Psion class (Mearls, Happy Fun Hour)

[cbwjm]

Also, the wizard absolutely cannot be THE telepath for this reason. The wizard subclasses in this edition are completely anemic compared to the base class chasis. One wizard at the table gets oracle dice and the other gets +1 hp on zombies but they still wind up picking 90% of the same standard spells! The "telepath" wizard is going to be a guy who gets some minor rider to mind-affecting spells but then still uses the same old sleep, fireball, and polymorph that every other frickin' wizard player uses. The psion needs to be THE telepath.

Good news! Although I still haven't finished watching it, Mearls has moved the Telepath back into the psion.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The problem with giving the druid awesome metamorphic abilities is that he's already a full caster on top of that. We could benefit from a dedicated metamorph class that doesn't need to have his transformations nerfed to offset full spellcasting.

Believe me, you're preaching to the choir. But the same can be said of rangers being full warriors on top of whatever their subclass gives them.

 

[Salthorae]

A million times this. The problem with the current class design is that, for many classes, the subclass features are too little, too late. If I want to play a psychic warrior, i don't want to be a generic fighter for 2 levels, then get a drip of psionics that kinda-sorta works with my 90% core fighter chasis. Just give me the damned battlemind or psywar from level 1 with psionic ability that start taking off from the get-go.

To me this is just a role play/how do you perceive your achievement of abilities concept. I can absolutely see roleplaying a Psychic Warrior who has the psionic potential, but has to train and study for a long time (i.e. 2 levels) before being able to focus and start really accessing that potential. That even seems more fun to me from an RP perspective than just starting with all the goodies. If you watch last week's episode, he actually goes into the design concept for why many of the classes sub-classes kick in when and where they do. At least he talked about it for Cleric, Wizard, & Druid that I remember off the top of my head right now. To me their rationale made a lot of sense.

Also, the wizard absolutely cannot be THE telepath for this reason. The wizard subclasses in this edition are completely anemic compared to the base class chasis. One wizard at the table gets oracle dice and the other gets +1 hp on zombies but they still wind up picking 90% of the same standard spells! The "telepath" wizard is going to be a guy who gets some minor rider to mind-affecting spells but then still uses the same old sleep, fireball, and polymorph that every other frickin' wizard player uses. The psion needs to be THE telepath.

I see this, and so does Mearls which is why Telepath is back into Psion. That said, I wouldn't mind retaining the Mentalist Wizard as well.

The problem with giving the druid awesome metamorphic abilities is that he's already a full caster on top of that. We could benefit from a dedicated metamorph class that doesn't need to have his transformations nerfed to offset full spellcasting.

We'll see what he comes up with for the Psion version, but the Psion is planned to be a full "caster" chassis as well.

 

[NaturalZero]

To me this is just a role play/how do you perceive your achievement of abilities concept. I can absolutely see roleplaying a Psychic Warrior who has the psionic potential, but has to train and study for a long time (i.e. 2 levels) before being able to focus and start really accessing that potential. That even seems more fun to me from an RP perspective than just starting with all the goodies. If you watch last week's episode, he actually goes into the design concept for why many of the classes sub-classes kick in when and where they do. At least he talked about it for Cleric, Wizard, & Druid that I remember off the top of my head right now. To me their rationale made a lot of sense.

I mean, you can create a role playing rationale for running anything from a commoner class to a monster stat block, but the problem for me is that I loved the swordmage/battelmind in 4e and the eldritch knight feels very half-baked by comparison. Not even quarter baked, really. You get a tiny amount of spells and this is exacerbated by the fact that progression doesn't even start until 3rd level. That, and because the fighter's core abilities, like multiattacking, are so good, they're almost always more optimal than pretty much anything you get from EK, other than the shield spell. It's hard for me to imagine this changing if they drop psywar into fighter. You're going to get a tiny drip of psi and it doesn't even get going until you've been playing for weeks. On the other hand, you can just roll a paladin and have a magic-using fighter-type right out of the gate.

I just want a psionic version of the paladin or swordmage in 5e who does SOME kind of psionic stuff at level 1 and relies on abilities other than Extra Attack and Action Surge as go-to tactics.

 

[Salthorae]

I guess I feel where you're coming from... but EK is supposed to be a fighter who has a smattering of magic and it is. Bladesinger is the other side, where you have a full caster who has a smattering of fighting. I feel like Psychic Warrior and Soul Knife (to a lesser degree) give you that first flavor and once we have more specifics, I have a hunch that the Metamorph is going to end up being the other end of their spectrum with the "full caster who has a smattering of combat".

To be fair, I did not play 4e, skipped straight from 3rd to 5th, so I'm un-familiar with those classes or their abilities, and how the subclasses shakeout is a little weird relative to 3rd/4th allowing your 1st level decision to drive much of the flavor concept of a build. But honestly it's better than 3.x where we had to wait until 6th level to get our first level of PrC going. I'll take being a generic fighter for 2 levels over 5 levels any day from a concept building stand point.

Digression: Green Flame blade should be the go to combat action for most EK as it's better than regular attack and once you get to 7th it's better than Extra attack because of how the cantrip scales and War magic giving you a 2nd attack as a bonus action. Unless you're fighting something immune to fire that is I suppose.

 

[gyor]

A million times this. The problem with the current class design is that, for many classes, the subclass features are too little, too late. If I want to play a psychic warrior, i don't want to be a generic fighter for 2 levels, then get a drip of psionics that kinda-sorta works with my 90% core fighter chasis. Just give me the damned battlemind or psywar from level 1 with psionic ability that start taking off from the get-go.

Also, the wizard absolutely cannot be THE telepath for this reason. The wizard subclasses in this edition are completely anemic compared to the base class chasis. One wizard at the table gets oracle dice and the other gets +1 hp on zombies but they still wind up picking 90% of the same standard spells! The "telepath" wizard is going to be a guy who gets some minor rider to mind-affecting spells but then still uses the same old sleep, fireball, and polymorph that every other frickin' wizard player uses. The psion needs to be THE telepath.



The problem with giving the druid awesome metamorphic abilities is that he's already a full caster on top of that. We could benefit from a dedicated metamorph class that doesn't need to have his transformations nerfed to offset full spellcasting.

Simple play a Gith Fighter/Psychic Warrior, the Gith racial powers are psionic.

 

[gyor]

The Jedi is the Soul Knife, which will be a Monk subclass, which is perfect because Jedi are just Monks with some Psychic powers and a lightsaber. So, the Soul Knife will be a Monk with some psychic powers and a Soul Knife.

Should the Soul Knife do psychic or radiant damage?

 

[gyor]

A million times this. The problem with the current class design is that, for many classes, the subclass features are too little, too late. If I want to play a psychic warrior, i don't want to be a generic fighter for 2 levels, then get a drip of psionics that kinda-sorta works with my 90% core fighter chasis. Just give me the damned battlemind or psywar from level 1 with psionic ability that start taking off from the get-go.

Also, the wizard absolutely cannot be THE telepath for this reason. The wizard subclasses in this edition are completely anemic compared to the base class chasis. One wizard at the table gets oracle dice and the other gets +1 hp on zombies but they still wind up picking 90% of the same standard spells! The "telepath" wizard is going to be a guy who gets some minor rider to mind-affecting spells but then still uses the same old sleep, fireball, and polymorph that every other frickin' wizard player uses. The psion needs to be THE telepath.



The problem with giving the druid awesome metamorphic abilities is that he's already a full caster on top of that. We could benefit from a dedicated metamorph class that doesn't need to have his transformations nerfed to offset full spellcasting.

Subclasses are more important to some classes then others, subclasses are hugely important to Sorcerers, who really only have Flexible Magic/Spell Points/Metamagic and Spellcasting on its Chassis, with everything else being fleshed out by the subclasses which is why different Sorcerer subclasses feel like different classes that all use metamagic, were as Illusionists, Evokers, and Warmages feel like different types of wizards, but still like Wizards first, all of the same occupation.

Psions I think will feel more like Sorcerers, Warlocks, Fighters, Rogues, Bards in the sense of subclass being more identity defining then class instead of class being more identity defining then subclass like Wizards, Druids, Clerics, Monks, Barbarians, Paladins, with Rangers in between.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the thing with wizards is they don't pick a subclass until level 2. So you have to assume that they start off learning conventional magic, then learn psionics later, so it's like an extra trick. However, with Psions and (hypothetical) psionic sorcerers it can be assumed that all their powers are based on psionics.

Personally, I agree that a metamorph class would be more desirable mechanically than psionics classes, and some of the work from the Mystic seems to point towards how to implement that.

 

[gyor]

I'm really looking forward to the Constructor Psion who imposes their imagination and imaginary friend (Tulpa) on reality.