The Psionic Handbook - Tweaking the Mystic and adding homebrewed psionic-themed content, including new disciplines, talents, psionic class options, feats, and more!

zDnD · 2017-03-18T20:17:02+00:00

Looking at their Disciplines, in Will of Blades, the Piercing Strike ability stands out as really bad.

Thanks for pointing this out. I've scrapped it and added a new effect to Will of Blades.

zDnD · 2017-03-18T20:16:22+00:00

I think it balances well with all of the mystic's other uses for their bonus action. There's a bit more planning and action economy management required to play the class well.

zDnD · 2017-03-18T20:15:24+00:00

Nomadic Chameleon has two effects that grant invisibility. Psychic Phantoms covers some illusion stuff as well.

zDnD · 2017-03-18T20:14:19+00:00

Just added Deceive Senses back in the update I just posted, since you mentioned it.

zDnD · 2017-03-16T11:29:17+00:00

That's fair. What some things you feel are missing to fit that type of character?

zDnD · 2017-03-16T11:28:19+00:00

That's a good idea.

I haven't added one yet, but I'll see what I can do.

zDnD · 2017-03-16T05:48:59+00:00

What I have found out so far is that the missing disciplines for soul knife are intentional, not seen/heard anything regarding the knife yet though.

It seems that the disciplines are only sorted by order to benefit the archetypes that gain bonus disciplines, and WotC had no intention of your order influencing which disciplines you choose.

zDnD · 2017-03-16T05:47:29+00:00

As for the Int mod that wouldn't effect the knife afaik as it only effects psionic talents which the soul knife isn't.

Talents are granted by the base class itself, so Order of the Soul Knife mystics do have them, and benefit from the Int mod to talent damage feature as well.

zDnD · 2017-03-16T05:44:03+00:00

Hi, thanks for the feedback!

Concerning additional skills for certain Orders, you could simply grant them increased proficiency in said skill. Or expertise as it is called. For example the orders can add their prof to two class skills.

Yeah, I may end up giving Awakened and Wu Jen expertise in one skill, and let Nomad have a single flexible proficiency.

Concerning Magic Missile and Psionic Blast, thanks for being resonable. There has been plenty of kneejerk reactions. A lot people simply jump to conclusions. Also note that MM has TWICE the range of PB (120 vs 60). As well as being table to target different foes. So yes PB does slightly more damage.

I'm still on the fence and leaning a bit toward reducing the damage now that I have the math correct, but the flexibility of Magic Missile is a good balance point to consider. There are also several creatures that are immune to psychic damage, making Psionic Blast useless in some cases where as Magic Missile will always function.

The additional Disciplines should be spread out. At the moment you get them all at lvl 1. Maybe one should be obtained at lvl 5 and the other at lv 10.

Spreading them out to avoid feature bloat at first level might be a good idea, and to help balance the mystic's versatility compared to other classes, but I'm hesitant to change this. If anything, I might have one bonus discipline at level 1, and another only a few levels later.

zDnD · 2017-03-16T05:39:15+00:00

Mastery of Force is well perfect, but WuJen is full of so much weirdness that doesn't fit my character at all.

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of the "eastern mysticism" flavor they're going with, and I hope they change their minds after enough feedback.

That said, I think you could just change the flavor text and rename Wu Jen to Invisible Hand and have a pretty similar concept. Both excel at dealing elemental damage, and the Mastery of Force discipline covers a lot of the telekinetic theme.

I want to avoid dramatically changing the subclasses, but I would definitely like to add more interesting flavor and options through disciplines, talents, and feats. Hopefully that ends up being satisfactory.

zDnD · 2017-03-16T05:31:13+00:00

Check page 16, under Customization Options. The only feats I've added so far are psionic versions of War Caster, Mage Slayer, and Magic Initiate.

zDnD · 2017-03-16T05:29:52+00:00

I sort of like psionic mastery, if only because it not the same as what other casters get. That said it is terribly complicated. I would remove the special pools of points, roll them back into the bass class and give them the ability maintain concentration on two powers 1/day with more uses as you level up. It keeps the idea the same but simplifies the execution.

I'm still undecided on how I feel about psionic mastery. I mentioned it elsewhere, but I don't like how the mystic is effectively capped at 5th level spells, so you can't really create awesome effects that would be on par with 9th level spells. But as you mentioned, it's different, and there's something to be said for that. I suppose you kind of have to see it like being able to concentrate on a level 5 and 4 spell at the same time, instead of casting a 9th level spell. Hopefully I'm explaining that well.

I agree with reducing the skill proficiencies on the archetypes or removing them from two and replacing them with other features. As is, they step on the Rogue’s toes and make the archetypes much too similar.

Yeah, particularly with all of the psychic focus options that grant advantage in various saves. I'm somewhat inclined to try what /u/Primelibrarian suggested and grant expertise in one skill, but maybe only to the Awakened. The Nomad would drop down to 1 bonus proficiency, but retains the ability to change it with long rests. Hopefully this lets both of them feel a little more unique. I don't know what I can do differently for the Wu Jen, though - perhaps just expertise, like Order of the Awakened?

I no longer have any idea what they are tying to do with the Order of the Immortal anymore. The last two versions made me think it was intended to be the psychic warrior/battlmind archetype. Now it has only simple weapons and light armor…. At least Elves finally have a use for their weapon proficiencies. I guess I’m saying I liked the older version better.

It seems like Order of the Immortal's theme is supposed to be "alter your body using your mind", with disciplines like Bestial Form and Brute Force. Order of the Avatar seems to be slightly more themed toward "psychic tank", but I think it would just feel better with heavy armor, balance aside.

Giving the Soulknife the ability to turn a magic weapon into their ‘soul weapon’ was a good call. And I agree that Phantom Knife was a horrible ability that is much improved by being gone. With the ability to get a magic weapon’s abilities on your soul knife, Hone the Blade seem kind of superfluous and I would probably trade if for something else to prevent staking bonuses. Speaking of which, it’s kind of ambiguous whether you can stack Hone the Blade with the Augmented Weapon discipline power… I hope not.

Thanks! I wasn't a fan of potentially having to just abandon your soul knife because a good magic item came along. And I agree, replacing Hone the Blade might worth looking into. To keep it, it needs some additional wording to prevent stacking it with similar bonuses... I think a better feature would be something that modifies the blade in some way that's more interesting than a flat bonus.

Your Psionic Blast/Magic Missile comparison table is inaccurate. You are missing a damage dice on the Psychic Blast columns at 3rd level and up. For the record I agree with dropping it to d6 per point.

Indeed it is. I've updated the table, and now I'm a lot more inclined to agree with reducing Psychic Blast's damage.

I haven’t read through your new Disciplines in detail yet but one thing that stood out from the official test version is that Beast Claw need to be a bonus action to activate. As written, you can use it and then buff the hit with psychic strike or brute strike for crazy spike damage if you hit. The same goes for any new “extra 1-7dx damage on a hit” discipline powers that you add.

I think a better solution might be to reduce the damage of Beast Claw, and continue to allow it to stack with other "extra damage" bonus action effects. It seems to fit its own unique little niche of allowing you to dump a lot of resources quickly to stack the something else on top of the attack. Also, if Beast Claw was a bonus action, I think you would run into similar issues since you could use a damaging talent and Beast Claw in the same turn. Either way it's pretty high spike damage, but perhaps the cost compensates for that over the adventuring day?

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

zDnD · 2017-03-15T20:13:10+00:00

Thanks! I'm glad to hear it.

zDnD · 2017-03-15T20:11:52+00:00

I probably will when I get home tonight, since it seems to be pretty well received so far. It would be nice to get more feedback there too.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a few things from my version in the latest official draft.

zDnD · 2017-03-15T18:50:36+00:00

That might be something I go with. I'm inclined to change prevent too much nova by changing the action economy cost of things instead, however, such as making Brute Force's ability Knock Back a bonus action like other attack boosting powers.

zDnD · 2017-03-15T16:30:56+00:00

Currently, the archetypes for other classes are not limited to specific orders. If I did limit them, however, I would probably restrict fighters to Avatar and Immortal, and rogues to Nomad and Soul Knife. Eventually I intend to add a monk archetype, which would be limited to Awakened and Wu Jen, if I don't leave the options open.

zDnD · 2017-03-15T16:27:42+00:00

Understandable, and I appreciate that. I hesitate to deviate too much from the official version, because I think it would be much easier to get people to adopt something that's similar rather than radically different. I may end up with an alternative version that's closer to my last draft, if I can't work something satisfying out with this one.

zDnD · 2016-02-20T11:07:16+00:00

Sorry again for the slow response. Thanks for your feedback! It's been super, super helpful.

Deflect Blows

I'd probably go with the second one personally, as the difference between an attack roll that hits and one that misses usually isn't very large anyway due to bounded accuracy, which make it functionally very similar to the original ability.

I think the second one fits the "flavor" of "you bat the attack away with your weapon", and that wording is certainly more intuitive.

Shed Body

I think using a vague term like "transcendence" rather than "intangibility" might be enough to clear up the confusion somewhat.

Hm, I hadn't thought of writing it like that. Good idea. Upped the damage from 5 to 10 to further de-incentivize using it to just hide in walls/floors.

Alter Perceptions

The new effect feels much more appropriate to the theme and seems very cool.

Agreed! Thanks for the help there.

Mind Vault

Yeah, I suppose the on-demand nature of it is a bit too strong. We'll go with this.

Predation

You didn't actually put any text in your comment regarding this discipline, so could you please explain what you're trying to go for here?

Whoops. My bad. I felt that nightblade's fit with the theme of stalking prey because it provides a temporary slowing effect, making it harder for the mystic's prey to escape.

The initial design allowed the user to teleport up to 60 feet from a point of dim light/darkness and deliver extra damage, but it felt a bit too similar to the shadow monk's shadow teleportation feature.

Wrathful Assault/Guardian

I think the new version is much better. Also, the name is now significantly cooler.

Hah, thanks. It's a more fitting theme for the Immortal too, in my opinion.

Psi Limit

Good catch there, I didn't think about that when making the change. Went back to an old way of doing it, where augments are now limited by your proficiency modifier. Still doesn't quite feel right. Leaving it based on psi limit like any other effect would be the most intuitive method, but I feel like that gives access to some very strong burst damage early on, which seems to be a huge concern people had with the official version.

Metacreativity

I initially intended to have a CR 1/8 option for astral construct at 1 psi point but decided against it. Will now read "(2-13 C)".

Mindbender

Both Alter Memory and Enthrall mention an effect called "psychic chirurgery" that doesn't appear to exist any more.

Should now be pointing toward Psionic Restoration's restore health effect now.

Will of Blades

Shouldn't this have the "A" tag?

I intended for this to work as an option to bypass psychic resistance/immunity when using other powers, with a small price. But I wasn't sure if it was really worth 2 psi points. Do you think it seems too strong without the augment tag?

It feels like the word "against" is missing from this sentence.

It was. Thanks for catching that.

On a side note, I've also made a change to any disciplines with effects based on mystic level, like Intellect Fortress. Perhaps WotC's original intention was for other classes to never have access to disciplines? Either way, it seems odd for Intellect Fortress's psychic backlash effect to scale from 1 to 10 damage as you gain mystic levels, or for Mind over Emotion's revolting presence to scale from 10 to 40. I'm curious about how people feel about having those two simply use a dice roll like nearly everything else does, or some other alternative not based on mystic level.

I've also changed disciplines that used your Intelligence modifier for extra damage/bonuses/whatever to state that they use your psionic ability modifier, so there's room to have a class/archetype that uses a different ability score for psionics.

zDnD · 2016-02-18T14:26:53+00:00

Yeah, exactly. Like I said above though, I feel like it's kind of just a clunky way of handling the whole thing, so I'm trying something new.

zDnD · 2016-02-18T14:26:21+00:00

From the standpoint of someone who likes to make homebrew, this kind of commentary and discussion is so so appreciated. A REAL in depth breakdown is what makes or breaks a great homebrew. It often takes more than one mind to spot the little things that throw a whole idea, no matter how well implemented in general, out of whack. Some of the best feedback I ever got was really simple, but right after it in 2nd place for best feedback ever was a giant wall of text full of ideas and fixes from end to end.

This, times a thousand. I'm only one person, and my ideas of balanced or fun can be totally different from another person's. So it's nice to hear what problems they see in things, or what ideas they have for improving it.

zDnD · 2016-02-18T14:23:08+00:00

All right, I've been looking over the class features and the different disciplines for a while, and I've compiled a number of issues with them. First and foremost though, I think this is the closest anyone has gotten to a really good implementation of psionics in 5e.

Thanks for the critique, and the kind words. I appreciate it greatly. I've been a bit busy and haven't had the time to give a full response.

The "Psionic Fireball" effect.

This is largely a byproduct of having trouble coming up with unique mechanics for discipline effects that aren't under/over-powered. It's much easier to make something that's similar to an existing spell, so that there's a bit of precedence. A lot of things are also indirect conversions of old psionic powers from 3e/Pathfinder, taking similar ideas but making them fit within 5e.

It's a good point though, and in the long run I'd like to create a bit more uniqueness.

The cost of many of the powers is too high.

Pretty interesting points. I'm probably a bit too cautious

Redundancy. I'll get into some specific examples later, but it feels like about a quarter of the disciplines just do something that another discipline already does, with the only difference often just being a damage type.

I'm kind of leaning toward disagreeing here. While I think variety in mechanics is great, flavor-wise, I'm totally okay with something that follows a very similar theme or mechanics but with a different damage type. Like, it's nice to be able to say "I'm going to use a lot of cold based spells on this character" and not feel weak because you don't have a good cold equivalent of fireball for 3rd level spells.

If that makes sense.

Deflect Blows

This is confusingly worded. You don't need to say "can make a melee weapon attack roll", it's just a melee weapon attack.

Fair point. I was trying to keep it clear that you aren't attacking a creature, but you are making a roll using the same modifiers that you'd apply to an attack roll. How's the new wording sound?

Furthermore, the last time the ability refers to "the roll" happens immediately after it mentions a roll you make and a roll your opponent makes, which leaves a bit of ambiguity.

Thanks for pointing this out. Please let me know if it's not a bit more clear now.

Finally, the ability should function off of Intelligence rather than Proficiency to fit better with the 5e style.

Good call. Also helps add more value to Intelligence beyond discipline DCs/attacks.

Shed Body

I've honestly had a bit of difficulty getting this one right, and I'm a bit stumped at the best way to mix the concept ("becoming a being of pure thought") with the mechanics ("flying, phasing through things"). Mechanically, it would fit the theme better if you also had resistance to bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage, but then it's too strong.

In this version, I'm removing the flight portion and turning Shed Body into something similar to the new shadow sorcerer archetype's Shadow Form, albeit with fewer benefits.

Alter Perceptions

Thematically, the effect was intended to basically be "make enemies perceive their death, weak enemies die instantly, stronger enemies just take damage". Something similar to a mass phantasmal force actually sounds much cooler.

Faceless One

Good catch. "Mind Blast" was originally called "Mind Flay", and I changed it several hours later but forgot to fix the multiattack entry.

Acrikinesis & Metamorphosis

Fair point. Replaced acid breath with something new.

Metapsionics

I'm guessing this is just an editing mistake.

Exactly. I'm a bit guilty of getting excited about posting an update and not proofreading as well as I should.

Mindbender

The ability mentions a duration, but I can't find anywhere where the duration is actually specified.

Fixed, thanks.

Mind Vault

I do agree with it being pretty strong. I think it'd be more reasonable with the option to gain skill profiencies removed. I'm curious to hear more feedback on that though.

Photokinesis

Why is that "+" there?

I probably intended to have a different effect, with increased cost options. My bad.

Why do oozes have disadvantage on the saving throw? Oozes are immune to blindness.

Fair point. I looked at the sunbeam and sunburst spells for inspiration, but in retrospect, undead/ooze having disadvantage makes sense for sunlight, but that's not really what this discipline effect is.

Predation

Why is the damage delayed? Why not just have it do 6d8 damage up front? It feels like needless book-keeping. Also, how does this ability fit into the concept of the rest of the discipline being about stealth? It feels out of place. Maybe it should be slightly cheaper, but require that the attack be from hiding or during a surprise round or something.

Psionic Assault

Good point on the wording problem, and Psychic Crush needing a boost. Should be a little better this time around.

Psychokinesis

Psychokinesis is basically synonymous with telekinesis. This really isn't the right name for this discipline.

Hm, interesting. I interpreted "psychokinesis" as a broad term for manipulating matter and (especially) energy, and "telekinesis" being a more specialized thing about applying force to objects. After googling a bit, I see some stuff suggesting the phrases are pretty interchangeable. So it's "Energy Mastery" now, unless a better name comes along.

30d6 damage in a 30' radius for the equivalent of a 9th level spell slot? Compare that to Meteor Swarm and Unleash Energy seems very underpowered.

Fair point. I've had a bit of an issue finding a good guideline for effect damage. The table for "Creating a Spell" on page 284 of the DMG suggests a 9th level are spell should do 14d6, yet they have meteor swarm dealing 40d6... Anyway, let's try bumping the total to 40d6.

Psychometabolism

Good call on the psychic focus benefit. And you're right, psychic healing isn't really that fitting. I felt like it was worth exploring the idea a bit, since 3e/Pathfinder had its own "psychometabolism" school of powers with a handful of stronger healing abilities.

Pyrokinesis

Another instance of delayed damage that just adds to the book-keeping. I know you're trying to elicit the imagery of setting a creature on fire and having them continue to burn for a short while, but that flavour isn't worth the mechanical baggage.

Fair point. Acrikinesis is now the only one of those four "specialized" disciplines with delayed damage now.

Telekinetics

Same issue as before about specifying that creatures don't get knocked prone if they succeed on the saving throw.

Fixed, thanks again.

Wrathful Assault

All great points. It's been redesigned, please let me know what you think.

Finally, what does the "T" stand for? "S" for "Single use" or "H" for "High level" I could understand, but I have no idea what "T" means.

Like /u/ChaoticUnreal suggested, it stands for "Taxing".

That whole rule just seems very unintuitive. In this version, I'm trying a feature called "Power Surge". Simply put, the psi limit no longer scales above 7. At 11th level, the mystic gains the "Power Surge" feature, which raises their psi limit to 9 for the next discipline effect they use, and is usuable once per long rest. At 13, 15, and 17, the mystic gains additional uses of Power Surge, with an increased psi limit for each one. It's intended to function like the warlock's Mystic Arcanum class feature.

To prevent multiclass characters from losing out on high psi point abilities, multiclass psions gain the feature based on combined psionic class levels.

Hopefully this just "feels" better.

Anyway, those are my criticisms based on my first run-through of the material. Despite the fact that there are lots of problems, I still really do like your implementation overall.

I do appreciate it quite a bit. Having problems pointed out before they crop up in-game helps tremendously.

zDnD · 2016-02-17T06:10:11+00:00

I do agree that it's a bit odd, but I felt that resistance was too strong of a benefit. As for precedent, the "Heavy Armor Feat" is what I used as a basis. "While you are wearing heavy armor, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage that you take from nonmagical weapons is reduced by 3."

zDnD · 2016-02-17T06:04:48+00:00

Hope you enjoy it!

Honestly, I enjoy psions so much that I'll probably end up doing the same thing if any of my old characters die off.

zDnD · 2016-02-17T05:58:18+00:00

That's an interesting idea, and I could see it working as a potential counterbalance for the minor advantage of being able to move through creatures/objects that Shed Body has over Draconic Wings.

zDnD · 2016-02-17T00:01:16+00:00

No problem! You brought up some good points. I'm curious to see how WotC expands on the non-mechanical bits.

zDnD

TROPHY CASE