D&D 5E Would you prefer warlord or psion as a new class?

[Tony Vargas]

As I said, it dep[ends on how you measure it - Psion AS A CLASS did not appear until 2nd edition.

Psion as a class was from 3e, as was the psychic warrior & soulknife.
The 2e Psionicist was also a class, but it's abilities and mechanics were pretty clear successors to 0e & 1e psionics.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

If you include Dragon Magazine content, their was a 1e Psionicist class published in 1983.

 

[Hussar]

Psion as a class was from 3e, as was the psychic warrior & soulknife.
The 2e Psionicist was also a class, but it's abilities and mechanics were pretty clear successors to 0e & 1e psionics.

Really? 2e used pretty much none of the 1e mechanics. Other than reusing some names, these were totally different systems.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Psionics has never gotten the cold shoulder, until maybe now. You seem to be confusing not being a high priority with getting the cold shoulder. 2e and 3e put a lot of work into it, which doesn't happen to a class that is getting "the cold shoulder." TSR and WotC just worked on other things that had a higher priority first.

I can’t remember if it was this thread or another (there have been a bunch of psion threads), but it’s apples and oranges to compare priorities by using time as your measurement. Why? Because as I said earlier, different editions have different release schedules. If in 2e, the psionist was released in the 18th supplement for that edition, it doesn’t mean it’s less of a priority in 5e if they’ve released 10 supplements even if the time length is longer, because they haven’t gotten close to the 18th supplement yet. In both editions, the priority is the same: it’s 18 on the list (assuming it would be included in the 18th supplement).

Or to put it another way, if the psion was #25 on a list of widgets, does it mean 5e is forsaking it or not prioritizing it because they release 5 widgets a year and 4e released 15 widgets a year? In both cases, the priority is the exact same. You still have 24 items above it no matter what. So then the question becomes, in order to get the psion earlier, what higher priority are you moving down? In which case, now you’ve got a clear example of that item be deprioritized.

 

[Blue]

I've got a slightly different wish for psions that may render the question moot or at least premature. See, I want a psionic subsystem much like we have a spell subsystem.

Once that's done we can talk about if it's a drop-in for spells with the existing classes and subclasses, if it requires it's own full class, and if it requires new subclasses to existing classes.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Also, 5e hasn’t ignored the psion for five years. The mystic was a stand alone class that came out two years ago. Regardless if it never made it into a published book, it still took a lot of time and effort to create the class. Instead of asking “Why hasn’t WoTC officially published a psion?”, ask “Why wasn’t the mystic official?” And if I recall correctly, it’s because it was not well received at all. Either way, it’s simply false to say WoTC has ignored the psion for five years.

 

[ppaladin123]

I'd like to see the warlord as a fighter subclass with maneuvers and, for example, the repositioning ability of the glamour bard, and the minor action 30ft ranged "aid another" abiility of the mastermind rogue.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I can’t remember if it was this thread or another (there have been a bunch of psion threads), but it’s apples and oranges to compare priorities by using time as your measurement. Why? Because as I said earlier, different editions have different release schedules.

2e, 3.0, 3.5 & 4e had different release schedules and different edition-life-arcs, but each had psionics 2 years in (3.5 technically had it the whole time, since the 3.0 version was officially valid until replaced). And, 1e had the release schedule most analogous to 5e, as well as the fad-driven sales most analogous to 5e, and had Psionics from the very beginning.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've got a slightly different wish for psions that may render the question moot or at least premature. See, I want a psionic subsystem much like we have a spell subsystem.

That could have been a good optional system to include in the PH or DMG.
They could have still left any class(es) that might've actually used it to later, but had it available for monster designs, and/or DM-mediated swapping-out of other abilities (most likely spells, maybe Ki) for, but they'd've had a foundation.

 

[Parmandur]

Also, 5e hasn’t ignored the psion for five years. The mystic was a stand alone class that came out two years ago. Regardless if it never made it into a published book, it still took a lot of time and effort to create the class. Instead of asking “Why hasn’t WoTC officially published a psion?”, ask “Why wasn’t the mystic official?” And if I recall correctly, it’s because it was not well received at all. Either way, it’s simply false to say WoTC has ignored the psion for five years.

Actually, the first crack at a Psion Class was July of 2015, in that months UA. So, four and a half years of iteration and testing on Psionics as a specialized system of some sort.