Unearthed Arcana Why UA Psionics are never going to work in 5e.

[Shroomy]

So, kind of an obvious question, but:
What settings is psionics important in?

I mean, I know Dark Sun is basically based around it. Eberron has Sarlona, and FR the Gith, but is there any other setting in which psionics is important?

While it's been present in pretty much all of them, it's really only intrinsic to Dark Sun.

 

[SkidAce]

So, kind of an obvious question, but:
What settings is psionics important in?

I mean, I know Dark Sun is basically based around it. Eberron has Sarlona, and FR the Gith, but is there any other setting in which psionics is important?

My setting.

If I have to wait much longer, I will just build psionics myself.

 

[jayoungr]

I mean, I know Dark Sun is basically based around it. Eberron has Sarlona, and FR the Gith, but is there any other setting in which psionics is important?

Well, Star Wars, if there were ever to be another official D20 version of that.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

FR the Gith

That's a D&D multiverse thing, not specifically a Forgotten Realms thing. You could call it a Planescape thing, but it predates Sigil by quite a bit.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

So, kind of an obvious question, but:
What settings is psionics important in?

I mean, I know Dark Sun is basically based around it. Eberron has Sarlona, and FR the Gith, but is there any other setting in which psionics is important?

Really only Dark Sun. Sarlona in Eberron was designed to compartmentalise psionics and make them optional. And most people play Gith sans psionics.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That's a D&D multiverse thing, not specifically a Forgotten Realms thing. You could call it a Planescape thing, but it predates Sigil by quite a bit.

Yeah, but Planescape is more of a Forgotten Realms thing, and the Gith are the main source of psionics as a player race in Forgotten Realms.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Yeah, but Planescape is more of a Forgotten Realms thing, and the Gith are the main source of psionics as a player race in Forgotten Realms.

When you say "more of a Forgotten Realms thing" what are you contrasting it to? Planescape is just playing the D&D multiverse that includes Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Birthright, etc, but focusing on Sigil and its own cultural feel. There is no closer connection between FR and Planescape than there is between Greyhawk, Dragonlance, or Spelljammer and Planescape. (Technically that's also true with Dark Sun and others, but they got less connections in published products so I can understand not seeing them as closely related.)

I'm zooming in on this point because I don't know what perspective you in particular are coming from, but there are some misconceptions that seem to have arisen in the past few years and they irritate me enough that I address them when I see them.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I mean, Forgotten Realms is the main D&D 5e campaign setting. The others to come out are Ravnica, Theros, Eberron, and Wildemount, of which I believe only Wildemount has the same cosmology. Sure, you can journey to the planes from a lot of campaign settings, but Forgotten Realms is the base one. IIRC, the most recent cosmology was specifically created because of the Forgotten Realms. The Spellplague messed things up cosmologically, and then the Second Sundering made the Great Wheel be the cosmology again.

 

[TheSword]

I mean, Forgotten Realms is the main D&D 5e campaign setting. The others to come out are Ravnica, Theros, Eberron, and Wildemount, of which I believe only Wildemount has the same cosmology. Sure, you can journey to the planes from a lot of campaign settings, but Forgotten Realms is the base one. IIRC, the most recent cosmology was specifically created because of the Forgotten Realms. The Spellplague messed things up cosmologically, and then the Second Sundering made the Great Wheel be the cosmology again.

Not quite accurate actually. The Forgotten Realms had a unique cosmology. It was well detailed in the 3.0 forgotten realms campaign setting (though it may have been detailed before) it is based on the gods homes rather than alignment based planes. It also doesn’t form a wheel around the outlands (and sigil) but actually planes surround Toril.

This is acknowledged in the 5e dungeon masters guide when it says there is a vision of the cosmology that differs in the Forgotten Realms under the section World Tree. It acknowledges that in FR planes are divided into celestial and fiendish rather than following the rule of 3.

Then again it’s all metaphysical, planescape is all about making sense of the unfathomable - if you were a Guvnor that is. The Doomguard would probably disagree and the Signers definitely would!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That's a D&D multiverse thing, not specifically a Forgotten Realms thing. You could call it a Planescape thing, but it predates Sigil by quite a bit.

This is correct, Gith where introduced in the Fiend Folio (1981) as a psionic race. Planescape was not published until 1994.

Gith do have a track record of showing up in Forgotten Realms CRPGs though. They where in Baldur's Gate 2, have a major role in BG3, and feature prominently in the plot of NWN2.