Mystic - too good? too early?

[The_Ditto]

Hi, serious question .. not trolling nor complaining .. I've been a fan of psionics for a while now, especially since 3.5. I've played a couple of Mystics in 5e now, and have a few question to pick your thoughts on the matter :)

So I know there's often a knee jerk reaction by most to cry "Psionics is OP" every time it comes out .. mostly due to not fully understanding the rules ...
This iteration - IMHO - seems to have done a fair job of balancing things.

In particular, I find it aligns mostly with a Cleric ... similar weapons/armor base, HD base, etc. Some similar abilities (ie Potent Psionics vs Divine Power) ... and the Psi point system being a mirror-map of the spell point system in the DMG - which in turn is just a direct math dump of the spell slots of a Cleric/Druid/Wizard ... good call Wizards :)

No, my question here is going to focus mostly on the spells/powers KNOWN.
I always had the thought that a 1st level Mystic (especially) knowing 3 Disciplines (exception: Soul Knife - let's ignore him for the moment ... he's an odd one :P )
was a bit "front loaded".

So I crunched some numbers, and compared casters in reference to "spells known" .. and found something interesting:

Cantrips are easy - so let's get them out of the way first:
most are in line with each other ...
Bard/Warlock are same - least amount.
Cleric/Druid/Wizard are middle - just 1 more than Bard/Warlock.
Sorcerer has most, just 1 more the Cleric/Druid/Wizard
.. ok fair.
What about the Mystic ? Well straight up .. he has the least ... only starts with 1 .. and ends up with 4 .. same as Bard/Warlock in the end.
However, Disciplines add an interesting thought to this. Psychic Focus abilities .. which are no cost to use, are - essentially - cantrips - or at least equivilent enough, we shouldn't ignore them.
Adding them straight in, however, gives a HUGE spike to Mystic .. which also isn't fair, since they tend to have much smaller effects, and you can only use 1 at a time.
So for Cantrips, I'll concede this one, and hand wave it as "minor enough not to really affect things".

Ok, so Spells Known.

There's quite a variety, so let's focus in on Clerics ... pound for pound, Clerics get the most known/prepared spells (sure, Wizards can have all spells, but they can only prepare so many ... and the Cleric domain gives him effectively +10 prepared spells over the wizard ... so we'll start with the Cleric).

So Cleric Known spells at 1st level: 6 (assuming a 16 prim stat at level 1).
and 35 at level 20 (assuming a 20 prim stat by that level).

So how does this compare to Mystic?
Well, a Mystic gets 3 Disciplines (we're ignoring Soul knife for the moment).
Looking over all the Disciplines, they seem to average about 2 powers each, of 1 or 2 pp. So at first level, a Mystic would (on average) know 3 * 2 = 6 powers.
About in line with the Cleric.
At most - if you picked some of the more front-heavy disciplines (eg Nomadic Step, Mastery of Weather and Celerity) - ignoring Order restrictions for the moment, you might be able to get up to 12 powers known total.

By 20th level ... you known 10 disciplines, and if we take 10 of the larger pools, we end up with a whopping 43 known powers!!

Compared to the Cleric's 35 - which already counts his 10 domain spells.
Or a wizard who can only prepare 25.

Is this "too good" ? Do you think it's too many? Or do you think it's fine ...
Why? why not?

I'm honestly curious .. I'm not entirely sure myself .. and just looking for other's feedback and ideas :)

I'm curious if reducing to 2 Disciplines at level 1 (ie 1 +1 instead of 1+2) would be enough to bring it more in line ? or would that hamper the Mystic too much ?

[DivisibleByZero]

After a certain point, the power level of the Disciplines plateaus. So while the Cleric or whoever is gaining more powerful spells, the Mystic is instead gaining more "spells" that are less powerful.

For example:
At the Cleric has 35 spells prepared. Of those 35, 9 or 10 will probably be 6th level or higher (we'll call it 10), leaving 25 of 5th level or lower.
The Mystic, on the other hand, may very well have the 43 that you claim. But those 43 are ALL equivalently 5th level or lower.

Would he trade 18 of those to get access to 10 that were significantly more powerful?
You bet your poop-hole he would!

Even compared to the Wizard he'd do it.
The Wizard has 20+5 plus a few at-will. Of those, probably 7 or 8 will be 6th or higher (we'll call it 8).
Would the Mystic trade 24 of his 43 to get access to 8 that were significantly more powerful and a few to cast at-will?
You bet your poop-hole he probably still would!

[Malaketh]

The powers known is a bit much i agree, even at the middle levels I found it daunting to scroll through my list to decide what to do each round.

But more unbalanced I think are the saves the mystic forces. They get so many powers that target all the saves that for any situation they have a power that can need the enemy.

A small Curse of Strahd spoiler ahead.


Our party was on that bridge, I cannot remember where exactly, but it's the one with the Roc. Well, I just zapped him with Psychic Domination. He failed every round while the party beat on him. We were level 9? Roc Cr is 11.

The mystic trivialized that encounter.

I think they do need to make the telepathy powers maybe wisdom saves?

[sightlessrealit]

Honestly? I don't think so. Out of the powers you get from a Discipline you will likely only every use 1-2 of them. So you know a fair bit but the scope in usefulness is crunched down. Additional, your discipline will only every be about equal to a 5th level spell. With of course the exception being after a certain point you can concentrate on multiple discipline powers at once.

[clash]

The reason why you cant make a straight comparison is because Cleric and wizard can handpick all of their spells at each level whereas the mystic gets spell sets. Off the start you are probably only going to pick the disciplines that give you low level abilities that you want so that is fine. As you level though you'll probably find that you only get value out of some of the abilities in each disciplines. Even if you only actually want 75% of the abilities you took you are down to 32 powers that you took because you wanted them and that's with the bigger pools. Making it about even with the cleric assuming he only wanted 70% of his domain spells. If he takes smaller pools he will end up closer to the wizard. This also doesnt account for overlap of abilities that do basically the same thing.

Overall I think the number known is generally balanced. I know from actually playing one it seems like you have too few options considering the cleric gets to pick 25 spells to prepare and you only get to pick 10 disciplines. The number of choices are certainly much smaller each choice just comes with more, but it also makes some powers that would be really good, not a good choice for your character because the rest of the discipline doesn't give you anything you want.

[Rusvul]

Clerics and Wizards don't have maximum "spells known." A Cleric knows every spell on their spell list, and while a Wizard is more limited, any Wizard will still have more than 43 spells in their spellbook by 20th level. (Six to start, two per subsequent level up = 44 minimum, plus whatever the wizard is able to find or buy.) You're comparing a Mystic's known powers to a Cleric or Wizard's prepared spells. Any comparison we're making must take into account that a Wizard or Cleric can change their spells prepared, while a Mystic cannot. So while a Mystic has more options at any given moment, a Cleric has far more options if they have a night to rest.

A better comparison might be the Bard (22 spells known), the Sorcerer (15 spells known), or the Warlock (15 spells known), to whom the Mystic compares quite favorably in terms of spellcasting versatility.

[DivisibleByZero]

The reason why you cant make a straight comparison is because Cleric and wizard can handpick all of their spells at each level whereas the mystic gets spell sets.

Another very good point made.
What if I told your Wizard that while he has 25 spells to prepare, if he prepares Shield he must also prepare Crown of Madness and Leomund's Secret Chest?
That's basically what the Mystic does. You might like the entire set, but it's more likely that there will be one or two that you don't want, and have to take anyway.

[The_Ditto]

Thanks guys .. excellent points I hadn't thought of .. but definitely knew about :)
Sometimes you just need someone else to remind you of the obvious
hehe

to recap the best points:

1) @DivisibleByZero: power level plateau.
good point, and very true, even though the Mystic gets Psionic Mastery giving the "equivalent" of those level 7/8/9 slots ... you're right, he never REALLY gets a level 7/8/9 power equivalent. :)

2) @sightlessrealit: usefulness scope.
From playing my latest Mystic, I understand exactly what you're saying. I took Crown of Rage, primarily for the Psychic Focus ability (with Sentinel it really locks down opponents :) ) .. but mostly the other powers in there I never really used :)
I do find myself picking a discipline for 1 or 2 powers or abilities .. and the others are "Well, I *might* use it ... " ... so yeah, good point .. you have those powers . but they aren't necessarily useful.

3) @clash: cherry pick vs sets.
Another good point .. yeah, I was thinking of this ... and was considering asking a hypothetical question about altering the cleric's spell selection to mirror Mystics (ie no spells prepared, just get more domains in a line similar to Mystics ... ) and then asking how that might change the Cleric's power curve ? if at all. But I think the answers here make that clear already now :)

Thanks ... going to chew on this more .. see if anything else odd leaps out at me :)
but this makes perfect sense ... and sounds reasonable.

[poolio]

In the right hands, and a with a dm that doesn't fudge his rolls just to make sure something doesn't work, then yeah they can be pretty OP lol, i got one in one of my games and he has pretty consistently been able to turn what should be big fights into one sided beat downs, I'll give some examples a little later, sadly real life is getting in the way of story time :smalltongue:

[Waterdeep Merch]

Honestly, the only stuff that seems over the top are things like the Telepathic Contact discipline, which definitely shouldn't be as strong as it is. While I'm not opposed to them having a reliable single target debuff/shut down ability, Psychic Grip and Psychic Domination are obscene. Occluded Mind is also insanely overpowered in the hands of anyone with half an imagination, and should be fairly expensive to cast if it remains at all.

Contrary to some, I'm okay with mystics almost exclusively targeting intelligence. It makes more thematic sense, and reliability is the primary benefit of playing a mystic over any of the casters. Casters get stronger spells and can cherry pick their builds easier, while mystics are more focused and reliable at what they do. In action, that reliability only trivializes fights against single opponents that lack legendary resistance. Which suffer in 5e in general anyway.

[Findulidas]

I feel I cant even begin to balance a whole UA class with loads of brand new spells and everything. Surely feels like atleast something here will be completely OP and some things completely useless. Happy some people are trying to analyze it though.

[clash]

Honestly, the only stuff that seems over the top are things like the Telepathic Contact discipline, which definitely shouldn't be as strong as it is. While I'm not opposed to them having a reliable single target debuff/shut down ability, Psychic Grip and Psychic Domination are obscene. Occluded Mind is also insanely overpowered in the hands of anyone with half an imagination, and should be fairly expensive to cast if it remains at all.


No comment on occluded mind. It is either useless or entirely broken for that point cost depending on how the dm plays out the result.

Psychic Grip is basically hold person. It comes with the added advantage of targeting int and getting to move the target half it speed but event hat costs your reaction. It is also a 4th level spell instead of a second level spell. Nothing is really op about it. I would almost prefer using hold person given the choice.

Psychic Domination is a tough one because it has the duration of Dominate Person which is a 5th level spell so the same in that regard but it has the ability of Dominate Monster which is an 8th level spell. I would put it at about a 6th level spell, but an argument could be made for 7th. So in that regard it is a bit op at level 9, but the theme is very appropriate considering this is a psionic class they should have the ability to dominate any creature. Personally this is a tough one, you could either make it only affect humanoids, or make it an actual class feature usable 1/day.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Psychic Grip is basically hold person. It comes with the added advantage of targeting int and getting to move the target half it speed but event hat costs your reaction. It is also a 4th level spell instead of a second level spell. Nothing is really op about it. I would almost prefer using hold person given the choice.
Psychic Grip can target any creature type, not just humanoids, making it the equivalent of a better hold monster, a 5th level spell, not hold person. For that it's discounted by a good two points, though you are right that it's overpriced when used against humanoids, by roughly a point if we consider the advantages of targeting int and the possible reaction usage to be worth an uptick.

I agree with the rest of your points.

[clash]

Psychic Grip can target any creature type, not just humanoids, making it the equivalent of a better hold monster, a 5th level spell, not hold person. For that it's discounted by a good two points, though you are right that it's overpriced when used against humanoids, by roughly a point if we consider the advantages of targeting int and the possible reaction usage to be worth an uptick.

I agree with the rest of your points.

That is entirely my mistake. I hadn't noticed that part of it. Maybe it should have been Person for 5/Creature for 7