D&D (2024) What Should a Psion Be Able To Do?

[Flights of Fancy]

Form the Psionics: What Do You Want thread I am interested in a comprehensive list of all the sorts of power we (as a community) think psions should be capable of doing.

Anyone want to start it off? I wouldn't attempt it, because I know my depth of knowledge on this is too shallow, but I am happy to help organize the effort if people want to contribute?

 

[Scribe]

Just cover the basic tropes.

Telepathy.
Telekinesis. This can also be energy (elemental) manipulation.
Teleportation.
Body Manipulation.

Simple.

 

[Reynard]

I think restricting it to the Professor X/Jean Grey paradigm of telepathy and telekinesis is the best way to make sure it has an identity of its own. Once you start adding pyrokinesis and biokinesis you are just another caster.

 

[Flights of Fancy]

Just cover the basic tropes.

Telepathy.
Telekinesis. This can also be energy (elemental) manipulation.
Teleportation.
Body Manipulation.

Simple.

Sure, but there is a lot within those tropes. For example, Telepathy. Does that include:

Communcation?
Non-humanoid communication?
Reading thoughts?
Implanting throughts?
Emotions as well as thoughts?
Controling other creatures?
Implanting dreams?
and such...

The list could be twice that easily within a simple statement: telepathy.

 

[Flights of Fancy]

I think restricting it to the Professor X/Jean Grey paradigm of telepathy and telekinesis is the best way to make sure it has an identity of its own. Once you start adding pyrokinesis and biokinesis you are just another caster.

Right, but we (the community at large) might also want pyrokinesis and biokinesis, so they shouldn't be excluded, should they?

 

[Flights of Fancy]

And I'm not a superhero person, but doesn't Jean Grey as the Pheonix do any fire stuff???

 

[Scribe]

Sure, but there is a lot within those tropes. For example, Telepathy. Does that include:

Communcation?
Non-humanoid communication?
Reading thoughts?
Implanting throughts?
Emotions as well as thoughts?
Controling other creatures?
Implanting dreams?
and such...

The list could be twice that easily within a simple statement: telepathy.

Part of this comes down to the design of the edition.

Should spells be limited, or able to 'do it all'.
Should spell lists be tailored? If so, I would imagine so would psion powers.

All of its on the table, its up to the designers to limit as they see fit.

For what its worth, my version touches on all these things, but its obviously impossible to include 'everything'.

 

[Theory of Games]

And I'm not a superhero person, but doesn't Jean Grey as the Pheonix do any fire stuff???

As Phoenix, Jean could do nearly anything. Which - I didn't look at it yet - but a 20th-level Psion would be a literal force of nature, no?

 

[Flights of Fancy]

For what its worth, my version touches on all these things, but its obviously impossible to include 'everything'.

Fair enough, but I am hoping to get as exhaustive a list as possible just to see what we view as psionically capable.

Which - I didn't look at it yet - but a 20th-level Psion would be a literal force of nature, no?

In general terms, probably, but in 5E terms where we seek some degree of class balance somehow, it can't be much more a force of nature than other classes at capstone levels I would think.

 

[mellored]

And I'm not a superhero person, but doesn't Jean Grey as the Pheonix do any fire stuff???

Yes.
And hardly the only one.