Unearthed Arcana: Feeling Mystical!

[Wilb]

Guess who is back?

[bruceleeroy]

+4 soul knives, what'ya think, typo?

[Wilb]

+4 soul knives, what'ya think, typo?

It seems to be their intent

Mystic seems to meld really well with Fighter.

I mean, Fighter 11/Mystic 9 seems so good.

[Amechra]

Yay, there are 20 levels finally.

That Psi progression is... pretty uneven, though.

Edit: HOLY SHIT PSIONIC MASTERY.

[bruceleeroy]

HOLY SHIT MICROSCOPIC FORM

[TenaciousJ]

I've been consumed by Breathe of the Wild and I'm losing sleep because I keep looking for just one more thing when I should go to bed.

Is there an association between the disciplines and the orders this time?  I see the disciplines listed per order, but nothing that explicitly says if there's a benefit to using disciplines mapped to the order you choose.  I don't even see if you can or cannot use cross-order disciplines.

e: I see it's for the bonus discipline features.

[sambojin]

Yeah, there's a lot of mixing and matching available. I haven't gone through them all yet, but there's plenty of really good ones available, regardless of mystic subclass chosen (as you said, only bonus disciplines are locked to mystic order).

I want to say that Wu Jen's wiz casting is great as well (because having an almost arbitrarily large amount of Shield spells prepared sounds great), but there's things just as good in the discipline lists anyway.

There's something for everyone here. I mean, absolutely everyone. I can't even begin to list all the "wow, that seems powerful" combos available. And mostly, it's not spellcasting, so other than concentration restraints, anyone can use them.

It seems to be somewhere between wizard and sorcerer casting versatility, so it's probably not *that* good, but it'll take me a bit to digest everything that is there.



You can get +5' reach just by thinking about being big

Wu Jen's Mastery of Air/Cloak of Air seems to be great. Far better than an equivalent lvl2 defensive spell would give you anyway. Blanket disadvantage for enemy's melee and ranged attacks, with melee self-hits on enemy misses possible, all for 10mins is pretty amazing. The rest of the discipline isn't too shabby either (1hr completely controlled air elemental summons, flight early and late, early line AoE/knockdown vs Str, "free" featherfall, etc). There's plenty of AC boosters elsewhere, but if you've already got decent armour, Cloak of Air is very powerful for a 2nd level "spell".

Mantle of Command discipline. Wow. The whole thing. Out of turn attacks and movement. Nearly whole party Action Surges worth of damage. It's amazing. There's nothing else like it in 5e. Party size and composition dependant for full effect, but still pretty amazing because you usually can't do that stuff ever.

[sambojin]

I'm not sure how good it would be, but Fighter BM (5)/Mystic Wu Jen (1)/Fighter (11)/Wu Jen (9) would probably work as a levelling layout.

Give your mystic Mantle of Command as their standard discipline (it's really versatile, even as a melee tank, although you'd rather receive it's effects than give them), Air as their first WJ bonus discipline (early mini-flight and late game tanking) and Weather as their second (dex, str and con save damage and some damage types. A couple of resistances if you want them. Low psi for a few effects too, so still handy at 6th level with a low psi cap and points).

Doesn't really need high Int to get a bit out of it, because the more useful utility things don't rely on stats anyway. The damage psis really aren't the point of it, but there's an ok spread of them to choose something hard to save against.

Not sure what other disciplines you'd take later on, or even if it would be better than actual caster levels, but attack disadvantage + lots of shield spells is all you need in some cases. Magical enemies are still a problem for you though. It's got some legs as options go, strategic and for basic utility or damage casting. Even Cloud Wall is nice. Vision is vision (assuming it doesn't need the full area to be cast/psi'd in, so you can use it indoors).

There's more powerful disciplines (which you'll have plenty of by mystic 9) whether you go melee or shooting, I just like the concept of Action Surging others during your own Action Surge


Wu Jen 6 also seems to break Magical Initiate casting, so a V.human might be ok as a race starting with that (although there's better stuff for a fighter to grab, lvl1-3 spells aren't a decent combat option by lvl17, but they are great utility when they're spamable).

[linklord231]

Mantle of Command isn't as good as it first appears, because even though you're explicitly granting the Attack action, Extra Attack only applies "on your turn".  It's still very good with classes that don't rely on Extra Attack for damage though.

[sambojin]

The sheer level of "you choose" stuff is glorious though. They might only be your ally up until that moment, but that's all you need......

I'm not sure how often I'd actually trust someone enough to take the reaction moves on offer. It's godlike power over your fellow players. Aura of trust indeed.

Good call on the extra attacks thing though. But it's still a pretty good (read as: quite useful or very evil) discipline. Out of turn stuff is nice, that you get to choose where they move might add huge amounts of hilarity value to it as well.

[Amechra]

Iron Durability is worth taking just for the Psychic Focus - +1 AC that stacks with everything.

Mastery of Force is another clear pick - it's telekinesis in a tin!

Nomadic Step is pretty cool - Defensive Step is great at breaking up Multiattacks, for one. And teleportation is pretty good.

[sambojin]

Iron Durability is nice. And it comes with a scalable shield spell (although, it's pricey in terms of psi points. But "until the end of your next turn" can make it rather powerful).

Sort of looking at Ice Mastery's Frozen Sanctuary too. It's not reactive, but 20 temp-HP is quite a bit considering they don't stack, for a fairly cheap price.

There is so much cool stuff in this UA.


For stuff like a Fighter build, I'm not totally convinced that just chucking Wizard levels in after lvl11 wouldn't work out about the same or better, but the Mystic class does have some nice front-loading and useful abilities, outside what the normal spellcasting classes can give. A great little dip, but with a pretty long tail as well. My mind is still boggling at 5+2 disciplines at Mystic lvl9, even on an Int-poor Fighter build.

[bruceleeroy]

I'm seeing several option that are just straight better than regular magic.
Beast form get fly with no concentration for an hour - 5 pp.
Mastery of Fire gets a conjured fire elemental with a single action casting and no chance of it turning on you for 7 pp vs conjure elementals at 5th.

Inertial armor is 2pp for 14+ dex and resistance to force.

Goddamn. I'm all for sweet combos and minmaxing, but this is just dumb. Versatility, yes please. Straight up better, cheaper spells? What the fuck.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

I rolled a 20 on that first chart , and I had a free re-roll from my DM, which was also a 20.
Are the d&d gawds trying to send me a secret message?

The sheer level of "you choose" stuff is glorious though ...

+1 ... I even feel an urge to break my Vow of No Smileys.


Cantrips Psionic Talents :

Beacon = light
Blade Meld = flavor.  What was this before, an opposed Str check?  I might be wrong, but I don't recall any Disarm stuff mentioned in the 3 years of 5e.  Adding a Dismissible to it doesn't really affect anything, and having it last even if you're dying, would be kinda interesting.  This is basically a previous edition version, of 5e cantrip stuff like Thaumaturgy.
Blind Spot = very nice.  Single target Invis as a ++ version of True Strike and Hide.  Dip target for sneaks.  Expect some muted cries of borkny.
Delusion = single target Minor Illusion = classic from previous editions.  Very nice anyway, especially since it shouldn't be obvious you "cast" it.  No wonder I rolled 20 earlier.
Energy Beam = by itself is weak.  Dip target for non-psi.  Perfect for grappler help.
Light Step = very nice.  Might risk not having Athletics Or Acrobatics as grapple defense, just cause of the anti-prone part.
Mind Meld = awesome sauce flavor.  There's already crying about it.  It's obviously weaker than Great Old One.  They could treat it like an Enchantment, as in the target immediately knows a very weak charm telepathy was used against it = that wasn't normal telepathy silly, that was weird telepathy.  The 1 meme-ory thing, is a nice attempt as a cantrip Divination.  It's totally dm controlled as to whether it's of any importance at all or just window dressing.  Best thing about this is the wizard doesn't need to waste time on a CompLanguage ritual.
Mind Slam = smidge better at kiting than Ray Of Frost.  Less cost + easier access, than the standard Eldritch Blast push combo.
Mind Thrust = classic.  Slightly better than unmodified Fire Bolt, but FB has way better combos and mods.
Mystic Charm = hey where'd my psi-X syndrome go?  Better than Friends, and I like Friends. Should elicit cries of borkny. Attempt at an Action Denial cantrip.  I like it.  I'd almost always love it, relative to character concept.
Mystic Hand = mage hand.  Hey wait-a-minute, my Beholder Gazer familiar can do this randomly every other round.  I'm weaker than my familiar hey no fair.
Psychic Hammer = better than Thorn Whip.

[sambojin]

Oh, and they *still* haven't given any required stat for multiclassing, so you can dump 1-3 levels of mystic into any build, no matter how MAD it began as. It's probably meant to be Int, but it's not mentioned anywhere, so it's not.

A one level dip isn't particularly appealing though, at least, not compared to many other utility casting dips. A three, five or six level Mystic part of a build is quite nice though. Psi scales strangely, and depending on what you want from it, more can be quite a bit more.

Kind of front loaded on options and flexibility, but not on power. I guess you've got to ask whether a Wizard would usually find 5-8 new spells or more every two character levels? Which is what Mystics do by default, up to about lvl9, and some of them aren't bad as low level spells go. But remember, there's not much in the Mystic lists that compare to 6th-9th level spells available to other classes, maybe not even 5th level ones actually.

Being able to "top-end" your spell range can be quite worrying at low levels though. 4xlvl2, 1xlvl1 at mystic 3, with 4 disciplines (12-20 "spells" known) and some cantrips (disciplines and talents are about this or a lvl1 spell worth) is a real oddity in 5e. Or you can go the other way for 7xlvl1 "spells". Pretty handy really.


So yeah. There's some real flexibility there, and even a fair bit of damage output. There's some "very good for the cost" spells available. But in higher level campaigns, I'm not sure I'd want more than 9 or so levels of Mystic. Real magic gets far better, even if it's not nearly as spammable. Having 7 disciplines by that point is pretty huge, but after that, you're still capped by a 7psi point max. Nothing can scale any further, you just get more of it.

Multi-spelling with psionic mastery is nice (damn could you stack some things), but having 3 lvl2 spells going at once doesn't sound THAT good. Especially since most of the stacking available is only usable on yourself (a low end spam wizard or melee character mostly) or on one enemy. I'm probably very, very wrong about this one though. There are a LOT of things to stack in the lists.

[TenaciousJ]

Oh, and they *still* haven't given any required stat for multiclassing, so you can dump 1-3 levels of mystic into any build, no matter how MAD it began as. It's probably meant to be Int, but it's not mentioned anywhere, so it's not.

They never put multiclassing prerequisites on UA classes because UA material is not balanced for multiclassing until after it has been exposed to the public.  "This is Playtest Material" box is there for a reason.  It's not made for multiclassing, so you will get ridiculous combinations if you ignore the "don't multiclass this" warning.

There's a progression on the wording of experimental features in UA since the more frequent updates started that shows they put this stuff out there and let the players find the combinations that need to be looked at.

I'm sure the prerequisite will be Intelligence when mystic becomes official, and quite honestly Intelligence needs a boost as a stat for non-wizards.  If mystic augments every build at the expense of forcing some Intelligence boosts, then the tradeoff should be equal over the life of a character.

[sambojin]

Just because this is minmax, I figured some combos are in order. Just assume anything from outside the class is given by another party member. Or that you don't listen to TenJ about anything.

Visions of Disgust and Conjure Animals. Those itty bitty beasts don't look so weak now that they're causing an auto-d6 of psychic damage each turn. A 1min long placable AoE is pretty nice. Especially if you stack tiny creatures or swarms on the BBEG. 8d6 to begin with, but can scale all the way to 32d6 as a lvl9 conjure for massive DoT. No attacks, barely anything resists it, one failed Wis save and the mental pain occurs. Why did it have to be snakes?

Iron Durability focus and Bestial Transformation (Thick Hide). A lazy, casual +3 AC for an hour that stacks with most things, no concentration needed. Completely worth dipping the class for, just for two hours a day of this (despite what TenJ says about dipping UAs). Damn nice for a mono-mystic anyway for 2pp. Combining this with Cloak of Air makes you incredibly difficult to hit with attacks for ten minutes, though it'll use your concentration and 5pp at mystic (3) to run it.

Soothing Presence and Consumptive Power. 1pp for 3tHP, and you can burn off some base HP for more pp. If you end up with the same total HP (within certain limits, you will lose them when resting/between encounters), that's a free use or two of Consumptive Power near the end of each day. Soothing Presence is a pretty good use of PP anyway. 3x3tHP of overhealing per 1pp is a hell of a lot, especially considering it's bonus action multi-target within 60', so you can party prep or emergency heal with it. Makes your entire party heaps tankier, but with the combo, can give some "free" PP at 10th as well. If you don't have to sleep, you can do a bit of scrying while you rest.

There's limited scry and die available in the class, or rather, scry and teleport and kill. Nomadic Mind has a couple of powers that aren't too bad for the finding or seeing part of that (they're good because you can "mentally see" with the sensor, while still retaining your normal vision). Then just Phantom Caravan the whole party in on top of them if they're within a mile of you. Or an entire army eventually with Nomad's Gate cubes. It's not that much different from a high-end mage, but it's there in Mystic as well. At a relatively early level and at a cheap price too.
(The whole Nomad discipline set is what keeps the class really relevant at higher levels imo, though Awakened is nice too. There's lots of nice control/damage/buff spells available elsewhere, but some of the Nomad stuff is quite hard or expensive to do with other classes).

Nomad's Gate is essentially a Portal gun, but only for creatures. Which is a pity. There's a lot of stupid stuff to do with it though. Everything from creating the exit cube 1 mile up in the air and having someone push the BBEG through it (splat!), to dropping them to the bottom of the ocean and ceasing concentration (Bond villain villain death). Watch some youtube vids and see if you can recreate them in DnD.

Not actually a combo (because I haven't worked out anything to combo it with yet), but Cloud Stairs doesn't have a range noted. Which means it's "anywhere you have LoS to" I guess. Good for instant siege towers while you command from the rear, but there's gotta be more to do with it than that.

((I'll add more soon, need coffee))

[awaken_D_M_golem]

2 Mystic Recovery ... if you value 1 hit point for the 6 encounters a day standard, then the 64 ppoints at level 10 is almost the 66 you'd have if hitpoints were d10 instead of d8.  Tails off a bit at the higher levels, but the overall assumption of taking damage first, then popping a ppoint to then get the healing ... should average half and that's before Initiative based mid combat timing, drops it some more.  Let's call it a really  complicated d9 class.

10 Consumptive Power ... automatically use this but rather late in the day.  7 hp damage is 2/3rds a Magic Missile, but you're slinging a 5th level spell for that.


Mind Slam at 1 and Energy Beam at 3, if the party has a dedicated Grappler.

[Amechra]

You know, the Psi progression just plain bugs me.

It jumps (and doesn't jump) weirdly. It bugs me.

So I'm thinking of replacing it with [Psi = 4 x level] - how problematic would that be, do you think? You'd end up with 9 more Psi at 20th, but you'd lag way behind the standard for most of your career.

EDIT: As a side note, the Mastery of Weather is a great choice for crowd control. In cramped quarters, Whirlwind could let you relocate everyone in the fight. Drop that squishy spellcaster right in front of your beatsticks!

[sambojin]

Are you taking Psionic Mastery into account? That's an extra 9PP at 11th/12th, 18PP at 13th/14th, 33PP at 15th/16th and 44PP at 17th-20th.

Yes, it still scales a bit weirdly, but if you were to assign spells from normal full casters to PP (minus a bit due to flexibility), they make a bit of sense. Kind of.......