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.“...

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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Parmandur

Book-Friend
The fighter class is an option being used by a mere 14% of players*. Yet we get new fighter subclasses on the regular. People often approve of having options even if they do not currently exercise them.

*Strictly speaking, 14% of PCs, but it seems like a fair assumption that most players only have one active PC at a time.

Not my point: I'm not saying one causes the other. But both are true.

We know that a rule needs 70% approval to be published after UA testing. Feats rarely make it through the UA process. Ergo, Feats rarely make it to 70% approval. That a distinct minority of tables use Feats, and Mt personal experience, suggests the plausible hypothesis that there is a large segment of the player base, maybe 30% or more, that actively dislike Feats.
 

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Dausuul

Legend
Thank you everybody, for the reminder why I no longer come to this site for discussions. There are 25 pages of arguing about points that has nothing to do with the subject that started the thread. I would like nothing more than discuss the new sub-classes, what they can do, how they work, and ideas about how to play them, but it is evident that is not possible here.
I definitely see where youre coming from in this case. All interesting discussion on the UA article itself has long since passed pages ago.
The nature of conversations is to drift, because there is only so much any given person has to say about any given topic. This one started with plenty of discussion of the mechanics of the UA article. It has now drifted into a discussion of psionics through the history of D&D and arguments about WotC's marketing and development strategy.

Feel free to bring it back to the original topic by posting your thoughts on the UA; or, if you prefer a conversation focused on a specific subtopic (e.g., on builds using the new UA, or discussion of the psionic die mechanic, or what have you), you could start a new thread of your own.
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
It's just that from what I've seen, whatever they release will be hated by the same people who wanted it in the first place, because they deviate too much or something

People want what they want, but would be happy with a wider variety than what they post here. As long as it is in the same theme as 2e and 3e, I think most would be happy with it, even if the mechanics varied a bit from what they are asking for.

Not even getting into the fact that it seems like a lot of people who want psionics want it to completely obsolete spellcasting.

I don't agree with this. They(and I) for the most part want V, S, M not to be a part of it. A) that doesn't equate to making spellcasting obsolete, B) it can be balanced in other ways as I have shown in this thread.

So you want the 3.0/.5 supplement treadmill again?
Eh, no. I'm not asking for that kind of bulk release schedule. 3e put out waaaaay too much in too short a time period. I'd like to see more released than 5e has done, but not near what 3e and 4e released.

What I'm saying is that they can release stuff as specifically optional. Include it or don't. Up to your group. Feats are a great example of that. If you like them, put them in. If you don't, don't. It's good that the game included them for those who want to use feats.
 

People want what they want, but would be happy with a wider variety than what they post here. As long as it is in the same theme as 2e and 3e, I think most would be happy with it, even if the mechanics varied a bit from what they are asking for.
I've honestly seen the same type of thing on other forums, not just this one.

I don't agree with this. They(and I) for the most part want V, S, M not to be a part of it. A) that doesn't equate to making spellcasting obsolete, B) it can be balanced in other ways as I have shown in this thread.
Again, what are those? I have seen nothing that seems like an explicit weakness other than the exhaustion thing that mentioned, but that just seems too easily ignored to be an actual tradeoff from being immune to counterspells, antimagic fields, and tying them up.
Eh, no. I'm not asking for that kind of bulk release schedule. 3e put out waaaaay too much in too short a time period. I'd like to see more released than 5e has done, but not near what 3e and 4e released.

What I'm saying is that they can release stuff as specifically optional. Include it or don't. Up to your group. Feats are a great example of that. If you like them, put them in. If you don't, don't. It's good that the game included them for those who want to use feats.
A new class and it's associated mechanics and subclasses doesn't sound too optional in my book.
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
Again, what are those? I have seen nothing that seems like an explicit weakness other than the exhaustion thing that mentioned, but that just seems too easily ignored to be an actual tradeoff from being immune to counterspells, antimagic fields, and tying them up.

I'm not going to re-post it, but there was another one literally the post above that one. Apparently you skip posts. :p

A new class and it's associated mechanics and subclasses doesn't sound too optional in my book.
Who's forcing you to take it?
 

The nature of conversations is to drift, because there is only so much any given person has to say about any given topic. This one started with plenty of discussion of the mechanics of the UA article. It has now drifted into a discussion of psionics through the history of D&D and arguments about WotC's marketing and development strategy.

Feel free to bring it back to the original topic by posting your thoughts on the UA; or, if you prefer a conversation focused on a specific subtopic (e.g., on builds using the new UA, or discussion of the psionic die mechanic, or what have you), you could start a new thread of your own.
Such a post would be a drop of freshwater washed away in an ocean of salt.
 


Chaosmancer

Legend
It really isn't a big problem. Make it so that if they don't have their focus on their person, they need V&S components again.

Boom problem solved next.

Also as you allude to, literally your entire complaint applies worse to Wildshape. Druids can't be restrained in any conventional way. You need magic anti-shapeshifting handcuffs or whatever.

Re: "A better Wizard". Obviously not. You make them less powerful than a full caster. You don't just go "Oh I'll give a Wizard spellpoints lolz!!!!". You give them a smaller spell list, make it harder to acquire spells (disciplines etc.), and make them never get a lot of the most powerful or flashy Wizard spells, maybe never get the equivalent of 8th/9th level spells (or only in a very limited way, like Warlocks). They should also get healing spells, which sounds like a benefit but totally isn't, because it means the character inevitably ends up dumping spell slots/levels into other PCs to help them out, rather than using those spells to blow people up or whatever.

Boom "problem" solved next.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to be so rude and dismissive, it kind of makes it harder to have any sort of discussion about this when I have to stop and take out the jabs and barbs.

I thought part of the point was not needing a focus? So, your first "Boom, problem solved" confuses me. Will they need a focus or not? I thought part of the complaint about Psionics as they have been presented (for example the psionic wizard) was the fact that they included a Psionic focus instead of making it entirely based upon the users mind.

Also, how then would this be different from how the psionic sorcerer is currently presented? They can make a spell not require the V or S components, but can only sometimes remove the M, which means they need a focus. So what about that execution (just for the focus) doesn't work for the Psionics?

As for the second point, it sounds then like you would build their spell list similiar to a Celestial Soul Sorcerer or Celestial Warlock. Healing abilities, limited spells, and unique spell list.

I'd guess the Warlock is really the most likely candidate for the build you are thinking of, since they are the most limited full caster in terms of the number of spells they can cast. Maybe combine with the limits of the Sorcerers spells known?

But, much like the Warlock then, you would need to allow them to cast more often to still be balanced against the other classes. Ironically, this was one of the problems with the Mystic. It could only do low level abiltiies (nothing beyond 6th I think) but it could use far more of them than other "caster" classes which led to a feeling of them being too powerful.

I also fully disagree with you on healing. Gaining access to healing abilities is also a boon to the class or the team. It in no way makes you less powerful, and actually I would argue gives you more power through flexibility.



Ignoring anti-magic and magic resistance? No, they don't. Neither me nor Remathilis suggested they should and even Maxperson agrees it's not necessary, and he has the most extreme views I've ever seen on this. This is a problem you have created by yourself.

Boom problem solved next.

I literally solved all your "problems" here in single-digit minutes.

Apologies if within the hundreds of posts I read back to back, I missed that you had not made that claim. It has been made though, and often follows logically from "Psionics aren't magic"

If they are not magic, then they would not be affected by abilities that effect magic. If you are fine with Psionics being magic, then it isn't an issue, but many people want that distinction.


I posted earlier how that could be balanced. You could make it very slow without a Psicrystal. Let the Psicrystal focus the mental magic so that it works normally, but without it the Psion is taking a -4(or more) penalty to initiative. Maybe make it full round and able to be broken by damage via concentration checks. Let the crystal work similar to the psionic die in the recent UA, but maybe without refresh. If the die hits zero, you are stuck with the slow usage until you get a long rest.

There are other ways to balance a Psion.

I must have missed your earlier post. But I'm a little confused by idea of the initiative penalty.

Do you mean every power would lower you in the initiative? Because that would eventually become just acting last every round, which isn't a problem. And I would find it incredibly weird to have them act, and then the effect happened on a different initiative number. That would be far more complicated than I would want to track and make them hard to use in bigger battles.

Same with the full round ability. Maybe for something big, but what happens if you spend a whole turn focusing on blasting a hobgoblin, only for when the round to be over, your allies killed it. Do you just get a free retarget? And it would be very difficult to play a class that required you to declare your action, then allow an entire round of tactical changes to happen before executing, you'd never be able to react to changes in the battlefield.

I'm not saying these are impossible to use or anything, but it seems to be an odd flavor to have Psionics be slow and cumbersome to utilize. And if the point is they are only that way if you don't have a crystal... well, then it won't matter, because the majority of the time they will have a focus if they need it.

And if it is "have X charges, you can use a charge to act now instead of later" then we are still confronted by how cumbersome and odd acting slowly is in the DnD context.
 

Chaosmancer

Legend
Then why not start your own thread on the specific thing you want to discuss?

There is a high likelihood that such a thread would simply attract this exact same conversation, leading to it getting overwhelmed with the same discussion.

That said, I do mostly agree with @Demetrios1453 , I have been on two different forums and gotten very little actual discussion of the mechanics presented.

One focused almost entirely on the Psionic Die and how it was a horrible mechanic for a slew of reasons, and this one seems focused on a discussion almost entirely of "what psionics ought to have been and why WoTC is terrible for not doing it already"

It makes it rather difficult to form a discussion around if anything was done right this time around with things like the Psy Knight's barrier, or their ability to throw objects at will.

And it seems like discussions on if the Sorcerer and Rogue get enough chances to use their dice like the Knight aren't even being considered.
 

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
...the lengths to which some people go to cover for WotC... :rolleyes:

Mod Note:
The lengths to which some people will go to dismiss the opinions of others...

How about you not do that, please and thank you. In the future, if you really don't feel the opinions of others are well-founded, you don't bother responding to them? Because this response is pretty insulting.
 

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