D&D Debuts Playtest for Psion Class

Wizards of the Coast is playtesting the Psion class for Dungeons & Dragons. Today, Wizards of the Coast provided a new Unearthed Arcana for the Psion, a new class for the current revised 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The playtest includes base class rules plus four subclasses - the body-shifting Metamorph, the reality warping Psi Warper, the offensive-minded Psykinetic, and the Telepath.

The core mechanic of the Psion involves use of Psion Energy die. Players have a pool of energy dice that replenishes after a Long Rest, with the number and size of the dice determined by the Psion's level. These psion energy dice can either be rolled to increase results of various checks/saving throws or spent to fuel various Psion abilities.

While the Psion and psionics have a long tradition in D&D, they've only received a handful of subclasses in 5th Edition. If the Psion survives playtesting, it would mark the first time that Wizards of the Coast has added a new character class to D&D since the Artificer. Notably, the Psion and psionics are also heavily associated with Dark Sun, a post-apocalyptic campaign setting that many considered to be off the table for Fifth Edition due to the need to update parts of the setting to bring it current with modern sensibilities. However, the introduction of Wild talent feats (which replaces some Origin feats tied to backgrounds with psion-themed Feats) in the UA seems to suggest that Dark Sun is back on the table.

 

[Mournblade94]

Moving the scene of the action to another part of the planet or forward 100 years would address both of those. (Or, you know, just retconning the level of acceptance.)

Moving the Forgotten Realms forward 100 years likely contributed to a whole edition being ill received. Retconning would really change the world to the point that there is little reason to do it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Moving the Forgotten Realms forward 100 years likely contributed to a whole edition being ill received.

Nah. That was the icing on the cake, to be sure, but the reaction to 4E started long before people knew what the 4E Forgotten Realms would look like.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Kyle Brink did NOTHING but say stupid stuff about the game itself and its player base. But also the people that don't work at WOTC anymore are the people that KNEW Darksun.

I gotta be real, I don't think institutional knowledge at WotC is remotely what you're cracking it up to be. I don't think it's remotely reasonable to believe you need to have been at WotC for 20+ years to make a good Dark Sun setting.

I think what's reasonable is that you have to understand Dark Sun. Whether you achieve that by, y'know, reading, playing and understanding Dark Sun, or by dint of having been there when it was written doesn't matter. There are people on the DS subreddit who hadn't even heard of 2E-era DS ten years ago who have a perfect grasp on it right now.

Also you said 5E Planescape wasn't too bad, but absolutely no-one who was responsible for the original brilliance of Planescape (primarily Zeb Cook, note, all the central conceits are his specifically) was there when that got made. So that's a pretty clear refutation of this "institutional knowledge" theory re: settings.

 

[Mournblade94]

So, should the fan-made stuff stop being made, too? They didn't work on Dark Sun, either.

No they didn't but they were there for it. The fans know the material inside and out. I would trust them WAY more than the new team at WOTC now that Perkins is gone. The new creators likely wouldn't have experienced it through play. The fans would have, and also be familiar with what was popular with the Dark Sun Player base at the time.

 

[Mournblade94]

I gotta be real, I don't think institutional knowledge at WotC is remotely what you're cracking it up to be. I don't think it's remotely reasonable to believe you need to have been at WotC for 20+ years to make a good Dark Sun setting.

I think what's reasonable is that you have to understand Dark Sun. Whether you achieve that by, y'know, reading, playing and understanding Dark Sun, or by dint of having been there when it was written doesn't matter. There are people on the DS subreddit who hadn't even heard of 2E-era DS ten years ago who have a perfect grasp on it right now.

Also you said 5E Planescape wasn't too bad, but absolutely no-one who was responsible for the original brilliance of Planescape (primarily Zeb Cook, note, all the central conceits are his specifically) was there when that got made. So that's a pretty clear refutation of this "institutional knowledge" theory re: settings.

EDIT: Also the shackles of Hasbro really screw this up. One reason that Greyhawk is so awesome in the fan community is that Roger Moore is directly involved. It would be great if WOTC could hire Troy Denning free lance like they do Ed Greenwood to work on the setting. At the Planescape time Zeb Cook was the head of Elder Scrolls online so no way he could have. But he and Bill Slaviscek made "Planescape" in ESO and it was awesome. So I bet if he had time he WOULD have.

I don't want "too bad" I want good to great. Planescape was neither of those. THey should have gotten fans like Shemeska to work on it, and was very dissapointed when she told me she didn't.

YES! The players of the Dark Sun subreddit are EXACTLY who you want to get working on this. They played with fans, they learned from dark sun players, and it would likely make results like the Current Canonfire Greyhawk Community. The Greyhawk in the DMG is a better iteration than Dragonlance, Planescape, and ofcourse SPelljammer. Perkins though is a fan of Greyhawk.

 

[Mournblade94]

Nah. That was the icing on the cake, to be sure, but the reaction to 4E started long before people knew what the 4E Forgotten Realms would look like.

Likely true. It was the lever that pushed alot of us over the edge to giving up on it. I was more of a Forgotten Realms fan than anything else.

 

[Aldarc]

I know a lot of people are going to complain about the fact they are spellcasters (though without V or non costly M) and don't use points to cast with. I don't care. We're going to get a real psionic class and it looks like a decent update to the 3e class. And Dark Sun really does look more likely, or at least a new $30 rules expansion for psionics.

Good enough for me for now. I'll rip into the mechanics later, but I'm happy to have a psionic character not bound in tentacles for now.

To be fair, I feel vindicated as just having them cast spells was the excluded middle that I felt that WotC was ignoring when they were playtesting the Mystic and the psionic subclasses.

 

[Steampunkette]

Dark Sun requires a strong moral stand against the mundane evils in the world just as much as the mystical.

And Hasbro, being a publicly traded corporation, cannot take a strong moral stance on literally anything.

They should sell the license to a 3rd party publisher to do it justice and give a general head nod toward it with a "We didn't write it and we don't specifically condone it, but if you want to buy it we'll take 50% of all proceeds."

 

[pukunui]

I'm pretty happy with this version of the psion. I'd prefer power points over spell slots (with augmentable powers), but I'd play this version happily enough. The only thing I can think of to quibble about right now is that the Telekinetic Fling cantrip requires a costly material component.* Is this the only cantrip - other than the ones that require a weapon to use - in 5e that has that requirement?


*I realize 1 cp isn't particularly "costly" as such, but the point is - if you haven't got one of those specific items on hand, you can't use this cantrip, which seems a bit unfair compared to other magic cantrips. I think I would prefer it if you could use a pebble or something at the very least, even if that means reducing the die size or whatever.

 

[Dragonhelm]

I know a lot of people are going to complain about the fact they are spellcasters (though without V or non costly M) and don't use points to cast with. I don't care. We're going to get a real psionic class and it looks like a decent update to the 3e class. And Dark Sun really does look more likely, or at least a new $30 rules expansion for psionics.

Good enough for me for now. I'll rip into the mechanics later, but I'm happy to have a psionic character not bound in tentacles for now.

Yeah, I'm tired of the idea of psionics being tied to aberrations and the Far Realm. I like the idea of the intelligent Professor X type.

I do like that we have both options, though.