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Player's Handbook Rules Supplement #PHBR5
The Complete Psionics Handbook
Are you ready for the mind-blowing potential of the psyche? This handbook describes over 150 paranormal powers—telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, biofeedback, out-of-body travel—plus many amazing talents never before revealed. The psionicist is a completely new character class for AD&D games, both for player characters and NPCs. Explore inner space! Now you can really put mind over matter with The Complete Psionics Handbook.
128 pages, Paperback
First published February 20, 1991
About the author
Steve Winter
68 books27 followersLibrarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 27, 2013
In the original Players Handbook, psionics was a tacked-on system in the appendices whose primary purpose was mostly to be ignored by prospective GMs, either because it seemed ridiculous or because it made no sense, or to be used in games and then cause all kinds of problems. Whether characters had them was all based on random dice rolls and psionics didn't really interact well with magic or the rest of the game. Not to mention that psionic combat took forever, since it happened 10x faster than physical combat and thus took up the majority of time at the table if it ever happened.
The Complete Psionics Handbook is ostensibly an attempt to solve all these problems. It makes the psionicist a class, so that people who want to focus on psychic powers can do so, while still including a Wild Talent system for the people who want to use the old random system of assigning powers. It has sections focusing on how psionics and magic interact, so that you can figure out what happens if a wizard casts free action and a psionicist tries to throw him using telekinesis, or a psionicist uses mind blank and the wizard casts ESP on them. Furthermore, while psionicists don't actually get that many powers--35 at level 20, out of a list of over 150--the point-based resource system and lack of material components and complicated gestures needed for their powers means they have more on-the-spot flexibility than wizards do, though wizards have the advantage if given time to prepare.
I'm not sure The Complete Psionics Handbook objectively deserves three stars, but I had to give it at least one extra one because it does something that's pretty difficult to do in kitchen-sink fantasy--it makes psychic powers feel different from magic. That's especially hard to do in a system like Dungeons & Dragons where magic's purview is so broad. They even managed to have a pretty extensive power list doing it, with all the classic psychic standbys like telepathy or telekinesis or prophetic dreams or seeing spirits, but also stuff like being able to hear light, so you can still see if you have a blindfold on, or absorb disease, to take other's sicknesses into yourself and then hopefully cure them, or all-around vision, to see in every direction simultaneously.
Okay. Now the problems, of which there are many.
First--every time you try to provide a scientific basis for why psychic powers work, G-d kills a kitten. Don't tell me that Molecular Agitation heats things up by exciting their molecules or Molecular Rearrangement turns lead into gold by changing metal's molecular structure in a world where owlbears exist and wizards shoot fire from their hands (especially since lead and gold are both atoms...). This is especially bad when several of the powers might as well be magic. Body Weaponry lets the psionicist transform one of their limbs into a weapon, and it specifically says that the arm so changed actually turns into wood or metal. Metamorphosis says the psionicist can change into anything with the same general mass, including a table or a rock. Share Strength can give strength points to someone else. The psionicist loses them for its duration, and then if the target dies, the strength is lost forever. What exactly is being shared here? Trying to pseudoscientifically justify psionics just makes it harder to willingly suspend disbelief, not easier.
Second, as several of the other reviews point out, psionics aren't balanced at all. With the Wild Talents system, it's perfectly possibly to roll a starting character who can disintegrate people once per day, or mind control an entire group of enemies, or summon a demon anywhere within 100 yards, or turn themselves into nearly anything. It's not particularly likely, true, but a balanced system shouldn't rely on "meh, it'll probably never happen" to maintain itself.
What's more, the designers apparently decided that the disadvantage for psionicists' flexibility is a random chance for everything to go spectacularly wrong. Any time they roll to use their powers, if they roll a 20, the power flips out in the worst fashion. Disintegrate works on the user. Lend Health hurts the psionicist as much as the target is currently hurt. Chemical Simulation turns sweat into acid and melts all the user's gear. Clairaudience deafens the user for 1d12 hours. Every power has something like this, and even if the psionicist uses some of their meager power choices to improve their success chance at using their powers--and at one new power choice given up per +1 to an existing power, they'd be a complete idiot to ever do that--there's no way to remove that 5% chance to completely screw everything up. It'd be like if every spell a wizard cast had a chance to affect themselves.
The monsters at the end are also poorly integrated. Several of them are gotcha monsters, like the brain mole--good luck finding something that's anywhere within 30 yards and a foot underground while it mind blasts you--or the thought eater, and others are just bizarre, like the baku. Really, it all feels kind of tacked on.
I can't hate the psionics system completely, as it led to the Dark Sun setting, which is by far my favorite D&D setting and also has the benefit of psionics being much better integrated because it was built into the world from the beginning. Outside Dark Sun, though, I'm not sure I'd use this book at all. It's a lot of wonky oddness for not that much benefit.
The Complete Psionics Handbook is ostensibly an attempt to solve all these problems. It makes the psionicist a class, so that people who want to focus on psychic powers can do so, while still including a Wild Talent system for the people who want to use the old random system of assigning powers. It has sections focusing on how psionics and magic interact, so that you can figure out what happens if a wizard casts free action and a psionicist tries to throw him using telekinesis, or a psionicist uses mind blank and the wizard casts ESP on them. Furthermore, while psionicists don't actually get that many powers--35 at level 20, out of a list of over 150--the point-based resource system and lack of material components and complicated gestures needed for their powers means they have more on-the-spot flexibility than wizards do, though wizards have the advantage if given time to prepare.
I'm not sure The Complete Psionics Handbook objectively deserves three stars, but I had to give it at least one extra one because it does something that's pretty difficult to do in kitchen-sink fantasy--it makes psychic powers feel different from magic. That's especially hard to do in a system like Dungeons & Dragons where magic's purview is so broad. They even managed to have a pretty extensive power list doing it, with all the classic psychic standbys like telepathy or telekinesis or prophetic dreams or seeing spirits, but also stuff like being able to hear light, so you can still see if you have a blindfold on, or absorb disease, to take other's sicknesses into yourself and then hopefully cure them, or all-around vision, to see in every direction simultaneously.
Okay. Now the problems, of which there are many.
First--every time you try to provide a scientific basis for why psychic powers work, G-d kills a kitten. Don't tell me that Molecular Agitation heats things up by exciting their molecules or Molecular Rearrangement turns lead into gold by changing metal's molecular structure in a world where owlbears exist and wizards shoot fire from their hands (especially since lead and gold are both atoms...). This is especially bad when several of the powers might as well be magic. Body Weaponry lets the psionicist transform one of their limbs into a weapon, and it specifically says that the arm so changed actually turns into wood or metal. Metamorphosis says the psionicist can change into anything with the same general mass, including a table or a rock. Share Strength can give strength points to someone else. The psionicist loses them for its duration, and then if the target dies, the strength is lost forever. What exactly is being shared here? Trying to pseudoscientifically justify psionics just makes it harder to willingly suspend disbelief, not easier.
Second, as several of the other reviews point out, psionics aren't balanced at all. With the Wild Talents system, it's perfectly possibly to roll a starting character who can disintegrate people once per day, or mind control an entire group of enemies, or summon a demon anywhere within 100 yards, or turn themselves into nearly anything. It's not particularly likely, true, but a balanced system shouldn't rely on "meh, it'll probably never happen" to maintain itself.
What's more, the designers apparently decided that the disadvantage for psionicists' flexibility is a random chance for everything to go spectacularly wrong. Any time they roll to use their powers, if they roll a 20, the power flips out in the worst fashion. Disintegrate works on the user. Lend Health hurts the psionicist as much as the target is currently hurt. Chemical Simulation turns sweat into acid and melts all the user's gear. Clairaudience deafens the user for 1d12 hours. Every power has something like this, and even if the psionicist uses some of their meager power choices to improve their success chance at using their powers--and at one new power choice given up per +1 to an existing power, they'd be a complete idiot to ever do that--there's no way to remove that 5% chance to completely screw everything up. It'd be like if every spell a wizard cast had a chance to affect themselves.
The monsters at the end are also poorly integrated. Several of them are gotcha monsters, like the brain mole--good luck finding something that's anywhere within 30 yards and a foot underground while it mind blasts you--or the thought eater, and others are just bizarre, like the baku. Really, it all feels kind of tacked on.
I can't hate the psionics system completely, as it led to the Dark Sun setting, which is by far my favorite D&D setting and also has the benefit of psionics being much better integrated because it was built into the world from the beginning. Outside Dark Sun, though, I'm not sure I'd use this book at all. It's a lot of wonky oddness for not that much benefit.
November 27, 2014
While fun to play because of the lack of resources and money the psionic requires, this is often a problem area for DMs. The setting would have to cater to psionics along with magic in the sense that if it didn't, adversaries that were magic resistant would be more vulnerable, and the psionicist would often operate outside the grid of the intended campaign.
Many other comments mention Dark Sun, and indeed this setting is great for psionics since it's integrated completely with the material. It really doesn't work with more traditional settings like Ravenloft or Forgotten Realms.
The psionic monsters at the back are nothing more than a freebie. At the same time this book came out, the Monster Compendium series of haphazard binder creatures was also in print. For those who don't know, these M.C. binders were meant to be combined and sorted as the player wished. Some of these binder sheets contained psionic monsters which are repeated here. The binder idea would have been a good one had they started logging monsters this way, and this is why the psionic monsters at the back of The Psionics Handbook are a flop... but I digress. The psionic creatures were meant to be a DM's weapon to balance a campaign with antagonists for the psionic, but they did a poor job since any encounter would pit the psionic against the creature, without too much involvement from the rest of the players. They would really 'live outside' the campaign in any non-Dark Sun setting.
Still a good read and it has a nice sci-fi (psi-fi?) element to it which I like. I always though of psionicists as out-of-time travelers to the D&D world.
Many other comments mention Dark Sun, and indeed this setting is great for psionics since it's integrated completely with the material. It really doesn't work with more traditional settings like Ravenloft or Forgotten Realms.
The psionic monsters at the back are nothing more than a freebie. At the same time this book came out, the Monster Compendium series of haphazard binder creatures was also in print. For those who don't know, these M.C. binders were meant to be combined and sorted as the player wished. Some of these binder sheets contained psionic monsters which are repeated here. The binder idea would have been a good one had they started logging monsters this way, and this is why the psionic monsters at the back of The Psionics Handbook are a flop... but I digress. The psionic creatures were meant to be a DM's weapon to balance a campaign with antagonists for the psionic, but they did a poor job since any encounter would pit the psionic against the creature, without too much involvement from the rest of the players. They would really 'live outside' the campaign in any non-Dark Sun setting.
Still a good read and it has a nice sci-fi (psi-fi?) element to it which I like. I always though of psionicists as out-of-time travelers to the D&D world.
March 30, 2008
Ugh, such a failed experiment in AD&D 2nd Edition. While there were some interesting ideas presented (and I admit a bias, I don't think psionics really belong in fantasy rping) the execution was just poor. I commend them for not making it 'just another magic' but most powers were on the border of usesless, the psionic combat system is needlessly complicated and the wild talent rules allowed for too much abuse.
Read
December 9, 2025How? Part of my childhood love of player options; part of my adult (if you say so) project of rereading my library.
What? I have no idea what the first instance of "psychic powers in fantasy world" might be. I guess Dragonriders of Pern, which isn't straight fantasy, but has the trappings, has some telepathic bonding with the dragons?
Well, as far back as 1976, in _Eldritch Wizardry_, Gygax and co. were putting psionics in D&D, and it's been there pretty much ever since, even though it doesn't entirely make sense. Like: in a metaphysics where you have magicians manipulating underlying forces of the world to create magical effects, what does it mean that some people can just do that with their mind?
(Personally, I might argue -- and this is a lot of projection on my part -- that the nerds who started D&D hit on psionics as the power they would most like to have or be most likely to have, since they would consider themselves big brains compared to the folks around them. It's a variation on the SF superiority that gave us "Fans are slans" -- literally comparing fans to the superhuman slans of Vogt's work.)
Anyway, psionics sort of limped along in D&D -- maybe it's just the power fantasy needed another layer of power fantasy? -- with an appendix in the AD&D Player's Handbook and some notes on psychic combat in the Dungeon Masters Guide. (Don't take my word for it -- I have those books, but they are in the other room.) Until 2nd edition came out, and this book totally remade psionics in D&D.
The core idea is still there: you use your mind and willpower to do psychic stuff; and anyone might possess one of these wild talents. But now also there's a whole character class and a lot of new powers. A huge chunk of this book is given over to those new powers, and in classic D&D fashion, they are broken up into different disciplines (just like schools of magic) and also major/minor powers, and each character can only know so many, etc. Unlike magic, these powers are skills (so you have to roll them to see if they work) and they are powered by will (so you can use them as many times as you want, as long as you have the will points).
There's a little bit on how psionicists might fit in the world, but this book is doing work totally different from the first four PHB supplements: the job here isn't to talk about how this psionicist is different from that one, but to totally reinvent the psionicist. And the burden of differentiating psionicists is largely borne by the huge and varied power list they have.
And, others have said, I don't need to, the idea of all these powers being psychic really opens questions about the nature of the universe, and really complicates fantasy without necessarily making it a richer playground, thematically.
Yet, even now, I cannot be objective, because I remember the thrill of looking through these power lists and thinking about what characters (or monsters) could do with such a power. Remember the thrill? I still feel it!
Yeah, so? One big question I've been trying to answer here is "do I keep this book or not?" And a subquestion of that -- one I didn't even know I was looking at -- is "why is this book exciting or boring to me?"
As I said, I can't be objective -- something about this was implanted in me ever since I read Blade of the Poisoner (bought at a Scholastic Book Fair), with its heroic kid awakening his psychic potential to fight evil. And yeah, in some ways, psychic powers are even more potent of a power fantasy because they seem to have the whiff of the real (especially true in the 80s and 90s, not now when the idea of "mind over matter" runs into the brute reality of blood sugar, which is real magic: are you angry or just hungry?)
So: is this a good D&D book to use at the table? Probably not, for many reasons. Is this an exciting book that might spark an idea for a game? Yeah, I think so.
What? I have no idea what the first instance of "psychic powers in fantasy world" might be. I guess Dragonriders of Pern, which isn't straight fantasy, but has the trappings, has some telepathic bonding with the dragons?
Well, as far back as 1976, in _Eldritch Wizardry_, Gygax and co. were putting psionics in D&D, and it's been there pretty much ever since, even though it doesn't entirely make sense. Like: in a metaphysics where you have magicians manipulating underlying forces of the world to create magical effects, what does it mean that some people can just do that with their mind?
(Personally, I might argue -- and this is a lot of projection on my part -- that the nerds who started D&D hit on psionics as the power they would most like to have or be most likely to have, since they would consider themselves big brains compared to the folks around them. It's a variation on the SF superiority that gave us "Fans are slans" -- literally comparing fans to the superhuman slans of Vogt's work.)
Anyway, psionics sort of limped along in D&D -- maybe it's just the power fantasy needed another layer of power fantasy? -- with an appendix in the AD&D Player's Handbook and some notes on psychic combat in the Dungeon Masters Guide. (Don't take my word for it -- I have those books, but they are in the other room.) Until 2nd edition came out, and this book totally remade psionics in D&D.
The core idea is still there: you use your mind and willpower to do psychic stuff; and anyone might possess one of these wild talents. But now also there's a whole character class and a lot of new powers. A huge chunk of this book is given over to those new powers, and in classic D&D fashion, they are broken up into different disciplines (just like schools of magic) and also major/minor powers, and each character can only know so many, etc. Unlike magic, these powers are skills (so you have to roll them to see if they work) and they are powered by will (so you can use them as many times as you want, as long as you have the will points).
There's a little bit on how psionicists might fit in the world, but this book is doing work totally different from the first four PHB supplements: the job here isn't to talk about how this psionicist is different from that one, but to totally reinvent the psionicist. And the burden of differentiating psionicists is largely borne by the huge and varied power list they have.
And, others have said, I don't need to, the idea of all these powers being psychic really opens questions about the nature of the universe, and really complicates fantasy without necessarily making it a richer playground, thematically.
Yet, even now, I cannot be objective, because I remember the thrill of looking through these power lists and thinking about what characters (or monsters) could do with such a power. Remember the thrill? I still feel it!
Yeah, so? One big question I've been trying to answer here is "do I keep this book or not?" And a subquestion of that -- one I didn't even know I was looking at -- is "why is this book exciting or boring to me?"
As I said, I can't be objective -- something about this was implanted in me ever since I read Blade of the Poisoner (bought at a Scholastic Book Fair), with its heroic kid awakening his psychic potential to fight evil. And yeah, in some ways, psychic powers are even more potent of a power fantasy because they seem to have the whiff of the real (especially true in the 80s and 90s, not now when the idea of "mind over matter" runs into the brute reality of blood sugar, which is real magic: are you angry or just hungry?)
So: is this a good D&D book to use at the table? Probably not, for many reasons. Is this an exciting book that might spark an idea for a game? Yeah, I think so.
May 14, 2019
The best attempt, at that time, for introducing psionics into the game. Or perhaps I should say "least bad": the whole concept always felt a little tacked-on, even by the standards of throw-in-everything-and-see-what-sticks early editions of D&D.
But it's still fun sometimes, and even to this day we like to always roll for wild talents when we create new characters or someone gets a wisdom boost. We have a cleric in the current game who could theoretically use Death Field... except her constitution is pretty atrocious.
But it's still fun sometimes, and even to this day we like to always roll for wild talents when we create new characters or someone gets a wisdom boost. We have a cleric in the current game who could theoretically use Death Field... except her constitution is pretty atrocious.
December 2, 2022
Valiant effort, hampered by the psionic combat system being rather lacklustre. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
August 21, 2007
As has been noted, quotes are needed around the word 'complete'. It was always lovely to create one of these in play and then show how unbalanced power creep can be a fun way to send a campaign wildly off course.
May 31, 2007
It was always fun to play these characters.
April 20, 2012
good read about a optional player class for dnd.
July 22, 2012
I only purchased this after buying the Dark Sun campaign setting. I was never really into the whole psionics thing. Probably the least used book of all my rpg books.
February 23, 2014
A must for Dark Sun games, a nice option for other settings. Not very profound, but engaging.
October 11, 2007
Um... I think the word complete is a bit of an overstatement.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews