WotC recognizes psionics and ki are the same

[Ashanderai]

No more wrong than if I were to say I like Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream, but hate Rocky Road and then you were to declare that you love Rocky Road. It boils down to being about personal taste.

Apparently I have it and you don't. /joking

Really, if you like it and it doesn't hurt anyone and your game group likes it, then don't let anyone stop you.

Me though, having crystals and rainbow pyramids and psychics with late night TV shows and 900 numbers mixed in with my ki makes my ears bleed.

 

[Aaron L]

Then would it be wrong if my first thought on reading your post were "sounds cool I've got to try that?"

No, because I thought the same thing.

You can accept that some magic-users have to use books to learn it, and some have the ability inborn, and some others still have to rely on gods to give them magic, but you can't accept that some users of ki focus on their own bodies and use their k to make their bodies perfect, while others use crystals as foci and storage devices to project their internal energies into the outside world for telekinesis and telepathy?

That's a bit of a double standard there, don't you think?

I LIKE to make my supernatural powers separate. I consider each school of magic to be a totally separate entity having nothing to do with any others, and the spellcasting techniques of each school are totally different from every other.

But when two things are both described as "the internal energies of the body, mind, and soul working together, requiring deep meditation to learn to harness and control and project outside the body" I call them both the same thing. Ki and Psionics both have the same description, and both come from the same source. Therefore, I call the the same power, each character choosing the name he gives his powers. If you want to keep them separate, make the differences cultural, with one culture having Monks and using ki, and another having Psychic Warriors and calling it psionics. You don't have to stat having your monks wear crystals and talk about the Astral Plane, but that's sure as heck what psychics talk about, both in D&D worlds (thanks to 3E psionics, which I love), and in our own world those who call themselves psychics do that too.