Mystic Wombo-Combo

[ATHATH]

This is something that's probably been noticed before, but a melee-focused Mystic (https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UAMystic3.pdf)- or at least one that can spare two Disciplines- can nova pretty well. A 9th level Mystic can do the following sequence of actions in one turn twice per long rest, and can do so an extra time per long rest at 10th level:

Move Action: Move up to your victim.
Bonus Action: Activate a 7 PP Brute Strike (Brute Force Discipline), causing your next melee damage roll this turn to deal an extra 7d6 of damage.
Standard Action: Activate a 7 PP Beastial Claws (Beastial Form Discipline) and make a single melee attack that deals 7d10 damage if it hits.
Reaction: If you hit with your melee attack, activate a 7 PP Knock Back and attempt to throw your victim into a wall. If they fail a STR saving throw, they take 7d6 damage. You can choose to activate this power after you hit, so if you didn't hit with your melee attack, you can save some PP.

If your opponent gets hit and fails his saving throw, he'll take 87.5 damage on average. If he gets hit and succeeds on his saving throw (or you can't push him into a wall), he'll take 63 damage on average. Does anyone here know the average health of a CR 9 or CR 10 monster? I'm pretty sure (although not completely confident) that most of them will get one-shot even if they succeed on the save.

Of course, this doesn't really scale with level past level 9 except for in uses/long rest, requires a successful attack roll, and might require a failed STR saving throw, but it's still pretty cool, especially if you can somehow nab advantage on the attack roll.

[Lye]

I was really disappointed with the psionic melee options for mystic, soul knife in particular.

I think it will take just as much opt. in 5e as it did in earlier editions in order to truly shine.

[ATHATH]

I was really disappointed with the psionic melee options for mystic, soul knife in particular.

I think it will take just as much opt. in 5e as it did in earlier editions in order to truly shine.
Really? Giant Size and the like look pretty good, a Mystic dip for the Crown of Rage or Mantle of Awe disciplines might be nice for a tank, and that AC-piercing ability that Soulknives get must be useful for SOMETHING unique (maybe you could stack some rider effects on it?).

I was more disappointed with the School of the Avatar archetype (not the disciplines, those look to be ok). Those auras just look awful.

[Zaq]

Maybe it's just me, but I kinda feel like if you build specifically for stackable damage buffs, spend your entire turn's worth of actions, blow a massive percentage of your daily resources, find an enemy with perfect positioning, and get a minimum of two d20 rolls (one of which is reliant upon numbers that are not yours) to go your way, then maybe doing a large amount of damage to a single target isn't especially jaw-dropping?

[ATHATH]

Maybe it's just me, but I kinda feel like if you build specifically for stackable damage buffs, spend your entire turn's worth of actions, blow a massive percentage of your daily resources, find an enemy with perfect positioning, and get a minimum of two d20 rolls (one of which is reliant upon numbers that are not yours) to go your way, then maybe doing a large amount of damage to a single target isn't especially jaw-dropping?
That's why I only said that it was "pretty cool", not "broken".

On a side note, holy $%^& do Charming Presence (Mantle of Awe) (especially at 1st level, when you can nab 4d8 HP of monsters as pets for 10 minutes with no save(s)) and Cloak of Air (Mastery of Air) look good.

[SharkForce]

according to the DMG, a monster with a defensive CR of 9-10 should have around 200 (effective) hit points. precise numbers will vary, of course; a low AC enemy might need more HP to make up for it, and some defensive abilities can increase defensive CR. a brief glance through the monster manual suggests that those numbers are quite inaccurate though (presumably monsters are either more likely to have a more offense-focused design, or they tend to have other things that modify their defensive CR in some way or another). even so, 120+ seems to be the low end of the scale, so i don't imagine they'll die excessively often in a single hit (on a crit, or if you roll really well on the damage, maybe).

that said, i suspect it is far more common for a level 10 party to encounter a small group of weaker enemies. some of them still have enough hit points to survive easily (giant apes, for example, are CR 7 and have 144 HP as i recall), but not all will i'm sure.

[PhoenixPhyre]

a brief glance through the monster manual suggests that those numbers are quite inaccurate though (presumably monsters are either more likely to have a more offense-focused design, or they tend to have other things that modify their defensive CR in some way or another). even so, 120+ seems to be the low end of the scale, so i don't imagine they'll die excessively often in a single hit (on a crit, or if you roll really well on the damage, maybe).


An analysis I did showed that most of the enemies are designed so that offensive CR > defensive CR by quite a bit. Those with high defensive CR usually have that due to modifiers. There's a reason for that--big walls of meat are boring. Honestly, the CR guidelines are a little...off for monster building. It's almost always better to build by comparing to similar monsters, and then calculate CR instead of working from the table (desired CR -> HP, etc). Otherwise combat takes forever. Others may feel differently though.

[joaber]

You know how low is that nova?

fighters, paladins, sorcerers, clerics can nova for more damage spending less resources (they will not be useless after those two novas/day), and if we bring multiclass to the table, we can see even higher novas. And they all can increase they nova ability after level 11, unlike mystic.

[ATHATH]

Yeah, I figured that it wasn't anything special. Ah well, such is life.

[ATHATH]

Random thought here: Can the Psychic Speech ability enable you to read lips?

"Psychic Speech (5 psi). As an action, you attune your mind to the psychic imprint of all
language. For 1 hour, you gain the ability to understand any language you hear or attempt to read. In addition, when you speak, all creatures that can understand a language understand what you say, regardless of what language you use."

[ATHATH]

Can you use the Psionic Sensor ability of the Order of the Awakened archetype on a Wandering Eye or Phasing Eye (from the Nomadic Mind discipline)?

[ATHATH]

"All-Around Sight (3 psi). In response to an attack hitting you, you use your reaction to impose disadvantage on that attack roll, possibly causing it to miss."

I noticed that this ability says "you use your reaction" instead of "you can use your reaction". Does that mean that, RAW (and most certainly not RAI), when you're hit by an attack, you must use your reaction (if you still have it) to give it disadvantage?

[Sir cryosin]

Why not use lethal strike it's a d10 in psychic damage instead of the damage of whatever weapon you're using.