Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Revisits Psionics

Maxperson · Apr 17, 2020

Elfcrusher said:
Whatever. Eye of beholder, and all.

Sure. You see independence being reflected by dependence. That's not what my eye beholds.

Sword of Spirit · Apr 17, 2020

Best case scenario would be to have something like a refined version of this presentation (though I'm not a fan of the psi dice), and an Intelligence-based, full caster, 3.5e mechanically inspired Psion class. It isn't rocket science here. That would be good enough for most people and fill that giant gaping hole in the rules. (And I'll point out that Psion(icist) has been a class in 2e, 3.xe, and 4e--so the vast majority of the game's history). It doesn't need any systems that are more divergent from standard 5e rules than the Artificer does, and they made the artificer.

Guest 6801328 · Apr 17, 2020

Maxperson said:
Sure. You see independence being reflected by dependence. That's not what my eye beholds.

I tried to say, "You be you and I'll be me." But, no, you had to start slinging aspersions, huh?

If you can't see why subclasses and feats, which let you start with a standard class and then add some nifty psionics features, are conceptually more akin to 1e psionics than a separate Psion class is, then there's not much I can do to help you.

gyor · Apr 17, 2020

bedir than said:
I know this is an aside, but the Phoenix Sorcerer was one of my favorite UA's ever. I remain hopeful that the various elemental sorcs that we've seen show up in a book (probably Planescapey)

I actually thought that they felt very Therosy, Phoenix' are tied to Purphoros in Theros, the Sea is Thassa' domain, and change Stone Sorcerer to Medusa Sorcerer because Medusa's turn enemies to stone and have combat skills, with Medusa' being Pharika's creatures.

PS I accidently qouted you twice, but didn't remove the second one properly so it looked like my comment was a qoute from you. Oops, I editted now.

Maxperson · Apr 17, 2020

Elfcrusher said:
If you can't see why subclasses and feats, which let you start with a standard class and then add some nifty psionics features, are conceptually more akin to 1e psionics than a separate Psion class is, then there's not much I can do to help you.

This is a Strawman. I never said it was more or less like 1e psionics than a separate Psion class. I said it was nothing like 1e and it's not. It's quite literally the opposite of the way 1e did psionics. You can have two things(5e subclasses and a Psion class) be nothing like each other AND also have both be nothing like a third thing(1e psionics).

1e psionics was a completely independent system that you could plug into ANY class and have it work exactly the same for all of them. 5e subclasses are all completely dependent systems that only work the class a particular system is designed for. They don't reflect what 1e was in the slightest.

Guest 6801328 · Apr 17, 2020

Maxperson said:
This is a Strawman. I never said it was more or less like 1e psionics than a separate Psion class. I said it was nothing like 1e and it's not. It's quite literally the opposite of the way 1e did psionics. You can have two things(5e subclasses and a Psion class) be nothing like each other AND also have both be nothing like a third thing(1e psionics).

1e psionics was a completely independent system that you could plug into ANY class and have it work exactly the same for all of them. 5e subclasses are all completely dependent systems that only work the class a particular system is designed for. They don't reflect what 1e was in the slightest.

Dude, are you just really in the mood for an internet argument?

What I like about this UA is that it (and I'll say it again, especially the Feat aspect) reminds me of the 1e approach.

But, like I said before, whatever.

Paul Farquhar · Apr 17, 2020

counterproductive bickering aside, I have a couple of observations about the Wild Talent feat.

1) Wild Talent (Dex) can give a bonus to initiative rolls. Assassins take note.

2) Psi Guided strike could make the whip a more appealing weapon. It's also nice with Pole Arm Master, DB Scimitars, races with claws and for low level variant human monks.

Paul Farquhar · Apr 17, 2020

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

I've given this some thought, and the prerequisite could be changed to read "Has a psionic talent die", thus avoiding directly mentioning other feats.

You could add psionic talent die1d4 as a racial ability to kaleshtar and any other inherently psychic race.

Hussar · Apr 17, 2020

Skipped ahead a few pages, but, phew, this is a busy thread.

There's a very good reason for not leaning too hard on what was done before. Mostly at least in 1e and 2e, because what was done before was a horrible, broken mess that was one of the worst sets of mechanics released for either edition. 2e psionics were so broken that you actively had to try not to break the mechanics. They were just flat out awful.

In fact, they were so bad, that I completely skipped psionics in 3e. I have no idea what psionics look like in 3e and I don't care. If psionics requires an entirely new set of mechanics walled behind an entire book, then, well, I hope psionics never comes to 5e. It was garbage back then, and it will be garbage now.

As a DM, no, I'm not going to read an entire book just for your character. Sorry. Not interested. So, any approach to psionics that creates a complete class and whatnot is a total non-starter for me. I will treat it exactly the way I treated psionics in 3e, 3.5e and 4e - it doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned.

And, the same goes for Dark Sun. If I need to buy an entire psionic book just to run Dark Sun, well, again, I'll treat it exactly the way I did in the 90's. Completely ignore it.

So, for me, the sub-class approach is the best way. We get psionics. We don't have to bolt on completely different mechanics, just so one player at the table can get to feel all special. If you can't compromise and meet half way, then, well, there's a ton of 3rd party material out there for you to use.

Good grief, Warlord fans get pooped on for wanting a class that would take up all of three or four pages and would use existing mechanics. We get told that it's too hard, doesn't fit in the game and we should be satisified with what we've already got. Meanwhile psionic fans are demanding an entire book?!?! And they think this is a reasonable goal?

Good luck with that.

TheSword · Apr 17, 2020

This kind of rabid, lack of consensus, is why stuff doesn’t get done.

Psionics become such a poisoned chalice so that it just isn’t worth publishing or alternatively gets so watered down that no one is happy.

it’s a game for Pete’s sake