Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 4532034" data-attributes="member: 13966">You're missing part of what folks have said.  They've already mentioned several times that the concept of a magician usually includes a limited power supply, but they can cast the same spell over and over again until it depletes that energy.This is the concept of magic points, mana, ether, pneuma, chakra, chi, ki, or in D&D psionics, power points.  What this energy supply comes from and what it represents is of little consequence, since it's all more or less very similar; internal energy or universal energy that a talented person can tap into with the right knowledge and application of willpower and belief.  The magician can cast his augury or his fireball as often as he wants, but only up to the limits of his energy supply, and once that's depleted, he can't cast anything else (or at least nothing else significant) for awhile.A lot of fantasy literature and such has magicians who either get weaker/older/crazier/corrupted with every spell cast, or are only able to cast a limited number of spells before they're too depleted to cast any more that day.This is the kind of concept that D&D psionics are based on.  A psionicist has a limited number of power points each day; each power (aka spell) depletes some of those, and once they're empty, the psionicist is too drained to use any more powers (spells) for the rest of the day.You're getting hung up on semantics; although D&D uses a sci-fi term for psionics, the game could just as easily call it "mind magic" or "witchcraft" or "chi channeling" or whatever.  And it only uses latinized names for psionic powers because of that stylistic choice of naming convention; telekinesis could just as easily be called "magic movement" or "magic grip" for example.  D&D has just had bits of sci-fi (which used to be less distinguishable from fantasy) and other genres mixed in since very early on, so many designers just didn't have a problem with using such elements in D&D.Despite the naming convention choice, D&D psionics still has a lot in common with the portrayal of magic in fantasy.  Sure it's got some differences too, but D&D's magic system is far more different, and only has some minor stylistic element of spell components in common with magic in fantasy literature.  And even that is limited in 3e, since metamagic feats and stuff can eliminate most spell components.Only 3e D&D psionics uses the stupid focus of crystals and ectoplasmic snot, because of some wierd stylistic choices.  Prior to that, there were only a few powers or less that utilized crystals, and I don't think there were any at all that used astral ectoplasm or ethereal protomatter.Also, the things you mentioned about MTHAC0 and such are woefully outdated, abandoned relics of the thrown-together appendix that was the original D&D psionics rules.  Psionics made more sense and was more streamlined in 2nd Edition, then further streamlined in 3e and again in 3.5e.  2e was just a refined and expanded version of 1e psionics, much better but still a very different system from D&D magic (the Vancian spell preparation stuff).  3e and 3.5e made psionics much more like magic, removing most of the alternate system factor from it and just making it like another flavor of magic, with only a few differences.</blockquote>

Verification