Does Psionic Sorcery value spell levels differently than Flexible Casting?

Question

In attempting to answer this question I ran into a different question about how the Abberant Mind Sorcerer's Psionic Sorcery works.

Psionic Sorcery states:

When you cast any spell of 1st level or higher from your Psionic Spells feature, you can cast it by expending a spell slot as normal or by spending a number of sorcery points equal to the spell’s level.

Normally, a sorcerer must spend increasingly large quantities of sorcery points to make spell slots as indicated on the table under Font of Magic and can create spell slots no higher than level 5.

However, Psionic Sorcery is worded as "a number of points equal to the spell's level." This would seem to suggest that the conversion rate is always 1:1. That is, to cast a level 5 spell, an Abberant Mind Sorcerer would only need to expend 5 sorcery points, not 7.

Further, the Psionic Sorcery seems to allow any level spell to be cast in this way. The ability does not seem to be limited to a maximum of level 5 spell slots since it isn't explicitly predicated on the table from Flexible Casting.

Is that correct?

Answer 1

Yes. Here is a table.

Spell level	Flexible Casting SP	Psionic Sorcery SP
1	2	1
2	3	2
3	5	3
4	6	4
5	7	5
6	NA	6
7	NA	7
8	NA	8
9	NA	9

The second column is taken directly from the Font of Magic feature, and the third column is a direct application of the Psionic Sorcery feature which says:

by spending a number of sorcery points equal to the spell’s level.

These columns are clearly different, which makes sense, these are different features. It would be silly to give a sorcerer subclass a feature that replicates a class feature they already have.

Note, it may be unclear if you can upcast spells using Psionic Sorcery. This question has conflicting answers: Can Aberrant Mind Sorcerers upcast Psionic Spells using Sorcery points?. You mileage may vary for levels 6-9 on this table, depending on how you interpret Psionic Sorcery.

Psionic Sorcery only lets you cast spells learned through the 1st level Psionic Spells feature.

Psionic Sorcery says:

When you cast any spell of 1st level or higher from your Psionic Spells feature...

Psionic Spells says:

You learn additional spells when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown on the Psionic Spells table.

Only spells from this table can be cast with SP through the Psionic Sorcery feature.

Answer 2

Yes, your interpretation seems to be correct

The two effects that you list - Flexible Casting and Psionic Sorcery - are just that: two different effects. You can use either-or-both, at your discretion. This is just one of the benefits to choosing the Abberant Mind Sorcerer over others.

It could also potentially be useful having access to both features - depending on what the answer to the other question is. If in fact you cannot upcast using Psionic Sorcery, it may be worth it to you to spend extra sorcery points to get the higher-level spell slot in order to upcast (Again, this is all depending on what the answer to the linked question turns out to be).