Unearthed Arcana : Psionics V0.2

[SorO_Lost]

Problem #2: Ten-level classes? Why? You're forced to multiclass, which goes against the spirit of 5e.

It's a play test, last release was 5 levels long and this update added another 5 levels. They did exactly the same thing with Next or 5th's Base Classes during play testing, because coming up with 20 levels and testing all twenty in one go is harder then coming up and testing five levels at a time.

Anyway, finally got to download the pdf, yeahee! Looks cool.

[TenaciousJ]

Meh. It's one level. For every proficiency ever.

Not at the same time.

See those feats that give proficiencies? That no one ever takes? Yeah.

You also get a doubled proficiency in any one skill. So yay.

Background? What? Why? Free food?

This is without all the other stuff a level of awakened mystic can potentially bring.

I'd recommend every party has one lvl of it. Mind Vault someone. Because.

Mainly because it's overpowered as shit.

It is. Compared to one level of any other skill monkey business ever. You now have every skill and proficiency in the party. For one level up.

It turns out that rogue and bard skill stuff were just ribbons in comparison to a single mystic level.....

It trivializes backgrounds, learning, the concept of a skillset, character differentiation, roles, party short-falls. Heaps.

OP'd as shit, I said.

Wouldn't that indicate the power of those feats, and thus what is being provided by this dip, are not really that powerful?  No one will take this stuff for a feat.  In a time-limited skill challenge, that bonus action to switch proficiencies can be a liability if you need to do a compounded check or need your bonus action for something like cunning action, step of the wind, etc.  Rogues and bards have a lot of other features, and get access to a lot of these skills simultaneously and at a great degree of proficiency with less of their action economy used.  Backgrounds are already trivialized by the custom background options and the ruling about choosing any replacement proficiency if your class or race already provides what the background does.

Knowledge Cleric 1 gives you 2 skills, expertise with 2 of them, medium armor and shield proficiency all at the same time, and it makes Guidance available if you're willing to spend actions for your skill checks.

[8wGremlin]

I have a question about Stealth, primarily about hiding and psionic attacks

If you are hidden—both unseen and unheard—when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.

Mind Blade and Thought Spear, allow the target to make INT saving throws, or they take damage. Neither of these "attacks" hit, and as previously stated in the article Psionics don't make sound or have to wave their arms around (verbal or somatic components of a spell)

so does this mean that you can attack from hidden and not expose yourself?
are there was any specific rules that anyone had seen on how these two aspects interact.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Stealth?
Oh boy, that's a can of worms.
You could treat it like the Sorc's Careful Meta.
There've been some nasty long threads
discussing the inside-baseball rules of stealth.
  
Historically psi had a "display" but if you can't
trace that back to an origin point = still hidden.
(imho)

... What in the game is being trivialized by easy tool or skill proficiency?  ...

Knowledge Cleric has been sitting on tools all this time = collective shrug.

Skills technically  could be gained for the 250gp tax mid levels, but
I don't recall any chatter about it back at old wotc, or now enworld.
I think most people ignore that (tinsy weensy) part of the rules.

Killing the Skill Monkey though would be stupid, people know it, and
want it, and at least the rules support it for a decent part of the game.

[SorO_Lost]

@8wGremlin, It sounds like you'd still be hidden.

But ADM is right, there are a few volatile threads else where arguing about what should be the answer on stealth & target spells (think like sleep). To me, it sounds like you'd remain hidden. Through I believe you know when you make a Save (or should know if 5th lacks that text), so enemies will know something somewhere is attempting to harm them even if they don't know who, what, why or how.

[Nunkuruji]

I could see the Awakened Expertise and Psionic Investigation switching places to deter the 1 level dip.

Awakened Mystic combat stats are likely to look like Int > Con|Dex > Cha|Wis|Str

The floating proficiency is nice for filling in on skills, but they're likely to not have the stats to back it and be better than other typically skilled or stat focused classes in the early game.

At worst I see them crapping on Wizards skill checks,  relieving the Rogue/Bard from some Int skills, or taking on Dex skills when there is no Rogue/Bard
I don't see them winning the Wisdom or Charisma checks over Clerics, Druids, Bards, Paladins or Sorcerers.

May see how it plays out if my player switches from Immortal to Awakened.

[sambojin]

I still think one level for potentially any skill proficiency+stuff is OP.

And unfortunately, even while Psionics has massive min/max potential with Psi points scaling like they do, and maybe feats to make them properly broken, we don't have them yet. Need more disciplines/thingy spells to really do it properly.

So it's multi-class or something. You could reverse dip Immortal quite easily as it stands, but it's also great for power dipping for any other melee/shooty class.

Awakened is, from what I can see, campaign/role specific. Or an amazing 1-level dip. One of the best "I don't give no hoots on who my party is" dips. Great for internet play, definitely. Still thinking Moon Druid 2/Awakened Mystic 1 may be the "do stuff regardless" build of our modern world.

[Nunkuruji]

Got a session in this weekend, player did switch over to Awakened Mystic 5, even though still mostly immortal disciplines.
Disciplines: Psionic Weapon, Celerity, Body of Wind, Third Eye

Seems to be appreciated that focusing on a discipline is no longer concentration. Opens up other powers and spells for concentration (gestalt wizard // mystic)
Same typical windup, start in Celerity, switch to Psionic Weapon in round 1

They were up against a boss, Paladin 6 // Sorcerer 6 rolling with Haste, Quickened GFB, Enmity and Smite spam, so at one point one of the players was death tanking. The Mystic was able to mobile in and out very effectively with Surge of Speed + Wind Step, feeding the near death play a potion with little risk.

Thought spear wasn't particularly interesting vs using crossbow expert. Ethereal weapon was more useful for consistently punching through high AC and getting reliable damage done. Ethereal weapon did take a hit on damage since its a bonus action now. Overall damage took a hit due to lethal strikes now melee only.

Noticed Psionic Weapon was nerfed in that the augmented weapons must be non-magical. Therefore getting enhancement bonuses on something like Flametongue is no longer possible. Also Ethereal weapon can probably be queued up pre-combat, as it doesn't say how long it lasts, just discharged on next attack. I believe it just falls under instantaneous?

[sambojin]

It mentions "momentarily" in the description, but that's not exactly specific. I'll mow the lawn momentarily, but it might actually be tomorrow

Have things like Great Weapon Master come up yet with Ethereal Weapon? How did you adjudicate it? It says that it still does "additional effects", +10 damage is an additional effect to me, so is it kind of free (no -5 to-hit, just the Dex save)? No +10 damage on a saved half-hit either, but there's no reason to not try for it? That seems the easiest way to play it, but it's probably too good.

Or would you give +5 to the enemy's Dex save (which is massive)? This would probably over-nerf the feat/power combo.

GWM seems *very* good with ethereal weapon if it's the former, bad with the latter, but I can't think of anything in between that's actually stated anywhere to resolve it reasonably. Well, +2 to the enemy's Dex save would do it, but that would be me just using my godly -/+2 powers to resolve any situation.....

A V.human with GWM, Immortal 1 into Fighter 2 might be a very strong starting mêlée build depending on how it's played. Then go for BM dice or more Immortal psi-points (or both) down the track. As a gestalt they'd be insane, but pretty good as a normal character too. Psi points cap your Ethereal spam, but GWM is free and is pretty much a small smite for whenever you do ethereal it. 4 small dex-save smites at lvl1 is a pretty good starting block, you could go anywhere you wanted with the build after that.

Combos with Hex(Dex), AS, BM dice, smite, SA, ass-stab, all nice damage boosters. 1 psi point for anti-AC +10 damage seems pretty good on the resource management front, with Mystic psi scaling in silly ways to make it worthwhile levelling in it to spam ethereal.

Ethereal GWM seems very viable for minmaxing stuff.

[Nunkuruji]

GWM/Sharpshooter we run with a penalty to the save DC, rather than accuracy. It seems to do its job when a near-guaranteed hit is needed. DC might seem low, but lots of things with derp int score and no proficiency.

[sambojin]

Yeah, that's what I'd do. Otherwise it's a freebie for save related stuff. -5 to-hit is nothing when you're not rolling to-hit, per say.

RAW it's broken. +2 to the enemy's dex save when ethereal weapon'ing and it's not. Or not as bad. I tend to halve and round-down for save related stuff (+2 stat/to-hit is +1 competency/save equivalent, "minus to-hit" --> "plus to enemy's save" is rounded down for "balance of overpowered" reasons, especially where it uses a resource of any kind).

But, as always in 5th, it's up to levelheaded DMs and players to fix up badly written rules and combos. I wish they'd stop doing that.

It's an internet book. They've got all the room they want for clarifications and examples ffs.

@Tenacious J. Awakened/Mind Vault means you'll never have to consider skills as a downfall. Ever. You have your skills, the rest of the party has theirs too. But MV lets you cover any combo you need. Cleric (knowledge) may give expertise, but it's not in "time dependent" skills. I'm not saying it's "powerful" like DPR, it's just so very flexible that it's amazingly powerful. It's like you're a Chameleon from 3.5ed, but just for skills. Except that it only takes one level to do it, and you get other stuff from the level as well.
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. As well as the thief in the night. The friend of any, and the strongman as well. Knowledgeable and wise.
Its not quite as devilish as it sounds, but being OP is good

[Nunkuruji]

2|3 is probably a better balance. Advantage might work as well. I need to hit up the dice stats page.

I'd just generally say Mind Vault's value is higher when there are fewer party members, as otherwise one would still probably want to defer to the specialist, but it does let one float in and out of having combat useful skills.



and here we go, as an example



Consider Mystic Lethal Strike @ DC 15 (8 + prof3 + intmod4)

Average Monstrosity with 10int, no proficiency. Rolling 1d20 + 0.

Case: Mystic LS output 1d20; ATLEAST(15) = 30%

Case: Mystic GMW LS @ -5 Save DC penalty. output 1d20; ATLEAST(10) = 55%

Case: Mystic GMW LS @ -2 Save DC penalty. output 1d20; ATLEAST(13) = 40%

Case: LS Target granted Advantage. output [highest 1 of 2d20]; ATLEAST(15) = 51%


After spitting this out, I'm probably more partial to changing it to target gains Advantage.

[TenaciousJ]

Ethereal weapon is against dexterity, if that's what you're trying to calculate against.  It's a bit more common than intelligence for monsters.

[Nunkuruji]

That's right, mental fart.

Regardless, unless its an NPC with class levels, or a pseudo class, more than likely no saving throw proficiencies.
Just up against your hunch or knowledge check regarding their ability scores.
I see why the conversion from a -5 penalty to -2.5 for the save would be fair given that Dex contributes to either defensive check.

[TenaciousJ]

I guess I still run with the 3.5 mentality that damage is not overpowered unless you're dropping everything you fight from 100% to 0 in one turn of attacks with no resistance.  Hitting for a lot of damage just doesn't compare to a Hypnotic Pattern trivializing a whole encounter at level 5, and that situation is on me as a DM, not the player.

[Nunkuruji]

I guess I still run with the 3.5 mentality that damage is not overpowered unless you're dropping everything you fight from 100% to 0 in one turn of attacks with no resistance.  Hitting for a lot of damage just doesn't compare to a Hypnotic Pattern trivializing a whole encounter at level 5, and that situation is on me as a DM, not the player.

Well, same rule applies. Things that you expect to survive a while need condition immunities, and don't have the monsters setup in a cluster.

[sambojin]

Damage in 5th tends to be more "useful" than in 3.5ed, because of stricter enveloping, less awesome/broken control style spells, and HP-damage being at the forefront of many builds due to fairly low resource cost or setup. Or just being good and easy to obtain. Which is probably correct in many ways.

There are many pure control spells and abilities in 5th, some referencing HP, some not. But it's not 3.5ed broken yet in that regard.

I like that there's Int and Dex saves in Psionics. Even HP attacking ones. They could probably spread heaps of effects and damage with extras through all saves quite easily though. Psi or not.

AC or "bleh save stuff". Psionics is doing the right thing here, I feel.

[bruceleeroy]

Ethereal Weapon: As a bonus action, you can momentarily transform a weapon you hold into psionic energy. The next attack you make with this weapon requires no attack roll. Instead, the target must make a dexterity saving throw against this Discipline.

Great Weapon Master: Before you make a melee attack with a weapon you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 to the attack roll.

Seems obvious that it doesn't work, to me.

[Kasz]

Ethereal Weapon: As a bonus action, you can momentarily transform a weapon you hold into psionic energy. The next attack you make with this weapon requires no attack roll. Instead, the target must make a dexterity saving throw against this Discipline.

Great Weapon Master: Before you make a melee attack with a weapon you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 to the attack roll.

Seems obvious that it doesn't work, to me.

Yeah, I'd agree. Even the most liberal DM could only really allow it by granting the target a +5 on their save.

Most DMs would probably stick with the RAW, you're not making an attack roll so you can't take -5 on it.

[8wGremlin]

Conquering Mind
Lesser discipline (awakened)

By channeling psionic power, you gain the ability to control other creatures by substituting your will for their own. Psychic Focus. While focused on this discipline, you gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Deception, Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion. You can change the chosen skill each time you apply your focus to this discipline.

If you already have the skill, does the rule on pg 126 player's handbook: (bolded for emphasis)

Proficiencies

Each background gives a character proficiency in two skills. Skills are described in chapter 7. In addition, most backgrounds give a character proficiency with one or more tools. Tools and tool proficiencies are detailed in chapter 5. If a character would gain the same proficiency from two different sources, he or she can choose a different proficiency of the same kind (skill or tool) instead.

whilst this does pertain to backgrounds, this states different sources, not specifically backgrounds and classes.

thoughts?