I played a character with psionics back in 1e. It was in there. It was statistically difficult to get. I wish I could say what book n it was in but I sold them in '92. I did not upgrade to 2e because it wasn't very different to 1e. But after the navy, I couldn't find a game, so I sold my stuff. I know it was there.
I had a bunch of fun playing Psionic characters. The Dms I played with coming took them as a challenge. But it also allowed him to make characters and monsters that gave our power magic users a challenge. I made a op character using the psionics template in 3.0. The our Dm did it to us the campaign was dope
I played a character with psionics back in 1e. It was in there. It was statistically difficult to get. I wish I could say what book n it was in but I sold them in '92. I did not upgrade to 2e because it wasn't very different to 1e. But after the navy, I couldn't find a game, so I sold my stuff. I know it was there.
It was toward the end of the AD&D Player's Handbook, just before you get to Bard, proving that Gary thought Psionics was more important to D&D than Bards.
A late nite for me researching my favorite class. Just getting back into playing/dm'ng after a looooong time of not playing. I was a player/dm which enjoyed using psionics.
The biggest issue I've had with dm's/players is treating psionics like magic. Remember the Time of Troubles? If so House Oblodra was not affected by wild magic and was destroyed because of it. Also, there was a part in one of the Drizz't books when Kimmuriel Teleported/dimension doomed into a room in which had an anti-magic shell protecting it, and the guy in the room asked how he got in...
D&D needs to bring the Psionic class back to the full glory which it is. I've been playing the Mystic from the unearthed arcana, it is powerful, but is limited. I haven't played it past 6th level yet. I still follow a few rules from prions in sci-fi - can't wear helms, can't attack mind of people wearing them as well.
I think I may make a feeble attempt to convert the 2E PHB into 5E.
I have ran a short campaign and used 2 Mystics as arch enemies in a group to fight the players in order for them to get out tof the dungeon. They had trouble with them cuz I had them bufding/supporting 2 monks and 1 arcane archer lol. If they would've focused the Mystics they would've killed em as opposed to defeating them and allowing them to escape, thereby creating arch enemies which will haunt them from this point forward.
I put a lot of thought and time into creating these 2. I was on deployment in the middle of the ocean when I created them on my laptop. I would love to share them with the community. I was running the Dungeon of the Mad Mage and wanted to give them a great fight in order to earn their rest/departure from the dungeon.
How would I share the classes I created? I'm still relatively new agin to D&D after over a decade of inactivity since playing pathfinder/d&d 3.75 haha.
A late nite for me researching my favorite class. Just getting back into playing/dm'ng after a looooong time of not playing. I was a player/dm which enjoyed using psionics.
The biggest issue I've had with dm's/players is treating psionics like magic. Remember the Time of Troubles? If so House Oblodra was not affected by wild magic and was destroyed because of it. Also, there was a part in one of the Drizz't books when Kimmuriel Teleported/dimension doomed into a room in which had an anti-magic shell protecting it, and the guy in the room asked how he got in...
That was during 2nd Edition and in-universe the way magic works has changed multiple times since then. Besides, Salvator always played fast and loose with the rules anyway. Especially when it came to arcane spellcasters: he tended to nerf the hell out of them in his novels at every opportunity.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If I were making a psychic class, I would flavor the classes spells or spell like abilities as being relying less on regular arcane power than regular magic, but you still kind of need it (ex. you might need to succeed on a saving throw to use a psychic ability inside an antimagic field). The ability to use these powers inside an antimagic field without needing to make a saving throw would be a really high level feature.
"Psionics" in 5e are functionally componentless spellcasting, similar to Psychic Magic from PF. And honestly, that's all it needs to be - as much as I enjoyed the more in-depth psionics system in 3.5, it carried with it a lot of unneeded complexity.
I enjoyed the progression of the development of the Psionic from a pure wild talent in 1e ad&d to the fully developed organized classes of 3.5e. With structures in the campaign settings. On personal level, outside of game mechanics and balance, I've always believed that there should be things that are accessible, though rarely, unique perhaps, that have a truly overpowered capacity. All my favorite fantasy books have that aspect. In the wrong hands devastating. In the right hands world saving. But those were always plot driven. In the old days we called it a "plot boot".
It wasn't really all that complex. Just different from the other power manipulators in dnd. Wasn't the first game system I've played with power points/spell points/mana points, all the same thing really. Personally I always enjoyed the flexibility of points versus slots.
I enjoyed the progression of the development of the Psionic from a pure wild talent in 1e ad&d to the fully developed organized classes of 3.5e. With structures in the campaign settings. On personal level, outside of game mechanics and balance, I've always believed that there should be things that are accessible, though rarely, unique perhaps, that have a truly overpowered capacity. All my favorite fantasy books have that aspect. In the wrong hands devastating. In the right hands world saving. But those were always plot driven. In the old days we called it a "plot boot".
What works well in literature doesn't necessarily work at all in a tabletop game.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The problem is “ how do you distinguish between the manipulation of reality by means of magic and the manipulation of reality by means of psionics?” In 1-3e the game mechanics were different (spell slots for magic, psionic power points for psionics), In 5e the closest thing we have to the latter are Ki points and sorcery points. So just about any attempt to recreate psionics is semi forced to be based off either (or both) the monk and/or sorceror. Because it’s a martial class the monk works better for recreating things like the 2e psi warrior while the sorceror works better for recreating the psion. The problem is you have the sorceror so what makes the psion different?
How I would do it is not how wizards would do it. Right now, I would take the old pact magic chassis that's just been scrapped from the warlock and merge it with the math used for generating sorcerery points. Now, I have a class that generates X number of sorcery points on a short rest that are used to cast spells from the "psychic" spell list, as opposed to "Arcane" "Divine" or "Primal".
It's a dirty hack, but it's at least unique now that pact magic is dead. Would it make people happy? No, but no psionicist they create will make everyone happy. it would be useful and flavorable, and that's about all you can fairly ask for in a psionicist.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
The problem is “ how do you distinguish between the manipulation of reality by means of magic and the manipulation of reality by means of psionics?”
The real core problem is that you can't because psionics is magic. They're a particular style of magic, but that's a distinction D&D has never been all that strong on.
There's nothing wrong with an aberrant mind sorcerer as a psion, other than the fact that psionics fans want a new and different mechanic.
The problem is “ how do you distinguish between the manipulation of reality by means of magic and the manipulation of reality by means of psionics?”
The real core problem is that you can't because psionics is magic. They're a particular style of magic, but that's a distinction D&D has never been all that strong on.
There's nothing wrong with an aberrant mind sorcerer as a psion, other than the fact that psionics fans want a new and different mechanic.
Well sort of, psi is focused mental concentration forcing the universe to react in specific ways much like the Belgariad’s “ will and word” magic. 5e magic is using materials, gestures and sounds to somehow tie knots into the weave of mana/magic and those knots force the universe to react in specific ways. Both are “ magic” in the sense that they are extra normal ways to force the universe to do things you want that it really doesn’t. What those of us that like psionics want is a mechanic that highlights that difference - no material components, possibly everything concentration based (or nearly everything) and probably the ability to use it even in dead/null “magic” areas. That works much better using a points per power per time period style of “casting” rather than the standard spell slots stack. Powers and abilities could still be “leveled (C - 9)” as a way of ranking relative power but “slots” disappear and are replaced by points that are recovered when resting (short or long). Then questions about which stats generate those points. To my mind one has to be constitution but a case can be made for the other to be any one of the mental stats - or some combination of them. Maybe have them be MAD with constitution and any 2 of the 3 “ mental stats (I/W/Ch) all being 13+ in order to be psionic.
The real core problem is that you can't because psionics is magic. They're a particular style of magic, but that's a distinction D&D has never been all that strong on.
There's nothing wrong with an aberrant mind sorcerer as a psion, other than the fact that psionics fans want a new and different mechanic.
Beyond the stupid "all psychic characters should just be dumber lamer less-capable mages with absolutely nothing to make them competitive with being a normal ordinary everyday magic flinger" nonsense people like to heap on psychic characters...one interesting division I've used in the past is that (whether they know it or not) magic-users manipulate "The Weave", i.e. a field of magic that overlays reality. Psychic characters instead interact with quantum reality, i.e. a real physical thing that exists. How the psychic character can do so, dunno - but the primary difference is that while the magic-user can produce wild, outlandish effects out of the crack of their pants that have absolutely nothing to do with the environment or objective reality, a psychic character is usually limited to manipulating or enhancing/diminishing things that already exist and is rarely able to just produce nonsense out of nowhere. The tradeoff is that the magic-user has to consume some sort of resource or expend some sort of non-replenishable energy to do their thing and often needs tools or foci to function, while the psychic character's abilities are as natural to them as arms or legs are and are much easier for the psychic character to use.
Example: a wizard can cast Fireball, Animate Dead, Irresistible Dance, Creation - all manner of wacky-hijinks nonsense. A psychic character might be limited to just Detect Thoughts, Calm Emotions, and similar effects that sense or affect an already-existing person's already-existing mental or emotional state. The wizard runs out of juice after a dozen casts and has to content themselves with cantrips; the psychic can "cast" Detect Thoughts or Calm Emotions as often as they like.
Which speaks to the core difference most fans of psychic abilities see between magic and psionics - magic is a job skill, something external to you that you have to study and learn (or get gifted by an Eldritch Monstrosity and/or bogus genetics). It is extrinsic to the character. Psychic abilities are exactly that - abilities. Intrinsic things innate and inherent to the character in a way 'Magic' IS never and CAN never be.
But in 5e all psychic abilities are nothing but shitty terrible spells nobody wants to use, and all psychic characters are supposed to be nothing but shitty terrible spellcasters nobody wants to play. Because maaaajik. Bleh. Screw maaaajik. I want my awesome telekinetic warrior please.
Beyond the stupid "all psychic characters should just be dumber lamer less-capable mages with absolutely nothing to make them competitive with being a normal ordinary everyday magic flinger" nonsense people like to heap on psychic characters...one interesting division I've used in the past is that (whether they know it or not) magic-users manipulate "The Weave", i.e. a field of magic that overlays reality. Psychic characters instead interact with quantum reality, i.e. a real physical thing that exists.
That's just competing gibberish. Fundamentally, psionics is magic given a New Age whitewash to make it look science-y.
That's just competing gibberish. Fundamentally, psionics is magic given a New Age whitewash to make it look science-y.
Fundamentally, D&D is a game about doing math and hoping your math is better than the DM's.
If the fluff doesn 't matter, if there's no distinguishable difference between anything, why does the game work at all, Pantagruel? You don't see any difference between psychic abilities and maaajik. Other people clearly do. Why is that latter view somehow invalid?
Some people see psychic abilities as being as fundamentally different from Maaajik as physical abilities are. Nobody would ever say to a fan of Mighty Warriors "just play a wizard, pick all the worst, lamest, least useful and least fun to use spells, and flavor them as just being different ways to flex your pecs." Why do people continue to insist on fans of psychic characters doing that instead?
The Psi Warrior is moose shyte. It has no telekinetic abilities at all. Its core "telekinetic" abilities are the power to add a little bit of force damage to its weapon attacks 'bout twice a day, or to substitute one of those uses to instead reduce an incoming enemy attack's damage by an utterly insignificant number. It needs to be eighteenth freaking level before it gets even basic telekinetic ability. It has no way to telekinetically influence its foes, shove them around or strike them from afar, it has exactly ONE ability it gets to use ONE TIME PER DAY to manipulate its own positioning, and it can move ONE object ONE TIME PER DAY until eighteenth level.
The Psi Warrior is a fighter cosplaying a Jedi Knight and Doing Its Best, in the same way an adorable puppy might Do Its Best to figure out how legs work. There's a couple of neat kernels of ideas in the Psi Warrior, but the dev team was so utterly terrified of making a psychic character that is actually psychic that they absolutely gutted every last single one of those ideas. It is Upsetti in the Spaghetti, especially since the existence of the Tasha's Cauldron "psychic" classes means we'll never get actual psychic characters worth playing. Friggin' maddening.
If the fluff doesn 't matter, if there's no distinguishable difference between anything, why does the game work at all, Pantagruel? You don't see any difference between psychic abilities and maaajik. Other people clearly do. Why is that latter view somehow invalid?
I don't care how people describe their psionic abilities as long as they don't introduce radical new mechanics -- you don't need new mechanics for new special effects. D&D balance is enough of a nightmare already.
I played a character with psionics back in 1e. It was in there. It was statistically difficult to get. I wish I could say what book n it was in but I sold them in '92. I did not upgrade to 2e because it wasn't very different to 1e. But after the navy, I couldn't find a game, so I sold my stuff. I know it was there.
I had a bunch of fun playing Psionic characters. The Dms I played with coming took them as a challenge. But it also allowed him to make characters and monsters that gave our power magic users a challenge. I made a op character using the psionics template in 3.0. The our Dm did it to us the campaign was dope
It was toward the end of the AD&D Player's Handbook, just before you get to Bard, proving that Gary thought Psionics was more important to D&D than Bards.
It was also in Eldritch Wizardry for OD&D.
2e had its own rulesbook.
A late nite for me researching my favorite class. Just getting back into playing/dm'ng after a looooong time of not playing. I was a player/dm which enjoyed using psionics.
The biggest issue I've had with dm's/players is treating psionics like magic. Remember the Time of Troubles? If so House Oblodra was not affected by wild magic and was destroyed because of it. Also, there was a part in one of the Drizz't books when Kimmuriel Teleported/dimension doomed into a room in which had an anti-magic shell protecting it, and the guy in the room asked how he got in...
D&D needs to bring the Psionic class back to the full glory which it is. I've been playing the Mystic from the unearthed arcana, it is powerful, but is limited. I haven't played it past 6th level yet. I still follow a few rules from prions in sci-fi - can't wear helms, can't attack mind of people wearing them as well.
I think I may make a feeble attempt to convert the 2E PHB into 5E.
I have ran a short campaign and used 2 Mystics as arch enemies in a group to fight the players in order for them to get out tof the dungeon. They had trouble with them cuz I had them bufding/supporting 2 monks and 1 arcane archer lol. If they would've focused the Mystics they would've killed em as opposed to defeating them and allowing them to escape, thereby creating arch enemies which will haunt them from this point forward.
I put a lot of thought and time into creating these 2. I was on deployment in the middle of the ocean when I created them on my laptop. I would love to share them with the community. I was running the Dungeon of the Mad Mage and wanted to give them a great fight in order to earn their rest/departure from the dungeon.
How would I share the classes I created? I'm still relatively new agin to D&D after over a decade of inactivity since playing pathfinder/d&d 3.75 haha.
Have a great day.
Rules are meant to be broken.
That was during 2nd Edition and in-universe the way magic works has changed multiple times since then. Besides, Salvator always played fast and loose with the rules anyway. Especially when it came to arcane spellcasters: he tended to nerf the hell out of them in his novels at every opportunity.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
did anyone else here play Dark sun?
If I were making a psychic class, I would flavor the classes spells or spell like abilities as being relying less on regular arcane power than regular magic, but you still kind of need it (ex. you might need to succeed on a saving throw to use a psychic ability inside an antimagic field). The ability to use these powers inside an antimagic field without needing to make a saving throw would be a really high level feature.
"Psionics" in 5e are functionally componentless spellcasting, similar to Psychic Magic from PF. And honestly, that's all it needs to be - as much as I enjoyed the more in-depth psionics system in 3.5, it carried with it a lot of unneeded complexity.
I enjoyed the progression of the development of the Psionic from a pure wild talent in 1e ad&d to the fully developed organized classes of 3.5e. With structures in the campaign settings. On personal level, outside of game mechanics and balance, I've always believed that there should be things that are accessible, though rarely, unique perhaps, that have a truly overpowered capacity. All my favorite fantasy books have that aspect. In the wrong hands devastating. In the right hands world saving. But those were always plot driven. In the old days we called it a "plot boot".
It wasn't really all that complex. Just different from the other power manipulators in dnd. Wasn't the first game system I've played with power points/spell points/mana points, all the same thing really. Personally I always enjoyed the flexibility of points versus slots.
What works well in literature doesn't necessarily work at all in a tabletop game.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The problem is “ how do you distinguish between the manipulation of reality by means of magic and the manipulation of reality by means of psionics?” In 1-3e the game mechanics were different (spell slots for magic, psionic power points for psionics), In 5e the closest thing we have to the latter are Ki points and sorcery points. So just about any attempt to recreate psionics is semi forced to be based off either (or both) the monk and/or sorceror. Because it’s a martial class the monk works better for recreating things like the 2e psi warrior while the sorceror works better for recreating the psion. The problem is you have the sorceror so what makes the psion different?
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
How I would do it is not how wizards would do it. Right now, I would take the old pact magic chassis that's just been scrapped from the warlock and merge it with the math used for generating sorcerery points. Now, I have a class that generates X number of sorcery points on a short rest that are used to cast spells from the "psychic" spell list, as opposed to "Arcane" "Divine" or "Primal".
It's a dirty hack, but it's at least unique now that pact magic is dead. Would it make people happy? No, but no psionicist they create will make everyone happy. it would be useful and flavorable, and that's about all you can fairly ask for in a psionicist.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
The real core problem is that you can't because psionics is magic. They're a particular style of magic, but that's a distinction D&D has never been all that strong on.
There's nothing wrong with an aberrant mind sorcerer as a psion, other than the fact that psionics fans want a new and different mechanic.
Well sort of, psi is focused mental concentration forcing the universe to react in specific ways much like the Belgariad’s “ will and word” magic. 5e magic is using materials, gestures and sounds to somehow tie knots into the weave of mana/magic and those knots force the universe to react in specific ways. Both are “ magic” in the sense that they are extra normal ways to force the universe to do things you want that it really doesn’t. What those of us that like psionics want is a mechanic that highlights that difference - no material components, possibly everything concentration based (or nearly everything) and probably the ability to use it even in dead/null “magic” areas. That works much better using a points per power per time period style of “casting” rather than the standard spell slots stack. Powers and abilities could still be “leveled (C - 9)” as a way of ranking relative power but “slots” disappear and are replaced by points that are recovered when resting (short or long). Then questions about which stats generate those points. To my mind one has to be constitution but a case can be made for the other to be any one of the mental stats - or some combination of them. Maybe have them be MAD with constitution and any 2 of the 3 “ mental stats (I/W/Ch) all being 13+ in order to be psionic.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Beyond the stupid "all psychic characters should just be dumber lamer less-capable mages with absolutely nothing to make them competitive with being a normal ordinary everyday magic flinger" nonsense people like to heap on psychic characters...one interesting division I've used in the past is that (whether they know it or not) magic-users manipulate "The Weave", i.e. a field of magic that overlays reality. Psychic characters instead interact with quantum reality, i.e. a real physical thing that exists. How the psychic character can do so, dunno - but the primary difference is that while the magic-user can produce wild, outlandish effects out of the crack of their pants that have absolutely nothing to do with the environment or objective reality, a psychic character is usually limited to manipulating or enhancing/diminishing things that already exist and is rarely able to just produce nonsense out of nowhere. The tradeoff is that the magic-user has to consume some sort of resource or expend some sort of non-replenishable energy to do their thing and often needs tools or foci to function, while the psychic character's abilities are as natural to them as arms or legs are and are much easier for the psychic character to use.
Example: a wizard can cast Fireball, Animate Dead, Irresistible Dance, Creation - all manner of wacky-hijinks nonsense. A psychic character might be limited to just Detect Thoughts, Calm Emotions, and similar effects that sense or affect an already-existing person's already-existing mental or emotional state. The wizard runs out of juice after a dozen casts and has to content themselves with cantrips; the psychic can "cast" Detect Thoughts or Calm Emotions as often as they like.
Which speaks to the core difference most fans of psychic abilities see between magic and psionics - magic is a job skill, something external to you that you have to study and learn (or get gifted by an Eldritch Monstrosity and/or bogus genetics). It is extrinsic to the character. Psychic abilities are exactly that - abilities. Intrinsic things innate and inherent to the character in a way 'Magic' IS never and CAN never be.
But in 5e all psychic abilities are nothing but shitty terrible spells nobody wants to use, and all psychic characters are supposed to be nothing but shitty terrible spellcasters nobody wants to play. Because maaaajik. Bleh. Screw maaaajik. I want my awesome telekinetic warrior please.
Please do not contact or message me.
That's just competing gibberish. Fundamentally, psionics is magic given a New Age whitewash to make it look science-y.
They have that, it's called the Psi Warrior.
Fundamentally, D&D is a game about doing math and hoping your math is better than the DM's.
If the fluff doesn 't matter, if there's no distinguishable difference between anything, why does the game work at all, Pantagruel? You don't see any difference between psychic abilities and maaajik. Other people clearly do. Why is that latter view somehow invalid?
Some people see psychic abilities as being as fundamentally different from Maaajik as physical abilities are. Nobody would ever say to a fan of Mighty Warriors "just play a wizard, pick all the worst, lamest, least useful and least fun to use spells, and flavor them as just being different ways to flex your pecs." Why do people continue to insist on fans of psychic characters doing that instead?
* * *
EDIT:
The Psi Warrior is moose shyte. It has no telekinetic abilities at all. Its core "telekinetic" abilities are the power to add a little bit of force damage to its weapon attacks 'bout twice a day, or to substitute one of those uses to instead reduce an incoming enemy attack's damage by an utterly insignificant number. It needs to be eighteenth freaking level before it gets even basic telekinetic ability. It has no way to telekinetically influence its foes, shove them around or strike them from afar, it has exactly ONE ability it gets to use ONE TIME PER DAY to manipulate its own positioning, and it can move ONE object ONE TIME PER DAY until eighteenth level.
The Psi Warrior is a fighter cosplaying a Jedi Knight and Doing Its Best, in the same way an adorable puppy might Do Its Best to figure out how legs work. There's a couple of neat kernels of ideas in the Psi Warrior, but the dev team was so utterly terrified of making a psychic character that is actually psychic that they absolutely gutted every last single one of those ideas. It is Upsetti in the Spaghetti, especially since the existence of the Tasha's Cauldron "psychic" classes means we'll never get actual psychic characters worth playing. Friggin' maddening.
Please do not contact or message me.
I don't care how people describe their psionic abilities as long as they don't introduce radical new mechanics -- you don't need new mechanics for new special effects. D&D balance is enough of a nightmare already.