D&D 5E Tell Me About Your 5E Psionic Character

[CleverNickName]

There's a lot of discussion at the moment about psionics and the updated 5th Edition rules. I'm curious how many people are using psionics in their games, and how they are making it happen...so I crafted what I hope is an interesting poll to shape that discussion.

Vote for as many options as you want/need, mixing and matching however you like, to shape your answer. Like--if you use a custom class that you wrote yourself, borrowing elements from AD&D's Dark Sun campaign setting and the optional Spell Points rules in the DMG, you could vote for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th options on the list.

I look forward to seeing how folks play (or don't play) psionic characters in the current--and future--5th Edition D&D game.

 

[CleverNickName]

For my part: I don't have a psionic character in my campaign. BUT IF I DID, it would be an Aberrant Mind sorcerer that uses the Spell Points system...or it would be an Esper from Paranormal Power.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I've never played a psionic character in 5E (or ever, for that matter)... but I did have a player of mine play one in one of my Curse of Strahd campaigns. She used the Mystic UA rules for it and it seemed to work fine for her.

 

[Morrus]

I have two -- a psion and a psyknight, both from the Voidrunner's Codex.

 

[Gorck]

I created a Psion subclass for the Wizard. My daughter was play-testing it, but we haven't played that campaign in a while

 

[RoughCoronet0]

I’m not entirely sure on what my character would be classified as, but my one Psionic themed character was a Thri-kreen Bladesinger Wizard that took only took spell that would fit the Psionic theme. My group has a wide variety of 3pp spells to pick from to help facilitate the flavor. His “spell book” was a Spellshard from the Eberron book that acted as her Psionic focus. I also took the Telekinetic feat as well.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

When I saw the blueskin goblin from Expanded Psionic Handbook I wanted a blue PC, and that was years before Grogu/Baby Yoda to become so famous and popular.

The last psionic manifester PC created by my imagination is an ardent (paladin-like) aasimar in setting like a mixture of Dark Sun and Dragonlance in the age of despair. Here the aasimars suffer the worst reputation about "wolves with sheep's clothing", when really they created the most advanced civilitation in the ancient ages, and they saved the day lots of time stopping Lovecraftian cults summoning horrors from the Far Realms. The propaganda by the new rulers, the dragon overlords and the noble houses (now they are ageless elans thanks special secret ritual as reward for the services) the aasimars are the descendents of "necrotouched" humans, people tainted by undead predators. The real past was different, when the king self-proclaimed the new high-priest of the lord fey pantheon, the "old faith" was forbidden, and lots of times the execution was eaten by undead. But when the believers of the "old faith" were attacked, the effect was opposite. Technically they were victims of "odium fidei", and this meant martydom. Then they didn't turn undead but the undead predators suffered damage because the "food" was "relic of saint martyrs". Later some aasimars were born as descedent of ordinary humans and other humanoids who were blessed by those saint martyrs' miracle. In this world the paladins of the "old faith" aren't wellcome at all because this is forbidden. The relation between the ardents and the rest of divine spellcasters is very complicated, because they are the "rookie" in the best case, and some times they are tagged as "false believers".

 

[CleverNickName]

Some thoughts so far: among folks who use psionics in their 5E game....

• The subclasses in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything is the most popular way to do it.
• Just as many people are using third-party resources, as are house-ruling their own.
• Spell Points and earlier-edition adaptations are really unpopular.
• Nearly half of us don't even bother with psionics.

 

[Gradine]

I thought that the feats from Tasha's were probably the ideal way to go, especially if we weren't getting a full class (we weren't). It goes to the idea of feats taking the place of multi-classing, making classes more modular.

 

[Vael]

I've tried out the Mystic class from UA twice (both times playing the Awakened Mind, ie the Telepath subclass), and played an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer.

The first Mystic was a Tiefling for a one-shot that didn't get to do much.

My second was a Changeling Mystic for an Eberron campaign. They were a lot of fun, they were a Private Inquisitive with a few secondary identities and I loved the character.

The main issues I had with the class was the lack of Telekinesis Disciplines, and I don't how the class scales after 10th level (Not that I actually got that far), but tbh I thought there was an interesting approach to Psionics here.

Aberrant Mind Sorcerer was fine. It's a good subclass and I enjoy Sorcerers despite the tight cap on spells known and Metamagics.