Psionicist
|
|
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the psionicist is a character class that utilizes psionic powers. Recent versions of the game have renamed the psionicist to the "psion".
Psionic abilities were first introduced to the game in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, which presented them as an optional ability available to many monsters and to players who could get lucky rolls for psionic "wild talents". Psionics were removed from the game's core rulebooks in AD&D Second Edition, but were reintroduced as an entirely optional system in the Complete Psionics Handbook. In addition to psionic monsters and wild talents, the psionicist was introduced, as were numerous new and revised psionic powers.
The Complete Psionics Handbook presented the class as "the masters of body and mind". This class combined a slightly physically stronger character then a wizard with a variety of powers that were chiefly non-direct damage-dealing powers. This class used power points (PP) to manifest powers. This class also used a "power roll" upon manifesting powers, with a certain roll required to manifest a power and specific rolls having alternate effects, i.e. rolling exactly the power score resulted in an increased effect, while rolling a natural 20 resulted in an unusual effect, often detrimental in nature to the character. The power selection for this class was later expanded by the card-based Deck of Psionic Might supplement. The Dark Sun campaign setting used psionics as a core part of its setting's rules; in the world of Athas (home to the Dark Sun setting), every character and most monsters possessed some psionic wild talent. Several Dark Sun products introduced new psionic powers.
The psionics system was greatly revised in Player's Option: Skills and Powers and the revised Dark Sun Campaign Setting. The system was redevised around a Mental Armor Class (MAC) and a Mental THAC0 (MTHAC0), mimicking the Armor Class (AC) and THAC0 used in normal combat. The harder the power was to use, the lower the MAC was to activate it. Likewise, the harder a mind was to break into, the lower that person's MAC was. The psionicist would have a MTHAC0 score to represent his ability to wield the psionic arts. This was exactly 21 minus the level of the psionicist. Many of the powers were also altered in this revision.
Psionics were overhauled yet again in the release of the Psionics Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition. The psionicist was renamed to the "psion" and more closely resembled the magic-using sorcerer in terms of combat ability, and a new character class, the psychic warrior, was introduced. Psions were given several new abilities and psionic powers that were intended to complement the new and revised abilities of the magic-using character classes, and psionic items were introduced to give psionic characters an alternative to using magical items. The psionics system was revised, but not drastically so, when the "3.5" edition of the game produced the Expanded Psionics Handbook.