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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9361874" data-attributes="member: 4937">The fewer magic powers that a character has the harder it is to balance.&nbsp; A broad smattering of relatively weak powers is easier to balance than a few powers because with a few powers either there are too many times when what you can do isn't relevant or else that one power is a hammer than can pound any nail.&nbsp; This is the &quot;Potence is Every Discipline&quot; or &quot;Johnny One-Power&quot; problem.&nbsp; Originally the way that AD&amp;D tried to balance psychic powers is that you were just an ordinary character that had all the advantages of being whatever class you were but you had a few random narrow niche powers as well - knacks and gifts if you will.&nbsp; AD&amp;D was never heavily concerned with balance, but the balancing feature of this was that by being a weak psychic you were fresh meat to any actually strong psychic.&nbsp; This of course was terrible balancing in that you got a nice little advantage and then boom, you were likely instantly crushed death no save in the first round of contact with the first psychic powered monster you met which was no fun.&nbsp; Fortunately, almost no one actually played with &quot;psionic&quot;/psychic characters or ever used the rules as they were probably only slightly more common than actually using the weapon vs. AC tables, so just how bad the rules were wasn't a big deal.Things got broken in 2e when they realized this was all a problem but tried to fix it in a very 2e manner by making a class for it.&nbsp; I mean this was the addition that gave us Cook and Smith and a whole book of NPC classes to patch the fact that they had no skill system.&nbsp; And at that point, the horror was unleashed.&nbsp; 3e propagated it with its typical approach; &quot;We need 6 hardbacks a year to keep employed, what poorly thought-out supplemental book can we tack on haphazardly to the system next?&nbsp; Don't be shy, our customers will buy anything.&quot;&nbsp; By that time, it was now a thing with a fanbase - mostly the people that felt spell slots were a bad idea all along and didn't think 3e had gone far enough in letting spellcasters solve problems by going nova.Personally, I don't mind the idea of optional magic systems being published in stand alone supplements, but I do think they should be designed as replacement systems.&nbsp; That is either you use one system or you use the other depending on which one you feel better reflects the flavor of the setting.&nbsp; This strongly influences how you would create an optional system since it would have to integrate with all the rest of the game.&nbsp; I soft &quot;nope&quot; on using two magic systems in the same setting or game system.&nbsp; But what I really hard &quot;nope&quot; on is pretending that psychic powers aren't magic just because you call them (erroneously) &quot;psionic&quot;.&nbsp; Like Mass Effect for example has &quot;science wizards&quot; with hologram magic and control over zero mass particles or something, but at least it flavors the magic in a sort of handwavy techy things and literal bionic and psionic augmentation.&nbsp; Psionic in D&amp;D post 3e though typically is just Wizards with no downside, right down to &quot;they use crystals!&quot; as if that wasn't itself a wizardly thing.&nbsp; Psionic is an arcane magic class doing arcane magickly things based largely after traditional magic that the Victorian mediums gave science-like Latin names like ESP, clairvoyance, telepathy, telekinesis, clairaudience, precognition, and so forth.&nbsp; There is absolutely no reason to give two different descriptions of the same ability.&nbsp; Plan things out from the start in such a way that the two systems are interchangeable.&nbsp; Then at least if you must insist on using both because reasons, it works.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9361874, member: 4937"] The fewer magic powers that a character has the harder it is to balance. A broad smattering of relatively weak powers is easier to balance than a few powers because with a few powers either there are too many times when what you can do isn't relevant or else that one power is a hammer than can pound any nail. This is the "Potence is Every Discipline" or "Johnny One-Power" problem. Originally the way that AD&D tried to balance psychic powers is that you were just an ordinary character that had all the advantages of being whatever class you were but you had a few random narrow niche powers as well - knacks and gifts if you will. AD&D was never heavily concerned with balance, but the balancing feature of this was that by being a weak psychic you were fresh meat to any actually strong psychic. This of course was terrible balancing in that you got a nice little advantage and then boom, you were likely instantly crushed death no save in the first round of contact with the first psychic powered monster you met which was no fun. Fortunately, almost no one actually played with "psionic"/psychic characters or ever used the rules as they were probably only slightly more common than actually using the weapon vs. AC tables, so just how bad the rules were wasn't a big deal. Things got broken in 2e when they realized this was all a problem but tried to fix it in a very 2e manner by making a class for it. I mean this was the addition that gave us Cook and Smith and a whole book of NPC classes to patch the fact that they had no skill system. And at that point, the horror was unleashed. 3e propagated it with its typical approach; "We need 6 hardbacks a year to keep employed, what poorly thought-out supplemental book can we tack on haphazardly to the system next? Don't be shy, our customers will buy anything." By that time, it was now a thing with a fanbase - mostly the people that felt spell slots were a bad idea all along and didn't think 3e had gone far enough in letting spellcasters solve problems by going nova. Personally, I don't mind the idea of optional magic systems being published in stand alone supplements, but I do think they should be designed as replacement systems. That is either you use one system or you use the other depending on which one you feel better reflects the flavor of the setting. This strongly influences how you would create an optional system since it would have to integrate with all the rest of the game. I soft "nope" on using two magic systems in the same setting or game system. But what I really hard "nope" on is pretending that psychic powers aren't magic just because you call them (erroneously) "psionic". Like Mass Effect for example has "science wizards" with hologram magic and control over zero mass particles or something, but at least it flavors the magic in a sort of handwavy techy things and literal bionic and psionic augmentation. Psionic in D&D post 3e though typically is just Wizards with no downside, right down to "they use crystals!" as if that wasn't itself a wizardly thing. Psionic is an arcane magic class doing arcane magickly things based largely after traditional magic that the Victorian mediums gave science-like Latin names like ESP, clairvoyance, telepathy, telekinesis, clairaudience, precognition, and so forth. There is absolutely no reason to give two different descriptions of the same ability. Plan things out from the start in such a way that the two systems are interchangeable. Then at least if you must insist on using both because reasons, it works. [/QUOTE]

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