Tuesday, 30 April 2019

Psionics in 5e

One of the things that bugs me (very slightly) about 5e is that WotC still haven't published rules for psionics, outside of a couple of Unearthed Arcana articles. The reason this bugs me is that two major settings (Dark Sun and, to a lesser extent, Eberron) make use of psionics in the core of the setting. Omitting the rules for psionics takes something away from those settings - they just work better with the option in place than without.

The reason this only bugs me slightly is that I'm not running either of those settings, not likely to be running them in the foreseeable future, and disinclined to make use of psionics in any other setting. Indeed, even in Eberron I'm mostly inclined not to use it unless a player asks about the possibility (my 1984/Demolished Man/John Le Carre mashup notwithstanding).

All that said, I'm also starting to come around to the opinion that the best way to handle psionics may well be to reskin the Warlock - basically, introduce one or more psionic Pacts, and then just go from there. Or, just possibly, do the same with the Sorcerer. That gives you pretty much everything you need with a minimum of fuss.

And if you insist that each player choose a different class for their character (which I'm also increasingly leaning towards as a good idea), you get to sidestep the possibility of another player also playing a Warlock and the characters feeling too samey.

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