# Psion class (Mearls, Happy Fun Hour)



## Yaarel (Jun 8, 2018)

Happy Fun Hour 05/01/2018 (Psionic Wizard)
Happy Fun Hour 05/08/2018 (Psionic Wizard)
Happy Fun Hour 05/22/2018 (Soulknife Monk)
Happy Fun Hour 05/29/2018 (Psychic Warrior Fighter)
Happy Fun Hour 06/05/2018 (Overview of Psion and Psionic Archetypes of Core Classes)
Happy Fun Hour 06/12/2018 (Telepath Awakened Psion)
Happy Fun Hour 06/19/2018 (Teleporter Nomad Psion, casting mechanics)
Happy Fun Hour 06/26/2018 (Teleporter Nomad Psion)
Happy Fun Hour 07/03/2018 (Summoner Shaper Psion)

[June/05 2018]

Mearls gives an overview of the state of psionics so far.

It looks to be shaping up awesome.

Rather than mystic, the name of the psionic class will probably be: psion.


Classes and subclasses

*Psion
*• Telekinetic
• Metamorph
• Nomad
• Constructor

*Wizard
*• Mentalist (Telepath)

*Fighter
*• Psychic Warrior

*Rogue
*• Lurk

*Bard
*• Avatar? Ardent?

*Monk
*• Soulknife


----------



## Zardnaar (Jun 8, 2018)

Your list of classes makes a lot of sense. Psion is a good name IMHO.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 8, 2018)

I’m a big fan of what he’s doing with Psionics right now and I can’t wait to get some UA or published material around these. 

This, the Kraken Warlock, and the Giant Soul Sorcerers are what I’m excited to play with.


----------



## Zardnaar (Jun 8, 2018)

Mentalist was a 2E wizard subclass.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 8, 2018)

The psion that Mearls has so far, I am really happy about the archetypes.

• Telekinetic (as a specialization! finally my Force wielder, for full on telekinesis tropes)
• Metamorph (a dedicated shapeshifter class!)
• Nomad (metamorph and nomad might turn out good for Norse-esque flavor)
• Constructor (force constructs drawn from ones own mind ... or an enemys nightmare)

These archetypes are all awesome, and their physicality seems to work well thematically in the same class.

I am surprised the more telepathic specialization seems to go to the wizard and bard, but this works well, and these have other mechanics to support this flavor, including mechanics relating to enchantment and divination. Of course, the psion archetype will also have access to psychic abilities to choose from.

This arrangement lets the psion class focus on important archetypes that D&D needs and that other classes do less well.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 8, 2018)

Zardnaar said:


> Your list of classes makes a lot of sense. Psion is a good name IMHO.




This list of psionic classes is what Mearls arrives at by the end of the show.


----------



## Zardnaar (Jun 8, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> This list of psionic classes is what Mearls arrives at by the end of the show.




Yeah watching him now, interesting he likes Moorcock. 

 Mearls is such a geek lol. Hes kewl.


----------



## AmerginLiath (Jun 8, 2018)

I’d be concerned if the lead designer for D&D *didn’t* like Moorcock...


----------



## Zardnaar (Jun 8, 2018)

AmerginLiath said:


> I’d be concerned if the lead designer for D&D *didn’t* like Moorcock...




 Same probably. Make me wonder about some D&D designers though. 
 Here Moorcock is kinda obscure now, I have the Elric Books but I don't think you can buy them in print now.


----------



## Ristamar (Jun 8, 2018)

I haven't seen the latest streams, so could someone explain the rationale behind the possible Bard subclass?  Seems unnecessary.

Glad he's shifted the name to Psion.  Mystic felt to close to Monk in namesake. Maybe because I have memories of the very monk-like Mystic from Rules Cyclopedia.


----------



## Zardnaar (Jun 8, 2018)

Ristamar said:


> I haven't seen the latest streams, so could someone explain the rationale behind the possible Bard subclass?  Seems unnecessary.
> 
> Glad he's shifted the name to Psion.  Mystic felt to close to Monk in namesake. Maybe because I have memories of the very monk-like Mystic from Rules Cyclopedia.




Same the mystic was a monk by another name and the Mystic was also in 2E as a priest class.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 8, 2018)

Ristamar said:


> I haven't seen the latest streams, so could someone explain the rationale behind the possible Bard subclass?  Seems unnecessary.




I know, right?

The bard is already obviously psionic.

Telepathy mind manipulation, clairsentience, psychometabolism, sound psychokinesis.

Heh. Why just make one subclass psionic, when the whole bard class is psionic?

This particular subclass seems to focus on manifestations of emotion.

I guess the bard will also be the go-to for the archetype of a ‘psychic healer’.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 8, 2018)

Zardnaar said:


> The Mystic was also in 2E as a priest class.




Actually, when I think of a ‘mystic’, I think of a spiritual person who contemplates consciousness. Could be monotheistic (eg. Jewish kabbalah) or nontheistic (eg. Buddhist enlightenment) or animistic (eg. Australian Aborigine dreamtime).



It seems a great name for a psionic cleric.


----------



## Zardnaar (Jun 8, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Actually, when I think of a ‘mystic’, I think of a cleric that contemplates consciousness. Could be monotheistic (eg. Jewish kabbalah) or nontheistic (eg. Buddhist enlightenment) or animistic (eg. Australian Aborigine dreamtime).
> 
> 
> 
> It seems a great name for a psionic cleric.




 Yeah makes a decent amount of sense for a psionic cleric. The 2E one cast priest spells and did something with candle magic IIRC.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 8, 2018)

Talk about reinventing the wheel.

What's the production status? Another year of UA? Two? Or just more endless video doodling?

Or are they actually going to give us 5E psionics before we go into retirement..?


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> I know, right?
> 
> The bard is already obviously psionic.
> 
> ...



I liked the ardent in 3.5 and especially 4e, so I'm pretty happy if it makes in as the psychic bard.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 8, 2018)

never mind, just me being dim.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

AmerginLiath said:


> I’d be concerned if the lead designer for D&D *didn’t* like Moorcock...



The fact that Mike Mearls knows Moorcock is good; the fact that he knows Moorcock AND Overwatch is even better.  Ideally, you want a D&D designer to be both aware and respectful of D&D's history, but also aware of trends in current pop culture, especially fantasy.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> The fact that Mike Mearls knows Moorcock is good; the fact that he knows Moorcock AND Overwatch is even better.  Ideally, you want a D&D designer to be both aware and respectful of D&D's history, but also aware of trends in current pop culture, especially fantasy.




Babylon 5 would be my go-to reference for psionics.


----------



## Tallifer (Jun 8, 2018)

As long as I can play a psionic Bene Gesserit martial artist. "Fear is the mind killer."


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 8, 2018)

I'd have an eye on how these would all translate to Dark Sun - I expect we'll see these either around the time of a DS book, or in a DS book.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 8, 2018)

They said in part of the stream of many eyes that there are going to be settings (ie multiple) released in the near term.


----------



## Jer (Jun 8, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> I'd have an eye on how these would all translate to Dark Sun - I expect we'll see these either around the time of a DS book, or in a DS book.




My gut says the former - something like a Xanthar's Guide to Everything where the player chapters are the psionics rules and classes with the DM's side as psionic items and monsters and discussion of using psionics in a campaign.  And then is followed up by a Dark Sun adventure book.  That way it appeals to players and DMs who have no use for Dark Sun but would like to play a psionic character somewhere else (like the Realms or Eberron or Ravenloft), as well as DMs who might just want to drop some differently flavored magic items or monsters into their games.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

Jer said:


> My gut says the former - something like a Xanthar's Guide to Everything where the player chapters are the psionics rules and classes with the DM's side as psionic items and monsters and discussion of using psionics in a campaign.  And then is followed up by a Dark Sun adventure book.  That way it appeals to players and DMs who have no use for Dark Sun but would like to play a psionic character somewhere else (like the Realms or Eberron or Ravenloft), as well as DMs who might just want to drop some differently flavored magic items or monsters into their games.



_Drizzt's Guide to Psionics?_


----------



## Sword of Spirit (Jun 8, 2018)

Not having a telepathic subclass within psion doesn’t work. A telepathic wizard still starts off as just an arcane spellcaster—identical to every other 1st level wizard. I don’t really care one way or the other if they make a telepathic wizard subclass, but they absolutely have to have a psion subclass for it.


----------



## Swarmkeeper (Jun 8, 2018)

Prior to today, I was firmly in the camp of "we don't need no more stinkin' classes!"

But... this is pretty cool.


----------



## Jer (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> _Drizzt's Guide to Psionics?_




There's got to be a moderately famous Realms character that uses psionics, doesn't there?

I've got nothing - but my Realms knowledge is a half-mile wide but an inch deep - enough to run games in the setting but not enough to care if I get details wrong while running games in the setting.

(Also would they use "psionics" in the title?  Even if the book is all about psionics, it seems like it would be a weird thing to put on the cover.  But "Elminster's Guide to all things Mental" probably wouldn't be a good choice either...)


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 8, 2018)

Jer said:


> There's got to be a moderately famous Realms character that uses psionics, doesn't there?
> 
> I've got nothing - but my Realms knowledge is a half-mile wide but an inch deep - enough to run games in the setting but not enough to care if I get details wrong while running games in the setting.
> 
> (Also would they use "psionics" in the title?  Even if the book is all about psionics, it seems like it would be a weird thing to put on the cover.  But "Elminster's Guide to all things Mental" probably wouldn't be a good choice either...)




Rajaat's Guide to Psionic Domination.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 8, 2018)

I hope that, with the return of the 3.x "Psion" name comes the DM-option of Psionics being magical or different by campaign.



Ristamar said:


> I haven't seen the latest streams, so could someone explain the rationale behind the possible Bard subclass?  Seems unnecessary.



All sub-class and most classes are unnecessary, or would be if 3.x-style MCing were standard and classes were designed to work seamlessly with it.  

As it stands, though, sub-classes associated with a new class like the above provide faux-MCing for campaigns where MCing is not opted-into, and are only slightly less legitimate in covering a concept associated with the new class than a sub-class of the class itself.  Personally, I think Ardent would make more sense as a Psion or Warlord sub-class than a Bard sub-class (because of the Bard is a full caster in 5e, but if he's essentially made the psion a caster, I guess it's fine, too).

The Ardent was introduced in 3.5, and is a fairly strong concept, a psionic who channels emotion (telempathy) to support his allies.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

Jer said:


> There's got to be a moderately famous Realms character that uses psionics, doesn't there?
> 
> I've got nothing - but my Realms knowledge is a half-mile wide but an inch deep - enough to run games in the setting but not enough to care if I get details wrong while running games in the setting.
> 
> (Also would they use "psionics" in the title?  Even if the book is all about psionics, it seems like it would be a weird thing to put on the cover.  But "Elminster's Guide to all things Mental" probably wouldn't be a good choice either...)



Well, that's the thing...none of the other books have been by people who represent the topic, they've been by people who have observed the topic.  Volo (and Elminster) aren't monsters, Xanathar isn't an adventurer, and Mordenkanien isn't associated with any of the factions profiled in the book.  "Psionic character's guide to Psionics" would be to on the nose, compared to the other books.

Granted, I said Drizzt as a joke, but I think they'll look for something more out there for a psionic book (if one ends up existing).


----------



## Charlaquin (Jun 8, 2018)

Sword of Spirit said:


> Not having a telepathic subclass within psion doesn’t work. A telepathic wizard still starts off as just an arcane spellcaster—identical to every other 1st level wizard. I don’t really care one way or the other if they make a telepathic wizard subclass, but they absolutely have to have a psion subclass for it.




I think Mearls will come around to that eventually, if for no other reason than because there’s demand for it.

Having watched the stream and seen his process, I think I have a good sense of his train of thought:
There needs to be a Psionic/Arcane hybrid option > wizard is the best core class to handle that > a telepath is a strong flavor match for a Psionic wizard > if the Psionic wizard is a telepath, we don’t need the Psion core class to cover the same ground.

But the telepath is right up there with the telekinetic in the list of most iconic expressions of the Psion. It’s one of the Psionic archetypes that people who want to play a Psion think of, so that should be doable without having to also be a wizard. And I think as Mearls continues to iterate on this design, that’s going to become clearer. The Psion is going to end up feeling like it’s missing a core part of its identity as a class, and that’s going to lead towards a push either for a telepathic Psion subclass, or for the base class to include a lot of those features.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> I think Mearls will come around to that eventually, if for no other reason than because there’s demand for it.
> 
> Having watched the stream and seen his process, I think I have a good sense of his train of thought:
> There needs to be a Psionic/Arcane hybrid option > wizard is the best core class to handle that > a telepath is a strong flavor match for a Psionic wizard > if the Psionic wizard is a telepath, we don’t need the Psion core class to cover the same ground.
> ...



Personally, I kind of feel like the Sorcerer is a better home for a Psionic-Arcane hybrid; the classic "mutant" feel of "oh my goodness, I can read people's minds!"  Wizard and the future Psion look like they'll both be Int-based, so they could multiclass pretty easily.


----------



## Mistwell (Jun 8, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Talk about reinventing the wheel.
> 
> What's the production status? Another year of UA? Two? Or just more endless video doodling?
> 
> Or are they actually going to give us 5E psionics before we go into retirement..?




Do you need some poems on the virtue and benefit of patience? I can do haiku too.


----------



## MechaTarrasque (Jun 8, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Talk about reinventing the wheel.
> 
> What's the production status? Another year of UA? Two? Or just more endless video doodling?
> 
> Or are they actually going to give us 5E psionics before we go into retirement..?




Retirement?  No need for that.

I have already predicted 6e will be in 30-point font, and now I predict that the biggest supplement of 6e will be the trained dice-rolling monkey for arthritic DM's......


----------



## MechaTarrasque (Jun 8, 2018)

I would be okay with this class if they take the most recent mystic class features and make it alternative sorcerer class features.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 8, 2018)

A telepath wizard can still represent telepathy at level 1, by means of selecting psionic cantrips.

A human ‘mutant’ might also select a psionic feat.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 8, 2018)

Regarding abilities:

The psion focusing on physical phenomena (telekinesis, teleportation, force construction) makes more sense with Intelligence and Wisdom.

However the bard (?) focusing on social phenomena (telepathy, enchantment, phantasmal illusion, fate) makes more sense with Charisma and Wisdom.

Shapechanging (metamorph psion) can go either way, social identity or physical form, but either way, Wisdom is most prominent. (Compare the druid Wisdom for wildshaping into beast and elemental forms).


----------



## Mercule (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> Personally, I kind of feel like the Sorcerer is a better home for a Psionic-Arcane hybrid; the classic "mutant" feel of "oh my goodness, I can read people's minds!"  Wizard and the future Psion look like they'll both be Int-based, so they could multiclass pretty easily.



I agree with this. Most folks I know/knew used psionics to represent "magic in the blood" or "weird powers" in AD&D and even 3E. Yes, the 3E sorcerer was supposed to represent unknown origin to magic, but, again, everyone I knew just ignored the whole dragon blood thing and used it as an alternate mechanic for Wizards where you sacrificed one kind of flexibility (change every day) for another (no per-slot lock-in) -- psionics remained the way magic in the blood was handled.

If the PHB was a bit looser about whether the VSM components were standardized vs. improved/customized, I think one of the best options for psionics in 5E would be to just refine the fluff around Sorcerer and add subclasses like Mentalist, Tainted (by the Far Realms), Psychokinetic, etc. Wild Talents just use the Magic Initiate feat. Add a psychic warrior subclass to Fighter, Ardent for Bard (which I think works rather well, actually), Soul Knife for Monk, etc. just like the Wizard-flavored sub-classes.

I wouldn't really object to creating a separate class or two. Once you start getting into subclasses for other classes --especially other full casters -- it doesn't make as much sense. Just use the Sorcerer.


----------



## Staffan (Jun 8, 2018)

Mercule said:


> If the PHB was a bit looser about whether the VSM components were standardized vs. improved/customized, I think one of the best options for psionics in 5E would be to just refine the fluff around Sorcerer and add subclasses like Mentalist, Tainted (by the Far Realms), Psychokinetic, etc. Wild Talents just use the Magic Initiate feat. Add a psychic warrior subclass to Fighter, Ardent for Bard (which I think works rather well, actually), Soul Knife for Monk, etc. just like the Wizard-flavored sub-classes.




IMO, using the sorcerer (possibly with a new subclass) to "fake" a psion works in a limited context, such as running a one-shot where that character is *the* psion. Then, it works fine using judicious spell selection (possibly branching out of the regular sorcerer list for some things, e.g. _heat metal_). But I don't think there's enough meat there to support multiple different psions with different directions, the way you can make a lot of different wizards using the core rules.


----------



## Mercule (Jun 8, 2018)

Staffan said:


> IMO, using the sorcerer (possibly with a new subclass) to "fake" a psion works in a limited context, such as running a one-shot where that character is *the* psion. Then, it works fine using judicious spell selection (possibly branching out of the regular sorcerer list for some things, e.g. _heat metal_). But I don't think there's enough meat there to support multiple different psions with different directions, the way you can make a lot of different wizards using the core rules.



See, I don't even think of it as "faking" the psion, though. To me, the definition of a psion is someone who does supernatural things by drawing on the inner pool of power some accident of birth endowed them with. That view and usage predates the existence of the Sorcerer class.

The 3E Sorcerer was added just to give people a way to play an arcane caster without having to deal with the worst aspects of the psuedo-Vancian system. It had absolutely zero thematic powers. Those were added in to justify its continued existence in the later editions that were more mechanically clean for Wizards. The thematic aspect of Sorcerers addresses a problem that wasn't actually a problem. The Psion is the class that gets magic (by any other name) because of their nature.

I'm fine with adding a "Mystic" class that mainly just gives more visibility to the Monk's ki (like 4E did by putting Psion and Monk under the same power source). I'd expressly like to avoid the stupid ectoplasm, chimes, symbiote skins, and ambulatory crystals of 3E, though.

I'm not horribly opposed to the idea of creating a new Psion class, from scratch (as long as the ectoplasm doesn't come with it), and baking variety into the spell list(s), etc. But, really, it'll just end up being "the Sorcerer done better". You don't need both classes, thematically. Both are supposed to represent characters that have innate magic. These characters shouldn't all have the same spell list. Things like the Divine Soul and some others that have come out of UA with modified lists should be the norm.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 8, 2018)

Mercule said:


> Yes, the 3E sorcerer was supposed to represent unknown origin to magic, but, .. everyone I knew just ... used it as an alternate mechanic for Wizards where you sacrificed one kind of flexibility (change every day) for another (no per-slot lock-in)



 And, of course, now Wizards have both kinds of flexibility, so the Sorcerer is back to representing inborn magical power vs the Wizard's learned.



> If the PHB was a bit looser about whether the VSM components were standardized vs. improved/customized, I think one of the best options for psionics in 5E would be to just refine the fluff around Sorcerer and add subclasses like Mentalist, Tainted (by the Far Realms), Psychokinetic, etc. Wild Talents just use the Magic Initiate feat. Add a psychic warrior subclass to Fighter, Ardent for Bard (which I think works rather well, actually), Soul Knife for Monk, etc. just like the Wizard-flavored sub-classes.



 I'd see that more as having been a viable stop-gap until the MysticPsion completed its playtesting. (If we'd known it was a going to be this long, we sure could've used a stop-gap!)



> I wouldn't really object to creating a separate class or two. Once you start getting into subclasses for other classes --especially other full casters -- it doesn't make as much sense.



 5e goes to using sub-classes that way pretty readily.  Including full-caster sub-classes of other full-casters, like whatever they finally ended up calling the Favored Soul Sorcerers & Celestial Warlocks...


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 8, 2018)

Mercule said:


> See, I don't even think of it as "faking" the psion, though. To me, the definition of a psion is someone who does supernatural things by drawing on the inner pool of power some accident of birth endowed them with. That view and usage predates the existence of the Sorcerer class.
> 
> The 3E Sorcerer was added just to give people a way to play an arcane caster without having to deal with the worst aspects of the psuedo-Vancian system. It had absolutely zero thematic powers. Those were added in to justify its continued existence in the later editions that were more mechanically clean for Wizards. The thematic aspect of Sorcerers addresses a problem that wasn't actually a problem. The Psion is the class that gets magic (by any other name) because of their nature.
> 
> ...




I dont want the Magical Sorcerer to be my template for psionics, I would prefer it remain the purview of "magic is in my blood" style origins.

Whereas Psionics is less "magic" and more mind/body, maybe even ki.  You can study it OR gain it from birth/magical event.

Its more body control, mentalism, mind over matter.  There are those who say I just described magic, but magic has more of a magical flavor, and can be tapping into universal power sources etc.

I can never explain it very well.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 8, 2018)

Am I the only one who uses the Monk as a stand-in for certain psionic archetypes? Kensai seems like an easy tweak away from being a Soulknife, for instance. The tweak probably isn't even necessary if they dip Bladelock and choose something with the thrown property.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

Between Telepath, Telekinetic, Metamorph, Constructor, and Nomad, I feel like Metamorph is the most natural fit for Sorcerer.  It's the most internally focused and visceral of the specialties that Mike listed.  The others feel a little more about will and focus, which seems better for a d6 Int based class.


----------



## DeanP (Jun 9, 2018)

I really want to play a character who can say: "You're seeing now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I've been living on the edge so long, where the winds of Limbo roar."


----------



## ehren37 (Jun 9, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> I'd have an eye on how these would all translate to Dark Sun - I expect we'll see these either around the time of a DS book, or in a DS book.




Poorly if they're keeping the Telepath a wizard. What's the point of being a persecuted preserver or a hated defiler if a psi-wizard can just cast psi-fireball? If they're making a psion with TK, Metamorph, Nomad and Constructor I don't get why they wont bite the bullet and just add Telepath as well. 

Simply refluffiing spells is a waste of everyone's design time.  We have enough 9 level daily spell casters for two editions. If I never see anything on the wizard chassis again it will be too soon. It feels more like grid filling than 4E ever did.


----------



## Giltonio_Santos (Jun 9, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> I dont want the Magical Sorcerer to be my template for psionics, I would prefer it remain the purview of "magic is in my blood" style origins.




This. And also mechanics. I definitely want something else mechanically. They both have powers and they both burn points for effects: that's all the similarity I want between sorcerers and psions in my game.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 9, 2018)

DeanP said:


> I really want to play a character who can say: "You're seeing now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I've been living on the edge so long, where the winds of Limbo roar."




Bravo, Bravo! for the BOC reference, lots of fantasy in their their songs...I assume you have heard "Black Blade"?


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 9, 2018)

If they tried bringing back the Wilder, what would it be a subclass of?  Originally it was the Psionic Sorcerer that sort of had a Barbarian Rage like ability.  Though I guess it'll be more of a sorcerer since none of the Barbarian subclasses even have spell slots yet.


----------



## Valetudo (Jun 9, 2018)

MechaTarrasque said:


> Retirement?  No need for that.
> 
> I have already predicted 6e will be in 30-point font, and now I predict that the biggest supplement of 6e will be the trained dice-rolling monkey for arthritic DM's......



Ahh man! The dice monkey is throwing poop again. Wotc needs to errata him.


----------



## Valetudo (Jun 9, 2018)

Since we havent got a ragemage yet, maybe psionic barbie could be a wilder subclass.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 9, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> Whereas Psionics is less "magic" and more mind/body, maybe even ki.  You can study it OR gain it from birth/magical event..



 If we're being honest - and, I know, why start now? - psionics is just magic with the serial numbers filed off for use in science-fiction.

But, just like D&D informed MMOs which in turn influenced D&D, fantasy has infiltrated sci-fi which has infiltrated fantasy with the magic it ripped off from fantasy as psionics.

So it's as legit as any other pop culture genre infidelities of th 70s.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 9, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> I'd see that more as having been a viable stop-gap until the MysticPsion completed its playtesting. (If we'd known it was a going to be this long, we sure could've used a stop-gap!)



+01


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 9, 2018)

Giltonio_Santos said:


> I definitely want something else mechanically.



This. So very much this. 

When all other arguments for psionics have been stripped away this is what remains.

If we're honest, yes, the Sorcerer's "born with it" is enough for psionics too. If we're honest, yes, most psychic powers have been made into spells already. 

What remains is the gaming fun of new knobs to turn, and levers to pull. We definitely need a Psion, and it should definitely not be just a Wizard with spell points or a Sorcerer with a new spell list.


----------



## Li Shenron (Jun 9, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> I can never explain it very well.




It's not you. It's because the concept difference is weak.

"Supernatural but not magic" makes little sense because "magic" is already a catch-all word for everything supernatural. Psionics works great in context where you don't already use the word magic to explain the supernatural.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 9, 2018)

The concept difference IS weak.

That is why psionics need a different mechanical framework than spellcasters.

And just spell points renamed power points used to cast spells renamed powers does not cut it.


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 9, 2018)

The psychic wizard should b a sorcerer king in training.  It should be magic augmented by psionics - it is a wizard first.  

The telepath should be a psion subclass.  As others mention, it is too iconic of a psionic element to be contracted out to the wizard.

Regardless, it is hard to understand what the total puzzle would look like until we get some playtest materials.


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 9, 2018)

It's the catch-22.  If you make an entirely new mechanical framework, then it makes psionics different and interesting than spellcasting but is much less likely to mesh with the game.  And many players will just find it off-putting and too difficult to incorporate so they'll ignore it... or they'll question why the exact same ability like detecting thoughts works one way as a spell and another way as a discipline.

The other method is to make psionics talents spells because everything in the game is already spell-based, even if they are fluffed as more natural abilities rather than spells.  This makes it much easier for players to understand how they work, and how they balance themselves in the grand scheme of supernatural abilities, but make them much harder to fluff as something different.

It's the same issue we already have with things like the 4 Element Monk's magical abilities, or the Warlock's invocations.  The game tries to make them seem different by giving them their own special names to denote in the story that they're not supposed to be just "casting X spell"... but they are using their magical power to invoke the _Fist of Four Thunders_ or the _Mask of Many Faces_. When in truth they're just casting _Thunderwave_ and _Disguise Self_ just like the other members of the party.  It's meant to be different, but really it plays out exactly the same.  At least if you had a different mechanical framework it might feel different when you used the ability even if the effect matched.  Just like how the Champion's expanded crit range feels different than the Ranger's Hunter's Mark, even though in both cases the player is just adding an extra die to their damage at various points in the fight.

This is really why psionics has never really been a thing I've felt was missing from the game, because I've never seen psionics different than just the various psychic spells that any other magical class already does.  Being a psionic has always felt more like a descriptor of a person who focuses on a certain type of supernatural ability (psychic), just like somene saying they're a pyromancer (one who focuses on fire) or healer (one focused on healing magic).  You don't need a new mechanical class or framework to be a pyromancer, so having one just for psionics has always felt unnecessary to me personally.


----------



## Tales and Chronicles (Jun 9, 2018)

A thing I would like WotC to explore is a ''build up'' mechanic instead of a ''spending'' mechanic like all other other casters. Like, you start the day with X power point, in encounters you gain a special action called Gather Focus that you can use to ''drain'' power points. Then you also have a list of invocations/maneuvers that you can spend your gathered power points on. Like the Cipher in PoE, higher level ''invocation'' cost more, so the player has the choice to take many round to gather the needed focus for 1 big flashy effect, or use its pool to fuel many low cost effects.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 9, 2018)

I would like to see the return of the 1st edition scissors/paper/stone combat mechanic for psionics.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 9, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> Bravo, Bravo! for the BOC reference, lots of fantasy in their their songs...I assume you have heard "Black Blade"?



Considering Moorcock himself wrote lyrics for BöC, it seems fitting.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 9, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Happy Fun Hour 6/5/18
> 
> Mearls gives an overview of the state of psionics so far.
> 
> ...



If it were me, I'd switch telepath and constructor. Telepathy is a core element of psionics, like clairsentience, telekinesis, and body manipulation. Forming constructs out of astral goo feels more wizardy.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 9, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> If we're being honest - and, I know, why start now? - psionics is just magic with the serial numbers filed off for use in science-fiction.
> 
> But, just like D&D informed MMOs which in turn influenced D&D, fantasy has infiltrated sci-fi which has infiltrated fantasy with the magic it ripped off from fantasy as psionics.
> 
> So it's as legit as any other pop culture genre infidelities of th 70s.




Actually, I don't treat psionics as if it was magic.  More like Babylon 5.

I do see your point however.  Its a debate that invariably boils down to preference and viewpoint.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 9, 2018)

Li Shenron said:


> It's not you. It's because the concept difference is weak.
> 
> "Supernatural but not magic" makes little sense because "magic" is already a catch-all word for everything supernatural. Psionics works great in context where you don't already use the word magic to explain the supernatural.




I understand.

Still I've had both in my campaign with discernable differences since the latter half of the 80s so....I'm good.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 9, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> I... or they'll question why the exact same ability like detecting thoughts works one way as a spell and another way as a discipline....




Loved your post, good insights.

My thoughts on the above though?

Same reason puncing a hole in someone works differently with a bow or a rifle.  Similar, not the same.

But I'm in the minority when it comes to psionics, so as long as I keep my groups and players happy, its all good.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 9, 2018)

I think for me the differences go back to 4e's power sources. I don't particularly need Psionics to be more different from Arcane magic than Arcane magic is from Divine or Primal magic. The typical mechanical differences help it stand out more, which, depending on where you're standing, is either a great thing or a terrible thing. But the main difference is the source of the power:
Arcane: Spellweave/Leylines/Siberys/Life Esscence/etc.
Divine: Gods/Faith
Primal: Nature itself
Psionics: Mental Energy

The other thing that helps is a coherent theme: Primal & Divine spell lists are fairly self-evident; I would argue that Psionics, at least in D&D, have also developed its own standard set of thematic powers. The problem is actually Arcane Magic, which is exceptionally broad and has always stepped on the toes of other thematic niches. Not that there's much to be done about that now, as D&D's Schools of Arcane Magic are fairly well ingrained sacred cows so Diviners get telepathy and extra-sensory perception and Conjurors and Transmuters get some form of telekinesis or another because reasons.

That said, there's still enough separating each niche that I definitely could see a place for Psionics, whether it has its own unique mechanics or not. And I say that having successfully run Eberron for years without so much of a hint of psionics.


----------



## Guest 6801328 (Jun 9, 2018)

I like the idea of the subclasses, but I'm kinda bummed there's also a Psion base class.  I hate/d the Mystic, and when I heard that a bunch of classes might each be given a psionics subclass I thought that was a MUCH better solution (and kind of reflects the original psionics, in that any class could have it.)


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 10, 2018)

I love that there's a Psion base class, and I also love that they gave up on the idea to shoehorn every psychic archetype into it. Psychic Warrior as a Fighter subclass sounds much more promising!


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 10, 2018)

When psionics was going to be its own completely unique mechanical thing, I can understand why they thought putting all the various ways to express that in one package was a good idea.  It meant they could really go hog wild on this new mechanical framework to make it fun and different to play, and they wouldn't have to figure out how to make it interface or merge with the other frameworks in the game... only that they needed to be relatively balanced against each other.  And the whole point it seemed to me was to give enough various options within the Mystic itself that they also wouldn't need to figure out how to get multiclassing to work.  Multiclassing wouldn't be needed in the original system because all the types of psion/X multiclass flavors had a subclass already built into the Mystic class itself.

But once they switched over to this new idea of making psionics nothing more than spellcasting with a flavored spell list, it meant that they could put psionic subclasses within the existing PHB classes, and that multiclassing between those and the Psion itself were already established.  The only downside is that the mechanics are now no different than any other casting class, making "psionics" as a thing not really feel any different than the "necromancer" as a thing-- someone who just focuses on a particular type of magic.  And truth be told... I wonder at the end of the day if psionics is going to end up feeling pretty much like the Enchanter, and that it was never really necessary to be its own "thing" for 5E after all?


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 10, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> .  And truth be told... I wonder at the end of the day if psionics is going to end up feeling pretty much like the Enchanter, and that it was never really necessary to be its own "thing" for 5E after all?



 I suppose that, arguably, the Enchanter never really needed to be it's own thing in 5e, sure.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 10, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> I suppose that, arguably, the Enchanter never really needed to be it's own thing in 5e, sure.




Enchanter makes more sense with the Charisma caster class, especially bard.


----------



## Sword of Spirit (Jun 11, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> But once they switched over to this new idea of making psionics nothing more than spellcasting with a flavored spell list...




I’ll be somewhat surprised if this survives play testing, and wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t even make it to play testing.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 11, 2018)

Sword of Spirit said:


> I’ll be somewhat surprised if this survives play testing, and wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t even make it to play testing.




My impression is, Mearls is exploring the psionic subclasses as a nod toward the psionics=spells camp, and the psion class as a nod toward psionics=mechanics camp. For example, Mearls mentioned more than once that the subclasses are a way to implement psionics without needing to learn a new system.

That said, I love the tropes of the psion class, but am in the psionics=spells camp. As long as the high level psion class can get the Wish spell, that is close enough for me. The psion must be a full spellcaster, or at least something like it. I would balk at a half caster.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 11, 2018)

Sword of Spirit said:


> I’ll be somewhat surprised if this survives play testing, and wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t even make it to play testing.



I envy your confidence...

Myself, I would be extremely surprised (and very happy) if psionics left the spells route behind for something mechanically truly new (or at least different, like if they make attacks using ability scores).

I would definitely be prepared to pay the price of the non-Psion subclasses being more traditional to get this. (For instance, if the Psionic Warrior turns out to be a lightly rehashed Eldritch Knight, only with a different spell list, that would be tantamount to throwing this archetype on the garbage heap - but if the Psion got to play with brand new toys in return  I would choose to accept it as worth the sacrifice)


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 11, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The psion must be a full spellcaster, or at least something like it. I would balk at a half caster.



Of course. 

Or, maybe, I should ask - good heavens, who on earth would think otherwise? 

Psionics should definitely cover the full spectrum of power. Then, whether Psions get Wish-level power from spell slots, invocations, or some new framework, is of secondary concern. (Or rather, that should be the foremost concern, because the question of getting it at all should not even need to be asked).


----------



## Ratskinner (Jun 11, 2018)

MechaTarrasque said:


> Retirement?  No need for that.
> 
> I have already predicted 6e will be in 30-point font, and now I predict that the biggest supplement of 6e will be the trained dice-rolling monkey for arthritic DM's......



Have to be a larger species. Large-print dice can be heavy.


----------



## Li Shenron (Jun 11, 2018)

Gradine said:


> I think for me the differences go back to 4e's power sources. I don't particularly need Psionics to be more different from Arcane magic than Arcane magic is from Divine or Primal magic. The typical mechanical differences help it stand out more, which, depending on where you're standing, is either a great thing or a terrible thing. But the main difference is the source of the power:
> Arcane: Spellweave/Leylines/Siberys/Life Esscence/etc.
> Divine: Gods/Faith
> Primal: Nature itself
> Psionics: Mental Energy




Meh... the more 'organized' magic gets, the more dumb it feels to my tastes. Why is the mind of a humanoid not part of nature? Why aren't those leylines or "life essence" _outside_ nature? "Primal" is an even more watered down concept.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 11, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> I hope that, with the return of the 3.x "Psion" name comes the DM-option of Psionics being magical or different by campaign.



Much akin to the name "warlord," the name "psion" has accumulated a lot of legacy traction: 3-4E plus its fairly popular re-implementation in Pathfinder by Dreamscarred Press. 



> As it stands, though, sub-classes associated with a new class like the above provide faux-MCing for campaigns where MCing is not opted-into, and are only slightly less legitimate in covering a concept associated with the new class than a sub-class of the class itself.  Personally, I think Ardent would make more sense as a Psion or Warlord sub-class than a Bard sub-class (because of the Bard is a full caster in 5e, but if he's essentially made the psion a caster, I guess it's fine, too).
> 
> The Ardent was introduced in 3.5, and is a fairly strong concept, a psionic who channels emotion (telempathy) to support his allies.



The Ardent would indeed work well for a Warlord or a Bard subclass, though I would lean towards Warlord since it decouples the Ardent from any musical or poetic baggage of the Bard. 



TwoSix said:


> Personally, I kind of feel like the Sorcerer is a better home for a Psionic-Arcane hybrid; the classic "mutant" feel of "oh my goodness, I can read people's minds!"  Wizard and the future Psion look like they'll both be Int-based, so they could multiclass pretty easily.



Same. It would be a bit odd for the psion to consult a spellbook of their innate talent.


----------



## mrpopstar (Jun 11, 2018)

There is a part of my that's like, "yay! this looks to be shaping up nicely!," and another part of me that's like, "there was such a huge missed opportunity in differentiating magic users by spell list rather than by systems of magical resource expenditure, which would have freed up design space to differentiate psionics." -- I'm torn.


----------



## MechaTarrasque (Jun 11, 2018)

Psychics has to navigate between the Scylla of being insufficiently distinct from "wizard's magic" (or else why bother making it?) and the Charybdis of "that it irritates everyone else" [see Psychic Combat].   The Lore Wizard proves a subclass can be eaten by Charybdis.  I find the notion of a "full caster" psychic imaginatively bankrupt, but it does avoid Charybdis.


----------



## Dausuul (Jun 11, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Rather than mystic, the name of the psionic class will probably be: psion.



Good deal. I never warmed to "mystic." There's nothing wrong with the occasional sci-fi trope in D&D; such tropes have a long and honorable history in the game, all the way back to Arneson's Blackmoor.



Yaarel said:


> *Psion
> *• Telekinetic
> • Metamorph
> • Nomad
> • Constructor



So, you can specialize in moving stuff with your mind; transforming your physical form; teleporting (I assume that's what Nomad does, could use a better name); or... uh... instantiating a class? What the heck does a Constructor do?

Also, shouldn't telepath be a psion subclass rather than a wizard tradition?


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 11, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> Actually, I don't treat psionics as if it was magic.  More like Babylon 5.



 Babylon 5 is the kind of Space Opera that borrows heavily from myth/legend/fantasy.  JMS even cited mythology, LotR & the Arthurian cycle as inspirations.  So, yeah, it has magic (and supernatural beings, roughly angels/maiar & demons in the Vorlons & Shadows) with the serial #s filed off.  ;P



Dausuul said:


> Good deal. I never warmed to "mystic." There's nothing wrong with the occasional sci-fi trope in D&D; such tropes have a long and honorable history in the game, all the way back to Arneson's Blackmoor.



 Well, I'll acknowledge it's a long history, and one that can't be abandoned or taken in a radical new direction without alienating fans of it's past incarnations.


----------



## Sword of Spirit (Jun 11, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> Well, I'll acknowledge it's a long history, and one that can't be abandoned or taken in a radical new direction without alienating fans of it's past incarnations.




I think it's possible to present it in such a way that it works with the more "mystic"al feel and the sci-fi feel. Perhaps a little tricky, but completely doable.

I'm just hoping they capture the best bits from the playtest versions. I really liked the mechanical concept from last time (disciplines with multiple effects), although the power level needs to scale up to the equivalent of 9th level spells. However, I liked the metaphysics behind the earlier version (sans Far Realm nonsense) better.

I mean really, how many psionic fans wouldn't be satisfied with:
1) Flavor that can be spun as either sci-fi, magic, or "other" mystical
2) Reality transcending metaphysics description (presented as "some psions see psionics as...")
3) Recapturing AD&D feel with terms like "disciplines"
4) Unique system, but that mirrors power and utility of spellcasting
5) Subclasses using a simplified version of psionics compared to the full mystic/psion class, based on Innate Spellcasting (ie, Monster Manual psionics)

Sounds like that would work for most fans, provide options for those who want them, and get some who are on the fence to try it out.

Some of the concerns I had with previous playtest versions was not allowing iconic things, like astral travel, and that needs to be addressed.


----------



## Tales and Chronicles (Jun 11, 2018)

Dausuul said:


> Good deal. I never warmed to "mystic." There's nothing wrong with the occasional sci-fi trope in D&D; such tropes have a long and honorable history in the game, all the way back to Arneson's Blackmoor.
> 
> 
> So, you can specialize in moving stuff with your mind; transforming your physical form; teleporting (I assume that's what Nomad does, could use a better name); or... uh... instantiating a class? What the heck does a Constructor do?
> ...




In 4e constructor were callled Shapers aka the Psion using their mind To summom or shape psi material such as crystal and ectoplasm


----------



## gyor (Jun 11, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> Personally, I kind of feel like the Sorcerer is a better home for a Psionic-Arcane hybrid; the classic "mutant" feel of "oh my goodness, I can read people's minds!"  Wizard and the future Psion look like they'll both be Int-based, so they could multiclass pretty easily.




 I see the Sorcerer Psion as a kind of Foulbred subclass, your ancestor was either an Aberration or a victim of Far Realms taint, perhaps you were even an Illithid experiment yourself.


----------



## gyor (Jun 11, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> If it were me, I'd switch telepath and constructor. Telepathy is a core element of psionics, like clairsentience, telekinesis, and body manipulation. Forming constructs out of astral goo feels more wizardy.




 Exactly its a core element of the Psion class as in I think its likely all Psions are going to be Telepathic.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 11, 2018)

Double-Post


----------



## Gradine (Jun 11, 2018)

Dausuul said:


> Good deal. I never warmed to "mystic." There's nothing wrong with the occasional sci-fi trope in D&D; such tropes have a long and honorable history in the game, all the way back to Arneson's Blackmoor.
> 
> 
> So, you can specialize in moving stuff with your mind; transforming your physical form; teleporting (I assume that's what Nomad does, could use a better name); or... uh... instantiating a class? What the heck does a Constructor do?
> ...




As others have pointed out Constructors (or Shapers) have focused on the past of shaping material out of psy-stuff (usually ectoplasm, sometimes also crystal).

Nomads specialize in "psychoportation" and astral projection and all things getting from point A to point B. There was a Nomad-focused prestige class in 3.5 called the Elocater that I played once; it's a ton of fun. Lots of mobility, as you can imagine. He liked to teleport above people and land on them spear-first.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 14, 2018)

gyor said:


> Exactly its a core element of the Psion class as in I think its likely all Psions are going to be Telepathic.




I have to agree with this sentiment. Building constructs seems wizardy to me, reading minds, less so. 

Was there anything new in this weeks? I haven’t had a chance to go watch it yet.


----------



## Dungeonosophy (Jun 14, 2018)

A bit of D&D History.

I invented the word Psion. (As far as I know.)

Here's the story.

Back on the WotC Message Boards, in the run-up to 3E, (must've been around 1999-2000), I posted my own speculative synthesis of how I'd like to see the 2E Classes and Groups (Warrior, Rogue, Wizard, Priest, Psionicist) redone for 3E. I posted a list of classes, grouped by, well "Group", since that was the paradigm I was familiar with. The details of 3E were only beginning to leak out. In that post, I offered a completist perspective, and included basically all of the 2E classes in the list, even rare classes, hoping they'd all be included in the 3E PHB, or in a followup sourcebook. I included all of the 2E Psionicist classes from the Complete Psionics Handbook in the list.

...But I felt irked by how "Psionicist" is such an ugly, long, clunky word. And so, since this was my own personal vision of 3E, I thought to myself: The only essential bit of that word is "Psion-". Why not just call the Group "Psion"? It's fits in aesthetically with such short words as "Rogue" and "Priest".

So in my posted list, I grouped the psionic classes under the name "Psion".  I did invent it.

Around that time, I (and others) were conversing back and forth daily with Ryan Dancey and other WotC reps. And Dancey was responding to my posts.

Not long after that, I saw WotC using the word "Psion".

Now, it's such a simple word, that it could very well have been independently conceived by a WotC staffer. Yet, you see why I propose that my invention may've directly inspired the class name.

The only way to prove it would be to:

1) Search through an archive of the only WotC msg board (if an archive exists), and find my post. I don't even remember my handle back then. Maybe I used my name, Shane.
2) Search the WotC msg board for any prior use of "Psion".
3) Confirm with Dancey and/or other staffers to see if they remember picking the word up. There was surely at least some brief discussion about changing such a significant thing as the Group (now Class) name.

Not that anyone (including myself) is burning to affirm this teeny bit of D&D lore. Yet since the word Psion has been used so often since then, in Dark Sun, and now 5E, I figured I'd share the story from my perspective.


----------



## Hexmage-EN (Jun 14, 2018)

I've started reading a book recently called Secret Religions, which covers various real world New Age organizations and cults. It's inadvertantly helped me like the idea of psionics in D&D better, changing my understanding of the concept from just a scif-fi substitute for magic into a form of mysticism.

The main thing that has caught my interest is that several groups, like the Theosophical Society, taught that psychic powers are innate to all humans but that only some people learn how to access them. Some claim that humanity as a whole once made extensive use of psionics but either forgot how to use them or somehow become largely incapable of it, while others say that humankind is just now discovering their hidden abilities for the first time.

Another interesting concept is that there are entities who have mastered these powers to the point of becoming independent of mundane reality. These "ascended masters" strive to help others achieve apotheosis.

D&D already has a number of concepts that could be integrated with this mystical view of psionics. Monks, like psions, are capable of unlocking supernatural power that is innate to mortals, yet largely untapped and only accessed through specialized study (4E's psionic monk makes more sense now, actually). Githzerai also embody both psionics and the monk class, and they have their own "ascended master" in Zerthimon. Perhaps "ki" is related to psionic energy in some way.

Plus you've got the Astral Plane, a realm of thought, so you'd think that would have something to do with psions. 4E also floated the idea that divine magic might be a variant of psionics, seeing as the realms of the gods are linked to the Astral Plane. Maybe you could even have fringe cults claiming that the gods themselves are actually an order of ultra powerful ascended masters.


----------



## Dungeonosophy (Jun 14, 2018)

Hexmage-EN said:


> Maybe you could even have fringe cults claiming that the gods themselves are actually an order of ultra powerful ascended masters.




"Fringe cult" = the entire World of Mystara.  Pretty much all of the gods (called "Immortals" in Mystara) were mortals who worked their way up to Immortality.

Interesting perspective on Theosophy and D&D. Gygax admits that some D&D creatures were directly taken from Theosophy: the Solar Deva and Planetar. Presumably also the Monadic Deva.

Gygax:
_"Planetar and Solar were inspired by Theosophy."_
— ENWorld, _Q&A with Gary Gygax_ part 13, 2007


Also, the very terms Etheric Plane, Astral Plane, and Outer Planes (Theosophy's "Devachan", "home of the gods") is from Theosophy.

On a related note: I recently discovered that, aesthetically, the name "Cthulhu" is very likely based on a mix of "Kuthumi" and "Djwal Khul" two figures from Alice Bailey's theosophy: Kuthumi + Djawal Khul = "*K*(u)*thu*(mi)(Djwa)*l*(k)*hu*(l)" = *Kthulhu*.

https://secretsun.blogspot.com/2014/08/lovecrafts-secret-source-for-chthulu_9.html


----------



## Zardnaar (Jun 14, 2018)

Polyhedral Columbia said:


> A bit of D&D History.
> 
> I invented the word Psion. (As far as I know.)
> 
> ...




We were using that word in AD&D 2E with no internet access. Psionist was rarely used psychic was probably used the most.


----------



## Dungeonosophy (Jun 14, 2018)

Zardnaar said:


> We were using that word in AD&D 2E with no internet access.




Fair enough - it's a word that easily could be independently invented. Nevertheless, it is feasible (though far from certain) that my correspondence with Dancey at that time may've brought the word to WotC staffer's ears and consciousness.


----------



## Zardnaar (Jun 14, 2018)

Polyhedral Columbia said:


> Fair enough - it's a word that easily could be independently invented. Nevertheless, it is feasible (though far from certain) that my correspondence with Dancey at that time may've brought the word to WotC staffer's ears and consciousness.




Possible yeah, even without internet access and regular Dragons a lot of stuff we did in AD&D was echoed independently by other groups. I missed the dart specialist thing though and we used more optional rules at various times than most groups probably (we actually used Skills and Powers- once).


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 17, 2018)

Mearls, Happy Fun Hour 2018 6-12 is up!

Show focuses on the psion (formerly mystic) class.

Element-kinesis (pyrokinesis, cryokinesis, etcetera) merges with wu-jen and mentalist, and goes to wizard class.

Telepath returns from wizard to psion, currently as ‘awakened’, possibly renamed telepath. The awakened telepath gains full-on telepathy. All psions get some telepathy.

Barbarian gains the immortal subclass.

Currently ...

Psion
• Awakened (Telepath)
• Nomad (Teleporter)
• Metamorph
• Constructor (Shaper of force constructs)


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 17, 2018)

One of my thoughts on if they keep power points, they should reduce the number of power points and have them refresh on a short rest.  Using the roughly the Warlock Spell Levels and # of Slots to determine how many Power Points they get.  That could mean that they'd get something similar to Mystic Arcanum for later levels to match up with other casters.

I think that finding somewhere between the Wizard and the Warlock might be something to aim for other than going "More like the Wizard".


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 17, 2018)

Since differentiation is good in itself (everything else equal), I see a point here.

Obviously, however, I would love it if the Psion isn't "X with spell points" for *any* value of X.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 17, 2018)

I like the Pathfinder Kineticist, which is mechanically similar to the 3.5 warlock, but completely refluffed.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 17, 2018)

Mearls mentions the immortal mystic will go to the barbarian class. ... But does that mean the barbarian will be the psychic warrior?


----------



## tglassy (Jun 17, 2018)

No, he’s already said the Psychic Warrior is a Fighter archetype.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 17, 2018)

tglassy said:


> No, he’s already said the Psychic Warrior is a Fighter archetype.




I know, but if I recall correctly, the immortal mystic is merging with psychic warrior. 

But now it is merging with barbarian. Hence, is barbarian the new psychic warrior?


----------



## gyor (Jun 17, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> I know, but if I recall correctly, the immortal mystic is merging with psychic warrior.
> 
> But now it is merging with barbarian. Hence, is barbarian the new psychic warrior?




 I think the idea at this point is Immortal and Psychic Warrior will be separate subclasses.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 17, 2018)

gyor said:


> I think the idea at this point is Immortal and Psychic Warrior will be separate subclasses.




How different could the immortal and psywar be from each other?


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 17, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> How different could the immortal and psywar be from each other?




If you look at the Mystic class, the Immortal focuses on defence, gaining bonuses to AC, damage resistance, regeneration and suchlike. The Psychic Warrior is the Soul Knife, creating psychic weapons in order to make Psi damage attacks (probably dual wielding).


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 17, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> If you look at the Mystic class, the Immortal focuses on defence, gaining bonuses to AC, damage resistance, regeneration and suchlike. The Psychic Warrior is the Soul Knife, creating psychic weapons in order to make Psi damage attacks (probably dual wielding).




Wait. Monk will be the soul knife.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 17, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Wait. Monk will be the soul knife.




Then you've got too many psychic subclasses.

Personally, I would give Immortal To Monk, Soul Knife to Fighter and barbarians should stick to punching things and hitting them with large objects.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 17, 2018)

They put immortal on Barbarian because they gave the Immortal an AC calculated by 8+dex+Con, which they realized was the Barbarian. The Immortal is all about defense, healing, and being really hard to kill. Kind of like the Barbarian. 

The psychic warrior is a warrior. A Fighter. Focusing on attack and is basically an Eldridge Knight with Psionics instead of magic. 

The Soul Knife is a dexterous skirmishes who has such control over their mind’s powers, they can create a blade from pure mental strength. Like a psychic ninja. So it’s a Monk class. 

The Lurk is going to be a sneaky type who slips in and out of peoples minds like a thief in the night. Thus, a Rogue class. 

The keneticist or whatever they decide to call it is a blaster wielding the forces of nature to blow things up. We already have one of those. It’s called a wizard. Why create a new system of throwing fireballs when you can just give wizards access to psionic powers and be done with it?  Thus, a wizard class. 

It’s not “too many subclasses”. It’s just that there are a lot of psionic archetypes, too many for a class to do justice. That is what was wrong with the Mystic. It could be anything. Well, now many classes can have a little psychic flavor, utilizing the chassis of that class to give the variety. Why make the Psion able to use weapons and/or armor, or force all Psion to have a higher hit dice, when the fighter gives everything you need and the subclass can give the Psionics?

The Psion class itself will be the person who only focused on Psionics, and therefore has his own flavor. I like this take. It allows the Psion to be its own thing, while still allowing those archetypes that players like, such as the fighting psychic, the ninja psychic, the sneaky psychic, and the wizard who delved into psychic powers.


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 17, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> How different could the immortal and psywar be from each other?



How different are fighters and barbarians?

There are dozens of distinct (enough) psionic concepts.  If you look at all the different types of lore where someone has powers of the mind, you can see a lot of options.  Some are best merged, some work fine as subclasses, but you could make over two dozen different ideas... and we have in prior editions.

Personally, I'm fine with the subclasses approach, but I wish there were two core psionic classes: Psion (spellcaster equivalent) and psychic warrior (jedi equivalent).  Each concept has several subclass concepts that fit well under a broader umbrella.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 17, 2018)

They still should try for the Wilder concept which was sort of the Psionic Sorcerer with a bit of Barbarian thrown in.  Though I guess there could a Aberrant Bloodline of the Sorcerer.  Having tentacles and birth defects not necessary.

Erudite probably doesn't need to exist, as generalist wizards have been ejected as a concept, and it was more of a Wizard of Psionics which they're in fact producing a Psionic subclass of Wizard.

There was a Psi Artificer introduced in Eberron, but that's unlikely as it would be a subclass for a class that's still in development.

Cleric could get a Mind/Mysticism domain.  By the same token there could be justification for some sort of Paladin oath too.  There was the Divine Mind Class in 3.5e after all, even if it existed because of the ill thought-out concept that only Divinity could be good at healing.

They're still possibly thinking of the Ardent as a Bard subclass, and I believe there was a Bard variant that just used power points instead.

It'd be alright if they came up with 1 new class + 12 new subclasses for the other classes.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 17, 2018)

As for the other classes there could be Mind-Hunter Ranger.

The Wu Jen was sort of somewhere between being a Wizard and Druid.  But maybe there could be justification for some sort of Psychic Druid Circle.

A Warlock could have some sort of Ascended Mind as a Patron.

A Paladin could have a Sohei Oath, the Sohei as a Temple Guard was a class occupied a weird place.  It sort of was intended to be the Paladin in OA, but it dipped into Monk and Barbarian too.  And when they were coming up with the Mystic, it was originally the Sohei that was going to be the Fighter subclass.


----------



## gyor (Jun 17, 2018)

I'd make the Paladin subclass Oath of the Divine Mind, which is an oath about establishing a psionic link directly with a God's mind, perhaps even with their subconscious mind.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 17, 2018)

[MENTION=779]Kobold Avenger[/MENTION] - Mearls has mentioned making a Warlock with an Elder Brain patron

 [MENTION=6670153]gyor[/MENTION] - I'm not sure I'd like to see a Paladin oath that deals with psionics. I mean the other oaths are thematic: Vengeance, Devotion, Crown, Conquest, Redemption... I suppose the Oath of the Ancients is semi-similar in concept to what a Psi-oath would be like. I'd think the oath would have to be something like "Awakening" because you're awakening your own potential. As a DM I'd force any Paladins of this to probably be part of a religious order associated with Psionic deities.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 17, 2018)

Kraken patron for warlocks?  Argh this is a year too late :O


----------



## Sword of Spirit (Jun 17, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Element-kinesis (pyrokinesis, cryokinesis, etcetera) merges with wu-jen and mentalist, and goes to wizard




*facepalm*

There are two main shticks for a psychic: telepathy and telekinesis. Both need to be in psion. Anything beyond that is fringe or a D&Dism and I don’t mind if it stays in a subclass of some other class.

But *both* telepathy *and* telekinesis need to be in the psion class.

This isn’t rocket science.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 18, 2018)

They will be. But the Telepath class will be able to do it better, and the class that does telekinesis as its focus will do that better than the others.


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 18, 2018)

Telepath returns FROM wizard TO psion.  So both Telekinetic and telepath are psions.  

I hope they give us the jedi equivalent base class.  Fundamentally, adding psionics to another class gives you a psionic fighter, a psionic wizard, a psionic paladin, or a psionic barbarian.  Psionic is the tweak, not the core of the class.  However, if we give ourselves a jedi class it can be distinct and evocative.  It won't need to work around the core of the other classes where there are conceptual conflicts.  That doesn't mean there is no room for subclass approaches, but we'd be better served with 2 core concept classes.

I'd like to see:

Psion (telepath, telekinetic, nomad, metamorph, shaper)

Psychic Warrior (Soul Knife (Melee Offensive Tank (more damage)), Immortal (Melee Defensive Tank (more defense)), Disciple (Melee Controller Telekinetic - disrupts his environment), Dominator (Melee Controller Telepath - disrupts his enemies en masse), Mindhunter (Melee, but focuses on tearing one foe apart at a time - heaftier single target conditions inflicted, steals knowledge, leeching)  

Subclass approach (Rogue Lurk, Cleric of the Mind, Bard Ardent, Wizard Meta (Sorcerer King in training))


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Jun 18, 2018)

Sword of Spirit said:


> *facepalm*
> 
> There are two main shticks for a psychic: telepathy and telekinesis. Both need to be in psion. Anything beyond that is fringe or a D&Dism and I don’t mind if it stays in a subclass of some other class.
> 
> ...



I see a big thematic difference between telekinesis and element-kinesis. In my eyes, element-kinesis is just a figleaf for "we want a guy with fire/ice/lightning magic" in settings where psi substitutes for magic, like X-Men. It feel redundant in D&D, where the sorcerer exists. On the other hand, original flavor telekinesis -- picking up things and throwing them at people, or picking up people and throwing them at things -- is very distinctly psionic, and there's no question it should be part of the psion class.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 18, 2018)

The Jedi is the Soul Knife, which will be a Monk subclass, which is perfect because Jedi are just Monks with some Psychic powers and a lightsaber. So, the Soul Knife will be a Monk with some psychic powers and a Soul Knife.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 18, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Psion
> • Awakened (Telepath)
> • Nomad (Teleporter)
> • Metamorph
> • Constructor (Shaper of force constructs)



Ehh...still think Metamorph is still too visceral for the fairly cerebral Psion they're putting together.  I'd rather see it moved to the Sorcerer; or, even more out there, the Ranger.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Jun 18, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> ...or, even more out there, the Ranger.



I feel like you're just describing the druid.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 18, 2018)

Druid would be natural forms. Metamorph would be for weird things, like the Beast Form Discipline or Corrosive Biology or whatever it was called.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Jun 18, 2018)

tglassy said:


> Druid would be natural forms. Metamorph would be for weird things, like the Beast Form Discipline or Corrosive Biology or whatever it was called.



Doesn't it make more sense to bolt this onto the druid chassis than the ranger chassis, if you're going to bolt it onto some existing chassis?


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 18, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Doesn't it make more sense to bolt this onto the druid chassis than the ranger chassis, if you're going to bolt it onto some existing chassis?



I did consider that, but psychic warriors always got a lot of psychometabolic powers back in 3.5, so I thought Ranger might be an interesting compromise position.  It's not like Ranger gets a lot of love anyway.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 18, 2018)

I suppose, except they’re currently looking to make it a Psion subclass.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 18, 2018)

tglassy said:


> They put immortal on Barbarian because they gave the Immortal an AC calculated by 8+dex+Con, which they realized was the Barbarian. The Immortal is all about defense, healing, and being really hard to kill. Kind of like the Barbarian.
> 
> The psychic warrior is a warrior. A Fighter. Focusing on attack and is basically an Eldridge Knight with Psionics instead of magic.
> 
> ...




These all make sense to me but... the barbarian is already tanky.  If you put the Immortal's defensive capacities on top of the barbarian, it might be *too* tanky?

I'll also note that using psionics while raging seems... peculiar.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 18, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> I'll also note that using psionics while raging seems... peculiar.



Worked for the 3.5 Wilder.  Strong emotion allowing one to tap into latent psionic power seems a legit trope to build around, in my eyes.


----------



## NaturalZero (Jun 18, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> I hope they give us the jedi equivalent base class.  Fundamentally, adding psionics to another class gives you a psionic fighter, a psionic wizard, a psionic paladin, or a psionic barbarian.  Psionic is the tweak, not the core of the class.




A million times this. The problem with the current class design is that, for many classes, the subclass features are too little, too late. If I want to play a psychic warrior, i don't want to be a generic fighter for 2 levels, then get a drip of psionics that kinda-sorta works with my 90% core fighter chasis. Just give me the damned battlemind or psywar from level 1 with psionic ability that start taking off from the get-go. 

Also, the wizard absolutely cannot be THE telepath for this reason. The wizard subclasses in this edition are completely anemic compared to the base class chasis. One wizard at the table gets oracle dice and the other gets +1 hp on zombies but they still wind up picking 90% of the same standard spells! The "telepath" wizard is going to be a guy who gets some minor rider to mind-affecting spells but then still uses the same old sleep, fireball, and polymorph that every other frickin' wizard player uses. The psion needs to be THE telepath.



TheCosmicKid said:


> Doesn't it make more sense to bolt this onto the druid chassis than the ranger chassis, if you're going to bolt it onto some existing chassis?




The problem with giving the druid awesome metamorphic abilities is that he's already a full caster on top of that. We could benefit from a dedicated metamorph class that doesn't need to have his transformations nerfed to offset full spellcasting.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 18, 2018)

I'm getting a bad feeling about this. 

The impression is clueless designers with no vision - it sounds more like they're trying to solve a puzzle (which piece fits where?) than they're having a strong and consistent idea of what psionics is, and only are debating how to implement it...


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 18, 2018)

Yes, a psychic warrior that is an Eldritch Knight, only with spell points and different spells...

...that's a stopgap measure at best.

It's not completely useless. If temporary. But is it worth a FIVE year wait?? 

Absolutely not. They could and should have added that year 2, with specific promises that's more to come.

It's the quick and easy solution we use to tide us over until the proper psionics handbook comes along.


----------



## cbwjm (Jun 18, 2018)

NaturalZero said:


> Also, the wizard absolutely cannot be THE telepath for this reason. The wizard subclasses in this edition are completely anemic compared to the base class chasis. One wizard at the table gets oracle dice and the other gets +1 hp on zombies but they still wind up picking 90% of the same standard spells! The "telepath" wizard is going to be a guy who gets some minor rider to mind-affecting spells but then still uses the same old sleep, fireball, and polymorph that every other frickin' wizard player uses. The psion needs to be THE telepath.




Good news! Although I still haven't finished watching it, Mearls has moved the Telepath back into the psion.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Jun 18, 2018)

NaturalZero said:


> The problem with giving the druid awesome metamorphic abilities is that he's already a full caster on top of that. We could benefit from a dedicated metamorph class that doesn't need to have his transformations nerfed to offset full spellcasting.



Believe me, you're preaching to the choir. But the same can be said of rangers being full warriors on top of whatever their subclass gives them.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 18, 2018)

NaturalZero said:


> A million times this. The problem with the current class design is that, for many classes, the subclass features are too little, too late. If I want to play a psychic warrior, i don't want to be a generic fighter for 2 levels, then get a drip of psionics that kinda-sorta works with my 90% core fighter chasis. Just give me the damned battlemind or psywar from level 1 with psionic ability that start taking off from the get-go.




To me this is just a role play/how do you perceive your achievement of abilities concept. I can absolutely see roleplaying a Psychic Warrior who has the psionic potential, but has to train and study for a long time (i.e. 2 levels) before being able to focus and start really accessing that potential. That even seems more fun to me from an RP perspective than just starting with all the goodies. If you watch last week's episode, he actually goes into the design concept for why many of the classes sub-classes kick in when and where they do. At least he talked about it for Cleric, Wizard, & Druid that I remember off the top of my head right now. To me their rationale made a lot of sense. 



NaturalZero said:


> Also, the wizard absolutely cannot be THE telepath for this reason. The wizard subclasses in this edition are completely anemic compared to the base class chasis. One wizard at the table gets oracle dice and the other gets +1 hp on zombies but they still wind up picking 90% of the same standard spells! The "telepath" wizard is going to be a guy who gets some minor rider to mind-affecting spells but then still uses the same old sleep, fireball, and polymorph that every other frickin' wizard player uses. The psion needs to be THE telepath.




I see this, and so does Mearls which is why Telepath is back into Psion. That said, I wouldn't mind retaining the Mentalist Wizard as well. 



NaturalZero said:


> The problem with giving the druid awesome metamorphic abilities is that he's already a full caster on top of that. We could benefit from a dedicated metamorph class that doesn't need to have his transformations nerfed to offset full spellcasting.




We'll see what he comes up with for the Psion version, but the Psion is planned to be a full "caster" chassis as well.


----------



## NaturalZero (Jun 18, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> To me this is just a role play/how do you perceive your achievement of abilities concept. I can absolutely see roleplaying a Psychic Warrior who has the psionic potential, but has to train and study for a long time (i.e. 2 levels) before being able to focus and start really accessing that potential. That even seems more fun to me from an RP perspective than just starting with all the goodies. If you watch last week's episode, he actually goes into the design concept for why many of the classes sub-classes kick in when and where they do. At least he talked about it for Cleric, Wizard, & Druid that I remember off the top of my head right now. To me their rationale made a lot of sense.




I mean, you can create a role playing rationale for running anything from a commoner class to a monster stat block, but the problem for me is that I loved the swordmage/battelmind in 4e and the eldritch knight feels very half-baked by comparison. Not even quarter baked, really. You get a tiny amount of spells and this is exacerbated by the fact that progression doesn't even start until 3rd level. That, and because the fighter's core abilities, like multiattacking, are so good, they're almost always more optimal than pretty much anything you get from EK, other than the shield spell. It's hard for me to imagine this changing if they drop psywar into fighter. You're going to get a tiny drip of psi and it doesn't even get going until you've been playing for weeks. On the other hand, you can just roll a paladin and have a magic-using fighter-type right out of the gate. 

I just want a psionic version of the paladin or swordmage in 5e who does SOME kind of psionic stuff at level 1 and relies on abilities other than Extra Attack and Action Surge as go-to tactics.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 18, 2018)

I guess I feel where you're coming from... but EK is supposed to be a fighter who has a smattering of magic and it is. Bladesinger is the other side, where you have a full caster who has a smattering of fighting. I feel like Psychic Warrior and Soul Knife (to a lesser degree) give you that first flavor and once we have more specifics, I have a hunch that the Metamorph is going to end up being the other end of their spectrum with the "full caster who has a smattering of combat". 

To be fair, I did not play 4e, skipped straight from 3rd to 5th, so I'm un-familiar with those classes or their abilities, and how the subclasses shakeout is a little weird relative to 3rd/4th allowing your 1st level decision to drive much of the flavor concept of a build. But honestly it's better than 3.x where we had to wait until 6th level to get our first level of PrC going. I'll take being a generic fighter for 2 levels over 5 levels any day from a concept building stand point. 

Digression: Green Flame blade should be the go to combat action for most EK as it's better than regular attack and once you get to 7th it's better than Extra attack because of how the cantrip scales and War magic giving you a 2nd attack as a bonus action.  Unless you're fighting something immune to fire that is I suppose.


----------



## gyor (Jun 18, 2018)

NaturalZero said:


> A million times this. The problem with the current class design is that, for many classes, the subclass features are too little, too late. If I want to play a psychic warrior, i don't want to be a generic fighter for 2 levels, then get a drip of psionics that kinda-sorta works with my 90% core fighter chasis. Just give me the damned battlemind or psywar from level 1 with psionic ability that start taking off from the get-go.
> 
> Also, the wizard absolutely cannot be THE telepath for this reason. The wizard subclasses in this edition are completely anemic compared to the base class chasis. One wizard at the table gets oracle dice and the other gets +1 hp on zombies but they still wind up picking 90% of the same standard spells! The "telepath" wizard is going to be a guy who gets some minor rider to mind-affecting spells but then still uses the same old sleep, fireball, and polymorph that every other frickin' wizard player uses. The psion needs to be THE telepath.
> 
> ...




 Simple play a Gith Fighter/Psychic Warrior, the Gith racial powers are psionic.


----------



## gyor (Jun 18, 2018)

tglassy said:


> The Jedi is the Soul Knife, which will be a Monk subclass, which is perfect because Jedi are just Monks with some Psychic powers and a lightsaber. So, the Soul Knife will be a Monk with some psychic powers and a Soul Knife.




 Should the Soul Knife do psychic or radiant damage?


----------



## gyor (Jun 18, 2018)

NaturalZero said:


> A million times this. The problem with the current class design is that, for many classes, the subclass features are too little, too late. If I want to play a psychic warrior, i don't want to be a generic fighter for 2 levels, then get a drip of psionics that kinda-sorta works with my 90% core fighter chasis. Just give me the damned battlemind or psywar from level 1 with psionic ability that start taking off from the get-go.
> 
> Also, the wizard absolutely cannot be THE telepath for this reason. The wizard subclasses in this edition are completely anemic compared to the base class chasis. One wizard at the table gets oracle dice and the other gets +1 hp on zombies but they still wind up picking 90% of the same standard spells! The "telepath" wizard is going to be a guy who gets some minor rider to mind-affecting spells but then still uses the same old sleep, fireball, and polymorph that every other frickin' wizard player uses. The psion needs to be THE telepath.
> 
> ...




 Subclasses are more important to some classes then others, subclasses are hugely important to Sorcerers, who really only have Flexible Magic/Spell Points/Metamagic and Spellcasting on its Chassis, with everything else being fleshed out by the subclasses which is why different Sorcerer subclasses feel like different classes that all use metamagic, were as Illusionists, Evokers, and Warmages feel like different types of wizards, but still like Wizards first, all of the same occupation. 

 Psions I think will feel more like Sorcerers, Warlocks, Fighters, Rogues, Bards in the sense of subclass being more identity defining then class instead of class being more identity defining then subclass like Wizards, Druids, Clerics, Monks, Barbarians, Paladins, with Rangers in between.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 18, 2018)

I think the thing with wizards is they don't pick a subclass until level 2. So you have to assume that they start off learning conventional magic, then learn psionics later, so it's like an extra trick. However, with Psions and (hypothetical) psionic sorcerers it can be assumed that all their powers are based on psionics.

Personally, I agree that a metamorph class would be more desirable mechanically than psionics classes, and some of the work from the Mystic seems to point towards how to implement that.


----------



## gyor (Jun 18, 2018)

I'm really looking forward to the Constructor Psion who imposes their imagination and imaginary friend (Tulpa) on reality.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 18, 2018)

As far as where Mearls is currently at, it seems something like the following. I want to update the Original Post, but am hesitant about the unclear relationship between the psychic warrior fighter and the immortal barbarian



* Psion*
• Awakened (telepath)
• Nomad (teleporter)
• Metamorph (shapeshifter, psychometabolism)
• Constructor (force constructs, shaper, metacreativity)

* Wizard*
• Mentalist (elemental-kinesis, psionic spell list)

* Bard*
• Avatar (ardent, wilder, emotion effects, psychic healer, psionic spell list)

* Rogue*
• Lurk (psionic invisibility)

* Monk*
• Soulknife (mind-warping weapon, psionic physical stunts)

*Fighter*
• Psychic Warrior (psionic gish, psionic spell list) 

*Barbarian*
• Immortal (psionic physical stunts) (battlemind?)


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 18, 2018)

Telekinesis (moving objects) feels different thematically from elemental-kinesis.

I like the wizard getting elemental-kinesis.

I still want the psion to have telekinesis.

Possibly the constructor psion can also be the master of telekinesis (mental force), so much so, one can even create force constructs (made out of mental force).


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 18, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> I'm getting a bad feeling about this.
> 
> The impression is clueless designers with no vision - it sounds more like they're trying to solve a puzzle (which piece fits where?) than they're having a strong and consistent idea of what psionics is, and only are debating how to implement it...



The lack of strong vision may be because the archetype has always been vague?


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 18, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> The lack of strong vision may be because the archetype has always been vague?



True.  And even when archetypes are strong, fitting them into the class/subclass system is more art than science.  I mean, during the Next playtest, I saw threads with literally hundreds of permutations on the overall class design, and that's for the base D&D concepts!


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 18, 2018)

tglassy said:


> The Jedi is the Soul Knife, which will be a Monk subclass, which is perfect because Jedi are just Monks with some Psychic powers and a lightsaber. So, the Soul Knife will be a Monk with some psychic powers and a Soul Knife.



That oversimplifies the concept.  There is a lot of room for more than one build of psychic warrior/jedi. And the Jedi element deserves to be more than a delayed tweak that doesn't get used because it cannibalized the Ki Points... it deserves to be the core.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 18, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> That oversimplifies the concept.  There is a lot of room for more than one build of psychic warrior/jedi. And the Jedi element deserves to be more than a delayed tweak that doesn't get used because it cannibalized the Ki Points... it deserves to be the core.




I have every confidence they'll get it right.  Really, I find your lack of faith disturbing.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 18, 2018)

And what is that core?  Reading minds, throwing things with their mind, and precognition can be spells. Having an energy blade means the fighting style is primarily Melee. And Jedi have supreme control over their bodies, so pretty much a Monk. In fact, exactly a Monk, adding in a blade and some spells. The Monk already does everything a Jedi does, just without the energy blade and spells. Why build a whole new class when there’s already a class available that does what you want, and a subclass system that accommodates adding in new features to that class?

And psychic warrior. Even the old 3.5 class had a fraction of the psi points the Psion did, plus a lot of crap the fighter had. It basically was just a fighter with some Psionic power. And again, we have a system already in place with the fighter chassis giving everything we need, and an archetype system to accommodate changes. 

As for having to wait until 3rd lvl, the Paladin has to wait until 2nd to get spells, and monks have to wait until 2nd lvl to get ki Points. And the way these concepts go, they focus a lot on their bodies and physical development, so it makes sense that it takes them longer than a character who focuses more than their psychic power. 

All those Psion classes before were made to give a hybrid class. A Lurk was basically a Rogue with Psionic power. A Psychic Warrior was basically a Fighter with Psionic power. A Soul Knife was basically a ninja with Psionic power. Why would we give these classes a whole new class when the system lets you just have a Fighter with a Psionic subclass?  It recreates the wheel. 

And if you make it a subclass Of Psion, what about health?  Do you give all Psions a d8 to accommodate a melee version?  Or give the subclass an extra hit point plus armor?  Even so, all it does is make the Psion a little more able to fight in Melee. Whereas the fighter already has a d10 and all proficiencies. And it has all these skills already tailored to fighting. Add a Feat that allows a character to grab a Psionic discipline, and the fighter, with his extra feats, can pump himself up if he really wants those extra disciplines. It doesn’t need its own class, there’s one right there ready for it.


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 18, 2018)

tglassy said:


> And what is that core?  Reading minds, throwing things with their mind, and precognition can be spells. Having an energy blade means the fighting style is primarily Melee. And Jedi have supreme control over their bodies, so pretty much a Monk. In fact, exactly a Monk, adding in a blade and some spells. The Monk already does everything a Jedi does, just without the energy blade and spells. Why build a whole new class when there’s already a class available that does what you want, and a subclass system that accommodates adding in new features to that class?...



The 'jedi' is an easy access reference point that people can understand, but - in my vision of how the psychic warrior should work - it is not a complete picture.  I suggested 5 builds for a psychic warrior, all built around a base class:

The base class would be medium armor, all martial weapons, and a small suite of psi powers (much less than the psion) from which to choose - in my mind they'd work similarly to Warlock invocations rather than spells.  Then, they would have their own 'Orders/Focuses' that grant the tweak that individualizes their methods.  However, from level 1, they'd be attacking foes with a combination of the physical and mental.  For example, they might have an ability that allows them to forgo dealing + Str or Dex damage on a melee hit to instead inflict a condition (slow foes movement, make them see phantasms, etc...) The subclasses could be:    

Soul Knife - a melee defender that makes psychic weapons and deals damage.  Their equivalent in the non-psychic world would be an eldritch knight two-handed weapon fighter.  They hit pretty hard, and are durable tanks, but have the fewest tricks of the psychic warriors.  They still have some tricks, but like an Eldritch Knight they always wish they had more.  The majority of their psychic abilities would be dropped into augmenting their soul blades for particular purposes.

Immortal - This would be similar to a soul knife, but rather than devote their psi to weapons, they devote the majority of their psi to protection.  They are hard to take down, and they make it hard to take down their allies.  Their equivalent out of psi would be a sword and board paladin, but the mechanics and feel would be very different.  However, if you put one at the vanguard with a couple beater melee classes you'd really feel their presence holding their allies up while still being effective on the field themselves - just not as effective as the soul knife in dealing damage.

Disciple - This would be a lower damage build than the high damage soul knife or solid damage immortal, but still a melee build.  Their shtick would be what we saw from Vader when he fought Luke in Cloud City - He attacks with weapons and augments those attacks with telekinetic (and other environment impacting) abilities.  They make it hard for opponents to function due to the chaos they create around themselves.  I'd equate them to a melee cleric most closely, but it really is something we do not have in 5E.  This is the psychic warrior you want when you face an army and want to have one man make a difference.

Dominator - Similar to the Disciple, this build is a melee build that gets into the thick of things but is not as durable as the Soul Knife or Immortal.  Instead, they rely upon tricks of the mind to win the day.  They mix in mind control, illusion, and inflicting some conditions - disrupting the enemy rather than the enemy's environment.  They don't impact as wide of an enemy force as the Disciple, but their impacts are a bit more intense.  

Mindhunter - This is a true psychic hunter with powers that break an individual foe.  While the Dominator blankets an army with charm or paralysis, the Mindhunter grabs the mind of an individual foe and tears into it.  They inflict more powerful conditions, but only to single targets... and they make permanent marks when they do it.  They don't just dominate you - they leave a piece of their mind in yours, allowing them to reestablish control at a later date.  They take memories out of your mind.  They implant the frightened condition when they are present - until the condition is removed.  They give you phobias that last until removed.  They'll dominate a foe and hold that foes mind for as long as they can concentrate.  When their blade pierces your flesh, you enter a realm of nightmares that may be with you for the rest of your life.

Could I create each of those subclasses within existing classes?  Yeah.  I could.  I could also make all clerics into fighter subclasses.  It just wouldn't be the BEST way to build them.

I want a psion with subclasses, and a psychic warrior with sublasses ... and I don't mind seeing a few new subclasses for other classes that have psychic focuses, but they should only be situations in which the psychic abilities are the nuance, not the focus, of the build.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 18, 2018)

tglassy said:


> And what is that core?  Reading minds, throwing things with their mind, and precognition can be spells. Having an energy blade means the fighting style is primarily Melee. And Jedi have supreme control over their bodies, so pretty much a Monk. In fact, exactly a Monk, adding in a blade and some spells. The Monk already does everything a Jedi does, just without the energy blade and spells. Why build a whole new class when there’s already a class available that does what you want, and a subclass system that accommodates adding in new features to that class?
> 
> And psychic warrior. Even the old 3.5 class had a fraction of the psi points the Psion did, plus a lot of crap the fighter had. It basically was just a fighter with some Psionic power. And again, we have a system already in place with the fighter chassis giving everything we need, and an archetype system to accommodate changes.
> 
> ...




Agree with pretty much all of this. Depending on final implementation, you may not need a new feat. Just add/house rule that Magic Initiate allows one to access the Psion spell list and you can get access to a discipline (1st level spell) and a couple of talents/cantrips as needed

I do like where this is going WAY more than the initial Mystic implementation. I also think that I will houserule use of the spell points system for anyone using a Psionic class or subclass as I loved that mechanical aspect of the old Psionics with Power Points vs. Spell Slots. 

There is a great 5e Jedi conceptual build on Youtube that uses Monk/Warlock multi to get almost everything you want/need to play a "jedi"
Here (initial build)
Here (leveling up)
Here (to 20)

And for different flavors of Jedi/Sith you can just use different Warlock pacts and different Monk paths, mix and match to get the concept that you envision for your character and/or orders. You can use the Warlock mechanics without requiring anything from your players from a Patron interaction stand point. If I were going to allow this concept into a game I DM, I would probably turn the Jedi/Sith oaths into a mechanical Oath for their Warlock powers (like a Paladin Oath) and if they violate those then there will be RP consequences, etc. That way the PC doesn't get off Scott-free from the Warlock Patron. 


 Guardian Jedi - Open Hand + Fiend Pact (reflavor & choose right spells)
 Consular Jedi - Open Hand + Great Old One pact
 Sentinel Jedi - Shadow Monk + Great Old One
 Sith - Long Death + Fiend Pack


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 18, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> The lack of strong vision may be because the archetype has always been vague?



No, I don't think so. 

You can definitely create strong conceptually powerful archetypes even if you have the blandest of archetypes to begin with.

It's all in the execution, as they say.

Merely faffing about "which subclass goes where" is... directionless, which is quite the opposite of what I want.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 18, 2018)

tglassy said:


> And psychic warrior. Even the old 3.5 class had a fraction of the psi points the Psion did, plus a lot of crap the fighter had. It basically was just a fighter with some Psionic power.



If you truly believe that, you never played a PW in 3E.

The PW was an absolute beast, fighting with claws, using vampiric regeneration, doing all sorts of stuff that noone else could.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 18, 2018)

All of which were spells. I rest my case. 

The fact is the only thing the Psychic Warrior got was a bunch of bonus feats and ALMOST ONE THIRD the psi points of the full Psion. All of the awesomeness was because the f****ng Fighter could use Psionics. About half the powers known and a third of the points available. It was a freaking 5e Eldridge Knight with Psionics instead of magic. 

*drops mic


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 18, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> No, I don't think so.
> 
> You can definitely create strong conceptually powerful archetypes even if you have the blandest of archetypes to begin with.
> 
> ...



So what is the archetype then? The faffing about indicates that it isn't there.  Mike is poking around trying to make it take form. 

Just to be clear, I'm talking about psionics in general.  I'm perfectly fine with the psychic warrior being the equivalent of the eldritch knight.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 18, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> So what is the archetype then? The faffing about indicates that it isn't there.  Mike is poking around trying to make it take form.
> 
> Just to be clear, I'm talking about psionics in general.  I'm perfectly fine with the psychic warrior being the equivalent of the eldritch knight.



I'm interested in discussing the polar opposite. 

I'm convinced there's nothing missing from the "archetype" of psionic characters that prevents interesting psionic classes, only that a reskinned Eldritch Knight ain't it.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 18, 2018)

But that’s what the Psychic Warrior WAS!  Literally!  It had nothing intrinsic. It was 8 bonus feats and psychic powers, with a fighter’s hit Dice and proficiencies, except maybe saving throws. That’s it. It was literally a class made to have a Fighter with psychic powers.


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 18, 2018)

tglassy said:


> All of which were spells. I rest my case.
> 
> The fact is the only thing the Psychic Warrior got was a bunch of bonus feats and ALMOST ONE THIRD the psi points of the full Psion. All of the awesomeness was because the f****ng Fighter could use Psionics. About half the powers known and a third of the points available. It was a freaking 5e Eldridge Knight with Psionics instead of magic.
> 
> *drops mic



*hands mc back to  [MENTION=6855204]tglassy[/MENTION].  "You're not done with this, yet."

At a core, there are really only three classes: Brute, Sneak and Spellcaster.  Everything we have could be approximated in those three classes (or a multi-class between them).  So, noting that there is a similarity between prior Psionic builds and the 5E Eldritch Knight really doesn't matter too much - The Ranger is like the Paladin.  The Cleric is like the Druid.  The Monk is like the Ranger.  

So why don't we just have 3 classes?

Because we want variety.  We want to specialize.  We want ... character for our characters.

To that end, we're best served by asking the question of what creates the most character for our characters when it comes to class.  What is the best way to create a home for a fantasy character design?  

We have to two primary options:  1.) Make a class that embodies the core of a fantasy icon, or 2.) Add a subclass to an existing class to 'fill that class out' to embody the concept.  

We're discussing two character concepts that are not well served by the existing classes.  One is the psion, a psychic combatant that uses the power of the mind to achieve effects similar to, but distinct from, magic.  The other is the jedi-esque warrior that merges the power of the mind and the blade.  

So why not just use wizards and fighter/magic users for these concepts?

Because they are not spellcasters.  The core of what they are is alternative to magic.  It is psionics.  It is the power of the mind to control the world.  

To that end, if we're going to get these concepts in our game, I want to see them done with respect.  I want to see them treated as true conceptual builds where we don't just their elements on to existing classes.  Sure, there is room to tack a little psionics onto existing classes for subclass builds, but for these core concepts of the psionics in D&D we need to have classes built that serve those concepts specifically and intentionally, rather than just as a tweak on another design.

If I were writing a psionics book, I'd definitely have two core classes (psion and psychic warrior).  I'd have a power system for these classes that was *not* a direct parallel of spellcasting.  Their powers would generally not be written as spells.  Instead, they'd be closer to Warlock invocations. Power Points are a sacred artifact of the Psionic World of D&D, but I'd modify how they're used - PCs would have fewer of them (like Ki points for a monk) and they'd add to the core abilities of the class, but they would not be required to be used to feel like you're playing some form of Mentalist or Jedi.

I've thought that they might be the classes that could lean most on the 4E style of character design.  They'd have abilities that do more than just deal damage, and do it on every strike - and don't require slots, charges or points to do it.  

In terms of access to powers they could gain keywords as they advance and psionic powers might require multiple keywords to be used - and might have a basic use, plus uses that happen when you augment it with power points.  This allows players to create tapestries of related abilities rather than pick and choose select optimal spells.  Heck, I'm still a fan of characters not being able to learn certain spells to provoke variety - you could do something similar here and give them a chance to learn keywords, and if they fail they have to learn to look at other designs for their class.

Basically - When I think of playing a psion or psychic warrior, I don't want to feel like I'm playing a different type of wizard or a different type of fighter... I wasn't to feel like I'm playing a super-hero with mental powers or a jedi knight.  If you constrain the design of these concepts to the architecture of existing classes, REGARDLESS OF HOW HARD YOU TRY, you're going to miss out on the opportunities you have to service the designs by making them their own classes... and both ideas have enough variety behind them to support several subclasses.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 18, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> So what is the archetype then? The faffing about indicates that it isn't there.  Mike is poking around trying to make it take form.
> Just to be clear, I'm talking about psionics in general.



 It's just that it's redundant, because psionics was only ever magic re-skinned for use in sci-fi, so when D&D 'mashed up' fantasy & sci-fi (because it was the 70s, and that was just the tenor of the times, I guess) by including both, they were really just including magic, twice, but with different mechanics.

If MM keeps trying to design psionics 'efficiently,' by re-using existing sub-systems that could do the job, it'll just be another redundant caster with a re-shuffled spell list and, if it's luckier than the Sorcerer, some spells unique to it, in a game already dealing with a surfeit of caster options.  If he bites the bulette and gives it a mechanically distinct sub-system, and leaves it open to being "not magic," it'll at least avoid the appearance of redundancy.  

And, seriously, I think fans of psionics /want/ the mechanical distinctions, every prior version of psionics has had 'em - "power points," for instance, at the absolute least.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 18, 2018)

The Psychic Warrior I would say isn't just a re-skinned Eldritch Knight. It uses the EK chassis, but it is pretty different (in current rough draft form) from EK


 Spellcasting: same framework for both
 3rd level
EK: Weapon bond - bond 2 weapons that can be summoned anywhere on plane as a Bonus Action; Can't be disarmed of these weapons​PW: Psychic Destroyer - reflavored Divine Smite that deals Psychic damage​PW: Psychic Guardian - Use reaction, expend spell slot to grant ally AC bonus = 3+slot level until the end of your next turn​
 7th level
EK: War magic - make attack as BA when you cast a Cantrip​PW: Psychic storm - if you cast a psionic cantrip OR use the attack action all hostile creatures w/n 10' take psychic damage = Int modifier​
 10th Level
EK: Eldritch Strike - When you hit a creature it gains disadvantage on saves vs a spell you cast by end of your next turn​PW: Psionic Recovery - When you use 2nd wind you also regain an expended 1st level slot​
 15h level 
EK: Arcane Charge - Teleport up to 30' when you use action surge, can be done before or after additional action​PW: Psionic Surge - When you use Action surge if you cause a creature damage with an attack or spell they take an additional 1d10 psychic damage​
18th level
EK: Improved War Magic - you can make a weapon attack as BA when you cast any 1 action spell.​PW: Mind Cleaver - if you hit a creature they become vulnerable to psychic damage until the end of your next turn​

While they come at the same levels, and the spellcasting framework is the same (and also shared with Arcane Trickster), these abilities seem very different in flavor, scope, and effect.


----------



## Sword of Spirit (Jun 18, 2018)

Because some people missed it, I'm going to clarify the reason for the point I was making about telekinesis and telepathy both needing to be in psion.

As of the start of this thread, Mike Mearl's idea was 4 Psion subclasses, which included telekinesis but not telepathy, and telepathy was in a wizard subclass.

Then he switched it around, so there were still 4 Psion subclasses, except now they included telepathy, but not telekinesis, which was now in a wizard subclass.

It's like he's decided you can only have 4 subclasses for Psion.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 19, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> It's just that it's redundant, because psionics was only ever magic re-skinned for use in sci-fi, so when D&D 'mashed up' fantasy & sci-fi (because it was the 70s, and that was just the tenor of the times, I guess) by including both, they were really just including magic, twice, but with different mechanics.
> 
> If MM keeps trying to design psionics 'efficiently,' by re-using existing sub-systems that could do the job, it'll just be another redundant caster with a re-shuffled spell list and, if it's luckier than the Sorcerer, some spells unique to it, in a game already dealing with a surfeit of caster options.  If he bites the bulette and gives it a mechanically distinct sub-system, and leaves it open to being "not magic," it'll at least avoid the appearance of redundancy.
> 
> And, seriously, I think fans of psionics /want/ the mechanical distinctions, every prior version of psionics has had 'em - "power points," for instance, at the absolute least.




I think the biggest issue that is at the heart of what is being tossed back and forth is that MM is trying to design something that will be 1) easy enough for new players to use and tackle, but also 2) is acceptable to the hardcore long time gamers. 

I love the distinct mechanics that Psionics had in previous editions... but it complicated things greatly and required people to master yet another set of mechanics. as I already said, I think doing what he's doing now, giving some psionics to classes that they really belong to, Psychic Warrior to Fighter, Immortal to Barbarian because they need that fighter chassis + some psionics, etc + creating a new class that will tackle the iconic "psion" concept is great. I hope this makes it to publication and I fully plan to force all psionic character classes/subclasses to use the spell point system (DMG 288-289) to get back the flavor of Psi/Power points from previous editions, while keeping all my other mechanics the same and not having to master too much more.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 19, 2018)

Sword of Spirit said:


> Because some people missed it, I'm going to clarify the reason for the point I was making about telekinesis and telepathy both needing to be in psion.
> 
> As of the start of this thread, Mike Mearl's idea was 4 Psion subclasses, which included telekinesis but not telepathy, and telepathy was in a wizard subclass.
> 
> ...




I missed him shunting the TK over to Wizard in the lastest episode. I'm going to have to re-watch it. I agree both Telepathy and TK should be Psion sub-classes. Way more iconic than Constructor or Metamorph...


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 19, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> I think the biggest issue that is at the heart of what is being tossed back and forth is that MM is trying to design something that will be 1) easy enough for new players to use and tackle, but also 2) is acceptable to the hardcore long time gamers.



 That's true of everything in 5e down to the illos and use of white space.    (that was just an exaggeration for rhetorical effect, I know the illos are nicer this time around; and I've made no comparison in the use of white space, point is just, even trivial stuff could get the classic treatment)

But, really, optional rules, in quixotically-named supplements, don't have to concern themselves so much with being accessible.  The PH has that covered.



> I love the distinct mechanics that Psionics had in previous editions... but it complicated things greatly ....



 The game's not exactly simple, now, though, and optional modules in the DMG, if taken together, would blow complexity through the roof.  For those who want a psionic now and then, but don't want separate mechanics, a Sorcerer sub-class or re-skinned GOO warlock might do the trick, but for those who /want psionics/ a separate system has always been part of that (I don't even have to append the usual 'except for 4e' to that!).


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 19, 2018)

Some of the ideas of what Psionics are, is based on Siddhis spiritual powers in Hinduism and various philosophies/religions derived from it such as some Buddhist or Western "New Age" Sects.  These include abilities such as levitating, changing ones size or weight, mastery of the body and it's form and so on.  Siddhi in this concept would simply be the Sanskrit word for "Discipline".


----------



## tglassy (Jun 19, 2018)

What it sounds like is the Psion is going to have talents, basically cantrips, that can be enhanced via “spells”. Like, he’ll have a teleport Cantrip. Concentrate on the Cantrip and you can teleport 10 ft as an action. Now, there will be spells, or disciplines, that augment that. Increase by 10 ft per spell slot, or whatever. Allow an attack or explosion when reappearing. Whatever. But they’ll be tacked on to the Cantrip, which will take the place of the current Psionic focus.  They’ll just have a feature that allows them to concentrate on two things at once, which is what the Focus was trying to do anyway. 

So, a telekinesis Cantrip That is basically Mage Hand, but can then be augmented by spell slots in various ways. A precognition Cantrip that can be increased in scope through the use of spell slots. 

(Replace Cantrip with talent, and spell slots with psi points, it doesn’t matter at this point)

This will give the Psion a unique play style from the other classes, I think, and is a good way to go.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 19, 2018)

tglassy said:


> What it sounds like is the Psion is going to have talents, basically cantrips, that can be enhanced via “spells”. Like, he’ll have a teleport Cantrip. Concentrate on the Cantrip and you can teleport 10 ft as an action. Now, there will be spells, or disciplines, that augment that. Increase by 10 ft per spell slot, or whatever. Allow an attack or explosion when reappearing. Whatever. But they’ll be tacked on to the Cantrip, which will take the place of the current Psionic focus.  They’ll just have a feature that allows them to concentrate on two things at once, which is what the Focus was trying to do anyway.
> 
> So, a telekinesis Cantrip That is basically Mage Hand, but can then be augmented by spell slots in various ways. A precognition Cantrip that can be increased in scope through the use of spell slots.
> 
> ...




I'm apprehensive, but it might work.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Jun 19, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> And, seriously, I think fans of psionics /want/ the mechanical distinctions, every prior version of psionics has had 'em - "power points," for instance, at the absolute least.



Furthermore, I think it's important to justify the mechanical distinctions. The designers of the psion need to think about what you can do with power points to make them play as differently as possible from spells. This means _not_ using the spell point system we see in the DMG, which was engineered to match the pacing of the original spell slot system as closely as possible. If you're gonna do that, why abandon the slot system in the first place?

For example, a major consequence of power points is that you can spam your highest-level abilities. The DMG system specifically forbade doing this to preserve the intended balance of the spells. But a psionic power point system should lean into it instead. What possibilities does this distinction open up? Take advantage of them!


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 19, 2018)

The whole concept of 5e is bounding from a mechanical standpoint. if you ignore the restrictions on higher level slots, then someone at 20th level could cast 10 wishes in a day. I get that maybe Psionics won't have _wish_, and so the threat of that is lessened, but still. I'm not against the DMG spell point rules, though it doesn't make sense that you can't ever cast 2x 6th or 2x 7th levels as a normal spell slot caster could. I would push the 1/day limit up to 8th/9th. 

Even with the RAW in the DMG you can use/cast 1x 6/7/8/9, 12x 5th levels, and a couple of smaller spells. If you expanded it out and let someone blow all their points on up to 7th level abilities you could cast 13 7th level spells... that is... a lot. 

That is still different and flavorful enough from standard casting to make it something different while not that different.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 19, 2018)

To be clear, when I say "do it like the EK", I don't mean "give the EK a fresh coat of paint".  Rather I mean "use a fighter subclass, and make it a "1/3 psion" ".  I fully expect and hope for the psionics mechanics to be distinct, flavorful and useful.

The reason why I don't think it needs it own class is because there is no "arcane warrior" full class either.  If you really want to be a 50/50 fighter mage... multi-class fighter mage.  Done and done.  The EK allows for a fighter with a bit of magic, and for that magic to be well integrated into the role.  I hope they can do the same with a well designed sub-class.

That being said, all of this depends on the psionics mechanics themselves to be well made.  If they are pants, the subclasses will suck too.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Jun 19, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> The whole concept of 5e is bounding from a mechanical standpoint. if you ignore the restrictions on higher level slots, then someone at 20th level could cast 10 wishes in a day. I get that maybe Psionics won't have _wish_, and so the threat of that is lessened, but still. I'm not against the DMG spell point rules, though it doesn't make sense that you can't ever cast 2x 6th or 2x 7th levels as a normal spell slot caster could. I would push the 1/day limit up to 8th/9th.



Given the way warlocks work and various other things, I would surmise that WotC sees a strong qualitative distinction between 1st-5th-level magic and 6th-level-plus magic. That's clearly where the restriction in the spell point rules comes from. A full caster's eventual ability to get multiple 6th- and 7th-level slots, at the very highest of levels, should probably be regarded as an extremely qualified exception to the rule as a reward for getting that far, and not to be taken as precedent without careful consideration.  If we're basing power points on the spell slot system, then as with the warlock, I think a 1x restriction on 6th-level-plus slots is inevitable.

But if we're basing power points on the spell slot system, then really we should just _use the spell slot system_. If we're going to be switching to this new system with its heavy emphasis on flexibility, then immediately turning around to put slot-like restrictions on the system is pretty counterproductive. Instead, we should balance the 6th-plus psionic powers on the assumption that they will be used multiple times per day, rather than (as with spells) the assumption that they will not.

I can even venture a guess as to what this might look like. With psionics' historical emphasis on augmentation, it may be encouraged for more of a psion's "6th-plus powers" to actually be augmented lower-level powers than it is for a spellcaster to use higher-level slots for lower-level spells. We don't want a caster spamming _wishes_, but spamming really big  _confusions_? Seems less troublesome.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 19, 2018)

tglassy said:


> What it sounds like is the Psion is going to have talents, basically cantrips, that can be enhanced via “spells”. Like, he’ll have a teleport Cantrip. Concentrate on the Cantrip and you can teleport 10 ft as an action. Now, there will be spells, or disciplines, that augment that. Increase by 10 ft per spell slot, or whatever. Allow an attack or explosion when reappearing. Whatever. But they’ll be tacked on to the Cantrip, which will take the place of the current Psionic focus.  They’ll just have a feature that allows them to concentrate on two things at once, which is what the Focus was trying to do anyway.
> 
> So, a telekinesis Cantrip That is basically Mage Hand, but can then be augmented by spell slots in various ways. A precognition Cantrip that can be increased in scope through the use of spell slots.
> 
> ...




I think it'll depend on whether the interactions of very specific such as "While using Telekinesis, you may push a target 5 feet away from you when using Magic Missile" or more generic like "While using Telekinesis, when you inflict force damage you push a target 5 feet away from you"...

I guess a talent/cantrip where it's "you gain +X AC for the next turn when you use any spell or a specific spell type of a given level" could be an option.  I think I'm more in favour of ones that work off of themed spells/powers rather than any or actual named spells.


----------



## green_destiny (Jun 19, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The psion that Mearls has so far, I am really happy about the archetypes.
> 
> • Constructor (force constructs drawn from ones own mind ... or an enemys nightmare)




So Constructors are Green Lanterns?    That will be awesome.
But are the constructs transparent since its made of Force?


----------



## gyor (Jun 19, 2018)

green_destiny said:


> So Constructors are Green Lanterns?    That will be awesome.
> But are the constructs transparent since its made of Force?




 Force doesn't have to be transparent, the Temple of the Gods spell creates a Temple out of force, but its not transparent unless you choose to make it so.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 19, 2018)

The Lurk was a pretty terrible class in 3E. I would prefer that if there is a psychic rogue subclass, that it took inspiration from the Dreamscarred Press class, the Cryptic. But the Cryptic could also map nicely to the Warlock.


----------



## gyor (Jun 19, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> The Lurk was a pretty terrible class in 3E. I would prefer that if there is a psychic rogue subclass, that it took inspiration from the Dreamscarred Press class, the Cryptic. But the Cryptic could also map nicely to the Warlock.




 A 5e Rogue subclass Lurk will likely work better then a 3e Lurk, basic concept tied to the basic successful Rogue Chassis.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 19, 2018)

gyor said:


> A 5e Rogue subclass Lurk will likely work



Maybe, but my point is that the 3E Lurk was boring and weak while the Cryptic is an imaginative take on the concept of a psionic rogue. If given the choice, I would hope that 5E would look more at what Dreamscarred Press is doing with psionics and not at what WotC did in some of their old supplements. The Lurk needs to be more distinct than the psionic version of the Arcane Trickster.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 19, 2018)

From what they’ve said, the Lurk would be able to do things like open a door in front of a guard, but make the guard think it was closed the whole time and that the room is empty. Not exactly Illusions, but altering what the guard retains from what he sees.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 19, 2018)

tglassy said:


> But that’s what the Psychic Warrior WAS!  Literally!  It had nothing intrinsic. It was 8 bonus feats and psychic powers, with a fighter’s hit Dice and proficiencies, except maybe saving throws. That’s it. It was literally a class made to have a Fighter with psychic powers.



Please see Dreamscarred Press for more info about what the Psychic Warrior (and many other psionic classes) has since become.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 19, 2018)

green_destiny said:


> So Constructors are Green Lanterns?    That will be awesome.
> But are the constructs transparent since its made of Force?




I think of the constructor as the Star Trek ‘holodeck’. Objects made out of force.

The main difference is, a kind of ‘phantasmal’ resonance. The constructor can also ‘pull’ objects out of an other persons mind, so that that person is especially impacted by the object, even while other people can see the object as well.



If adding to this telekinetic mastery, there is awesome reality-warping flavor.


----------



## gyor (Jun 19, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> I think of the constructor as the Star Trek ‘holodeck’. Objects made out of force.
> 
> The main difference is, a kind of ‘phantasmal’ resonance. The constructor can also ‘pull’ objects out of an other persons mind, so that that person is especially impacted by the object, even while other people can see the object as well.
> 
> ...




 So a Psionic Holodeck character.


----------



## gyor (Jun 19, 2018)

tglassy said:


> From what they’ve said, the Lurk would be able to do things like open a door in front of a guard, but make the guard think it was closed the whole time and that the room is empty. Not exactly Illusions, but altering what the guard retains from what he sees.




 Jedi mind trick.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 19, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> Please see Dreamscarred Press for more info about what the Psychic Warrior (and many other psionic classes) has since become.



Let's be honest, WotC isn't going to top what Dreamscarred did for psionics.  I'd rather use their take on 3.5 psionics than any other 3.5 magic system.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 19, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> I hope this makes it to publication



That we can certainly agree on. 

(The revised Ranger has not seen publication, and the game is now 5 years old. Glacial is indeed a proper word for MMearls development speed...)


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 19, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> I love the distinct mechanics that Psionics had in previous editions... but it complicated things greatly and required people to master yet another set of mechanics.



OTOH, 5th edition is by now an established success. 

It doesn't necessarily follow that every new supplement must keep to the low level of crunch of the PHB. 

Maybe it's time to let the devs stretch their legs. Psionics is best when it feels different in a mechanical sense as well as any in-universe differences.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 19, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Given the way warlocks work and various other things, I would surmise that WotC sees a strong qualitative distinction between 1st-5th-level magic and 6th-level-plus magic. That's clearly where the restriction in the spell point rules comes from. A full caster's eventual ability to get multiple 6th- and 7th-level slots, at the very highest of levels, should probably be regarded as an extremely qualified exception to the rule as a reward for getting that far, and not to be taken as precedent without careful consideration.  If we're basing power points on the spell slot system, then as with the warlock, I think a 1x restriction on 6th-level-plus slots is inevitable.
> 
> But if we're basing power points on the spell slot system, then really we should just _use the spell slot system_. If we're going to be switching to this new system with its heavy emphasis on flexibility, then immediately turning around to put slot-like restrictions on the system is pretty counterproductive. Instead, we should balance the 6th-plus psionic powers on the assumption that they will be used multiple times per day, rather than (as with spells) the assumption that they will not.
> 
> I can even venture a guess as to what this might look like. With psionics' historical emphasis on augmentation, it may be encouraged for more of a psion's "6th-plus powers" to actually be augmented lower-level powers than it is for a spellcaster to use higher-level slots for lower-level spells. We don't want a caster spamming _wishes_, but spamming really big  _confusions_? Seems less troublesome.



Good ideas. 

You could even have a Psion get an unrestricted power point scheme (because the restrictions in spell points are decidedly inelegant) and then warlockian once/day higher-level effects. The "level 6-9" powers would then be more like "level 5+" powers for balance. The number of PPs would then level off after level 5, since the higher-level effects don't cost PP.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 19, 2018)

[MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION], maybe it's better that you hope for this Dream company of yours to do a 3PP supplement to 5E once the official WotC psionics is out. I don't think WotC is looking at 3PP much at all, to be honest. Maaaybe Paizo, and even then it's a stretch.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 19, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION], maybe it's better that you hope for this Dream company of yours to do a 3PP supplement to 5E once the official WotC psionics is out. I don't think WotC is looking at 3PP much at all, to be honest. Maaaybe Paizo, and even then it's a stretch.



Sorry, but Dreamscarred Press should not be unfamiliar with anyone interested in discussing psionics in D&D. Look up psionics on d20pfsrd.com, and there you will find Dreamscarred Press's contribution. They picked up the mantle of 3.5 Expanded Psionics, but geared towards Pathfinder. They just finished a Kickstarter for bringing their psionics to Starfinder. I doubt they are not unaware of Pathfinder 2 either. They initially even had their own psionic-only setting, Third Dawn, originally for True20. So they are probably one of the premier standard-bearers for psionics in "D&D."


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 19, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> Sorry, but Dreamscarred Press should not be unfamiliar with anyone interested in discussing psionics in D&D. Look up psionics on d20pfsrd.com, and there you will find Dreamscarred Press's contribution. They picked up the mantle of 3.5 Expanded Psionics, but geared towards Pathfinder. They just finished a Kickstarter for bringing their psionics to Starfinder. I doubt they are not unaware of Pathfinder 2 either. They initially even had their own psionic-only setting, Third Dawn, originally for True20. So they are probably one of the premier standard-bearers for psionics in "D&D."



Yep.  Dreamscarred Press isn't a third party publisher for psionics, they're THE third party publisher for psionics.  I think you could make a valid argument that Occult Adventures became what it was simply because DSP made doing a relatively straightforward Paizo adaption of 3.5 psionics a non starter.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 19, 2018)

As for other classes not gaining psionics until they reach the level where they get a subclass, I think we could get some sort of "Wild Talent" concept as an option.  For full spellcasters and certain races it could be the matter of taking 1 Talent/Psionic Cantrip, for fighting classes maybe their could be a new fighting style that uses psionics in some way.  No idea what Rogues, Barbarians or Monks would get as they aren't full spellcasters and don't get fighting styles.  There also could be some sort of background about psionic potential with some of flavour ability that uses psionics to see things.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 19, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> Sorry, but Dreamscarred Press should not be unfamiliar with anyone interested in discussing psionics in D&D. Look up psionics on d20pfsrd.com, and there you will find Dreamscarred Press's contribution. They picked up the mantle of 3.5 Expanded Psionics, but geared towards Pathfinder. They just finished a Kickstarter for bringing their psionics to Starfinder. I doubt they are not unaware of Pathfinder 2 either. They initially even had their own psionic-only setting, Third Dawn, originally for True20. So they are probably one of the premier standard-bearers for psionics in "D&D."



Maybe I'll have a look when and if that becomes relevant. For the time being nothing indicates MMearls draws inspiration from anything except past TSR/WotC material.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 19, 2018)

Kobold Avenger said:


> As for other classes not gaining psionics until they reach the level where they get a subclass



...and let's not forget how the first few levels are apprentice levels.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 19, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Maybe I'll have a look when and if that becomes relevant. For the time being nothing indicates MMearls draws inspiration from anything except past TSR/WotC material.



I appreciate your rude dismissiveness, and I hope that I can return the favor should your posts ever become relevant.



TwoSix said:


> Yep.  Dreamscarred Press isn't a third party publisher for psionics, they're THE third party publisher for psionics.  I think you could make a valid argument that Occult Adventures became what it was simply because DSP made doing a relatively straightforward Paizo adaption of 3.5 psionics a non starter.



Yeah, most definitely. Dreamscarred Press is followed on Twitter by Erik Mona, Paizo, and a number of other people who work with or for Paizo. So Paizo is definitely not ignorant about Dreamscarred Press. I would not be surprised to see DSP announce a system for PF2 psionics within the next year.


----------



## gyor (Jun 19, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> I appreciate your rude dismissiveness, and I hope that I can return the favor should your posts ever become relevant.
> 
> Yeah, most definitely. Dreamscarred Press is followed on Twitter by Erik Mona, Paizo, and a number of other people who work with or for Paizo. So Paizo is definitely not ignorant about Dreamscarred Press. I would not be surprised to see DSP announce a system for PF2 psionics within the next year.




 Normally I'd call for civility, but honestly that was a pretty funny burn.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Jun 19, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Good ideas.
> 
> You could even have a Psion get an unrestricted power point scheme (because the restrictions in spell points are decidedly inelegant) and then warlockian once/day higher-level effects. The "level 6-9" powers would then be more like "level 5+" powers for balance. The number of PPs would then level off after level 5, since the higher-level effects don't cost PP.



I consider the warlock two-part system pretty inelegant, and would prefer not to see it replicated. If we do see something like a psionic _wish_ (which is certainly thematically appropriate and we've seen it before), it'd be cleaner just to bake into the individual power "Once you've used this, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest" (or perhaps even longer).


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 19, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Given the way warlocks work and various other things, I would surmise that WotC sees a strong qualitative distinction between 1st-5th-level magic and 6th-level-plus magic. That's clearly where the restriction in the spell point rules comes from. A full caster's eventual ability to get multiple 6th- and 7th-level slots, at the very highest of levels, should probably be regarded as an extremely qualified exception to the rule as a reward for getting that far, and not to be taken as precedent without careful consideration.  If we're basing power points on the spell slot system, then as with the warlock, I think a 1x restriction on 6th-level-plus slots is inevitable.



 I got the impression there was a stark dividing line between 1-5th & 6-9th level spells (magic-user spells, obviously, others it seemed like 1-4 vs 5-7)), c1984, if not earlier.  In my campaign world (& variant rules) there was thus a distinction between 'Low Order' and 'High Order' spells.

Aside from the tenor of the spell just shifting dramatically, there were other indicators.  The 1e discussion of Cleric spells had them learning lower level casting as a matter of faith/'devotion' but receiving 5th level spells from an intermediary, and 7th from the deity, itself, IIRC.  The Magic-User's spell progression was to gain a new spell level at each odd numbered level, until 5th level spells at 9th, then you waited for 12th to get 6th level spells, and new spell levels at even class levels therafter to 9th @ 18th.  



> But if we're basing power points on the spell slot system, then really we should just _use the spell slot system_. If we're going to be switching to this new system with its heavy emphasis on flexibility, then immediately turning around to put slot-like restrictions on the system is pretty counterproductive. Instead, we should balance the 6th-plus psionic powers on the assumption that they will be used multiple times per day, rather than (as with spells) the assumption that they will not.



 Or just, y'know, not map 'em to spells, at all.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 19, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> I appreciate your rude dismissiveness, and I hope that I can return the favor should your posts ever become relevant.



What I'm personally not fond of, is the repeated mention of a 3PP product I've never heard of, that probably doesn't factor into WotC's plans.

That's all. It's nothing personal, so please don't take it as such.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 19, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> OTOH, 5th edition is by now an established success.
> Maybe it's time to let the devs stretch their legs. Psionics is best when it feels different in a mechanical sense as well as any in-universe differences.




So these wouldn't feel different enough for you?

 concentrate on two effects at one time
 spells that stack onto on-going concentration cantrips
 point based system vs slot based

only one of those would be variant, the others coming from the new stuff MM is working on right now and over the last few weeks


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 19, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> What I'm personally not fond of, is the repeated mention of a 3PP product I've never heard of, that probably doesn't factor into WotC's plans.
> 
> That's all. It's nothing personal, so please don't take it as such.



That's okay. I'll be sure to cater my future contributions to threads on this forum to only things you have heard of.


----------



## gyor (Jun 19, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> That's okay. I'll be sure to cater my future contributions to threads on this forum to only things you have heard of.




 Come on now shake hands and move on.


----------



## gyor (Jun 19, 2018)

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Halanan

 This race from Star Trek is the perfect, maybe the perfect example of Psionic Constructor.


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 19, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> So these wouldn't feel different enough for you?
> ....



For me, psionics should not be spells.  There may be a few psionics that duplicate the effects of spells, but if you're just going to make it into another form of spellcasting similar to wizard or cleric, you're not really giving us something worthwhile and distinct.  

I'd rather you have something new.  Example:

Psions gain 4 keywords at first level, and psychic warriors gain 3.  Each class has a list of powers, and each power on the list has one or (more commonly) multiple keywords in their prerequisites.  Psions and psychic warriors gain more keywords as they advance in levels.  If a psi class has the prerequsities for a power they can use it - they 'know' all powers for which they have the prerequisites.  When using a power there will be several options.  Some uses require spell points, others do not.  When they do not, the power level is similar to a cantrip.  When they require points, the point cost may be specific for a given use, or follow an exponential progression to increase the efficacy.  There would be nothing preventing a psi character from putting all of their psi into one use of one power - expect it might only be slightly more powerful than using half their psi points for a slightly weaker version or one quarter their psi for a more reasonable use.

They'd gain psi points as they advanced in level at an exponential rate, allowing them to burn off weaker uses of their power (with power levels on par with 1st and 2nd level spells) almost limitlessly (like a warlock with silent image or levitation can use them limitlessly) or make more uses of those powerful versions of powers as they advance.  Reshape Reality might be the 'Wish' equivalent discussed above.  If a psion devoted everything to it they might be able to use all their psi points to make it happen as early as 14th or 15th level... but if they want to use it and still have reasonable other options it will require level 17 or above. 

Most class features would have a 'standard mode' and augmented modes that are accessed via power point usage, as well.  Soul Knives can create basic knives at no psi point cost, but they can also trick out their blades by spending psi points on augmentations for that instance of their weapons.  

As a side note - I would never use the word 'illusion' with psionics, but would rather use the concept of phantasms, meaning things they are convinced they see.  Certain spells create phantasms (phantasmal force,  phantasmal killer), but magical phantasms would be the lesser cousin of the psychic phantasms.


----------



## gyor (Jun 19, 2018)

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Traveler the perfect Nomad Psion.


----------



## gyor (Jun 19, 2018)

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Ocampa perfect example of telekinesis and telepathy within the Ocampa.


----------



## gyor (Jun 19, 2018)

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Changeling Changelings are the perfect metamorphs,  and they have a kind of telepathy when in the great link.
 Just a few ideas from Star Trek for the Psion class.


----------



## gyor (Jun 19, 2018)

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empath Gem is a great example of an Ardent Bard,  an Empathy who heals people.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 19, 2018)

So it's the "flavor" of spells that people don't like with the current iteration? 

Let Mearls design what he's doing and if it comes out that the are "spellcasting" based, then just say all psionics are cast w/o components and with the an unlimited spell point system. Done. it's not spells anymore for your games, but it uses existing frameworks that other people can easily learn. I think that MM will address that part of generating the powers as he gets closer to finalizing the drafts. 

Honestly I think there are people too worked up about the current state when the rough draft isn't even complete yet. This is part of the issue of him doing the design in public view. 

I am encouraged by what he's put together so far this round, and I hope that the final rough draft is closer to some of the things we've talked about in here. Time will tell. Though I do want him to put TK back into the Psion as an iconic element. Maybe not a subclass, but part of the cantrip/spell trees he's been talking about.


----------



## Gadget (Jun 19, 2018)

Late to the party, but I would like to weigh in a little bit on EK/AT template vs a new class for the Psychic Warrior.  At first blush, I was totally on board with using this model (separate psionics system or not asside); it is the ideal place to start.  What is a Psychic Warrior but a fighter with a psychic abilities added on top?  That is fine as far as it goes, but then I looked back and remembered that, in my experience, the EK & AT don't really cut it as a gish mix in class.  This is no doubt partially because they are purely an add on of one class's abilities (restricted somewhat of course) onto another, and it does not always mesh that well.  

For instance, the EK is somewhat restricted to evocation & abjuration spells, but of those, evocation does not really suite a 1/3 caster class that well.  You can sometimes find yourself bringing a knife to a gun fight, so to speak.  The delayed spell acquisition here is really telling.  No doubt my opinion would be higher if we did not have the Paladin and the Ranger as a pseudo-gish class comparison.  They are 1/2 casters instead of 1/3 casters, and, have their own unique spell lists (with some overlap of course) to give them their own flavor.  They lack cantrips, which can further distinguish them from full casters and 1/3 casters, yet, as their own class, they have the chassis to hang unique and flavorful abilities on (smite, lay on hands, auras, etc) that really give them a more distinguished feel and play.  I find myself kind of leaning toward a more paladin/ranger interpretation.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Jun 19, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> Or just, y'know, not map 'em to spells, at all.



I suppose that depends on what you mean by "mapping". To some extent, the comparison between psi powers and spells is going to be inevitable: characters expend limited resources to create discrete effects, and the number and strength of these effects grows with level. It may also be useful, on not-reinventing-the-wheel grounds, to say things like "when you use this power, you cast _confusion_" or whatever.


----------



## Shardstone (Jun 19, 2018)

Mearls has literally recreated Disicplines from the mystic, but renamed all the powers as spells and gave them spell levels.

You have a cantrip that you concentrate on. You can concentrate on two. You can cast spells while concentrating on this cantrip to do cool powers. These spells can only be cast while concentrating on the cantrip.

COMPARE THIS TO THE MYSTIC PLEASE

You have a psionic focus that you concentrate on. You can concentrate on two. You spend psi points while concentrating on this focus to do cool powers. These powers can be cast whether concentrating or not.

All he did was nerf Disciplines, rename them, and then is laying them out as if they're spells.

The thing is, they don't work like spells. Spells don't let you concentrate on more than 1 at a time. Spells don't stack on top of cantrips. It's redefining the simple spellcasting feature and bending it into something else.

Why keep the same name of spells if what he's creating works mechanically different with the exception of slots and the spell level system to divide powers of different strengths?


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 19, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> I suppose that depends on what you mean by "mapping".



 Like don't have a 3rd level Discipline, Pyrokinetic Sphere, that does 8d6 fire damage to everything in a 20' radius. 



> To some extent, the comparison between psi powers and spells is going to be inevitable: characters expend limited resources to create discrete effects, and the number and strength of these effects grows with level. It may also be useful, on not-reinventing-the-wheel grounds, to say things like "when you use this power, you cast _confusion_" or whatever.



 Oh, the 're-inventing' argument is obvious and even compelling, it just doubles as an argument not to have psionics, at all.  So, IDK, have them work nothing like spells.  Instead of discrete effects, construct effects up from disciplines, like supernatural Legos, using power points to fuel each block.  Or simply don't have "high level" disciplines, don't level-gate them, just learn more as you go, and pouring more power points into them brings them up to level-appropriate effectiveness.


----------



## gyor (Jun 20, 2018)

Gadget said:


> Late to the party, but I would like to weigh in a little bit on EK/AT template vs a new class for the Psychic Warrior.  At first blush, I was totally on board with using this model (separate psionics system or not asside); it is the ideal place to start.  What is a Psychic Warrior but a fighter with a psychic abilities added on top?  That is fine as far as it goes, but then I looked back and remembered that, in my experience, the EK & AT don't really cut it as a gish mix in class.  This is no doubt partially because they are purely an add on of one class's abilities (restricted somewhat of course) onto another, and it does not always mesh that well.
> 
> For instance, the EK is somewhat restricted to evocation & abjuration spells, but of those, evocation does not really suite a 1/3 caster class that well.  You can sometimes find yourself bringing a knife to a gun fight, so to speak.  The delayed spell acquisition here is really telling.  No doubt my opinion would be higher if we did not have the Paladin and the Ranger as a pseudo-gish class comparison.  They are 1/2 casters instead of 1/3 casters, and, have their own unique spell lists (with some overlap of course) to give them their own flavor.  They lack cantrips, which can further distinguish them from full casters and 1/3 casters, yet, as their own class, they have the chassis to hang unique and flavorful abilities on (smite, lay on hands, auras, etc) that really give them a more distinguished feel and play.  I find myself kind of leaning toward a more paladin/ranger interpretation.




 4 of the 13 spells can come from any school, I can think of 5 great choices from Abjuration off the top of my head and same for Evocation, plus the cantrips are not school restricted.

 Here is a quick and dirty spell list

 1st level: Absorb Elements, Sleep, Faerie Fire, Shield
 2nd level: retrain Sleep for Shadowblade, Scorching Ray, Continueing Flame, Mirror Image
 3rd Sending (evocation) and fireball, counter spell, Haste
 4th Storm Sphere, Conjure Minor Elementals

 At level 4 (or 1 for human) you take Ritual Caster wizard, more then doubling the potential amount of spells you can learn know, including spells like Find Familiar, Unseen Servant, Tensors Floating Disk, Illusionary Steed, Water Breathing, Rary's Telepathic Bond, Contact Other Plane. Between the subclass and the feat this is a very Gishy Character who can cast spells all the time, fights really well.

 If that is not enough you can also take magic inniate wizard feat and perhaps racial magic feats as well.

 So say base minium you take the ritual caster feat and the maguc inniate feat, you are looking 14 known spell slot spells, potentially over 15 Rituals, 5 Cantrips. And that is not including the fact that you can use wands. Not enough for you? take a couple of levels in Wizard. 

 So I don't see the issue.


----------



## Gadget (Jun 20, 2018)

gyor said:


> 4 of the 13 spells can come from any school, I can think of 5 great choices from Abjuration off the top of my head and same for Evocation, plus the cantrips are not school restricted.
> 
> Here is a quick and dirty spell list
> 
> ...





I'm glad you enjoy it.  I still disagree.  Those evocation spells, with exception of fairy fire (and possibly fireball, as it is overclocked for its level), come on line too late for a 1/3 caster, given 5e's Bounded Accuracy and scaling Hit Points; thus bringing a knife to a gun fight.  Damaging spells, the evocation school's main Schick, really depend on you having the higher level spell slots to make full use of them; they just don't have the same impact coming as late as they do compared to full casters.  Sure they can be useful for the mooks, but usually there are better things you can do.  And yes, they did do a cop out by letting you pick 4 spells from any school, but why have the restriction at all then?  And yes, they do get good use out of their cantrips as well, especially with battle magic, no argument there.  I'm not saying the class is broken or anything, it just feels a little tacked on, and evocation was not a particularly good choice for 1/3 casters (something like transmutation would have been better, as those spells provide a lot of utility that you don't level out of quite as much).  I just prefer the more flavorful, though admittedly more specific, way of the paladin/ranger design.


----------



## Eubani (Jun 20, 2018)

Gadget said:


> I'm glad you enjoy it.  I still disagree.  Those evocation spells, with exception of fairy fire (and possibly fireball, as it is overclocked for its level), come on line too late for a 1/3 caster, given 5e's Bounded Accuracy and scaling Hit Points; thus bringing a knife to a gun fight.  Damaging spells, the evocation school's main Schick, really depend on you having the higher level spell slots to make full use of them; they just don't have the same impact coming as late as they do compared to full casters.  Sure they can be useful for the mooks, but usually there are better things you can do.  And yes, they did do a cop out by letting you pick 4 spells from any school, but why have the restriction at all then?  And yes, they do get good use out of their cantrips as well, especially with battle magic, no argument there.  I'm not saying the class is broken or anything, it just feels a little tacked on, and evocation was not a particularly good choice for 1/3 casters (something like transmutation would have been better, as those spells provide a lot of utility that you don't level out of quite as much).  I just prefer the more flavorful, though admittedly more specific, way of the paladin/ranger design.




I wouldn't of minded the EK so much if it had a bit of story and identity woven in. This is possible as I have used it as a template to make a Dark Knight subclass that had access to Necromancy, Conjuration and an Imp familiar. Remove some of the not necessary stuff throw in a dash of Necrotic damage with melee and a bonus to intimidate and I got something that had story and flavour.


----------



## gyor (Jun 20, 2018)

Eubani said:


> I wouldn't of minded the EK so much if it had a bit of story and identity woven in. This is possible as I have used it as a template to make a Dark Knight subclass that had access to Necromancy, Conjuration and an Imp familiar. Remove some of the not necessary stuff throw in a dash of Necrotic damage with melee and a bonus to intimidate and I got something that had story and flavour.




 The story is right in the name, Eldrich KNIGHT, your a knight possibly belonging to a Knightly Arcane Order.

 And you can do a pretty Dark Knight with Eldrich Knight by itself, for spells you can for example pick Summon Lesser Demons, Animate Dead, Find Familiar for say a Fiendish Serpant Familiar, Shadowblade, as well as some defence abjuration spells to keep you alive, Hellish Rebuke (evocation), and so on. You can even fluff the Action Surge Teleport as Teleporting with a brief flash of fire and brimstone for flavour.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 20, 2018)

Yeah, I’m getting a lot of “But the flavor yadda yadda.   It just doesn’t feel yadda yadda.”

That’s all role play. How your character feels in its class is not up to the design of the class. That’s just a framework. Fluff shouldn’t even really be in a class. I’m just going to ignore fluff i don’t like anyway. Complaining a class doesn’t have the right “feel” for a specific character type is just lazy role play. I mean, I could say my Storm Sorcerer is actually a mutant using innate mutant powers to control the weather, only picking weather related abilities, and call her Storm. 

Or how about My Eldritch Knight is actually the reincarnation of an ancient wizard, and in this life he became a warrior instead of a wizard, not knowing he was a reincarnated wizard, and lo and behold he started remembering things from his past life, little by little, as he starts instinctively casting magic spells. I may actually use that. 

Awesome concepts, has nothing to do with mechanics. I make the mechanics work for my concept.  As for optimization, woo hoo, you picked the same spells every other optimized PC did. Good for you for being original. Remember, Jiggly Puff was a low tier Smash Bros character until someone learned how to fight with her, then she became a tier one beast, or at least she did in my dorm because I was unstoppable with that powder puff.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 20, 2018)

Well [MENTION=6855204]tglassy[/MENTION], we could already do that.

I could take a wizard, pick all psionic flavored spells and just call them the powers of the mind.  And you know what?

I've been doing that.  A large part of my world revolves around psionics as a backstory, and I couldn't wait for 5e to produce it.

BUT, since Mearls is working on a class, I feel its justifiable for us to say whether its mechanics evoke the feel we are looking for or not.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 20, 2018)

I get that, and I agree, I really do. I’m just saying that “feel” is what we make it. We “feel” like wizards when we play, even though we’re using an arbitrary Spell Slot system that makes no sense in the real world. It was worse in the old days. Oh, sorry, I could only cast that spell once, and now I’ve forgotten how to cast it. I’ll have to study it al over again to cast it again. But I can cast all kinds of other things. 

It makes no sense. But we deal with it, because it’s a game mechanic trying to impose some balance on a system of magic that would otherwise dominate the field. It dominates anyway. 

So you want Psionics to not use spell slots. Why?  Because you want it to be different from magic?  But that doesn’t make sense, because spell slots are only in magic as an arbitrary means to balance it out. So you don’t want Psionics to be balanced out?  No, you just want it to FEEL different. Well...that’s up to you. Call it something else. Call it Power Pools.   Or Psi Pslots. It’ll still work the same way. It’s still going to have to be balanced to everything else. 

Or we could keep on whining. Because, as my daughter knows, whining is the best way to get what you want.


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 20, 2018)

tglassy said:


> I get that, and I agree, I really do. I’m just saying that “feel” is what we make it...



Only to an extent.

Open your PHB.  Those squiggly things you see in it are words.  They have meanings and stuff.  They provide the starting point for what the game is.  We can modify it, we can tweak it, we can alter it... but when I go the local game store and join an AL game, the core rulebook establises what we expect for the game.  In AL we have to play it like that...

If we're not playing in AL we have more room to shake things up.  However, when we shake things up, we do it by changing elements of the game, not everything in the game.  So, if we don't like the psionics rules that are released, but we want psionics, whatever 'fix' we make will have to work around the infrastructure WotC builds for the psionics elements they create.

If the rules are bad or if the fluff if wrong... well, it has real impacts on our games.  If we care about psionics, there is a good reason to raise our voices to try and make sure WotC hears what concerns us.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 20, 2018)

The latest episode of Happy Fun Hour is up!

Mearls focuses specifically on the nomad psion teleporter.

The nomad enjoys powerful teleportation abilities (at the apprentice tier) at levels 1 thru 3.

A ‘teleportation attack’ teleports chunks of an enemy away from the enemy.



The psion will choose their ‘discipline’ (archetype/subclass) at level 1.

The psion mechanics let you choose your psionic cantrips and additionally allow you to (augment them to) spend a spell slot to heighten its various effects.



I like the inferable structure. Choose cantrips at level 1 to establish the themes of the character concept. The discipline/archetype/subclass empowers a theme. Higher level slots continue to develop the themes.


----------



## Gadget (Jun 20, 2018)

tglassy said:


> Yeah, I’m getting a lot of “But the flavor yadda yadda.   It just doesn’t feel yadda yadda.”





Yes, and I'm a big fan of re-fluffing things...to a point.  I've thought you could make a pretty good samurai by re-fluffing the barbarian class with "rages" that are actually combat stances, or a Purple Dragon Knight, or Oath of the Crown Paladin re-fluffed as Honor and dedication to feudal lord/cause.  Yet we have the Samurai sub-class.  You could implement the Paladin as a "Divine Knight" in parallel to the EK; the Ranger as "Pathfinder" subclass of the Fighter, maybe even several: one with spells and one without them.  No doubt one of the main reasons this was not done is probably the whole "sacred cow" issue, but there are more on the Paladin & Ranger classes than just ephemeral 'feel' and 'flavor'.  There is some real mechanical meat there that the subclass structure just does not have.

Now, as to the 'Nomad' article: is it just me, or does teleportation guy not the first thing that comes to mind when psionics comes up?  Telepathy, Telekinesis, ESP, precognition, mind control; sure, right there with you.  Is psionics now just any power anyone in a comic book has?


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 20, 2018)

Gadget said:


> Now, as to the 'Nomad' article: is it just me, or does teleportation guy not the first thing that comes to mind when psionics comes up?  Telepathy, Telekinesis, ESP, precognition, mind control; sure, right there with you.  Is psionics now just any power anyone in a comic book has?




Yes.  And that's why many folks have never seen the point of having psionics in addition to spellcasting-- because most things you can do with magic were also things that could be done with "psionics".  From an end-result point of view... there was no difference.  A pyrokinetic who controls fire with their mind gets the same exact results from their action that a spellcaster does using a spell.  Sure, the "fluff" of _how_ they do it is different, but the end results match.

Which is why they're going in the direction they are, which is just making psionics into spells, because in D&D currently, magic is magic.  Anything supernatural is magic, regardless of how you tap into and use that magic.  So instead of drawing magic out of the land like a druid does, or being granted magic from a god like a cleric does, you pull magic out of the weave using your mind.  _Essentially_ like sorcerers do and monks do using ki points.

But no, psionics is not just the traditional "psychic abilities" we know and love-- telepathy, telekinesis, precognition, ESP etc.  It's anything magical you can accomplish so long as you do it using your brain, rather than some other method.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 20, 2018)

Gadget said:


> Now, as to the 'Nomad' article: is it just me, or does teleportation guy not the first thing that comes to mind when psionics comes up?  Telepathy, Telekinesis, ESP, precognition, mind control; sure, right there with you.  Is psionics now just any power anyone in a comic book has?




It may not be the first thing, but it has a long history in D&D Psionics with Psychoportation powers from 2e, there was an Elocater PrC in 3.5 that was similar in flavor. I think in MM's mind he already started the Telepath concept with the Mentalist Wizard Subclass and it just needs to be tweaked to bring it back into Psion, the Constructor and the Metamorph are going to be more difficult to design, the Immortal and any other subclasses are being shunted to other main classes... so that leaves Nomad to design.

Psionics has always been a catchall of powers and because there is no "spellcasting" there are lots of shades of superhero stuff when using psionics, especially early 3.0 psionics where you used different stats for the different types of psionics, so you could have a Strength based Shaper (iirc)... that was VERY super hero'ish.


----------



## gyor (Jun 20, 2018)

Gadget said:


> Yes, and I'm a big fan of re-fluffing things...to a point.  I've thought you could make a pretty good samurai by re-fluffing the barbarian class with "rages" that are actually combat stances, or a Purple Dragon Knight, or Oath of the Crown Paladin re-fluffed as Honor and dedication to feudal lord/cause.  Yet we have the Samurai sub-class.  You could implement the Paladin as a "Divine Knight" in parallel to the EK; the Ranger as "Pathfinder" subclass of the Fighter, maybe even several: one with spells and one without them.  No doubt one of the main reasons this was not done is probably the whole "sacred cow" issue, but there are more on the Paladin & Ranger classes than just ephemeral 'feel' and 'flavor'.  There is some real mechanical meat there that the subclass structure just does not have.
> 
> Now, as to the 'Nomad' article: is it just me, or does teleportation guy not the first thing that comes to mind when psionics comes up?  Telepathy, Telekinesis, ESP, precognition, mind control; sure, right there with you.  Is psionics now just any power anyone in a comic book has?




 Think of the Psion powers of the Traveller in Star Trek, his ability to warp space and time with the powers of his mind and his ability to draw psionic power from the minds of others to power his powers to warp space and time. Do yourself a favour and watch the  episodes he is in again Star Trek the Next Generation.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 20, 2018)

Gadget said:


> Now, as to the 'Nomad' article: is it just me, or does teleportation guy not the first thing that comes to mind when psionics comes up?  Telepathy, Telekinesis, ESP, precognition, mind control; sure, right there with you.  Is psionics now just any power anyone in a comic book has?



The abilities of Yogis are one of the inspirations of psionics, Teleporting matches up with the Siddhi of Prāpti: the ability to be anywhere at will.


----------



## Lalato (Jun 20, 2018)

I would also note that there are pop culture references from the 70s related to psychic powers of Teleportation.  For example... the BBC show The Tomorrow People about psychic kids featured the ability to teleport (which they amusingly called "jaunting").


----------



## MechaTarrasque (Jun 20, 2018)

Gadget said:


> Yes, and I'm a big fan of re-fluffing things...to a point.  I've thought you could make a pretty good samurai by re-fluffing the barbarian class with "rages" that are actually combat stances, or a Purple Dragon Knight, or Oath of the Crown Paladin re-fluffed as Honor and dedication to feudal lord/cause.  Yet we have the Samurai sub-class.  You could implement the Paladin as a "Divine Knight" in parallel to the EK; the Ranger as "Pathfinder" subclass of the Fighter, maybe even several: one with spells and one without them.  No doubt one of the main reasons this was not done is probably the whole "sacred cow" issue, but there are more on the Paladin & Ranger classes than just ephemeral 'feel' and 'flavor'.  There is some real mechanical meat there that the subclass structure just does not have.
> 
> Now, as to the 'Nomad' article: is it just me, or does teleportation guy not the first thing that comes to mind when psionics comes up?  Telepathy, Telekinesis, ESP, precognition, mind control; sure, right there with you.  Is psionics now just any power anyone in a comic book has?




Yes and the sorcerer is suing for gimmick infringement.  More seriously, this is probably just the first step to seeing if there is enough interest in "someone who is really good at X", where X is a noncantrip spell; you want them to do something more often then they would be able to using spell slots (because unlimited casting=unlimited fireballs).  You need a mix of classic psychic stuff and nonclassic in order to gage the limits.  If they get a bunch of "I love this, but it doesn't seem psychic to me" feedback, there could be a teleporting rogue or barbarian in our future.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 21, 2018)

gyor said:


> The story is right in the name, Eldrich KNIGHT, your a knight possibly belonging to a Knightly Arcane Order.



 Sure, like the Knightly Order of the Eye of Jet.

I'm sure you've seen 'em around.  Love casting Suggestion?  Make their own Brilliant Energy katanas?


----------



## gyor (Jun 21, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> Sure, like the Knightly Order of the Eye of Jet.
> 
> I'm sure you've seen 'em around.  Love casting Suggestion?  Make their own Brilliant Energy katanas?




 Never heard of them.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 21, 2018)

Guy named "Benny" is their leader.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 21, 2018)

gyor said:


> Never heard of them.



Might be tough to spot them; I hear they travel in single file, to hide their numbers.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Jun 21, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> Might be tough to spot them; I hear they travel in single file, to hide their numbers.




Nah. But when they wish to hide themselves, they can cunningly disappear by living under their real surname and wearing the uniform robes of their order, within spitting distance of their sworn enemies' close relatives (who are also living under their real surname).


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 21, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Nah. But when they wish to hide themselves, they can cunningly disappear by living under their real surname and wearing the uniform robes of their order, within spitting distance of their sworn enemies' close relatives (who are also living under their real surname).



Well, you've certainly talked me into Jet-Eye psions being based on Charisma instead of Intelligence or Wisdom.


----------



## gyor (Jun 21, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> Guy named "Benny" is their leader.




 You meam the music group benny and the jets.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 21, 2018)

Putting more thought into Psionic subclasses of Paladin, Ranger and Druid.

While one suggested they take the Divine Mind concept and put it in as the Paladin subclass, I always had the idea for an Oath of Madness/Fractured Reality that was generally tilted towards the Chaotic Neutral alignment, which was a Paladin whose Oath is about their own perception of reality that is different from the baseline reality of others, whether it was the result of trauma, dissociative disorders, the Far Realm, the Region of Dreams or knowing some sort of unknowable truth.  It would probably be more slanted to telepathy as it's part of their oath to have others accept their version of reality, such as being recognized as the Princess of Imaginaria, all living things are masses of crawling worms or the fact that their murdered family is still very much alive.

The Ranger subclass could be about hunting bounties with psychometry which is the ability to read psychic imprints on objects and using some psychoportation related powers.  In many ways they'd be the ulimate bounty hunters as they can use other senses to track their targets.  Some of them might be aberration hunters, or hunters of shapeshifters tracking hidden threats that embed themselves deep inside civilization.  Any many ways they could be the actual Urban Rangers that a few have expressed a want for.

The Druid might be the hardest one to fit in a psionic subclass, but there's certainly some sort of overlap between wildshape and many of the body control abilities of psionics, especially 3e psionics where there's many partial shape-shifting abilities such as growing claws and spitting acid.  Perhaps the circle will be about an idealized primal beast of many forms, becoming like it in body and mind.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Jun 21, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> Oh, the 're-inventing' argument is obvious and even compelling, it just doubles as an argument not to have psionics, at all.  So, IDK, have them work nothing like spells.  Instead of discrete effects, construct effects up from disciplines, like supernatural Legos, using power points to fuel each block.  Or simply don't have "high level" disciplines, don't level-gate them, just learn more as you go, and pouring more power points into them brings them up to level-appropriate effectiveness.



The Lego approach always sounds awesome in principle, but there are a couple of practical hurdles there, both in design and play. The more-power approach seems cleaner, simpler, more... 5E. (Also: incarnum magic.)

It also seems like a perfect fit for some disciplines, such as telekinesis. Just brainstorming:

*Telekinetic Talent:* Basically _mage hand_, but with open-ended actions available (attack, grapple, ready...).
*Augment:* Spend psi points to increase hand's effective Strength score (and size?).
*Augment:* Spend psi points to get extra hands.
And maybe *Power:* Spend psi points to throw something you're holding really hard.

And that seems like all you really need for a telekinetic. Not three dozen powers that do specific slightly different things. Give the character this broad, flexible tool and let them figure out what to do with it.

But does the same approach work for every discipline? It seems like it'd be trickier to design, say, metamorphosis or telepathy along these lines.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 21, 2018)

Not necessarily. Telepathy, he’s already touched on. He seems to like at every Psion will have basic telepathy, which is to send thoughts to others. Telepaths would be able to also receive responses, as an upgrade. 

Other upgrades could be reading all surface thoughts, delving into memories, implanting false memories, telepathically connecting to more people, or keeping a psychic link open when not in line of sight. 

Metamorph could start out small, with simply changing the color of ones skin, hair and eyes. Then spells that augment it’s effects. Granting claws, wing, growth or shrinkage, corrosive blood, whatever. Not much of a Cantrip, but then none of them really should be. It’s the augments that would make the Psion powerful.


----------



## gyor (Jun 21, 2018)

I'm looking foward to how he does the Constructor subclass, maybe building off a Cantrip that summons your imaginary friend?


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 21, 2018)

gyor said:


> I'm looking foward to how he does the Constructor subclass, maybe building off a Cantrip that summons your imaginary friend?




I will be curious to see how they learned lessons from summoning when they construct this element as well...  Although the Xanathar's summoning spells are better, we still do not have a truly viable conjuration specialist that brings monster servants to the table... you're better off summoning via polymorph than summoning from scratch.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 21, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> And that seems like all you really need for a telekinetic. Not three dozen powers that do specific slightly different things. Give the character this broad, flexible tool and let them figure out what to do with it.




That is one of my favorite parts about 5e. This approach with the bigby hand spell that used to be 4-5 and now just one with different actions, and collapsing some of the spells back like enlarge/reduce. 

It’s basically what 3e psionics was built on. Spend base pp then augment strength, flexibility or both with additional points. Sounds like he is aiming to do that augmentation with spells this time around though.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 21, 2018)

Eubani said:


> I wouldn't of minded the EK so much if it had a bit of story and identity woven in. This is possible as I have used it as a template to make a Dark Knight subclass that had access to Necromancy, Conjuration and an Imp familiar. Remove some of the not necessary stuff throw in a dash of Necrotic damage with melee and a bonus to intimidate and I got something that had story and flavour.



I think that it is good that there is little flavor.  It allows someone creative to add the flavor they want! Like you just did 

Same goes with the battlemaster really...


----------



## gyor (Jun 21, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> I will be curious to see how they learned lessons from summoning when they construct this element as well...  Although the Xanathar's summoning spells are better, we still do not have a truly viable conjuration specialist that brings monster servants to the table... you're better off summoning via polymorph than summoning from scratch.




 I'm curious why you say this, what about Conjurer and Circle of the Sherpherd and Lore Bards?


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 21, 2018)

Kobold Avenger said:


> Putting more thought into Psionic subclasses of Paladin, Ranger and Druid.
> 
> While one suggested they take the Divine Mind concept and put it in as the Paladin subclass, I always had the idea for an Oath of Madness/Fractured Reality that was generally tilted towards the Chaotic Neutral alignment, which was a Paladin whose Oath is about their own perception of reality that is different from the baseline reality of others, whether it was the result of trauma, dissociative disorders, the Far Realm, the Region of Dreams or knowing some sort of unknowable truth.  It would probably be more slanted to telepathy as it's part of their oath to have others accept their version of reality, such as being recognized as the Princess of Imaginaria, all living things are masses of crawling worms or the fact that their murdered family is still very much alive.
> 
> ...




I like these concepts for the Paladin and Ranger a lot thematically, they are both very flavorful. Not sure about Druid either... they already have a Circle of Dreams which would have been a good spot to drop Psionics. 

OTOH, does EVERY class need a Psionic sub version? I don't really think so. I'd even be ok if these 3 and sorcerer ended up not getting anything. Even Wizard really.. not sure there needs to be a Psionic sub-class for this now, though I'll take it. While I was happy with the mentalist sub-class, that was before he started working on the Psion class and then moved the Telepathy abilities back to the Psion (way more sense).


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 22, 2018)

You need single action summon spells for summoners.

Conjurer has too few options.  Their first real summon is a 3rd level spell, and it creates monsters hostile to everyone.

Circle of Sheppard is UA only, and also doesn't really get a summon until level 5... It is likely the best summoner right now.

Lore Bards can summon, but again only at 6th level and do not really get anyvsummon specific abilities.


----------



## cbwjm (Jun 22, 2018)

Wasn't circle of the shepherd released in Xanathar's?


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 22, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> You need single action summon spells for summoners.
> 
> Conjurer has too few options.  Their first real summon is a 3rd level spell, and it creates monsters hostile to everyone.
> 
> Circle of Sheppard is UA only.




Circle of the Shepherd is in Xanathar’s now and they get boosts to summoned beasts/fey at 6th level & 10th level. 

Druids get all the conjure/summons spells in the PHB but conjure celestial/planar ally

The lowest conjure/summon anywhere in 5e is 3rd level. 

It is odd how they’ve seemed to divvy up summoning

Cleric - celestial, some ability to call elemental/fiends with Planar ally
Druid - all natural/fey/elementals 
Ranger - natural/fey
Warlock - fiends and fey
Wizards, elementals & fiends

No one has access to all types for summoning, I never noticed that before.

Also Conjure Animals and Conjure Woodland brings are 1 action for Druid/Ranger. Summon Demon (lesser and greater) is also 1 action for wizards and warlocks. 

Seems like the conjurer subclass got a little better with those spells. He can be a combat diabolist now where before they couldn’t.


----------



## tglassy (Jun 22, 2018)

Maybe because summons breaks the Action economy. A large enough group, no matter their level, can take an enemy that can only attack one of them at a time. They’re great for soaking up Damage.

Man, I need to create a summoner now.


----------



## gyor (Jun 22, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> You need single action summon spells for summoners.
> 
> Conjurer has too few options.  Their first real summon is a 3rd level spell, and it creates monsters hostile to everyone.
> 
> ...




 To fix the Circle of the Shepherd issue,  go human variant and pick Wizard Ritual Caster,  and pick Unseen Servant and Find Familiar (pick a fey familiar),  so you have some summoning from the get go. Also if Druids get the Infestation can trip, I forget it basically summons vermin for 1 round to damage your target,  so take that too.


----------



## gyor (Jun 22, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> Circle of the Shepherd is in Xanathar’s now and they get boosts to summoned beasts/fey at 6th level & 10th level.
> 
> Druids get all the conjure/summons spells in the PHB but conjure celestial/planar ally
> 
> ...




 With an invocation Warlocks have conjure Elemental as well. 

 Would Divine Soul has access to cleric Planar Ally and Conjure Celestial spells and Spiritual Weapon is kind of a minion of sorts. 

 The one class that can potentially summon a everything is Bard,  who can poach the best summoning spells in the game,  Conjure  X,  Summon X,  Planar Ally,  Infernal Call,  Gate (btw any class with Gate can summon pretty much any kind of creature), Find Familiar,  Find Steed,  Find Greater Steed,  Unseen Servant). 

 Btw Mighty Fortress is the biggest summoning spell in the game in terms of raw numbers because it can summon 100 unseen servants in the fortress that can leave the fortress and go with you. 

 Weirdest Summoning spell,  True Resurrection,  if the creature you wish to raise has no body,  you effectively summon it to your location. (Side note as I typed this it dawned on me you could really screw with the Githyank by raising the dead God they use as a city using True Resurrection).

 Wish can also summon anything an 8th level or lower spell can and it does it as an single turn action.


----------



## T0kume1 (Jun 24, 2018)

Do you guys think we'll get the finished UA before the end of the year?


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 24, 2018)

T0kume1 said:


> Do you guys think we'll get the finished UA before the end of the year?



At this glacial pace?

Honestly - it would not surprise me if they drag the development out another year, so the final published class doesn't come out in 2019 even...

I hope they won't actually get anywhere if the design by committee,  ie the public.

What's needed is a design team with a strong vision for how they want psionics to be.

Most of us will be happy either way, as long as it's not ruined by compromise. 

At this rate the class(es) won't be out of UA in 2019. 

Just look at the Ranger UA. It looks more and more like a bait and switch, where they secretly wanted to do nothing, so they made an UA but then dragged their feet hoping everybody should just give up. 

Like me. I'm starting to give up hope they will ever add actual crunch to this edition. MMearls talks and talks, but only ever delivers the easy stuff: more subclasses, races, spells and backgrounds.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 24, 2018)

I don't think we will see the finished version before the publication of something that is going to use it: either a setting, and adventure, or a full on psionics handbook. And that isn't going to happen this year.


----------



## T0kume1 (Jun 24, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> At this glacial pace?
> 
> Honestly - it would not surprise me if they drag the development out another year, so the final published class doesn't come out in 2019 even...




I'm hopeful we at least get the psion ua to test/play around with, I wouldn't be surprised if Dark Sun got released next year, since mearls has mentioned working of it on twitter. Apparently we are getting a setting release this year as well supposed to be announced in July.


----------



## gyor (Jun 24, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> At this glacial pace?
> 
> Honestly - it would not surprise me if they drag the development out another year, so the final published class doesn't come out in 2019 even...
> 
> ...




 Actually I think we are finally making serious progress finally, instead of Mearls being attached to his mystic idea he's finally given it up and is building something that looks like and is called a Psion.

 He's figure out most of the main mechanics for the class, he done one and a half subclasses for it so for and he has tje basic concepting done for a bunch more, all solid.

 He just has to flesh out the the rest of the subclasses and spells/cantrips. Another 6 months at the latest and it should be done. Probably alot sooner, like 3 months it comes out in a UA.


----------



## T0ky0L1ghts (Jun 25, 2018)

gyor said:


> He's figure out most of the main mechanics for the class, he done one and a half subclasses for it so for and he has tje basic concepting done for a bunch more, all solid.
> 
> He just has to flesh out the the rest of the subclasses and spells/cantrips. Another 6 months at the latest and it should be done. Probably alot sooner, like 3 months it comes out in a UA.



 Same here wouldn't be surprised if it was released in 3 months time , with it coming out as a final version for  Dark Sun in print next year.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 25, 2018)

I wouldn't be surprised if the Metamorph gets 1 extra HP per level, as it seems to be a thing for Sorcerer subclasses that are more likely to get in the fray, especially if one of their main cantrips is bestial claw attacks.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 25, 2018)

I've learned two things from this thread:

1) Apparently everyone is supposed to be familiar with 3rd party publishers?
2) Gamers simply *do not* pick up on Elton John references.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 28, 2018)

Happy Fun Hour 6/26 2018 is up!

The Nomad Psion explores space-time. This show focuses on aspects of time travel.



The Original Post updates to include all of the Happy Fun Hours relating to psionics − so now you can binge watch them!


----------



## jgsugden (Jun 28, 2018)

I'm surprised how little he knows of the spells in the PHB.  I also was not a fan of his design ideas as they unfolded for the nomad.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 28, 2018)

Gradine said:


> I've learned two things from this thread:
> 1) Apparently everyone is supposed to be familiar with 3rd party publishers?



If we are talking about THE 3pp publisher for psionics built on the 3.X engine in a thread about what we want for psionics in 5e, then I would say that you should at least not be surprised or dismissive when they are named.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 28, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> If we are talking about THE 3pp publisher for psionics built on the 3.X engine in a thread about what we want for psionics in 5e, then I would say that you should at least not be surprised or dismissive when they are named.




That's fair. But then a LOT of gamers specifically avoid 3PP publishers, so one should also not be surprised or dismissive when someone claims to have never heard of them.


----------



## MechaTarrasque (Jun 28, 2018)

I don't know that I would put too much faith in Dark Sun coming based on MM's twitter.  After all, he has also tweeted a lot about PoL/Nerath Valle, and the closest that came to coming to fruition is that the drow arachnomancer in MToF is based on his NV Lolth-patron warlock (which makes it at least the third NPC warlock with a pact that isn't officially available for PC's [also the fathomer in PotA and the princess in ToA]).


----------



## gyor (Jun 30, 2018)

MechaTarrasque said:


> I don't know that I would put too much faith in Dark Sun coming based on MM's twitter.  After all, he has also tweeted a lot about PoL/Nerath Valle, and the closest that came to coming to fruition is that the drow arachnomancer in MToF is based on his NV Lolth-patron warlock (which makes it at least the third NPC warlock with a pact that isn't officially available for PC's [also the fathomer in PotA and the princess in ToA]).




http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Mwaxanaré


----------



## MechaTarrasque (Jun 30, 2018)

gyor said:


> http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Mwaxanaré




Thanks.  My odds of spelling her name without the book in front me were nonexistent.  

Mwaxanare is a low level elemental pact warlock and, based on the spells used, the fathomer is also a warlock.  The fathomer and the arachnomancer (and Lolth-pact warlocks) have very specific shape changer abilities (the fathomer into a serpent made of water and the arachnomancer/Lolthloc into a giant spider), which are my main interests as this opens up a lot of interesting options, but may be why we haven't gotten them as PC classes (step on druids' toes too much, and celestial/fiend/fey kind of step on paladins' keystone abilities).  Maybe they are moving some the playtest sorcerer idea to the warlock.....


It occurs to me that elemental bladelocks (assuming they have these shape changer abilities) would be good proxies for the pre-4e types of celestial eladrin (and if there was a variant celestial warlock patron that let you turn into a ball of energy, that covers most of the rest).  If there was a variant fey patron that gave you the ability to turn into a sprite, it wouldn't exactly be a coure, but it would be close enough for me.


----------



## Jester David (Jul 2, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> I'm surprised how little he knows of the spells in the PHB.  I also was not a fan of his design ideas as they unfolded for the nomad.



Keep in mind he has the spells in the book in his mind, the spells cut from the book, and two or three prior iterations. When he thinks of a spell, he might be unsure what version he’s thinking of. 

Plus, not everyone has an encyclopedic memory for rules. Good design skills require a good imagination, not a good memory.


----------



## Jester David (Jul 2, 2018)

T0kume1 said:


> Do you guys think we'll get the finished UA before the end of the year?





T0kume1 said:


> I'm hopeful we at least get the psion ua to test/play around with, I wouldn't be surprised if Dark Sun got released next year, since mearls has mentioned working of it on twitter. Apparently we are getting a setting release this year as well supposed to be announced in July.



The giant soul sorcerer was released as a UA in June, and written at the end of February and start of March. So it could be as soon as four months after the subclassses are finished. 
But given the number of options required (i.e. new spells) it will likely be longer still.


----------



## Yaarel (Jul 2, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Keep in mind he has the spells in the book in his mind, the spells cut from the book, and two or three prior iterations. When he thinks of a spell, he might be unsure what version he’s thinking of.
> 
> Plus, not everyone has an encyclopedic memory for rules. Good design skills require a good imagination, not a good memory.




Also, people who are talented in many different areas often need some moments to switch their modes of cognition, from one category of information to refresh the new category of information.



Good design skills require someone who is good at navigating information, as opposed to reciting information.


----------



## Jester David (Jul 2, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Also, people who are talented in many different areas often need some moments to switch their modes of cognition, from one category of information to refresh the new category of information.
> 
> 
> 
> Good design skills require someone who is good at navigating information, as opposed to reciting information.



As someone who writes a lot of homebrew content, every time I make a horrible option that does not work, it’s because I assumed I remembered how the rules worked and did not check.


----------



## jgsugden (Jul 2, 2018)

Putting aside my great appreciation for all the hard work that has been put into 5E: His design job requires him to know the existing mechanics and options in order to design new elements that do not interact inappropriately with existing materials.  Whether it is hard or not - and why it might be hard or not - is a bit irrelevant.  It surprised me that he was unaware of the contents of several key spells.


----------



## SuperTD (Jul 2, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> Putting aside my great appreciation for all the hard work that has been put into 5E: His design job requires him to know the existing mechanics and options in order to design new elements that do not interact inappropriately with existing materials.  Whether it is hard or not - and why it might be hard or not - is a bit irrelevant.  It surprised me that he was unaware of the contents of several key spells.




As I understand the dynamic on the design team, that's what Jeremy Crawford is for. In the Dragon+ streams Jeremy is on, as well as on MMHFH, they both talk about how Mike tends to concept ideas then passes them to Jeremy to look at how they will interact and refine them so they actually work.

Also, he doesn't need to have them all in his head - that's what the books are for. He's often looking spells up on his stream for that very reason.


----------



## jgsugden (Jul 2, 2018)

SuperTD said:


> As I understand the dynamic on the design team, that's what Jeremy Crawford is for. In the Dragon+ streams Jeremy is on, as well as on MMHFH, they both talk about how Mike tends to concept ideas then passes them to Jeremy to look at how they will interact and refine them so they actually work.



No offense to you or him, but that does not work.  You need to understand your framework to build something that interacts with it.  







> Also, he doesn't need to have them all in his head - that's what the books are for. He's often looking spells up on his stream for that very reason.



To paraphrase an idiot that made one good point: There is the stuff you know you know, the stuff you know you don't know, the stuff you don't know you know, and the stuff you don't know you don't know.  

The last part is the rub here.  If you don't know something exists, you don't know to look it up to account for it.  This is the problem with game design in general: The larger the game grows, the more you need to consider.  This plagues M:tG and is the reason they really only balance for the most recent expansions - although they consider the older stuff as much as they can.

Clearly, they have something in place that works as I have been pleased with recent releases, but this is enough to make me wonder if the quality is there in spite of something.


----------



## SuperTD (Jul 2, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> No offense to you or him, but that does not work.  You need to understand your framework to build something that interacts with it.




Fair enough. However I'd also argue that it's hardly fair to judge his design process on a stream where he's constantly interacting with a chat filled with hundreds of people yelling different suggestions. Part of your focus is bound to be shifted from thinking about how a new feature interacts with existing ones over to explaining your thoughts as they come and, sometimes, getting carried away with a cool idea that might not actually work because a lot of the audience will yell approval for ANYTHING that sounds vaguely cool. (The "Disaster Barbarian" springs to mind, though perhaps I'm the odd one out in thinking that was a terrible concept.)


----------



## T0ky0L1ghts (Jul 4, 2018)

https://m.twitch.tv/videos/280520426?desktop-redirect=true

He did some stuff for the constructor subclass. 
Rest of the month he'll be doing monster creation, he'll continue work on the psion in the office. He mentioned bringing the psion back with more content in August.


----------



## gyor (Jul 5, 2018)

T0ky0L1ghts said:


> https://m.twitch.tv/videos/280520426?desktop-redirect=true
> 
> He did some stuff for the constructor subclass.
> Rest of the month he'll be doing monster creation, he'll continue work on the psion in the office. He mentioned bringing the psion back with more content in August.




 I watched the video. Basic idea is there is a cantrip that summons your imaginary friend,  which is kind of like Unseen Servant,  but visible,  with an attack and HPs,  which you can make more powerful and remove restrictions upon it by spending spell slots/points upon your summoned creature,  as well as Shaper Features,  does things like allow you to summon two of the imaginary friends,  give it extra hps,  let it take damage for you as a reaction,  and so on. Your Imaginary friend will have it's own stat blocks, most of which will be very simple with you adding abilities to it by spending resources.. Some other stuff. 

 Might be worth taking a one level dip for Conjerer Wizards for the Cantrip and first level Shaper trait. 

 Some of Mearls concerns as really emphasis why Phantom Steed is such as great spell beyond simple use as a mount.


----------



## gyor (Jul 5, 2018)

Another thing, if a Psion Cantrip is improved by spending spell slots they will interact in interesting ways with other classes,  like Sorcerers and Warlocks especially. This particular cantrip will interact interestingly with Paladin Auras and Bardic powers.


----------



## T0kume1 (Jul 5, 2018)

I'm honestly interested to see what the Metamorph subclass is like as well the metamorph/egotist powers are.


----------

