Mystic: Their niche?

[The Shadowdove]

Hey forum-lurkers,

I was hoping you'd be able to tell me a bit about the role of a mystic in a party?

We are going to be playing either Out of the Abyss or Curse of Strahd soon and I am looking at character options for myself.

We are a 4-5 player group. We've always had pretty balanced and flavorful party structure, as everyone enjoys their own mixture of classes.

Our DM is fine with Unearthed Arcana classes and races.

Obviously the idea of psionics brings things such as mentally augmented abilities and lifting things with your mind to the imagination.

However, what kind of abilities do they make particular use of? Are they a blaster, support, healer, utility, any of the above?

What are the traps or misconceptions that might capture a first time player ?

Does having one in a party either fill or create a hole?

Thanks in advance! I'm lucky you're all so experienced and booksmarts at this stuff.

-Dove

[BiPolar]

I'm working on developing a Mystic for my next campaign, have you read the V2 in UA? It basically splits up the Psionic orders into two categories: Awakened and Immortal.

From a very high level, think Lore vs Valor Bard, but with a bit more freedom.

Awakened focuses a bit more on support and messing with peoples minds while Immortal keeps you going and is aimed more towards a melee character.

However, the V2 allows for use of either orders abilities, but the regeneration of psi points only occurs when you use abilities from your order.

What's your character concept - from there we can help build :) But from a character viewpoint, mystics are quite different from the rest of the world. They're not magic users and they're not traditional sword users. They're a class that has built themselves up purely within their own mind and have no reliance on an outside source (arcane magic, divine magic, etc.)

[tyruth]

At face value, both specs are Tank/Experts. They both have decent regen and the various abilities they have lend them to be decent at helping control the fight (Mind Thrust and Conquering Mind). Mind vault allows them to take the skillmonkey role, though rogues will still be better with the things they specialize in. The rest of their Disciplines add to their surviveablility and utility.

[Kileonhardt]

Hey forum-lurkers,

I was hoping you'd be able to tell me a bit about the role of a mystic in a party?

We are going to be playing either Out of the Abyss or Curse of Strahd soon and I am looking at character options for myself.

We are a 4-5 player group. We've always had pretty balanced and flavorful party structure, as everyone enjoys their own mixture of classes.

Our DM is fine with Unearthed Arcana classes and races.

Obviously the idea of psionics brings things such as mentally augmented abilities and lifting things with your mind to the imagination.

However, what kind of abilities do they make particular use of? Are they a blaster, support, healer, utility, any of the above?

What are the traps or misconceptions that might capture a first time player ?

Does having one in a party either fill or create a hole?

Thanks in advance! I'm lucky you're all so experienced and booksmarts at this stuff.

-Dove

The current version of mystic (v2) is riddled with a lot of super powerful abilities, the best of which being their extra 1-5d10 damage on a hit making them ridiculous DPR (enough points to reliably use it for a whole day or nova when you need to). I don't know how soon your game is starting but the fully updated 1-20 Mystic with boatloads of options they've been working on will probably be out in around a months time, so I'd ask your DM if you can start off using Mystic V2 and then when it gets updated make the shift over to the complete class.

If you're just going to stick with V2 I'd say go Immortal with PAM. You'll get super tanky even without a shield and still keep up or even out DPR your party's blasters.

It ends up being semi-supportish depending on what disciplines you take, tanky, and good melee dpr.

[PotatoGolem]

They're fairly support - oriented, more like a cleric or bard than a wizard. I've only seen the awakened in an actual game- it's not a huge damage dealer, but it can have a lot of flexibility and targets int saves, which are rarely resisted

[Grod_The_Giant]

Tank/Skillmonkey, as tyruth mentioned. All Mystics will be in melee, as their only useful offensive effect is Psionic Weapon. Luckily, even Awakened Mystics get medium armor and healing when at half health, and there are two excellent defensive Disciplines-- Iron Durability is nice, but Intellect Fortress gives you dirt-cheap Advantage on AC and damages the attacker if he still hits. Mind Over Emotion and Conquering Mind are both excellent social augmentation/control Disciplines, and Mind Vault basically lets you do everything that's not magical. There's also solid mobility and sensory Disciplines for scouting. Your Talents are crappy for offense, but things like hiding weapons, telepathic conversation, and darkvision are all appreciated for stealthy or talky characters.

[SharkForce]

The current version of mystic (v2) is riddled with a lot of super powerful abilities, the best of which being their extra 1-5d10 damage on a hit making them ridiculous DPR (enough points to reliably use it for a whole day or nova when you need to). I don't know how soon your game is starting but the fully updated 1-20 Mystic with boatloads of options they've been working on will probably be out in around a months time, so I'd ask your DM if you can start off using Mystic V2 and then when it gets updated make the shift over to the complete class.

If you're just going to stick with V2 I'd say go Immortal with PAM. You'll get super tanky even without a shield and still keep up or even out DPR your party's blasters.

It ends up being semi-supportish depending on what disciplines you take, tanky, and good melee dpr.

nah, the damage one is good, but there's one in there that lets you make the target believe pretty much anything, no matter how absurd or stupid.

not to say that the bonus damage isn't quite good. but that one mind control ability is just silly.

(anyways, i personally would suggest waiting a bit... there will probably be a new version of psionics out in the next little while).

[BiPolar]

Tank/Skillmonkey, as tyruth mentioned. All Mystics will be in melee, as their only useful offensive effect is Psionic Weapon. Luckily, even Awakened Mystics get medium armor and healing when at half health, and there are two excellent defensive Disciplines-- Iron Durability is nice, but Intellect Fortress gives you dirt-cheap Advantage on AC and damages the attacker if he still hits. Mind Over Emotion and Conquering Mind are both excellent social augmentation/control Disciplines, and Mind Vault basically lets you do everything that's not magical. There's also solid mobility and sensory Disciplines for scouting. Your Talents are crappy for offense, but things like hiding weapons, telepathic conversation, and darkvision are all appreciated for stealthy or talky characters.

I've been building an Awakened Mystic and plan to stay out of melee combat for the most part. I may or may not ever pick up Psionic Weapon (I've been playing a paladin in a previous game and psionic weapon feels too muchlike divine smite and i want to play differently)

Definitely see myself more as a controller and healer than combat oriented. And I think it'll work. Especially with having mind vault, restoration, thrust, meld, thought spear, conquering mind early on.

[Finlam]

I've been building an Awakened Mystic and plan to stay out of melee combat for the most part. I may or may not ever pick up Psionic Weapon (I've been playing a paladin in a previous game and psionic weapon feels too muchlike divine smite and i want to play differently)

Definitely see myself more as a controller and healer than combat oriented. And I think it'll work. Especially with having mind vault, restoration, thrust, meld, thought spear, conquering mind early on.

Mystics make excellent ranged characters if you can pick up the crossbow expert and sharpshooter feats; when combined with the last ability of picnic weapon (turn any weapon into a +3 weapon) you can be shooting at a -2 +DEX + PROF to hit and dealing weapon damage + DEX +13 per hit. Everything after that is just gravy.

And the mind crush power.... 2 pp to trivialize most encounters... don't abuse it.

[BiPolar]

Mystics make excellent ranged characters if you can pick up the crossbow expert and sharpshooter feats; when combined with the last ability of picnic weapon (turn any weapon into a +3 weapon) you can be shooting at a -2 +DEX + PROF to hit and dealing weapon damage + DEX +13 per hit. Everything after that is just gravy.

And the mind crush power.... 2 pp to trivialize most encounters... don't abuse it.

Yeah, my plan was for my character to learn that he has to use more than his mind and start heading towards martial use of either crossbow or melee with psionic weapon.

[Grod_The_Giant]

And the mind crush power.... 2 pp to trivialize most encounters... don't abuse it.
Occluded Mind is just terribly written. Your best bet is to change it to function like the Suggestion spell.

[King539]

Similar to a cleric. They can buff, they can learn things, they can heal, and they can melee.

[Spectre9000]

I would wait to see the next Mystic UA that comes out. Supposedly they have a lot of material for them (though I don't know why they haven't released it). The role they'll fill, I imagine, will be similar to the Bard, with less spell-casting, given how disciplines work. A Psionic jack-of-all trades base archetype, with sub-types that focus on specific aspects of combat.