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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7861623" data-attributes="member: 7006">The one thing about psionics that we learned when they did the original UAs about it was that there were actually two different types of psionics-- and that trying to do a "one size fits all" ruleset to cover them didn't seem to work.The first type is the generic Psion.  The one that if we were to say was going to be a class, would have as subclasses probably the Telepath and the Telekinetic.  This is the one that is most spellcaster-like (if we were to align psionics at all to the base game for comparative reasons.)  The other type of psionics is the ones that are not primarily known for it, but rather are other things first and who supplements it with psionics.  The Psychic Warrior is first and foremost a warrior, and uses psionics to boost its fighting.  The Soulknife is a roguish/monkish person who uses psionics to boost their abilities.Their attempt at combining all 3 ideas into a single class as the Mystic apparently did not go over well, because from the isolated comments we have heard it was too hard to balance all the different pieces against each other.  Putting a warrior, an expert and a "caster" all under the same psionic class umbrella just didn't work out.So what they are doing with this particular UA makes a lot of sense... if we remove the wizard subclass "mentalist" from the equation.  If we had only received the Psychic Warrior and the Soulknife as our two psionic subclasses to playtest, I suspect the overwhelming number of comments would be that it seemed like the "Psion" concept was missing, and thus we'd expect there was probably going to be a class for it down the line.  Very few of us I suspect actually think that putting the Psychic Warrior under the Fighter and the Soulknife under the Rogue is worse than trying to jerry-rig them as subclasses of a single Psion class.  Sure, there's probably a few of us who think that all six subclasses of the Mystic worked like a charm... but probably not that many.It's only because they included the mentalist in the UA (which made people think it was going to mean there would not be a Psion class as well) that we've been getting the major freak-outs.  And I can understand that to a certain extent-- it's been a class before so it could easily stand as a class on its own again.  But I also understand the idea of not wanting to create an entire new mechanical system to do it--1) Because Jeremy is right... new mechanical systems in supplemental books just don't get much play or use from the general D&D gaming audience (Book of Nine Swords or Magic of Incarnum anyone?)2) The issues people have with doing it as a subclass of the wizard basically seem to come down to not "getting it" at level 1, using a spellbook, and needing components.  Three things that are not so out-there as ideas that the only way to accomplish it is by making a whole new class.  I mean come on... we're talking about Telepathy and Telekinesis!  Two things you already do as a Wizard or Sorcerer!At least from the perspective of the Artificer, there was nothing in the Wizard's canon that used alchemy that made us go "Why do we need a whole new class?  The Wizard already uses alchemy for X, Y, and Z."  But for the Psion?  The Telepath and the Telekinetic?  There is literally no functionality that either of those two subclasses are about that the Wizard and Sorcerer don't already do.  Sure... the fluff of the Telepath Psion and the Telekinetic Psion is different than the Wizard who uses telepathy and telekinesis and the Sorcerer who uses telepathy and telekinesis... but the actual actions are exactly the same. They are all three reading other people minds, and moving things around with their minds. There is no functional difference to what they do. So in that regard I also understand why the idea of just making it a Mentalist Wizard to them makes sense.Most likely I'm going to guess that the people who fill out the surveys will make it plain that while the Fighter subclass and the Rogue subclass are doable... they aren't going to want a Wizard subclass instead of a Psion class (with its own subclasses.) Whether or not that's really necessary will not be the issue.</blockquote>

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