D&D 5E (2024) Psion Class: Green/Yellow/Red?

[mellored]

Missing turns does not fun gameplay make.

Yet you want to risk death and being out a whole session.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yet you want to risk death and being out a whole session.

I’m not sure how you equate not having a miss-a-turn mechanic to a you-die mechanic.

Anyway, character death does not lead to missing a session - players put in too much effort to attend for that to be reasonable.

 

[mellored]

I’m not sure how you equate not having a miss-a-turn mechanic to a you-die mechanic.

Dead characters don't get turns.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Dead characters don't get turns.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Horwath]

They tried that, and you know what stuck? Nothing.

You are clearly not familiar with the setting. Having both magic, which leaches life from the land, and psionics, which does not, is essential.

so, just make: this subclasses are psionic and do not leech life.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm saying that they really didn't break their backs making something new and interesting.

the mystic from UA 10 years ago is still better than this.

I genuinely think all four subclasses are new and interesting and I challenge you to make something close-enough to those four subclasses with existing material. It will though require that you read the details of all four, and how they mesh with the base class and other abilities of that subclass, and not just skim.

This is a complicated class with a lot of moving parts that interact with each other. But it's a tad hard to see that if you just skim it.

Example:

Base class gets Telekinetic Propel which can pull a foe towards you at level 1 with a Strength save as a bonus action.

Metamorph gets Organic Weapon: Flesh Maul at level 3 which gives you a d10 one-handed weapon, which also provides disadvantage on that targets next strength or con save before the start of its next turn.

Metamorph gets Extended Limbs at level 3 which grants some extra speed and reach

Methamorth gets Extra Attack at level 6 granting a second attack, and they can sub a cantrip for one of those attacks. Like, for example, Mind Sliver, which is an Int save or take d6 damage and have d4 subtracted from their next save before the end of your next turn.

Metamorph gets Superior Strike at level 10, which (among other things) gives a climb speed equal to your speed.

Now if you just skim all this, it adds up to a handful of abilities. But if you actually focus on those details, it suggests a powerful combination. You can hit someone from 10' range with the d10 one-handed Maul and apply disadvantage on their next strength/con save, and then Mind Sliver them to apply -1d4 on their next save, then climb a wall with superior speed and bonus action pull that target up towards you into the air, and they'll have disadvantage and -1d4 on the save to resist that. They then fall of course, taking more damage, and becoming prone. All in the same round. And you don't need to hit with both attacks - you will harm their ability to make the save if either the attack or cantrip lands, and you're spreading this out against Str, Int, and AC so the odds are one of those will be weak.

And that's just ONE of the many combos in just that one subclass.

All the subclasses are like that. They all have combos with the base class and the other abilities of that subclass. Sometimes with a spell the subclass or base class gives them. It's hard to see all this interesting granular detail if you just skim it all quickly. These are subclasses which reward tactical thinking and awareness of all the moving parts with the base class and subclass.

 

[Parmandur]

Fair play but out of curiosity, why were power points rejected? It seems the best way to differentiate between magic and psionics.

They said people soundly rejected the idea of an alternative mechanical system entirely, as DMs and players didn't want to learn another whole system. So the demand was for Psionics as Spells, for mechanical consistency.

 

[Parmandur]

The mystic as a whole was rejected, the feedback system wasn't sophisticated enough to identify why. It might have fared better under the traffic light system, but I can't see WotC going back to it at this point. Far too complicated seems the most likely explanation. WotC have said that their market research has shown that they have found players to be highly resistant to learning new systems.

I think the problems with the alternative points based magic system in the 2014 DMG are fairly well known though.

@mearls actually got quite a bit into this in the Happy Fun Hour, when he prototyped one attempt at a Concentration-focused Psion. People didn't like the idea of new systems that were not transparent existing spellcasting structures, particularly DMs.

 

[Yaarel]

They said people soundly rejected the idea of an alternative mechanical system entirely, as DMs and players didn't want to learn another whole system. So the demand was for Psionics as Spells, for mechanical consistency.

In addition to simply not wanting to learn a new game system, there were also concerns about redundancy doing the same thing twice, but incompatibly with multiclassing and other mechanics, and the increasing probability of breaking the game when different, complex, options comboed with each other in unexpected ways. Plus the inevitable lack of support from future books.

 

[Yaarel]

It should be a technical term, "propel", meaning to fly, to "force target to move in any direction".

To additionally specify, "propel toward you or away from you", is fine, but the term implies a three-dimensional situation.