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Neutronium_Dragon wrote:

The sense of it being unbalanced seems to mainly come from its 2E incarnation, where it definitely was a problem in terms of game balance. The decision to push the "psionics is totally different than magic and ignores magical protections!" line meant that you either had to structure the whole campaign around it (and providing ways to resist it), or the psionic PC could just walk all over everything.

I dunno about it coming mainly from that, but it sure does for me. Low level 2e psionicists were waaayyyy overpowered. (They did seem to lose some of that edge as time went on perhaps even being underpowered at higher levels.) Of course, the rest of the problem was only exacerbated by the all but complete dearth of psionics-aware monsters in the later 2e Monstrous Compedia?...Is that what they called? Geez, its been a while since I've had to think about that.

Funny thing, I bought the Psionics stuff for 3e, and never had a single player ask to play one....ever.....I must say I'm baffled when I read all the pro-psion folks. Not because psionics is inherently "bad", but because they're so foreign to my offline experience that its hard to envision.

Neutronium_Dragon wrote:

In terms of it being appropriate to fantasy, this is a problem with the presentation of psionics to date: While the idea of "powers of the mind" is certainly fantasy, psionic powers - especially the mind-affecting ones - have often been written up with "psychobabble" names and power concepts which are either Victorian (especially Freudian) or modern - neither of which mesh well with a fantasy theme.

"Molecular" anything was a problem for me....if you're universe has elemental Earth, Wind, and Fire, then you don't have "molecules". Which, I think, only serves to illustrate that psionics, as presented really did have a scifi feel to them. Even the designers couldn't avoid it. Can it be re-flavored? Sure. You can probably re-cast all the powers with more "fantastic" fluff, but by the time you're done, you realize that you truly have just created another magic system. Which isn't a bad thing at all, but (for some reason) that seems to offend a lot of Psi fans who demand that psionics absolutely NOT be magic.

I've always felt that DnD has had trouble handling subtle or creative magical effects (Illusions, Mental effects, etc.), which is where I feel psionics or mentalism-style powers should shine given source material. Sadly, being a system focused more on combat tends to turn psionics into Magic-User v3.5.3. While I expect that the 4e psionicist will achieve higher acceptance due to it using the same power-structure/mechanics as other classes, I also expect that it will lose a lot of its uniqueness, becoming just another role-filler.

The Ubbergeek wrote:

There was a famous poster here on those forums who brought it frequently that Psionic could represent well.... the mystic esoterism and some powers of the Norse myths....

I'm still trying to get over that...

MatthiasKaiser wrote:

I think exactly the opposite. With the Wizard being less focused on mental effects, saving some room for the Psion to have its own distinct niche instead of trying to duplicate arcane effects with different mechanics,

That's a good point. From a "fluff" perspective, I think you're right. I'm fully in support of divvying up wizards into specialists.

MatthiasKaiser wrote:

the Psion will gain a lot of ground in 4E, and having a clearly defined place in the party - as "just another role-filler" - is a definite improvement over the previous situation.

LOL, I suppose you're right.