Sorcerers, incl. Aberrant Mind Sorcerers can only ignore verbal and somatic components while sorc points hold out.
Which is as long as they have spell slots to turn into sorcery points. "If you want to cast everything subtly you can't cast as many spells per day" is what we call "balance" (and as long as the aberrant mind is only casting psionic sorcery spells, he isn't even casting fewer spells per day -- you can convert a level X spell slot into X sorcery points and then use it to cast a level X spell).
Keep in mind that to cast, most sorcerers still need a spell slot (which you now have fewer of, since you converted slots to points). Aberrant Minds do not have that problem, no but do not get that until 6th, plus that ability. And in either case an extra bonus action is needed in there for each conversion.
You are also assuming that the Sorcerer has absolutely nothing else better to do with their sorcerer points, particularly since, if they cast something like a fireball, sure the enemy would not be warned by the gestures but as with most direct attack spells, they still see something fly from the caster to the target.
Let’s say a party of six PCs are dungeon crawling. It has already been claimed by the pro-psionics are different crowd that prions can have the ability to polymorph. The pasión is polymorphed into a rodent and tries to pass himself off as the wizard’s familisr. How is the monster supposed to know that he just got ego whipped by the wizard’s familiar?
"Gee, that is not normal mouse behavior, is it?" Or even "Hmmm, dinner!" And if they think it is the familiar of a friendly wizard, then the Psion better have that extra right, since they know that any stray mouse could be some other hostile wizard's familiar and have far better odds of being on guard against stray small animals.
Plus there could be (and likely would be, given this is 5e) a limitation that the Psion cannot use their other powers while in animal form. In fact, concentration being more limiting on Psions could be a potential balancing thing.
Who said the Psion doesn't appear to be behaving like a rat familiar?
1) Knowledge?
a) Please explain to me how rat familiars behave in general.
b) Now please explain to me how this specific rat familiar behaves.
c) Please explain how the Psion simply knows all these things
2) Performance check. In rat form yet.
3) Now explain to me why there aren't standing orders to kill rats. They are associated with things like being plague carriers, eat valuable food reserves and if they are familiars, then why would whoever runs the place be happy with being spied upon?
And if the Psion can get past all that, they are taking jobs from Druids? The druid would almost certainly have a head start on knowing how to act like a normal, non-familiar rat.
Nah, that's only if you care about keeping them alive. Death is also a pretty effective incapacitating effect.
So Evil societies that apply the death penalty to literally everyone regardless of transgression can deal with psions - fantastic. In actual D&D settings though, most civilized societies use prisons of some kind.
And in actual D&D settings, characters with class levels are incredibly difficult to imprison for any length of time without turning the regular old lockup into a magical supermax. It's simply a fact of the system, and really undermines that particular argument against psi.
psychic attacks have no effect, visual or otherwise, that let the target know who attacked them
psi powers don't fall under "The creature is limited in the actions it can perform by the nature of its new form"
psi powers include shapeshifting which, while it probably occurs from time to time in the literature, is in no way something that can be considered a core psychic power
All of these are major assumptions about a system that doesn't exist, and certainly are not givens.
So are you saying your proposed psionics system would have these drawbacks? Because this is the closest you've come in the entire thread to offering up anything approaching specifics.
"My proposed psionics system?" The closest thing I have to a "proposed system" is a quarter-assed thing I wrote off the top of my head to illustrate how such a class might be structured. It addressed none of these questions, because they were irrelevant.
You all constantly take every single thing somebody talking about psi said might be a property of it, and turn it into something that everyone arguing for psi in the general case is in favor of, and must satisfy you about before psionics is viable.
Take shapechanging -- I don't think anybody currently arguing for psi this thread has ever said "shapeshifting should be a part of psi". And yet, somehow, you're demanding we defend our system against a very specific scenario with at least three fixed assumptions, none of which have to be the case for a psi system. And one of them is simply a matter of rules interpretation with strong precedent against it being so -- if you polymorph a mind flayer into a vole, the expectation at most tables is that it can't keep mind blasting you.
Similarly, when Lia_black popped in with a early draft class, one of you immediately jumped in with something along the line of "Vital question: is psi magic", like it is some make-or-break fundamental property of a psi system, instead of a minor question that you can flip-flop on the answer to without affecting the design a all.
Not sure why we must be beholden to the decisions of previous incarnations of psi, especially if unblockability is such an obvious balance problem.
You were the one who claimed to "remember" a lead weakness, I was just correcting you. It seems you pulled that out of... thin air.
I said nothing about lead vs psi in past D&D rules.
What I said was:
As I recall, lead is commonly supposed to be a block on psychic powers.
Which is a statement about the common lore. Not even the D&D lore. What people in general think. How it works in fiction. I could be wrong, but bringing up the rules of past D&D to argue the point is a non-sequitur.
And even if I am wrong about it being a common belief, it's not so weird an idea that, if a psi system for D&D needed a prosaic means of blocking it, it's a perfectly reasonable choice.
Take shapechanging -- I don't think anybody currently arguing for psi this thread has ever said "shapeshifting should be a part of psi". And yet, somehow, you're demanding we defend our system against a very specific scenario with at least three fixed assumptions, none of which have to be the case for a psi system. And one of them is simply a matter of rules interpretation with strong precedent against it being so -- if you polymorph a mind flayer into a vole, the expectation at most tables is that it can't keep mind blasting you.
Shapeshifting came into this by way of someone's ChatGPT answer including something to the effect that Psions should not be allowed to shapechange because that's a druid thing.
And that admonishment is not just being taken as important, but as unquestionable.
Take shapechanging -- I don't think anybody currently arguing for psi this thread has ever said "shapeshifting should be a part of psi". And yet, somehow, you're demanding we defend our system against a very specific scenario with at least three fixed assumptions, none of which have to be the case for a psi system. And one of them is simply a matter of rules interpretation with strong precedent against it being so -- if you polymorph a mind flayer into a vole, the expectation at most tables is that it can't keep mind blasting you.
Shapeshifting came into this by way of someone's ChatGPT answer including something to the effect that Psions should not be allowed to shapechange because that's a druid thing.
And that admonishment is not just being taken as important, but as unquestionable.
It's likely been in the conversation before that -- full control of the body is sometimes included in psi powers, and that can include shapechanging. Pretty sure it was in the mystic UA, but that was a weird conflation of at least two separate archetypes.
Keep in mind that to cast, most sorcerers still need a spell slot (which you now have fewer of, since you converted slots to points). Aberrant Minds do not have that problem, no but do not get that until 6th, plus that ability. And in either case an extra bonus action is needed in there for each conversion.
You are also assuming that the Sorcerer has absolutely nothing else better to do with their sorcerer points, particularly since, if they cast something like a fireball, sure the enemy would not be warned by the gestures but as with most direct attack spells, they still see something fly from the caster to the target.
That's... that's literally the point Kotath 🤨 If you want the mechanical advantage of casting all your powers without needing VSM components, there has to be a cost associated with that in order to balance it against spellcasting. How are you still not grasping this concept?
Alternatively, you can convert the entire magic system and worldbuilding to not need spell components, like Starfinder did, which would remove any balance concerns. But then you're not really playing 5e anymore. (Which is fine, other games exist and are fun, but my understanding was that you're trying to add this system the extant 5e framework.)
And in actual D&D settings, characters with class levels are incredibly difficult to imprison for any length of time without turning the regular old lockup into a magical supermax. It's simply a fact of the system, and really undermines that particular argument against psi.
It's truly not that hard, especially for lower-level characters. The vast majority of spells that would enable casters to escape or circumvent incarceration need material components/foci (which can be confiscated), movement/speech (which can be restricted) and/or sight (which can be blocked.) And the designers designed those spells that way for a reason - because they put actual thought into the system they created that you seem determined to overlook for some reason.
"My proposed psionics system?" The closest thing I have to a "proposed system" is a quarter-assed thing I wrote off the top of my head to illustrate how such a class might be structured. It addressed none of these questions, because they were irrelevant.
You all constantly take every single thing somebody talking about psi said might be a property of it, and turn it into something that everyone arguing for psi in the general case is in favor of, and must satisfy you about before psionics is viable.
Given that my own psionics don't appear to be effective over the internet, I can only evaluate the things that you say about your proposal, yes. And if you're not actually proposing anything, then tell me, where do we go from here?
Which is a statement about the common lore. Not even the D&D lore. What people in general think. How it works in fiction.
What fiction is that? The most common inspirations for psionics that I'm aware of are things like HP Lovecraft, X-Men, Dune, maybe Wheel of Time if we want to get fancy. And of course chakras from various spiritual mythologies/religions that I don't think we can elaborate on here. Lead doesn't feature as a specific deterrent in any of them; all of the times I've seen lead come up in fiction, it's effective at blocking all magic, not just psionics. So where are you getting lead > psionics from?
It's less "lead deters psychic abilities in fiction" and more "lead can be made to block psychic abilities in D&D because it's a useful game design check/brake".
The issue is that admitting it's a useful design brake then gets into the inevitable chain of "Okay so you admit psi can have the same brakes as magic" > "Okay so you admit psi can share some things with magic" > "Okay so you admit psi and magic are exactly the same thing" > "okay so you admit there's no reasona spellcaster who casts spells using spell slots can't be "psi"." None of which follows from the former. Saying 'lead can be used to block psychic abilities' does not mean "spellcasters who cast spells using spell slots are suddenly psychic characters".
Characters who cast spells using spell slots are spellcasters. Spellcasters, by fundamental definition, are not psychic characters. Those are, and always will be, two entirely separatre things, even if one character might have levels in both the way a character can have Fighter levels and Wizard levels without Fighters and Wizards both being the same thing.
Spellcasters, by fundamental definition, are not psychic characters.
A psychic character is a character who does the things psychics do -- chiefly telepathy (and related effects), telekinesis (and related effects), and ESP (clairvoyance and similar effects). All of those exist as spells. We also have canonical examples of psychic monsters, and guess what -- they cast those spells.
Who said the Psion doesn't appear to be behaving like a rat familiar?
1) Knowledge?
a) Please explain to me how rat familiars behave in general.
b) Now please explain to me how this specific rat familiar behaves.
Please explain to me how you’ve reconciled this very same argument with the claim that an enemy knows the rat isn’t acting as a rat familiar would?
By the suggestion that the enemy in question would be ok with a rat running around because it might be the familiar of their boss or one of their bosses.
They thus have direct access to both knowledge of how this particular rat familiar behaves (b), which is far more useful knowledge than (a).
No response at all on the other points regarding rats in general? Like why they would be ok with rats running around their base, period?
The ChatGPT thing said that the Psion’s utility shouldn’t intrude on the Druid’s shapeshifting. It did not suggest that the Psions should have shape shifting.
There’s a big difference between biofeedback(the kind of psychometabolism the Psion should have) and shapeshifting.
Nevertheless, it was argued by the pro-psionics are different side that psions should have polymorph
The analysis was comparing directly to Wildshape. Since when do Druids have biofeedback spells or abilities? Note that Druids have limited shapeshifting too, so we aren't comparing with unrestricted shapechange, regardless. So why not say "Wildshape equivalent?"
The ChatGPT analysis was something you did, then since it was convenient to your arguments, have been treating it as some sort of unquestionable expert. You still have not explained why no Psion should be able to complete with wildshape, specifically, regardless of how all else about the Psion class is balanced. otherwise.
Spellcasters, by fundamental definition, are not psychic characters.
A psychic character is a character who does the things psychics do -- chiefly telepathy (and related effects), telekinesis (and related effects), and ESP (clairvoyance and similar effects). All of those exist as spells. We also have canonical examples of psychic monsters, and guess what -- they cast those spells.
And yet, in forty pages, no one has yet explained what reason, rhyme, justification or meaning there is behind calling a spellcaster who casts spells using spell slots a "psychic" character rather than just a brain-damaged spellcaster. The closest has been Pantagruel saying "all specialized spellcasters suck so you have no reason to be any different", which is an explanation of why specialized spellcasters are bad and should feel bad. Not an explanation of why a spellcaster who casts spells using spell slots is somehow not a spellcaster and is instead a psychic character.
This sounds like a dish in the menu of a restaurante, somebody will ask and others will not.
We can agree about how to avoid possible abuses by munchkins, or by DMs.
Psionic powers in the previous editions lacked verbal and somatic components, why should that change now? Certain changes aren't wellcome easily.
Can spells be used to counterspell psionic powers? For example mage hand against telekinesis or viceversa. Maybe psionic powers can work withi anti-magic fields, but some zones could block certain effects, for example teleportation, and the origin doesn't matter.
* Other point if after the psionic powers they will choose to update other classes with special class mechanics: incarnum soulmelders, vestige binders, martial adepts, mystery shadowcasters..
And yet, in forty pages, no one has yet explained what reason, rhyme, justification or meaning there is behind calling a spellcaster who casts spells using spell slots a "psychic" character rather than just a brain-damaged spellcaster.
Easy. The logic behind calling that character a psychic is "I want to call my character a psychic". When you create a character, create for what you want the character to do, not how its abilities are labeled.
And yet, in forty pages, no one has yet explained what reason, rhyme, justification or meaning there is behind calling a spellcaster who casts spells using spell slots a "psychic" character rather than just a brain-damaged spellcaster.
Easy. The logic behind calling that character a psychic is "I want to call my character a psychic". When you create a character, create for what you want the character to do, not how its abilities are labeled.
And again, you can call them a petunia. But kind of semantic dismissal is non-constructive.
And again, you can call them a petunia. But kind of semantic dismissal is non-constructive.
It's not a semantic dismissal. It's a fundamental concept people are missing: names and mechanics are separable. Find the game mechanic you want, and call it whatever you want, it doesn't matter.
And again, you can call them a petunia. But kind of semantic dismissal is non-constructive.
It's not a semantic dismissal. It's a fundamental concept people are missing: names and mechanics are separable. Find the game mechanic you want, and call it whatever you want, it doesn't matter.
It is a semantic dismissal when you insist that changing the name should be sufficient to satisfy those who are repeatedly saying they want something much more substantial than a mere name change.
And coming back to suggesting a mere name change, again, after this many pages of discussion, is, well...
It's not a semantic dismissal. It's a fundamental concept people are missing: names and mechanics are separable. Find the game mechanic you want, and call it whatever you want, it doesn't matter.
This point is not incorrect. However, I think people are saying quite clearly that "the mechanic they want" doesn't quite exist in current D&D. Though it is perhaps hinted at, or some subclasses get adjacent to it.
(and sure, whatever mechanic that is, it should not automatically skip past all known resistances and be a "in a land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" sort of situation. I don't think that's happening, though it was an issue in the past.)
It is a semantic dismissal when you insist that changing the name should be sufficient to satisfy those who are repeatedly saying they want something much more substantial than a mere name change.
First of all, "I don't want to use spell slots" is really just change for change's sake.
Second, "I don't like the current mechanics for psi and want new ones" doesn't mean the game doesn't have psi. The game has psionic abilities, and in fact even has functional psionic characters. The answer to "Psionics in 5e" is "yes, they exist". You might not like how they work -- there are plenty of things about plenty of classes I don't much care for -- but I can make a much more functional psion in 5e than I can make, say, something like a 4e Warlord.
Thid, "I want new mechanics" is fine... but then you should actually define what those new mechanics are, in sufficient detail to evaluate their balance and feasibility. As I said a ways up... if you can't fit the entire class description, including three subclasses, in five to six pages, it's probably too complex. The only person to come close to a usable level of detail about "what I actually want" is Lia Black, and it was ... okay?
Keep in mind that to cast, most sorcerers still need a spell slot (which you now have fewer of, since you converted slots to points). Aberrant Minds do not have that problem, no but do not get that until 6th, plus that ability. And in either case an extra bonus action is needed in there for each conversion.
You are also assuming that the Sorcerer has absolutely nothing else better to do with their sorcerer points, particularly since, if they cast something like a fireball, sure the enemy would not be warned by the gestures but as with most direct attack spells, they still see something fly from the caster to the target.
"Gee, that is not normal mouse behavior, is it?" Or even "Hmmm, dinner!" And if they think it is the familiar of a friendly wizard, then the Psion better have that extra right, since they know that any stray mouse could be some other hostile wizard's familiar and have far better odds of being on guard against stray small animals.
Plus there could be (and likely would be, given this is 5e) a limitation that the Psion cannot use their other powers while in animal form. In fact, concentration being more limiting on Psions could be a potential balancing thing.
1) Knowledge?
a) Please explain to me how rat familiars behave in general.
b) Now please explain to me how this specific rat familiar behaves.
c) Please explain how the Psion simply knows all these things
2) Performance check. In rat form yet.
3) Now explain to me why there aren't standing orders to kill rats. They are associated with things like being plague carriers, eat valuable food reserves and if they are familiars, then why would whoever runs the place be happy with being spied upon?
And if the Psion can get past all that, they are taking jobs from Druids? The druid would almost certainly have a head start on knowing how to act like a normal, non-familiar rat.
And in actual D&D settings, characters with class levels are incredibly difficult to imprison for any length of time without turning the regular old lockup into a magical supermax. It's simply a fact of the system, and really undermines that particular argument against psi.
"My proposed psionics system?" The closest thing I have to a "proposed system" is a quarter-assed thing I wrote off the top of my head to illustrate how such a class might be structured. It addressed none of these questions, because they were irrelevant.
You all constantly take every single thing somebody talking about psi said might be a property of it, and turn it into something that everyone arguing for psi in the general case is in favor of, and must satisfy you about before psionics is viable.
Take shapechanging -- I don't think anybody currently arguing for psi this thread has ever said "shapeshifting should be a part of psi". And yet, somehow, you're demanding we defend our system against a very specific scenario with at least three fixed assumptions, none of which have to be the case for a psi system. And one of them is simply a matter of rules interpretation with strong precedent against it being so -- if you polymorph a mind flayer into a vole, the expectation at most tables is that it can't keep mind blasting you.
Similarly, when Lia_black popped in with a early draft class, one of you immediately jumped in with something along the line of "Vital question: is psi magic", like it is some make-or-break fundamental property of a psi system, instead of a minor question that you can flip-flop on the answer to without affecting the design a all.
I said nothing about lead vs psi in past D&D rules.
What I said was:
Which is a statement about the common lore. Not even the D&D lore. What people in general think. How it works in fiction. I could be wrong, but bringing up the rules of past D&D to argue the point is a non-sequitur.
And even if I am wrong about it being a common belief, it's not so weird an idea that, if a psi system for D&D needed a prosaic means of blocking it, it's a perfectly reasonable choice.
Shapeshifting came into this by way of someone's ChatGPT answer including something to the effect that Psions should not be allowed to shapechange because that's a druid thing.
And that admonishment is not just being taken as important, but as unquestionable.
It's likely been in the conversation before that -- full control of the body is sometimes included in psi powers, and that can include shapechanging. Pretty sure it was in the mystic UA, but that was a weird conflation of at least two separate archetypes.
But yeah, probably.
That's... that's literally the point Kotath 🤨 If you want the mechanical advantage of casting all your powers without needing VSM components, there has to be a cost associated with that in order to balance it against spellcasting. How are you still not grasping this concept?
Alternatively, you can convert the entire magic system and worldbuilding to not need spell components, like Starfinder did, which would remove any balance concerns. But then you're not really playing 5e anymore. (Which is fine, other games exist and are fun, but my understanding was that you're trying to add this system the extant 5e framework.)
It's truly not that hard, especially for lower-level characters. The vast majority of spells that would enable casters to escape or circumvent incarceration need material components/foci (which can be confiscated), movement/speech (which can be restricted) and/or sight (which can be blocked.) And the designers designed those spells that way for a reason - because they put actual thought into the system they created that you seem determined to overlook for some reason.
Given that my own psionics don't appear to be effective over the internet, I can only evaluate the things that you say about your proposal, yes. And if you're not actually proposing anything, then tell me, where do we go from here?
What fiction is that? The most common inspirations for psionics that I'm aware of are things like HP Lovecraft, X-Men, Dune, maybe Wheel of Time if we want to get fancy. And of course chakras from various spiritual mythologies/religions that I don't think we can elaborate on here. Lead doesn't feature as a specific deterrent in any of them; all of the times I've seen lead come up in fiction, it's effective at blocking all magic, not just psionics. So where are you getting lead > psionics from?
It's less "lead deters psychic abilities in fiction" and more "lead can be made to block psychic abilities in D&D because it's a useful game design check/brake".
The issue is that admitting it's a useful design brake then gets into the inevitable chain of "Okay so you admit psi can have the same brakes as magic" > "Okay so you admit psi can share some things with magic" > "Okay so you admit psi and magic are exactly the same thing" > "okay so you admit there's no reasona spellcaster who casts spells using spell slots can't be "psi"." None of which follows from the former. Saying 'lead can be used to block psychic abilities' does not mean "spellcasters who cast spells using spell slots are suddenly psychic characters".
Characters who cast spells using spell slots are spellcasters. Spellcasters, by fundamental definition, are not psychic characters. Those are, and always will be, two entirely separatre things, even if one character might have levels in both the way a character can have Fighter levels and Wizard levels without Fighters and Wizards both being the same thing.
Please do not contact or message me.
There's nothing fundamental about this at all. Paizo had no problem making their psychic characters be spellcasters, and it worked.
A psychic character is a character who does the things psychics do -- chiefly telepathy (and related effects), telekinesis (and related effects), and ESP (clairvoyance and similar effects). All of those exist as spells. We also have canonical examples of psychic monsters, and guess what -- they cast those spells.
By the suggestion that the enemy in question would be ok with a rat running around because it might be the familiar of their boss or one of their bosses.
They thus have direct access to both knowledge of how this particular rat familiar behaves (b), which is far more useful knowledge than (a).
No response at all on the other points regarding rats in general? Like why they would be ok with rats running around their base, period?
The analysis was comparing directly to Wildshape. Since when do Druids have biofeedback spells or abilities? Note that Druids have limited shapeshifting too, so we aren't comparing with unrestricted shapechange, regardless. So why not say "Wildshape equivalent?"
The ChatGPT analysis was something you did, then since it was convenient to your arguments, have been treating it as some sort of unquestionable expert. You still have not explained why no Psion should be able to complete with wildshape, specifically, regardless of how all else about the Psion class is balanced. otherwise.
And yet, in forty pages, no one has yet explained what reason, rhyme, justification or meaning there is behind calling a spellcaster who casts spells using spell slots a "psychic" character rather than just a brain-damaged spellcaster. The closest has been Pantagruel saying "all specialized spellcasters suck so you have no reason to be any different", which is an explanation of why specialized spellcasters are bad and should feel bad. Not an explanation of why a spellcaster who casts spells using spell slots is somehow not a spellcaster and is instead a psychic character.
Please do not contact or message me.
This sounds like a dish in the menu of a restaurante, somebody will ask and others will not.
We can agree about how to avoid possible abuses by munchkins, or by DMs.
Psionic powers in the previous editions lacked verbal and somatic components, why should that change now? Certain changes aren't wellcome easily.
Can spells be used to counterspell psionic powers? For example mage hand against telekinesis or viceversa. Maybe psionic powers can work withi anti-magic fields, but some zones could block certain effects, for example teleportation, and the origin doesn't matter.
* Other point if after the psionic powers they will choose to update other classes with special class mechanics: incarnum soulmelders, vestige binders, martial adepts, mystery shadowcasters..
Easy. The logic behind calling that character a psychic is "I want to call my character a psychic". When you create a character, create for what you want the character to do, not how its abilities are labeled.
And again, you can call them a petunia. But kind of semantic dismissal is non-constructive.
It's not a semantic dismissal. It's a fundamental concept people are missing: names and mechanics are separable. Find the game mechanic you want, and call it whatever you want, it doesn't matter.
It is a semantic dismissal when you insist that changing the name should be sufficient to satisfy those who are repeatedly saying they want something much more substantial than a mere name change.
And coming back to suggesting a mere name change, again, after this many pages of discussion, is, well...
This point is not incorrect. However, I think people are saying quite clearly that "the mechanic they want" doesn't quite exist in current D&D. Though it is perhaps hinted at, or some subclasses get adjacent to it.
(and sure, whatever mechanic that is, it should not automatically skip past all known resistances and be a "in a land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" sort of situation. I don't think that's happening, though it was an issue in the past.)
First of all, "I don't want to use spell slots" is really just change for change's sake.
Second, "I don't like the current mechanics for psi and want new ones" doesn't mean the game doesn't have psi. The game has psionic abilities, and in fact even has functional psionic characters. The answer to "Psionics in 5e" is "yes, they exist". You might not like how they work -- there are plenty of things about plenty of classes I don't much care for -- but I can make a much more functional psion in 5e than I can make, say, something like a 4e Warlord.
Thid, "I want new mechanics" is fine... but then you should actually define what those new mechanics are, in sufficient detail to evaluate their balance and feasibility. As I said a ways up... if you can't fit the entire class description, including three subclasses, in five to six pages, it's probably too complex. The only person to come close to a usable level of detail about "what I actually want" is Lia Black, and it was ... okay?