Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Lago PARANOIA]

I've been trying to figure out the difference between psychic powers and magic in general media. Both let you do improbable things, though psychic powers seem a bit more restrained in 'complexity'.

And this is why I think Psions should be promoted to a core class. Psions have a magical schtick that is (potentialy) mechanically robust, thematic, and nonetheless doesn't encompass the entire set of stuff you can do with magic. This is something that most of the legacy spellcaster classes do not have. Seriously, can you name a spellcasting schtick that clerics can't do?

[Blicero]

Someone (Mister Sinister?) made a sphere-based Psion on this forum some number of years ago. I've always really liked the Sphere system, and I think it was a pretty good thematic fit for a Psion.

[radthemad4]

Unseen Servant is just a durationed telekinesis with AI. If you're cool with Astral Construct, then a psion making a non-visible weak ectoplasmic form with a programmed intelligence that isn't much use for fighting, but good for minor tasks, should be fine.

edit: actually, psions should totally get pets. Take a psicrystal, add some telekinesis it can control, and give it a body to puppet. Basically you roll Dominate Monster, Animate Dead, and Astral Construct all together into a single power, and say something about how it's taxing to create more than a single artificial intelligence, but your psicrystal is a free one. Basically you're giving your psicrystal power armour.

psy·chic
adjective
adjective: psychic
1.
relating to or denoting faculties or phenomena that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, especially involving telepathy or clairvoyance.
"psychic powers"
synonyms: supernatural, paranormal, otherworldly, supernormal, preternatural, metaphysical, extrasensory, magic, magical, mystical, mystic, occult More
(of a person) appearing or considered to have powers of telepathy or clairvoyance.
"I could sense it—I must be psychic"
2.
of or relating to the soul or mind.
"he dulled his psychic pain with gin"

I'm talking about what people unfamiliar with RPGs would call psychic powers. Those feel more like something you use your mind for and have direct control over. Can you imagine say, singing two different songs at the same time in your head? Heck rotate two different hands at different speeds. It's hard for a human like mind to do even multiple simple tasks at the same time. Unseen servant would not be something a 1st level psychic can do.

Magic on the other hand feels more like asking a super intelligent super being whose language you don't know for help, and/or like programming a computer (i.e. I can make it do amazing things, and I gave it instructions, but I'm not the one doing the things. I don't need to know how it works exactly to be able to use it (though that helps). Also, I can use other people's code and Bigby, Mordenkainen, etc. are open source pioneers).

[Prak]

So Beyond Earth got me thinking about reskinning D&D as a futuristic Planetary Exploration game. I'm on the fence about how much reskinning vrs wholecloth creation I want to do with the classes. Some would be fine, like rogues and barbarians, some would be ok with a boost, like monks getting baked in cybernetic enhancements. Others stick out, like the spellcasters.

Psions in sci fi are established enough that I can replace the Sorcerer with some flavour of psion and it works fine. Wizards, with their prep schedule, can have their spellbooks replaced with a miniaturized weaponry assembler sort of thing that's kept on the ship and not convenient to open up for every little thing. I'm thinking about replacing bards with, well, actually a psi-fluffed beguiler would probably take the spot well if I swap Bardic Music for Psi-diplomacy.

I would probably almost wholly remove magic, per se, but psychic powers would be a thing, so it's not wholly different (and yes I know Dungeon Crusade is kind of already this. I'm looking at that too).

Unseen Servant is just a durationed telekinesis with AI. If you're cool with Astral Construct, then a psion making a non-visible weak ectoplasmic form with a programmed intelligence that isn't much use for fighting, but good for minor tasks, should be fine.

edit: actually, psions should totally get pets. Take a psicrystal, add some telekinesis it can control, and give it a body to puppet. Basically you roll Dominate Monster, Animate Dead, and Astral Construct all together into a single power, and say something about how it's taxing to create more than a single artificial intelligence, but your psicrystal is a free one. Basically you're giving your psicrystal power armour.

psy·chic
adjective
adjective: psychic
1.
relating to or denoting faculties or phenomena that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, especially involving telepathy or clairvoyance.
"psychic powers"
synonyms: supernatural, paranormal, otherworldly, supernormal, preternatural, metaphysical, extrasensory, magic, magical, mystical, mystic, occult More
(of a person) appearing or considered to have powers of telepathy or clairvoyance.
"I could sense it—I must be psychic"
2.
of or relating to the soul or mind.
"he dulled his psychic pain with gin"

I'm talking about what people unfamiliar with RPGs would call psychic powers. Those feel more like something you use your mind for and have direct control over. Can you imagine say, singing two different songs at the same time in your head? Heck rotate two different hands at different speeds. It's hard for a human like mind to do even multiple simple tasks at the same time. Unseen servant would not be something a 1st level psychic can do.

Magic on the other hand feels more like asking a super intelligent super being whose language you don't know for help, and/or like programming a computer (i.e. I can make it do amazing things, and I gave it instructions, but I'm not the one doing the things. I don't need to know how it works exactly to be able to use it (though that helps). Also, I can use other people's code and Bigby, Mordenkainen, etc. are open source pioneers).

Yes, psions should be restricted to what a normal real life human mind can reasonably do, just like how martial characters should be restricted to what 40 year old game designers could reasonably do.

[radthemad4]

Yes, psions should be restricted to what a normal real life human mind can reasonably do, just like how martial characters should be restricted to what 40 year old game designers could reasonably do.

The keyword here is complexity, not scale. If I swapped bodies with a pro wrestler, I'd be able to punch people harder, though I was able to punch people before. If a level 1 psychic can telekinetically lift 40 lbs, I'm fine with an epic psychic being able to lift a planet.

[Prak]

No, I seriously think it's fine to let a level 1 psychic create an autonomous limited AI for short durations.

[radthemad4]

I suspect our definitions of psychic differ considerably.

[Ice9]

If I was making a game, and trying to make classes that do a distinct set of things, and not "everything", I think I'd focus Psion on Telepathy (mind control, fuck yeah) and Clairsentience (which includes a significant amount of self-buffing).

That does mean that against creatures you can't mind control, the Psion fallback strategy is "self buff and stab them". If you'd rather they stuck to indirect combat, you could include Psychokinesis too. That broadens them beyond my preference, and in a world with Elementalists, I don't think there's a need for throwing objects/fire/whatever around to be a Psionic thing.

Shaper is my favorite type to play, but honestly there's nothing all that "psychic" about what they do; it could easily go to a different class. Ditto Egoist and Nomad.

[MisterDee]

Vancian casting really seems like an appropriate system for a technomancer/nanite controller/hacker character.

"I have these ten programs loaded up in my portable minicomp, I just need to click go and get this spectacular effect, but they're one-shot only because the nanites get consumed/the ship's AI will adapt to my program."

[Prak]

I suspect our definitions of psychic differ considerably.

In my mind, the psion is all about mental effects and using their mind to do things. Once you accept that telekinesis as part of that, then the only thing we're quibbling over is whether or not it also covers creating a splinter personality. Given that Multiple Personality Disorder is a thing* in the real world, and psicrystals are pretty well accepted, psionic pet powers is just the culmination of the idea that a psychic can exert telekinetic control over a body, and create a splinter personality. Hell, we even have real people with a disorder where a seemingly separate personality has control over part of their body, Alien Hand Syndrome*. I guess, in a way, I see the psion as a person who can do things with their mind that normal people cannot, including induce highly specialized, low-drawback versions of what would normally be considered mental disorders in their own mind to do things like pilot dead/dominated bodies and ectoplasmic masses in the shape of bodies.


*I feel like I'm using outdated language. I'm not up on the DSM.

[Foxwarrior]

Well, I for one find radthemad4's suggestion that psychics can only do things they can imagine to be not overly restrictive in itself. The part where he goes on to focus on telekinesis is somewhat less generous.

Take creating a mansion for example: I can totally imagine a giant house appearing out of nowhere in an instant, but the initial moment of imagining the house only shows it from one perspective, and if I wanted to flesh it out more, I'd have to think about it from more angles. Getting a house where all the parts worked like house-parts should might even take hours.

Prak: I'm fairly certain that multiple personalities don't think simultaneously and independently like that.

[Prak]

Fair, but my point is that we're talking about people who can lift rocks and set trees on fire with their minds here...

[radthemad4]

Multiple Personality Disorder is now called Dissociative identity disorder.

I can accept the deliberate creation of personalities of varying complexity if telepathy is one of your schticks. Telekinesis is a different beast IMO. I can accept unseen servant if you can do both. If your psychics can take spells in multiple 'schools' I'm fine with unseen servant.

[Prak]

That's kind of all I'm saying. Psy-pets are just combo powers.

[radthemad4]

Fair, but my point is that we're talking about people who can lift rocks and set trees on fire with their minds here...

Yes, they can. That doesn't necessarily mean that they can do 'everything' that normal people can't do. They can set trees on fire because they have the power, 'set things on fire'. If I tell you that Fireboy has the power to set things on fire with his mind, you wouldn't automatically assume he can also read people's minds.

That's kind of all I'm saying. Psy-pets are just combo powers.

Okay, no worries then.

[Foxwarrior]

Oh, by the way, Gempunks has some very much not-D&D psychics in it of course.

[tussock]

If I was doing Psi from scratch, first they'd need a new name, but it's hard to find medieval-themed names that aren't already taken by something else. Scion works well enough, because it runs in families, and some tribes have a lot of them.

Scions are all about spamming their problems to death. Firestarter is a girl who solves problems with fire, and when that doesn't work there's MOAR FIRE! Professor X bends other people's minds, just a little bit, and if that doesn't work there's mind bending that big guy standing behind Magneto. Magneto solves problems by moving little bits of Iron, and if that doesn't work he moves bigger bits of Iron.

Classic D&D Sci is where you have dimensional door, so every problem is solved by dropping heavy shit through DDs to fall on your enemy's heads. Which knocks them into a DD, where they bounce off a wall and fall into a DD, etc.

But that's a bit boring for long-term play, so you use the Sorcerer thing where they have to use some different powers but can spam whatever's working for a long time before "burning out" on that and switching.


Giving them some sort of option to absorb damage with spell slots would emphasise that they're kicking their own ass, running out of defences, by using them up. But spells that scale by slot level are bad, so not that.


And then because they're a thing of their own, you need four sub-classes. Like the
[*] Alienist: Far Realm theme, Astral Construct mechanics, more black tentacles,
[*] Berserk: Barbarian/PsiWar with totemic rage manifestations,
[*] Monk: a Scion/Rogue hybrid, with awesome movement and naked-fu powers, and
[*] Yogi: zen/drunken warrior theme, with alchemy bombs and self-buffs.

With the Scion class dropping a bunch of concepts out to avoid too much overlap, and the 3e Monk and Barbarian and Sorcerer dying in a fire. All using the same basic Sorcerer/Bard spell mechanics and sharing a bunch of Spells on their lists.

Generally, the sort of slow-progression spellcasting seen in 3e needs to speed up again after mid levels. No matter how far behind you get, eventually you should be getting a new spell level every couple HD, at least up to 18th.


No unlimited cantrips, but there can be a 1st level spell that works for hours as an attack. Then you can fold in Warlocks too.

[Koumei]

Which book for D&D Triple has the Construct Creature template? Or whichever template most easily lets me turn a dog into a robotgolem?

I mean, I know Calamari Cookbook has "Eidolon Creature", but that's for making weird bosses that turn people insane. Not for giving people pet robots that don't do anything special.

[fectin]

Try Complete Arcane's Effigy Creatures (p. 151).

[Prak]

Working up the "It's not magic, it's nanotech" bit of my sci fi D&D reskin, it occurred to me that I'm basically turning casters into Defilers a la Dark Sun.

So what's an actually good way to represent "converts nearby material into desired effect" mechanically?

[fectin]

Material components. Just make your material components larger and less picky about form.

[erik]

For Prak's I like fectin's answer. Tweak material components and you're there.

For Koumei's:
Half-Golem is in MMII for 3.5. Can use that to make cyborg puppies. Downside is if you don't want the whole magic immunity schtick or the poison breath attack since you were looking for a simple "becomes construct".

I don't see any reason why you couldn't just say "Bam, Fido's a construct.". Change the type over from animal to construct for a dog since it's a simple enough chassis. I reckon +1 CR thanks to the copious immunities it gets and the bonus HP as a construct.

[edit:I did find this informative thread in my lookings-on and I reckon it's worth sharing:
Master Template List

[Omegonthesane]

How do I parse the nonstandard stat arrays in After Sundown, and why can I not shake the feeling that this has already been answered somewhere that I can't find?

[Username17]

How do I parse the nonstandard stat arrays in After Sundown, and why can I not shake the feeling that this has already been answered somewhere that I can't find?

S: 2[+1]; A: 6; I: 3; L: 4; W: 4; C: 1; Edge: 3; Potency: 1.

Strength 2 (+1 for Basic Clout)
Agility 6
Intuition 3
Logic 4
Willpower 4
Charisma 1

Or perhaps you were referring to:

S: 3/8 A: 1/4 I: 1/6 L: 1/3 W: 2/7 C: 1/4

Strength: Minimum 3, Maximum 8
Agility: Minimum 1, Maximum 4
Intuition: Minimum 1, Maximum 6
Logic: Minimum 1, Maximum 3
Willpower: Minimum 2, Maximum 7
Charisma: Minimum 1, Maximum 4

Does that help?

[Omegonthesane]

How do I parse the nonstandard stat arrays in After Sundown, and why can I not shake the feeling that this has already been answered somewhere that I can't find?

S: 2[+1]; A: 6; I: 3; L: 4; W: 4; C: 1; Edge: 3; Potency: 1.

Strength 2 (+1 for Basic Clout)
Agility 6
Intuition 3
Logic 4
Willpower 4
Charisma 1

Or perhaps you were referring to:

S: 3/8 A: 1/4 I: 1/6 L: 1/3 W: 2/7 C: 1/4

Strength: Minimum 3, Maximum 8
Agility: Minimum 1, Maximum 4
Intuition: Minimum 1, Maximum 6
Logic: Minimum 1, Maximum 3
Willpower: Minimum 2, Maximum 7
Charisma: Minimum 1, Maximum 4

Does that help?

That helps, thanks. I did mean "nonstandard" as in "nonstandard for After Sundown", IE the statlines the monsters have. It could help to spell that out in the writeup.

Is there a default assumption for stock e.g. Mirror Goblin stats beyond "falls within these ranges"? The mode or median Strength (or whatever) isn't necessarily the mean Strength (or whatever).