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!

 

[Fralex]

Yes, the way it's presented in the UA article is really enforced. It comes out and says it directly in a way that can't be misinterpreted: "Psionics indirectly originates from the Far Realm, (...)".

That sort of flavor-enforcement adds nothing, except for the DM's burden of re-education if the DM wants a different origin.

Here's the sort of thing that I'd prefer to see: "Psionics is an esoteric and subtle power. Some sages claim that Psionics originated in the Far Realms, while other say (...)".

That would definitely be a better way to word it, and I hope they change it to something more neutral-sounding in the final version. But even as it's worded now, it's not really that hard to use the given lore in a Far Realm-less setting. You just ignore everything in the first paragraph of "Otherworldly Power," and ignore everything in the second paragraph up to and including the word "such." Begin reading at "awakened creatures..." and it gives you more about the origins of psionics without mentioning the Far Realm (well, the Xoriat thing could probably use some details mentioning it's not the only psionic source).

 

[miniaturehoarder]

2) I'm not sure if people where catching this or not but lethal strike adds damage to a single hit not all hits that round, so if you could hit multiple times you can theoretically do major damage but you have to spend essentially every resource you have for this single round.

So? I'm sure plenty folks tire of paladins who nova then get sleepy.

 

[Fralex]

Well you wouldn't be concentrating anymore so...

Oh, but that's not a discipline. It's just a regular class feature. It doesn't need concentration.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I love it. It was 3e's misstake to sort of break them out of the shared multiverse. The heydays of the multiverse during 2e was when D&D lore was at it's best

For me, at least, D&D is a game about writing your own lore.

Imagine if every fantasy writer used the same cosmology. Instead of C. S. Lewis' Wood Between the Worlds, Tolkien's Valinor, Zelazny's Amber, and Butcher's Nevernever, there was just some standardized otherworld. Wouldn't that... kind of suck? Kill a lot of different stories? I mean, fantasy is already accused of being an overly derivative genre as it is.

 

[Anthraxus]

I actually liked the weird, new-agey names for psionic powers/disciplines and am highly disappointed by the new fantasy-styled ones. While Mearls did throw a bone here or there, I'm still not happy with it.

I do like the idea of the Far Realms, but being tied in to psionics so closely, not so much.

It(or I) may be weird, but I'm much less excited about Psionics after the UA article.

 

[Savevsdeath]

I actively dislike the flavor change from the SciFi feel I know and love to just another generic fantasy caster class, to the point that as much as I love psionics I won't be able to stand playing or seeing the class. It just feels like the point of psionics was entirely missed.

I love the Far Realm influence and the cthuluesque feel it brings though. I hope that stays.

 

[SkidAce]

Oh, but that's not a discipline. It's just a regular class feature. It doesn't need concentration.

Ahh....my mistake.

 

[Wrathamon]

I actively dislike the flavor change from the SciFi feel I know and love to just another generic fantasy caster class, to the point that as much as I love psionics I won't be able to stand playing or seeing the class. It just feels like the point of psionics was entirely missed.

I love the Far Realm influence and the cthuluesque feel it brings though. I hope that stays.

Change the words that describe it? How hard is that? Don't like the name of something that causes fire, change it to Pyrokinesis? Change a name to ESP if you dont like the third eye, whatever. It's your world, it's your game. Expand it. Evolve it. Own it.

and, it doesn't read as generic fantasy caster at all.

 

[Savevsdeath]

Change the words that describe it? How hard is that? Don't like the name of something that causes fire, change it to Pyrokinesis? Change a name to ESP if you dont like the third eye, whatever. It's your world, it's your game. Expand it. Evolve it. Own it.

and, it doesn't read as generic fantasy caster at all.

Hard enough that I don't want to do it. There was no need to change it at all to accommodate people who don't like and never used psionics. And the names and terminology in the official material are inevitably what will get used at the table. I have no desire to constantly remind people that 'Invisible Hand' is actually 'kineticist'. It just ruins the flavor for me, even if the mechanics seem decent, though unpolished.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Hard enough that I don't want to do it. There was no need to change it at all to accommodate people who don't like and never used psionics.

Exactly. All too often the 'debates' and 'compromises' here consist of some folks who want something cool, and are wrangling over the details, and some others who just plain don't want them to have it. It's the first set who should be hammering out some compromise among themselves. The second set should just leave it alone, they have no skin in the game - they're not going to want/like/use any sort of psionics (and, with the Standard Game set in stone at this point, won't even have to take the strenuous step of 'opting out').