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

[MoonSong]

The Sorcerer transformation normally comes from a pact with a powerful patron. Likewise the magical transformation of a Warlock is "lasting alterations".

But sometimes the Sorcerer transforms from exposure to raw magical energies of various kinds. In these situations, the Sorcerer becomes "in tune" with the magical energy. The relationship is with the energy itself. Thus, the resulting Sorcerer-Warlock pact takes on a more animistic and shamanic quality.

Nowhere in the lore it is seen as a pact. It is treated as innate, or an accidental change. By wanting to merge together these two, you are taking away the one caster class for whom magic wasn't a choice. Which is a huge lose, because for all other casters it is a choice.

Besides, tell me. Have you find in your anthropology readings cases where some sort of power is claimed as coming from heritage or destiny? And how when contact with westerners -particualrly certain Christian westerners- that becomes a mark of shame and blamed on demons? And you want to repeat that into the game? Do you find that particularly sensitive?

 

[Yaarel]

Nowhere in the lore it is seen as a pact.

The Sorcerer Draconic origin uses the word "pact", explicitly in the sense of a bargain.

Similarly, the Wild origin refers to a fey doing the blessing, or a demon doing the mark. Both are a kind of pact, being magically transformed by a patron.

It is treated as innate, or an accidental change.

Never "innate". For the Draconic pact, either the character or the characters ancestor made a pact with a dragon. A descendant can inherit the consequences, but someone made a pact.

An accidental transformation can happen, or be made to happen intentionally.

By wanting to merge together these two, you are taking away the one caster class for whom magic wasn't a choice.

A Warlock pact can also happen without a choice. "Sometimes a traveler ... stumbles into a pact without being fully aware of it." "Did you search for patron, or did your patron .. choose you?" Generally, a pact can happen because of recklessness, and can also be forced. Even a patron might be coerced into a pact.

To say plainly that some pacts are involuntary seem within the scope of a Warlock pact.

Consider reallife folkbeliefs about devils, where the unborn child is offered as a "payment", and the devil raises the child as an apprentice of magic.

Descendants can inherit the pacts of ancestors.

Exposure to magical energy is somewhat different, but this too can be understood as a kind of pact with energy itself.

 

[Shardstone]

Talk about sorcerer vs warlock should really get its own thread.

 

[Yaarel]

that becomes a mark of shame and blamed on demons? And you want to repeat that into the game? Do you find that particularly sensitive?

The question of reallife sensitivity if inheriting a "mark" is fair, but that applies to both the Sorcerer and the Warlock.

But 5e gives the player total control to decide what the pact is or isnt for their own character. So this ensures the player is comfortable with whatever the flavor of the pact is.

 

[Yaarel]

Talk about sorcerer vs warlock should really get its own thread.

Both classes relate to a 5e Psion mechanically. Some think narratively. The relationships between these classes need clarification.

 

[James Gasik]

The relationship is "whatever your game supports". I have this slightly heretical belief that not all classes and subclasses are meant to coexist in the same campaign as each other. Some campaigns might not support a particular Pact or Bloodline. In some campaigns, most NPC's don't even understand the difference between "guy sold his soul to demon" and "guy is child of demon".

Especially if Tieflings are involved.

 

[MoonSong]

@Yaarel please look the other post before the one you quoted. (Post 880) It is relevant.

 

[Yaarel]

@Yaarel please look the other post before the one you quoted. (Post 880) It is relevant.

Ok, I'm home and have regained access to my books.
I open my case with this passage

"Sorcerers carry a magical birthright conferred upon them by an exotic bloodline."

This "bloodline" explicitly comes from an ancestor who made a "pact", a bargain.


"some otherworldly influence"

This "otherworldly influence" is a patron, such as a fey or demon (or modron or celestial) who blesses or marks the body by means of a magical transformation. These are kinds of pacts.


"or exposure to unknown cosmic forces."

Even this can still be a kind of patron that is making a pact. However instead of a patron using magical energy to transform the body, the pact is with the magical energy itself. The relationship with the energy is more animistic.

For example, say the character makes a pact with the element of fire itself. The fire lacks a human mind, but it does have a mind that wants to be fire and do the things that fire does. The relationship is more about being "in tune" with fire, and exhibiting traits and behaviors that connote fire. This is somewhat culturally relative, but fire can connote beauty, explosive energy, passion, purification, anger, judgmentalism, clinging, ascending, consuming, joy, delight, warmth, splendor, or so on. In the nature of this pact with fire, the player is deciding what the fiery character concept will look like. The character indeed has a pact, resonating with fire, aware of fire, becoming fire. It can be, this fiery transformation and sensitivity and beauty can be a hereditory trait passing down the generations as fire entangles each descendant.

In the case of the Storm origin, the pact is similarly animistic with the element of air and attuning the inhuman mind of air.


"One can't study sorcery as one learns a language, anymore than one can learn to live a legendary life."

True. The pact of a sorcerer is a tranformation of the physical body by means of magical energies. I one doesnt study how to use a magic wand. Instead, one becomes the magic wand. At least that is what the flavor suggests, despite the mechanics not reflecting this flavor of transformation at all. Actually the Warlock mechanics is much better for expressing the Sorcerer concept than the Sorcerer mechanics is.


"No one chooses sorcery; the power chooses the sorcerer."

To the contrary, one can choose sorcery.

For example, one can make a pact with a powerful dragon, thus bargain for the dragon to transform one magically, thus willingly gain a Draconic origin.

Maybe the key point here is the patron must choose to transform the character. This dependence on choice is true whether the patron is a dragon or air itself.

Also the same page makes constant mention of bloodlines and lineages.

Again these bloodlines and lineages are the result of a pact with a dragon. The dragon transforms the character and these new magical traits can be past on to descendants.

It also mentions significant events that are the spark for a sorcerer.

These events refer to the physical transformation.

And dragon magic explicitly mentions either an ancestor that mingled with dragons, or a dragon itself as a parent.

Yeah, exactly. The ancestor made the pact. It is a choice that the ancestor made.

In contrast, Wild magic requires special conditions for ones birth, odd one to a million events, the blessing of a fey, the mark of a demon,

The fey or demon are making a pact in the same sense that the Warlock class does. For both classes, the bargain is to have ones body transformed/altered by means of the magic of the patron.

or no apparent cause at all.

In the case of the Wild origin, it can be via a Chaotic patron like a fey or demon. But alternatively, the nature of the pact has nothing to do with alignment. The patron might be the wild magic itself choosing the character in a more animistic affinity, with the character concept transformed into this wild magic. It resembles the pact with air or fire, but the mind of the wildness has a distinct nonhuman personality.

Xanathar's section "this is your life", covers a few suggestions. One mentions birth, one mentions ancestry, two mention inner/latent gift, and one mentions surviving a magical event unharmed but changed. The sorcerer section further adds bloodline, ancestry, reincarnation, being the chosen one, or even being created.

As mentioned earlier, all of these events result from a pact.

Then there's divine soul

Typically a typical patron.

It also finishes by bringing bloodlines yet again.

And again, a "bloodline" is an ancestral pact with a patron that magically transformed the body of the ancestor.

Finally, the class symbol for sorcerer is a drop of blood.

The blood is the symbol of a bodily transformation.

.The point is, sorcerer and warlock are diagonal opposites.

The Warlock and the Sorcerer are identical.

Both make a pact to have their bodies magically transformed by a patron.

You want to claim they should be merged, but they have very different stories.

The point is: the Sorcerer has clearer flavor that emphasizes the bodily transformation, and the Warlock has clearer mechanics that actualize the things that a transformed body should be able to do.

Meanwhile the Sorcerer mechanics sucks, and the Warlock flavors are all over the place with regard to how this magic is happening - is it the alteration but then why the study?

The Warlock class does well to double down on the flavor of bodily transformation by magic, because it emphasizes what a pact is, exactly, and explains why it is a kind of cheating, a shortcut instead of study.

These deep design considerstions empower the Warlock-Sorcerer class to enjoy both excellent flavor and excellent mechanics that express that flavor well.

Obviously, a Warlock Draconic pact expresses the essence of the sorcery exactly. Meanwhile the Warlock has the mechanics to express the bodily transformation better.

You can make a better case for merging warlock and cleric. And the supposed overlap is minimal.

The Cleric is about symbols and oaths and language and ideas and ethics, and especially the concept of a sacred community. It has little or nothing to do with what the Warlock is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"Sorcerers carry a magical birthright conferred upon them by an exotic bloodline."

This "bloodline" explicitly comes from an ancestor who made a "pact", a bargain.


"some otherworldly influence"

This "otherworldly influence" is a patron, such as a fey or demon (or modron or celestial) who blesses or marks the body by means of a magical transformation. These are kinds of pacts.


"or exposure to unknown cosmic forces."

Even this can still be a kind of patron that is making a pact. However instead of a patron using magical energy to transform the body, the pact is with the magical energy itself. The relationship with the energy is more animistic.

For example, say the character makes a pact with the element of fire itself. The fire lacks a human mind, but it does have a mind that wants to be fire and do the things that fire does. The relationship is more about being "in tune" with fire, and exhibiting traits and behaviors that connote fire. This is somewhat culturally relative, but fire can connote beauty, explosive energy, passion, purification, anger, judgmentalism, clinging, ascending, consuming, joy, delight, warmth, splendor, or so on. In the nature of this pact with fire, the player is deciding what the fiery character concept will look like. The character indeed has a pact, resonating with fire, aware of fire, becoming fire. It can be, this fiery transformation and sensitivity and beauty can be a hereditory trait passing down the generations as fire entangles each descendant.

In the case of the Storm origin, the pact is similarly animistic with the element of air and attuning the inhuman mind of air.


"One can't study sorcery as one learns a language, anymore than one can learn to live a legendary life."

True. The pact of a sorcerer is a tranformation of the physical body by means of magical energies. I one doesnt study how to use a magic wand. Instead, one becomes the magic wand. At least that is what the flavor suggests, despite the mechanics not reflecting this flavor of transformation at all. Actually the Warlock mechanics is much better for expressing the Sorcerer concept than the Sorcerer mechanics is.


"No one chooses sorcery; the power chooses the sorcerer."

To the contrary, one can choose sorcery.

For example, one can make a pact with a powerful dragon, thus bargain for the dragon to transform one magically, thus willingly gain a Draconic origin.

Maybe the key point here is the patron must choose to transform the character. This dependence on choice is true whether the patron is a dragon or air itself.



Again these bloodlines and lineages are the result of a pact with a dragon. The dragon transforms the character and these new magical traits can be past on to descendants.



These events refer to the physical transformation.


Yeah, exactly. The ancestor made the pact. It is a choice that the ancestor made.



The fey or demon are making a pact in the same sense that the Warlock class does. For both classes, the bargain is to have ones body transformed/altered by means of the magic of the patron.



In the case of the Wild origin, it can be via a Chaotic patron like a fey or demon. But alternatively, the nature of the pact has nothing to do with alignment. The patron might be the wild magic itself choosing the character in a more animistic affinity, with the character concept transformed into this wild magic. It resembles the pact with air or fire, but the mind of the wildness has a distinct nonhuman personality.



As mentioned earlier, all of these events result from a pact.


Typically a typical patron.


And again, a "bloodline" is an ancestral pact with a patron that magically transformed the body of the ancestor.



The blood is the symbol of a bodily transformation.


The Warlock and the Sorcerer are identical.

Both make a pact to have their bodies magically transformed by a patron.


The point is: the Sorcerer has clearer flavor that emphasizes the bodily transformation, and the Warlock has clearer mechanics that actualize the things that a transformed body should be able to do.

Meanwhile the Sorcerer mechanics sucks, and the Warlock flavors are all over the place with regard to how this magic is happening - is it the alteration but then why the study?

The Warlock class does well to double down on the flavor of bodily transformation by magic, because it emphasizes what a pact is, exactly, and explains why it is a kind of cheating, a shortcut instead of study.

These deep design considerstions empower the Warlock-Sorcerer class to enjoy both excellent flavor and excellent mechanics that express that flavor well.

Obviously, a Warlock Draconic pact expresses the essence of the sorcery exactly. Meanwhile the Warlock has the mechanics to express the bodily transformation better.


The Cleric is about symbols and oaths and language and ideas and ethics, and especially the concept of a sacred community. It has little or nothing to do with what the Warlock is.

Are you expecting WotC to actually merge these classes? Because they seems very unlikely.

 

[Yaarel]

Are you expecting WotC to actually merge these classes? Because they seems very unlikely.

Heh, should and is are different things.

A plausible future is, the Sorcerer is absent from 50e and the Warlock updates the flavor to emphasize the bodily transformation that occurs during the pact.

Later on, a Draconic pact subclass can become available.