Late to the party, but my reasoning - I don't dislike psionics, per se. But I don't like big additional rulesets that players think they are entitled to use regardless of my game setting.
I have run games that have had psionics in them. I've run games that have firearms in them. Et cetera. But none of those things should be blanket allowed in every game.
Psionics, because it's this whole different ruleset with weird interactions with magic and creatures, creates a difficult environment to balance a game in. It smacks of "Oh I use this loophole to take out that level 20 lich in one round, ha ha ha." I can appropriately balance a campaign vs psionics, but it's additional work that I only do sometimes. So in a Dark Sun campaign, or a campaign where I specifically plan for there to be psionic elements, psi is fine (specific unbalanced or tarded mechanics aside, which are to be fixed via houserule), but it's not something a player should expect to just tack on to any game. You also have problems with it being "just one player" with psi - either you start tossing in psionic opponents and treasure to cater just to him, potentially annoying other players, or you don't and gimp him. Even in a party where only one person is a wizard, there is UMD and other classes with lesser casting and frequent NPC wizards around to hire on/sell to/etc.
It's like "I'm a katana wielding ninja!" If it's a game with an Eastern focus, or I can justify someone from a culture like that being around, OK. If not (we're playing in Marienburg from Warhammer Fantasy), no, sorry, your Asian fetish is out of scope for this campaign.
So my default answer to "psi?" is no, unless I am building it in, at which point I'll tell everyone that and say "some of you may want to look into this." As opposed to it being just one more option in a sea of 30 books worth of options for players to pick and choose from. That is what is often wrong with 3.5 in practice; the "huge array of rules" syndrome caters to powergaming and works against having consistent tone.
That really isn't a game system question, but a question of social interaction of how two people can handle a disagreement. At that point it's not a question of different magic systems but a test of social maturity.
A really big +1.
|
No I have issues with psionics fan being a douche and demanding an optional rule be used...and even worse demanding that an optional variant of the optional rule be used. Hell, I have no problem with psionics as a rule set...but when the player demands that I get rid of the psionics/magic transparency so I have to do whole lot more work dealing with the effects then yes I have issues. And yes I have had psionic players agree to play by the default rule only to demand that the optional variant be used several games in. Not discuss, demand or they take their toys and leave...usually breaking up the game in the process. So yeah it's not about the rules, it's about the people who happen to LIKE those rules.Again, I find it extremely bizarre that people would get mad at "minmaxing munchkin" psionic players and not feel the same way about caster classes.
Or perhaps we're fine with caster supremacy - I've certainly seen it on these forums - but not with psionics being a little bit less powerful?
I'm going to give you the same answer I gave to people who ban all cross-gender characters because of a few bad eggs:
"Don't play with jerks"
So don't play with psionic then...because it's not a few bad eggs. It's every single player who asked that I include psionics in a game who did this. Most demand for the variant seperate magic/psionics off the bad and reveal their jerk attitude right away so that easy enough to avoid, but the rest are sneaky and wait till the campaign is in motion and they have some group traction before pulling the A-hole move off. Since I have had exactly 0% of psionics fan actually go through an entire campaign without brining that up, what your saying to me in my area amounts to is ban psionic. So yes I don't play with jerks, I ban psionics.
|
|
Ah, my bad then. CN, should we ever meet at a con, I'd be happy to be a non-douche psionics player for you. Maybe even with the Dreamscarred Press update when it releases.
Yeah I saw the base classes for that...looks good from the short lookover so far. I'll probably have time at the end of the month to look at it in more detail and do play test(I have a group of rules monkies who love to do these things :P ).
I'm hope they leave the psionics and magic is seperate out the book entirely however. That one stupid variant throw psionic fans into such a frenzy around here. I'm guessing it makes it feel more like the psionics of old where basically psionics was unresistable magic.
As for your first question yes, I do allow psionics with full transparency. I have had 18(or so...i kinda started to keep count after about what I felt like half a dozen attempts) players accept this at the start. Only 2 games survived the psionics players being a d-bag. I'm kinda over it now. May give it a couple more shots with the dreamscarred system tho...but only if full tranparency is the ONLY option. With my given experience if that clause is not met, I'm not running psionics.
|
This is a question aimed at those who do not like the 3.5-type psionics system. I'm not looking to start a flame war or anything, I just genuinely want to get an idea of the reasons why some DMs and players do not like that system from those people. So please, no psionics-lovers posting their conjectures here or trying to correct 'misunderstandings' about their beloved systems (I'm a lover of the psionics system myself).
I just want to know what the obstacles are to a Pathfinder psionics project from those that wouldn't want to see an upgrade of the OGL psionics system.
Well, I just see psionics as science fiction. I really don't want it in a sword and sorcery game. Like a post on the Gnome Stew blog says "Keep your crappy sci-fi out of my fantasy!" I know people like it, and that's fine for them. I'll just never use psionics in any of my Pathfinder games.
Well, I just see psionics as science fiction. I really don't want it in a sword and sorcery game. Like a post on the Gnome Stew blog says "Keep your crappy sci-fi out of my fantasy!" I know people like it, and that's fine for them. I'll just never use psionics in any of my Pathfinder games.
Here's the problem with that.
Let's say you're sitting at my table and I as DM say, "I see Barbarians as 6-Int orc chaotic/stupid psychotic loonies and never anything else, therefore I ban Barbarians," yet none of that has any basis in the PHB and your idea had nothing to do with being a 6-Int chaotic/stupid orc loony, you have every right to cry out against such bad DMing. I'm shooting down your perfectly legitimate Barbarian for absolutely no reason but my own prejudices.
You're doing the exact same thing to psionics for absolutely no reason.
There is one and only one thing about psionics that is at all sci fi in comparison to Vancian. That is the word "psionics." And that word need never be uttered in-character. Otherwise, there's nothing sci fi about it. Heck, retrievers or inevitables or the apparatus of the crab are vastly more sci fi than psionics could ever be. Psionics is just another take on magic, not inherently any more sci fi than a wand.
|
|
I enjoyed. YMMV, etc. He's not quite as formulaic as Brian Jacques or David Eddings, but each book does very wonderful world-building even if the protagonists all kind of seem same-y. The interaction of Order and Chaos magic makes a lot of sense to me.
I'm sold...I'm a sucker for a good magic system :P .
|
|
If JRR Tolkien had been a GM, there would have been players who felt they had a right to sit at his table and would have complained incessantly about how he was being unreasonable by not allowing Sam and Frodo to travel to Mordor in a UFO.
With laser beams and tin foild hats....
Yeah the control an author has over his book and a GM has over his game is not and should not be the same.
Kinda scary that I'm agreeing with you so much :P .
Late to the party, but my reasoning - I don't dislike psionics, per se. But I don't like big additional rulesets that players think they are entitled to use regardless of my game setting.
I have run games that have had psionics in them. I've run games that have firearms in them. Et cetera. But none of those things should be blanket allowed in every game.
Psionics, because it's this whole different ruleset with weird interactions with magic and creatures, creates a difficult environment to balance a game in. It smacks of "Oh I use this loophole to take out that level 20 lich in one round, ha ha ha." I can appropriately balance a campaign vs psionics, but it's additional work that I only do sometimes. So in a Dark Sun campaign, or a campaign where I specifically plan for there to be psionic elements, psi is fine (specific unbalanced or tarded mechanics aside, which are to be fixed via houserule), but it's not something a player should expect to just tack on to any game. You also have problems with it being "just one player" with psi - either you start tossing in psionic opponents and treasure to cater just to him, potentially annoying other players, or you don't and gimp him. Even in a party where only one person is a wizard, there is UMD and other classes with lesser casting and frequent NPC wizards around to hire on/sell to/etc.
It's like "I'm a katana wielding ninja!" If it's a game with an Eastern focus, or I can justify someone from a culture like that being around, OK. If not (we're playing in Marienburg from Warhammer Fantasy), no, sorry, your Asian fetish is out of scope for this campaign.
So my default answer to "psi?" is no, unless I am building it in, at which point I'll tell everyone that and say "some of you may want to look into this." As opposed to it being just one more option in a sea of 30 books worth of options for players to pick and choose from. That is what is often wrong with 3.5 in practice; the "huge array of rules" syndrome caters to powergaming and works against...
To answer these problems, however...
1) There is no weirdness in how magic and psionics interact. There really isn't. Psionics and magic work the same way. And believe me, any loophole a psion can do, a wizard can do better, faster, and earlier.
2) What if the player shows you a psionic character with no sci-fi fluff at all? Like my aforementioned character - they have lucid dreams where they can fly, teleport, and do almost anything. When they wake up, they've managed to capture just a bit of that power and bring it over to the waking world. Is that sci-fi? Because that was the basis of my last Nomad character.
If JRR Tolkien had been a GM, there would have been players who felt they had a right to sit at his table and would have complained incessantly about how he was being unreasonable by not allowing Sam and Frodo to travel to Mordor in a UFO.
If JRR Tolkien had been a GM, there would have been players who felt they had a right to do anything, since the book series makes for an incredibly poor D&D experience, all the way to the point of there being a rather hilarious webcomic made about it.
Quoting that as your example does you no favors.
|
I like the idea of psionics. They are awesome! You want fantasy versions of fremen? How about githyanki? Psionics are essential for that. I also always imagined aberration more fitting with psionics then with magics. But that's just me. I'm all hyped for psionics, until I see the ruleset. That kinda turns me away. But still, that's just me.
As for setting restrictions, if somebody still complains about DM banning a something he doesn't like, let me tell you a story. Sadly, it's a true story
Once there was a young DM and he wanted to run Rokugan in dnd. You know Rokugan? Old Japan with samurai, rat-people, elemental priests etc. Everyone was delighted. They always wanted to be in a world full of samurai, ninja, many-tailed foxes or tattooed raging monks
But there was one young player who wanted to play a dark elf with two scimitars
The DM, of course said "No, you can't play a drow in Rokugan. WTF are you thinking?!? Do you even know what Rokugan is?"
And the player said "I know a few things about Rokugan, but I still want to play a dark elf. Can I be a dark elf that was magically teleported to rokugan by accident?"
To that, the DM replied "No, you dumb $%#&t, I don't want dark elves in Rokugan, for the same reason I don't want dwarves, robots, little green men or cowboys"
So the player, wanting to play nothing else but a dark elf, decided against playing Rokugan
1) There is no weirdness in how magic and psionics interact. There really isn't. Psionics and magic work the same way. And believe me, any loophole a psion can do, a wizard can do better, faster, and earlier.
It's statements like this that can ruin your entire argument. I've read the psionics handbook for 3rd edition. I've created more than one character using those rules. I've even played in a couple of games using those characters.
I've also played in a great campaign that used both psionics and the standard D&D magic system. The DM was bloody brilliant; he pulled it off in ways I would never have suspected possible.
But all that has illustrated to me very well that magic and psionics interacting together create a lot of weirdness. The other players in the campaigns commented on it. The DM who successfully wove it together commented on what a challenge it was. He had to work his butt off to make it as smooth as it was. People quit the campaign completely because of it. They two systems don't work the same way. They aren't the same thing, and they don't easily fit together.
My point is this: You can't make a blanket statement like you did when so many others, many of whom have been playing the game for decades, have had absolutely contradictory experiences. What you're doing is suggesting that somehow, all these people, no matter how talented and capable, are wrong. And that's simply not true. Which, frankly, leads me to question a lot of your arguments.
I would like hard examples, as I'm being as honest as I can - to my understanding there are no "weirdness" issues between the two. I'm not trying to shout people down, I really don't know of the issues, and I play with psionics a lot.
My point is this: You can't make a blanket statement like you did when so many others, many of whom have been playing the game for decades, have had absolutely contradictory experiences. What you're doing is suggesting that somehow, all these people, no matter how talented and capable, are wrong. And that's simply not true. Which, frankly, leads me to question a lot of your arguments.
This is, honestly, what I think the problem is. How many people walk into psionics poisoned from previous editions? In just about every thread asking what the problems with psionics are, there's inevitably a disturbingly large number of people who voice complaints about 2e psionics and assume 3.5 psionics were the same.
I found weirdness issues, I could not recall them all offhand but they were a few. The big ones are the book does teat it as separate them magic. This is not an optional rule but how the book does it, you can't ID anything psionic without New skills for starters, a level 20 archmage has as much chance to understand this "magic" as a milk maid.
I mean they work together, but it is not a flawless merge and its kinda obvious they don't fit perfect. I myself find games run smoother form me if I only allow one system or the other. A pure core system game or a pure spell point system game.
YMMV but when I ran them, and I still do run them on and off, they simply seem not to mesh well with the rest of the magic classes.
Weird. I agree that the separation rule is retarded.
'Hey, lets give everyone separate defenses against psionics and magic! That won't be confusing or prone to abuse at all!'
Transparency is the best rule ever for that.
Transparency is also the assumed rule, with seperation being heavily optional :D
This is, honestly, what I think the problem is. How many people walk into psionics poisoned from previous editions? In just about every thread asking what the problems with psionics are, there's inevitably a disturbingly large number of people who voice complaints about 2e psionics and assume 3.5 psionics were the same.
I'd like to point out, however, that in my post I didn't mention 2e psionics once. I was discussing 3rd edition only, primarily the Expanded Psionic Handbook (though I'll admit I didn't name it).
Sure there are going to be people who are influenced by previous psionic rules. But there are just as many who are talking about the current ones.
I think the separation rule that Seekerofshadowlight mentioned (and TriOmegaZero acknowledged) is all the example you really need, personally. It's a pretty big wrench in the game. I actually like the psionic rules that Wizards came up with, but I don't like using them with the vancian system. I didn't find they worked well at all.
And I really, really hate psionic fluff. Not the science fiction; like you said, that can be modified all you want. The campaign I eluded to had psionics as a byproduct of an experiment merging Mind Flayers and Humans to create the ultimate soldier. It worked pretty well but it still sort of changed the whole feel of the campaign world and it had such a huge impact on the players in the group that it almost destroyed a three year campaign completely. Two people ended up dropping out and it took us over a year to manage to form a full group again.
And this isn't because they were jerks, or bad players or douches. They were great guys. They just hated the way the game had to be changed to allow for the psionics.
Transparency is also the assumed rule
Except when it comes to some of the rules of how it interacts with magic. Lets be honest here. If Knowledge Arcana and spellcraft do not cover psionics then full transparency is not the assumed rule and is a myth.
|
|
Except when it comes to some of the rules of how it interacts with magic. Lets be honest here. If Knowledge Arcana and spellcraft do not cover psionics then full transparency is not the assumed rule and is a myth.Transparency is also the assumed rule
I blame the Knowledge skill rules for that, not psionics. The only bleed over there was between having a high Knowledge X into Knowledge Y was a limited skill synergy bonus to certain skills. PF took those out, meaning no matter how knowledgeable you are, no matter how high level you are, if you don't put ranks in it, you don't know jack about it.
|
|
I blame the Knowledge skill rules for that, not psionics. The only bleed over there was between having a high Knowledge X into Knowledge Y was a limited skill synergy bonus to certain skills. PF took those out, meaning no matter how knowledgeable you are, no matter how high level you are, if you don't put ranks in it, you don't know jack about it.Except when it comes to some of the rules of how it interacts with magic. Lets be honest here. If Knowledge Arcana and spellcraft do not cover psionics then full transparency is not the assumed rule and is a myth.Transparency is also the assumed rule
Knoweldge yes...spellcraft...no that was a definate were keeping things seperate clause...which is why I'm glad to see that spellcraft now cover psionics the the dreamscarred beta skill list. Less happy that I saw a line about optional keeping thing seperate.
As for setting restrictions, if somebody still complains about DM banning a something he doesn't like, let me tell you a story. Sadly, it's a true story...
And sadly, it's a completely irrelevant story as a Psion can easily be used to represent any manner of spiritualist or elemental priest quite easily.
Psionics is a mechanic. Period. Mechanics can represent many, many things. In creating a character, you make an appropriate character and then select the most appropriate class for the job. It may be Wizard, it may be Psion, it may simply be a Rogue with a high UMD skill and a sack of wands. However, the class is fitted to the character as appropriate, and every well-made class is extremely flexible in what it can represent.
I found weirdness issues, I could not recall them all offhand but they were a few. The big ones are the book does teat it as separate them magic. This is not an optional rule but how the book does it, you can't ID anything psionic without New skills for starters, a level 20 archmage has as much chance to understand this "magic" as a milk maid.
That same archmage couldn't identify a dragon's breath, a Paladin's Lay on Hands, a Monk's teleportation, or a Bard's music, either, even though all of those are quite clearly magic. What's your point?
Transparency is also the assumed rule, with seperation being heavily optional :D
And don't forget the part where separation is explicitly prefaced with, "This is a bad idea."
That same archmage couldn't identify a dragon's breath, a Paladin's Lay on Hands, a Monk's teleportation, or a Bard's music, either, even though all of those are quite clearly magic. What's your point?
The point is the system was never designed to be transparent. Know arcana and spellcarft cover most of those things, if not all of them. Yet psionics gets its own skills, hell spellcraft can't even ID psionic items. But "its magic" and "transparent"..yet the rules say it is not transparent.
If you missed the point you simply are choosing to ignore it.
The point is the system was never designed to be transparent. Know arcana and spellcarft cover most of those things, if not all of them. Yet psionics gets its own skills, hell spellcraft can't even ID psionic items. But "its magic" and "transparent"..yet the rules say it is not transparent.
1) No, it can't identify those abilities, and those abilities are the exact same way as psionics, magic unidentifiable by Knowledge: Arcana or Spellcraft by default.
2) You're the one picking out petty nitpicks when the stuff that actually matters- like spell resistance and dispel checks- are quite clearly and deliberately transparent using the same mechanics and a big neon sign that says, "Making these not transparent is a Bad Idea." In comparison to the stuff that can actually kill you, 3.5's already poorly conceived and pitifully developed skills being a bump in the road again isn't exactly a problem. If you think they are, take a second look at Diplomacy first.
You keep hammering on a point so minutely petty as to not exist.
Psionics are Pro. Not OP.
Psionics have been well integrated into DD and many other rpgs since rpgs were created back in the 70's. I don't even understand how people could have a problem with it. The ability itself is much more plausible and believable than magic.
Never met anyone except for whiny people on messageboards who thought otherwise.
|
|
2) You're the one picking out petty nitpicks when the stuff that actually matters- like spell resistance and dispel checks- are quite clearly and deliberately transparent using the same mechanics and a big neon sign that says, "Making these not transparent is a Bad Idea." In comparison to the stuff that can actually kill you, 3.5's already poorly conceived and pitifully developed skills being a bump in the road again isn't exactly a problem. If you think they are, take a second look at Diplomacy first.
Actually spellcraft not being allowed to ID manfesting does cause some issues. Not a real big major one...but not something you can just handwave away as irrelivant either. Once again, glad to see dreamscarred figured that out and using that for their system.
You keep hammering on a point so minutely petty as to not exist.
The point was transparency. The standard rules are not transparent. A wizard can ID any other spell cast, he can ID any other spell like ability cast. He can Not ID any psionic "spells" nor can a psion ID non psionic spells. He can not ID psionic item, a Psion can not ID magic items. If you can not do such a simple thing then there is no such thing as magic transparency
The designers chose to make psionics different. They chose to make it non transparent.
|
|
The designers chose to make psionics different. They chose to make it non transparent.
They did? What, like in 2ed?
Psionics before 3.x was horribly broken. I still ran it in my games, but I added some defenses to it. The big one was that any creature with SR got PR almost equal to the SR (I added that rule after one game with a 5th level psionicist taking out a wyrm black dragon with that dumb stun move- I didn't add it for THAT campaign, because it would have wrecked his character and he built using the assumptions, but for subsequent ones I sure didn't want to see any more of that). When I saw that in 3.0 the rules said it WAS magic (with the optional way to run a backwards compatible setup), I was sold on that.
Without the transparency, stuff gets dumb fast. I've never had a player in post 3.x try to sell me on running psi and magic as different, personally.
No, not like in 2nd ed (thank god)...but there are small things that say that the designers were set to do things that it should be kept seperate before one of them figured out, "oh god no, that's a horrible idea" and patched things up as best they can to make the transparency work. But there are some small issues that still exists.
Actually spellcraft not being allowed to ID manfesting does cause some issues. Not a real big major one...but not something you can just handwave away as irrelivant either. Once again, glad to see dreamscarred figured that out and using that for their system.
Except just saying, "Screw Psicraft, there's just Spellcraft," is a tweak so immensely small that it's completely and utterly dwarfed by the skill changes you already have to make just to get the game to work in the first place.
The point was transparency. The standard rules are not transparent. A wizard can ID any other spell cast, he can ID any other spell like ability cast. He can Not ID any psionic "spells" nor can a psion ID non psionic spells. He can not ID psionic item, a Psion can not ID magic items. If you can not do such a simple thing then there is no such thing as magic transparency
But again, this is such a small and petty point as to be absurd. If it's really important to you, get rid of Psicraft; it's the most minuscule of tweaks.
And Psionic characters can identify magic items as a part of the transparency rules, in precisely the same way that Dispel Psionics works on spells and Dispel Magic works on powers and Identify works on psionic items.
I've been a player at tables where the GM allowed anything and everything the players wanted. It wasn't fun. There was no sense of place in the world and, so, no sense that anything mattered.
That's DM vision failure, not DM rules adjudication failure. As DM, I can usually find a place for almost any obscure rules system in my homebrew world, and make it seem to fit even where, at first glance, it would have no place at all -- if I can't, I view that as a failure on my part in terms of imagination and ingenuity.
That's DM vision failure, not DM rules adjudication failure.
Only to a degree. For most people, I suspect that there will be a hard stop at a point that is before "anything and everything", i.e. there'll be a point in which it really isn't "DM vision failure" and where it wouldn't be reasonable to even suggest it.
Even you in your next sentence temper your comment with the word "usually". And whether you view not being able to cram everything in as a "failure on (your) part in terms of imagination and ingenuity" isn't really all that relevant, since the vast majority (if not everyone) has a practical limit to imagination and ingenuity. It's going to happen, period.
A good, imaginative DM who bans new ingredients will still have an exciting, interesting world, but is intentionally failing to expand his or her potential.
And that's not all that relevant, either. The DM above still has an "exciting, interesting" world, and also probably understands the concept of diminishing returns (and most likely has a life as well).