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What's wrong with the psion in UA mystic 3
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<blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 8098104" data-attributes="member: 72555"><p>A class needs to be more unified than the mystic.</p><p></p><p>Someone who uses psionic power to create a blade of energy, teleports behind a foe, and then stabs the blades of agony through their skull is doing combat very differently than someone who meditates and mind blasts you. Someone who alters their body and grows their limbs, building claws and fur, disconnects their hands, and grows to giant size is yet another.</p><p></p><p>These aren't small tweaks on gameplay, but huge swings. In the mystic, they where subclasses.</p><p></p><p>They had a unifying mechanic, but they where far more different than a druid and a wizard. I mean, both use spell slots.</p><p></p><p>Neither the class nor the subclass answered "<strong>why </strong>are you adventuring". They where both "here is <strong>how </strong>you fight and do things". This meant that the class is very thin, it lacks meat. It is little more than a bunch of similarly theme'd mechanical systems glued together.</p><p></p><p>I mean, you can do this, but it means you gotta work harder to make your class/subclass "thicker" elsewhere.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>Suppose you made 3 psychic classes.</p><p></p><p>The Psion, the Immortal and the Soul Knife.</p><p></p><p>Then we break down the existing subclasses and pass them out (in some cases, make a new one based on abilities that are there/themes that are there but there isn't a subclass for yet).</p><p></p><p>Psion has subclasses Awakened and Wujen</p><p>Immortal has subclasses Avatar and Metamorph</p><p>Soul Knife has subclasses Nomad and Leech</p><p></p><p>The Psion becomes a full-psion caster based off the Mystic.</p><p></p><p>The Immortal and Soul Knife are half-psion-casters.</p><p></p><p>Immortal is the fighter-leaning one, and Avatar is warlord-esque while Metamorph changes itself into a monster.</p><p></p><p>Soul Knife is the skirmisher leaning one. Nomad is teleporation, while Leech is a thief of psychic energy.</p><p></p><p>They all use similar mechanics (psychic focus, pp, disciplines, talents) to unify them.</p><p></p><p>Each class has a core discipline, a subclass discipline, and maybe picks 1 out of 2 other disciplines from their class list. The Psion gets 1 or 2 more disciplines. Awakened might get to steal a single Immortal or Soul Knife discipline; Wujen steals some wizard spells.</p><p></p><p>The combinatorial problem goes away.</p><p></p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>We can then attach plausible "why"s to each.</p><p></p><p>Psion(Awakened) seeks to transcend the physical body.</p><p>Psion(Wujen) seeks to unify magic and psionics.</p><p></p><p>Immortal(Avatar) seeks to become a perfect self for all situations.</p><p>Immortal(Metamorph) seeks to perfect itself to each situation.</p><p></p><p>Soul Knife(Nomad) wants to transcend location, be everywhere.</p><p>Soul Knife(Leech) wants to become all by eating it.</p><p></p><p>If you have a "why" adventure, you can now iterate back and tweak the definition of the subclass/class to support not just combat/psionic mechanics, but mechanics that tie it to the world.</p><p></p><p>(An example of this is the assassin disguise stuff; that isn't "kill people better". It comes from the fact that the class is "why?" "sneak up to guarded people and kill them unaware". To do that "why fight", you need to be able to seem harmless until you strike; hence, mechanics that aren't "kill more gud").</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="NotAYakk, post: 8098104, member: 72555"] A class needs to be more unified than the mystic. Someone who uses psionic power to create a blade of energy, teleports behind a foe, and then stabs the blades of agony through their skull is doing combat very differently than someone who meditates and mind blasts you. Someone who alters their body and grows their limbs, building claws and fur, disconnects their hands, and grows to giant size is yet another. These aren't small tweaks on gameplay, but huge swings. In the mystic, they where subclasses. They had a unifying mechanic, but they where far more different than a druid and a wizard. I mean, both use spell slots. Neither the class nor the subclass answered "[B]why [/B]are you adventuring". They where both "here is [B]how [/B]you fight and do things". This meant that the class is very thin, it lacks meat. It is little more than a bunch of similarly theme'd mechanical systems glued together. I mean, you can do this, but it means you gotta work harder to make your class/subclass "thicker" elsewhere. --- Suppose you made 3 psychic classes. The Psion, the Immortal and the Soul Knife. Then we break down the existing subclasses and pass them out (in some cases, make a new one based on abilities that are there/themes that are there but there isn't a subclass for yet). Psion has subclasses Awakened and Wujen Immortal has subclasses Avatar and Metamorph Soul Knife has subclasses Nomad and Leech The Psion becomes a full-psion caster based off the Mystic. The Immortal and Soul Knife are half-psion-casters. Immortal is the fighter-leaning one, and Avatar is warlord-esque while Metamorph changes itself into a monster. Soul Knife is the skirmisher leaning one. Nomad is teleporation, while Leech is a thief of psychic energy. They all use similar mechanics (psychic focus, pp, disciplines, talents) to unify them. Each class has a core discipline, a subclass discipline, and maybe picks 1 out of 2 other disciplines from their class list. The Psion gets 1 or 2 more disciplines. Awakened might get to steal a single Immortal or Soul Knife discipline; Wujen steals some wizard spells. The combinatorial problem goes away. --- We can then attach plausible "why"s to each. Psion(Awakened) seeks to transcend the physical body. Psion(Wujen) seeks to unify magic and psionics. Immortal(Avatar) seeks to become a perfect self for all situations. Immortal(Metamorph) seeks to perfect itself to each situation. Soul Knife(Nomad) wants to transcend location, be everywhere. Soul Knife(Leech) wants to become all by eating it. If you have a "why" adventure, you can now iterate back and tweak the definition of the subclass/class to support not just combat/psionic mechanics, but mechanics that tie it to the world. (An example of this is the assassin disguise stuff; that isn't "kill people better". It comes from the fact that the class is "why?" "sneak up to guarded people and kill them unaware". To do that "why fight", you need to be able to seem harmless until you strike; hence, mechanics that aren't "kill more gud"). [/QUOTE]
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