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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[Guest 6801328]

I agree with you, but I think a major stumbling block is that a large section of the most hardcore aren't purely concerned with their own games, they're concerned with defining the edition as a whole. The ones for whom concepts like "canon" actually mean something.

This is spot on. It's why, in the arguments about a certain controversial class that begins with "W", the response "if you don't like it, don't use it" is a bad argument. It's not really about what happens at one table or in one campaign, it's about the tenor and direction of the game itself.

 

[JPL]

Ah, Unearthed Arcana. It eases the pain, doesn't it? It eases the pain.

 

[Maxperson]

All Dark Sun characters gain the Psionic Wild Talent feat automatically at level one.

Bang, everyone is psionic.

And it's a great match for how things worked in the original Dark Sun boxed set.

Without the Psion class, Darksun is dead. Er, even more dead! Psionics as we got them in this last UA is insufficient to reproduce Darksun.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think particularly if you're going in with psionics in mind it's important to re-fluff the base classes abilities from the start. That means also picking a psionic-themed background, perhaps even a tailored background rather than one from the book.

This is a problem that is never going to be solved unfortunately, because there are too many players who equate characterization = mechanics. If the mechanics are the same, then the characters are the same, regardless of what is "roleplayed". I feel bad for those people because they're the ones who are desperate for more and more players supplements in order to get new mechanics so they can make "new" characters. Rather than their different characters coming out of how they are roleplayed-- like we all had to do in the AD&D era and most of us still do right now.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Without the Psion class, Darksun is dead. Er, even more dead! Psionics as we got them in this last UA is insufficient to reproduce Darksun.

Okay. Well, you always have 3E!

 

[Dausuul]

I was cool on this UA initially, but as I think about it, I'm warming up to it. The psionic die is a neat little mechanic. It makes the ability almost at-will (even when your die is a mere d6, you get 32 uses per day on average), but it does encourage players not to spam it, and it creates the sense of an ability which is a bit unpredictable and unreliable. And the feats offer a nice mix of power and flavor.

I do think the psionic die's grow/shrink triggers should be reversed (i.e., it should grow on the max roll, shrink on a 1). I understand they did it the way they did in order to smooth things out--if you roll a 1, you get a compensation prize, if your die shrinks, at least you got to roll the max first--but everything else in 5E operates on the principle that high rolls are good and low rolls are bad. I don't think there is a strong enough case to have psionics deviate from that principle.

As for the choice to focus on wild talents rather than a dedicated psion class, I think it's the right place to start. I do think there should be a dedicated psion class, but starting with wild talents means wild talents will be fully fleshed out and work smoothly, rather than being an afterthought.

 

[Fenris-77]

People need to accommodate themselves to the fact that they don't get to, nor should they get to, set the tenor and direction of the game itself. The game is designed to be "if you don't like, don't use use" and far from being a bad argument, that's the only argument.

WotC needs to make money to keep publishing, I want WotC to keep publishing in general far more than I want their books to conform to some personal vision for the game. So it would be irrational of me to expect WotC to conform to that personal vision unless that personal vision was also what was making money and allowing them to continue publishing. It would also be arrogant of me to assume that my personal vision for the game is in fact what people actually want, especially when the evidence to the contrary seems to suggest otherwise. The table I play at is where I get to realize my personal vision for the game, not at anyone else's table, nor in the design studio at WotC. /ranty-mc-ranterson

 

[Maxperson]

Okay. Well, you always have 3E!

Or 5e! Giving up on the Mystic doesn't equal giving up on Psions. Even if it did, WotC flip-flops more than a fish out of water, so...

 

[Urriak Uruk]

That's literally not what they said, in fact they went to great lengths to avoid saying that, but I guess if that's how you view it, then there's no discussion to be had with you.

They kind of do say that, without explicitly saying that, you know?

In 2017, we experimented with an unofficial character class—the mystic—focused on psionic powers. Through its features and subclasses, the mystic allowed you to create a character who echoed the abilities of other classes in the game but with a psionic twist. As much as many playtesters enjoyed the psionic themes in the mystic, feedback was also clear that the class encroached on other classes’ territory and that it was often too complex, too powerful, or both. Following that feedback, we’ve decided to say farewell to the mystic and explore other ways of giving players psi-themed powers, as we did with the features of the Great Old One warlock in the Player’s Handbook.

They don't exactly say "people hated it" but they are saying "we got enough feedback to show it wasn't worth pursuing anymore." Which does essentially mean the feedback was too negative to consider the mystic worth saving.

 

[Mistwell]

This is spot on. It's why, in the arguments about a certain controversial class that begins with "W", the response "if you don't like it, don't use it" is a bad argument. It's not really about what happens at one table or in one campaign, it's about the tenor and direction of the game itself.

This is what confuses me, as it's no established tradition to have a dedicated Psion class. That's not how it worked in first edition, which is what started psionics to begin with and which was the established tradition for a very long time and at the peak of the golden age of D&D. There, all the classes could also have psionics - same theme as this proposal for 5e.

And even the editions which had dedicated psionic classes didn't do those classes the same between editions, and didn't even call them by the same names. Is a 2e Psionicist really all that similar to a 4e Psion?

So it's not like this is some sacred cow being slain by not going with a dedicated Psion class. It's why I think all the claims of some consensus among those who want psionics is bunk. It's only a consensus for those who were hardcore 3e fans I think.