Unearthed Arcana New Unearthed Arcana: Psionics!

There’s a new Unearthed Arcana article out, and it’s all about psionics! "Their minds bristling with power, three new subclasses arrive in today’s Unearthed Arcana: the Psychic Warrior for the fighter, the Soulknife for the rogue, and the tradition of Psionics for the wizard."

​

News Archive | Dungeons and Dragons

Read the full archives of Dungeons & Dragons news, Sage Advice, Unearthed Arcana, and D&D Studio Blogs.

dnd.wizards.com

In this 9-page PDF, there are also some new psionics-themed spells (including versions of classic psionic powers like id insinuation and ego whip) and two new feats.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

My first though was use catapult instead.

I thought that, but you could actually achieve the same thing by having a Psionic Adept feat - same as Magic Adept but you pick your spells from the psionic spell list (which includes catapult and mage hand).

Another thing you could do is combine "Psionic Spells" with the "alternative class features" of the pervious UA

Psionics: Replaces spellcasting (Bard, Arcane Trickster, Sorcerer, Eldritch Knight, Ranger) You can cast spells from the Psionic Spell list. This replaces the usual spell list for your class.

 

[Chaosmancer]

LOL its pointing out that D&D often has done this very thing of using shared mechanics. All the way from the beginning you are making it too specifically about the Ranger/skills instead of being about a design paradigm represented its not a new thing is the point. That of popping magic mechanics in for any "you can do awesome. "

Okay, so you agree that it is the most likely design paradigm they will use. That's what I was saying to begin with, but you made it about how Rangers should have had a skill system instead of magic back when they were first designed. That has nothing to do with now and Psionics.

Mine don't and my game is D&D no less than yours. So have fun in your so-called big tent with all the others who want to call mine not D&D.

Umm.. I never said you weren't playing DnD, or that your game was less DnD than mine, or that my game was better than yours.

In fact, I'll take a step. Your games are far more fun than mine, your players leave every session excitedly chatting about that awesome thing that happened, and how clever it was.

But, you aren't using the DnD official Ranger. You are using the "Garthanos Ranger" which is perfectly fine, glad you made it, glad you love it, glad you have fun with it.

But, if you pull up any official WoTC Ranger for Dungeons and Dragons 5e... it uses magic. Sorry, it does, inescapable truth.

So, enjoy your DnD game within the tent. I'm glad the extras you've crafted are as fun as the non-DnD monsters, feats, items, and classes I've made are.

I have no clue why you think this has anything at all related to what I said.

Because you seemed focused on skills and how if they made a better skill system they would need less magic? How else am I supposed to interpret that in a discussion about Psionics other than you want to use skills for Psionics?

I am pointing out ongoing design paradigms.

Snip

Okay, so was I. We agree. This is what DnD tends to do. I never made a value judgement on that, I was just pointing it out, and showing why it might make sense for them to keep doing it.

I assumed you understood actually but thought it didnt hurt to elaborate on it. And I am in the same "not making a judgement" boat to be honest.

I may judge when a distinct subsystem is badly done or amounts to DM fiat though

Awesome, I think there was some confusion in our discussion, which led to me thinking you were talking about something else. I don't disagree with any of this though.

I also end up judging poorly made systems and how much fiat might need to be involved. We are agreeing very loudly

 

[Tony Vargas]

My whole point before, about the mistake of making a spell called Telekinesis, applies to many more.
They made Wizards step on the toes of Psionics many times.

To be fair, psionics is just a set of more scientific-sounding terms applied to the same sorts of supernatural powers people had been claiming as 'magic' or 'miracles' or whatever forever. Reading minds, viewing remote locations, predicting the future, levitating, vanishing from sight, conjuring things from nothing, etc.

In the decades between that trend and the actual coining of the term 'psionic,' and the further decades before D&D came out, and the decades since, though, Psionics has taken on a life of its own. It's not just magic with the serial numbers filed off for use in science-fiction that was embarrassed about ripping off fantasy/legend - but it's still going to overlap with magic, and, at the same time, the modernized/scientific-jargon-sounding terms that started being used back in the 19th century have, some of them, become generic, to the point they're readily applied to magic, superpowers, psionics, etc...

Something like "mage hand" to move an object around at a distance sounds magical, while "telekinesis" intentionally sounds psionic, but is also arguably generic at this point. Same with 'teleportation.'

Not helpful, I know...

...and...

I am pointing out ongoing design paradigms. The parallel describes how psionics using spells is just like skillful awesome being added using spells (or what some insist are spell like mechanics in 4e) something which has some very distinctive advantages. (a number of 3e active feats were put in 4e as powers perhaps for a similar reason).

Consolidating mechanics is a legit way to simplify a game. If a martial arts move, a spell, and a psionic discipline all send enemies sprawling, you can just have one mechanic to model that, and use if for all three. While 5e gets mad props for being 'simpler' or 'rules lite,' that expedient was openly repudiated in the playtest, thanks to the edition war talking points about 'fighters casting spells' (the power format & use of keywords for PC class abilities from spells to prayers to martial 'exploits' to psionic disciplines, even though no actual 'power' was re-used, unmodified, by two classes until the Essentials Druid(Sentinel) with given the Cleric(Warpriest)'s Healing Word.) And, while openly repudiated, that didn't stop it from being used: rather than make spells, prayers, primal nature-magic, monk ki powers, totem barbarian rituals, mechanically distinct, they all just recycled spells.

That's problematic when trying to add a Psion, because the concept-first, don't-make-the-classes-"samey"-like-wrongbadfun-4e, rationalizations for having 5e, at all, demand it be mechanically distinct, while the simplicity mandate demands it just re-cycle spells like everyone else.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Now I have got a doubt. Disney's princess Elsa (Frozen): is she a sorcerer or a psionic? She doesn't use somatic, verbal nor material components.

Psions can wear heavy (and metallic) armours and they don't need "tools". And you can't counterspell against psionic powers with the classic way. Psions are like champions of martial arts, but fighting with their "astral bodies". They aren't like the "normal" spellcasters in the same way X-Men (f.e. Xavier, Jean Gray or Emma Frost) aren't like doctor Strange.

The manga "Domu: a child's dream" can show us how dreadful psychic powers can be.

 

[Salthorae]

I thought that, but you could actually achieve the same thing by having a Psionic Adept feat - same as Magic Adept but you pick your spells from the psionic spell list (which includes catapult and mage hand).

There is also the Telekinetic feat that they posted in the newest UA that does some/most of what you want I think, though with no damage a la catapult. And the hand is no components and invisible. Very psionic.

• Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You learn the mage hand cantrip. You can cast it without verbal or somatic components, and you can make the spectral hand invisible.
• As a bonus action, you can try to shove one creature you can see within 5 feet of the spectral hand created by your mage hand spell. When you do so, the target must succeed on a Strength saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier) or be pushed 5 feet away from you

But, you aren't using the DnD official Ranger

Is @Garthanos playing 5e Rangers spell-less or another edition like 4e or the 3.x ACF without spells?

All 5e official Rangers (and 3.x, 2e, 1e) all use magic though, yup!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Now I have got a doubt. Disney's princess Elsa (Frozen): is she a sorcerer or a psionic? She doesn't use somatic, verbal nor material components.

Does she explicitly use magic, that's inherited through her bloodline? Then, she's a concept that the D&D Sorcerer is meant to model - and fails to, because of all the built-in/traditional assumptions/mechanics of D&D spellcasting. Get used to it, D&D fails at modeling virtually everything, to the implied standard, that way.

 

[Garthanos]

Is @Garthanos playing 5e Rangers spell-less or another edition like 4e or the 3.x ACF without spells?

I DMd 4e one of my players had a ranger he re-flavored his damage boosting class ability as LOL an innate talent that catalyzes a poison on his weapon so actually, that players ranger had mutant style in born psionics (because that was what fit with the character story). I have only played and watched 5e I am trying to figure out really if I can/should DM 5e and so trying to make 5e fit me.

 

[Ashrym]

Now I have got a doubt. Disney's princess Elsa (Frozen): is she a sorcerer or a psionic? She doesn't use somatic, verbal nor material components.

Not all spells use VSM either. Elsa does use hand gestures all the time, however. She can be loosely defined as a sorcerer using S spells, but it's a minor point given she's not a D&D character. D&D characters can emulate and be inspired by media but an exact duplication is unlikely.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not all spells use VSM either.

Virtually all use V. Traditionally, the very few that didn't were counters to Silence, itself a counter to casting, in the old rock-paper-scissors paradigm.

Elsa does use hand gestures all the time, however.

Particularly mystical gestures? Or just like what you'd expect from any ice-powers mutant or other superhero?

 

[Ashrym]

Particularly mystical gestures? Or just like what you'd expect from any ice-powers mutant or other superhero?

They look like mystical gestures to me, yes. It was literally called out as sorcery in the movie as well, so if it's actually psionics that supports the "sorcerer and psionics are the same thing" argument as far as Disneyverse is concerned.