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

[Micah Sweet]

Frankly, I do not believe that. For example, do you housrule giants' ability to walk as being dispellable? Because it is assuredly supernatural from a real-world point of view, so by your claimed logic it should be categorised as magic, right?

But I am pretty sure you do not actually do that, so your categorisation of fantastical effects is just as arbitrary as mine, you just prefer one category fewer than I do.

IOW, de gustibus is just as applicable to your preferences as it is to mine.

_
glass.

It is possible to want the world to mostly resemble real world physics, and still ignore the square-cube law.

 

[Mecheon]

Redarding the Sorcerer class, it can quietly retire. Let the Warlock take its flavor, and have the pact be about the magical transformation of the body, by various means.

That's completely different to the warlock's thing, though? Warlock power is "Making a deal to skip the whole learning side of things"

All three have enough weight behind them to be their own thing. Its a disserve to Wild Magic to suddenly be "Oh yeah you uh made a deal with someone", likewise a disserve to tome or hexblade warlocks to be interchangable with "Yeah you were born and uh, I dunno, because of that somethingsomething book/sword". You're eroding two of the most flavour heavy classes away for no real gain. Mind, I'm not surprised people apparently want to destroy flavour given how many times I've seen the "Ditch every class except the basic 4" despite, y'know, how popular deeply flavour-heavy stuff like the homebrew Blood Hunter is

Wizard is gaining powerful knowledge and using that knowledge to do magic
Sorcerer is magic runs literately through your blood
Warlock is you're drawing power from another source, similar to Cleric but less 'god' and more 'whatever you found that made the deal', and very different suites of powers depending on what you're making deals with
Psion is your sheer mental energies making changes to the world around you

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That's completely different to the warlock's thing, though? Warlock power is "Making a deal to skip the whole learning side of things"

All three have enough weight behind them to be their own thing. Its a disserve to Wild Magic to suddenly be "Oh yeah you uh made a deal with someone", likewise a disserve to tome or hexblade warlocks to be interchangable with "Yeah you were born and uh, I dunno, because of that somethingsomething book/sword". You're eroding two of the most flavour heavy classes away for no real gain. Mind, I'm not surprised people apparently want to destroy flavour given how many times I've seen the "Ditch every class except the basic 4" despite, y'know, how popular deeply flavour-heavy stuff like the homebrew Blood Hunter is

I go ahead and say it: "made a deal to gain power" is crap fluff for a whole class. Sure, it might be how someone gains their power, but if you bargained for knowledge of magic, then you're still a wizard, you just cheated to get your degree. And if the patron actively channels power to you, then you're a cleric. Or if they transform you to be a magical being, then you're a sorcerer.

Furthermore, such bargain being linked to origins of one class, makes it their thing, and puts making the bargain in the most boring part of the game: before the game even begins. Powerful beings tempting characters with power is cool, but that should be possible to happen during the game and apply to many different classes.

So the combined warlock/sorcerer I envision would mostly use warlock mechanics, except expanded to be more flexible (more spells to choose from, more invocations for different themes, other viable attack cantrips besides Eldritch Blast etc) but mostly with sorcerer fluff, meaning that you're an innately magical being. Now there would be an option that you are an innately magical being due being transformed into such via some pact, a ritual, or a magical accident instead of being born that way, but no 'warlock fluff' would be mandatory.

 

[Yaarel]

That's completely different to the warlock's thing, though? Warlock power is "Making a deal to skip the whole learning side of things"

All three have enough weight behind them to be their own thing. Its a disserve to Wild Magic to suddenly be "Oh yeah you uh made a deal with someone", likewise a disserve to tome or hexblade warlocks to be interchangable with "Yeah you were born and uh, I dunno, because of that somethingsomething book/sword". You're eroding two of the most flavour heavy classes away for no real gain. Mind, I'm not surprised people apparently want to destroy flavour given how many times I've seen the "Ditch every class except the basic 4" despite, y'know, how popular deeply flavour-heavy stuff like the homebrew Blood Hunter is

Wizard is gaining powerful knowledge and using that knowledge to do magic
Sorcerer is magic runs literately through your blood
Warlock is you're drawing power from another source, similar to Cleric but less 'god' and more 'whatever you found that made the deal', and very different suites of powers depending on what you're making deals with
Psion is your sheer mental energies making changes to the world around you

I dont see a meaningful difference between making a pact with a fiend and descending from a fiend, or making a pact with an aberration and being corrupted by an aberration.

Moreover, the Warlock flavor includes the need to study books and manipulate material components, which means that a pact never happened, there is no short cut, and the Warlock has to do magic the hard way anyway.

By doubling down on the narrative that the body of the Warlock has been magically transformed, and thinking about the mechanical implications of a such a transformation, clarifies what a "pact" actually means.

 

[Mecheon]

I go ahead and say it: "made a deal to gain power" is crap fluff for a whole class. Sure, it might be how someone gains their power, but if you bargained for knowledge of magic, then you're still a wizard, you just cheated to get your degree. And if the patron actively channels power to you, then you're a cleric. Or if they transform you to be a magical being, then you're a sorcerer.

Honestly I think its good fluff because you've got immediate Story Points to draw from. You've got "Who did you get that power from?" "How was it achieved?" "Are you in contact with them?" "Are you working with them? Against them?" just right off the bat. Stuff to dig into and use throughout a campaign. Ready made allies/antagonists with big relevance to someone's sphere of power

Mechanically though the sorcerer isn't great and I'll give that, but from a thematic perspective, they're way different. Mind my dream sorcerer is less 'You cast spells' and more 'You have the raw building blocks of spells and can meddle with how they end up'. so basically Spheres of Power

Furthermore, such bargain being linked to origins of one class, makes it their thing, and puts making the bargain in the most boring part of the game: before the game even begins. Powerful beings tempting characters with power is cool, but that should be possible to happen during the game and apply to many different classes.

I on the other hand reckon the deal isn't the interesting part. What the player does with it? That's where things get interesting. D&D doesn't support you going from level 1 commoner to having class levels and its basically the same. Something Happens that makes your character have class levels

I dont see a meaningful difference between making a pact with a fiend and descending from a fiend, or making a pact with an aberration and being corrupted by an aberration.

Moreover, the Warlock flavor includes the need to study books and manipulate material components, which means thst a pact never happened, there is no short cut, and the Warlock has to do magic the hard way anyway.

My doubling down on the narrative that the body of the Warlock has been magically transformed, and thinking about the mechanical implivations of a such a transformation, clarifies what a "pact" actually means.

Would you represent famous descended-from-a-devil character Merlin, as a warlock?

Some warlock flavour could, but other's don't. You're a Charisma caster, not a book one, and if you have Hexblade or the like, well, that's not books at all.

The warlock flavour isn't being transformed though, so that'd be poorly received as a change. Sorcerer can lean into that (Especially given, y'know, Dragon Disciple being the go-to prestige class for then at release), but warlocks have always had their own seperate side of that


Incidentally to draw back to the topic, I think this is class merging side of things is another reason we don't see much push for a psion because, well, when former fully versed classes can be so quickly theoretically merged into others, doesn't speak well for any other new class coming along. Plus the psion's first showing being basically a merge of a ton of concepts in the Mystic didn't help matters

 

[Cadence]

I dont see a meaningful difference between making a pact with a fiend and descending from a fiend, or making a pact with an aberration and being corrupted by an aberration.

The debt owed in the one case seems like it could be much more immediate than family ties.

 

[Yaarel]

Would you represent famous descended-from-a-devil character Merlin, as a warlock?

My take on Merlin.

Merlin is an archetypal Celtic Bard. Translating into D&D 5e, the Bard class. Taking his advisory role into consideration, he is a Lore Bard. Every spell that he does is on the Bard spell list. He is primarily charismatic, but also smart. A Lore Bard.

Some traditions identify Merlin as the son of an "incubus". In a Christian context this came to be understood as a kind of fiend (devil or demon). However in the historical context relating to the later Scottish witches, Merlin is probably the son of a fairy elf, who sometimes mated during a dream or trance when the magic of a witch was emerging, and taught the witch how to master the magical talent. A form of shamanism. Translating into D&D, the mother of Merlin might be something like a Fey Warlock, but probably with the healing abilities that the Scottish witches are known for, or maybe she is a Psion exactly. But Merlin himself is a half-elf Bard.

By the way, Scottish elves are ethereal (having a form but immaterial like a "shadow"). They are enchantingly beautiful and supernaturally strong, Charisma and Strength, and seem suitable too for D&D Ancient Paladin, "Green Knight", as well as Fey Warlock.

Some warlock flavour could, but other's don't. You're a Charisma caster, not a book one, and if you have Hexblade or the like, well, that's not books at all.

Where Charisma represents self-expression, the Warlock is the magical body as a self-identity.

The warlock flavour isn't being transformed though, so that'd be poorly received as a change. Sorcerer can lean into that (Especially given, y'know, Dragon Disciple being the go-to prestige class for then at release), but warlocks have always had their own seperate side of that

The Warlock is "cheating" because the magic is being infused.

Incidentally to draw back to the topic, I think this is class merging side of things is another reason we don't see much push for a psion because, well, when former fully versed classes can be so quickly theoretically merged into others, doesn't speak well for any other new class coming along.

How many classes to have is a classic debate between splitters and lumpers.

What I do know is, the classes 5e has now do too many wrong things and fail to do right things, thus cannot represent a classic 3e Psion. I need a 5e Psion class.

Plus the psion's first showing being basically a merge of a ton of concepts in the Mystic didn't help matters.

If we now get both Psion and Mystic, win-win.

 

[Minigiant]

Cool with this

Minor (Devotions)	Major (Sciences)
1. Animal Telepathy	Astral Projection
2. Body Equilibrium	Aura Alteration
3. Body Weaponry (excludes magic-users)	Body Control
4. Cell Adjustment	Dimension Door
5. Clairaudience	Dimension Walk
6. Clairvoyance	Energy Control
7. Detection of Good and Evil	Etherealness
8. Detection of Magic	Mass Domination (excludes thieves)
9. Domination (excludes thieves)	Mind Bar
10. Empathy (excludes fighters	Molecular Manipulation
11. ESP	Molecular Rearrangement
12. Expansion (excludes clerics)	Probaility Travel
13. Hypnosis	Telekinesis
14. Invisibility	Telempathic Projection (excludes fighters)
15. Levitation	Telepathy
16. Mind Over Body	Telepathic Projection
17. Molecular Agitation	Teleportation
18. Object Reading (excludes thieves)	Shape Alteration
19. Precognition	Roll Again (or select one)
20. Reduction (excludes clerics)	Roll Again (or get two minor ones)
21. Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions
22. Suspend Animation

A lot is missing though

 

[MoonSong]

The designers really didn't care about Sorcerer's. So when the Sorcerer playtest was down voted, they just quit. They didn't push origins enough.

The problem wasn't sorcerer playtest scoring low in the surveys (it didn't), the problem was that the wizard scored low in that particular survey and the outcry wizard diehards had because they "wanted spell points too".

 

[Maxperson]

I disagree with you because of something I said at the start of this thread.

The logic of the effect of D&D's magic have little sense nor meaning at many point that it is impossible to gauge them as a logical progression of effects except in a few situations. Being a 5th level spell mean nothing. Individual 5th level spells might having be a lost. However 3rd level wizard level contain more vital spells than 5th.

Because D&D spells are not organized mostly by logic, importance, tier, or situation. They are organized by power and nostalgia. Most of the most important spells are 1st-3rd level. 4th and up are usually just niche game breaking spells, uncapped version of 1st-3rd level spells, kill/suck spells (which got nerfed) or MOAR DAMAGE/HEALS/TARGET/AOE.

Would I give up knowing 4th and 5th level spells for 3-4 more cantrips, INT mod more spells prepared, a new subclass, and a whole new class to steal low level spells from?

Yes, thank you. Let the fighters do all the damage. Batman Psizards will be all the rage.

We're going to have to agree to disagree. I played a wizard to 6th level spells and every time I gained a new spell level and thought about multiclassing, I realized that there were 4+ spells of the new spell level that were better than anything I could pump up. The bit of versatility just didn't compensate for those spells.

This is a very subjective topic, though, so it's unlikely we are going to convince each other here, and neither one of us can really be wrong. You like the versatility more, and I like the better spells more.