Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Not having a telepathic subclass within psion doesn’t work. A telepathic wizard still starts off as just an arcane spellcaster—identical to every other 1st level wizard. I don’t really care one way or the other if they make a telepathic wizard subclass, but they absolutely have to have a psion subclass for it.
I think Mearls will come around to that eventually, if for no other reason than because there’s demand for it.
Having watched the stream and seen his process, I think I have a good sense of his train of thought:
There needs to be a Psionic/Arcane hybrid option > wizard is the best core class to handle that > a telepath is a strong flavor match for a Psionic wizard > if the Psionic wizard is a telepath, we don’t need the Psion core class to cover the same ground.
But the telepath is right up there with the telekinetic in the list of most iconic expressions of the Psion. It’s one of the Psionic archetypes that people who want to play a Psion think of, so that should be doable without having to also be a wizard. And I think as Mearls continues to iterate on this design, that’s going to become clearer. The Psion is going to end up feeling like it’s missing a core part of its identity as a class, and that’s going to lead towards a push either for a telepathic Psion subclass, or for the base class to include a lot of those features.