Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JimProfit 03-05-08, 03:44 PM	It doesn't make much sense to me, with the exception of the interesting but underappreciated mind's eye articles and the supposedly crap complete psionics, there's nothing really psionics oriented. It has enough flavor and mechanics to have a psionics campaign, yet I can't seem to find one GM worth giving them a chance. When they're in the ****ing system reference document.:rolleyes: And now fourth edition is coming and the mechanichal success and simplicity of XPH is all but going to be forgotten. People don't want change, they don't want innovation, maybe I should just have my players be commoners and try to kill things with big sticks and occasionaly a wand of fireball... cause that's bassicaly what anti-psionic players look like to me. Hell, I have half a mind to make a psionics game. I don't have complete psionic, but I can fiddle with gestalt and allow players to become a psionic prestige class instead of a base-class. (Or even two! They'd just stop kicking ass above level 10...) But God forbid I should want to PLAY psionics... The only class that really needs fixing in psionics is the soulknife. And even then that's mostly cause it doesn't know what it wants to be. As opposed to the horrible curves of non-psionics where you got fighters running more then actually fighting, and uber awesome druids. (Seriously, non-psionics is like one of those old Ted Turner cartoons i grewup on, the power or learning and nature omgz!!!:rolleyes: ) Yes, this is a rant. But I can't help but be ****** psionics is going to go through yet another change in fourth edition, maybe not for the better. And if it isn't, people are going to blame it that psionics were never good. Psionics is like the one goodguy in a bad cartoon that never gets credit where it's due. Even the MAD of 3.0 wasn't horrible if you ruled zero otherwise. And it was less ridicoules then spellcasting. Now we have variety, good mechanics, and a nice flavor where we can start thinking up our own powers! (I thoughtup some save-or-die powers that are actually balanced, they're only save-or-die if you augment them.) All for nothing.
McPoyo 03-05-08, 03:56 PM	Yeah, your first line has confused the living hell out of me there. Also, I have no idea what you are talking about, since the Expanded Psionics Handbook (The EPH) was first printed in April of 04. Perhaps you meant a different book? edit: Ignore this entire thing. I totally misinterpreted what the first line in the OPs post meant :(
Tectorman 03-05-08, 04:10 PM	Yeah, your first line has confused the living hell out of me there. Also, I have no idea what you are talking about, since the Expanded Psionics Handbook (The EPH) was first printed in April of 04. Perhaps you meant a different book? The Expanded Psionics Handbook is usually abbreviated XPH. It is what he's referring to.
Cartigan 03-05-08, 04:13 PM	Did anyone else read nothing but "rang whine rant rant whine."
McPoyo 03-05-08, 04:18 PM	Edit 1:WHOO EDITED OUT FOR LACK OF READInG COMPREHENSION! Edit 2: Try Eberron. Lots of psionics there.
Crimson_Concerto 03-05-08, 04:19 PM	Did anyone else read nothing but "rang whine rant rant whine."I'm going to go ahead and side with you on this one. I read the first post three times and couldn't make any sense of it. :confused:
McPoyo 03-05-08, 04:24 PM	The complaint is that the OP feels there isn't enough support for the perfectly usable magic variant system that is Psionics, and not enough DMs are willing to use it because they are too narrow-minded when it comes to innovative additions to games (Which I agree on) I, however, took it to mean "The EPH has little psionics content" because I must have been in idiot mode when I first read it. Then again, I also liked 3.0's crazy MAD with manifesters, so maybe that explains it a tad. I must have brain damage.
Lycanthromancer 03-05-08, 04:26 PM	It was perfectly legible to me. And *I* feel like utter crap, due to a horrible bout of the flu. My head is spinning and my eyesight is blurry. So yes, it must be brain damage due to 3.0 psionics. For what it's worth, I agree with the OP, though if the quality of printed content was on par with CPsi, we were better off without it.
Varl 03-06-08, 02:13 PM	Pick an edition/version of psionics and change the things you don't like about it. Done.
JimProfit 03-06-08, 04:59 PM	Pick an edition/version of psionics and change the things you don't like about it. Done. I don't think you or pretty much anyone understood what I meant... at all... I'm saying that the lack of acceptance of 3.5 psionics is the reason it's doomed, arguably what flaws did exsist for psionics was what could happen to any mechanics. (And did) 3.0's ridicoules MAD? No worse then non-caster's uselessness... 2cd Edition's overpowerd? No worse then clerics, druids, and wizards in 3.5... 3.5 Was a balanced, awesome mechanic, and it's in the system reference document so it's not like it's an obscure alternate source matireal. And people still won't even try it. Now in fourth edition psionics won't be system reference document, and may or may not suck. So bassicaly the anti-psionic bastards got what they wanted.
Kursk 03-06-08, 05:08 PM	So bassicaly the anti-psionic bastards got what they wanted. Dude, we're ALL screwed with 4.0. Not just people who like psionics. It's no longer D&D. Stick with 3.5.
X0_Lt_0X 03-06-08, 05:12 PM	In my eyes psionics is ignored because it wasnt in the core books. Theres not alot of stuff past XPH and CpPs in any supplement book besides a few feats ether. Psionics is cool but not well spread out.
X0_Lt_0X 03-06-08, 05:13 PM	Dude, we're ALL screwed with 4.0. Not just people who like psionics. It's no longer D&D. Stick with 3.5. Oh and that...
Deekin 03-06-08, 05:46 PM	In my eyes psionics is ignored because it wasnt in the core books. Theres not alot of stuff past XPH and CpPs in any supplement book besides a few feats ether. Psionics is cool but not well spread out. Considering that the Psionic Power Source in 4e has the highest priority for inclusion in the PHB II, (yes, greater than primal,) we can assume that psi is going to get much more stuff in 4e.
Jaid 03-06-08, 09:34 PM	wizards made the 3.5 psionics rules available for other companies to use under the d20 license. since that decision (in addition to the amount of non-support, bad customer service rulings, bad FAQ responses, bad rules of the game articles, and one highly unimpressive supplement with a handful of good things in it) has led to the creation of dreamscarred press (purveyors of awesomeness extraordinaire!) i can honestly say that at this point i don't particularly care what WotC does with 3.5 psionics anymore, because we get 10 times the awesome at 1/10th the cost (well, probably closer to 1/2 or 1/3 the cost actually... but still, the awesome/cost ratio is significantly higher!) so really, it's not as if nothing good came from the existance of the XPH. it's an excellent book, and it has led to more excellent products, just not from WotC. if you think about it, that's exactly the point of the d20 license.
Bacris 03-06-08, 10:40 PM	Why release the XPH? Because every single edition of D&D has had psionics in it, at least to an extent. Let's not forget here, the XPH came out in 2004. It received support in Races of Stone, Lords of Madness, and especially in Eberron, to name a few. Sure, Complete Psionic was a disappointment, but it also had good stuff in it. That's 3 solid years that the XPH was out that we got use of it before 4E was announced... and 2 more years to use it before 4E even has psionic support. 5 years of use for $30 bucks? Count me in. I've used the XPH in probably hundreds of hours of gaming so far... and will continue to do so until I have a new system that makes more sense. I don't consider that all for nothing.
Slagger the Chuul 03-07-08, 12:59 AM	The point of the Open Gaming License is to broaden support for the game; putting 3.5 psionics material in it just means that it was considered a more basic part of the rules than any of the supplements that were not included.
X0_Lt_0X 03-07-08, 02:04 AM	wizards made the 3.5 psionics rules available for other companies to use under the d20 license. since that decision (in addition to the amount of non-support, bad customer service rulings, bad FAQ responses, bad rules of the game articles, and one highly unimpressive supplement with a handful of good things in it) has led to the creation of dreamscarred press (purveyors of awesomeness extraordinaire!) i can honestly say that at this point i don't particularly care what WotC does with 3.5 psionics anymore, because we get 10 times the awesome at 1/10th the cost (well, probably closer to 1/2 or 1/3 the cost actually... but still, the awesome/cost ratio is significantly higher!) so really, it's not as if nothing good came from the existance of the XPH. it's an excellent book, and it has led to more excellent products, just not from WotC. if you think about it, that's exactly the point of the d20 license. Its True that there are other psonic products past the ones from WotC, but some groups (such as my own) wont allow non-WotC products. Why, Im not sure. Im sure there are other groups who dont use non-WotC products.
calronmoonflower 03-07-08, 02:29 AM	Now in fourth edition psionics won't be system reference document, and may or may not suck. So bassicaly the anti-psionic bastards got what they wanted. I couldn't help, but notice this. So far from what I've heard psionics will be added to the SRD as it will be updated more often that in 3rd. Oh. and do to a change in the definition of core, it will be core in 4th.
TheKeyofE 03-07-08, 02:59 AM	Oh. and do to a change in the definition of core, it will be core in 4th. Even with that, there will still be people who are non-progressive, old-fashioned, or just plain prejudiced who will still reject psionics and try to call it non-core. Let's just hope there are fewer such people next edition than there were with this edition.
Slagger the Chuul 03-07-08, 03:13 AM	Even with that, there will still be people who are non-progressive, old-fashioned, or just plain prejudiced who will still reject psionics and try to call it non-core. Let's just hope there are fewer such people next edition than there were with this edition. I would expect a reasonable correlation between people who reject psionics just for being different and people who reject 4th-Edition just for being different (so you should lose a fair few of them), but people can be a bit strange about things like that.
tjhairball 03-09-08, 09:26 PM	The complaint is that the OP feels there isn't enough support for the perfectly usable magic variant system that is Psionics, and not enough DMs are willing to use it because they are too narrow-minded when it comes to innovative additions to games (Which I agree on) I, however, took it to mean "The EPH has little psionics content" because I must have been in idiot mode when I first read it. Then again, I also liked 3.0's crazy MAD with manifesters, so maybe that explains it a tad. I must have brain damage. Well, you might start with the fact that 2nd edition psionics (which came in a couple different flavors) wasn't really a "magic variant system." Powers did not have levels, although they had prerequisites; their effects were wholly invariant from level to level; and psionicists did not appear to be casting spells. The default variant was having magic and psionics interact in a very limited fashion. And so on. The upshot of all this is that when WOTC picked up the franchise and came out with their own psionics system in 3.0, the flavor and mechanics of it were so completely different from previous psionics rules, they alienated many of the older fans of psionics. If you will, look at all the groaning that's going on about eliminating Vancian spellcasting in 4th edition. Mechanically speaking, that's the sort of scale of change we're talking about, and the change in flavor was about as large. That meant that psionics started out with an unusually small base of support relative to the number of players... things pretty much stayed there once they got there, since psionics was only essential to a handful of campaigns.
Cuindless 03-16-08, 12:13 AM	Hell, I have half a mind to make a psionics game. I don't have complete psionic, but I can fiddle with gestalt and allow players to become a psionic prestige class instead of a base-class. (Or even two! They'd just stop kicking ass above level 10...) But God forbid I should want to PLAY psionics... Man, I have the opposite problem. Here I am prepping to start my first campaign featuring psionics (it's Eberron), and my players are all saying, "Meh... we're not really interested in learning about that..." *sigh*
Lycanthromancer 03-16-08, 12:25 AM	Make it a psi-only campaign.
CrimsonDeath 03-16-08, 12:37 AM	That might backfire. They could say they're not interested in playing that sort of a game...
Cuindless 03-16-08, 10:18 AM	I think I'm going to go with the "their loss" mentality. If none of them want to be psionic, that's fine... I'll just include a lot of cool psionic enemies!
McPoyo 03-18-08, 08:51 AM	I've got the same issue. Only ever had one player express interest in playing something psionic. Too bad that campaign broke up due to scheduling conflicts :( I need to swamp my players in psionic creatures, I think. It's about time for that to happen again.
Lycanthromancer 03-18-08, 02:59 PM	Don't forget class levels! A psychic warrior dire weasel can be an...interesting opponent.
syrazemyla 03-19-08, 12:12 PM	Dude, we're ALL screwed with 4.0. Not just people who like psionics. It's no longer D&D. Stick with 3.5. I get the feeling I've heard this argument before. Actually, I've heard it pretty much every time WotC (or before, TSR) released a new edition of D&D.
The_Mess 03-19-08, 08:17 PM	Every time any company releases a new edition of anything, practically. The only time the Internet public enthusiastically greets a new version of the product is if the line has been cancelled for several years.
bkdubs123 03-19-08, 09:23 PM	My group is fairly enthusiastic about playing Psionics. The main problem is that a lot of players don't like playing with something as mechanically complex as a Wizard, even if they already know how to basically, and then to have to learn an entirely new system of equal complexity is a bit rough. But yeah, we've tossed around ideas of psionics campaigns and used tons of stuff from the XPH.