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.
www.enworld.org
