With respect Positron49, precluding a psion with unique mechanics would not solve the player's problem of being unable to play Professor Xavier, because the problem is already inherent to the design of 5e's spellcasting. In order to fix that, they would have to considerably (and I mean *considerably*) expand the number of spells available, which would appease some in the crowd who want psionics to be spellcasting, but would alienate others who think the spell list is already bloated as it is and oppose adding more to it; I am not one of those people, but it is an argument I have heard before and I know it would come up in any future playtest feedback.
The other thing to consider is that new players are already discouraged from from playing spellcasters until they become more experienced, and are often told "play a fighter or a barbarian first"; again, precluding a psion with different mechanics would does not solve that particular player's dilemma.
Besides, 5e already has conceptual overlaps, most notably between the Sorcerer and the Wizard; adding a class that has overlap with a number of subclasses kind of pales by comparison.
I’m a strong proponent of making Psionics a class all it’s own. It just feels right and brings me back to my 2e Dark Sun days. I actually find the system of a changing-die-size mechanic to be simple enough to make it usable by new and experienced players (though you could play with options that allow multiple dice, or more nuanced mechanics behind it). All in all, it felt like a good start at least.
I am also in the camp of “Do not mix spell casting and Psionics” - it just comes off as cheap. Like... “We want to introduce a new thing but didn’t want to be creative at all so let’s just make some spells into psionics” cheap. Barbarians have rage, Bards have Inspiration dice, Warlocks have different types of spell slots, Metamagic for Sorcs, Abjuration Fields, Beast companions... trust me, a Psionic class done with a simple mechanic will work.
Also, don’t make Psionics a subclass. Make it a Wild Talent or a Feat if you want them in your campaign, just like the UA does. It’s simple and provides another layer of development to the game that allows players to be creative.
As for class design? I think it’s been absolutely great since day one. I’m an old school DnDer and I’ve seen friends of mine that left the fold since the days of 3e (“too powergame-y”) to 4e (“too wargame-y”) actually getting interested in playing again. I don’t answer enough of the surveys I don’t think, but I’ve got to hand it to the designers thus far, it actually feels like a game the majority can play again.
ANSWER THE SURVEYS BREWKSY, OTHERWISE YOU VOICE WON'T COUNT!!!
Gah, sorry! Sorry about that. I just, was having flashback to people saying they didn't voice their opinion on the Psi Dice UA...
The Psionics one was the only one I really wanted to, but I missed it :(
Was the consensus that they liked the concept of “changed dice”? I thought it was so simple and clean and matched up really well with the other systems.
I did voice my opinion on the Psi Die. My opinion changed after I did so, however. My initial reaction was hesitant, but the mechanic grew on me in the interim. Wizards' tendency to release the survey after a time period so short that no one could have possibly had time to playtest the content in real games unless that's the only thing they did in the four minutes between UA Doc Release and UA Survey Release bothers me greatly.
I did voice my opinion on the Psi Die. My opinion changed after I did so, however. My initial reaction was hesitant, but the mechanic grew on me in the interim. Wizards' tendency to release the survey after a time period so short that no one could have possibly had time to playtest the content in real games unless that's the only thing they did in the four minutes between UA Doc Release and UA Survey Release bothers me greatly.
Yeah, I didn’t feel confident judging it because I didn’t use it in game at all - I typically don’t mess around with UA much and when it comes to new mechanics I try not to trust my theory crafting over actual play.
I hope we see a great implementation of Psionics in a future sourcebook 🙂
@Yurei: I hear ya. My initial reaction to it was *VERY* angry, but after taking a few days to parse through that UA's terrible writing I realized it was actually a lot better than I had first thought. and yeah, the UA's *definitely* need more time to get a feel for them.
@Brewksy: Unfortunately, the majority opinion on the survey was that people didn't want it because they thought it was too complicated (it really wasn't...)
@Brewksy: Unfortunately, the majority opinion on the survey was that people didn't want it because they thought it was too complicated (it really wasn't...)
Oh dang... that’s too bad. And I really question the validity of an opinion saying that it was too complicated. I mean, I won’t offer an opinion on the balance or usability, but it certainly made sense on one single read-through. Anyone claiming that it was complicated should probably never multi class either...
Thus the point of the last several pages of discussion. More or less. The Psy Die is significantly less complex than 5e's janky half-Vancian, half-not spellcasting rules, but because players are supposed to already know those rules it's fine to lean on them rather than seeking a different engine to drive psionic manifestations in 5e. Or so some folks believe.
Thus the point of the last several pages of discussion. More or less. The Psy Die is significantly less complex than 5e's janky half-Vancian, half-not spellcasting rules, but because players are supposed to already know those rules it's fine to lean on them rather than seeking a different engine to drive psionic manifestations in 5e. Or so some folks believe.
The crazy thing is, with a Psi-Die, you can introduce all sorts of mechanics and features to subtly build the class.
1) A capstone that allow you to increase the die to a D20
2) Splitting dice to get multiple dice (Once per day, split a d12 into two d6s)
3) Once per day, allowing you to increase the die size on a 2, instead of just a 1
4) Granting such dice to others as a form limited transferral of psychic power
5) A burnout mechanic that allows you to take the maximum roll once, at the expense of two die size drops...
I digress, but you see what I mean - there’s just so many ways to add layers to this simple mechanic. I feel really bad for not putting more thoughts down early. Are the survey results posted somewhere?
@Brewksy: Unfortunately, the majority opinion on the survey was that people didn't want it because they thought it was too complicated (it really wasn't...)
Oh dang... that’s too bad. And I really question the validity of an opinion saying that it was too complicated. I mean, I won’t offer an opinion on the balance or usability, but it certainly made sense on one single read-through. Anyone claiming that it was complicated should probably never multi class either...
Maybe complicated isn’t the right word... convoluted might be a better fit?
Thus the point of the last several pages of discussion. More or less. The Psy Die is significantly less complex than 5e's janky half-Vancian, half-not spellcasting rules, but because players are supposed to already know those rules it's fine to lean on them rather than seeking a different engine to drive psionic manifestations in 5e. Or so some folks believe.
The crazy thing is, with a Psi-Die, you can introduce all sorts of mechanics and features to subtly build the class.
1) A capstone that allow you to increase the die to a D20
2) Splitting dice to get multiple dice (Once per day, split a d12 into two d6s)
3) Once per day, allowing you to increase the die size on a 2, instead of just a 1
4) Granting such dice to others as a form limited transferral of psychic power
5) A burnout mechanic that allows you to take the maximum roll once, at the expense of two die size drops...
I digress, but you see what I mean - there’s just so many ways to add layers to this simple mechanic. I feel really bad for not putting more thoughts down early. Are the survey results posted somewhere?
They don't put out the survey results. We could see the psi die return sometime if they make a Psion class, but I think it's gone.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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@Brewksy: Unfortunately, the majority opinion on the survey was that people didn't want it because they thought it was too complicated (it really wasn't...)
Oh dang... that’s too bad. And I really question the validity of an opinion saying that it was too complicated. I mean, I won’t offer an opinion on the balance or usability, but it certainly made sense on one single read-through. Anyone claiming that it was complicated should probably never multi class either...
The majority consensus was
That bad things happening on the high number and good things happening on 1s was too “un-D&D”
That the adjusting die size was too difficult to track, specially on VTTs.
That DMs couldn’t trust their players to track the Psi Die and didn’t want to have to do the extra babysitting.
I loved the Psi Die. It worked beautifully. Goodbye Psi Die, we hardly knew youZ
The Mystic had more problems then that. The points array was based on spell points and that chart was reduculous. There were no restrictions on which subclass could take what disciplines, the Focus part was confusing for people. It needed a lot of work to make it viable.
Many objections:
"The points array was based on spell points"
-just becuase it is based on spell points does not make it less unique, no class uses them by default, almost nobody uses that variant rule and it still feels radically different from spellcasting, they were able to do many things with that mechanic just like how they can with the psi Dice, especially since their disiplinces remain at a certain power level 9th level onwards and they just become better at using the disiplinces they have
"and that chart was reduculous"
-what chart did you mean and why do you Think it is ridiculous?
"the Focus part was confusing for people"
-well the focus was not that confusing, but you could Always move it to level 2, or remove it entirely since it isint really vital to the power of the class-
"There were no restrictions on which subclass could take what disciplines"
-why should there be such restrictions? No similar restrictions exist for wizards and many other spellcasters, shure some spellcasting classes have a handful of archetype spells between , and maybe it would be cool for one or two psionic disiplinces associated with each order was Only available to that order, but forcing an wu jen to Only take wu jen disiplinces and mostly restricting themselves to a fraction of the available disiplinces feels stupid, as stupid as a evocation wizard Only being able to learn evocation spells
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
The Mystic had more problems then that. The points array was based on spell points and that chart was reduculous. There were no restrictions on which subclass could take what disciplines, the Focus part was confusing for people. It needed a lot of work to make it viable.
Many objections:
"The points array was based on spell points"
-just becuase it is based on spell points does not make it less unique, no class uses them by default, almost nobody uses that variant rule and it still feels radically different from spellcasting, they were able to do many things with that mechanic just like how they can with the psi Dice, especially since their disiplinces remain at a certain power level 9th level onwards and they just become better at using the disiplinces they have
"and that chart was reduculous"
-what chart did you mean and why do you Think it is ridiculous?
"the Focus part was confusing for people"
-well the focus was not that confusing, but you could Always move it to level 2, or remove it entirely since it isint really vital to the power of the class-
"There were no restrictions on which subclass could take what disciplines"
-why should there be such restrictions? No similar restrictions exist for wizards and many other spellcasters, shure some spellcasting classes have a handful of archetype spells between , and maybe it would be cool for one or two psionic disiplinces associated with each order was Only available to that order, but forcing an wu jen to Only take wu jen disiplinces and mostly restricting themselves to a fraction of the available disiplinces feels stupid, as stupid as a evocation wizard Only being able to learn evocation spells
Well let’s address this:
When I mentioned the spell point conversion my issue with it was not that it was based on spell points, but rather the ridiculousness of the chart. What chart you ask? The chart that told the Mystic player how many spell points they got per level. Because it was designed as a half caster and then the slots were converted into Psi Points we ended up with this hot mess:
Level
Psi Points
1st
4
2nd
6
3rd
14
4th
17
5th
27
6th
32
7th
38
8th
44
9th
57
10th
64
11th
64
12th
64
13th
64
14th
64
15th
64
16th
64
17th
64
18th
71
19th
71
20th
71
That number progression ends up not making sense.
The Focus was a problem because you ended up with 8 of them to use, but remembering to constantly switch it around was as hard to remember for average players as Hunter’s Mark for Laure Bailey. It was a pain in the neck, and from the DM’s chair it was painful to watch players struggle with it.
The main complaint that people had about the Mystic was that one character could do everybody else’s jobs. If they had been restricted in part by having to primarily choose disciplines from their own Mystic Order, with maybe only a few from the others then 1 character would not have been able to do ev-er-y-thing. That would have helped game balance quite a bit.
With respect Positron49, precluding a psion with unique mechanics would not solve the player's problem of being unable to play Professor Xavier, because the problem is already inherent to the design of 5e's spellcasting. In order to fix that, they would have to considerably (and I mean *considerably*) expand the number of spells available, which would appease some in the crowd who want psionics to be spellcasting, but would alienate others who think the spell list is already bloated as it is and oppose adding more to it; I am not one of those people, but it is an argument I have heard before and I know it would come up in any future playtest feedback.
The other thing to consider is that new players are already discouraged from from playing spellcasters until they become more experienced, and are often told "play a fighter or a barbarian first"; again, precluding a psion with different mechanics would does not solve that particular player's dilemma.
Besides, 5e already has conceptual overlaps, most notably between the Sorcerer and the Wizard; adding a class that has overlap with a number of subclasses kind of pales by comparison.
I’m a strong proponent of making Psionics a class all it’s own. It just feels right and brings me back to my 2e Dark Sun days. I actually find the system of a changing-die-size mechanic to be simple enough to make it usable by new and experienced players (though you could play with options that allow multiple dice, or more nuanced mechanics behind it). All in all, it felt like a good start at least.
I am also in the camp of “Do not mix spell casting and Psionics” - it just comes off as cheap. Like... “We want to introduce a new thing but didn’t want to be creative at all so let’s just make some spells into psionics” cheap. Barbarians have rage, Bards have Inspiration dice, Warlocks have different types of spell slots, Metamagic for Sorcs, Abjuration Fields, Beast companions... trust me, a Psionic class done with a simple mechanic will work.
Also, don’t make Psionics a subclass. Make it a Wild Talent or a Feat if you want them in your campaign, just like the UA does. It’s simple and provides another layer of development to the game that allows players to be creative.
As for class design? I think it’s been absolutely great since day one. I’m an old school DnDer and I’ve seen friends of mine that left the fold since the days of 3e (“too powergame-y”) to 4e (“too wargame-y”) actually getting interested in playing again. I don’t answer enough of the surveys I don’t think, but I’ve got to hand it to the designers thus far, it actually feels like a game the majority can play again.
ANSWER THE SURVEYS BREWKSY, OTHERWISE YOU VOICE WON'T COUNT!!!
Gah, sorry! Sorry about that. I just, was having flashback to people saying they didn't voice their opinion on the Psi Dice UA...
The Psionics one was the only one I really wanted to, but I missed it :(
Was the consensus that they liked the concept of “changed dice”? I thought it was so simple and clean and matched up really well with the other systems.
I did voice my opinion on the Psi Die. My opinion changed after I did so, however. My initial reaction was hesitant, but the mechanic grew on me in the interim. Wizards' tendency to release the survey after a time period so short that no one could have possibly had time to playtest the content in real games unless that's the only thing they did in the four minutes between UA Doc Release and UA Survey Release bothers me greatly.
Please do not contact or message me.
Yeah, I didn’t feel confident judging it because I didn’t use it in game at all - I typically don’t mess around with UA much and when it comes to new mechanics I try not to trust my theory crafting over actual play.
I hope we see a great implementation of Psionics in a future sourcebook 🙂
@Yurei: I hear ya. My initial reaction to it was *VERY* angry, but after taking a few days to parse through that UA's terrible writing I realized it was actually a lot better than I had first thought. and yeah, the UA's *definitely* need more time to get a feel for them.
@Brewksy: Unfortunately, the majority opinion on the survey was that people didn't want it because they thought it was too complicated (it really wasn't...)
Oh dang... that’s too bad. And I really question the validity of an opinion saying that it was too complicated. I mean, I won’t offer an opinion on the balance or usability, but it certainly made sense on one single read-through. Anyone claiming that it was complicated should probably never multi class either...
Thus the point of the last several pages of discussion. More or less. The Psy Die is significantly less complex than 5e's janky half-Vancian, half-not spellcasting rules, but because players are supposed to already know those rules it's fine to lean on them rather than seeking a different engine to drive psionic manifestations in 5e. Or so some folks believe.
Please do not contact or message me.
The crazy thing is, with a Psi-Die, you can introduce all sorts of mechanics and features to subtly build the class.
1) A capstone that allow you to increase the die to a D20
2) Splitting dice to get multiple dice (Once per day, split a d12 into two d6s)
3) Once per day, allowing you to increase the die size on a 2, instead of just a 1
4) Granting such dice to others as a form limited transferral of psychic power
5) A burnout mechanic that allows you to take the maximum roll once, at the expense of two die size drops...
I digress, but you see what I mean - there’s just so many ways to add layers to this simple mechanic. I feel really bad for not putting more thoughts down early.
Are the survey results posted somewhere?
Maybe complicated isn’t the right word... convoluted might be a better fit?
They don't put out the survey results. We could see the psi die return sometime if they make a Psion class, but I think it's gone.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I’m sure the Psi Die is gone for good.
It was simple, and it could have had multitudes of things bolted onto it.
The majority consensus was
I loved the Psi Die. It worked beautifully. Goodbye Psi Die, we hardly knew youZ
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Man... all of those issues are... trivial. :(
Inertia, laziness, DMs apparently thinking their players are cheaters/morons
Take your pick
Many objections:
"The points array was based on spell points"
-just becuase it is based on spell points does not make it less unique, no class uses them by default, almost nobody uses that variant rule and it still feels radically different from spellcasting, they were able to do many things with that mechanic just like how they can with the psi Dice, especially since their disiplinces remain at a certain power level 9th level onwards and they just become better at using the disiplinces they have
"and that chart was reduculous"
-what chart did you mean and why do you Think it is ridiculous?
"the Focus part was confusing for people"
-well the focus was not that confusing, but you could Always move it to level 2, or remove it entirely since it isint really vital to the power of the class-
"There were no restrictions on which subclass could take what disciplines"
-why should there be such restrictions? No similar restrictions exist for wizards and many other spellcasters, shure some spellcasting classes have a handful of archetype spells between , and maybe it would be cool for one or two psionic disiplinces associated with each order was Only available to that order, but forcing an wu jen to Only take wu jen disiplinces and mostly restricting themselves to a fraction of the available disiplinces feels stupid, as stupid as a evocation wizard Only being able to learn evocation spells
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Yup
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Yup
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Yeah. I liked it as well, but I guess it's hard to track.
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Well let’s address this:
When I mentioned the spell point conversion my issue with it was not that it was based on spell points, but rather the ridiculousness of the chart. What chart you ask? The chart that told the Mystic player how many spell points they got per level. Because it was designed as a half caster and then the slots were converted into Psi Points we ended up with this hot mess:
Level
Psi Points
1st
4
2nd
6
3rd
14
4th
17
5th
27
6th
32
7th
38
8th
44
9th
57
10th
64
11th
64
12th
64
13th
64
14th
64
15th
64
16th
64
17th
64
18th
71
19th
71
20th
71
That number progression ends up not making sense.
The Focus was a problem because you ended up with 8 of them to use, but remembering to constantly switch it around was as hard to remember for average players as Hunter’s Mark for Laure Bailey. It was a pain in the neck, and from the DM’s chair it was painful to watch players struggle with it.
The main complaint that people had about the Mystic was that one character could do everybody else’s jobs. If they had been restricted in part by having to primarily choose disciplines from their own Mystic Order, with maybe only a few from the others then 1 character would not have been able to do ev-er-y-thing. That would have helped game balance quite a bit.
Was I more clear in my meaning this time?
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