Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Revisits Psionics

The latest Unearthed Arcana from WotC revisits some psionic rules! “Shine with the power of the mind in this installment of Unearthed Arcana! Today we revisit several psi-themed options that we released in the past few months. Studying your feedback on those options, we’ve crafted this new collection of subclasses, spells, and feats, found in the PDF below.“

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[Todd Roybark]

Psionic Soul
Now with 66% less squid flavor.

This line just made me snort whisky out my nose. As the whisky was Midleton Very Rare,
I am now, simultaneously, very amused, and a little pissed off.

Well done Leatherhead!

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The psionic powers will be in the SRD, will it be not?

What about 3PPs? For example the setting Esper Genesis. Could a 3PP publish a psionic 5th version of the occult classes from Pathfinder? I would like a D&D version of the medium and spiritualist. Occult classes could work very well in Ravenloft..or Innistrad.

If somebody wants to create a homebrew version of jedis, I suggest the name "cofrater" ( = member of a brotherhood).

The flayerspawn (a prestige class from the Complete Psionic) could be a subclass for the warlock.

Spelljammer should allow space for psionic manifesters.

* Don't you miss the game mechanic of the psionic focus?

* Have you thought about dragonborn subraces with gem dragons ancestries?

 

[Coroc]

For me the UAMystic3 is the best approach so far and I will use three of the subclasses in there (Avatar Awakened and Immortal) if I DM Darksun (the other three do not fit into Darksun because they trivialize some challenges of the setting).
It is most true to the 2e stuff of all the approaches. I want pure Mystics (telepathic, telekinetic and metabolic). And not some psychic rogue of which felt 27 variations already exist. What do they fear, where is the problem?

UAMystic3 was the right direction, why don't they expand on this?

 

[Charlaquin]

My thoughts as I read through this:

• Gonna try calling it Psi now? Ok...
• “Psionic aptitude can be used to cast spells” is a consistent element of Psionic power? Really?
• Wow, this is a lot more preamble than usual for a UA. Guess they figure it’ll go over better if they explain themselves in the article itself.
• “Following that feedback, we’ve decided to say farewell to the mystic”: well, there it is. Can’t say I’m surprised, but at least it’s finally confirmed.
• “as we did with the features of the Great Old One warlock in the Player’s Handbook”: Didn’t you just say one of the consistent elements of psionics is that they come from the user rather than an external source? The GOO Patron is literally the exact opposite of that.
• “The philosophy of this approach is most akin to the one taken in the 1st edition of D&D”:
• “Psionic Talent die”: Ugh, it’s the playtest fighter all over again. Seems like the only way to get an interesting mechanic approved by the committee is to attach it to the spending of a special die. Yawn.
• “Is Psi a form of magic?” sidebar: that’s a pretty solid ruling, and it’s good that they’re making it explicit. I approve.
• Changing Psionic Die size mechanic is actually pretty cool.
• Decreasing the size of the Psionic Die to get an extra use of a long rest ability is a great use of the mechanic’s design space.
• Oh, so that mechanic is consistent across Psionic subclasses? Ok, I’m down for that.
• It is a crime that Psychic Blades doesn’t use your Psionic Die for damage . It seems so obvious, why doesn’t it use your Psionic Die for damage??
• Psionic Discovery is a neat idea, but seems too limited. Why only a divination or enchantment spell from the Sorcerer spell list? Either one of those restrictions would seem fine to me, but both seems excessive.
• I hope whatever book(s) this gets printed in doesn’t waste so much wordcount re-explaining how the psychic die mechanic works in every single subclass like this.
• “after you deal damage to a creature with a sorcerer spell for which you expend a spell slot”: I wonder what exploit that tortured wording is trying to circumvent.
• Wow, Feats with other Feats (well, one other Feat) as a prerequisite! That’s new ground for 5e.
• Add Wild Talent to the list of stackable buffs to ability checks. Min-maxers will appreciate.
• Overall, I like this. It’s interesting, it’s not terribly complex, it doesn’t seem overpowered at a glance. I’d be cool with this being the way they take psionics going forward.

 

[Charlaquin]

Is it possible to replenish the Psionic Talent die if it is depleted (i.e. it was a d4 and you rolled a 4)?

Yep, as a bonus action once per long rest.

 

[Kurotowa]

Homing Strikes
So if you miss with your Soulknife, you can get an accuracy boost, but you always shrink a die when you hit when you use the power. Does that mean if you max out your die (and presumably hit because of that) you shrink two die sizes? Bogus.

Psychic Teleportation.
Random distance teleport (which would be ok, if it was a minimum of 10') and again, it doesn't sync with a grid, which is a pain. Also, your die shrinks by one no matter what you roll, leading up to another double shrink!

...

At this point, it occurs to me that the fluff for this subclass contains something about having a lot of mind powers but before this point it's just been stabbing, teleportation, telepathy, and being lucky. Where is the telekinesis analog? The Arcane Trickster is shaping up to be a better “psionic” rogue than the Soulknife is so far.

In order:

Homing Strikes says if it converts a miss into a hit, your Psionic Talent die shrinks "regardless of the number rolled." Regardless means that it doesn't double shrink on a max roll or cancel out in a min roll, it always shrinks one size.

Psychic Teleport distance isn't random. You're not rolling the die for distance, the distance is five times the maximum current number of your die. So if it's a d6 then your max distance is 30ft, if it's a d12 the max distance is 60ft.

Telekinesis is by default the Psi Knight's staple trade. If you really want a Soulknife to get up to telekinetic tricks, that's what the feat is for.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This is a vast improvement on previous iterations. Coming from 1st edition, I prefer psionics as an "add on" rather than as a dedicated class.

Soul Knife and psychic warrior are greatly improved, and sound like they would actually be fun to play now. Don't like the new name for psychic warrior though. Disney's lawyers are already getting tooled up.

I preferred Aberrant Soul, it was much more thematically interesting. I can see why a more general subclass might be desirable though. There are issues with the Psychic Sorcery ability though. It doesn't spell out what happens if your roll fails but you cannot use S or M components (e.g. your hands are bound) what happens to your spell? Does this enable you to make almost all your spells immune to Counterspell? If so, it seems too powerful. Also, I would prefer the "you always know these psychic spells" approach to the Psychic Discovery ability.

Some retconning is needed, so inherently psychic races (e.g. kalishtar, gith) and GOO warlock meet the prerequisite for the Psychic feats.

Where is the psychic monk?

 

[Nikosandros]

Yep, as a bonus action once per long rest.

Yes, that is is a bonus action once per long rest was fairly obvious. The tricky part is whether you can use it after depleting the die. BTW, I agree with you, but it's not so obvious.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Wow, Feats with other Feats (well, one other Feat) as a prerequisite! That’s new ground for 5e.

Kinda, but the pedant in me needs to point out that you could hypothetically use one armour proficiency feat to meet the prerequisite for another, or use Magic Adept to meet the prerequisite for Spell Sniper.

It is a crime that Psychic Blades doesn’t use your Psionic Die for damage.

Thematically that would seem right, however, that would mean that each time your rolled damage you could trigger a burnout.

 

[Charlaquin]

Kinda, but the pedant in me needs to point out that you could hypothetically use one armour proficiency feat to meet the prerequisite for another, or use Magic Adept to meet the prerequisite for Spell Sniper.

Yeah, I suppose, but it’s still interesting that they’re breaking the trend of no Feat explicitly requiring another Feat.

Thematically that would seem right, however, that would mean that each time your rolled damage you could trigger a burnout.

That’s a good point. In that case, make the die damage die the same as your psychic die. The language is already there, just replace “d6” with “the same die as your psionic die.” Maybe include a caveat that it does 1 damage if the die isn’t available or something.