That last bit occurred to me as well. I think what could distinguish a psion would be the psionic focus concept that the original Mystic had. Reminds me of "Reserve feats" from 3.5e. Basically, they enabled minor effects when a caster has a spell of a given type available. Doesn't quite work in 5e because spells aren't directly mapped into spell slots (spell slots aren't specialized when you prepare them). Perhaps psions get an added benefit when they concentrate on certain spells?
My personal idea is to have some very useful abilities that require concentration and the base class will eventually get the ability to concentrate on two things at once, while the "caster" subclass gets (at a high level) the ability to concentrate on three things at once. The aforementioned levitate ability for example: Bonus action to gain a flight speed of 15ft, requires concentration. I was going to give the warrior subclass the ability to wield their weapons with their mind, using their Int bonus instead of Str or Dex, as long as they can retain concentration on that ability, so they can't float and do that at the same time until they hit level 6 or so when they gain the ability to concentrate on two things.
Those are a bit powerful. Concentration is really the only thing that keeps casters from totally overshadowing non-casters.
Yes, concentration is the one thing that keeps casters mostly balanced. (I say mostly, because occasionally a broken spell comes around like Healing Spirit that breaks the game)
The thing is, Psionicists should be a bit different. Their whole thing is that they get all their power from their mind. This should, IMO, let them "concentrate" on two abilities at once. There should be limitations on this, obviously, but it just makes sense. It's like a scene from Stranger Things or X-Men where the psychic character "grabs" two objects at the same time in the air, and they have to fight mentally to hold onto those two things. Something like that would be cool for a Psion class.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
The biggest mistake WotC ever made was catering to MMO fans and trying to make D&D more like WoW. This involves the concept of Balance. It is something that should NEVER have been brought into D&D.
Balancing the game is what ruined 4e. Every class was basically the same (much like SW:TOR). powers had different visuals and sfx but were basically the same. Like a real individual with an automatic rifle versus an individuals armed with a knife, a wizard should NOT be equal to a warrior except with the situation gives the warrior the edge. If the warrior gets into range to use that knife, then the wizard made a mistake. An Elminster cannot exist in 5e, and had to be completely depowered (madness) to be himself in 4e.
The biggest issue with the UA Mystic class was it existed in a void. Unless a DM introduced appropriate psionics and defences to the creatures of his campaign, they were way overpowered. In mine, I brought back truly psionic mindflayers and demons. I re-introduced the concept of Psi Class VI where creatures are Immune to Psionics and psionic effects, but cannot use Psionics.
WotC is being lazy in trying to introduce Psionics without re-introduce a psionic support structure. To create a Dark Sun product this is something they need to do. If they do so, they will created a superior product to the UA materials they have tried to introduce so far.
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Watch your back, conserve your ammo, and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
...This involves the concept of Balance. It is something that should NEVER have been brought into D&D...
...The biggest issue with the UA Mystic class was it existed in a void. Unless a DM introduced appropriate psionics and defences to the creatures of his campaign, they were way overpowered. In mine, I brought back truly psionic mindflayers and demons. I re-introduced the concept of Psi Class VI where creatures are Immune to Psionics and psionic effects, but cannot use Psionics...
The first sentiment is bizarre. If you don't have a measure of balance between the classes, the game will be less fun for those who want to play underpowered archetypes. I would never want to play a fighter if I'm constantly being outmatched by the mage.
I agree with the second, but with a caveat. Had psionics been introduced from the get-go it still would have been an unnecessary complication to create a Psionic Resistance trait for almost all the same monsters that have Magic Resistance, when for most of D&D history psionics and magic interact normally. You can make this a variant in your game, and a discussion of these variants was presented in 3e, but it doesn't really make sense for most players.
I can understand some people arguing that mechanics should reflect a different source of psionic power, but at the end of the day, be it spell or "power", the outward effects of many of the proposed abilities are the same. And if you don't allow psions to access spells, you face a nasty trade-off: either you strip away many abilities that psions classically have, or you risk replicating a ton of those same spells in the silly duplicative 3e way.
That last bit occurred to me as well. I think what could distinguish a psion would be the psionic focus concept that the original Mystic had. Reminds me of "Reserve feats" from 3.5e. Basically, they enabled minor effects when a caster has a spell of a given type available. Doesn't quite work in 5e because spells aren't directly mapped into spell slots (spell slots aren't specialized when you prepare them). Perhaps psions get an added benefit when they concentrate on certain spells?
My personal idea is to have some very useful abilities that require concentration and the base class will eventually get the ability to concentrate on two things at once, while the "caster" subclass gets (at a high level) the ability to concentrate on three things at once. The aforementioned levitate ability for example: Bonus action to gain a flight speed of 15ft, requires concentration. I was going to give the warrior subclass the ability to wield their weapons with their mind, using their Int bonus instead of Str or Dex, as long as they can retain concentration on that ability, so they can't float and do that at the same time until they hit level 6 or so when they gain the ability to concentrate on two things.
Those are a bit powerful. Concentration is really the only thing that keeps casters from totally overshadowing non-casters.
That only becomes a problem with multiclassing, something I would probably solve by saying that these extra psion concentration 'slots' can only be used for psion abilities. Otherwise why do you think these are powerful?
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
That last bit occurred to me as well. I think what could distinguish a psion would be the psionic focus concept that the original Mystic had. Reminds me of "Reserve feats" from 3.5e. Basically, they enabled minor effects when a caster has a spell of a given type available. Doesn't quite work in 5e because spells aren't directly mapped into spell slots (spell slots aren't specialized when you prepare them). Perhaps psions get an added benefit when they concentrate on certain spells?
My personal idea is to have some very useful abilities that require concentration and the base class will eventually get the ability to concentrate on two things at once, while the "caster" subclass gets (at a high level) the ability to concentrate on three things at once. The aforementioned levitate ability for example: Bonus action to gain a flight speed of 15ft, requires concentration. I was going to give the warrior subclass the ability to wield their weapons with their mind, using their Int bonus instead of Str or Dex, as long as they can retain concentration on that ability, so they can't float and do that at the same time until they hit level 6 or so when they gain the ability to concentrate on two things.
Those are a bit powerful. Concentration is really the only thing that keeps casters from totally overshadowing non-casters.
That only becomes a problem with multiclassing, something I would probably solve by saying that these extra psion concentration 'slots' can only be used for psion abilities. Otherwise why do you think these are powerful?
Not necessarily overpowered, just powerful. In general, one should be very careful playing around with things like concentration and action economy, which are calibrated for balance. I think this idea works. Concentration need not interfere with the psionic focus that powers psionic abilities.
There are some indications out there that the reason for the dropping of the Mystic archetype is because it was a project of Mike Mearls who has been removed from the D&D team and been replaced by Ray Winninger. It seems that everything related to Mike is being wiped clean where possible.
This would explain WotC's decision to drop the Mystic completely.
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Watch your back, conserve your ammo, and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
Jeremy Crawford already said the Mystic got dropped because of the class overlapping too much with existing classes in the last Dragon+ podcast. Balance and complexity issues can always be fixed but without a clear theme the class wasn't going anywhere as written.
There are some indications out there that the reason for the dropping of the Mystic archetype is because it was a project of Mike Mearls who has been removed from the D&D team and been replaced by Ray Winninger. It seems that everything related to Mike is being wiped clean where possible.
This would explain WotC's decision to drop the Mystic completely.
Might have been one nail in the coffin, but there were many before. What else Mearls-related stuff is gone?
I don't think Mike had exclusive ownership of anything except maybe the stuff he designed on the fly during his Happy Fun Hour streams, presumably in his spare time. None of that content was ever officially available even in UA form as far as I know. His day-to-day responsibilities had less to do with writing game mechanics (that's Jeremy Crawford's job) and more to do with steering the D&D brand as a whole. That's not to say he didn't have a hand in the rules too, and I'm sure he contributed a lot idea-wise, but anything that would've gone to print would've been handed over to Jeremy in the end anyways.
Mr Mearls was working on the Mystic 4.0 in the happy fun hour, but none of that is presented in the recent Psionics stuff.
That's fair, I forgot about that. But again, Happy Fun Hour is just an educational thing Mearls was running on the side, it's not pre-UA content or anything like that. It's entirely possible his new take on Mystic still wasn't getting to the root of the problem with the class, just like the Artificer class had to undergo several revisions. Anything that shows up in Happy Fun Hour is especially likely to be scrapped because it's a first draft he came up with on the spot. Even Unearthed Arcana requires some level of polish before being presented, even if the devs aren't concerned with power issues at that stage in development.
The Psionic Talent Die is still experimental and doesn't necessarily reflect a hard commitment to a specific approach to psionics. One of the pieces of feedback the devs got was that players wanted a unifying mechanic for the different subclasses so they feel they're related somehow, and the die rolling gimmick came about in response to that. This is similar to how earlier UAs had experimented with borrowing the Superiority Die mechanic from the Battle Master.
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Those are a bit powerful. Concentration is really the only thing that keeps casters from totally overshadowing non-casters.
Yes, concentration is the one thing that keeps casters mostly balanced. (I say mostly, because occasionally a broken spell comes around like Healing Spirit that breaks the game)
The thing is, Psionicists should be a bit different. Their whole thing is that they get all their power from their mind. This should, IMO, let them "concentrate" on two abilities at once. There should be limitations on this, obviously, but it just makes sense. It's like a scene from Stranger Things or X-Men where the psychic character "grabs" two objects at the same time in the air, and they have to fight mentally to hold onto those two things. Something like that would be cool for a Psion class.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
The biggest mistake WotC ever made was catering to MMO fans and trying to make D&D more like WoW. This involves the concept of Balance. It is something that should NEVER have been brought into D&D.
Balancing the game is what ruined 4e. Every class was basically the same (much like SW:TOR). powers had different visuals and sfx but were basically the same. Like a real individual with an automatic rifle versus an individuals armed with a knife, a wizard should NOT be equal to a warrior except with the situation gives the warrior the edge. If the warrior gets into range to use that knife, then the wizard made a mistake. An Elminster cannot exist in 5e, and had to be completely depowered (madness) to be himself in 4e.
The biggest issue with the UA Mystic class was it existed in a void. Unless a DM introduced appropriate psionics and defences to the creatures of his campaign, they were way overpowered. In mine, I brought back truly psionic mindflayers and demons. I re-introduced the concept of Psi Class VI where creatures are Immune to Psionics and psionic effects, but cannot use Psionics.
WotC is being lazy in trying to introduce Psionics without re-introduce a psionic support structure. To create a Dark Sun product this is something they need to do. If they do so, they will created a superior product to the UA materials they have tried to introduce so far.
Watch your back, conserve your ammo,
and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
The first sentiment is bizarre. If you don't have a measure of balance between the classes, the game will be less fun for those who want to play underpowered archetypes. I would never want to play a fighter if I'm constantly being outmatched by the mage.
I agree with the second, but with a caveat. Had psionics been introduced from the get-go it still would have been an unnecessary complication to create a Psionic Resistance trait for almost all the same monsters that have Magic Resistance, when for most of D&D history psionics and magic interact normally. You can make this a variant in your game, and a discussion of these variants was presented in 3e, but it doesn't really make sense for most players.
I can understand some people arguing that mechanics should reflect a different source of psionic power, but at the end of the day, be it spell or "power", the outward effects of many of the proposed abilities are the same. And if you don't allow psions to access spells, you face a nasty trade-off: either you strip away many abilities that psions classically have, or you risk replicating a ton of those same spells in the silly duplicative 3e way.
That only becomes a problem with multiclassing, something I would probably solve by saying that these extra psion concentration 'slots' can only be used for psion abilities. Otherwise why do you think these are powerful?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Not necessarily overpowered, just powerful. In general, one should be very careful playing around with things like concentration and action economy, which are calibrated for balance. I think this idea works. Concentration need not interfere with the psionic focus that powers psionic abilities.
There are some indications out there that the reason for the dropping of the Mystic archetype is because it was a project of Mike Mearls who has been removed from the D&D team and been replaced by Ray Winninger. It seems that everything related to Mike is being wiped clean where possible.
This would explain WotC's decision to drop the Mystic completely.
Watch your back, conserve your ammo,
and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
Jeremy Crawford already said the Mystic got dropped because of the class overlapping too much with existing classes in the last Dragon+ podcast. Balance and complexity issues can always be fixed but without a clear theme the class wasn't going anywhere as written.
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Might have been one nail in the coffin, but there were many before. What else Mearls-related stuff is gone?
I don't think Mike had exclusive ownership of anything except maybe the stuff he designed on the fly during his Happy Fun Hour streams, presumably in his spare time. None of that content was ever officially available even in UA form as far as I know. His day-to-day responsibilities had less to do with writing game mechanics (that's Jeremy Crawford's job) and more to do with steering the D&D brand as a whole. That's not to say he didn't have a hand in the rules too, and I'm sure he contributed a lot idea-wise, but anything that would've gone to print would've been handed over to Jeremy in the end anyways.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Mr Mearls was working on the Mystic 4.0 in the happy fun hour, but none of that is presented in the recent Psionics stuff.
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That's fair, I forgot about that. But again, Happy Fun Hour is just an educational thing Mearls was running on the side, it's not pre-UA content or anything like that. It's entirely possible his new take on Mystic still wasn't getting to the root of the problem with the class, just like the Artificer class had to undergo several revisions. Anything that shows up in Happy Fun Hour is especially likely to be scrapped because it's a first draft he came up with on the spot. Even Unearthed Arcana requires some level of polish before being presented, even if the devs aren't concerned with power issues at that stage in development.
The Psionic Talent Die is still experimental and doesn't necessarily reflect a hard commitment to a specific approach to psionics. One of the pieces of feedback the devs got was that players wanted a unifying mechanic for the different subclasses so they feel they're related somehow, and the die rolling gimmick came about in response to that. This is similar to how earlier UAs had experimented with borrowing the Superiority Die mechanic from the Battle Master.
The Forum Infestation (TM)