Dreamscarred Press Announces: Path of War Expanded

[Ilorin Lorati]

I'm not reflavoring anything though. That's exactly what Psionics is. There's no refluffing required because, by default, Psionics is treated as magic.

Psionics isn't magic. People treat psionics like magic because it's mechanically easier and you can explain it to people with "it's like magic, but with mana", but actually saying that psionics is magic shows a severe and complete misunderstanding of what it is or its place in myth and popular culture.

If it ever actually said anything close to "psionics is a type of magic" in any psionics supplement I've ever seen I'd agree, but the only people who ever say that are players and DMs who have never actually put thought into researching the concept.

In fact, here's what Ultimate Psionics says when asked what psionics is:

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Psionics, in its simplest form, is harnessing the power of the mind and using it to perform tasks, feats, and aweinspiring acts. It is the act of using the mental power innate in a psionic character to perform actions that others deem impossible.
While all characters have the capacity to harness this power of the mind, it is only by tapping into this potential that psionic characters are created. A psionic character has learned to tap into and utilize this internal energy, using it to expand their abilities or even to learn more about themselves. Once a psionic character has learned this pathway of psionics, it often becomes a path they cannot help themselves from further exploring. Like a moth drawn to a flame, so too is the mind drawn to the power of psionics once it has learned to tap into it.

And here's the preface to the transparency rules. Emphasis mine.

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If you’re new to psionics, you still might have heard the term transparency thrown about. Transparency refers to the level at which magic and psionics interact, and how the two sources of energy behave with each other. In the default rules, psionics and magic are considered to be mechanically the same, just as divine magic and arcane magic interact as if the same. That means, among other things, that effects like dispel magic works on psionics, and vice versa. By keeping transparency intact, you limit the potential for unforeseen side effects of blending magic and psionics in the same game.

Seems to me like they go out of their way in the book to make sure there's no confusion that psionics isn't magic. It's a power that is superficially similar and is mechanically represented in a way close to magic.

Yeah. I remember. I just don't think either require very much work to integrate into any setting unless you go out of your way to try to do so.

I don't really think so either. It's easy to say "psionics is a newly discovered power" or "psionics is just a type of magic", and neither of them cause significant problems.


(By the way, now we're getting off topic, because this is just about psionics and not involved with whether or not setting changes are needed to make room for Path of War.)