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

[Maxperson]

TLDR: spells tap into magic that suffuses the world (e.g. the weave in FR), psionics does an end run around reality. So?

Depends on how you define the source. For example Paladins draw upon the power of their oath and conviction. They may be dedicated to a deity, they do not have to be. Let's take a look at the description of magic in the PHB spellcasting chapter: "In casting a spell, a character carefully plucks at the invisible strands of raw magic suffusing the world, pins them in place in a particular pattern, sets them vibrating in a specific way, and then releases them to unleash the desired effect — in most cases, all in the span of seconds."

Paladins in 5e draw their power from their oaths, but that power still comes from outside, not inside. The oath allows them to draw from outside divine power.

So you say that psionics doesn't do that. Okay, cool. What power source do they draw on? Because "the mind" does not seem like enough. We don't have psionics in the real world (as far as we know) because of conservation of energy, you can't have events and state changes that spontaneously happen without some source of energy. That energy has to come from somewhere.

The mind is a powerful thing, and a psion's mind is more powerful than most. And grows stronger as they gain levels. They draw upon themselves only. In D&D and even in sci-fi, thought can be energy or perhaps converted into energy.

But what if we ignore basic Newtonian physics. If someone is (using comic book powers here) picking up a car with their mind and they are not tapping into some external power source then they must somehow altering reality. They've found a loophole, a cheat code to physics.

Or they are converting their mental energy into other kinds of energy, just like physical(kinetic) energy can be converted into electricity. It doesn't have to be a cheat.

And before you say that the mind doesn't have that kind of energy, I think it would be hubris to think that we humans have detected everything there is to our universe and have nothing left to find out. In fact there have been multiple(though rare) instances of doctors declaring brain death, because we could not detect any brain activity, just to have that person wake up later, sometimes having heard the doctor give the order to take them off of life support. There has to be some energy in the brain that we can't detect yet in order for that to have happened.

Psionics is an interesting concept, being able to break Newtonian physics is something that even spells as defined by D&D doesn't do, spells require tapping into the magic that suffuses the world in order to change things. But the question remains, how do you make it different from spellcasting? Because saying that you reject reality and substitute your own may work for an alien mindset, I just don't see how you differentiate it in practical terms.

3e did a good job of making it mechanically different from divine and arcane magic.

 

[Oofta]

There are Divine spells, Arcane spells, and Primal spells. I would definitely be fine with Psionic spells. A big problem with a lot of WotC's attempts at designing psionics in 5e, IMHO, is that it suffers from over-engineering or over-design. It's honestly puzzling to me that WotC has not explored creating a standalone spellcaster (as per the 3e Psion). There are definitely ways that WotC could change how Psionic characters approach spell-casting (e.g., Concentration, not needing VSM spell components for spells on the psionic spell list, etc.).

But then we have the complaint that psionic powers are just spells with a different label, right? That psionics are just a way to end-run things like counterspell and anti-magic zones? Because that's kind of what's happened in the past. It seems like if you get rid of all the negatives of being a magic user in D&D, you have to come up with different negatives and limitations to balance things out.

You can't just rely on "psionicists are mysterious" because that could be applied to just about any class. In any given setting warlocks could be as rare as hen's teeth, sorcerers could be the first in a thousand years. I get the desire to make it a separate thing, but it really is niche. Honestly? Most people don't care much about lore. Psionics has always been a bit of a niche in the game creating whole new subsystems isn't going to happen anytime soon. Not creating new subsystems doesn't seem to address some of the issues.

In any case, apologies if some of this has already been covered, but I'm not going to go back through a thousand posts. Especially because there have been multiple other threads that already covered all of this. I just think of psionics as being like a reality hacker is a cool concept. You literally cannot create the energy in your brain to levitate a car unless your brain is actually a fusion reactor. E=MC**2 and all that. On the other hand if you've figured out that the car is not "real" but is instead just a construct our brains impose on the inconceivable (to us) truth, you've bypassed Newtonian physics.

We know from quantum physics that the world we perceive isn't quite as simple as Newtonian physics or even Einstein's theories. The idea that what we perceive as reality is just a construct that's evolved as the best way to interact with our environment is one that philosophers and quantum physicists struggle with to this day. It would be cool if we could represent that in game, I'm just not sure we can.

 

[Aldarc]

I tried searching the thread and didn't find any reference to it, but for 3.5, Green Ronin published the "The Psychic's Handbook." (The Psychic's Handbook - Green Ronin Publishing | 3rd Era | DriveThruRPG.com). It's psionics based on feats and skills. It certainly has a different feel and mechanics than a spell point system.

This is probably one of my favorite psionic systems or, rather, its similar iteration in Blue Rose RPG and then True 20.

I'm not sure how well it work in the 5e system.

But then we have the complaint that psionic powers are just spells with a different label, right? That psionics are just a way to end-run things like counterspell and anti-magic zones? Because that's kind of what's happened in the past. It seems like if you get rid of all the negatives of being a magic user in D&D, you have to come up with different negatives and limitations to balance things out.

This is how it was in 3.5 (and PF1 with Dreamscarred Press), and that was honestly best version of psionics (IMO) in D&D. Psionics could be counter-spelled and would not work in anti-magic zones. Psionics in 3.X lacked VSM Components, but manifesting their powers did result in "Displays" that made it clear you were using Psionic powers.

 

[Minigiant]

I still think the key to making Psionics as Spells work is creating new spells and limiting access to any Psionic spells about 2nd level.

Arcane has Telekinesis and Telepathy.
Psionics would need Telekinetic Push, Telekinetic Choke, Telepathic Nudge, Electrokinesis, Pyrokinetic Eruption, Ectoplasmic Lash...

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Psionic powers use psionic-power-points, there is a special rule about psionic focus, and there was mental-fight. Psionic powers can work in anti-magic fields, and they don't need somatic or verbal components. This means if a psionic infiltrated in a high-society party using telepatic powers to manipulate rich men, nobody could realise.

 

[see]

The core issue with psionics is that there are several possible incompatible implementations, and the people who are least satisfied with the current situation are the ones that want the psionics that'd cause WotC the most trouble to implement.

5th edition has already evolved a psionics system largely equivalent to that presented in OD&D and AD&D 1st edition, in terms of role if not remotely in mechanics. The feats and subclass features as of Tasha's are the fairly obvious match for the occasional, mostly-not-character-defining psionic powers in those editions.

The second choice, psionics equivalent to the 3.5 XPH and Dreamscarred Press psionics for PF1 are, in fact, pretty much just spells. A quick way to do it is rename the 5e sorcerer class "psion", use the DMG spell point option for this class, create new subclasses for different flavors of psion, modify the spell list a bit, and replace the spells' verbal components with audio manifestations and somatic components with visual manifestations. People who want this, and would be satisfied with this, but aren't currently happy, do exist. But they aren't the people who make the most noise on the boards about wanting psionics.

The third, a whole new system that doesn't work like spell magic, and is broad and complete enough to support a psionicist "full caster" class, is what was attempted in AD&D 2nd edition (twice, actually). The first problem from a WotC perspective is that making a system as broad and flexible as spell magic is as difficult to balance as the spell magic system, and that effort was huge and took a long time. The second problem is that by adding such a broad and flexible system to the game, you are massively increasing the total complexity of D&D, which will result in massive rejection by people who were near their complexity limits with D&D as-is. The third is that there's no natural niche for psionic effects in the game; to make this new system not completely redundant you'd have to claw back powers already assigned to various forms of magic to create one, which would also cause massive rejection by existing players of magic-users. The fourth is retrofitting such a system to existing settings in a way that feels natural rather than tacked-on -- or else dooming the whole psionics project to being a red-headed stepchild.

In the Level Up Voidrunner's Codex project, the creators have seriously reduced their issue because they have completely tossed the traditional magic system aside for their project. They don't have to worry about corner case interactions with spell magic, because they've tossed out spell magic. They don't have to make sure that spell magic and psionic "full caster" classes are equals, because they've tossed out spell magic. They don't have to worry about the complexity burden of two supernatural powers systems in a game, because they've tossed out spell magic. They don't have to worry in about niche overlaps and protection between psionics and spellcasters, because they've tossed out spell magic. And they don't have to worry about existing customers' reactions, because instead of introducing psionics to an existing game and retrofitting to existing material, they're making a new game. Accordingly, they have a vastly easier task than WotC would in adding a complete psionics system to D&D, both as a matter of game design and as a business managing a fanbase.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The core issue with psionics is that there are several possible incompatible implementations, and the people who are least satisfied with the current situation are the ones that want the psionics that'd cause WotC the most trouble to implement.

5th edition has already evolved a psionics system largely equivalent to that presented in OD&D and AD&D 1st edition, in terms of role if not remotely in mechanics. The feats and subclass features as of Tasha's are the fairly obvious match for the occasional, mostly-not-character-defining psionic powers in those editions.

The second choice, psionics equivalent to the 3.5 XPH and Dreamscarred Press psionics for PF1 are, in fact, pretty much just spells. A quick way to do it is rename the 5e sorcerer class "psion", use the DMG spell point option for this class, create new subclasses for different flavors of psion, modify the spell list a bit, and replace the spells' verbal components with audio manifestations and somatic components with visual manifestations. People who want this, and would be satisfied with this, but aren't currently happy, do exist. But they aren't the people who make the most noise on the boards about wanting psionics.

The third, a whole new system that doesn't work like spell magic, and is broad and complete enough to support a psionicist "full caster" class, is what was attempted in AD&D 2nd edition (twice, actually). The first problem from a WotC perspective is that making a system as broad and flexible as spell magic is as difficult to balance as the spell magic system, and that effort was huge and took a long time. The second problem is that by adding such a broad and flexible system to the game, you are massively increasing the total complexity of D&D, which will result in massive rejection by people who were near their complexity limits with D&D as-is. The third is that there's no natural niche for psionic effects in the game; to make this new system not completely redundant you'd have to claw back powers already assigned to various forms of magic to create one, which would also cause massive rejection by existing players of magic-users. The fourth is retrofitting such a system to existing settings in a way that feels natural rather than tacked-on -- or else dooming the whole psionics project to being a red-headed stepchild.

In the Level Up Voidrunner's Codex project, the creators have seriously reduced their issue because they have completely tossed the traditional magic system aside for their project. They don't have to worry about corner case interactions with spell magic, because they've tossed out spell magic. They don't have to make sure that spell magic and psionic "full caster" classes are equals, because they've tossed out spell magic. They don't have to worry about the complexity burden of two supernatural powers systems in a game, because they've tossed out spell magic. They don't have to worry in about niche overlaps and protection between psionics and spellcasters, because they've tossed out spell magic. And they don't have to worry about existing customers' reactions, because instead of introducing psionics to an existing game and retrofitting to existing material, they're making a new game. Accordingly, they have a vastly easier task than WotC would in adding a complete psionics system to D&D, both as a matter of game design and as a business managing a fanbase.

WotC could do the same thing if they wanted to, bu creating a new setting without spell magic and designing psionics for it, putting the burden of using both systems on the players. But they won't.

 

[jgsugden]

They're not creating from zero here, folks. Making a balanced psionics system - even one that does not operate like spells do - would/will be based upon the mechanics of D&D. They know what appropriate damage is at a given character level, and they know how to balance abilities. The trickiest part of making a psionic power source work is not the mechanics - it is the lore side of it. They have to find lore that gets wide acceptance in an audience with people that resist psionics, and dozens of cults that each have a different idea of what psionics should be.

 

[grimslade]

Hmm, 60 page thread on psionics I somehow missed. Sorry.
I will just give the Cliff Notes version of why I want psionics.

• Vancian Spellcasting sucks. I hate it. It doesn't even represent its namesake in fiction.
• I want a magic system that has its power come from the caster, not the 'weave'
• A more freeform magic system Not different spell names to pad page count with a different variable tweaked.
• For the Devs to expand the game design. 5E has had some of the laziest design iterations. "I will give inspiration on a 1 instead of a 20! Brilliant!" The devs are much better designers than this. Stretch yourselves! Stop being so conservative.

Bah, I am not trying to influence opinion. I just want the game to continue to be fresh for my grandchildren's grandchildren.

 

[Maxperson]

But then we have the complaint that psionic powers are just spells with a different label, right? That psionics are just a way to end-run things like counterspell and anti-magic zones? Because that's kind of what's happened in the past. It seems like if you get rid of all the negatives of being a magic user in D&D, you have to come up with different negatives and limitations to balance things out.

3e did that. There were other ways to detect psionics happening. You can also have the result be some sort of magic as well, so it doesn't get around anti-magic zones. Anyone who is claiming that psionics are "just a way to end-run things like counterspell and anti-magic zones" is being disingenuous. There might be the odd person saying that, but by and large our side doesn't have those things as a goal or even desire.

You can't just rely on "psionicists are mysterious" because that could be applied to just about any class. In any given setting warlocks could be as rare as hen's teeth, sorcerers could be the first in a thousand years. I get the desire to make it a separate thing, but it really is niche.

It's no more niche that monks, bards or warlocks.

Psionics has always been a bit of a niche in the game creating whole new subsystems isn't going to happen anytime soon. Not creating new subsystems doesn't seem to address some of the issues.

It was niche in 1e and 2e, true. It was MUCH more prevalent in 3e, and I don't know about 4e.

You literally cannot create the energy in your brain to levitate a car unless your brain is actually a fusion reactor. E=MC**2 and all that. On the other hand if you've figured out that the car is not "real" but is instead just a construct our brains impose on the inconceivable (to us) truth, you've bypassed Newtonian physics.

We know from quantum physics that the world we perceive isn't quite as simple as Newtonian physics or even Einstein's theories. The idea that what we perceive as reality is just a construct that's evolved as the best way to interact with our environment is one that philosophers and quantum physicists struggle with to this day. It would be cool if we could represent that in game, I'm just not sure we can.

You don't need a fancy shmancy scientific explanation. If a table wants it, they can come up with it.