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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[Chryssis]

I would argue that the Mystic is a more versatile, higher performing half caster. (at least immortal/soul knife) lvl 5 spells reached at same speed as a full caster, however while a full caster could cast 1 a Mystic could cast 8, this means they are perhaps overpowered in the 1-15 levels (the most common), even as progression continues the ability to cast up to 12 lvl 5 spells and unless i misread (I could have) twice as fast (action+bonus action) - more as a soul knife (and concentrate on multiple effects) is comparable until maybe those game breaking lvl 9 spells.

 

[Xeviat]

Mystic is the same as a warlock in their Spell access. Psionic Mastery just needs to be revised and each discipline needs a 9 and 11 pp power.


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[TheCosmicKid]

Actually, thinking if the mystic disciplines and the DL Saga sorcery and mysticism has made me want to try out a free form spell creation system using certain parameters with point costs to create your spells. A sorcerer might have access to a few realms of sorcery to create their spells while being specialised in one which reduces the cost of spells of their specialty.

A cautionary note: I would recommend against allowing characters to do this on the fly. It's annoying having to wait for the sorcerer player to cook up a new spell and calculate its cost every round. Let them "practice" their spell-forms on a short or long rest.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There are a number of games where you can cook up a spell or power on the fly, even as a matter of course - Ars Magica, Mage, Champions! VPPs, etc - it's not so crazy.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

There are a number of games where you can cook up a spell or power on the fly, even as a matter of course - Ars Magica, Mage, Champions! VPPs, etc - it's not so crazy.

Yeah, I've had bad experiences with those systems. (GURPS, to be precise.) Hence the note.

 

[Yaarel]

The Mystic needs access to 13 pp powers, to function as a normal full caster.

We know from design experience of the 3e Sorcerer, "the red-headed step child", that spamming low-level spells never equals access to the highest level spells of a full caster.

Mystic is the same as a warlock in their Spell access. Psionic Mastery just needs to be revised and each discipline needs a 9 and 11 pp power.

 

[JValeur]

I'm seeing my first Mystic in play today - I'm quite excited. The most immediate balance fix we made was to limit the number of Disciplines slightly, so that your subclass grants you only 1 discipline, instead of 2, and you gain new disciplines at levels 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 - meaning you will wind up with 8 disciplines instead of 10. At least half your disciplines must be from your subclass - further limiting the diversity of the class slightly, since I suspected that might irk some of the other players. This of course creates some imbalance with the Soul Knife, but since that won't feature in our game at the present, I'm not concerned about that. As for disciplines, the only one I've banned is the Diminution one. It seems gamebreaking at a glance, to me.

We're picking up at level 8, but I would definitely make some higher 'mysteries' to mimic spell levels 6 through 9, that can each be cast once per day, and remove the weirdly confusing (and likely gamebreaking) psionic mastery. But I'll look into that as we go along.

 

[Grakarg]

Wierd.
Why does the Avatar have access to do bonus healing when psionic healing is done, but none of the Avatar disciplines do any healing?
Why does the Soul Knife gain access to martial weapons? The whole point of that class is to use the psi-blades it gives you- not being able to wield a maul, halberd, greataxe, or something.

Overall I like it, it seems like it adds some cool ideas. But it still needs some work as there are clearly some things that don't really synergize with how the subclasses seem like they are supposed to work.

 

[Yaarel]

The Mystic, via the current iteration of Psionic Mastery, lacks access to 6th-level spells and up.

As it is now, the Mystic has moreorless fullcaster access until 5th level spells (7 points). But from then on, the Mystic is severely gimped, and has no access to spells of 6th and up.



Keep in mind the equivalent nomenclature for tier, level, power point cost, and spell slot level.

[B]Tier             Class Level    Power Point Cost    Equivalent Spell Level Slot[/B] 

Adventurer Tier        Level 5        5 Point Power        3rd Level Spell Slot
                       Level 7        6 Point Power        4th Level Spell Slot
                       Level 9        7 Point Power        5th Level Spell Slot

Master Tier            Level 11    [COLOR=#0000CD]   9 Point Power[/COLOR]        6th Level Spell Slot
                       Level 13       [COLOR=#0000CD]10 Point Power[/COLOR]       7th Level Spell Slot
                       Level 15       [COLOR=#0000CD]11 Point Power[/COLOR]       8th Level Spell Slot

Legend Tier            Level 17       [COLOR=#0000CD]13 Point Power[/COLOR]       9th Level Spell Slot

 

[cbwjm]

A cautionary note: I would recommend against allowing characters to do this on the fly. It's annoying having to wait for the sorcerer player to cook up a new spell and calculate its cost every round. Let them "practice" their spell-forms on a short or long rest.

Ideally, I think I would ask players to create some preferred spells to speed up play coming up with a response to specific encounters when necessary. If they create them during the turns of others it shouldn't be too bad but the proof would be in testing it.

Actually, creating a "spellbook" of preferred spells could make those spells cheaper to use. I think this was an option in DL Saga.