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]

I wish that thing about blindsight had been mentioned in the books.

 

[Li Shenron]

Except in 5e the concept of "the Weave" is the core all-setting (unless some setting, like perhaps Dark Sun specifically overrides it) official explanation of how magic works in the D&D multiverse. "The Weave" and its Mystra connection is just the name and world-specific flavor of how it works in the Forgotten Realms.

To me "the weave" is still quite a lot generic. It is fine for all settings.

The connection to a deity OTOH is already a bit too far, and in fact it's only the default for Forgotten Realms.

 

[Nifft]

Notice the emphasis for blindsight is simply perceiving surroundings without sight - it's just like normal vision, with regular perception checks, except you don't use your eyes, and you don't need light. It doesn't imply you can detect things around obstructions, as it still otherwise follows the normal perception rules which require line of sight to perceive something.

"Perceiving without sight" is not the same as "seeing without sight".

I can roll a Perception check to hear a dude around a corner, or smell the sulfur of a great wyrm's lair.

If they had used the words seeing and sight instead of perceive and perception, this might not be an issue. That's one for the errata pile, for clarity.

To me "the weave" is still quite a lot generic. It is fine for all settings.

The connection to a deity OTOH is already a bit too far, and in fact it's only the default for Forgotten Realms.

IMHO if "the weave" is generic enough for all settings, then it's also generic enough to be "the magic AND psionics weave".

If it excludes Psionics and Ki and Incarnum and blah blah, then it's not very generic. It's just the FR weave.

 

[Mistwell]

"Perceiving without sight" is not the same as "seeing without sight".

I can roll a Perception check to hear a dude around a corner, or smell the sulfur of a great wyrm's lair.

Yes but you cannot roll a perception check to hear or smell a dude through a solid stone wall. You can however still detect tremors in the ground from him through that wall. Tremorsense very clearly detects EVERYTHING on the ground in that radius, while blindsight still depends on the normal perception rules to detect things. They're not the same, even just looking at the MM entry for them.

 

[Nifft]

Yes but you cannot roll a perception check to hear or smell a dude through a solid stone wall. You can however still detect tremors in the ground from him through that wall. Tremorsense very clearly detects EVERYTHING on the ground in that radius, while blindsight still depends on the normal perception rules to detect things. They're not the same, even just looking at the MM entry for them.

Well, I didn't say "through a wall", what I said was "around a corner". That's a place where you can't see, but where you CAN hear.

The text seems to support my reading, which is that a character's sound-based Blindsight can see around corners.

I want your reading to be correct, since IMHO that'd be better for the game -- but that's not how it reads to me.

Meh, this isn't the right thread for this discussion anyway, since it's an issue in the MM rules, not the Psionics rules.

 

[Corpsetaker]

I went back and read the Complete Psionics Handbook from 2nd edition and they handled the origins of Psionics perfectly. How Psionics came into being depends on the campaign world. All it hints at is a few people developed the ability to tap into the mind in order to generate unique affects.

Now Psionics is described as being able to manipulate energy from with in instead of manipulating outside energy such as Wizards and Clerics. The only problem now is the Sorcerer and Monk fill those two. Extreme discipline through the mind and body easily describes the monk so it seems Wizards has kind of backed themselves into a corner.

Psionics needs to be something mechanically different in order for a player to feel the difference. I could actually take the Sorcerer and fluff my way into being a Psion just fine, but that's not what I want to pay money for. I want to pay for a whole different set of rules that don't mimic the magic system and allows me to feel the difference between Psionics and Magic.

I would like to see a Psionicist that posses Attack and Defense nodes. I would like to see the Classical Ego Whip, Mind Blast, etc, be attacks while defenses such as Tower of Iron Will be things that would recharge on a short rest, while their other powers would recharge after a long rest. They could use PSP's to augment their attack nodes in order to increase their effectiveness.

 

[Mistwell]

This is the quote I was responding to:

In this edition, that is NOT correct.

The same language is used for Tremorsense and Blindsight ("within a specific radius"). There's nothing about obstructions blocking either.

This is your new position:

Well, I didn't say "through a wall", what I said was "around a corner".

Do we both agree you can perceive through a solid rock wall with tremorsense as written, but cannot perceive through a solid rock wall with blindsight as written? Forget a corner, I am talking through a wall. If we agree on that, then you understand why I objected to your claim they were identical abilities.

 

[Nifft]

This is the quote I was responding to:

This is your new position:

No, THIS happened in the middle:

"Perceiving without sight" is not the same as "seeing without sight".

I can roll a Perception check to hear a dude around a corner, or smell the sulfur of a great wyrm's lair.

Don't cut out the middle of a discussion just to make it look like you have a point. You're abusing my attempts to find common ground by taking a hardline position.

Do we both agree you can perceive through a solid rock wall with tremorsense as written, but cannot perceive through a solid rock wall with blindsight as written? Forget a corner, I am talking through a wall.

Nope, because regular sight sometimes works through walls.
- Walls of Force.
- Walls with glass holes in them ("windows").

Darkvision works through some kinds of walls.

There's no indication whether Blindsight will or will not work through these kinds of walls, or other kinds of walls.


Sorry, your hardliner attempt kinda backfired.

 

[SkidAce]

...Mechanics seem OK (distinct enough, just too powerful on this iteration). Story is weak.

Good, that way when I develop a campaign I wont have any conflict with however I interpret psionics.

Same with magic, same with fighters, minimum background story, I would likely have change it anyway.

 

[Mistwell]

In this edition, that is NOT correct.

The same language is used for Tremorsense and Blindsight ("within a specific radius"). There's nothing about obstructions blocking either.

No, THIS happened in the middle:

Don't cut out the middle of a discussion just to make it look like you have a point. You're abusing my attempts to find common ground by taking a hardline position.

I cut out your change of topic/moving target. You pretended I asked about perceiving around a corner when I hadn't said that.

Nope, because regular sight sometimes works through walls.
- Walls of Force.
- Walls with glass holes in them ("windows").

Perfect example of what I mean by you changing the topic and being a moving target. There is a reason I said "a solid rock wall" .

So what the heck Nifft? No corners, no wall of force, no glass, what's confusing here? DO YOU AGREE THAT BLINDSIGHT DOES NOT PERCEIVE THROUGH A SOLID ROCK WALL BUT TREMORSENSE DOES, OR NOT? And don't try and twist that, just answer the obvious question I am asking, within the spirit of what I am asking (it's not a special solid rock wall, you can't hear or smell through the solid rock wall, there are no holes in the solid rock wall, you have no other spells or special powers in play, etc.) - we both know what I mean by a solid rock wall. Stop answering different questions and just answer the one I am asking you.