Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Revisits Psionics

The latest Unearthed Arcana from WotC revisits some psionic rules! “Shine with the power of the mind in this installment of Unearthed Arcana! Today we revisit several psi-themed options that we released in the past few months. Studying your feedback on those options, we’ve crafted this new collection of subclasses, spells, and feats, found in the PDF below.“

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[Maxperson]

So their primary weakness would be... an easily avoided mechanic unless you are a certain subclass in a class that a psion has no reason to multiclass into at all?

:::Watches the point go flying way over your head:::

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So their primary weakness would be... an easily avoided mechanic unless you are a certain subclass in a class that a psion has no reason to multiclass into at all?

Oh come off it mate.

If that's your logic, Druids have no weaknesses at all.

We're discussing the corner-case scenario where the PCs are actually locked up and have all their stuff taken, which in most campaigns happens very rarely and usually simple as a prelude to immediately getting their stuff back and fighting/sneaking their way out. "Primary weakness" is ludicrous hyperbole.

 

[Maxperson]

Oh come off it mate.

I that's your logic, Druids have no weaknesses at all.

We're discussing the corner-case scenario where the PCs are actually locked up and have all their stuff taken, which in most campaigns happens very rarely and usually simple as a prelude to immediately getting their stuff back and fighting/sneaking their way out. "Primary weakness" is ludicrous hyperbole.

And it ignores the other weaknesses I've suggested.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

What it means is that, based on available data, most PCs do not have feats. That is what WotC has said, and it is all that WotC has said.

Things WotC has not said, that people (including some folks on this site who should know better) have misinterpreted the above statement to mean:

• "Most tables do not allow feats." (Fallacy: Just because PCs do not have feats does not mean the table has made a rule to forbid them.)
• "Most players are not interested in feats." (Fallacy: The overwhelming majority of PCs are low-level, where the cost of taking a feat is extremely high--you have to either play a variant human, or sacrifice +2 to your prime stat, and the latter option isn't even available until level 4. If you look at PCs of level 12+, who do not face these tradeoffs, well over 50% have feats.)

I'm perfectly willing to believe what WotC tells us. But it's vitally important to listen to what WotC actually says and not blindly accept summaries and interpretations from third parties.

Thank you.

Yes I believe WotC in the simple statement that "most PCs do not have Feats", and yes you point out the key fallacies I've heard repeated many times, often with it being claimed WotC literally said that.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

And it ignores the other weaknesses I've suggested.

What are the weaknesses then, because I've never seen anything that I saw as a weakness.

 

[Maxperson]

What are the weaknesses then, because I've never seen anything that I saw as a weakness.

Go back and look. I've said at least one other in my last few posts.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Go back and look. I've said at least one other in my last few posts.

If you've said them before, you can say them again, and be more explicit about it.

keep it up with the laugh reacts please, I like the reaction points.

 

[Krachek]

I know that is very tempting to have psionic and a psion that is totally a part to the system, ie cannot be counterspell, dispel, don’t use spell slot, etc... put to the extreme it’s abilities should not allow saving throw, or roll vs AC, and the psion should not even have hit points, then he will be really special.

but DnD is a cooperative game, pc share some mechanics and we can understand how work other characters. Psionic have to fit with the overall game.

 

[bedir than]

They ditched the Stone Sorcerer, Phoenix Sorcerer, and Sea Sorcerer dispite them being popular to varying degrees and I never knew why, it was a shame they were all really cool. Instead they went with the less popular Shadow Sorcerer (which I personally love) Maybe they will pop up later in a book.

I know this is an aside, but the Phoenix Sorcerer was one of my favorite UA's ever. I remain hopeful that the various elemental sorcs that we've seen show up in a book (probably Planescapey)

 

[Parmandur]

I love how you say this sort of "corporate line" thing and I just don't believe it and roll my eyes and then we get into a pointless argument.

Lets avoid that this time and I'll say, I'd love know what exactly "most tables and most players don't use Feats" actually means.

Because the interesting thing to me is, out of the three (actually four) 5E games I either run or play in (amazingly I only run one of them atm), only one actually has any characters at all who have a Feat (and not even every PC does). What do all the others have in common? All the PCs are below the level where you get your third ASI/Feat. And you use the standard array, or point-buy, the gain from choosing an ASI for your first two ASI/Feats are so high that you generally don't want a Feat (excluding super-min-maxers who take VHuman or the like, but they're rare, and we have none). Thus if we were surveyed, we might well say "We don't use Feats", or if they looked at our characters via Beyond, they'd find that they didn't have Feats.

But that's not because anyone "hates" Feats, or even is opposed to them in any way, it's simply because ASIs are much more valuable then Feats for most characters who are generated that way.

Unfortunately I don't think either of us actually do know what that "no feats" deal means, so there we go! I strongly suspect that, before 5E is done (I mean, assuming we count any 5.5E as 5E), there will be a setting which relies on either literally Feats, or worse a mechanism so close to them it's kind of a joke that they're not called Feats, but maybe we can both chalk that up to "late-edition shenanigans", which 2E, 3E, 4E (and I'd say 1E) all engaged in.

As an aside I think this is fine. I'm not particularly married to Feats - I'm actually kind of impressed by how well-balanced they are against ASIs, and think ASIs should generally come out ahead.

(I do think it's a bit off that there's only details on gaining new tool proficiencies and languages though, you should able to gain skills and possibly single weapon proficiencies or even armour proficiencies without getting into Feats, as they're not part of the default game, but that's a whole other topic.)



Yeah, and that's problematic of course because it means the races they start Dark Sun with are all the races it will literally ever have official support for. Oh well, anything that gets Thri-Kreen back.

I agree with most of this. I do make it a point personally to give "Very Dissatisfied" for every Feat in every survey, and express in the write-in that I don't like Feats, but that's just me. The only known issue for WotC is that the variant is not used most of the time.

As to the Dark Sun races...the 5E approach is one and done, do I wouldn't expect anything beyond one hardcover in support at any rate, other than opening up the DMsGuild and maybe the AL will do something.