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This is the distinction that's important to me. I didn't mind point based casting, but the flavour of psionics seemed counter to the flavour of the world around it. Psions seemed a great fit for modern or futuristic settings but out of place when stood next to fantasy spellcasters.
On the other hand, a psychic, gifted/cursed with the second sight, or with the ability to know things she shouldn't? Or a man who has studied with yogis, fakirs and ancient masters to learn the art of "clouding the minds of men", that's rooted in the pulp traditions that inform Pathfinder's own aesthetic.
In the words of those married mediums Frank and Sadie Doyle:
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"
"Who cares so long as they're holding the martini tray darling."
So they are giving it a fantasy vibe rather than a sci-fi vibe? A car made to look like a banana is still a car.If historic heroics of the Second World War are directly synonymous with Superman saving Metropolis from superpowered alien threats, then sure.
I am seeing a Sherlock Holmes, hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Mesmerists, Landships, zeppelins, kind of book.
So if you wanted to have have the psychic side of a Victorian/Edwardian steam/ diesel punk game... Pathfinder meets Downton Abbey, this would be the kind of book you look at.
I'm in...
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I know everyone is pointing out the differences between psionic and psychic, but in the original Pathfinder campaign setting book half elves were said to have special connection with crystals. This was due to their dual minds leaving them more open to psionics. But crystals are also tied closely with the occult and new age mystics. So the question is, will this idea resurface? And in what way?
Your not talking about the campaign setting book for elves, that was a 3.5 product, are you?
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I know everyone is pointing out the differences between psionic and psychic, but in the original Pathfinder campaign setting book half elves were said to have special connection with crystals. This was due to their dual minds leaving them more open to psionics. But crystals are also tied closely with the occult and new age mystics. So the question is, will this idea resurface? And in what way?
Crystals remain a thing with elves, through the focus of one of their gods, Yuelral, IIRC. The god seems focused on both druidic and arcane magic, primarily, as well as jewelers, gems and crafting stuff out of natural materials (which seems to be 'non-metal,' since, as usual, the definition of 'natural' and 'unnatural' seems to be whatever the speaker wants to be, and for these people, naturally occurring ore you pull from the earth are 'unnatural' and skins you rip off of animals you killed are 'natural').
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adjective
pertaining to the telepathic, psychic, or paranormal
They are synonyms. Psychic = Psionic. Ergo, psionics is indeed coming to Pathfinder.
Denotation vs. connotation.
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I'm excited that the Kineticist will be an 'all day long' non-caster. Jason said in the Pathfinder Q&A that the Pyrokinetic (like a sub-class of the Kineticist like Arcane Schools for the Wizard) will be able to shoot fire at people 'all the live long day'. Mark said the Kineticist could be telekinetic, pyrokinetic, aerokinetic, hydrokinetic etc.
So... Avatar bending class?
I could give a rats ass about the rest of the classes, the kineticist is the one I'm looking forward to the most. I asked Mark in his thread about how likely, on a scale of 1 - 10, would it be to play a character similar to the people in the movie Chronicle, and he said an 8, possibly up to a 10.
So that would possibly mean the ability to create telekinetic damage barriers, telekinetic flight, hurling objects, crushing objects, stopping things mid flight, remote manipulation, levitation, and wide area shockwaves that blow back people and objects.
I don't know, the spiritualist (I think that is the one that is ectoplasm focused?) sound pretty cool to me as well.
The Spiritualist might be the first class with a undead companion mechanic.
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The Spiritualist might be the first class with a undead companion mechanic.
You mean the first class since the shadowdancer, right?
it's not just a fantasy vibe. "Psychic" is flavor that's rooted in much older Victorian and Midieval traditons. It includes tropes such as Gypsy Magic, Object Reading, Mediums, and Second Sight.
Psionics however is more Jean-Grey, Scanners, Mind Control, and general sci-fi and "New Age" and comic book tropes.
It's ironic you chose those particular examples, as the developers have been quoted as saying that the new book would allow options akin to the mutants from X-Men.
Psionics, in other words, via your own definition. Who really cares if they throw on other, more medieval spiritual options as well? In the end, psionics are still coming to Pathfinder.
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It's ironic you chose those particular examples, as the developers have been quoted as saying that the new book would allow options akin to the mutants from X-Men.
Except that they said the opposite. They said it was "Less Professor X, more Penny Dreadful".
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It's ironic you chose those particular examples, as the developers have been quoted as saying that the new book would allow options akin to the mutants from X-Men.Except that they said the opposite. They said it was "Less Professor X, more Penny Dreadful".
Actually, they have specifically mentioned characters from X-men as examples, like Jean Grey and Gambit.
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Sounds like there are some conflicting reports. Guess I'll wait and see.
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Actually, they have specifically mentioned characters from X-men as examples, like Jean Grey and Gambit.It's ironic you chose those particular examples, as the developers have been quoted as saying that the new book would allow options akin to the mutants from X-Men.Except that they said the opposite. They said it was "Less Professor X, more Penny Dreadful".
The only mention of Gambit, to my knowledge, is when someone asked me whether the kineticist class would be more like Gambit or Sebastian Shaw. As you can see now that the clip is up, it's definitely more like Gambit than Shaw. But it's not exactly Gambit either (though a player could certainly build a Gambit character with a little reflavoring or reimagining). So Gambit was an outside comparator rather than one I brought up on my own.
You could build Gambit using feats and abilities from Occult Mysteries now. No need for psionics/psychic magic.
You could build Gambit now, with feats and abilities from Occult Mysteries.
Absolutely. And the Deadly Dealer feat from Harrow Handbook isn't a bad choice either!
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You could build Gambit now, with feats and abilities from Occult Mysteries.Absolutely. And the Deadly Dealer feat from Harrow Handbook isn't a bad choice either!
Kinetist stuff sounds really more psionic than psychic. I wonder how they will connect this rather ESP powers with Occult/Esoteric/Spiritual stuff.
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The Kineticist stuff sounds like Liz Sherman.
Actually Hellboy and BPRD is great source material for this kind of thing. Wonder if they could get Mike Mignola to do art for the interiors?
When I think Kineticist, I think Carrie and Firestarter, to me those are more occult and horror then sci-fi/comic book. Also never liked the name "psionics", it sounds like a self help book or a program to help kids learn to read.
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So they are giving it a fantasy vibe rather than a sci-fi vibe? A car made to look like a banana is still a car.
To be fair, the existing psionics rules have a fantasy vibe, not a sci-fi vibe.
I'd expect the clue is in the word "occult". Where existing psionic powers are derived from the strength-of-will of the manifester, much like a sorcerer, I'm expecting the psychic classes derive their power from outside themselves. Likely their source are such entities as dead spirits, and unknowable powers accessed through rituals of questionable morality. Basically while psionics are powers largely similar to but different from arcane/divine magic, psychic powers will likely be similar to but different from all three.
I remain neutral on this product.
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heh ultimate psionics from DSP has actually interesting suggestions for people who have troubles with calling it psionics in their world, like changing psionics to be Rune magic...but anyway, not like it matters since most people seems to have strong opinions about psionics.
Bring on the Penny Dreadful and Lucy.
When I think Kineticist, I think Carrie and Firestarter, to me those are more occult and horror then sci-fi/comic book.
Well, there are all kinds of flavour thanks to Mr King's talent, but technically both Carrie and Firestarter were described as a psions not a mystics or spiritualists. The source of their power lies in their minds not in spiritual/esoteric world. Classic sci-fi esper I would say.
Also never liked the name "psionics", it sounds like a self help book or a program to help kids learn to read.
Yeah, the same problem hear, in Polish both versions "psion" and "psionik" sounds kinda lame. I prefer to use world "psychotronic".
Where existing psionic powers are derived from the strength-of-will of the manifester, much like a sorcerer,
Well technically sorcerer power source lies beyond him. He just have better transfer velocity compared to wizard, though lacking his programming skills ;)
Personally I suppose I'll find place for both psychics and psionics in my campaigns though as two totally different things. And still I'll have to recount spiritual spell slots into mana, cose I hate slots ;)
Haven't played with DSP Psionics in Pathfinder. In 3.5, depending on who was playing the Psionic-- it came off as either not powerful enough to keep up, or (more commonly) brokenly over-powered to the point of "why would anyone bother playing anything but a psionic?"I can say with every confidence based off the bolded part that whoever was doing that was playing them wrong and/or ignoring rules. Psionics in 3.5 is not overpowered. (Psionics in 3.0 on the otherhand was a brilliant, but very deeply, deeply flawed system.)
EDIT: for clarity
Your experience was clearly different from mine. I wasn't the group expert on psionics, but I know the player who was doing it (the brokenly overpowered side, not the underpowered side of effects)-- he was, and now in PF, generally still is, probably the best one I know for finding the killer combinations and superior builds, but he is scrupulously intellectually honest and doesn't go around ignoring or breaking the existing rules-- so I still believe that while he may have taken maximum advantage of what was there, he didn't make anything up or cheat; he just used what was in fact in those rules to maximum effect, and it worked far better than the things I saw this same player do with wizards and sorcerers in 3.5.
Fortunately when he's the GM, he does not turn these talents to maximum lethal effect on the players, but rather sticks to presenting us with challenging but not insurmountable encounters.
Yes, but what you're describing is not possible.
If someone has perfect and equal system mastery, then a prepared 3.5 caster is going to outpace any 3.5 psionicist 100% of the time.
It isn't possible in 3.5 to perform the disparity of power, presuming equal optimization, that you describe in the direction that you describe.
Hence, either house rules were at work, he's just better (personally) at psionics and everyone else in...
And this illustrates the problem with the power points vs spell slot issue. I did a bunch of research into this issue a few years ago. The system requires not only the players but the GM to learn an entirely new system. For it to be used in an AP it would require a large number of extra words to explain how everything works.
It isn't that the system is not balanced anymore it is that it requires some level of system knowledge that people often don't have.
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It's baffling to me, though, how often the mistakes are made.
It's like some sort of weird self-fulfilling thing.
Prepared casting is far less intuitive to me, always has been.
The consistent misapplication of things in psionics is just... bizarre.
I do suspect that there's at least a mild amount of confirmation bias, however, in the misunderstanding of the rules, at least in many cases: you expect it will be broken, thus when you find incomplete rules (and skip over the parts that complete them) it becomes broken.
I'm quite certain that's not all the ideas, but it certainly seems to hold some weight in a number of instances from what I've witnessed.
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It's baffling to me, though, how often the mistakes are made.
It's like some sort of weird self-fulfilling thing.Prepared casting is far less intuitive to me, always has been.
The consistent misapplication of things in psionics is just... bizarre.
I do suspect that there's at least a mild amount of confirmation bias, however, in the misunderstanding of the rules, at least in many cases: you expect it will be broken, thus when you find incomplete rules (and skip over the parts that complete them) it becomes broken.
I'm quite certain that's not all the ideas, but it certainly seems to hold some weight in a number of instances from what I've witnessed.
It is usually this simple. Player wants to play psionicist. Player half reads the rules, either ignoring or missing the max PP/power chart. (in fairness it is pretty small). GM barely looks over the rules. Player starts playing and novas over and over. GM banes psionics, because they are broken.
GM will now not buy any psionic rules because they are all broken (and this may still be from 1e or 2e, where they were broken).
Paizo can now not sell enough books with power points to fund the investment that they put into a book, so Dreamscarred does it. (Their overhead on producing a book is much lower so they don't have to sell as many to make money) Paizo instead does something that uses the already existing rules that everyone has been using for 40 years. :)
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Which is really sad.
But at least Dreamscarred is awesome.
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Which is really sad.
But at least Dreamscarred is awesome.
Yep!
I'd sooner ban wizards than psions.
I am becoming really excited for this book. Mark's excitement as someone who wrote the initial character classes already had me kind of excited, but learning about all of the possibilities that are opening up REALLY has me excited. I especially like the suggestion Tels made about an Avatar bending class. I'm totally going to build Ktara. ^_^
And while I'd been aware of the Ultimate Psionics book, reading this discussion has me seriously thinking about buying it. It sounds like things have come a long way since I'd last paid attention to psionics.
With all of that good stuff said, reading some portions of this discussion have given me a headache. Like how some folks have strongly objected to having super hero themed penut butter in their fantasy chocolate...
So that would possibly mean the ability to create telekinetic damage barriers, telekinetic flight, hurling objects, crushing objects, stopping things mid flight, remote manipulation, levitation, and wide area shockwaves that blow back people and objects.
... well I'm glad we won't be having any superheroes then... (o.O) (O.o)
Personally, I'm looking forward to whatever awesome powers become playable. Pretty much any outrageous thing that you can think of are possible within the game system already. If anyone disagrees about that, I quicken Wish them into the heart of the nearest sun, then Time Stop so I can look cool while putting on my Ray Ban sunglasses, then pull out a little metal cylindar and extended Memory Lapse everyone before walking away.
*Queue Will Smith rap song*
I am really excited about this book, so much possibility.
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Personally, I hope they present all of these things--from superhero psychic bolts of PURE ENERGY to classical necromancers (not the D&D kind) holding seances and allowing themselves to be possessed. We can always cherry pick the rule sets appropriate to our campaigns, and I'd rather have too many things to choose from than too few.
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Pathfinder meets Psychic, Occult Magic... I'm in!
This is going to go great with Ustalvav.
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Psionics however is more Jean-Grey, Scanners, Mind Control, and general sci-fi and "New Age" and comic book tropes.Also old scripture like the Mahabharata.
Don't let the power names in psionics throw you off; most of that stuff is ancient.
Yup. 'The Sight,' remote viewing, foretelling the future, controlling the minds of others, communing with the dead. Most 'psionic' stuff has been around for millennia, and is currently folded into the magic system. (Whereas arcane magic, with it's spellbooks and somatic components is more hermetic and 'merely' centuries old.)
Psychic stuff is *far* less 'sci-fi' or 'comic-book' than spells like clone or teleport or temporal stasis, or throwing mini-black holes at people (spheres of annihilation).
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I am just happy that we will finally have rules for psychic magic. It will open up many doors like Castrovel, Vudra, Dominion of the Black, Victorian style occultism, etc..
I'm glad we will have access to both the Dreamscarred Press version and the Paizo one. I wonder how long it will be before the cries of blot begin yet again.I am pretty sure some people have been making those cries since the Advanced Player's Guide, so not sure how it is really relevant
I beg pardon, but "blot"?
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I'm hoping for some jedi-like psi users. The idea of a sentient universal force that can be tapped on by powerful minds, leaving psychic residue, with less shiny and a more mysterious approach seems rather appealing.
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I suppose I should get the Brain Tumbler warmed up.
Quick question for the developers, since divine magic focuses on Wisdom and Charisma, and Arcane focuses of Intellegence and Charisma, will psionc magic focus on Wisdom and Intellegence?
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Quick question for the developers, since divine magic focuses on Wisdom and Charisma, and Arcane focuses of Intellegence and Charisma, will psionc magic focus on Wisdom and Intellegence?
I suspect we'll see a fair amount of Charisma-based mechanics in the book, since the flavor of some of the classes lends itself to that idea of force of personality-based "casting". Int and Wis would both seem to be logical functions as well, so maybe there won't be a consistent theme.
James Jacobs (if I recall correctly) actually wanted the structure for spellcasting in Golarion to be Intelligence = Arcane, Wisdom = Divine, and Charisma = Psychic, but unfortunately that ship had sailed due to legacy requirements before it could ever take root.
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You recall correctly.
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Admittedly, I appreciate them for doing so primarily in the case of the Paladin. Consolidating Paladin casting into CHA instead of WIS was an immensely good idea.
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Admittedly, I appreciate them for doing so primarily in the case of the Paladin. Consolidating Paladin casting into CHA instead of WIS was an immensely good idea.
I don't disagree with that. WIS based paladins would be a little weird (but maybe that's just because I'm used to the CHA based ones).
Similarly, I'm not sure what I'd think about Psychic Paladins (although I think the Oracle could be reflavored as psychic magic and I wouldn't bat an eye).