Preview: Entire Interior of the Basic Psionics Handbook

I still have to do a final proofread, and finish the back cover illustration, but all the interior illustrations are in place. I figured that was close enough to being finished that I'd tease you all with a complete preview of the entire interior of the Basic Psionics Handbook. If all goes well, the PDF will be available starting Monday the 26th.

My Formula for the Original Development of OD&D Psionics

With the recent release of the 5th Edition psionics playtest document, I thought I'd take a look back at where psionics came from in the first place.

As many of you know, for the last year-and-a-half or so, I've been working on a psionics adaptation for classic editions of the game (BX/LL). Throughout the process, I've been lucky enough to remain in contact with Steve Marsh, one of the original contributors of psionics to D&D, and I've gotten a great insight on the process for the development of psionics in OD&D.

The gist of the story/process is this...

Before Steve worked at TSR, he would mail things to Gary. One of the things Steve sent was a concept for a mystic character class (based on the tradition of Indian mysticism). This was envisioned as a standard character class that would gain additional mystic powers as they rose in level (much like a MU). [These abilities would inform the majority of the standard psionic disciplines from OD&D.]

Separately, Gary was developing a psionic combatant class—the devine. The devine had attack and defense modes (though I can't speak to how they changed as the devine rose in level). [These modes are obviously the foundation for psionic combat.]

The most interesting insight is the following (based on a comment Steve made a couple of weeks ago on one of my blog posts in reference to the editorial process on Eldritch Wizardry):

"It should be noted that Tim (Kask) got everything as sheets in a large bowl and told to work with it. He did amazing work given the conditions. As for where material came from, Tim would get clues when Gary would put the credits together..."

Yes. Tim had a literal BOWL on his desk that Gary would dump things into as work in progress. [Steve mentioned to me that the "WIP bowl" is something he himself only learned of last month when talking to Tim Kask at the recent NTRPGCon.]

Finally, Tim Kask brought a lot to the psionics party in the forms of the charts and tables. From a Dragonsfoot.org post in 2007:

"I LOVED psionic combat and had great fun devising it with all of its tables and charts. Apparently I was in the tiny minority. I guess mental combat was too esoteric for most D&Ders; not enough of them shared my fondness for the Dr. Strange Marvel comics and Mindflayers."

So here's my interpretation of the formula for how psionics developed for OD&D:
[(Marsh Mystic + Gygax Devine) × Kask Bowl] ÷ (Gygax Input + Kask Editing) = OD&D psionics.

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[On a related note, the illustration that appears at the top of this post is by F.Y. Cory from a Frank Baum book titled The Master Key: An Electrical Fairy Tale, Founded Upon the Mysteries of Electricity and the Optimism of Its Devotees (1901, Bowen-Merrill). I'm thinking the Cory illustration may be the image that appears on the title page of the Basic Psionics Handbook.]

More thoughts toward a BX version of psionics...

Triarchy (2005) by Jeroen van Valkenburg

About 1-1/2 years ago, I made a post mentioning that I wanted to try to find a BX psionics solution. Let's face it, OD&D and AD&D psionics is unwieldy, cumbersome, and downright confusing. More importantly, there is nothing about the psionic system in those systems that feels anything at all like normal combat in D&D. But I can't blame Steve Marsh (who is co-credited with Brian Blume for psionics' as it appears in Eldritch Wizardry). In a 2009 interview with Grognardia, Steve lamented, "a character class I designed was taken apart and turned into the psionic powers... I wanted a character class, but the editor decided that the abilities belonged available to everyone, except for elves."

IMO, psionics (for PCs) were most successful in older editions when treated as part of a character class. The Psionicist character class was introduced in Dragon Magazine #7 (in an article by Arthur Collins), and re-worked/re-introduced by Steve Winter in AD&D2's The Complete Psionics Handbook. But regardless of how successful these may or may not have been, they did not address an underlying issue... the system of psionics inherited from AD&D by way of OD&D is simply "unlike" what players expect in D&D — especially BX D&D.

So I've been putting some thoughts against this for the last week, and was thinking, "How do I make this as familiar as possible for BX players who avoid adapting AD&D psionics like the plague because it's so... so... whatever it is." So here's where I've landed (for now)...

Psionics is a class-based ability (like magic), with psionicists getting more abilities with each level gained. Psionicists are human (the same way that in the BX-context MUs and clerics are only human) who use d4s to determine hit points, can't wear any armor or carry a shield, and may use only a dagger (and make their physical attack rolls using the MU attack tables). Most importantly, in keeping with the BX spirit, the minimum WIS and INT scores are 9 (though bonus XPs are rewarded for high Wisdom AND Intelligence scores). WAIT! What's that you say? Psionic characters with Wisdom and Intelligence scores of 9? Yes. That's what I said, and here's why...

The number of Wisdom points a character has directly affects the number of Psionic Energy Points the character gains at each level — e.g., characters with a WIS of 16-17 get twice as many PEPs per level as characters with a WIS of 9-12, and high levels that gives wiser characters a deathly advantage; choosing to be a psionicist with that low of a Wisdom score would just be a VERY poor decision.

The number of Intelligence points a character has directly affects their ability to defend against psionic attacks expressed as Mental Class (or MC). "What's Mental Class?" you ask? Well, it's sort of like Armor Class for the mind (based on the character's INT, with bonuses for psionic users based on level/HD). Which brings us to the major innovation in simplifying this system...

All mental attacks (vs. psionic or non-psionic characters) are made using a single Mental Attack Table (which looks like any other D&D attack table)!!! The various combinations of psionic attack and defense modes simply become modifiers "to hit" on the attack table. Non-psionic characters get a saving throw based on their INT (like OD&D) and psionic characters lose PEPs based on the type of attack/defense and the level of two psionic parties involved.

That's all I've got so far, but I feel good about where it's going.