--been wondering about this ever since I bought the Gaz NB
Originally posted by abysslin
I use the scientific version. Magic Resistance stopping psionics? Blasphemy!
Doesn't Mystra have enough sway in that setting? I guess that's FR's way of saying -don't- play psions.
That's just common sense.
The weave is an outside force something not considered a part of the natural order, this is magic to most. Psionics are the study of the self or one. What this means by focusing on the spritual powers of ones psyche can one acheive true spritual awareness. Unlike most classes a psionic character true goal is to exist as one while every other class focuses on individual enhancement.
If you want good inspiration for psionics think of seeing the movie powder which shows the main character becoming one. Most psionic characters see the world as a bunch of individual parts which are actually all part of one thing so that monster your fighting isn't an external threat as much as it is an internal struggle. Just like the wind the air the trees are all parts of the same cog.
So you ask what makes a psionic character alignment possibilities. I say their are no restrictions on alignment though most are lawful or neutral. Their are such things as dark psions which strive to become the dominant force behind the one true being. While a good psion would like to make sure that the one deals with it's darker side and suppresses the force which seeks individuality. Those psions which are neutral seek to exist with the one and this can change or vary in many ways but ulitamately they are most relieved upon acheiveing the final state of awareness that in which they are no longer an individual entity but entirely one whole being.
on the other hand it makes sense to make Psionics and Magic require different resistances in Settings like Dark Sun or campaigns played exclusively on the Astral Plane, since most wildlife and denizens have Power Resistance and/or Spell Resistance.
I'm hoping to start a Greyhawk campaign of my own soon and I'm taking the FR approach since it makes the most sense as far as balance is concerned. Psionics appear/sound and smell like magic, but when a Psion Manifests a Power the visual/audio and olfactory display that occurs is nothing more than a Mental Manifestation of the caster that allows him to produce the desired effect... a residue if you will.
Originally posted by Yamo
If psionics are magical, they're not psionics at all, but rather magic.
That's just common sense.
not true. psionics can be treated as equivalent to magic for the purpose of resistance, anti-magic fields, etc. It's a variant rule to make them NOT equivalent in the PsiHB.
Those who are upset about what seems to be a "caving in" to 3rd-ed rules should consider: if you were a wizard with supra-genius intelligence, and you learned of a power (psionics) over which you had no control, wouldn't you immediately start researching versions of detect magic, dispel magic etc. that DID affect psionics? If you were a god whose clerics suddenly started falling over dead from unblockable mental attacks, wouldn't you suddenly decide to start providing at least a few tools to defend against this sort of thing?
From an in-campaign perspective, the people of Oerth consider psionics "magic" in the sense of "alterations of physical law, without a recognizable physical source". There are three major categories: Arcane, Divine, and Psionic. The third form is the rarest (and usually only recognized as distinct by those folks with some ranks in Knowledge (arcana) or Spellcraft), but that doesn't mean that it's an unknown or unstoppable force. (Your DM might house-rule that Spellcraft/Psicraft can be used to identify effects of psionics/magic at a penalty - say -5. To be fair, though, this same penalty should be applied to an arcane caster trying to identify a divine effect, or a divine caster trying to identify an arcane effect.)
It (psionics) are hardly a threat to game balance as some of you seem to be suggesting as long as you stick to the book. This whole "psionics are equivelant to magic for x purposes" seems to be more of an excuse and a work around rather than a solid foundation for implementaion of them (psionics) into a Greyhawk style campaign.
Perhaps I'm missing the point and this discussion is more relevant to 3rd Ed. rules sets, but if this is the case that's just 1 more reason for me to ignore edition progression.
For example in 2e mind thrust wasn't a big deal because it only works on other psionic characters. In 3e it works on everyone, so having antimagic fields and spell resistance work against it helps balance that out.
I think people focus too much on how psionics affects magic users. Keep in mind that psionic defenses are also helpless against magical attacks if psionics are treated as different from magic, so it's balanced either way.
You just beat me to this point.
I personally like the "psionics are different" approach. It may not be Greyhawk Canon, but the idea of D&D is that they are YOUR rules. It's not like anyone is writing an official book for publication on the matter.
Anti-magic field might delay the activation of a power for 1d4 rounds while the psionicist battles to find the path to the wizards psyche. These are ideas but in skills in power each character got what was known as psychic armor. Plus you were able to upgrde it. Plus psionicist had to roll to activate their powers so unlike a spell psionics took more than declaring an action to invoke it's effect then you had high and low surges. Just remember comparing the two and to answer another point previously made. Yes I do treat Divine, and Arcane magic differently as well.
In the brief spate of "let's try everything from the new psionics book" that is now petering out among my gaming group, this has allowed some traditionally tough opponents (demons, dragons etc.) to still shrug off a lot of effects, but still be susceptible to something that the illithids ignore (and the illithids suffer from a bit more from magical attacks, but that just means they can be hurt, period... PR27+? geez...).
Originally, psionics provided a nice counter-balance. Monsters like Mind Flayers and Intellect Devourers gave people armored in lots of magical protections something to worry about.
However, it is a myth that psionics had an insurmountable advantage or that magic provided no defense against it. For starters, psionics, just like magic, often allowed the victim some kind of saving throw or other means of escaping the effect.
Secondly, psionics/magic transparency doesn't mean the two ignore each other completely. A Wall of Force still blocks most Psychokinetic or Metacreative attack powers for example, even if the "Psionics are Different" rule is applied. Realistically, very few spellcasters use Anti-Magic Shell very casually because it negates the caster's powers as well as anyone else's. So even if it did affect psionics, a clever psionic enemy, much like a clever spellcasting one, will probably do something like send in someone(s) to melee with the now shielded-from-magic-but-otherwise-powerless spellcaster.
Thirdly, psionics didn't automatically bypass magical mind defenses, it just usually did so more easily than spells could. In 2E a psionic couldn't automatically ignore a Mind Blank spell, nor could they automatically use Clairsentience or Telepathy to spy on someone protected by Non-Detection.
The real complaint seems to be more that psionics required a little extra effort to defend against because it wasn't always stopped by the same things that offered protection against magic. That's like a Wizard whining that they shouldn't need different spells to protect them from getting hacked to death by fighters as opposed to incinerated by other mages.
I think that non-magical psionics adds flavor because it creates a separate realm that provides unique challenges. Otherwise, a psionic is just a sorceror with a different spell list.
"I'm a 5th-level cleric! The power of my god, channelled by his humble servant, can undo the power of an arcanist, but if we run up against psionic lock I'm divinely screwed!"
You see? It makes magic seem more mundane, while psionic powers come off as 'not quite belonging' to the para-natural system which has integrated the arcane and divine magics...
I suppose that the root of my dislike of 'Are Different' comes from that very source: the fact that psionics would 'feel' like an alien last-minute add-on, BECAUSE they would be treated as distinct from other paranormal powers. I want my characters to accept psionics as 'part of the system', rather than jumping back and hitting it with a stick. (One of my players is so psi-shy that it makes me chuckle.)
I personally like treating it differently, just for because I play psionics as a VERY rare thing. It keeps the psionicist from being another sorceror. Items such as psicrytals, crystal armor, crystal weapons, tattoos, dorjes, etc keep psionics as a very unique thing.
In a campaign where psionics are common, I would treat them as another type of magic (ie - divine, arcane, and psionic). This creates the differences of how power and energy is manifested by the wielder.
Now, Oerth is not absolute in its existence. We as players and DMs can make whatever we want of Oerth. The fact that there is so little in print publications on this matter makes it that much more attractive. In the end, use your own philosophies to determine what works best in YOUR Greyhawk setting.
Cuts both ways, so, again, I fail to see your point.
Okay, so the cleric under discussion could not open the door with the Psionic Lock using a Dispel Magic spell. That does not mean that the door in question is now utterly impervious to magic!
The cleric's player would presumably not throw Dispel Magic at every problem he or she encounters. If the problem were a mundanely-locked or barred door then that spell would still be useless!
"I'm a 5th-level cleric! The power of my god, channelled by his humble servant, can undo the power of an arcanist, but if we run up against a mechanical lock I'm divinely screwed!"
The upset here seems to be that the quick and easy solution isn't available. So what? A good DM doesn't let the players use the same textbook solutions to solve every challenge time and time again. Otherwise there would be no point in handing out any experience.
Psionics, as a non-magical force, creates a challenge because it requires a different set of responses than magic. That does not mean magic is useless against psionics. It does mean that players need to be mindful of psionics and how to counter it.
It also incents a party to have a psion in their group. If a party were made up of all fighters then they would have no business complaining if they had no way to counter magic or had nobody to heal their wounds. This is why any group should value having a mix of character classes to handle a variety of situations.
Psionics being different helps take spellcasters down a peg. All too often they are convinced that they could fill the role of any of the "lesser" members of a party, such as fighters and rogues, with the toss of a few choice spells. They're like the lead singer in a band.
Confronting them with a power that isn't directly under their sway can help disabuse them of that notion, and create some neat opportunities.
At any rate - maybe we should get back to the original purpose of the thread. Old-school Greyhawk had psionics, and those psionics were non-magical. If you want your 3rd-ed Greyhawk to be as much like Gary's 0-ed Greyhawk as the different rules systems allow, go with non-magical psionics... I'm just counseling caution about the consequences.
Psionics and magic have never been truly mutually exclusive. In both 1E and 2E there were always various spells, magical items and psionic powers that had crossed the boundaries between magic and psionics. It is a myth that the two are utterly apart.
True, you couldn't use Dispel Magic to negate psionics. But then you couldn't use it to dispel a number of extraordinary abilities possessed by certain classes or monsters. If you reviewed the previous systems you would know all of this.
The fact that the two forces were separate meant that you needed specialized mechanisms to deal across the divide. This was not true of arcane and divine magic because they were both "magic" by defintion.
The Dark Sun campaign setting, the only 2E setting where psionics were really mandatory rather than optional. Had spells that affected psionics and psionic powers that affected magic. Naturally, you had to know certain spells or powers, or possess certain items, but that's par for the course in almost anything.
Certain powerful defenses did in fact protect against both. For example, in 2E a psionicist couldn't Psychoport his was into a place protected by the priest spell Forbiddance, which also protected against other intrusions. There are many other examples.
But by and large it is limiting to suggest that everything should be controllable within the confines of simple solutions. For example, as a DM I found it useful to use psionics as a deterrent for some people relying absolutely on Anti-Magic effects. It made a great explanation of why monarchs, thieve's guild heads and other people who might fear scrying and such didn't just commission items that surrounded them with Anti-Magic Shells all the time. That doing so would negate magical defenses that also protected them from psionics seemed to me a plausible explanation of why every non-spellcasting leader wasn't trying to live their lives in areas blanketed by Anti-Magic effects.
Which is how psionics is best used, as a means of preventing absolutes. The consequences are not really severe at all. And it can be an interesting plot device.
It sounds from this thread that maybe 2nd edition and 3rd edition salvaged psionics, but I will forever hate them thanks to 1st edition.
I believe Dave Arneson had adventures in Blackmoor with Id & the Egg of Coot where he was mostly psionic, and they were listed in White Dwarf & Dragon. And I believe Leomund's Tiny Hut (a feature in Dragon) listed clarifications on psionics a few times. Spell resistance did not apply to psionics nor did psionic resistance apply to SR. However, purely mental spells interacted equivalently with Psionics, as did a Helm of Thought Shielding & the like.
However, if I were playing 3e, where I can be a psionisist and wanted a Greyhawk flavor, I would have them the same or similar for balance (Similar meaning if I had SR it would be 5 less for PR & PR 5 less for SR). I would also let clerics with the Madness Domain be immune to Mind Effecting Psionics & not allow them to multiclass to psionics.
That said, I'll be treating psionics mostly like magic because I don't want to have to deal with the hassle of treating them differently. That's investing more effort that its worth, quite frankly, for the versimilitude it would generate. That and psionics will be extremely rare anyway.
I won't be having PCs with psionics because they don't know the powers exist. I'm taking a slightly different take on the Scarlet Brotherhood. Rather than just being a secret society of Suel racists, and with lots of monks, they'll be a secret society of Suel racist psionicists and psychic warriors. PCs won't even know that such an ability exists until they actually encounter the Scarlet Brotherhood and discover that they seem to have very weird powers.
If psionics were more common, then I would expect that there'd be a wider array of spells for arcane and divine casters to specifically deal with psionics (because that's what the gods and wizard researchers would do to keep their powers as effective as they can make them). And vice versa. And once you've done that, then I don't really see much point in keeping the two forms of powers separate.
So I guess I fall into the psionics as magic under both arguments. If it's common, it'll be integrated by everyone, people will have resistance techniques like they do for magic, and there's little point in treating them separately. If they're rare, they won't come up often enough to make it worthwhile to treat them differently.
I like D20 psionics. The system is finally reasonably balanced, and interesting to play. I have no problem with psionics being just another branch of magic in my campaigns.
Hmm, it seems Samwise has already hit upon what I was about to say. Whatever, I'll just reiterate.
I've been considering for a long time how I would put psionics in a 3e game. Really, the only way that had any sort of aesthetic or logical appeal was to present Arcane, Divine, and Psionic powers as three totally separate (but equal and mutually transparent) "magics," if you will. I thought it was total garbage to have two systems (arcane and divine magic) that were essentially identical, while a third was radically different. I would describe my view with this set of analogies
Arcane : Divine :: Arcane : Psionic
Divine : Arcane :: Divine : Psionic
I'm not terribly familiar with any of the foundation stuff (roots of arcane and divine magic) for Greyhawk, so I just used my own system:
--Arcane: The stuff of Creation, the primordial energies left over. Arcane casters harness the power that binds the fabric of reality together.
--Divine: Energy that springs forth from exceptionally powerful beings (deities). Divine casters channel the power that gods naturally exude.
--Psionic: Power of the self. Psionic manifesters produce supernatural powers by carefully tuning their minds and bodies.
Any similarity to published material is purely coincidence, as I don't know enough of it to rip anything off. This was the only way that made sense to me.
Hopefully I haven't drifted totally off topic...
-Old French Admiral
Psionicists (etc), however, gain their power entirely through manipulating their body or mind, instead of by channeling some outside force.
I hope that's made things a little clearer. Here's a really whittled-down version:
Arcane--use universe's power
Divine--use others' power
Psionic--use own power
Anybody else have a similar take? Any other questions/etc?
-Old French Admiral
I don't see any reason to add this kind of "marvel super heroes" in my campaign, magic is already here, and offers so much.
Personnaly i think Psionics powers tends to substracts from the marvellous and the magic of the world. So i don't use it. Sorry for the morkoth or the mind flayer or any other.
On the other hand, I've been working on a concept whereby monks are a form of sorceror or perhaps psion, channeling the energy into physical abilities rather than manifesting powers. The basic concept was used in Rolemaster, but given the number of supernatural powers that monks have in D&D, it seems a good idea to annex to me.
What eventually happened instead was a total rewrite of the psionic rules at that time. I decided to use paths this way a psychic as I called them had to unlock different forms of awareness within themselves to move on to the other powers or skills. But every power in the psycometabolic field makes sense for a class which emphasizes physical mastery as well as mental mastery. One of the things I did with the paths instead of just limiting the number of schools or fields a psychic can choose from some of the lesser powers could be unlocked from another field or school if a similar power from another school or field was choosen. Like the psychometabolic power Double Pain also has a similarity to the Telepathic power Inflict Pain so if the monk is usually banned from the Telepathic powers but because he has a similar or related power in the psychometabolic field he may choose to unlock Inflict Pain when he has earned another slot for a power, Also the Psychometabolic power of Heightened Senses may allow a psychic to unlock the Telepathic power of Empathy while the two are not directly related remember that the powers both increase someone awareness so the two can work well together but the same monk cannot learn ESP as I believe the monk is too busy dealing with the physical aspect of his power as opposed to the mental aspect. Then the progression can go further since the monk has heightened senses and unlocked Empathy, he can now try to unlock the clarisentient power of Spirit Sense.
So as you can see their are many ways to use psionics none of which are wrong. So if you prefer the magic description and it works for you fine. But I choose the spiritual version which is loosely base on the psyche which is both a mental,physical, and spirtual awareness that makes it complete. So yes it can pass for magic but I don't use it that way but the two do have similarities.
I hope some of what I mentioned sparks your creative genius Samwise or any one else's creativity out there.
I am also ruling, though that psionics are strange and abnormal.
They are different in my campaign. They are just arriving in the world, and a terror to those who depend on the traditions of magic.
I don't expect it to make magic weaker, but merely force it to adapt to the hidden powers that are now supporting psionics.
(in mass, might I add. It won't take long to go from no psionics to widespread psionic cults depending on how things work out)
so changing it into magic now doesn't sit well with me.
Me either! I could really care how other people treat it in their own campaigns, but I wouldn't ever short-change psionics.