Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8571649" data-attributes="member: 58172">Ah. That helps to see where you are coming from. I tend to agree with much of it. For example.To me the Mage Hand cantrip feels nonpsionic. I dont care if its "spectral hand" is "invisible" or not. The wrongness is having a floating hand in the first place.I mentioned earlier in thread, real telekinesis is fluid. The telekinetic can look at a cup of water, make its water flow up into the air, separate into droplets and strands to form patterns and shapes that then drift around the room. And so on for other kinds of objects. A hand cant do this.In this particular case, the solution is to write a new at will cantrip that is more flexible, and feels more psionic, probably using higher level slots to boost the size, distance, and strength of the telekinetic influence. Maybe call it the "Psychokinesis" cantrip to distinguish it from the (terrible) Telekinesis spell.Now, this Psychokinesis cantrip is gentle and only affects objects and willing creatures. I would love to use it to shave my face every morning. Force combat that deals damage, telekinetically grapples, and flings targets around, feels different, and is more like a different spell - a different way of thinking.It is difficult to balance flexible spells. I sympathize with the challenges that the designers face. Consider the beloved/notorious 3e Prestidigitation spell. At a minor scale, it can do anything that a player can imagine. There have been many ingenious uses of it by players thinking outside of the box. There are concerns about its balance. Designers have broken it, into the pale semblance that is the 5e Prestidigitation cantrip that itemizes the only things that it can do. Yet the 5e Minor Illusion cantrip retains the kind of psionic flexibility, as do illusion spells generally, so it is possible to balance flexible spells.Some spells are nonnegotiable. Telekinesis must feel like telekinesis, or it isnt telekinesis. Telepathy must feel like telepathy, or it isnt telepathy. And it must be available at level 1. Telepathy must convey words, images, sensory experiences, feelings and thoughts in both directions. If a mind can think it, telepathy can communicate it. Preferably it is a cantrip at will. Designers simply must make these work in a flexible and balanced way.So far we are only discussing cantrips and low levell spells. But at the highest levels Psions and other psionicists are wielding world-shaking powers. Access to the highest level spell slots secures access to this scaling of power and plurality of choices. Slot 9 spells like Wish, Shapechange, and Foresight, feel psionic.Regarding metacreativity. There is a fine line between illusion and conjuration. It might be worthwhile to discusd how disciplines organize these concepts.Generally, yes. All psionic conjurations are made out of telekinetic force that the psionicist actively maintains. Yet there are oddities. The conjurations tend to be invisible force, but whether by the manipulation of light or sensorial distortion can be a virtual reality. At the higher levels, mind over matter can create matter out of nothing. Consider how the real life universe is only energy and forces, as is matter itself, and a powerful mind can manifest actual reality similarly. Spacetime is no limitation for a psionicist. At lower levels, a psionicist might manifest a conjuration unintentionslly or unconsciously and maintain it unconsciously. A spell like Mage Armor as an invisible force, might represent normal responsiveness to danger except with ambient telekinetic reflexes. Different from a Shield spell which is more like a force construct. Some spells feel very psionic. Some not at all. Many are plausible. The description of each spell requires considerstion for its suitability for psionics. Psionic concepts that are missing from the spell list need new spells.Psionics can create magic items by imbuing an object with mental intention. These objects maintain a mental link with their creator. The creator can manifest effects thru the object even a distance away. Even if the creator dies, the object retains the creators residual mindful presence and aspects of the creators personality. Perhaps most sentient magic items are psionic.I associate the primal power source as the elements. Namely, water, fire, air, earth, plus plant, albeit normally in the sense of rivers and rain, sunlight and lightning, winds, rocks and mountains, plus forests, trees and flowers. And so on.At least in the animistic cultures that I am familiar with, each of these objects of nature is in itself psionic. Just like a human body is a physical object with an unseen mind, the rivers and rocks are bodies with an unseen mind. The objects behave the way they do because their minds choose to behave that way. An object has a personality. Some objects have a mindful presence that is poweful, able to influence the nearby, visit in dreams, manifest outofbody in the form of a human or animal, and other psionic effects.Psionic and primal are two sides of the same coin. Psionics is about manifesting ones own personality. Primal is about being a member of a community of minds.Oh. Ok.Well, not all Aberrations are Evil, but yeah, psionics is something different.</blockquote>

Verification