What warlock subclass makes a better tank than a barbarian?
If we define 'tank' as 'soaks up damage well', probably none. If we define 'tank' as 'good at protecting the party', barbarians are pretty garbage tanks, any spellcaster with a zoning spell is better at it than a barbarian (what's better than directing attacks at the durable character? Making the monsters unable to attack at all).
What warlock subclass makes a better tank than a barbarian?
This question depends quite a bit on how you define "better tank," but I'd go with Hexblade as it gets armor proficiency + the Shield spell natively and hasn't been updated yet. But the overarching point, that throwing a class out because another class can beat it at something is silly, stands. Classes are combinations of abilities and concepts, so measuring them with one particular yardstick (like "better tank") doesn't add value.
The issue for some being it's not really clear what the Psion's combination amounts to. It's somewhere between a Bard and Wizard in terms of spell repertoire, which is something but not necessarily distinctive or engaging. The other core class features are very limited in scope and nearly all run off PED, which are also used by a lot of the subclass features. But at the same time I can imagine they want the PED pool to be limited since it's also running on full caster spell slots, so the current iteration feels caught in the middle.
What warlock subclass makes a better tank than a barbarian?
This question depends quite a bit on how you define "better tank," but I'd go with Hexblade as it gets armor proficiency + the Shield spell natively and hasn't been updated yet. But the overarching point, that throwing a class out because another class can beat it at something is silly, stands. Classes are combinations of abilities and concepts, so measuring them with one particular yardstick (like "better tank") doesn't add value.
I'd say barbarian is quite clearly better, due to its increased health, resistances, and various other abilities. Also, I was specifically responding to the idea that warlocks can somehow be better at anything than any other class.
The issue for some being it's not really clear what the Psion's combination amounts to. It's somewhere between a Bard and Wizard in terms of spell repertoire, which is something but not necessarily distinctive or engaging.
That's entirely subjective; I find them plenty engaging. And there's only so much "distinctive" you can get when the building blocks of the spell list are predominantly the same ones that every other caster (particularly arcane caster) gets to pick from. The core book has a spells chapter for a reason.
I'd say barbarian is quite clearly better, due to its increased health, resistances, and various other abilities. Also, I was specifically responding to the idea that warlocks can somehow be better at anything than any other class.
But it's not "clearly better" as Pantagruel rightly pointed out. If you define tank as "protects the party" most barbarians are indeed garbage at it, because they have no way to force enemies to target them besides looking big and threatening and hoping that's enough for whatever AI the DM has ascribed to the monsters in question. An owlbear might see the barbarian as a bigger threat than the guy in a dress altering reality behind him, or they might go right for the squishier and less immediately pointy snack.
I'd say barbarian is quite clearly better, due to its increased health, resistances, and various other abilities. Also, I was specifically responding to the idea that warlocks can somehow be better at anything than any other class.
But it's not "clearly better" as Pantagruel rightly pointed out. If you define tank as "protects the party" most barbarians are indeed garbage at it, because they have no way to force enemies to target them besides looking big and threatening and hoping that's enough for whatever AI the DM has ascribed to the monsters in question. An owlbear might see the barbarian as a bigger threat than the guy in a dress altering reality behind him, or they might go right for the squishier and less immediately pointy snack.
There's the fact that the enemy would need to either go first and go all the way around the barbarian, or otherwise draw an opportunity attack. Granting essentially half a turn to an enemy is not something you want to do.
The issue for some being it's not really clear what the Psion's combination amounts to. It's somewhere between a Bard and Wizard in terms of spell repertoire, which is something but not necessarily distinctive or engaging.
That's entirely subjective; I find them plenty engaging. And there's only so much "distinctive" you can get when the building blocks of the spell list are predominantly the same ones that every other caster (particularly arcane caster) gets to pick from. The core book has a spells chapter for a reason.
I mean, that's kinda been one of the reasons why I haven't expected them to do Psions in 5e- if your special psychic powers are just spellcasting in a different outfit they're not really special, and an alt system will pretty much inevitably be notably over or underpowered in comparison. And what we've got instead is honestly something of the worst of both worlds- using spellcasting as their primary mechanic means they're lost in the crowd of all the other full casters, and because their personal powers are a secondary feature they've got very limited uses and have a lot of underwhelming options.
The issue for some being it's not really clear what the Psion's combination amounts to. It's somewhere between a Bard and Wizard in terms of spell repertoire, which is something but not necessarily distinctive or engaging.
That's entirely subjective; I find them plenty engaging. And there's only so much "distinctive" you can get when the building blocks of the spell list are predominantly the same ones that every other caster (particularly arcane caster) gets to pick from. The core book has a spells chapter for a reason.
I mean, that's kinda been one of the reasons why I haven't expected them to do Psions in 5e- if your special psychic powers are just spellcasting in a different outfit they're not really special, and an alt system will pretty much inevitably be notably over or underpowered in comparison. And what we've got instead is honestly something of the worst of both worlds- using spellcasting as their primary mechanic means they're lost in the crowd of all the other full casters, and because their personal powers are a secondary feature they've got very limited uses and have a lot of underwhelming options.
Are you claiming the latter as a fact or are you stating an opinion?
And again, the reasons we don't get more unique classes are more likely the sheer backlash against Mystic back in the day, & the hamstringing of current design into Beyond-friendly templates to cut costs by order of Hasbro overriding WotC & micromanaging them via insisting that things work on Beyond first & foremost.
I mean, that's kinda been one of the reasons why I haven't expected them to do Psions in 5e- if your special psychic powers are just spellcasting in a different outfit they're not really special, and an alt system will pretty much inevitably be notably over or underpowered in comparison
"Not really special" is also subjective. I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't. Maybe enough of you will drown me out in the survey, maybe not.
And what we've got instead is honestly something of the worst of both worlds- using spellcasting as their primary mechanic means they're lost in the crowd of all the other full casters, and because their personal powers are a secondary feature they've got very limited uses and have a lot of underwhelming options.
For me it's pretty impossible for them to be "lost in the crowd" when only one other caster can do what they do (cast everything silently, and even then not nearly as well), and only one other caster uses their stat.
I mean, that's kinda been one of the reasons why I haven't expected them to do Psions in 5e- if your special psychic powers are just spellcasting in a different outfit they're not really special, and an alt system will pretty much inevitably be notably over or underpowered in comparison
"Not really special" is also subjective. I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't. Maybe enough of you will drown me out in the survey, maybe not.
And what we've got instead is honestly something of the worst of both worlds- using spellcasting as their primary mechanic means they're lost in the crowd of all the other full casters, and because their personal powers are a secondary feature they've got very limited uses and have a lot of underwhelming options.
For me it's pretty impossible for them to be "lost in the crowd" when only one other caster can do what they do (cast everything silently, and even then not nearly as well), and only one other caster uses their stat.
Casting everything silently veers back and forth pretty sharply between "pointless ribbon" and "major headache for the DM" depending on the campaign- it's not a positive imo. And despite how much handwringing people make about it, INT casting simply is not a significant characteristic. Most casters can afford to set INT to +3 if they want to lean into it, the additional +2 is notable but not critical for skill checks, and there's enough options for Expertise, alt stats, or advantage on knowledge type rolls that the difference can easily be made up.
Also, I quite frankly don't care strongly enough to even participate in the survey. I think this is a pointless exercise in trying to fill a dozen divergent niches of "like a wizard, but not", but it's no skin off my nose one way or the other. Either this will be pushed through because they're looking to experiment with introducing more new classes to the game and there's enough interest in it, or it'll fizzle out because enough people feel the concept is incoherent and the initial pitch falls short, and we'll get more of the usual handwringing about those evil "other people" who just have to ruin everyone else's fun as if this was some special coordinated attack and not just a piece of UA not making it through the same vetting every other one goes through. I don't think there's enough that works to justify pushing the concept through, but I really, truly, don't actually care enough to work out where on a survey spectrum I feel about all the different features.
Are you claiming the latter as a fact or are you stating an opinion?
Let's see- the unique spell count takes one hand, there's massive overlap with the Wizard list, and I've already gone over how limited Disciplines are compared to Metamagic. And they're working off a fixed list of ready spells, so there's not even an adaptability factor to favor it. As I said above, the one distinctive thing this concept does as a caster is either fairly pointless if you're running a basic dungeon crawl type campaign or easily becomes a massive headache for the DM as you've got a caster who can throw around most forms of mind control or other spells that don't obviously spawn from the caster without being detected as long as they can wrangle line of sight for S components- which can create its own can of worms for a table- and also cannot be "disarmed" the way any other caster can if the party needs to be held up without playing the overt "antimagic crops up because I don't want the caster to brute force this obstacle with magic" card. What exactly does the Psion do differently as a caster aside from play the "but I'm special" card to ignore the two biggest checks on the circumstances magic can be used in?
And again, the reasons we don't get more unique classes are more likely the sheer backlash against Mystic back in the day, & the hamstringing of current design into Beyond-friendly templates to cut costs by order of Hasbro overriding WotC & micromanaging them via insisting that things work on Beyond first & foremost.
Are you claiming this as fact, or are you stating an opinion?
I mean, that's kinda been one of the reasons why I haven't expected them to do Psions in 5e- if your special psychic powers are just spellcasting in a different outfit they're not really special, and an alt system will pretty much inevitably be notably over or underpowered in comparison
"Not really special" is also subjective. I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't. Maybe enough of you will drown me out in the survey, maybe not.
And what we've got instead is honestly something of the worst of both worlds- using spellcasting as their primary mechanic means they're lost in the crowd of all the other full casters, and because their personal powers are a secondary feature they've got very limited uses and have a lot of underwhelming options.
For me it's pretty impossible for them to be "lost in the crowd" when only one other caster can do what they do (cast everything silently, and even then not nearly as well), and only one other caster uses their stat.
It's a pretty weak argument to me that a new class is distinctive because only one other class can do the same thing it can. It's like trying to climb a mountain, giving up, and telling everybody that you got halfway up a mountain.
Casting everything silently veers back and forth pretty sharply between "pointless ribbon" and "major headache for the DM" depending on the campaign- it's not a positive imo.
Silent casting is never a ribbon unless stealth/scouting never comes up in your games. I happen to think that's a pretty common scenario at most tables.
And despite how much handwringing people make about it, INT casting simply is not a significant characteristic.
Uh, the folks whining incessantly about psion's "uniqueness" are the ones doing the "handwringing." All I'm doing is stating plainly what I'm willing to spend my gaming dollar on - another INT full caster, one with several distinct characteristics between themselves and a wizard / sorcerer.
Also, I quite frankly don't care strongly enough to even participate in the survey. I think this is a pointless exercise in trying to fill a dozen divergent niches of "like a wizard, but not", but it's no skin off my nose one way or the other. Either this will be pushed through because they're looking to experiment with introducing more new classes to the game and there's enough interest in it, or it'll fizzle out because enough people feel the concept is incoherent and the initial pitch falls short, and we'll get more of the usual handwringing about those evil "other people" who just have to ruin everyone else's fun as if this was some special coordinated attack and not just a piece of UA not making it through the same vetting every other one goes through. I don't think there's enough that works to justify pushing the concept through, but I really, truly, don't actually care enough to work out where on a survey spectrum I feel about all the different features.
I mean, if you care enough to post ad nauseam about how little you care, you might as well do the survey too at that point.
What I can promise you is this - I won't be calling anyone "evil" if the UA fails.
It's a pretty weak argument to me that a new class is distinctive because only one other class can do the same thing it can. It's like trying to climb a mountain, giving up, and telling everybody that you got halfway up a mountain.
Respectfully, what you consider to be weak doesn't matter to me in the slightest. What matters is what the designers think, not a random person on the internet.
I mean, that's kinda been one of the reasons why I haven't expected them to do Psions in 5e- if your special psychic powers are just spellcasting in a different outfit they're not really special, and an alt system will pretty much inevitably be notably over or underpowered in comparison
"Not really special" is also subjective. I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't. Maybe enough of you will drown me out in the survey, maybe not.
And what we've got instead is honestly something of the worst of both worlds- using spellcasting as their primary mechanic means they're lost in the crowd of all the other full casters, and because their personal powers are a secondary feature they've got very limited uses and have a lot of underwhelming options.
For me it's pretty impossible for them to be "lost in the crowd" when only one other caster can do what they do (cast everything silently, and even then not nearly as well), and only one other caster uses their stat.
Casting everything silently veers back and forth pretty sharply between "pointless ribbon" and "major headache for the DM" depending on the campaign- it's not a positive imo. And despite how much handwringing people make about it, INT casting simply is not a significant characteristic. Most casters can afford to set INT to +3 if they want to lean into it, the additional +2 is notable but not critical for skill checks, and there's enough options for Expertise, alt stats, or advantage on knowledge type rolls that the difference can easily be made up.
Also, I quite frankly don't care strongly enough to even participate in the survey. I think this is a pointless exercise in trying to fill a dozen divergent niches of "like a wizard, but not", but it's no skin off my nose one way or the other. Either this will be pushed through because they're looking to experiment with introducing more new classes to the game and there's enough interest in it, or it'll fizzle out because enough people feel the concept is incoherent and the initial pitch falls short, and we'll get more of the usual handwringing about those evil "other people" who just have to ruin everyone else's fun as if this was some special coordinated attack and not just a piece of UA not making it through the same vetting every other one goes through. I don't think there's enough that works to justify pushing the concept through, but I really, truly, don't actually care enough to work out where on a survey spectrum I feel about all the different features.
Are you claiming the latter as a fact or are you stating an opinion?
Let's see- the unique spell count takes one hand, there's massive overlap with the Wizard list, and I've already gone over how limited Disciplines are compared to Metamagic. And they're working off a fixed list of ready spells, so there's not even an adaptability factor to favor it. As I said above, the one distinctive thing this concept does as a caster is either fairly pointless if you're running a basic dungeon crawl type campaign or easily becomes a massive headache for the DM as you've got a caster who can throw around most forms of mind control or other spells that don't obviously spawn from the caster without being detected as long as they can wrangle line of sight for S components- which can create its own can of worms for a table- and also cannot be "disarmed" the way any other caster can if the party needs to be held up without playing the overt "antimagic crops up because I don't want the caster to brute force this obstacle with magic" card. What exactly does the Psion do differently as a caster aside from play the "but I'm special" card to ignore the two biggest checks on the circumstances magic can be used in?
And again, the reasons we don't get more unique classes are more likely the sheer backlash against Mystic back in the day, & the hamstringing of current design into Beyond-friendly templates to cut costs by order of Hasbro overriding WotC & micromanaging them via insisting that things work on Beyond first & foremost.
Are you claiming this as fact, or are you stating an opinion?
At least I made sure to add a qualifier instead of remaining absolute.
& I will remember to do so from now on, not just with the Psion, but other posts as well.
Because firmness of conviction should be allowed to have room for error.
At this point, there are no "unique" classes if we push that to its most clickbaity extreme, due to this Psion not being like the Mystic, which caused flamewars even before everything seems to have been streamlined into Beyond-focused compatibility from what feels like Hasbro demanding such of WotC after what I have dubbed the "Pandemic Era" of DND began & didn't stop.
I'll preface this by saying I'll be giving constructive feedback and won't be burning this to the ground - I want to see a Psion class very badly. But I agree with Acromos; I won't go quoting things because the conversation spanned a long while, but to me this class looks like it's just a full caster spell list with some benefits. If all it takes to make a whole new class is making a full caster that gets a passive Lvl 1 identity ribbon and a list of spells, then I can crank out new classes like there's no tomorrow.
I'm definitely in the field of wanting a bit of complexity or difference in a new class. This current Psion feels like they don't do anything outside of their given spell list and a few neat tricks.
I view this as a great multi class dip for other classes, but I wouldn't want to play one of these past level 3 personally.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
It's a pretty weak argument to me that a new class is distinctive because only one other class can do the same thing it can. It's like trying to climb a mountain, giving up, and telling everybody that you got halfway up a mountain.
Respectfully, what you consider to be weak doesn't matter to me in the slightest. What matters is what the designers think, not a random person on the internet.
I cannot see how this class does anything - with the possible exception of not using material components - that another class doesn't do better. Much better. But if the reply is the thing about material components - the discussion needs go no further. I can concede that it does that. Why that would matter will still be beyond me, but certainly it's true. It does that.
Anything you can do in D&D with any class there is a Warlock Subclass that can do it better. If you are looking to sink an idea because it doesn't do anything better than another class, then we should all play Warlocks.
Or, we look at what each class does differently, and enjoy the distinct variations. Psionic Classes have always brought something unique to the game. This iteration is beautiful in it's simplicity, and distinct identity.
I think it has some minor flaws that are easy to adjust for an official release, but even if the final release is what we see, I can work with this.
I think it needs a few more Cantrips, and I think it needs access to the Shield Spell. I think most of the subclasses are useable, but one of them is kind of pointless. But then the recent new Artificer subclass had the same dumb flavor of uselessness. Someone really wants a teleporter character.
That said, it's not weak, but not over powered like Wizard and Sorcerer. (Not adding Warlock to my OP caster list, as what makes them OP is their Hybrid Caster/Martial design and Jack of all trades, Master of all. Ironically just like the Mystic the last UA psionic class)
What warlock subclass makes a better tank than a barbarian?
Using just the 2024 edition, aka 5.5, I would say Archfey Warlock is by far a better tank.
This right here is why.
Level 3: Steps of the Fey
Your patron grants you the ability to move between the boundaries of the planes. You can cast Misty Step without expending a spell slot a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.
In addition, whenever you cast that spell, you can choose one of the following additional effects.
Refreshing Step. Immediately after you teleport, you or one creature you can see within 10 feet of yourself gains 1d10 Temporary Hit Points.
Taunting Step. Creatures within 5 feet of the space you left must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or have Disadvantage on attack rolls against creatures other than you until the start of your next turn.
Basically, you can hit an enemy misty step out of range, and they can't successfully attack anyone else. That will do wonders for keeping the party alive, also the damage output of a Archfey warlock is impressive. I know because right now in my campaign I DM the main tank is an Archfey warlock. Once he gets going the NPCs I have really become useless if I use the standard D&D monsters.
I cannot see how this class does anything - with the possible exception of not using material components - that another class doesn't do better. Much better. But if the reply is the thing about material components - the discussion needs go no further. I can concede that it does that. Why that would matter will still be beyond me, but certainly it's true. It does that.
Anything you can do in D&D with any class there is a Warlock Subclass that can do it better. If you are looking to sink an idea because it doesn't do anything better than another class, then we should all play Warlocks.
Or, we look at what each class does differently, and enjoy the distinct variations. Psionic Classes have always brought something unique to the game. This iteration is beautiful in it's simplicity, and distinct identity.
I think it has some minor flaws that are easy to adjust for an official release, but even if the final release is what we see, I can work with this.
I think it needs a few more Cantrips, and I think it needs access to the Shield Spell. I think most of the subclasses are useable, but one of them is kind of pointless. But then the recent new Artificer subclass had the same dumb flavor of uselessness. Someone really wants a teleporter character.
That said, it's not weak, but not over powered like Wizard and Sorcerer. (Not adding Warlock to my OP caster list, as what makes them OP is their Hybrid Caster/Martial design and Jack of all trades, Master of all. Ironically just like the Mystic the last UA psionic class)
What warlock subclass makes a better tank than a barbarian?
Using just the 2024 edition, aka 5.5, I would say Archfey Warlock is by far a better tank.
This right here is why.
Level 3: Steps of the Fey
Your patron grants you the ability to move between the boundaries of the planes. You can cast Misty Step without expending a spell slot a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.
In addition, whenever you cast that spell, you can choose one of the following additional effects.
Refreshing Step. Immediately after you teleport, you or one creature you can see within 10 feet of yourself gains 1d10 Temporary Hit Points.
Taunting Step. Creatures within 5 feet of the space you left must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or have Disadvantage on attack rolls against creatures other than you until the start of your next turn.
Basically, you can hit an enemy misty step out of range, and they can't successfully attack anyone else. That will do wonders for keeping the party alive, also the damage output of a Archfey warlock is impressive. I know because right now in my campaign I DM the main tank is an Archfey warlock. Once he gets going the NPCs I have really become useless if I use the standard D&D monsters.
That's only 3-5 times per day.
Disadvantage is good, but not perfect. At low levels, that will roughly halve the hit rate against squishy wizards, but at higher levels, the wizard will probably be hit regardless.
There's a saving throw against it.
Once the enemies are engaged with the squishy wizard, the wizard either needs to draw an opportunity attack, or waste their action if they want to move away.
Unless the enemy moves closer to them, they can't enter melee with them for another turn (barring the use speed buffs).
Many enemies have ranged attacks.
One ability does not (often) make a tank. Especially one with as many drawbacks as this one.
Disadvantage is good, but not perfect. At low levels, that will roughly halve the hit rate against squishy wizards, but at higher levels, the wizard will probably be hit regardless.
There's a saving throw against it.
Once the enemies are engaged with the squishy wizard, the wizard either needs to draw an opportunity attack, or waste their action if they want to move away.
Unless the enemy moves closer to them, they can't enter melee with them for another turn (barring the use speed buffs).
Many enemies have ranged attacks.
One ability does not (often) make a tank. Especially one with as many drawbacks as this one.
Better than nothing.
Better than nothing.
Better than nothing.
The warlock has many more tools to get a wizard out of melee with a dangerous foe than a barbarian does.
Warlocks are quite solid at range, so "entering melee" after teleporting out is unnecessary.
Warlocks have ways to deal with range too.
And lastly, nobody is saying "one ability makes a tank." You asked about an entire class/subclass.
Disadvantage is good, but not perfect. At low levels, that will roughly halve the hit rate against squishy wizards, but at higher levels, the wizard will probably be hit regardless.
There's a saving throw against it.
Once the enemies are engaged with the squishy wizard, the wizard either needs to draw an opportunity attack, or waste their action if they want to move away.
Unless the enemy moves closer to them, they can't enter melee with them for another turn (barring the use speed buffs).
Many enemies have ranged attacks.
One ability does not (often) make a tank. Especially one with as many drawbacks as this one.
Better than nothing.
Better than nothing.
Better than nothing.
The warlock has many more tools to get a wizard out of melee with a dangerous foe than a barbarian does.
Warlocks are quite solid at range, so "entering melee" after teleporting out is unnecessary.
Warlocks have ways to deal with range too.
And lastly, nobody is saying "one ability makes a tank." You asked about an entire class/subclass.
“Better than nothing” is a very low bar for saying it fits a particular role.
Disadvantage is good, but not perfect. At low levels, that will roughly halve the hit rate against squishy wizards, but at higher levels, the wizard will probably be hit regardless.
There's a saving throw against it.
Once the enemies are engaged with the squishy wizard, the wizard either needs to draw an opportunity attack, or waste their action if they want to move away.
Unless the enemy moves closer to them, they can't enter melee with them for another turn (barring the use speed buffs).
Many enemies have ranged attacks.
One ability does not (often) make a tank. Especially one with as many drawbacks as this one.
Better than nothing.
Better than nothing.
Better than nothing.
The warlock has many more tools to get a wizard out of melee with a dangerous foe than a barbarian does.
Warlocks are quite solid at range, so "entering melee" after teleporting out is unnecessary.
Warlocks have ways to deal with range too.
And lastly, nobody is saying "one ability makes a tank." You asked about an entire class/subclass.
You are literally claiming that the archfey warlock is a better tank than a barbarian based on one ability.
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If we define 'tank' as 'soaks up damage well', probably none. If we define 'tank' as 'good at protecting the party', barbarians are pretty garbage tanks, any spellcaster with a zoning spell is better at it than a barbarian (what's better than directing attacks at the durable character? Making the monsters unable to attack at all).
The issue for some being it's not really clear what the Psion's combination amounts to. It's somewhere between a Bard and Wizard in terms of spell repertoire, which is something but not necessarily distinctive or engaging. The other core class features are very limited in scope and nearly all run off PED, which are also used by a lot of the subclass features. But at the same time I can imagine they want the PED pool to be limited since it's also running on full caster spell slots, so the current iteration feels caught in the middle.
I'd say barbarian is quite clearly better, due to its increased health, resistances, and various other abilities. Also, I was specifically responding to the idea that warlocks can somehow be better at anything than any other class.
That's entirely subjective; I find them plenty engaging. And there's only so much "distinctive" you can get when the building blocks of the spell list are predominantly the same ones that every other caster (particularly arcane caster) gets to pick from. The core book has a spells chapter for a reason.
But it's not "clearly better" as Pantagruel rightly pointed out. If you define tank as "protects the party" most barbarians are indeed garbage at it, because they have no way to force enemies to target them besides looking big and threatening and hoping that's enough for whatever AI the DM has ascribed to the monsters in question. An owlbear might see the barbarian as a bigger threat than the guy in a dress altering reality behind him, or they might go right for the squishier and less immediately pointy snack.
There's the fact that the enemy would need to either go first and go all the way around the barbarian, or otherwise draw an opportunity attack. Granting essentially half a turn to an enemy is not something you want to do.
I mean, that's kinda been one of the reasons why I haven't expected them to do Psions in 5e- if your special psychic powers are just spellcasting in a different outfit they're not really special, and an alt system will pretty much inevitably be notably over or underpowered in comparison. And what we've got instead is honestly something of the worst of both worlds- using spellcasting as their primary mechanic means they're lost in the crowd of all the other full casters, and because their personal powers are a secondary feature they've got very limited uses and have a lot of underwhelming options.
Are you claiming the latter as a fact or are you stating an opinion?
And again, the reasons we don't get more unique classes are more likely the sheer backlash against Mystic back in the day, & the hamstringing of current design into Beyond-friendly templates to cut costs by order of Hasbro overriding WotC & micromanaging them via insisting that things work on Beyond first & foremost.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
"Not really special" is also subjective. I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't. Maybe enough of you will drown me out in the survey, maybe not.
For me it's pretty impossible for them to be "lost in the crowd" when only one other caster can do what they do (cast everything silently, and even then not nearly as well), and only one other caster uses their stat.
Casting everything silently veers back and forth pretty sharply between "pointless ribbon" and "major headache for the DM" depending on the campaign- it's not a positive imo. And despite how much handwringing people make about it, INT casting simply is not a significant characteristic. Most casters can afford to set INT to +3 if they want to lean into it, the additional +2 is notable but not critical for skill checks, and there's enough options for Expertise, alt stats, or advantage on knowledge type rolls that the difference can easily be made up.
Also, I quite frankly don't care strongly enough to even participate in the survey. I think this is a pointless exercise in trying to fill a dozen divergent niches of "like a wizard, but not", but it's no skin off my nose one way or the other. Either this will be pushed through because they're looking to experiment with introducing more new classes to the game and there's enough interest in it, or it'll fizzle out because enough people feel the concept is incoherent and the initial pitch falls short, and we'll get more of the usual handwringing about those evil "other people" who just have to ruin everyone else's fun as if this was some special coordinated attack and not just a piece of UA not making it through the same vetting every other one goes through. I don't think there's enough that works to justify pushing the concept through, but I really, truly, don't actually care enough to work out where on a survey spectrum I feel about all the different features.
Let's see- the unique spell count takes one hand, there's massive overlap with the Wizard list, and I've already gone over how limited Disciplines are compared to Metamagic. And they're working off a fixed list of ready spells, so there's not even an adaptability factor to favor it. As I said above, the one distinctive thing this concept does as a caster is either fairly pointless if you're running a basic dungeon crawl type campaign or easily becomes a massive headache for the DM as you've got a caster who can throw around most forms of mind control or other spells that don't obviously spawn from the caster without being detected as long as they can wrangle line of sight for S components- which can create its own can of worms for a table- and also cannot be "disarmed" the way any other caster can if the party needs to be held up without playing the overt "antimagic crops up because I don't want the caster to brute force this obstacle with magic" card. What exactly does the Psion do differently as a caster aside from play the "but I'm special" card to ignore the two biggest checks on the circumstances magic can be used in?
Are you claiming this as fact, or are you stating an opinion?
It's a pretty weak argument to me that a new class is distinctive because only one other class can do the same thing it can. It's like trying to climb a mountain, giving up, and telling everybody that you got halfway up a mountain.
Silent casting is never a ribbon unless stealth/scouting never comes up in your games. I happen to think that's a pretty common scenario at most tables.
Uh, the folks whining incessantly about psion's "uniqueness" are the ones doing the "handwringing." All I'm doing is stating plainly what I'm willing to spend my gaming dollar on - another INT full caster, one with several distinct characteristics between themselves and a wizard / sorcerer.
I mean, if you care enough to post ad nauseam about how little you care, you might as well do the survey too at that point.
What I can promise you is this - I won't be calling anyone "evil" if the UA fails.
Respectfully, what you consider to be weak doesn't matter to me in the slightest. What matters is what the designers think, not a random person on the internet.
At least I made sure to add a qualifier instead of remaining absolute.
& I will remember to do so from now on, not just with the Psion, but other posts as well.
Because firmness of conviction should be allowed to have room for error.
At this point, there are no "unique" classes if we push that to its most clickbaity extreme, due to this Psion not being like the Mystic, which caused flamewars even before everything seems to have been streamlined into Beyond-focused compatibility from what feels like Hasbro demanding such of WotC after what I have dubbed the "Pandemic Era" of DND began & didn't stop.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
I'll preface this by saying I'll be giving constructive feedback and won't be burning this to the ground - I want to see a Psion class very badly. But I agree with Acromos; I won't go quoting things because the conversation spanned a long while, but to me this class looks like it's just a full caster spell list with some benefits. If all it takes to make a whole new class is making a full caster that gets a passive Lvl 1 identity ribbon and a list of spells, then I can crank out new classes like there's no tomorrow.
I'm definitely in the field of wanting a bit of complexity or difference in a new class. This current Psion feels like they don't do anything outside of their given spell list and a few neat tricks.
I view this as a great multi class dip for other classes, but I wouldn't want to play one of these past level 3 personally.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Same to you, I guess.
Using just the 2024 edition, aka 5.5, I would say Archfey Warlock is by far a better tank.
This right here is why.
Level 3: Steps of the Fey
Your patron grants you the ability to move between the boundaries of the planes. You can cast Misty Step without expending a spell slot a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.
In addition, whenever you cast that spell, you can choose one of the following additional effects.
Refreshing Step. Immediately after you teleport, you or one creature you can see within 10 feet of yourself gains 1d10 Temporary Hit Points.
Taunting Step. Creatures within 5 feet of the space you left must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or have Disadvantage on attack rolls against creatures other than you until the start of your next turn.
Basically, you can hit an enemy misty step out of range, and they can't successfully attack anyone else. That will do wonders for keeping the party alive, also the damage output of a Archfey warlock is impressive. I know because right now in my campaign I DM the main tank is an Archfey warlock. Once he gets going the NPCs I have really become useless if I use the standard D&D monsters.
One ability does not (often) make a tank. Especially one with as many drawbacks as this one.
And lastly, nobody is saying "one ability makes a tank." You asked about an entire class/subclass.
“Better than nothing” is a very low bar for saying it fits a particular role.
The class he asked it to be compared to is the "nothing" in this case.
You are literally claiming that the archfey warlock is a better tank than a barbarian based on one ability.