Unearthed Arcana 5E Psionics Alert! The Mystic Is Back In Unearthed Arcana

It's back! The long-awaited new version of the mystic - 5th Edition's psionic class - is here. "The mystic class, a master of psionics, has arrived in its entirety for you to try in your D&D games. Thanks to your playtest feedback on the class’s previous two versions, the class now goes to level 20, has six subclasses, and can choose from many new psionic disciplines and talents. Explore the material here—there’s a lot of it—and let us know what you think in the survey we release in the next installment of Unearthed Arcana." Click the image below for the full 28-page PDF!

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[Savage Wombat]

I'm curious as to why the wu jen is being stuffed into the psionic class—it's pretty out of nowhere and no basis in the game's history. In fact, "wu jen" literally means "magic person" and was a term coined for the 1e OA, and loosely inspired by Taoist wizards in Chinese folklore. Magic. Not psionics.

I'm pretty sure that's their attempt to divorce the "psionics" system from the science-fiction "psionics" concept, and see if the player base will go for it. The fluff, you notice, is based around "you're a mystic, a weird hermit-like figure who learns weird magic powers outside of a formal system". Imagine a character like Dhalsim from Street Fighter - he's apparently breathing fire, stretching his limbs and teleporting because he's really good at yoga.

I personally like it because I was planning on reskinning these rules into a "spiritualist" class for my current game, and I discovered they were already somewhere ahead of me.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm sure someone else has probably mentioned it previously in the thread, but just because some of the ideas (like the Soul Knife or Wu Jen) were put in the UA as subclasses of the Mystic doesn't mean they won't eventually actually become psionic subclasses of other classes in the actual book (so like Soul Knife as a subclass of Rogue and Wu Jen as subclass of Wizard). All six could have been put in under the Mystic umbrella for both ease-of-use in terms of playtesting, and also to gauge people's reactions to whether they think they indeed should be Mystic subclasses or psionic subclasses of existing classes.

The thing I think people forget is that the 'open playtest' UAs are never "finalized" playtesting (they have their NDA'd Alpha testers for that, including getting the "math right")... we UA readers are merely here to give our impressions on how things feel. Does what they've given us feel right, or should they do something else? Which is why we haven't seen the "prestige class" concept show up again, why they created a full 20-level Artificer class rather than as a Wizard subclass, and why the stories and fluff of a number of the subclasses they've given us these past number of months won't actually show up once they release the book. Cause they'll have gotten all of our responses telling them whether or not we think it felt right to go in those directions.

 

[bganon]

I never had much attachment to Wu Jen in the past, but that's because "Vaguely Asian Wizard" never did much for me. Giving them sufficiently different fluff and mechanics actually makes them more interesting to me.

The Avatar order is kind of interesting in that fluff-wise it sounds a lot like an Ardent, but when you dig into mechanics it seems to feel more like a Warlord. 4E Ardents (I'm less familiar with the earlier version) were strictly Cha-primary, Con or Wis-secondary melee weapon-wielders. Building that with this Mystic would really require some Hexblade multiclassing. However, making a Str-primary Int-secondary "tactician" build is a natural fit with the 5E Mystic (Avatar), and that feels a lot like a Warlord even if the power source is technically psionic.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

This caught me by surprise, as well, and my gut reaction is similar to yours.

I realized, though, that I have no idea of the origin of the term "wu jen" and whether it even existed prior to the 1E OA. If psionics is now ki, and ki is the Eastern mystical life energy, then I can see where using the term for a sort of psion/Mystic focused on more "flashy" powers makes some sense.

Now, that said, I'm still amazed by just how varied they managed to make the Mystic sub-classes. That one class has what, in former editions, were a handful of very different classes: a warrior, an assassin(ish), and a couple different kinds of specialist mages. It's very impressive that the 5E class system is that flexible, but I find myself wondering if the Mystic isn't a bit too broad. It's almost like a gestalt class that's separated by power source instead of role (combat, skill monkey, caster). I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not, but it does make me wonder if 6E* could be made to look a bit different, with Rogue, Ranger, and Barbarian rolled into sub-classes of Fighter (or Warrior or whatever) that has its own, robust mechanic that all the classes could draw from to blend skills, combat maneuvers, etc. Likewise, Paladin and (maybe, but probably not) Druid could go under Cleric (or Channeller, etc.) with a similarly coherent mechanic to interact with divine powers that is different from the way arcanists do. It's an interesting idea, but I don't think I'd want to see it play out beyond the pages of a UA/DMs Guild article.

* I'm not speaking about a literal 6E. Instead I'm just giving a name to a hypothetical gestalt-by-power-source structure. I'm also not advocating for it, just leaving some brain droppings.

They have been mixing power sources fairly regularly in the weekly UA's. I am sure there would be complaining about "grid filling", but I would find a set up where every class had a power source and each subclass having a different secondary power source (maybe one subclass doubling down on the primary power source for people who want a "pure" fighter-like martial/rogue-like martial/arcane/divine/nature/psychic, etc character) to be very appealing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you care at all, the wu jen was a base class in 3.0 (Oriental Adventures) and 3.5 (Complete Arcane)

I didn't care enough to look it up, and didn't own either of those books back then (I certainly heard enough about the Warlock and Warmage, though, and read each of them at some point), but I do care enough that I appreciate the info.

It was a base class. It was on Complete Arcane with the Warmage and Warlock.

And thankyou, again, also.

I have to assume that Jeremy misunderstood or was just wrong. Without a stat mod to damage, the soul knife would be a worse weapon than even a dagger, and I find it hard to believe that's the intent.

I seem to remember hearing that the Soul Knife was a just terrible class, mechanically/CharOp-wise, maybe they're trying to evoke that? ;P

The fluff, you notice, is based around "you're a mystic, a weird hermit-like figure who learns weird magic powers outside of a formal system".

Nothing to do with your point, but it's a little odd they're sub-classes are organized into 'Orders,' given that. Of course, class & sub-class names, let along the superfluous class-specific terminology for 'sub-class,' isn't anything that has to connect up to fluff.

The Avatar order is kind of interesting in that fluff-wise it sounds a lot like an Ardent, but when you dig into mechanics it seems to feel more like a Warlord.

They were both 'leaders' in 4e.

4E Ardents (I'm less familiar with the earlier version) were strictly Cha-primary, Con or Wis-secondary melee weapon-wielders. Building that with this Mystic would really require some Hexblade multiclassing. However, making a Str-primary Int-secondary "tactician" build is a natural fit with the 5E Mystic (Avatar), and that feels a lot like a Warlord even if the power source is technically psionic.

That seems more like a coincidence than a resemblance.

Yes and no...

While I am familiar with the classes from 4E's PHB3 and I would agree that there are certainly heavy elements of them in this UA article, I also see touches of 4E's Psionic Monk, a little bit of Warlord, maybe Seeker, and a few other things.

OK, that's a sufficient number of parsecs away from "4e classes 'in the guise of' psionics." Yes, this go-round of 5e's psionics-system/class, the Mystic, has sub-classes that are clear versions of some 4e and 3.5 psionic classes. And I can see how you can read in a similarity here or there to other 4e classes of the same role (since psionics covered all 4 Roles there's a lot of chances for that), or, especially, to the 4e Monk, since it was, as you point out, also psionic at the time.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yeah I think I am "voting" for the Wu Jen to be moved to the Wizard (or maybe Sorcerer - that class needs more interesting subclasses) and the Soul Knife to Rogue (the Rogue may not need it but the Soul Knife does.)

Sent from my LG-D852 using EN World mobile app

 

[Mercule]

The Avatar order is kind of interesting in that fluff-wise it sounds a lot like an Ardent, but when you dig into mechanics it seems to feel more like a Warlord. 4E Ardents (I'm less familiar with the earlier version) were strictly Cha-primary, Con or Wis-secondary melee weapon-wielders. Building that with this Mystic would really require some Hexblade multiclassing. However, making a Str-primary Int-secondary "tactician" build is a natural fit with the 5E Mystic (Avatar), and that feels a lot like a Warlord even if the power source is technically psionic.

Now that I look at it, you're right -- the Avatar would make a darn good "warlord".

As far as the Ardent goes, I wasn't playing 4E when it was added, but I liked the 3E version. I really, really hate the idea that a Cleric could get spells from anywhere other than a deity or similar potent outsider. There's long been talk about Clerics of a philosophy which rubs me very wrong*. The Ardent very nicely filled that niche in its 3E incarnation and I would love to see a version of it for the Mystic in 5E. Maybe one of the other subclasses works well, though -- I need to reread the Mystic.


* note: I'm referring to the Cleric as a game rules construct, not the real world idea of priests of a philosophy or contemplative monastics. I had to clarify that to a Buddhist gamer because he thought I was being dismissive.

 

[TwoSix]

Also keep in mind you can only do that to "allies". Which strongly implies willing target. (And explicitly did in 4e)

PCs have been known to change allegiance at the drop of a hat. Paticularly if they are being abused.

And it's not even that you can force them. Every power in that mantle says targets allies says that the ally "can" use their reaction, not that they're forced to. The whole theme of the mantle is about trust; if you trust the character using the mantle, you get a bonus, if you don't trust them, no bonus. The more trust allies have in the character using the mantle, the more powerful that mantle user is. Seems pretty well designed to me.

 

[Mercule]

They have been mixing power sources fairly regularly in the weekly UA's. I am sure there would be complaining about "grid filling", but I would find a set up where every class had a power source and each subclass having a different secondary power source (maybe one subclass doubling down on the primary power source for people who want a "pure" fighter-like martial/rogue-like martial/arcane/divine/nature/psychic, etc character) to be very appealing.

I don't think I would end up liking the idea, but it's intriguing enough and has enough potential that I'd be interested in seeing the write-up and giving it a fair shake.

 

[Ashkelon]

I wish the Mystic was three or maybe four different classes.

The psion would be the telepathy and telekinesis psionic caster.

The ardent would be the emotional manipulation psionic warlord.

The battlemind would be the psionic warrior with the option to build a tanky psychic warrior.

Th soulknife would be the rogue like psychic warrior.

And the wujen would not be psionic and would instead be a ki based elementalist.