Eh; the core features are fairly meh- about half the Discipline options look to be either rolls boosts or don’t have the spells to actually give much purpose to taking/using them. The telepathy is a joke unless you spend a resource on it. Idk, maybe it’s a class that’s more built on your subclass pick, but the core tools mostly feel underwhelming.
I agree that some of the disciplines are weaker than others due to lacking spell support, Destructive Thoughts and Ego Whip being examples of those. But the overall idea of tying disciplines to spell schools is fine, it just needs some tweaks. And disciplines like Id Insinuation and Swift Precognition are more than fine.
The main thing to keep in mind is that at the end of the day, this is a 9th-level spellcaster, that's where the bulk of their power should be coming from - not the psi-dice or another baseline feature.
Meh, I wasn’t seeing much that Swift Precognition could actually use in combat on a reliable basis.
Meh, I wasn’t seeing much that Swift Precognition could actually use in combat on a reliable basis.
True Strike spam.
Didn’t think of that. Still a fairly gimmicky and incongruous approach, though. The class isn’t built for melee, so it’d probably be standing back and potshotting with a shortbow, which isn’t exactly my first image of a psion.
Didn’t think of that. Still a fairly gimmicky and incongruous approach, though. The class isn’t built for melee, so it’d probably be standing back and potshotting with a shortbow, which isn’t exactly my first image of a psion.
I'm not convinced that the designers thought of it either, as it's probably too good relative to other uses of psi dice.
<snip> Idk, I don’t hate this class as a whole, but it’s got several rough patches and I’m not sure how much it offers that existing classes don’t, aside from INT casting.
This is where I am at as well. I don't want them to drop this class, but it needs some work. As a social caster, Bard is much better equipped for the role. As an Int caster, Wizard is better in pretty much every way due to a MUCH larger spell list. To make this class stand apart, it really needs to lean into the Dice mechanic more.
I’d love them to get more into the dice mechanic, but they had that really cool UA with the dice pool that could grow or shrink depending on how you rolled. That was so cool, but didn’t get enough support from UA voters, iirc. So I’m wondering how willing they’ll be to lean into it. But, maybe with Crawford and Perkins having moved on the new guard will experiment more. (No criticism, I think they were both really very good.)
I'm still on my first read through and struggling tonot simply toss the whole thing. Like Yurei on page 2 I just don't see this as a real psion. I don't like how heavily it relies on the psionc dice - given that the needs a tone of dice - like 5/level or more just to get reasonable use of the abilities. I don't like the heavy reliance on hunters mark in the ranger and this, to me, is even worse. the ranges for telepathy are actually small and effectively useless - you have to be right in a person's face to use it and then why bother? getting rid of most components was good, leaving somatics and removing verbal I would do it the other way around -drawing on the mental magic from the Belriand - the will and the word to cause effects. I would have gone deeper into the use of force and elemental powers for the spells ( there are plenty of such in the old 1e-3e Psionics books they could have updated to 5e to generate a whole new and different spell list to make the class unique. I like the idea of a spell point class rather than a spell slot system as well. powers/spells/whatever are still leveled and abilities have base levels but extra power points can lift those levels and the effects. none of the subclasses really interest me as written. They all look playable but blah. I haven't read the wild talents/feats yet so I won't comment on them yet. Overall, I'm happy they tried and sad it fell so far from what it could have been. I know that, as is, I will not be replacing my homebrew psionics with this version.
I don't want something as broken & cumbersome to casuals as 1e-3.5e Psionics were, & definitely not as broken as Mystic, no matter what people's personal experiences are.
But I absolutely reject any destructive calls to throw the whole thing away.
Because look what happened to so many options because Other Stuff Exists & other destructive feedback fallacies.
I'd rather improve what is to see what will be, instead of tossing out another option wholesale AGAIN because it isn't nostalgic or niche player bases & play styles-centric.
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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.
The telepathy I'll agree should scale differently.Have the constant telepathy be much shorter range around the psion (scaling with level) while the expanded telepathy can go up to 1 mile but depends on the dice for its duration, similar to the Soulknife Rogue's Psychic Whispers feature.
This thread, like any thread on psionics, is a good illustration of why this is a trap for developers. Some people hate the dice. Some people want everything based on the dice.
Many people don't want psionics to be casters at all, but so many spells already cover the gamut of "mind magic" and to develop nearly identical powers as "not-spells" goes deeply against the streamlining and efficiency that guides 5e(+) on a fundamental level.
All that to say, this is as good as we're going to get. If there's something about this you hate, there's probably someone who considers it a make-or-break feature. There will never be consensus on what players want from psionics, so we might as well approach it in the spirit of compromise.
This thread, like any thread on psionics, is a good illustration of why this is a trap for developers. Some people hate the dice. Some people want everything based on the dice.
Many people don't want psionics to be casters at all, but so many spells already cover the gamut of "mind magic" and to develop nearly identical powers as "not-spells" goes deeply against the streamlining and efficiency that guides 5e(+) on a fundamental level.
All that to say, this is as good as we're going to get. If there's something about this you hate, there's probably someone who considers it a make-or-break feature. There will never be consensus on what players want from psionics, so we might as well approach it in the spirit of compromise.
THANK YOU. This is exactly what I'm on about. Less discards, more compromises.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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’m not interested in a compromise that results in something I’m not willing to use. As written I’m not willing to use this class. I would be content with an optional class where they showed how to implement a “spell points” system and was divorced from the normal 5e lock step subclass system. Why? Because to my mind that is where mind powers/ psionics actually lies. It’s not some “infection” from the far realm as the present subclasses effectively are. Now that doesn’t mean that subclass features at certain levels don’t exist but imagine that stead of 4+ subclasses with rigid features at those levels you selected the subclass features you wanted. You could go all one type or you could pick and chose and develop your own personal style. If you look back at the various powers/ abilities/“spells” from the 1-3e psionics books there are a ton of things that could have been updated and turned into fairly unique abilities and spells. This UA has 4 subclasses, the old stuff had 6 - where is the stuff for the other 2? Wild Talent feats where you can only take 1? Why? The sorcerer gets transmute metamagic allowing them to pick and choose the energy type each casting, the psion is forced to only have one alternate energy type- Why? you don’t compromise when you know they could do something far better. This isn’t “good enough” so toss it back and say retry. I at least am willing to wait.
Tell me Beyond can handle what you proposed above on the skeleton crew of devs they have trying to manage the shitty coding Fandom & Curse left this site in.
2014 Spell Points were never implemented. What makes you think it can handle more customization?
& before you say "pen & paper/spreadsheet/Other Platform", first of all, the former requires an accessible group, and the second requires an amount of computer power not everyone will ever have, while the 3rd ones are not going to be in the plan for obvious reasons.
In my opinion, this needs some tweaks within the framework that is(EASILY longer-range telepathy & Upgradable Minor Telekinesis that scales with Psion level & more Psionic Energy dice/ways to recover such, for starters), but not a full-blown denial based solely on "It's not how it was back in my day" because that, in corporate feedback 101 in today's age of Hasbro hamstringing WotC, translates to "drop it & never speak of it again, the feedback was red".
Heliana's Part 2 on Beyond is already less likely because of the original class of The Tamer deviating from the framework that is, which is also the likely reason we didn't get the entirety of Valda's Spire of Secrets when Hasbro ordered WotC to only accept the April Fool's themed pack we did get, & only 2024, despite what the devs of Valda's said they were willing to go above & beyond for.
If you think a full-blown beyond-Warlock Build-A-Bear class using only points w/no spell slots will work within said framework and without hiring a frickton more coders &/or the old ones back, I can't help you.
& if you don't remember the pre-pandemic fandom war that got Mystic abandoned entirely because of its controversy-inducing incongruity with the game as it was, even before Hasbro began milking DND, it's not that hard to look WayBack & see for yourself how heated that got.
So, because of all of that & loads more, I'd rather have something than nothing this time.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Well .... I mean - I did say 'at everything'. So no. Not the wizard. It literally can't bard like a bard, wizard like a wizard, fight like a fighter.
I'm ... not sure. I mean. Does it do anything? If you feel it does, maybe you can show me what? But I'm not asking you to agree with me. I just don't see how this class does anything, adds anything, is capable of anything that other classes don't do better - across the board.
If you know where this class excells, feel free to inform me - because obviously I'm absolutely missing it.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Mandrake, yes something better. The entire DDB can’t implement argument is bogus - DDB doesn’t implement UAs. UAs are alpha test marketing samples so why not float things that are really different - it’s all paper and pencil creation no programming need. Yes if folks really like stuff you may have to worry about that but not for a UA. I understand the desire to get “something” but I can homebrew something if I’m that desperate. And yes, I’m old school enough that I’m perfectly capable of mixing paper and digital as both a player and a DM. Yes there is a need for (American based) coders for DDB but there is a similar problem across corporate America not just Hasbro/DDB. I joined after the Mystic nonsense so no I don’t remember it. What I do remember is the ranger UA which was very good and fairly different that ended up coming back in 2024 as far more mainstream. Given this UA I’m not expecting anything interesting or usable by me if/when it comes out.
Okay, he's my pitch - Do we need another INT based full caster? And does INT even really make sense for this class? Psions seem to more closely resemble Sorcerers than Wizards? Do they study to gain their psionic abilities? How about, instead of INT, we have the first ever CON based full caster!!
(pause for applause)
Okay, everybody may now proceed in informing me on just how wrong I am.
The metamporths weapons need some wording changes to include specifics that they can be used for magic actions that require a weapon (since they don't inherently have a monetary value for say truestrike, and their specifics don't include cse cases for as part of a magic action, which seems rough) it also would be good to get some context in with how the organic weapons could be valid target of the magic weapon spell (helps with scaling issues to some degree) and if you have a source of bonus action attacks whether that would also be a valid use for them. (again bonus action true strike from swift precognition)
a more general thing is that there nothing to how the psy dice interact with say psy warrior psy dice, currently theres no restrictions that you could use the psy warriors dice for psion class, despite not being able to do it in the opposite direction.
Well .... I mean - I did say 'at everything'. So no. Not the wizard. It literally can't bard like a bard, wizard like a wizard, fight like a fighter.
I'm ... not sure. I mean. Does it do anything? If you feel it does, maybe you can show me what? But I'm not asking you to agree with me. I just don't see how this class does anything, adds anything, is capable of anything that other classes don't do better - across the board.
If you know where this class excells, feel free to inform me - because obviously I'm absolutely missing it.
How is it worse than Warlock or Artificer? How is it worse than any martial?
I mean, I could just quote the spell list at you again but I don't think it's going to accomplish anything unless you truly appreciate what those spells, like, do. So we might just have to agree to disagree.
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Meh, I wasn’t seeing much that Swift Precognition could actually use in combat on a reliable basis.
True Strike spam.
Didn’t think of that. Still a fairly gimmicky and incongruous approach, though. The class isn’t built for melee, so it’d probably be standing back and potshotting with a shortbow, which isn’t exactly my first image of a psion.
I'm not convinced that the designers thought of it either, as it's probably too good relative to other uses of psi dice.
Unearthed Arcana is unbalanced PRECISELY to test stuff like this.
This is intentional. & they want it playtested.
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’d love them to get more into the dice mechanic, but they had that really cool UA with the dice pool that could grow or shrink depending on how you rolled. That was so cool, but didn’t get enough support from UA voters, iirc. So I’m wondering how willing they’ll be to lean into it.
But, maybe with Crawford and Perkins having moved on the new guard will experiment more. (No criticism, I think they were both really very good.)
I'm still on my first read through and struggling tonot simply toss the whole thing. Like Yurei on page 2 I just don't see this as a real psion. I don't like how heavily it relies on the psionc dice - given that the needs a tone of dice - like 5/level or more just to get reasonable use of the abilities. I don't like the heavy reliance on hunters mark in the ranger and this, to me, is even worse. the ranges for telepathy are actually small and effectively useless - you have to be right in a person's face to use it and then why bother? getting rid of most components was good, leaving somatics and removing verbal I would do it the other way around -drawing on the mental magic from the Belriand - the will and the word to cause effects. I would have gone deeper into the use of force and elemental powers for the spells ( there are plenty of such in the old 1e-3e Psionics books they could have updated to 5e to generate a whole new and different spell list to make the class unique. I like the idea of a spell point class rather than a spell slot system as well. powers/spells/whatever are still leveled and abilities have base levels but extra power points can lift those levels and the effects. none of the subclasses really interest me as written. They all look playable but blah. I haven't read the wild talents/feats yet so I won't comment on them yet. Overall, I'm happy they tried and sad it fell so far from what it could have been. I know that, as is, I will not be replacing my homebrew psionics with this version.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I don't want something as broken & cumbersome to casuals as 1e-3.5e Psionics were, & definitely not as broken as Mystic, no matter what people's personal experiences are.
But I absolutely reject any destructive calls to throw the whole thing away.
Because look what happened to so many options because Other Stuff Exists & other destructive feedback fallacies.
I'd rather improve what is to see what will be, instead of tossing out another option wholesale AGAIN because it isn't nostalgic or niche player bases & play styles-centric.
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.
The telepathy I'll agree should scale differently.Have the constant telepathy be much shorter range around the psion (scaling with level) while the expanded telepathy can go up to 1 mile but depends on the dice for its duration, similar to the Soulknife Rogue's Psychic Whispers feature.
See, that's entirely reasonable.
I'd have it scale in range by level myself.
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.
This thread, like any thread on psionics, is a good illustration of why this is a trap for developers. Some people hate the dice. Some people want everything based on the dice.
Many people don't want psionics to be casters at all, but so many spells already cover the gamut of "mind magic" and to develop nearly identical powers as "not-spells" goes deeply against the streamlining and efficiency that guides 5e(+) on a fundamental level.
All that to say, this is as good as we're going to get. If there's something about this you hate, there's probably someone who considers it a make-or-break feature. There will never be consensus on what players want from psionics, so we might as well approach it in the spirit of compromise.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
THANK YOU. This is exactly what I'm on about. Less discards, more compromises.
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.
While compromise is certainly an important thing, it's still worth asking "does this add enough to the game to be worth the trouble of including it?"
I’m not interested in a compromise that results in something I’m not willing to use. As written I’m not willing to use this class. I would be content with an optional class where they showed how to implement a “spell points” system and was divorced from the normal 5e lock step subclass system. Why? Because to my mind that is where mind powers/ psionics actually lies. It’s not some “infection” from the far realm as the present subclasses effectively are. Now that doesn’t mean that subclass features at certain levels don’t exist but imagine that stead of 4+ subclasses with rigid features at those levels you selected the subclass features you wanted. You could go all one type or you could pick and chose and develop your own personal style. If you look back at the various powers/ abilities/“spells” from the 1-3e psionics books there are a ton of things that could have been updated and turned into fairly unique abilities and spells. This UA has 4 subclasses, the old stuff had 6 - where is the stuff for the other 2? Wild Talent feats where you can only take 1? Why? The sorcerer gets transmute metamagic allowing them to pick and choose the energy type each casting, the psion is forced to only have one alternate energy type- Why?
you don’t compromise when you know they could do something far better. This isn’t “good enough” so toss it back and say retry. I at least am willing to wait.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
"something far better"
Tell me Beyond can handle what you proposed above on the skeleton crew of devs they have trying to manage the shitty coding Fandom & Curse left this site in.
2014 Spell Points were never implemented. What makes you think it can handle more customization?
& before you say "pen & paper/spreadsheet/Other Platform", first of all, the former requires an accessible group, and the second requires an amount of computer power not everyone will ever have, while the 3rd ones are not going to be in the plan for obvious reasons.
In my opinion, this needs some tweaks within the framework that is(EASILY longer-range telepathy & Upgradable Minor Telekinesis that scales with Psion level & more Psionic Energy dice/ways to recover such, for starters), but not a full-blown denial based solely on "It's not how it was back in my day" because that, in corporate feedback 101 in today's age of Hasbro hamstringing WotC, translates to "drop it & never speak of it again, the feedback was red".
Heliana's Part 2 on Beyond is already less likely because of the original class of The Tamer deviating from the framework that is, which is also the likely reason we didn't get the entirety of Valda's Spire of Secrets when Hasbro ordered WotC to only accept the April Fool's themed pack we did get, & only 2024, despite what the devs of Valda's said they were willing to go above & beyond for.
If you think a full-blown beyond-Warlock Build-A-Bear class using only points w/no spell slots will work within said framework and without hiring a frickton more coders &/or the old ones back, I can't help you.
& if you don't remember the pre-pandemic fandom war that got Mystic abandoned entirely because of its controversy-inducing incongruity with the game as it was, even before Hasbro began milking DND, it's not that hard to look WayBack & see for yourself how heated that got.
So, because of all of that & loads more, I'd rather have something than nothing this time.
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.
Well .... I mean - I did say 'at everything'. So no. Not the wizard. It literally can't bard like a bard, wizard like a wizard, fight like a fighter.
I'm ... not sure. I mean. Does it do anything? If you feel it does, maybe you can show me what? But I'm not asking you to agree with me. I just don't see how this class does anything, adds anything, is capable of anything that other classes don't do better - across the board.
If you know where this class excells, feel free to inform me - because obviously I'm absolutely missing it.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Mandrake, yes something better. The entire DDB can’t implement argument is bogus - DDB doesn’t implement UAs. UAs are alpha test marketing samples so why not float things that are really different - it’s all paper and pencil creation no programming need. Yes if folks really like stuff you may have to worry about that but not for a UA. I understand the desire to get “something” but I can homebrew something if I’m that desperate. And yes, I’m old school enough that I’m perfectly capable of mixing paper and digital as both a player and a DM. Yes there is a need for (American based) coders for DDB but there is a similar problem across corporate America not just Hasbro/DDB. I joined after the Mystic nonsense so no I don’t remember it. What I do remember is the ranger UA which was very good and fairly different that ended up coming back in 2024 as far more mainstream. Given this UA I’m not expecting anything interesting or usable by me if/when it comes out.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Okay, he's my pitch - Do we need another INT based full caster? And does INT even really make sense for this class? Psions seem to more closely resemble Sorcerers than Wizards? Do they study to gain their psionic abilities? How about, instead of INT, we have the first ever CON based full caster!!
(pause for applause)
Okay, everybody may now proceed in informing me on just how wrong I am.
The metamporths weapons need some wording changes to include specifics that they can be used for magic actions that require a weapon (since they don't inherently have a monetary value for say truestrike, and their specifics don't include cse cases for as part of a magic action, which seems rough) it also would be good to get some context in with how the organic weapons could be valid target of the magic weapon spell (helps with scaling issues to some degree) and if you have a source of bonus action attacks whether that would also be a valid use for them. (again bonus action true strike from swift precognition)
a more general thing is that there nothing to how the psy dice interact with say psy warrior psy dice, currently theres no restrictions that you could use the psy warriors dice for psion class, despite not being able to do it in the opposite direction.
How is it worse than Warlock or Artificer? How is it worse than any martial?
I mean, I could just quote the spell list at you again but I don't think it's going to accomplish anything unless you truly appreciate what those spells, like, do. So we might just have to agree to disagree.