Talk:Psionics

I am hoping that Mattie, who is way more crunch-minded than me (and the one who is going to have to put up with Psionic character or characters) will help me make rules that are more concrete and less hand wavy. Discussion is welcome!

Why get rid of the magic/psionics transparency rule? That's a lot of work and adjuctating on the side of the GM. --Msallen

Because I don't care and because I want psionics to be different, as it traditionally has been in D&D and in this setting. In terms of metaphysics, there's no reason a nonmagical, personally generated power should effect magic and vice versa. -gm

Well, as a world concept, I agree, and since I can't see myself running a 3e game, it doesn't impact me. Mostly I'm just saying I can't imagine wanting to deal with the complication if I was in your shoes, and are you really sure you want to deal with it? --Msallen

Eh, I'm the Court of Last Resort, what do I care? My rulings are always sticky. -gm

I'm okay with Psionics being different overall, but I think if there was a whole lot of persecution and battling going on before in this world, both sides of Magic and Psionics would have come up with some workable tools against each other. I like the old Psionics Handbook recommendation of the weaker Detect Psionics, Negate Magic, etc, sort of spells. Requiring wish level (or killing the manifester) seems like it makes Psionics unbalancingly different. -Mattie

Well, there are actually some spells in the XPH that give arcane users some emulated psionics. Also, FWiW, that transparency cuts both ways: a psion is just as helpless dealing with most magical effects which are, honestly, far more common and more likely to be run into.

And, yes the page in that link is exactly what I'm talking about and was thinking of; I like most all of it, really, but we just need to decide in advance which options from the menu will make up the universe's mecehanics. For example, I'm not a huge fan of "specialty spells and powers," since there are already magic spells that give psionic abilities. I talked about alternate detections before and actively like them. FWiW, if these rules are adopted, the Mind Effecting Spells and Power seems to expressly rule out the reading you are giving the Freedom of Movement, as it clearly distinguishes between Magic and Psionic mind-effecting spells. Oh, also, the text for freedom of movement says "even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement, such as paralysis, solid fog, slow, and web." I believe the term that fancy lawyer types use is "exclusio alterius:" the inclusion is the exclusion of the other. Though, I would expect that if there was a psionic effect that generated a grapple - like TK or Ectoplasmic whatever - that magical freedom of movement would allow the dodge, since the section explicitly talks about Mind-Affecting, which is a defined descriptor and so takes a lot of the handwavy out of it. Patterns and Phantasms are also always defined as Mind-Affecting, so a Psionic Death Ward, or whatever the equivalent would be, would not protect from Phantasmal Killer or Color Spray. absalom 16:45, 28 April 2011 (EDT)

TL;DR, I'm down with that whole page. -gm

I'm not sure I like #4 on the Psionics page either. For example, psionic freedom of movement seems like it could work fine against hold person, as they seem to specifically act against a status effect (paralysis). I'd also assume an appropriate magical summon could be banished by a psionic banishment. Most of the other things I see interacting don't seem directly opposed but rather act on conditions of the target. Psionic Form of Doom seems to say it's a "mind-affecting fear effect" and I assume Remove Fear would actually work on it based on such specific wording. In addition I think Shadow Body would prevent damage from magical diseases/poisons. The OGL versions of these spells/powers seem to be pretty well worded such that effect opposition would be okay without invalidating "Psionics are different". I think where it gets shadier would be like: can Create Sound work inside a magical Silence spell radius? I.e. stuff that doesn't come up very often. Interestingly, some of the magic spells in d20 actually mention psionics where it might further be confusing, like Dimensional Lock barring psionic teleportation. Just seems like there might not need to be such an insurmountable barrier between the two even if they don't directly mix for dispel/detect/resist/etc... -Mattie

Yeah, there's some tweaking that goes on here, and a lot of this is fairly tentative stuff. I'd say that Create Sound would not function in silence, no. Because the magic is preventing any noise at all from being created. -gm

I think I agree with all of the logic directly above that I cut. I'm just not good at putting theory stuff into rulespeak. -gm

Also: If it wasn't for having a second GM in the pool now, I wouldn't even need to codify. I could just rule on an ad hoc basis, but now some sort of consistency needs to be codified whatever it is..