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!

 

[bganon]

Mind Thrust is a bit wonky - Golems are immune but it's extremely effective against Oozes and Zombies as they have low Int scores and no psychic resistance at all. Not sure how I feel about that.

 

[callinostros]

Hiya.

Broken. Almost all of it. Scrap it, start again.

At least I'm not disappointed. This was exactly what I was expecting. *shrug* No skin off my back though, never used psionics since they got all brokified back in 2e.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Care to be more specific.

 

[bganon]

Not who you're responding to, but it looks to me like a Fighter 15/Immortal 5 or possibly even a Fighter 17/Immortal 3 is FAR better than a Fighter 20. And you don't have to wait to level 20 to take advantage of the benefits; I don't see any reason a Fighter with the presumably necessary 13 Int wouldn't take at least a three-level dip in Immortal. You get regeneration, an init boost, extra AC, and optional in-combat healing.

Not that the Awakened doesn't get nice stuff too. Mind Thrust is a pretty good cantrip-like ability, and free blindsight plus truesight at level 5? Yes, please!

 

[oknazevad]

They can pick another one after every rest through Strength of Mind.

As an INT-based class, wouldn't INT saves being the permanent, unchanging ones make more sense than WIS?

 

[occam]

I hope the Mystic doesnt use Dexterity for Mind Thrust attacks! That would be absurd.

It doesn't. "Ranged attack" doesn't imply the use of Dexterity, unless you're attacking with a weapon.

 

[I'm A Banana]

No worries, I have a Sharpie that will fix that part.

I like the ideas I am seeing here. Concentration effect and boost it for additional effects. Nice psion flavor.

I might keep it even if they don't...

I'm starting to think they should double down on that design - make it an explicit part of the class rather than just part of every subclass. You could even jargon it - "while maintaining concentration on a psionic power, the mystic is considered to be psionically focused, which gives different benefits depending on the power being concentrated on..." or something to that effect.

The heavy use of Concentration stuff could be a pretty good defining feature of the mystic as opposed to its closest fluff-competitors.

It doesn't. "Ranged attack" doesn't imply the use of Dexterity, unless you're attacking with a weapon.

There's no ability score or even proficiency bonus suggested by "make a ranged attack." There's nothing to tell you what to add to it. I can infer that they want a ranged discipline attack, though it doesn't say that.

 

[ppaladin123]

Order of the Awakened has basically nothing to do in combat at the moment except throw out mind thrusts and doesn't have too much to do outside combat either given the limited number of skills. You can be a much better psion as a great old one warlock with the right invocations and spells.

 

[variant]

I like the flavor of this psionics far more than the old psuedo-science of the past.

 

[bganon]

Order of the Awakened has basically nothing to do in combat at the moment except throw out mind thrusts and doesn't have too much to do outside combat either given the limited number of skills. You can be a much better psion as a great old one warlock with the right invocations and spells.

Mind Thrust does a bit less damage than Eldritch Blast (and has the non-scaling weirdness), but can ignore AC and cover. If it were a cantrip (and scaled as one) it'd be one of the best in the game. And most warlocks pretty much spam Eldritch Blast in combat anyway.

At-will advantage on all Cha checks, or advantage on all Wis checks for 1 minute per psi point is not a "limited number of skills". In town, an Awakened is the party face and can pretty much spam Exacting Query. In the dungeon, ping constantly with Unwavering Eye and other Third Eye disciplines as necessary. In combat, blast high-value dumb targets with Broken Will for the first round or two, then mop up with Mind Thrusts from your Intellect Fortress.

Overall the playstyle doesn't really sound much different than a typical warlock build in terms of actions and options. Warlocks also are forced to pick a few good tricks and spam them. Also remember we're only seeing probably half the disciplines that the class will eventually get.

In fact, as I think about it, I'm starting to suspect that an Awakened Mystic that dumps Int might actually be pretty viable. Monster Int probably averages a few points less than AC (and is sometimes much less), everything in Conquering Mind targets Int saves, and the other two disciplines don't use Int at all. Cha primary + Wis secondary might be a pretty good stat choice.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Unhappy with psionics requiring Far Realms flavor:

"Psionics indirectly originates from the Far Realm, a dimension outside the bounds of the known multiverse."

The Far Realms doesnt exist in my settings.

The antihuman implications of Far Realms flavor contradict the personal and humanistic flavor of ones own mind.

No one is twisting your arm to use this fluff. It's just one way of presenting how psionics might mesh with a universe suffused with magic.