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."

​

News Archive | Dungeons and Dragons

Read the full archives of Dungeons & Dragons news, Sage Advice, Unearthed Arcana, and D&D Studio Blogs.

dnd.wizards.com

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.

 

[Garthanos]

I am saying D&D has a tradition of throwing spells at anything they want to be extraordinary its a bit willy nilly sometimes they design a new subsystem ... but not consistently because if anything was consistent it was inconsistency.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Should hmmm well that word "should" is a judgement call. Think of it this way If nature and survival skills were given more elaboration the need for spells for the ranger really wouldn't exist. In 1e especially it always felt like they pasted on spells at a high levels because they couldnt be bothered to develop a skill system to represent the extraordinary things he could do. (and the spells he did get were so low level when he got them they were useless)

Ok, so the argument is that a better skill system would remove the need for spells.

Sure, I guess? It has nothing to do with anything I've been talking about. Could have done the same with Druids. Maybe given wizards enough with Arcana to make an entire skill system instead of ritual magic. It is possible.

But I would also say that a skill system that complex would necessarily be a nightmare to add to, and would move away from "roll the skill, figure out the result" because you would need chart upon chart for various factors to make it complex and robust enough to do all that lifting.

 

[Garthanos]

Ok, so the argument is that a better skill system would remove the need for spells.

No probably not .... unless yes you put magic as skills too.

Sure, I guess? It has nothing to do with anything I've been talking about. Could have done the same with Druids. Maybe given wizards enough with Arcana to make an entire skill system instead of ritual magic. It is possible.

It relates directly as to whether you need a separate distinct mechanic ie subsystems. Psionics or Skills or Spells same fishes in that barrel.

The game Ars Magica had rote spells you could think of them as planned and practiced stunts that worked off of the magic skills. AND you could have planned and practiced stunts that worked off of other skills.

But a system that used such commonality would surely get mocked to hell in D&D land and called not D&D. But its fine for Aragorn to be forced into spell casting.

You know we could call the extraordinary well defined stunts feats in 3e and skill powers in 4e.

 

[Maxperson]

....

Which sounds like exactly what I was suggesting when I was told "if you feel this dire need of reusing spells ".

It is about not giving them special treatment, because the design philosophy is to reuse the spells they made if possible, instead of giving out multiple identical abilities that do the exact same mechanical thing.

There should still be some unique to psionics "spells" that grant the class some of the abilities from prior editions.

 

[Fenris-77]

Too much overlap and you end up looking like a cleric...

Hah! Seriously though, WoTC is never going to release a new class that's just kind two other classes bunged together and some reskinned magic. I know that that isn't what people are asking for mostly, I'm being negative there for a reason. I guess to index that a Psionic class is only going to happen if WoTC thinks they do something interesting and fresh with it.

@ Maxperson - spells is one idea, but I think I'd probably go with some kind of skill tree with stackable abilities that's separate from spells. It's probably inevitable that some of the mechanics of a Psionic class, should we see one, will be based at least in part on spell casting of some sort - something with slots and levels, probably that at least resembles the list from the UA. I don't think adding more spells is a better answer than non-spell abilities, which would allow you to step outside the current spell mechanics and do something different. I might even go so far as to say that the non-spell mechanics are what will make or break the idea of a Psion class generally. Reskinning and modifying the spell rules is pretty easy, ti's the rest of the class that will take some ingenious thought.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No probably not .... unless yes you put magic as skills too.

It relates directly as to whether you need a separate distinct mechanic ie subsystems. Psionics or Skills or Spells same fishes in that barrel.

The game Ars Magica had rote spells you could think of them as planned and practiced stunts that worked off of the magic skills. AND you could have planned and practiced stunts that worked off of other skills.

But a system that used such commonality would surely get mocked to hell in D&D land and called not D&D. But its fine for Aragorn to be forced into spell casting.

You know we could call the extraordinary well defined stunts feats in 3e and skill powers in 4e.

Aragorn isn't forced into spellcasting.

DnD Ranger's use Spellcasting, Aragorn is still the same as Tolkien wrote him.

But, my point has never been it is impossible to make a subsystem uniquely suited for psionics. Of course we could.

The point was that, if we are going to give them telekinesis, we might end up first looking at the spell telekinesis, since the developers already defined what that does and said "these are the mechancis for telekinesis."

The design so far has been the "conservation of mechanics", so it is not unreasonable that they are going to reuse spells when giving out abilities. Not because "everything is magical and should be spells anyways" but because "if we have this piece that does exactly what we want, why are we going to make a new piece that does exactly the same thing, but with a different name"?

There should still be some unique to psionics "spells" that grant the class some of the abilities from prior editions.

Sure, they should definetly have some unique mechanics. I'm just saying they won't be completely unique mechanics. WoTC is going to recycle as they build.

 

[Lord-Archaon]

Hah! Seriously though, WoTC is never going to release a new class that's just kind two other classes bunged together and some reskinned magic. I know that that isn't what people are asking for mostly, I'm being negative there for a reason. I guess to index that a Psionic class is only going to happen if WoTC thinks they do something interesting and fresh with it.

Ranger, Paladin, Sorcerer we are looking at you... I was so sad to see in 5e they kept them as exactly a mix of other classes bunged together.
I think nobody has discovered yet what a true unique Ranger should be like, and with Paladin... Close but not enough.
Sorcerer don't even let me start on it... The class to have magic inside the blood, and they cast exactly the same as Wizards. For me Sorcerers should have had free form magic. Equivalent in power to Wizard, but creating effects on the fly, no spell list.

@ Maxperson - spells is one idea, but I think I'd probably go with some kind of skill tree with stackable abilities that's separate from spells. It's probably inevitable that some of the mechanics of a Psionic class, should we see one, will be based at least in part on spell casting of some sort - something with slots and levels, probably that at least resembles the list from the UA. I don't think adding more spells is a better answer than non-spell abilities, which would allow you to step outside the current spell mechanics and do something different. I might even go so far as to say that the non-spell mechanics are what will make or break the idea of a Psion class generally. Reskinning and modifying the spell rules is pretty easy, ti's the rest of the class that will take some ingenious thought.

Erathis bless you, I wish they could go this way, but at this point seeing what Wizards designers are tweeting, I am losing hope.

 

[Coroc]

Aragorn isn't forced into spellcasting.

DnD Ranger's use Spellcasting, Aragorn is still the same as Tolkien wrote him.

But, my point has never been it is impossible to make a subsystem uniquely suited for psionics. Of course we could.

The point was that, if we are going to give them telekinesis, we might end up first looking at the spell telekinesis, since the developers already defined what that does and said "these are the mechancis for telekinesis."

The design so far has been the "conservation of mechanics", so it is not unreasonable that they are going to reuse spells when giving out abilities. Not because "everything is magical and should be spells anyways" but because "if we have this piece that does exactly what we want, why are we going to make a new piece that does exactly the same thing, but with a different name"?





Sure, they should definetly have some unique mechanics. I'm just saying they won't be completely unique mechanics. WoTC is going to recycle as they build.

Aragorn also has some paladin aspects on him, not only ranger.

 

[Garthanos]

Aragorn also has some paladin aspects on him, not only ranger.

A singing warlord ... bard!

 

[Garthanos]

Aragorn isn't forced into spellcasting.

DnD Ranger's use Spellcasting, Aragorn is still the same as Tolkien wrote him.

A player who wanted to play Aragorn was the original Ranger.... but as I said they didnt consider creating a well defined skill system applicable to everyone and instead all the way back made that class using spells it was not because "D&D rangers" have spells it was because D&D game designers were using the same subsystem they did for the characters able to do something extraordinary. (but because they made low level effects kick in at high level it was arguably a failure)

But, my point has never been it is impossible to make a subsystem uniquely suited for psionics. Of course we could.

And it might be a waste of energy for no real benefit or it might result in imbalance between those using different systems (in fact it usually has) and it might require needless complexity and so needless subsystem learning on the part of players. So that while skills were elaborated on in the previous edition it was done so largely by using the same structure and level gating and so on as the utility powers and tada utility spells / rituals.

The design so far has been the "conservation of mechanics", so it is not unreasonable that they are going to reuse spells when giving out abilities. Not because "everything is magical and should be spells anyways" but because "if we have this piece that does exactly what we want, why are we going to make a new piece that does exactly the same thing, but with a different name"?

Yes indeed I agree entirely but there is a very vocal crew who insists everything should be using distinct mechanical structures.