D&D 5E Psionic Thoughts

[Fralex]

Thinking about telepaths now...

1st level: You have telepathy out to the limits of your aura.
Also 1st level: As an action, you may make one willing creature within your aura take an action of your choice. Later level, you also make it take a bonus action as well, and even later, it may move as part of its action.

Later level: As an action, you may engage one creature within your aura in a contest of Wisdom or Intelligence (you and the target each use the ability of you and the target's choice, respectively). If you win, you make it take an action of your choice. Later level, you also make it take a bonus action as well, and even later, you may make it move as part of its action.

Even later level: Access to beast sight, dominate beast, dominate person, and eventually dominate monster spells.
Also even later level: Power to induce madness, blindness, deafness, other mental conditions in enemies.

Much later level: Any creature under the effects of one of your abilities projects a tiny 5-foot radius aura that is considered part of your own psychic aura.

 

[Fralex]

My ideas on nomads:

1st level: Once per turn, you may teleport to any unoccupied space within 5 feet of your aura that you can see. You must move at least five feet in the direction of your destination first.
Also 1st level: You can briefly slow down time to evade an attack more easily. Use your reaction to give someone disadvantage on an attack roll against you or give yourself advantage on a Dexterity saving throw.

Later level: Any time you teleport, you may bring any number of willing creatures within your aura with you (starts out at like 2 but increases with level). They all appear in unoccupied spaces of your choice within your aura afterward. Or, you may stay where you are and teleport the creatures to different spaces within your aura as a bonus action.

Even later level: When you do that previously mentioned thing, you may try to teleport unwilling creatures as well. They get teleported if they fail a Charisma save.
Also even later level: You gain the Incorporeal Movement trait.

Much later level: Access to teleport, demiplane, and eventually plane shift, gate, and time stop spells.

 

[damnbul]

Looks interesting. Aura seems a bit outside what WotC is doing with Psionics (looking at things like warlock telepathy, and say intellect devourer...etc). But making a class for your own game seems fun.

I would go something like this for Kineticist

2nd Level: Kinetic shield: When you choose to be a kineticist at 2nd level you learn to protect yourself from non magical weapons turning a portion of that damage against them. You have resistance to Bludgeon, Piercing, slashing damage from non magical weapons. After taking damage from a non-magical weapon, until the end of your next turn, you can expend this trapped energy into a +1d6 force damage on your first attack roll against a target. This effect lasts for a number of rounds equal to your psionic level. You may use the kinetic shield a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier per long rest.

6th Level: Kinetic Push: If a melee attack hits you, as a reaction you can shove a number of creatures within 5 feet you equal to your Intelligence modifier minimum of 1.

10th Level: Kinetic Battery: Any attack made by a melee weapon that hits the character, the first 5 damage is absorbed. When the character has absorbed 20 damage, they can expend that energy as a ranged attack. The target must make a Dexterity saving throw.The range is 30 feet, and it does 4d10 force damage at 10th, 6d10 force damage at 14th, and 8d10 force damage at 18th on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

14th Level: Kinetic Bomb: You are a bomb waiting to happen. You have learned to absorb the kinetic energy all around you. As an action you can release the energy inside you. All those within 20 foot radius centered on you must make a dexterity saving throw. Those that fail take 10d6 force damage, are pushed 10 feet back, and fall prone. Those that succeed take half as much damage but are not affected by any other effect. You can use this ability once per long rest.

 

[steeldragons]

Lemme try to get these thoughts down before they scatter completely. Worked out pretty well in my head as I was waking up/half-asleep, now it's starting to fade/don't have all the details...but it went something like this...and seems to address those that want psychic powers to not just be "relabeled spells/magic"... though that may also just be in my head...well, here it is and see what you think...

Class: Psychic.
At 1st level: You get to pick as many "0 level psychic abilities" [I'm thinking it's 3?] as a wizard has cantrips at 1st level. You can use them at will. There are no "power points". You have these three abilities, say of a list of 10 or 20, of comparable power to wizard cantrips.


At 1st level: You select a Minor Talent to begin with at 1st level, and add one for each level up after. The Minor Talents are equivalent to 1st (maybe 2nd) level spells, and are composed of across the board psychic powers: low level telekinetics, low level mind manipulation, low level clairsentience, etc... I am inclined to say Minor Talents would be reusable after a [minimum] short rest.

At 3rd level: The Psychic must choose an Archetype: Clairvoyant, Telepath or Telekinetic. This grants them a series of powers, related to that discipline, as the Wizard Traditions or any other "sub-class" selection. They continue to gain Minor Talents (the presumption being once entering their archetype, most minor talents chosen as they level up will include more leaning toward their discipline), as normal. I would be inclined to say that Major Talents are not usable again until after a long [minimum short] rest.

At 5th level: The Psychic may choose a Major Talent from the list specific to their discipline: Telepaths choose Major Telepathy Talents, Clairvoyants choose Major Clairsentience Talents, Telekinetics choose Major Telekinetic Talents.

Now, the question comes in with the talents, are they all at will powers
OR
Would a table/chart, as used by, say half-casters be better/more enjoyable, as assigning Minor/Major Talent uses per day...adjusted with, I'm going to say Cha. mod. times per day. Such as...
Psychic Level. . . .At will Powers. . . .Minor Known/Use per day. . . .Major Known/Use per day
1st . . . . . . . . 3 [+ Int./Cha. mod?] . . . .1/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -
2nd . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -
3rd . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. . . . . . . . . . . . .3/3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/1
4th . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. . . . . . . . . . . . .4/3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/2
5th . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. . . . . . . . . . . . .5/3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/2
6th . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. . . . . . . . . . . . .6/4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2/3
7th . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. . . . . . . . . . . . .7/4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2/3
8th . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. . . . . . . . . . . . .8/4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2/3
9th . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. . . . . . . . . . . . .9/5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2/4
10th . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. . . . . . . . . . . . 10/5 . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .3/4

Or, there's always power point systems to control the amount of stuff they can do in a day.

So, example powers would be stuff like a "ray of frost/mage hand/detect magic" equivalent: Mental Stab: does d4 psychic damage and save or be stunned for 1 round; Mind Shield: auto resistance to psychic damage (requires concentration?); Aura Read: detect magic, charm, possession/shapeshifted creatures, good or evil; Empathy: detect lie/emotional states; Push: force a save or be moved 5'?; Friends; etc. etc.

Minor Talents could be stuff like: Read Object/Area [thought capture], Detect/Mask Thoughts, Move Object [5lbs. per level?], Shield, Floating Disc, [Telepathic] Sleep/Charm Person/Forget, Hold Person [to be fluffed as telepathic paralysis or telekinetic "hold"], etc...

Major Talents: full two way Telepathic communication/telepathic bond, Telepathic Invisibility (masking one's presence in the minds of others/blocking their brains from, literally, seeing you), Telekinetic forcefields ("resilient orb/globe of invulnerability"), Telekinetic Levitation/Flying, Astral Projection, Speak with Dead/Medium stuff, AoE attacks and defenses, etc...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I like where [MENTION=22953]SteelDragon[/MENTION] is going with it, although I would go slightly different.

I would start off by creating 3-5 cantrip level effects per type (telepathic, telekinetic, psyciometabalic)

something like telepathic communication, Telepathic assault, Sense life, tk push, tk mage hand,

each has a scaleing effect on it's own (like cantrips) then has enhanced power point powers. each has to have a 1pt enhancement and a 3pt enhancement, but maybe some have 5pt, 7pt, 9pt, ect... these can be equal to a spell of the level a full caster would cast at those levels...

then build more powers that have pre requs that have either or power point cost or at will or both...

follow the warlock idea where these powers replace invocations AND spells... your choice of sub class gives you special enhancments...

 

[steeldragons]

OH! And I totally forgot, in addition to the base class & sub-classes, then a single "Psychic Warrior" feat that allows for "cantrips"and "Minor Talent" powers that any class can take/use, a la Magic Initiate. So, from there, you can have your "psychic fighters/rangers/jedi", "psychic rogue/monk/soulblades", "fortuneteller" mages and "oracle" [precog] clerics, etc...

 

[Inchoroi]

Unfortunately, I highly doubt that Psionics, when they're finally released, they'll be something new. They'll be 'pseudospellcasters', rather than anything else, just judging from the psionic monsters in the MM. IIRC, they just have a innate spellcasting thing.

I do hope that, however, they do do something truly unique, and not just a copy of the wizard. I like the ideas being spread around, though.

 

[Joe Liker]

I would hate anything that involved "uses per day" as a general limitation, including a points system. I might as well make a sorcerer.

 

[Inchoroi]

I would hate anything that involved "uses per day" as a general limitation, including a points system. I might as well make a sorcerer.

Hey, maybe they'll surprise us with something unique and special. I like the idea of having at-will powers, but that's all you get. Maybe they'll go that route, and bring back power points to make those at-will pseudo-cantrips a lot more powerful. Hm. Might work.

 

[Cacofiend]

I liked Fralex's idea of a non spell-casting style of psionics and my first thought was to use the old Psychic combat attack and defense modes as the base of a monk style class.

For example at 1st level you would get your basic attack modes such as Ego Whip (melee range) and Mind Thrust (ranged attack). These would deal psychic damage that would scale up with level and after a few levels you would be able to spend a Power Point (like Ki points) to change the attack into either Mind Blast (cone with save or stun) or Psychic Crush (ranged aoe with save or pin).

The psychic defense could be Mental Barrier (temporary HP) or Thought Shield (add mental ability score to AC) with power point upgrade as a reaction to Tower of Iron Will (damage resistance) or Empty Mind (advantage on save).

The traditional psionic categories as others have mentioned would then function as the archetype to provide the non-combat utilities.