Psionics Coming Soon To D&D?

WotC's Mike Mearls has hinted that we may be able to expect some psionics content soon, possibly in the Unearthed Arcana column. He was asked by Ethan Clow on the Twitterweb "any chance we might see a Psionic class for 5e soon? Perhaps in unearthed arcana?" to which he replied "wouldn't be surprised. I *might* have had a couple prior edition psionics books on my desk last week..." (Thanks to Wolf Hunter for the scoop).

 

[wcpfish]

Sounds promising, but....I hope our standards haven't been lowered so much to become excitement about an impending article. "Ooh, I can't wait for that new 1,000-word piece coming out sometime in the next few months!"

^ THIS

 

[Kobold Stew]

So what will the Psionics package look like? Here's my prediction:

1. Psion -- a full caster class, with a unique psionic casting mechanism and several specialties (disciplines), like the Wizard.

2. Psychic Warrior -- a martial archetype with psionic abilities (limited perhaps by discipline).

2. Soulknife -- a rouge archetype with the ability to make a mind blade that can be used for sneak attacks, plus limited access to psionic abilities (limited perhaps by discipline)

 

[vandaexpress]

Not on topic: Is there any community like the RPG tabletop one, where people dig in their heels as much as extreme pessimists and extreme optimists? It is often quite startling to read the comments in these threads. Nerdrage vs. Nerdlove. Nerd are passionate people it seems. (Is "nerd" a dirty or a cool word at this point in time? I haven't kept up?) EDIT: Not necessarily in this thread, but a few of the responses above got me thinking about it.

I can only handle so much ENworld in one day for this reason. So much of the D&D online community seems to be absolutely toxic. I started going to the forums when I came back to D&D after a long hiatus, as a dungeonmaster for 5th. I wanted to see all of the cool stuff and ideas that creative people surely came up with and shared in order to fill the gap of official content.

Man, was I in for a disappointment. Frequently, I find myself wanting to play LESS D&D after coming to these forums.

 

[Staffan]

I feel the same sometimes. But then I get a fresh boost of enthusiasm by watching Critical Role every Friday (it's on Twitch Thursday evenings in the US, but that's the middle of the night here so I watch it when I get home from work on Fridays).

 

[doctorhook]

I can only handle so much ENworld in one day for this reason. So much of the D&D online community seems to be absolutely toxic. I started going to the forums when I came back to D&D after a long hiatus, as a dungeonmaster for 5th. I wanted to see all of the cool stuff and ideas that creative people surely came up with and shared in order to fill the gap of official content.

Man, was I in for a disappointment. Frequently, I find myself wanting to play LESS D&D after coming to these forums.

I see your point, my friend, but I can only assume you weren't around during 4E, nor have you visited WotC's official boards. With only a few exceptions, ENWorld today is virtually Happy-Smiles-Fun-and-Rainbows-Land-of-Candy by comparison.

So what will the Psionics package look like? Here's my prediction:

1. Psion -- a full caster class, with a unique psionic casting mechanism and several specialties (disciplines), like the Wizard.

2. Psychic Warrior -- a martial archetype with psionic abilities (limited perhaps by discipline).

2. Soulknife -- a rouge archetype with the ability to make a mind blade that can be used for sneak attacks, plus limited access to psionic abilities (limited perhaps by discipline)

Psion should be a unique class, ideally with six full disciplines as subclasses.

Psychic warrior should just be a fighter subclass, like a psionic eldritch knight; there's no reason to reinvent the wheel when the perfect framework for a psychic warrior already exists.

I'm inclined to think the soulknife should just be a rogue archetype.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Psion needs to be its own class. Moreover, it needs to NOT use spells, otherwise you may as well not even bother. Its the lazy boring route, not mechanically diverse enough to really warrant the time it takes to refluff the sorceror. Hopefully they learned from the lukewarm reception the artificer got that 3 little subclass features isnt enough room to cram a class into.

Go back to how they ran in 2nd edition, with disciplines, devotions and sciences to create a tight thematic character that should ultimately play like a superhero. If you're going to model it on an existing class, the warlock chassis is a start, with short rest use of sciences, at will minor devotions and attack/defense modes and instead of invocations let them pick abilities that modify their devotions in wider capacities.

 

[Henry]

I see your point, my friend, but I can only assume you weren't around during 4E, nor have you visited WotC's official boards. With only a few exceptions, ENWorld today is virtually Happy-Smiles-Fun-and-Rainbows-Land-of-Candy by comparison.

5e seems to be an unusual case compared to 4e - the majority of nerdrage for 4e was based in "my favorite edition of the game is BETTER than this edition!"

The majority of nerdrage over 5e seems to be based in nerdLOVE over 5e (it is for me, anyway). As in, "this game is AWESOME! Why can't I buy MORE of it???" I assure you very few 4th edition detractors were out there converting 3rd edition products to play 4e, nor 3rd edition complainers grabbing 2e sourcebooks to convert and play 3e. It is definitely not something I've seen in the game's history since I've been playing.

I'm prepping for a 5e Forgotten Realms game now -- and the majority of my material is from the 2nd edition sources from 1995, and the 3rd edition sourcebook from 2001 -- two 14 and 20 year old books, respectively. I can't wait to begin the campaign, and I'm thankful I still have the resources, AND I can appreciate WotC trying a different business strategy to make the game profitable, but I also see a bit of humor in the situation.

 

[Minigiant]

I predict psions will use spell.
Psionics fans will be angry at first but they will get of it. No one is going to rewrite all the spells as powers/sciences/disciplines except for book fodder.

My other guess is that there will only be 3 psonic classes: psion, psychic warrior, and wilder. The psion will subclass into the 6 discplines. The psy warrior will absorb the lurk, soul knife, and psionic monk. The wilder will be a combination of erudite, ardent, and wilder.

The third guess is the psionic points will refresh on short rests. The psion and wilder will look like a sorcerer with expanded spell list but their points are encounter like 4th edition but only affect cantrips. The psy warrior will get no slots by default and have to spend points for it like a monk.

 

[Maffo]

I have never dealt with psionics in earlier editions but i would love to try the out on 5E.

 

[Acr0ssTh3P0nd]

AW man, bring it on. I mean, I HATE Psionics, and pretty much always have, but seeing some attention to psionics is a necessary first step to seeing Dark Sun material...

And with the new Mad Max out and getting rave reviews, there's never been a better time to get cracking with it