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!

 

[CapnZapp]

I don't think this is truly official yet. It's only the first 5 levels, and it's clear that it is barely even a rough draft.

All-in-all, a little bit of polish, and I think this would be a fun class to play. Yeah, the Mind Thrust is quite a bit over-powered, but that's nothing that isn't fixable. I absolutely love the discipline mechanic, and I want to see what it looks like as a finished product.

Which leads to my next thought. Are they going to compile the Unearthed Arcana articles at a later date? These articles have many interesting ideas that are clearly in beta testing. Anyone know if we're ever going to see the final product?

There was some snark upthread about just that: follow up on existing ua articles.

Short answer: we don't know.

 

[Minigiant]

Here's the comparison

[table="width: 500"]
[tr][td]Spell/Discipline/Feature[/td]
[td]Psi/Spell point cost[/td]
[td]Total Damage[/td]
[/tr]
[tr][td]Mind blast[/td]
[td]2[/td]
[td]3d8[/td]
[/tr]
[tr][td]Mind blast[/td]
[td]3[/td]
[td]4d8[/td]
[/tr]
[tr][td]Mind blast[/td]
[td]5[/td]
[td]6d8[/td]
[/tr]
[tr][td]Lethal Strike[/td]
[td]2[/td]
[td]2d10 + W[/td]
[/tr]
[tr][td]Lethal Strike[/td]
[td]3[/td]
[td]3d10 + W[/td]
[/tr]
[tr][td]Lethal Strike[/td]
[td]5[/td]
[td]5d10 + W[/td]
[/tr]
[tr][td]Chromatic orb as 1st level spell[/td]
[td]2[/td]
[td]3d8[/td]
[/tr]
[tr][td]Chromatic orb as 2nd level spell[/td]
[td]3[/td]
[td]4d8[/td]
[/tr]
[tr][td]Chromatic orb as 3rd level spell[/td]
[td]5[/td]
[td]5d8[/td]
[/tr]
[tr][td]Scorching ray as 2nd level spell[/td]
[td]3[/td]
[td]6d6[/td]
[/tr]
[tr][td]Lightning bolt as 3rd level spell[/td]
[td]5[/td]
[td]8d6 line/save half[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

hmmmmm

 

[Mephista]

Thoughts-

While interesting, I'm getting a lot of 5-min-work-day potential. There simply is no scaling mechanic involved here. It could just because we have only 5 levels, but neither Mind Thrust power nor Immortal have a way to increase the damage of their attacks without spending power points. That means that the class, as currently designed, favors nova-then-sleep tactics.

It also means that, at the higher levels, the only Immortal Discipline you'll be using for the vast majority of the game is Psionic Weapon. Maybe later on we'll see Extra Attack feature and Mind Thrust scaling, but as it is, I'm leery of the damage output.


Immortal also seems to avoid the gish problem by making Concentration on a hit a non-issue here.


Overall, the class currently feels very boring to me at the moment. Awakened can only use the cantrip-like Mind Thrust. Immortal damage scales kinda like the rogue's, and bonus actions are taken up by the Disciplines - as a result, Great Weapon, Polearm, Crossbow, and Sharpshoorter won't be that good of a choice, imho. You're best off to use Finesse or Ranged weapons as a result, and go DEX heavy instead of STR builds.


I do like how we start off with medium armor here. It seems that we've learned the lessons on why the blade warlock is struggling in a lot of places. Actually, Immortal gives me a lot of ideas on how to fix the blade'lock.


I agree with others who've said we should just have one pool of Disciplines.


I'm kind of sad we didn't see a discipline that gave us the power to cast Charm/Dominate/etc Person.


In the end, though? It feels very dull and restrictive at the moment. That may change with the full class and more Disciplines, but I'm just not feeling it.

 

[fuindordm]

The high level Wizard has just as many spell points as the Mystic does, and can cast as many high slot spells or low slot spells as the Mystic can. They use the same casting mechanic.

It is easy to multiclass as Wizard/Mystic, and combine both of their resources into slots or points.

Sorry for the confusion--I was comparing to a standard wizard not the spell point variant.

I don't like the spell point option in the DMG for wizards either.

Ben

 

[rollingForInit]

Thoughts-

While interesting, I'm getting a lot of 5-min-work-day potential. There simply is no scaling mechanic involved here. It could just because we have only 5 levels, but neither Mind Thrust power nor Immortal have a way to increase the damage of their attacks without spending power points. That means that the class, as currently designed, favors nova-then-sleep tactics.

It also means that, at the higher levels, the only Immortal Discipline you'll be using for the vast majority of the game is Psionic Weapon. Maybe later on we'll see Extra Attack feature and Mind Thrust scaling, but as it is, I'm leery of the damage output.


Immortal also seems to avoid the gish problem by making Concentration on a hit a non-issue here.


Overall, the class currently feels very boring to me at the moment. Awakened can only use the cantrip-like Mind Thrust. Immortal damage scales kinda like the rogue's, and bonus actions are taken up by the Disciplines - as a result, Great Weapon, Polearm, Crossbow, and Sharpshoorter won't be that good of a choice, imho. You're best off to use Finesse or Ranged weapons as a result, and go DEX heavy instead of STR builds.

I'd very much prefer Mind Thrust to be treated more like a cantrip in terms of damage. Scale automatically, and if the Awakened is not getting anything else for damage, allow it to be enhanced with Psi Points at an increased cost.

But I'd hope there will be disciplines better suited for combat as well.

 

[Goemoe]

Nice approach to psionics so far. I like the feeling, the mechanics have to be testet and the amount of psi points might be a bit to big, but hey...

Can't wait for updates on these 5e psionics

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, recognizing that this is heavily "playtest" material (what with only going up to level 5)...

(1) I agree with most of what [MENTION=6786252]Mephista[/MENTION] has said. Scaling definitely seems to be an issue, and I do see some potential risk for blast-and-rest behavior here. That said, the "Psi Maximum" may address some of this, since it looks like Power Points scale up pretty quickly, at least in the early levels. Presumably, as with "regular" magic, that will taper off with time, or there will be increasingly expensive disciplines to spend it on.

(2) With only 4/6 points (and a max of 2 per combat), it seems a bit like the early-level Mystic has an even more extreme form of the "Warlock problem" (for those who consider it a problem, anyway)--that is, they can do their special shtick in, at most, four "challenges" a day (combats, encounters, whatever) when the game expects 6-8. Even more than most other classes, it strongly feels like this class isn't really expected to start at level 1 unless you REALLY want that "zero to hero" feel. (If I had to guess at an explanation, it's to discourage the one- or two-level dip, since three levels in any class is a relatively significant investment.)

(3) I somehow wish this had, instead of being put in for the Psionic class(es?), been used for a Fighter subclass, or heck, even a Warlord. Call the points "adrenaline" or something, maybe make them a thing you have to build up before you can use them, I dunno. But my desire for a juicier, more-complex martial character is probably well known at this point, so I won't speak on it further.

 

[Mephista]

Con's: I don't like the flavor of tying it to the Far Realms, and would rather have that removed from the final article (...but I can ignore that, if I have to). I'm worried about the multi-class synergies. Especially, the discipline that gives another action for 5 psi points - I have an immediate concern about how that's going to play with a warlock splash for hex and eldritch blast.

Won't work. At least, not the Hex part. Both Celerity and Hex are Concentration effects, even if the former is a spell and the latter is not, so they don't stack; futher, activating Celerity costs your bonus action, which leads to issues when you kill something and need to reassign Hex. You're better off using the Sorlock combo.

 

[Mephista]

My initial thoughts:

1. I could do without the explicit Far Realm connection. The Far Realm is absent from Dark Sun lore, and not the primary source for psionic power in Eberron. These are the two published settings with the heaviest psionic influence, and the psionics rules should play well with those.

Actually, it may as well be the source in Eberron. The dream realm shares enough in common with the Far Realm that it works.

Dark Sun is the only real exception as far as I can tell, and that particular setting has never been shy about reassigning the way any magic or powers work .

Lets be perfectly honest here. The default D&D cosmology uses the Great Wheel now. We have monsters with "default" origins and histories. Individual settings mess with the default, either tweaking or throwing it all out. Certainly, Eberron and Dark Suns are renowned for doing that. Is it any surprise that the Mystic comes with a default flavor? And that Eberron and DS will change it?

8. Celerity - Surge of Action: I feel that this has too much potential for abuse, at the same time as the cost is very steep.

I really don't see why people are saying this is so powerful. Remember, the Mystic doesn't grant Extra Attacks. You're basically spending 5 points in order to get your second attack, where almost every other class in the game gets it automatically. You'd need to be level 10 before any so-called abuses can happen, and that's one level from when most melee classes are getting their next bump in power. Plus, it takes up your bonus action, whereas many classes can use that bonus action for a variety of things.

 

[Queer Venger]

Been reading the new draft rules and I have to say I like them, a lot. They have a more 'otherworldly' feel to them, not sci-fi-ish; it has a closer blend to fantasy (which D&D is) than in 1 or 2e. That said, Im excited to see what people do with these, for me primarily I want to apply these to monsters, particularly the Mind Flayer and Githyanki. If anyone builds these out please do share, Im interested.