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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[MoonSong]

A "crutch"? That's not simply mistaken, it's downright offensive to all the hard work that artists put into mastering their craft. The pages and pages of notebook Leonardo da Vinci filled with studies of human anatomy, botany, engineering, and everything else under the sun sure as hell didn't "prevent him from reaching realism, expression, and fluidity". Those notebooks, and the thousands of hours of intellectual effort they represent, are what separate the creator of Mona Lisa from the average dime-a-dozen-on-DeviantArt scribbler who thinks he doesn't need lessons or practice because he's got feelings.

No need to get personal. I'm fairly aware I'm a talentless hack if not broderline failure. Leonardo is annecdote, he was a genius for a reason, yet I wouldn't consider his corpus as purely or even mostly intelectual. His sketches, his drawings show a great deal ot perceptiveness and ingenuity. All that attention to detail wasn't intellectual. And I wouldn't hold him as the prime example of discipline. The Mona Lisa for example remains incomplete as he worked on and off on it over the years until his death. He pioneered a lot of techniques but mostly so he could work on and off on stuff.

But one of the first lessons when you start to train is to turn off the rational part of the brain, because the more your brain is working, the worse you are doing. IE. There are tons of geometric methods, but in the end you gotta observe and use your sensibility to know if it is right or you should deviate. Observation is key only with it you can find the picture you want to find and 'know' just how much color and how much shadow you need for it.

 

[zaratan]

Psionic mastery looks underpowered to me too. Not just about the 11 instead of 13 points, but you need an action to get the pool, than you need more actions/bonus actions to spend that. You probably want to use concentration disciplines to take real advantage of psionic mastery, but you'll need at least 3 actions/bonus actions, this can reach even 4 or 5. And when you compare the effect of 11 psi points together, consuming 3 action with a lvl 7+ spell that cost just one action, well, we can't even compare.
I don't see a problem to stay with only 11 psi points, but would be great if you could use just one action to activate more than one discipline. Restrict the number of disciplines you can use in that case would be a good idea (2 at lvl 11, 3 at 13, 4 at 17)

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[Xeviat]

I now don't think they should add higher point effects to each discipline. Why? Because then they'd have 10 options for 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level effects. Now, they could use the scaling damage effects to go above 7, but 13d10 would not be efficient damage at 17th level.


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[TheCosmicKid]

No need to get personal.

I'm sorry. Believe me, that wasn't directed at you personally. I've never seen your work, and it'd be pretty ripe of me to cast aspersions at someone who might be the next Leonardo for all I know. And if you're self-critical enough to think you might be the sort of person I was talking about, you're definitely not the sort of person I was talking about. Those who have the strength to critique themselves honestly can never truly be failures, because they can always find ways to improve.

I'm going to hold off on the extended discussion of the nature of genius that I'm itching for, on account of it's wildly off-topic. But I did feel that I owed you this apology.

 

[Barolo]

Psionic mastery looks underpowered to me too. Not just about the 11 instead of 13 points, but you need an action to get the pool, than you need more actions/bonus actions to spend that. You probably want to use concentration disciplines to take real advantage of psionic mastery, but you'll need at least 3 actions/bonus actions, this can reach even 4 or 5. And when you compare the effect of 11 psi points together, consuming 3 action with a lvl 7+ spell that cost just one action, well, we can't even compare.
I don't see a problem to stay with only 11 psi points, but would be great if you could use just one action to activate more than one discipline. Restrict the number of disciplines you can use in that case would be a good idea (2 at lvl 11, 3 at 13, 4 at 17)

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That's interesting. The way I read it, I understood that the mystic can spend an action to access the pool and activate the power package, all at once. Otherwise, it would be really quite underwhelming, to spend so many combat rounds trying to activate lower level powers one by one. If trying to activate multiple non-concentration powers, why not just use the common PSPs? And if trying to activate multiple concentration powers, by the time whatever the mystic planned is finally online, the battle might as well be over already.

If I understood correctly, it would work as a multipurpose power activated all at once, at the same moment the mystic uses their action to gain the special PSPs. The way psionic powers are, limited compared to higher level spells, it would give a lot of flexibility, but at a somewhat limited ceiling. And I am quite ok with the idea of 11 points, equivalent in price to 8th level spells, as they get four of them per day. So, not as many as a 9th level spell sounds reasonable.

I've being toying with the powers a little bit, and so far I have not managed to find a combo as powerful as the higher level spells. Considering it is really fun to mix in whatever looks good for the occasion, and the fact that it feels like always having a useful tool for different circumstances, the lack of raw power really seems a fair tradeoff.

I now don't think they should add higher point effects to each discipline. Why? Because then they'd have 10 options for 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level effects. Now, they could use the scaling damage effects to go above 7, but 13d10 would not be efficient damage at 17th level.


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Exactly. The class as a whole is not really great for damage, unless someone is willing to burn action, bonus action, reaction, and a lot of PSPs all at once, which feels really wasteful compared to all the other nice stuff mystics get. Dealing damage is just too resource-intensive for mystics.

 

[Xeviat]

Exactly. The class as a whole is not really great for damage, unless someone is willing to burn action, bonus action, reaction, and a lot of PSPs all at once, which feels really wasteful compared to all the other nice stuff mystics get. Dealing damage is just too resource-intensive for mystics.

Interestingly, I've been thinking about Mystic damage. I'm writing up a big analysis right now, and one thing I dislike is how cantrips nearly invalidate many 1-4 PP effects eventually. So, my thought is that damage dealing powers that take an action should likely get +1 damage die at levels 5, 11, and 17. This wouldn't help much, but it would make sure that a 1 pp damage effect was always better than a talent.

I'm really surprised that the disciplines don't come with a paired talent. He Mystic gets too few talents. This could have helped.


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[Kobold Avenger]

That's interesting. The way I read it, I understood that the mystic can spend an action to access the pool and activate the power package, all at once. Otherwise, it would be really quite underwhelming, to spend so many combat rounds trying to activate lower level powers one by one. If trying to activate multiple non-concentration powers, why not just use the common PSPs? And if trying to activate multiple concentration powers, by the time whatever the mystic planned is finally online, the battle might as well be over already.

It's certainly my interpretation that the action to activate psionic mastery is also the action to use the discipline effects. But the wording doesn't seem to be that clear.

 

[zaratan]

That's interesting. The way I read it, I understood that the mystic can spend an action to access the pool and activate the power package, all at once. Otherwise, it would be really quite underwhelming, to spend so many combat rounds trying to activate lower level powers one by one. If trying to activate multiple non-concentration powers, why not just use the common PSPs? And if trying to activate multiple concentration powers, by the time whatever the mystic planned is finally online, the battle might as well be over already.

If I understood correctly, it would work as a multipurpose power activated all at once, at the same moment the mystic uses their action to gain the special PSPs. The way psionic powers are, limited compared to higher level spells, it would give a lot of flexibility, but at a somewhat limited ceiling. And I am quite ok with the idea of 11 points, equivalent in price to 8th level spells, as they get four of them per day. So, not as many as a 9th level spell sounds reasonable.

I've being toying with the powers a little bit, and so far I have not managed to find a combo as powerful as the higher level spells. Considering it is really fun to mix in whatever looks good for the occasion, and the fact that it feels like always having a useful tool for different circumstances, the lack of raw power really seems a fair tradeoff.

First time I read, I was thinking the same, than many questions about how can I abuse some effects or order of effects solving start to pop in my mind. I questioned if I was reading it right. Just to be sure I asked to Jeremy Crawford and got the most disappointed answer: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/843204145767100416

Obviously this was my biggest critic in survey. Trigger multiple effects with only one action is how this should work!

I can understand that is an abuse I use 3 times 1 psi point Hammer of Inquisition in one target (just to be sure that he'll fail in one), than use Punishing Fury and Shadow Beasts all with one action. Or whirlwind to change all positions, Push, to push two enemis that resisted to the area and than blast Psychic Crush. But in fact, even so, isn't as powerful as a level 8 spell.
If Psionic Mastery work with only one action, would be great and fun to use it, but isn't overpowered at all.

I think that the 1-7 psi effects should add damage in talents (as happen with weapon ones), instead of only do damage. Is hard to burn 5 psi points to do 5d10 when you could do 4d10+5 for 0.
probably 1 psi point would give just the effect, no damage add, at 2 would be +1 dice, and so.

 

[bganon]

The Talents are all "save for zero damage", whereas the ranged blasty discipline powers are almost all "save for half damage", so it's not like you get nothing for spending power points. And by the time Talents are dealing 3 or 4 dice, the Mystic has 64 power points (+9 Mastery points per day at 11th, +44 at 17th), so it's not like spending a few to outdamage a Talent is much of a loss.

But I agree that the list of Talents seems rather short.

 

[Xeviat]

The Talents are all "save for zero damage", whereas the ranged blasty discipline powers are almost all "save for half damage", so it's not like you get nothing for spending power points. And by the time Talents are dealing 3 or 4 dice, the Mystic has 64 power points (+9 Mastery points per day at 11th, +44 at 17th), so it's not like spending a few to outdamage a Talent is much of a loss.

But I agree that the list of Talents seems rather short.

That's very true, but it would be an odd situation where 1 pp for a guarantee of maybe half a d10 of damage would be game affecting.


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