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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[Urriak Uruk]

Crawford said the goal for the last Fighter draft was to be Darth Vader, so that is what they are going for!

If this passes mister with folks, I see nothing missing from the rules for Dark Sun.

Yeah it definitely looks like a Dark Vader to me. The responses, at least on this thread, seem much more positive than the previous psion testing. A couple of holdouts in the "psion must be its own class!" but that was inevitable.

Hopefully this virus hasn't pushed their scheduling back (it probably has, but hopefully not too much).

 

[Maxperson]

I LOVE THIS!

Took me a second to figure out the Psychic Talent die size for the Psi Knight (you can potentially use it every turn), but it’s REALLY COOL, and the flavor text explains why it’s a matter of mental discipline and restraint.

EDIT
Ooh! Psionic Soul Sorcerer, also cool. And so much better than another Wizard subclass!

I like the Psi Knight as well, but that flavor text will be changed by me. You can use the die in round 1 and roll a 6, the first use of the day and you haven't conserved, then in round 2 use the power again and roll a 1, not having conserved, yet go up a die for conservation. I love the ability, but that flavor makes no sense to me.

 

[DEFCON 1]

A couple of holdouts in the "psion must be its own class!" but that was inevitable.

At this point I think those folks basically need to take their Mystic rules and do a rebalancing pass on them themselves and use that. After all, it's a class with six subclasses covering all the different facets of the trope, and uses spell points as their "alternative mechanic". I don't think anyone's going to get anything better than that for a full class at this point.

 

[Var]

All the new Feats are Half Feats (neat). While some are clearly stronger than others, I really like the options for all of them.

Telekinetic is going to be pretty wild though. Moving stuff in between 5-30 ft at lvl 1 seems a tad bit too random. Likewise 5-80 ft at higher levels, pretty damn high variance there.

Soulknife doesn't interact well with magical weapons as is, so your DM will have to fix that for you with a house rule for now.

 

[Maxperson]

No no no! I know people seemed psyched by the psion-thing, personally I don't like this direction. I would like to see:

1. A Psion class with a new mechanic (not just spells, more warlock/ki-oriented maybe). Use Soulknife, etc. as a base for the subclasses maybe. I don't want to see Psi-subclasses for all 12 classes.

2. Latent Psionics for any class or race much like AD&D.

I don't think we need 3 or more classes for this.

Tracking Psychic Talent die just becomes a hassle. It is also explosive in a way when you get lucky to get a larger die. How does it make sense? You roll low on a die, and the next time you have more, roll low again and you get more? I don't know, at first glance it seems a needless hassle.... And why would you randomly choose to use more or less power when making the attempt to use it. It seems like you are a psion who has little control over your ability.

Maybe further looking will reveal something worthwhile, but for right now yawn.

I like the psionic subclasses for each class. It totally makes sense to make the soulknife a psionic rogue subclass and the Psi Knight a psionic fighter subclass. You can still do a psion with multiple full psion subclasses, and I want to see that happen.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I like the Psi Knight as well, but that flavor text will be changed by me. You can use the die in round 1 and roll a 6, the first use of the day and you haven't conserved, then in round 2 use the power again and roll a 1, not having conserved, yet go up a die for conservation. I love the ability, but that flavor makes no sense to me.

Isn't it that if you roll a '1' on the die then you have conserved, and your die goes back up? And it's the same for all 3 subclasses and the feat?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

At this point I think those folks basically need to take their Mystic rules and do a rebalancing pass on them themselves and use that. After all, it's a class with six subclasses covering all the different facets of the trope, and uses spell points as their "alternative mechanic". I don't think anyone's going to get anything better than that for a full class at this point.

Agreed. I think based on what Wizard's wrote in this UA, it looks like they couldn't find a way to create a new class without intruding on other classes portfolios, and elected for this path.

I love the psionic dice idea though, it keeps psionics as something that is like magic, but also different.

 

[Maxperson]

Isn't it that if you roll a '1' on the die then you have conserved, and your die goes back up? And it's the same for all 3 subclasses and the feat?

Right. My point is that if you haven't used it all day, you can get penalized for not conserving on round 1, going down a die. Then on round 2, without having taken any time at all to conserve, you can roll a 1 and go up a die for having conserved. The fluff doesn't really match the mechanic in this case, so I will have to right new fluff that makes sense.

 

[Maxperson]

I suppose one of us is then. Nothing in the article seems to me that you are limited to your initial die size. As I see it, at 3rd level, your start d6, roll a 1 and now use d8. You continue to use d8 until you roll a 1 or an 8. Roll another 1 and now you use d10. It doesn't reset until you finish a long rest.

It also means that with two "unlucky" rolls, a 6 and a 4, at 3rd and 4th levels you are done with your psionic powers for the day.

It explicitly limits you.

"Conversely, if you roll a 1 on your Psionic Talent die, it increases by one die size after the roll, up to its starting size."

 

[Kurotowa]

Right. My point is that if you haven't used it all day, you can get penalized for not conserving on round 1, going down a die. Then on round 2, without having taken any time at all to conserve, you can roll a 1 and go up a die for having conserved. The fluff doesn't really match the mechanic in this case, so I will have to right new fluff that makes sense.

The "conserve versus burn" is meant to reflect that use of the power, not the use (or non-use) that came before. If you roll a 1 then you put forth the minimum exertion and have more strength later. If you roll a max result then you burn all your power in that moment and have less after.