I am in the midst of a homebrew campaign setting, trying to put all the pieces together and I find I would prefer to replace traditional magic in a setting with Psionics.
Right off the bat what are some things I might need to account for?
Has anyone done this?
Questions? Comments?
Lack of healing outside of a Vitalist, and a few archetypes, is the big thing. Replace healing potions with alchemical mixtures, perhaps? Lack of Cure Light Wounds wands for out-of-combat quick-and-cheap healing will also hurt, unless you have a Vitalist that can use a Dorje of Natural Healing over the whole group, that is.
i tried this with my previous campaign and the only real problem i had was getting my players on board. of course my players are not that interested in playing spellcasters in general so my choice to change the method of spellcasting didnt affect them. but if you choose to replace all magic items with psionic items, i agree with kahnyagnorc that healing is going to be your biggest concern.
You could simply use houserules that make healing nice, but not required. Something like the Wounds and Vigor system, but with faster Vigor recovery, might work.
Really, there are two things I'd worry about from the PC's perspective, the lack of healing and that can be gotten around like Kahnya says and how many character classes you'll loose when you ban magic, Paladin, Ranger, Wizard, Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric, and Bard. And that's just out of the CRB. If your pcs are cool with it though go for it.
From an NPC perspective, however, there are a ton of things psionics can't do that are so flavorful, it makes losing magic a pain. Necromancy, and summoning evil outsiders are really impossible to replicate.
Zhayne wrote: You could simply use houserules that make healing nice, but not required. Something like the Wounds and Vigor system, but with faster Vigor recovery, might work. One highly quick fix Idea I had was either buff up the Alchemists healing capacities, and create a legion of healing a regenerative powers for the psionic classes. Alchemy might also have more options to create healing goodies.
I also worked on creating a few archetypes for Psion and the prestige classes. One being "Mage" the other being "Cleric" and a third being "Witch" but its incomplete. The idea being a Mage is a Psion who has learned to ritualize his or her mastery of the universe and has gained the knowledge to use his own will. The Cleric would be one who has learned to channel the powers of unknown entities granting them various extra abilities to boot with their Psionic abilities. Basically a way to allow Domain powers and various cleric like abilities. OR I might make those two into Archetypes of Psion just so I can keep a degree of similarity for the players sake and maybe just have Psion fill the role of "adept of the supernatural"
ShadowcatX wrote: Really, there are two things I'd worry about from the PC's perspective, the lack of healing and that can be gotten around like Kahnya says and how many character classes you'll loose when you ban magic, Paladin, Ranger, Wizard, Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric, and Bard. And that's just out of the CRB. If your pcs are cool with it though go for it.
From an NPC perspective, however, there are a ton of things psionics can't do that are so flavorful, it makes losing magic a pain. Necromancy, and summoning evil outsiders are really impossible to replicate.
Well I look at it in this perspective, The players lose those for sure, and a tragic loss it is.... The do gain Aegis, Cryptic, Dread, Marksman, Psion, Psychic Warrior, Soulknife, Tactician, Vitalist, Wilder.... And in theory the title of Wizard, Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric, ect.... can be given to anyone with supernatural affinity. I plan on also making some homebrew powers and archetypes for those classes to allow some similarity with the actual classes you listed.
Also as for Necromancy and Summoning... There was in 3.5e a book listing an Erudite method of converting spells into psionic powers. I as a DM will be using that to homebrew some powers so things like the ability to summon and raise the dead remain.
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