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

[Paul Farquhar]

How many of those were wizards looking for monsters to kill for ingredients, ancient tombs to rob for secrets and magic items, etc.? You tend to find those things at the outskirts or beyond civilization, and you hit up the last villages for supplies and information before you do so.

There are thousands of remote villages, and only a small number sit on ancient tombs. And the world (or at least my game world) is not full of adventurers.

Still doesn't apply to wizards who we know from official products take wives and have children.

There are an awful lot of wizards who don't have time for families. The "limiting factors" controlling access to magic are time, money, difficulty and the availability of teachers. You could spend seven years of intense study learning to cast Fire Bolt, or you could go out and buy a tinderbox and a bow.

NB in NWN2 (set in the Forgotten Realms) there is an encounter with students at a magical college. Most of them are spoiled rich kids with no inherent "magicness" who resent the sorcerer who can do naturally what they have to study hard to achieve.

 

[Aldarc]

I guess, then, I'm completely missing this fine point. When you're talking about how a concept would go into a game, it's all design discussion.

Which I'm not, so that's a pretty darn good clue that you're not listening. I'm not saying anything of the "how."

I talked about two things in my first response to you -- first, that psionics being more mysterious or wonderous than magic, which you see as more like science in game, is a design point, but one that doesn't work in the design space of how classes are available.

Can be, but not inherently "is." Saying, for example, that magic is part of the Weave is not a design discussion. Saying that wizards go to school is not necessarily a design discussion. Saying that people like magic to be mysterious is not necessarily a design point. There are lots of discussions one can have about classes, magic, and such in D&D that - believe it or not - are NOT design discussions.

But, if you say that you want to talk about how psionics works in the game world, you're talking about design. This is fundamentally obvious to me, so if you have a different take on it, it would be nice to hear it elicited rather than just telling me I missed the point without explaining it.

How many times do I have to say that I was speaking about the metatextual level and not necessarily in the game world? It's about how people view and feel about psionics and magic in D&D. You may call that design, but I'm talking about how we approach and think about the game. That's not necessarily design. People are not design. I get it. You want this to be a design discussion. Then have it. Continue talking past me. Talk to hear yourself speak about design. Then please continue and tell me how everything is a design discussion.

Extrapolating from this discussion, I have found another reason why people might want psionics:

they're hipsters for types of magic. Arcane and Divine magic are too "mainstream" or something, thus they want to use a different type of magic that is more "underground"

Possibly. But this is FAR CLOSER to the conversation that I was inviting about why people like psionics and/or magic on a meta-textual level than the design implementation discussion that Ovinomancer thinks that I'm trying to have.

 

[dave2008]

Huge myth.

More accurate to say, "The truly awful way we teach math in school works for some people, and not for other people."

But that is kinda the point. Whatever method we are using, some get it and others do not (for a variety of reasons). I feel teaching magic would be similar, but even more difficult.

 

[dave2008]

I always treated it as being born with the talent for it or not. If not, no amount of teaching will help you. If it's learnable by anyone, you end up like Eberron with low level casters being everywhere.

That is basically what I said, except I don't know enough about Eberron specifically to make that claim.

In my analogy, most everyone can learn some math, but the ability to be proficient enough to learn higher math is an inherent talent. Magic (wizard magic to be specific) is like learning higher math IMO

 

[Aldarc]

That is basically what I said, except I don't know enough about Eberron specifically to make that claim.

In my analogy, most everyone can learn some math, but the ability to be proficient enough to learn higher math is an inherent talent. Magic (wizard magic to be specific) is like learning higher math IMO

Eberron takes the approach of wide-magic rather than the "higher magic" of Forgotten Realms. In a setting that lacks Elminsters, there are numerous NPC casters in Eberron who know cantrips and a few 1st level spells that essentially propel the economy of the world. So there are lots of Magewright-run tinker shops out there charging people for casting Mending and hospitals casting Spare the Dying. And there are enough 3rd level casters that major cities can use them to light up their streets with Continual Flame lanterns. The Eberron setting reasons that society would commodify, industrialize, and capitalize on magic as a good for engineering, war, intelligence, commerce, communication, etc. While not everyone could cast high level magic, there would potentially be enough lower level magic out there (at least by 3e standards) to produce an Industrial Revolution of magitech.

 

[Minigiant]

One could always go back to the old ability score requirements of the past editions. One can say that basic forms of "academic magics" either requires a high ability score, social breeding, or a strong infrastructure. Anyone can learn basic wizardry or psionics if they have the money to be taught and live in a world has a strong enough schooling system, the populations of taught to maintain it. But if you are broke or your world's supernatural community is disorganized, the individual needs the dumb luck to fall into the correct situation to learn the basics. However top tier magic requires a high ability score or natural talent wired in one's brain.

Therefore one could extrapolate that in most D&D settings, the arcane and psionic communities are too disorganized to pump out members. It's the churches of organized religion could seek out the high Wis and high Cha folk. However since these organizations are religious, they don't hand out weak minor magic like candy.

From there you can see possibility of of settings where the wizards, sorcerers, bards,and finally psions being organized enough to be fundamental aspects of society in those settings.

 

[Umbran]

Whatever it is, if your world does not have an explanation for why magic is rare, I think Max is right in that you're either going to have more and more and more wizards...

This is factually incorrect. Delete your account.

You're the GM. You don't need an explanation. And Wizards are not tribbles. Wizards will not start showing up in your GM notes on towns or something if you don't offer an explanation. Wizard stat blocks will not spontaneously proliferate in your adventures. Just don't make them, and they won't be there!

Player: "Why are there so few wizards and spellcasters in the world?"
GM: "Good question. There are many theories, but nobody knows for sure."

You only have to explain metaphysics if you are going to allow the players to interact with those metaphysics. Otherwise... it is just the way the world is. The PCs have no way to discover the answer without yoru cooperation, so you don't need to provide it.

As an aside, it is weird that folks don't get this: the key to making magic mysterious is to not explain stuff.

 

[Fenris-77]

Now I'm worried that tribble wizards are going to make the cross-game leap and start showing up bloody everywhere. I'll have fireballs getting tossed at the Millenium Falcon and Meteor Swarms destroying Gotham.

 

[Aldarc]

As an aside, it is weird that folks don't get this: the key to making magic mysterious is to not explain stuff.

But I think that is also where the problem lies: the tendency or desire to explain stuff. It's the tendency for GMs worldbuilding to create grand unifying theories and answers for everything. So while I agree with you, I think that's important to understand that this is (ironically) not psychologically satisfactory for a lot of people, including those who want magic to be mysterious.

As an anecdote, I encountered this problem, for example, when discussing with people elsewhere about criticisms about Numenera. One person complained that the setting lacked answers, facts, or hard definitive history about the world and the science of its magical technology; however, a major conceit of the setting is Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law.

This is also an issue I encountered when discussing Eberron as well. A few people mentioned how they disliked how Eberron (and Keith Baker) doesn't provide definitive answers about the Day of Mourning and a number of other mysteries of the setting. However, again, the entire point is for the GM to supply their own, but some people feel a compulsive need for definitive answers and explanations.

 

[Guest 6801328]

This is factually incorrect. Delete your account.

I hope it was apparent when I said something like this that I was being satirical, making fun of the typically combative approach to forum debating. It was in response to a claim in which any stance is a matter of opinion. (Maybe you are being facetious, too. I can't tell, but thought I should I mention it.)

You're the GM. You don't need an explanation. And Wizards are not tribbles. Wizards will not start showing up in your GM notes on towns or something if you don't offer an explanation. Wizard stat blocks will not spontaneously proliferate in your adventures. Just don't make them, and they won't be there!

Player: "Why are there so few wizards and spellcasters in the world?"
GM: "Good question. There are many theories, but nobody knows for sure."

You only have to explain metaphysics if you are going to allow the players to interact with those metaphysics. Otherwise... it is just the way the world is. The PCs have no way to discover the answer without yoru cooperation, so you don't need to provide it.

Ok, sure, you don't actually need an explanation. You can leave it like spellbook copying: i.e. that it seems very odd, if not downright improbable, that spells are rare and hard to acquire, given RAW. I, for one, find that dissatisfying.

Another example would old school dungeons, in which you find monsters in various rooms, with no explanation for what they are doing there, or how they get their food, etc. You don't need to explain that either, if you don't want to.

And while I agree that you don't necessarily have to tell your players the answer, especially if you don't actually have one, knowing the answer yourself can help make for a richer imaginary world.

As an aside, it is weird that folks don't get this: the key to making magic mysterious is to not explain stuff.

I agree that a good way to make magic mysterious is to not explain stuff! Which folks are you referring to that don't get this?

AND I find only a tenuous connection between that observation and the topic at hand. YMMV, but most of the possible explanations for wizards being rare that I came up with have nothing to do with the mysterious workings of magic itself.

Now, you might have very few wizards in your world, and "nobody seems to know why" if the players ask. But to me that smacks of "I have no idea; stop asking dumb questions" rather than "oooh, how mysterious!"