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!

 

[rollingForInit]

For those who played pre-4th Psionics, how did you like the psi-crystal psions could have? I only ever read about those psions, didn't have any opportunity to play one. But they seemed sort of like psionic familiars that could communicate somewhat. Always sounded fun at least, so I'd be glad if they introduced something like that again.

And having psionic crystals feels a little new-agey, which seems to be what the psion class is partially about.

 

[Nifft]

For those who played pre-4th Psionics, how did you like the psi-crystal psions could have? I only ever read about those psions, didn't have any opportunity to play one. But they seemed sort of like psionic familiars that could communicate somewhat. Always sounded fun at least, so I'd be glad if they introduced something like that again.

3.5e Psionics were very decent. Basically you'd get a slightly weaker, but much more flexible, version of the Sorcerer.

The Psicrystal was exactly as forgotten as the typical Wizard's Familiar. It had little to no impact on our games.

And having psionic crystals feels a little new-agey, which seems to be what the psion class is partially about.

The Druid dances naked in the woods, while the Bard uses percussion therapy to make everyone feel better, and the Wizard researches how to get to the Astral plan, so they can find a place to buy a really potent tarot deck...

... but you think the Psion is new-agey?

Err.

 

[Fralex]

I really LOVE the object reading ability. So many role playing opportunities there. Reminds me of the Akashic class, which I really love from the 3e-era Monte Cook books.

It is pretty cool. Will definitely make mystery campaigns more challenging to write, though...

 

[Curmudjinn]

My body is ready..

 

[77IM]

For those who played pre-4th Psionics, how did you like the psi-crystal psions could have? I only ever read about those psions, didn't have any opportunity to play one. But they seemed sort of like psionic familiars that could communicate somewhat. Always sounded fun at least, so I'd be glad if they introduced something like that again.

And having psionic crystals feels a little new-agey, which seems to be what the psion class is partially about.

I never played with a psi-crystal, but it always felt like a transparent and lazy attempt to achieve perfect parity between psions and wizards/sorcerers. "Wizards/sorcerers can get familiars, psions should get a talking pet too!" This was also the edition that gave us crystal wands, crystal staves, crystal scrolls, etc. It's one thing to try to make psionics and magic similar so that it doesn't imbalance the game, but I think 3E overdid it a bit.

 

[Mephista]

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

Sure. Lets start with "its actually on the lower end of the power curve," and move on to "inflexible" and "the 5-min work day is a joke."

One of the most important aspects of min-maxing is consistency - being able to reproduce attacks over the course of the adventuring day. While the Mystic can nova really well, that uses up its daily energy source so that its actually lack luster during the rest of the adventuring day. And that's before we start touching on using the points on social or exploration things - utility will be a drain.

Lack of AoEs and control effects really hurt the Ascended as a min-max option. Sure, its fun, but we're talking about some pretty limited effects here. Even Charm Person had both social and combat purposes. As it stands, though, until level 5? We only have one (pretty weak) Discipline. That means we're going to be heavily focused on Mind Thrusting. Compared to the Warlock, Mind Thrusts are far and away worse than Eldritch Blasts. 1d8 versus 1d10 isn't a big deal, but with spending PP versus Agonizing and Hex? You'd need to spend one PP per Agonizing Blast to keep up in damage... and you don't get enough PP to last all day with that, plus utility effects. Three PP if we bust out Hex. Going pure warlock is a stronger option for a min-maxer, and Sorlock is even better!

On the Immortal side, we effectively have three mutually exclusive options - either you're really fast, really defensive, or hit hard. While you can swap out, only one can be active at once. Compared to the Fighter? We start with access to Heavy Armor, making the Fighter one of the most defensive off the bat. Fighting styles and subclasses get a bit of a damage boost, plus we get Action Surges. While the Fighter isn't as fast as Celerity, its very defensive and hits very hard, and that's before we talk feats. At low levels, a TWF Fighter actually does far more damage than the Immortal can, because bonus action attacks are a thing. And that's assuming the Champion subclass - Battlemaster has control effects the Immortal does not, and Eldritch Knight has some nice tricks. Even if we look at the 5x daily Celerity effect, its stumbling behind manuevers and action surges in terms of damage at level 5.

All in all, the current Mystic can't both Nova and consistently deal damage, can't fill in the arcanist niche yet, and the Immortal barely keeps up with the Fighter or Barbarian.

If they're going to use the term "Mystic", why not just make this a Monk specialization instead of a whole new class? Or, better, let's slap marital arts on this and call it the New monk!

Because that would not appease fans of psionics, nor fans of the monk.

 

[Mephista]

Oh, and continuing on why the Mystic isn't a min-maxer's new dream pet? Its multi-class synergy is crap. Barbarians can't concentrate, and anyone with spell slots wants to use Concentration for something else, or take levels in classes that give more spell slots; that includes Paladins and Rangers. Monk and Rogue both use their bonus actions already for other things, so we run into action economy issues.

That leaves the Fighter. I'm not sure on all the possible combinations, but I suspect that the Battlemaster and Eldritch Knight would both be better served with other options than the Mystic.

 

[fuindordm]

For those who played pre-4th Psionics, how did you like the psi-crystal psions could have? I only ever read about those psions, didn't have any opportunity to play one. But they seemed sort of like psionic familiars that could communicate somewhat. Always sounded fun at least, so I'd be glad if they introduced something like that again.

I was so pissed off when I saw them in the psionics book. The 3E psionic classes were already very close to the wizard in feel--it baffled me that the designers wanted to give them a familiar too. I did play a couple of psions but never used the crystal.

Anyway, crystals a a means of power storage or part of the psionic aesthetic--OK. Crystals as sidekicks--No.

 

[fuindordm]

The Druid dances naked in the woods, while the Bard uses percussion therapy to make everyone feel better, and the Wizard researches how to get to the Astral plan, so they can find a place to buy a really potent tarot deck...

... but you think the Psion is new-agey?

All together now...

Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It's good enough for me!

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm rather curious as to how many players will actually playtest the material before commenting on the eventual survey. It's all well and good to just wait for its release and then repeatedly write in to get rid of the Far Realms fluff and change the name back to Psion (as though that's the part of psionics that actually matters)... but will anyone actually take the time to see if the mechanics actually work?

If not... then it's all the Alpha playtesters WotC has behind the scenes that will have the most direct influence on the class. People keep wondering if we'll ever get "updated" psionic rules to playtest down the road? That probably completely depends on how many people actually seem to have playtested these first set of rules when they have the next survey. If all the comments they get are merely complaining about the name and the fluff... then it'll be obvious to them they won't need to release another updated set of mechanics to UA because no one took the time to actually playtest them in the first place.