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.

 

[Dire Bare]

"Slavery is bad. And should be opposed at all times" really shouldn't be a strong stance to take, either.

But slavery isn't the issue, in the end. They -claim- it is... but then they have you oppose slavery in all the other worlds. Well. Not really. Slavery is just a thing that happens in those worlds and sometimes you interact with it and sometimes you don't. 'Cause even THAT isn't a strong stance they take.

Duergar keep slaves (Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide). Blindheim are slaves to Drow and Kuo-Toa (Mordenkainen's Fiendish Folio Volume 1). Yuan-Ti keep slaves and sometimes eat them (Monster Manual). Grung uses slaves for various menial tasks and poison them to keep them under control (One Grung Above, introducing Grung as a player heritage). Geryon keeps slaves he stole from Baphomet (Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes). Gith bring treasures and slaves back to their ageless realm (Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes). In the Tomb of Annihilation Suplement there's the caravel Carcerius which carried slaves from Chult and went down with a full cargo hold of Chultan slaves still chained up. Drow keep thousands of slaves of various races in Menzoberranzan (Out of the Abyss). Goblins keep slaves (Volo's Guide to Monsters). There's the Thrull slaves of the Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica, too.

Like. There being slaves in the game is not remotely the reason why Dark Sun isn't being made. Regardless of whatever "Sensitivity" WotC claims exists about them. If they gave a crap about that they wouldn't have had a slave ship full of slaves get sunk off the coast of Chult with everyone on board specifically drowned. You'd -imagine- that would have a far more specific issue of sensitivity.

Anyway. That's not the reason. And hasn't been for a -long- time. People love to imagine that's the reason... but it isn't.

Slavery is a part of current D&D. Yes.

Slavery in Dark Sun is a lot more omnipresent than in standard D&D.

But . . . okay, what IS the reason why WotC won't publish Dark Sun?

 

[Corinnguard]

The shadows are coming.

A Babylon 5 reference?

 

[Weiley31]

Energy Dice

It seems the Psionic "thing" in 5e is dice that power things.
Soul Knife does uses there's for more than damage.
Psi Warrior does too.

Having the Psion do similar is a strong story echo

I always LIKED the Psi-Die mechanic. They just did it so weird the first time around (low number good, high number bad) that I think it threw a lot of people off.

But I like Dice-based resource classes in 5E.

I wonder if they will do another base class after.the Psion, should it fully go through. Artificer was the 13th, Psion now the 14th in theory.

 

[Steampunkette]

Slavery is a part of current D&D. Yes.

Slavery in Dark Sun is a lot more omnipresent than in standard D&D.

But . . . okay, what IS the reason why WotC won't publish Dark Sun?

In short: Marketability and ease of Design.

In Long:

1) Climate Change is a charged political issue rather than something even children understand is a continuous problem.

2) The aggregation of global power into the hands of a few magocratic elite who lie and manipulate the populace to try and force their compliance rings too true to the modern day.

3) Psionics. They've yet to make a decent psionics class. This is as close as they've gotten in over 10 years.

4) They painted themselves into a corner making the "Weave" a universal source of magic for designing a world where that makes no sense.

5) "Brutality". Dark Sun was originally a scaled up "More Difficult" version of D&D with higher stat values and bigger scarier monsters that kill you and make you grab a new character. And the current urge to balance everything in the blandest way possible makes that original design intent a non-option, stripping away more of the setting's identity.

6) A buncha classes aren't the current shiny happy version. Some are specifically not typically present at all, resulting in a desire to either alter the setting, or the classes.

7) Most of the massive kitchen sink of gonzo heritages don't exist on Athas, which might make it hard for some players who refuse to play anything other than the one heritage they like.

8) Cannibal Elves and Halflings instead of lofty fae creatures and chubby adorable cooks breaks the current narrative schema of trying to make everything homogeneous across as many settings as possible. The core races would need to be redesigned.

9) Mul. A half-breed which cannot produce offspring plays into some ugly historical stereotypes and racist ideologies.

10) Dark Sun is an untested property on the current primary market. The 4e market was mostly people who had played 3e hanging with the people who played 2e. 5e's market is way younger and doesn't have that experience, making it a shot in the dark on whether or not it'll actually be something people will like outside of nostalgia purchases for the older players. And without widespread adoption it's practically doomed.

11) Dark Sun is a drastically different setting to traditional fantasy. At least Ravenloft's Gothic Horror typically has a place -in- high fantasy settings. But apocalyptic fantasy is wholly different and less likely to be widely adopted. The sheer divergence of identity from -everything- that has sold well in the past decade may be too far a gulf for Hasbro's board of directors who are just trying to keep WotC and D&D in a place of profitability.

 

[WanderingMystic]

In short: Marketability and ease of Design.

In Long:

1) Climate Change is a charged political issue rather than something even children understand is a continuous problem.

2) The aggregation of global power into the hands of a few magocratic elite who lie and manipulate the populace to try and force their compliance rings too true to the modern day.

3) Psionics. They've yet to make a decent psionics class. This is as close as they've gotten in over 10 years.

4) They painted themselves into a corner making the "Weave" a universal source of magic for designing a world where that makes no sense.

5) "Brutality". Dark Sun was originally a scaled up "More Difficult" version of D&D with higher stat values and bigger scarier monsters that kill you and make you grab a new character. And the current urge to balance everything in the blandest way possible makes that original design intent a non-option, stripping away more of the setting's identity.

6) A buncha classes aren't the current shiny happy version. Some are specifically not typically present at all, resulting in a desire to either alter the setting, or the classes.

7) Most of the massive kitchen sink of gonzo heritages don't exist on Athas, which might make it hard for some players who refuse to play anything other than the one heritage they like.

8) Cannibal Elves and Halflings instead of lofty fae creatures and chubby adorable cooks breaks the current narrative schema of trying to make everything homogeneous across as many settings as possible. The core races would need to be redesigned.

9) Mul. A half-breed which cannot produce offspring plays into some ugly historical stereotypes and racist ideologies.

10) Dark Sun is an untested property on the current primary market. The 4e market was mostly people who had played 3e hanging with the people who played 2e. 5e's market is way younger and doesn't have that experience, making it a shot in the dark on whether or not it'll actually be something people will like outside of nostalgia purchases for the older players. And without widespread adoption it's practically doomed.

11) Dark Sun is a drastically different setting to traditional fantasy. At least Ravenloft's Gothic Horror typically has a place -in- high fantasy settings. But apocalyptic fantasy is wholly different and less likely to be widely adopted. The sheer divergence of identity from -everything- that has sold well in the past decade may be too far a gulf for Hasbro's board of directors who are just trying to keep WotC and D&D in a place of profitability.

This is the best written, and most thorough explanation of the problems of releasing Dark Sun in this day and age.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Perhaps we should be talking about the Psion UA in this thread, and have the slavery/Dark Sun conversation in a different one?

 

[Staffan]

"Slavery is bad. And should be opposed at all times" really shouldn't be a strong stance to take, either.

But slavery isn't the issue, in the end. They -claim- it is... but then they have you oppose slavery in all the other worlds. Well. Not really. Slavery is just a thing that happens in those worlds and sometimes you interact with it and sometimes you don't. 'Cause even THAT isn't a strong stance they take.

I think this is an issue where things are changing. For example, Paizo got a lot of feedback from their customers that they were uncomfortable with depictions of slavery in-game, even when slavery was depicted as unambiguously bad. As a result they have decided not to focus on that anymore – it's not like Cheliax has stopped the practice, but Paizo won't turn the camera onto that region anymore. So there are clearly a number of people for whom slavery is a highly sensitive issue and who don't want to deal with it in their elfgames, much like others don't want sexual assault to be a thing that happens in the games (which I think is also a reason why half-orcs are if not gone, shoved aside in a corner somewhere).

As a white dude living in Sweden, this is really not my fight to take sides in. Some people like having game worlds where things are basically good and players can feel good about doing small-scale stuff and defending the status quo – nothing wrong with that. Others like having game worlds where things are bleeped up and the PCs are the ones who can set things right. And Dark Sun definitely needs to be in the latter category.

The issue there is that if you're going to do that, then that facet of the setting by necessity becomes the dominant one. And that reduces the ability to do other things, like exploring Dark Sun's history, or dealing with a local tribe, or journeying beyond the Hinterlands to the Jagged Cliffs and the Kreen Empire below them.

But I think you're right that the slavery issue isn't the only thing keeping Dark Sun off the shelves – as you say, there's plenty of slavery to go around in D&D. But in the other cases you list, it's mostly something happening "over there". It's being done by monsters, or "savages" (and that's also a term that has some issues, but that's for another time), or evil cultists. But in Dark Sun, it's front and center. The 2e version had a class who had a class feature to sentence freemen to slavery. The intro adventure in the original boxed set started the PCs off as slaves, and the first published adventure throws them into slavery in the opening act. So it's a bigger issue than in most other settings, and this combined with how different Dark Sun is from other worlds (no gods, psionics, different playable species even if they have the same names, defiling, etc.) means that doing a 5e Dark Sun would be spending a lot of effort to make something that would have a significant chance of either (a) blowing up in their faces because of sensitivity issues, (b) alienating the fan base because it's untrue to the old version, or (c) both. And in light of that, it makes perfect sense for Wizards to spend their efforts elsewhere.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Psionics?

That can mean only one thing.

GAMMA WORLD.

 

[Minigiant]

But . . . okay, what IS the reason why WotC won't publish Dark Sun?

Because Dark Sun is edgy and unserious about serious topics and it doesn't trust someone going viral on social media with their new release being offensive while they are unserious about serious topics.

A cursed live play.

 

[Dausuul]

D&D Beyond is obviously quite capable of retooling for a new edition.

They are? Sure doesn't look like it to me. Last I checked, they were still crawling with 2024E bugs, and 2024E is pretty small beer as edition changes go.