D&D 5E What's wrong with this psion?

[WayOfTheFourElements]

What makes this character not a psion?

Human 9th Level Psionic Soul Sorcerer
Cantrips: Friends, Mage Hand, Message, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion
1st Level: Charm Person, Id Insinuation
2nd Level: Detect Thoughts, Hold Person, Levitate
3rd Level: Fear, Psionnic Blast
4th Level: Confusion, Ego Whip
5th Level: Dominate Person

Metamagic: Subtle Spell, Heightened Spell

 

[Bitbrain]

No idea. I like it myself.

 

[ccs]

The name of the class.

 

[Delazar]

That's the character I play! I also have Catapult and Fly, to simulate my telekinetic powers.

Ghenghini's Travels to Nosdoral

A DnD 5e Campaign - Started April 2020 - Ended July 2022

ghenghini.blogspot.com

And recently I added a level of Hexblade (refluffed Psiblade) to go for a jedi-like build. I did not take Eldritch Blast (how dare I?), I took Blade Ward and Booming Blade, refluffed as Psychic Blade (does psychic damage instead of thunder).

 

[DEFCON 1]

If I had to guess... here are the first few "arguments" why it isn't...

• Those abilities all use verbal, somatic, and material components. Psion disciplines don't.
• Those abilities can all be countered by Counterspell. Psion disciplines aren't able to be.
• Those abilities can only be used in certain combinations per day based upon the "spell slots table". Psion disciplines can be used freely in any combination up to a certain power point.
• Those abilities only are used via a single subclass, rather than multiple different psionic subclasses, like Telepath, Kineticist, Metamorph, Lurker etc.
• Those abilities look like magic, feel like magic, and play like magic. Psion disciplines should do none of those things.

Personally, I don't give a rat's ass about any of this stuff, but these are the hills that the diehards die hard on based upon all the previous threads we've seen.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Apparently it's lacking a completely different, hard to balance, fiddly point based casting system. And the abilities are actually spells, cast from spell slots, when they should be taken from a completely different list of things called "Powers" that contains abilities that are mostly redundant with existing spells.

 

[DND_Reborn]

What makes this character not a psion?

It uses spell slots.

EDIT: Ok, so I said this in jest and according to your information, although you group the "powers" by level, you are not specifying spell level or the use of spell slots. Personally, I think you implied it, but I freely admit I could be wrong about that.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The thing I'll be most curious about is eventually hearing how many of the Psionics players end up using the Psionic Soul sorcerer just as-is... rather than actually using the Spell Point variant rule? Because that variant rule would certainly help with their idea of the fantasy of the psion. Will Psionic Soul players actually go through the effort of converting Spell Points? Or will they just use spell slots to avoid the hassle despite claiming that they are an anathema to true psions?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It's interesting that those who are least interested in psionics are most happy with the solution, which is (apparently) already easily achieved within the existing rules.

Not to mention somewhat gloat-y about how people who do like psionics aren't happy about it. Quite a combination!

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yeah, well, if any of the psion fans could have actually agreed on anything regarding how psionics should have appeared, I'd be a lot more forgiving. But when every single one had their own singular idiosyncratic belief about what psionics and psions HAD to be... I realized that not a single thing WotC did was ever going to make them happy.

So when WotC just decided to go along with the primary group of D&D players were okay with... those dreaded "casuals"... I was fine with it and not surprised in the least.