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

[Maxperson]

They should use the core of the original ‘story’ from the setting box, but even then the big picture is important, not the minutiae. And they definitely should jettison the stuff from the novels, which seriously altered the setting and left less for the PC to do. To me it is far more important that they respect the spirit of the setting rather than the technical details.

If Dark Sun shows up with normal elves, normal dwarves, tortles, dragonborn, etc., I'm not even going to bother with it.

 

[Maxperson]

Are "white magic" and "black magic" fundamentally different in important ways in lots of stories? Are "miracles", "witchcraft", and "wizardry" viewed differently in many settings/stories?

Yes.

 

[Cadence]

Yes.

Is it that the way they work in game are fundamentally different in terms of how they're gone about, or that they're thought to be different? (If one were making a white magic vs. black magic game, would they have different mechanics, or just different spell availability and fluff?).

 

[Maxperson]

Is it that the way they work in game are fundamentally different in terms of how they're gone about, or that they're thought to be different? (If one were making a white magic vs. black magic game, would they have different mechanics, or just different spell availability and fluff?).

Either or both. I've read books where white magic comes from God and black magic from the Devil. I've read books where witchcraft is fundamentally different from wizardry in how they function(have different mechanics). One set of books Master of the Five Magics, Master of the Sixth Magic, and Riddle of the Seven Realms involve 6(more really) different types of magic all with different rules. Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive has different types of magic with different mechanics in it. And more.

There are also books where all magic stems from the same source and uses the same mechanics, but are thought to be different.

 

[Minigiant]

None of those spells are psionics. Not one. Mind control, telepathy, telekinesis when achieved through magic are not psionics, so arcane and divine power sources never get psionics. They can, though magic, mimic a bit of i

I was talking about the effects.

The effects in the Magic system that replicate Psionics are too high level. And some are missing.

It doesn't neuter it all. Like not even a smidge. If a wizard has to get basically a wild talent through a feat to gain a bit of psionics. That's cool. It's an investment of resources to become a wizard with a bit of psionics. That doesn't impinge on or negate the point of having psionic classes at all.

Not if you can dip one level in Psion and get all their iconic 1st level spells at full power.

THAT'S the problem. 1 level dip let's you upcast everything a Psion can do.

Unless you are willing to create 40+ new spells just for the Psion. (For example 1st level Far Hand, 3rd level Telekinetic Push, 5th level Telekinesis, 7th level Psychokinesis, 9th level True Telekinesis)

 

[Maxperson]

I was talking about the effects.

The effects in the Magic system that replicate Psionics are too high level. And some are missing.

I don't particularly see a need to have them all. Why do you think that they are too high level? They start as weak as cantrips with Mage Hand and 1st level with Charm Person and Animal Friendship. The more powerful versions are higher level as the should be.

Not if you can dip one level in Psion and get all their iconic 1st level spells at full power.

I disagree. Dip one level and get a few 1st level abilities at "full power." That full power is weak and has cost you even more power since you now lost spells of higher level. Let's say an 8th level Wizard dips into Psion for 1 level, effectively becoming a wild talent that has awakened a few abilities. Okay. Now he's missing the 5th level spells like Animate Objects, Bigby's Hand, Conjure Elemental, Dominate Person, Hold Monster and more, just so that he can pick up a few 1st level abilities that MIGHT scale weakly or might not even scale. Um, yay?

And it doesn't take away from psionic classes in the least. In fact, it made them necessary in order for the Wizard to awaken that meager psionic talent.

THAT'S the problem. 1 level dip let's you upcast everything a Psion can do.

Except objectively not. You don't get everything a Psion can do at 1st level, and upcasting is weaker than getting the more powerful spells in your own class or more powerful powers as a Psion. It lets you dabble weakly a bit into psionics.

Unless you are willing to create 40+ new spells just for the Psion.

You don't need 40 new ones.

 

[Yaarel]

Regarding Nordic magic, including Norse runic magic, the magic is explicitly done by the power of the mind - according to the reallife Nordic cultures.

A strong mind can cause dramatic effects. But every mind manifests influence. Training magic is about focusing ones mind, visualizing intention, inducing trances, imbuing objects with ones own mindfulness, and is sometimes about preventing accidental magical effects when the mind wanders randomly.

Nordic magic translates into D&D as psionic.

Typically, most animistic traditions are psionic, where any object of nature is a mind that inherently manifests influence.

This is a prehistoric worldview about how minds and reality work.

Psionics has nothing to with "modern science".

 

[Jer]

Dark Sun was written with the implicit assumption that psionics =/= magic, because the setting has A) special rules about magic,

Special rules about arcane magic. And different rules about divine magic. And a third set of special rules about psionics (magic).

Power source matters in Dark Sun - arcane magic is toxic, divine magic is not. Psionics could be viewed as another form of non-toxic magic (and arguably that's how the folks in the Dark Sun setting would actually view it- it's the good kind of magic, not the bad kind).

and B) everyone is assumed to have some degree of psionic ability. Delving into both arts is required to transform into some of the most powerful entities of magic in the setting, a Dragon or an Avangion.

Which can be replicated with feats, subclasses, and multiclassing to a large degree. And where it can't, Dark Sun could have it's own rules that aren't necessarily a part of an edition-wide psionics system as needed.

Every edition "update" for a setting involves fitting the setting to the rules of the new edition, not the other way around. That's part of why many older players/DMs (especially DMs IME) are always unhappy by updated setting rules even as they clamor for them - because it never "feels" like the original setting because the original setting was written assuming 2e/3e/whatever rules were part of the "structure" of the world and when those rules change it feels like a setting change to them. When those rules change radically it's a radical setting change.

(I will be honest - I think I could do a great Dark Sun game with the psionic subclasses and feats from Tasha's alone, along with some homemade new Backgrounds. Would it replicate the feel of a 2e version of the game? Nope. Would it still be Dark Sun? To me it would because the 2e psionics rules aren't something I actually think are integral to Dark Sun's feel despite how they were assumed as part of the original setting.)

 

[Yaarel]

Psionic and primal, and arcane and divine, are power "sources".

These sources are tags. They have no rules in themselves but other rules might refer them.

It occurs to me, a SETTING can create a rule for a source. That source rule is true for that setting, but is untrue for other settings.

Examples of setting source rules.

Psionic versus arcane. In the Dark Sun setting, psionic is safe magic while arcane is dangerous magic. Arcane mages divide between self-suppressing minimizing risk, versus wreckless destroying the planet.

Primal versus divine. In the (3e) Forgotten Realms setting, gods control divine magic and at their discression, their "portfolio" can turn the divine magic on or off. Moreover a god depends on its worshipers and loses power if the number of worshipers decline, and can have their portfolios stolen by someone else. By contrast, primal magic derives from nature collectively.

Arcane. I might have for my setting, only the arcane power source uses material components, and must do so. The flavor is Greek (Hellenistic) protoscience, where its "magos" studies how to exploit the different properties that are inherent in different objects. For example, according to ancient scholars, the agate stone is known to prevent the spread of poison. Alchemy, potions, and "magical ingredients" are an important part of the arcane protoscience.

A SETTING can say there is no is no transparency between psionic-and-primal versus arcane-and-divine. So, primal can dispel primal or psionic effects, but cannot dispel arcane or divine effects. And so on. The setting can make this rule, but the core rules cannot. The core rule default is all of these magical sources interact with each other normally. But in the core rule, each source is a tag, and a specific setting can make up special rules for that tag.

 

[MoonSong]

All spells must be psionic innate.

If it's innate, it's a sorcerer?
I know you don't like the Aberrant Mind as an option, and that you don't seem to like the sorcerer at all. But the sorcerer chassis is the best we can expect, precisely because it isn't as good. The designers were too afraid of experimental mechanics to not cripple the sorcerer and to even admit the result was underpowered. If forced to experiment once again, to create from scratch, the result would be unplayable. This isn't the edition to make everybody happy, but rather to come close enough to be everybody's second choice so everybody could play together. We all need to compromise, and some end up compromising more than others.

Even if this is the "every caster is a Wizard" edition. ^_^

"Every caster is a Sorcerer". You don't see everybody having to lug heavy tomes around and preparing spells to the slot do you?

We won't get a good psionics system as long as the game developers don't have a particular passion for it. Or the player base at large. All we can do is try to educate people on the fence, and hope for the future.

Psion shares the sorcerer problem in lacking advocates among the design team. It also seems to have a general ill disposition among significant parts of the community like the warlord. Like the warlord it also has the problem of the designers already thinking they did a "close-enough" rendition already.