Psionics--the Poll!

CleverNickName said:

I dunno man, this sounds an awful lot like "yes I want psionics, just not like that."

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No. This is what I am saying.

Voting is not a zero sum thing. I am fully capable of liking A, B and C and voting for all three favorably. I have never been allowed to, though. Their voting has only been on one single version at a time.

If they asked the proper questions and opened up voting to allow the liking of multiple versions, we could(and probably would) see something like... Version A saw 40% like it the best. Version B saw 30% like it the best. Version C saw 30% like it the best. Of the 70% who didn't like version B the best, 25% also liked version A. Of the 70% who didn't like version C the best, an additional 10% also liked version A.

Now version A has a 75% approval rating, even though only 40% thought it was the best version. You could see two or even three of the versions break 70% approval. Instead we get, "Well, not enough liked A, so we went to B. And then not enough liked B, so we went to C. Then not enough liked C, so we decided to blame you for not liking what we are giving you.

It's not our fault. It's the bad polling procedures on the topic. Every time I mention this in psionics threads, I get the vast majority of people discussing psionics in that thread either posting agreement, or liking my post. A lot of us like more than one incarnation of the psion, even if we don't view them all as the best.

CleverNickName said:

I mean, they tried that. They really tried, for years. First they gave us a Psion core class (they called it a "Awakened Mystic") in an Unearthed Arcana article. And after getting feedback, they released a different version ("Mystic, Take Two") seven months later. Then they released a third version ("The Mystic Class") thirteen months after that, before switching--based on our feedback--to psionic subclasses instead (first in 2019, and then revised in 2020).

It's tempting to blame Wizards of the Coast for not getting it right, but they made a solid attempt to give us a Psion class and we ruined it. Subclasses were apparently the only compromise that the majority could agree on.

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Then IMO they should have picked one and ran with it, whether they got the 70% or not.

Psionics has wrecked many a campaign over the years. I had a 1e player using a Dragon Magazine psionicist who tried hard to wreck my games. (Energy Control anyone). Generally it's a tack on and the flavor doesn't fit. I'd be fine with it done well in a space or moderns style game. GURPS does it well. I just don't need it in my D&D games.

Emerikol said:

Psionics has wrecked many a campaign over the years. I had a 1e player using a Dragon Magazine psionicist who tried hard to wreck my games. (Energy Control anyone). Generally it's a tack on and the flavor doesn't fit. I'd be fine with it done well in a space or moderns style game. GURPS does it well. I just don't need it in my D&D games.

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The flavor fits if you want it to. It's your game. And it sounds like you had a problem player in your example.

Micah Sweet said:

The flavor fits if you want it to. It's your game. And it sounds like you had a problem player in your example.

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For me magic and psionics don't flavor together well. And yes I had a problem player and I handled it. I just ended up making psionics functionally equivalent to magic. So if you want mind magic then just have a mind magic school of magic. I think psionics is great but I wouldn't have magic with it.

Micah Sweet said:

The flavor fits if you want it to. It's your game. And it sounds like you had a problem player in your example.

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No, in fairness, 1e psionics was broken mechanically. In large part because psionics was wildly different than magic, it was a "tacked on" subsystem, and characters didn't have anything approaching default defenses against psionics according to the subsystem. And the psionic monsters (like the mind flayers and intellect devourers) were built much more powerfully than the psionic characters, in large part because they were built, and by the RAW psionic characters weren't - pure random chance.

So PC psionics were very, very, binary - if you got lucky with your powers, it was pretty much an "I win" button against normal, or even high-powered magical, monsters. But if you were going up against an actual psionic monster, or ones with explicit psionic defenses, the PC would probably lose.

Oh, and psionic combat worked on a different time scale (psionics was much faster), so you couldn't really run the two combats at the same time.

Really 1e psionics from the PHB/DMG really was just broken.

GuardianLurker said:

Really 1e psionics from the PHB/DMG really was just broken.

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This was true but you couldn't just choose it either. You got it by random luck.

GuardianLurker said:

No, in fairness, 1e psionics was broken mechanically. In large part because psionics was wildly different than magic, it was a "tacked on" subsystem, and characters didn't have anything approaching default defenses against psionics according to the subsystem. And the psionic monsters (like the mind flayers and intellect devourers) were built much more powerfully than the psionic characters, in large part because they were built, and by the RAW psionic characters weren't - pure random chance.

So PC psionics were very, very, binary - if you got lucky with your powers, it was pretty much an "I win" button against normal, or even high-powered magical, monsters. But if you were going up against an actual psionic monster, or ones with explicit psionic defenses, the PC would probably lose.

Oh, and psionic combat worked on a different time scale (psionics was much faster), so you couldn't really run the two combats at the same time.

Really 1e psionics from the PHB/DMG really was just broken.

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I used the 1e psionicist class from Dragon #78, and later the 2e psionicist. Worked for us, and didn't feel tacked on (especially in 2e, where the system received support). In any case, psionics being rare and "extra" made setting sense to me, which is a high priority for me.

I was a big fan of the Rolemaster Spell law divide of magic types into arcane, divine, and mentalism(psionics) which narratively worked for me in D&D particularly after 2e with the Complete Psionics book and the Dark Sun setting.

Not a fan of 1e psionics, the randomness of getting it and the PC powers, the completely add on bonus nature of having it compared to other PCs, and the 1-10 ratio of psychic combat rounds to normal combat in particular.

Yeah, 2e psionics was a lot better. It's my favorite, flavor-wise. Mechanically, it was a bit wonky. Most of the wonkiness could be avoided just be every avoid just by everyone being reasonable in their power use. But even so, there were a couple of powers that were ... imbalanced.

And Rolemaster has the best theoretical grounding for its magic system I've ever seen. Mechanically, I think it's one of the soundest, most well-built systems out there. But it is complex, and slow to run. I keep meaning to look into FG's Rolemaster mode, but I just haven't had the time; being able to automate all those table lookups would dramatically speed up the game.