What do you think about Psionics?

[jasin]

As for psionics, I happen to love them so much. As for people who say that they are to different from magic to fit in D&D, I show you two pictures, and challege you to tell me which is the wizard and which is the psion.

Please. This is obviously a trick question.

That you could even think you could pass this image of a Sardaukar trooper as a wizard or a psion is preposterous. While wizards or psions might well sport the equivalent of personal shields, the certainly don't wear berets.

Obviously cleric. Neither wizards nor psions turn undead, neither wizards nor psions have halos.

 

[PrinceXaxor]

Uh, the second picture is in the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Page 100 to be exact.

 

[blargney the second]

You can tell the second one is a psion because of the bikini top.

 

[Razz]

Dude, the undead one with the girl with the halo is for SFX. You don't have any SFX in your games? Does a lightning bolt look digital in your world or does your fireballs look pixelated like an 8-bit system?

The halo is a SFX of the psion manifesting psychic power. It looks cool. That's what SFX are supposed to do. Make things look "Wow!"

 

[Nifft]

Uh, the second picture is in the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Page 100 to be exact.

Right, but the picture was originally (and IMHO more accurately) a depiction of sever the tie, which later became undeath to death, and made it into the Wizard's playbook while disappearing from the Psion's.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nathan P. Mahney]

Psionics go against the feel that I'm going for with D&D in terms of flavour. They're fine when you're running a campaign where they are integral (such as Dark Sun) but often they just stick out like a sore thumb. (Except when the monsters use 'em, of course!)

 

[PrinceXaxor]

I dunno, that fits quite well as a picture for energy ball. That is by no means the first time Wizards has reused art.

As for the actual topic at hand, psionics always gets the short end of the stick when it comes to new supplements. It certainly doesn't deserve that, but like the Yugoloths, most designers could care less about it. When it comes time for 4th Edition, I can only hope that it will finally be part of the core material. Wizards seems to already deem it important enough to include in the SRD.

 

[Nifft]

I dunno, that fits quite well as a picture for energy ball. That is by no means the first time Wizards has reused art.

Yeah, I know. I'm just posing for thread cred.

As for the actual topic at hand, psionics always gets the short end of the stick when it comes to new supplements. It certainly doesn't deserve that, but like the Yugoloths, most designers could care less about it. When it comes time for 4th Edition, I can only hope that it will finally be part of the core material. Wizards seems to already deem it important enough to include in the SRD.

Word to that. I've been working on a set of unified random "magic" item lists for psionic light, medium and heavy campaigns. Seeing as the Magic Item Compendium now formally allows one to use many item creation feats for the creation of both "magic" and "psionic" items, this may be a timely resource.

Cheers, -- N

 

[GreatLemur]

My hat of psionics know no limit.

Quoted for hilarity.

 

[Birmy]

I like that the option to use it is there, but the decision to implement should really depend on the flavor of the campaign. I'm not sure how much place it would have in a high fantasy campaign, but in a campaign more--um... genre permeable?--there's no reason it can't play a prominent role. My feeling is to use it either sparingly, to give the PCs a necessary jolt, or make it an integral part of the setting, at least as much as magic and divine intervention, at any rate.

I can't see them including it in the core rules of whatever 4e turns out to be if only because it would take up so much more space to explain the flavor and mechanics than the other classes, to say nothing of the fact it feels less "quintessential" to a generic fantasy setting than, say, fighter or cleric.