Unearthed Arcana Psionics Hits Unearthed Arcana

If you've been waiting anxiously for psionics to arrive in the D&D Unearthed Arcana column, your wait is over! The Awakened Mystic is a psionic class by Mike Mearls which - currently - has access to three psionic disciplines, with more to come later. Following on from Mike Mearls' question, Should Psionic Flavour Be Altered? (a discussion which promoted 750+ comments here on EN World, and is still ongoing), it sounds like he has answered the question with a resounding "yes". Rather than pseudo-scientific sounding terms like telepathy, clairovoyance, and the like, we have the disciplines Conquering Mind, Intellect Fortress (a callback to earlier editions), and Third Eye.

UPDATE - IMPORTANT NOTE FROM MIKE MEARLS: "For folks looking at the psionics material in today's UA, looks like there was a minor error. Not all the material is there." Keep an eye on it; I expect it'll be fixed soon.

UPDATE 2 - fixed! Updated document includes another three disciplines (Celerity, Iron Durability, and Psionic Weapon) and the basic rules to the class.

Find it here!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I just want to point out, since it seems everyone else is missing this:

1) Rage and psionics are not compatable, as it says you are unable to concentrate while raging, and all psionics are completely dependent on concentration at this point.

Not quite. Rage says, "If you able to cast spells, you can't cast them or concentrate on them while raging." Psionics aren't spells. A technicality but there you go.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm kind of sad we didn't see a discipline that gave us the power to cast Charm/Dominate/etc Person.

Isn't that pretty much what Broken Will does?

'Broken Will (5): As an action, you target a
creature you can see and that you can communicate
with using your Psychic Mind feature. The target
makes an Intelligence saving throw. On a failed save,
you choose the target’s movement and action on its
next turn. On a successful save, the target is
unaffected and you cannot use this ability on that
creature again until you finish a long rest.'

Admittedly, you don't control the target's reaction and bonus action...

 

[Sadrik]

One better: its the same as the spell point variant in the DMG (at least for the levels we have so far)

1st.........4
2nd........6
3rd.......14
4th.......17
5th.......27
6th.......32
7th.......38
8th.......44
9th.......57
10th.....64
11th.....73
12th.....73
13th.....83
14th.....83
15th.....94
16th.....94
17th...107
18th...114
19th...123
20th...133

Then turn the little disipline thingies into spells there is no good reason not to format them the same way and allow someone who wants to use spell slots to do that and then have the DMG optional spell points operate in the same way for a Mystic/Psion. The more exceptions you bake into the system the more convoluted complex and overlap you bake in. If power points and spell points are the same. You can literally have spell lists for each discipline - calling out each of the discipline powers in the exact same format as a spell might be in. This does two things: 1 it gives a creative DM the ability to customize classes, if they want their wizards to be more psi-like they can add some Mystic/Psion stuff to their spell list or the other way too. 2 it makes the psi less a unique weird thing. Both of these are important.

 

[Mephista]

Isn't that pretty much what Broken Will does?

To a tiny extent. The issue I have is that we're moving away from the Charm condition, which is a backbone of the current system.

 

[DEFCON 1]

1 it gives a creative DM the ability to customize classes, if they want their wizards to be more psi-like they can add some Mystic/Psion stuff to their spell list or the other way too. 2 it makes the psi less a unique weird thing. Both of these are important.

I would suggest that making psi a 'unique weird thing' is actually the point.

And as far as #1... if someone really is a 'creative DM', they'd be able to reverse engineer the power point system back into a slot system themselves if they really wanted it. They don't need WotC to do it for them.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

To a tiny extent. The issue I have is that we're moving away from the Charm condition, which is a backbone of the current system.

Presumably on purpose--so that Mindless Rage berserkers and Paladins of Devotion cannot be charmed, but can be turned into psionic sock-puppets. Briefly.

I'm on the fence about Broken Will. On the other hand, it's extremely expensive for one round of partial control. On the other hand, it's a strong effect targeting one of the weakest saves! I think the fact that I'm ambivalent about it is a sign that it's balanced correctly, at least for me. I kind of want a psionicist in the party now but I'm ambivalent about the opportunity cost.

 

[Remathilis]

Then turn the little disipline thingies into spells there is no good reason not to format them the same way and allow someone who wants to use spell slots to do that and then have the DMG optional spell points operate in the same way for a Mystic/Psion. The more exceptions you bake into the system the more convoluted complex and overlap you bake in. If power points and spell points are the same. You can literally have spell lists for each discipline - calling out each of the discipline powers in the exact same format as a spell might be in. This does two things: 1 it gives a creative DM the ability to customize classes, if they want their wizards to be more psi-like they can add some Mystic/Psion stuff to their spell list or the other way too. 2 it makes the psi less a unique weird thing. Both of these are important.

That's defeating the point.

Psionics isn't supposed to be magic. Its a new a different thing that occasionally resembles magic. Its doesn't use the same rules, nor should it. Its not for people who wants wizards using telepathy. Its for completely foreign and alien types of supernatural effects.

If you want psychic magic, its not that hard. Make your own subclass for wizard (mentalist), sorcerer (psion), or whatever class you want. Borrow liberally from Paizo's Occult Adventurers and the Expanded Psionics Handbook (as well as the PHB) and your auntys your uncle. Anyone who wants that can have it, because it takes a little effort to do so. I like that WotC is giving us a whole new system rather than just rehash what we have already.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

It might be interesting to have the concentrate on a discipline for a special effect rule, I feel that it will be something too hard to keep track of. With the whole "I'm concentrating on defence, oh I have to push someones mind, wait a minute now what happens defense?" Even though the answer is clear in these rules, many groups aren't going to keep track of it well in the thick of things.

I think it's too rigid to be stuck with certain disciplines based on the subclass order you take, I think there should be some flexibility in choices.

It's already been pointed out before, but there's so many things wrong about making an attack against intelligence.

The lack of transparency between magic and psi unless emulating a spell which none of these do, is problematic.

I get that Order of the Awakened = Telepathy+Clairsentience, and the Order of the Immortal=The Psychic Warrior/Battlemind + Psychometabolism, and Order of the Invisible Hand will = Psychokinesis and Order of the Knife will = Soulknife+a bit of Lurk. Some of these are sound, but the Order of the Immortal I feel needs things switched around to be more fighterish. For example I feel that beyond the below half hp regen, it either needs an extra attack or Lethal Attack should be brought more in line with Divine Strike/Paladin Smite, so that the extra damage is more consistent and they aren't so prone to nova'ing.

I feel Durable Mind is broken, mainly because I feel that the concentration rules in general are broken.

I also agree the point expenditure things should certainly be parsed as spells, it translates into things that are easier for both players and DMs to manage.

Overall a lot of this needs to go back to the drawing board. The way these are presented it's going to result in the mystic class being outright banned by many groups (other than the fact it's in pre-alpha phase). Right now it's going through the stages of "how different can it be" which being too different is not going to go well with what many DMs would allow in the game. I'll look forward to next month or whenever, when they actually ask for feedback on these rules.

 

[TwoSix]

1) I can take or leave the Far Realm, but the concept that psionics appears more in settings where arcane magic is not standard is pretty awesome, especially using Dark Sun and Eberron as examples. There's an implication of a multiversal standard, which I think is fantastic.

2) They've pretty much put the cards on the table that power source will be tied to class, and roles to subclasses. No psi warrior fighter subclass or anything.

3) The class will need some revision to not be too multi class friendly. A 1 level immortal dip seems super useful to any martial.

 

[Mephista]

Presumably on purpose--so that Mindless Rage berserkers and Paladins of Devotion cannot be charmed, but can be turned into psionic sock-puppets. Briefly.

See, that's the kind of thing I think is inappropriate.