Unearthed Arcana New Psion update, Dungeons and Dragons Unearthed Arcana

A new Unearthed Arcana is up, featuring a revised version of the Psion class. Per a D&D Beyond article, the Psion has seen considerable changes. Feedback for the class focused into three main areas - Psionic Energy Dice, Psionic Modes, and Spellcasting. Psionic Energy Dice are now more flexible and easier to obtain - a new feature called Psionic Reserves allows players to regain uses of Psionic Energy Dice and Telepathic Propel and Telepathic Connection allow players to use those abilities one time each without expending energy dice. Meanwhile, Psionic Modes has been cut from the class, with various aspects of the ability being incorporated into various subclasses as new features. Finally, the Psion now has an updated and expanded spelllist. The UA also contains seven brand new spells and updated versions of existing spells as well.

Additionally, the Metamorph, Psykinetic, and Telepath have all received updates. The Metamorph's abilities now often feature a roll of the Psionic Energy Die while they're being expended. The Psykinetic gains a Stronger Telekinesis feature with an improved Mage Hand spell use. Also, players can now use Telekinetic Propel without expending a Psionic Energy Dice. Finally, the Telepath has a new Telepathic Distraction feature that lets you interfere with another creature's attack roll if it's within range of your telepathy. Scramble Minds was redesigned to reduce the number of dice rolls needed to keep combat from getting bogged down.

 

[Kurotowa]

The huge problem with the metamorph is that it's a trap. You're on the wizard/sorcerer chassis (d6 hit die, no armour prof) and most of the weapons are melee

A Metamorph can get a respectably decent AC. Dex 14, Mage Armor, Flesh Weaver, and Bracers of Defense is AC 19. Then at higher level, oh hey that Bone Blade is a Finesse weapon, maybe let's take Defensive Duelist. But more importantly, they can easily get Reach. Reach attacks let you stay safe behind the front line, assuming your party has one. And as always with a full caster gish, a lot of the time you're going to be slinging spell slots anyway.

After roughing out a couple test characters, I'm of the opinion that the Psion is a better Sorcerer. Not stronger, but better. And the reason it's better is that Sorcery Points and Metamagic are very narrow, while Psionic Energy Dice and Disciplines are much broader. They're more like a fusion of Metamagic and Battle Master maneuvers. You can modify spells, activate defenses, boost Skill checks, all sorts of things, because they're not limited to spell slot use and have dice you can roll.

Now, a few features need a little tweaking because they've got the old Monk problem of being too Psionic Energy Die hungry. But for a UA draft this is a good look. Certainly more interesting than most full casters, to my eye.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This isn't entirely fair. There was some experimentation with Tasha's, such as giving the sorcerer extra spells and making the druid's wild shape lead to interesting things that weren't animal transformations. And non-mundane rogues (soulknife, phantom) and fighters (psi warrior, rune knight).

The 2024 PHB normalised all the Tasha's philosophy changes. But just as Xanathar's was ideas from the 2014 PHB that were left on the cutting room floor (often for good reason) in 2025 we're in the ideas left out of the 2024 PHB (often for good reason) era.

Do you really see these things as comparable to the Book of Nine Swords? I most certainly do not.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Do you really see these things as comparable to the Book of Nine Swords? I most certainly do not.

No - but the Bo9S was never intended to be a splatbook. It was instead intended to be 4e but the game failed due to being over complex and they went back to the drawing board. The Bo9S was a salvage operation for what was usable and I don't expect that again.

 

[Zaukrie]

No - but the Bo9S was never intended to be a splatbook. It was instead intended to be 4e but the game failed due to being over complex and they went back to the drawing board. The Bo9S was a salvage operation for what was usable and I don't expect that again.

I loved that book.

 

[Kurotowa]

I loved that book.

Some parts of it were cool. But... I played the class where you were effectively building a deck of powers and drawing randomly from it, and man was that over complicated and a pain the rear in actual play. So I can see why a lot of it didn't make the cut.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Some parts of it were cool. But... I played the class where you were effectively building a deck of powers and drawing randomly from it, and man was that over complicated and a pain the rear in actual play. So I can see why a lot of it didn't make the cut.

And remember the Bo9S is the parts that did make the cut. The pick of the classes and recharge mechanics and not e.g. the multiple simultaneous condition tracks.

 

[Mistwell]

The Metamorph can easily get at least 15 AC at 6th level using a 1st level slot for Mage Armor (which is better than light armor) on top of the Mutable form, if not more depending on what they put into Dex and other build options. Just a few tweaks and they'd be alright for some second line combat.

And they have Shield now

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No - but the Bo9S was never intended to be a splatbook. It was instead intended to be 4e but the game failed due to being over complex and they went back to the drawing board. The Bo9S was a salvage operation for what was usable and I don't expect that again.

While that's perfectly fine, the question as asked was, "When will we get 5e's Bo9S?" In slightly different words, but they did specifically name-drop that, as well as Incarnum.

And it wasn't just that. We also got the execrable but interesting Truenamer, and the Shadowcaster, and a variety of other moderately to significantly experimental things.

Even 4e, as much as folks ragged on it for being so (allegedly) standardized, had experiments and creative new ideas. I absolutely adore the Ghost from the Past Theme, which showed the mature form Themes could take when they were given enough time in the oven. And psionics genuinely tried an experiment with the whole "augment" thing, only to come to the ultimate conclusion that it wasn't well-done and might not have a super satisfying way of doing it. Same goes for Pathfinder! It absolutely started to get experimental and creative toward the end of PF1e. We can even see pretty serious experimentation in late 2e, for goodness' sake, the whole controversy regarding "Skills & Powers" is one of the few bits of 2e mechanics stuff I actually know about because people complain about it.

Point being, 5e had ten years to get wild and woolly with it....and it never did. 5.5e is not going to survive a full decade--if it's lucky, it'll get probably 7 years, and half that time will be simply catching back up to where 5.0 was. We aren't going to get those late-era experiments, not because Bo9S was unique (which, I admit, it has some elements that do make it particularly distinct!), but because (edit: official) 5e is antagonistic to the very idea of being inventive with class design.

 

[mamba]

Or maybe I just keep pressuring the company I want to support to make the thing I want? They did that sort of thing before, they can do it again.

good luck with that, not sure how you think you can pressure them…

 

[Neonchameleon]

While that's perfectly fine, the question as asked was, "When will we get 5e's Bo9S?" In slightly different words, but they did specifically name-drop that, as well as Incarnum.

[snip for length]

I think what you are missing here is that the core reason for the lack of genuinely interesting stuff in 5e is the glacial release schedule, which seriously contributed to 5e's longevity.

If we look at 4e then we can roughly divide it into three eras. OG pre-Essentials, The Twist- PHB3+ Essentials, and the "Who cares? Go Wild".

The OG era was the PHB, the PHB 2, Martial Power, Arcane Power, and Divine Power. Sixteen classes (no monk), all AEDU with the rulebook presenting them and the splatbooks filling them out. There might be a little left but after that point the initial vision was essentially complete. So where do you go then to sell player side content?

They'd basically run out of player side content to sell under orthodox AEDU and it showed. This was not because they'd done a bad job but because they'd done a thorough job. There's only so much you can say about any given class. (2e, 3.0, and 3.5 all show similar patterns).

The PHB3 was an attempt at a twist. Psionic classes, Monks, Runepriests, Seekers, hybrids. Only one of these was orthodox AEDU (Seekers) and only one landed well (Monks).

But with twist 1 having failed they tried Twist 2 - Essentials. And it flopped. Hard. (And you can see through the three splatbooks how they reversed course and went back to the original classes). There is a case to count Essentials as a separate edition - but by the end WotC was publishing material compatible for the 4e base classes that was only coincidentally compatible with Essentials and wasn't publishing material specifically for the Essentials classes. 4e as an edition actually outlived Essentials.

And we got the really weird stuff right at the end in the "this edition is done so we might as well go all in" era. Which is about when we got the Bo9S and Incarnum in 3.C.

Meanwhile 5e has always been glacial. It's first orthodox splatbook (Xanathar's), grabbing the obvious material took not months but years. Then Tasha's was a PHB 3 level twist. But unlike the PHB3 or Essentials it worked. So they turned the twist into 5.24. Which puts us right now in late 2003 or early 2004. They need to exhaust the basics first (which, to go by Unearthed Arcana, they seem intent on doing in 2026).

We'll only get the really good stuff when they start ramping for 6e