Now that we know that there is Psionics in Pathfinder, we can begin discussing how we would like to see it implemented in the Pathfinder RPG.
I, for one, would like to see the elimination of the Metacreativity Discipline (just like the Metapsionics Discipline). This is a discipline that does not fit at all with the flavor of psionics as portrayed in the movies, books or other media or popular culture. Metacreativity is the worst offender in this regard (not completely all powers from the discipline are bad, but those that aren't could be redistributed among the remaining disciplines), though Psychoportation is also pretty bad (same stipulation - suitable powers could be redistributed to other disciplines). Nevertheless, given the compatibility concerns, I would be very happy if even Metacreativity was purged, I dare not raise my hopes also for the excision of Psychoportation.
How would you reinvision Psionics for the Pathfinder RPG?
1. Victor: What do SLAs have to do with anything? There are no SLAs in this sorcerer writeup.
-Frank
My bad, I didn't mean SLA's, I meant just gaining spells.
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Now that we know that there is Psionics in Pathfinder, we can begin discussing how we would like to see it implemented in the Pathfinder RPG.
I, for one, would like to see the elimination of the Metacreativity Discipline. This is a discipline that does not fit at all with the flavor of psionics as portrayed in the movies, books or other media or popular culture.
Thanks for bringing up the discussion. I think it's a terrific topic.
I'd like to find a better name for it than "metacreativity". (I like "Shaping") But there's are lots of fantasy tropes where someone (particularly someone scary) pulls something solid out of smoke, or shadows, or the very essence of reality. It's the kind of thing Dr. Strange does all the time.
Historically, the formation and shaping of ectoplasm was all the rage among the spiritualists of the late 1800's and early 1900's.
I'd have to disagree with eliminating an entire discipline of psionics if for no other reason than backwards compatibility. Yeah, there's not a ton of psionic material out there, but removing an entire discipline because it doesn't fit with popular culture (which is debatable as someone else pointed out) does seem a bit over the top and can have some major backward compatibility issues. If you as a DM want to remove it, go right ahead, but I'd like to keep it around. :)
As for how I would re-envision it, mechanically I think it's pretty solid and probably doesn't need more than a few tweaks here and there. However, how it could be helped is to give it more diverse flavor groundings. So rather than all ectoplasm and crystals (which turns a lot of people off) address how psionics fits into aberrations (since a disproportionate number of them are psionic), as well as the some of the pulpy "sword and planet" stuff that they've said is how psionics will largely fit into Golarion. Basically, develop some new flavors of it, and build some mechanics to incorporate those further.
I'm all for name changes to better suit Golarion. I know a common obstacle many have regarding psionics is their "feel/flavor" in the setting which many still peg as Middle Ages Europe (despite J.J.'s insistence to the contrary, that Golarion is Golaion and not Europe). Perhaps referring to the class as soothsayers, mediums, spirit guides, etc. might go a long way. As for particular disciplines, I can see name changes as well. Perhaps each discipline has an organizational moniker, like The Travellers of the Inner Eye or Fleshweavers.
As it is to be an Uncarnate, one must study the teachings of other Uncarnates or have one for a mentor, and I need to place this organization in Golarion (hopefully the Gazateer gives me a good idea where to put them) so that a psion can join the prestige class.
I think the other change could be in taking out some general powers and putting them into the corresponding discipline.
Of course, if Paizo has no plans on psionics as a class with Alpha 3 despite its inclusion with the game in general, this is all moot.
Ectoplasmiosis? Hm, what WOULD one call the science of invoking id critters, half-formed ideas, remnants of memories, and psychic afterimages? I don't think Spiritualism quite covers the whole spectrum here.
Does dream travel fall into the above, or is it more rightly the realm of telepathy?
Mind flayers having the ability is the only reason I can think of for psychoportation, and that is subject to editing. Honestly, I think they just wanted a special term for nomad abilities, so they could have one psion class for each attribute.
I would divide disciplines as follows:
(NOTE: some are just more advanced or specialized forms of others.)
Universal: something that any psion can learn
Ectoplasmiosis: contacting the spirit world, summoning id critters, etc.
Telepathy: learning and influencing thoughts, emotions, attitudes, etc.
Kinesis: generation, shaping, and control of mental force energies.
[Forgot Term]: as Kinesis, but with energy types
Bio-Control: generating changes in one's own body
Intuition: Divination, ESP, danger sense, deja vu, etc.
Grounding: negation of (primarily psionic) effects and energies.
Psychic Surgery: Bio-Control, usable upon others.
There are others, but I can't recall them off the top of my head.
Oh, and although I did claim to not want anything too dramatic done to psionics, I will admit that I would be fine with the soulknife class going away in lieu of Dreamscarred Press' mind blade feats. :)
And I can live with some name changing, but I think it would be useful and evocative to address in detail the in-game names rather than metagame names of the mechanics. A lot of the examples so far really work well along those lines, and I'd love to see official references to "what people in Golarion call these sort of characters".
Don't get me wrong: I don't think this is liable to be implemented at all for reasons of backward compatibility (the changes required would be significant) and perhaps disagreement of opinion, but my ideal delineation of supernatural effects would look something like this: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=994293
I don't think 3.X edition Psionics has a very good correspondence to Psionics in real life. When I say 'Real Life Psionics', I don't mean to imply the actual existence of psionics in real life, but rather the tropes and stereotypes that we conjure up in our minds when we think of how psionics would work if they existed and how they are portrayed in popular culture.
3.XE Psionics are also too much like magic in that they can create things out of thin air and so on. On top of that, they are also too flashy. This relegates Psionics to being just another form of magic, whereas I imagine Psionics to be much more subtle, concentrated on telepathy and unable to create new materials or conjure things.
I would envision a split along those lines for Psionics and other sources of power:
Psionic Power: Telepathy, Telekinesis, Metamorphosis and Sensing
Divine Power: Blessing, Life, Summoning and Sensing
Arcane Power: Energy, Summoning, Transportation, Metamorphosis
This means that each power source has two 'unique' and two 'shared' fields of effect. Of course, the 'unique' fields of effect may not be completely unique, its just that the other power sources would be much worse at dealing with them. The 'shared' fields of effect would not be exactly the same among the power sources either, but appropriately flavored for the given power source (e.g. no psionic metamorphosis turning one's enemy into a frog...).
Of course, future power sources, such as shadow, or nature would change the dynamic somewhat, but I would still advocate keeping at least one field of effect as 'unique' to each power source.
Note 1: Blessing covers various buffs
Note 2: Life covers healing, necromancy and so on
4E actually appears to be taking a step in this direction. There has been a hint that most enchantment stuff will be left for Psionics in 4E, which is something I like a lot... except that I am not switching to 4E, so it is kind of irrelevant for me at this point.
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Roman, there more of the world than that. At least around here, paranormal people that create things out of thin air (or at least wet cotton) vastly outnumber telepathic ones. By what i know of paranormal activity in real life (or ate least what people actually claim to be capable to do) even ninth level psionics are precise. One thing is that in some cultures, mind powers are seen as more of a reality than others.
By real-life, I mean outside of D&D - as in, in popular culture, movies, etcetera, rather than in actual 'real life' - I do not mean to imply the actual existence of the paranormal (or deny it for that matter, since this is not the most appropriate venue for the discussion of that subject). The question also becomes, what from the popular culture should be perceived as Psionics and what as Magic or Religion. The cultural definitions are often unclear or muddled on this aspect, but for the sake of rules, we have to artificially and somewhat arbitrarily clarify these distinctions, since otherwise it seems rather superfluous to have different types of 'power sources' if they, after all, all do basically the same thing.
Yet again, I must stress that I don't actually expect Pathfinder to make real alterations in this regard due to reasons I have already mentioned, but I think it still makes a good topic for discussion.
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The only difference between magic and psionics in movies, literature, etc is what genre the story is trying to be told in. If you're writing sci-fi you call any supernatural powers exhibited by a person or alien as psionic. If you writing for fantasy magic covers it. They're pretty much the same thing.
Now if you really want to differentiate between the tone, feel, and flavor of magic vs. psionics it's as easy as differentiating eastern vs. western practice in the real world. I could easily lump psionics into any manner of far eastern mythologies. Lamas, yogis, swamis, gurus, etc, etc. could all be psions or psychic warriors. Any culture tha includes meditiation is a perfect model for psionic users.
Thoughts:
(1) I am happy to hear psionics will be a part of the system.
(2) I agree that psionics, as game mechanics, became nearly indistinguishable from magic [I have strugled with this since day one in my Dark Sun campaigns).
(3) I would like a return to the psionics of 2nd ed. One class that has average BAB, d8 hp (at least now), and a more free form advancement. Plus, the return of actual wild talents.
Possible solutions:
(1) use a modified version of the Psychic Handbooks psychic powers in place of psionics [this is what I ended up doing in my Dark Sun campaigns].
(2) keep everything as is except: (a) increase HD to reflect BAB, (b) add psi-like abilities to psion class, more powers to wilder, full attack to psychic warrior, etc.
(3) for those who dislike the metacreativity/ectoplasm idea, take a look at Bruce's adventure Hypercognition for a view of metacreativity as being a collection of nightmares that the psion collects.
Any other ideas?
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As the player of a Psion, I personally LOVE the Expanded Psionics Handbook system. I think I might add a small boost to those powers that are part of a Psion's Discipline, to encourage them to take and use those powers the most. I'd also include a rule like the Sorcerer, allowing him to trade in a power for one of an equal or lower level, once every few levels, but that's less important for Psions than Sorcerers because their powers are augmentable, so they seldom become useless. The system is great as it is, I wish it took the place of the Sorcerer, to be honest.
As the player of a Psion, I personally LOVE the Expanded Psionics Handbook system. I think I might add a small boost to those powers that are part of a Psion's Discipline, to encourage them to take and use those powers the most. I'd also include a rule like the Sorcerer, allowing him to trade in a power for one of an equal or lower level, once every few levels, but that's less important for Psions than Sorcerers because their powers are augmentable, so they seldom become useless. The system is great as it is, I wish it took the place of the Sorcerer, to be honest.
I agree that the system could be kept as is with a few minor correctiongs:
(1) HD to d6(2) concentration folded into psicraft
As for psions replacing sorcerers, I could see that. I actually started giving creatures with the half-fiend template functional sorcerer levels and then ended up turning them into psion levels (in stead of gaining a SLA every two HD, the creature gains the manifester level, power points, and powers known of a psion equal to half his/her HD (max manifester level = HD)).
I just like to facilitate conversation about the various game mechanics dealing with psionics out there.
Quick reply.
Keep all six disciplines.
If magic and psionics will have complete transparency, it will impossible to match 8 school with 6 disciplines one-on-one. In fact some subschools match some subdisciplines better. The equivalencies should be re-adjusted.
If we're going to allow more light-manipulation powers (Marvel's Dazzler anyone?) to create holograms (that word sounds too modern though) and such, maybe we can create a light-based subdiscipline in psyckokinesis.
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Quick reply.
Keep all six disciplines.
If magic and psionics will have complete transparency, it will impossible to match 8 school with 6 disciplines one-on-one. In fact some subschools match some subdisciplines better. The equivalencies should be re-adjusted.
If we're going to allow more light-manipulation powers (Marvel's Dazzler anyone?) to create holograms (that word sounds too modern though) and such, maybe we can create a light-based subdiscipline in psyckokinesis.
Hologram does sound too modern... Psionic illusions should be called Mirages.