D&D 5E Mystic, Psionic Mastery, and 11th level and up

[jgsugden]

We need to test more before we judge.

 

[neogod22]

You can activate a single concentration power in one round and then a second the round after.

Actually, rereading it, I've finally found out where the rest of the mystic's psi points are, they're tied up in multiple uses of this power. I always thought the progression in the chart looked odd at higher levels.

Wrong. You get 9 special points that you use. You can activate all powers with these 9 points at once. There's no limit on how you use the powers, just you can't use your normal psi points. Any powers that you had activated via your normal points are immediately cancelled, and if you start using your normal points, then your psychic mastery is cancelled.

That being said, while I do with the idea of having more powerful abilities, I think the Mystic is about versatility thst spell casters don't get. Since the restriction of magic is 6th+ level spell slots can't be recovered without a long rest, they should give each discipline a capstone ability that can only be used with the psychic mastery ability. That way they can keep the theme that no matter which order you are, you can use any discipline.

Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk

 

[cbwjm]

Wrong. You get 9 special points that you use. You can activate all powers with these 9 points at once. There's no limit on how you use the powers, just you can't use your normal psi points. Any powers that you had activated via your normal points are immediately cancelled, and if you start using your normal points, then your psychic mastery is cancelled.

That being said, while I do with the idea of having more powerful abilities, I think the Mystic is about versatility thst spell casters don't get. Since the restriction of magic is 6th+ level spell slots can't be recovered without a long rest, they should give each discipline a capstone ability that can only be used with the psychic mastery ability. That way they can keep the theme that no matter which order you are, you can use any discipline.

Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk

If I'm wrong, no worries but then I think that the power needs some serious rewording because it is incredibly unclear. Maybe it's been clarified on twitter, but the way I read it is that you use your action to generate the points and then can spend those points in subsequent rounds (or the same round using a bonus action). Since you can lose unspent points when you complete a long rest it looks like you don't have to spend them all at once.

 

[neogod22]

If I'm wrong, no worries but then I think that the power needs some serious rewording because it is incredibly unclear. Maybe it's been clarified on twitter, but the way I read it is that you use your action to generate the points and then can spend those points in subsequent rounds (or the same round using a bonus action). Since you can lose unspent points when you complete a long rest it looks like you don't have to spend them all at once.

Basically, depending on which powers you use, and which disciplines you have, you may not be able to use them all. But you can spend them all at once or in other rounds, the power last as long as you're using the special points and not your regular points.

Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk

 

[Ancalagon]

Allowing a mystic to, instead of having higher level "spells", being able to maintain more than one concentration at once, is pretty potent no?

Basically, depending on which powers you use, and which disciplines you have, you may not be able to use them all. But you can spend them all at once or in other rounds, the power last as long as you're using the special points and not your regular points.

Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk

Did you read the tweet? It would indicate that you are incorrect...

 

[cbwjm]

Allowing a mystic to, instead of having higher level "spells", being able to maintain more than one concentration at once, is pretty potent no?

I think it would be, but many of the concentration powers would be fairly limited in that you'd have to use a couple of low point cost powers since you only have 11 points (from 15th level) to spend on powers, not much can combine with the 7 point powers although there may be some good combos I haven't seen yet since I'm only having a quick flick through. Some of the 5 points powers might combine together into something spectacular. Visions of Disgust and Punishing fury look like they would combine quite well to take down a solo enemy.

Something else that should perhaps be clarified is what happens when you activate a second use of Psionic Mastery. Do you add points together, do the points reset and do any concentration powers go away or can you eventually spend 44 points of these special Psi Points on powerful concentration effects?

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I looked for Crawford's clatification, but the only reference to Psionic Mastery I could find is that it costs an action to activate these special points. Is there another out there that I've missed?

https://mobile.twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/843204145767100416

If it wasn't meant to allow you to activate two powers at once, why would there even be a discussion about mutiple concentrations in the ability itself? I mean, I can see how that would be if you looked at it one way, but I'm interpreting it differently, You're still limited to 7 psi per power, you're just adding a little flavor from another power.

As was mentioned, you would activate additional powers with additional actions while previous ones were ongoing, and you could add them to your concentration.

Otherwise, what's the point about activating at all? Just activate them after a long rest and tool around with them all day. How are they even bonus points at all? Just raise the psi points.

Yes! This is one of the problems. Even worse, you eventually get 3 uses of this ability that does nothing but give you special points that last all day. There is nothing preventing you from just spending your first few minutes in the morning using that power 3 times to get all your points ready for the day. There is literally no reason I can think of not to do that.

However, there is a reason they didn't just grant you more points. They want you to have a limited ability to break the concentration rules, so you only get a certain fraction of your points that are able to be used for it.

 

[Fanaelialae]

https://mobile.twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/843204145767100416



As was mentioned, you would activate additional powers with additional actions while previous ones were ongoing, and you could add them to your concentration.



Yes! This is one of the problems. Even worse, you eventually get 3 uses of this ability that does nothing but give you special points that last all day. There is nothing preventing you from just spending your first few minutes in the morning using that power 3 times to get all your points ready for the day. There is literally no reason I can think of not to do that.

However, there is a reason they didn't just grant you more points. They want you to have a limited ability to break the concentration rules, so you only get a certain fraction of your points that are able to be used for it.

What about the fact that there are certain powers (like Corrosive Metabolism's Breath of the Black Dragon, but there are numerous others) that don't have a point limit and therefore you can dump however many points you can generate in one go into those powers? Breath of the Black Dragon costs 5 points to activate, but also states "You can increase the damage by 1d6 per additional psi point spent on it". For example, an 11th level Mystic could dump all 9 points generated from Psionic Mastery into Breath of the Black Dragon to deal 10d6 damage (instead of the normal 6d6). At 15th level, he could spend all 11 points generated by Psionic Mastery to deal 12d6 with that power. As far as I can figure, those are your "higher level spells". 12d6 is roughly on par with a 7th level spell slot, so a 17th level psion effectively has four 7th level spell slots per day that can broken up into smaller slots.

I agree with [MENTION=6788732]cbwjm[/MENTION] that psionic mastery does not allow you to activate abilities simply by virtue of having used psionic mastery. It seems to me meant to be used before an encounter to gain a second pool of points that you can use to power higher level effects, or ignore the limitations on concentration. You probably wouldn't want to activate psionic mastery during a fight since it uses your action and therefore would make you spin your wheels for a round (unless you wanted to do something with your bonus action).

Frankly, ignoring concentration limits is significantly better than dealing extra damage unless your really need to nova. I'd much rather be dissecting the battlefield into bite-sized chunks using three instances of Wall of Repulsion than dealing 12d6 damage for a single round.

 

[Fanaelialae]

One of the strongest uses I can think of is to summon shadows using Mastery of Light and Darkness. Imagine you are on the other side of the door that leads to the BBEG (or just a tough fight) and you know this due to having used other abilities. You can summon up 6 shadows and send them under the door (Amorphous). Shadows don't have great accuracy, but with 6 attacks you'll probably land a few shots before they die, especially if they manage to surprise their target (they're fairly good at stealth), and that's -2.5 Str to the BBEG per hit. It's the perfect way to soften up a heavy hitter before the fight (less relevant against magic users unless you manage to zero out their Strength and outright kill them). A DM could declare that there is no 1 inch gap to squeeze through under the door, but it's unlikely that the DM will be able to put their BBEG in a hermetically sealed room every single time you encounter one. Frankly, this power probably needs to be looked at. There are plenty of otherwise hard fights that this could trivialize starting at 11th level...

EDIT:
If you do need nova DPR, the Psychic Assault discipline's Psychic Blast is the way to go. A 60 foot cone that, when using all 11 pts from psionic mastery deals 18d8. That's not quite on par with Meteor Swarm, but it blows a 9th level fireball out of the water.

ANOTHER EDIT:
Psychic Phantoms' Phantom Foe is a good choice for sustained single target DPR. With all 11 pts, it deals 9d8 damage per round for up to a minute (admittedly, it's a gamble, since if the target makes their save they take nothing).

 

[neogod22]

One thing I think they should do is when you want to change your psychic focus, it should be 1 time per round, but no action. There are too many things that require a bonus action.

Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk