worthwhile to discusd how disciplines organize these concepts.

Generally, yes. All psionic conjurations are made out of telekinetic force that the psionicist actively maintains. Yet there are oddities. The conjurations tend to be invisible force, but whether by the manipulation of light or sensorial distortion can be a virtual reality. At the higher levels, mind over matter can create matter out of nothing. Consider how the real life universe is only energy and forces, as is matter itself, and a powerful mind can manifest actual reality similarly. Spacetime is no limitation for a psionicist. At lower levels, a psionicist might manifest a conjuration unintentionslly or unconsciously and maintain it unconsciously. A spell like Mage Armor as an invisible force, might represent normal responsiveness to danger except with ambient telekinetic reflexes. Different from a Shield spell which is more like a force construct. Some spells feel very psionic. Some not at all. Many are plausible. The description of each spell requires considerstion for its suitability for psionics. Psionic concepts that are missing from the spell list need new spells.

Psionics can create magic items by imbuing an object with mental intention. These objects maintain a mental link with their creator. The creator can manifest effects thru the object even a distance away. Even if the creator dies, the object retains the creators residual mindful presence and aspects of the creators personality. Perhaps most sentient magic items are psionic.

I'm kind of neutral on "animistic" psionics. I think a psion can certainly use their abilities to affect or emulate natural things (think Treeshapers in Elfquest), but I like to keep primal magic as a separate thing where you're dealing with or emulating spirits of the elements/nature. A psion could certainly grow wings to fly, but they wouldn't be "the wings of an eagle".

I associate the primal power source as the elements. Namely, water, fire, air, earth, plus plant, albeit normally in the sense of rivers and rain, sunlight and lightning, winds, rocks and mountains, plus forests, trees and flowers. And so on.

At least in the animistic cultures that I am familiar with, each of these objects of nature is in itself psionic. Just like a human body is a physical object with an unseen mind, the rivers and rocks are bodies with an unseen mind. The objects behave the way they do because their minds choose to behave that way. An object has a personality. Some objects have a mindful presence that is poweful, able to influence the nearby, visit in dreams, manifest outofbody in the form of a human or animal, and other psionic effects.

Psionic and primal are two sides of the same coin. Psionics is about manifesting ones own personality. Primal is about being a member of a community of minds.

I was mostly referring to the aberration/far realm stuff some people like for their psionics. I could see this being a pathway to open up other avenues of psionic ability. Using the previous analogy of supers, this would be the domain of the Shadow King, a psychic entity that possesses people and uses their own abilities combined with his own to manipulate reality, often on a more fundamental level than psionics normally can do.

Oh. Ok.

Well, not all Aberrations are Evil, but yeah, psionics is something different.

 

[Yaarel]

So the disciplines.

All spells and features in D&D can divide into the following themes.

Spirit (Clairsentient): Divination, Teleportation
Mind (Telepathic): Enchantment, Illusion
Force (Psychokinetic): Telekinesis, Conjuration
Body (Psychometabolic): Shapeshift, Healing
Matter (Elemental): Earth-Fire, Air-Water, Plant

Note, each of these themes includes a nonmagic martial aspect, such as the Persuasion skill of mind and sword proficiency of matter.


Spirit.

Clairsentience is remote presence anywhere in spacetime, to scry a distance away or to divine the future, and relates to manipulating spacetime, to bend fate, bring luck, stop or speed time, and teleport thru spacetime and planeshift.

The psychoportation of 2e and 3e folds into clairsentient as Teleportation. This pairing allows the somewhat passive divination to be more active, and allows the somewhat monotonous teleportation more options to do. Psionic teleportation tends to be more accurate when projecting remote presenence to a location and then shifting body there safely.

However, telekinetic flight, such as the wingless Fly spell, is an aspect of telekinesis.

Mind.

Telepathy relates to the manipulation of minds, including emotions and senory experiences. The intent of the subjective virtual reality can be hyperrealistic art or deception.

A subjective illusion that only the targets perceive is sometimes known as a phantasm, like the Phantasmal Force spell, or as a false sensory input. A psionic illusion sometimes reinforces an illusion telekinetically to feel solid and support weight for a quasireal effect.

In practice, an illusion (mind), a conjuration (force), and a summoning (spirit), can be similar. The main difference is a conjuration is an objective force construct while an illusion is a manipulation of mind. For example, one might conjure a beautiful human, but a similar illusion might be more emotionally captivating and enchanting. Via extraplanar teleportation, summoning spells contact spirits, whether immaterial Fey, Celestial, or so on, then physicalize temporary virtual bodies for them, so that if the bodies are killed, the spirit remains unharmed and returns to its home plane.

Force.

Telekinesis includes moving creatures and objects by mind over matter, flight, and weaponizing force damage. Telekinetic force is sometimes referred to as magical energy. Ki is force entangling a body or object. Natural forces include the stuff of gravity and ethereal ether. Ethereal creatures have a body made of force, and if strong can interact with the matter of the material plane. Force is physical but immaterial. Conjurations are constructs made of force. The constructs are often invisible force fields, but when manipulating light and generating sound waves can seem virtually real. (Compare the Star Trek "holodeck".) Where matter itself is involuting forces and energy, a powerful psionic mind can create matter out of nothing and alter reality itself.

Spell schools organize force spells inconsistently, sometimes transmutation in the sense of shaping force, sometimes conjuration in the sense of manifesting force out of nothing, and sometimes evocation in the sense of energetic force damage. Nevertheless, all of these spells organize by theme as force. Psionic force effects are always the telekinetic influences that ones own strong mind manifests.

Body.

A body is living matter. It entangles lifeforce, sometimes called soul or ki or aura. It normally relates to animals while humans have an animal body. The psionic mind can psychometabolically reshape the body, by means of the lifeforce, into the form that the mind visualizes. First the mind shifts, then the body follows. Psychic healing shapeshifts the body into a healthier shape, regenerating limbs, closing wounds, freeing up blockages, and often healing the minds and mental imaginations as well.

Matter.

Some minds have affinity with the states of matter, the four elements. The mage and the element are friends who relate to each other with similar personalities. Compare Airbender, and D&D Pyromancer and its "psionic clone" Pyrokineticist. The elements themselves have minds, sometimes powerful psionic minds. Normally the element doesnt have a human mind, but does have a mind and behaves the way it does whether leaping like fire or flowing like water because it wants to.

Animists normally experience the elements as this-worldly features of nature. Earth is bodies of lands, mountains, valleys. Water is bodies of rivers and lakes, and rains an seas, and so on. These bodies have minds and are part of a shamans community. Some bodies have powerful minds, remembering ancestors and protecting descendants, aware of those nearby and visiting in dreams. These are ambient psionic activity, but sometimes manifesting overt psionic spells.

The psionic power source and the primal power source are moreorless the same thing, but primal focuses thematically on the four elements, plus plant as a kind of element.



In sum, everything in D&D organizes into these main themes: Spirit, Mind, Force, Body, and Matter.

These themes likewise correlate with the disciplines: Clairsentience, Telepathy, Psychokinesis, and Psychometabolism. Arguably 3e elemental effects are more properly primal elementalism. But primal relates to psionic nevertheless.

 

[Staffan]

Clairsentience as teleportation? Hmm. My instinct would have been to make teleportation an aspect of psychokinesis (graduating from moving things through space to just having them be somewhere else), but I like having it as an aspect of clairsentience. It also solves the problem of "how do you make low-level teleportation?" – you don't, that's just remote viewing. It reminds me of Mage: The Ascension a bit, where both remote viewing and teleportation are things you do with the Correspondence sphere (and/or Time if you want to involve looking at the past and possibly the future) at different power levels.

 

[glass]

A lot of people don't care whether Psionics and Magic are fungible and think it's not a big deal if magic and psionics mix.

A lot of people -do- care whether Psionics and Magic are fungible and think it is a big deal if magic and psionics mix.

You will not please either group by making Psionics and Magic into the same thing, 'cause the first group doesn't care and the second group will feel let down.

Unfortunately, there is a third group, for whom getting what they want is not enough. It is important to them that others are prevented from getting what they want. This group is (hopefully) not large, but it is extremely vocal, and after the DDN playtest it is used to be catered to more than it should (ie, at all).

_
glass.

 

[Cadence]

For those wanting to see one idea for it in a 5e compatible sci-fi game that might be ported back...

Blog (A5E) - Voidrunner’s Codex Playtest: Psion

Welcome to the first public playtest document for the Voidrunner’s Codex, Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition’s upcoming science fiction rulebook. This document includes a playtest candidate for our psion class, one of several new classes in the book...

www.enworld.org

 

[Dausuul]

A lot of people don't care whether Psionics and Magic are fungible and think it's not a big deal if magic and psionics mix.

A lot of people -do- care whether Psionics and Magic are fungible and think it is a big deal if magic and psionics mix.

You will not please either group by making Psionics and Magic into the same thing, 'cause the first group doesn't care and the second group will feel let down.

But there is also a group that actively wants psionics to work like magic, because it results in a simpler system with a shallower learning curve. You can just roll up a psion and apply your wizard-playing skills, and it'll mostly work.

I am certainly not in that group. I'm eager to see more variety in class design, and I strongly believe that psionics should feel qualitatively different from magic. But that group exists, and I suspect it's much larger than its representation on ENWorld would suggest.

My hope is that Wizards finds a way to please both groups, introducing a system that achieves that qualitative difference while also being easy to learn. The fact that they have spent years hacking on the psionics rules suggests they are reluctant to just take the easy path and slap a coat of psi-paint on the "full caster" template, so I think that hope is not a doomed one.

That said, I also think we're going to have to accept a system that isn't as conceptually pure as we might like. And the interaction of traditional magic with psionic power is probably going to be one of those areas where the "make it simpler" group gets its way--having to keep track of whether a given effect is magic or psionic in origin will be a significant annoyance for a lot of people, and it doesn't much affect the core experience of playing a psionic PC.