A reminder to those who argue 'Flavor is free': "Flavor is free" is completely equivalent to "flavor is meaningless."
If your stance is that a player can describe the visual effects of their abilities however they like, but the DM should, will, and must actively go out of their way to ignore those descriptions, treat the player as being completely identical to every other member of their class, ignore any trappings of the character's abilities, possessions or history that differ from The Expected Norm, and prevent the player from ever benefitting from or being hindered by their specific choice of trappings?
Then your stance is "flavor is meaningless." Not "flavor is free." You are effectively arguing that flavor is nothing but surface-level cosmetics, no more impactful than a Fortnite MTX skin. The player can skin their abilities however they wish but that skin is ignored in favor of what the DM thinks the character is/should be.
Is it any wonder other players reject this notion?
Non-psychic example: a barbarian comes from a tribe that has formed a covenant with an ancient protector spirit. The barbarian's rage is a manifestation of this covenant; when they enter their rage, the runes of the covenant burn on their skin and the protector spirit's ghostflame blazes in their eyes. The extra damage from their rage comes in the form of spectral flames enveloping their weapon, and the spirit bolsters their body as part of the covenant. According to a "Flavor Is Free" table, this is fine.
Now, midway through the campaign, the party is tracking enemies in a town near the barbarian's tribal lands. The barbarian informs the DM they would like to meditate, attempt to commune with their tribe's protector spirit and seek guidance on the movements of foes that threaten the tribe as well as the party. This is Changing The Rules, allowing the barbarian a benefit stemming from the cosmetic trappings of their abilities. This is not fine. The barbarian would be told "you're not a cleric or warlock. You can't commune with otherworldly beings. Your whole protector-spirit thing is just for funsies and visual flair, you can't use it to try and help the party solve their problem." The barbarian is effectively being told their protector spirit doesn't actually exist. This undermines the character's entire history and tale and makes their story nothing but a Fortnite MTX on the bog-standard ordinary barbarian.
This goes the other way as well - "flavor is free" means the DM is not justified in telling the barbarian "as you enter this unhallowed ground, you feel a cold churning in your gut. Somehow, instinctively, you know this place is anathema to your protector spirit - you cannot Rage in this place." Again, this is Changing The Rules, and Changing The Rules is not okay. Your flavor must, at all times and in all ways, be completely transparent and irrelevant to the game being played or it ceases being "flavor". And, thusly, ceases being "free".
You only need to hunt such things down if you are playing strict Adventurers League and it is hardly a given that Adventurers League is anything that the rules should be written around.
Fizban's exists despite dragons existing in earlier monster compendiums. Xanathar's exists, despite covering areas stated in earlier compendiums.
As for how beholders 'work' if beholders were infallible and impossible to trick then the PC's would always automatically lose against them. There is nothing in their statblocks that make them actual unbeatable Gods. They would not knowingly accept being a minion to anyone but that does not equate to never being a minion.
What is the point of any class besides 'Fighter?' Variety.
1. There are still a substantial number of players who consider even base 5e to be complex. Your idea to scatter hidden rules and interactions around the place just so you can have novel psionics is not going to improve that.
2. Neither Fizbans nor Xanathars include hidden monster rules last I checked. Any statblocks they include are self-contained and easy to pick up. Because everything uses magic.
3. Goalpost shift, you didn't say anything about the Beholder being "tricked." You called it a minion of the mindflayer, which is something they would never willingly do.
4. Bread submarines are "variety" too. Variety only works when it delivers a mechanical benefit. All 13 of the base classes in the game are quite varies, but they all use magic that interacts with the existing magic system rather than trying to do something new for novelty's sake.
And it is that difficult to come up with something that covers psi instead? Presumably any Psi book would have a listing of such creatures.
Whether it's "difficult" or not is irrelevant; the question is whether it's worth the design time to develop, test, and publish a class, monsters, and items to cater to a niche subsystem. Even in the exceedingly unlikely even they deemed it to be so, that sourcebook would get one follow-up at most in the entire edition's lifespan, as we saw repeatedly before, and largely be a waste of time they could have allocated to fleshing out the systems/classes that do get that kind of support.
What I could get behind is a system to convert any spellcaster to a psychic manifester by removing the verbal and somatic components of their spells, for some kind of balanced cost. This is something every sorcerer can already do, today.
The over the top rhetoric is still not making any arguments, here. The arcane trickster is still the arcane trickster. Just because the subclass has one subtle ability (which is still magical, by the way) does not mean it is any better than the aberrant mind sorcerer to function as a Psion class.
Of course it's magical. That's the point - any psionic or psychic class they end up making will need to be magical. Being magical doesn't mean they can't use those other two labels if you prefer those - Paizo proved that.
I am not the one bringing up a "Won't someone think of the Beholders!" argument with respect to balancing a hypothetical Psion class.
There are people who consider chess and checkers complex. We are discussing hypothetical optional rules, not changes to the core books. Those who think any given sourcebook adds too much complexity are always free not to use it. Or not to buy it at all. There is not even any proposed Psi book out there, WotC or Third Party, so also more than a little premature for any particular deep concerns of such even existing.
"Hidden monster rules" is a term you seem to be pulling out of hiding. If you want to discuss such a term, please explain what you mean by it.
I am not the one moving the goalposts here. I am not the one who has suggested that Psionics, simply by being able to bypass the anti magic eye specifically, would not merely somehow trivialize Beholders but that would somehow completely unbalance the game. Note that is not outright stated, but merely implied, which leads to situations like this. If I have misunderstood that, please explain what the issue really is. I did not call all Beholders minions of Mindflayers. I was suggesting a scenario in which one was. And no, they would not be knowingly so, but unknowingly is, by definition, unknowingly.
Every class uses magic that interacts with the normal magic system?
To the extent existing classes interact with the normal magic system, yes, they interact with the normal magic system, but please show me the rule that states that a fighter or rogue must use magic? That every special ability they have, regardless of subclass, is magical?
Define "Interact." Magic shuts down non-magic all the time. It is sort of magic's thing. But, as is constantly pointed out, only according to what the magical whatever says it does. Magical water does not always put out fires, depending on spell. Magical fire does not always actually burn objects or set things on fire, depending on spell. These situations already exist and the game hasn't imploded from them, so why would any different ones cause it to?
5. Again, we are talking about a hypothetical class with just raw ideas sitting beside it. Most of the naysaying is "Well what about <hypothetical specific situation????>" and never in any constructive way, but purely "It cannot possibly work because this might happen."
6. How do you get from "It is non-magical mind based power" to "So which of those classes ignores/is opaque with regards to the existing magic system? Or is this yet another false equivalency from you?" That is not any false equivalency from anyone other than yourself. A Psion would not be magic immune nor magic invisible any more than any random person walking down the street is magic immune or magic invisible. It is as if the argument against Psions is "If someone hits someone else over the head with a blunt object, no magic is involved. That can't be allowed! It bypasses magic! " It would bypass a spell designed to block magical melee attacks, but spells so specific are not normal at all
Nobody is claiming that you can cast a magic missile and claim it is fire and the GM has to act like it is fire. We’re saying that you cast Magic Missile and claim that it is created vis Psionics.
The issue there is that you are merely making a character who calls Magic 'Psionics.'
Again, they could call it George it would still be the same. It is just another round of "If we make the cake look nutritious, maybe they'll actually feel properly fed after trying to live off of it."
The issue there is that you are merely making a character who calls Magic 'Psionics.'
That's because that's what a psion is in D&D. A psion is someone who has Spellcasting(Psionics), exactly the way all the psionic monsters have Spellcasting(Psionics).
... Nobody is claiming that you can cast a magic missile and claim it is fire and the GM has to act like it is fire. We’re saying that you cast Magic Missile and claim that it is created vis Psionics.
If a player wants to create a Flame Needles spell based on Magic Missile, that's between the player and the DM.
But you have also proven my point. "You cast Magic Missile and claim it is created via 'Psionics'." Why should I? What is the point? If a player wants to play a psychic character, but you-the-DM are going to treat it as a conventional spellcaster, call it a conventional spellcaster, have the world react to it as a conventional spellcaster, and otherwise actively go out of your way to avoid acknowledging the players' "flavor"? The player's flavor is meaningless. It's so much wind they're spewing to no effect or purpose. You're ignoring their concept, ignoring their "roleplaying", ignoring their character because you don't like their flavor.
If you-the-DM signed off on their concept in the first place, you have no business ignoring that concept. If you are unwilling to honor the player's concept and story, why should they be willing to honor yours? What standing do you have to complain about your players never roleplaying when you make it starkly plain you're going to ignore their roleplaying in the first place?
That's why I've come to hate 'flavor is free'. It's a pithy Internet Witticism that encourages ignoring your players. It's easy-to-regurgitate Fake Wisdom, and people who don't think deeper or harder come away with exactly the opposite idea they should've learned.
But you have also proven my point. "You cast Magic Missile and claim it is created via 'Psionics'." Why should I? What is the point? If a player wants to play a psychic character, but you-the-DM are going to treat it as a conventional spellcaster, call it a conventional spellcaster, have the world react to it as a conventional spellcaster, and otherwise actively go out of your way to avoid acknowledging the players' "flavor"? The player's flavor is meaningless. It's so much wind they're spewing to no effect or purpose. You're ignoring their concept, ignoring their "roleplaying", ignoring their character because you don't like their flavor.
As a DM, if I want to treat psychics as different, I can do so without any mechanical support, just like I can treat a cleric of Torm differently from a cleric of Bane despite the fact that they are mechanically identical down the the subclass, and if I don't want to treat them as different, different mechanics won't change my mind.
As a DM, if I want to treat psychics as different, I can do so without any mechanical support, just like I can treat a cleric of Torm differently from a cleric of Bane despite the fact that they are mechanically identical down the the subclass, and if I don't want to treat them as different, different mechanics won't change my mind.
And yet the player is not allowed to make their character any different? You're saying that the DM can, if they so deign, decide whether or not to ignore the player's fluff/story/roleplaying, but the player has absolutely no right to want an actual, tangible differentiator and reason to be what they wish to be?
That's the answer to 'why isn't the Aberrant Mind good enough?', by the way. The Aberrant Mind has no reason to be a psychic character. It has no justification for being a psychic character. It offers no mechanical support for the concept of "psychic character", and despite all the scornful dismissal of the idea, mechanical support is important. Mechanics and fluff need to work together to sell an idea. If they don't? The game is off, and no amount of Flavor-Is-Free-ing people will fix it.
You're saying that the DM can, if they so deign, decide whether or not to ignore the player's fluff/story/roleplaying, but the player has absolutely no right to want an actual, tangible differentiator and reason to be what they wish to be?
The DM is the final arbiter of the Rules. While the job routinely involves working with players to create the best possible story at the end of the day what they say (no matter how stupid or arbitrary it might appear) is final.
No no, Wren. Everybody has a final word. You can say "the DM's word is law or nobody gets to play". However, the truth is that a DM who alienates their players, who constantly scorns them and belittles them and ignores their attempts to play? That DM will shortly have no players, and they won't get to play. The DM can refuse to DM, and the players can refuse to play. Meeting in the middle is the only way anybody gets to play.
"Flavor is free" and all this horse manure about calling a spade a pogo stick is the DM saying "I don't respect you, your character, or your contribution to our shared tale." A player who springs a weird concept on the DM without warning and buy-in is just as much saying "I don't respect you, your work, or your contribution to our shared tale." Both of those are bad. Yet one is championed as The Ultimate Solution To All Problems Everywhere.
And yet the player is not allowed to make their character any different? You're saying that the DM can, if they so deign, decide whether or not to ignore the player's fluff/story/roleplaying, but the player has absolutely no right to want an actual, tangible differentiator and reason to be what they wish to be?
The actual, tangible differentiator is what powers you take, not how they're described. A psion is someone with abilities that are traditionally called psychic. Which means the aberrant mind is a psion. Also, the DM defines the setting, and what, if any, distinguishes psi from magic is a setting design question (in the default 5th edition setting, psi is magic, it's explicitly stated in multiple places).
As for psi being magic: if my merchants have watchers that alert to magic because I don't want first level wizards robbing them blind with first level spells, I also don't want first level psions robbing them blind with first level effects, so I either have to go through and errata all those watchers to also alert on other power sources, or I have to declare psi to be magic. For a game system that's designed around multiple power sources from the start, the first is exactly what you do -- there's no "detect magic" in the first place, there's "detect powers" -- but 5th edition is a 10 year old system, so you're stuck with the second.
No no, Wren. Everybody has a final word. You can say "the DM's word is law or nobody gets to play". However, the truth is that a DM who alienates their players, who constantly scorns them and belittles them and ignores their attempts to play? That DM will shortly have no players, and they won't get to play. The DM can refuse to DM, and the players can refuse to play. Meeting in the middle is the only way anybody gets to play.
Similarly, a player who is intractable and refuses to co-operate is going to have a hard time finding any table to play at.
Because again: The GM is the final arbiter at the table which is a good thing because the alternative is an insane anarchist free-for-all that might be entertaining for 20 minutes but within which it will be impossible to do anything because no one can agree on just what the hell the rules actually are.
I'm curious why a player wanting their character's story, origin and history to matter is considered intractable and uncooperative.
Yes, if a DM says "no psi in my campaign", that's the end of that. If the DM allows the concept, though? If the player asks "can I do this?" and the DM says yes? Proceeding to then completely ignore the player's story, origin, history and abilities the way y'all are insisting on is really just not okay.
I'm curious why a player wanting their character's story, origin and history to matter is considered intractable and uncooperative.
Yes, if a DM says "no psi in my campaign", that's the end of that. If the DM allows the concept, though? If the player asks "can I do this?" and the DM says yes? Proceeding to then completely ignore the player's story, origin, history and abilities the way y'all are insisting on is really just not okay.
You're background, history and origin all need to conform to the setting and genre that the GM has established, and if you wind up having something in there that either wasn't apparent immediately with your character or winds up contradicting it then it is on you to rework it. This sucks but this is also why when a GM is setting up a campaign they need to work with their players to ensure that misunderstandings like this don't happen.
Personally, I am ok with it being "Magic" as that part is kind of irrelevant to what I want to play when it comes down to Psionics. I just don't want to cast Fire Ball like a Wizard or Cure Wounds like a Cleric. I want abilities unique to the class that use AND expand upon the Psionic mechanics created by WotC.
The foundation is already there with Psionic Energy Dice. They just need to build the house.
Also, this got kind of buried but I'd like to thank you for sharing this; the concern I have with psionics (which has not been helped by some people) is that a bunch of them have wanted magic and psionics to be seperate concepts entirely similar to how it was in earlier editions... where psionics was generally regarded as a blight for how it screwed everything up for other players and GMs alike.
For obvious reasons, implementing something like this in 5e at this juncture would be disasterous because theres about 10 years of materials that simply weren't built with it in mind.
Personally, I am ok with it being "Magic" as that part is kind of irrelevant to what I want to play when it comes down to Psionics. I just don't want to cast Fire Ball like a Wizard or Cure Wounds like a Cleric. I want abilities unique to the class that use AND expand upon the Psionic mechanics created by WotC.
The foundation is already there with Psionic Energy Dice. They just need to build the house.
Also, this got kind of buried but I'd like to thank you for sharing this; the concern I have with psionics (which has not been helped by some people) is that a bunch of them have wanted magic and psionics to be seperate concepts entirely similar to how it was in earlier editions... where psionics was generally regarded as a blight for how it screwed everything up for other players and GMs alike.
For obvious reasons, implementing something like this in 5e at this juncture would be disasterous because theres about 10 years of materials that simply weren't built with it in mind.
Outside normal character generation and timing, like it was in 1e? Obviously a bad idea, and nobody has suggested it.
Mechanically not magic? Despite the catastrophizing of some, really not a big deal either way. (Can/can't be detected by detect magic, can/can't punch through anti-magic. First one's minor, last one's rare.) For a third party, there's probably a slight bookkeeping advantage to making it magic, but I'll note that MCDM went the other way. For WotC, really wouldn't matter.
Personally, I am ok with it being "Magic" as that part is kind of irrelevant to what I want to play when it comes down to Psionics. I just don't want to cast Fire Ball like a Wizard or Cure Wounds like a Cleric. I want abilities unique to the class that use AND expand upon the Psionic mechanics created by WotC.
The foundation is already there with Psionic Energy Dice. They just need to build the house.
Also, this got kind of buried but I'd like to thank you for sharing this; the concern I have with psionics (which has not been helped by some people) is that a bunch of them have wanted magic and psionics to be seperate concepts entirely similar to how it was in earlier editions... where psionics was generally regarded as a blight for how it screwed everything up for other players and GMs alike.
For obvious reasons, implementing something like this in 5e at this juncture would be disasterous because theres about 10 years of materials that simply weren't built with it in mind.
Magic as a D&D term covers such a broad range of things. I just don't see Psionics being any different than a Dragon's ability fly and breath fire. It is magic, but it isn't manifested through spells. Mind Flayers, Psi Warrior, and Soulknife have psionic abilities that aren't spells for example. As I said, the mechanics already exists, it isn't reinventing the wheel, it is just going from wooden with spokes to alloy rims and tires.
That comparison highlights some of the concerns, because you'll note how rarely one sees wooden wheels on modern machinery.
"Hidden monster rules" is a term you seem to be pulling out of hiding. If you want to discuss such a term, please explain what you mean by it.
I am not the one moving the goalposts here. I am not the one who has suggested that Psionics, simply by being able to bypass the anti magic eye specifically, would not merely somehow trivialize Beholders but that would somehow completely unbalance the game. Note that is not outright stated, but merely implied, which leads to situations like this. If I have misunderstood that, please explain what the issue really is. I did not call all Beholders minions of Mindflayers. I was suggesting a scenario in which one was. And no, they would not be knowingly so, but unknowingly is, by definition, unknowingly.
Every class uses magic that interacts with the normal magic system?
To the extent existing classes interact with the normal magic system, yes, they interact with the normal magic system, but please show me the rule that states that a fighter or rogue must use magic? That every special ability they have, regardless of subclass, is magical?
Define "Interact." Magic shuts down non-magic all the time. It is sort of magic's thing. But, as is constantly pointed out, only according to what the magical whatever says it does. Magical water does not always put out fires, depending on spell. Magical fire does not always actually burn objects or set things on fire, depending on spell. These situations already exist and the game hasn't imploded from them, so why would any different ones cause it to?
5. Again, we are talking about a hypothetical class with just raw ideas sitting beside it. Most of the naysaying is "Well what about <hypothetical specific situation????>" and never in any constructive way, but purely "It cannot possibly work because this might happen."
6. How do you get from "It is non-magical mind based power" to "So which of those classes ignores/is opaque with regards to the existing magic system? Or is this yet another false equivalency from you?" That is not any false equivalency from anyone other than yourself. A Psion would not be magic immune nor magic invisible any more than any random person walking down the street is magic immune or magic invisible. It is as if the argument against Psions is "If someone hits someone else over the head with a blunt object, no magic is involved. That can't be allowed! It bypasses magic! " It would bypass a spell designed to block magical melee attacks, but spells so specific are not normal at all
By "Hidden Monster rules" I meant that any kind of rule you're writing that would explain how magic-using monsters interact (or rather, don't interact) with psionic powers and vice-versa would need to be outside of the magic-using monsters statblocks, thus creating another place players and DMs need to look to understand how those monsters work in your psionics game. (Unless of course you're suggesting we errata every magic-using monster in existence instead.)
You have no compelling reason for why psionics should get to ignore antimagic, dispel magic, detect magic, concentration etc, especially when past iterations of the system didn't. It's the only way to balance such abilities, unless again we make them so weak that being able to ignore these things is irrelevant. And that's also the answer to "but fighter and rogue abilities aren't magic either, derp!" Yeah, they're not magic, because they're balanced around being mundane. Something tells me that people who want psionics wouldn't be satisfied with psionic powers that are on par with Sneak Attack and Fighting Style. If I'm wrong and y'all would actually be fine with that, just say so.
The opacity argument was pointing out that, even if you went the absurdist route and said every class is a sorcerer when you think about it, man (yo that's deep), the key there remains that all of them either use spellcasting or have abilities that are benchmarked against spellcasting - generally unfavorably. Every single one.
I'm curious why a player wanting their character's story, origin and history to matter is considered intractable and uncooperative.
Yes, if a DM says "no psi in my campaign", that's the end of that. If the DM allows the concept, though? If the player asks "can I do this?" and the DM says yes? Proceeding to then completely ignore the player's story, origin, history and abilities the way y'all are insisting on is really just not okay.
For the infiniton time, nobody is against/disallowing psi. We're against psi that relies on it's own separate special snowflake unbalanced system.
If a player came to me and said they wanted to be a psion, I would create one that uses the spellcasting system (except without components) and figure out a way to balance that. Sorcerer already has such a way - it requires you to spend a resource to cast your spells componentless, and when that resource is used up, they have to burn spell slots to get more of it - functionally meaning they get fewer slots/points than other full spellcasters. In exchange, their magic is undetectable and can't be countered. That's a balanced trade.
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So which of those classes ignores/is opaque with regards to the existing magic system? Or is this yet another false equivalency from you?
A reminder to those who argue 'Flavor is free': "Flavor is free" is completely equivalent to "flavor is meaningless."
If your stance is that a player can describe the visual effects of their abilities however they like, but the DM should, will, and must actively go out of their way to ignore those descriptions, treat the player as being completely identical to every other member of their class, ignore any trappings of the character's abilities, possessions or history that differ from The Expected Norm, and prevent the player from ever benefitting from or being hindered by their specific choice of trappings?
Then your stance is "flavor is meaningless." Not "flavor is free." You are effectively arguing that flavor is nothing but surface-level cosmetics, no more impactful than a Fortnite MTX skin. The player can skin their abilities however they wish but that skin is ignored in favor of what the DM thinks the character is/should be.
Is it any wonder other players reject this notion?
Non-psychic example: a barbarian comes from a tribe that has formed a covenant with an ancient protector spirit. The barbarian's rage is a manifestation of this covenant; when they enter their rage, the runes of the covenant burn on their skin and the protector spirit's ghostflame blazes in their eyes. The extra damage from their rage comes in the form of spectral flames enveloping their weapon, and the spirit bolsters their body as part of the covenant. According to a "Flavor Is Free" table, this is fine.
Now, midway through the campaign, the party is tracking enemies in a town near the barbarian's tribal lands. The barbarian informs the DM they would like to meditate, attempt to commune with their tribe's protector spirit and seek guidance on the movements of foes that threaten the tribe as well as the party. This is Changing The Rules, allowing the barbarian a benefit stemming from the cosmetic trappings of their abilities. This is not fine. The barbarian would be told "you're not a cleric or warlock. You can't commune with otherworldly beings. Your whole protector-spirit thing is just for funsies and visual flair, you can't use it to try and help the party solve their problem." The barbarian is effectively being told their protector spirit doesn't actually exist. This undermines the character's entire history and tale and makes their story nothing but a Fortnite MTX on the bog-standard ordinary barbarian.
This goes the other way as well - "flavor is free" means the DM is not justified in telling the barbarian "as you enter this unhallowed ground, you feel a cold churning in your gut. Somehow, instinctively, you know this place is anathema to your protector spirit - you cannot Rage in this place." Again, this is Changing The Rules, and Changing The Rules is not okay. Your flavor must, at all times and in all ways, be completely transparent and irrelevant to the game being played or it ceases being "flavor". And, thusly, ceases being "free".
Please do not contact or message me.
I am not the one bringing up a "Won't someone think of the Beholders!" argument with respect to balancing a hypothetical Psion class.
5. Again, we are talking about a hypothetical class with just raw ideas sitting beside it. Most of the naysaying is "Well what about <hypothetical specific situation????>" and never in any constructive way, but purely "It cannot possibly work because this might happen."
6. How do you get from "It is non-magical mind based power" to "So which of those classes ignores/is opaque with regards to the existing magic system? Or is this yet another false equivalency from you?" That is not any false equivalency from anyone other than yourself. A Psion would not be magic immune nor magic invisible any more than any random person walking down the street is magic immune or magic invisible. It is as if the argument against Psions is "If someone hits someone else over the head with a blunt object, no magic is involved. That can't be allowed! It bypasses magic! " It would bypass a spell designed to block magical melee attacks, but spells so specific are not normal at all
I have to say, Ashla_Mason seemed much more categorical than that.
But sure. If wanting mechanical support for the fiction is just semantic handwaving, but only when it's about psychic characters, why is that?
The issue there is that you are merely making a character who calls Magic 'Psionics.'
Again, they could call it George it would still be the same. It is just another round of "If we make the cake look nutritious, maybe they'll actually feel properly fed after trying to live off of it."
That's because that's what a psion is in D&D. A psion is someone who has Spellcasting(Psionics), exactly the way all the psionic monsters have Spellcasting(Psionics).
If a player wants to create a Flame Needles spell based on Magic Missile, that's between the player and the DM.
But you have also proven my point. "You cast Magic Missile and claim it is created via 'Psionics'." Why should I? What is the point? If a player wants to play a psychic character, but you-the-DM are going to treat it as a conventional spellcaster, call it a conventional spellcaster, have the world react to it as a conventional spellcaster, and otherwise actively go out of your way to avoid acknowledging the players' "flavor"? The player's flavor is meaningless. It's so much wind they're spewing to no effect or purpose. You're ignoring their concept, ignoring their "roleplaying", ignoring their character because you don't like their flavor.
If you-the-DM signed off on their concept in the first place, you have no business ignoring that concept. If you are unwilling to honor the player's concept and story, why should they be willing to honor yours? What standing do you have to complain about your players never roleplaying when you make it starkly plain you're going to ignore their roleplaying in the first place?
That's why I've come to hate 'flavor is free'. It's a pithy Internet Witticism that encourages ignoring your players. It's easy-to-regurgitate Fake Wisdom, and people who don't think deeper or harder come away with exactly the opposite idea they should've learned.
Please do not contact or message me.
As a DM, if I want to treat psychics as different, I can do so without any mechanical support, just like I can treat a cleric of Torm differently from a cleric of Bane despite the fact that they are mechanically identical down the the subclass, and if I don't want to treat them as different, different mechanics won't change my mind.
And yet the player is not allowed to make their character any different? You're saying that the DM can, if they so deign, decide whether or not to ignore the player's fluff/story/roleplaying, but the player has absolutely no right to want an actual, tangible differentiator and reason to be what they wish to be?
That's the answer to 'why isn't the Aberrant Mind good enough?', by the way. The Aberrant Mind has no reason to be a psychic character. It has no justification for being a psychic character. It offers no mechanical support for the concept of "psychic character", and despite all the scornful dismissal of the idea, mechanical support is important. Mechanics and fluff need to work together to sell an idea. If they don't? The game is off, and no amount of Flavor-Is-Free-ing people will fix it.
Please do not contact or message me.
The DM is the final arbiter of the Rules. While the job routinely involves working with players to create the best possible story at the end of the day what they say (no matter how stupid or arbitrary it might appear) is final.
No no, Wren. Everybody has a final word. You can say "the DM's word is law or nobody gets to play". However, the truth is that a DM who alienates their players, who constantly scorns them and belittles them and ignores their attempts to play? That DM will shortly have no players, and they won't get to play. The DM can refuse to DM, and the players can refuse to play. Meeting in the middle is the only way anybody gets to play.
"Flavor is free" and all this horse manure about calling a spade a pogo stick is the DM saying "I don't respect you, your character, or your contribution to our shared tale." A player who springs a weird concept on the DM without warning and buy-in is just as much saying "I don't respect you, your work, or your contribution to our shared tale." Both of those are bad. Yet one is championed as The Ultimate Solution To All Problems Everywhere.
Why is that?
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The actual, tangible differentiator is what powers you take, not how they're described. A psion is someone with abilities that are traditionally called psychic. Which means the aberrant mind is a psion. Also, the DM defines the setting, and what, if any, distinguishes psi from magic is a setting design question (in the default 5th edition setting, psi is magic, it's explicitly stated in multiple places).
As for psi being magic: if my merchants have watchers that alert to magic because I don't want first level wizards robbing them blind with first level spells, I also don't want first level psions robbing them blind with first level effects, so I either have to go through and errata all those watchers to also alert on other power sources, or I have to declare psi to be magic. For a game system that's designed around multiple power sources from the start, the first is exactly what you do -- there's no "detect magic" in the first place, there's "detect powers" -- but 5th edition is a 10 year old system, so you're stuck with the second.
Similarly, a player who is intractable and refuses to co-operate is going to have a hard time finding any table to play at.
Because again: The GM is the final arbiter at the table which is a good thing because the alternative is an insane anarchist free-for-all that might be entertaining for 20 minutes but within which it will be impossible to do anything because no one can agree on just what the hell the rules actually are.
I'm curious why a player wanting their character's story, origin and history to matter is considered intractable and uncooperative.
Yes, if a DM says "no psi in my campaign", that's the end of that. If the DM allows the concept, though? If the player asks "can I do this?" and the DM says yes? Proceeding to then completely ignore the player's story, origin, history and abilities the way y'all are insisting on is really just not okay.
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You're background, history and origin all need to conform to the setting and genre that the GM has established, and if you wind up having something in there that either wasn't apparent immediately with your character or winds up contradicting it then it is on you to rework it. This sucks but this is also why when a GM is setting up a campaign they need to work with their players to ensure that misunderstandings like this don't happen.
Also, this got kind of buried but I'd like to thank you for sharing this; the concern I have with psionics (which has not been helped by some people) is that a bunch of them have wanted magic and psionics to be seperate concepts entirely similar to how it was in earlier editions... where psionics was generally regarded as a blight for how it screwed everything up for other players and GMs alike.
For obvious reasons, implementing something like this in 5e at this juncture would be disasterous because theres about 10 years of materials that simply weren't built with it in mind.
Outside normal character generation and timing, like it was in 1e? Obviously a bad idea, and nobody has suggested it.
Mechanically not magic? Despite the catastrophizing of some, really not a big deal either way. (Can/can't be detected by detect magic, can/can't punch through anti-magic. First one's minor, last one's rare.) For a third party, there's probably a slight bookkeeping advantage to making it magic, but I'll note that MCDM went the other way. For WotC, really wouldn't matter.
That comparison highlights some of the concerns, because you'll note how rarely one sees wooden wheels on modern machinery.
Great, neither was I, so let's drop the whole Beholder is a Mindflayer minion nonsense then?
By "Hidden Monster rules" I meant that any kind of rule you're writing that would explain how magic-using monsters interact (or rather, don't interact) with psionic powers and vice-versa would need to be outside of the magic-using monsters statblocks, thus creating another place players and DMs need to look to understand how those monsters work in your psionics game. (Unless of course you're suggesting we errata every magic-using monster in existence instead.)
You have no compelling reason for why psionics should get to ignore antimagic, dispel magic, detect magic, concentration etc, especially when past iterations of the system didn't. It's the only way to balance such abilities, unless again we make them so weak that being able to ignore these things is irrelevant. And that's also the answer to "but fighter and rogue abilities aren't magic either, derp!" Yeah, they're not magic, because they're balanced around being mundane. Something tells me that people who want psionics wouldn't be satisfied with psionic powers that are on par with Sneak Attack and Fighting Style. If I'm wrong and y'all would actually be fine with that, just say so.
The opacity argument was pointing out that, even if you went the absurdist route and said every class is a sorcerer when you think about it, man (yo that's deep), the key there remains that all of them either use spellcasting or have abilities that are benchmarked against spellcasting - generally unfavorably. Every single one.
For the infiniton time, nobody is against/disallowing psi. We're against psi that relies on it's own separate special snowflake unbalanced system.
If a player came to me and said they wanted to be a psion, I would create one that uses the spellcasting system (except without components) and figure out a way to balance that. Sorcerer already has such a way - it requires you to spend a resource to cast your spells componentless, and when that resource is used up, they have to burn spell slots to get more of it - functionally meaning they get fewer slots/points than other full spellcasters. In exchange, their magic is undetectable and can't be countered. That's a balanced trade.