Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

angelfromanotherpin · Thu Jun 25, 2015 12:56 pm

Kaelik wrote:Remember that Spectral Hand can be destroyed by the AoE of the Dragon's Breath Weapon that is aimed at you, and will 100% of the time.

The hand has Improved Evasion, so not 100% of the time.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jun 25, 2015 7:45 pm

Also spectral hand is incorporeal, so all magic attacks that are not force effects have a 50% miss chance. More importantly, shivering touch is a [Cold] spell and making yourself resistant or immune to it is actually pretty trivial. It's also written by someone who doesn't know how D&D's tag system works, because it's a spell with the [Cold] tag that specifies that creatures with the [Cold] subtype are immune to it. Not noticing, perhaps, that creatures with the [Cold] subtype are inherently immune to [Cold] effects whether that line is there or not. So, given the level of English and rules proficiency of the author, feel free to have arguments about the "intent" of that spell.

-Username17

Wiseman · Post by **Wiseman** » Thu Jun 25, 2015 8:33 pm

So what's the splatbook plan for 5e? I can't seem to find much on it.

Lurky Lurkpants · Post by **Lurky Lurkpants** » Thu Jun 25, 2015 9:27 pm

That is because there isn't one. The business model is to keep the tabletop version on minimal life support while using the name for miniatures, board games, video games, novels, and so on. So there will be the outsourced adventure paths, with the only rules expansions being Unearthed Arcana articles (with big "untested" disclaimers so nobody can call them shit) and the free, short Player's Companions with the APs.

Night Goat · Post by **Night Goat** » Thu Jun 25, 2015 9:27 pm

I don't think there is a plan. My theory is that the suits at Hasbro are afraid of D&D competing with MTG, so they're just gonna let it die.

Ghremdal · Post by **Ghremdal** » Fri Jun 26, 2015 12:14 am

How could it possibly compete with Magic?

Night Goat · Post by **Night Goat** » Fri Jun 26, 2015 1:58 am

They're both things that nerds do with other nerds in their free time. When nerds are playing D&D, they're not shoveling their money into the cardboard crack dispenser. You might say that not everyone who's into RPGs would be into CCGs, and you would be right, but you can't expect the suits to realize this.

Ferret · Post by **Ferret** » Fri Jun 26, 2015 1:57 pm

Wiseman wrote:So what's the splatbook plan for 5e? I can't seem to find much on it.

Instead of doing splatbooks, they're doing Adventure supplements. So, for each of their adventures (like the current one, Elemental Evil), they release a Player's Companion (pdf) with additional spells, races, class options, backgrounds, etc that apply specifically to that adventure series.

Now, whether or not the Companions are actually good/serve their purpose as splatbooks is questionable at best. As you can see from my link, the Elemental Evil Player's Companion adds Races and Spells, and nothing else. You'd think there would be some new subclasses or feats or something, but no.

That's the plan as it stands today. So when they do the inevitable Underdark/Drow/Mindflayer adventure, that's where you're likely to see Psionics touched on. Saying there isn't a plan for splats is something of a misnomer. There IS, it just isn't a very good one.

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Fri Jun 26, 2015 3:01 pm

I feel like 5e was already abandoned the moment it hit the shelfes.

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Sat Jun 27, 2015 2:53 am

Well, what did you expect? 5E is the "Neckbeard Edition." They're marketing a product to the "rules are bad" demographic, so they won't sell them any.

Regarding what they can sell: Selling canned adventures is easy because they're viking hat fap fests and can be outsourced with no hassle; railroads and 5E are bread and butter, and the more insulting, the better. Setting books, on the other hand, require a degree of commitment WotC is clearly not willing to provide.

You can think of 5E as the Champions Online of tabletop games.

Ferret · Post by **Ferret** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 5:35 pm

Unearthed Arcana this week dips it's toe into Psionics, and it only took them, what, 9 months to release a class that shits all over the Fighter (in the form of the Order of the Immortal psion, who has 27 psi points per long rest and can spend 5 points to Action Surge just like a fighter.

He can also turn his physical attacks into Dex saves instead and completely bypass the targets Armor Class. So, basically fuck you to all big slow tough things.

And he can burn up to 5 psi points to add 1d10 per point of of psi spent to add damage to his attacks, -after- he knows whether he hit or not.

http://dnd.wizards.com/sites/default/fi ... ionics.pdf

Also there's a mind control dude, so that's fun.

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 8:24 pm

While I agree that many psionic abilities are completely batshit, they don't get an extra attack, so the fighter shitting is not complete without some multiclassing action.

Also, their choice of tense bothers me to no end. There's a heading that asks "What is psionics?" To which I reply: "What is editors?"

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 8:37 pm

"Psionics is a source of power"
"Psionic abilities are"

I don't have a problem with that, personally. Along with your "what are psionics", do you also want a "what are mathematics"?

(This isn't rhetorical; I'm trying to figure out if there's a dialectical difference I'm missing or what)

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 12:16 am

Before diving too deeply into the analysis: I'm happy to disclaim that I'm working based on my gut and quick Googling rather than any deep expertise in the etymology of pseudoscience babble.

That said, I think of psionics as the plural designation for psionic powers or users of psionic powers, so the word would merit an "are." Wikipedia, which we all agree is a font of perfect authority, backs me up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psionics .

As you point out, the authors are trying to use it in the sense of a singular field of study, and I find it deeply alien. I would have made the heading "What are psionic powers," and I would have replaced "Psionics is a source of power" with "Psionic energy is a source of power." It's worth noting that I have no problem with psionic as an adjective, but psionics as a singular noun really weirds me out.

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 12:52 am

Hrm. Psionics as a plural noun rather than a field, the singular coming from a nouning of the adjective? That's reasonable. I can feel that.

And yeah, mine was just a gut feeling too.

That does leave an intriguing hole where the singular is. If I think about it right I can handle "what are psionics" just fine, but then you have "what is a psionic" and that's also weird, even though it's an adjective for an implied noun....

Thanks for the thoughts.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 6:43 am

It's not a discreet object, but I think it'd use the singular for the same reason that "magic" does.

Magic is ...
Psionics is ...
Binding is ...

And so forth.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 7:08 am

Ferret wrote:Unearthed Arcana this week dips it's toe into Psionics, and it only took them, what, 9 months to release a class that shits all over the Fighter (in the form of the Order of the Immortal psion, who has 27 psi points per long rest and can spend 5 points to Action Surge just like a fighter.

He can also turn his physical attacks into Dex saves instead and completely bypass the targets Armor Class. So, basically fuck you to all big slow tough things.

And he can burn up to 5 psi points to add 1d10 per point of of psi spent to add damage to his attacks, -after- he knows whether he hit or not.

http://dnd.wizards.com/sites/default/fi ... ionics.pdf

Everything the Immortal does with psi points sounds like everything a Fighter is suppose to do with his combat superiority dice and everything a monk does with chi.

Exactly One Point to Make · Tue Jul 07, 2015 7:55 am

momothefiddler wrote:Hrm. Psionics as a plural noun rather than a field, the singular coming from a nouning of the adjective? That's reasonable. I can feel that.

And yeah, mine was just a gut feeling too.

That does leave an intriguing hole where the singular is.

The term you are all forgetting is "Psi."

The phrase would then be "What is Psi?"

Which sounds wrong, and it should, because it is the wrong question.

The power source of magic is magic. The methodology of magic is magic. The individual abilities of magic are magic, because English is a cross between an overworked hermaphroditic prostitute and a katamari damashii and thus the term "magical," which should modify the powers of magic, isn't consistently applied. Similarly, magic methodologies should be "magics," but again, over time, people just ignored that.

The power source of psionics is psi. The methodologies of psi use are psionics. The individual abilities of psi are psi powers or psionic powers.

The question, then, depends on whether or not you're discussing techniques or power source.

Power Source
What is Magic?
What is Psi?

Techniques
What are Magics?*
What are Psionics?
*There are a multitude of magical techniques, so this would be proper. We can, of course, just replace "magics" with "magic" because the term "magic" can replace its various forms as described above.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 8:02 am

What is Psy?

(Doing this would give you a reroll in the new Warhammer, incidentally.)

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 8:20 am

Exactly One Point to Make wrote:
momothefiddler wrote:Hrm. Psionics as a plural noun rather than a field, the singular coming from a nouning of the adjective? That's reasonable. I can feel that.

And yeah, mine was just a gut feeling too.

That does leave an intriguing hole where the singular is.
The term you are all forgetting is "Psi."

While the original construction, per the earlier wikipedia link (psi- from psyche and -onic from electronic, indicating consistent engineering-style applications of the mind) is terrible, retroconstruction of a corresponding root is, perhaps, even worse. "Psi" is, at best, an abbreviation of "psionic". Anything further is just a terrible, inelegant mess, and doesn't solve any of the existing problems.

(Sidenote: The most recent edition of the Big Player in ttrpgs released an entirely new power source and the only thing we're interested in discussing is the etymology and grammatical usage of one of the words? That's... that's just pathetic.)

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 10:16 am

Psionics is singular, just as cryogenics is.

After 89 pages, I doubt there's anything worth saying about 5e. So we're nattering about etymology instead.

Ferret · Post by **Ferret** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 12:42 pm

The fact that this is the kind of place that gnerates etymological sidebars is a big part of why I come to the Den, though, so it's okay

Exactly One Point to Make · Tue Jul 07, 2015 10:09 pm

momothefiddler wrote:While the original construction, per the earlier wikipedia link (psi- from psyche and -onic from electronic, indicating consistent engineering-style applications of the mind) is terrible, retroconstruction of a corresponding root is, perhaps, even worse.

The original construction of the term psionic is irrelevant. Modern usage couldn't care less about the greek origin. And it's modern use that's important here. Using "Psi" to refer to "Psi Powers" isn't a "retroconstruction," it's actual use. For example, GURPS has been doing this longer than a significant portion of tabletop fandom has been alive. Psi refers to the power behind psionics because it was arbitrarily deemed to do so, and accusing it of being a "retroconstruction" is actually a backwards-formulation that you arbitrarily decided to do just now that, having not been done before, actually has less pedigree than the use of "psi" to refer psi powers. Indeed, this backwards-formulation is far younger than other arbitrarily-created variants, such as "metapsychic," which Julian May created just because she was under the bizarre impression that it sounded neater than psionic (which is indicia that it's the rule of cool, and not linguistic fetishization, that here drives speculative fiction diction).

momothefiddler wrote: "Psi" is, at best, an abbreviation of "psionic". Anything further is just a terrible, inelegant mess, and doesn't solve any of the existing problems.

This is wrong on two counts. Not only does "psi" get used for the power source of psionic powers, but "psi" also refers to those who can use psionic powers, and has done so for a long, long time. If someone at my table in the 80's had said "She's a psionic," that person would have been corrected with "No, she's a psi."

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Wed Jul 08, 2015 2:14 am

That... is a very on-the-nose username.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Jul 08, 2015 2:20 am

Except that now he is forever trapped. He has a username, so if he wants to post, he can. But if he ever does about anything else at all at any point, he immediately loses like 95% of the username's coolness.