The Appropriateness of Psionics in D&D (or anything)

[Lago_AM3P]

This isn't supposed to be a thread on how cool or sucky the crunch of the Expanded Psionics Handbook is. I personally think that the core mechanics are bunk--magic point systems are all well and good for games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest where you're in a really tactically limited situation and you're pretty much expected not to care about Fire1 and Poison at the end of the game. They suck on a tabletop game.

Rather, I'm talking about the flavor of psionics. I'm having a really hard time seeing where the current flavor of psionics is supported by anywhere in any theme. Don't get me wrong; I think it's objectively really sweet and I like having psycrystals instead of familiars and I think astral constructs are way more fun than summoned monsters.

Where did this crap come from, though, is the problem. Let's not kid ourselves; D&D has shaped fantasy like no one's business. In material that comes from someone who doesn't have a grasp of European fantasy, it will invariably resemble typical D&D elements. Especially games from the 16-bit era. Not just Japanese-created games, either; games like Wizardry and Realms of Arkania show a definite D&D influence. Same goes for the magical parts of Shadowrun; while Shadowrun's supernatural elements have evolved to its own thing, there's still elements of D&Dness in there.

Regardless, the point is that D&D magic has a connection to not only other fantasy sources that came after it but stuff that came before it. Thematic elements of D&D magic can be made to harken back to a lot of things. The pantheon of demons thing comes from Paradise Lost. Clerics smiting heathens with holy fire and then bringing people back from the dead is from the Bible. Rogues using weird magic items is from the Grey Mouser. So on.

Psionics, despite being around for most of D&D's development, does NOT have these connections. There's not a lot of material out there you can point to that you can say 'okay, that's D&D psionics, not D&D magic'.


If a new edition of D&D came out and it completely excluded mainstays like elves, magic missiles, rogues shanking people in the bank, clerics frightening the pants off of undead, paladins having to devote themselves to the forces of good unerringly (or lose powers), and so on, these things will be missed. Not just by people who play D&D, but by people completely new to the game.

I mean, can you see this conversation happening?

DM: Okay, do you understand the gist of 4th edition rules?
New Player: Yeah, I do. I'm just wondering, though... I've been looking through the game to see what new stuff my wizard can get... and... where the hell is the fireball spell? And the lightning bolt spell? And magic missile?
DM: Those spells got phased out and got 'shape energy' in their place. You choose an energy type and an area. So you can still have a bolt of electricity or a blast of flame.
New Player: Oh. That's lame.

That's how successful thematic elements of D&D have been integrated into it. That's also one of D&D's biggest weaknesses but also one of it's biggest strengths. Every time someone plays Final Fantasy IV and they make Cecil a paladin, they're reinforcing D&D into their culture.

Psionics has no such thing to it. You could eliminate the whole shebang, all of it, and the only thing new people would miss are MAYBE the illithids. Or not.

Considering that psionics has been along for so long, the only explanations I can think of are:

1) That the mechanical implementation of psionics has been so thoroughly mishandled that people don't want to integrate it into their game. So the flavor elements of psionics (mental combat, crystal swords, blues, whatever) don't get included.

2) People don't like their games to resemble chtulu's palace.



Tell me, gentle reader, what do you think?

[RandomCasualty]

Well really, you're talking about two things when you talk about psionics. There's conventional psionics, which namely is telekinesis, mind reading, prescience, mind control, etc. You see this stuff in sci-fi all the time. Even the force in Star Wars might as well just be psionics by another name.

This was kind of how 2nd edition was.

Third edition created a weird new version of psionics. A flashy psionics so to speak. And well, flashy psi really doesn't exist at all prior to 3E. It's an exclusively new creation. And I can't think of anywhere where you'll find 3.x psionics.

And lets face it, 3.x psi is kinda crappy in terms of implementation. I mean... The energy powers still bother me. It's like you can manipulate *any* kind of energy so long as it's ball shaped? wtf... Classical psionic types have one kind of energy, a pyrokineticist or an ice guy or lightning guy or whatever, and he should be able to use any shape he wants, not any energy type.

But anyway... strictly speaking, 3.x psi is pretty much entirely new. You could see 1E and 2E psi in a lot of things, but the new flashy psi basically doesn't exist at all.

[Lago_AM3P]

That said, I definitely think that there is a place in the game for the idea of psionics. That is, people become hardcore by insane amounts of concentration and willpower. Unlike monks, however, their feats are not replicable by simply exposing their bodies to steadily more difficult trials and hazards. Rather than exceed the limits of what human beings can do with their meatbodies, they reject the limitations of the human mind and learn to rip apart and reassemble their personality and mind. With this ability comes power.

I think that this is different from the tradition of wizards, who research loopholes in the fabric of reality and manipulate them to get what they want. There's a culture and inheritance there and much of their tradition and outlook was set by pioneers years ago. If you choose the path of psionics, you walk your path alone.


I really think that there is a place in D&D for these kinds of people. People tell me 'well, staple the name psion onto a sorceror'.

And that's the problem. Firstly, I don't think the sorcerer cuts it. Too much of what they do is handwaved. There's some crap in their about being the progeny of a dragon, but I think the ultimate reason why sorcerers are so unsatisfying is that they don't really go into depths about how their power makes them who they are. They definitely do for wizards; there's so much stuff in there about wizards needing to destroy their social lives, physical health, and potentially sanity for the sake of research. There's so much stuff about how the path of the wizard requires isolating themselves from humanity just because their peers are so frightened by the thought of a human being exceeding their roles in Creation. There's so much stuff about how wizards threaten creation by exploring parts of the universe better left forgotten for no reason other than to understand it better.

If psionics are to survive, they need a thematic tradition similar to that. This can't be done from scratch, I know, but someone needs to send them down that path first. And we'll need a writeup that people will embrace for their settings and books.


I don't think it can be done, however. I think we might have to get rid of psionics. A form of psionics that's thematically sustainable would look nothing like its current form. Too bad.

[Lago_AM3P]

There's conventional psionics, which namely is telekinesis, mind reading, prescience, mind control, etc. You see this stuff in sci-fi all the time. Even the force in Star Wars might as well just be psionics by another name.

The thing is, this crap is supported by magic. Moving stuff without touching it is a mainstay of magic since the history of forever. Same goes for mind control; witches putting curses on people or brewing love potions or whatever. Prescience? Please.

Psionics didn't invent these things.

However.

However, note telekinesis. If you ask a nerd to give you a description of telekinesis and how it's used and how it works in fiction, I bet you a dollar it'll resemble something you'd see in a comic book. It wouldn't look much like mage hand or even the telekinesis spell in 3E. I can't really give you an answer why this is, but I can speculate.

...

I don't think 1st or 2E has the answers of how to keep psionics in the gaming system. I haven't played much of 1st and 2nd edition, except for computer games, but I have the feeling that people are somewhat more attached to psionics this go around than before. Not that everyone will use it, but they'd notice it missing.

Maybe it's because 3E made psionics so weird that they gave it a distinct flavor? I dunno. Maybe it's just a side effect of the information age.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

In D&D isn't a better representation of what conventional comics-and-movies psionics actually is is from the warlock?

I don't own the book he's in, but it's my understanding he gets a short list of ever-growing powers defined by theme.

I thought what psionics should be was a guy who did one or two tricks really, really well.

That's problematic in D&D where the power levels between even 1 and 6 are screwy… were there a class that, at 1st level, was just like a sorcerer except it could cast a 2nd-level material-eschewed, stilled, silent spell any time he wanted, every power gamer'd kill their mother to take it.

[User3]

"Psionics" (not specifically current D&D Psionics) has a definite place in D&D and other RPGs.

You've allready said most of it.

"Magic" represents ritual magic. You mess around with strange materials, make hand-wavey gestures, say the right words, read from the right text, and suddenly something crazy comes into existance. It's magic via a combination of binding contract and prestidigitation.

Psionics dispenses with all the external foci, and works on pure will.

A really bad metaphor would be to say that Magic is alchemy, and psionic is physics. In a way that violates entropy and conservation of energy.

So when you do magic, you mix some reagents (following the right formula) and *BANG* you get something more than the sum of it's parts. When you use psionics, you fold space. Words ar epower to a wizard, while concept matters to a psion.

But on a fundamental level, anything you can do with psionics you can do with magic, and vice-versa. The difference is that it's damn' hard to just imagine a person into a statue, but thanks to an ancent pact the the progenitor of medeusae you can do so simply by tossing some Calcium Sulphate and water at you victim, invoking her name, history, and notable deeds, and finally speaking a curse.

It's similarly much simpler (although still quite difficult) to simply will a tiny singulary into existance within your opponent's head than to forge a pact with the Lord of the Void.

The practice of magic & psionics isn't exclusive either. Some mages, seeking 'true enlightenment,' learn the ways of the psion. Some apprentice psions, annoyed with their slow progress, turn to magic as a faster way to power.

And the path of the psion isn't necessarily any more "solitary" than that of the mage, but it can be.

What a gaming system should seek to preserve, more than anything else, is the distinction of flavor. And as RC said, D&D is really loosing it. It might make sense to have a "lord of energetic spheres" (because magic is alowed to be silly), but psionics should follow a more logical path.

[DP]

Making psionics hard and magic easy is not a valid difference because I don't see how you could represent that with a balanced mechanic. In terms of flavor a psion differs from a mage in 1) not needing any componants, material, verbal, or somatic. 2) powers mostly confined to force effects (including telekinesis), mind effecting spells, extra senses/scrying, self-buffs, and maybe teleportation. This is pretty much what I think of when I think of a psion and it is pretty simple to build this kind of psion under the rules. It won't be balanced against a wizard but it will do alright agaisnt appropriate challenges.

Sure it's possible to create psions that don't fit my view of what a psion is but then again I don't have a view of wizards that includes summoning large amounts of cloth, creating permanent walls of iron and turning them into masterwork breastplates, or healing constructs but not people, and all these things are possible to do with the wizard. The psion really isn't that bad, I think it is less potentially game breaking than the cleric, wizard, or druid and less underpowered than the fighting classes or the monk.

[User3]

I admit that I do not have a good grasp of the history of D&D, but it is my understanding the psionics always came as an entirely new system in Edition X of D&D. That meant to even have a psionic character, you, your DM, and probably everyone else at the table had to read an entirely new rulebook. Usually, these rulebooks were so flawed that they were not worth reading. Then in the next edition they would redesign psionics from the ground up, and usually wind up sucking again. This is why psionics does not have a big impact in D&D. It keeps coming back though, because breaking people with your mind alone is so cool. It is true that magic can produce similar effects, but there is a difference between moving something by saying a magic spell or moving it with your mind. It is kinda like how the fighter is really not an acceptable basis for a martial arts character.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

There are psionics rules in the 1e AD&D player's handbook.

And while I'm not terribly familiar with psionics systems before AD&D 2.5, but in 2.5, psionics seemed thematically similar, if completly different mechanically than 3.X psionics.

-Desdan

[Maj]

[speculation]

I might be way off in saying this, but I think that D&D took a lot of ideas about psionics from fiction, and turned it into magic because that's what characters wanted to be able to do.

Take telekinesis, for example... It's something that lots of people want to be able to do. It's useful. It's cool. It's deadly. And it's available as an arcane spell. But how many characters from fiction who have the ability also need to move their hands in some specific gesture and repeat some words in order to make it go?

Clairvoyance and ESP... Arcanists suck at divinations. Without psionics, your best bet for getting info is from a Divinist asking their deity for answers. And that's just not what happens in the stories.

The problem is that the magic system doesn't create the mystical, semi-modern feeling that generally accompanies psionics, so new systems were tacked on in order to bring the right "flavor" to the idea.

[/speculation]

"Magic" represents ritual magic. You mess around with strange materials, make hand-wavey gestures, say the right words, read from the right text, and suddenly something crazy comes into existance. It's magic via a combination of binding contract and prestidigitation.

Psionics dispenses with all the external foci, and works on pure will.

I agree with this, and just about everything else in your post.

[RandomCasualty]

Psionics has always had the problem of feeling tacked on. Even back in 1st edition when it was part of the original DMG, it was not even a system but rather a protosystem that you could kind of use.

Much about psionics just doesn't feel well adapted to mesh with normal D&D. The issue is that in many scifi and fantasy stories, psionic characters are just hands down better than nonpsionics and the world just isn't ready to handle them. The same is partially true in D&D, though not necessarily in a straight up fight, but rather in other scenarios.

For instance, you can't run capture scenarios with psionic characters because their powers can't be nullified. While wizards can be tough to capture initially, at the very least you can knock them out and bind and gag them. If they don't have a silent teleportation spell prepared, they're in bad shape.

With the psion, no such method exists aside from having someone stand there 24/7 ready to hit them if they start concentrating. From a game point of view, that's kind of annoying and it's why I think psi tends to have a bad rap in many games.

Flavor wise, this tends to fit with how psionics is portrayed in fiction. Usually psionics is some scary force that can do stuff beyond the normal person, even the very skilled, and they are constnatly worried that someone may be secretly reading thier mind or able to escape any defense. And that's okay if you want to center your story around how uber the psionic people are.

As far as an RPG point of view, it's not great however, because it's very abuseable.

[Lago_AM3P]

For instance, you can't run capture scenarios with psionic characters because their powers can't be nullified. While wizards can be tough to capture initially, at the very least you can knock them out and bind and gag them. If they don't have a silent teleportation spell prepared, they're in bad shape.

With the psion, no such method exists aside from having someone stand there 24/7 ready to hit them if they start concentrating. From a game point of view, that's kind of annoying and it's why I think psi tends to have a bad rap in many games.

I don't think the fact that capture stories are supposedly harder to run with psionics is a reason for its non-popularity. Similar possible character models (such as a sorceror with the silent spell feat and a teleport spell or a wizard with a contingency spell or whatever) are available to players.

You may be onto something, though. Can you come up with other scenarios in which psionics would limit an adventure as opposed to regular 'magic'?

[RandomCasualty]

1155099884[/unixtime]]
I don't think the fact that capture stories are supposedly harder to run with psionics is a reason for its non-popularity. Similar possible character models (such as a sorceror with the silent spell feat and a teleport spell or a wizard with a contingency spell or whatever) are available to players.

You may be onto something, though. Can you come up with other scenarios in which psionics would limit an adventure as opposed to regular 'magic'?

Well, as soon as you get powerful enough to suppress your displays (which is actually pretty damn easy in 3.5 XPH), psionics is virtually invisible and difficult to detect. Unlike magic, the telepath trying to control your mind isn't producing any audible chanting or doing crazy gestures. You may not even know what's going on besides that you're getting mentally attacked.

Other examples are somewhat lesser ones, but still things that show up, for instance, because psi doesn't have gestures you can effectively manifest in a grapple or a pin, making grappling a psion virtually useless since he can just keep blasting you.

Similarly other tricks, like hold person, paralysis and a great many other manuevers don't impact the psion one bit, who can still fire off mental actions at you even when totally unable to move. There are a great many circumstances, both mundane and supernatural, where psionics can activate where magic or swordplay can't. Even something as simple as climbing a rope.

Now all this may not be overpowering from a game standpoint, but it sure makes psionics *feel* unstoppable.

[User3]

For instance, you can't run capture scenarios with psionic characters because their powers can't be nullified. While wizards can be tough to capture initially, at the very least you can knock them out and bind and gag them. If they don't have a silent teleportation spell prepared, they're in bad shape.

With the psion, no such method exists aside from having someone stand there 24/7 ready to hit them if they start concentrating. From a game point of view, that's kind of annoying and it's why I think psi tends to have a bad rap in many games.

Actually, there are items specifically designed to keep the wearer from being able to manifest. They work differently than antimagic shackles because you can still used psionics on the prisoner.

Just as we can arbitrarily come up with requirements for the preparation and casting of spells, we can come up with reastrictions on the use of psionics. Needs restful meditation? We go all Gitmo on them. Maybe they can't use their powers while wearing tinfoil hats.

Not being able to make a player suck is nonfunctional as an argument once you allow in any type of character which isn't dependant on EQ.

Letting wizards do the "callings" probably evens things out.

-

Oh, and as for 3.5 psionics feeling unstoppable: Don't forget Burrowing and Unconditional power: 'You may have me stunned, and you may be hiding behind a Wall of Stone, but I can still hit you for 2d6 damage.' Badass.