What problems typically occur with a no-magic, high-psionics setting?

[Trekkin]

I'm working on a setting, and while neither divine nor arcane magic is a good fit, psionics works perfectly. I know that the replacement of magic with psionics has been attempted before, although I failed my Search check for them on the forum (har, har) and it seems like the kind of thing that might have seen further testing since last I checked.

So, Playgrounders: if all arcane and divine magic, including spell-likes and Supernatural abilities, were summarily removed from an otherwise stereotypical fantasy DnD 3.5 setting and psionics and psi-likes left alone, what are the glaring gaps in the setting? What would trip up gameplay?

Is this even doable?

[Draz74]

The main thing is the lack of healing and support magic that is normally the Cleric's role. In particular, psionic healing is pitiful at Levels 1-2, and still struggles somewhat from Levels 3-8. (At Level 9, a Sangehirn build can finally become a proper healer.)

Another little hiccup related to the Cleric's absence is that alignment-based DR can be very hard to overcome without an Align Weapon spell. There are ways you can sort of get around this with items or ToB Maneuvers, but when a CR 9 Slaad or Inevitable attacks your unprepared Level 8 party, it will be a very very dangerous encounter. (Evil outsiders with DR/good are like this, too, of course, but the party is slightly more likely to be prepared for DR/good than for DR/chaos or law.)

[bloodtide]

Sure it's doable. I've run all psionic games plenty of times.

1.The first trick is to replace everything. You will still have beholders, they will just shoot psionic eye rays. Monsters have psi-like powers and supernatural abilities.

2.You might not have 'enough' healing and cures. You will want to make sure you have and use all the psionic heals and cures. Make sure they have dorjes and/or powerstones of heals and cures. And the Life mantel. There are some prestige classes that get you healing too.

3.You will have to look out for all the things that magic does that psionics does not cover.

[Trekkin]

3.You will have to look out for all the things that magic does that psionics does not cover.

Other than healing (the reduction of which to Life mantle ardents is ideal), do these include anything a party would particularly miss?

[Endarire]

Psionics don't do these things easily:

-Necromancy. Hyperconscious has psianimate dead and psionic liches, but that's it.

-Illusions.

-Contact other plane.

-Healing and recovery powers, especially ones that remove status effects. Crusaders can recover HP damage well if you let them hit the ground to heal people.

-Invisibility.

-Haste.

[Nero24200]

Healing I think is really the only problem I can see by replacing all the core classes. And easy way to get round this is to create a psionic equavilent of the Cure line of spells, then you not only have healers in the game but also Dojres (psionic wands essentially) for healing.

Other areas not covered by psionics (such as illusions) may be missed, but the game can function just fine without them.

[Tetsubo 57]

There is a published psionics campaign from Dreamscarred Publishing, Third Dawn. I haven't read it. But I have read their new updated Pathfinder psionics book, Psionics Unleashed and it is awesome.

[Psyren]

Psionics don't do these things easily:

-Necromancy. Hyperconscious has psianimate dead and psionic liches, but that's it.

-Illusions.

-Contact other plane.

-Healing and recovery powers, especially ones that remove status effects. Crusaders can recover HP damage well if you let them hit the ground to heal people.

-Invisibility.

-Haste.

You forgot summons; while astral constructs are strong bruisers, they don't have the sheer utility that say, some elementals, or a unicorn, or a babau have.

Contact Other Plane isn't really needed: Divination and Object Reading can handle most of your detective work at mid-low levels, while Psychometry, Hypercognition and Metafaculty totally blow it away at high levels. These can be even swapped in/out when not needed via Psyreform.

Invisibility is an unfortunate lack, as are illusions. Those could fit under bending light or manipulating sound via Psychokinesis. (For that matter, one could feasibly combine Illusion and Evocation in standard magic to strengthen the weaker school.)

[The Big Dice]

Invisibility is an unfortunate lack, as are illusions.
It always tickles me that abilities of the mind don't have the capability to mess around with perception too well.

Though I do thnk removing a big chunk of the D&D "POOF! You're healed!" would go a long way to bringing the game to a place where getting injured is something to notice. Instead of just yelling "CLERIC!" like something out of Starship Troopers.

[Yora]

I don't think you need illusions when you instead can replace them with hallucinations. Though I don't think there are as many hallucination powers as there are illusion spells. Maybe some homebrew needed, but it doesn't seem that complicated to do.

[Tyndmyr]

Psions become like unto tiny gods.

[Gavinfoxx]

You need to start using lots of 3rd party psionic classes, and you don't really have an easy to find npc casting class?

[Psyren]

I don't think you need illusions when you instead can replace them with hallucinations. Though I don't think there are as many hallucination powers as there are illusion spells. Maybe some homebrew needed, but it doesn't seem that complicated to do.

A hallucination, however, would require implanting some kind of false sensation in a target's mind (or minds, for a group.) They would thus be phantasms and gain the [mind-affecting] tag, sharply reducing their effectiveness compared to figments and glamers.


You need to start using lots of 3rd party psionic classes, and you don't really have an easy to find npc casting class?

Third party addresses a lot of the problems here - Society Minds and Worldthought medics can handle healing, then you can bring in Thoughtsingers to replace bards and Augurs to replace Adepts.

[sonofzeal]

It always tickles me that abilities of the mind don't have the capability to mess around with perception too well.
It does, but it works differently, more like Enchantments that can produce similar results. "Invisibility" makes you invisibile, something Psi is incapable of. But Psi has "Cloud Mind", which is much more directly a mess-around-with-perceptions affect.

That's usually the difference, really; Magic makes something objective but unreal, while Psi changes an individual's perception. This means that, for illusion-type effects, Psi generally allows a save and Magic doesn't, and Psi generally affects a single target while Magic affects everyone. This makes magical illusion-type effects far more potent than Psi ones... with the tradeoff that Psi can do truly horrible things to your mind if it actually works. Like Death Urge, as a 4th level effect... which falls closer to Enchantment, but the two are related.

[Psyren]

Psi does have its own advantages. Psychokinesis beats the pants off Evocation, thanks to e.g. being able to choose your energy type on the fly (though Pathfinder sadly nerfed this across the board), and rolling in many Abjuration effects. And Psi is the king of time (and therefore action) manipulation/economy. Telepathy is also stronger than Enchantment on average thanks to the increased modality of powers like Charm/Dominate. Clairsentience also defeats arcane Divination, though Divine Divination can still potentially come out ahead if the gods are feeling charitable.

The OP should search up Urpriest's thread where we discussed creating a Psionic Tippyverse (Tippy himself even chimed in IIRC) - that should cover most of the capabilities and pitfalls between the two systems in detail.

[Lord.Sorasen]

Maybe this is cheating, but...

On the whole healing thing:

The Minds Eye created a variant on the erudite which could turn an arcane spell into a power. You could simply say that the bardic healing (and illusion?) spells have been modified into powers long ago, and now exist only in this form (as a power). Please note that such an action would make better healing magic Erudite exclusive, which might even further imbalance things, now that I think about it.

[bloodtide]

Other than healing (the reduction of which to Life mantle ardents is ideal), do these include anything a party would particularly miss?


It depends on what your players use. If your players don't use necromancy, then they won't miss it anyway.

But a trick to watch out for is published adventures, creatures and the like(and even hombrewed ones too). Everything is made with magic in mind.

For example, if a dungeon is filled with glyphs and runes...it would be assumed a magic party can get around them as erase is first level. But there is no psionic erase(that I know of).

I loss I can remember off hand is there is no psionic speak with animals. So if in the adventure the character 'should' talk to the local wildflif for some tips or clues, they can't.

[Reynard]

It depends on what your players use. If your players don't use necromancy, then they won't miss it anyway.

But a trick to watch out for is published adventures, creatures and the like(and even hombrewed ones too). Everything is made with magic in mind.

For example, if a dungeon is filled with glyphs and runes...it would be assumed a magic party can get around them as erase is first level. But there is no psionic erase(that I know of).

I loss I can remember off hand is there is no psionic speak with animals. So if in the adventure the character 'should' talk to the local wildflif for some tips or clues, they can't.

The only erase a true Psion needs is (Sonic) Energy! Blow up those walls!

Well... It does get rid of the glyphs.

[classy one]

Here's how to overcome the common things lacking in psionics without using 3rd party material:
Healing: use the old PSV combo to get lots of temp HP for the healer and then use empathic transfer to absorb your teammates damage. I believe the base class, society mind, found in Untapped Potential, was made with healing in mind as well.

Invisibility: cloud mind is, admittingly, a poor substitute in combat but for sneaking around it is in some ways better than invisible since you are undetectable in all senses.

Haste: psionics DO NOT need more ways to break action economy. Linked power and synchronicity are both there at level one. These get even worse in higher levels and then you have hustle, temporal acceleration and fission.

Others have mentioned hyperconsciousness, which is excellent. Untapped Potential also has some great stuff and don't forget to get the Minds Eye website before it is purged. Between these three and WoTC materials I'd say you are in good shape.