Are sorcerers the problem with psionic fluff?

[Yora]

I've just been thinking about psionics in AD&D and in particular how you could run a Dark Sun campaign without having to bother with the psionic rules and instead use something like 3rd edition sorcerers with limited spell lists.

And I think I know see why psionics always seemed redundant, as someone starting with 3rd edition. (Though I love the XPH so much I always use that in my campaigns and remove all slot-casting classes.)
In AD&D, magic is something that is always learned. All you need is to meet the ability score requirements and you can learn arcane and divine magic. There was no such thing as being born with magic power or having a special natural talent that opens the path for magic training to you.
And that was the point of psionics. Psionics is a type of magic that can not be taught, but is something you are born with. A psion was simply a person who spend all his training on improving and expanding the powers he was born with, at the cost of forgoing the training of any other skills other character classes get.

And that's exactly the same thing that sorcerers do. 3rd edition said that characters do have the option of being born with magic powers. But instead of bothering with an alternative list of abilities and mechanics, sorcerers simply use the same spells that wizards do.
But when they later added psionics to the game, that created a redundancy. Sorcerers and psions have the same fluff. They fill the same role only with different mechanics.

And that's why you sometimes see people making such a big deal about psionics being not magic and being completely different because the power comes from within. In 3rd edition, that's the same thing as sorcerers, but in AD&D, it was indeed a big difference. Magic was always something you learned about altering the world around you, never something you had naturally within you.

It also explains why the 3rd edition Monster Manual has creatures with psionics, which work 100% like spell-like abilities. In AD&D, aboleths and yuan-ti were getting their powers from the list of psion powers, not from the spell-lists of wizards and clerics. Why they didn't simply call them spell-like abilities, though that was just what they now were, is a mystery, but probably simply because someone had fond memories of AD&D. Still a bad descision, but it has an origin.

So now I think that when you use psionics in a 3rd edition or pathfinder game, that campaign should not include sorcerers. Other classes like bards or beguilers can stay, their spells seem to have always been considered learned instead of inborn (except for dragon disciples, but that's their own fault:smallamused:)

[AMFV]

Well but the fluff is markedly different. 3.5 Psions are required to study for a lengthy period to unlock their own internal power. So it's kind of a mid-way point between the Wizard and the Sorcerer, rather than either extreme

Now I don't think it'd necessarily be wrong to use Psionics for all innate powers. But Psions have such different fluff than Sorcerers that it will produce a very different game at least fluff-wise. Psions are studious, they use intelligence to manipulate the world around them, rather than sheer force of will. That's a pretty significant difference. Psionic power can be produced without bloodlines. Also a significant difference.

[Spindrift]

Sorcerers are still manipulating forces outside themselves, they still need components etc.
Psionics come from within, so I think flavourwise they're distinct enough to coexist.

[Pan151]

Well, psions and sorcerers do not have the same fluff, simply because magic and psionics don't have the same fluff.

Arcane Magic, whether practiced by wizards or sorcerers is, in lack of better words, fiddling with the strings that hold the universe together to cause a desirable effect. Alchemy, if you will - you take a pinch of bat guanno, perform a short ritual and boom, you create a fireball out of the raw energies around you. (Divine magic is the same, except the gods do most of the dirty work)

Psionics is more like "I reject your reality and substitute my own" - no complex rituals and components and incantations, you simply visualise your desire in such a way and with such intensity that your imagination becomes reality.

All that opposed to Truename magic, where you speak directly to the world, and the world obeys your command, and various other flavours of magic

[Yora]

Well, that's even worse. It doesn't make any sense to have one system that lies between two extremes, but doesn't have any of the traits that makes the two work very similar.

And in the PHB, sorcerers have no bloodlines. It's something that pops up completely at random, just like psionic talent. And as a wild talent, you don't need training. You just have the powers from birth.
And I m pretty sure that in the XPH psions don't study either. They train their abilities through mental practice, but it doesn't have anything to do with theory or memorization.

[Kurald Galain]

Psionics are redundant because no existing fantasy setting (from books, movies, or mythology) makes a difference between "arcane" and "psionic" magic.

The distinction between "internal" and "external" forces is meaningless, because psionicists can throw fire bolts just as easily as wizards can use domination effects. Indeed, the only reason psionics existed in the first place is to have "a wizard, only with spell points". They produce the exact same effects otherwise.

[AMFV]

Well, that's even worse. It doesn't make any sense to have one system that lies between two extremes, but doesn't have any of the traits that makes the two work very similar.

And in the PHB, sorcerers have no bloodlines. It's something that pops up completely at random, just like psionic talent. And as a wild talent, you don't need training. You just have the powers from birth.
And I m pretty sure that in the XPH psions don't study either. They train their abilities through mental practice, but it doesn't have anything to do with theory or memorization.

Why doesn't it make sense to you? I mean you have real-life disciplines that are very close to each other. I mean it doesn't make much sense to have bodybuilding, powerlifting, and Olympic Weight Lifting. But they all exist.

Basically, one way to fluff it is that it's just different ways of accomplishing the same thing. Psionics is applied magic, and Sorcery is a different form of applied magic. You don't have only way one of doing things in the real world, so it is consistent to assume that there should be more ways of doing things in the fantasy world.

[Fax Celestis]

The problem with psionic fluff is that 80% of it is Crystals! Pseudoscientific words! More crystals! Mexican food! (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QUazfgZ6cxM)

The problem with sorcerer fluff is that 80% of it is one of your ancestors getting busy with a fantastic creature, almost definitely a dragon.

[Raven777]

Speaking as someone who thinks Illithids and their time travelling empire fit right in and Numeria's Mecha Scorpions (http://paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderCampaignSetting/PZO9226-Numeria.jpg) are the best thing ever drawn...

... I always thought of Psionics as being the redundant system, mixing psychic powers and crystals in my medieval high fantasy. A point based subsystem working in the exact same fashion could totally have been fluffed as ordinary arcane magic mastered in a different way, but nope, they had to go with sci-fi brain powers...

[atemu1234]

... I always thought of Psionics as being the redundant system, mixing psychic powers and crystals in my medieval high fantasy. A point based subsystem working in the exact same fashion could totally have been fluffed as ordinary arcane magic mastered in a different way, but nope, they had to go with sci-fi brain powers...

I like having their sci-fi in my Medieval High Fantasy. Of course, I also made Time Lords into a D&D race...

...ignore me...

[Prime32]

The distinction between "internal" and "external" forces is meaningless, because psionicists can throw fire bolts just as easily as wizards can use domination effects. Indeed, the only reason psionics existed in the first place is to have "a wizard, only with spell points". They produce the exact same effects otherwise.Not quite. Spells are also semi-automated (like running a script) while psionic powers are controlled directly. Likewise, spells are more likely to be self-sustaining, whereas psionic powers rarely have long durations unless they're Personal.
If you want to create a door that only lets people through if they speak the password, it would be easy with spells but hard or impossible with powers. Conversely a wizard who wants to find out peoples' alignments has to learn .isGood() and .isEvil() separately, while a psion can just look at peoples' auras directly and see what colour they are.


Basically, one way to fluff it is that it's just different ways of accomplishing the same thing. Psionics is applied magic, and Sorcery is a different form of applied magic. You don't have only way one of doing things in the real world, so it is consistent to assume that there should be more ways of doing things in the fantasy world.But that's already true. :smallconfused: "Psionics are different" is the variant rule.


All that opposed to Truename magic, where you speak directly to the world, and the world obeys your command, and various other flavours of magicAnd truenaming doesn't even use a power source, just applied knowledge. You don't run out of energy, there's just a limit to how much warping reality can take in a given period of time.

[VoxRationis]

The problem with sorcerer fluff is that 80% of it is one of your ancestors getting busy with a fantastic creature, almost definitely a dragon.

My problem with that is that the later sourcebooks took a couple of throwaway lines about sorcerers possibly having a draconic bloodline, with the implication that that was likely just a nonsense theory, and Flanderized it into sorcerers almost always being the product of dragons breeding with humanoids.

[Psyren]

Nah, it has nothing to do with sorcerers. 90% of the time when people are put off, it's because of the new-agey crystals and sci-fi-ish terminology.

I don't get it, myself, but it's what I've seen.

[atemu1234]

Nah, it has nothing to do with sorcerers. 90% of the time when people are put off, it's because of the new-agey crystals and sci-fi-ish terminology.

I don't get it, myself, but it's what I've seen.

Isn't your avatar supposed to be some sort of Psychic Warrior thing?

[AMFV]

.

But that's already true. :smallconfused: "Psionics are different" is the variant rule.

Huh, I stand corrected, in that case, my point is reinforced then, it's different ways of dealing with the same thing.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Speaking as someone who thinks Illithids and their time travelling empire fit right in and Numeria's Mecha Scorpions (http://paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderCampaignSetting/PZO9226-Numeria.jpg) are the best thing ever drawn...

... I always thought of Psionics as being the redundant system, mixing psychic powers and crystals in my medieval high fantasy. A point based subsystem working in the exact same fashion could totally have been fluffed as ordinary arcane magic mastered in a different way, but nope, they had to go with sci-fi brain powers...

My solution: Psionics is The Force.

[Psyren]

Isn't your avatar supposed to be some sort of Psychic Warrior thing?

He's the iconic Half-Giant Psywar from the XPH, yeah. Why do you ask?

[atemu1234]

He's the iconic Half-Giant Psywar from the XPH, yeah. Why do you ask?

You just made it sound like you don't like psionics is all.

[Psyren]

You just made it sound like you don't like psionics is all.

I wasn't talking about me, I was talking about "people who don't like psionics."

(I even specifically said "I don't get it, myself...")

[AMFV]

You just made it sound like you don't like psionics is all.

He said he'd seen other people turned off by those aspects, but that he himself didn't understand the fact that they didn't like them.

[Alefiend]

My solution: Psionics is The Force.

And most people would say the Force is magic. Especially the people in Star Wars who aren't trained to use it. Hokey tricks, ancient religions, Sith sorcery and Sith alchemy, Shocking Grasp, Suggestion ... the list goes on.

[JusticeZero]

Settings with divine magic, historically and in Literature, tend not to have arcane magic and vice versa. Psionics are a closer match to many fictional magic settings than wizards. Psionics is, after all, just a magic system.
And I am hazy why using word roots from Ancient Greek instead of Latin is a reason to reject psionics. Seriously. It's just a magic system. A given setting will usually have one (1) of those. D&D offers several, none of which actually resemble the canon very well. Wizards and Sorcerers are generally redundant. Either Psionics or one of the Divine systems (Clerics OR Druids) is a better fit.

[Craft (Cheese)]

And most people would say the Force is magic. Especially the people in Star Wars who aren't trained to use it. Hokey tricks, ancient religions, Sith sorcery and Sith alchemy, Shocking Grasp, Suggestion ... the list goes on.

I more meant its role in the setting. Pick your favorite part of the Expanded Universe (for me, KOTOR 2) and draw themes and inspiration from that. (And ignore all of the EU that you don't like, of course.)

[Segev]

While this obviously isn't the canon D&D explanation, I have always reconciled it for myself thusly:

Arcane magic is getting the animist forces of reality to do your bidding based on ancient contract or simply being so likable that they agreed to do it for you on a regular basis. Wizards are effectively lawyers, studying ancient contracts and finding new ways to combine the clauses to demand magical effects in return for the preparatory behaviors in which they engage while preparing spells. Sorcerers and Bards befriend these arcane beings and get familiar spirits or overall arrangements with mystic courts upon which they can call.

Divine magic is the result of being faithful and true to your god's purpose, and earning a place in his hierarchy. You literally have authority granted by him to command lesser spirits to do things. You pray in the morning for your array of favors you can request, and when you cast your spells you invoke the authority of your god to command his mystical servitors to perform magic on your behalf.

Spell-like abilities are innate authority you have by birthright. (Some sorcerers may have similar fluff.) You command and the forces of the universe obey.

Supernatural powers are your own spiritual might exerting itself on the world. You are, in some part, like those spirits commanded or cajoled by spells, and do it directly.

Psionics are, despite mechanically operating like spell-like abilities, akin to supernatural ones. But instead of your spirit reaching out to alter the world, it's your mind. Perhaps, on some level, you're mentally controlling the sub-sentient spiritual forces out there. The amount of energy you put into it is important because you're infusing them and controlling them with greater refinement. Unlike sorcerers, psions don't have agreements or familiar spirits. They simply know what needs to happen, so they MAKE it happen by exerting mental force upon the world. It's just not quite as instinctive as Supernatural powers, which is why it uses the spell-like ability concentration and AoO-provoking rules.