Unearthed Arcana New Unearthed Arcana: Psionics!

There’s a new Unearthed Arcana article out, and it’s all about psionics! "Their minds bristling with power, three new subclasses arrive in today’s Unearthed Arcana: the Psychic Warrior for the fighter, the Soulknife for the rogue, and the tradition of Psionics for the wizard."

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In this 9-page PDF, there are also some new psionics-themed spells (including versions of classic psionic powers like id insinuation and ego whip) and two new feats.

 

[Salthorae]

Thought Shield - Sounds pretty powerful for its level. I'm not sure what it means by the recipient's mind not being detected. I assume its for things like detect thoughts and mind spike, but if they mean scrying and such, wow.

Nothing in scrying talks about detecting minds, and this isn't a blanket against any/all divinations, of which scrying is one.

Nondetection blocks scrying and other divinations. This just blocks minds from mind-reading effects. detect thoughts, telepathy, and zone of truth type effects. Useful but not overpowered.

Also - damn... I'm gone from the computer for 1.5 hours and you guys toss up 5.5 pages of posts??

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

You don't need new mechanics to have "awesome settings, new monsters, or interesting spells down the road." That is a false assumption.

That's not what I said. I agree they can keep publishing quality stuff without expanding the game with new mechanics/subsystems, and the game could thrive in fun and interesting ways. Still, some of us want something else, and we'll have to look for it in third-party books.

 

[TwoSix]

You don't need new mechanics to have "awesome settings, new monsters, or interesting spells down the road." That is a false assumption.

He's basically saying they aren't going to waste their time on rules that hardly anyone plays with. I would agree with that, because it means they can keep creating "awesome settings, new monsters, or interesting spells" down the road for people who will actually use them.

That's literally the opposite of what the poster you were quoting said.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not saying the game is dead, I'm not saying we won't have great storylines, awesome settings, new monsters, or interesting spells down the road. Anyone who expected the official designers to explore new mechanical directions with the core rules, though, should go somewhere else for it. I don't see what's the problem in recognizing that just because JC will not (or should not) say it clearly.

Yep. It wouldn't be so annoying if some of the last couple UAs hadn't shown some willingness to innovate. I would think psionics would be one of those subject areas that deserves a higher amount of innovation, but I'm guessing that the cool response to the Mystic closed that path.

To be fair to WotC, I really shouldn't blame the conservatism of their design on anything other than the conservatism of their surveyed audience.

 

[Leatherhead]

Are you kidding?

No, are you?

Do you seriously think this is worth 1d10 points of health per round? It's not even worth 1d10 points of temp HP a around.

The Primary job of the Fighter is to serve as a roadblock to opponents trying to get at the squishier back lines after all, and it's much harder to do so when you don't have a reaction for an OA. If you want an example of a good variation of this idea, look into the Rune Knight's Defensive Runes, which grants bonus AC like the Shield spell.

You definitely missed the point on this subclass. This is a jedi. Which, I suppose, is where the paladin vibe comes from. Not sure why you think this has far realms flavor. Wasn't getting that at all. I mean, look at the sub-class description:

I was complaining that it didn't have that far realms flavor. They used to be able to do weird stuff like fuse their hand into a sword.

But, it is an interesting idea.

I just don't like how needlessly complex it is. You could just say "Twice per short Rest" and achieve much of the same result.

 

[Shardstone]

The Primary job of the Fighter is to serve as a roadblock to opponents trying to get at the squishier back lines after all, and it's much harder to do so when you don't have a reaction for an OA. If you want an example of a good variation of this idea, look into the Rune Knight's Defensive Runes, which grants bonus AC like the Shield spell.

Is this still the primary job in a party of fighters, barbarians, paladins, rangers, and monks?

Or a party of a Battlemaster, Champion, Eldritch Knight, Psychic Warrior, and Samurai?

 

[gyor]

Yep. It wouldn't be so annoying if some of the last couple UAs hadn't shown some willingness to innovate. I would think psionics would be one of those subject areas that deserves a higher amount of innovation, but I'm guessing that the cool response to the Mystic closed that path.

To be fair to WotC, I really shouldn't blame the conservatism of their design on anything other than the conservatism of their surveyed audience.

The thing is that the Psion class that Mike Mearls was working on in his happy hour was awesome in soooo many ways. That idea deserves to LIVE!

 

[gyor]

Unless the responses to that survey killed the Psion due to lack of interest...

Okay I really want WotC to show us the results of that survey. How did Blood Hunter and Warlord and Psion do?

 

[dave2008]

Anyone who expected the official designers to explore new mechanical directions with the core rules, though, should go somewhere else for it.

Isn't the point of 5e that you have a base simple core around which you can make a lot of changes around? I would like to see some more creativity in the design (like the artificer class and the class feature variants UA and the skill feats UA), but I don't think the core mechanics need changed. There is still a lot of space to cover outside the core.

 

[Tonguez]

So Telekinesis is just invisible Mage hand? just wizards with bad headaches?

These classes are a bit boring really, and I really dont like Psion as Wizard tradition