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!

 

[Mistwell]

I really LOVE the object reading ability. So many role playing opportunities there. Reminds me of the Akashic class, which I really love from the 3e-era Monte Cook books.

 

[Mercule]

Like the mechanics. Hate, hate, hate having Far Realms baked in (prefer it to be exorcised, but that's life). Strongly dislike the "psionics is different" rule, but the specific powers kinda make it tolerable.

 

[Greatwyrm]

Mind Thrust - How did Dex ever come up for this? "Discipline attack modifier = your proficiency bonus
+ your Intelligence modifier" just like a wizard using Int + proficiency for attacking with a "Ray of ..." spell.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Mind Thrust - How did Dex ever come up for this? "Discipline attack modifier = your proficiency bonus
+ your Intelligence modifier" just like a wizard using Int + proficiency for attacking with a "Ray of ..." spell.

That's clearly the intent. But technically, the attack modifier is undefined (and thus defaults to Dexterity), since Mind Thrust is not a discipline but a class feature. The class is poorly written here - not exactly a grave sin in a playtest document, but nevertheless something to make sure they fix.

 

[Celtavian]

Sort of a tangent, but this touches on something that I feel has been left out of the Monster Manual (and PHB).

It's never made clear at all, but I get the feeling that "blindsight" was intended to work the same as vision, just without eyes. Specifically, I think the idea is that you still need line of sight to perceive something with blindsight. I don't think blindsight was meant to work through walls (it's described as being the result of very keen senses or something like echolocation, neither of which would penetrate obstructions). It's possible that even things like fog or invisibility are meant to be effective against blindsight, but that's way into the realm of DM rulings.

Tremorsense, on the other hand, seems pretty clearly intended to work regardless of line of sight, and should work through walls.

I bring this up because with this interpretation tremorsense actually is better than blindsight in situations where either is likely to be used, and so the costing of the psionic abilities makes sense.

Your interpretation of Blindsight has been confirmed by Jeremy Crawford. You still need light of effect to the target. Cover still prevents Blindsight from seeing a target.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

There's one very important question that needs to be answered in regard to this class. Does it feel like D&D Psionics? That was the all-important question for the rest of the game, and we shouldn't hold this to any different standard.

The problem is this: for some, Psionics never felt like D&D, so they want to change the fluff. For others, changing the fluff means it doesn't feel like D&D psionics.

To an extent, if the class isn't called a Psion or Psionicist, and it doesn't have an Ego Whip, Id Insinuation, or Tower of Iron Will, then it isn't D&D psionics. It would be like renaming the Wizard to Spellslinger, and getting rid of Magic Missile and Fireball.

I think there's room to compromise and find a healthy balance between the traditional Psion and something that will find a broader appeal. Heck, I even think the proposed system is a good start on that compromise. But it needs some nods to the pseudoscience. In particular, it needs to evoke the different aspects of the human mind, though it doesn't have to use Freudian terms. I also think that common terms like telekinesis and telepathy are entirely okay to use.

 

[Goemoe]

There's one very important question that needs to be answered in regard to this class. Does it feel like D&D Psionics? That was the all-important question for the rest of the game, and we shouldn't hold this to any different standard.

Simply yes. What is D&D? For me it is the rule set for my Eberron campaign and I can tell you: these psionic draft really feels like Kalashtar 5e. So yes. This is the right way to do it.

 

[pemerton]

But it needs some nods to the pseudoscience. In particular, it needs to evoke the different aspects of the human mind, though it doesn't have to use Freudian terms.

I think the Freudian terms are much more important to the flavour then the pseudo-science (unless they're what you meant by pseudo-science!).

As I posted in another of these threads, the pseudo-science was a very small part of PHB appendix 1: Cell Adjustment (for healing), Molecular Agitation (for heating/ignition of objects), Molecular Manipulation (for weakening objects) and Molecular Rearrangement (for transmuting metals). Other than that (and the Freud) it just used standard magic terminology.

 

[Herobizkit]

If they're going to use the term "Mystic", why not just make this a Monk specialization instead of a whole new class? Or, better, let's slap marital arts on this and call it the New monk!

 

[Minigiant]

I noticed that Lethal Strike requires an attack to hit so it cannot work with Ethereal Weapon as Ethereal Weapon turns the attack into a saving throw with not mention of hitting.