[Dreamscarred Press] An exclusive ENworld preview - The Mentalist lvls 1-3

[Jack99]

As some of you might know, I review 4e products in my blog here on ENworld and they are also available in Level Up. Through the reviews, I have had the opportunity to chat with quite a few of our 4e publishers and somewhere along the lines, I got involved in several projects, until one day, I summoned the courage to pitch an idea to a publisher. Would you believe that I got a green light on my first pitch? The Mentalist was that pitch, although he was called the Psionicist at that point Old habits die hard I guess.

That's why it is my pleasure to announce that soon, or rather, very soon, the very nice folks of Dreamscarred Press will be releasing the Mentalist, their new Phrenic controller. 1 class, 80+ powers, 3 paragon paths, 36 feats, a new implement and quite a few magic items will be in the PDF that will be released - soon . Since I wrote it, I am rather proud of how it turned out, but mostly I am curious of course, curious of what you guys will think of it. Considering all the time I spend here, I found it only appropriate to share my debut with you guys, and give you a chance to find out if maybe the Mentalist is just what you need for your campaign (*Jedi Mind Trick* - it is) before it is released - soon - to the general public.

Anyway, I hope you will download the preview (attached to this post), check it out, and let me know what you think of it. Good or bad. Because in the end, I am just a fan like you, and even if only 1 person loves the Mentalist, I want it to be as good as possible. And as we all know, greatness is achieved through constructive feedback

Cheers

 

[Bacris]

I'd like to say, Chris put in a ton of work on this, and was infinitely patient with my slowness in layout / formatting. I'm looking forward to getting this out for folks to try.

 

[Siberys]

I'm trying to figure out what the focus surges and psi focus are for. Are they like a mix between psionic focus from 3.x and the resource-management aspect of healing surges? There's very little description on that front. (EDIT: I get it now. You meditate, spending a focus surge to recharge your psi focus, letting you use the augment on another power. I think it could be better explained, tho.)

Also, the Psi Focus recharge mechanic is weird, in that it requires tracking how you used it. I would avoid doing that myself. A single recharge mechanic would be better, methinks.

 

[Jack99]

Also, the Psi Focus recharge mechanic is weird, in that it requires tracking how you used it. I would avoid doing that myself. A single recharge mechanic would be better, methinks.

Fair enough. The recharge mechanic is basically a simulation of the augmentation of powers in earlier editions. You could do it with most powers, but not all or you would run out of PP's. The first version was just a straight recharge roll, but then I figured that if there was no difference between recharging after a daily and after an at-will, and people would always augment their daily when it was possible.

If you like the rest of the Mentalist and choose to ever play it, please let me know how a straight recharge roll work out for you.

Cheers

 

[Angellis_ater]

First, let me say that Chris did a bang up job on this and it was a lot of fun seeing this come to life. We tried to stay true both to previous concepts, while at the same time, doing something new.

Second of all, you guys cannot imagine the number of mechanics we bounced back and forth for the Psi Focus. However, we will take it to heart that it might seem a little hard to understand and while we might not revise it for THIS release (I think Chris would kill us if we delayed it even more ) I will add it to my "things to review" list. Thanks for reading and replying!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

As some of you might know, I review 4e products in my blog here on ENworld and they are also available in Level Up. Through the reviews, I have had the opportunity to chat with quite a few of our 4e publishers and somewhere along the lines, I got involved in several projects, until one day, I summoned the courage to pitch an idea to a publisher. Would you believe that I got a green light on my first pitch? The Mentalist was that pitch, although he was called the Psionicist at that point Old habits die hard I guess.

That's why it is my pleasure to announce that soon, or rather, very soon, the very nice folks of Dreamscarred Press will be releasing the Mentalist, their new Phrenic controller. 1 class, 80+ powers, 3 paragon paths, 36 feats, a new implement and quite a few magic items will be in the PDF that will be released - soon . Since I wrote it, I am rather proud of how it turned out, but mostly I am curious of course, curious of what you guys will think of it. Considering all the time I spend here, I found it only appropriate to share my debut with you guys, and give you a chance to find out if maybe the Mentalist is just what you need for your campaign (*Jedi Mind Trick* - it is) before it is released - soon - to the general public.

Anyway, I hope you will download the preview (attached to this post), check it out, and let me know what you think of it. Good or bad. Because in the end, I am just a fan like you, and even if only 1 person loves the Mentalist, I want it to be as good as possible. And as we all know, greatness is achieved through constructive feedback

Cheers

Congratulations, Jack99, if that really is your serial number.

 

[sammy]

How about an at will that is a basic attack of some kind? Just a "thought"....

 

[Siberys]

Oh, I do like the class. One of the few examples of a well-done 3PP class, from what I can see - I usually avoid buying those if I can (OBE's Witch Doctor is the only example of a 3PP class I allow, to date). I even avoid making classes myself because of how relatively complex it is (compared to races, feat trees, and paragon paths). Congrats on gettin' this published!

Anyways, you asked what I thought, and I posted the things that jumped out at me. You did say you were looking for constructive criticism!

Some other thoughts;

A Basic Attack power is a good idea. Not really necessary, but fun.

One other thing that jumped out at me was the class features other than Focus Surge and Meditate; They all grant powers. While it isn't truly necessary, every time I've seen such a feature in a WotC class, it has said in the feature description "You gain the X power." Also, Psi Focus isn't a class feature, though it seems it should be.

 

[kenmarable]

Quick comments:

-- Very awesome! I can't wait to try it out (too many fun classes, not enough campaigns!)

-- I agree that a basic attack would be nice. I like seeing that with most classes.

-- Personally, I liked the recharge mechanic being based on the type of power used. It seems like a nice balancing factor, and since it comes up every round until you recharge, it doesn't seem like a difficult thing to remember.

-- I'm not a big fan of all of the powers granted at 1st level. For me, it's not a balance thing (others are far more skilled than I am in determining that), but a lack of focus. It seems like it is trying to embrace many different aspects of the class all at once. In my opinion, I think it might be a little tighter focused if you instead had the mentalist choose a "discipline" or something like the warlock pacts, invoker covenants, sorcerer spell sources, etc. Depending on that choice, you get certain class features. That not only tightens the focus of an individual mentalist, but there's the psychological aspect, at least for me, that a class feels more expandable when there is a clear expansion choice. It's not surprising that there's quite a few new warlock pacts (both from WotC and Adamant), but not much for clerics. Plus it adds another hook for power variation where they have modifications depending on your choice. More mechanic hooks = more room design space to explore.

But overall, it's very nice and I'm definitely going to give it a try!

 

[Jack99]

Hi guys

Thanks for the feedback. From some of the comments (especially yours, kenmarable) it is apparent to me that some of the rules concerning the mentalist and the choices of powers/class features were not crystal clear. Thanks for pointing that out, it has been fixed now.