D&D 5E State of the mystic

tglassy · May 21, 2019

I think Psion should be it’s own class, but making the Psychic Warrior into a Fighter subclass just seems cleaner. Why recreate the wheel? We have a subclass system, we have the Eldritch Knight as a base, do something similar for the Psychic Warrior and be done. It gains all the fighting prowess of the fighter, plus 1/3 of the psionic power of the Psion. I believe that’s really what it was in the first place. MAYBE it was more of a half caster, but besides being granted Psionic powers and power points, the Psychic Warrior was a pure fighter.

So I say any hybrid Psion should just be a subclass. The Pure Psion would be those with abilities that are uniquely Psion, such as the Nomad, the Shaper and the Telepath. Those should be subclasses of a Psion class.

Aldarc · May 21, 2019

Immoralkickass said:
I strongly disagree with porting the Psionic Subclasses into the preexisting classes, for the same reason a Paladin is not a Fighter subclass, and Sorcerer is not a Wizard Subclass. Psionics is different from Wizard, like way different from Sorc v Wiz, so it should be its own class.

I'd like to see some unique design in the Mystic class, like maybe the Awakened subclass gets up to 9th level powers, while the base class is still a half caster. Soulknife needs multi-attack too, and their own Disciplines.

I agree that the psion should be different from the wizard, but the argument becomes more challenging with other cases, especially with the idea of cramming all psionic archetypes into a singular mystic class. The psychic warrior, for example, fills an incredibly similar niche as the eldritch warrior. So it would be possible to put a psionic twist onto the fighter chassis to create the psychic warrior. Likewise, the soulknife always had a fundamental identity problem since it was essentially a one-trick pony class. And when you look at what the soulknife does, a lot of the same results could be achieved by making it either a subclass of the monk or rogue, especially after 4E made the monk a psionic class and showed that a monk could potentially do the soulknife's niche better.

Kobold Avenger · May 21, 2019

The Archivist subclass of the Artificer seems like a preview of what a Psionic subclass is like. They have a cantrip-like ability that can be enhanced by spending spell slots.

I'm fine with the more spell slot based psionics, because I don't want psionics to go so far off the existing system, they get rejected by most groups because they're too different.

I'm interested in also seeing how they would develop psionic subclasses of all the other classes. Ardent was often an odd class by itself (we need a psionic healer niche it had when originally designed), but Ardent as the College of Ardor Bard it might work.

the Jester · May 21, 2019

Aldarc said:
Curiosity peaked. Which three?

Psychic warrior, soulknife, and wilder.

Samloyal23 · May 22, 2019

CapnZapp said:
Thank the gods for that. Trying to cram every psionic trope into one and the same class is stupid and clumsy design.

It would be so much cooler if they designed psionics to be an bolt-on mechanic to replace spellcasting for selected characters, laying a foundation to allow Psion to be a Wizard subclass, Psionic Warrior to be a Fighter subclass and so on.

That is: create a rule for power points (or manifestations, or whatever) but don't base it in one single class. Then have the subclass dole out the PP.

In fact, just say "psionic characters use the spell point variant of the DMG, only we're calling them power points" and let the existing spell slots be as-is. That's the direct and simple answer to the question "so I'm a psionic wizard, what am I gonna do with my spell slots?" That is, the answer is: "you only think you get spell slots, but in reality you get spell points that we call power points."

Boom, done, no rambling rules explanations necessary.

In cases where a character gets spell slots from the subclass and not the class psionic subclasses of that class can get PPs directly.

Then we can finally stop worrying MMearls will muck up this core design too, and start worrying about the details. I'm convinced they plan to give the Psionic Warrior lots of cool powers, only to ruin them right away with Concentration, for instance.

YUCK!!!

CapnZapp · May 22, 2019

Samloyal23 said:
YUCK!!!

Don't hold back, tell me what you really think!

Aldarc · May 22, 2019

the Jester said:
Psychic warrior, soulknife, and wilder.

So which class chassis did you use for the soulknife and wilder? I assume you used a fighter for the psychic warrior.

the Jester · May 22, 2019

Aldarc said:
So which class chassis did you use for the soulknife and wilder? I assume you used a fighter for the psychic warrior.

Yep! I did soulknife as a monk type, and wilder as a sorcerer.

Kobold Avenger · May 22, 2019

I think there can be a psionic subclass for just about every class, though Ranger and Druid are perhaps the hardest to think of ones conceptually.

CapnZapp · May 23, 2019

Kobold Avenger said:
I think there can be a psionic subclass for just about every class, though Ranger and Druid are perhaps the hardest to think of ones conceptually.

Well, I want two things:
1) Psionic subclasses of more than one base class
2) Each such subclass being justified on its own merits

In other words, while I can see a Psionic subclass added to some of the PHB classes, I certainly am not arguing for a Psionic subclass added to ALL of them.

If WotC can't find a credible niche for "a druid, but with psi powers" then there should simply be no Druid subclass in the book.

On the other hand, "a fighter, but with psi powers" sounds exactly like the Psychic Warrior, so...