Unearthed Arcana Why UA Psionics are never going to work in 5e.

[Parmandur]

Yeah, this sounds wrong.

The first UA was July 2015, the first Mystic. Then another version in February 2016, and a final version in March 2017.

It doesn't look like any of these versions passed muster, as Wizard's said in the last UA that feedback was too negative and they've given up on the Mystic.

Then in 2019, Sorceror gets a psionics subclass. The next month, November 2019, Wizard/Fighter/Rogue get subclasses too.

Now we have April 2020, we rerun of the fighter/rogue/sorcerer.

If you look at this timeline, it looks like this;

1. The team kept trying to find a way to create a Psionics subclass, and it was never able to cross 70%.
2. The subclass route has better feedback than the Mystic, and is why they are continuing to pursue that route for psionics instead of a different class.
3. Some subclasses are getting more editing, including the fighter/rogue/sorceror.

Now, is the reason the subclasses are getting more editing because the feedback is too negative, and they are trying to edit them to get them above 70%? Or is it instead that they dropped Wizard because it is the worst received, and tweaking the other three because they are close to where they are happy with them?

I suspect it is the last, that the rogue/fighter/sorcerer are close to actual being ready for print. The Mystic also went under several iterations, but each one was released almost a year apart from each other. Compared to that timeline, these subclsses are getting a much faster UA testing period, hinting that the team is pushing for a book soon that puts in psionincs. Considering the last version in April is more tweaks than complete revamps, it looks like they are getting close.

As @Parmandur says, people on forums don't represent all D&D players. If material is good, it gets printed. Plus, if Wizard's really wants to publish something, they may be more flexible about that 70% threshold. They don't even submit every new rule for review, as Satyrs and Leonin are being published for Theros and never saw a UA.

Now, I don't actually know if this truly means Dark Sun (though please, please Dark Sun). There haven't been any UA's yet for races or other Dark Sun-related material that I've noticed, though they possibly are just saving those (Theros' new races never got testing) as they don't want to give the game away.

I'd be amazed if we got these rules this year, even in Q4. Next year Q2 makes more sense to me, but I'm hoping I'm wrong and it is sooner.

The fact that Psionics hasn't come fully online yet isn't for lack of effort by WotC: they've iterated and reiterated. Which they'll do until they hit on what works for the audience.

Based on the feedback cycle for past years, what they are testing now is under consideration for the Fall book, whatever that might be. I'm feeling either Xanathars Guide 2: Electric Bugaloo it Planescape, but WotC have mastered the left field surprise.

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah, even if Warcraft and Starcraft were always meant to be their own properties, it is almost shameful how much the two ripped concepts whole cloth from Warhammer. Thankfully both have developed since their conception into their own things, but still is a little gross considering the successor is more popular than it's inspiration.

"Take an idea, polish it and make it insanely popular" has been Blizzard's MO for a very long time.

 

[Weiley31]

We're no stranger to psionics. You know the rules, and so do I. A full conversion's what I'm thinking of. You wouldn't get this from any other psi. I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling. Gotta make you understand...

It depends on how you are defining "non-D&D derived setting." Even then, I'm not sure how you are struggling unless you are neither familiar with other games or not actually putting good faith effort into thinking of any. Let's start with two obvious mainstream ones: Marvel and DC. Now your struggle is over.

In TTRPGs, there's Runquest/Mythras, which has Mysticism that is similar to Psionics, but alongside Theism, Animism, and Sorcery. There's Call of Cthulhu. Does Modern AGE (and Threefold) count? Or is that considered D&D derived? There's the upcoming Chronicles of Future Earth for Fate, which distinguishes between divine magic, sorcery, and psionics. There's Savage Worlds (admittedly not a setting, but a rules system) that separates Magic, Miracles, Weird Science, and Psionics. Numenera has both, but it's all Arthur C. Clarke level stuff.

Now I'm cool with calling Psionics a form of magic, but I suspect that many fans of psionics in D&D would prefer if it at least existed as a separate and distinct magical tradition, much like Divine and Arcane. Pathfinder 2 may go this way since it created the Occult tradition that exists alongside the Arcane, Divine, and Primal magical traditions.

I kinda get the feeling that devs are somewhat reluctant to answer or make a hardline stance on that question.

I believe at this rate, any enforcement of such notion, is entirely in the DMs hands when making them separate. And to make it fair, you'd have to have stuff be equal: so an Anti-Magic field would only affect magic, while an Anti-Psionics zone(reskinned Anti-Magic) would only affect Psionics(Normalized).

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

How about we just turn this argument in the opposite direction? There is no Arcane magic. It is all really just Psionics, with the people thinking it is magic having to use the crutches of verbal, somatic, and material components or a focus, to make it work. Arcane casters use and manipulate the power within themselves and within the environment around them. Take away the components and it is all just done with the mind. So maybe in a fantasy setting, everything is really Psionic and Divine, instead of Arcane and Divine.

 

[Kinematics]

The flip side is that oodles of Sorcerer spells don't really fit the (or my) image of a psionicist, and there's not real mechanism or precedent in 5e for removing spells from a base class spell list.

Another downside is that Sorcerers are very clearly...it is stated repeatedly...about magic. And even if psionics officially are considered magic (for the purposes of detecting, dispelling, etc.) to me they feel like...something else. Certainly if Divine and Arcane magic are siblings, or half-siblings, psionics are a distant cousin, several times removed. And probably the result of a hushed-up affair with an exotic dancer.

While I agree with the points you made, I feel like it's less of a problem of comparing the sorcerer with the psionicist, and more of an indication of the problems with the sorcerer class design.

As noted, the sorcerer feels like it should be able to slot in a psionicist origin quite neatly, as long as you don't actually look at the mechanics of the sorcerer class. And it's one of the reasons that it always feels like I'm banging my head against the wall when trying to create a sorcerer character — the mechanics always feel entirely disconnected from the 'fluff' of the class. I would happily strip out all metamagic, if I could just get a sorcerer class that felt like what the sorcerer class looks like it's supposed to be.

Personally, I don't see sorcerers as about magic, per se, but rather about innate and intrinsic power. The fact that they're using magic is simply because that's the only tool that has been available til now. Swapping that out for psionics should be a trivial issue. The problem is in metamagic, which is a hardcoded binding to magic in a way that fails spectacularly to work with any of the other sorcerer thematic concepts.


As for the issue of how to implement psionics? I 100% agree with the current approach of implementing it as subclass features and feats. "Psionics" is a tool, like "magic". It's not a "character concept", at least not within the scope of a fantasy setting. (It might be, in a cyberpunk or sci-fi setting, but that setting would also ditch the wizard, so there would be a conceptual hole to fill.)

 

[Shiroiken]

This is the kind of thing I don't get. They seem the same to me. The power just comes from their mind.

If it came from their mind, they would be Int based rather than Cha. It uses Cha because they use their internal sense of self to access their ability, but it's not where the magic actually comes from (similar to the Warlock).

Of course, none of this may persuade you, and I can understand that. I personally feel the Sorcerer is redundant and should have been dropped from 5E like the Warlord was.

 

[Fenris-77]

I personally feel the Sorcerer is redundant and should have been dropped from 5E like the Warlock was.

Sorry, what?

 

[CleverNickName]

I personally feel the Sorcerer is redundant and should have been dropped from 5E like the Warlord was.

Hey no spoilers!

 

[Shiroiken]

Sorry, what?

Now THAT's an embarrassing mistake
I've edited it to Warlord, which was my intention.

 

[Fenris-77]

Now THAT's an embarrassing mistake
I've edited it to Warlord, which was my intention.

That makes sense then. I was like woooah, I missed some serious errata.