Now, as far as psionics being their own subsystem separate from spellcasting; we saw the results of that in 3.5. We got the initial round of powers and classes in XPH, one more round a few years later in Complete Psionic, and then extremely sparse dribs and drabs until the edition slowly ground to a halt. And that was in an edition with a vastly more prolific release schedule than 5e has ever had. It was more support than other subsystems like Incarnum, Maneuvers, and Binding got, but it ended up being all sizzle and no steak all the same. For me, just having an alternate system for the novelty of saying "it's not spell slots!" isn't worth relegating that system to the back burner, which is exactly what would end up happening.
It's also a case of do we really need another system/class that get's tacked on? Like as much as Yurei talks about her disdain for sub-classes (despite apparently not understanding them at all) the fact remains that it's contributed heavily to the simplicity of 5e and that has been a major selling point of this edition; people can readily pick up the game and get to playing or running it in short order and the developers have to date only released one actual class that wasn't in the core rulebook (artificer) because it was both iconic to eberron and because it simply doesn't fit into the mechanics of any other class.
Maybe if WotC had the balls to put out Dark Sun you would have an argument in favor of adding Psionics to the game but as it stands they're better off with the approach that they've done, rolling them into the other classes and calling it a day.
I don't think psionics vs magic is the reason they're reluctant to redo Dark Sun (and I find the "balls" comment uncharitable.) Going back to the interview between Kyle Brink and Bob The World Builder during the OGL fiasco, he didn't mention psionics at all:
Bob the World Builder:"Any potential - and I feel like I expect I know the answer to this - any potential that we would see a revision or republishing of the DarkSun setting, ever?" KyleBrink:"So the 'ever' is the operative word there-" Bob the World Builder:"I'll forget the 'ever' then and let's just say 'in the next 5 years.'" KyleBrink:"I'll be frank here - the DarkSun setting is problematic (Bob: "I agree") in a lot of ways, and that's the main reason we haven't come back to it. We know it's got a huge fan following, um, and we have standards today that make it extraordinarily hard to be true to the source material and also meet our ethical and inclusion standards." BtWB:"Yeah, that's a totally fair point and I think that's already kind of the consensus, people I think just wanted to hear somebody say it." KyleBrink:"We know there's love out there for it, and god we would love to make those people happy, and also we've got to be responsible."
They've been burned in the past by being too hasty with updating past material. Supposedly they have a better review process in place now, but putting Dark Sun of all things through it would be the epic-level gauntlet version of that.
I'm not saying psionics is the reason we're not getting Dark sun (the whole setting is like an ethical hard 180 from the direction they ostensibly want to go) but that if they were going to do so then Psionics would need to be a component of that setting released either before or simultaneously since it is the psionic setting and has it built into the lore of the world as a distinct concept from Magic.
That having been said, I am honestly glad that they're not pursuing DS. It's an amazing setting to be sure, but in the past few years WotC has released 4 camapign settings and of those only ravenloft has turned out well IMHO.
Maybe the way to do psionic abilities in Dark Sun should be, rather than a whole casting subsystem with its own classes and subclasses, a separate power track specific to that setting then - similar to Dark Gifts in Ravenloft, or Piety in Theros. They could start with Telekinetic/Telepathic as bonus feats that then unlock additional abilities/uses as you advance - such as the ability to cast certain spells or certain categories of spell without components.
Whatever they decide, I don't think Dark Sun being "the psionic setting" is enough of a reason to outweigh all the issues they've run into with trying to make psionics be their own subsystem in the past. I think there's ways for them to capture that legacy without rehashing all the spells-but-not-really of editions gone by.
Let's remember the psionic powers don't need material, verbal or somatic components, and this is no nonense because in certain circustance it may be very dangerous. A lurk (stealth and psionic class from the complete psionic) infiltrated in a party dinner of the high society could do a lot of things, like reading thoughts or adding poison to a cup of wine.
I want no-core classes in the same way somebody wants to wear clothing with the style of certain urban tribe and not other. I want to feel my PC is different and special.
If WotC doesn't publish their own psionic mystic class then this is created by 3PPs.
A psionic class can't be only a list of powers and class features, but it also needs its own mark of identity, and flexibility for different types of subclasses.
Other point is new sourcebooks with more psionic powers and crunch are harder to be sold, specially in translated markets.
And psionic powers have to be designed not only for D&D but also for all possible no-fantasy setting, for example Gamma World.
I don't think psionics vs magic is the reason they're reluctant to redo Dark Sun (and I find the "balls" comment uncharitable.) Going back to the interview between Kyle Brink and Bob The World Builder during the OGL fiasco, he didn't mention psionics at all:
Bob the World Builder:"Any potential - and I feel like I expect I know the answer to this - any potential that we would see a revision or republishing of the DarkSun setting, ever?" KyleBrink:"So the 'ever' is the operative word there-" Bob the World Builder:"I'll forget the 'ever' then and let's just say 'in the next 5 years.'" KyleBrink:"I'll be frank here - the DarkSun setting is problematic (Bob: "I agree") in a lot of ways, and that's the main reason we haven't come back to it. We know it's got a huge fan following, um, and we have standards today that make it extraordinarily hard to be true to the source material and also meet our ethical and inclusion standards." BtWB:"Yeah, that's a totally fair point and I think that's already kind of the consensus, people I think just wanted to hear somebody say it." KyleBrink:"We know there's love out there for it, and god we would love to make those people happy, and also we've got to be responsible."
They've been burned in the past by being too hasty with updating past material. Supposedly they have a better review process in place now, but putting Dark Sun of all things through it would be the epic-level gauntlet version of that.
The pile of wasted paper that is Starjammer, for example. Was very disappointed in the Dragonlance book, too
Let's remember the psionic powers don't need material, verbal or somatic components, and this is no nonense because in certain circustance it may be very dangerous. A lurk (stealth and psionic class from the complete psionic) infiltrated in a party dinner of the high society could do a lot of things, like reading thoughts or adding poison to a cup of wine.
You can do all of that right now with any class; the most immediately "on-line" version of this would be a human variant rogue who starts with the telepathy feat and then at level 3 goes either arcane trickster (for additional tricks with illusion and enchantment as well as an upgraded mage hand) or assassin (access to the poison proficiency).
I want no-core classes in the same way somebody wants to wear clothing with the style of certain urban tribe and not other. I want to feel my PC is different and special.
That's nice.
Psionics won't achieve this.
If WotC doesn't publish their own psionic mystic class then this is created by 3PPs.
I'm sure they will, and hey it might even stand the test of time like Book of Erotic Fantasy.
A psionic class can't be only a list of powers and class features, but it also needs its own mark of identity, and flexibility for different types of subclasses.
Yeah they tried that years ago; it was called the mystic and it sucked so bad they buried it and broke off a few pieces to add to other classes.
Other point is new sourcebooks with more psionic powers and crunch are harder to be sold, specially in translated markets.
Which diminishes the resources that can be spent on the other 13 classes in the game.
And psionic powers have to be designed not only for D&D but also for all possible no-fantasy setting, for example Gamma World.
There are no officially supported 5e modern settings so this is a moot point. Also the last shot at Gamma World had Psychics built into the mutant options list.
If you want psionics so very, very badly, then you should be able to explain why a simple “use. the sorcerer, but use the meta Magic’s which free you from needing components” is insufficient.
Why should someone have to abandon D&D forever just because they want something from it that you personally don't see any value in, Ashla?
I ******* hate Dragonlance. I think it's overwrought, overhyped nonsense, almost as trite and worn out as Tolkien. The people who love it tend towards being aggressively hostile to fans of other settings. There's a lot of controversy surrounding the setting, and the authors who nominally control it, and I would not generally allow myself to be caught within fifty feet of a table of ardent Dragonlance fans.
Does that mean I want it excised from D&D and anyone who likes it forcibly evicted from the game? No. They're as entitled to get some of what they want as anybody else is. They got their new book, and I'm genuinely glad they got a bone thrown to them even if I'd never be caught dead in a Dragonlance game. What they want, what they like, has no real bearing on my own games.
You told me you'd love for Knights of Solahma to be their own class instead of a background and a set of feats. Maybe you should've gotten that. Maybe the overfocus on avoiding bloat was a mistake, and instead there should have been greater focus on providing what the people most lusting after any given Thing X want and instead making it easier and more prevalent for DMs to curate content. DDB could have much better tools for allowing DMs to say 'No' to certain books, but it does not. "PHB + Dragonlance" should be easier for a DM to lay down if they want to run a Dragonlance game.
What isn't right is constantly telling people to leave the hobby forever just because they're unsatisfied with one small piece of it. My desire for better psychic abilities in D&D is not a desire for JumpShips and Malvena Hazen in my D&D (though replacing the Tetatae in Far Country with a D&D setting and having the party show up to the adventure after a Jump malfunction stranded them would be a phenomenal take on the 'Isekai' idea, don't tell me it wouldn't). My desire for better psychic abilities is simply a desire for D&D to do better by a huge swath of character archetypes it is currently serving poorly, if at all. That is not an unreasonable ask.
Also seriously, imagine the vibes of trying to keep the Leopard working in a world where the most advanced piece of tech in it is the water wheel, burning through dwindling spares trying to keep your sole remaining UrbanMech (because of course it would be an UrbanMech) functional enough to act as a deterrent against the trolls, ogres, and dragons that menace the stranded crew. MechWarriors having to learn fast and figure out gaining them class levels because they've only got two working laser pistols left, the charge packs are running low, and half the kingdom is convinced you're all evil sorcerers and keeps sending bounty hunters and knights-errant after you.
Sure the player pool for that game would be real small, but don't tell me you're not down to watch a Phoenix Hawk duel an adult dragon.
Sure the player pool for that game would be real small, but don't tell me you're not down to watch a Phoenix Hawk duel an adult dragon.
I would watch a King Crab duel a dragon for sure.....
That said, as far as Psionics goes, I think one of the main things holding it back across the editions is that it has to compete with magic bloat for design identity and it always tends to be more of a "second or third wave" of product and is concepted for the "current" edition well after the magic system has terminally spread across all avenues of design. If the designers would intentionally carve out early on what they want Psionics to do and equally intentionally not let the Magic system do that from the beginning, then it would be easier to fit Psionics into the game. But when the spell list already has mind reading/affecting spells and telekinetic powers......
Ironically, 4th Ed was the one edition where special classes were concepted using Psionics as their "power source" and that was about the only time so far that I felt Psionics was designed in parity with the other sources of power in the game. However, that was near the end of the 4th Ed life cycle and the classes also were kinda underwhelming in the face of all the options classes from the other sources had access too.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
My desire for better psychic abilities in D&D is not a desire for JumpShips and Malvena Hazen in my D&D (though replacing the Tetatae in Far Country with a D&D setting and having the party show up to the adventure after a Jump malfunction stranded them would be a phenomenal take on the 'Isekai' idea, don't tell me it wouldn't). My desire for better psychic abilities is simply a desire for D&D to do better by a huge swath of character archetypes it is currently serving poorly, if at all. That is not an unreasonable ask.
The core problem is that, to the degree there's actually a "huge swath", that swath isn't psychic characters, it's specialist spellcasters.
Sure the player pool for that game would be real small, but don't tell me you're not down to watch a Phoenix Hawk duel an adult dragon.
If I want to do that, there's game systems that will do it out of the box, with varying degrees of competency. I recommend a superhero system (supers systems have an iffy record with respect to fantasy, because they often have resolution problems at the equivalent of low level PCs, but something like mecha vs dragons is the kind of thing they're built for).
Why should someone have to abandon D&D forever just because they want something from it that you personally don't see any value in, Ashla?
Why should they stick with a game system that doesn't have what they want when there are literally dozens of alternatives that will suit their tastes better?
Like if I want a more hard sci-fi setting that has giant robots and neo-feudal interstellar empires all backbiting each other the solution isn't to overhaul D&D, it's to go and play battletech.
I ******* hate Dragonlance. I think it's overwrought, overhyped nonsense, almost as trite and worn out as Tolkien. The people who love it tend towards being aggressively hostile to fans of other settings. There's a lot of controversy surrounding the setting, and the authors who nominally control it, and I would not generally allow myself to be caught within fifty feet of a table of ardent Dragonlance fans.
How am I not surprised you don't like the setting that doesn't have psionics.
Does that mean I want it excised from D&D and anyone who likes it forcibly evicted from the game? No. They're as entitled to get some of what they want as anybody else is. They got their new book, and I'm genuinely glad they got a bone thrown to them even if I'd never be caught dead in a Dragonlance game. What they want, what they like, has no real bearing on my own games.
What Dragonlance fans got was an incredibly mediocre product that was bereft of so much of the tone of dragonlance; Like it came across as being so utterly hollow that I could probably port the whole thing over to Forgotten realms or greyhawk or eberron and nobody would notice.
You told me you'd love for Knights of Solahma to be their own class instead of a background and a set of feats. Maybe you should've gotten that. Maybe the overfocus on avoiding bloat was a mistake, and instead there should have been greater focus on providing what the people most lusting after any given Thing X want and instead making it easier and more prevalent for DMs to curate content. DDB could have much better tools for allowing DMs to say 'No' to certain books, but it does not. "PHB + Dragonlance" should be easier for a DM to lay down if they want to run a Dragonlance game.
I mean, I think it should have been a class in it's own right because I feel that it's somewhere halfway between being a fighter and a paladin and that by making it a background you functionally ruin so much of the tone of it... but by the same coin I'm also able to look at this, acknowledge that what I got was disappointing and move on.
And that's what seperates us Yurei; I'm able to accept the disapointment of DL and get on with my life because there is still ~despite the mismanagement of WotC~ plenty of things in the game for me to enjoy and I'm able to let go of this simple desire that I had.
What isn't right is constantly telling people to leave the hobby forever just because they're unsatisfied with one small piece of it. My desire for better psychic abilities in D&D is not a desire for JumpShips and Malvena Hazen in my D&D (though replacing the Tetatae in Far Country with a D&D setting and having the party show up to the adventure after a Jump malfunction stranded them would be a phenomenal take on the 'Isekai' idea, don't tell me it wouldn't). My desire for better psychic abilities is simply a desire for D&D to do better by a huge swath of character archetypes it is currently serving poorly, if at all. That is not an unreasonable ask.
I'm not saying that people should abandon the Hobby but rather that there are other options for Role-playing beyond D&D if what they're looking for is a radical departure from what the company has to offer and where they've indicated that they want to go.
Also seriously, imagine the vibes of trying to keep the Leopard working in a world where the most advanced piece of tech in it is the water wheel, burning through dwindling spares trying to keep your sole remaining UrbanMech (because of course it would be an UrbanMech) functional enough to act as a deterrent against the trolls, ogres, and dragons that menace the stranded crew. MechWarriors having to learn fast and figure out gaining them class levels because they've only got two working laser pistols left, the charge packs are running low, and half the kingdom is convinced you're all evil sorcerers and keeps sending bounty hunters and knights-errant after you.
Sure the player pool for that game would be real small, but don't tell me you're not down to watch a Phoenix Hawk duel an adult dragon.
I mean... If I want that expirience I can have it right now and have had it for the better part of 30 years:
It's called Palladium Books and it's megaversal system which allows you to mash up different genre's and worlds; I even ran a cosmic level palladium fantasy campaign that ported over stuff from ninja's and super spies and Nightbane 24 years ago that was effectively a personalized version of baldurs gate 1.
Please stop trying to force people to play other systems with zero online play support and no hope for the future because they want better psychic characters in D&D. Again, with feeling: if mind flayers are perfectly valid in D&D, so are psychic PCs
My desire for better psychic abilities in D&D is not a desire for JumpShips and Malvena Hazen in my D&D (though replacing the Tetatae in Far Country with a D&D setting and having the party show up to the adventure after a Jump malfunction stranded them would be a phenomenal take on the 'Isekai' idea, don't tell me it wouldn't). My desire for better psychic abilities is simply a desire for D&D to do better by a huge swath of character archetypes it is currently serving poorly, if at all. That is not an unreasonable ask.
The core problem is that, to the degree there's actually a "huge swath", that swath isn't psychic characters, it's specialist spellcasters.
It's both. There are, in fact, a lot of psychic archetypes out there. There are also a lot of specialist spellcaster archetypes. D&D does both of them badly out of the box. The fact that, on a meta-level, they're kind of the same thing and could probably share a framework doesn't mean they'd be the same class. (One of the Mystic's many problems appears to be that it tries to be both the "psionic class" and the "martial-arts magic class".)
Really, D&D's spell system is downright awful at modeling any archetype except "D&D caster".
Please stop trying to force people to play other systems with zero online play support and no hope for the future because they want better psychic characters in D&D. Again, with feeling: if mind flayers are perfectly valid in D&D, so are psychic PCs
The reality is, D&D is not a generic game system, it's a system designed for a rather particular game style. Sure, you can't play a mind flayer in D&D... but that's no different from all the other monsters you can't play; if I were to make a list of "monsters players would like to play but can't without completely breaking the game", my list would probably start with the top hits of dragons, vampires, and were-creatures, migrate through some fiends, fey, and celestials, before finally reaching mind flayers. There's game systems that are designed to do that kind of thing, that work to varying degrees, but it's not realistic to expect D&D to become one of them (they made a stab at it with savage species in 3.5e; it worked poorly and got way less support than psi). If you want psi characters in D&D, there are two realistic options
Accept that you're a spellcaster variant.
Use an alternative system that is objectively inferior to spell slots, because they're not going to build a class that might outperform their core classes.
Why should someone have to abandon D&D forever just because they want something from it that you personally don't see any value in, Ashla?
Why should they stick with a game system that doesn't have what they want when there are literally dozens of alternatives that will suit their tastes better?
Like if I want a more hard sci-fi setting that has giant robots and neo-feudal interstellar empires all backbiting each other the solution isn't to overhaul D&D, it's to go and play battletech.
You ought to be able to understand that game systems can offer more than one thing that somebody wants to have at the same time. Yes, if "psychic powers" are the sum total of a person's desires, then they might be equally happy with GURPS or Star Wars. But that describes literally nobody. If Yurei is saying "I want psychic powers in D&D", she may in fact want psychic powers in D&D.
The repeated "play another game" response to "I want something that's both in genre and in scope for D&D" is really quite disrespectful. And I say this as somebody who often replies "I suggest another game" when somebody is like "I want to do Overwatch in D&D".
What is the attraction to psionics? Is it the idea of a class who can create magical effects through pure concretration? Is it a spell caster using a power point system?
Please stop trying to force people to play other systems with zero online play support and no hope for the future because they want better psychic characters in D&D. Again, with feeling: if mind flayers are perfectly valid in D&D, so are psychic PCs
I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. I don't have that power. I'm just doing what you refuse to do and that's acknowledge the truth.
My desire for better psychic abilities in D&D is not a desire for JumpShips and Malvena Hazen in my D&D (though replacing the Tetatae in Far Country with a D&D setting and having the party show up to the adventure after a Jump malfunction stranded them would be a phenomenal take on the 'Isekai' idea, don't tell me it wouldn't). My desire for better psychic abilities is simply a desire for D&D to do better by a huge swath of character archetypes it is currently serving poorly, if at all. That is not an unreasonable ask.
The core problem is that, to the degree there's actually a "huge swath", that swath isn't psychic characters, it's specialist spellcasters.
Really, D&D's spell system is downright awful at modeling any archetype except "D&D caster".
That’s every hard magic system ever, because by definition a hard magic system is built on a collection of distinct fixed rules. This is not some unique failing of D&D, just the nature of the genre.
It's also a case of do we really need another system/class that get's tacked on? Like as much as Yurei talks about her disdain for sub-classes (despite apparently not understanding them at all) the fact remains that it's contributed heavily to the simplicity of 5e and that has been a major selling point of this edition; people can readily pick up the game and get to playing or running it in short order and the developers have to date only released one actual class that wasn't in the core rulebook (artificer) because it was both iconic to eberron and because it simply doesn't fit into the mechanics of any other class.
Maybe if WotC had the balls to put out Dark Sun you would have an argument in favor of adding Psionics to the game but as it stands they're better off with the approach that they've done, rolling them into the other classes and calling it a day.
I don't think psionics vs magic is the reason they're reluctant to redo Dark Sun (and I find the "balls" comment uncharitable.) Going back to the interview between Kyle Brink and Bob The World Builder during the OGL fiasco, he didn't mention psionics at all:
Bob the World Builder: "Any potential - and I feel like I expect I know the answer to this - any potential that we would see a revision or republishing of the Dark Sun setting, ever?"
Kyle Brink: "So the 'ever' is the operative word there-"
Bob the World Builder: "I'll forget the 'ever' then and let's just say 'in the next 5 years.'"
Kyle Brink: "I'll be frank here - the Dark Sun setting is problematic (Bob: "I agree") in a lot of ways, and that's the main reason we haven't come back to it. We know it's got a huge fan following, um, and we have standards today that make it extraordinarily hard to be true to the source material and also meet our ethical and inclusion standards."
BtWB: "Yeah, that's a totally fair point and I think that's already kind of the consensus, people I think just wanted to hear somebody say it."
Kyle Brink: "We know there's love out there for it, and god we would love to make those people happy, and also we've got to be responsible."
They've been burned in the past by being too hasty with updating past material. Supposedly they have a better review process in place now, but putting Dark Sun of all things through it would be the epic-level gauntlet version of that.
I'm not saying psionics is the reason we're not getting Dark sun (the whole setting is like an ethical hard 180 from the direction they ostensibly want to go) but that if they were going to do so then Psionics would need to be a component of that setting released either before or simultaneously since it is the psionic setting and has it built into the lore of the world as a distinct concept from Magic.
That having been said, I am honestly glad that they're not pursuing DS. It's an amazing setting to be sure, but in the past few years WotC has released 4 camapign settings and of those only ravenloft has turned out well IMHO.
Maybe the way to do psionic abilities in Dark Sun should be, rather than a whole casting subsystem with its own classes and subclasses, a separate power track specific to that setting then - similar to Dark Gifts in Ravenloft, or Piety in Theros. They could start with Telekinetic/Telepathic as bonus feats that then unlock additional abilities/uses as you advance - such as the ability to cast certain spells or certain categories of spell without components.
Whatever they decide, I don't think Dark Sun being "the psionic setting" is enough of a reason to outweigh all the issues they've run into with trying to make psionics be their own subsystem in the past. I think there's ways for them to capture that legacy without rehashing all the spells-but-not-really of editions gone by.
Let's remember the psionic powers don't need material, verbal or somatic components, and this is no nonense because in certain circustance it may be very dangerous. A lurk (stealth and psionic class from the complete psionic) infiltrated in a party dinner of the high society could do a lot of things, like reading thoughts or adding poison to a cup of wine.
I want no-core classes in the same way somebody wants to wear clothing with the style of certain urban tribe and not other. I want to feel my PC is different and special.
If WotC doesn't publish their own psionic mystic class then this is created by 3PPs.
A psionic class can't be only a list of powers and class features, but it also needs its own mark of identity, and flexibility for different types of subclasses.
Other point is new sourcebooks with more psionic powers and crunch are harder to be sold, specially in translated markets.
And psionic powers have to be designed not only for D&D but also for all possible no-fantasy setting, for example Gamma World.
The pile of wasted paper that is Starjammer, for example. Was very disappointed in the Dragonlance book, too
You can do all of that right now with any class; the most immediately "on-line" version of this would be a human variant rogue who starts with the telepathy feat and then at level 3 goes either arcane trickster (for additional tricks with illusion and enchantment as well as an upgraded mage hand) or assassin (access to the poison proficiency).
That's nice.
Psionics won't achieve this.
I'm sure they will, and hey it might even stand the test of time like Book of Erotic Fantasy.
Yeah they tried that years ago; it was called the mystic and it sucked so bad they buried it and broke off a few pieces to add to other classes.
Which diminishes the resources that can be spent on the other 13 classes in the game.
There are no officially supported 5e modern settings so this is a moot point. Also the last shot at Gamma World had Psychics built into the mutant options list.
I just don’t understand the issue.
If you want psionics so very, very badly, then you should be able to explain why a simple “use. the sorcerer, but use the meta Magic’s which free you from needing components” is insufficient.
The issue seems to be that they want a caster that isn't subject to any of the aspects of magic as we understand it at all.
To which my response is "there are other, better systems for that".
Why should someone have to abandon D&D forever just because they want something from it that you personally don't see any value in, Ashla?
I ******* hate Dragonlance. I think it's overwrought, overhyped nonsense, almost as trite and worn out as Tolkien. The people who love it tend towards being aggressively hostile to fans of other settings. There's a lot of controversy surrounding the setting, and the authors who nominally control it, and I would not generally allow myself to be caught within fifty feet of a table of ardent Dragonlance fans.
Does that mean I want it excised from D&D and anyone who likes it forcibly evicted from the game? No. They're as entitled to get some of what they want as anybody else is. They got their new book, and I'm genuinely glad they got a bone thrown to them even if I'd never be caught dead in a Dragonlance game. What they want, what they like, has no real bearing on my own games.
You told me you'd love for Knights of Solahma to be their own class instead of a background and a set of feats. Maybe you should've gotten that. Maybe the overfocus on avoiding bloat was a mistake, and instead there should have been greater focus on providing what the people most lusting after any given Thing X want and instead making it easier and more prevalent for DMs to curate content. DDB could have much better tools for allowing DMs to say 'No' to certain books, but it does not. "PHB + Dragonlance" should be easier for a DM to lay down if they want to run a Dragonlance game.
What isn't right is constantly telling people to leave the hobby forever just because they're unsatisfied with one small piece of it. My desire for better psychic abilities in D&D is not a desire for JumpShips and Malvena Hazen in my D&D (though replacing the Tetatae in Far Country with a D&D setting and having the party show up to the adventure after a Jump malfunction stranded them would be a phenomenal take on the 'Isekai' idea, don't tell me it wouldn't). My desire for better psychic abilities is simply a desire for D&D to do better by a huge swath of character archetypes it is currently serving poorly, if at all. That is not an unreasonable ask.
Also seriously, imagine the vibes of trying to keep the Leopard working in a world where the most advanced piece of tech in it is the water wheel, burning through dwindling spares trying to keep your sole remaining UrbanMech (because of course it would be an UrbanMech) functional enough to act as a deterrent against the trolls, ogres, and dragons that menace the stranded crew. MechWarriors having to learn fast and figure out gaining them class levels because they've only got two working laser pistols left, the charge packs are running low, and half the kingdom is convinced you're all evil sorcerers and keeps sending bounty hunters and knights-errant after you.
Sure the player pool for that game would be real small, but don't tell me you're not down to watch a Phoenix Hawk duel an adult dragon.
Please do not contact or message me.
I would watch a King Crab duel a dragon for sure.....
That said, as far as Psionics goes, I think one of the main things holding it back across the editions is that it has to compete with magic bloat for design identity and it always tends to be more of a "second or third wave" of product and is concepted for the "current" edition well after the magic system has terminally spread across all avenues of design. If the designers would intentionally carve out early on what they want Psionics to do and equally intentionally not let the Magic system do that from the beginning, then it would be easier to fit Psionics into the game. But when the spell list already has mind reading/affecting spells and telekinetic powers......
Ironically, 4th Ed was the one edition where special classes were concepted using Psionics as their "power source" and that was about the only time so far that I felt Psionics was designed in parity with the other sources of power in the game. However, that was near the end of the 4th Ed life cycle and the classes also were kinda underwhelming in the face of all the options classes from the other sources had access too.
The core problem is that, to the degree there's actually a "huge swath", that swath isn't psychic characters, it's specialist spellcasters.
If I want to do that, there's game systems that will do it out of the box, with varying degrees of competency. I recommend a superhero system (supers systems have an iffy record with respect to fantasy, because they often have resolution problems at the equivalent of low level PCs, but something like mecha vs dragons is the kind of thing they're built for).
Why should they stick with a game system that doesn't have what they want when there are literally dozens of alternatives that will suit their tastes better?
Like if I want a more hard sci-fi setting that has giant robots and neo-feudal interstellar empires all backbiting each other the solution isn't to overhaul D&D, it's to go and play battletech.
How am I not surprised you don't like the setting that doesn't have psionics.
What Dragonlance fans got was an incredibly mediocre product that was bereft of so much of the tone of dragonlance; Like it came across as being so utterly hollow that I could probably port the whole thing over to Forgotten realms or greyhawk or eberron and nobody would notice.
I mean, I think it should have been a class in it's own right because I feel that it's somewhere halfway between being a fighter and a paladin and that by making it a background you functionally ruin so much of the tone of it... but by the same coin I'm also able to look at this, acknowledge that what I got was disappointing and move on.
And that's what seperates us Yurei; I'm able to accept the disapointment of DL and get on with my life because there is still ~despite the mismanagement of WotC~ plenty of things in the game for me to enjoy and I'm able to let go of this simple desire that I had.
I'm not saying that people should abandon the Hobby but rather that there are other options for Role-playing beyond D&D if what they're looking for is a radical departure from what the company has to offer and where they've indicated that they want to go.
I mean... If I want that expirience I can have it right now and have had it for the better part of 30 years:
It's called Palladium Books and it's megaversal system which allows you to mash up different genre's and worlds; I even ran a cosmic level palladium fantasy campaign that ported over stuff from ninja's and super spies and Nightbane 24 years ago that was effectively a personalized version of baldurs gate 1.
Please stop trying to force people to play other systems with zero online play support and no hope for the future because they want better psychic characters in D&D. Again, with feeling: if mind flayers are perfectly valid in D&D, so are psychic PCs
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It's both. There are, in fact, a lot of psychic archetypes out there. There are also a lot of specialist spellcaster archetypes. D&D does both of them badly out of the box. The fact that, on a meta-level, they're kind of the same thing and could probably share a framework doesn't mean they'd be the same class. (One of the Mystic's many problems appears to be that it tries to be both the "psionic class" and the "martial-arts magic class".)
Really, D&D's spell system is downright awful at modeling any archetype except "D&D caster".
The reality is, D&D is not a generic game system, it's a system designed for a rather particular game style. Sure, you can't play a mind flayer in D&D... but that's no different from all the other monsters you can't play; if I were to make a list of "monsters players would like to play but can't without completely breaking the game", my list would probably start with the top hits of dragons, vampires, and were-creatures, migrate through some fiends, fey, and celestials, before finally reaching mind flayers. There's game systems that are designed to do that kind of thing, that work to varying degrees, but it's not realistic to expect D&D to become one of them (they made a stab at it with savage species in 3.5e; it worked poorly and got way less support than psi). If you want psi characters in D&D, there are two realistic options
You ought to be able to understand that game systems can offer more than one thing that somebody wants to have at the same time. Yes, if "psychic powers" are the sum total of a person's desires, then they might be equally happy with GURPS or Star Wars. But that describes literally nobody. If Yurei is saying "I want psychic powers in D&D", she may in fact want psychic powers in D&D.
The repeated "play another game" response to "I want something that's both in genre and in scope for D&D" is really quite disrespectful. And I say this as somebody who often replies "I suggest another game" when somebody is like "I want to do Overwatch in D&D".
What is the attraction to psionics? Is it the idea of a class who can create magical effects through pure concretration? Is it a spell caster using a power point system?
I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. I don't have that power. I'm just doing what you refuse to do and that's acknowledge the truth.
That’s every hard magic system ever, because by definition a hard magic system is built on a collection of distinct fixed rules. This is not some unique failing of D&D, just the nature of the genre.