Because it was a tacked-on system that was rushed into the game without playtesting in order to capitalize on the fact that psychic stuff was enjoying a surge in pop culture popularity at the time.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Tacked on due to interest at the time I’ll accept, not playtest and rushed I won’t- I found it a workable alternative to the existing magic system that worked effectively to provide a powerful and distinctly different way of doing extra normal things. As the interest in psi swindled thru 2&3e they dismantled it and dropped it. There is, always, a small interest in psi but not normally enough to warrant the development costs of a full blown system as they did with 2&3e. So they have tried to “bolt on” psi thru the regular magic system this time and frankly to die hards it’s crappier than the 2-3e systems that others don’t seem to like. You want to eliminate psi from the game? You need to start with the monsters - make the mindflayer psionic blast simply a psychic damage spell like ability with a recharge same with the aboleth’s mind reading etc.. Then the psi subclasses as weird normal magic start to make some sense. Otherwise you need a separate mechanic for psi that gives it a distinctly different feel when playing (uses points/hitdice, recharges on a short rest, etc) but has roughly similar visible effects in game (the sword over there comes flying to my hand, was it a spell or telekinesis?)
We found the systems worked just fine. Except that once a character gained the power they were unstoppable.
They would just psionic blast every enemy and render them incapacitated. Inside a round or two the fight was over no matter who you were against.
The only thing that could stop a psionic was another psionic. No magic could defend against it. Gods and a few monsters were all that could fight them. It became totally ridiculous. We quite playing them after a single short campaign. Even the rule that psionoc characters actually attracted other psionic monsters to them was ridiculous. The rest of the party had to fight those same monsters all the time, and lost a lot.
Evan when we tried to play by dropping ALL the psionic mind attacks the psionic character just played like a caster after that. It only got better after we allowed magic to counter psionic effects just like it did for "normal" magic spells. Once spells and psionic interacted normally things got better. But not perfect. Psionic characters were still capable of mentally dominating other NPC;s and they would never know it. With just one or two abilities they could command kings and rule from behind the thrown. All at very low levels.
We made it the exclusive power of the gods. Any person who was found to have the ability would be destroyed by the gods or raised up to be a demi god.
Quite frankly from the arguments I have heard from those who want to bring it back they just want to be unchallenged gods themselves. They do not want any magic to be able to defend against it or counter its working. Their excuse is that it would make it just like magic.
Sorry but I will never accept a new psionic system that was impossible to stop or counter except by other psionics.
Because it was a tacked-on system that was rushed into the game without playtesting in order to capitalize on the fact that psychic stuff was enjoying a surge in pop culture popularity at the time.
I remember it being more like it neutered non-psions, requiring everyone to somehow find and learn advanced defense skills against mind shenanigans. that was only half of the book though. another huge slice was divination, planes travel, and throwing rocks that mostly translated wizard spells.
it wouldn't be wrong to say it was like a book of cheats for power gamers: dense, broad, and difficult for a dm to plan around.
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
One of the major problems was that, RAW, PSI took fractions of a second for the actions so the entire psi combat happened about 10x faster than everything else making viscious. When you homebrewed it down to the same speeds everyone else had it brought it into alignment.
Psionics can, and should be in the game. But it has to be an integral part of an edition when it's initially released. There's a lot of way that can, and should have been done in 2014 to make that a reality. But they didn't which would have made any other implementation into a welded on hack job, like every other time they have tried to do psionics. Until they're willing to do it right, they should just leave it alone.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
The real appeal for me with 1e psionics were the abilities.
Things like being able to read psychic impressions of an area or object; resist the need to eat or sleep; reduce the effects of fire, cold etc.; harden the body to increase unarmored AC and increase damage of unarmed attacks; pyrokinesis (1 hp damage per round cumulative); and the regular telepathy, telekinesis and such.
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"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?"
Once we house ruled the speed downto normal for everyone else psionics worked fine and was an effective and interesting alternative tool with some very unique abilities. My favorite was energy absorption - mage fires a lightning bolt at you - instead of dodging you activate the power and simply absorb the energy glowing like a 500 watt Klein light for next few minutes as it dissipates. 😁😳 . My DM ruled it worked on AoEs so I pissed a few dragons off with it .
So, for us in 1e days, we never paid much mine to the time factor — it was an attack, it did the thing. Psi was pretty much (looking at the rules right now) an attack a person or defend thing. Unless you had monsters worthwhile it wasn’t great.
the duplication of spells was what upset the diehards, and really, it just made a few characters extra powerful in some ways, and annoying in others.
the thing is, psionics *is* just a different kind of magic. “Modern sensibility” kind, and gygax was of the mindset that it should be separated, but he also didn’t like the Norton style that he knew (too different from vancian) and really, it was The Force that shifted a lot of the way they were seen in traditional fantasy (alongside Kurtz style stuff).
it works best if you treat it like some esoteric discipline, requiring as much devotion as magic, or essentially a second kind of magic, drawn from a different well (again, the Force).
the big challenge is the archetypes for it are way more loosely goosey, so to develop powers out you have to set up maths — how much telekinesis can lift, how big a fire if level 3 versus level 13. Vancian magic redirects spells into discrete actions, with proscribed limits, whereas the way psi is treated is not rigid and needs more structure.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Only a DM since 1980 (3000 Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman
Yeah there have been a lot of changes in th society and the game that affect how we see and do psi today. Back then there was no psychic damage, no thunder or radiant damage. No Shadowfell . You had the shadow plane and the positive and negative material planes. Each of our views of what psi is is colored by our background exposures to existing “ psi culture” so we each seem to have moderately different takes on what it should be (and how it should work) making it harder to design a satisfactory system for it. There are a few things that I think everyone pretty much agrees on: powers should include things like telepathy and telekinesis (which should include some sort barrier defensive ability), Clairsentience, and some sort of energy manipulation ability of all the standard “psi” abilities I find the hardest to actually fit into the game is precognition. Having had a few possible precognitive events trying to fit them into game mechanics is difficult, the best I can suggest is something like a reaction that gives you an extra die to add to a roll to try and change the outcome. Most other abilities are fairly straight forward once you have a basic mechanic worked out. My present homebrew uses both a limited use (PB/SR) for basic disciplinary abilities that scale with level and a points based system for specialized powers that are gained with levels so it’s a bit complex but works fairly well. I can see Yurei’s point about using hitdice as a mechanic at least for extra uses or pushing core abilities and may include it in a future iteration.
Yeah there have been a lot of changes in th society and the game that affect how we see and do psi today. Back then there was no psychic damage, no thunder or radiant damage. No Shadowfell . You had the shadow plane and the positive and negative material planes. Each of our views of what psi is is colored by our background exposures to existing “ psi culture” so we each seem to have moderately different takes on what it should be (and how it should work) making it harder to design a satisfactory system for it. There are a few things that I think everyone pretty much agrees on: powers should include things like telepathy and telekinesis (which should include some sort barrier defensive ability), Clairsentience, and some sort of energy manipulation ability of all the standard “psi” abilities I find the hardest to actually fit into the game is precognition. Having had a few possible precognitive events trying to fit them into game mechanics is difficult, the best I can suggest is something like a reaction that gives you an extra die to add to a roll to try and change the outcome. Most other abilities are fairly straight forward once you have a basic mechanic worked out. My present homebrew uses both a limited use (PB/SR) for basic disciplinary abilities that scale with level and a points based system for specialized powers that are gained with levels so it’s a bit complex but works fairly well. I can see Yurei’s point about using hitdice as a mechanic at least for extra uses or pushing core abilities and may include it in a future iteration.
Precog is fairly easy since it is any divination.
The current mechanic of one special ability is "weird dreams" then make some rolls and you get to use the results at different times.
The trick is in the bolded portion, and this is why development of a system that WotC decides to make "official" and "real" that has some depth to it is kinda big. THeyy don't have to please everyone, just most folks who want psi abilities.
Their approach has been "it's just magic, lol". But it seems like we want a different wheel, over and over and over again.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000 Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman
Yeah, we do want a different wheel, or at least another wheel - right now D&D is a bicycle, a melee wheel and a magic wheel. We want a trike- a melee wheel, a magic wheel and a psi wheel.
Frankly I think the way 5th has handled psionics is for the best; you get the core aesthetic of psionics without the weird overly complicated systems that go with them (and which was legendary for completely wanging any sort of balance in the party)
Also as someone who reviewed the Mystic class when it came out: that class was hot garbage. Like most classes in 5e Stem from a root concept whereas the mystic seemed to be a grabbag of random ideas for "mind powerz man" that had a ton of subclasses that were wildly divergent from each other.
But with that having been said: If you want to have "psionic" characters in your games theres a really easy solution; Just reflavor whatever powerset you are utilizing to be rooted to the raw power of the person's brain. Barbarian rage is literally mind over matter, Paladin can easily be reflavored to be an ardent or a battlemend, Wizard, warlock or Sorcerer fit the bill for your classic "psion".
^^ while I agree with you, this answer is the BEST way to get the psion fans riled up. They don't want reflavored magic. They want something unique.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
We found the systems worked just fine. Except that once a character gained the power they were unstoppable.
Absolutely not true.
Only one attack was useful against non-psi all the others did absolutely nothing to non-psi. out to 60 feet! outrageous!
It was very expensive and could only be used a handful of times.
Even creatures with less than average ability scores got decent saves against it and at best you could cause confusion or fear. DC 10 to DC 12 saves
However if the target was very smart and wise it could cause some form of insanity. DC -1 to DC 2 saves
godlike.
I'm not sure what game you are talking about but AD&D didnt have DC's. Secondly, only Psionic Attacks similar to what the Mind Flayers used back then, couldn't affect non-psionics. The Psionic disciplines could affect non-psionics where appropriate.
The Psionic advocates refuse to accept the reality that their mental powers have been copied by spells and they refuse to accept that psionoics and magic can or could ever interact.
There must be a way for non psions to defend against their mental powers just like they can defend against magic. And magic has to be able to effect psionic powers just like psionic powers can effect magic.
In the old ADD system psions could attack a magic user mentally first in every round thus stopping all of their spell casting. No defense at all. i believe it was called psychic attack. Who wouldn't take that psionic skill?
Plus effects like telekinesis could not be stopped except by another psion. Magic did not protect you and could not turn off the power.
That would be part of the whole "wanging the balance" that I talked about earlier; Psionics was basically a treehouse magic system that didn't play well with other classes.
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Because it was a tacked-on system that was rushed into the game without playtesting in order to capitalize on the fact that psychic stuff was enjoying a surge in pop culture popularity at the time.
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.
Tacked on due to interest at the time I’ll accept, not playtest and rushed I won’t- I found it a workable alternative to the existing magic system that worked effectively to provide a powerful and distinctly different way of doing extra normal things. As the interest in psi swindled thru 2&3e they dismantled it and dropped it. There is, always, a small interest in psi but not normally enough to warrant the development costs of a full blown system as they did with 2&3e. So they have tried to “bolt on” psi thru the regular magic system this time and frankly to die hards it’s crappier than the 2-3e systems that others don’t seem to like. You want to eliminate psi from the game? You need to start with the monsters - make the mindflayer psionic blast simply a psychic damage spell like ability with a recharge same with the aboleth’s mind reading etc.. Then the psi subclasses as weird normal magic start to make some sense. Otherwise you need a separate mechanic for psi that gives it a distinctly different feel when playing (uses points/hitdice, recharges on a short rest, etc) but has roughly similar visible effects in game (the sword over there comes flying to my hand, was it a spell or telekinesis?)
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
We played psionics back then.
We found the systems worked just fine.
Except that once a character gained the power they were unstoppable.
They would just psionic blast every enemy and render them incapacitated. Inside a round or two the fight was over no matter who you were against.
The only thing that could stop a psionic was another psionic. No magic could defend against it. Gods and a few monsters were all that could fight them. It became totally ridiculous.
We quite playing them after a single short campaign.
Even the rule that psionoc characters actually attracted other psionic monsters to them was ridiculous. The rest of the party had to fight those same monsters all the time, and lost a lot.
Evan when we tried to play by dropping ALL the psionic mind attacks the psionic character just played like a caster after that.
It only got better after we allowed magic to counter psionic effects just like it did for "normal" magic spells. Once spells and psionic interacted normally things got better. But not perfect. Psionic characters were still capable of mentally dominating other NPC;s and they would never know it. With just one or two abilities they could command kings and rule from behind the thrown. All at very low levels.
We made it the exclusive power of the gods. Any person who was found to have the ability would be destroyed by the gods or raised up to be a demi god.
Quite frankly from the arguments I have heard from those who want to bring it back they just want to be unchallenged gods themselves. They do not want any magic to be able to defend against it or counter its working.
Their excuse is that it would make it just like magic.
Sorry but I will never accept a new psionic system that was impossible to stop or counter except by other psionics.
I also never liked the idea of Superman.
I remember it being more like it neutered non-psions, requiring everyone to somehow find and learn advanced defense skills against mind shenanigans. that was only half of the book though. another huge slice was divination, planes travel, and throwing rocks that mostly translated wizard spells.
it wouldn't be wrong to say it was like a book of cheats for power gamers: dense, broad, and difficult for a dm to plan around.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
One of the major problems was that, RAW, PSI took fractions of a second for the actions so the entire psi combat happened about 10x faster than everything else making viscious. When you homebrewed it down to the same speeds everyone else had it brought it into alignment.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Psionics can, and should be in the game. But it has to be an integral part of an edition when it's initially released. There's a lot of way that can, and should have been done in 2014 to make that a reality. But they didn't which would have made any other implementation into a welded on hack job, like every other time they have tried to do psionics. Until they're willing to do it right, they should just leave it alone.
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
Absolutely not true.
Only one attack was useful against non-psi all the others did absolutely nothing to non-psi. out to 60 feet! outrageous!
It was very expensive and could only be used a handful of times.
Even creatures with less than average ability scores got decent saves against it and at best you could cause confusion or fear. DC 10 to DC 12 saves
However if the target was very smart and wise it could cause some form of insanity. DC -1 to DC 2 saves
godlike.
"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 real appeal for me with 1e psionics were the abilities.
Things like being able to read psychic impressions of an area or object; resist the need to eat or sleep; reduce the effects of fire, cold etc.; harden the body to increase unarmored AC and increase damage of unarmed attacks; pyrokinesis (1 hp damage per round cumulative); and the regular telepathy, telekinesis and such.
"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
Once we house ruled the speed downto normal for everyone else psionics worked fine and was an effective and interesting alternative tool with some very unique abilities. My favorite was energy absorption - mage fires a lightning bolt at you - instead of dodging you activate the power and simply absorb the energy glowing like a 500 watt Klein light for next few minutes as it dissipates. 😁😳 . My DM ruled it worked on AoEs so I pissed a few dragons off with it .
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
So, for us in 1e days, we never paid much mine to the time factor — it was an attack, it did the thing. Psi was pretty much (looking at the rules right now) an attack a person or defend thing. Unless you had monsters worthwhile it wasn’t great.
the duplication of spells was what upset the diehards, and really, it just made a few characters extra powerful in some ways, and annoying in others.
the thing is, psionics *is* just a different kind of magic. “Modern sensibility” kind, and gygax was of the mindset that it should be separated, but he also didn’t like the Norton style that he knew (too different from vancian) and really, it was The Force that shifted a lot of the way they were seen in traditional fantasy (alongside Kurtz style stuff).
it works best if you treat it like some esoteric discipline, requiring as much devotion as magic, or essentially a second kind of magic, drawn from a different well (again, the Force).
the big challenge is the archetypes for it are way more loosely goosey, so to develop powers out you have to set up maths — how much telekinesis can lift, how big a fire if level 3 versus level 13. Vancian magic redirects spells into discrete actions, with proscribed limits, whereas the way psi is treated is not rigid and needs more structure.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000 Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman
Wyrlde.com
.-=] Lore Book | Ruleset | PC Book [=-.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Yeah there have been a lot of changes in th society and the game that affect how we see and do psi today. Back then there was no psychic damage, no thunder or radiant damage. No Shadowfell . You had the shadow plane and the positive and negative material planes. Each of our views of what psi is is colored by our background exposures to existing “ psi culture” so we each seem to have moderately different takes on what it should be (and how it should work) making it harder to design a satisfactory system for it. There are a few things that I think everyone pretty much agrees on: powers should include things like telepathy and telekinesis (which should include some sort barrier defensive ability), Clairsentience, and some sort of energy manipulation ability of all the standard “psi” abilities I find the hardest to actually fit into the game is precognition. Having had a few possible precognitive events trying to fit them into game mechanics is difficult, the best I can suggest is something like a reaction that gives you an extra die to add to a roll to try and change the outcome. Most other abilities are fairly straight forward once you have a basic mechanic worked out. My present homebrew uses both a limited use (PB/SR) for basic disciplinary abilities that scale with level and a points based system for specialized powers that are gained with levels so it’s a bit complex but works fairly well. I can see Yurei’s point about using hitdice as a mechanic at least for extra uses or pushing core abilities and may include it in a future iteration.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Precog is fairly easy since it is any divination.
The current mechanic of one special ability is "weird dreams" then make some rolls and you get to use the results at different times.
The trick is in the bolded portion, and this is why development of a system that WotC decides to make "official" and "real" that has some depth to it is kinda big. THeyy don't have to please everyone, just most folks who want psi abilities.
Their approach has been "it's just magic, lol". But it seems like we want a different wheel, over and over and over again.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000 Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman
Wyrlde.com
.-=] Lore Book | Ruleset | PC Book [=-.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Yeah, we do want a different wheel, or at least another wheel - right now D&D is a bicycle, a melee wheel and a magic wheel. We want a trike- a melee wheel, a magic wheel and a psi wheel.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Yellow Byte Studios published a 3rd party Psion class in September. Psychic Warrior is one of the subclasses. Still missing a Psychic Rogue though.
https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/451578
Frankly I think the way 5th has handled psionics is for the best; you get the core aesthetic of psionics without the weird overly complicated systems that go with them (and which was legendary for completely wanging any sort of balance in the party)
Also as someone who reviewed the Mystic class when it came out: that class was hot garbage. Like most classes in 5e Stem from a root concept whereas the mystic seemed to be a grabbag of random ideas for "mind powerz man" that had a ton of subclasses that were wildly divergent from each other.
But with that having been said: If you want to have "psionic" characters in your games theres a really easy solution; Just reflavor whatever powerset you are utilizing to be rooted to the raw power of the person's brain. Barbarian rage is literally mind over matter, Paladin can easily be reflavored to be an ardent or a battlemend, Wizard, warlock or Sorcerer fit the bill for your classic "psion".
^^ while I agree with you, this answer is the BEST way to get the psion fans riled up. They don't want reflavored magic. They want something unique.
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
What they want is moot because WotC has clearly decided that the Psi issue is resolved and quite frankly: they're not wrong.
I'm not sure what game you are talking about but AD&D didnt have DC's. Secondly, only Psionic Attacks similar to what the Mind Flayers used back then, couldn't affect non-psionics. The Psionic disciplines could affect non-psionics where appropriate.
That is why i basically quit posting here.
The Psionic advocates refuse to accept the reality that their mental powers have been copied by spells and they refuse to accept that psionoics and magic can or could ever interact.
There must be a way for non psions to defend against their mental powers just like they can defend against magic. And magic has to be able to effect psionic powers just like psionic powers can effect magic.
In the old ADD system psions could attack a magic user mentally first in every round thus stopping all of their spell casting. No defense at all. i believe it was called psychic attack. Who wouldn't take that psionic skill?
Plus effects like telekinesis could not be stopped except by another psion. Magic did not protect you and could not turn off the power.
That would be part of the whole "wanging the balance" that I talked about earlier; Psionics was basically a treehouse magic system that didn't play well with other classes.