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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[gyor]

Merfolk Blue Mana users are perfect for the Aberrant Mind as it was laid out in the UA: those initial 12 Subclasses were Theirs bound, if they had been well received.

I really don't think so, most of those subclasses didn't say Theros to me, only a few did. It was clear from the article with the other Psion classes that Aberrant Mind was the Psion Sorcerer, and intended to be in the book with other Psion classes, and it wasn't even the first of these, the Psionic Artificer subclass that was more popular then the Alchemist subclass, yet never got published was the first (not counting Too Warlock of course which kind of got retconned into being Psionic lately).

2E did not. Different class, called the Psionicist.

It has an added icist to Psion, so that is a difference that is not meaningful to Psion. It's a mere florish.

 

[Maxperson]

Only Boris, Dregoth and Kalid-Ma ever completed the transformation into a dragon. Dregoth died and was resurrected as a dracolich, and Kalid-Ma was teleported to a demiplane of Ravenloft.

All the other sorcerer kings are in the process of becoming a dragon... some of them exhibit no dragon traits at all.

They were all dragons. Once you hit 21st level and started the process, you were a dragon. It wasn't until 30th level that you became a FULL dragon.

Personally, I find that becoming a dragon or avangion is something that the DM should really be allowing themselves, like a PC becoming a vampire or lich. It seems way too powerful to actually be usable in any game, especially since few players actually get close to level 20 anyway.

Sure. I never saw it happen, mostly because it was 2e and getting to any high level was nearly impossible if you followed the rules. In 3e, 4e and 5e where the game got really easy, I can easily see it happening. As for power level, that's up to the individual DMs. Some people are great with high power, others want really low power.

 

[Einlanzer0]

I like this better than the last one, but I still think it's incredibly misguided to try as hard as they are to avoid making new character classes for appropriate themes. At what point does it become better to have a full class instead of 500 half-baked subclasses?

This is something Jeremy specifically seems to be... confusing? The focus of classes should be theme, not mechanics. If the Psion has abilities that feel a little overlapping with other classes - who cares? This isn't world of warcraft. Does that not already exist between, say, Fighter and Ranger? Or Wizard and Sorcerer? Or Cleric and Druid?

 

[lkj]

Just listened to Jeremy on Dragon+. He made the following points:

1) They are saying goodbye specifically to the Mystic-- which is the design which has all psionic manifestations all crammed into one class

2) They are not ruling out a psion

3) When directly addressing, will they do a psion, his answer was: "We'll see"
This will depend on whether the products they are working on, the stories they are developing and the playtest feedback they get makes it clear that there is a 'thematic and functional space that an entire class could occupy that isn't just what every other class does but with an ESP style aesthetic put on top of it."

In other words it needs to occupy a unique space. He says he loves psionics. But he makes an argument that psionics does not require a class.

What this says to me is: "We'll do it if it makes sense. Not just for the sake of doing it."

I think it really is up in the air.

AD

 

[SkidAce]

If they reflavoured the Avangion to be more druid inspired rather than psychic, I seriously doubt anyone would have issues

You are correct in that I would not have issues, per se, but I would not like it at all.

 

[SkidAce]

Just listened to Jeremy on Dragon+. He made the following points:

1) They are saying goodbye specifically to the Mystic-- which is the design which has all psionic manifestations all crammed into one class

2) They are not ruling out a psion

3) When directly addressing, will they do a psion, his answer was: "We'll see"
This will depend on whether the products they are working on, the stories they are developing and the playtest feedback they get makes it clear that there is a 'thematic and functional space that an entire class could occupy that isn't just what every other class does but with an ESP style aesthetic put on top of it."

In other words it needs to occupy a unique space. He says he loves psionics. But he makes an argument that psionics does not require a class.

What this says to me is: "We'll do it if it makes sense. Not just for the sake of doing it."

I think it really is up in the air.

AD

Sadly, I feel he was being polite in saying "no such class".

Because now would be the logical time (IMHO) to develop such a system.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yeah... and therein lies the rub. Really finding and defining all the special things that psions do that aren't yet already in the game as spells. It'd be important to keep pointing that stuff out to them in the surveys-- the stuff that cannot be replicated by currently-available spells-- in order to really show why an entire class is necessary. If it were me, I'd also probably try and tie in a bunch of Dark Sun tropes as well that come out of the psion class, so that if/when they make DS they know what folks are looking for to directly tie the Psion to the campaign setting.

If they feel like most people seem okay with the psionic sorcerer as the primary psionic class, then they probably won't end up going any further. So make sure to let them know.

 

[Parmandur]

Just listened to Jeremy on Dragon+. He made the following points:

1) They are saying goodbye specifically to the Mystic-- which is the design which has all psionic manifestations all crammed into one class

2) They are not ruling out a psion

3) When directly addressing, will they do a psion, his answer was: "We'll see"
This will depend on whether the products they are working on, the stories they are developing and the playtest feedback they get makes it clear that there is a 'thematic and functional space that an entire class could occupy that isn't just what every other class does but with an ESP style aesthetic put on top of it."

In other words it needs to occupy a unique space. He says he loves psionics. But he makes an argument that psionics does not require a class.

What this says to me is: "We'll do it if it makes sense. Not just for the sake of doing it."

I think it really is up in the air.

AD

I really liked the Concentration bending Class Mearls was experimenting with for a Psion: add in this Psi Talent die mechanic, we could have something really cool for a full Class: not necessary, bitt cool.

 

[Maxperson]

Just listened to Jeremy on Dragon+. He made the following points:

1) They are saying goodbye specifically to the Mystic-- which is the design which has all psionic manifestations all crammed into one class

2) They are not ruling out a psion

3) When directly addressing, will they do a psion, his answer was: "We'll see"
This will depend on whether the products they are working on, the stories they are developing and the playtest feedback they get makes it clear that there is a 'thematic and functional space that an entire class could occupy that isn't just what every other class does but with an ESP style aesthetic put on top of it."

In other words it needs to occupy a unique space. He says he loves psionics. But he makes an argument that psionics does not require a class.

What this says to me is: "We'll do it if it makes sense. Not just for the sake of doing it."

I think it really is up in the air.

AD

Thanks for that. Number 2 was fairly obvious if you stopped to think about it for a bit with an open mind. Number 3 seems like it would be tied to Darksun. If they do that setting, the Psion would be created for a reason, but without that setting, they probably won't go through the effort.

 

[lkj]

Sadly, I feel he was being polite in saying "no such class".

Because now would be the logical time (IMHO) to develop such a system.

It is possible that they are working on it. They are always cagey about that stuff. It might never see the light of day. But might there be psion designs floating around the office? I'd say it's not unlikely.

It's also worth noting that in discussing the demise of the wizard psionic subclass he mentioned that some of the features had gone elsewhere in the UA and that other parts might appear in something that would appear later. Obviously that could be something other than a class. But I'll just say again, I think they really are in the middle of trying to decide. Not that they have already decided.

But I'm just guessing obviously.

AD