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!

 

[Wrathamon]

"And the name Mystic is still wrong to me. It's a far too generic term for the idea, plus we have good traditional names for this class: Psion or Psionicist."

I like the name Mystic .. it seems to invoke mythology and folklore to me. Psion never sat well with me because it sounds sci-fi imo. I always loved psionics from AD&D... the rare chance to get something cool. Never did the psionic battle stuff because for my little kid brain it was a little confusing, but the other abilities were fun.

Go up into the hills and find the Mystic oracle, there the third eye can help you see what you cannot ... A mystic warrior was known to protect this village from the hordes of piranha bunnies, maybe you can find out what has happened to her before it is too late!

 

[ceejzz]

I think it would be nice if each Discipline had an ability that cost zero power points as well. I'd like to see the number of power points a character has and can spend, plus the number that abilities cost, reduced. Each point should feel significant. At higher levels, I don't want to have do deal with the math of spending lots of power points.

Thus, instead of:

Exacting Query (1)
Occluded Mind (3)
Broken Will (5)

It would be:

Exacting Query (0)
Occluded Mind (1)
Broken Will (2)

actually, the disciplines do grant a bonus simply by concentrating on them. the "conquering mind" discipline, for example, grants you advantage on all charisma checks. i think they did a pretty good job with this.

really looking forward to testing this out sometime soon.

 

[Agamon]

Well, I'm happy for the people that like psionics in their D&D. Personally, I'm as excited about this as I would an article on how to convert F.A.T.A.L. to D&D 5e.

Looking forward to the August article, it can only go up from here.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

It looks neat and a good start. Would love to see a full 20 level version of this someday. This is my favorite article of Unearthed Arcana so far... I'm a sucker for psionics in my D&D.

 

[GobiWon]

I haven't read the whole thing but does anyone see the broken celerity with a rogue's cunning action and up to five action surges with a wizard. You have intelligence synergy with the awakened mystic and the wizard.

 

[Mirtek]

One thing's for sure, expect the next storyline after the Drizzt fan-wank one to be Cthulhu-esque, Far Realm focused. WotC doesn't release anything unless it has a direct correlation to its storyline concepts. Their attempt to mimic Marvel's shared universe concept with D&D and all.

Yes, but it will happen on a boat that is build by artificers and crewed by minotaurs, since WotC *doesn't* release anything unless it has a direct correlation to its storyline concepts and the last UAs had artificers, minotaurs and the mariner fighting style

 

[Yaarel]

Telepathy (Psychic Mind) needs to use the same targeting as Mind Thrust. Thus it doesnt require the ability to see.

"
As an action, you make a ranged attack against a creature within 120 feet of you. You must be able to perceive the creature, but you do not need to see it.

"

This seems like good standard for all nearby mind-to-mind effects. 120 feet is good. To ‘perceive’ the presence of an other creature is a reasonable requirement, but there are various ways to do this, including Tremorsense.

Obviously telepathy works whether someone turns out the lights or not.

 

[Talath]

I can't even tell you how happy I am with this implementation! Despite the fact that it presents only 5 levels and half the subclasses, I am all for this implementation of psionics. It really is a work of brilliance.

 

[Yaarel]

I think it would be nice if each Discipline had an ability that cost zero power points as well. I'd like to see the number of power points a character has and can spend, plus the number that abilities cost, reduced. Each point should feel significant. At higher levels, I don't want to have do deal with the math of spending lots of power points.

Thus, instead of:

Exacting Query (1)
Occluded Mind (3)
Broken Will (5)

It would be:

Exacting Query (0)
Occluded Mind (1)
Broken Will (2)

Yeah, I want cantrips.

 

[Mirtek]

I am really unhappy that psionic-magic-transparency is not the standard rule, I hope this changes before psionics become official. Mind Blank should stop any mythic cold