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What’s The Big Deal About Psionics?
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<blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8571264" data-attributes="member: 58172"><p>I appreciate your overview of the 2e Psionicist. The sensibility of organizing psionic powers thematically, into disciplines, continues alive and well. I am familiar with the themes from 3e psionics. The 2e mechanics discontinued. They characterize as something like a feat chain whose features require skill checks, but more convoluted and ad hoc.</p><p></p><p></p><p>The 3e Psion feels like magic, like how magic should be.</p><p></p><p>So, it is hard for me to relate to what "not magic" means. Do you mean no ceremonial rituals or what?</p><p></p><p></p><p>Psionics can be angelic disembodied minds, and Platonic, despising the human body and the material world.</p><p></p><p>Oppositely, psionics can be this worldly, active, and animistic, celebrating the features of the nature to the exclusion of anything beyond nature.</p><p></p><p>A berserkar intentionally visualizes the mindset (the mental self-image) of an animal, for ferocity in combat. A mind whose visualization is strong can even shift ones physical body into this animalistic mental form. Psychometabolism.</p><p></p><p>The feel of psionics is versatile.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yeah, that is true for both Platonism and Animism. The mind is in an altered state when manifesting effects.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Heh, if the imperfections of the human body are foul, then I want to be foul.</p><p></p><p>But more seriously, for psionics, the power of the mind is clearly beyond any limitations of the body. That is true for the monotheistic mystic and the animistic shaman.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I like character concepts that are thematically tight. This might even be the only thing that all psi fans agree on?</p><p></p><p>The difficulty is.</p><p></p><p>I want to play the character concepts that I want to play. I dont want to play the player character that the designer wants to play. The psionic options need to be like Lego bricks, so I can mix and match the options to build my psionic concept for my player character. I want my player character to be a salient archetype that is conceptually tight (like superheroes often are). But I dont want a "package deal" where to get what I want means get stuck with stuff that I hate because its flavor is wrong for me or its ribbon mechanics are crappy. There might even be something excellent in the package, but not appropriate for my character concept. (Unwanted bundling is one of my several objections about the UA Mystic.) I need a class that that is freeform enough for me to construct a satisfying character concept. one of the reasons I like spells is because they are freeform. I can pick and choose exactly which ones I want for my character concept.</p><p></p><p>The mind can imagine anything. In some ways one might expect a psionic class to be even more all over the place than the Wizard. But when I think of examples from various real life traditions that feel psionic, each individual that exemplifies it is archetypally salient, with vivid focused themes.</p><p></p><p>Psionics is about a personality. Each personality is unique, yet a salient assemblage of tropes that relate to each other in meaningful ways.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yaarel, post: 8571264, member: 58172"] I appreciate your overview of the 2e Psionicist. The sensibility of organizing psionic powers thematically, into disciplines, continues alive and well. I am familiar with the themes from 3e psionics. The 2e mechanics discontinued. They characterize as something like a feat chain whose features require skill checks, but more convoluted and ad hoc. The 3e Psion feels like magic, like how magic should be. So, it is hard for me to relate to what "not magic" means. Do you mean no ceremonial rituals or what? Psionics can be angelic disembodied minds, and Platonic, despising the human body and the material world. Oppositely, psionics can be this worldly, active, and animistic, celebrating the features of the nature to the exclusion of anything beyond nature. A berserkar intentionally visualizes the mindset (the mental self-image) of an animal, for ferocity in combat. A mind whose visualization is strong can even shift ones physical body into this animalistic mental form. Psychometabolism. The feel of psionics is versatile. Yeah, that is true for both Platonism and Animism. The mind is in an altered state when manifesting effects. Heh, if the imperfections of the human body are foul, then I want to be foul. But more seriously, for psionics, the power of the mind is clearly beyond any limitations of the body. That is true for the monotheistic mystic and the animistic shaman. I like character concepts that are thematically tight. This might even be the only thing that all psi fans agree on? The difficulty is. I want to play the character concepts that I want to play. I dont want to play the player character that the designer wants to play. The psionic options need to be like Lego bricks, so I can mix and match the options to build my psionic concept for my player character. I want my player character to be a salient archetype that is conceptually tight (like superheroes often are). But I dont want a "package deal" where to get what I want means get stuck with stuff that I hate because its flavor is wrong for me or its ribbon mechanics are crappy. There might even be something excellent in the package, but not appropriate for my character concept. (Unwanted bundling is one of my several objections about the UA Mystic.) I need a class that that is freeform enough for me to construct a satisfying character concept. one of the reasons I like spells is because they are freeform. I can pick and choose exactly which ones I want for my character concept. The mind can imagine anything. In some ways one might expect a psionic class to be even more all over the place than the Wizard. But when I think of examples from various real life traditions that feel psionic, each individual that exemplifies it is archetypally salient, with vivid focused themes. Psionics is about a personality. Each personality is unique, yet a salient assemblage of tropes that relate to each other in meaningful ways. [/QUOTE]
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