Get it here:
http://dnd.wizards.com/sites/default/files/media/upload/articles/Psionics.pdf
Is it just me, or does this appear to be incomplete? It reads like its some kind of new class, but doesn't have all the new class accoutraments, and has about the content of a new subclass. It doesn't even explain how many psi-points you have OR what they even are....
Yeha, it seems a little buckshot.
Doesn't look nearly complete...
But it looks like the 4e style psionics. You get a power and a some PP to augment it. I'm guessing 1 per level per short rest. Same as the monks ki, but it's hard to say.
And each power comes with a nice little passive, that takes concetration to prevent stacking.
I put my bet on some kind of release error. Mystic is the base class.
IMO:
Level 1: Mind Thrust, Psionic Mind
Level 2: Choose 2 Disciplines, 2 psi points (per short rest).
Level 3: Object Reading, Sub-Class, 3 psi points.
Level 4: ABI/Feat, 4 psi points
Level 5: ???
....
Still, i liked the 4e psionics mysics, and this seems to be on the right path.
Admittedly this is thin.
That said, I'm not gripped by it or even remotely piqued. Best takeaway: "Hey folks, we're working on psionics, like, right now."
Was expecting this because of Mearls' tweets last month.
Wasn't expecting it in such a bare-bones format, but every update seems to have a problem with WotC. This is par for the course.
Just hang tight and hopefully there will be a fix later today.
bawylie wrote:
Mearls said this just a few minutes ago:
Mike Mearls @mikemearls 8m8 minutes ago
For folks looking at the psionics material in today's UA, looks like there was a minor error. Not all the material is there.
This is why we can't have nice things...
As the late great Douglas Adams oft said: "Don't panic."
It kind of looks like this is the first taste of both the psionic rules AND the "prestige class" rules.
Regardless, it's interesting, but not enough to give playtest feedback on. we'll see what the follow up is.
(Quick impression: the "Mind Thrust" attack using intelligence as AC would fit better with the structure of the rest of the game - and the rest of the psionic abilities in the article - if it were an Int save effect instead.)
Looks like a new class, "Mystic", to me – essentially a renamed Psion or Psionicist (good riddence, classes like "Arcanist" or "Psionicist" are too bland for me, since their name is their power source).
They really need to fill this out and rerelease it.
The article is now fixed and up.
Get it here:
http://dnd.wizards.com/sites/default/files/media/upload/articles/Psionics.pdf
Much better. Very interesting that it only goes to 5th level.
I think the purpose is less Prestige Class-oriented, and a lot more like the first round of D&D Next, when we only got classes to 5th or 10th level – they want to focus in on a few levels to play, before deciding on higher level and capstone abilities. The core ideas of the subclasses should be expressed in the early levels.
Agreed.
I also think that the reason they only have one saving throw proficiency may be due to their access to a "defensive" discipline that is really quite effective and mutable to their needs. Both subclasses expressed in this UA have an offensive discipline, a defensive discipline, and a utility discipline. I like it.
The Order of the Immortal reminds me a bit of the Swordsage from Book of Nine Swords. Funny, I thought that would be a Monk subclass at some point, and the line between monk and Immortal Mystic seems very thin to me. But it's cool.
Marandahir wrote:
I like what I´m seeing, buy why do they only get one save?
Edit:
Marandahir wrote:
Disapointed to see psi is long rest instead of short rest, but it's fine.
Glad to see an ability that actually uses hit dice. That's promising. Perhaps we'll see a blood sorcerer sometime.
Other then that 
good start.
ChrisCarlson wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
I think I might kinda like the idea that it's a dip-friendly class. Sort of sets it up for a Dark Sun-esque setting where everyone would have 1 level in it, but you can go deeper if you want to focus on it.
So you could go right into the game saying something like, "Everyone make 3rd level Dark Sun characters. You must take at least 1 level in Mystic. Do what you will with the other two."
This is the first time in DnD history that i'm really feeling like a grognard over something that's actually minor. I really don't like the name change and would have prefered sticking to "psion" or "psionicist" since those are more strongly DnD flavored vs. the old generics like "fighter" or "wizard". "Mystic" doesn't sound "psionic" to me and seems like a change toward "generic class x".
I'm not real happy with PP being another daily resource. I'd much rather there be a small pool that comes back with a short rest and abilities that don't run out like a disposable camera by the end of the day. Taking a breather and coming back mentally focused seemed more thematically appropriate and is closer to the mechanics i prefer to play.
One thing that strikes me as potentially being problematic is that you can't use a power from another discipline without dropping concentration on your current one, which means that if you have a concentration buff from one power and want to attack from another discipline, you drop your buff. This seems far more restrictive than any other caster in the game. For example, if you use the energy resistance power, it lasts an hour but if you want to actually make an attack with another psionic power, you lose the buff. That's pretty problematic.
Sounds like you already have your first bit of feedback when they ask for it (which they stated very clearly they are going to do).
GhostStepper wrote:
I really dig the article. I like that there will be one psi class to emulate a psion, a psychic warrior and so on.
But I do believe the save mechanic needs some more work.
2 good saving throws seem out of place.
Wisdom over Int saving throws seems out of place.
+1 saving throw for a 1 level dip seems out of place.
In my opinion that has just formed after just looking at it, maybe the Int saving throw should be fixed and the main saving throw should be dependend on the discipline. And there may be an ability to get another saving throw for some psi points spend for a round or so.
ModusPonens wrote:
Might be interesting to take an existing character and multiclass into Mystic. There's no mention of multiclassing in the UA article so I'm going to invent this:
- Minimum Int 13
- Gain proficiency in light armour. medium armour and simple weapons
GhostStepper wrote:
After looking it over, the main problem i see is that the mystic ( the immortal weapon user, at least) has a very hard time attacking while maintaining buffs. Every other spellcaster in the game can use magic attacks while using concentration spells but the psion has to stop his buff and use an action to switch disciplines before making an attack.
My recommendation is to increase the number of disciplines available and let the mystic have one Offensive discipline and one Defensive discipline going at the same time. He still has to burn a bonus action to switch between Defenses or between Offenses, but he would actually have the ability to use an attack while concentrating on a buff then.
ModusPonens wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
Mystic? are we talking about Dragonlance?
Yeah change the name please.
GhostStepper wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
Marandahir wrote:
mellored wrote:
Psionic Regeneration is kind of scary for a 3rd level power. Auto-stabilize and get back up and into the fight, with no concentration or resource requirement. No wonder they are called "Immortal".
GhostStepper wrote:
Alright, fluff aside.
Good use of bonus actions and concentration to get "stances." So good that I'd like to see fighting styles for martial characters be stances that work the same way (incl concentration).
Next, I thought I'd hate the psion points (as I have in every edition) but this time I don't. I might quibble with the maximum and refresh rates, but whatever.
I feel like dispensing with "orders" in the spell-list sense. But I haven't thought about the unintended consequences of cross pollination. It seems that the checks on action economy would mitigate a lot of abuse but what do I know?
I am now piqued.
Edit: WRT fluff - bleeeeeeaaaaaaugh
DemoMonkey wrote:
Agreed. Mind Thrust seems like it would have the potential to be very over-powered, or completely useless, depending on the situation.
My first impression is that I would not allow the Awakened Mystic in my game. While the psi-points (and the long rest needed to regain them) and concentration mechanics seem like they help balance it out, I suspect that the devil will be in how they combine with other class features (and it seems like that's how it's intended to be used).
In general, it seems like it suffers from what psionics has always had – trying too hard to make it feel different from arcane and divine magic.
DemoMonkey wrote:
"I may be wrong but I was pretty sure that every action carries with it a bonus action."
You are correct; you're wrong.
Your bonus action is a "per turn" resource, not a "per action" resource.
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
All this sounds to me like the Mystic will take a bit of skill and tactical awareness to play, which is fine with me. Personally, I like what I'm seeing so far, especially the Order of the Immortal. Durable Mind is a nice benefit for a class the will be concentrating while in melee and Psionic Regeneration looks like it is designed to make up for it only having a d8 hit die. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the class expanded out to levels 10+ and am half expecting to see level 6 be a subclass feature that grants the Immortal Mystic Extra Attack like the Valor Bard as Surge of Action seems much more like the Fighter's Action Surge, i.e. a limited use ability to gain a full action.
It also looks like we will see the Soulknife and a telekineticist as additional subclasses.
Yunru wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
"It only ever targets int, for low level play that is ostensibly okay (given you don't often end up fighting int based casters), but as you get higher level the order of the awakened will start having major issues as major enemies start getting int scores over 20."
.
You mean, around the time everyone else is trying to hit AC 20 enemies?
High AC will always be more common than high INT, unless you are playing a very focused "Kill the evil wizard cabal" campaign. And even then you can nail the bodyguard while everyone else pulps the caster, can you not?
GhostStepper wrote:
Swamp_slug wrote:
DemoMonkey wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
One level dip in Immortal gets you Prof in any save, none interruptable Concentration (due to damage) plus +5 speed and Advantage to initiative through Celerity. Absolutely amazing for certain classes, too amazing I think.
Other than that love it.
dmgorgon wrote:
Mirtek wrote:
I'm rather interested in whether there will be a Psionic Intitate feat ala Magic Initiate. On the one hand, I feel like that's an ideal way to handle wild talents; on the other, it's been about 4 hours since the complete version of the psionics playest went up on the website, and that just might be a bit early to start house ruling things.
Strength of Mind sits awkwardly if you multiclass into Mystic because it gives you a third save proficiency. Example: a Barbarian already proficient in Con & Str multiclasses into Mystic and every rest gets to choose any other ability on top. Normally, multiclassing doesn't give you any extra save proficiencies. It's not necessarily broken, just anomalous.
Ironxxx wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
Looks interesting, far form complete enough to make a any real calls though. I do think tremosense might be a bit iffy ofr the third eye discipline though. Tremorsense make smore sense as a physical function rather than psionic one, and this awakened seems to be pretty much a telepath. It could be based of the object reading ability .... like I said iffy.
GhostStepper wrote:
Ironxxx wrote:
Ath-kethin wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
Eerongal wrote:
Ironxxx wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
Thoughts:
Intelligence as Armor Class works, at first i was like wtf, but then i thought about it and was like "well, wizards have int saves, so now they actually mean something". It also means Dinosaurs are toast, and they should be.
- Give them level + ability modiier points,
- regain proficiency-1 points per initiative (1 point at 1st level, 5 points at 17th level)
- finally, recover all psi points on a short or long rest.
how I came to conclude that:
Damage and Nova Issues
the 1 point per d8 damage will create two problems.
if the pool of points is very low, like 10-20 at high levels (like a monk), then the usefulness of the class becomes a fraction of other classes. For example, a high level magic user typically has a cantrip that does around 3-5 dice, usually around d6 to d10, right? but they can do that for the entire duration of a barbarian's single use of range, and often do.
So mechanically, you are looking at 3-5 psychic points per round (with level 0 cantrip power levels) and 30-50 points spent during one battle,
but if you only had 10-20 points, you would be weaker than a level 0 spell.
Meanwhile, The character could Go Nova if their points went much beyond 20. Run into a 350 hit point dragon? No problem. 50-100d8 psychic damage. Blam dead.
But capping it at 20 has other problems. what is the best they can do? how does that compare with other classes at similar level? Classes typically have the capacity to crank out 80-240 per round at high levels. 20d8 once per day, followed by 0d8 damage and powers until you long rest is dumb. That's an NPC class like the old 3rd edition Adventurer/Warrior types that were like, "half a class".
Solutions to Too Few/Many Points
The solution is a cap and recovery system. You lower the cap to a reasonable threshold, then allow recovery at a threshold slow enough to prevent Nova every round, but not so slow that it's not a real class anymore.
Assume a fighter has 4 attacks per round, +1 for a second weapon, isn't taking their action surge, but probably is eeking out one more attack through reactions, feats, spells, or equipment. A non godlike, non broken fighter, using generic 1d8 melee damage weapons, is looking at 6d8 damage dice, plus 5x6 = 30.
Total is 6d8+30 sustained, with a Nova roughly twice that. Assuming a belt of medium giant strength OR enchanted weapons OR something else, averages +2 per hit more, so 6d8+42, or 5d8+35, for example, losing one attack. The average of 80-240 damage caps (i.e. 10d8-40d6) caps is 40-120+. The Cap for 6d8+30 is 78, with an average of about 54. The 5d8 version averages 55, and the +42 version caps at 90 and averages 66.
Point is, those thresholds are easy to hit for most other classes. Bards, Wizards, and Sorcerers alike can all turn into CR 17-20 dragons for an hour, or spend roughly 30 minutes of combat time as they freely swap from one dragon to the next. Dragons obtainable can clear around 96-128 cap, about once every 3rd round, plus other actions.
Low level characters produce between caps ranging from around 11 to 40, and then it jumps to around 48+ at 5th level.
How Many Points I Propose They have
So here's what I propose. "choose a number of spells from your spellbook equal to your intelligence modifier + your wizard level (minimum of one spell)"
Swap out the language. "total maximum number of psi points equal to your ability modifier + your mystic level (minimum of one psi point)"
That puts the starting Psi at 1-4 points, and the max at 20-30, and the Nova damage cap at 160-240. To get a 30 Psi, you would have to have an attribute, like intelligence or wisdom or charisma (whatever it uses) at 30. Without Boons or Tomes, that would be impossible. More likely, you would hit 20, and with some luck in magic items you might hit 22. That puts the Nova damage cap closer to 178. It also means damage would scale nicely with levels.
Methods of Quickly Recovering Points
The next problem is recovery. Magic users at high level can pull off something like 12-15 High dice "nova" attacks between a long rest, not counting tricky uses of stuff. 1 Psi per round is too much to recover, and all Psi per long rest is 12-15 times too little. That Dragon theory I mentioned puts out a max of 300 high dice attacks, and closer to 200 such attacks. (200x15)^0.5 = 54, (300x12)^0.5 = 60.
So 12-60 high dice attacks = 12x20 = 360, 60x20 = 1800. So the total Psi Points available over a long rest should average a maximum of 360-1800.
So a short rest is at least an hour for most things, shorter for special rules(e.g. "You must spend at least 30 minutes of the rest meditating to
regain your ki points."). Assuming a 24 hour day and 8 dedicated to a long rest, a max of 16 short rests can be assumed, and 12 reasonably.
Here's an example of text for that:
Font of Inspiration
Beginning when you reach 5th level, you regain all of
your expended uses of Bardic Inspiration when you
finish a short or long rest.
this is pretty straight forward. All points recovered during a short or long rest. Next we need some sensation of Regaining Points in smaller increments.
Examples:
Perfect Self (20 point economy)
At 20th level, when you roll for initiative and have no ki
points remaining, you regain 4 ki points.
Relentless (4 point economy)
Starting at 15th level, when you roll initiative and
have no superiority dice remaining, you regain 1
superiority die.
Survivor (100-200 point economy)
At 18th level, you attain the pinnacle of resilience in
battle. At the start o f each o f your turns, you regain hit
points equal to 5 + your Constitution modifier if you
have no more than half o f your hit points left.
Ok, so my proposed Psi Point total is a 20-30 point economy. So something like 4-5 points per initiative, at around 15th-20th level.
I'm thinking 1 point recovered per initiative every 4-5 levels.
So...30/5 = 6, 20/5 = 4, 16th/4 = 4, and 20th/4 = 5.
Starting Stat bonus is 1-3, caps out at 5 early on.
Starting Prof bonus is 2, caps out at 6 at 17th level.
Proficiency Mod Minus 1, produces the following:
1st-4th: 1 point per initiative
5th-8th: 2 points per initiative
9-12th: 3 ponits per initiative
13-16: 4 points per initiative
17th+: 5 points per initiative
This Psi point economy could probably be improved a bit by offering to charge to do things like increase/double range. You could even cut the starting range down to 60 feet instead of 120 feet, and then add on +20 feet/psi point.
High level Telepathy powers should have unlimited range on their plane of existence. There are multiple "plane of existence" ranged mental powers already in the PHB, Create Thrall being one used by Warlocks, for example.
Eerongal wrote:
I checked Wizards and saw the article was psionics and my immediate reacition was "Oh god...the forums..."
shintashi wrote:
I agree with many of you that this is almost certainly a test run almost intentionally designed to pull out as many comments, critique, concerns, and support for the various features and the class.
So, here is my first impression on the class.
1st all the basic stuff, skills, hp, proficiancy seems fine. Interesting that they get armor proficiancy. I would think the medium prof would go to the immortal who kind of seems like the psionic warrior build. However, seeing no big defensive ability of the Awakened it makes sense to me.
Strength of Mind: I like the idea, flex saves seems like a pretty strong ability and along the lines of a psion. However, does anyone get the sneaking suspicion that most people will just stick on on Constitution and just leave it. BTW I don't believe concentration CHECKS are a save so no help there. But still the big saves are WIS, DEX, and CON. They have wisdom and most dex saves still do half damage on a success.
Another concern with this is if one were to cross into this class with 2 saves already. Paladin jumps to mind as I am partial to CHA saves. Do I suddenly get 3 saves?! Might be to good, although its similar to resilient so might have been considered and then determined not to be a problem.
Awakened: While I think the Immortal is kind of a dip class for melee builds I can see this is all sorts of contexts. Dips for...well pretty much everybody...and probably a full Mystic progression.
Mind Thrust: Love the idea, does anyone else think this is insanely strong. I mean most monsters would have an AC of what...like 8?! Even a full wizard only gets a 20...that is a pretty easy AC for a monster to hit. Then you don't even need line of sight?! Just start pumping a few psi into this and you are the single target king...go sit in the corner rogue. Takeaway, I again love the idea, but have a few concerns that this might be a bit too strong. That said, without psi it doesn't do the damage a firebolt does so should repeated use become an issue it might be fine. (IF upper level of Awakened gives the ability to stun then I am going the play an illithid and just eat peoples' brains, just such a cool idea)
Psychic Mind: basically the outgoing version of comprehend language with some stealth bonuses. Cool, fits the idea, no problems here, should definitely keep this one. BTW rule question, can this be used as teh perception aspect of mind thrust? Probably not, right, hope not.
Object Reading: Initially I was in love with this ability, then I was terrified of it, now I am leaning back towards love. So, this ability is a detectives dream. It has so much flavor and allows the dm to give crazy interesting hints that can really spice up a plot or save the players behinds. The main concern I had was that a player would use this ability over and over and over again to mind numbing degress. How would you like the be the gm that has to stop and consider the last person to touch everything that your players interact with. However, the ten minute requirement makes me think this will only be used when generally helpful and even if a dm is surprised he or she should be able to come up with something that is neither boring nor ruins the session. Again, takeaway, is that this is a very useful and interesting feature totally unique to this class. Interesting combination with locate object...maybe?
DISCIPLINES
-Conquering Mind: Basic social monster, can compete with bards, and paladins while still being unique. Exacting Query is like a quicker Zone of truth. Occluded Mind is basically an improved Suggestion, Broken Will is a one turn Dominate Monster. All good stuff. Two features(Exacting and Occluded) will be great out of combat and Two features(Occluded and Broken) will be great in combat.
-Intellect Fortress: 1 great ability. Use your reaction to impose disadvantage and if hit deal damage. Obviously, this is really good, but that is it for one entire discipline. Maybe we want a little bit more. Can we split up these two bonuses maybe? Doesn't seem like that would work, only have one reaction. I think I would rather have an interupt with the chance to stun and maybe something else. Not sure.
Side question. is the (#) next to the ability the level you get it or the psi cost. I am thinking psi cost but not positive.
Acting under the impression that it is psi cost, Fortress is gonna be your go to in combat if you don't want to spent the psi to break wills.
-Third Eye: Super scout...enough said.
Overall, a great character. I was initially seriously concerned that somebody would get really bored playing this character. If you only adopt one Discipline, then you have a few abilities that while really good, are all you can do and would probably get boring rather quickly. However, as you level you can switch between them. Use Eye and you are a wicked scouter. Mind; your a social monster. Fortress; combat.
The one thing I would bring up. You have nowhere near the skills needed to fill all these roles. Maybe a feature with variable skills, but that would be pretty crazy strong...at the moment I am thinking I would play a half elf with this class just to get all the skills I want.
Only class that I think could match this one is the Bard, has most of the spells to do Conquering Mind and skills to to Mind and Third Eye. Might be able to get something similar to Intellect Fortress with Magical Secrets, i.e. hellish rebuke. Mind Thrust is probably going to beat most single target offensive spells the Bard has, but it isn't fireball.
Immortal: Anybody thinking psionic warrior here? Wicked crazy combat build. Lacks the second attack so as of now, thinking I am going to take some eldritch knight.
Durable Mind: So, the awakened's big concern, is that he or she will take damage and then be up sh*! creek. The Immortal does not have to worry about this and can charge a swarm of kobolds without any serious worry.
Martial Order: This is what it is. Adding a shield and a good sword is great. Longbow is also a good idea. How about a Polearm Master...now we are getting into some really cool builds.
Psionis Regeneration: So the Barbarian and high level Champions now have a challanger for most durable character...imagine what a 10th level half Barb half Immortal would be able to take. Especially with a Wisdom save tucked into your pocket.
DISCIPLINES:
-Celerity: This is going to be the walk around discipline. Advantage on Initiative checks followed by Rapid Reaction AND/OR Sieze the Initiative
Surge is good for closing(melee) or escaping(archer) and Surge can compete with the fighter for nova's. My monster build is looking at 5Barb/5Immortal/5Fighter now.
-Iron Durability: AC, Heal, resistance, more tank. Nothing that really outshines or underperforms the other classes.
-Psionic Weapon: Depending on your level the concentration ability can be awe inspiring or nothing interesting. Worst case you can just pick up anything and be great with it.
Ethereal Weapon, not sure I am a fan. Dex saves can be pretty good, especially with a high roll, supposing you know what you are up against I suppose you can be pretty sure to hit. Do damage even on a miss so there is that if you are having trouble hitting something. Lethal Strike can let this build compete with the Awakened for damage.
Augmented is pricey but can let you pick up a stick and have it out perform your barbarian friend's prized magical greatsword.
Overall, the biggest issue I see with this build is that it is very strongly combat focused. You are going to want all of your disciplines active at once. Generally, I would start Celerity, then depending on how much I am being hit compared to how much I am hitting I would switch to the other two.
I think eventually this path needs to be able to concentrate on two disciplines or combine their abilities in some way. Otherwise they are going to get frustrated with thier lack of options. Same problem out of combat. You are only going to have two skills plus your background. You are unlikely to be terribly engaged in anything outside of combat. Not much different that the champion so there are players who will like this.
Take away for this UA, I like the direction. Relying on Disciplines that the player concentrates on is both unique and very interesting. The Awakened is far more exciting to me as each discipline gives some good bonuses for a different activity. I think by themselves the disciplines would leave me wanting but the ability to switch back and forth gives this class enough options that I would be fairly excited to play in most situations. I see that with comments from the next survey and some work in the future the resulting class could be very very exciting.
If people want to argue with me, agree with me, come up with solutions to my concerns, or just talk about what they would like to see for class features or disciplines that would probably be an interesting discussion and helpful for the folks at Wizards.
The # is the Psi Cost. The point is that 2st level character can use features up to 2PP Psi Max, but can't use the 5PP feature even though they have up to 6PP total. It's a restriction to prevent you from having too powerful of a feature too early. You still have something to learn. That third feature only becomes available by 5th level, when you have 27PP to spend, and aren't ruining your daily resource doing so, and once that feature is balanced against similar features and related challenges.
So, one of my players sounds really excited about play testing this class. With that in mind, we're looking for a little clarification here...
How often can a player switch out a Known Discipline? Are you stuck with a particular Discipline or can you change it/swap it every time you level up?
The Ethereal Weapon refers to "additional effects". What are these "additional effects"?
Short of that, it sounds like it might be a pain to DM, but I don't mind learning new ways of killing my players if they want to find new ways to stop me from killing them.
j/k, I don't kill my players. They do that well enough on their own.
jajen2003 wrote:
Marandahir wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
I definitely am not overly fond of the restriction that all disciplines are going to be unique to each Order. It's pretty much a classic trope in almost every psychic/psionic settings that people OFTEN have a smattering of all sorts of wildly varied psychic abilities, to varying degrees.
I would really like to see a large chunk of core psionic-concept abilities like telepathy, telekinesis, clairsentience, and so on, be universally accessible to all the Orders, with the Orders instead only getting unique access to some of the narrower but potent abilities from their specialty. It already costs them one of their highly limited discipline slots, why make it even more restrictive?
As it stands now, it's kind of like if each school of magic was only accessible to a wizard specializing in that school, or if each Domain cleric had access to spell lists only their domain gets (so like, only a Life cleric could cast heal spells, only a War cleric could cast combat buffs, etc). This makes each Order way too narrowly focused for my taste, compared to all the other caster-type classes. Having some abilities unique to each Order is fine, and differentiates them in a manner akin to the individual Domain, Pact, etc, spell lists.
Mystics are already getting only ~8 disciplines in total by level 20, following the current progression. Compare that to the enormous versatility of other casters. Even a warlock tops out at 15 different spells for their variable encounter-castable slots, 4 dailies slots for their top-end spells, and 8 invocations that act as at-wills of 1st-4th level or all sorts of levels of dailies. And they're currently the most heavily restricted casters! And yes, while each discipline has up to three sub-abilities, they are all specifically focused towards the same basic goal, with progressively more potent means, so still quite restrictive. Compare that to, again, a warlock, who is getting 15+ spells that can all be radically different (more if you multiclass, and all those non-warlock spells can explicitly be cast with the warlock slots, per the multiclass Pact Spells rule), all bumped up to being cast as 5th level spells for free.
Some of the universal disciplines could be abilities each Order gets as passive feature not requiring concentration, like Psychic Mind or Psionic Regeneration. So there could be a discipline called Mindlink with the passive concentration feature being the telepathy feature of Psychic Mind, along with a handful of PP-activated abilities that are akin to later Awakened mystic features that extend the range of telepathy, or similar enhancements. Or any mystic might have access to Body Adjustment, a version of Psionic Regeneration that heals a really minor amount of hit points each turn (maybe even as tiny as a mere 1 hit point per turn), that costs PPs each turn you choose to regenerate an amount closer to what an Immortal mystic does each turn for free. Some, like basic and classic psionic defenses and attacks, like Intellect Fortress, could just flat out be universally available to all mystics.
Some pertinent dev tweets:
Mike Mearls: "@DLalich like the core 5e game, will release official rules for psionics when they hit our high targets for quality. that's our deadline."
Jeremy Crawford: "In this month's Unearthed Arcana, @mikemearls experiments with a possible direction for psionics in #dnd5e"
Marandahir wrote:
Tectuktitlay wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Tectuktitlay wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
Overall, I like it quite a bit. I have a few balance concerns. I too would prefer a "short rest" recouperation mechanic. But yea. Overall, I like this!
GhostStepper wrote:
At least they are showing they are serious about the class and all this is a rough draft so in the near some what future we will see a more polished draft.
Ath-kethin wrote:
I've chosen to modify these Psionic rules and make a few changes after reading the first two pages of this thread and throwing in my own changes as well. My version can be found here.
Here's a summary of my changes:
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I changed the class name to Psion from Mystic.
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Psions have the saving throws: Int and Cha.
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You can switch disciplines without an action, once on your turn.
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Strength of Mind is altered so that you cannot get three saving throws with a level 1 dip into the class.
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I gave both the orders a new discipline called Iron Intellect which replaces Iron Durability and Intellect Fortress. Concentration provides +1 to AC. As a reaction for 1 psi point to gain the concentration effect of Intellect Fortress. Iron Resistance is taken from the Iron Durability ability, but changed to be any damage type.
-
I chose to leave Mind Thrust unchanged. I was unsure how to modify it while keeping the spirit of the ability.
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I modified Psionic Regeneration so that you must be conscious to receive the benefit.
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I relocated all Disciplines from their orders to a general list at the end of the document. This allows multiple orders to use the same discipline with out listing it twice.
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Celerity was unchanged.
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In Conquering Mind I only changed Exacting Query to clarify that the target knows what he has done.
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Intellect Fortress and Iron Durability were combined into Iron Intellect as noted above, this is the most major change I think, and I do not know how good of a change it actually was.
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Psionic Weapon was changed to stack on top of magic weapons (I don't know why I felt this was necessary, but I felt it was). Lethal Strike was replaced with Quick Strike, which is similar to Extra Attacks.
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In Third Eye I swapped tremorsense and blindsight, as I feel blindsight is better than tremorsense.
Feedback would be appreciated, though I don't know that I'll rework the document.
EDIT: Though If I were to write the class form scratch I would definitely split it into two classes, the caster and the weapon-user and move sub-classes to a level 2 or 3 feature.
I don't like "psi points."
I wish ki points and psi points would be a unified mechanic called "focus points," or something equally neutral.
I could see a game where "focus" is referred to as ki, and a game where focus is referred to as psi, and a game where focus is referred to as the force, etc.
Jenks wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
Tectuktitlay wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Good work!
I really, really love the concept.
A few things might need some balancing though.
Let's take level 3 as example:
-Object Reading seems too abusable.
-Mind Thrust: 4d8 damage is too much for that high chance to hit; especially if you can do this 4 times a day.
-Exacting Query can be too strong since they have to give an answer.
-Intellect Fortress could use some "active" abilities.
-Third Eye: A free blindsight whenever you need it? And they need to make rules about tremorsense ;) Advantage on Wisdom checks seems very strong too.
-Celerity seems very strong too, with a possible +10 Initiative ánd Advantage and no surprises? Who needs Alert, right?
-Iron Durability seems like an incredible tank: with a +2 Dex it's very easy to obtain AC19, which I can increase 27-9 times a day to block most attacks.
This is much better than spells like Shield.
-Ethereal Weapon: I dislike how the Dex-save does nothing with the +1 from the Concentration.
-Lethal Strike: Do I even need to mention it? My rapier hitting for 1d8+3d10+1 is very, very strong.
I really love the immortal, it reminds me of WoW's "stance dancing" where I can quickly switch my role within a second.
At later levels I will hit the enemy for 6d10 damage, then I go for Iron Durability and tank everything with my AC22.
The issue could be fixed by lowering some of the numbers and I do think they have to take a look at the amount of resources.
Perhaps lower the pool and increase the generation? That will really help groups that have limited combat.
Another thing I would like to see is more non-combat stuff for the Immortal and more combat for the Awakener.
Tectuktitlay wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
mrpopstar wrote:
I don't really care about the class name. Mystic or Psychic or Psion, whatever.
I expect there'll be a special line about multiclassing so you don't get the flex save. I am surprised they get Wis rather than Int, thus allowing them to be a two common save class.
Conquering Mind is the clear winner for the Awakened, while the Immortal will require more fluidity, so I'm looking forward to seeing more disciplines. Currently the Immortal should be in Celerity outside of combat (or when he wants to get away from combat), Weapon to fight (bypassing magic resist is a big deal, then Lethal Strike for the hard nova). I'm not sure if they should get Extra Attack, since they also get Action Surge. Iron is a good discipline for when you're below half health and need time for your regen to work, but enemies want to finish you off.
Mind Thrust targeting Int as AC doesn't seem like a big deal. I've been DMing an undead-themed game from lvl3 to lvl5, and most enemies have AC 11-14. Sure, the mooks would be even easier to hit against their Int, but they're not too hard as is. The intelligent undead are often about equal in AC/Int.
-
Edit: Overall I like the format of disciplines a lot. I think you could reflavor and do just about anything with them. Martial stances? Shifting to hybrid animal (or monster) forms (without taking the full form as a druid does)? Lots of flavorful possibilities.
FaustianHero wrote:
My only concern is the reference to unarmed strike as a type of weapon. I hope that will be fixed for the next go-round; it should been have written as follows:
"You channel your psionic energy into a weapon you wield (or your unarmed strike), lending devestating power to your attacks."
ok, i realized what they did when i saw post #18.
My previous posts were based on the missing content version from post #1. Pardon the confusion.
Ok, so far, here is what I think:
#1. Wizards photocopied the tables on pages 288 and 289 of the DMG.
#2. The Mind Flayer "spells as psionic are magic" is a TERRIBLE IDEA.
the reason this is such a bad idea is because many of the spells traditionally associated FIRST with psionics were printed as spells first. This means basically everything that isn't new will be treated as magic, including no-brainer psionic stuff like telepathy and telekinesis. Thri Kreen for example, its all treated as magic even though when copying those effects down from the spell section, it was so blatantly obvious their powers were psionics, the Monster Manual writers chose to make an exception.
Don't get me wrong - if psionics is trying to duplicate a magical magic spell of magical awesomeness, then sure. But there should be a short list of "this shoulda been psionics" flavored spells. Perhaps 10-20 spells. It's not much, but i don't want my players casting dispel magic on Telekinesis or Teleport from a creature that clearly isn't doing these actions with magic.
#3 elemental resistance equivalence is plenty good enough for magic:psionics interaction. Disintegrate, Wall of Force, Bigbys, Telekinesis - these are all Force effects. Psychic damage is a second category. Fire is a third. These are the three most common elemental effects of a Psionic monster or character, we don't need to magickify them to make nervous DMs less frightened. Just point out the obvious: Protection from Fire/Force/Psychic works normally.
#4 concentration rules should be different for the psionicist. You don't really want to be in a situation where you have to choose between whether your sword disappears, or your armor disappears. But that's exactly what they did. Either you have a +1-3 weapon for 1 minute, or Armor Class from Concentration +1 AC With Psionic Shield +2-6 vs. 1 attack on a reaction (bad idea.. really, really bad idea. Your iron skin chews up your Psi points in 1 combat round from multiple attackers. OR it only works vs. 1 attack and then you are AC 11, with no Weapon? )
The defenses are only going to work if you only have one bad guy a game session and that bad guy only has 1 attack.
your points dont heal fast enough to be a psionicist. Its just another wizard from spells & magic with a flavor skin. Mid-battle/short rest/initiative recovery is necessary, but i would have to rewrite my original variations.
shintashi wrote:
For the monsters I think when these rules are finalized a free online psionic monster supplement DM Opiton. would be a nice and elegant way of solving this. If you don't want to buy the psionics rules, play with the monsters as they are in the book. Then give the Thonot a very simplified set of disciplines, one that gives pyrokinesis, and one that bolsters allies. The Mind Flayer can have one defensive and one mind controlly. No more than 1-3 powers in each state simplified for the DM to run easier.
I think those are the only two Psionic monsters in the book?
Tectuktitlay wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
MacEochaid wrote:
I'm not a big fan making something that's a really strong pick for a single-level dip. A single level dip gets you:
- Saving throw proficiency
- Martial weapons
- Shields
- A (nearly) permanent magic weapon
That seems a bit strong.
THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED...
Ending concentration on a discipline immediately ends all the discipline’s effects
The Balance is wonky. Like, if you have a guy with all this fighter gear and magic, sure, this stuff needs all these "you totally shut down", but if you are looking at it from the "Base AC 10, 1 Attack per round, no Weapon" version of a character, you will want to equip them with a good weapon, don armor, and maybe give them a bonus attack.
I think the Mystic is written as a Buff stack for existing Classes, rather than as a Class unto itself, because everything is written to stack, and then they are given bigger weapons and armor than normal to Psionics to compensate. But the weapons and armor are just weak enough to prevent them from being quasi uber fighters.
Here's what i see, in a casual glance.
fighter wears armor, AC 16, has 2 attacks per round, and a sword +1 from a treasure hoard.
Mystic wears robes, AC 10, AC 16 with Iron Hide (3), uses Surge of Action (5) for 2 attacks per round,
and uses Psionic Weapon: Concentration to have a Sword +1.
But the way it is written, you are assuming they wear armor or have spells that are stacking, and then to compensate, you are saying the Mystic either has a sword that hits the monster, or has an armor class that helps them, or has an extra attack, but not all of the above, like the fighter does.
These rules are totally badass for a Fighter to multiclass, but they are total crap as a stand alone. Actually, they are a little Too good for other classes.
So what I'm seeing, is you get a disabled enfeebled non functional class, and with it, powers that can stack on to other classes making them demigods. Realizing the error of this, the writers compensate by giving the Crippled Mystic a big Spear and Scalemail, and say "Don't worry, everything stacks, you'll be ok".
Access to disciplines outside their order needs to be available at higher levels. Pressumably 6-12 disciplines by 20th level. That concentration thing though, it's busted. Imagine if a Mage had Mage Armor and it turned off when they cast Magic Weapon. That's over balancing. We are having this class nerfed because the writers are only seeing it from the perspective of a fighter with psionics. That's not the right way to develop a class.
Rejuvenation
As to recharging their powers, I think they should be able to get some points back during a Short Rest. Probably Int mod + 1/2 level. One of the Disciplines could have a feature that gives int mod + level instead. You could call it Rejuvenation, which means with rejuvenation and a 20 intelligence, at 20th level, you would regain 25 Psi points per short rest hour, out of 133 Points. That is very similar to how Rejuvenation worked in Skills & Powers (1/4 PSPs per hour).
RCanine wrote:
- I'd like to see a recovery system similar to arcane recovery that didn't require a long rest.
- I prefer calling the Orders "Sciences". Combined with Disciplines, it's a nice nod to AD&D.
- I'm not crazy about Mystic, but whatever. Everyone will just called it a Psionicist or Psion, which I prefer.
- I'm fine with psionics mainpulating magic for arcane powers as long as they don't try to have that control powers that are clearly psionic such as telekenisis, teleportation, etc... Those should be psionic powers and the psionic version should behave differently with more control.
- Strength of Mind should only be available if your initial class is a Psion, err Mystic.
A well-hidden party of five 5th-level Order of the Awakened Mystics can take out a Tarrasque in six rounds if they put all their points into Mind Thrust. Once they overcome its Frightful Presence, of course. Then they need a long rest to get their points back.
They get enough XP to put them half-way up level 8. Not bad for a day's work 
shintashi wrote:
shintashi wrote:
RCanine wrote:
Just to clarify. Each ability that have a durration, (such as iron resistance), last for the full durration even if you switch stances or lose concentraion.
So if your running around with +1 weapon and run across a fire elemental, you could...
1: Bonus: switch to +1 AC.
2: Action: Cast Iron Resistance. Which will last for 1 hour no matter what.
Turn 2
3: Bonus: Switch to +1 weapon
4: Attack.
Feedback.
Pro
1: I like the concentraion/stance/power setup.
2: I like the sub-classes.
Cons:
1: Points should be short-rest recharge. Or perhaps arcane rejuviation style. Daily is functional, but it doesn't fit as well as a psionic.
2: Allow cross-dicipline. There's no harm in letting a order of the immortal take intellect fortress. Make suggestions sure, but leave it open.
3: Should be called stances or something that changes. "Dicipline" don't evoke an image of something that changes. Sure it has history, but meh....
pose? attitude? demenor? focus?
"Focus" is much better. You can change your focus. Maybe "Intent"....
Iron focus, Conquoring focus, celerity focus....
Iron intent, Conquoring intent, celerity intent...
I'm liking intent.
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
mellored wrote:
Two 1st-level Order of the Awakened Mystics vs a Basilisk. They stay out of range of the Basilisk's pertifying gaze and hit it with Mind Thrust for two rounds, using all their points. It will die. They get 350XP each, go home, take a long rest to get their psi points back and level up.
BoldItalic wrote:
BoldItalic wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
I think the problem is that CR calculations for monsters fall apart if you start targetting Int instead of AC. You suddenly get squishy monsters worth too many XP.
Kangodo wrote:
BoldItalic wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
I could go with a split option.
You have a maximum, and regain a chunk per short rest.
For instance,...
Level PP Regained
1: 2 1
2: 4 2
3: 8 4
4: 10 5
5: 14 7
That still gives you some nova for big battles, but also keeps a more psionic feel.
mellored wrote:
Lord_Ventnor wrote:
My Thoughts
1. The name change is okay with me, since it's sort of branching out a bit from the traditional Psion.
2. Proficiency in Wisdom saves is an issue; with their class feature to choose saves, you're obviously going to want to choose one of the "Good" saves (CON/DEX), which leaves the Psion with two good saves, whereas all other classes get one. I would suggest changing the save to INT, so you can, at best, get only one good save.
3. As some have pointed out, the action economy on this class is a bit complex, which in a streamlined system like 5e is going to be a problem. I would suggest taking a cue from the 2e Psionicist and allowing the class to have a Defense Mode and Attack Mode up at the same time. That being said, it may not be as huge of an issue in play as it is on paper.
4. The Awakened Mystic seems kind of underpowered compared to the Immortal... or maybe that's just because the Immortal is so amazingly good. In any case, I'd expect to see the Awakened get some more potent abilities at higher levels, to help it catch up.
5. I don't know if this is intentional or not, but the Regeneration feature of the Immortal doesn't shut down at 0HP as currently worded. That means it is, in effect, well... Immortal. It would never have to make a death save, ever, and could only be killed outright by massive damage (like falling off a cliff).
7. Why does the Mystic have to pick either a Spear or a Mace? Wouldn't it be better to just allow them to simply choose any simple melee weapon?
While the mystic is not sci-fi enough to truly sate my thirst for psionics, I like the flavor of the class enough that I'd include in my campaign.
Not sure about cramming its flavor into settings with established psionics, though. Psionics in Eberron, for example, has a much closer link to do with the Region of Dreams than the Far Realm.
The_White_Sorcerer wrote:
Chameleon-X wrote:
mellored wrote:
mellored wrote:
I am not a true player, but a collector and a creator of worlds. I can´t talk about gameplay and balance of power but I can say some things:
Some powers can be very useful in the game but to be really boring for storytelling effects. The magic of incarnum had lots of soulmeld powers who were only bluff, bonus.
I like the concept of mystic, like a divine spellcaster without armour who spend power points.. but that isn't the original psion. The psion is a class with a subclass for disciplines.
* Have you thought about the dual-classes? For example the mystic warrior (spellcaster with amour), or a variant, the assasins, mysthic-rogues, or mysthic-rangers (somebody loves too much "Assasin's Creed" videogames. The playtestings are to avoid abuses by munchkins.
* How is the archetype of the psion, is a D&D jedi, or a mutant from X-Men comics?
Chameleon-X wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
Barbarian Msytics can use Psionics while raging, sweet.
Marandahir wrote:
Tectuktitlay wrote:
Psionic Weapon works with improvised weapons. Woot, Severed Leg +1!
There is so much so busted here, how is this even a first draft? Lots of non-balance issues too as others have pointed out, the class name, the points and their regen, but also no cantrip equivalent with level based damage increase without psi point cost?
FFSAA wrote:
ankiyavon wrote:
you guys are just proving the point. The armor class you are all capable of assuming the class has, is around 6+10+2+4+2
thats 10 base, 4 scale mail, 2 shield, 2 dex total, which is 18, plus 6 from the class feature vs. limited attacks, which is 24.
Frankly, this arrangement of Gear and Stats is the Same AC as Heavy Plate. It is ridiculous for psionicists to be running around with base 18 (before powers). We can call them Mystics, but it feels wrong. I kinda prefer Psionicists to get most of their AC from their powers. That's really high armor class for a non fighter, and really at odds with previous variants of the Psychic classes.
That's why I said "Robes, AC 10", because that's what the logical base for a Psionicist/Psion/Psychic/Mystic/Jedi should be.
Maybe, it would be cool to have a high dexterity. Practically speaking, I was imagining a guy with base 10 no armor, a dex modifier of +3, and the iron skin effect maxed out. Totalling AC 19. It's not 24, but it's nice.
Here's what I would recommend:
if you have Armor, the Iron Skin acts like it normally does - a Shield Spell +2-6 AC; HOWEVER, it would be nice if you aren't wearing Armor, and don't have any "this stands in for armor" effects or spells (mage armor, sorcerer dragon scales, etc.), then the duration is changed from Reaction vs. 1 hit to something more palpable, like "This benefit lasts for 1 hour or until you use this option again."
ok, so what im saying is the "if your Mystic isn't wearing armor, Iron Hide has a duration of 1 hour".
This would make it 1 point/hour for AC 12. 2 points/hour for AC 14, and 3 points/hour for AC 16.
I don't think that will break the game.
Also, i think when they do the Soul Knife, it's going to be almost directly lifted Text from the Psionic Weapon. It worries me because a soul knife might want to have cool speed powers or whatever, but i imagine their psychic blades snuffing out the second they activate celerity.
Here are my initial thoughts:
0. I like the overall mechanics with psionic orders, disiplines, and augmentions.
1. I do not like the class name mystic. It doesn't seem mental enough. I would prefer psychic. Since the power source is called psionic, the class name psion would also be appropriate.
2. The Intellect fortress disipline needs some augmentations. For example, a 1 point augmentation that imposed disadvantage on all attacks against you until the start of your next turn. Or a augmentation that could be used as a reaction and gave advantage to saving throws for until the start of your next turn. Or 3 point versions of the above two augmentations where the protection extended to all allies in within 15 feet of the mystic (psychic).
3. I do not see the point in tremor sense for the 3rd eye augmentation, when a the psionic user already has blind sight at the same distance. Instead, how about an augmentation that extends the range of the blind sight? Or augmentations to provide xray vision?
4. I would like a mechanism for psionic combat.
5. I would like a mechanism for having psionics manifest in any character. A feat would be OK, but it would be also cool of there were a DM option for giving any character that wants it the ability to possess some small degree of psionics that would grant them cantrip like power, but also allow them to be attacked via the psionic combat rules.
demon_idol wrote:
My feelings so far.
I like the overall feel of the class and how disciplines work.
I do hope they have some "universal" disciplines for the orders to have some overlap, especially with Utility style disciplines, but each Order should have a few unique disciplines to make the order make sense, like the way monk orders work. I think the base class powers added above level 5 will help give a more "overlap" feel of mental capabilities shared between the orders as well.
I could see a class ability for short rest psi point restoration using HD. Spend an HD (or more) during a short rest and gain back Psi Points rather than HP. This would allow some regaining of PP without overbalancing because it takes away from their pool for HP recovery (and limits it at lower levels when they have less HD to work with).
I do like the name Mystic. It has a more fantasy feel and when you look at a fair amount of historical and fantasy characters who were referred to as mystics, many of them had what we in the modern world call psionic powers. They were often prophets (precongition), seers (clairaudience/clairvoyance), augurs (psychometry/object reading), mind readers (telepathy), and movers (telekinesis). Some even went so far as to have power over fire or other elements (*benders like in Avatar, pyrokinesis) or had other feats of mental/spiritual fortitude that we now call psionics but not always tied to a divine origin, though some would attribute their powers to a God or other powerful entity. That even fits with the Far Realm origin they're using in 4e and 5e for psionic powers. Also the class name is just an entry on the character sheet to identify the class, there's nothing that says characters in the game world have to call a psionic character a mystic any more than an assassin in world has to be a rogue class.
demon_idol wrote:
shintashi wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
Something was bothering me about the class, and then it hit me...
they don't have enough Non-Archetype class features.
Almost every class has class features that aren't their Archetype/School/Circle/Deity/etc. But the Mystic only has one class feature asside from the stock attribute bonus everyone gets. I bothered tocrudely count the different "non-archetype" features, like for fighter, paladin, ranger, sorcerer, etc. Monk had the most, and it looked like Wizard or Fighter had the least, but either way, the Class features looked to be around 5-20.
Class features are important to blanket all subclasses of that class with universal assumptions. A lot of us have universal assumptions about Psionic classes, like a Defended Mind, Meditating to Recover Points faster, and stuff like that.
Particularly common to Psychic characters were gemstones and crystals, and the powers "empowerment" and "receptacle". Psionic Blast, cause it was awesome, and Mind Blank, cause it was cheap or free. My wife has a book of crystals, all sorts, and their New Age properties, like Telekinesis, Precognition, etc., but also properties for the various Palm reading type stuff you hear, like "Wellness" and "health" or "memory" and "grounding" or "protection".
Receptacles and Crystals
There's a neat list of Gems and Jewels in the DMG, and "Volos guide to all things magical" and the 1st edition DMG both had some mention of Gem properties I think. The Mystic/Psionic Classes would be a great place to introduce a giant pile of different Gem properties. It would function somewhat like how Choosing your dragon type works for Dragon Born.
Receptacles used to hold up to 1 psp point per 100 gold pieces, so a 5000 gold piece jewel would hold up to 50 Psi points. The lower level precious stones and gems wouldn't be able to hold any points, but could provide a bonus of some sort, while the more expensive could hold 1-50+.
Diamond, Black Sapphire, Jacinth: 50 potential points
Emerald, Fire Opal, Blue Sapphire: 10 potential Points
Topaz, Peridot, Aquamarine: 5 potential points
Jade, Garnet Amber, Amythest: 1 potential point
Mystics could probably also use Ioun Stones as Receptacles, with Rare ones holding up to 50, and Very Rare or Higher holding up to their Max. No crystal can be imbued with more Points than the Character normally has at max. It would be a ritual similar to the alchemist aspect of the Transmuter mage.
shintashi wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
demon_idol wrote:
Marandahir wrote:
Bloodscythe wrote:
I just hope psions don't become a caster equivalent like they were in 3.5. Blech. Let them be their own, unique thing.
shintashi wrote:
demon_idol wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
Stepping away from Powers for a bit, lets look at the other aspects, Weapons and Armor
When i think of psionics, I remember all sorts of stories, novels, movies, and anime.
When the Psionicist/Esper was wearing power armor, driving a giant robot, or in an alien space craft, then they had armor... but it was much more like "100% cover" and they were wearing a building, or possessing a creature called a robot or space ship. Essentially, they were "polymorphed' into the armor suit, and when the suit ran out of hit points, they would take the difference and revert to their unarmored form (that's an abstract way of interpreting it, but mechanically sound). So they didn't use their own hit points, they used the armor's hit points.
As for normal armor. 99% of all psychic characters do not have armor, that's not an assumption, it's just a fact of character design. Some characters in fiction did have armor-like or armor properties. Paul Moadib, wore the black water filter outfit in the 1980s psychotrip movie. In the children of dune movie, they wore fancy bedouin duds.
A Knife or Dagger seems really common. Pretty much a "cutting tool" for most people, often curved like the Arabic Jambiya or Indo Khanjar.
In the Hamilton science fiction Dreaming Void saga, Edeard was a town constable who traditionally used a fencing or calvary sword, I think, and when he was able to afford it, a spider silk weave jacket called Drosilk, that was basically a kevlar vest. D&D would probably treat it as a Mythril chain mail or Mythril Scale.
In the Epic Mahabharata, Krishna is depicted as wielding a Discus, called a Chakra, when he isn't playing the flute. The Chakrum/chakra apparently can be thrown, and when he wields it, appears to have vorpal boomerang capabilities - although that could be just him using it, which is in line with the psionic weapon rules for the Mystic. Krishna wore robes and loose garments even though the guy he was riding a chariot with, Arjuna, had a Big Bow and was wearing a Breastplate.
Sikh mysticism is an actual thing, and they have this Gurugita book. Sikhs dont wear armor, normally unless employed for some military, and have a traditional dagger or sword, either ornamental or functional, called a kirpan. A Kirpan, btw almost always looks like the Jambiya/Khanjar curved dagger, with the largest being vaguely smaller than a short sword. Out of roughly 100 different images of Sikh soldiers and military types, I found only one with a guy wearing chain mail like a costume. I think we call that "buying an armor feat".
In anime, the most common weapons used by psychic tuned characters are long bows, wooden swords, and their hands covered in psychic energy, in "knife hand" position.
Padmasambhava, the Tibetan hero guru, is depicted with a Vajra or Dorje, which is about 4-6 inches long and functional for applying pressure points, though in mythology it's like a death ray super weapon, similar in some respects to the Chakra. He also wields the Khatvanga, a long club or staff weapon.
Shiva is depicted with a trident with no armor, although Shiva-Rudra is sometimes depicted with the Khatvanga-which sometimes looks like an ornamental Trident with more functionality as a club or staff. (many look like totem poles with heads stacked atop each other).
In Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince series, the Faradhim / Sun Runners, who specialized in Astral projection and Pyrokinesis, typically wore ceremonial robes as part of the "order" but the main protagonist actually wields a dagger very similar in style to Paul Muadib in Frank Herbert's Dune, in the Fight with Sting (the musician). It is telling that the rival sect of psionic Assassins/Stone Burners also wielded Glass knives filled with poison.
Basically, I'm seeing "no armor/desert clothes" and "knife/dagger" a lot. Sometimes Staff/clubs, or funny martial arts weapons.
Do you guys have good examples of other weapons?
I'm a long time D&D dungeon master and player and I thought I would add in some comments in case the developers are reading through this before developing the next draft of the class. I've also added suggestions so my criticism is constructive. Thanks to all the comments I've read before me as you'll probably see some repeats of the concerns listed below.
Things that I like:
- I like the Psi points concept. I've been a fan of the points concept to fuel powers since the first psionic's handbook. It makes the class feel unique without adding a lot of new rule that interact poorly with other spellcasting classes which leads to my second point.
- I like that most of the details follow the spellcasting rules in the player's handbook. One of the things I like most about the new edition is the streamlined rules which makes the game easier to run and ensures more balance with less bloat.
- I like that the class makes extensive use of bonus actions and concentration as a core mechanic. It does two things that I like. It makes the class feel unique from other 'casters' and prevents a lot of potential cheese from multi-classing.
- I like that the class is less MAD than previous versions of psionics. I personally like that the class relies on one attribute (int) for spellcasting, but would prefer that the attribute use wisdom instead.
- I like that you get a strong, consistent bonus when concentrating on a specific discipline and then can then spend points to get an additional effect. This makes the class good for multi-classing.
- I like the general class features inlcuding the hit dice, skill, weapon and armor proficiences.
Things I don't like
- Like many other commentors I don't like the 'mystic' name for two reasons. It's more associated in my mind with divine magic and doesn't fit in the Dark Sun world at all. Also, mystics aren't orderly so it fits oddly with its two major sub-classes. I would prefer something like physic, psion or physker.
- I would prefer that wisdom is the primary attribute. Wisdom lines up better with their one proficiency bonus and makes them feel less like 'mind wizards'. Wisdom is the most race neutral attribute and Intelligence makes for strange optimization choices such as gnome and high elf which are traditionally the 'wizard' races.
- I don't like that the player has to choose a subclass (order) at 1st level rather than at third level like the other classes. It adds unneeded complexity to the game as a whole and prevents new players from having a few levels to feel out the character before making a big decision.
- I really don't like the way the disciplines are structured. They're just like little mini-spells without the versatility or range of choice of a true caster class. I would prefer a concentration effect and then one effect that scales with points spent similar to lethal strike.
- There is a big lack of other features outside of the disciplines that add character to the class and sub-classes.
Suggestions
- Rather than having a player pick an order at the 1st level you could have a number of options at first level like fighting styles that help define the character a bit, but don't lock them into a set of disciplines. These could be 'at-will' powers which address another common criticism in the comments about the lack of a cantrip like ability.
-
One thing I would like to see is more general discipline that tie the class together. I would prefer that there 2 general disciplines (offensive and defensive) that the character starts with and then a set of general disciplines that can be choosen by any character regardless of order. I'm a big fan of how the Warlock is structured with their innvocations.
Overall I think its a good start, but a long way from a finished product. Right now the class seems out of place in the new edition and threatens to break the simplicity and streamlined rules of the first three books.
I'm very satisfied with the name Mystic, though I wouldn't be opposed to changing it to Psychic.
Sci-fi terms really shouldn't be a part of Dungeons & Dragons rules outside of genre modfication (like the rules in the DMs guide for Renaissance, Modern, and Futuristic weaponry). If I wanted to play D20 Modern or D20 Future, or Gamma World, I'd play those systems. D20 Past is the only "real world" genre I feel really has overlap for me with D&D directly, since it deals with 1500s to 1800s Europe/North America stages of technology.
But when I think Psionics, I think the New Age-like movements from the 1800s, where we had Mediums and Channellers and talk of Atlantis and Lemuria and Astral Projection.
The Psionic character should be tapping into these themes, but also fantasy-versions of X-Men, Inhumans, X/1999, and other comic book, video game, tv show, pulp fiction, etc heroes with special powers. Mutants influenced by the Far Realms, ancient spiritualist traditions, dream seers, etc.
Golden Sun is another interesting take on Psionics, though I would say in D&D terms it's more similar to a Magic/Psionics fusion. For D&D purposes, it's important that Psionics are different, but there's no reason why we can't have optional rules in the back for making Psionics a PART of magic. I very much would like that, in a DM's tool box sort of chapter in the back of the Psionics Handbook or however it's distributed. In Golden Sun, the characters are essentially mutants and bred-true descendants of mutants, granted the powers of pyrokinesis, cryokinesis/hydrokinesis, tellukinesis/silvikinesis, and aerokinesis/electrokinesis, respectively. But their philosophical training is more in lines with that of the Wizard – specifically, the Transmuter Wizard, where the laws of Paraclesian Alchemy and Taoist Alchemy are what they draw upon. But when they travel into the lands based off of China, they find Qi is the same thing as their power – so Monk's Qi is the same thing as Psionics, the same thing as Arcane Magic. And many users of Psychic Energy in that game are spiritual leaders, clerics, shamans, gurus, witch-doctors. Basically, anything mystical is actually Psychic Powers, channelled in a different way. Divine, Arcane, Psionic, Bardic, and Qi are all variations of the same underlying force. But in D&D, while Bards, Clerics, Wizards, Druids, Sorcerers, etc all use Magic, Monks use Qi and Mystics use Psionics. And these are all fundamentally different resources that affect the game differently. It's a weakness in the game if there isn't an option to break down the barriers and say "all mystical stuff is fundamentally the same." It would ALSO be a weakness if Psionics had no differences than magic. Luckily, the current formatting of Psionic monsters – such as the Mind Flayer, Quaggoth Thonot, and Psionic Thri-Kreen – use Psionics basically to emulate spells. So it's not hard to stretch that system to work the same way. But I can imagine, say, using the Spell Point mechanic in the DM's Guide for all other magic users, and saying, well, those are their Psi Points.
Qi represents an issue though. I would very much like a reaffirmation of the 4th Edition fusion of Monk and Psionics under the same banner, even though they had vastly different mechanics and still do. Qi should be another way of representing Psionics, and the flavors should have the potential to be related. That really should be validated when Psionics go live.
I like the basics of what I see so far.
although my one gripe is that The 'Immortal' order doesn't really seem to benefit at all from INT. Like I feel as if the best Immortal stat array would involve a 10 or even 8 INT, which seems really weird for a Psionic to not want any mental stats.
Maybe they plan on adding more stuff like that at higher levels.
It would be nice if it was along the lines of how Monk uses WIS or how Pact of the Blade Warlock uses CHA. Something that added +attack rolls or +damage or something based on INT.
I can see something like changing the concentration effect on the Psionic weapon to +damage from INT mod. Just my opinion but I don't think the game needs another pure STR or DEX based class, but it does need another class that uses INT to good effect.
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
Swamp_slug wrote:
Um, no. "On your turn, you can take one additional action on top of your regular action and a possible bonus action". In other words, on your turn you can:
- Take an action
- Take a bonus action if you have an ability that uses one (such as Surge of Action)
- Activate Action Surge and gain an extra action.
In fact Mike Mearls has addressed this issue here: http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/10/11/one-extra-bonus-action/
Same answer from Jeremy Crawford: http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/11/27/action-surge-grants-one-action/
shintashi wrote:
Swamp_slug wrote:
Wolverine is an Order of the Immortal Mystic.
He has enchanted cat claws (martial weapon, not featured in PHB) and just cannot die. He also wears leather armor.
Jean Gray is an Order of the Awakened Mystic.
She has psychic telepathic powers. She also dabbled in telekinesis (a good reason why there should be at least minor cross training between disciplines), and wears leather armor, despite not using weapons. She later multiclasses as a Favored Soul (Light Domain), and keeps coming back from the dead.
Magneto is an Order of the Invisible Hand Mystic (he uses magnetics to do so, but essentially is a kineticist).
He wears special magical heavy armor to protect himself from mind thrusts of the likes of which Professor X and Jean Gray can use.
Clearly, Order of the Invisible Hand needs heavy armor proficiency. :D Otherwise, weapons and armor are on the right track, as per X-Men at least.
As for Jedi, contemplative, force-push-reliant ones like Yoda would be Order of the Invisible Hand, while militant, Lightsaber-reliant ones like Anakin would be Order of the Knife.
For what it's worth:
A 20th level Monk has 20 ki.
A 20th level Mystic has 133 psi.
133/7 = 19 Ki.
A level 1 Mystic has 4 Psi.
A level 1 Monk has 0 Ki.
When i was looking at doing conversions, I thought something like 7 minus wis mod = Cost of Psi per Ki.
So if you had a 16 Wisdom, +3 modifier, 7 -3 = 4 Psi to get 1 Ki.
These are just crude numbers I was playing around with. Clearly, the chart in the DMG doesn't convert easily to Ki, but I think you'll find 4-7 Psi per ki works pretty close.
I also suggested if you had a monk/mystic, half the monk's levels would add to Mystic for purposes of calculating total Psi.
Here's a quick convert chart of 'bonus ki' for having Mystic levels.
Ki: Mystic
+2: 3rd level
+3: 5th level
+5: 7th level
+6: 8th level
+8: 9th level
+9: 10th level
+10: 11th level
+11: 13th level
+13: 15th level
+15: 17th level
+16: 18th level
+18: 19th level
+19: 20th level
you could be weird and just add "+1" ki across the board to this list, which would give them 1-20 ki. I don't like the way the math is crunchy and rust coated full of bubble gum and ducktape, but there it is.
You know, I still kind of wish "discipline" referred to the type of psychic power you were using and the actual powers were called "devotions." Like, maybe every order should get access to 2 disciplines, and there then there should be a general list of devotions divided up into 6 different disciplines? I mean, I like the general set up and mechanics. I just wish they were not so completely divorced in terminology from the 2e psionicist I remember.
Cyber-Dave wrote:
shintashi wrote:
shintashi wrote:
shintashi wrote:
shintashi wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
Shintashi, I also would behoove you to draw on real data rather than anecdotal evidence that Psionics are the most banned class. Do I have the data? No. But you know who may well have similar data? WotC. It's their business to gather that data and make decisions based off of it.
Macv12 wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
shintashi wrote:
the problem with a level 1-5 release of the class is they can flub everything during the final rewrite while we sit in limbo, and once it makes it to color ink print, we are stuck with a lame duck. The way playtest was described seems broken too.
Are they testing it with cross classes? Are they testing it after they nerf it? I'm concerned the only people who will get to play the good version are the playtesters, and the rest of us will be stuck with a half powered mind mage, or worse, a bizzaro world Buff people will only want for their other classes and subsequently the "psionics are banned" gong will ring again... for the 5th time.
Elfcrusher wrote:
Shintashi, did you ignore my parallels to X-MEN?
Jean Gray and Wolverine both fit perfectly as-is with this class, though Wolvering would like some Cat Claws as weapons.
Pseudo-academic theorycrafting apart, has anyone here actually playtested the UA Mystic yet? Starting at 1st level and working up? It might be useful.
Marandahir wrote:
Bloodscythe wrote:
shintashi wrote:
shintashi wrote:
It's a playtest class... it only goes to level 5 for a reason. 
Not because it's a prestige class - it even says that. They're only in the first tier of development.
Also: I hate the name mystic. As a mystic, a person who studies the occult in a spiritual manner rather than methodological manner, I find it offensive.
A Cleric is a mystic. A Psion is not. A mystic, by tradition, channels the Sacred Spirit (known as the Universal Spirit, Sacred Feminine, Shekinah, Holy Ghost, etc.) not their own mind. A Mystic is someone who is selfless without using their own logos to create change in the world. Joan of Arc was a Mystic. HIldegard von Binghen was a Mystic. Eliphas Levi was a Mystic.
Alliester Crowely - more of a Magician/Alchemist. Axel Hellstrom is a Mentalist/Mind reader. Not a Mystic.
There are three basic types of real life "magic" users: Right Hand (Mystic), Left Hand (Magician), and middle path (Alchemist). So... It just kinda irks me that they used the word Mystic to identify a *logic* brain (Intelligence score) class. Wisdom based class? Sure. Makes sense. Wisdom falls into selflessness.
But, here's where esotericism and gaming schism.
Sad day for a mason and alchemist. Sad day.
I like the notion of a "dip class." I have to admit I find it more interesting then the mystic (although I like the name), although that is because it seems too telepathically focused (and I was hoping for feats instead of multiclassing). I suspect part of the reason for the "dip class" is that higher level effects run right into spells, so you get "you can do some nonspell stuff, and then to advance you become a wizard with a limited spell list."
I suspect the oriental adventures classes, warlord, and maybe the artificer could get similar treatments.
Instead of being restricted to only one discipline at a time such as psionic weapon, you should be able to choose which powers are active at the beginning of a long rest.
You should have:
Powers known: (a larger number, maybe 2x powers active, similar to spells known)
Powers active: (a smaller number, similar to spells memorized).
To have a power known you might need to meet the requirements for instance: Before you get Augmented Weapon, you need to get Lethal Strike and Ethereal Weapon known.
What is active:
One stance like the +1 magic weapon.
Then choose (X) powers active such as
Surge of speed
Iron Hide
Lethal Strike
This fits more into the tomb of battle concept and allows for a more flexible character build with powers from different groups coming into play at the same time. As others have said a wizard doesn’t need to use their bonus action to switch to evocation to cast fireball. They just cast fireball. They don’t need to bonus action back to abjuration to cast shield.
The immortal should get an extra attack at level 5 or 6 and should probably get ½ the psi points. That puts them on par with a paladin.
Mind thrust should probably do d6, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6. Same progression as any cantrip such as fire bolt when a character levels up. Bonus damage in d6 increments.
ivstin wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
mrpopstar wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
mrpopstar wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
shintashi wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Here's what kind of annoys me. So, they release the game and start doing surveys a bit later to make sure the game is on par with people's expectations. After the first survey, they admitted that a lot of people were unhappy with the current state of the Ranger, specifically the Beastmaster Ranger. They release more surveys, and a few new builds for existing classes. But nothing to fix the issues in the first survey.
Now, they release a brand new class, which apparently is going to be done slowly over time (just like the playtest for the edition). The last time I knew, the D&D team was really smalll, so how are they planning on keeping their word in fixing the Ranger if they just start a brand new huge project as the Mystic?
I think it would be wiser to fix the stuff in the order as they come up, a.k.a fix the beastmaster ranger first before introducing a brand new class. For example, the beastmaster ranger needs to have its pet be allowed to follow verbal commands without burning an action. If a bag of tricks can do it for any character class, then why does the Ranger (who is supposed to be the best at this) need to burn an action each round to make the pet attack a particular creature over and over?
Zardnaar wrote:
I'm a bit confused about the Psionic Weapon discipline. If you are concentrating on this discipline, do you use your Int modifier for your attack rolls, or your normal Str or Dex modifier?
The wording under "Psionic Ability" suggests that you would use Int because you are making an attack with a discipline and, indeed, this is the only discipline that relates to making an attack (Mind Thrust is not a discipline, as such) but the wording of Psionic Weapon reads as though it's only the weapon that is modified, not the attack.
How are people reading it?
ivstin wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
BoldItalic wrote:
The mysthic can be a divine spellcaster with power points, but we are too used to the mysthic from 3rd Ed Dragonlance to imagine her like a psionic manifester. Is the mysthic the 3.5 archivist from "Heroes of Horror" with a pool of power points?
* Psion with armour? The psionic ardent. There is a great potential to create stories about conflicts and hate-love relations between psionic ardents and clerics..
* Psionic Wilder = psionic and incarnum? I love about testing crazy experiments!!
* I imagine the future soulknife like the psionic swordsage (class from 3.5 "Tome of battle".
* Are D&D psionics like the Javier's School from marvel comic "1602"? I like the idea of "mutant" characters with monster traits (wings, natural weapons, etc..).
* What if I want to create a new class mixing the soulknife and a psionic hexblade? Or mixing soulknife and the warblade from "Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords"
* I miss the subclasses for each discipline
* I miss the psionic focus.
Now that CyberDave has gone all Good WIll Hunting on shintasi (sans the invitation to "take it outside"), maybe we should do something productive and generate some alternative class names.
Empath?
Mentat? (copyrighted, I suspect)
Psion? (Too science fictiony, in my opinion. In that sense I understand why they chose Mystic)
BoldItalic wrote:
Thenewzero wrote:
AD&D psionicists had an initiation penalty when wearing armor. It began when wearing anything better than leather. Table 9, Psionist armor penalties. That was an optional rule for the DM. Otherwise, "Psionicists can wear armor made of padded leather, studded leather, or hide, they can also carry a small shield". I don't think 5th edition has small shields. Shields are really good in 5th ed, they are lighter than medium or heavy shields, heavier than bucklers or small shields, and provide twice the AC bonus. A lot of people lobbied for good shields, and pretty much any class that got a shield of any size got grandfathered in. AC for a psionicist used to be about, in 5e terms, 12, 13 vs. 1-2 attacks. Now the mystic is AC 16 vs. all attacks (not counting flanking).
By way of comparison, their weapon selection was nice. short bows, light/hand cross bows (d4/d3), small axes, small maces, small picks, scimitar (d8), short swords (d8), clubs (d6), knives, and spear (d8). The scimitar and knife are the weapons depicted in the iconography, however, the curly toed shoes are featured way more frequently than anything else XD I kinda want my scimitar and short sword options back, especially the scimitar.
In 3rd edition, they were proficient with all simple weapons, but not armor or shields. Instead they said while suffering no psionic penalties, they couldn't do the balance/climb/escape/jump/etc. skills effectively. 3e brought them a medium crossbow, but they still had no short sword or scimitar.
in 4th edition, they got simple melee and missile, and military melee weapons - getting their scimitar and shortswords back, woot! They also got cloth, leather, hide, and upgraded to chainmail.
Now in 5th edition, they took back the scimitar and shortswords, and got rid of the chainmail, but added stuff like scale mail and half plate.
So, comparing 2e psionicist (which had the most dedicated content of them all), we begin with light armor, and decent, but mostly light weight weapons.
3e: armor went down, weapons went down
4e: armor went up, weapons went up
5e: armor went up, weapons went down
Anyway, make of that what you will. I like Scimitars.
Now for Naming Conventions, I think the Ninja class, and Shadow Dancer (page 80: Monk: Way of Shadow) are a kind of nomenclature we can use to include the Term Mystic, while keeping our Psionicist, Psion, and Ardent, for example. I've always been fond of the term Esper, which is particularly popular in Japan.
So what I think is we can find a universal title for them all, and then have these mini name options for their chosen Psionic Order, or even their favored discipline within an Order. That way, people who like Mystic can keep it, and people who hate it can leave it, but all of us are tied together by some common thread we can recognize.
I really like the name Mystic, over Psion or Psionicist or what-have-you. For what it's worth.
We need to find a less controversial name for the class.
I suggest "Warlord Mind-Katanas Who Damage On A Miss". Who's with me?
Zardnaar wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
shintashi wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
Tectuktitlay wrote:
The issue with the name strikes close to the core of my issue with psionics, namely its sense of identity. Allow me to illustrate:
We think of a system of rules, a class, designed to allow players to cast "spells" in an RPG, and now we need a name for that system. Behold, we have a ton at our disposal: wizard, sorcerer, warlock, et al.
Then, we think of a system designed to allow players to cast these sort of "not-spells", and of course we need a class name for that system. Only now, since the mechanics for psioncs seem designed only by contrast to magic spells, there's no immediate cultural reference for them. No eager labels like we have for the class that "casts magic spells". Operative word being "eager", there, meaning that none of our cultural tropes have a ready resemblance to psionics because psionics is (or has always seemed to me to be) designed to be "magic that isn't that silly ol' magic-magic", i.e it's never been designed to resemble something, but to not resemble something. We can root around our heads for less-obvious names, but that's where the process starts for this class concept.
So where do we go for the name? What's not normal but not magical? "Mystic" seems dangerously close to what I think the game means by "Cleric" or "Warlock" (which is really just a variant paladin, which is really just a variant cleric, but I digress). "Psychic" honestly doesn't seem broad or deep enough to capture the notion of the class. "Psion" or "Psionicist" feels like a good fit owing to the nature of its etymology.
For the record, I said, "For what it's worth" above because it isn't worth much. Who cares what the name in the book is. You can call your character whatever you want.
I care much less about the name of the class than I do about its performance in play, but seeing how often I call Wizards "Magic-Users," I'll probably just end up saying Psionicist whatever WotC goes with in the end. It's funny, I don't mind Mystic one way or the other, but prefer Psionicist to Psion, like, a lot; what can I tell you, the chambers of the human hold many mysteries.
"Warlord MInd-Katanas Who Damage On A Miss" works for me, too, though.
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Sphinx. He can cut guns in half with his mind.
ModusPonens wrote:
Mystic makes me think of some old venerable person that's something of a hermit and claims to know secrets or truths through mind reading and fortune telling, and/or a charatan promoting a new age religeon wearing tie-dye, hemp robes and sandals, and consumes a lot of mind altering drugs..
You know, the DUDE.
It seems to me, a true Mystic class would require heavy consumption of mind altering drugs to tap into the fabric of truth.
Wuzzard wrote:
i think a mystic who has some hashish, soma, or peyote would make good sense. Perhaps there can be a small section on Herbalism, without naming specific drugs, could point out the Difficulties for "Mystical Experiences" or "Vision Quests". It's a level of Detail I don't expect 5th ed to go to outside a mini table, so the effects would have to be mechanical, rather than a psychotropic mini adventure.
in older editions, having something like a "you mixed potions and one became permanent" effect, like the wild mage table could work, but the rules are pretty strict in 5e, so Save or Suck tables wouldn't work.
Perhaps instead, depending on your discipline, or the one you are concentrating on, the Drugs could provide specific bonuses or recover Psi points, like the 2d4+2 potion of healing, but Psi Points instead? Some drugs would enhance physical combat powers, some would enhance clairvoyant powers, and some would enhance telepathic powers. You could even have a short list of "poisons" that had the opposite effect, making it easier for a telepath, for example, to use control.
Then again, i dont see Wizards putting in Drugs with Psychic classes, even though it could probably be done cautiously.
Oh yeah?! Well when I hear "psychic" or "psionicist", I instinctively want to present them with a spoon and demand that they bend it with their mind...
Cyber-Dave wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Everyone say "psychic sidekick" 10 times fast.
Elfcrusher wrote:
Psychic?
Empath?
I know, how about Psychopath?
On a more serious note, I agree with ModusPonens (Post #248). Psionics is just magic by another name with different mechanics.
So we've got a caster of not-magic, what can we call it? How about a Mystic? Sounds magic related? Check. Not a wizard? Check. Ok, that name sounds fine.
Elfcrusher wrote:
SilentSin wrote:
In all seriousness, a name that suggested some form of insanity, or at least a suspicion of insanity on the part of everyody else, could be a fun way of thinking about the class. Kind of like how folks used to think that crazy people were "touched by God". That woud be a nice way of flavoring it to avoid the science fiction connotations. I'm struggling to come up with candidate words first thing in the morning, though.
Elfcrusher wrote:
I still feel there was a missed opportunity for Dungeons & Dragons to leverage the "witch" term for the current mystic. The far realm's touch is abhorrent, outside of reason, heretical, and scary in ways that I could see practitioners being avoided, feared, and persecuted for wielding knowledge of.
If psionics was D&D's brand of "witchcraft," I think that would have been flavorful and cool. I have different wishes for a witch class, and it would take some time for the ripples to iron out the edges of D&D lore, but it would have been something unique to the game that I think makes sense.
Let's go right into the deep end of the pool. I say we call them Wierders. I'm riffing off witcher for that one, but I think is fits to an extent. Seeing as the in game justification is that the far realm done touch you in places, having an equally bonkers name seems appropriate.
All things considered, I'm liking "psychic" the best.
I'm not a huge fan of the "psi" references, otherwise.
mrpopstar wrote:
For me the D&D "Witch" should be like a mixture of Warlock, the witch from Pathfinder rpg and the pact binder from 3.5 Tome of Magic.
* Psion isn´t only a pool of power points. The mysthic could spend power points to cast magic spells, but that wouldn´t be the true psionic.It may be a great class, but that wouldn´t the psion.
* Can you believe it? Psionic wilder was a boring class, I didn't like that class feature about psychic enervation, but by some reason.. I miss her. Maybe it could come back like a mixture of psion and incarnum totemist, with powers about "mutations" and monster traits..
* Why not a warlock with power points to "buy" monster traits? Using a game mechanic like the binder's vestige pacts but some powers would need to spend power points, or to bind chakras (body slots for magic item) and to cast points of essentia like the incarnum soulmelds...
lawrencehoy wrote:
Of all the suggestions so far, only Psychic really suits the AD&D loving grognard in me.
I like "Psychic". It works to cover all of them, and then from there you can get your specialized versions, like Mystic, Ardent, Psion, Soulhammer, whatever. For a Crazy Name, how about Psycho The Rapist? It could be a highly paid variant of the Conquering Mind Discipline XD
in more serious consideration, the damage cap for Mind Thrust is 14d8. Mind attacks are an unusual structure and hard to defend against for several creatures, so I think something more generic like Fire Damage or Cold should be higher. I'm thinking d10s for those. Force damage tends to be really difficult to resist, so it get's the same box as Mind Thrust. Area effects would save for half and do 2 dice steps lower and +one die higher, so Mental Damage and Force Damage Area effects would be closer to 15d4, which is the same as 6d10 or 10d6, while Generic Elements Like Fire, Cold, and Electricity, Pyrokinesis, Cryokinesis, and Electrokinesis, respectively, would take the 14d10 single attack caps and turn them into 15d6.
Mystics, Wizards, and Nova
At 17th level or so, a Capstone ability for specialists on some attack form could exist. For example, Pyrokineticists and Telepaths might inflict higher damage with Fire or Psychic damage, respectively. This is tricky for calculating resource management of other classes to compare to. A Wizard in theory has one meteor swarm that does 20d6+20d6 in an area effect, however, they could 'shadowclonejutsu' the effect with a snow man and get 2 such effects off, not to mention the other spells available. We only have a max of 133 points to work with, so the real issue is before finding a loop hole, how can we prevent a Mystic from going Nova three consecutive rounds at a time, or at least keeping their combined Nova under 80d6, which appears to be the cap with a 17th level wizard? Well, first of all, a 20th level wizard could memorize shadowclone twice, use one slot to clone themselves, then the shadow clone (with one slot remaining) could shadow clone themselves, and both could have 40d6 nova, for a total of 120d6 nova in a single round with 2 days preparation. A 17th level mystic has 107 Psi Points, and 13 points buys them 14 dice, which is like 8 effects max. 20th level buys them 10.
Here's a simple proposition: They can add up to their max intelligence modifier per die, and the cost of multiplying (ignoring normal psi point cost maxes) the total cost by 1 + the modifier. So here's a little Nova Chart, below, Using Intelligence Modifier, based on a normal 13 Psi attack.
Int. . . Psi. . . Psychic. . .Elemental Blast
+1. . . 26 . . .14d8+14. . . 15d6+15
+2. . . 39. . . 14d8+28. . . 15d6+30
+3. . . 52. . . 14d8+42. . . 15d6+45
+4. . . 65. . . 14d8+56. . . 15d6+60
+5. . . 78. . . 14d8+70. . . 15d6+75
Since 133 can at best spend 65 points twice, that would become the crude Nova max. In theory, an attack backed attribute bonus of +9 would cost 130 points to activate. With the elemental Blast at +5, the damage average is about 36d6 equivalent, or 127.5 average total, which is just shy of the Meteor Swarm's 40d6 averaging 140 average total.
Again, this is for a capstone nova attack specialist, not to be confused with a standard level 1-16 ability available for all Psionic attack forms. The "Immortal" guy or Mind Thrust guy doesn't get the Pyrokinetic Nova, for example. Pyro guy gets a high fire damage, psychic guy gets a high psychic damage, immortal guy gets a multi attack combo with a high stabby stab damage, and so on.
Edit: I decided that pushing past your normal Psi point max should come with a price. Simple solution. Exhaustion. You get 1 level of exhaustion for each +1, thus to use a +5 modifier, would put you at 5 levels of exhaustion. I repeat the PHB exhaustion chart here:
Level Effect
1 Disadvantage on ability checks
2 Speed halved
3 Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws
4 Hit point maximum halved
5 Speed reduced to 0
6 Death
I think that works surprisingly well.
shintashi wrote:
edwin_su wrote:
While many people have already pointed out that cramming all psionic archetypes into a single profession faces problems, I think it's worth highlighting how badly it constrains archetypes.
Imagine, for a moment, that WotC was rolling out the Player's Handbook with a class called the Arcanist. The Arcanist is meant to be the fundamental arcane caster, representing all forms of arcane magic within the setting. It's got medium armor proficiency, a d8 hit die, two skills, and uses Intelligence as its main stat. In order to cast spells, players pick one of four spellcasting orders, which includes the Wizard, Sorceror, Warmage, and Spellthief. The Wizard is the mystical caster who manipulates time and space. The Sorceror is the blaster who hurls fireballs. The Warmage is a heavily armored caster who mixes martial skill and eldritch might. And the Spellthief is the sneaky spellslinger with illusions and enchantments.
...See the problem? The class I just described is a colossal failure. The Spellthief doesn't have enough skills to act as a proper rogue. The Warmage has terrible armor and weaponry mixed with a lack of basic attacks. But worst of all, the Sorceror and Wizard don't feel like sorcerors and wizards due to their armor and lack of options. The Sorceror can't fly, because that's a Wizard spell, and the Wizard can't cast illusions, because that's Spellthief territory. Want to make a character who can cast Scry, Haste, and Lightning Bolt? Too bad, those three spells are in three different archetypes, because clearly there are no arcanists in all fiction who can do all three. And worst of all, other arcane caster archtypes like the Bard and Warlock have absolutely no representation at all!
Fortunately, WotC proved far smarter than this when designing the PHB. The warmage archetype was turned into the Eldritch Knight subclass. The Arcane Trickster served as a rogue archtype. And the Warlock, Sorceror, Wizard, and Bard all presented arcane casting in different ways to allow different character concepts and mechanical methods to flourish. And that's exactly what Psionics needs as well. As it is right now, you cannot build a psionic character who can bend spoons and communicate telepathically, and that's just pathetic. It needs options, just like arcane magic. Not so many classes, of course, but a robust system that serves as both a main manifester class and a series of subclasses and variants for others.
The Psychic Warrior is a fighter archetype. It belongs in the fighter subclass selection.
The Soulknife is a monk archetype. It should be integrated into the monk's options.
The Lurk is a rogue archetype. It can find an equal home alongside the Arcane Trickster.
The Ardent is an ideal paladin variant, replacing the spell slots with a selection of benevolent and bolstering psionic powers.
And finally, the main manifester class should have a wide selection of powers, drawing on the old school concepts of Mind Over Mind (telepathy), Mind Over Body (egoist), Mind Over Matter (psychokinesis), Mind Over Space (apportation), Mind Over Being (metacreation), and Mind Over Knowledge (clairsentience). Call it the Psion, the Psychic, the Psyker, the Weirder, anything. But make a class that actually respects the player's ability to choose what spectrum of psionic power they want to manifest. Create a class that can capture the imagination of anyone seeking a different sort of character, tapping into the power of the mind to manifest monsters from the id, unleash torrents of pyrokinesis, rend space to hurl their enemies into the void, leech the energy of their foes to bolster their own strength, absorb the pain of their friends and redirect it to their foes, link their mind to those of their allies to share knowledge and insight, project themselves into the dreams of distant beings, or achieve the ultimate power of reality revision, subjecting the cosmos to their will.
This mechanic represents the unbridled power of the enlightened mind. Think bigger.
Dragoncat wrote:
According to the recent podcast, the intention is that the Mystic class will have one subclass for each of the PHB classes. So there will be a fighter-like subclass, a rogue-like subclass, and so on.
Seems to me that it addresses the question: what would the adventuring classes be like in a world where psionics existed?
If you have psionc powers, and your powers allow you to be particularly good at healing others, protecting others and doing the will of the gods, you might go adventuring and become some sort of clericy psionic. You can play approximately the role in an adventuring party that clerics normally occupy, but using your psionic powers in place of divine magic and, in game terms, using a different mechanic; one that is common to all people with psionic powers but applied in your own personal way. So you aren't a subclass of cleric because all clerics use divine magic and you don't. You are a specialised kind of psionic-powers user, one who uses his powers to heal, protect and carry out the will of the gods.
That's the way I see it.
BoldItalic wrote:
Dragoncat wrote:
BoldItalic wrote:
Not to be a dingus, but it seems to me that you two are saying the same exact thing.
Not really.
One is saying they will put all old Psion-classes in the new Mystic.
The other one sounds as if there will be a Psion-Paladin, Psion-Warlock, Psion-Rogue, Psion-Druid, etc.
And that would be the worst thing ever, since it will be either worse than the original class or better. Both are bad.
I'm not looking to get into an arguement with someone over what other people participating in this thread have posted when they're perfectly capable of clarifying their own statements. However, a "fighter-like" (et al.) subclass of the mystic and "old psionic classes like psychic-warrior" (et al.) making their return as subclasses of one psionic class sound exactly the same to me, unless the difference between "fighter-like" and "psychic warrior" is a huge stumbling block.
Kangodo wrote:
I say bring back the AD&D version: miniscule chance for any character to have psionic powers, above and beyond their normal class abilities.
(I'm not really voting for that, but it's amusing to think about.)
edwin_su wrote:
Oh, gotcha; for my part, I didn't get the PHB classes vs previous editions Psionic classes distinction. Well, no harm no foul.
. . .
Personally, I think the 3e Soulknife was much more similar to the Rogue than the Monk; let's argue about that for 6 pages! 
Dragoncat wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
Dragoncat wrote:
Dragoncat wrote:
Dragoncat wrote:
Suggestions:
Psion as major psionic CLASS consisting of 8 sub-classes: 1 for Wilder/Generalist and 1 each that specializes in a single Psionic Displine (in traditional sense, not in sense of the UA playtest and not to the exclusion of all other Displines)
Ardent = Cleric/Paladin/Bard Subclass or maybe combine with the Wilder subclass mentioned above to play more on the 'empathic' side of that archtype (Empath or Wilder are preferred names though)
PsychicWarrior/Battlemind = Fighter Subclass
Soulknife/Blade Mystic = Monk Subclass
Add other sub-classes as desired
Torn on whether PP should refill at Short or Long rest, though I lean toward short because it would subtley reinforce the connection of monks and psionics.
Conflicted about only being able to concentrate on one Power at a time currently given the need to switch to use an ability from another Power. I think you should be able to eventually gain constant access to one or more Power as kind of a 'Signature Power' to alleviate this tension, perhaps even from first level.
Would like to see more interaction via Mind-scapes and the Plane of Dream, would like to have the plane of dreams as the primry agonistic force in opposition to the far realm, with psionics arising from both planes.
Auto-Hypnosis as a skill should make a return.
I really prefer the traditional names of most psionic abilities, items, classes, etc. I like the pseudo-science, it sounds exactly what someone trying to describe these abilities would probably call them in reality, so why wouldn't it work in the game? Psychokinesis/Telekinesis, Metapsionics, I have zero problem with terms like these. I do not mind things like Intellect Fortress but I don't think it's appreciably better than the others. In fact, I really wouldn't mind if Psi Powers used a kind of binomial nomeclature.
Finally, Psionic Powers should be called 'Powers,' not 'Discplines,' it's confusing to older players (I'm confused just writing this post) who think of Psionic Disciplines as the seven Psionic Disciplines of editions past (Telekinesis, Apportation, Psychometabolism, Metacreativity, Telepathy, Clairsentience, and Metapsionics). Each of these disciplines should be keyed to a 'chakra' with some sort of mechanic backing this up. Psion's should be called Psions, not Mystics. Mystic as a term would be better left to the Psionic Monk subclass I think.
Finally, don't rail-road with sub-classes, I don't think you will, but obviously, just don't.
I'd rather give the mystic more general features for the first levels and give them their subclass at level 2 or 3. All the classes that gain their subclass at level 1 have a really good reason for it, since the subclass is directly linked to where they gain their powers. Unless it isn't possible to learn psionics before joining an order, it should be a later choice.
Before you ask for the Mystic class to be more powerful, remember that as well as considering it as a PC class and balancing it against coventional monsters, we need to playtest conventional PCs against bunches of NPC mystics. I haven't seen any reports of that yet. Has anyone tried it?
Fist of Zuoken can be a psionic subclass for monks, and the cerebromancer a hybrid (=two different power sources) for arcane spellcasters.
* Why a psion isn´t only a sorcerer with power points?
* Variant classes are better than subclasses. I don't want a list of class features, I want a mark of identity to feel my PC is different.
* What if I create a dual-class PC, a psion without armor and a warrior with heavy armour and tower shield?
The_White_Sorcerer wrote:
A battlemind can be tougher then a rogue at level 1 by getting +1 AC and shield reaction. You could easily move the "don't lose concentraion" to level 2 without issue.
Though heavy armor is kinda an oddball to pick up later, since it can heavy effect your stat generation.
The_White_Sorcerer wrote:
DizzyWood wrote:
Be3Al2 wrote:
ZHDarkstar wrote:
mellored wrote:
mellored wrote:
I'm frankly feeling left out in the cold with the designers intentional dismissal of the entire theme of moving/boiling/baking/freezing/electrocuting/etc. things with our minds. Psylocke's trope of a psi sword didn't even happen until something like 1986. Before that she was a Clairvoyant/Telepath with Captain Britian in the 1970s. Iceman (cryokinesis) has been around since 1963, while Firestar had the power to burn things (and fly) in 1981. Same year as Scanners. Firestarter came out in 1980, and Carrie was roasting school chums back in 1974.
Point is, the trope for self powered telekinesis, and other-kinesis (fire, ice, sound, etc.) is pretty solid, at least as solid as a science fictiony sounding Psi - Sword, whether or not you call it a soul knife, a psychic spoon, shadow stilleto, or a Clairvoyant Karambit.
For the kinesis effects, whatever they are called, I always imagined them like wet clay on a potter's wheel. You mentally squished them into the shapes you wanted. Sort of like balloon animals, the area effect was expanded or contracted. In most of these tropes, Controlling the effect was really hard for beginners.
Kinesis users of whatever they use also tend to be resistant or even completely immune to their own special element. Ice man never freezes to death, and Firestarter was enshrouded in heat hot enough to vaporize bullets.
Anyone ever toyed with the idea of Psionics as a Fearful thing?
Seems to me half these characters have the same vibe as horror film monsters, so having them get something similar to the Barbarian fear power makes sense.
what if the kinesis types were introduced as a natural outgrowth of the Genesai and Githzerai? like Genesai have things like produce flame and levitate and meld with earth and water breathing, imagine that with like a more developed hydrokinesis, or water shaping on the beach, water surfing with no board, and making giant watery fists, or translucent dancers shaped out of water, like that old movie "Abyss".
A telekinesis type should be able to make a 'swarm' of flying objects, like plates or books, and even make them dance. Not just squishing people's throats or flinging tiny rocks. 0 level Mage hand is 10 lbs, and 5th level telekinesis is 100 times that, 1000 lbs.
Psi . Object, Creature
0. . . 10 lbs or less, Tiny Creatures
2. . . 25 lbs, Small Creatures
3. . . 60 lbs
5. . . 150 lbs, Medium Creatures
6. . . 400 lbs
7. . . 1000 lbs, Large Creatures
9. . . 2500 lbs
10. . . 6000 lbs. Huge Creatures,
11. . . 15,000 lbs
13. . . 40,000 lbs, 5,000 gallon kiddie pool, Gargantuan Creatures
15. . .100,000 lbs, 12,500 gallon kiddie pool
17. . .250,000 lbs, 30,000 gallon pool
19. . .600,000 lbs, 80,000 gallon pool
21. . .750 tons, 200,000 gallon pool
23. . .Mostly full Olympic Swimming Pool (capacity is 660,000 gallons)
i think i just wanted to know how many psi it would cost to move a swimming pool. Water's not really very impressive unless you move it in stupid amounts. Apparently to make enough water move to go surfing is about 27 Psi. XD
there will be more sub-classes. this is just to see if they are going in the right direction.
i'd be very surprised if there wasn't a fire and force dicipline at some point. maybe not ice, but possibly.
mellored wrote:
It might be cool to give all Mystics a telekinetic ability to fling objects as an attack. Basically equal to a cantrip that scales in damage. Would depend on having available objects lying around.
ZHDarkstar wrote:
Do you imagine a telekinetik using a spiked chaing like a snake-like construct monster attaching enemies?
* Could a little piece of psionic power to block the cannon from a gun?
I want to see kineticists that play with their element, like utility versions of their powers, not just attack versions. Digging around, here's some examples of what I mean.
not this
Fire Bolt
Evocation cantrip
Range: 120 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
You hurl a mote o f fire at a creature or object within
range. Make a ranged spell attack against the
target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 fire damage.
this
control flames
Duration: Instantaneous or 1 hour (see below)
You choose nonmagical flame that you can see within
range and that fits within a 5-foot cube. You affect it in
one of the following ways:
You instantaneously expand the flame 5 feet in one
direction, provided that wood or other fuel is present
in the new location.
• You instantaneously extinguish the flames
within the cube.
• You double or halve the area of bright light and dim
light cast by the flame, change its color, or both. The
change lasts for 1 hour.
• You cause simple shapes—such as the vague form of a
creature, an inanimate object, or a location—to appear
within the flames and animate as you like. The shapes
last for 1 hour.
If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to
three of its non-instantaneous effects active at a time,
and you can dismiss such an effect as an action
not this
Ice Knife
Range: 60 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature
within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the
target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage.
this
Shape Water
Duration: Instantaneous or 1 hour (see below)
You choose an area of water that you can see within
range and that fits within a 5-foot cube. You manipulate
it in one of the following ways:
• You instantaneously move or otherwise change the
flow of the water as you direct, up to 5 feet in any
direction. This movement doesn’t have enough force
to cause damage.
• You cause the water to form into simple shapes
and animate at your direction. This change
lasts for 1 hour.
• You change the water’s color or opacity. The water
must be changed in the same way throughout. This
change lasts for 1 hour.
• You freeze the water, provided that there are no creatures
in it. The water unfreezes in 1 hour.
I'm definitely NOT saying there should be no attack powers for kineticists, what i'm saying is Maslows Hammer,
"if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"
A kineticist should be a potentially creative, diversified class, not just a guy who lobs d10s for damage every round.
water dudes would be expected to make floods, surf waves, and walk on water. They could make imitiation water elementals that could attack stuff.
fire dudes would be able to walk through a bon fire, surround themselves in flames, cook soup, and cut through steel, they might even be able to fly
wind dudes would definitely be able to fly, create twisters, ruffle trees, or do horrible vacuum and knock back attacks.
telekinetic dudes would have force fields, flying objects, hold person-like effects, psi swords, trap/lock picking at a range, and eventually levitate and fly themselves
that kinda stuff. Earth element is basically the Telekinetic element, and deals with Gravity, and solid objects with mass.
electrokinesis or weather control or whatever it is called, is about lightning bolts, storms, static electricity, ball lightning will o wisp motes (dancing lights), and so on.
shintashi wrote:
there was a thing in sorcerers meta for increasing duration up to 24 hours i think with the word double for each sorcery point...
i was thinking instead of duration, Psychics could double range, up to "sight" for various effects, and use those "plane of existence" ranges for things like Clairvoyance and Telepathy.
Combining the two should also be possible, like take your clairvoyant range, and use it for telekinetics or telepathy effects.The idea is you would be moving your presence to the new location, so you would be immune to elemental and slash/pierce/blunt, but you would still take psychic damage, and probably necrotic damage. Sort of a version of Astral projection that jacks up your range.It would cost a ton of psi to do, but it mgiht be worth it. Obviously wards vs. scrying and planar beings would effect you, magic or not.
shintashi wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
how much damage?
every class should have some mechanism of defending themselves, although that mechanism doesn't automatically have to be damage. Every class should have some damage effects at 9th level or sooner, and depending on the type of effects, the damage might scale quite high. Wierdo Psychic/Disintegrate powers would resemble Beholder Damage, Generic Fire/Cold/etc. attacks wuld resemble Dragon Damage, and Combat Metabolists would resemble Giant Damage. This produces a power parity and makes it reasonable for the DM to compare Mystics to specific categories of monsters. So a CR 13 Giant and a level 13 Immortal might have similar melee attack output, while a CR 17 Red Dragon and level 17 Pyrokineticist might have similar fire powers.
Four elements and Area Effects
i was thinking hydrokinesis would have double exponent the mass/area of telekinesis, and air would have the same mass as hydrokinesis, but larger volume, and similar to 2/3rds speeds of telekinesis.
When you go high diving into a swimming pool, you walk on solid hard ground (telekinesis) up a ladder, and jump off a platform. You sail through a few pounds of air, and then splash into several tons of water. The air is almost not noticeable, the water only does damage if you dive badly, and you wouldn't dive onto the concrete because it would kill you.
So it takes way more water control to do damage unless you freeze it into ice. Hail for example, does more damage than rain, and blizzards kill people by burrying them or freezing them to death slowly.
Fire has the least effort to harm, simply touching fire, or being near hot fire can cause damage, but fire has like no mass, and operates like air, in a kind of reverse.
Ok, so here's how it works: Fire damage isn't based on volume or Area effect. It is based on intensity. Largest fire is a forest fire (over 100x100 miles), most intense is an atomic explosion.
We can set atomics at CR 30. So brightest Light from a Photokinetic is atomic blast, fastest wind aerokinetic atomic blast, highest pyrokinetic heat atomic blast. But level 20 characters aren't CR 30.
Usually, they are CR 14-17, maybe 20 on a good day with lots of items and multiclassing. Scaling it down, maybe largest Fire a level 20 character can reasonably expect is 500-640 acres, like a single square mile. Highest winds at tornado speeds, brightest area effect lights are a "sunburn" from a point blank lightning bolt, or an attack form laser beam similar to Scorching Ray.
The earth is about 5 times denser than water. I think it was Germanium as an average. This is useful to know because when you throw a gallon bucket of water at someone's head, they get wet. You throw a gallon sized rock at someone's head, and they probably die. Air is about 700 times lighter than water.
So here is what is true. Attacking someone with wind requires gigantic amounts of air, or compressed air like in "no country for old men". The compressed Air attack in that movie was using air 200 times more dense than normal. Point is, even using air like a stabby stab knife to the head doing crappy damage with a Rogue Sneak attack bonus to compensate, you still need lots of air. Most of us think of a tornado, flying debris, or vaccuum when thinking of air attacks.
Again, we treat Telekinesis as "Earth". Earth is solid objects, Earth is rocks being thrown like sling bullets, Earth is boulders being hurled like Stone Giants do. Earth is Gravity that smacks people down when they fall. And gravity is stuff floating in orbit, levitating, like reverse gravity. So can we agree "Earth" is the closest element to Telekinetics? In my earlier post i had 13 psi being used to move 20 tons, at level 17-20.
Moving on, Water is rain, ice, snow, and bodies of water like streams, ponds, rivers, lakes, and seas. It is tidal waves, floods, and so on.
I think the amount of water moveable, should be higher, but maybe start lower
So like, maybe a cup of water, or a gallon of water, and then jump drastically with each psi point. The table I used before was roughly x100 per 5 steps. I'm thinking x1000 per 5 steps for water, so about x4 each increased psi point increment.
If we start with a cup of water (8 ounces), we get the following table (we can start anywhere on this table and then assign Psi costs from level 1 to 20)
Step. . . Water Volume
0. . . . . . 1 cup
1. . . . . . 1 quart
2 . . . . . .1 gallon, Derp
3 . . . . . .4 gallons
4. . . . . . 16 gallons, Quick shower
5. . . . . . 64 gallons
6. . . . . . 256 gallons, Hot Tub
7 . . . . . .1000 gallons
8 . . . . . .4000 gallons
9 . . . . . .16,000 gallons, large kiddie pool
10. . . . . 64,000 gallons
11. . . . . 256,000 gallons, Water Tower
12. . . . .1 million gallons, Pond, Surf Wave
17 . . . ..1 billion gallons, Small Lake, Tsunami Wave
22. . . . .1 trillion gallons, medium lake, Water needed for a Drought
27. . . . .1 quadrillion gallons, great Lake
32 . . . . 1 quintillion gallons, Sea
Somewhere between 100 quintillion and 1 sextillion gallons is the total sum of water on Earth. D&D has 10 steps for levels, from 0 to 9. The question is how much water do we want characters moving?
I'm pretty partial to something between 12 and 17 on this table.
Roughly speaking, there's about 700 times more volume to air than water, and about 7 gallons to 1 cubic foot, so (really fudging numbers here) we get about 100 cubic feet of air per gallon. A 5 ft square is 5x5x5 or 125 cubic feet (although people tend to be taller, this at least gives us a basic grid), so fudging the numbers even more, we get one mansized box per 1 gallon on the previous table, and roughly twice that many gallons to get to the ceiling.
Step. . . Wind Volume
0. . . . . . 4 balloons
1. . . . . . 25 cubic feet
2 . . . . . .1 square 5x5 feet
3 . . . . . .400 cubic feet, air consumption deep diving for 1 minute
4. . . . . . 1600 feet, 1 room
5. . . . . . 32 square (each 5x5x10) 1 story room, like a grand banquett
6. . . . . . 256 squares, 128 squares 1 story, roughly 1 house
7 . . . . . .500 squares worth of floors, 1 keep
8 . . . . . .2000 squares worth of floors, 1 small castle
9 . . . . . .8000 squares, half for large, quarter for huge
10. . . . . 32,000 squares, small twister
12. . . . . F-5 Tornado (like a 30square x 30square a mile high)
27. . . . .1 quadrillion squares, a large hurricane over 100 miles in diameter
sorry for the lengthiness.
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
shintashi wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
The immortal definitely needs multiple attacks (they're somewhat comparable to the paladin, at least at low levels, and their power point damage isn't enough to make them comparable to a rogue's single attacks). The Awakened definitely needs to have their Mind Thrust improve like a cantrip ontop of being able to be upgraded; this will help it's damage compete with single target spells and against the raw power of the Warlock's modified Eldritch Blast.
I like the concept of the disciplines. Hopefully you can take on two disciplines at some point. Clarification on the durations is needed; I read it as the abilities with listed durations last past concentration ending, but I can definitely see the confusion.
We've started playtesting some Mystics, taking a party through LMoP from level 1, to see how it runs. We've just done the first encounter (Goblin Ambush) so far but three things have already come up that have needed thinking through.
1) Two of the party are Order of the Awakened mystics and they have their Psychic Mind feature operating continuously. We've decided that they can automatically read the surface thoughts of every creature that comes into sight, and communicate them telepathically to the other members of the party. To keep it simple, the DM will narrate every creature's thoughts and intentions when he describes their appearance and behaviour. For example:
Two goblins come bursting out of the bushes beside the trail, waving scimitars and uttering blood-thirsty yells. One is intending to attack "that tall man in leather armour" and the other is going for "the woman in splint mail". They intend to kill you all and steal your wagon. What do you do?
The name, Mystic, is growing on me, I have always like the Ascetic/Yogi-type connection to psionics, Psion/Psionicist has never quite sat right with me.