What I meant is that the monster manual gives you a typical example of a monster, ready for you to plop into a game. It doesn't explain how psionics work outside of what might be expected during a combat encounter. I don't know if they've done psionics for 5e, but we have examples from past editions that allow psionic abilities to be used with multiple attributes. With that in mind, the typical Illithid will use their highest attribute with their psionics. It's the difference between a character ability and a monster ability, a monster Illithid will cleave to the MM, but a character or NPC Illithid built by the DM might work differently. Also because psionics isn't 'learned' by Illithids, as far as I know, it might work the same for all of that species.
looking around, there's actually a UA on psionics in 5e, so maybe if they end up fleshing it out more, there'll be a more robust way of determining it. I never cared too much about psionics, what I remember most about psionics contests in 3e was how much like rock paper scissors it was.
Last edited by Sozz; 28/07/22 10:22 PM. Reason: edit about innate magic
