Quote from drag0n_77 >>

So, distilling the last couple of pages....

The Pro-Psionics argument is that they don't actually want a spellcaster at all.  While the effects are inherently magical in nature, and may interact with Anti-magic effects where appropriate, Psionic abilities are not spells, and do not interact with the spell system in any way, shape, or form beyond the potential with Anti-magic effects.  Instead, they're looking for a new class that has all of its features revolving around using the force of the mind, instead of manipulating the Weave and all of that.

They don't want to cast the Telekinesis, with all of its requirements, limitations, and capabilities.  They want to use a class feature that can do some other thing, that may overlap with the effects possible with the spell Telekinesis at some level in the class vs some spell slot level of Telekinesis.  They want another ability that allows them to use the Shove action from ~30 feet away using the Attack action.  They want a feature that doesn't do damage, but as an action they can force creatures within 10 feet to make a STR or CON save or be knocked Prone (something that a lot of people would say is overlap with the spell Thunderwave).

I can actually see that working pretty well.  And it's not inventing some new system, either, which seems to be the fear of all the anti-Psionics arguments.  It's a set of text based abilities, like the Rogue's Sneak Attack or the Fighter's Action Surge.  We're not reinventing the wheel of making spells without calling them spells, and using points instead of slots.

 Exactly this.  There are plenty of features that share similarities with spells that aren't spells, like the Paladin's Divine Sense and Divine Smite, or literally every Channel Divinity, and I think it's safe for me to say each of those features would be a lot less interesting if they were replaced with spells that were roughly equivalent.

@ Ophidimancer:  There's room for debate there, but what I'm mostly concerning myself with is the framework that's in front of us right now.

Ophid, 

They don’t each need a TON of powers, but they do need access to their field. Traditionally there are 6 “Disciplines.” The exact nature of the disciplines has shifted slightly over the decades, but primarily they are:

Psychokinesis: The ability to move stuff with mind powers- Telekinesis, levitation, Force Damage, etc. (Jean Grey, Superboy, Yoda types)

Telepathy: Mind reading, inception, mental illusions, Psychic Damage, etc. (Professor Xavier, Mastermind, Obi Wan types)

Psychoportation: Teleporting, phasing, etc. (Nightcrawler, Kitty Pride, 5 from The Umbrella Academy, Voyd from Incredibles 2)

Clairsentience: Psychic Divination, Object reading, Mediumship, etc. (“I sense a great disturbance in The Force,” or Nicolas Cage’s character in Next)

Psychometabolism: Biomancy, Healing, Psychic Surgery, etc. (drawing a blank on pop culture references for psychics who can make themselves stronger or faster or grow gills, but I know they’re out there)

Psychic Summoning: (Originally, the 6th discipline was Metapsionics, but I’m glad they shifted that in 3e to “base class” feature. Personally, I would mush this in with psychoportation and split up psychokenises to divest “energy” effects [pyrokineses, like Fire Starter, energy healing, etc] into the 6th Discipline 🤷‍♂️)

I would keep “Metapsionics” as a base class feature, make a subclass for each of the 6 disciplines. Subclass would restrict access to major  powers from within the chosen Discipline, only the more minor powers from each would be available for everyone to dabble in. They don’t need a TON of powers, just enough for each character to get to fill their player’s concept, with a little bit of leeway to diversify into some of the minor powers from the other subclasses if they so choose. 

Remember the “Psionic Telekinesis” that Levi and I described? That would all be 1 power. That’s fairly strong! If it works like that, we wouldn’t need a ton of them, just the right ones.

That’s how I’ve been designing it anyway.

I really like it

Thanks!

Also, they'd have abilities similar to Eldritch Invocations in a way, that they could have a certain amount of as they level up, just to give them a bit of flexibility, because only 6 powers/subclasses would be pretty boring, IMO.

They would have versatility similar on scale to the Warlocks, 6 base subclasses based around the powers, and some base class abilities like psi points that they can use for certain ways, possibly like Metapsionics mixed in with the psi-dice. Possibly expending psi points on powers that deal damage to increase the damage by the number rolled on the psi dice, and other abilities kind of similar to Metamagic.

This is the psionics in 5e that I want. 

Does that make sense? 

Sposta, did I get that right?

Pretty much, yeah. I was going with 6 main powers/Discipline, and about 8 minor powers/Discipline. A character would end up with 3 main powers from their own discipline, one from any other discipline, and 2 player’s choice. They would get 8 minor powers that are linked to the Disciplines from which they drew their main powers. And they would get 2-3 Cantrip level powers that are not linked to the Disciplines at all. Since everything is pretty much mix-n-match, that gives a metric whackton of potential variation. Even two Psionicists from the same Discipline could have drastically different powers depending on which ones the player chooses. So far, it looks like I should eventually be able to get the whole thing done in under 20 pages formatted just like a UA. That includes class and mechanics (4 pages) and the 6 disciplines (estimated 2.3 pages each because they include all the powers) .

Okay, yes. That's kind of what I was thinking of.

It will mechanically be a new system, but slightly based off of the Warlock, Sorcerer, and Spell Points.

That's what I want, and how a proper Psion should be made.

Do you guys remember when the first 2ish versions of the Artificer came out, with it as a 3rd caster, and only 2 subclasses, and it was broken as hell?

Then, they came back a few years later with the infusion system kind of based off of the Warlock's eldritch invocations. That is kind of what I want them to do with the Psion. 

That was my plan, but now I am trying to figure out how to shift tac towards the new Psi Die mechanic instead of “Points” or “uses/day.” It’ll take some rearranging, but it’s doable.

Yep. My current ideas for how to do that is "Increase damage on a (cantrip) ability or power by an amount of damage rolled on the psi-dice" by spending psi points, possibly another option per subclass related to their key powers, like increasing the weight of the object/creature effected by your telekinesis, or link an amount of people together mentally with telepathy equal to a roll on the psi dice.

Stuff like that. Does that help at all? 

Yeah. Some stuff will still have to be based on class level or Int mod because reasons, but I am trying to ditch “points-based mechanic” altogether if I can just to further distinguish Psionicists from Sorcerers.

Okay. 

We have just dealt with days of people saying “we don’t need a Psion, just reskin a Sorcerer,” so anything that can be done to mitigate that is for the better IMHO. Especially since we finally got people convinced to give it a chance.

Yeah. I understand. I'm just not sure how I feel about getting rid of psi points.

I really like the idea of spending psi points to roll the psi dice for their abilities.

I understand why you'd want to differentiate it more from the sorcerer, I just am not sure if I agree with doing that. 

Okay, fair point. That’s what all I’m trying to figure out at the moment. I also have a bad habit of marking things for re-writes with shorthand, but not actually doing the rewrites in a timely manner, so I have all of that to clean up too before I send what I have so far to you. 

Okay, great. 

I've personally always liked the idea of Mystics/Psions having psi points instead of spell slots or anything like that, just to make it feel distinct. I understand that sorcerers have Sorcery Points that they can use for possibly similar purposes, but if they have mastery over their mind, they should be able to blow a bunch of psi points on one ability, kind of like the overloading kind of thing that happens to psions in pop culture, like Jean Gray or Eleven.

I understand the quirkiness of how the psi-die works already emulates something like this, but I like personally would dive all in to that realm of psionics. 

Any official product that WotC puts out which includes Psionics but does not include a Psionic class is a product I will NOT buy. Since the UA article has flat out killed the Mystic, I will start looking for a good, 3rd party Psionic source book. Someone will either put one out on DM's Guild or as a Kickstarter project since WotC will not be putting one out.

As to the UA article and this Psi Die, I won't be using any psi class or archtypes that use it. It is just one more thing that I'd have to track since many players can't be trusted to do so. There are many who can, but those who can't make it a royal pain.

I was all for the UA Mystic. It was over powered and a tad too complex, but that could be fixed. In my opinion, they should have focused on making it powers of the mind and Mind over Body. Make everything they did have to come from within, something like the Sorcerer. Also, do NOT make psionics Magic. It is not and never has been; except in 4e maybe. Not sure since 4e does not exist to me and I won't touch it with a 20-foot cattle prod or maybe to burn the silly stuff. It would make good kindling.

Psionics is magic for balancing purposes, but definitely not spellcasting. 

Quote from Mezzurah >>

 I mean, WotC is clearly working on a new system.  It's right there in the new UA.

Are we reading the same article? Here's a quote from it, emphasis mine:

In 2019 and now in 2020, we’re enjoying that exploration, looking into providing options (subclasses, spells, and feats) that allow different types of characters to manifest psionic power. The philosophy of this approach is most akin to the one taken in the 1st edition of D&D, where psionic powers weren’t the domain of any particular class but were available for characters of different types to experience.

I'm not trying to be a buzzkill and I have nothing personal against a full psionic class, but the article pretty clearly states that they are not currently going in that direction. You can (and have) shout me down all you want, but it's not going to change their approach. If they were going for a class, they would have revamped Mystic. This UA is literally them taking psionics in the opposite direction from a class.

Note, I'm not arguing should they make a psion, I'm arguing will they. I love new classes and mechanics.

You guys have some great ideas and a lot of enthusiasm and I encourage you to work on a homebrew class. Then it can be exactly as you're envisioning it, and if you balance it well there's no reason why a reasonable DM wouldn't accept it at the table. I would.

I am well aware of what the article says, I have read it multiple times, and perhaps I should clarify.  This Psi Dice they've presented?  Significantly different from Psionics=Spells, which is the biggest gripe I've had with the previous approach by WotC.  Personally, I feel it has the potential to become the basis for a new class much in the same way spellcasting has become the basis of multiple classes, and would like to try and encourage it to continue to go in that direction.  I don't know that they will or won't, but I feel this is a very promising step in a new direction, and want to see it developed as far as it can be.

I would also like to point out that in the previous round of psionic subclasses, Jeremy Crawford stated in a Sage Advice piece that having subclasses like these isn't taking away from the possibility of a class like the mystic or psion, and that this approach is the same taken with arcane subclasses like the Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster and divine subclasses like the Divine Soul/Zealot.

Also, not to be pendantic, but this thread isn't about whether there will be a full psionic class, but that there should be.  I obviously believe that there should, not that this means there will be, but with that said there is a new system being tested here which I think is very promising, and which very much has the potential to lead to a new class.  That is what I'm saying.