They have overused that system, but it doesn't mean that you have to invent a new complicated system.
I don't like the new dice mechanic, agreeing with Yurei and the few others. It feels very not 5e, and not in a good way. It isn't a refreshing version of weird to me, more of a bad weird.
Like, if they want to introduce new mechanics, why did they abandon the Mystic, who's abilities are easier to understand than this.
I just have a specific issue. Psi-powered leap brings to mind a few questions. Do "high jump" and "long jump" include "standing high jump" and "standing long jump" respectively? And having the extra distance only count as 1ft of movement seems like a cool way of letting the Psi Knight move further, but I feel like this would slow down every combat as the Psi Knight proceeds to move everywhere in a series of variable distance leaps as they roll as try to eke out every foot of movement that they can.
Honestly they already had a perfectly good version of psi-powered leaps in the Eagle Totem Barbarian limited flight.
I just have a specific issue. Psi-powered leap brings to mind a few questions. Do "high jump" and "long jump" include "standing high jump" and "standing long jump" respectively? And having the extra distance only count as 1ft of movement seems like a cool way of letting the Psi Knight move further, but I feel like this would slow down every combat as the Psi Knight proceeds to move everywhere in a series of variable distance leaps as they roll as try to eke out every foot of movement that they can.
Honestly they already had a perfectly good version of psi-powered leaps in the Eagle Totem Barbarian limited flight.
Do you really want them to just recycle the same mechanic? Just because it does a similar thing, doesn’t mean that they have to be the same.
I just have a specific issue. Psi-powered leap brings to mind a few questions. Do "high jump" and "long jump" include "standing high jump" and "standing long jump" respectively? And having the extra distance only count as 1ft of movement seems like a cool way of letting the Psi Knight move further, but I feel like this would slow down every combat as the Psi Knight proceeds to move everywhere in a series of variable distance leaps as they roll as try to eke out every foot of movement that they can.
Honestly they already had a perfectly good version of psi-powered leaps in the Eagle Totem Barbarian limited flight.
Do you really want them to just recycle the same mechanic? Just because it does a similar thing, doesn’t mean that they have to be the same.
True, but I think this particular mechanic is bad for gameplay. Think about it, everyone who has it is going to be tempted to use it to either move as far as they can, or jump as high as hey can to attack a flying creature. The problem is twofold. Jump mechanics already make me do more math than I want to (yes, the values should be recorded for future use, but still) and now you want me to also add a variable dice roll to each individual jump!? This will slow down everything in a bad way and also risk burning out your psi-die just for movement.
I like the idea of force jumps, but this was not the way to do it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
I would have preferred something like "roll your psi-die, now you have a flight speed equal to your walk speed for that number of minutes." Perhaps even say that you fall at the end of your turn if you're not standing on a solid surface.
I saw a lot of people saying this means "the psion class is dead", but I read it more as "the mystic UA is dead." They've said in the past that these subclass UA's aren't necessarily the end of psionics in 5e. I don't think they've nailed the coffin shut on a solo psion base class, I just think they're saying that if they do make one, ot won't be based off the mystic.
Also I'm confused about all the lamentation over the psionic wizard getting scrapped. If I remember correctly when it came out nobody seemed to like it or the idea of it much at all. I wasn't surprised they scraped it with most of the feedback they got.
True, but I think this particular mechanic is bad for gameplay. Think about it, everyone who has it is going to be tempted to use it to either move as far as they can, or jump as high as hey can to attack a flying creature. The problem is twofold. Jump mechanics already make me do more math than I want to (yes, the values should be recorded for future use, but still) and now you want me to also add a variable dice roll to each individual jump!? This will slow down everything in a bad way and also risk burning out your psi-die just for movement.
I like the idea of force jumps, but this was not the way to do it.
Two things:
1) You actually record your jump statistics?!? Wow. That’s... wow. That’s what I mean about D&D turning too much into World of Warcraft for a guy like me. I wouldn’t even begin to have the patients for that. I barely have the patience to diary what happens in the game I DM, let alone record all of those stats. That right there is some dedication. I have mixed emotions, half of me wants to applaud you for your thoroughness and forethought. Part of me just died a little inside to know that D&D has gone from telling each other a fun story with mechanics in place so nobody argues over who shot first, to recording average statistics like baseball. I’m not saying that your fun is wrong. I would never do that. My mind is simply blown that that’s a thing.
2) The whole point is to make it a risk/reward scenario. Players who do use it a lot will burn out faster so you will only need to record it so many times per day before it becomes a non-issue. The players who don’t use it when they don’t need it won’t be using it every turn, so....
I saw a lot of people saying this means "the psion class is dead", but I read it more as "the mystic UA is dead." They've said in the past that these subclass UA's aren't necessarily the end of psionics in 5e. I don't think they've nailed the coffin shut on a solo psion base class, I just think they're saying that if they do make one, ot won't be based off the mystic.
Also I'm confused about all the lamentation over the psionic wizard getting scrapped. If I remember correctly when it came out nobody seemed to like it or the idea of it much at all. I wasn't surprised they scraped it with most of the feedback they got.
I am married to the principle of Psionics not being represented by Spellcasting. Personally, the idea of the Mystic was more important than the Mystic itself. If they buried that and replaced it with a whole class based on this I would be fine. To be honest, I kinda disliked the Mystic, but I supported it at the time because of what it represented more than how it worked. I frankly like this mechanic way more than the Mystic. And they point blank said the Mystic was RIP months ago. There was never any hope of it getting revived.
My opinion of that Wiz was the same as my opinion on the Aberrant Mind and this new Psicerer thing. I don’t mind it one bit, just so long as it is not “The Psionicist” as Psionics=/=Spellcasting.
I would have preferred something like "roll your psi-die, now you have a flight speed equal to your walk speed for that number of minutes." Perhaps even say that you fall at the end of your turn if you're not standing on a solid surface.
1) You actually record your jump statistics?!? Wow. That’s... wow. That’s what I mean about D&D turning too much into World of Warcraft for a guy like me. I wouldn’t even begin to have the patients for that. I barely have the patience to diary what happens in the game I DM, let alone record all of those stats. That right there is some dedication. I have mixed emotions, half of me wants to applaud you for your thoroughness and forethought. Part of me just died a little inside to know that D&D has gone from telling each other a fun story with mechanics in place so nobody argues over who shot first, to recording average statistics like baseball. I’m not saying that your fun is wrong. I would never do that. My mind is simply blown that that’s a thing.
There's a significant part of my gaming group that likes the tactical wargame aspect of D&D. We game using maps and minis, tracking movement and resource expenditure. I come from a theater of the mind background and more narrative games like FATE, but I like flexing my more crunchy neurons as well. I say jump distances should be recorded because otherwise it'd be a pain to have to recalculate every time in this type of environment in which it will come up, but that said, I haven't actually done it. Which makes me think psi-powered leaps will be simply a pain to actually use.
2) The whole point is to make it a risk/reward scenario. Players who do use it a lot will burn out faster so you will only need to record it so many times per day before it becomes a non-issue. The players who don’t use it when they don’t need it won’t be using it every turn, so....
Yeah, I still don't like it. I don't think the risk for using a cool power in character should be the pain of having to do algebra out of character. If they wanted it to risk exertion that way I would much rather just outright decrement the size of the psi-die as payment than have to do math.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
I would have preferred something like "roll your psi-die, now you have a flight speed equal to your walk speed for that number of minutes." Perhaps even say that you fall at the end of your turn if you're not standing on a solid surface.
That would work.
Yeah, that's basically the Eagle Totem's limited flight ability. I've never seen it used anywhere else, so it's not like it's over used.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
I think what they wanted to do was get the idea of exertion without using slots or the times per rest mechanic. Personally I think it's rather elegant.
It's also kinda like spell/psi points with less bookkeeping. You can use stronger features that reduce your die at the expense of fewer uses of the weaker features, but instead of keeping track of another pool of points and variable costs you just track the die's size.
I just have a specific issue. Psi-powered leap brings to mind a few questions. Do "high jump" and "long jump" include "standing high jump" and "standing long jump" respectively?
They do, yes.
And having the extra distance only count as 1ft of movement seems like a cool way of letting the Psi Knight move further, but I feel like this would slow down every combat as the Psi Knight proceeds to move everywhere in a series of variable distance leaps as they roll as try to eke out every foot of movement that they can.
Hadn't thought about that. It wouldn't drag out every round but it's definitely a bummer that you're incentivized to jump constantly to maximize the distance you can cover.
And having the extra distance only count as 1ft of movement seems like a cool way of letting the Psi Knight move further, but I feel like this would slow down every combat as the Psi Knight proceeds to move everywhere in a series of variable distance leaps as they roll as try to eke out every foot of movement that they can.
Hadn't thought about that. It wouldn't drag out every round but it's definitely a bummer that you're incentivized to jump constantly to maximize the distance you can cover.
It is kind of cinematic though if you think about it, three bounding leaps and “Hiyah!”
I think what they wanted to do was get the idea of exertion without using slots or the times per rest mechanic. Personally I think it's rather elegant.
It's also kinda like spell/psi points with less bookkeeping. You can use stronger features that reduce your die at the expense of fewer uses of the weaker features, but instead of keeping track of another pool of points and variable costs you just track the die's size.
I know, it’s so clean and straight forward. It replaces tables and slots and everything with a single, simple mechanic. It rather brilliant quite frankly.
And having the extra distance only count as 1ft of movement seems like a cool way of letting the Psi Knight move further, but I feel like this would slow down every combat as the Psi Knight proceeds to move everywhere in a series of variable distance leaps as they roll as try to eke out every foot of movement that they can.
Hadn't thought about that. It wouldn't drag out every round but it's definitely a bummer that you're incentivized to jump constantly to maximize the distance you can cover.
It is kind of cinematic though if you think about it, three bounding leaps and “Hiyah!”
Yeah, it would look like World of Warcraft or pretty much any video game where the players jump sporadically everywhere they go.
If ya did it outside of combat like a tool then yeah. I was thinking those scenes in the MCU where Captain America/The Hulk makes a few leaps and then lands on the flying enemy during a big battle scene.
When the poll comes out, I am definitely going to recommend that they remove the rolling aspect of psi-powered leap and I would urge everyone else to also do that. I think it's very bad for the game experience and thus bad game design. There are other ways to get the cool jedi jumping ability that doesn't detract from the game feel. Like, for example, a reskin of the Eagle Totem Barbarian ability.
It's fun to roll dice, but it also takes a certain amount of mental effort to calculate it and the reward for doing it should be commensurate, like doing a heck ton of damage. Having to roll just to get like 11 feet of movement is a mechanic that would make me want to never use the power and thus never use the subclass.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
What if they just simplified it to, say Int Score + Die Roll? Roughly the same numbers (close enough anyway), way less math.
If you must roll something I say let that roll stand for at least an entire combat. Psi-roll x minutes of effect or psi-roll x effect for a minute, something like that.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Again, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I just have a specific issue. Psi-powered leap brings to mind a few questions. Do "high jump" and "long jump" include "standing high jump" and "standing long jump" respectively? And having the extra distance only count as 1ft of movement seems like a cool way of letting the Psi Knight move further, but I feel like this would slow down every combat as the Psi Knight proceeds to move everywhere in a series of variable distance leaps as they roll as try to eke out every foot of movement that they can.
Honestly they already had a perfectly good version of psi-powered leaps in the Eagle Totem Barbarian limited flight.
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!
Do you really want them to just recycle the same mechanic? Just because it does a similar thing, doesn’t mean that they have to be the same.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
True, but I think this particular mechanic is bad for gameplay. Think about it, everyone who has it is going to be tempted to use it to either move as far as they can, or jump as high as hey can to attack a flying creature. The problem is twofold. Jump mechanics already make me do more math than I want to (yes, the values should be recorded for future use, but still) and now you want me to also add a variable dice roll to each individual jump!? This will slow down everything in a bad way and also risk burning out your psi-die just for movement.
I like the idea of force jumps, but this was not the way to do it.
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!
I would have preferred something like "roll your psi-die, now you have a flight speed equal to your walk speed for that number of minutes." Perhaps even say that you fall at the end of your turn if you're not standing on a solid surface.
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!
I saw a lot of people saying this means "the psion class is dead", but I read it more as "the mystic UA is dead." They've said in the past that these subclass UA's aren't necessarily the end of psionics in 5e. I don't think they've nailed the coffin shut on a solo psion base class, I just think they're saying that if they do make one, ot won't be based off the mystic.
Also I'm confused about all the lamentation over the psionic wizard getting scrapped. If I remember correctly when it came out nobody seemed to like it or the idea of it much at all. I wasn't surprised they scraped it with most of the feedback they got.
Two things:
1) You actually record your jump statistics?!? Wow. That’s... wow. That’s what I mean about D&D turning too much into World of Warcraft for a guy like me. I wouldn’t even begin to have the patients for that. I barely have the patience to diary what happens in the game I DM, let alone record all of those stats. That right there is some dedication. I have mixed emotions, half of me wants to applaud you for your thoroughness and forethought. Part of me just died a little inside to know that D&D has gone from telling each other a fun story with mechanics in place so nobody argues over who shot first, to recording average statistics like baseball. I’m not saying that your fun is wrong. I would never do that. My mind is simply blown that that’s a thing.
2) The whole point is to make it a risk/reward scenario. Players who do use it a lot will burn out faster so you will only need to record it so many times per day before it becomes a non-issue. The players who don’t use it when they don’t need it won’t be using it every turn, so....
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I am married to the principle of Psionics not being represented by Spellcasting. Personally, the idea of the Mystic was more important than the Mystic itself. If they buried that and replaced it with a whole class based on this I would be fine. To be honest, I kinda disliked the Mystic, but I supported it at the time because of what it represented more than how it worked. I frankly like this mechanic way more than the Mystic. And they point blank said the Mystic was RIP months ago. There was never any hope of it getting revived.
My opinion of that Wiz was the same as my opinion on the Aberrant Mind and this new Psicerer thing. I don’t mind it one bit, just so long as it is not “The Psionicist” as Psionics=/=Spellcasting.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
That would work.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
There's a significant part of my gaming group that likes the tactical wargame aspect of D&D. We game using maps and minis, tracking movement and resource expenditure. I come from a theater of the mind background and more narrative games like FATE, but I like flexing my more crunchy neurons as well. I say jump distances should be recorded because otherwise it'd be a pain to have to recalculate every time in this type of environment in which it will come up, but that said, I haven't actually done it. Which makes me think psi-powered leaps will be simply a pain to actually use.
Yeah, I still don't like it. I don't think the risk for using a cool power in character should be the pain of having to do algebra out of character. If they wanted it to risk exertion that way I would much rather just outright decrement the size of the psi-die as payment than have to do math.
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!
Yeah, that's basically the Eagle Totem's limited flight ability. I've never seen it used anywhere else, so it's not like it's over used.
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!
It's also kinda like spell/psi points with less bookkeeping. You can use stronger features that reduce your die at the expense of fewer uses of the weaker features, but instead of keeping track of another pool of points and variable costs you just track the die's size.
They do, yes.
Hadn't thought about that. It wouldn't drag out every round but it's definitely a bummer that you're incentivized to jump constantly to maximize the distance you can cover.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
What if they just simplified it to, say Int Score + Die Roll? Roughly the same numbers (close enough anyway), way less math.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
It is kind of cinematic though if you think about it, three bounding leaps and “Hiyah!”
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I know, it’s so clean and straight forward. It replaces tables and slots and everything with a single, simple mechanic. It rather brilliant quite frankly.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Yeah, it would look like World of Warcraft or pretty much any video game where the players jump sporadically everywhere they go.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
If ya did it outside of combat like a tool then yeah. I was thinking those scenes in the MCU where Captain America/The Hulk makes a few leaps and then lands on the flying enemy during a big battle scene.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
When the poll comes out, I am definitely going to recommend that they remove the rolling aspect of psi-powered leap and I would urge everyone else to also do that. I think it's very bad for the game experience and thus bad game design. There are other ways to get the cool jedi jumping ability that doesn't detract from the game feel. Like, for example, a reskin of the Eagle Totem Barbarian ability.
It's fun to roll dice, but it also takes a certain amount of mental effort to calculate it and the reward for doing it should be commensurate, like doing a heck ton of damage. Having to roll just to get like 11 feet of movement is a mechanic that would make me want to never use the power and thus never use the subclass.
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!
I agree with you. It is simple and less complicated when calculating damage.
If you must roll something I say let that roll stand for at least an entire combat. Psi-roll x minutes of effect or psi-roll x effect for a minute, something like that.
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!