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!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Psionic regeneration is very tough, especially at reducing downtime.

Only if you're willing to settle for stopping at half HP. There are other ways to reduce downtime, ranging from Fiendlock temp HP to Spell Sniper/missile weapon tactics that spend distance instead of HP (and distance "regenerates" far faster than HP after combat) to conjured minions to healing spells. All of them have pros and cons, some are situational, but ultimately if downtime as opposed to avoiding risk is your primary concern, if challenges are so easy that you don't mind facing them at half HP, then psionic regen is not the only or best way for you to deal with them.

If regen to half HP was a big deal, Champions would be far more popular, right?

 

[Celtavian]

Only if you're willing to settle for stopping at half HP. There are other ways to reduce downtime, ranging from Fiendlock temp HP to Spell Sniper/missile weapon tactics that spend distance instead of HP (and distance "regenerates" far faster than HP after combat) to conjured minions to healing spells. All of them have pros and cons, some are situational, but ultimately if downtime as opposed to avoiding risk is your primary concern, if challenges are so easy that you don't mind facing them at half HP, then psionic regen is not the only or best way for you to deal with them.

If regen to half HP was a big deal, Champions would be far more popular, right?

You mean their 18th level ability? A level very few ever reach? If more peopled played to 18th level, the Champion might be more popular.

 

[Nifft]

Hmm.

Some good stuff, but lots of bad stuff too.

- Concentration. It's an interesting and good idea that a Discipline can have a "free" benefit which only costs Concentration, but it seems very limiting to force all effects into the same pattern. For an example of where this pattern doesn't work well, consider Celerity, which has three different initiative benefits. That seems to be a "gotcha!" design choice -- "Did you remember to put on your anti-ambush hat before the ambush?"
--- Multi-classing: I feel like requiring Concentration to do nearly everything is a middle finger targeted at multi-class Psi/Spellcasters.
--- Durable Mind seems to be another symptom of this shoehorning. Since Concentration is a poor balance mechanism for melee characters, therefore they make Concentration not behave like Concentration.

- (Spell/Psi) Points. It's a fine idea to use the same progression as spellcasters, especially if it allows easier multi-classing, except they don't actually follow it. IIRC, a 1st-level spell points effect ought to cost 2 points. There are no 2-point effects in this document, but there are a whole bunch of 1-point effects. There was a reason why 1st level spells cost 2 points instead of 1 point, and this preview seems to have been written by someone ignorant of that reason.

- Mind Thrust. It's a Cantrip. It should behave like a Cantrip. It should scale up in damage over levels, and it should use a normal resolution mechanic (e.g. "target makes an Intelligence save").

- Specific effect oddities.
--- Blindsight seems to be generally better than Tremorsense, but you have to pay for Tremorsense.
--- Psionic Weapon scales in some ways with rarity of magical gear. If your DM is stingy, then it's excellent.
--- Intellect Fortress is only a passive defensive effect. Hopefully that's just an indication of premature release rather than a design choice, and there won't be any such passive-only Disciplines in the final version.

... searching for more specifics and I'm getting annoyed by the needless inclusion of the Far Realms. Bleah. Enforced flavor is bad.

 

[Wrathamon]

For Eberron, I'd say the dominant psionic plane really depends on what kind of story you want to tell. Dal Quor for intrigue style games, and Xoriat for more Khyber oriented kill the twisted aberrations games.

THIS!

That is pretty much exactly what Mr. Baker would probably say.


He or in eberron it would never say Dal Quor is the only source of psionics, or it comes from the far realms. Eberron always hints that it could be or it might be something else.

Maybe the Quori are Aberrations from Xoriat trapped in Dal Quor and changed over the eons? The inspired might be "saying" that psionics comes only from Dal Quor to mask that really they are tapping into the same awakened power that Xoriat influences. Maybe the power doesnt come from the far realm or dream plane but comes from You ... those two planes influence and "awaken" what is already there but trapped.

Eberron never gives super hard lore, it is always open for interpretation from what I've read, which is why it is one of my favorite settings.

 

[Fralex]

I'm getting annoyed by the needless inclusion of the Far Realms. Bleah. Enforced flavor is bad.

Is it really all that enforced, though? Influence of the Far Realm is certainly one suggested narrative, but it also talks about discovering psionics through secret lore, by pure accident, and how Dark Sun does it. Is there another interpretation that you think should have also been included?

 

[bganon]

Hmm.

--- Blindsight seems to be generally better than Tremorsense, but you have to pay for Tremorsense.

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.

 

[Staffan]

You could just say that god's abandonment of the world has allowed the far realm to leak in in small quantities. Explains a lot about Athas quite elegantly

Minor quibble: the gods never abandoned Athas. They were never there in the first place - at least not according to 2e lore, which as far as I'm concerned is all that's relevant to Dark Sun. Athas certainly has and had religions, but those religions lack magical power.

 

[Nifft]

Is it really all that enforced, though? Influence of the Far Realm is certainly one suggested narrative, but it also talks about discovering psionics through secret lore, by pure accident, and how Dark Sun does it. Is there another interpretation that you think should have also been included?

Yes, the way it's presented in the UA article is really enforced. It comes out and says it directly in a way that can't be misinterpreted: "Psionics indirectly originates from the Far Realm, (...)".

That sort of flavor-enforcement adds nothing, except for the DM's burden of re-education if the DM wants a different origin.

Here's the sort of thing that I'd prefer to see: "Psionics is an esoteric and subtle power. Some sages claim that Psionics originated in the Far Realms, while other say (...)".

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.

Well sure, you can probably fix this rule-fail by changing the rules, but that doesn't actually excuse the failure.

My intuition is that this designer wrote blindsense rather than blindsight, then an editor caught that blindsense doesn't exist in 5e, and we end up where we are now thanks to their mutual confusion.

 

[SkidAce]

Is there any reason not to take this for a min-maxer?

Doesn't fit the story of the current campaign?

I know what you mean, just wanted to emphasize that its not "poof" available across the board.

 

[SkidAce]

They probably just forgot to include that "you stop regenerating at 0 HP" clause.

Well you wouldn't be concentrating anymore so...