What if it's really important for a player to feel like their character's psychic abilities are an intrinsic part of that character, a core piece of their identity, rather than a stupid bolt-on they can barely use the way spells are? Even a full caster class gets fewer than ten castings per day for the majority of its career discounting cantrips, and if you count cantrips there is exactly ONE "psychic" cantrip - mage hand. Which requires you to scream at the top of your lungs and wave around a twenty-pound bag of pixie dust in Mystic Figure Eights for forty-seven minutes to use, instead of simply being part of you and a thing you can do as easily and reflexively as clenching your physical fist.
There's no "influence mood/Mind Trick" cantrip - and no, friends does not count and even if it did it's also the worst cantrip in D&D including True Strike - there's no "sense surface moods/thoughts" cantrip, there's no "enhanced perception" cantrip, and because people keep pissing on psychic characters there's no classes out there that have any similar abilities baked into their class kit. None. Nada. Zip. People like to point to the Aberrant Mind, but the Aberrant Mind is not a psychic character, the Aberrant Mind is a tentacle-faced slime monster that casts spells that shouldn't exist as 'spells' while trying to pawn itself off as not-an-illithid-I-swear.
Fighters can swing a weapon ten thousand times per day. Their arms are intrinsic to their being, nobody says "you can only use your arms if you expend an Arms slot of the correct level for the Movement you wish to execute." Why do people insist on that garbage for psychic characters?
Fighters can swing a weapon ten thousand times per day. Their arms are intrinsic to their being, nobody says "you can only use your arms if you expend an Arms slot of the correct level for the Movement you wish to execute." Why do people insist on that garbage for psychic characters?
Because people also want their psionic abilities to be powerful, and if you want your abilities to be powerful, they're going to be limited use. If you want unlimited uses... cantrips exist.
I have nothing against changing magic users so a concept with weaker (but spammable) abilities is viable, but that should be universal, not tied to one particular type of magic.
Tell me this, then, because literally no one has EVER touched on this point: why the **** would I play an Aberrant Mind sorcerer with only 'psychic' spells when that makes that sorcerer borderline unplayable because all the 'psychic' spells are horrible designed and massively overcosted? Because that's what people always say with this garbage - "just play a spellcaster, pick psychic spells, and say you're a psychic."
Okay. Detect Thoughts consumes a second-level spell slot in order to give you the ability to pick up information surface-level and superficial enough that a basic insight check could obtain the same information. You have to be within thirteen inches of your target to use Detect Thoughts, and the target gets approximately thirty thousand chances to save against the effect. If they make any one of those thirty thousand saves, they instantly become aware of your name, the names of everyone in your party, the names of the families of everyone in your party, the class levels and abilities of everyone in your party, the precise hit point totals both maximum and current of everyone in your party, the complete history of everything anyone in your party has ever done since the beginning of the campaign, and the full and complete contents of the character sheets of everyone in your party including 'secret' information like Q/I/B/F. No one in the entire history of Fifth Edition has ever cast Detect Thoughts in a way that didn't instantly and immediately blow up in their faces and cause their situations to become significantly worse. Friends is the exact same way, except you don't get any information or benefit at all and the target doesn't even need to save - it just automatically gets everything that saving against Detect Thoughts would give them on the spot and you don't even learn what color shirt they're wearing for your trouble.
Every single 'psychic' "spell" is the exact same way - too high a spell level for what it does, and hedged around with so many "Gotcha!" backfire chances that no sane player would ever use it. So why do folks keep insisting that "just play a wizzerd and use nothing but the worst spells, jeeeeez!" is the answer?
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.
Telekinetic Movement. You can move an object or a creature with your mind. As an action, you target one loose object that is Large or smaller or one willing creature, other than yourself. If you can see the target and it is within 30 feet of you, you can move it up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. Alternatively, if it is a Tiny object, you can move it to or from your hand. Either way, you can move the target horizontally, vertically, or both. Once you take this action, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest, unless you expend a Psionic Energy die to take it again.
This is a level 3 feature of the class.
Edit:
And, at 7th level
Telekinetic Thrust. When you deal damage to a target with your Psionic Strike, you can force the target to make a Strength saving throw against a DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier. If the save fails, you can knock the target prone or move it up to 10 feet in any direction horizontally.
No, you can't be a full Jedi from the outset, but being a full Jedi would be OP in D&D terms. Full casters don't get the capability until 9th level, so it'd be pretty broken to stack the same level of power as a spammable ability on a Fighter at a similar level.
Tell me this, then, because literally no one has EVER touched on this point: why the **** would I play an Aberrant Mind sorcerer with only 'psychic' spells when that makes that sorcerer borderline unplayable because all the 'psychic' spells are horrible designed and massively overcosted?
I'd say you're wrong about the psychic spells? Sure, there are some duds in there, but there's also completely broken crap like raulothim's psychic lance.
The big problem, as always, is that existing arcane spellcasters are excessively broad, so there's simply no room to create anything more thematic without just feeling nerfed. That's not fixable with new mechanics.
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.
Psychic powers are fundamentally different from most magic powers. There is little personal investment from other casters when they use their spells aside from spell slots which is just mechanics.
We are all familiar with classic psionic abilities and to say that anti magic spells should work on them is ridiculous. Dispel magic or counterspell should absolutely not work on psychic powers. That's like saying counterspell should turn off Professor X's telepathic powers.
Typically in many sources users of psychic powers get headaches or hemorrhage when they use their abilities. Why not use HP as the resource they spend instead of spell slots? Not a new mechanic.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
The issue with making a whole separate system for psionics is that- for all intents and purposes- they'd be building a second magic system, and attempting to tune it so it's balanced compared to the current one. Not objectively impossible, but not a simple task either. Particularly if it's supposed to be more specialized, as you'll either have a bunch of abilities that outright beat out the "real" magic alternatives and have the aforementioned balance issues crop up, or you'll functionally be reproducing the exact same spells, at which point it begs the question of why you're building a new system in the first place if it's primarily just portions of the old one with a new coat of paint.
I've often proposed a system of relatively modest powers, perhaps hovering around second-level spells in overall magnitude, that can be amplified/augmented/"upcast" by expending hit dice. It's a self-regulating system - higher-level characters have more hit dice to spend, so they can better use their amplified psychic abilities. Psychic abilities are more focused, yes. That is the trade-off for not being an omnicapable jack-of-all-everythings like a spellcaster is. A psychic character can do its thing more often and at a higher level than the spellcaster - its abilities do, in fact, "beat out" the spellcaster's cheap duplicopies of psychic abilities that should never have existed in the first place. Because unlike the spellcaster, the psychic character cannot randomly fly, or throw lightning, or transform into a T-Rex, or turn stone into dirt, or raise the dead as evil war slaves, or conjure monstrosities from the Elemental Planes, or, or, or...
The telekinetic character is better at being telekinetic than the wizzerd that uses mage hand and telekinesis, yes. The telekinetic character does not get to do the billion and three other things the arcane character gets to do when being-telekinetic isn't the solution to a problem. The telekinetic character gets to figure out how to make telekinesis help, the same way the fighter has to make Being Swole the answer to everything even when it isn't the answer at all.
The telekinetic character is better at being telekinetic than the wizzerd that uses mage hand and telekinesis, yes. The telekinetic character does not get to do the billion and three other things the arcane character gets to do when being-telekinetic isn't the solution to a problem. The telekinetic character gets to figure out how to make telekinesis help, the same way the fighter has to make Being Swole the answer to everything even when it isn't the answer at all.
The problem there is really not specific to psionics. It's just the problem of specialized casters being unsupported. If you want to build a pyromancer who solves every problem with fire, you run into exactly the same problem: you're substantially nerfing yourself for no reason other than theme.
The telekinetic character is better at being telekinetic than the wizzerd that uses mage hand and telekinesis, yes. The telekinetic character does not get to do the billion and three other things the arcane character gets to do when being-telekinetic isn't the solution to a problem. The telekinetic character gets to figure out how to make telekinesis help, the same way the fighter has to make Being Swole the answer to everything even when it isn't the answer at all.
The problem there is really not specific to psionics. It's just the problem of specialized casters being unsupported. If you want to build a pyromancer who solves every problem with fire, you run into exactly the same problem: you're substantially nerfing yourself for no reason other than theme.
But if any class could do it, it wouldn't be a nerf.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
The telekinetic character is better at being telekinetic than the wizzerd that uses mage hand and telekinesis, yes. The telekinetic character does not get to do the billion and three other things the arcane character gets to do when being-telekinetic isn't the solution to a problem. The telekinetic character gets to figure out how to make telekinesis help, the same way the fighter has to make Being Swole the answer to everything even when it isn't the answer at all.
The problem there is really not specific to psionics. It's just the problem of specialized casters being unsupported. If you want to build a pyromancer who solves every problem with fire, you run into exactly the same problem: you're substantially nerfing yourself for no reason other than theme.
But if any class could do it, it wouldn't be a nerf.
And that's what feats like Telepathic and Telekinetic are for.
The telekinetic character is better at being telekinetic than the wizzerd that uses mage hand and telekinesis, yes. The telekinetic character does not get to do the billion and three other things the arcane character gets to do when being-telekinetic isn't the solution to a problem. The telekinetic character gets to figure out how to make telekinesis help, the same way the fighter has to make Being Swole the answer to everything even when it isn't the answer at all.
The problem there is really not specific to psionics. It's just the problem of specialized casters being unsupported. If you want to build a pyromancer who solves every problem with fire, you run into exactly the same problem: you're substantially nerfing yourself for no reason other than theme.
But if any class could do it, it wouldn't be a nerf.
And that's what feats like Telepathic and Telekinetic are for.
Is that seriously the pony you're taking into this show?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
The telekinetic character is better at being telekinetic than the wizzerd that uses mage hand and telekinesis, yes. The telekinetic character does not get to do the billion and three other things the arcane character gets to do when being-telekinetic isn't the solution to a problem. The telekinetic character gets to figure out how to make telekinesis help, the same way the fighter has to make Being Swole the answer to everything even when it isn't the answer at all.
The problem there is really not specific to psionics. It's just the problem of specialized casters being unsupported. If you want to build a pyromancer who solves every problem with fire, you run into exactly the same problem: you're substantially nerfing yourself for no reason other than theme.
But if any class could do it, it wouldn't be a nerf.
And that's what feats like Telepathic and Telekinetic are for.
Is that seriously the pony you're taking into this show?
If you're talking about options that anyone can have (like AD&D psionics)... you're talking feats. So yes, that's an accurate representation of how you do that sort of psionic character in 5e.
Wading back in after a day off, I actually like Yurei’s “quantum interaction” it appears to have an actual basis in fact according to the latest “mind science”. The thing is that opens up more possibilities than just telepathy and telekinesis as time and space are also “emergent properties” of quantum interactions between entangled photons and that suggests that they could be manipulated by a “consciously quantum interacting” persona which means that teleportation and energy and matter manipulation are also potentially psionic abilities. Think X-men - all their different abilities can actually be pretty well described as specialized “psionic quantum manipulations” of their own bodies or of the universe around them ( marvel actually used to classify them this way). To me psionics and magic are two very different ways of affecting the universe around the heroes (or villains) and as such there is no particular reason not to have 2 different systems for how they work. Magic is intrinsically a long rest recharge system, psionics is, potentially, a short rest system - proficiency bonus uses augmented by spending hit dice for either additional uses or to “push” the power is one way, a point based system like 1-3e psionics with a short rest recharge is another. The reality is that if your fine with things like the abberent mind sorceror and aren’t interested in trying to find a workable balanced way to do psionics then this might not be the thread for you. Your not going to stop Yurei, myself and others from trying to figure out a way to get something we really want even if it never becomes official.
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.
Psychic powers are fundamentally different from most magic powers. There is little personal investment from other casters when they use their spells aside from spell slots which is just mechanics.
We are all familiar with classic psionic abilities and to say that anti magic spells should work on them is ridiculous. Dispel magic or counterspell should absolutely not work on psychic powers. That's like saying counterspell should turn off Professor X's telepathic powers.
Why shouldn't they? Power-neutralizer effects tend to work as well on Psylocke or Jean Grey as they do on Spider-Man or Luke Cage.
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.
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.
Psychic powers are fundamentally different from most magic powers. There is little personal investment from other casters when they use their spells aside from spell slots which is just mechanics.
We are all familiar with classic psionic abilities and to say that anti magic spells should work on them is ridiculous. Dispel magic or counterspell should absolutely not work on psychic powers. That's like saying counterspell should turn off Professor X's telepathic powers.
Typically in many sources users of psychic powers get headaches or hemorrhage when they use their abilities. Why not use HP as the resource they spend instead of spell slots? Not a new mechanic.
The effects of psionic powers and magic are indistinguishable to the uninitated. To me, the common person, Elminster using mage hand to retrieve his sword, Obi-wan Kenobi using the force to retreive his sword and Jean Grey using her mental powers to retrieve her sword are all the same. Magic and Psionics are /functionally/ the same. They just do their effects different.
Much like Laeral Silverhand (wizard), Alassra Silverhand, (sorcerer), Storm Silverhand (bard) and Farideh (fiendlock) all cast fireball in a different manner, a psionicist uses 'magic' and just casts their 'spell' in a manner inconsistent with traditional spell casters. Not wanting psionics to be magic doesn't mean that they should not be. There's literally no reason for a special system to do the same thing, but just differently.
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 telekinetic character is better at being telekinetic than the wizzerd that uses mage hand and telekinesis, yes. The telekinetic character does not get to do the billion and three other things the arcane character gets to do when being-telekinetic isn't the solution to a problem. The telekinetic character gets to figure out how to make telekinesis help, the same way the fighter has to make Being Swole the answer to everything even when it isn't the answer at all.
The problem there is really not specific to psionics. It's just the problem of specialized casters being unsupported. If you want to build a pyromancer who solves every problem with fire, you run into exactly the same problem: you're substantially nerfing yourself for no reason other than theme.
But if any class could do it, it wouldn't be a nerf.
And that's what feats like Telepathic and Telekinetic are for.
Is that seriously the pony you're taking into this show?
If you're talking about options that anyone can have (like AD&D psionics)... you're talking feats. So yes, that's an accurate representation of how you do that sort of psionic character in 5e.
Yes, those two are the ones currently available but the thread has been mostly about adding to the system and why these changes should be made, not arguing that awesome psy powers already exist in the form of Telepathy and Telekinetic. No character would be able to put up a fight or defend themselves effectively with these powers alone. That's why the statement was weak.
Yeah, but I rather doubt designing an entire secondary system that can be applied to any class is in the cards for 5e, so the point is rather moot. Plus, you're disregarding that if the system could be applied to any class, then pretty much by definition it would functionally be a nerf to any character not using it. That's rather why they've been building their psionic-based subclasses as subclasses this time around.
Grabbing a sword, or any other single action, does look pretty much the same no matter what the mechanic is. The mechanic is mostly about how you do things over the whole day not for a single event so that is really a bogus argument. To my thinking (and I think Yurei’s and others) one of the things that makes the magic mechanic improper for psionics is that psionics shouldn’t have material and somatic components only vocal (actually in some cases not even vocal but you need something in game so vocal will do). You folks in the anti-psi camp are probably right that WOtC will probably never do psi as a seperate mechanic again but I for one will continue trying to refine my homebrew version of how I think it really aught to be. Being told it’s not needed doesn’t help it just annoys.
I'll ask again.
What if it's really important for a player to feel like their character's psychic abilities are an intrinsic part of that character, a core piece of their identity, rather than a stupid bolt-on they can barely use the way spells are? Even a full caster class gets fewer than ten castings per day for the majority of its career discounting cantrips, and if you count cantrips there is exactly ONE "psychic" cantrip - mage hand. Which requires you to scream at the top of your lungs and wave around a twenty-pound bag of pixie dust in Mystic Figure Eights for forty-seven minutes to use, instead of simply being part of you and a thing you can do as easily and reflexively as clenching your physical fist.
There's no "influence mood/Mind Trick" cantrip - and no, friends does not count and even if it did it's also the worst cantrip in D&D including True Strike - there's no "sense surface moods/thoughts" cantrip, there's no "enhanced perception" cantrip, and because people keep pissing on psychic characters there's no classes out there that have any similar abilities baked into their class kit. None. Nada. Zip. People like to point to the Aberrant Mind, but the Aberrant Mind is not a psychic character, the Aberrant Mind is a tentacle-faced slime monster that casts spells that shouldn't exist as 'spells' while trying to pawn itself off as not-an-illithid-I-swear.
Fighters can swing a weapon ten thousand times per day. Their arms are intrinsic to their being, nobody says "you can only use your arms if you expend an Arms slot of the correct level for the Movement you wish to execute." Why do people insist on that garbage for psychic characters?
Please do not contact or message me.
Because people also want their psionic abilities to be powerful, and if you want your abilities to be powerful, they're going to be limited use. If you want unlimited uses... cantrips exist.
I have nothing against changing magic users so a concept with weaker (but spammable) abilities is viable, but that should be universal, not tied to one particular type of magic.
Okay, Pantagruel.
Tell me this, then, because literally no one has EVER touched on this point: why the **** would I play an Aberrant Mind sorcerer with only 'psychic' spells when that makes that sorcerer borderline unplayable because all the 'psychic' spells are horrible designed and massively overcosted? Because that's what people always say with this garbage - "just play a spellcaster, pick psychic spells, and say you're a psychic."
Okay. Detect Thoughts consumes a second-level spell slot in order to give you the ability to pick up information surface-level and superficial enough that a basic insight check could obtain the same information. You have to be within thirteen inches of your target to use Detect Thoughts, and the target gets approximately thirty thousand chances to save against the effect. If they make any one of those thirty thousand saves, they instantly become aware of your name, the names of everyone in your party, the names of the families of everyone in your party, the class levels and abilities of everyone in your party, the precise hit point totals both maximum and current of everyone in your party, the complete history of everything anyone in your party has ever done since the beginning of the campaign, and the full and complete contents of the character sheets of everyone in your party including 'secret' information like Q/I/B/F. No one in the entire history of Fifth Edition has ever cast Detect Thoughts in a way that didn't instantly and immediately blow up in their faces and cause their situations to become significantly worse. Friends is the exact same way, except you don't get any information or benefit at all and the target doesn't even need to save - it just automatically gets everything that saving against Detect Thoughts would give them on the spot and you don't even learn what color shirt they're wearing for your trouble.
Every single 'psychic' "spell" is the exact same way - too high a spell level for what it does, and hedged around with so many "Gotcha!" backfire chances that no sane player would ever use it. So why do folks keep insisting that "just play a wizzerd and use nothing but the worst spells, jeeeeez!" is the answer?
Please do not contact or message me.
Telekinetic Movement. You can move an object or a creature with your mind. As an action, you target one loose object that is Large or smaller or one willing creature, other than yourself. If you can see the target and it is within 30 feet of you, you can move it up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. Alternatively, if it is a Tiny object, you can move it to or from your hand. Either way, you can move the target horizontally, vertically, or both. Once you take this action, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest, unless you expend a Psionic Energy die to take it again.
This is a level 3 feature of the class.
Edit:
And, at 7th level
Telekinetic Thrust. When you deal damage to a target with your Psionic Strike, you can force the target to make a Strength saving throw against a DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier. If the save fails, you can knock the target prone or move it up to 10 feet in any direction horizontally.
No, you can't be a full Jedi from the outset, but being a full Jedi would be OP in D&D terms. Full casters don't get the capability until 9th level, so it'd be pretty broken to stack the same level of power as a spammable ability on a Fighter at a similar level.
I'd say you're wrong about the psychic spells? Sure, there are some duds in there, but there's also completely broken crap like raulothim's psychic lance.
The big problem, as always, is that existing arcane spellcasters are excessively broad, so there's simply no room to create anything more thematic without just feeling nerfed. That's not fixable with new mechanics.
Psychic powers are fundamentally different from most magic powers. There is little personal investment from other casters when they use their spells aside from spell slots which is just mechanics.
We are all familiar with classic psionic abilities and to say that anti magic spells should work on them is ridiculous. Dispel magic or counterspell should absolutely not work on psychic powers. That's like saying counterspell should turn off Professor X's telepathic powers.
Typically in many sources users of psychic powers get headaches or hemorrhage when they use their abilities. Why not use HP as the resource they spend instead of spell slots? Not a new mechanic.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
The issue with making a whole separate system for psionics is that- for all intents and purposes- they'd be building a second magic system, and attempting to tune it so it's balanced compared to the current one. Not objectively impossible, but not a simple task either. Particularly if it's supposed to be more specialized, as you'll either have a bunch of abilities that outright beat out the "real" magic alternatives and have the aforementioned balance issues crop up, or you'll functionally be reproducing the exact same spells, at which point it begs the question of why you're building a new system in the first place if it's primarily just portions of the old one with a new coat of paint.
I've often proposed a system of relatively modest powers, perhaps hovering around second-level spells in overall magnitude, that can be amplified/augmented/"upcast" by expending hit dice. It's a self-regulating system - higher-level characters have more hit dice to spend, so they can better use their amplified psychic abilities. Psychic abilities are more focused, yes. That is the trade-off for not being an omnicapable jack-of-all-everythings like a spellcaster is. A psychic character can do its thing more often and at a higher level than the spellcaster - its abilities do, in fact, "beat out" the spellcaster's cheap duplicopies of psychic abilities that should never have existed in the first place. Because unlike the spellcaster, the psychic character cannot randomly fly, or throw lightning, or transform into a T-Rex, or turn stone into dirt, or raise the dead as evil war slaves, or conjure monstrosities from the Elemental Planes, or, or, or...
The telekinetic character is better at being telekinetic than the wizzerd that uses mage hand and telekinesis, yes. The telekinetic character does not get to do the billion and three other things the arcane character gets to do when being-telekinetic isn't the solution to a problem. The telekinetic character gets to figure out how to make telekinesis help, the same way the fighter has to make Being Swole the answer to everything even when it isn't the answer at all.
Please do not contact or message me.
The problem there is really not specific to psionics. It's just the problem of specialized casters being unsupported. If you want to build a pyromancer who solves every problem with fire, you run into exactly the same problem: you're substantially nerfing yourself for no reason other than theme.
But if any class could do it, it wouldn't be a nerf.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
And that's what feats like Telepathic and Telekinetic are for.
Is that seriously the pony you're taking into this show?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
If you're talking about options that anyone can have (like AD&D psionics)... you're talking feats. So yes, that's an accurate representation of how you do that sort of psionic character in 5e.
Wading back in after a day off, I actually like Yurei’s “quantum interaction” it appears to have an actual basis in fact according to the latest “mind science”. The thing is that opens up more possibilities than just telepathy and telekinesis as time and space are also “emergent properties” of quantum interactions between entangled photons and that suggests that they could be manipulated by a “consciously quantum interacting” persona which means that teleportation and energy and matter manipulation are also potentially psionic abilities. Think X-men - all their different abilities can actually be pretty well described as specialized “psionic quantum manipulations” of their own bodies or of the universe around them ( marvel actually used to classify them this way). To me psionics and magic are two very different ways of affecting the universe around the heroes (or villains) and as such there is no particular reason not to have 2 different systems for how they work. Magic is intrinsically a long rest recharge system, psionics is, potentially, a short rest system - proficiency bonus uses augmented by spending hit dice for either additional uses or to “push” the power is one way, a point based system like 1-3e psionics with a short rest recharge is another. The reality is that if your fine with things like the abberent mind sorceror and aren’t interested in trying to find a workable balanced way to do psionics then this might not be the thread for you. Your not going to stop Yurei, myself and others from trying to figure out a way to get something we really want even if it never becomes official.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Why shouldn't they? Power-neutralizer effects tend to work as well on Psylocke or Jean Grey as they do on Spider-Man or Luke Cage.
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 effects of psionic powers and magic are indistinguishable to the uninitated. To me, the common person, Elminster using mage hand to retrieve his sword, Obi-wan Kenobi using the force to retreive his sword and Jean Grey using her mental powers to retrieve her sword are all the same. Magic and Psionics are /functionally/ the same. They just do their effects different.
Much like Laeral Silverhand (wizard), Alassra Silverhand, (sorcerer), Storm Silverhand (bard) and Farideh (fiendlock) all cast fireball in a different manner, a psionicist uses 'magic' and just casts their 'spell' in a manner inconsistent with traditional spell casters. Not wanting psionics to be magic doesn't mean that they should not be. There's literally no reason for a special system to do the same thing, but just differently.
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
Yes, those two are the ones currently available but the thread has been mostly about adding to the system and why these changes should be made, not arguing that awesome psy powers already exist in the form of Telepathy and Telekinetic. No character would be able to put up a fight or defend themselves effectively with these powers alone. That's why the statement was weak.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Yeah, but I rather doubt designing an entire secondary system that can be applied to any class is in the cards for 5e, so the point is rather moot. Plus, you're disregarding that if the system could be applied to any class, then pretty much by definition it would functionally be a nerf to any character not using it. That's rather why they've been building their psionic-based subclasses as subclasses this time around.
Grabbing a sword, or any other single action, does look pretty much the same no matter what the mechanic is. The mechanic is mostly about how you do things over the whole day not for a single event so that is really a bogus argument. To my thinking (and I think Yurei’s and others) one of the things that makes the magic mechanic improper for psionics is that psionics shouldn’t have material and somatic components only vocal (actually in some cases not even vocal but you need something in game so vocal will do). You folks in the anti-psi camp are probably right that WOtC will probably never do psi as a seperate mechanic again but I for one will continue trying to refine my homebrew version of how I think it really aught to be. Being told it’s not needed doesn’t help it just annoys.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Why did psionics fail in ADD1 40 years ago?