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.“

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

 

[Parmandur]

The ability to cast sells undetectably is definitely worthy of design space. It may not be the dominant power of a class, but it is certainly worth consideration.
Subtle spell for a sorceror has definitely been worth taking in my experience, so a class that casts all sells as if under the effects of a metamagic ability.

I think that official D&D products will need to be designed with the assumption that people are following the rules of the game, since trying to account for everyone's homebrew is a losing proposition. If specific tables tend to ignore the VSM rules, and thus find that the official psionic casters are too weak, then they can always adjust things themselves.

All of this. It's not even that a Psion entirely bypassing components isn't doable, but it does introduce complications.

 

[Aldarc]

In my experience, the RAW for components match the RAP. I see no particular reason to suspect that this is unusual, and WotC official supplements over the past five years have consistently treated normative usage of the component rules as normal. I see no reason that would stop for published Psionics.

Sure, and this thread evidences that there are other people who exist apart from you who handwave or ignore a lot of SVM in their games. That's why listening to the de facto state of game rules is important and valuable for understanding how games are actually played.

 

[Parmandur]

Sure, and this thread evidences that there are other people who exist apart from you who handwave or ignore a lot of SVM in their games. That's why listening to the de facto state of game rules is important and valuable for understanding how games are actually played.

Some games, at least. The way 5E works, if a table ignores a particular part of the rules, the game can keep on ticking just fine. Doesn't necessarily have any bearing on what the designers have to work with for the main game. It's easy enough to ignore eht Encounter guidelines, for instance, which throws the Class balance out of whack, but the game keeps going, and that some tables play that way doesn't have any bearing on future Subclass design.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, but again, it's a theoretical construct. Your impact on what the designers will actually end up doing is obviously immaterial.

I think the designers understand that most tables use them. Put a silence spell around a wizard and what table is just going to allow them to cast anyway? Maybe a very few, but the rest understand that verbal is a component and play with it. Take away a wizard's access to his spell components and barring something special, tables play with material components and will keep that wizard from casting spells requiring them. I've never seen a DM fail to describe a wizard using components during dramatic moments or at least some battles when facing them. Apparently you don't, but I doubt this is a very common practice. I've experienced lots of DMs over the decades. When someone wants to try and see who cast a spell, there is typically a roll to see or hear the spells being cast. If you truly do not use components, it would be nearly impossible to tell who just charmed the fighter.

The overwhelming majority of tables use components to some degree, which makes being a Psion who does not use them an advantage.

 

[Maxperson]

All of this. It's not even that a Psion entirely bypassing components isn't doable, but it does introduce complications.

It has already been done. Psionics in 5e by RAW does not use components. You can see it in the Mind Flayer stat block.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

"Most"? Sez who...?

People can only go by their experience and best guess, and I don't think there's any research on whether people ignore spell components, but from my experience and from all discussion of D&D, for the last thirty years, on all formats, with all people, I think it's fair to say "Over 51% of (hence "most") groups ignore spell components outside of extremely specific situations". Is that a guess, not a fact? Yeah absolutely, but it's the result of my experience and reading an awful lot of discussion on this topic over a very, very long time.

Those specific situations would be:

1) The caster is affected by Silence. (V)

2) When the caster is tied up and has had their stuff taken away. (S)

3) When a material component costs a lot of money. (M)

Just look at any thread where people get talking about how spell focuses actually, RAW, work and so on on the 5E reddit or even places like here or GitP, and it really quickly becomes obvious that most people just go with "what makes sense to them", and totally ignore the RAW aside from the above (some go further and just start making up their own rules which don't correspond with the RAW). The 5E reddit is usually particularly full of "What really? That's dumb..." about how spell components are supposed to work (particularly re: focuses), and whilst it's still far more "hardcore" than your average D&D group, is at least somewhat more reflective of the general audience. And they sure aren't following these rules tightly.

Yeah. That obscure stuff was straight up bad design. I just go with allowing an appropriate spellcasting focus to to be manipulated as a Somatic component and to replace (non-costly) Material components , which I'm sure someone is reading right now and asking themselves, "Isn't that how it works RAW?" Nope, nope it isn't.

Exactly! Yet most people would think that it did, because that would make way more sense and loads of people play it that way.

It's a bit like the perverse and confusing limit on what spells you can cast in a round. Instead of going with something simple that made sense, they've created an almost impossible to remember (and I'm normally extremely good at remembering obscure rules) scenario involving the specific order spells and cantrips are cast in and so on. And to no apparent point, either. Like, there's no dangerous situation eliminated by adhering tightly to those rules. It just seems arbitrary.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Some games, at least. The way 5E works, if a table ignores a particular part of the rules, the game can keep on ticking just fine. Doesn't necessarily have any bearing on what the designers have to work with for the main game.

There is no scenario in which the designers should not be paying very close attention to "how the game is actually played, even when it's different from the rules". At the very least, that should inform the next edition significantly. It may inform design decisions within an edition, too. We're not talking about "one table" or something. We're talking almost certainly well over half of groups (I would say) largely ignoring VSM. If even 10% of tables are reliably ignoring a bit of the rules, they should be considering why that's happening.

It's easy enough to ignore eht Encounter guidelines, for instance, which throws the Class balance out of whack, but the game keeps going, and that some tables play that way doesn't have any bearing on future Subclass design.

Unfortunately this is a great example against your point.

The encounter guidelines are the result of very peculiar and counter-intuitive design, and we know that a large number of groups do not closely follow them (somewhere between 20-50%, I would guess, perhaps higher if we eliminate groups using pre-gen adventures only, because they're not responsible for their own encounter design, if they're not following them, that's on an author somewhere), in large part because 6-8 resource-burning encounters every single day is just not a good match for most of adventures people write, and stories people want to tell, with D&D.

And before you suggest all the people new to 5E religiously follow them or something, all the evidence we have available is that people new to 5E have a lot of difficult with the 6-8 encounters/day concept. They don't instinctively follow it, it doesn't make sense to them, and they end up on messageboards going "Why are my encounters so easy!?!" and so on. And I'm a human, and I have a fairly good idea how humans think, and I know this is not something that is going to "click" with people in the way experience or initiative does. The figures are only going to be lower for that group than the more serious players.

WotC absolutely should be paying extremely close attention to this. Even it's 20%, that's significant, and I suspect it's much, much higher, maybe even a majority. And what should be telling them is they can't design D&D to require 6-8 encounters/day. That's mental. They need to either just dial it back, to say 3-6 by default, or work out a way to have a more flexible system in future.

They do need to be consistent, of course. All current subclasses are designed on the basis of 6-8 encounters/day. So future ones should be too. But for the future of D&D, they need to find a different path, whether that's 5.5, or 6E or whatever.

 

[TwoSix]

I think the designers understand that most tables use them. Put a silence spell around a wizard and what table is just going to allow them to cast anyway? Maybe a very few, but the rest understand that verbal is a component and play with it. Take away a wizard's access to his spell components and barring something special, tables play with material components and will keep that wizard from casting spells requiring them. I've never seen a DM fail to describe a wizard using components during dramatic moments or at least some battles when facing them. Apparently you don't, but I doubt this is a very common practice. I've experienced lots of DMs over the decades. When someone wants to try and see who cast a spell, there is typically a roll to see or hear the spells being cast. If you truly do not use components, it would be nearly impossible to tell who just charmed the fighter.

The overwhelming majority of tables use components to some degree, which makes being a Psion who does not use them an advantage.

Well, yea, of course...I guess I don't really think of that as "components." I'm talking about the annoying rules about pulling out component pouches with one hand and having to keep a hand free for the somatic component and things like that. The other parts are just kind of background narration. Of course you can identify spells that are being cast. Of course if you don't have any gear you can't cast spells with M components. That's what the component rules are for; the ones I handwave are the ones that get in the way of characters trying to cast spells in combat.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, yea, of course...I guess I don't really think of that as "components." I'm talking about the annoying rules about pulling out component pouches with one hand and having to keep a hand free for the somatic component and things like that. The other parts are just kind of background narration. Of course you can identify spells that are being cast. Of course if you don't have any gear you can't cast spells with M components. That's what the component rules are for; the ones I handwave are the ones that get in the way of characters trying to cast spells in combat.

Then you do use them, though. Even if to a lesser degree than some other tables. A psion having no components would be a benefit in that it would be very, very hard to ID them when they are using their powers.

 

[TwoSix]

Then you do use them, though. Even if to a lesser degree than some other tables. A psion having no components would be a benefit in that it would be very, very hard to ID them when they are using their powers.

Well, I mean of course it's a benefit. It prevents you from being counterspelled, after all, and you don't need to invest in a Ruby of the Warmage to cast as a gish.