D&D 5E Aberrant Mind's Psionic Sorcery is officially the most powerful feature.

[Ovinomancer]

No?
Sorcerers have a lot of high level spells slots. It's called Sorcerer's Flexible casting. Converting low level spells slots to a higher level spell for a worth battle.
The Sorcerer potentially has 8, 5th spell slot.
They can't choose 1 on portent (It has two d20, not 1), also, Magical Guidance to reroll a failed counterspell's check. You can't use reaction while surprised and yes, the sorcerer can upcast it to level 5.
And no, Shield won't save the wizard against that alpha attack.
The Wizard is dead.

And, how many 5th level slots have you prepared -- I'd like to take the same number of rounds of preparation with the wizard.

Beside, most likely the Wizard has beaten you because you've fallen for the Orc in a Robe ploy he though up as a lark to use on 8 INT 8 WIS sorcerers. A little 1st level illusioning and you're snookered into alpha striking the Orc while the Wizard guffaws and polishes you off. I mean, if we just get to make things up after the fact?

 

[Istbor]

I would interpret psychic damage without visual effects as a severe headache, hallucinations and madness.
Mental exaustion.

All of those to the degree that you are taking damage would have visual cues. From gasping one's head to an NPC or creature acting weird or engaging with objects or enemies that are not there.

Unless you prefer they just stand there and do nothing... that's your choice but it sounds profoundly boring.

 

[Undrave]

They can't choose 1 on portent (It has two d20, not 1)

Do you even know how the Diviner's Portent works??

 

[Maxperson]

All of those to the degree that you are taking damage would have visual cues. From gasping one's head to an NPC or creature acting weird or engaging with objects or enemies that are not there.

Unless you prefer they just stand there and do nothing... that's your choice but it sounds profoundly boring.

Not only that, but hallucinations and madness have effects other than damage attached to them. Hallucinations would be akin to Phantasmal Force, and madness would dictate to the player how they have to play their PC, depending on the type of madness.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Hex vs Spirit Shroud.
1d6 vs 2d8 (For 3d8 level 7th or 4d8).
average 4.25 vs average 11.
Yes It's 10ft, a amazing place to subtle counterspell.

What math are you doing that the average of 1d6 is 4.25 and 2d8 is 11?

 

[Hohige]

What math are you doing that the average of 1d6 is 4.25 and 2d8 is 11?

Empower Metamagic.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I would interpret psychic damage without visual effects as a severe headache, hallucinations and madness.
Mental exaustion.

Subtle spell allows you to cast a spell without Verbal or Somatic components. It doesn't convert the spell into a special category of "The target doesn't know they were affected by a spell". Psychic damage could very easily (and often in Stranger Things) be represented by a grimace of pain and a nose/eye/ear bleeding. It could also have much greater visual effects...its all up to the GM and how they want to adjudicate things.

Here is a scene from a movie with two "psychic sorcerers" doing mental only battles. Notice lots of visual effects from the power use.

 

[Hohige]

Subtle spell allows you to cast a spell without Verbal or Somatic components. It doesn't convert the spell into a special category of "The target doesn't know they were affected by a spell". Psychic damage could very easily (and often in Stranger Things) be represented by a grimace of pain and a nose/eye/ear bleeding. It could also have much greater visual effects...its all up to the GM and how they want to adjudicate things.

Here is a scene from a movie with two "psychic sorcerers" doing mental only battles. Notice lots of visual effects from the power use.

Wow. Its a Nice reference for Subtle Telekinetic spell and AoE mental explotions like Snypatic Static or Psychic Scream. But, Mind Spike affects only The creature's Mind subtly.
But, Nice catch for references.

 

[Crit]

Wow. Its a Nice reference for Subtle Telekinetic spell and AoE mental explotions like Snypatic Static or Psychic Scream. But, Mind Spike affects only The creature's Mind subtly.
But, Nice catch for references.

Subtle Spell means no verbal or somatic components on the end of the caster, not "not noticed by the recipient." Similarly, you don't SEE yourself getting poisoned, but you'll sure FEEL it. It doesn't matter if it's your brain or your kidneys, damage has a real effect if it's tanking HP. If someone takes 2d8 psychic damage, they know they got hit by a spell, they just didn't hear a voice cast it or see you move to do it. All it takes is one investigation or perception check, now that they're looking for you, before the ruse is up.

If I subtle cast magic missile, the missiles would be visible. Unless a spell specifically states that there's some level of invisibility to it, it's safe to assume there's some visual component or it's up to the DM to decide how the magic got from A to B, and if it's visible. I'd say Suggestion isn't, but a damaging spell like Mind Spike I'd say yeah.

Mind Spike doesn't say anything that would imply there's something secretive about the spell itself- I'd argue the opposite, frankly. They might not know they're being tracked, especially if they didn't catch the verbal or somatic cues, but they took a hit all the same. If someone makes a WIS save, that implies that they're responding to the damaging event in some way.

 

[Maxperson]

"The spell's level" means the level of the spell itself, as they are when you get them. For example- "detect thoughts" is a second level spell, and always is. You can cast it with a higher spell slot, yes, but it's still a level two spell. It's only listed in its base form in the Aberrant Mind's spell list, so you can ONLY cast it at lvl 2 for 2 sorcery points because that's what AM's spell list gives you. Lvl 3 Detect Thoughts is NOT in your psionic spell list, so you can't use sorcery points for it. If you want to do something different than that, then you'd have to use spell slots. In other words- no lvl 8 spells for 8 points.

Hi. Welcome to the forum.

I'm going to disagree with you. The PHB says this on page 201, "When a spellcaster casts a spell using a slot that is of a higher level than the spell, the spell assumes the higher level for that casting. For instance, if Umara casts magic missile using one of her 2nd-level slots, that magic missile is 2nd level."

As you can see, the spell level can and does change if you up cast. That means that a spell on the Aberrant Mind's spell list that is capable of being cast using a higher level spell slot changes spell levels when the Aberrant Mind chooses to up cast it. A 9th level Aberrant Mind that casts Summon Aberration can opt to use a 5th level slot if one is available. Once the spell level is set at the new level, the Aberrant Mind can choose to expend that slot or use sorcery points in place of the slot using Psionic Sorcery. What the Aberrant Mind cannot do is up cast past his highest available spell slot, since it requires an available slot in order to move up in level.

What also happens is that if you were to say use that 5th level slot to cast Detect Thoughts, which doesn't gain any extra power from using a higher level spell slot, it would still take 5 sorcery points to use Psionic Sorcery, as it still becomes a 5th level spell per the above rule. Seems like that would be a waste of points and a slot unless you HAD to do it for some reason.