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.

 

[Arnwolf666]

Body alteration in the sense of melding with objects and other bodies is not something spells currently do, and it has its place in Psionics probably because of Akira's anime movie and related Japanese body horror (and their close relationship with psychic powers).

Akita’s abilities could be more like mutations and genetic manipulation if I am remembering it correctly. More like something out of x-men. Forgive me for remembering incorrectly I need to rewatch it now. That is a good thing.

 

[Lord-Archaon]

Akita’s abilities could be more like mutations and genetic manipulation if I am remembering it correctly. More like something out of x-men. Forgive me for remembering incorrectly I need to rewatch it now. That is a good thing.

I am positive it originated from psionics. Do watch, it's a trip!

 

[Lord-Archaon]

necromancy is tricks. There is definitely a place for psionic that can see and speak with the dead. People like mediums and seers that can sense and communicate with the afterlife. As well as doing psychic battle with such entities.

Would be tricky to differentiate, but a nice challenge. Hasn't been done before, that I remember of.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think its also important to not slide too far down the slippery slope of "of course psionics can do that too...". Some overlap between classes is fine, but too much smacks of greed.

My counsel would be to aim for a nice package of abilities that feels fresh and covers as much 'psionic ground' as possible without going overboard. The goal can't be to copy everything psionics has been capable of in the past - that ship has sailed, it was OP then and it would be OP now. If we get granualr and narrow the focus to the key elements and mechanics it'll be a more interesting and less contentious white room exercise.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The goal can't be to copy everything psionics has been capable of in the past - that ship has sailed, it was OP then and it would be OP now.

Psionics was certainly problematic when a tiny percentage of PC just got it 'for free' at random. Since it's been implemented as a class, though, it's just broken (or not) relative to comparable classes - like full casters.

5e has so increased the versatility of and eased restrictions on casting that much of the problematic issues with psionics in past editions would hardly stand out anymore.

 

[Fenris-77]

Psionics was certainly problematic when a tiny percentage of PC just got it 'for free' at random. Since it's been implemented as a class, though, it's just broken (or not) relative to comparable classes - like full casters.

5e has so increased the versatility of and eased restrictions on casting that much of the problematic issues with psionics in past editions would hardly stand out anymore.

I agree. I was more indexing the notion that seems to prevalent in some quarters that a Psionics class essentially needs to be able cover all the bases of Fighter and Wizard with some Rogue thrown in for giggles, and then a bunch of extras thrown in on top of that. One class that has the options of 2+ and freedom to pick and choose is OP no matter exactly how or what those powers look like. Not just OP, but not also not particularly 5e either.

The basic outline I was thinking about is pretty much like the UA - a fighter type, a stealth type, and a more traditional psionicist caster type. Tie enough of the class related stuff (fighter, etc) into the subclass abilities, keep some of the other abilities keyed to subclass and use skill trees to prevent too much spread. Obviously you could go beyond 3 subclasses and key them off some of the traditional schools (or whatever people want to call them). You could keep a nice layer of general psionic abilities available to all to tie things together.

The above general model is why I'd use the Warlock as the engine. The patrons are the schools, the 'spells' are the general psionic abilities, and the 'invocations' cover school specific skill trees plus other ideas that feel more like mini-feats than spells. The trick is to work this so it doesn't feel just like a reskinned warlock, although I think it's more than achievable.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This isn't about all classes, most of which have already been written. This is about one class. Psion.

But the complaint is to the design philosophy. "Why does everything have to be spells" well, part of it is that the spells are already the mechanics they want.

Sure, maybe the Psion can get special treatment. But then, why not the X or the Y or the Z. Every release after them would start saying "well, they did it for the Psion, why can't they do it again" so it is important to understand the why of the philosophy instead of just looking at a single class.

First of all, we would only get Psionic Step as an alternative, not one for every class.

Again, like I said to MaxPerson, I was talking about the design philosophy of why they are choosing to make unified mechanics through spells. IF we allow it for one, why not the next?

Second, the Psionic Alternative would be more like 10 ft per PP or Psionic Die spent and have different effects (see my example above). So I am not in favor of repeating stuff and changing name. I am in favor of creating balanced alternatives, that might be more convenient for specific use case scenarios, less for others.

A fair point, your example (just from skimming) seemed to have some odd interactions, like requiring the dash to teleport, so it being best used when the enemy is over 70 ft away, and that likely means you ended up alone amongst them. But, honestly, if you want a system like that... build it? I don't think it would get through official channels with the main mechanic being how badly you can hurt yourself to oull off some mildly interesting trick and dump multiple dice into a single attack.

Also, does that armor trick allow you to spend those 4d6 from the damage? Increasing your AC by +12 might be a tad ridiculously OP.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I agree. I was more indexing the notion that seems to prevalent in some quarters that a Psionics class essentially needs to be able cover all the bases of Fighter and Wizard with some Rogue thrown in for giggles, and then a bunch of extras thrown in on top of that. One class that has the options of 2+ and freedom to pick and choose is OP no matter exactly how or what those powers look like. Not just OP, but not also not particularly 5e either.

A Moon Druid can assume a small, inconspicuous animal form and scout around like a Rogue, a bigger, tougher form, and hold the front line like a fighter, or stand back and rain lightning bolts and the like on the enemy like a Wizard.

And that's actually pretty 5e, which has little 'niche protection' left.

But, I suppose it's also a function of trying to squeeze psionics into just one class, when it was multiple classes in both 3.5 and 4e.

 

[Cyber-Dave]

I'm fine with what they did for the psychic warrior and soul-knife. Many of the "psionic" classes from 3e, like the psychic warrior, soul knife, and Ardent felt like psionic variants of core classes anyway. Truth be told, the 3e psion and wilder sort of felt like psionic variants of the wizard/sorcerer respectively also. That, however, was what I always hated about 3e psionics. The options didn't feel much like the AD&D psionicist. I hope that alongside sub-classes that feel like the options from 3e we also get a class that feels like the AD&D psionicist.

 

[Salthorae]

But, I suppose it's also a function of trying to squeeze psionics into just one class, when it was multiple classes in both 3.5 and 4e.

And there's where I don't think it needs to squeeze into one class though. I fully support the idea of a Psion base class. I don't think we'll get one until Dark Sun, but I'd love one.

That's the nice thing about Class vs. subclass in this edition really.

At the same time, let the Psychic Warrior be a fighter subclass (whatever you think of this iteration...), let the Soul Knife be a rogue subclass.

I don't think we need a Psion and a Wilder though. I really hated the Wilder as it just felt like "we need to mirror the Wizard/Sorcerer Int/Cha dualism for Psionics too!", which I disliked.