D&D 5E Telekinesis Is A Bad Spell, For The Game

[Blue]

The Telekinetic feat is terrible as a feat. Great. Invisible mage hand, greater range on it if I dedicate a cantrip to it from another source, and a...a ranged shove attack. A ranged shove, really, not a shove attack. A very weak one, at that.

The Telekinetic feat is second only to Lucky in the number of campaigns I'm in or running it's been picked in over the past few years. It's a half feat, so it has a lowered bar on what it needs to do, and it over delivers there. Invisible mage hand is excellent for certain character types, especially classes who otherwise would not have any cantrips and now can do all sorts of stuff. But more often the kicker is a dedicated bonus action for the characters that don't have one. A shove can mean things like being able to move without taking an attack of opportunity or pushing a foe into a hazard (either existring or created by your side), or moving an ally so they aren't engaged, or perhaps out of an area of effect that would trigger on the start of their turn. It's a shove that doesn't require the characte to have that least of ability score, Strength, and the foe can't resist it with Dex (Acrobatics) only a Str save.

My most recently created character is a somewhat rogue-acting bladesinger who has it and loves the combo of dropping a Booming Blade on a melee combatant with one of their attacks then pushing them away. And maybe even moving further away after that with their move.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Yes, it occasionally bothers me too, but not enough to want to do anything about it. I'm afraid I don't have any alternative ideas.

I just wish WotC wasn't so conservative with their design in general. While I still like 5e, I would love an "unleashed" version where they crank things up to 11 and just let the PCs do all the cool things instead of limiting them so hard.

5e Unleashed is an OGL book I'd buy.
Basically, 1st level characters in Unleashed are equivalent to 15th or 18th level 5e characters; and go up from there to where they have multiverse shattering powers.
(In other words Exalted lol)

[edit to add: this is different than Epic level adventures, since Epic presumes a 1st-20th level progression leading up]

 

[doctorbadwolf]

5e Unleashed is an OGL book I'd buy.
Basically, 1st level characters in Unleashed are equivalent to 15th or 18th level 5e characters; and go up from there to where they have multiverse shattering powers.
(In other words Exalted lol)

[edit to add: this is different than Epic level adventures, since Epic presumes a 1st-20th level progression leading up]

Another way to go could be to have epic archetypes that overlay on top of existing 5e characters, and are things like “Demigod” that don’t really care about your level, and just make invulnerable and super strong or whatever.