The arcane (A) Minor Creation spell notes that in order to create stuff, you need a little bit of it as a Material Component. The psionic (P) one tells that it OS the same as arcane except some stuff in description – and while A states that it needs Somatic, Verbal and Material component, the P just shows some ectoplasmic goo prior to casting… But to be safe – does Psionic Minor Creation REALLY work without Material Component?
[RPG] Does Psionic Minor Creation require material component
dnd-3.5espells
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Best Answer
Based on the other answers and comments reasonable people have room to disagree on how to handle this. So I'd like to work down the logic tree and see if we can come to a certain conclusion (or at least approximate one). God speed, adventurer!
The General Rule
As others quote from the Expanded Psionics Handbook and SRD, the rule is "no, Psionics doesn't use components", and from the otherwise quoted Wizards:
And the ESH is said to say the same thing, and I have no reason to disbelieve that (not having a copy on hand myself).
So this should be a slam dunk, right? If only!
The Specific Case
As you noted, minor creation says "except as noted", and the spell version explicitly uses components. So what overrides what? Well, I find arguments on both sides convincing, so I don't know. Let's continue on to...
Comparable Cases
Does Psionics never ever require components explicitly? At first, I thought the answer was clear:
Psionic Power Overview
And if we look at the Shaper (Metacreativity) Discipline Powers, we see that with Psionics one can create an Astral Construct, mini-plane, crystals, quintessence, and more and yet none of these require any components in accordance with the general rule.
So far we note a lack of any explicit rule that Psionics ever uses any components or materials. That is, until we get to Creating Psionic Items, where every item requires all sorts of materials and this is unquestionably plainly written.
Now we know for a fact that some Psionic abilities require physical substances, and this allows a very real possibility that others might as well. This clearly contradicts the idea that Psionics doesn't require "material components", and it does so in a way that clearly must take precedent over the general rule.
As KRyan pointed out in an earlier comment, we now should compare Minor Creation to Major Creation, and we see that Major Creation specifies no components even though Minor Creation does. The same link is provided from Psionic Minor Creation to Minor Creation as the link between Major Creation and Minor Creation.
So we have two choices of interpretation: either Major Creation as a spell requires no material components and thus Psionic Major/Minor Creation certainly doesn't, or it does require components and Psionic Creation does (might?) too.
Worse, D&D Wiki quotes the SRD differently: Major Creation needs material and explicitly says the spell needs components but doesn't say the Psionic version does either. *[The validity/reliability of D&D Wiki is in question, and I do not know enough of the site to determine this - so caveat emptor and all that]
Conclusion
The decision that must be made, from a pure RAW standpoint, is whether or not Minor Creation should be treated like other Metacreation skills and so requires no material component, or if it should be treated like other material creation skills of that level and Psionic Items (of any level) and thus require at least a sample of the desired material.
In my mind, given the cited sources, one cannot make an iron-clad determination without some additional rule or source. It seems like it should be house-ruled to remove the ambiquity.
If I had to pick myself, I'd say that it makes little sense that a 1st level Shaper spell requires no sample material while a 4th level Wiz/Sorc/Arcanist spell does, given that when creating magic items every class in existence needs materials and components to create an item.
One final note: "psi-like" abilities are said to never ever require components or XP, though it does word it like this:
The wording goes out of its way to point out it has no XP cost even if the power would have one, in a way that indicates that it was taking for granted that it would have no material component and didn't even need to clarify that point - but did see a need to 0 the XP cost, as some Psionic abilities do have XP costs.
GAH!
I'm sorry, but I just can't see how one can say for sure precisely what the RAW rule should be, due to conflicting indications and implicit statements with no explicit clarification.