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.

 

[Dragonhelm]

With the UA Psion out now, obviously WotC has already decided what book it would be part of. Whatever they decided, I will work with.

Regarding my preference, I hope the Psion class appears in an 'Everything' book, being quasi-core and meant for any setting.

Agreed.

Every major D&D setting has psionics ... Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Planescape, and so on. The Psion class also makes sense for Magic The Gathering Settings, including for Blue themes. It would be a mistake to reduce the Psion class to the flavor of the Dark Sun setting only. Of course, Dark Sun features psionics as a major setting theme. But psionics is important to most settings, and matters to psionic fans who want to play a Psion in whichever setting they are currently in.

It's interesting to note that the 3.0 Forgotten Realms said no psionics (even after the inclusion of psionics in 2e), but 3.5 did. They even added the College of the Eclipse, a psionic school.

Dragonlance traditionally does not have psionics. However, they were introduced to the setting in the Fifth Age materials with the mystic spheres of mentalism and meditation. One of the former leaders of the Knights of Neraka (Knights of Takhisis) was Morham Targonne, who showed telepathic abilities.

And of course, there's the yaggol of Taladas, who are supposed to be degenerate mind flayers.They would just be better served as being regular mind flayers with a different name for this setting.

 

[Von Ether]

I just wanted to point out that the US Chess Federation’s Official Rules of Chess, V 7th Edition, 1-1-24 is 144 pages long! The link is to a PDF of the rules.

I generally know how to play chess, but I have no idea what that PDF covers to need 144 pages. I also know that there are lot of/some strange rules that am unfamiliar with and only know because my son is much more interested in chess than I am.

If you ever wonder why a game needs so many additional rules and get the fun sucked out of it, the answer is "Tournaments," all the way down.

I don't mind some of the sci-fi elements of psionics. A lot of their names and powers that people find to be pseudo-science lean heavily into Greek or a sort of pseudo-Greek (e.g., psionics). It's actually something that would feel right at home in the Middle Ages, which was obsessed with Latin and Greek. A lot of alchemy, pseudo-science, and "magic" of those days involved Greek, Latin, or Arabic terms. It's almost something that should be at home with the scientific approach to magic of the Wizard. I would potentially even consider switching that around, with the psionic powers leaning into more mystical occult names.

Being a big fan of 1970s/1980s fantastical fiction, I've been exposed to so much genre mashing that psionics seems sci-fi leaning but not exclusive from fantasy for me personally. YMMV

 

[SkidAce]

You know... at this point I think with everyone getting so bent out of shape about all of this junk related to the Psion and psionics, I think it's best that we all vote 'Red' on the upcoming survey and kill psionics once again. Obviously people can't handle having it in the game.

Not directed at you, just using your thought to put my view out there.

Go ahead! Red it out of existence. While I might prefer more, and more polish, if the "community" screams no? I will just carry on with this UA by myself.

Hmmm, that sounds harsher than I mean.

What I'm trying to say is that regardless of nay sayers and extreme negativists, they can't stop us.

Oh well, its early and I lack coffee. Forgive me.

 

[SkidAce]

I’m voting Green now and making 1000 bot accounts to vote green just to spite this post.

Or this.

"Vive la (psionic) Revolucion", you will never hear/see it coming. I for one welcome our new psionic overlords.

 

[SkidAce]

Druids fell into the preserver niche for me, and clerics never really bothered me, maybe because they existed in other settings as well whereas psionics was something I only encountered in Dark Sun and maybe as a result it did feel like they were specifically added so we could have our cake and eat it too (magic without the downsides of defiling / preserving)

I feel they never should have added clerics to Dark Sun.

 

[SkidAce]

I think either the term “psionic energy die(dice)” will need a change or the community will invent a new shorthand.

7 syllables just to refer to a common class resource is going to be a mouthful every time.

I don’t like the abbreviation PED, but it might stick.

Psi-die?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I feel they never should have added clerics to Dark Sun.

It was probably more of a necessity back in 2e when no other class got access to the type of healing (well mainly Raise Dead and Resurrection) Clerics got.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We should remember the psion will need some special room or space in the bastion, maybe a garden to meditate.

the psionic powers will have to be designed to be easy to be adapted to some sci-fi setting.

Psionic powers may be rare but always there is some players who want to be "special", like the urban tribes wearing their own fashion style.

Let's imagine a fiction story within Dragon magazine where there are several spellcasters but not class is metioned. How would you recognize the class of each character? And how would you notice the difference between the sorcerer and the psion?

* Should the maenas to be renamed?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Also thinking back to other Psionic classes, what about the Wilder? It was sort of the Psionic Sorcerer back in 3.5e, but the Sorcerer in general tends to do some of the things the Wilder does, but the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer is not exactly the same thing as a Wilder. Could Wilder be a subclass of Psion? Or should it be a subclass of something else?

 

[Aldarc]

Also thinking back to other Psionic classes, what about the Wilder? It was sort of the Psionic Sorcerer back in 3.5e, but the Sorcerer in general tends to do some of the things the Wilder does, but the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer is not exactly the same thing as a Wilder. Could Wilder be a subclass of Psion? Or should it be a subclass of something else?

Not opposed to having some of these psionic classes being turned into subclasses for other classes: see Psychic Warrior and Soulknife. However, I think that some of the more interesting psionic classes weren't the ones that WotC developed but the ones that came out of Dreamscarred Press for Pathfinder 1.