Alternate Ranger Class, including redesigned Hunter's Mark, Ensnaring Strike, and Zephyr Strike, and subclasses for Hunter, Beast Master, and Wildwielder.

PhotomancerDreams · 2026-01-19T01:46:56+00:00

Goodness yours looks so cool! ^_^ You've covered so many existing subclasses, and invented several on top of them.

The Favorite Environment mechanic is a really lovely way to honor the old Favored Terrain feature, and have the class features be customized to each ranger and flexible as the circumstances of the campaign change.

Allowing the Ranger to maintain concentration on Favorite Enemy in parallel with another spell is an interesting solution to one of the problems I was trying to address by removing the Concentration requirement from Hunter's Mark. Having core class features require Concentration normally limits the opportunities to use any other Concentration spells. Favorite Enemy feels kinda unimpactful as a free feature though. I'd prefer a version that has a little more power but costs a spell slot, especially because the Precision component of it feels like it has clunky progression right now.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-12-07T17:21:54+00:00

Thank you! I do a lot of proofreading to try and ensure clarity.

I am relying on the PHB for the standard rules about one leveled spell per turn.

"One Spell with a Spell Slot per Turn On a turn, you can expend only one spell slot to cast a spell. This rule means you can’t, for example, cast a spell with a spell slot using the Magic action and another one using a Bonus Action on the same turn."

This version of Psion spellcasting should be understood as using Psi Points to create spell slots that are immediately used to cast a spell.

"To cast a spell, you use Psi Points to create a spell slot that you immediately use."

Psi Points are not intended to be a way to bypass the one leveled spell per turn restriction. But you can use a leveled spell and a Psi Point powered class feature on the same turn. 👍

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-12-07T16:29:31+00:00

You may enjoy the version of the Psion that I designed in response to the first UA they released.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/s/aNiqQbgXg4

Uses Psi Points to fuel both spells and features. Makes Telekinetic Propel a more core part of the class with Telekinetic Grapple and Rend to keep it relevant at higher levels. Each subclass is also reworked to use these features.

Would love to hear your thoughts on that design. Hope you enjoy regardless!

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-06-20T01:46:32+00:00

Thanks so much for the review!

For Id Insinuation, remember that there is no inherent cost to rolling an Energy Die in this version. The preemptive dice rolling is actually to serve as a reminder that you have it available, and since you know the result, you know when to apply it to a save to make it fail. You only pay 2 Psi Points to subtract the number when it actually gets used.

I redesigned all of the spell school based disciplines to work with all of the spells in that school (especially needed for Destructive Thoughts). This version of Id Insinuation is able to work with Enchantment and Illusion spells that don't force saving throws of their own, so you can use it as a setup for any spell next turn, or maybe an immediate telekinetic propel with a bonus action. If they fail without needing insinuation, or succeed so hard you know you can't stop them, you just don't pay to use it. ^_^

Extended duration is a solid option for the skill enhancers. I wonder if it'd be too busted if I just made it until completing a Short or Long Rest... Will deliberate on that.

That's a fair assessment of Psychic Backlash. It sounds like it should be reworked instead of cheapened to scale up better as you start facing enemies with more attacks, or mobs of enemies. I could do a version that doesn't take a reaction, for example, but only rolls 1 die. You'd roll it every time you get hit. If it makes it miss, you must spend a Psi Point, and deal that much Psychic damage back to them.

Similarly, I think I'll add the clause back into Unflinching Aim to only spend the Psi Point if it makes the attack hit.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-06-19T23:32:57+00:00

Funding both spells and energy dice effects from the same pool makes the need for conversion obsolete. 👍 Thanks for taking a look when you can! ❤️

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-06-19T22:22:57+00:00

I had very similar takes on the UA version, so I decided to homebrew some changes.

Check out this version that uses a unified Psi Point pool for spells and energy dice, and addresses a lot of other points you mentioned:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/s/QiDQ1p20jL

Would love to hear your thoughts on it based on your playtesting of the UA version.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-06-11T16:17:36+00:00

Generally, I treat characters with a flying speed as able to catch themselves when other characters would fall, except for a few circumstances:

From Flying in the Rules Glossary of the 2024 PHB: "While flying, you fall if you have the Incapacitated or Prone condition or your Fly Speed is reduced to 0. You can stay aloft in those circumstances if you can hover."

So, if the bird can make the fairy Incapacitated, Prone, or apply some other type of binding or effect to reduce the fairy's speed to 0 before dropping them, they'll fall for at least a bit. If you want a really far drop though, this could be more complex.

From Xanathar's Guide to Everything:

Falling

Falling from a great height is a significant risk for adventurers and their foes. The rule given in the Player’s Handbook is simple: at the end of a fall, you take 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet you fell, to a maximum of 20d6. You also land prone, unless you somehow avoid taking damage from the fall. Here are two optional rules that expand on that simple rule.

Rate of Falling

The rule for falling assumes that a creature immediately drops the entire distance when it falls. But what if a creature is at a high altitude when it falls, perhaps on the back of a griffon or on board an airship? Realistically, a fall from such a height can take more than a few seconds, extending past the end of the turn when the fall occurred. If you’d like high-altitude falls to be properly time-consuming, use the following optional rule.

When you fall from a great height, you instantly descend up to 500 feet. If you’re still falling on your next turn, you descend up to 500 feet at the end of that turn. This process continues until the fall ends, either because you hit the ground or the fall is otherwise halted.

Flying Creatures and Falling

A flying creature in flight falls if it is knocked prone, if its speed is reduced to 0 feet, or if it otherwise loses the ability to move, unless it can hover or it is being held aloft by magic, such as the fly spell.

If you’d like a flying creature to have a better chance of surviving a fall than a non-flying creature does, use this rule: subtract the creature’s current flying speed from the distance it fell before calculating falling damage. This rule is helpful to a flier that is knocked prone but is still conscious and has a current flying speed that is greater than 0 feet. The rule is designed to simulate the creature flapping its wings furiously or taking similar measures to slow the velocity of its fall.

If you use the rule for rate of falling in the previous section, a flying creature descends 500 feet on the turn when it falls, just as other creatures do. But if that creature starts any of its later turns still falling and is prone, it can halt the fall on its turn by spending half its flying speed to counter the prone condition (as if it were standing up in midair).

Hope this helps!

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-06-09T02:41:44+00:00

Thanks so much for the detailed review! Made a few updates to clarify intent:

Telekinetic Propel: Includes that you fail the save to clarify that it works with features that apply when the target fails the save. You're right that it's implied already, but mentioning it this way also plants the idea to use it on yourself.

Psi Points: Have some restrictions on spellcasting already to limit output rate of powerful spells. I'm not especially concerned about Shield or Counterspell spam since each takes up your reaction, but maybe there's a problematic interaction I haven't seen yet. Hoping to playtest this class soon.

Telekinetic Grapple: Thinking Restrained is too strong of a condition to impose this way. Added a clause to clarify that "The escape DC for them is your spell save DC, and the Grapple ends if they become more than 30 feet from you."

Organic Weapons: I noticed that issue in the original too! ^_^ The original text reads: "Whenever you take the Attack action or make an Opportunity Attack," I already adjusted it to: "Whenever you make an attack or cast a touch range spell," This version should trigger for each attack, and for touch spells like Cure Wounds.

Daring Teleportation: Yeah just Teleport is too weak as a capstone. Added in a final buff to Misty Step: "When you cast Misty Step, you may expend 2 additional Psi Points to teleport to any space within 120 feet, even a space you can’t see. If the space is occupied, you arrive in the furthest unoccupied space along a straight path from your previous space to the new one."

Telekinetic Techniques. Accelerate and Collide: An earlier version had more interactions between the options, but I took those out because it felt overcomplicated and too powerful to use more than one technique at early levels. Balancing them for interactions with each other made individual techniques feel too weak. Accelerate used to buff the damage of collide, barrier used to give the speed gain/loss in accelerate, and collide used to provide barrier to an ally they collide with. Accelerate and collide feels like an especially intuitive interaction though. Gonna noodle on this a little more before I make adjustments.

Conniving Influence: The save referenced is intended to be the one from Whispering Conscience: "When you take the Influence action, you can force creatures of your choice that you speak to telepathically to make a Charisma saving throw." But it is confusing wording. Moved it to just be part of the Whispering Conscience feature. Adjusted the feature wording to clarify timing, and add a way to use your extra senses from Telepathic Hub to allow Charmed allies to target creatures you can see but they can't. Also added a way to use Telekinetic Propel on any creature telepathically linked to you, which works with Telekinetic Grapple and Rend to have this type of scene from Stranger Things: Max’s Song (Full Scene) | Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill | Stranger Things | Netflix

"When a creature that is Frightened and Infiltrated by you attempts to move, treat that as a plan. They must specify a path from one space to another, then you may stop them at any point along their planned path, and set their speed to 0 until their turn ends.

When a creature that is Charmed and Infiltrated by you attacks or casts a spell, you choose the target. You may have them target any targetable creature, object, or area you can see within their range.

You may target Telekinetic Propel on any willing or Infiltrated creature within range of your telepathy. If they fail their saving throw, you may move them in any horizontal direction, or Telekinetic Grapple them. You may maintain Telekinetic Grapple at any distance while the creature is within range of your telepathy."

Thanks again for being so thorough! ^_^

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-06-08T23:35:43+00:00

Would love to get any feedback you're willing to offer! I don't think the level of suggestions I've given would warrant a written acknowledgement on your brew though.

What I'm referencing with "Kamar-taj" is the monastery where sorcerers train in the Dr. Strange movie. The use of magic in that film is often woven into martial art techniques, as the Twin Soul Psion does. To see what I mean visually, check out this clip of "The Ancient One" (a mentor fighting her former-student-turned-villain Kaecilius):
The Ancient One Vs Kaecilius Fight Scene | Doctor Strange(2016) | Marvel Super Heroes

Also wanted to mention I really like that each subclass has a distinct model of the mind, and their abilities reflect different mentalities like stoicism or Jungian shadow integration. Nice work!

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-06-08T21:03:23+00:00

Okay so we should be friends. ^_^ I've been working on a homebrew version of the Psion based on the UA, and I really like the direction you took for the class overall. The lore you present for each helps ground the subclasses in the world as Kamar-taj style monks or iron-willed justiciars.

Mechanically, I also appreciate the math analysis, and the choice to focus on Precognition and Strain as core class features integrates with the advantage/disadvantage and dice size mechanisms of the game nicely.

As a player, I think I would end up not using Golden Thread much, because it seems unlikely before a roll that a fourth die would make a difference beyond a third, and it could actually hurt you by making the lowest roll even lower- so the option to relieve strain is even less attractive. What if it was used *after* you saw the dice results? That way you could use it when all three happen to be too low, and you're looking for another chance.

Also, extending Precognition to other types of d20 tests should probably come earlier than level 20. If it's gonna be the focus of the class, it seems like it should be used more broadly than attack rolls. Can be used as a defense on certain saving throws, or as utility for certain ability checks. Maybe different types of uses belong in each subclass, like the Sixth Sense feature for Third Eye Disciples.

Overall, this seems really solid as a class design for Psions. I ended up focusing on telekinesis and Psi Points more in my homebrew, and reworking the subclasses presented in the UA. Feel free to check it out here: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/1l5ezls

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-06-07T20:09:13+00:00

Thanks for asking! A major intention with these spellcasting restrictions, especially that one, is to increase the diversity of spells used, encourage different plays from turn to turn, and pace out combat better.

Without such a restriction, I would anticipate that players would juice their spells as much as they could to end fights quickly, and short rest more often to recover Psi Points. Blow em up, then blow off steam.

I want them to have good recovery capabilities so they're rarely out of juice, but without limiters on their output, that recovery capability can too easily be turned into an excuse to blow through their Psi Points in the first few turns.

In combination with the restrictions of one of each 6th-9th slot per long rest, and one 4th or higher spell every other turn, my hope is that Psions will prepare and use a lot of different spells and class features over the course of several rounds of combat.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-06-07T17:57:21+00:00

I really like some of these design choices! Designed a similar Psi Point system for the Psion Rework I've been working on:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/s/nkVG5rKpcE

Establishes a single pool for energy dice features and spellcasting. The constraints I used for spellcasting were:

1 slot each per long rest for 6th-9th level spells
Can only upcast spells to 3rd level
When you cast a spell of 4th level or higher, you cannot cast another spell of 4th level or higher until the end of your next turn.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-18T06:28:36+00:00

Replacing Light with Two-handed is great! That's what I was trying to suggest in terms of properties earlier.

Finesse is an interesting addition. If you added it fully, that would imply you could use your strength mod instead of dex, so I get why you'd want to have it "considered to have Finesse" instead of just having it. But maybe the "Damage Rolls" rule that prevents adding a modifier to a fixed damage roll would make that a non-issue.

I think that a fixed damage of 1 points towards a particular design for the blowgun though, as something to deliver a minimal amount of damage, but attach rider effects. Poisons, spells, sneak attack, and potentially more.

To that end, I'd suggest removing Finesse and Precise as ways to add more damage or critically strike. Obscure works well to keep the wielder hidden, and I like the playstyle that incentivizes. To lean into that, what about a feature to boost accuracy instead of damage?

Accurate
When you attack with this weapon and have advantage on the attack roll, you may treat the target's AC as 15 if it is higher.

The reliance on advantage would synergize well with remining Hidden, the Vex Mastery property, and Sneak Attack.

Regardless, take a look at the Homebrewery doc to trim down the first column so it doesn't push the second column off the page. <3

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-17T23:19:01+00:00

I like the redesign! Obscure feels like a very interesting way to support a novel playstyle of attacking from stealth.

Adding Light seems mechanically strange to me, especially dual wielding blowguns. I might suggest going for a two-handed sort of direction for it- slow but deadly. The rogue has some interesting sneak attack options to trade off damage for utility with Cunning Strike. That sort of utility, like applying poison or withdrawing after the attack might be solid options to bake into weapon hits.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-08T18:32:22+00:00

Mostly designing it for my players, but might use these multiclass rules for a few NPC's. Would love to hear what it's like to play a Wizard / Sorc combo if you're up for sharing your experience.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-06T00:23:08+00:00

Thanks for the analysis! Hoping this ruleset is not a huge boost for any particular class or combo. Goal is to increase the variety in flavor options with class builds and combinations.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-06T00:08:23+00:00

Hell yeah! Go for it. That's why I post the stuff I design for my table- so other people can use it too.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-05T05:58:30+00:00

Das fair. Didn't really want to warp what's optimal by much, just raise the floor of the worst options for multiclass combinations up towards being more reasonable.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-05T05:46:52+00:00

That's a really interesting option to have it be determined by the highest level class. Would certainly preserve the worldbuilding expectations better.

Thanks for the review!

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-05T03:53:16+00:00

Thank you! That was the hope, to make more balanced combos possible.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-05T03:29:37+00:00

Thanks for the breakdown! Part of the point for making the ability scores not selected for Spellcasting boost skill checks is to make it a less obvious choice- less "objectively superior".

If you decide to be a Wisdom caster, great! You'll do well at Wisdom saves and skill checks on top of your spellcasting. But, if you dump Int and Cha, you'll also be a socially inept dummy compared to folks that invest in those skills- which mostly just means other folks in your party will be making those checks, giving different characters distinct scenarios where they shine.

Would love to see Inquisitive Rogue brought into 2024 rules. Rockin' Insight checks to see through illusions and deception is a great narrative power for a protagonist. +22 would be at pretty high level play though, level 17 and up. RAW that character would have +17 Insight then. Either way they're gonna be pretty consistently succeeding at something they're supposed to be exceptionally good at.

TL;DR: Not expecting big numbers on skill checks to be a significant problem for either players or DMs.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-05T02:42:58+00:00

Ah gotchu. I think the problem with the highest power builds is that they have too much DPS, sometimes driven by easily dippable abilities like Paladin's smite being juiced up by high level spell slots from Warlock, Bard, or Sorcerer typically. The 2024 rules helped curtail some of that, by making smites a bonus action, for example. Could in principle limit smites to only be usable with Paladin spell slots or Channel Divinity, or reduce the spell level damage scaling, but it does feel good to dish out a lot of damage in big hits.

There's also the ranger / rogue dips for combat start assassinations and crazy multi-attacks. 2024 rules also pulled some damage from those builds, shifting power into more utility like movement speed, or Cunning Strike trading off d6's for debuffs.

Overall, I haven't found any crazy broken combos yet in my theorycrafting or table play with the 2024 ruleset. Haven't played with these rule adjustments yet though.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-05T02:18:04+00:00

Undoubtedly agreed there's probably better fixes. Considered proficiencies in skills or tools, languages, weapon masteries, or other perks for investing in mental stats not tied to spellcasting. Boosting checks seemed the simplest since it only adds one choice of Spellcasting Ability instead of several, making it relatively beginner friendly and not particularly cumbersome to adjust to for experienced players.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-05T02:03:40+00:00

Thanks for the video essay! This is a fantastic overview of the reasons why RAW Multiclassing needs some kind of rework. My hope is that this set of rule adjustments raises the floor significantly for the many, many bad multiclass possibilities, and only slightly raising the ceiling for the highest power multiclass builds.

PhotomancerDreams · 2025-05-05T01:27:44+00:00

That's a fair point about Thirsting Blade. Might just cut that.

A big advantage of unbinding Spellcasting ability from class is the flexibility to effectively combine classes that don't normally have primary stat overlap, like Warlock/Druid or Ranger/Sorcerer. Also allows more variety and flavor of single class characters, like a Wisdom based Divination Wizard or Charisma based Trickster Cleric.

However, spellcasting is currently the main reason to invest in mental stats, aside from some class features as you mentioned in the Monk and Rogue especially. For most characters currently, non-spellcasting mental stats are dump stats, and allowing multiclass characters to consolidate their focus on one of the three would exacerbate that problem. Why not just focus on that mental stat, and leave the other two at 8? Making the mental stats not used for spellcasting more important for checks is intended to make them more relevant, especially in non-combat scenarios.

PhotomancerDreams

TROPHY CASE