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.

 

[Coroc]

There is often a close correlation between new modules in Neverwinter Online and new books for 5e. NWO recently had a new module that focused on the gith race and illithids, so any psionics that WotC does may have to do with those two races rather than with Dark Sun.

Yea also DDO uses some stuff the ravenloft part of it is basically CoS, and I think also Neverwinter had ravenloft recently.

Funny though, because Neverwinter is basically 4E, whereas DDO is 3.5E

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Firstly: this seems like giving up. I would much rather see psionics as a separate but unified system, that several subclasses can use, rather than everything being dumped on one class (Mystic).

Individually, the Psychic Warrior looks like Champion mk3 - boring to play with minimal options. Only the level 18 ability sounds fun, and it is too high level to actually see much use.

The Soul Knife I would have done differently, making it do damage equal to sneak attack dice.

Don't like the psychic wizard, it seem more like a sorcerer thing to me. Psychic Spells is the real cop-out. Rather than support psychic powers with game mechanic, they say "why don't you pick spells to fit your theme" without any mechanical effect.

The actual spells are fine, but I would like to see them gated behind a feat. Something like:

Psychic (prerequisite: spellcasting class feature) Add the following spells to your class list: […]. Choose one of these spells that you can cast - you always have this spell prepared. When you level up you can swap this spell for a different one.

I'm happy with the idea of the Telepathic and Telekinetic feats, but Telekinetic should be able to throw objects, and Telepathic should gain advantage on social skills, rather than just get an extra skill.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I do not like psi powers in fantasy.

 

[dave2008]

Rarely pay any attention to UA these days. Stuff never sees the light if day or gets revised that heavily it's hard to care.

didn't the racial feats make it in pretty much as is with just a few tweaks? Same with many of the subclasses and of course the artificer?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Some racial feats got cut, and the artificer is much revised (improved IMO).

 

[Zardnaar]

didn't the racial feats make it in pretty much as is with just a few tweaks? Same with many of the subclasses and of course the artificer?

No idea I got bored with UA years ago. I pay attention when the forums do.

I down loaded the Mystic for example, knew it would go nowhere and put it in the meh pile.

Lots of extra archetypes a few that probably won't go anywhere eh. Psionics I do look at because it's different.

I saw the 43 class variants and haven't even downloaded it let alone read it.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

What about the shardminds, race from PH 3 4th Ed? They were very.... exotic, but also harder to be forgotten. I like the idea of shardminds being created as shock troops against undeads and abominations with contagious traits, because as living constructs can't be infected nor need food or water in campaigns in far dessert zones. Maybe they were created with a "soulgem" and a spell like reincarnation, something like the hollow legionaries from Scarred Lands setting.

Or a variant of shardminds could be antagonist, creatures like a mixture of ooze (dissolution ooze from Magic of Incarnum), earth elemental and mind-controlling parasite, creating mutants monsters as those crystal-head zombies creatures from Metal Gear survival. They would be a menace as the borgs from Star Treck.

* The gladiators from dark suns had got some special trait about higher defense if they could use any piece of armor, but they didn't wear heavy armor usually, it was a really infernally hot weather.

* Could a 3rd Party to publish a D&D 5th Ed version of the occult classes by Pathfinder?

* Will the wu-jen a mystic subclass? I don't imagine it as a subclass with those taboos easy to be adapted to videogames (ok, my taboo is wearing clothes with pink color, I can live with that).

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

I do hope so. I like the soulknife, psychuc warrior seems meh, flavour-wise... and I don't like the arcane tradition. I'm aware that it's personal, but that's the way it is. I also don't like that the wizards of this arcane tradition are called psionicists or mentalists. Makes me wonder what the actual psionic class might be called (and I hope it's not 'mystic'). And the abilities... oh, well... I just don't like it.

I like the Fighter and Rogue versions (though I'd like them to get off the Int bus and consider other stats) but I think the Psionicist might be a much better Warlock build. The Wizard certainly doesn't need yet another build, IMO, and the Warlock's casting really feels quite different. I'm not saying just use the Warlock, but the general structure of the Warlock seems like it feels quite different. I'm also a big fan of having more half casters.

All in all, though, a totally new class with a totally different casting system... color me skeptical.

 

[jgsugden]

If you listen to the interviews, they make it clear that this is the way. They do not intend to have a psion/mystic class - the psionic wizard is their psion. They spend a good amount of time talking abut why they do these as subclasses for their psionics intorduction any why having a full class would be a mistake.

Personally, I believe the psychic warrior and soul knife work as subclasses - and I think that a psionic wizard makes sense for purposes of Athas if nothing else. However, the psion/mystic should exist and needs to be a separate class from the wizard. It needs to be psionic from level 1 and not require a spellbook, etc... I think there is a way to do it using the wizard stucture, but you need to do it at level by introducing an alternate class feature that allows you to focus on psionics rather than magic.

 

[dave2008]

No idea I got bored with UA years ago. I pay attention when the forums do.

I down loaded the Mystic for example, knew it would go nowhere and put it in the meh pile.

Lots of extra archetypes a few that probably won't go anywhere eh. Psionics I do look at because it's different.

I saw the 43 class variants and haven't even downloaded it let alone read it.

OK, then you why did you make the comment then? If you aren't looking at the UA articles, then how would you know what has and has not been implemented. Almost all of the expansion of the game first appeared in a UA article. To say they don't implement them is just so clearly wrong. You are clearly wrong and don't even know it because you are not looking at the UA articles!