I'm glad you enjoy it. I still disagree. Those evocation spells, with exception of fairy fire (and possibly fireball, as it is overclocked for its level), come on line too late for a 1/3 caster, given 5e's Bounded Accuracy and scaling Hit Points; thus bringing a knife to a gun fight. Damaging spells, the evocation school's main Schick, really depend on you having the higher level spell slots to make full use of them; they just don't have the same impact coming as late as they do compared to full casters. Sure they can be useful for the mooks, but usually there are better things you can do. And yes, they did do a cop out by letting you pick 4 spells from any school, but why have the restriction at all then? And yes, they do get good use out of their cantrips as well, especially with battle magic, no argument there. I'm not saying the class is broken or anything, it just feels a little tacked on, and evocation was not a particularly good choice for 1/3 casters (something like transmutation would have been better, as those spells provide a lot of utility that you don't level out of quite as much). I just prefer the more flavorful, though admittedly more specific, way of the paladin/ranger design.
Psion class (Mearls, Happy Fun Hour)
I'm glad you enjoy it. I still disagree. Those evocation spells, with exception of fairy fire (and possibly fireball, as it is overclocked for its level), come on line too late for a 1/3 caster, given 5e's Bounded Accuracy and scaling Hit Points; thus bringing a knife to a gun fight. Damaging spells, the evocation school's main Schick, really depend on you having the higher level spell slots to make full use of them; they just don't have the same impact coming as late as they do compared to full casters. Sure they can be useful for the mooks, but usually there are better things you can do. And yes, they did do a cop out by letting you pick 4 spells from any school, but why have the restriction at all then? And yes, they do get good use out of their cantrips as well, especially with battle magic, no argument there. I'm not saying the class is broken or anything, it just feels a little tacked on, and evocation was not a particularly good choice for 1/3 casters (something like transmutation would have been better, as those spells provide a lot of utility that you don't level out of quite as much). I just prefer the more flavorful, though admittedly more specific, way of the paladin/ranger design.
I wouldn't of minded the EK so much if it had a bit of story and identity woven in. This is possible as I have used it as a template to make a Dark Knight subclass that had access to Necromancy, Conjuration and an Imp familiar. Remove some of the not necessary stuff throw in a dash of Necrotic damage with melee and a bonus to intimidate and I got something that had story and flavour.
The story is right in the name, Eldrich KNIGHT, your a knight possibly belonging to a Knightly Arcane Order.
And you can do a pretty Dark Knight with Eldrich Knight by itself, for spells you can for example pick Summon Lesser Demons, Animate Dead, Find Familiar for say a Fiendish Serpant Familiar, Shadowblade, as well as some defence abjuration spells to keep you alive, Hellish Rebuke (evocation), and so on. You can even fluff the Action Surge Teleport as Teleporting with a brief flash of fire and brimstone for flavour.
Yeah, I’m getting a lot of “But the flavor yadda yadda. It just doesn’t feel yadda yadda.”
That’s all role play. How your character feels in its class is not up to the design of the class. That’s just a framework. Fluff shouldn’t even really be in a class. I’m just going to ignore fluff i don’t like anyway. Complaining a class doesn’t have the right “feel” for a specific character type is just lazy role play. I mean, I could say my Storm Sorcerer is actually a mutant using innate mutant powers to control the weather, only picking weather related abilities, and call her Storm.
Or how about My Eldritch Knight is actually the reincarnation of an ancient wizard, and in this life he became a warrior instead of a wizard, not knowing he was a reincarnated wizard, and lo and behold he started remembering things from his past life, little by little, as he starts instinctively casting magic spells. I may actually use that.
Awesome concepts, has nothing to do with mechanics. I make the mechanics work for my concept. As for optimization, woo hoo, you picked the same spells every other optimized PC did. Good for you for being original. Remember, Jiggly Puff was a low tier Smash Bros character until someone learned how to fight with her, then she became a tier one beast, or at least she did in my dorm because I was unstoppable with that powder puff.
That’s all role play. How your character feels in its class is not up to the design of the class. That’s just a framework. Fluff shouldn’t even really be in a class. I’m just going to ignore fluff i don’t like anyway. Complaining a class doesn’t have the right “feel” for a specific character type is just lazy role play. I mean, I could say my Storm Sorcerer is actually a mutant using innate mutant powers to control the weather, only picking weather related abilities, and call her Storm.
Or how about My Eldritch Knight is actually the reincarnation of an ancient wizard, and in this life he became a warrior instead of a wizard, not knowing he was a reincarnated wizard, and lo and behold he started remembering things from his past life, little by little, as he starts instinctively casting magic spells. I may actually use that.
Awesome concepts, has nothing to do with mechanics. I make the mechanics work for my concept. As for optimization, woo hoo, you picked the same spells every other optimized PC did. Good for you for being original. Remember, Jiggly Puff was a low tier Smash Bros character until someone learned how to fight with her, then she became a tier one beast, or at least she did in my dorm because I was unstoppable with that powder puff.
Well [MENTION=6855204]tglassy[/MENTION], we could already do that.
I could take a wizard, pick all psionic flavored spells and just call them the powers of the mind. And you know what?
I've been doing that. A large part of my world revolves around psionics as a backstory, and I couldn't wait for 5e to produce it.
BUT, since Mearls is working on a class, I feel its justifiable for us to say whether its mechanics evoke the feel we are looking for or not.
I could take a wizard, pick all psionic flavored spells and just call them the powers of the mind. And you know what?
I've been doing that. A large part of my world revolves around psionics as a backstory, and I couldn't wait for 5e to produce it.
BUT, since Mearls is working on a class, I feel its justifiable for us to say whether its mechanics evoke the feel we are looking for or not.
I get that, and I agree, I really do. I’m just saying that “feel” is what we make it. We “feel” like wizards when we play, even though we’re using an arbitrary Spell Slot system that makes no sense in the real world. It was worse in the old days. Oh, sorry, I could only cast that spell once, and now I’ve forgotten how to cast it. I’ll have to study it al over again to cast it again. But I can cast all kinds of other things.
It makes no sense. But we deal with it, because it’s a game mechanic trying to impose some balance on a system of magic that would otherwise dominate the field. It dominates anyway.
So you want Psionics to not use spell slots. Why? Because you want it to be different from magic? But that doesn’t make sense, because spell slots are only in magic as an arbitrary means to balance it out. So you don’t want Psionics to be balanced out? No, you just want it to FEEL different. Well...that’s up to you. Call it something else. Call it Power Pools. Or Psi Pslots. It’ll still work the same way. It’s still going to have to be balanced to everything else.
Or we could keep on whining. Because, as my daughter knows, whining is the best way to get what you want.
It makes no sense. But we deal with it, because it’s a game mechanic trying to impose some balance on a system of magic that would otherwise dominate the field. It dominates anyway.
So you want Psionics to not use spell slots. Why? Because you want it to be different from magic? But that doesn’t make sense, because spell slots are only in magic as an arbitrary means to balance it out. So you don’t want Psionics to be balanced out? No, you just want it to FEEL different. Well...that’s up to you. Call it something else. Call it Power Pools. Or Psi Pslots. It’ll still work the same way. It’s still going to have to be balanced to everything else.
Or we could keep on whining. Because, as my daughter knows, whining is the best way to get what you want.
jgsugden
Legend
Only to an extent.
Open your PHB. Those squiggly things you see in it are words. They have meanings and stuff. They provide the starting point for what the game is. We can modify it, we can tweak it, we can alter it... but when I go the local game store and join an AL game, the core rulebook establises what we expect for the game. In AL we have to play it like that...
If we're not playing in AL we have more room to shake things up. However, when we shake things up, we do it by changing elements of the game, not everything in the game. So, if we don't like the psionics rules that are released, but we want psionics, whatever 'fix' we make will have to work around the infrastructure WotC builds for the psionics elements they create.
If the rules are bad or if the fluff if wrong... well, it has real impacts on our games. If we care about psionics, there is a good reason to raise our voices to try and make sure WotC hears what concerns us.
Yaarel
He Mage
The latest episode of Happy Fun Hour is up!
Mearls focuses specifically on the nomad psion teleporter.
The nomad enjoys powerful teleportation abilities (at the apprentice tier) at levels 1 thru 3.
A ‘teleportation attack’ teleports chunks of an enemy away from the enemy.
The psion will choose their ‘discipline’ (archetype/subclass) at level 1.
The psion mechanics let you choose your psionic cantrips and additionally allow you to (augment them to) spend a spell slot to heighten its various effects.
I like the inferable structure. Choose cantrips at level 1 to establish the themes of the character concept. The discipline/archetype/subclass empowers a theme. Higher level slots continue to develop the themes.
Mearls focuses specifically on the nomad psion teleporter.
The nomad enjoys powerful teleportation abilities (at the apprentice tier) at levels 1 thru 3.
A ‘teleportation attack’ teleports chunks of an enemy away from the enemy.
The psion will choose their ‘discipline’ (archetype/subclass) at level 1.
The psion mechanics let you choose your psionic cantrips and additionally allow you to (augment them to) spend a spell slot to heighten its various effects.
I like the inferable structure. Choose cantrips at level 1 to establish the themes of the character concept. The discipline/archetype/subclass empowers a theme. Higher level slots continue to develop the themes.
Yes, and I'm a big fan of re-fluffing things...to a point. I've thought you could make a pretty good samurai by re-fluffing the barbarian class with "rages" that are actually combat stances, or a Purple Dragon Knight, or Oath of the Crown Paladin re-fluffed as Honor and dedication to feudal lord/cause. Yet we have the Samurai sub-class. You could implement the Paladin as a "Divine Knight" in parallel to the EK; the Ranger as "Pathfinder" subclass of the Fighter, maybe even several: one with spells and one without them. No doubt one of the main reasons this was not done is probably the whole "sacred cow" issue, but there are more on the Paladin & Ranger classes than just ephemeral 'feel' and 'flavor'. There is some real mechanical meat there that the subclass structure just does not have.
Now, as to the 'Nomad' article: is it just me, or does teleportation guy not the first thing that comes to mind when psionics comes up? Telepathy, Telekinesis, ESP, precognition, mind control; sure, right there with you. Is psionics now just any power anyone in a comic book has?
Yes. And that's why many folks have never seen the point of having psionics in addition to spellcasting-- because most things you can do with magic were also things that could be done with "psionics". From an end-result point of view... there was no difference. A pyrokinetic who controls fire with their mind gets the same exact results from their action that a spellcaster does using a spell. Sure, the "fluff" of how they do it is different, but the end results match.
Which is why they're going in the direction they are, which is just making psionics into spells, because in D&D currently, magic is magic. Anything supernatural is magic, regardless of how you tap into and use that magic. So instead of drawing magic out of the land like a druid does, or being granted magic from a god like a cleric does, you pull magic out of the weave using your mind. Essentially like sorcerers do and monks do using ki points.
But no, psionics is not just the traditional "psychic abilities" we know and love-- telepathy, telekinesis, precognition, ESP etc. It's anything magical you can accomplish so long as you do it using your brain, rather than some other method.
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