I seem to be the only one in our gaming group that doesn't hate Occult Adventures.

[MonkeySage]

Our group rotates who is running every week, so one week I run, the next week someone else does. And out of all of my friends, I am the only one who actually likes Occult Adventures. The rest of the group hates it, deciding before even trying it that its unbalanced, and refuses to allow me to use any material from that book in any of their games, ever. This is a problem because I feel like I won't ever get a chance to even try the material as a player. A whole book's worth of unique and interesting classes I will never get a chance to try with this group.

I'm free to do in my own games pretty much whatever, but I'm not a player in my own games, so that doesn't really count.

[Angrith]

That stinks. Maybe you could find a play-by-post to try your character concepts?

[MonkeySage]

In particular there was one character I really wanted to try out... a very young kineticist who is just starting to develop his abilities, and get a handle on his out of control emotions. All the while, he's on a quest to rescue his older brother, also a kineticist, who's been taken to an island prison because some local noble decided the pair of them were abominations.

[Psyren]

It's not unbalanced. Was there a question or are you just venting?

It sounds like your group has already made up their minds, but if they're actually your friends you have a shot. Personally, I would start with something more straightforward (i.e. anything other than a kineticist or occultist) to get them comfortable with the book.

[RedWarlock]

The Kineticist IS commonly regarded as broken, but in the other way, less-than-sufficient performance, and depending on your game style, less than intuitive play.

I was/am playing a Kineticist (might replace him before next session), and if I played into the Burn ability the way the system tries to instruct me, I'd wind up laid out unconscious in literally every fight, and dying every other session. (Our games tend to be high-damage lethal, though.) Not a fan, which is a major disappointment, for obvious username reasons.

[LuminousWarrior]

If you want to convince them to let you try Occult Adventures material, start off slow. The Psychic is basically a reflavoured Sorcerer with a few different tricks. Use that. Try to convince them to let you test out the Psychic on those grounds and work from there. And if you need to start smaller there's always the Psychic Sorcerer Bloodline.

EDIT: One reason why people might have a knee-jerk reaction to psychic magic when compared to arcane magic is because of its resemblance to psionics. Psychic is not psionic, even though they share a bit of thematic overlap. Psychic magic is closer to early 20th century mysticism than The Force. I don't understand why so many people hate psionics, but that hatred shouldn't overlap with psychic magic.

Another reason why people might be wary of psychic magic is that it doesn't have the same weaknesses as arcane magic. There's no verbal or somatic components. Thus, typical tactics used to take down Wizards and Sorcerers don't work. However, most people seem to overlook the fact that they trade away the typical weaknesses of magic-users for worse ones. Instead of verbal and somatic components, psychic magic uses thought and emotion components. Any emotion based effect will ruin a psychic spell, as will anything that breaks the casters concentration. Heck, a simple Intimidate check will mess a Psychic up pretty bad! So, in short, the typical arguments of "Occult Adventures is broken" don't really hold much water.

If you want, run a game where you let your friends try to prove thier arguments. If OA material is so broken, use it in this campaign to prove it. Then utterly destroy them with a handful of fear spells.

[Palanan]

I’m guessing that the OP’s group is reacting, or overreacting, to all the discussion about the kineticist.

I agree with LuminousWarrior that the psychic is a good choice to start with. I love the psychic because it’s almost identical to the oracle, which is one of my all-time favorite Pathfinder classes. I doubt anyone would claim the oracle is unbalanced or broken, so if the OP points out the close similarity he might be able to make some headway.

.

[Kurald Galain]

Our group rotates who is running every week, so one week I run, the next week someone else does. And out of all of my friends, I am the only one who actually likes Occult Adventures.
Well it's a rarely used book in my experience, simply because most of its classes don't bring anything new to the table.

Kinny is definitely unbalanced in the sense that it's very underpowered. Occultist is arguably a weaker version of the Magus. Medium is generally weak because in most parties, its role-shifting ability just isn't going to be useful. Spiritualist is mostly overcomplicated (as is the kinny, really).

Mesmerist is a good and versatile class. Psion at first glance looks like a stronger version of the wizard, but at second glance it compensates for this by its weaker spell list.

So while I don't personally find the book problematic, I can certainly see why people view it that way. As the result, none of its classes are even remotely popular in my area, except the mesmerist.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kurald Galain
Psion at first glance looks like a stronger version of the wizard, but at second glance it compensates for this by its weaker spell list.

And when you say "psion," you're referring to the psychic, correct?

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Occultist is a hair weaker in combat than a magus, yes, but I'd say it's much stronger in non-combat situation.

Why do they think it's overpowered? Some of the classes (Occultist and Medium) are pretty versatile, while other classes (Spiritualist and Mesmerist) are riffs on existing classes, neither of which is really stronger. Psychic is just a different sorcerer that uses Int right out of the box, and Kineticist is an excercise in frustration (that, given careful creation and play, can turn out okay). Pretty much everyone I know thinks Occult Adventures is one of Paizo's best books.

[EldritchWeaver]

The Kineticist IS commonly regarded as broken, but in the other way, less-than-sufficient performance, and depending on your game style, less than intuitive play.

I was/am playing a Kineticist (might replace him before next session), and if I played into the Burn ability the way the system tries to instruct me, I'd wind up laid out unconscious in literally every fight, and dying every other session. (Our games tend to be high-damage lethal, though.) Not a fan, which is a major disappointment, for obvious username reasons.

Kineticist of Porphyra is a 3PP, which supposedly helps with Paizo-based issues, but I haven't read that one, so I can't say if that's correct or not. Otherwise, did you look at Spheres of Power? That provides means to at-will powers, and ironically to the Elementalist, which is the sphere version of the Kinny, but created even before the Kinny was published.

[Psyren]

Instead of verbal and somatic components, psychic magic uses thought and emotion components. Any emotion based effect will ruin a psychic spell, as will anything that breaks the casters concentration. Heck, a simple Intimidate check will mess a Psychic up pretty bad! So, in short, the typical arguments of "Occult Adventures is broken" don't really hold much water.

If you want, run a game where you let your friends try to prove thier arguments. If OA material is so broken, use it in this campaign to prove it. Then utterly destroy them with a handful of fear spells.

While I agree with your overall point, you're vastly overstating the weaknesses of psychic magic here. For starters, not every psychic spell actually has emotion components; in fact, pretty much any spell without a somatic component when arcane/divine will similarly lack an emotional counterpart when psychic. This means spells like Teleport and Dimension Door can be used just fine even while you're afraid. Second, there are numerous ways to beat fear effects, and while the Intimidate skill is a bit harder to shake than something magical, it's not impossible. Third, there are feats and other abilities (like metamagic, and rods of same) that deal with these limitations directly. Remove Fear for example is on the Psychic list, so it's a pretty good target to strip the emotion component off with Logical Spell, and once you suppress your intimidation, further attempts wont do anything but extend the duration of the suppressed effect.

[RedWarlock]

Kineticist of Porphyra is a 3PP, which supposedly helps with Paizo-based issues, but I haven't read that one, so I can't say if that's correct or not. Otherwise, did you look at Spheres of Power? That provides means to at-will powers, and ironically to the Elementalist, which is the sphere version of the Kinny, but created even before the Kinny was published.

GM preferred 1st-party material only. If I could've, I would've.

[LuminousWarrior]

While I agree with your overall point, you're vastly overstating the weaknesses of psychic magic here. For starters, not every psychic spell actually has emotion components; in fact, pretty much any spell without a somatic component when arcane/divine will similarly lack an emotional counterpart when psychic. This means spells like Teleport and Dimension Door can be used just fine even while you're afraid. Second, there are numerous ways to beat fear effects, and while the Intimidate skill is a bit harder to shake than something magical, it's not impossible. Third, there are feats and other abilities (like metamagic, and rods of same) that deal with these limitations directly. Remove Fear for example is on the Psychic list, so it's a pretty good target to strip the emotion component off with Logical Spell, and once you suppress your intimidation, further attempts wont do anything but extend the duration of the suppressed effect.

Yeah, you're probably right about me overstating my point. I was mainly just trying to get at the fact that while shutting down a psychic caster is different than shutting down an arcane caster, it's not harder. You just need to approach it in a different way.

[Pex]

I only hate it for it being the official version of Pathfinder psionics instead of adopting Dreamscarred Press version.
:smalltongue:

[LuminousWarrior]

Eh, I basically consider Dreamscarred Press' Psionics stuff 1st party. If you use only one peice of 3pp material, make it the Dreamscarred Press Psionics system. It's better balanced than a lot of official material.

[Pex]

Eh, I basically consider Dreamscarred Press' Psionics stuff 1st party. If you use only one peice of 3pp material, make it the Dreamscarred Press Psionics system. It's better balanced than a lot of official material.

I agree with you. The problem is whenever I join a Pathfinder game only official Paizo products are allowed. I can argue until I'm blue in the face on the balance of Dreamscarred Press psionics, but they will not budge. It is not official Paizo Pathfinder therefore forbidden.

[EldritchWeaver]

If the reason is that the GMs consider Paizo balanced then you could employ a build using the most broken stuff to show what is possible. Maybe that convinces people that Paizo-approved isn't a seal of quality.

[ATHATH]

If the reason is that the GMs consider Paizo balanced then you could employ a build using the most broken stuff to show what is possible. Maybe that convinces people that Paizo-approved isn't a seal of quality.
Nah, that'll just make them ban whatever tricks you used/you.

[Segev]

Can you use OA material when you're GMing?

Build the older brother and have an adventure set before he's imprisoned where he's an NPC. Make sure you're not being overpowered with the build; the goal is to show them that a kineticist isn't a problem in the game. Ideally, they will even help him with something he is not powerful enough to deal with on his own.

[Psyren]

I only hate it for it being the official version of Pathfinder psionics instead of adopting Dreamscarred Press version.
:smalltongue:

To be fair, psychic magic has a number of qualities that I actually prefer to traditional psionics:

1) It's actually spellcasting, so you can use nearly all the existing infrastructure that goes with that (e.g. metamagic, items, racials) instead of needing separate ones. This also makes it much more forwards-compatible, as any new goodies that get added to the game later for other spellcasters can usually be applied to you too.

2) It keeps the fantasy of "mind magic" i.e. that can be used silently or while bound and gagged, but in a more balanced way for many settings. One of the big problems of psionics at low levels is that muggles have a hard time stopping you from using it without outright killing you (or beating you into a perpetual coma), which makes it difficult to square some societies (like a lawful good ones) with a meaningful approach to psionic crime. With psychic magic though, even at low levels, mundanes can still interact/interfere with your magic = whether it's by intimidating you in the short term, or for a longer term scenario they can just keep you distracted, depressed, or even euphoric - any emotional state that isn't your own messes with your casting, and many can be induced humanely.

3) It keeps many of the positive mechanical similarities to spellcasting. For example, psychic spells can be used to buff allies more easily than psionic powers can be. Similarly, psychic spells don't skip over the illusion or necromancy schools.

[Knaight]

It sounds like your group has already made up their minds, but if they're actually your friends you have a shot. Personally, I would start with something more straightforward (i.e. anything other than a kineticist or occultist) to get them comfortable with the book.
I'm going to push back on this - friendship doesn't mean a mandate of willingness to try everything a friend is interested in, even if it's not something they can do on their own. I like group hiking, that doesn't mean that all my friends are only really my friends if they'll spend 8 hours hauling themselves up to a 14000' mountaintop, followed by another 6 hours getting back down.


This is a problem because I feel like I won't ever get a chance to even try the material as a player. A whole book's worth of unique and interesting classes I will never get a chance to try with this group.

I'm free to do in my own games pretty much whatever, but I'm not a player in my own games, so that doesn't really count.
That's how it goes. Similarly there are entire games I'll never get to play as a player with my current group, because other people have no interest in GMing them (including a few that I'd love to play and don't want to GM). That's how these things work; it's a group activity restricted to things that the group as a whole finds interesting.

[OgresAreCute]

I'm going to push back on this - friendship doesn't mean a mandate of willingness to try everything a friend is interested in, even if it's not something they can do on their own. I like group hiking, that doesn't mean that all my friends are only really my friends if they'll spend 8 hours hauling themselves up to a 14000' mountaintop, followed by another 6 hours getting back down.


That's how it goes. Similarly there are entire games I'll never get to play as a player with my current group, because other people have no interest in GMing them (including a few that I'd love to play and don't want to GM). That's how these things work; it's a group activity restricted to things that the group as a whole finds interesting.

Mountain hiking compared to roleplaying games and pizza is a lot different than either having a sorcerer in your party, or having a psychic. I would definitely consider it to be unreasonable to slam something as unbalanced without even looking at it, and refusing to ever allow it near you or your games.

[Knaight]

Mountain hiking compared to roleplaying games and pizza is a lot different than either having a sorcerer in your party, or having a psychic. I would definitely consider it to be unreasonable to slam something as unbalanced without even looking at it, and refusing to ever allow it near you or your games.

Unreasonable? Maybe. An indication that someone isn't really your friend? No. Those are two very different criteria.

Also we have no indication that it hasn't been looked at, merely that it hasn't seen actual play. If anything it appears to have been looked at and judged as broken, and while that assessment is incredibly dubious it's hardly something to question a friendship over.

[Psyren]

I'm going to push back on this - friendship doesn't mean a mandate of willingness to try everything a friend is interested in, even if it's not something they can do on their own. I like group hiking, that doesn't mean that all my friends are only really my friends if they'll spend 8 hours hauling themselves up to a 14000' mountaintop, followed by another 6 hours getting back down.

You're right, nobody owes you a try. But what they do owe you is at least a good reason. My point was more that, if they're your friends, they should trust that you're not actually trying to break the game on purpose and at least hear you out.

Also, your analogy is ridiculous. I hardly think letting you try a character from one damn official book is equivalent to a 14000' hike.

[Resileaf]

I've decided that I like the occult adventures because psychics can get their powers from a 'dark side', and it made me really want to play an Owain/Odin-like (from Fire Emblem Awakening and Fates) character.
It's immature, but goddamn I really want to do it.

[Segev]

To be fair, psychic magic has a number of qualities that I actually prefer to traditional psionics:

1) It's actually spellcasting, so you can use nearly all the existing infrastructure that goes with that (e.g. metamagic, items, racials) instead of needing separate ones. This also makes it much more forwards-compatible, as any new goodies that get added to the game later for other spellcasters can usually be applied to you too.

2) It keeps the fantasy of "mind magic" i.e. that can be used silently or while bound and gagged, but in a more balanced way for many settings. One of the big problems of psionics at low levels is that muggles have a hard time stopping you from using it without outright killing you (or beating you into a perpetual coma), which makes it difficult to square some societies (like a lawful good ones) with a meaningful approach to psionic crime. With psychic magic though, even at low levels, mundanes can still interact/interfere with your magic = whether it's by intimidating you in the short term, or for a longer term scenario they can just keep you distracted, depressed, or even euphoric - any emotional state that isn't your own messes with your casting, and many can be induced humanely.

3) It keeps many of the positive mechanical similarities to spellcasting. For example, psychic spells can be used to buff allies more easily than psionic powers can be. Similarly, psychic spells don't skip over the illusion or necromancy schools.
It just goes to show that there is a lot of subjectivity here, because I specifically dislike "psychic magic" because of your number one reason for liking it. I do understand the advantages of forward-compatibility, but I actively dislike that it's just more spellcasting.

2) doesn't really work for me, because it doesn't feel like "mind magic." It feels like magic that's stunted slightly differently. And you're really, REALLY reaching for the ways to actually make the supposed limitations of the !verbal and !somatic components of psychic magic something that a mundane, low-level character can prevent a "psychic mage" from using. Forcing those conditions is hardly comparable to "tie his hands and gag him." Most of them are harder than just knocking the psychic out, which works just as well for DSP or 3.5 psions as it does for wizards or "psychic mages."

3) is a stylistic choice, and one I actively think works against the notion that it feels like "mind magic." It feels like magic that has been arbitrarily declared "psychic" for no reason other than, well, somebody felt like saying so. May as well call the entire Necromancy school "occult magic" because the writer thinks bones and gems and soul-manipulation sounds like witchcraft.


I do think they did a reasonable job capturing a more "pulp occultism" feel with the book and systems than traditional D&D-esq casting does. But it doesn't feel "psychic." A lot of my problems would probably be gone if they dropped the "psychic" term and just called it "occultism."

[LuminousWarrior]

I do think they did a reasonable job capturing a more "pulp occultism" feel with the book and systems than traditional D&D-esq casting does. But it doesn't feel "psychic." A lot of my problems would probably be gone if they dropped the "psychic" term and just called it "occultism."

I definitely agree with you on this point. I feel like the only reason they called it "psychic magic" is because they wanted to get people off thier backs about making an "official" psionics system. I can get the argument about the Psychic and Mesmerist being "psychic spellcasters", but the Occultist and Spiritualists have nothing to do with psychics.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Calling it 'occult' spellcasting might have mitigated some changes. Hell, isn't that what Paizo did with PF2? Along with converting the bard to an occult caster?

[EldritchWeaver]

Calling it 'occult' spellcasting might have mitigated some changes. Hell, isn't that what Paizo did with PF2? Along with converting the bard to an occult caster?

The change of components is missing in PF2.

[Psyren]

It just goes to show that there is a lot of subjectivity here, because I specifically dislike "psychic magic" because of your number one reason for liking it. I do understand the advantages of forward-compatibility, but I actively dislike that it's just more spellcasting.

Whereas I find it extremely annoying that so many of the cool post-XPH additions to 3.5 (e.g. casting-type-agnostic PrCs, items, feats and racials) skipped psionics completely, because it was relegated to being the redheaded stepchild they couldn't be bothered to develop more goodies for. So yeah, it seems we disagree.



2) doesn't really work for me, because it doesn't feel like "mind magic."

You cast by thinking. Not sure what else you need.


And you're really, REALLY reaching for the ways to actually make the supposed limitations of the !verbal and !somatic components of psychic magic something that a mundane, low-level character can prevent a "psychic mage" from using. Forcing those conditions is hardly comparable to "tie his hands and gag him. Most of them are harder than just knocking the psychic out, which works just as well for DSP or 3.5 psions as it does for wizards or "psychic mages."

Well for starters I'd prefer a binary between keep them in a coma or they can charm all your guards/blast their way out/etc. Ropes do it for magic, and for psychic magic, keeping them in any mental state (not just fear) other than their own does the trick; drugs for example.


3) is a stylistic choice, and one I actively think works against the notion that it feels like "mind magic."

It was always arbitrary; there was never a good reason for psions to be so utterly bad at buffing or healing others. As DSP proved with the Vitalist and their version of the Egoist, unrestricting that ability doesn't make the sky fall. And psionics not having illusion of all things, was always bollocks in my view.

[Segev]

Whereas I find it extremely annoying that so many of the cool post-XPH additions to 3.5 (e.g. casting-type-agnostic PrCs, items, feats and racials) skipped psionics completely, because it was relegated to being the redheaded stepchild they couldn't be bothered to develop more goodies for. So yeah, it seems we disagree.All fair gripes and reasons. I have my own reasons for preferring it the way 3.5/DSP does it, but don't want to derail and can just agree to disagree.



You cast by thinking. Not sure what else you need.And Wheel of Time d20 let you spend your spell slots by saying you're channeling the One Power. That didn't make it a good representation of the WoT Channeling system as presented in the books.

I mean, by this logic, a Still Silent spell is "mind magic." Heck, any V-only Silent spell is "mind magic."



Well for starters I'd prefer a binary between keep them in a coma or they can charm all your guards/blast their way out/etc. Ropes do it for magic, and for psychic magic, keeping them in any mental state (not just fear) other than their own does the trick; drugs for example.I've always found "er, um, yeah, we have this drug that kills your magic for a while" to be on par with "Genosha Collars" for contrivance. But I'll grant that it's a LITTLE better when it's ANY drug that the DM deems sufficiently mind-altering. It still is either more expensive, or it requires too little effort, depending on whether you're reliant on drugs, or you can get away with shouting at them until they cry.


It was always arbitrary; there was never a good reason for psions to be so utterly bad at buffing or healing others. As DSP proved with the Vitalist and their version of the Egoist, unrestricting that ability doesn't make the sky fall. And psionics not having illusion of all things, was always bollocks in my view.There is good reason psionics didn't do necromancy, and the efforts to add it in in Complete Psionic were really lame. Not a huge fan of psionics doing summoning/conjuration beyond Astral Constructs, either.




To the OP: I am curious; would running an Occult NPC or few in your next round as DM perhaps work?

[LuminousWarrior]

I've always found "er, um, yeah, we have this drug that kills your magic for a while" to be on par with "Genosha Collars" for contrivance. But I'll grant that it's a LITTLE better when it's ANY drug that the DM deems sufficiently mind-altering. It still is either more expensive, or it requires too little effort, depending on whether you're reliant on drugs, or you can get away with shouting at them until they cry.

I would rule that something as simple as alcohol would mess with a Psychic's head enough to keep them from casting spells.

[MonkeySage]

I've done it before, though my players didn't really notice. They just thought the npc had weird powers- but he was a low level ally, so they didn't really see him in action.

[GreatGoatEater]

I've always found "er, um, yeah, we have this drug that kills your magic for a while" to be on par with "Genosha Collars" for contrivance. But I'll grant that it's a LITTLE better when it's ANY drug that the DM deems sufficiently mind-altering. It still is either more expensive, or it requires too little effort, depending on whether you're reliant on drugs, or you can get away with shouting at them until they cry.

You don't even need a special drug, just force feeding your unfortunate psychic enough mundane Int/Wis/Cha drug of choice till their mental stat is less than 10 turns them into muggles just fine.

[Psyren]

And Wheel of Time d20 let you spend your spell slots by saying you're channeling the One Power. That didn't make it a good representation of the WoT Channeling system as presented in the books.

How is this relevant? Neither XPH psionics nor PF psychic magic is emulating any specific fantasy novel.


I mean, by this logic, a Still Silent spell is "mind magic." Heck, any V-only Silent spell is "mind magic."

Indeed it is, as defined in the rules by being a "purely mental action."

But more importantly, I define mind magic as not needing a bunch of extras like metamagic to actually be used with your mind - rather, the magic itself natively works that way.



I've always found "er, um, yeah, we have this drug that kills your magic for a while" to be on par with "Genosha Collars" for contrivance. But I'll grant that it's a LITTLE better when it's ANY drug that the DM deems sufficiently mind-altering. It still is either more expensive, or it requires too little effort, depending on whether you're reliant on drugs, or you can get away with shouting at them until they cry.

1) Shutting off magic with drugs makes plenty of sense in my opinion, especially if it's magic that originates from within the caster's mind. Hell, the very Wheel of Time you cited contains this phenomenon (forkroot tea.)

2) There are plenty of cheap drugs in PF. Even if you were right and they were expensive though, plenty of societies that want to incarcerate spellcasters without rendering them comatose or dead would consider it worthwhile.



There is good reason psionics didn't do necromancy, and the efforts to add it in in Complete Psionic were really lame. Not a huge fan of psionics doing summoning/conjuration beyond Astral Constructs, either.

So I can only assume you dislike DSP too for doing the Seventh Path stuff then. And I notice you didn't mention illusions either.

[Crake]

Whenever I see groups taking turns DMing, I naturally assume that it's because nobody particularly wants to DM. Solve this problem by abolishing this "everyone takes turns DMing" and take the reins yourself, that way you can try out whatever system you want without even having to tell the players, since they won't know what the behind the scenes stuff is, with the plus side being that if something DOES show itself to be unbalanced, you can pull punches behind the scenes to bring things back in line with your table's power level.

DMing is 10x better than playing if you want to try out lots of cool ideas, and introduce all sorts of narrative elements.

[MonkeySage]

Whenever I see groups taking turns DMing, I naturally assume that it's because nobody particularly wants to DM. Solve this problem by abolishing this "everyone takes turns DMing" and take the reins yourself, that way you can try out whatever system you want without even having to tell the players, since they won't know what the behind the scenes stuff is, with the plus side being that if something DOES show itself to be unbalanced, you can pull punches behind the scenes to bring things back in line with your table's power level.

DMing is 10x better than playing if you want to try out lots of cool ideas, and introduce all sorts of narrative elements.

Actually its because we all enjoy playing. I like DMing, so does everyone else. But we all enjoy playing too. The entire reason that I dm is so that I can get others interested in doing it themselves.

I wouldn't want to give up being a player, nor would anyone else in the group.

[Segev]

I've done it before, though my players didn't really notice. They just thought the npc had weird powers- but he was a low level ally, so they didn't really see him in action.I suggest introducing a kineticist ally who won't overshadow them but will get to use his powers in action. Maybe the brother of your desired PC.


How is this relevant? Neither XPH psionics nor PF psychic magic is emulating any specific fantasy novel.It is, however, trying to emulate the difference between psychic powers and magic, and occult trappings are really not "psychic" so much as "magic, just a different flavor."

And I find "psychic magic" to be as satisfyingly "psychic" as I find d20 WoT's spellcasting to be satisfyingly "channeling."



Indeed it is, as defined in the rules by being a "purely mental action."

But more importantly, I define mind magic as not needing a bunch of extras like metamagic to actually be used with your mind - rather, the magic itself natively works that way.As do I, though "mind magic" is not quite the same as "psychic/psionics" to me. But we've already agreed to disagree, so unless you really want a lengthy discussion of what I view it as, I'll leave it here.


1) Shutting off magic with drugs makes plenty of sense in my opinion, especially if it's magic that originates from within the caster's mind. Hell, the very Wheel of Time you cited contains this phenomenon (forkroot tea.)It does, and it was lame.


2) There are plenty of cheap drugs in PF. Even if you were right and they were expensive though, plenty of societies that want to incarcerate spellcasters without rendering them comatose or dead would consider it worthwhile.I never said that, if they existed, it would not be used. I said it's lame.

They don't drug might-thewed fighters to prevent them from shattering their bonds. Unless this is a Superman comic, in which case the dangle a kryptonite amulet around his neck. "Everybody has kryptonite" is meh design, to me.


So I can only assume you dislike DSP too for doing the Seventh Path stuff then. And I notice you didn't mention illusions either.I didn't really follow DSP's psionics all that much; I mostly referenced them to acknowledge it rather than have people claim I was ignoring it. I don't know what "seventh path" is.

And no, I didn't comment on illusion; I think telepathic illusions (which I believe fall under "phantasms" in the magical subschool) would have been perfectly reasonable for psionics.

I'm not saying psionics was done perfectly. Just that it was better than "psychic magic" at being, well, psychic.

[Knaight]

Whenever I see groups taking turns DMing, I naturally assume that it's because nobody particularly wants to DM. Solve this problem by abolishing this "everyone takes turns DMing" and take the reins yourself, that way you can try out whatever system you want without even having to tell the players, since they won't know what the behind the scenes stuff is, with the plus side being that if something DOES show itself to be unbalanced, you can pull punches behind the scenes to bring things back in line with your table's power level.

Either that or it's because everyone wants to DM some of the time, and that solution doesn't work at all.

[Crake]

Either that or it's because everyone wants to DM some of the time, and that solution doesn't work at all.


Actually its because we all enjoy playing. I like DMing, so does everyone else. But we all enjoy playing too. The entire reason that I dm is so that I can get others interested in doing it themselves.

I wouldn't want to give up being a player, nor would anyone else in the group.

The reason the natural assumption is that none of you enjoy DMing is because as a DM you can't get anything good done in a week before it's the next person's turn, unless you're running 4-5 different games in tandem and rotating which one you play each week, which is just baffling to me, because you'd get upward of a month between games of the same campaign. Why not take turns running a consistent campaign, instead of rotating each week if you all enjoy DMing so much?

[MonkeySage]

The reason the natural assumption is that none of you enjoy DMing is because as a DM you can't get anything good done in a week before it's the next person's turn, unless you're running 4-5 different games in tandem and rotating which one you play each week, which is just baffling to me, because you'd get upward of a month between games of the same campaign. Why not take turns running a consistent campaign, instead of rotating each week if you all enjoy DMing so much?

It's never been a problem for our group. In our server, we have a channel set aside called Game Plans. We usually find out who's running next week within 2 days of finishing a sesh. The GM will volunteer when they feel ready to run another game. A single gm may run 2 nights in a row, or 1 night per month. Not everyone in the group gms either, mostly its just 4 out of 6 of us. Our game nights tend to be pretty productive, recently we finished a whole dungeon and had time to spare for downtime activities- my halfling trained with his draconic ancestor in order to tap more deeply into his bloodline.

Not everyone in our group gms, and some gms run more often, but its all different campaigns, different settings, different PCs, etc. In one game, I play a charming halfling sorcerer who makes his living as a rich merchant adventurer. In another game, my character is a surly Sylph Transmuter with a drinking problem. The game I'm running is a galaxy spanning fantasy space opera.

[Psyren]

It is, however, trying to emulate the difference between psychic powers and magic, and occult trappings are really not "psychic" so much as "magic, just a different flavor."
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And I find "psychic magic" to be as satisfyingly "psychic" as I find d20 WoT's spellcasting to be satisfyingly "channeling."
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As do I, though "mind magic" is not quite the same as "psychic/psionics" to me. But we've already agreed to disagree, so unless you really want a lengthy discussion of what I view it as, I'll leave it here.
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It does, and it was lame.
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I never said that, if they existed, it would not be used. I said it's lame.

Agree to disagree it is.


They don't drug might-thewed fighters to prevent them from shattering their bonds.

For most fighters, shattering their bonds (particularly tough ones like adamantine) requires external assistance like magic items, which can be confiscated. So it doesn't generally come up for them. You can bet though that if it did and poisons or drugs were the only option to keep them in check, they'd do it. It's bound to be cheaper than inventing antimagic cells, though of course they could do that too.


I didn't really follow DSP's psionics all that much; I mostly referenced them to acknowledge it rather than have people claim I was ignoring it. I don't know what "seventh path" is.

Psionic necromancy, basically. It focuses on seances and such, the kind of stuff that OcA is already doing.


And no, I didn't comment on illusion; I think telepathic illusions (which I believe fall under "phantasms" in the magical subschool) would have been perfectly reasonable for psionics.

I'm not saying psionics was done perfectly. Just that it was better than "psychic magic" at being, well, psychic.

Right, well, see first sentence.

[Segev]

Agree to disagree it is.Sure.


For most fighters, shattering their bonds (particularly tough ones like adamantine) requires external assistance like magic items, which can be confiscated. So it doesn't generally come up for them. You can bet though that if it did and poisons or drugs were the only option to keep them in check, they'd do it. It's bound to be cheaper than inventing antimagic cells, though of course they could do that too.For most mages, you can deprive them of their spell component pouches and bind and gag them with even easier-to-acquire materials than the chains you need for your above-average fighter-type.

I didn't say "they wouldn't use drugs." I don't know why people keep trying to argue with me as if I were making that claim. But meh.


Psionic necromancy, basically. It focuses on seances and such, the kind of stuff that OcA is already doing.Yeah, doesn't sound like something I'd like in my psychic powers. Lame and nonsensical.

As occult stuff, it works. But that's still magic, not "psychic," no matter how much they try to pretend otherwise with the inappropriate label. (Yes, this is me disagreeing. Not me expecting you or anybody else to necessarily be persuaded nor agree with me.)

[Psyren]

For most mages, you can deprive them of their spell component pouches and bind and gag them with even easier-to-acquire materials than the chains you need for your above-average fighter-type.

I agree that the mundane countermeasures are easier for traditional spellcasters than psychic ones. My issue though is that psions don't have any, barring extremes like catatonia, execution or antimagic. You can't even counterspell them. That much is a factual statement, regardless of preferences.

[Particle_Man]

In particular there was one character I really wanted to try out... a very young kineticist who is just starting to develop his abilities, and get a handle on his out of control emotions. All the while, he's on a quest to rescue his older brother, also a kineticist, who's been taken to an island prison because some local noble decided the pair of them were abominations.

Assuming you won't be able to win your group over with stuff from Occult Adventures, would your group be open to 3.5 materials? In particular, the Warlock? You might be able to tryout a mechanical Warlock reskinned as an "emotional kineticist" type and see if that scratches your creative itch while still being acceptable to your group.