Mind Over Matter: A Guide to the 5e Mystic

[carrdrivesyou]

Mystic Handbook (V3)
Green: This is one of the best options available. You should seriously consider working it into any character you plan on building.
Blue: A very solid option or ability, better than average and likely to see use regularly.
Black: No better or no worse than most other options out there. Not likely to vastly improve your character, but still useful.
Orange: Sub-optimal choice or feature. May be worth taking if it combos well with something else, but not generally a great option otherwise.
Red: Stay away. Unless you really like the RP implications of something marked red, don't even bother.

Stat assignment
Races
The Mystic Chassis
Skills
Orders
Disciplines
Talents
Feats
Multiclassing

Stat Assignment
For the purpose of this guide, I'm assuming you are using the point buy given in the PHB. If you happen to be rolling for stats, YMMV, but the prioritization of stats remains similar.

Strength: Unless you are planning to be a melee STR monkey, avoid. Even so, still not the best use of points.
Dexterity: You’ll want to keep this decent, especially depending on how you choose your skills.
Constitution: This will need to be as high as you can get it without crippling your other abilities. HP is nice to have y’know.
Intelligence: MAX IT. NO QUESTIONS ASKED.
Wisdom: Really depends here. Either a 14, or dump it. Depends on if you want your character to be the perceptive type. Again, depends on your skills.
Charisma: See wisdom.

In general, consider the following for stat prioritization: INT>DEX>CON>WIS>CHA>STR


RACES
Human (Variant): All around good choices regardless of build. I like the variant, because I like specialists. Free feat isn’t bad either.
Hill Dwarf: These make decently tanky mystics, but really don’t excel.
Mountain Dwarf: These guys make good melee builds, and the free medium armor won’t get in your way.
High Elf: These make excellent mystics due to +2DEX, and +1 INT. Other bits merge well with the class chassis, and make for a well-rounded character.
Wood Elf: Not as good as their cousins, but make decent scouts.
Half Elf: As good as or better than humans. These make great party faces.
Drow Racials spells are nice, if you want to play a caster, but this isn’t a caster. Oh yea, LIGHT SENSITIVITY.
Lightfoot Halfling: Not bad, but could be better.
Stout Halfling: On equal footing with the Lightfeet. Not my first or second choices though.
Dragonborn: None of this benefits you. Pass.
Forest Gnome: Minor Illusions is amazing, plus you’ll appreciate the stat boosts. Excellent choice.
Rock Gnome: Needs to go back to santa’s workshop. Seriously.
Half-Orc You can do better.
Tiefling: Slightly better than the Drow, but not by much.

Unearthed Arcana Races
Minotaur: These guys wouldn’t be awful in an aquatic campaign at all.
Eladrin: The short rest abilities here make it worthwhile, not to mention its +1 INT or CHA.
Githyanki: Great for melee types, and naturally psionic. Not bad.
Githzerai: +2 to a dump stat and ribbon abilities. Pass.

UA Elf Subraces:
Avariel: Free First level flight is amazing, but you have the option to grow wings with Bestial Transformation. I don’t see the appeal here when you could get +1 INT, a cantrip, or stealth abilities.
Grugach: Nothing you get from this really benefits the class.
Sea Elf: Decent for Aquatic campaigns, but not stellar anywhere else, even with the +1 CON and water breathing.
Shadar-Kai: I tend to think these were made for Warlock’s but the teleportation/resistance combo can save your bacon.

UA Tiefling Subraces (Ribbons for days here):
Baalzebul: This would make a good spy type. I can see some great behind the scenes stuff here.
Dispater: Decent for a stealthy type, but you aren’t a rogue.
Fierna: Decent Face, bad everything else.
Glasya: See Fierna.
Levistus: Would make a better Warlock.
Mammon: Ribbons.
Mephistopheles: Probably the best of the bunch.
Zariel: Ribbons for a melee type.

Volo’s Guide Races:
Protector Aasimar: This is very useful for when you are low on points and need to tack on some damage or make a get-away. Stat boosts not the greatest though.
Scourge Aasimar: There are better ways to get +1 CON.
Fallen Aasimar: Would be better if it was based on INT.
Firbolg: Situational boosts. Not very good ones at that.
Goliath: The stat boosts here would make a decent melee type. Would probably be best paired with Soul Knife. Meh.
Kenku: Forgery and skills are nice. And having Telepathy bypasses the no speech thing. Better options exist if you want to have feathers.
Lizardfolk: You have better ways of getting everything this race provides. Bottom of the proverbial barrel here.
Tabaxi: Purrfect for the stealth Mystic. And the Agility here is unique. Also, free stealth and perception proficiencies.
Triton: I suppose these would be nice for niche builds, but I wouldn’t recommend them otherwise.
Bugbear: If you want to play a bugbear, then Giant growth is a must have. How’s about a 20 foot reach? Yes please!
Goblin: Surprisingly not a bad option. Almost half a rogue for free here.
Hobgoblin: On par with their smaller cousins power-wise; these make solid melee mystics.
Kobold: Sunlight Sensitivity is awful, but if your DM lets you operate normally with some sunglasses, not so bad. Groveling can be replicated by class abilities, and pack tactics doesn’t help you much because most of your abilities are save or suck.
Orc: -2 INT is all you need to read before moving down the list.
Yuan-ti Pureblood: Coupled with the Mage Slayer feat and enemy casters are near to helpless against you.

Elemental Evil Races:
Aarakocra: I lied. There are no good options for feathered races.
Air Genasi: Levitate at first level is nice, as is the DEX boost. Not my first pick.
Earth Genasi: How often do you encounter difficult terrain?
Fire Genasi: Probably the best of the Genasi for you. Although red-shaded nightvision is making me think Predator.
Water Genasi: Great for campaigns that take place on the beach/near water. Not so great anywhere else.
Deep Gnome: A good race if you expect a foray into the Underdark, or your game world is in perpetual night. Also, +2 INT is nice.

Eberron UA Races:
Changeling: At will Polymorph is broken. Especially at first level. Take this, and you will be practically immortal. Depending on your GM, you may still be able to use your psionics while shifted. Everything else this race offers just falls by the way side.
Warforged: This would make an excellent Soul Knife or an Immortal Melee build. Not really much else to it.

Shifters: Not bad base abilities.
Beasthide: Good for Melee types.
Cliffwalk: Be every horse from Skyrim ever. Mountains and barriers aren't your problem.
Longstride: Limited Cunning Action to help move around. I can see use of this in some niche builds.
Longtooth: Good for goblin hunting. Decent for melee.
Razorclaw: This could see use with the Brute Force Discipline. Limited use means it really isn't exploitable though.
Wildhunt: The bonuses here are certainly interesting. I can't think of a particular build that could exploit this, it's certainly useful all around regardless.


Eberron Dragonmarks Review:
Keep in mind that these cost a feat, so I will be comparing them to other options. Additionally, I will mostly be comparing them to Magic Initiate.


Dragonmark/House
Least
Lesser
Greater


Detection
Useful for Sage types
You already have better options for this
Nomadic Mind offers comparable benefits


Finding
Just leave this for an arcane caster
Nomadic Mind offers comparable benefits
Nomadic Mind offers comparable benefits


Handling
These could be useful for wild Mystics
Find the tiger before it finds you
Not terribly useful as you can't use your telepathy with them


Healing
Psionic Restoration does this better
Psionic Restoration does this better
Psionic Restoration does this better


Hospitality
These are definitely abusable
Leave it for the wizard, yours lasts an hour
Great escape strategy, but short lived


Making
More things taken from the Wizard
Not really your thing
Very useful in most situations.


Passage
Speed is nice, Light confuses me for being here
One of the best panic buttons in game
An interesting choice, saves the wizard and Sorc a spell slot


Scribing
Your base abilities make these mostly useless
A good boost to your communications
I suppose this would be nice if you don't plan on taking Nomadic Mind


Sentinel
Interesting but not the best picks
This adds definite defense
Adaptive body is strictly better


Shadow (Both)
Disguise self is an excellent choice
Mastery of LaD is better
Better leave this to the Wizard


Storm
Useful in certain situations
Get rid of your own clouds
Not a bad way to spend a turn


Warding
Alarm is good, Resistance is futile
Ribbon
Useful because it's tied to your INT, which should be high





The Mystic Chassis
Hit Die: A d8 isnt’ the worst, but depending on your build, you’ll always want more.
Proficiencies: Light armor and simple weapons aren’t awful, but let’s face it, these guys aren’t built to be front-liners. No tool proficiencies means you’ll need to pick them up via background or feats if you want them.
Saving throws: You’ve got a good one and a not so great one. Some of the most debilitating effects in the game key off of Wisdom. So you’ve got that going for you.
Mystic Order/Disciplines: This is where you choose how you play. Wide variety and small limitations on selection make these fantastic. We’ll be digging into these a bit later.
Talents: Your version of Cantrips. You get less than most casters, but the options aren’t quite as spectacular.
Psi Points/Limit: There really isn’t much for recovery here, so be careful in your resource management.
Psychic Focus: A lot of the time, these are very useful, and only takes a bonus action to switch. Considering you could have advantage on certain checks or resistance to certain damage types, these are quite useful options in and out of combat.
Telepathy: This makes you the team coordinator. Also helps if you are scouting with the Rogue. Bonus points for breaking any language barrier you may come across.
Mystical Recovery: You have a lot of bonus action abilities already, but this certainly isn’t bad. This will help out the cleric at low levels, but quickly becomes near to useless.
Strength of Mind: This is a double edged sword if ever I saw one. Wisdom saves are fairly common, but being able to swap to having CON save proficiency on a short rest can be a God-send. Pick your proverbial poison here.
Potent Psionics: You shouldn’t be in melee, but isn’t a bad feature in and of itself. This also works like the Warlock’s agonizing blast, adding your INT to your talent damage. Not a bad feature.
Consumptive Power: If you absolutely HAVE to cast something at the end of a fight, sure. Use sparingly.
Psionic Mastery: This is amazing! Free bonus psi points, PLUS you can concentrate on multiple disciplines. FREAKING GOLD HERE!
Psionic Body: Unlikely to get this far, but if you do…You win the game of life. Mostly because YOU STOP AGING. Lots of nifty benefits here, but other classes get some of those at much lower levels. The real big capstone here is that even IF you die, you have a 50% chance of just turning to mist and showing up again a few days later. Congrats. You are now part Lich.



Skills
Arcana This could be useful if you are filling the mage’s shoes.
History This is great to have not only because of your already high INT, but it helps with the whole “being smart” thing you’ll have going on.
Insight great for lie detecting.
Medicine Good at first level if you have time, but not useful later.
Nature This if for gardeners, druids, and rangers. You are (hopefully) not one of those.
Perception: Most rolled skill in game. Take it!
Religion Honestly, I’d leave this to the paladin, bard, or the cleric.

Edits:
1. Due to formatting complaints, as light blue is difficult to read, I have adjusted Light Blue to Green.
2. Changed both Dwarves to Black.
3. Added Volo's, EE, and UA races.
4. Rock Gnome adjusted to blue.
5. Added in UA Ebberon Races.
6. Added in Dragonmarks review.

Credit goes to EvilAnagram for the layout of this guide, as I used his as a baseline.

[carrdrivesyou]

Mystic Orders:
Mystic Orders are deceptive. You would think that there would be more requirements for discipline selection, but there really isn’t. There are some nice synergistic effects here, but your YMMV depending on your build. Most of the Orders (Not Soulknife) get two bonus disciplines from their own schools.

Avatar: No not that one. If you want to play Aang, look at the Wu Jen. The avatar is the only real aura class so far. Some of them are pretty nice, some of them are pretty much useless as far as I can tell. This reminds me of the Dragon Shaman and Marshal classes from 3.5. This is basically a buffer and debuffer rolled into one. Not an awful 5th man, but I don’t see it in any of the four core spots.
Armor Training: This is nice. Good way to get into melee with some decent defense.
Avatar of Battle: Initiative bonus is nice.
Avatar of Healing: Great if you plan on being a healer with Psionic Restoration or the party is mostly mystics.
Avatar of Speed: Good for moving people around the battlefield.

Awakened: This would make a good detective. Think Abe Sapien from Hellboy. Except he can occasionally turn into a near immortal ghost for a while.
Awakened Talent: More skills. This could make you a good Face or investigator.
Psionic Investigation: This is beautiful. Need to know how to get to the bad guys base? Want to know if there are traps on a door? The uses of this are endless.
Psionic Surge: Not the greatest use of your Focus, but if it’s a critical moment, go for it.
Spectral Form: Great way to scare the town guard or get to those hard to reach places.

Immortal: My personal favorite and probably the hardest to kill build when done right.
Immortal durability: +1hp/lvl and Unarmored Defense rolled into one. SIGN ME UP!
Psionic Resilience: A good reason to pump your INT ASAP.
Surge of Health: Turn that killer crit into a normal hit.
Immortal Will: Your path to Lich-dom (almost).

Nomad: If you plan on teleporting about all willy-nilly. This is your bag baby. This is the proverbial “every-man,” that can become a household name.
Breadth of Knowledge: Know how to do anything or any language the next day. This is fabulous!
Memory of One Thousand Steps: This is nice if you are low on HP.
Superior Teleportation: Nice Ribbon.
Effortless Journey: You are now Nightcrawler from X-Men.

Soul Knife: Yet another X-Men wannabe. Psylocke. You project blades from your hands that deal psychic damage. For some reason, also gives you Martial weapon proficiency. Not sure what the idea was really. If your DM LOVES high AC baddies or disarming you, this will make his head explode. BTW, this is the only Mystic Order that doesn’t get a bonus set of two starting Disciplines. That alone is enough to make me make this red. EDIT: Soul Knife has no Disciplines of their own. Definitely still red, hoping to see some improvement here before publication.
Martial Training: Yay medium armor…but why martial weapons, you literally make your own?
Hone the Blade: Nice boost to damage and to hit for a good while, maybe a couple fights if your DM likes you.
Consumptive Knife: Possibly the most broken thing on this guide, let alone the GAME. Out of Psi Points? Go kill some chickens. Back to full. Plus you have dinner.
Phantom Knife: This is ludicrous. BBEG with +3 Full plate and a +3 Shield? You hit him on AC 10 as an action. Your GM will hate you.

Wu Jen: Reminiscent of their 3.5 origins (possibly before that, I didn’t play before that), the Wu Jen is exactly what you think. An elemental specialist. Unlike sorcerers and wizards, the Wu Jen can do some pretty unique things and manipulate their environment very well. Good damage builds and utility in almost every discipline.
Hermit’s Study: Skills are nice.
Elemental Attunement: Won’t work on immunities, but you can make a lot of things cry in the process.
Arcane Dabbler: A great feature. This grants you access to fireball and a few other excellent options.
Elemental Mastery: This is ok. But you should be more worried about just not taking the damage.

Avatar Disciplines
No not that one. If you want to play Aang, look at the Wu Jen. The avatar is the only real aura class so far. Some of them are pretty nice, some of them are pretty much useless as far as I can tell. This reminds me of the Dragon Shaman and Marshal classes from 3.5. This is basically a buffer and debuffer rolled into one. Not an awful 5th man, but I don’t see it in any of the four core spots.
Avatar Disciplines
These are basically debuffs or buffs with damage attached. Not my way of fighting, but can be useful.

Crown of Despair
Focus: Great for yelling at people.
Crowned in Sorrow: Great for preventing OAs.
Call to Inaction: Tell someone to sit down and think about it…out of combat.
Visions of Despair: There are better ways to reduce movement speed.
Dolorous Mind: Good for control. Not so great for having a save each turn.

Crown of Disgust
Focus: Mind affecting difficult terrain is interesting, but not very useful.
Eye of Horror: Great for keeping the big stupid ogre on the other side of the room while still hurting it.
Wall of Repulsion: Affects friends and foes alike. You know whats better? An actual wall.
Visions of Disgust: Target the boss surrounded by lackies and take him down before the battle starts.
World of Horror: There are better ways to shut down multiple enemies at this level. This way, they can still attack you.

Crown of Rage
Focus: Imposes situational disadvantage. Good for protecting weaker party members.
Primal Fury: Be sure of positioning before you use this. Otherwise good control.
Fighting Words: “Hey. Your boss treats you awful. You should stab him.”
Mindless Courage: Primal fury without the damage.
Punishing Fury: Surround the enemy tank with your own melee and watch him destroy himself.

Mantle of Command
Focus: Great tactician ability, especially when the fighter is trying to get into position.
Coordinated Movement: Tell the rogue and the fighter to get their butts up there and fight!
Commander’s Sight: Give your friends advantage against the BBEG. GOLD yo.
Command to Strike: Snake’s Swiftness from 3.5. Make the fighter have more than one action surge at the cost of his reaction.
Strategic Mind: Excellent Party Buff.
Overwhelming Attack: Command to strike on the party. Very useful!

Mantle of Courage
Focus: Most builds will have immunity or advantage against being frightened.
Incite Courage: In case anyone DOESN’T have immunity or just failed a save.
Aura of Victory: Could be useful against large groups. Wouldn’t bother against less than five opponents.
Pillar of Confidence: Be the Oprah Winfrey of giving out Cunning Action.

Mantle of Fear
Focus: Adv. On Intimidate. Not awful.
Incite Fear: Fear is great at early levels, but loses ground quickly.
Unsettling Aura: Not sure if this just means that the enemy is slowed as by rough terrain or what.
Incite Panic: This is great if you happen to get cornered by a mob.

Mantle of Fury
Focus: A bit too situational to be really useful.
Incite Fury: Adding to one person’s damage is good. Adding it to all your friends is better.
Mindless Charge: Good for getting the melee into position.
Aura of Bloodletting: Be careful with this. Advantage on ALL melee attack rolls in a 60 foot radius of you. Including your enemies.
Overwhelming Fury: Not so great lockdown. There are better control methods.

Mantle of Joy
Focus: Advantage on Persuasion can make for great role playing.
Soothing Presence: Not the greatest source of temp HP, but not bad.
Comforting Aura: Mass Resistance for a minute. Good against spammed save or suck.
Aura of Jubilation: Being a distraction normally means being the bait. The rogue better make it count.
Beacon of Recovery: If the party needs this, it’s probably too late already.

Awakened Disciplines
Probably some of the more useful Disciplines are found here. It’s kinda hard to go wrong here.

Aura Sight
Focus: Advantage on Insight checks. Good for those social intrigue situations.
Assess Foe: There is no better way of determining how to fight something.
Read Moods: Isn’t this what the Insight skill is for??
View Aura: Good for bribing officials and knowing how to react to them.
Perceive the Unseen: Nothing can hide from you. Ever.

Intellect Fortress
Focus: Psychic damage is not that common.
Psychic Backlash: Great at low levels, but doesn’t scale at all.
Psychic Parry: Great if you rolled low against something awful, and aren’t sure of yourself.
Psychic Redoubt: Again, Psychic damage is not common, but advantage on half your saves is beautiful.

Mantle of Awe
Focus: Great for a Face, and can make almost any build INTO a Face.
Charming Presence: Did you want the mob to follow you? This is how.
Center of Attention: Let the Bard do the distracting. If there is no bard, this is the tool to use. Castle sentries beware.
Invoke Awe: “Self-destructive” is an interesting term. Feel free to discuss with your DM whether or not attacking one’s allies is seen as such.

Precognition
Focus: Advantage on Initiative. Be sure to switch to this before kicking in the door.
Precognitive Hunch: Better, longer lasting Guidance.
All Around Sight: Good feature, use sparingly unless you want the DM to throw books at you.
Danger Sense: The fact this exists makes me wonder why you’d ever NOT have it.
Victory Before Battle: You and your buddies win initiative. Be wary of your PP total though.

Psychic Assault
Focus: This paired with Potent Psionics can give your talents some more mileage.
Psionic Blast: Xd6 per PP spent, no save, to a single target. BBEG can suck it.
Ego Whip: Basically make the BSF into a moving target that can’t attack for a turn.
Id Insinuation: Ego Whip is strictly better, as the enemy cannot attack.
Psychic Blast: Cone of Cold that does Psychic damage instead. Could be useful.
Psychic Crush: Free stun with nice damage. Very nice.

Psychic Disruption
Focus: “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” Good choice. (Advantage on Deception checks).
Distracting Haze: Making crowds of BSFs into mewling kittens. Near-sighted mewling kittens.
Daze: Incapacitate and coup de gras one enemy. Good for Stealth Missions. The rogue will love you.
Mind Storm: Hit them with this, so the wizard can fling a fireball.

Psychic Inquisition
Focus: You become a truth detector but only via telepathy. Meh.
Hammer of Inquisition: Great if you have a Cleric in the Party.
Forceful Query: Good for Interrogations. Yes/no answers only though.
Ransack Mind: This is what Kylo Ren did to Poe and Rey. Good stuff here.
Phantom Idea: Turn a wizard into a commoner. Make a Paladin or Cleric fall. Get the King to give you his Crown. Endless possibilities that may have your DM in a rage.

Psychic Phantoms
Focus: Same as Psychic disruption.
Distracting Figment: Good for softening up a goon and luring them into a trap.
Phantom Foe: Make someone else a distraction for a minute. Should buy you enough time to nick that sweetroll.
Phantom Betrayal: INT save or attack their friends. Target BSF and watch him eliminate his own minions.
Phantom Riches: This could make that guard look the other way if he is the only one there.

Telepathic Contact
Focus: Telepathy at first level with six people at once. Great way to give your character a headache while acting like a psychic switchboard.
Exacting Query: You could just yell at them. Or I don’t know… TALK to them?
Occluded Mind: This could be useful if you have a plan. Otherwise, I’d choose a different strategy.
Broken Will: Tell someone to walk into a pit of acid or lava. Then watch them do it.
Psychic Grip: Paralysis AND control. Turn BSF into a puppet.
Psychic Domination: Have the enemy sorcerer hit his buddies with his fireball instead of yours.

Immortal Disciplines
These Disciplines are too varied to really group together. See their individual descriptions below.

Adaptive Body
Focus: No need to eat sleep or breathe: You are the camp guard. Every time.
Environmental Adaptation: This doesn’t really last long enough to be useful. Buy some hot or cold weather gear instead.
Adaptive Shield: For when the enemy wizard or dragon gets the drop on you.
Energy Adaptation: One elemental resistance. Not awful.
Energy Immunity: Tell the dragon his breath stinks.

Bestial Form
Focus: Leave animal handling to the ranger or druid.
Bestial Claws: Use this with Brute Strike and deal 7d10+7d6 slashing in one attack. Beautiful.
Bestial Transformation: 1 hour buffs and utilities. Good stuff. Must have!
Amphibious: You will never drown.
Climbing: You are now Spiderman. Congrats.
Flight: This is the real reason you took this.
Keen Senses: Good for scouting.
Perfect Senses: You can see even invisible things even whilst BLINDED. This is an excellent tool to have.
Swimming: You are now Aquaman. Aquaman sucks. Don’t be Aquaman.
Tough Hide: This is awesome while dungeon crawling. If you have Mastery of Force, this pairs well with Inertial Armor.

Brute Force
Focus: Good for grappling, in case you get grabbed.
Brute Strike: Add 1-7d6 on your next damage roll this turn. I love this.
Knock Back: If you can catch someone near a wall, use this with Brute Strike and Bestial Claws. Watch your DM cry.
Mighty Leap: “Free. Your. Mind, Neo.” Free yourself of this waste of time.
Feat of Strength: Leave the lifting to the fighter.

Celerity
Focus: +10 feet per round. Let me introduce you to a potion called Expeditious Retreat.
Rapid Step: If you positively, absolutely, HAVE to get there this turn.
Agile Defenses: Dodge as a bonus action. Tanky types will like this.
Blur of Motion: They won’t see you move, but they will hear you move.
Surge of Speed: Run up walls with no OAs.
Surge of Action: Wannabe fighter Action Surge.

Corrosive Metabolism
Focus: This is good if you are fighting oozes or get eaten by a gelatinous cube.
Corrosive Touch: I wouldn’t say this is spectacular due to cost, but xd10 ACID damage is nice.
Venom Strike: Most NPCs have a decent CON. I’d pass on this.
Acid Spray: Did you want to be one of Ridley Scotts’ xenomorphs? Use this.
Breath of the Black Dragon: Good for clearing a hallway. Useless elsewhere.
Breath of the Green Dragon: Better range, better damage, better shape than its little brother.

Diminution
Focus: Advantage on Stealth is wonderful.
Miniature Form: You fit into someone’s purse. Good for sneaking into highly observed places.
Toppling Shift: There are better ways of moving people.
Sudden Shift: Use this when your DM targets you and smiles.
Microscopic Form: Become a fly on the wall for 10 minutes, killing everything at the banquet while remaining undetected.

Giant Growth (Assuming Melee build. If not Melee, RED.)
Focus: +5 feet to your reach is great.
Ogre Form: Not sure why you WOULDN’T use this. Range stacks with focus.
Giant Form: You become HUGE. While focused on this, you have +15 foot range. Hit EVERYTHING.

Iron Durability
Focus: +1 AC is nice.
Iron Hide: Useful in a pinch.
Steel Hide: good if you are low on HP or surrounded.
Iron Resistance: Limited Steel Hide for an hour. Not so great.

Psionic Restoration
Focus: Spare the Dying for the price of being focused. Good in case the main healer is elsewhere.
Mend Wound: Cure Wounds rival. Not bad at all.
Restore Health: Saves the Cleric from having to prepare lesser or greater restoration.
Restore Vigor: Not as good as restoration, but it’ll do.

Psionic Weapon
Focus: Good for bypassing DR, and removes your penalty to STR or DEX at lower levels. Could be useful for a Soul Knife.
Ethereal Weapon: Nice if your opponent is heavily armored. Not so nice because it cuts damage with a save.
Lethal Strike: A different, better version of Brutal Strike.
Augmented Weapon: Make your weapon a +3 for 10 minutes. Not so great because it requires concentration.

Nomad Disciplines
These are great disciplines to have to be the proverbial “fifth man.” You could use these to become literally anyone and do almost anything. Depending on your campaign setting, this could be amazing or useless.

Nomadic Arrow (Ranged attacks only.)
Focus: Removes Disadvantage. Can’t benefit from Advantage.
Speed Dart: Lethal Strike for ranged weapons.
Seeking Missile: Good use of your reaction, as you can’t use your OA with a bow.
Faithful Archer: Poor man’s Haste. Free returning on thrown weapons.

Nomadic Chameleon
Focus: Same as Diminution. Adv. On Stealth.
Chameleon: Wood Elf can do it permanently, this will help you get to where you need to be.
Step from Sight: Turn the Party Invisible for a minute.
Enduring Invisibility: Step from Sight targets more people and is half the points. EDIT: Greater Invis for the Mystic. You have some seriously damaging abilities. This just makes you undetectable. Stand silent in the corner and eliminate a room full of enemies while they go nuts looking for you.

Nomadic Mind
Focus: Remember how the Nomad can already swap skills, languages, and tools each day? Well this little gem lets you gain one tool or skill plus a language (read and write only) with a bonus action. Feel free to abuse the crap out of this. You can do anything you set your mind to right?
Wandering Mind: Gain limited proficiency for a subset of skills for ten minutes. Not the worst thing, but you can get any of these with your focus. Pass.
Find Creature: Concentrate for an hour and know where someone is. An excellent RP tool.
Psychic Speech: Tongues for Mystics.
Wandering Eye: Great tool for Scouting. It lasts an hour with no range limit.
Phasing Eye: Same as above, except now it can move through walls.

Nomadic Step
Focus: Situational speed boost. If you teleport enough that this is useful…I don’t know what to tell you.
Step of a Dozen Paces: Great way to escape a grapple and still inflict some damage in the same turn. Also a good way to get a vantage point in combat.
Nomadic Anchor: Not a bad Escape Button. Put at a temple for immediate assistance.
Defensive Step: Miss and move. Good strategic implication. Keeps you out of harm’s way and saves you from using your action on withdrawing.
There and Back Again: A Hobbit’s Tale by Bilbo Baggins…Extra movement with an option to withdraw as well.
Transposition: Be next to the healer and then use this on the now unconscious fighter.
Baleful Transposition: Move next to the Fighter, swap places with the enemy Mage.
Phantom Caravan: Great escape button for you and the party.
Nomad’s Gate: Great way to teleport an army into a town to invade in your name.

Third Eye
Focus: Not bad if you don’t have darkvision, but not great if you do.
Tremorsense: Situational, but occasionally useful.
Unwavering Eye: Insight is a good skill to have advantage on, but there’s a focus that gives you that specifically. Other uses and YMMV.
Piercing Sight: Limited X-Ray vision. I could see this being very useful in the long run.
Truesight: Not a lot of classes gain access to this. This could literally save the party. GOLD!

Wu Jen Disciplines
Become a Jedi. Or the Avatar. Or a maker of walls. Your choice really.

Mastery of Air
Focus: Great mobility buff.
Wind Step: 20 feet of flight per PP spent. Not ideal, especially considering another discipline lets you just teleport instead. And another just gives you wings for 5pp.
Wind Stream: Leave a line of enemies prone with some damage. Some decent tactical use to be found here.
Cloak of Air: ALL ATTACKS AGAINST YOU HAVE DISADVANTAGE. For ten minutes, that’s beautiful. You are still subject to fireball and the like, but still…this is amazing. You can even turn attacks back on people. GOLD YO!
Wind Form: Ten minutes of flight. Not awful utility. There are better options though. See Bestial Form.
Misty Form: Good for faking death if someone believes you are a vampire. OR to convince them you ARE a vampire when you turn into mist to get through a locked door…
Animate Air: Get an air elemental for an hour. This is great unless it gets toasted.

Mastery of Fire
Focus: Good stuff for the pyromaniac in you. Also good against enemy fireballs.
Combustion: Fire is commonly resisted, but d10s are nice. You have better ways of spending your concentration though.
Rolling Flame: This would be useful if you have a large amount of enemies trapped in a pit, or just want to torch a room. Not really an expensive ability, but I think you could do better.
Detonation: Lesser Fireball that leaves enemies prone on a failed save. I would like this better if you could upcast it.
Fire Form: Good for melee builds, Bad for others.
Animate Fire: Not as good as the Air elemental, mostly because fire is commonly resisted.

Mastery of Force
Focus: Advantage on STR checks. Melee builds could abuse this, and anyone can use this to break an unfortunate grapple.
Push: Good for any aspiring Jedi…shove em back and deal damage in the process. I like it!
Move: Throw boulders at the enemy. Turn the environment into your weapon of choice! This is amazing!
Inertial Armor: Good for ALL mystics. Melee builds will love the no DEX cap medium armor here.
Telekinetic Barrier: Not a bad barrier, but it’s kinda weak. Good news is, you can layer it.
Grasp: This is great for locking down enemy casters while still dealing damage to his goons.

These next two require the successful use of Grasp before you can use them. Because they are dependent on another move for setup, they go down one rating level than they would otherwise be. These will be a bit taxing on your resources as well.
Crush: 1-7d6 bludgeoning, no save. Suck it Trebek!
Move: Not a BAD idea if you happen to be near a cliff and want to drop someone off of it, or to just throw someone into the sky. Not useful in most dungeons or buildings though.

Mastery of Ice
Focus: Good for resisting your own abilities. You’ll see why in a bit.
Ice Spike: Other disciplines do more damage, but the control is nice. DEX save is a bad way to go though as lots of people have it.
Ice Sheet: This could be abused for battlefield control. Especially against cavalry.
Frozen Sanctuary: 3PP for 20 temp HP all day as a bonus action. Not a bad way to start your day Iceman.
Frozen Rain: This is to be used in conjunction with this Discipline’s focus and Frozen Sanctuary if you find yourself surrounded. This is will do 6d6 cold damage per round of your concentration, AND it locks them down. Turn a mob of angry hobgoblins into raging snowmen. Raging snowmen that cannot move. Meanwhile, you stand (mostly) unaffected, hitting them with talents until they die.
Ice Barrier: Excellent HP on this wall, and it deals damage back. Probably the best Wall option available at this point.

Mastery of Light and Darkness
Focus: You see through darkness, and Darkness. Well, up to 30 feet. Not bad for just a focus. Blends well.
Darkness: Works well with your focus, and could be a good boon to melee builds that want to keep their enemies guessing and stumbling around in the dark.
Light: Make the enemy rogue glow, they can’t hide, and everyone has advantage to hit them. Beautiful. Also works on enemy casters.
Shadow Beasts: You summon TWO shadows. Zap that fighter into a peasant.
Radiant Beam: Not an awful damage die, or affect, but getting a save each turn means you may be blowing your points. Use sparingly.

Mastery of Water
Focus: Free water breathing and swim speed. Must have for aquatic campaigns.
Desiccate: Most things will have a decent CON score/save, but up to 7d10 necrotic (RANGED) is amazing.
Watery Grasp: 2PP cost for an excellent control ability. Good for melee builds that want to fight casters.
Water Whip: This is amazing Battlefield Control, especially considering the low cost, and you can increase it. Great use of points.
Water Breathing: Again, A must have for an aquatic campaign. Situational, but you’ll be saving the wizard a slot.
Water Sphere: This is what Zabuza used to trap Kakashi. There are better control options, considering other options do damage.
Animate Water: Summon a water elemental. On par with the Air elemental.

Mastery of Weather
Focus: Resistance is good. Two resistances is better. Although these are not very common types.
Cloud Steps: There are so many better ways of accomplishing this task, but works if you are in a hurry.
Hungry Lightning: Spend all 7 points and target the BSF in the heavy plate. He is not likely to make that save.
Wall of Clouds: This is literally a wall that people can walk through. It only blocks vision. This has some good RP affect, but is useless in combat.
Whirlwind: This is great against casters, as it is sure to interrupt their concentration and targeting. While it doesn’t do damage itself, the wizard can throw a fireball or some daggers in the mix, and it’ll be like the love child of a blender and an oven.
Lightning Leap: This is an amazing way to get out of a bad spot, deal damage, and get to a vantage point.
Wall of Thunder: Another good wall ability, layer it up, and watch them struggle to get through, all while taking significant damage. Even if they do get through, they ain’t gonna be happy about it.
Thunder Clap: Save against the damage, but not against the stun. Stunning someone for a round is amazing. Spam this too much though, and you’ll soon find your DM throwing stun-immune things at you.

Mastery of Wood and Earth
Focus: +1AC is useful to all.
Animate Weapon: Good ranged ability for hurt melee builds that still wanna do damage.
Warp Weapon: Great at low levels, and anyone not wielding a magic weapon at higher ones.
Warp Armor: This is amazing for all involved. Except the target.
Wall of Wood: By far the TOUGHEST wall, but no real special effect. Captain Yamato would be proud.
Armored Form: The bad part about this is, its concentration based. Sure you have resistance, but you still have to save against it.
Animate Earth: I like the earth elemental better than the others, but about on par with water and air.


For optimization or just a thought exercise, I wonder what Psi disciplines/talents have the greatest average chance of success? Someone on Reddit made a spreadsheet of every monster in the Monster Manual, including their ability scores. The average of all monsters in the Monster Manual had:

STR 16
DEX 12
CON 15
INT 9
WIS 12
CHA 11

So the Mystic has a huge advantage already, since many powers (19) target INT. Next would be CHA saves (9) then WIS (13) and DEX (11). Finally, CON (10) and STR (11). So powers that target those would be on average least successful. Here is a complete list of the Mystic Talents/Disciplines organizated by ability targeted and listed in the order the powers appear in the UA PDF.

STR
Brute Force, Knock Back
Diminution, Toppling Shift
Mastery of Air, Wind Stream
Mastery of Force, Push
Mastery of Force, Grasp
Mastery of Water, Watery Grasp
Mastery of Water, Water Whip
Mastery of Weather, Whirlwind
Mastery of Weather, Wall of Thunder
Mastery of Wood and Earth, Warp Weapon
Psychic Hammer talent

DEX
Corrosive Metabolism, Corrosive Touch
Mastery of Force, Move
Mastery of Ice, Ice Spike
Mastery of Ice, Ice Sheet
Mastery of Light and Darkness, Light
Mastery of Light and Darkness, Radiant Beam
Mastery of Water, Water Sphere
Mastery of Weather, Hungry Lightning
Mastery of Weather, Lightning Leap
Psionic Weapon, Ethereal Weapon
Energy Beam talent

CON
Corrosive Metabolism, Venom Strike
Corrosive Metabolism, Breath of the Black Dragon
Corrosive Metabolism, Breath of the Green Dragon
Mastery of Fire, Combustion
Mastery of Fire, Detonation
Mastery of Ice, Frozen Rain
Mastery of Water, Dessicate
Mastery of Weather, Thunder Clap
Mastery of Wood and Earth, Warp Armor
Mind Slam talent

INT
Mantle of Awe, Invoke Awe
Psychic Assault, Ego Whip
Psychic Assault, Id Insinuation
Psychic Assault, Psychic Blast
Psychic Assault, Psychic Crush
Psychic Assault, Distracting Haze
Psychic Assault, Daze
Psychic Inquisition, Ransack Mind
Psychic Inquisition, Phantom Idea
Psychic Phantoms, Distracting Figment
Psychic Phantoms, Phantom Foe
Psychic Phantoms, Phantom Betrayal
Psychic Phantoms, Phantom Riches
Telepathic Contact, Exacting Query
Telepathic Contact, Occluded Mind
Telepathic Contact, Broken Will
Telepathic Contact, Psychic Grip
Telepathic Contact, Psychic domination
Mind Thrust talent

WIS
Crown of Despair, Call to Inaction
Crown of Disgust, Wall of Repulsion
Crown of Disgust, Visions of Disgust
Crown of Rage, Fighting Words
Crown of Rage, Mindless Courage
Crown of Rage, Punishing Fury
Mantle of Fear, Incite Fear
Mantle of Fear, Incite Panic
Nomadic Step, Baleful Transposition
Psychic Assault, Mind Storm
Psychic Inquisition, Hammer of Inquisition
Psychic Inquisition, Forceful Query
Blind Spot talent

CHA
Crown of Despair, Crowned in Sorrow
Crown of Despair, Visions of Despair
Crown of Despair, Dolorous Mind
Crown of Disgust, Eye of Horror
Crown of Disgust, World of Horror
Crown of Rage, Primal Fury
Mantle of Awe, Center of Attention
Mantle of Fury, Overwhelming Fury
Mystic Charm talent

Edits:
1. Adjusted Soul Knife description. No change in rating.
2. Updated format of a few abilities. No change in ratings unless specified.
3. Enduring Invisibility upgraded from red to blue.
4. Upgraded Nomadic Arrow from Black to Blue.
5. Made adjustments found in this post:


That light blue on white/light green. wow...
Telling us to highlight the text is not a solution. At best it removes ALL the colors, making the whole rating system pointless. But it's ALSO obnoxious to highlight things on devices. Not everyone reads everything on the desktop all the time.

Otherwise. A good starting point for a guide. Psionics has always been a bit different though. So, unlike the standard magical classes that everyone is used to just using, actual usage cases/instructions would be helpful for the Mystic.

EDIT:
You are incorrect about the Mastery of Ice Discipline: Frozen Rain. Nowhere does it state, or even imply, that you repeat the damage every turn. It deals the damage on the round you start it. The rest of the concentration time only keeps those frozen characters locked down. You can tell it works this way because it says "As an action, a target that has its speed reduced can end the effect early..."

EDIT 2:
Actually you are wrong about a few more (more than I'm willing to type out here).

When an ability says:

On a failed save, a creature takes XdY damage, and is [condition]. On a successful save, a target takes half as much damage.

This means they DON'T suffer from [condition] on a successful save. You make these mistakes a few times, so you should go over all your disciplines again to correct them.

EDIT 3:
Mind Thrust is not like Eldritch Blast. It is like Firebolt, but without the fire.

There are two things that make Eldritch Blast stand out. The ability to modify it's behavior with invocations. And the fact that every d10 Blast is it's own attack against a target (which can all be different targets). The second one is arguably MUCH more important than the first, and is unique among cantrips. Mind Thrust does neither of these things.
6. Fixed Mastery of Force abilities under Grasp: Crush and Move. Ratings changed.
7. Force Mastery: Move (non-Grasp version) changed from green to blue.
8. Added in Saves Guide Section for brevity.

[carrdrivesyou]

Beacon: Bonus Action light.
Blade Meld: Good for sword and board melee builds.
Blind Spot: Good for stealth, but really isn’t that abusable.
Delusion: Minor Illusion is better, but this is more tactical for making one person seem insane.
Energy Beam: This doesn’t scale well, but you can pick what kind of damage it does. Useful at low levels, but quickly loses ground.
Light Step: Good for getting up from prone as it doesn’t cost you an action (just a bonus action), but you move 10 feet faster. Meh.
Mind Meld: Good for information sharing to prevent confusion. Could use this on a scout type to know what they saw. Also use on dungeon rats to learn the layout and where the traps are.
Mind Slam: Force Damage is nice, but you only get so many talents. If your GM allows retraining, I’d pick this at first and swap it later.
Mind Thrust: On par (sort of) with Fire Bolt. Just minus the fire.
Mystic Charm: This is a single round's worth of the Friends cantrip. short duration means you'll have to be quick and crafty, but no drawbacks makes it spam-able.
Mystic Hand: Mystic version of Mage Hand.
Psychic Hammer: Push someone with minor damage. Good for Jedi theme. Pairs well with Mastery of Force.

Alert: This fits a Jedi theme very well. Good choice here.
Athlete: You have other options available to you for mobility that outclass this by far.
Actor: Good for a Face, but I’d only suggest it in an RP heavy campaign.
Charger: Melee could see some use from this, others avoid.
Crossbow Expert: Personally, I’m not a fan, but this could see some use on a sort of wierd build.
Defensive Duelist: This would be nice for a low AC character, but there are better options. Poor mystic’s Shield.
Dual Wielder: If you’re going melee, you’re either two handed, or sword and board. Leave this one for the fighters.
Dungeon Delver: Crucial if you want to fill the rogue’s shoes. Otherwise, AVOID.
Durable: CON is always nice, and the recovery is ok. Not my first choice though.
Elemental Adept: You don’t really see much benefit from this. Small damage boost anyways. Pass.
Grappler: Combine this with the Focus from Mastery of Force, and you are Hulk Hogan.
Great Weapon Master: Essential for two handed meleers, but that’s all.
Healer: Get Psionic Restoration Instead.
Heavily Armored: Good for Melee Builds. Soul Knife and Avatar look no further.
Heavy Armor Master: There are better ways to spend a feat.
Inspiring Leader: Leave this to someone who focuses in CHA.
Keen Mind: This could be useful in a heavy RP game. No real mechanical boost though.
Lightly Armored: You already have it.
Linguist: Take Nomadic Mind if you need languages and versatility that much.
Lucky: This is great for anyone, any class, anywhere.
Mage Slayer: Decent for melee types. Especially if your DM throws a lot of magical crap at you.
Magic Initiate: This is surprisingly good for you, as it opens a lot of tools to you. Pick from the wizard list though.
Martial Adept: I can’t see where this would be useful, even for a melee type.
Medium Armor Master: You have better options.
Mobile: Be a high elf. Take Celerity. Take this feet. Be a ninja.
Moderately Armored: If you want medium armor and not be a Soul Knife or Avatar, here ya go.
Mounted Combatant: Leave it for the Paladin…
Observant: This is great for spies and faces.
Polearm Master: Good for two handed melee builds.
Resilient: good if you anticipate your DM has a certain monster up their sleeve.
Ritual Caster: This could get you some versatility in your toolbox. Again, pick from the wizard’s list.
Savage Attacker: I wouldn’t bother with this, even if you were a melee build.
Sentinel: Perfect for a lockdown build. [/COLOR]
Sharpshooter: Not for a mystic.
Shield Master: Not a bad way to mimic evasion. Especially if you pumped your DEX.
Skilled: See Nomadic Mind Discipline
Skulker: You have so many other ways to get these benefits. Pass.
Spell Sniper: This could be useful. Depends on your build. Magic Initiate is strictly better though.
Tavern Brawler: You trained your mind to move boulders, why would you take this?
Tough: Hit points are always nice. An Immortal with this feat would be quite tough.
War Caster: This is for spells. Those things you don't have. Pass.
Weapon Master: Not really sure why you would take this. I’m not sure why ANYONE would take this.

Barbarian: Splashing 3 levels of Barb really isn’t a bad idea. First Primal Path options are great!
Bard: 3 levels of bard for expertise and Jack of all trades makes a Nomad a solid build. Or 17 Bard, Mystic 3.
Cleric: You really don’t gain much here.
Druid: Another Wisdom Class. Pass.
Fighter: This could be useful for a 2 level splash. Would save a melee build on feats.
Monk: You can mimic everything a monk has to offer already. Why bother?
Paladin: This really doesn’t help ANY Mystic Build. Melee should cross class as fighters.
Ranger: Primeval Awareness is amazing, but that’s the only justification I could say for taking any levels here.
Rogue: Probably the easiest to multiclass into, because you only need 1 level. Your bonus actions are accounted for.
Sorcerer: If your DM lets you turn Sorcery points into Psi Points, Splash a few levels here for some longevity and utility. Otherwise, RED.
Warlock: warlock is interesting because a Bladelock Mystic with High Charisma could be VERY useful. You’d be pretty deadly on ANY rest.
Wizard /Bladesinger: I wouldn’t bother really. Take Magic Initiate and you should be fine. Bladesinger/Immortal pairs very well.


This thread is useful to consider all the mystic options. I posted what I have below as a separate thread, but thought it might be useful here since this is probably the home of most people interested in mystics.

So I have a couple of character concepts where the PC is seemingly a nobody, by-stander, servant, whatever. The PC is actually a Psion (mystic) whose Talents and Disciplines have no visible source or effects, such that no normal NPC would ever know or suspect the Psion. I've created this guide to help me and thought it might help you. Archetype powers, disciplines, and talents are all rated based on whether the PC Psion could be definitively pinned as the source of the effects. I took a very conservative approach to the ratings, since perhaps DMs would let NPCs suspect the PC at the slightest hint of a "power" being used.

Warning: This could totally hack off the DM and make Sorcerer's subtle spell metamagic seem pathetic.

Green: These powers have no visible effects and/or no way to tell the source of the power in normal settings. If Psion is visible and alone with a BBEG, it might be impossible to hide the source of these effects.
Black: Nothing necessarily RAW reveals the source of the effect. This will depend on role-playing, character choices about the power, or DM rulings.
Red: It is clear that the Psion is the origin of this effect perhaps because it originates at the Psion or changes the physical appearance of the Psion or maybe gives the PC superhuman abilities.

Telepathy: In a crowd, you are probably unnoticed.
Strength of Mind: Not detectable.
Potent Psionics: Target probably knows you are the source of the extra damage.
Consumptive Power: Affect the Psion physically, but maybe not visibly.
Psionic Mastery: No visible effect.
Psionic Body: Will have a noticeable effect on the physique.



Avatar:
Armor Training: No one knows this is Psionics.
Avatar of Battle: No one knows the source.
Avatar of Healing: No one knows the source.
Avatar of Speed: No one knows the source.

Awakened:
Awakened Talent: No one knows this is Psionics.
Psionic Investigation: Anyone watching figures you have some power--maybe a spell. If the Psion is alone this is Green.
Psionic Surge: No one knows the source.
Spectral Form: Your body changes.

Immortal:
Immortal durability: Maybe you are just extra quick or tough, but clearly harder to hit/damage.
Psionic Resilience: You are regaining HP, a physical change.
Surge of Health: Might make someone suspicious.
Immortal Will: Didn't we just kill him?

Nomad:
Breadth of Knowledge: Not usually detectable as Psionics.
Memory of One Thousand Steps: You teleported.
Superior Teleportation: You teleported.
Effortless Journey: You teleported.

Soul Knife:
Martial Training: No one knows this is Psionics.
Soul Knife: Your fists are knives.
Hone the Blade: No one knows this is Psionics.
Consumptive Knife: See Soul Knife.
Phantom Knife: See Soul Knife.

Wu Jen:
Hermit’s Study: No one knows this is Psionics.
Elemental Attunement: No one knows this is even happening.
Arcane Dabbler: Depends on spell selection. Probably red.
Elemental Mastery: A physical effect.




Adaptive Body
Focus: Not usually noticeable.
Environmental Adaptation: You touch someone.
Adaptive Shield: A physical effect.
Energy Adaptation: You touch someone.
Energy Immunity: You touch someone.

Aura Sight
Focus: No visible effect.
Assess Foe: No visible effect.
Read Moods: No visible effect.
View Aura: No visible effect.
Perceive the Unseen: No visible effect. Might suspicious that you can see everyone if you mention it.

Bestial Form
Focus: No visible effect.
Bestial Claws: You got claws.
Bestial Transformation: All of them have visible and/or physical effects. Perhaps Tough Hide could be hidden by good RP.

Brute Force
Focus: No visible effect.
Brute Strike: Extra damage visible.
Knock Back: Extra physical effect.
Mighty Leap: How did you jump 140 feet?
Feat of Strength: Hide with RP?

Celerity
Focus: Nothing more than Monk or some races might have.
Rapid Step: Too fast to hide.
Agile Defenses: Impressive, but could easily be hidden with good RP.
Blur of Motion: Invisible!
Surge of Speed: Physical effet.
Surge of Action: Might hide with RP. Kinda like Fighter at 5th or War Cleric 1.

Corrosive Metabolism
Focus: Would be evident that damage is reduced.
Corrosive Touch: Physical effect.
Venom Strike: Physical effect.
Acid Spray: Physical effect.
Breath of the Black Dragon: Physical effect.
Breath of the Green Dragon: Physical effect.

Crown of Despair
Focus: No visible effect.
Crowned in Sorrow: No visible effect.
Call to Inaction: You talked to your target.
Visions of Despair: No visible effect.
Dolorous Mind: No visible effect.

Crown of Disgust
Focus: Physical effect.
Eye of Horror: Target is avoiding you. Maybe you could RP an explanation.
Wall of Repulsion: No one knows the source of this wall.
Visions of Disgust: No one knows the source of this effect.
World of Horror: They are frightened of you.

Crown of Rage
Focus: They feel compelled to attack you. Can you RP this without them knowing the source of this feeling?
Primal Fury: No one knows the source of this effect.
Fighting Words: You talk to the target.
Mindless Courage: No one knows the source of this effect.
Punishing Fury: No one knows the source of this effect.

Diminution
Focus: No visible effect.
Miniature Form: Physical effect.
Toppling Shift: Physical effect.
Sudden Shift: Physical effect.
Microscopic Form: Maybe no one notices?

Giant Growth
Focus: Physical effect.
Ogre Form: Physical effect.
Giant Form: Physical effect.

Intellect Fortress
Focus: No visible effect.
Psychic Backlash: You affect an attacker.
Psychic Parry: Seems like everything happens in the mind.
Psychic Redoubt: No visible effect or source.

Iron Durability
Focus: Could easily RP this minor effect.
Iron Hide: Physical effect.
Steel Hide: Physical effect.
Iron Resistance: Physical effect.

Mantle of Awe
Focus: No visible effect.
Charming Presence: Charm clearly has a source.
Center of Attention: I think you could RP this.
Invoke Awe: You are giving orders.

Mantle of Command
Focus: No visible effect.
Coordinated Movement: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Commander’s Sight: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Command to Strike: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Strategic Mind: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Overwhelming Attack: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mantle of Courage
Focus: No visible source.
Incite Courage: No visible source.
Aura of Victory: [/B] How would anyone know the source of this effect?
[COLOR="#008000"]Pillar of Confidence: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mantle of Fear
Focus: No visible effect.
Incite Fear: Target knows it's you.
Unsettling Aura: Target knows it's you.
Incite Panic: Targets know it's you.

Mantle of Fury
Focus: No visible source.
Incite Fury: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Mindless Charge: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Aura of Bloodletting: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Overwhelming Fury: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mantle of Joy
Focus: No visible source.
Soothing Presence: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Comforting Aura: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Aura of Jubilation: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Beacon of Recovery: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Air
Focus: Physical effect.
Wind Step: Physical effect on you.
Wind Stream: Effect originates with you.
Cloak of Air: Physical effect on you.
Wind Form: Physical effect on you.
Misty Form: Physical effect on you.
Animate Air: It obeys your verbal commands.

Mastery of Fire
Focus: Noticeable reduction in damage.
Combustion: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Rolling Flame: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Detonation: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Fire Form: Physical effect on you.
Animate Fire: It obeys your verbal commands.

Mastery of Force
Focus: Could probably RP this to avoid suspicion.
Push: Appears to originate from you.
Move: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Inertial Armor: Physical effects are obvious.
Telekinetic Barrier: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Grasp: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Ice
Focus: Noticeable reduction in damage.
Ice Spike: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Ice Sheet: [/B] How would anyone know the source of this effect?
[COLOR="#ff0000"]Frozen Sanctuary: Physical effect.
Frozen Rain: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Ice Barrier: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Light and Darkness
Focus: No visible effect.
Darkness: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Light: Touch effect.
Shadow Beasts: They obey your verbal commands.
Radiant Beam: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Water
Focus: Physical effect.
Desiccate: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Watery Grasp: Appears to originate from you.
Water Whip: Appears to originate from you.
Water Breathing: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Water Sphere: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Animate Water: It obeys your verbal commands.

Mastery of Weather
Focus: Physical effect.
Cloud Steps: Seems awfully convenient that the stairs just appear in front of you.
Hungry Lightning: I suppose the lightning could come from above.
Wall of Clouds: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Whirlwind: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Lightning Leap: Appears to originate from you then you teleport.
Wall of Thunder: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Thunder Clap: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Wood and Earth
Focus: Might be able to RP this minor effect.
Animate Weapon: You are holding the weapon.
Warp Weapon: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Warp Armor: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Wall of Wood: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Armored Form: Physical effect
Animate Earth: You verbally command.

Nomadic Arrow
Focus: Lucky roll? Good shot?
Speed Dart: Originates from you.
Seeking Missile: Lucky roll? Good shot?
Faithful Archer: Originates from you.

Nomadic Chameleon
Focus: No detectable effect.
Chameleon: Are you just good at hiding?
Step from Sight: Are you just good at hiding? Making party is not traceable to you.
Enduring Invisibility: How can they know what happened to you?

Nomadic Mind
Focus: No one knows how you got these abilities.
Wandering Mind: Could RP this.
Find Creature: Depends on how you RP this.
Item Lore: No visible effect.
Psychic Speech: No visible effect.
Wandering Eye: No visible effect.
Phasing Eye: No visible effect.

Nomadic Step
Focus: Teleport
Step of a Dozen Paces: Teleport.
Nomadic Anchor: Teleport.
Defensive Step: Teleport.
There and Back Again: [/B] Teleport.
[COLOR="#FF0000"]Transposition: Teleport.
Baleful Transposition: Teleport.
Phantom Caravan: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Nomad’s Gate: Teleport.

Precognition
Focus: RP no problem.
Precognitive Hunch: RP this.
All Around Sight: Physical effect.
Danger Sense: RP this.
Victory Before Battle: RP this.

Psionic Restoration
Focus: Physical effect.
Mend Wound: Physical effect.
Restore Health: Physical effect.
Restore Life: Physical effect.
Restore Vigor: Physical effect.

Psionic Weapon
Focus: Your weapon is enhanced.
Ethereal Weapon: Your weapon is enhanced.
Lethal Strike: Your weapon is enhanced.
Augmented Weapon: Your weapon is enhanced.

Psychic Assault
Focus: Undetectable.
Psionic Blast: Undetectable.
Ego Whip: Undetectable.
Id Insinuation: Undetectable.
Psychic Blast: Originates from you.
Psychic Crush: No one knows it's you.

Psychic Disruption
Focus: No visible effect.
Distracting Haze: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.
Daze: No one knows it's you.
Mind Storm: Untrackable.

Psychic Inquisition
Focus: No one knows.
Hammer of Inquisition: No one knows.
Forceful Query: You talk to the target.
Ransack Mind: You concentrate for an hour? Seems suspicious.
Phantom Idea: You concentrate for an hour? Seems suspicious.

Psychic Phantoms
Focus: No one knows.
Distracting Figment: No one knows it's you.
Phantom Foe: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.
Phantom Betrayal: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.
Phantom Riches: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.

Telepathic Contact
Focus: RP this.
Exacting Query: You talk to the subject.
Occluded Mind: In a crowd, no one would know who is asking.
Broken Will: In a crowd, no one would know who is commanding.
Psychic Grip: What's wrong with him? *shrugs shoulders* I don't know.
Psychic Domination: Concentration, but no range limit once the creature has been targeted.

Third Eye
Focus: No visible effect.
Tremorsense: No visible effect.
Unwavering Eye: No visible effect.
Piercing Sight: No visible effect.
Truesight: No visible effect.




Beacon Physical effect.
Blade meld Physical effect.
Blind spot RP this.
Delusion No visible effect.
Energy Beam RAW the beam doesn't need to originate with you.
Light step RP this.
Mind Meld No visible source.
Mind Meld No visible source.
Mystic Charm Charmed by you.
Mystic Hand No visible source.
Psychic Hammer No visible source.



I think this has covered about everything. Obviously, I will have to tweak this if the Mystic ever gets published (crossing my fingers here). But that will be another day. Please feel free to comment below and point out any errors I have made. I hope this helps Playgrounders!

Edits:
1. Adjusted Description of Mind Thrust, also re-rated. Went from Blue to Green
2. War caster changed from Green to Red, due to it not affecting disciplines.
3. Added Bladesinger subclass for multiclassing into Wizard.
4. Added Mystic Charm Talent.
5. Added in some input from jleonardwv

[SharkForce]

imo hill dwarf should be at least black. wisdom is always a useful stat (it boosts useful skills and very useful saves). constitution is always good, for hit points and saves. bonus hit points are always good. the basic dwarf features are reasonably nice. yeah, it isn't amazing, but everything it has is at least something you probably want, even if it is isn't the thing you want most.

[Jerrykhor]

Why is Enduring Invisibility rated as red? Its basically Greater Invisibility on a bonus action, of course it affects only one target.

[furby076]

Thanks for putting this together.

Btw, a purely situational trick.... run, jump over a volcano and baleful transposition. If the enemy saves, use bonus action to there and back again. The rules say you "can" go back to your start point...can does not mean must

[Harrumphreys]

Nice guide, it’s no easy feat to review a class as complex as the Mystic.

Do you have any further ideas for how an Awakened Mystic may use Psionic Investigation?

[carrdrivesyou]

Why is Enduring Invisibility rated as red? Its basically Greater Invisibility on a bonus action, of course it affects only one target.

The reason is that there is an ability in this tree already that targets the entire party and costs fewer points. Good point. I overlooked that. I have changed it to reflect the point you made. Thanks yo!


Nice guide, it’s no easy feat to review a class as complex as the Mystic.

Do you have any further ideas for how an Awakened Mystic may use Psionic Investigation?

Thanks! This was no small task to review, put together, and then format. Took me a few days.
Think about the movie Clue. You could tell who killed Mr. Body in ten minutes. You could discover who killed who with the weapon for focusing for ten minutes.
Wanna know if there is a trap on a door, just touch and focus on the walls near it. It's an almost broken ability that could give you endless spoilers.
Just use sparingly or else you will drive your DM insane lol.


Thanks for putting this together.

Btw, a purely situational trick.... run, jump over a volcano and baleful transposition. If the enemy saves, use bonus action to there and back again. The rules say you "can" go back to your start point...can does not mean must

I had thought of situations like this, unfortunately, these come up a bit rarely. I don't think you'll be fighting every battle in an open volcano, or near a cliff. It becomes even more useless in aquatic campaigns. So this is why I rated it this way :shrug:


imo hill dwarf should be at least black. wisdom is always a useful stat (it boosts useful skills and very useful saves). constitution is always good, for hit points and saves. bonus hit points are always good. the basic dwarf features are reasonably nice. yeah, it isn't amazing, but everything it has is at least something you probably want, even if it is isn't the thing you want most.

Good points. I think I overlooked the bonus to hit points. On further review, they would make decent Immortals, or possibly a Soul Knife. I have edited them to be Black to reflect their appropriate potential.

[Harrumphreys]

Ace. Any chance that you could cast a critical eye over any of the exotic player races in Sword Coast or Volos? Maybe even the various UAs?

I am playing a Zendikar Vampire Mystic currently. The ability to create Zombie Null followers is great fun, and synergises well with Telepathic instructions and various party buffs.

[carrdrivesyou]

Ace. Any chance that you could cast a critical eye over any of the exotic player races in Sword Coast or Volos? Maybe even the various UAs?

I am playing a Zendikar Vampire Mystic currently. The ability to create Zombie Null followers is great fun, and synergises well with Telepathic instructions and various party buffs.

Sounds good to me. I will add those to the Guide when I get access to them. Gonna be getting those sources soon as I got the money. I can start on the UA races today or tomorrow though. :D

[Chunkosaurus]

A quick note for the Nomadic Arrow focus. It doesn't meant that you can't ever benefit from advantage. It means that if you were supposed to be at disadvantage but were moved to neutral by the focus then you can't then go to advantage(if you had advantage from something). If you were neutral you could still benefit from advantage.

[Prophes0r]

That light blue on white/light green. wow...
Telling us to highlight the text is not a solution. At best it removes ALL the colors, making the whole rating system pointless. But it's ALSO obnoxious to highlight things on devices. Not everyone reads everything on the desktop all the time.

Otherwise. A good starting point for a guide. Psionics has always been a bit different though. So, unlike the standard magical classes that everyone is used to just using, actual usage cases/instructions would be helpful for the Mystic.

EDIT:
You are incorrect about the Mastery of Ice Discipline: Frozen Rain. Nowhere does it state, or even imply, that you repeat the damage every turn. It deals the damage on the round you start it. The rest of the concentration time only keeps those frozen characters locked down. You can tell it works this way because it says "As an action, a target that has its speed reduced can end the effect early..."

EDIT 2:
Actually you are wrong about a few more (more than I'm willing to type out here).

When an ability says:

On a failed save, a creature takes XdY damage, and is [condition]. On a successful save, a target takes half as much damage.

This means they DON'T suffer from [condition] on a successful save. You make these mistakes a few times, so you should go over all your disciplines again to correct them.

EDIT 3:
Mind Thrust is not like Eldritch Blast. It is like Firebolt, but without the fire.

There are two things that make Eldritch Blast stand out. The ability to modify it's behavior with invocations. And the fact that every d10 Blast is it's own attack against a target (which can all be different targets). The second one is arguably MUCH more important than the first, and is unique among cantrips. Mind Thrust does neither of these things.

EDIT 4:
RAW, WarCaster does nothing for Mystics. "Psionics is a special form of magic use, distinct from spellcasting."
First. Since you aren't concentrating on a "spell" you don't have advantage on the save.
Second. Psionics don't require components, or even free hands. So the second part is moot anyway.
Third. Psionics still aren't spells. And you don't "cast" them. So you cannot use them instead of an opportunity attack.
Now, whether or not your DM feels it should apply anyway is up to them. But by DEFAULT, it does not.

EDIT 5:
You call out Druid as a poor multiclassing choice. However, there is one HUGE thing you don't account for. Wildshape says you "...can't cast spells...". But (as I pointed out in edit 4) Psionics are NOT spells, and you don't "cast" them. They have no verbal, somatic, or material components. You just think about the effect and it happens. By that logic, you can freely use disciplines, talents, focus, or change focus while in wild shape.

Whether it's a few levels of druid so you can become a rat in the corner that no one notices is force choking a dude. Or a dip in Mystic to add a few tricks with focus. You can get yourself an always on (bonus action to swap) +1 AC, +5 foot reach, advantage on Athletics checks, advantage on Stealth checks, +10ft walking speed, Darkvision, or even weird situational bonuses depending on what disciplines you choose.

You can even do silly things. Like Wildshape into a Bear/Dire Wolf. Then focus on Giant Growth to get +5ft reach. THEN spend 2pp as a bonus action to become tiny with Diminuation: Miniature Form for 10 minutes (concentration). 1ft tall with a 10ft reach...sure?

The telepathy class feature let's you speak to people normally, even when you are a Wildshaped.

We also already know how alternate AC calculation works while in Wildshape by the way it interacts with Barbarian/Monk Unarmed Defense. You pick the most beneficial BASE AC, then apply situational modifiers. This means the second part of Immortal Durability in the Order of Immortal will work while Wildshaped since your beast won't be wearing armor or using a shield. It is unlikely to be a large AC boost, but it is something.

[wthrift]

EDIT 5:
You call out Druid as a poor multiclassing choice. However, there is one HUGE thing you don't account for. Wildshape says you "...can't cast spells...". But (as I pointed out in edit 4) Psionics are NOT spells, and you don't "cast" them. They have no verbal, somatic, or material components. You just think about the effect and it happens. By that logic, you can freely use disciplines, talents, focus, or change focus while in wild shape.


Someone asked Jeremy Crawford about this on twitter, because as you point out it would be extremely broken. He says you should treat psionics as spellcasting.

[furby076]

Someone asked Jeremy Crawford about this on twitter, because as you point out it would be extremely broken. He says you should treat psionics as spellcasting.

Hold up, do you mean he said "you should treat psionics as spellcasting for the purpose of shapeshifting", or treat psionics as spellcasting period? Because the Mystic v3 guide, as well as Crawford, have said Psionics is Magic, but psionics is NOT spellcasting. This would be a dramatic shift of psionics

[wthrift]

Just for the purposes of shapeshifting. Sorry, I can’t post links yet I haven’t made enough posts.

[Mortis_Elrod]

So a few notes besides that loving this guide.

For Mastery of the Force

Inertial Armor is still good for melee builds specifically soul knives. They are already dex based and and not having the cap on it that medium armor would bring is nice and no light armor is 14 base. on Immortals your looking at probably dex based anyway and want that shield so 16+dex is probably better than your con+dex+shield (14 con is about what you might have with 16 int/dex). Also not needing armor or a weapon on a soul knife is a big advantage if for some reason you start with nothing in a campaign. Situational I know but, considering this it is more likely black or orange for melee than red.


For Move and crush. These are used while you use Grasp. Its essentially your very own force choke. Use move to bring them really high up in case they make their grapple check. Use crush to deal damage for for pp and choke the life out of the enemy. Also very cooool.

[leftwordmovemen]

RAW, WarCaster does nothing for Mystics. "Psionics is a special form of magic use, distinct from spellcasting."
First. Since you aren't concentrating on a "spell" you don't have advantage on the save.
Second. Psionics don't require components, or even free hands. So the second part is moot anyway.
Third. Psionics still aren't spells. And you don't "cast" them. So you cannot use them instead of an opportunity attack.
Now, whether or not your DM feels it should apply anyway is up to them. But by DEFAULT, it does not.



From page 9 of the mystic document under Duration, it says concentrating on disciplines follow the same rules as concentrating on spells.

"Some options require concentration to maintain their effects. This requirement is noted with “conc.” after the option’s psi point cost. The “conc.” notation is followed by the maximum duration of the concentration. For example, if an option says “conc., 1 min.,” you can concentrate on its effect for up to 1 minute. Concentrating on a discipline follows the same rules as concentrating on a spell. This rule means you can’t concentrate on a spell and a discipline at the same time, nor can you concentrate on two disciplines at the same time. See chapter 10, “Spellcasting,” in the Player’s Handbook for how concentration works"

[Mortis_Elrod]

From page 9 of the mystic document under Duration, it says concentrating on disciplines follow the same rules as concentrating on spells.

"Some options require concentration to maintain their effects. This requirement is noted with “conc.” after the option’s psi point cost. The “conc.” notation is followed by the maximum duration of the concentration. For example, if an option says “conc., 1 min.,” you can concentrate on its effect for up to 1 minute. Concentrating on a discipline follows the same rules as concentrating on a spell. This rule means you can’t concentrate on a spell and a discipline at the same time, nor can you concentrate on two disciplines at the same time. See chapter 10, “Spellcasting,” in the Player’s Handbook for how concentration works"

yeah nothing here says that it works with Warcaster. Warcaster doesn't change the rules on spellcasting or concentration, they provide an exception when it comes to spells specifically.

[furby076]

Just for the purposes of shapeshifting. Sorry, I can’t post links yet I haven’t made enough posts.
Fair and thanks!

From balance perspective, makes sense. From thematics, doesnt make sense...unless you say, merging with animal spirits inserts the wild into your mind, clouding your psionic focus

[carrdrivesyou]

That light blue on white/light green. wow...
Telling us to highlight the text is not a solution. At best it removes ALL the colors, making the whole rating system pointless. But it's ALSO obnoxious to highlight things on devices. Not everyone reads everything on the desktop all the time.

Otherwise. A good starting point for a guide. Psionics has always been a bit different though. So, unlike the standard magical classes that everyone is used to just using, actual usage cases/instructions would be helpful for the Mystic.

EDIT:
You are incorrect about the Mastery of Ice Discipline: Frozen Rain. Nowhere does it state, or even imply, that you repeat the damage every turn. It deals the damage on the round you start it. The rest of the concentration time only keeps those frozen characters locked down. You can tell it works this way because it says "As an action, a target that has its speed reduced can end the effect early..."

EDIT 2:
Actually you are wrong about a few more (more than I'm willing to type out here).

When an ability says:

On a failed save, a creature takes XdY damage, and is [condition]. On a successful save, a target takes half as much damage.

This means they DON'T suffer from [condition] on a successful save. You make these mistakes a few times, so you should go over all your disciplines again to correct them.

EDIT 3:
Mind Thrust is not like Eldritch Blast. It is like Firebolt, but without the fire.

There are two things that make Eldritch Blast stand out. The ability to modify it's behavior with invocations. And the fact that every d10 Blast is it's own attack against a target (which can all be different targets). The second one is arguably MUCH more important than the first, and is unique among cantrips. Mind Thrust does neither of these things.


I agree with you up to this point. And I will make the necessary adjustments. However, I feel that my calling out of Druid being a poor choice is accurate, as it states in the playtest box that this class isn't ready for MC anyways. While you are correct that you could possibly shapeshift and still use your psionics, I don't think its RAI. RAW, definitely though. We will see when the final version is released. Could be a long wait though. And I am sure there will be several other changes made by that point.

As for formatting, the site won't accept a different color than the one I have already used. I tried adjusting it several times and it just wont work for me. :/

Thanks for the input!

[Drascin]

As someone who is playing a Mystic right now, your guide kinda cements a lot of things I was already feeling. A lot of the options for disciplines ae really not balanced with each other, feels like.

My idea was to go straight Wu-Jen discipline-wise, make a hermit kind of thing, very Avatar-y, with domain over the elements and stuff. RP-wise, start with the basic elements and work my way up to the more composite ones like Light or Ice. But Ice Mastery is ridiculous and tempting, while, say, Mastery of Fire is very much just a thing you get for Detonate (also Fire Form if you're melee, but I have a 10 Str gnome).

What I don't have the slightest idea about is items and equipment, though. I have legitimately no idea what to suggest to my GM for kinds of items I'd like on a blasty element Mystic.

[carrdrivesyou]

As someone who is playing a Mystic right now, your guide kinda cements a lot of things I was already feeling. A lot of the options for disciplines ae really not balanced with each other, feels like.

My idea was to go straight Wu-Jen discipline-wise, make a hermit kind of thing, very Avatar-y, with domain over the elements and stuff. RP-wise, start with the basic elements and work my way up to the more composite ones like Light or Ice. But Ice Mastery is ridiculous and tempting, while, say, Mastery of Fire is very much just a thing you get for Detonate (also Fire Form if you're melee, but I have a 10 Str gnome).

What I don't have the slightest idea about is items and equipment, though. I have legitimately no idea what to suggest to my GM for kinds of items I'd like on a blasty element Mystic.

Glad you like the guide. It took a while to put together, and I definitely am going to have to make adjustments as time goes by.

I definitely agree that while good for flavor options, the mechanics of the Wu Jen disciplines are a bit unbalanced. Some (main Ice) are powerful, while others (Light and Darkness) aren't terribly strong. They are good options, just not on the same power scale it would seem.

As for equipment, it really depends on your build. My favorite for Immortals are the Bracers of Defense. Very useful. Other useful items would be just about anything that would increase your versatility or expand your toolbox (Decanter of Endless Water, Flying Carpet, etc.). I'm about to start a new Mystic, and my DM made a custom item that restored 1d4 PP per day. I thought that was pretty cool. It does seem to me though that most of the magic items and feats listed in the sourcebooks so far are aimed mostly at casters or martial types. The Mystic doesn't necessarily fit into either of those slots. It's a bit awkward really. I am hoping that when the Mystic DOES get published, it will be accompanied by Psionic feats and items, not to mention a few more talents.

[sambojin]

I know the class is UA, and so isn't meant to be multiclassed, but it's one of the most powerful one lvl dips any class can take. So absolutely everything in the MC section deserves at least an average or better rating.

Why?

+3 AC for two hours a day, with no concentration, that's why.

Bestial Form/Beastial Transformation (Tough Hide) and (focus) Iron Durability gives you that. And if there's one thing that shouldn't be handed out lightly, it's +3 armour. It just skews normal things too much, in a have/have-not way for making encounters balanced.

You can get more with the dip than just that, but +3AC for at least two encounters a day is enough to make it too good for most tables. Which is why it's a good dip for literally every class, early or late. And every class is a good dip for even a badly optimized Mystic. Because even bad dips are good with a minimum of two hours of +3AC, so you can dip as deep as you want away from Mystic at any time.

[clem]

Rock gnomes do give a +2 to the primary stat and a +1 to Con, which isn't really bad for any class. Seems to me they should be at least blue.

[Drascin]

Glad you like the guide. It took a while to put together, and I definitely am going to have to make adjustments as time goes by.

I definitely agree that while good for flavor options, the mechanics of the Wu Jen disciplines are a bit unbalanced. Some (main Ice) are powerful, while others (Light and Darkness) aren't terribly strong. They are good options, just not on the same power scale it would seem.

As for equipment, it really depends on your build. My favorite for Immortals are the Bracers of Defense. Very useful. Other useful items would be just about anything that would increase your versatility or expand your toolbox (Decanter of Endless Water, Flying Carpet, etc.). I'm about to start a new Mystic, and my DM made a custom item that restored 1d4 PP per day. I thought that was pretty cool. It does seem to me though that most of the magic items and feats listed in the sourcebooks so far are aimed mostly at casters or martial types. The Mystic doesn't necessarily fit into either of those slots. It's a bit awkward really. I am hoping that when the Mystic DOES get published, it will be accompanied by Psionic feats and items, not to mention a few more talents.

I don't really have a "build" as such. I just made a sort of hermit gnome with the points I had. Rock Gnome, Outlander background, scores like
STR 10
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 16
WIS 14
CHA 10
so as you can see trying to go into melee with this lady here seems kind of a terrible idea. Therefore, blasting it is. And so I got no idea what, beyond better armor, this character would even want that would not be better given to the rest of the party (like, let's be realistic, if we find int-enhancing stuff, it's probably going to the wizard, for example. Wizard is stronger and gets more power up per point of int).

[carrdrivesyou]

I don't really have a "build" as such. I just made a sort of hermit gnome with the points I had. Rock Gnome, Outlander background, scores like
STR 10
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 16
WIS 14
CHA 10
so as you can see trying to go into melee with this lady here seems kind of a terrible idea. Therefore, blasting it is. And so I got no idea what, beyond better armor, this character would even want that would not be better given to the rest of the party (like, let's be realistic, if we find int-enhancing stuff, it's probably going to the wizard, for example. Wizard is stronger and gets more power up per point of int).

I have found that items that increase utility are the best items to aim to have on just about any mystic build. Bracers of Armor are good, as are decanter's of endless water, and flying brooms. Really, the Mystic doesn't need much, although I am hoping to see some psionic focused items released alongside the class at publication.


Rock gnomes do give a +2 to the primary stat and a +1 to Con, which isn't really bad for any class. Seems to me they should be at least blue.

You are correct. I have adjusted the race as such. Good call!


I know the class is UA, and so isn't meant to be multiclassed, but it's one of the most powerful one lvl dips any class can take. So absolutely everything in the MC section deserves at least an average or better rating.

Why?

+3 AC for two hours a day, with no concentration, that's why.

Bestial Form/Beastial Transformation (Tough Hide) and (focus) Iron Durability gives you that. And if there's one thing that shouldn't be handed out lightly, it's +3 armour. It just skews normal things too much, in a have/have-not way for making encounters balanced.

You can get more with the dip than just that, but +3AC for at least two encounters a day is enough to make it too good for most tables. Which is why it's a good dip for literally every class, early or late. And every class is a good dip for even a badly optimized Mystic. Because even bad dips are good with a minimum of two hours of +3AC, so you can dip as deep as you want away from Mystic at any time.

I rated the MC section of this guide with the idea of making a primarily Mystic based character with splashes of other classes; not the other way around. You do make good points, however. +3 AC for ONE encounter a day without concentration can be quite a boon. Especially considering that ANY big stupid fighter could pick it up (No INT requirements).

There are other simple and powerful benefits you could gain from splashing into Mystic, but as you said, it is still in UA. I will definitely have to revise this guide when the class reaches publication, but until then, MC mystics are a shot in the dark, and YMMV.

[minscandboo]

I like to think that stout halfling would be blue given how incredibly valuable lucky is and the feat that lets you share it with an ally. Your fighters especially would love having you within 30 feet to ensure that 1's become almost a thing of the past. 2 dex and 1 con shore up your defensive stats allowing you to maybe spend more on Int. It might be a niche build though I guess. But so far I am having a great time with mine. An immortal halfling is a real wild card. I even have a feat that lets me force an opponent to reroll an attack per short rest. Another opportunity to render a crit null, maybe even make it a miss.

[Prophes0r]

After playing the Mystic for a bit, I realized a few specific things.


Remember that you can replace your 2 'free' disciplines that come from your Mystic Order. And nothing says they have to be from the same order.
You can swap out a discipline at EVERY level. Not just ones where you learn NEW disciplines.
There are EXACTLY 2 things a Mystic can do that require attack rolls. EVERYTHING else is a save.
Bestial Form: Bestial Claws - This is a Melee Weapon Attack that uses your Discipline Attack Modifier.
Mastery of Wood and Earth: Animate Weapon - This is also a Melee Weapon Attack that uses your Discipline Attack Modifier. BUT you have a range of 30ft with it. Can anyone think of a way to exploit the ability to make a MWA at range?
Psychic Assault: Focus is ONLY good for Mind Thrust. All other Talents do elemental or force damage.
Mystics are SURPRISINGLY good at walls. Well, the ones that are worth casting at least. 3PP for
The Elementals that a Mystic summons are better in almost every way than 'normal' spell ones.
You directly control them, no verbal commands to be overheard or misinterpreted.
They dissipate if you lose concentration. So you don't have to worry about them turning on you. (The only thing you can't do is summon multiple elementals and release them to cause chaos.)

Also. The Wu Jen Disciplines are some of the BEST disciplines.
Mastery of Air is FULL of great stuff, including Cloak of Air which is one of the best defensive buffs in the game.
Mastery of Wood and Earth is also FANTASTIC. It is the clear winner of the two disciplines with a +1 AC focus.
It has the BEST wall at low levels. 100hp per 5ft section is GREAT. And 60ft length is exactly enough to box in 4 medium guys standing in a square in their own cell. That way they can't even help each other climb those 15ft high walls.
It has a moderately useful attack debuff
A moderately useful defensive debuff
A decent (though not great) defensive buff. It doesn't compete with Cloak of Air. But if you are taking B/P/S from a source that isn't rolling attacks then it might be better.
And an elemental

[furby076]

I am a bit disappointed that mystic mind control kind of sucks. No Dominate person/monster type abilities. You would think the mystic apex ability is mind affecting

[Ovarwa]

Hi,

There is possibly one great reason to MC Wizard:

A Wu Jen can use pp to cast any wizard spell he can cast. A Wu Jen with the right magic items can cast wizard spells because of those items. But lots of these items require you to be an actual wizard, which one level of wizard grants. Now, use pp rather than a charge to cast those spells...

Some GMs might not allow, of course!

Anyway,

Ken

[Drascin]

After playing the Mystic for a bit, I realized a few specific things.

*snip*

as another person currently playing a Mystic (still not terribly high level, mind) Wu Jen is absolutely Captain Walls. Its blasting is so-so, but its walling ability is great. And it's clearly intended, since it seems to get its walls at a lower level than other classes - Wood Wall is very comparable to plant growth, and it comes in a full spell level earlier, which is so good. That said, you speak as though you could make a divided square with it, while I thought it was a linear thing.

A lot of the Wu-Jen discipline self-buffs, though, are amusingly enough not quite as useful for a pure Wu-Jen, because generally speaking I find that since I'm all the way on the back shooting people with fire and water and laying walls, generally what I eat are area attacks, so things like Cloak of Air and Fire Form are of relatively niche utility to me compared to using concentration to keep other spells going.

Cloak of Air would be absolutely invaluable for someone who was playing a more gishy Mystic, though. But for my current character, I find myself more wishing I could put it on the Fighter or Ranger.

[sightlessrealit]

Cloak of Air would be absolutely invaluable for someone who was playing a more gishy Mystic, though. But for my current character, I find myself more wishing I could put it on the Fighter or Ranger.
I play a Immortal Mystic/Open Hand Monk Gestalt and I can say Cloak of Air is insanely useful.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Played a soul knife. Got to say inertial armor + cloak of air is really good.

[Regitnui]

What about the Eberron UA races? You seem to have left them out.

[carrdrivesyou]

After playing the Mystic for a bit, I realized a few specific things.
Bestial Form: Bestial Claws - This is a Melee Weapon Attack that uses your Discipline Attack Modifier.
Mastery of Wood and Earth: Animate Weapon - This is also a Melee Weapon Attack that uses your Discipline Attack Modifier. BUT you have a range of 30ft with it. Can anyone think of a way to exploit the ability to make a MWA at range?[/LIST]

It has the BEST wall at low levels. 100hp per 5ft section is GREAT. And 60ft length is exactly enough to box in 4 medium guys standing in a square in their own cell. That way they can't even help each other climb those 15ft high walls.


1. There is also an ability called Brute Strike in the Brute Force Discipline that, as a BONUS action, adds 1d6 damage per pp spent on the next attack. Adding that to the Bestial claws d10s makes this a massively damaging combo.

2. My current GM said that the walls HAD to be in straight lines and could not be shaped. Is this just DM fiat or is this really open to interpretation?


I am a bit disappointed that mystic mind control kind of sucks. No Dominate person/monster type abilities. You would think the mystic apex ability is mind affecting

I think they have wrapped that all into neat packages with the Mantle and Crown disciplines. Pretty interestingly done, but definitely not as straightforward as in previous editions.

[sightlessrealit]

I am a bit disappointed that mystic mind control kind of sucks. No Dominate person/monster type abilities. You would think the mystic apex ability is mind affecting

The Telepathic Contact Disapline is where you get Dominate Monster from.

[Telwar]

The Telepathic Contact Disapline is where you get Dominate Monster from.

Yup. There're even two versions, Psychic Domination, which is a 7-pt concentration power, so you can concentrate on something with a low Int save and using it as its own enemy, and Broken Will, a 5-pt instant non-concentration, so you can do MC if you're concentrating on something (like, say, Cloak of Air), and just want to have the brute generate opportunity attacks and skip through land mines.

Making redneck treants prance through the cleric's Blade Barrier and your Wall of Thunder...that's just awesome.


(Note that this does kind of blow through power points fast, so it better damn well be effective!)

[CloakedLight]

Under Mastery of the Force it states that Crush and Move are actions you can take if you use Grasp. They are not their own options granted by Mastery of the Force.

Grasp (3 psi; conc., 1 min.). You attempt to grasp a creature in telekinetic energy and hold it captive. As an action, choose one creature you can see within 60 feet of you. The target must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be grappled by you until your concentration ends or until the target leaves your reach, which is 60 feet for this grapple.

The grappled target can escape by succeeding on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by your psionic ability plus your proficiency bonus. When a target attempts to escape in this way, you can spend psi points to boost your check, abiding by your psi limit. You gain a +1 bonus per psi point spent. While a target is grappled in this manner, you create one of the following effects as an action:

Crush (1–7 psi). The target takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage per psi point spent.
Move (1–7 psi). You move the target up to 5 feet per psi point spent. You can move it in the air and hold it there. It falls if the grapple ends.

[carrdrivesyou]

Under Mastery of the Force it states that Crush and Move are actions you can take if you use Grasp. They are not their own options granted by Mastery of the Force.

Grasp (3 psi; conc., 1 min.). You attempt to grasp a creature in telekinetic energy and hold it captive. As an action, choose one creature you can see within 60 feet of you. The target must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be grappled by you until your concentration ends or until the target leaves your reach, which is 60 feet for this grapple.

The grappled target can escape by succeeding on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by your psionic ability plus your proficiency bonus. When a target attempts to escape in this way, you can spend psi points to boost your check, abiding by your psi limit. You gain a +1 bonus per psi point spent. While a target is grappled in this manner, you create one of the following effects as an action:

Crush (1–7 psi). The target takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage per psi point spent.
Move (1–7 psi). You move the target up to 5 feet per psi point spent. You can move it in the air and hold it there. It falls if the grapple ends.

Very well caught. I tend to miss small details like this. Thanks for pointing this out to me!


The Telepathic Contact Disapline is where you get Dominate Monster from.

This is true, but they get a save each round, and at most, it lasts for a minute, all while tying up your concentration. Personally, I think the Mantle and Crown Disciplines grant better benefits in the long run, despite being more specific. Just my opinion though, and depending on your game, YMMV. :D


What about the Eberron UA races? You seem to have left them out.

I'll get right on it! :) I hadn't realized they had put out Ebberon UA at all.

[Carlos Barreto]

Mastery of Force
Move: Throw boulders and even the barbarian (yes, you can throw other people, they aren’t worn or carried by a person) at the enemy. This is amazing!
Telekinetic Barrier: Not a bad barrier, but it’s kinda weak. Good news is, you can layer it.


While the Barbarian is not being carried or worn (?) by a person, the Barbarian (or anyone else) is a Creature, not an Object. The power says "Choose one object you can see...". If Move: was intended to be used in people, it should say "creature" as well.

That said, I don't think it would qualify for green rating in your system.

And I don't see how Telekinetic Barrier can be layed. What am I missing here?

In the end, I think that Inertial Armor is the only saving grace of this Discipline. I'm not sure if it's worthy a precious Discipline choice.

[Telwar]

This is true, but they get a save each round, and at most, it lasts for a minute, all while tying up your concentration. Personally, I think the Mantle and Crown Disciplines grant better benefits in the long run, despite being more specific. Just my opinion though, and depending on your game, YMMV. :D

It's amazing how many things don't have good Int saves, and are big, strong, and hit hard. Telepathic Contact is really about tactical control. Taking one of their bruisers' actions onto its own side is useful as hell.

Obviously, it shouldn't be your only schtick, because that gets boring as hell, and it's a good plan to vary your saves up anyway.


I'll get right on it! :) I hadn't realized they had put out Ebberon UA at all.

To be fair, WotC probably didn't remember that either. :D

[Regitnui]

The changeling's ability is not polymorph as the spell, but to turn into a different humanoid race. RAI, it's supposed to be cosmetic. RAW, yeah. Broken.

[carrdrivesyou]

The changeling's ability is not polymorph as the spell, but to turn into a different humanoid race. RAI, it's supposed to be cosmetic. RAW, yeah. Broken.

This would need some SERIOUS clarification statements in the ability description before publication. But I get your point. :)


While the Barbarian is not being carried or worn (?) by a person, the Barbarian (or anyone else) is a Creature, not an Object. The power says "Choose one object you can see...". If Move: was intended to be used in people, it should say "creature" as well.

That said, I don't think it would qualify for green rating in your system.

And I don't see how Telekinetic Barrier can be layed. What am I missing here?

In the end, I think that Inertial Armor is the only saving grace of this Discipline. I'm not sure if it's worthy a precious Discipline choice.

Good catch on Move, I'll knock it down a step. That makes sense to me.

As for Barrier, I was under the impression that walls can be shaped. As with the Wall of Fire spell, you can make it into a ring or a line, I don't see why a person couldn't shape it into other things as well. I rated it with this in mind, same as the other walls the Mystic has (quite a few!). Inertial Armor is nice, but it's only +1 better than mage armor. It really depends on your playstyle. Captain Walls-a-Lot likely won't need armor. And Blaster types can hang back in their light armor. Most melee builds will get Medium armor anyways. But the low cost and long duration (8 hours at 1st level?) it really is nice in the early game. You could spend your gold elsewhere. It also stacks with Bracers of Defense. Add a high DEX and you can be pretty tanky. Obviously not as tough as the fighter in full plate and a shield, but at low levels, you may find yourself in more uncomfortable positions.

[Fontanapink]

Hello,
First of all, great guide!!! I love the mystic and this guide is well thought. I only have a question about your rating of Exacting Query, in the Telepathic Contact discipline. In it, you rate it red and say the following:

"Exacting Query: You could just yell at them. Or I don’t know… TALK to them?"

I think you are misinterpreting what Exacting Query is.. or maybe I am. In the file it says:


As an action, you target one creature you can communicate with via telepathy. The target must make an Intelligence saving throw. On a failed save, the target truthfully answers one question you ask it
via telepathy. On a successful save, the target is unaffected, and you can’t use this ability on it again until you finish a long rest. A creature is immune to this ability if it is immune to being charmed.

So basically it says the target HAS to answer truthfully. I think this is a great feat! Also, a similar ability (Forceful Query in the Psychic Inquisition discipline is rated blue).

On another matter, why do you say that
"Fear is great at early levels, but loses ground quickly." when discussing the Mantle of Fear discipline. Is this because creatures with higher CR have the frightened condition immunity? I wonder and would like to know what you think.

And lastly, I want to point out at the Incite Panic ability of the Mantle of Fear. I think it is an AWESOME ability, albeit I can be interpreting it wrongly. The description states that:


As an action, choose up to eight creatures you can see within 90 feet of you that can see you. At the start of each of a target’s turns before your concentration ends, the target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the target is frightened until the start of its next turn, and you roll a die. If you roll an odd number, the frightened target moves half its speed in a random direction and takes no action on that turn, other than to scream in terror. If you roll an even number, the frightened target makes one melee attack against a random target within its reach. If there is no such target, it moves half its speed in a random direction and takes no action on that turn. This effect ends on a target if it succeeds on three saving throws against it.

The way I read it, 8 creatures you choose are going to be rolling every turn, no matter if they had saved on the first turn. They have to save a total of THREE times in order for the effect to wear off. So this effect can last many rounds on these eight creatures, between them rolling a successful save and failing too. This could lead potentially to many rounds being lost for the creature just screaming or hitting randomly. ISN'T THAT GREAT?

[Daithi]

Mystics and the Importance of Constitution --- or Prepare for Some Cheese
=================================================

Here is how you can get 232 psi points at 10th level (and 453 psi points at 20th).

Consumptive Power at 10th level allows you to use your hit points as psi points. So, a variant human could take the Durable Feat for twice his CON as a minimum hit die roll. If you had a 20 CON (assumes rolled stats) this would be a minimum roll of 10. So you would start with 8 hit points +5 for CON (you don't roll the first time), and then every level after that you would get 10 hit points +5 CON. At some point you will also want to take the Tough Feat, which adds 2 hit points per level and is retroactive, so you can do this later rather than sooner. However, let's say we do this at 8th level for demonstration purposes. With these two feats, at 10th level and a CON of 20, your hit points would be 168 hit points (8 h.p. +5 CON +2 Tough + (9 levels * (10 h.p. +5 CON +2 Tough))). So with 64 regular psi points at 10th level added to your hit points you have 232 psi points available. By 20th level you would have 338 hit points, and 71 regular psi points, and 44 special psi points for a total of 453 psi points available.

With no CON bonus, no Durable Feat, and no Tough Feat, your hit points at 10th level is only 53 hit points (8 h.p. + (9 levels * 5 h.p.)), and at 20th level it is just 103 hit points. So, CON may be just as important to max out as INT because you can have more than 4 times as many psi points.

[Drascin]

You do realize you can use Consumptive Power exactly once per long rest, on exactly one power, which you can't spend more than your psi limit on, right?

[Daithi]

You do realize you can use Consumptive Power exactly once per long rest, on exactly one power, which you can't spend more than your psi limit on, right?

Oh... never mind.

[Drascin]

A thing I'm noticing playing my Wu-Jen is that the tiny amount of cantrips is a bit of a pain. Points are not at all abundant, and adventuring days are long, and I get a total of 2 cantrips for what I expect will be 80+% of the campaign's life (have never really seen a game go over 12th level). It's to the point that if the GM allowed multiclassing I'd probably grab a level of sorcerer purely for the 4 cantrips.

[carrdrivesyou]

A thing I'm noticing playing my Wu-Jen is that the tiny amount of cantrips is a bit of a pain. Points are not at all abundant, and adventuring days are long, and I get a total of 2 cantrips for what I expect will be 80+% of the campaign's life (have never really seen a game go over 12th level). It's to the point that if the GM allowed multiclassing I'd probably grab a level of sorcerer purely for the 4 cantrips.

Well, I think that the Wu Jen is a bungled attempt at what veteran 3.5 players would call a Psionic Theurge of sorts. Mixing casting with psionics (in MY experience) never ends well. Characters end up stunted, never really doing great in either field. Which is why I don't like gishes. However, the Wu Jen disciplines themselves are quite excellent. Personally, I think that the main features of the Order of the Wu Jen are kind of mediocre. Overall, I give it a blue rating because of the versatility it adds to the class. Depending on what spells you have chosen, you can certainly help out in a number of ways.


Hello,
First of all, great guide!!! I love the mystic and this guide is well thought. I only have a question about your rating of Exacting Query, in the Telepathic Contact discipline.

On another matter, why do you say that when discussing the Mantle of Fear discipline. Is this because creatures with higher CR have the frightened condition immunity? I wonder and would like to know what you think.

And lastly, I want to point out at the Incite Panic ability of the Mantle of Fear. I think it is an AWESOME ability, albeit I can be interpreting it wrongly. The description states that:

The way I read it, 8 creatures you choose are going to be rolling every turn, no matter if they had saved on the first turn. They have to save a total of THREE times in order for the effect to wear off. So this effect can last many rounds on these eight creatures, between them rolling a successful save and failing too. This could lead potentially to many rounds being lost for the creature just screaming or hitting randomly. ISN'T THAT GREAT?

Glad you appreciate the guide! I hope it helps out! As for your questions and comments, allow me to explain my train of thought :D.

1. Exacting Query *IS* a good ability. Unfortunately you could likely get information out of a person in other ways without burning Psi Points. You could try any manner of coercion such as bribing, charming, or my personal favorite: intimidation. Out of a group of adventurers, there will likely be at least one "face" in the group, not to mention that divine casters have Zone of Truth and the like. So overall, it seems to me that Exacting Query is nothing more than an ability aimed at extracting need to know info in a hurry. And depending on your DM, and the character in question, they may tell you the truth, just not the WHOLE truth. People tend to be more honest and up front with info when they believe their life is on the line. The only issue I really see is a conflict of alignment. This is why it gets a red rating.

Tl;Dr - There are better options for getting information.

2. Incite Panic: Where to start? This is another of those abilities that is situational at best, but is devastating when used in that situation. When used against a bunch of low level mooks, this causes CHAOS for any coordinated enemies. Orcs raging against each other, The BBEG's minions kill each other and swing on him. However, if you are facing a BBEG with his two lieutenants, they are likely to make the save against your ability. The duration is nice, and playing like a caster (from the back), could definitely see this working well. The downsides are that if you get too close to the enemies, they may swing on you or your allies anyways (and lets be real here, its useless in a dungeon crawl). Additionally, this is limited by sight, and therefore a Darkness spell could render it completely useless. (I'm looking at you Drow!).

Tl;Dr - Powerful enemies may save; good versus lots of mooks; useless in small areas. Limited by sight.


I hope this helps clarify my reasons for my ratings. As I said before, your mileage may vary (YMMV) depending on your campaign. I tried to remain unbiased while creating this guide. Due to this, I would suggest that you look at the color ratings as a baseline that may shift a rank in one direction or the other depending on the situation and setting.

Happy adventuring!

-Carr

[Drascin]

Well, I think that the Wu Jen is a bungled attempt at what veteran 3.5 players would call a Psionic Theurge of sorts. Mixing casting with psionics (in MY experience) never ends well. Characters end up stunted, never really doing great in either field. Which is why I don't like gishes. However, the Wu Jen disciplines themselves are quite excellent. Personally, I think that the main features of the Order of the Wu Jen are kind of mediocre. Overall, I give it a blue rating because of the versatility it adds to the class. Depending on what spells you have chosen, you can certainly help out in a number of ways.


You misunderstand. I'm not really mixing casting with psionics or whatever, I don't even have spells yet (I just hit level 4). I'm grousing that I have all of two cantrips - Energy Beam I had to pick because I'm playing an elementalist, of course I have to have this, and I recently picked Mystic Hand because mage hand is incredibly useful, and that's basically it for "things that don't spend extremely precious psi points" for me for the huge majority of the character's career. It's to the point I'm considering raising Dex instead of Int with the ASI purely so I can shoot things with a bow sometimes, for variety :smalltongue:.

[Fontanapink]

There're even two versions, Psychic Domination, which is a 7-pt concentration power, so you can concentrate on something with a low Int save and using it as its own enemy, and Broken Will, a 5-pt instant non-concentration, so you can do MC if you're concentrating on something (like, say, Cloak of Air), and just want to have the brute generate opportunity attacks and skip through land mines.

There is a fundamental difference between Broken Will and Psychic Domination, other than psi point use and duration.

With Broken Will you have to target a creature telepathically, which means that that creature has to know at least one language.

Whereas Psychic Domination can target any creature you can see.

[Daithi]

Thanks for putting this together.

Btw, a purely situational trick.... run, jump over a volcano and baleful transposition. If the enemy saves, use bonus action to there and back again. The rules say you "can" go back to your start point...can does not mean must

Or you could use Bestial Flight then switch to Baleful Transposition to drop people from 120 feet for 12d6 damage (but that's 10pp).

[Fontanapink]

Carr,
You didn’t tell me why do you think Fear, or the frightened condition looses ground quickly as you lvl up. I’m curious.

[ChaosShadow00x]

I've been looking at this guide and the UA class... But it's quite odd.

What would be the ideal setup if I wanted to be a psionic blaster damage dealer type? It's so far been quite confusing and i'm having a hard time digesting it.

[MeeposFire]

Oh... never mind.

Also you cannot take the same feat twice unless it specifically says it can and I do not recall durable being one of them.

[carrdrivesyou]

Carr,
You didn’t tell me why do you think Fear, or the frightened condition looses ground quickly as you lvl up. I’m curious.

Around level 10 or so, most critters start picking up conditional immunities, and quite a few of them to boot, or you'll end up fighting mindless vermin or automatons (Especially if you use this power enough to bug your DM). Frightened is one of the first that most pick up. At least from my experience. Before level 10, you should be good. However, this is a discipline that uses 5pp per use. Your psi limit reaches this at 5th. Which means you'll have about 4 levels of usefulness out of the entire Discipline before it becomes an entirely situational one. I'm not personally a fan of having abilities that are not useful to me. For a comparable amount of psi points, you could create an Ice Barrier with Mastery of Ice, and it deals damage to anyone who uses a melee weapon against it.


I've been looking at this guide and the UA class... But it's quite odd.

What would be the ideal setup if I wanted to be a psionic blaster damage dealer type? It's so far been quite confusing and i'm having a hard time digesting it.

Well, if that is your goal, here are my suggestions:

Race: High Elf, Variant Human, Mephistopheles Tiefling (adds some blasty abilities), or Deep Gnome (Underdark campaigns only)

Order of the Wu Jen

Talents:
Energy Beam
Mystic Hand
Mind Thrust
Psychic Hammer

Disciplines (in order taken)
Bonus 1 - Mastery of Fire
Bonus 2 - Mastery of Ice
1 - Precognition (advantage of Initiative is nice for throwing that first strike)
2 - Mastery of Wood and Earth (carry a dagger or something around and throw it at people, force damage is not resisted)
3 - Corrosive Metabolism (cold and fire are commonly resisted, where acid is not)
4 - Bestial Form (mostly for utility, but flight is pretty amazing, alternatively you could hide underwater and fight from there)
5 - Adaptive Body (Now you can drop those fireballs on yourself in the middle of a large group of mooks, or make your fighter immune and drop it on him)
6 - Aura Sight (assess what works best against your enemies as they now will likely have some sort of vulnerability or immunities.
7 - Diminution (mix Bestial Flight with Microscopic Form, and you are literally a fly on the wall wreaking havoc without ever being seen or hit)
8 - Psychic Assault (This will likely be your go to at this level, mainly because psychic damage is rare, and INT saves are the least common; elemental attacks at this level are highly resisted)

Hope this helps!

-Carr

[Daithi]

Also you cannot take the same feat twice unless it specifically says it can and I do not recall durable being one of them.

I didn't recommend taking durable twice. Durable once and tough once -- not that it matters.

[Fontanapink]

I have two questions:

1) how would Blind Spot talent work out of battle? It’s kind of hard imagining being used when there’s no initiative and turns. How would you use it?

2) Does the sudden shift ability from the Diminution discipline also work for AoE attack spells or only attacks that confer an attack roll?

[carrdrivesyou]

I have two questions:

1) how would Blind Spot talent work out of battle? It’s kind of hard imagining being used when there’s no initiative and turns. How would you use it?

2) Does the sudden shift ability from the Diminution discipline also work for AoE attack spells or only attacks that confer an attack roll?

1. Blind Spot works much the same way as the Delusion Talent. If you happen to be sneaking around a castle, you might be able to be completely invisible to a guard as you sneak directly in front of him.

2. The wording states: "when you are hit by an attack." I would assume this means when an attack roll is made. So I don't think you'll be using this one to be dodging fireballs anytime soon. Sorry :/

[8wGremlin]

Fun Fact: Dwarven Mystics with Celerity - not useful, but interesting perhaps...

Agile Defense (2 psi).
As a bonus action, you take the Dodge action

Dwarven Fortitude Feat.
Prerequisite: Dwarf
Whenever you take the Dodge action in combat, you can spend one Hit Die to heal yourself. Roll the die, add your Constitution modifier, and regain a number of hit points equal to the total (minimum of 1).

plus

Durable Feat.
When you roll a Hit Die to regain hit points, the minimum number of hit points you regain from the roll equals twice your Constitution modifier (minimum of 2).

so with an 18(+4) in Con and 14(+2) in Dex an Immortal would have 16AC naked.
and can dodge (as a bonus action), and each time spend a Hit Dice and regain 12hp minimum

not sure what you can do with that... but thought it cool.

[Sinon]

Mastery of Wood and Earth: Animate Weapon - This is also a Melee Weapon Attack that uses your Discipline Attack Modifier. BUT you have a range of 30ft with it. Can anyone think of a way to exploit the ability to make a MWA at range?

Well, I found this interesting:

Animate Weapon explicitly states that, despite the range, it is a Melee Weapon Attack,
which means it might be one of the few ways your typical Awakened is going to that extra 1d8 Potent Psionics damage.

Also, Animate Weapon uses an action. It adds up to 7d10 force damage to the weapon's normal damage and the psychic damage from Potent Psionics.

Brute Force's, Brute Strike uses your bonus action to add up to 7d6 to a melee weapon attack. And that damage could be psychic or force, since it lets you pick the damage type when there is more than one.

Knock Back uses your reaction on a melee attack, and adds up to an additional 7d6 bludgeoning damage if it hits an object, which is will because you are good at making walls. This does allow a save, but still.

That's a lot of dice getting rolled.

[carrdrivesyou]

Fun Fact: Dwarven Mystics with Celerity - not useful, but interesting perhaps...

Agile Defense (2 psi).
As a bonus action, you take the Dodge action

Dwarven Fortitude Feat.
Prerequisite: Dwarf
Whenever you take the Dodge action in combat, you can spend one Hit Die to heal yourself. Roll the die, add your Constitution modifier, and regain a number of hit points equal to the total (minimum of 1).

plus

Durable Feat.
When you roll a Hit Die to regain hit points, the minimum number of hit points you regain from the roll equals twice your Constitution modifier (minimum of 2).

so with an 18(+4) in Con and 14(+2) in Dex an Immortal would have 16AC naked.
and can dodge (as a bonus action), and each time spend a Hit Dice and regain 12hp minimum

not sure what you can do with that... but thought it cool.

Well put friend! I can appreciate that idea! can you explain how you are coming up with 12 hp minimum though?

Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, this is a lot of investment for low level returns that don't exactly scale well. Would do well in an E6 campaign though.

[8wGremlin]

Well put friend! I can appreciate that idea! can you explain how you are coming up with 12 hp minimum though?

Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, this is a lot of investment for low level returns that don't exactly scale well. Would do well in an E6 campaign though.

Happy too,



Take the dodge action
Dwarven Fortitude triggers
Spend a Hit Dice
Durable triggers
Second part of Dwarven Fortitude is added


With the example I gave , 18(+4) in Con, this becomes.



Take the dodge action
Dwarven Fortitude triggers
Spend a Hit Dice - rolls 1d8 and gets a 3
Durable triggers - Minimum result of roll is 2*Con Mod = 8
Second part of Dwarven Fortitude is added - now add your con mod again +4 = 12hp


Does that help?

[carrdrivesyou]

It does! Thanks!

[lichkingricko]

I've been wanting to try the mystic for a while, and I got a chance to join a game that will probably go from level 1 to 12 or so, so it seemed like a great chance. I have no idea what the other people will play. We had a chance to roll stats and I got pretty lucky. My base stats are 16 15 13 13 11 11, and I can put them in any order and use any 5e race.

I want to do something a little like the Sorcadin, here's what I'm thinking:

Start in fighter for CON save, martial weapons, armor, d10 hit die. Defense fighting style.

Dex-based, rapier, medium armor & shield. Order of the Immortal. At level 1, if my DM will give me scale instead of chain mail, I'll have 19 AC. Not bad. With half-plate, +1 AC focus, and maybe medium armor mastery, that's 22. But that shouldn't be necessary if I use cloak of air for defense.

Lethal strike as my main damage add, use giant growth when possible, psychic assault for all-around nastiness.

I really like jacks-of-all-trades, so Nomadic mind for skill monkey and diminution so I can sneak in clunky armor when I have to.

I'm a little unsure about race, I'm torn between high elf, deep gnome, and variant human.

High elf gives me 11 str 18 dex 13 con 16 int 13 wis 11 cha at level 1. I take booming blade or GFB as my cantrip.

Deep gnome gives me 11 16 13 18 13 11, great saves vs. spells, racial magic feat. At level 4 I take magic initiate (wizard).

Variant human gives 11 16 14 16 13 11, and I take magic initiate (wizard). However, he lacks darkvision.

I'm thinking magic initiate so I can have GFB and BB, as well as find familiar for my 1st level spell. I'm gonna need to land my 1 melee attack, so having advantage on it every round seems like a good idea.

I'd love to hear your thoughts & ideas.

Oh, and someone above asked about ways to abuse mastery of wood and earth's animate weapon, and here's what I came up with:

Use augmented weapon to make the weapon +3/3, assuming 20 in the attack stat, the weapon is now +8/8.
7-point animate weapon does weapon damage +8 +2d8 (potent psionics) +7d10 force
As a bonus action, use 7-point lethal strike for 7d10 +5 psychic damage

If my math is right, that's 98.5 average damage. It's probably not worth the psi points it would take.

[carrdrivesyou]

I've been wanting to try the mystic for a while, and I got a chance to join a game that will probably go from level 1 to 12 or so, so it seemed like a great chance. I have no idea what the other people will play. We had a chance to roll stats and I got pretty lucky. My base stats are 16 15 13 13 11 11, and I can put them in any order and use any 5e race.

I want to do something a little like the Sorcadin, here's what I'm thinking:

Start in fighter for CON save, martial weapons, armor, d10 hit die. Defense fighting style.

Dex-based, rapier, medium armor & shield. Order of the Immortal. At level 1, if my DM will give me scale instead of chain mail, I'll have 19 AC. Not bad. With half-plate, +1 AC focus, and maybe medium armor mastery, that's 22. But that shouldn't be necessary if I use cloak of air for defense.

Lethal strike as my main damage add, use giant growth when possible, psychic assault for all-around nastiness.

I really like jacks-of-all-trades, so Nomadic mind for skill monkey and diminution so I can sneak in clunky armor when I have to.

I'm a little unsure about race, I'm torn between high elf, deep gnome, and variant human.

High elf gives me 11 str 18 dex 13 con 16 int 13 wis 11 cha at level 1. I take booming blade or GFB as my cantrip.

Deep gnome gives me 11 16 13 18 13 11, great saves vs. spells, racial magic feat. At level 4 I take magic initiate (wizard).

Variant human gives 11 16 14 16 13 11, and I take magic initiate (wizard). However, he lacks darkvision.

I'm thinking magic initiate so I can have GFB and BB, as well as find familiar for my 1st level spell. I'm gonna need to land my 1 melee attack, so having advantage on it every round seems like a good idea.

Overall:
1. I would suggest 3 levels of fighter and take eldritch knight. This will give you all the magic benefits you wanted without wasting ASIs on feats. This also adds action surge to your repertoire of tricks.
2. High elf will be much more helpful than the other races you listed, mostly for darkvision and free perception proficiency. It will also give you a third cantrip.
3. As for Disciplines, this will leave you with 9 levels of Mystic to play with giving you 5 disciplines, with 57 Psi Points and a limit of 7 (Which is the max, so good for you :D)

Disciplines in order:
1. Aura Sight - gives you the ability to "scan" your enemies, and decide on an effective strategy, saving you points in the long run. Assess Foe is a bonus action, and should be used at the start of any serious combat.
2. Bestial Form - lets you chase down those pesky fliers and swimmers; also +2AC no concentration
3. You have two options here: Third Eye and Mastery of Light and Darkness. TE will give you the ability to track down invisible and even ethereal opponents, ensuring that nothing gets away from you; MoLaD will let you trap enemies in darkness spheres that you can see in and they cannot, giving you advantage on your hits. YMMV.
4. Nomadic Mind - You already know what this is for.
5. Psionic Weapon - Again, you know what's up here.

Talents:
1. Blade Meld - never lose your weapon.
2. Light Step - an extra 10 feet of movement as a bonus action can help you get into position.

ASIs:
4th: +2 DEX
8th: +2 CON
12th: +2 CON

I would actually suggest AGAINST Giant Growth, as it just makes you a bigger target. The reach is simply not worth the tradeoff in my opinion. Diminution could be helpful, but with nomadic mind, you can gain proficiency in Stealth, and grab yourself some boots of elvenkind to get advantage (or stop the disadvantage from heavier armor) without burning one of your disciplines on it.
Your ASIs should boost your damage to max, and your health well into solid melee capacity. The mystic isn't far behind the fighter with a d8 HD, but it DOES make a difference, which a CON of 20 should compensate for.

Overall, with this build, you should be able to sneak decently in your armor, go toe to toe with a single opponent, be the most mobile person on the field, and live to tell the tale. You were aiming for Jack-of-all-trades, but I think we ended up with surgical striker with excellent skill versatility. You have skills, magic, and weapons. I think you will bring more than your weight in gold to the table.

Hope this helps!
-Carr

[Azazel_Unbound]

How does barb work as a multiclass? Wouldn't rage cancel the maib functions ot the mystic's psionics?

[tieren]

5e Mystic as the Super Skrull:

Wu Jen Order

Arcane dabbler - fly

Disciplines:
Mastery of Fire - nuff said
Mastery of Force - force fields
Brute Force - thing smashes
Nomadic Chameleon - invisibility
Giant Growth - super stretch reach

Talents:
Blindspot - more invis
Energybeam - fire beams
Mindslam - force blasts

[carrdrivesyou]

How does barb work as a multiclass? Wouldn't rage cancel the maib functions ot the mystic's psionics?

Obviously you wouldn't be able to use any Mystic Abilities while raging, but if you buff yourself beforehand with Disciplines that do not require concentration, then there is no reason I can see for those abilities not remaining in place.

Example:
Focus on Iron Durability +1AC
Use Tough Hide from Bestial Transformation for +2AC

This will net you +3AC for an hour, which should handle even the longest battles. Your Psychic focus only ends when you are incapacitated, i.e. it does not require concentration (a bit misleading though).

There are, of course, other options you can use to make things more interesting, or tailor your strategy to your current predicament.

So in my opinion, Barbarian is a good class to splash in, especially if you want to be the Immortal Tank build.

[lichkingricko]

Overall:
1. I would suggest 3 levels of fighter and take eldritch knight. This will give you all the magic benefits you wanted without wasting ASIs on feats. This also adds action surge to your repertoire of tricks...You were aiming for Jack-of-all-trades, but I think we ended up with surgical striker with excellent skill versatility. You have skills, magic, and weapons. I think you will bring more than your weight in gold to the table.

That's great advice, I appreciate it. I'm giving it a whirl. Thanks!

[carrdrivesyou]

That's great advice, I appreciate it. I'm giving it a whirl. Thanks!

Please let me know how it turns out for you! I am currently playing an Immortal Mystic who is a spy. He does pretty well in and out of combat :D

[Justin Sane]

I have a Vampire (Planeshift: Zendikar) lvl6 Awakened Mystic on the party, the Lady Vash Manastorm. Her Colours (aka, alignment) are Blue, Black and White, in that order, so we had some fun planning the build according to that. The player wanted a blaster-type, so due to her Colours, we didn't go for the obvious choices.

Disciplines are Psychic Assault, Psychic Disruption, Psionic Restoration, Mastery of Force and Nomadic Step (with Telepathic Contact to come next level).

So far, she's been tons of fun - Psionic Investigation has had nifty uses with the sensor option (slide a needle under the door to the room where the private meeting you haven't been invited is in, eavesdrop from across the city, ensuring your alibi), Psionic Surge really ensures that clutch Daze gets in, Telepathy really had a fun RP moment when she tried to communicate with my Goblin Fiend-Patron Tomelock (she sensed something like interference, akin to nails on a blackboard, and little Kaervek commented "Why are you speaking like my book does?" which lead to all sorts of interesting questions), Telekinetic Barrier is awesome to keep foes inside a nasty zone (like Hunger of Hadar), and (as we refluffed most abilities to her channeling visible flows of mana) she really lives up to her name when unleashing Mind Storms.

The player is still learning to manage her Mana (Psi Points), so Mind Thrust is getting lots of use. It feels more reliable than Firebolt, as it relies on a generally weaker save, so it doesn't feel like a "backup" option.

[WOTC_GM]

Well, I found this interesting:

Animate Weapon explicitly states that, despite the range, it is a Melee Weapon Attack,
which means it might be one of the few ways your typical Awakened is going to that extra 1d8 Potent Psionics damage.

Also, Animate Weapon uses an action. It adds up to 7d10 force damage to the weapon's normal damage and the psychic damage from Potent Psionics.

Brute Force's, Brute Strike uses your bonus action to add up to 7d6 to a melee weapon attack. And that damage could be psychic or force, since it lets you pick the damage type when there is more than one.

Knock Back uses your reaction on a melee attack, and adds up to an additional 7d6 bludgeoning damage if it hits an object, which is will because you are good at making walls. This does allow a save, but still.

That's a lot of dice getting rolled.

I am currently playing a melee Mystic (Level 5) in a campaign that relies on this 'combo' for most fights.

On the first round of combat I usually go into Ogre form for the additional d4 damage and extra reach. On the following turns I then use my bonus action to activate Psionic weapon to pump up to 5d10 psychic damage into my sword, followed by a MoWaE to make a melee attack up to 30ft away, dealing up to an additional 5d10 psychic damage, plus regular weapon damage. I can then use my reaction to activate the Knock Back ability, throwing them back into a wall or other object, dealing up to another 5d6 worth of bludgeoning damage.

This could end up costing up to 15 Psi-points, but allows you (at 5th level) to deal up to 10d10 psychic damage, 5d6 bludgeoning damage, and 1d8 slashing/piercing damage depending on your weapon, from up to 30 ft away. AND also get to push your opponent backwards!

[jleonardwv]

Thank you, Carr, for putting in the time to make this guide. I like the class because it reminds me of Minor Illusion. I mean that spell and this class have unlimited flexibility based on what the player can imagine. I mean Wandering Eye is like having your own personal drone that can fly around and give you a 360 degree aerial video for an hour! The various walls have incredible utility for clamping down foes. Ice armor for 3psi and no conc; can be used at 3rd level! Bestial form makes you a Druid wild-shaping before the Druid gets those powers; you can swim or breath water at level 1; you can fly at level 5. Nomadic Mind = any skill or language for free!

In my mind, the biggest weakness is lack of talents, both the ones available and the limit on how many the Psion gets.

I'm looking over the most recent PDF and notice an issue or two.

1. Psionic Resilience says you get temporary hits points at the start of each turn. Forever? So you wake up one morning and start getting INT mod temporary hits points every six seconds ad infinitum?

2. Wu Jen gets three spells at 6th level, but the table shows slots all the way to 5th level. Does that mean that you can get a 5th level spell somehow or only that you can cast your max 3rd level spell using a 5th level slot?

[carrdrivesyou]

Thank you, Carr, for putting in the time to make this guide. I like the class because it reminds me of Minor Illusion. I mean that spell and this class have unlimited flexibility based on what the player can imagine. I mean Wandering Eye is like having your own personal drone that can fly around and give you a 360 degree aerial video for an hour! The various walls have incredible utility for clamping down foes. Ice armor for 3psi and no conc; can be used at 3rd level! Bestial form makes you a Druid wild-shaping before the Druid gets those powers; you can swim or breath water at level 1; you can fly at level 5. Nomadic Mind = any skill or language for free!

In my mind, the biggest weakness is lack of talents, both the ones available and the limit on how many the Psion gets.

I'm looking over the most recent PDF and notice an issue or two.

1. Psionic Resilience says you get temporary hits points at the start of each turn. Forever? So you wake up one morning and start getting INT mod temporary hits points every six seconds ad infinitum?

2. Wu Jen gets three spells at 6th level, but the table shows slots all the way to 5th level. Does that mean that you can get a 5th level spell somehow or only that you can cast your max 3rd level spell using a 5th level slot?

Well, I am glad you like the guide! I certainly put in a few hours on it! :D

As for your questions, allow me to elaborate.

1. You are correct in your reasoning. It is a sort of temporary HP battery that recharges each round. So when you gain the ability, and your INT mod is 4, you effectively have a pool of temp HP that renews each round. If your INT mod goes up to 5, you then have a pool of 5 temp HP each round. It really does come in handy.

2. I can see how you would get confused here. I did too even after reading it a few times. Your second train of thought is correct. You obtain 3 total spells that are always prepared, and you may use your psi points to create spells slots of 1st through 5th with which to cast those spells. Example: You learn fireball. You may burn 5PP to cast it at 3rd level, 6PP for 4th, or 7PP for 5th, effectively upcasting the spell as usual.

Does that help sort things out for you? :D

[jleonardwv]

Well, I am glad you like the guide! I certainly put in a few hours on it! :D

As for your questions, allow me to elaborate.

1. You are correct in your reasoning. It is a sort of temporary HP battery that recharges each round. So when you gain the ability, and your INT mod is 4, you effectively have a pool of temp HP that renews each round. If your INT mod goes up to 5, you then have a pool of 5 temp HP each round. It really does come in handy.

2. I can see how you would get confused here. I did too even after reading it a few times. Your second train of thought is correct. You obtain 3 total spells that are always prepared, and you may use your psi points to create spells slots of 1st through 5th with which to cast those spells. Example: You learn fireball. You may burn 5PP to cast it at 3rd level, 6PP for 4th, or 7PP for 5th, effectively upcasting the spell as usual.

Does that help sort things out for you? :D

I'm still confused about 1. Temporary HP could be unlimited. I mean with 16 INT, you have for example +3 THP round1, +6 THP round 2, +9 THP round 3, for infinity? The language of the ability is unclear. Are you suggesting that it only applies once until you take damage then recharges? Then it should read "You have a pool of temporary HP equal to your INT mod which recharges each round ..."

Another non-sequitur: Rolling flame doesn't. I mean, I assume they meant to let you use a bonus action to move it like the spell Flaming Sphere.

[sightlessrealit]

I'm still confused about 1. Temporary HP could be unlimited. I mean with 16 INT, you have for example +3 THP round1, +6 THP round 2, +9 THP round 3, for infinity? The language of the ability is unclear. Are you suggesting that it only applies once until you take damage then recharges? Then it should read "You have a pool of temporary HP equal to your INT mod which recharges each round ..."

Another non-sequitur: Rolling flame doesn't. I mean, I assume they meant to let you use a bonus action to move it like the spell Flaming Sphere.

Temporary Hit Points have their own rules. They don't stack meaning If you have a +5 Int you have +5 Temp Hit points, you you take no damage during a round and it comes back to your turn nothing happens, you still just have 5 temp hit points.

[furby076]

If someone were to play a V.Human Mystic (straight mystic), with Alert Feat....what disciplines would you take to play an assassin. Sneak in, kill, sneak out - don't get seen or heard or remembered. I think awakened mind should play in it.

Alert Feat (V.Human)
Awakened Mind
Delusion Talent
Psychic Hammer talent (for when you need to hit things)

What else would be effective?

[Sinon]

I would certainly think Nomadic Mind - the Find Creature seems like something an assassin would want.

Nomadic Chameleon seems like a great choice, but I like Diminution as well: in addition to advantage on Stealth, easier to get in and out of places, and with Microscopic Form, you don’t lose any power from your psionic attacks, while getting a nice AC boost and a way to stay hidden.

Psionic Disruption is one of the Disciplines I like a lot. For an anyone, it gives advantage on Deception (nice for a killer); its variable psi-point attack keeps you safe as long as you’re ten feet away; you can incapacitate a foe; and Mind Storm is an area attack that does decent damage, but also sets up a killing strike by imposing disadvantage on saves through the end of your next turn.

[carrdrivesyou]

If someone were to play a V.Human Mystic (straight mystic), with Alert Feat....what disciplines would you take to play an assassin. Sneak in, kill, sneak out - don't get seen or heard or remembered. I think awakened mind should play in it.

Alert Feat (V.Human)
Awakened Mind
Delusion Talent
Psychic Hammer talent (for when you need to hit things)

What else would be effective?

Well, I would suggest an archer build honestly. I'll explain why...

The disciplines I would suggest (in order) are:
1: Diminution (This give you adv to stealth at level one. Self explanatory)

Bonus 1: Aura Sight (learn your enemies weaknesses and strengths before picking your literal poison)

Bonus 2: Psychic Assault (This will make your Mind Thrust talent your go-to for psionic assassinations, real quiet like)

2: Nomadic Arrow (Grab a bow and burn those PP for Speed Dart. Stacking d10s on an unsuspecting target is amazing, and if you miss, use Seeking Missile, so you don't waster your points. Also, NEVER focus on this discipline unless you are cursed with some sort of D-ADV. Reason is, it'll remove the adv you get for a surprise attack)

3: Mastery of Light and Darkness (It's much easier to use this to disappear in or to distract foes, also matches the shadowy assassin flavor)

4: Nomadic Step (at low and mid-levels, this is useful for sneaking around castle corridors. At higher levels, this is your ticket in and out of the throne room)

5: Bestial Form (The sheer versatility of this makes it a must have for MOST mystics, you included)

6: Nomadic Mind (For all your needed skills on the go, also use the wandering eyes to spy on conversations and peek around corners and through doors)

7: Nomadic Chameleon (By this point, you have enough PP to choke a yak, so feel free to spend a few points if needed)

8: Third Eye (At this level, a lot of things will have defenses specifically set up against assassins. This will help you see through those defenses and walls of theirs)

Talents:
1: Delusion (Your tool for subterfuge)
2: Mind Thrust (Good for silent kills, taking this second, because you shouldn't be too far from your party at 1st level, also better damage than hammer)
3: Blind Spot (Good for passing single guards)
4: Mystic Hand (This can grab you those keys off the wall or fling the torch across the room)


Just my thoughts on the idea. Sounds like a good character concept to me, but you won't be terribly useful in a full on fight. You will definitely be filling the rogue's slot in your party though.

[Kaliayev]

I would drop overwhelming attack down to black thanks to the cost and the limited utility. Most of the traditional melee classes rely on extra attacks for their damage output. Extra attack only activates on the player's turn, so a reaction attack action wouldn't offer a whole lot. Five plain attacks is nothing to scoff at, but you're most likely looking at a party comp that doesn't deliver. Unless you have a very unusual party, command to strike is generally going to have you covered with this mechanic.

The most functional application I can think of is targeting the party's rogue, if there is one. Sneak attack is once per turn, so the rogue would get another sneak attack on their reaction if the other conditions are met. If you're working with an arcane trickster who has their shadow blade out, you're getting even more utility. If that rogue crits, then your enemy is in a world of hurt. There are probably other useful interactions with this reaction attack action, but I'm not seeing it being terribly useful with most pcs. I feel like a wizard would immediately respond with, "gee, thanks...any way of making that a spellcasting action?" Now, if you have a group of five rogues surrounding the BBEG...


I rated the MC section of this guide with the idea of making a primarily Mystic based character with splashes of other classes; not the other way around. You do make good points, however. +3 AC for ONE encounter a day without concentration can be quite a boon. Especially considering that ANY big stupid fighter could pick it up (No INT requirements).

Based on the multi-classing table in PHB, it's safe to assume that artificer and mystic each require 13 intelligence for multi-classing. While some classes have two ability prerequisites, most of the prereqs are based on the class's primary ability. For mystic and artificer, that primary ability is intelligence. Going by RAI, a melee character with int as their dump stat should not have access to mystic for multi-classing. I always laugh to myself when I see a player trying to multi-class into a class that is dependent on their dump ability. Such a player is not seeing the forest for the trees.

[8wGremlin]

I'd like to discuss Mind Thrust, I think you do it a disservice.



it does psychic damage, a rarely resisted damage
it is a INT saving through, not many targets have a good INT save
it scales like firebolt
it has a long range 120'
it has NO visible casting, NO verbal casting, and you don't have to wave your hands about!

Let point 5 sink in, people around you just get really bad headaches and start bleeding from the eyes, ears and nose.
also add in the following:
Psychic assault - Psychic Focus. While focused on this discipline, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with psionic talents that deal psychic damage. - There is only one talent that deals psychic damage and that is Mind Thrust.

Then at level 8 you get Potent Psionics, which adds your INT to damage with Psychic talent.

So at level 8, with Psychic assault focused and an 18 INT (+4) you get 2d10+6 damage, true it's not Eldritch blast, bit no one knows it comes from you!

- happy to discuss this.

[carrdrivesyou]

I would drop overwhelming attack down to black thanks to the cost and the limited utility. Most of the traditional melee classes rely on extra attacks for their damage output. Extra attack only activates on the player's turn, so a reaction attack action wouldn't offer a whole lot. Five plain attacks is nothing to scoff at, but you're most likely looking at a party comp that doesn't deliver. Unless you have a very unusual party, command to strike is generally going to have you covered with this mechanic.

The most functional application I can think of is targeting the party's rogue, if there is one. Sneak attack is once per turn, so the rogue would get another sneak attack on their reaction if the other conditions are met. If you're working with an arcane trickster who has their shadow blade out, you're getting even more utility. If that rogue crits, then your enemy is in a world of hurt. There are probably other useful interactions with this reaction attack action, but I'm not seeing it being terribly useful with most pcs. I feel like a wizard would immediately respond with, "gee, thanks...any way of making that a spellcasting action?" Now, if you have a group of five rogues surrounding the BBEG...

Based on the multi-classing table in PHB, it's safe to assume that artificer and mystic each require 13 intelligence for multi-classing. While some classes have two ability prerequisites, most of the prereqs are based on the class's primary ability. For mystic and artificer, that primary ability is intelligence. Going by RAI, a melee character with int as their dump stat should not have access to mystic for multi-classing. I always laugh to myself when I see a player trying to multi-class into a class that is dependent on their dump ability. Such a player is not seeing the forest for the trees.

You make good points. Given a party composition of the classic four (fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard), plus yourself (the mystic), the Overwhelming Attack option is a bit ridiculous considering that most classes have better uses of their reaction. I think that I was perhaps thinking too much into the ability at the time of writing. I will adjust to black rating, per your thought.

As for the INT minimum for multiclassing, you are absolutely correct. I personally think that dumping INT is a poor decision on ANY character, but I am a bit biased about that. Perhaps I should say that anyone who wants to dip Mystic should not dump INT??


I'd like to discuss Mind Thrust, I think you do it a disservice.



it does psychic damage, a rarely resisted damage
it is a INT saving through, not many targets have a good INT save
it scales like firebolt
it has a long range 120'
it has NO visible casting, NO verbal casting, and you don't have to wave your hands about!

Let point 5 sink in, people around you just get really bad headaches and start bleeding from the eyes, ears and nose.
also add in the following:
Psychic assault - Psychic Focus. While focused on this discipline, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with psionic talents that deal psychic damage. - There is only one talent that deals psychic damage and that is Mind Thrust.

Then at level 8 you get Potent Psionics, which adds your INT to damage with Psychic talent.

So at level 8, with Psychic assault focused and an 18 INT (+4) you get 2d10+6 damage, true it's not Eldritch blast, bit no one knows it comes from you!

- happy to discuss this.

On my current Mystic, I am abusing Mind Thrust to its fullest capacity. I'm a high elf with an INT of 20 at level 11. I must say that it really is a nice ability to fall back on. Are you suggesting that this talent be Green rated?

[8wGremlin]

Are you suggesting that this talent be Green rated?

For talents, yes. (If that is the best)

[carrdrivesyou]

For talents, yes. (If that is the best)

You make a good point, and I cannot find a counter-argument. LET IT BE GREEN! :smallbiggrin:

[Aett_Thorn]

So my main problem with the Immortal sub-class is how MAD it seems. You need ain’t for your main class stuff, and then Dex and Con for AC. But seeing as how Mystics only get simple weapon Proficiency, if you want to stick with Dex for attacks, you’re stuck with a dagger. For anything else, you need either a dip, a good race choice, or Str.

Either that, or you need to play from range like most of the other types, and blast away. But that doesn’t seem like what they were going for here.

[8wGremlin]

You make a good point, and I cannot find a counter-argument. LET IT BE GREEN! :smallbiggrin:

Thank you!

Next point Feats



War Caster: You have a lot of Concentration effects. Having Advantage to retain those is wonderful.


I'm afraid that the wording of the feat applies this only to SPELLS, and as such has no benefit to a Mystic.
- sorry.

[Kaliayev]

So my main problem with the Immortal sub-class is how MAD it seems. You need ain’t for your main class stuff, and then Dex and Con for AC. But seeing as how Mystics only get simple weapon Proficiency, if you want to stick with Dex for attacks, you’re stuck with a dagger. For anything else, you need either a dip, a good race choice, or Str.

Either that, or you need to play from range like most of the other types, and blast away. But that doesn’t seem like what they were going for here.

As stated in the guide, being elven is an easy pick for this class thanks to Dex and Int bonuses. That opens up several other options for weapons. Also, you don't actually have to be unarmored while using the immortal order.

[Aett_Thorn]

As stated in the guide, being elven is an easy pick for this class thanks to Dex and Int bonuses. That opens up several other options for weapons. Also, you don't actually have to be unarmored while using the immortal order.

While I agree that there are ways to get a few weapon proficiencies, I think that it's somewhat a failing of the subclass design to be that MAD without making certain choices. Barbarian needs Str, Dex, and Con, but was probably going to have high Str and Con regardless, and doesn't need that high of a Dex unless it wants to go unarmored. Monk needs Dex and Wis, with a side of Con, but is going to have high Dex and decent Wis anyways.

Immortal seems to be pegged as the "melee" option, but only has light armor to fall back on if you're wearing armor, so you need a good Dex, Con, Int, and still need Str depending on your weapon choice. It seems an odd choice. It would make more sense to give them access to Martial Weapon proficiency, make their AC based on Dex + Int, or a combination of the two. The Subclass seems like it was intended for the more physical races as an option for them to take, but Elves are the best fit because they actually get a decent weapon choice to use along with it that doesn't make them completely MAD.

[carrdrivesyou]

I'm afraid that the wording of the feat applies this only to SPELLS, and as such has no benefit to a Mystic. - sorry.

Correct again! LET IT BE RED! I seriously need to revamp my proofreading skills! :smalleek:


So my main problem with the Immortal sub-class is how MAD it seems. You need ain’t for your main class stuff, and then Dex and Con for AC. But seeing as how Mystics only get simple weapon Proficiency, if you want to stick with Dex for attacks, you’re stuck with a dagger. For anything else, you need either a dip, a good race choice, or Str.

Either that, or you need to play from range like most of the other types, and blast away. But that doesn’t seem like what they were going for here.

My opinion here is that with a decent DEX, even a dagger could be a deadly weapon. If you select either Psionic Weapon or Brute Force Disciplines, your melee damage increases in a monstrous fashion. It is expensive but effective.

That having been said, I think that Immortals were aimed at being a sort of tanky subclass. All of their subclass abilities are designed to keep you in the fight or healed. Looking at their disciplines, even more so. I think perhaps that it was designed to be a damage shield that could self heal and survive quite a bit of punishment. A splash in fighter would get you armor and shields, but it really isn't that necessary in my opinion. A well placed wall ability could negate the need for it entirely. It's all about your discipline selection. :D

I think Soul Knife is actually the melee option they were aiming for, but I think they are severely handicapped, getting two less disciplines than every other Mystic. Despite that, they can hit on AC 10... EVERY TIME...at least after 14th level. I was originally a bit biased towards the SK, but the more I look at it, the more I realize that taking it would really negate the need for splashing into any melee class while being more SAD. All you would really need is a solid DEX, decent CON, and decent INT. use your disciplines for buffs and abilities and suddenly you are rocking it out on the front lines.

Just my thoughts here.
-Carr

[Daithi]

Mastery of Light and Darkness

A couple notes. The focus not only lets you see through darkness, but it lets you see through magical darkness. That's a pretty big deal. Ask the warlock in your party. Hell, team up with the warlock in your party.

The mystic version of the Darkness spell also says to "pick a spot". Can this spot be a creature or a spot of armor? I don't think so. I'm think you pick a spot and it doesn't move, so anyone in the darkness can just leave to get out of the darkness. However, and this was probably a mistake, but the darkness appears to be permanent. Make a maze of darkness with nasty traps.

[carrdrivesyou]

Mastery of Light and Darkness

A couple notes. The focus not only lets you see through darkness, but it lets you see through magical darkness. That's a pretty big deal. Ask the warlock in your party. Hell, team up with the warlock in your party.

The mystic version of the Darkness spell also says to "pick a spot". Can this spot be a creature or a spot of armor? I don't think so. I'm think you pick a spot and it doesn't move, so anyone in the darkness can just leave to get out of the darkness. However, and this was probably a mistake, but the darkness appears to be permanent. Make a maze of darkness with nasty traps.

This discipline will likely see some major changes before publication methinks. Perma-darkness that blocks darkvision and cancels out light spells is waaaaayyyy too overpowered for league play. That's just asking for abuse as you have so aptly put. I do like the current abilities, and the point cost seems appropriate. I imagine that after publication, the Darkness ability will have the same limitations as the Light ability listed beneath it (1 minute, concentration) which makes much more sense.

But as it is, it is quite OP, which led me to its dual colored rating.

[Mortis_Elrod]

This discipline will likely see some major changes before publication methinks. Perma-darkness that blocks darkvision and cancels out light spells is waaaaayyyy too overpowered for league play. That's just asking for abuse as you have so aptly put. I do like the current abilities, and the point cost seems appropriate. I imagine that after publication, the Darkness ability will have the same limitations as the Light ability listed beneath it (1 minute, concentration) which makes much more sense.

But as it is, it is quite OP, which led me to its dual colored rating.

I agree. This discipline needs some tinkering, Id prefer some more necrotic damage options, and a note saying the shadows can’t make undead. That I think is a bigger issue than the darkness manipulation.

[carrdrivesyou]

I agree. This discipline needs some tinkering, Id prefer some more necrotic damage options, and a note saying the shadows can’t make undead. That I think is a bigger issue than the darkness manipulation.

I think that the multiplying shadows could definitely put the Mystic into the Necromancer's shoes. Each one lasting a minute from the time they are spawned. Would give the ability some sustainability against multiple foes and really drive home the Necro feel. It is a bit ridiculous and OP, but fun nonetheless. I would imagine that adding an option for the radiant beam to deal necrotic damage instead would satisfy me.

[furby076]

I am, and sure we all are, absolutely sure they are revamping the class so it is 1) playable 1-20 and 2) gets rid of funky errors like not including duration, adjusting PP cost, modifying powers/abilities/etc

[jleonardwv]

I am, and sure we all are, absolutely sure they are revamping the class so it is 1) playable 1-20 and 2) gets rid of funky errors like not including duration, adjusting PP cost, modifying powers/abilities/etc

And when will that be? 6e will out first?

[8wGremlin]

If you read up about the shadows creating undead it’s harder than it appears they turn up a few hours later and are not under your control nor can you get your shadows to command them as they have vanished due to the duration.

It’s a great idea, but really hard to actually use.

[furby076]

And when will that be? 6e will out first?

I'm thinking 6.5e.

In reality, I have no idea. I don't think it would be attached to a module (e.g., curse of strahd) as there will be MANY pages (50-75) considering they need to include CLass, sub-class, abilities, powers, feats, skills, racial changes/add-ons, creatures, magic items, backgrounds, non-magical equipment, new sub-classes for existing stuff (e.g. cleric with psionic subclass), etc. If this were 2e, this would be "The Complete Guide to Mystics", and it would easily be justified considering it's a brand new class and magic type all the stuff behind it.

[WOTC_GM]

If you read up about the shadows creating undead it’s harder than it appears they turn up a few hours later and are not under your control nor can you get your shadows to command them as they have vanished due to the duration.

It’s a great idea, but really hard to actually use.

It's still an incredibly broken ability though, and I really believe that it should be completely removed and replaced with something different. The last thing the Mystic needs is the ability to summon minions on top of the highly diverse toolbox it already has.


As an example, if you have an evil-aligned Mystic, he could walk into almost any small town or city in the evening/night and either send his Shadows into their homes and kill them while they slept, or gather a bunch of people in a small area, bring them down to low HP, and let the Shadows finish them off. The Mystic then leaves the town and watches from a distance, as 1-4 hours later there's now a swarm of Shadows moving through the city attacking people on sight, and every person they kill in turn becomes another shadow, and these ones don't just disappear after a minute.

Obviously if you're not playing an evil character it would be a lot tougher to get the full use out of the Shadows, but the fact that they deal strength damage and you can summon them at level 5 is still just a little much.


And when will that be? 6e will out first?

There have been multiple posts online mentioning that the next Mystic/Artificer update release would be AL compatible, with the full book release most likely later in the year. We know that after Mordenkainen's Tomb of Foes comes out we are set to also get another book code-named"Broadway" sometime in the September, and yet another book code-named "Catacomb" sometime in November. Broadway is most likely a full release in line with last years Tomb of Annihilation while Catacomb is probably closer in line to something like Volo's GTM.


I'm thinking 6.5e.

In reality, I have no idea. I don't think it would be attached to a module (e.g., curse of strahd) as there will be MANY pages (50-75) considering they need to include CLass, sub-class, abilities, powers, feats, skills, racial changes/add-ons, creatures, magic items, backgrounds, non-magical equipment, new sub-classes for existing stuff (e.g. cleric with psionic subclass), etc. If this were 2e, this would be "The Complete Guide to Mystics", and it would easily be justified considering it's a brand new class and magic type all the stuff behind it.

I could see it coming out in a Darksun-like campaign setting book, but not just attached to a module like COS. My best guess would be a release sometime in November inside the "Catacomb" book, whatever the turns out to be.

[Daithi]

I'm going to disagree with the Multi-classing recommendations. I think just about anything works really well with Mystic. This includes focusing on the other class and just dipping into the Mystic class and visa-versa. Even a 1 level dip into Mystic will get three disciplines. But, I'll focus on taking Mystic levels and dipping into another class. Specifically, I'm going to look at the Monk, but I think the Mystic works well with just about any class. One of the reasons that Mystic is so good for multi-classing is that there are a lot of abilities/spells that don't need saving throws. You could practically use INT as a dump stat and still be a descent Mystic.

However, I'm going to specifically disagree with Monk being marked as Red. First off, it's not MAD because you do NOT need to plow ASIs into INT. Just max out your DEX and then WIS, and have a decent CON. The problem with monk in my view is the amount of damage the monk deals. It might also be a little squishy compared to the front line characters, well... assuming you can get your hands on the monk. Mystic can fix both these issues.

There are probably a lot of pretty good monk/mystic builds. Personally, I like the Shadow Monk and would take at least 6 levels of Shadow Monk for the Shadow Step, and if you went 6 levels then you might as well go 7 for Evasion and Stillness of Mind. Then you might as well go to 8th level for the ASI. This leaves 12 levels of Mystic. That would probably be my character (although other options are certainly doable as well).

In regards to increasing the monks damage, Psionic Weapon's Lethal Strike adds 1d10 per psi (7 psi max) to your unarmed strikes. That's freaking awesome, even if it only applies to one of your strikes per round. As to squishy, Iron Durability's Iron Hide can provide +7 to AC, and Iron Durability's Focus give another +1 AC, Bestial Form's Tough Hide would give another +2 AC, and the monk's AC by itself is 10 + DEX mod + WIS mod. If you maxed out DEX and WIS this is an AC of 30. Is that good? Yeah, it's good. Monk's are also hard to hit because of their speed. Add in Celerity and/or Nomadic Step and nobody is touching you.

Shadow Monk's have that cool Shadow Step thing. If you can see the shadow you can step into it. Nomadic Mind has Wandering Eye and Phasing Eye. You use your "eye" to find a shadow 3 miles away deep in a castle and poof you're there. Can't find any shadows? Time for Mastery of Light and Darkness where you create your own shadows. Then again, who needs shadows at all? Nomadic Chameleon has Enduring Invisibility and if you pair that with Psychic Assault's Psionic Blast you can stand right out in the open and make blood poor out of your enemies eyes and ears as you're Psionic Blast turns their brains into mush --- no saving throw. In fact, NONE of the above has saving throws.

This is why the Mystic is awesome (actually, probably, too awesome). This is also just focusing on pairing the Mystic with Monk. However, the Mystic could be paired with anything. Druids, Clerics, Rogues, Fighters, Warlocks, Wizards, whatever. You really don't need to worry about your INT score or the character being too MAD.

[carrdrivesyou]

I'm going to disagree with the Multi-classing recommendations. I think just about anything works really well with Mystic. This includes focusing on the other class and just dipping into the Mystic class and visa-versa. Even a 1 level dip into Mystic will get three disciplines. But, I'll focus on taking Mystic levels and dipping into another class. Specifically, I'm going to look at the Monk, but I think the Mystic works well with just about any class. One of the reasons that Mystic is so good for multi-classing is that there are a lot of abilities/spells that don't need saving throws. You could practically use INT as a dump stat and still be a descent Mystic.

However, I'm going to specifically disagree with Monk being marked as Red. First off, it's not MAD because you do NOT need to plow ASIs into INT. Just max out your DEX and then WIS, and have a decent CON. The problem with monk in my view is the amount of damage the monk deals. It might also be a little squishy compared to the front line characters, well... assuming you can get your hands on the monk. Mystic can fix both these issues.

There are probably a lot of pretty good monk/mystic builds. Personally, I like the Shadow Monk and would take at least 6 levels of Shadow Monk for the Shadow Step, and if you went 6 levels then you might as well go 7 for Evasion and Stillness of Mind. Then you might as well go to 8th level for the ASI. This leaves 12 levels of Mystic. That would probably be my character (although other options are certainly doable as well).

In regards to increasing the monks damage, Psionic Weapon's Lethal Strike adds 1d10 per psi (7 psi max) to your unarmed strikes. That's freaking awesome, even if it only applies to one of your strikes per round. As to squishy, Iron Durability's Iron Hide can provide +7 to AC, and Iron Durability's Focus give another +1 AC, Bestial Form's Tough Hide would give another +2 AC, and the monk's AC by itself is 10 + DEX mod + WIS mod. If you maxed out DEX and WIS this is an AC of 30. Is that good? Yeah, it's good. Monk's are also hard to hit because of their speed. Add in Celerity and/or Nomadic Step and nobody is touching you.

Shadow Monk's have that cool Shadow Step thing. If you can see the shadow you can step into it. Nomadic Mind has Wandering Eye and Phasing Eye. You use your "eye" to find a shadow 3 miles away deep in a castle and poof you're there. Can't find any shadows? Time for Mastery of Light and Darkness where you create your own shadows. Then again, who needs shadows at all? Nomadic Chameleon has Enduring Invisibility and if you pair that with Psychic Assault's Psionic Blast you can stand right out in the open and make blood poor out of your enemies eyes and ears as you're Psionic Blast turns their brains into mush --- no saving throw. In fact, NONE of the above has saving throws.

This is why the Mystic is awesome (actually, probably, too awesome). This is also just focusing on pairing the Mystic with Monk. However, the Mystic could be paired with anything. Druids, Clerics, Rogues, Fighters, Warlocks, Wizards, whatever. You really don't need to worry about your INT score or the character being too MAD.

All good points! I seem to have been proven wrong about my judgement of monks. But in my own defense, I was looking (mostly) at being primarily a mystic and dipping other classes. I was going to wait until the class was published to re-write everything to include full cross-classing. As it is, the Mystic is just too powerful for multiclassing. It just wouldn't be fair at the table.

As WOTC_GM puts it, the class is already too powerful for its own good, and I've heard mention of it being banned until publication at some of my local tables. It has an excellent subclass setup, a nice balance of resource management, but lacks critical balance for at-level abilities. Summoning Shadows at 5th level is ridiculous. Having a pool of 20 Temp HP at 3rd level is far beyond what other classes can offer. Not to mention Wall of Wood conjures a wall of solid wood for an hour (concentration) with 100 hp! That is a MASSIVE game-changer.

I love this class but as I have said before, it needs a hit or two from the nerf bat before it hits the books. Could use some help in later levels, but at mid-game, these are massively OP.

[Ovarwa]

Hi,

Of course, multiclassing into monk at level 9 means that you've been saddled with a useless Int 13+ for 8 levels. Int does not need to be maximized, but it cannot be dumped!

And I think that Mystic is mostly a bit underpowered, with the exception of a few powerful abilities that people reasonably want to nerf. It's never good design to bury a few awesome options amidst a bunch of meh options, because the former will almost always be chosen and the latter ignored. Of course, that's hopefully why this is test material.

Anyway,

Ken

[Matrix_Walker]

Nomadic Arrow (Ranged attacks only.)
Focus: Removes Disadvantage. Can’t benefit from Advantage.


I think you are misinterpreting the Focus for Nomadic Arrow.



Nomadic Arrow
Psychic Focus. While you are focused on this discipline, any attack roll you make for a ranged weapon attack ignores disadvantage. If disadvantage would normally apply to the roll, that roll also can’t benefit from advantage.

Normally any number of sources advantage or disadvantage cancel out their opposite, and you only roll one die.

This means that if you have a source of disadvantage being removed by the focus, it still counts for determining whether you have advantage. Basically, you treat it like a source of advantage, but only when you have a source of disadvantage.

Nomadic Arrow does not prevent you from having advantage on die rolls. It just can't help you get advantage if there is any disadvantage it is saving you from.

[carrdrivesyou]

I think you are misinterpreting the Focus for Nomadic Arrow.

Normally any number of sources advantage or disadvantage cancel out their opposite, and you only roll one die.

This means that if you have a source of disadvantage being removed by the focus, it still counts for determining whether you have advantage. Basically, you treat it like a source of advantage, but only when you have a source of disadvantage.

Nomadic Arrow does not prevent you from having advantage on die rolls. It just can't help you get advantage if there is any disadvantage it is saving you from.

There has been some small debate on the way this ability is supposed to be interpreted. RAW is not very clear, and there are a few different opinions floating around. RAI I think is that it is supposed to remove the disadvantage/advantage idea completely, leaving you with a flat roll.

Example: You have two counts of advantage and three counts of disadvantage. Normally, since you have more bad than good, the bad wins out, and you take the worse of two rolls. While focused here, you nullify the argument regardless, even if the numbers were reverse; that is to say you had three good and two bad, you neither benefit nor suffer from either.

Either way, this ability focus needs to be re-written in more clear text to be properly defined by the players. I am going to leave this as a Black rating, given its controversial nature.


Hi,

Of course, multiclassing into monk at level 9 means that you've been saddled with a useless Int 13+ for 8 levels. Int does not need to be maximized, but it cannot be dumped!

And I think that Mystic is mostly a bit underpowered, with the exception of a few powerful abilities that people reasonably want to nerf. It's never good design to bury a few awesome options amidst a bunch of meh options, because the former will almost always be chosen and the latter ignored. Of course, that's hopefully why this is test material.

1. It is always easy to overlook Ability Score Req.'s when multiclassing. It's a bit of an afterthought really. I'm certain that specific abilities will be nerfed, but I am thinking we will see some new things released as well that will hopefully give the Mystic some better scaling.

Up until about level 12, the class as a whole can be a bit OP with respect to build, but after which, the class does take a downhill turn. I think that a level 20 Mystic falls way behind in raw power compared to other classes (with no multiclassing). Many of the abilities just don't scale. They stay the exact same from the time you learn the ability compared to other classes abilities (not including talents).

Icy Resilience (MoI) is a good example of this. You could use this at 3rd level, and gain 20tHP, and you could use this at 20th level, and gain the same 20tHP. I'm not sure if this was the intention from wizards to create a unique type of power scaling inherent to the class, but it would seem a mistake an counter-intuitive by comparison to the other classes already released.

2. Nerf bat notwithstanding, the class needs some changes to bring it back into playability. I am fully expecting level limitations and subclass only options on certain Disciplines much like the Warlock's Invocations. It would make sense to me, fixing certain scaling and resource management issues native to the individual disciplines.

[Daithi]

I think you are misinterpreting the Focus for Nomadic Arrow.




Normally any number of sources advantage or disadvantage cancel out their opposite, and you only roll one die.

This means that if you have a source of disadvantage being removed by the focus, it still counts for determining whether you have advantage. Basically, you treat it like a source of advantage, but only when you have a source of disadvantage.

Nomadic Arrow does not prevent you from having advantage on die rolls. It just can't help you get advantage if there is any disadvantage it is saving you from.

The way I read Nomadic Arrow is - Ranged weapon attacks ignore disadvantage, but can’t gain Advantage if disadvantage would have applied. If disadvantage wouldn't have applied then they can still gain advantage.

[Drascin]

Yeah, my experience with mystic is that most of its stuff is a little underpowered, with a few specific things being OP. Or rather, the ease of picking them and mixing them up is a bit OP. I'm not being OP at all in our campaign, but it's because I'm picking with an eye to fluff. So, for example, Frozen Sanctuary would honestly be pretty freaking strong at level 3, probably nearly doubling your HP, but I kind of figured that grabbing Mastery of Ice before having Mastery of Water and Air made no goddamn sense for a Wu Jen, and so I'm not going to be picking up MoI until level 5 or probably 7. At that point, "gain 20 temp HP" on the secondary, less powerful wizard is not really going to rock anyone's socks.

Question is how you limit it. If you make it a lot more expensive pointswise to limit how soon it can be used, it also kind of becomes a lot less useful to the subclass that it is theorethically in-subclass. But the design as it is, the only limitation is the PP limit.

Also, I have to say, I picked the class with the understanding the campaign would probably never so much as reach level 12. If I expected to go to lategame, I would probably not have picked Mystic simply because the lategame mystic looks ungodlily lame.

[Aett_Thorn]

The way I read Nomadic Arrow is - Ranged weapon attacks ignore disadvantage, but can’t gain Advantage if disadvantage would have applied. If disadvantage wouldn't have applied then they can still gain advantage.

^This.

Here is the actual text:


While you are focused on this discipline, any attack roll you make for a ranged weapon attack ignores disadvantage.

If disadvantage would normally apply to the roll, that roll also can’t benefit from advantage.

Doesn't seem all that ambiguous to me. Seems fairly clear that it just can't benefit from advantage IF disadvantage would normally apply to the roll. The dependent clause depends on the preceding one.

[Matrix_Walker]

There has been some small debate on the way this ability is supposed to be interpreted. RAW is not very clear, and there are a few different opinions floating around. RAI I think is that it is supposed to remove the disadvantage/advantage idea completely, leaving you with a flat roll.

I really don't see how it can be read that way. It's an "if/then" statement.


The way I read Nomadic Arrow is - Ranged weapon attacks ignore disadvantage, but can’t gain Advantage if disadvantage would have applied. If disadvantage wouldn't have applied then they can still gain advantage.
Me too.
Agreed
Doesn't seem all that ambiguous to me. Seems fairly clear that it just can't benefit from advantage IF disadvantage would normally apply to the roll. The dependent clause depends on the preceding one.

Didn't I just say that?

[Matrix_Walker]

Oh and for Feats... You may want to note just how amazing Magic Initiate can be for a Wu Jen.

Their ability to use the spell slots outside of their dabbler selections indicated by "as well as other spells you are capable of casting" is a specific rule overriding the "you may only spend spell slots on spells you have class levels in" limitation. So you can keep fueling MI's first level spell (and even upcast it) as long as you have spell slots propared.

[Daithi]

...Summoning Shadows at 5th level is ridiculous.

By the way, you can start summoning those Shadows at 3rd level.

[Aett_Thorn]

Example: You have two counts of advantage and three counts of disadvantage. Normally, since you have more bad than good, the bad wins out, and you take the worse of two rolls. While focused here, you nullify the argument regardless, even if the numbers were reverse; that is to say you had three good and two bad, you neither benefit nor suffer from either..

Just FYI, this isn’t how it works. If you have 100 sources of disadvantage, and one source of advantage, it still cancels out and you just roll normally. Same thing in reverse: if you have 100 sources of advantage, and one of disadvantage, they cancel out and you roll normally. That’s how it operates normally, not just here.

[Daithi]

Oh and for Feats... You may want to note just how amazing Magic Initiate can be for a Wu Jen.

Their ability to use the spell slots outside of their dabbler selections indicated by "as well as other spells you are capable of casting" is a specific rule overriding the "you may only spend spell slots on spells you have class levels in" limitation. So you can keep fueling MI's first level spell (and even upcast it) as long as you have spell slots propared.

That's a good catch. It makes Magic Initiate a MUST take feat as soon as possible for any Wu Jen Mystic.

[Side note: My point about INT not being needed for some Mystic builds definitely does NOT apply to Wu Jen Mystics.]

[Matrix_Walker]

That's a good catch. It makes Magic Initiate a MUST take feat as soon as possible for any Wu Jen Mystic.

[Side note: My point about INT not being needed for some Mystic builds definitely does NOT apply to Wu Jen Mystics.]

How can you not? You can get into all sorts of mischief!

[Ovarwa]

Hi,


...

Agreed about scaling. And about class taking downturn. And about the class needing some redesign.

I sort of see Mystic as a second skew of Warlock, and failing with similar design problems.

Or like some of the weirder but not very good "magic" classes released during the last days of D&D3.x.

I suspect the entire thing is going to be rewritten.

Anyway,

Ken

[Ovarwa]

That's a good catch. It makes Magic Initiate a MUST take feat as soon as possible for any Wu Jen Mystic.

[Side note: My point about INT not being needed for some Mystic builds definitely does NOT apply to Wu Jen Mystics.]

If you have access to wizard-only magic items that let you cast spells with them, you would fare even better with a single level of Wizard. Then, instead of using charges or 1/day, you can cast and recast these spells using points. As well as any wizard spells in your spellbook. That's kind of good, if you have the right item.

Anyway,

Ken

[foobar1969]

Incite Panic: Where to start? This is another of those abilities that is situational at best, but is devastating when used in that situation. ... The downsides are that if you get too close to the enemies, they may swing on you or your allies anyways (and lets be real here, its useless in a dungeon crawl).
No one has pointed out that Incite Panic is strictly superior to Confusion.



Incite Panic

Confusion


5 PP (3rd level spell)

4th level spell


any 8 enemies in 90'

10' radius in 90' (1 to 12 targets, may hit allies)


end after 3 saves

end after 1 save



affected every round

20% act normally each round




Except for the last, any single one of those improvements would make Confusion better than Hypnotic Pattern.
If Incite Panic were a spell, it would be a sky blue top pick.

[foobar1969]

Perceive the Unseen: Nothing can hide from you. Ever.

It's more than that. This power overcomes the hidden condition (and invisibility & darkness) and it doesn't have a range limit. Cover or concealment grants the hidden condition. Therefore, as written, you see EVERY CREATURE ON YOUR PLANE OF EXISTENCE.

There are a few spells (or item effects) with a range of sight. If you have this plus those, you can now use them on any creature anywhere.

[Drascin]

It's more than that. This power overcomes the hidden condition (and invisibility & darkness) and it doesn't have a range limit. Cover or concealment grants the hidden condition. Therefore, as written, you see EVERY CREATURE ON YOUR PLANE OF EXISTENCE.

There are a few spells (or item effects) with a range of sight. If you have this plus those, you can now use them on any creature anywhere.

...that is kind of a really absurd reading. By that logic, a player character can perfectly see a guy on the other side of the world as long as there is nothing in the way, because the game does not especifically say they can't and they're not hidden.

The power does not say it enhances your visual range in any way. It just says it lets you ignore hidden, invisible, obscured, and lighting conditions in general. So basically any creature that you could normally see if it wasn't hiding or invisible or in darkness, you can see with this.

Unless you are trying to argue that "mechanics-wise" the only reason you can't see an ogre on the opposite side of a giant mountain is because it's hidden? Because I'm going to need a citation on that, because in such an eventuality, players should be able to do Perception rolls to spot it, since PHB page 177 lays it pretty clearly that hiding is an actual active action and that it can be opposed by a Perception check. And since that is self-evidently ridiculous it seems kind of silly to assume that a power written in three lines is meant to bypass how sight works in the entire game.

[foobar1969]

...that is kind of a really absurd reading. By that logic, a player character can perfectly see a guy on the other side of the world as long as there is nothing in the way
But there is something in the way: the world. It provides cover, causing things behind it to be hidden.

With very few exceptions, creatures become hidden due to cover or concealment. A power that defeats "hidden" must necessarily overcome cover and concealment. Therefore, Perceive the Unseen lets you see creatures through cover, and it has no range limit.

Yes, I am being entirely absurd about this. Mainly I'm saying that the UA Mystic isn't written well enough to be usable.

[Drascin]

But there is something in the way: the world. It provides cover, causing things behind it to be hidden.

With very few exceptions, creatures become hidden due to cover or concealment. A power that defeats "hidden" must necessarily overcome cover and concealment. Therefore, Perceive the Unseen lets you see creatures through cover, and it has no range limit.

Yes, I am being entirely absurd about this. Mainly I'm saying that the UA Mystic isn't written well enough to be usable.

Then, can I do a perception check to see a creature on the other side of the mountain?

The rules are explicit that you can see a hidden creature through a Perception check. This is not a guess or an extrapolation, this is plain text in the page. Therefore, if the only thing that objects being on the way does is make things "hidden", by the hookum-legalistic reading you try to espouse, a player is entirely within their rights to ask for a perception check to see someone in the building's basement from outside.

Or maybe, just maybe, there's a difference between "hidden" as an active condition, and "blocked from field of view" or "too far away to reasonably see without visual enhancements" in terms of the rules.

[carrdrivesyou]

But there is something in the way: the world. It provides cover, causing things behind it to be hidden.

With very few exceptions, creatures become hidden due to cover or concealment. A power that defeats "hidden" must necessarily overcome cover and concealment. Therefore, Perceive the Unseen lets you see creatures through cover, and it has no range limit.

Yes, I am being entirely absurd about this. Mainly I'm saying that the UA Mystic isn't written well enough to be usable.

Oh the infamous battle of RAW vs RAI haha. Allow me to elaborate my own observations and opinions...

RAI: Obviously the intention here was to give the class some ability to detect invisible or ethereal foes. It in no way enhances your RANGE of vision, nor does it imply you can see through barriers. It DOES imply that you can see hidden and invisible creatures within your normal field of vision, sans lighting conditions.

RAW: The specific verbiage here states that the character can see literally EVERY creature anywhere on their plane of existence simultaneously. However, if a player tried this in one of my games, and tried to argue it, their character's head would explode due to the information overdose.

Mutually Applied Theory: I would imagine that this would act very similar to the Detect Life from the Elder Scrolls series. You would simply see the aura of different creatures within your visual range, even through walls. However, creatures at a distance would be too small for you to detect, and would likely be ruled "impossible" to see due to the aura being so small at range that you could not see it (think about watching a person walk away from you until you could not see them from the sheer distance alone).

[Daithi]

Yeah... I'll add a third voice in support of NOT being able to see through mountains or through the entire earth (or into other planes) or seeing all creatures in existence hidden or not (RAW would go this far). Come on.

I'm not a DM, but I would expect I'd need to be in the same room/area of the creature that is hiding, and I'd expect that the creature would need to want to be hidden to be considered hiding.

[foobar1969]

Oh the infamous battle of RAW vs RAI haha.

RAW: The specific verbiage here states that the character can see literally EVERY creature anywhere on their plane of existence simultaneously. However, if a player tried this in one of my games, and tried to argue it, their character's head would explode due to the information overdose.
This is a valid answer. The RAW is "you can see all creatures, including hidden and invisible ones, regardless of lighting conditions." Regardless of general rules about vision distance (DMG p243) specific beats general. You can see all creatures.

A good DM will ignore RAW when necessary, but a good game supplement will prevent that from being necessary. Jeremy Crawford appears to be a big fan of the Mystic (which IMO should be the Psion) but he's doing a terrible job of writing something worth using. Perceive the Unseen is just one of the more glaring examples.


I'd expect that the creature would need to want to be hidden to be considered hiding.
This answer, OTOH, leads to a really weird paradox. Scenario: A Psion is using Perceive the Unseen in a twisty dungeon filled with thick mist. Around one corner is a creature who knows that the Psion is there, and has taken the Hide action. Around a different corner is that creature's twin, who failed its perception check, and just happens to be hanging out pondering the mist. Under your interpretation, the Psion would be able to see the first creature but not the second. More generally, the Psion would see every hidden creature in the world, but not distant non-hidden creatures.

[Hikarizu]

What about Wizard 2(Bladesinger) as a dip. Solves the weapon proficiency problem that all but Soulknife have and gives you Int to AC when using Bladesong. The extra 10 speed and advantage on Acrobatics is also nice. And you get three Cantrips and three 1st level spells (one more after a short rest).

[carrdrivesyou]

What about Wizard 2(Bladesinger) as a dip. Solves the weapon proficiency problem that all but Soulknife have and gives you Int to AC when using Bladesong. The extra 10 speed and advantage on Acrobatics is also nice. And you get three Cantrips and three 1st level spells (one more after a short rest).

That could make an interesting gish build, but the big thing you are gaining here is the AC bonus. The rest of the boons are nice, but not really more powerful than any particular psychic focus. I could see an Immortal getting some serious mileage out of Bladesong (AC = CON + DEX + INT + 10). I'll add in a line for it in the guide. Good on you for pointing it out!

EDIT: As a side note, whenever the final Mystic is published I will expand multiclassing for each subclass.

[Hikarizu]

And you can replace 10+Con with 14 with Inertia armor to reduce the MADness. I plan on playing exactly Immortal Bladesinger. I will start with Mystic for the extra hp and better AC(Inertia vs Mage armor), going Bladesinger 2 and returning to Mystic until the campaign ends. Will report how it fares with the rest of the party. One of the other PCs is a Str based Drow Sorcerer(don't ask I don't know why either) so I am guessing fairly well.

[carrdrivesyou]

And you can replace 10+Con with 14 with Inertia armor to reduce the MADness. I plan on playing exactly Immortal Bladesinger. I will start with Mystic for the extra hp and better AC(Inertia vs Mage armor), going Bladesinger 2 and returning to Mystic until the campaign ends. Will report how it fares with the rest of the party. One of the other PCs is a Str based Drow Sorcerer(don't ask I don't know why either) so I am guessing fairly well.

I'm looking forward to hearing about your experience!

[samcifer]

So the player who suicide his gunsmith artificer has decided to go with a mystic, but I'm not certain which subclass he went with. We've only had a single session and he was introduced to end the battle (where we were overwhelmed and out of resources from a boss fight at the end of the last encounter) and blew the monsters all away. Haven't gotten to see enough play of the class yet to decide how good or bad it is, but it seems to feel pretty powerful so far from the non-combat encounters he was in based on what all he did with his abilities.

[Jerrykhor]

So the player who suicide his gunsmith artificer has decided to go with a mystic, but I'm not certain which subclass he went with. We've only had a single session and he was introduced to end the battle (where we were overwhelmed and out of resources from a boss fight at the end of the last encounter) and blew the monsters all away. Haven't gotten to see enough play of the class yet to decide how good or bad it is, but it seems to feel pretty powerful so far from the non-combat encounters he was in based on what all he did with his abilities.

He might have used a 7 point Psychic Blast, that thing deals 10d8 damage. Makes Cone of Cold look so bad in comparison.

[samcifer]

He might have used a 7 point Psychic Blast, that thing deals 10d8 damage. Makes Cone of Cold look so bad in comparison.

Well the DM just described what was happening, then introduced the character as our new pc character because he wanted our characters to have a good reason for trusting the new guy as he saved all of our lives. (seriously, we were all still out of resources, the druid was knocked out and the fighter was dropped to below 0hp by a crushing grapple attack. The mystic restored them both. The other main thing he did during the session was use the ability to make cloud-like platforms to make a staircase to get us back into the tower we had just left and then used Misty Step to get past a booby-trapped door so he could disarm the trap.)

[Aett_Thorn]

Well the DM just described what was happening, then introduced the character as our new pc character because he wanted our characters to have a good reason for trusting the new guy as he saved all of our lives. (seriously, we were all still out of resources, the druid was knocked out and the fighter was dropped to below 0hp by a crushing grapple attack. The mystic restored them both. The other main thing he did during the session was use the ability to make cloud-like platforms to make a staircase to get us back into the tower we had just left and then used Misty Step to get past a booby-trapped door so he could disarm the trap.)

How the heck did he Misty Step through a door?

So he's got Mastery of Air, Psychic Restoration, and Psychic Blast, it looks like.

[sightlessrealit]

How the heck did he Misty Step through a door?

So he's got Mastery of Air, Psychic Restoration, and Psychic Blast, it looks like.

Mastery of a weather actually. Ergo the cloud stairs.

[Rinn]

Didnt see the Mystic Charm alongside your list of talents, Carr. It seems pretty strong expecially compared to Friends cantrip, cause have no downsides.

[carrdrivesyou]

Didnt see the Mystic Charm alongside your list of talents, Carr. It seems pretty strong expecially compared to Friends cantrip, cause have no downsides.

Added. Thanks! :D

[Kaliayev]

I had a fun little thought experiment for mystic absurdity. Throw as much as you can into athletics checks (e.g. athletics bg, one level dip into rogue for expertise, and setting your focus to brute force before combat). Pick up the mastery of air discipline. Use your action to grapple an enemy. Immediately fly up into the air 140 feet with 7 points in wind step (this uses no actions o_O). Switch your focus to mastery of air with your bonus action. You and the grappled creature fall 140 feet (I like to think that you're pile driving it), inflicting no damage to you, 14d6 bludgeoning damage to the creature, and the creature is knocked prone if it's not immune to bludgeoning damage. Since the creature generally can't get back up with its 0 movement from being grappled, you and the party can go to town on it.

This athletics focus gets even more absurd with certain feats and giant form, which you'll want to protect with concentration saving throws. Fortunately, you have strength of mind. If your DM isn't giving you grief about carrying capacity, you can use the above combo on a gargantuan enemy. If the carrying capacity is a concern (come on DM, who doesn't want to pile drive an ancient dragon?), you can get a similar effect through other means. If you pick up grappler, shield master, or do a five level multi-class for an extra attack, you can have some interesting results. With shield master and a shield, which would require a one level dip to pick up shield proficiency, you can use your bonus action to shove and then grapple with your attack action, leaving the gargantuan creature prone with 0 movement. You can do the same with an extra attack. With the grappler feat, you can put yourself in a position to restrain a gargantuan-sized creature. Apparently, the mystic is actually the best grappler. All those barbarian wrestlers are crying in their rage.

Given the above potential, I would bump wind step up to orange.

[Princesse]

Great guide but i have a question about the Immortal: What exactly is his job?
I mean, with +2 dex and +3 Con i have 15 AC which is super low for a tank. I don't have multi attack so my melee potential is pretty low after level 5. Should i just be in the middle of the fight and Brute Force my way to victory? Or maybe mind thrust from afar, unkillable mindthruster? Or is it supposed to be more of a support build with the healing or walls discipline? I'm a bit confused on what i should be doing in a fight.
Thanks.

[Kaliayev]

Great guide but i have a question about the Immortal: What exactly is his job?
I mean, with +2 dex and +3 Con i have 15 AC which is super low for a tank. I don't have multi attack so my melee potential is pretty low after level 5. Should i just be in the middle of the fight and Brute Force my way to victory? Or maybe mind thrust from afar, unkillable mindthruster? Or is it supposed to be more of a support build with the healing or walls discipline? I'm a bit confused on what i should be doing in a fight.
Thanks.

The main draw for order of the immortal is the health boost. Assuming you're capping your int at some point, you get +5 temp hp per round, plus the +1 max hp/mystic level. As to what its "job" is, that depends on what you want it to be. The mystic's approach will generally be defined by you, with the order and disciplines supplementing whatever role(s) you choose. You can build your mystic to be a ranged or melee damage dealer, a buffer/healer, the party's skill monkey, a mind manipulator, etc. If you're looking for more AC, take bestial form and mastery of force for the furry force armor combination. If you're looking for something especially potent at the level five PL boost, mantle of fear's incite panic is one of the best options you could ask for. It can turn your enemies into frightened, uncooperative minions, forcing them to make a whopping three saves to escape the effects. Since you can change a known discipline at each level, swap out the disciplines you're finding to be less useful and experiment with ones that might support the rest of your build approach.

[carrdrivesyou]

Great guide but i have a question about the Immortal: What exactly is his job?
I mean, with +2 dex and +3 Con i have 15 AC which is super low for a tank. I don't have multi attack so my melee potential is pretty low after level 5. Should i just be in the middle of the fight and Brute Force my way to victory? Or maybe mind thrust from afar, unkillable mindthruster? Or is it supposed to be more of a support build with the healing or walls discipline? I'm a bit confused on what i should be doing in a fight.
Thanks.

The Immortal, IMHO, is a bit of an oddball. As you have stated, he really isn't cut out for melee, nor is he designed to take the heat in a fight. But what you CAN do is a bit unconventional. Since manifesting a power requires no somatic or verbal components, you can stand MUCH closer to threats and still hit them with close or long range attacks with little feat of being one hit killed. You also won't be provoking many Opportunity Attacks. If you take Psionic Restoration, you can literally stand with the melee in the group and heal him in the fight (if needed), give him tactical support, help give the rogue advantage for his Sneak Attacks, etc. All while making sure the enemies are focusing on you and your replenishing tHP pool instead of your ACTUAL caster or healer.

Simply put, you can assist everyone in the party much like a bard would but without stepping on their toes. You can also do this while not sucking up too many resources or being at risk of dying too quickly. The Immortal is a semi-flexible build that doesn't lock you into traditional party roles, but allows you to do so much more.

As an example, I made an Immortal with most of the Disciplines with Wall abilities (the build is called Captain Walls). Basically, he just divided the groups apart and plinked the bigger ones with Mind Thrust. A wall will work WONDERS when applied in the right place. Divide and conquer is his calling card. Mastery of Wood and Earth is the first stopping place on your shopping list of Disciplines.

[Princesse]

Those are two very good answers! That helped a lot thanks!

[Hikarizu]

Got to 3rd level with my Immortal High Elf. Picked Booming blade as my cantrip and it synergies quite well with Knock Back. I get to re-position the enemy which them must take some damage to get back into the fray. The Elven proficiency helped with finding a finesse weapon that is not a dagger. I am mostly using Inertial Armor and Tough Hide to stick into melee. With the flexibility of the mystic "casting" and the fact that I rolled highest stats in my group by a lot(16,14,14,12,11,10 my roll, imagine the rest) I am kinda outperforming everyone.

[Kaliayev]

This isn't a major change, but I would change to a blue/green mix for MoLaD's focus and darkness. The green would be dependent on multiclassing or order of wu jen. Arcane trickster, Bladesinger, and wu jen's arcane dabbler benefit greatly from having a magical darkness effect without concentration, while also having sight in that darkness through the aforementioned focus. They will be able to use shadow blade and magical darkness simultaneously (sorcerers and warlocks with mystic multiclass can also do this, but they would be even more MAD). Other melee multiclasses would also benefit, though not as much as AT/BS/wu jen.

[Psychokinetix]

So, I decided to play a mystic for a friends campaign. I have found that as I continue to play the more and more the DM gets annoyed. I have also found a few things that make any Wu Jen very hard to deal with in the upper levels. For instance, If you master ever discipline that gives you a possibility for resistance for damage, the only things that can hurt you are Necrotic and Radiant Damage. There is a Class Feature for them called Elemental Mastery. It states that as a Reaction you can spend 2PP and if you have resistance to a damage type then until the end of your next turn you have immunity. So, if you have Inertial Armor on, Armored form (Mastery Wood/Earth), and have a psychic focus on an element that the enemy often uses against you then every turn it attacks you with one of those things you have immunity. It is great for damage negation.

Another mystic I have actually enjoyed playing is a soul knife. Combining Hone the Blade and Augment Weapon gives you a great bonus. With a +7 weapon you never miss in a melee fight. Plus the weapon at one point rolls 3d8 for your first attack. On top of that add in lethal strike and you have a very formidable attack every round. Having some PP in reserve for a defensive move like defensive step is also awesome. It gives you a +4 to your AC and teleportation of 10ft. It gets you out of a bind very quickly. If you have a high armor class from the start it makes it really hard for opponents in the beginning to hit you at all.

Concerning the Githzerai - I think this was underated because of their racial abilities. +1 to AC from monaistic training, Shield, Mage Hand, and Detect Thoughts. If you are playing a mystic and have a decent dex (+2 or higher) this basically brings you up to 17AC, Add in Nomadic Step and you got 21 whenever you need it. Keep in mind that you have to reserve the PP to use it. On top of that Shield gives you +5 for one shot and lasts until your next turn. Serious defense.

Animate Weapon is also really useful for damage dealing because it allows you to deal force damage. Very few creatures are resistant to that type of damage. The other thing about it is that it is still considered a melee attack not a ranged attack. Even if the monster is within 5ft of you it still works as a melee attack.

What are your thoughts on this?

[carrdrivesyou]

So, I decided to play a mystic for a friends campaign. I have found that as I continue to play the more and more the DM gets annoyed. I have also found a few things that make any Wu Jen very hard to deal with in the upper levels. For instance, If you master ever discipline that gives you a possibility for resistance for damage, the only things that can hurt you are Necrotic and Radiant Damage. There is a Class Feature for them called Elemental Mastery. It states that as a Reaction you can spend 2PP and if you have resistance to a damage type then until the end of your next turn you have immunity. So, if you have Inertial Armor on, Armored form (Mastery Wood/Earth), and have a psychic focus on an element that the enemy often uses against you then every turn it attacks you with one of those things you have immunity. It is great for damage negation.

Another mystic I have actually enjoyed playing is a soul knife. Combining Hone the Blade and Augment Weapon gives you a great bonus. With a +7 weapon you never miss in a melee fight. Plus the weapon at one point rolls 3d8 for your first attack. On top of that add in lethal strike and you have a very formidable attack every round. Having some PP in reserve for a defensive move like defensive step is also awesome. It gives you a +4 to your AC and teleportation of 10ft. It gets you out of a bind very quickly. If you have a high armor class from the start it makes it really hard for opponents in the beginning to hit you at all.

Concerning the Githzerai - I think this was underated because of their racial abilities. +1 to AC from monaistic training, Shield, Mage Hand, and Detect Thoughts. If you are playing a mystic and have a decent dex (+2 or higher) this basically brings you up to 17AC, Add in Nomadic Step and you got 21 whenever you need it. Keep in mind that you have to reserve the PP to use it. On top of that Shield gives you +5 for one shot and lasts until your next turn. Serious defense.

Animate Weapon is also really useful for damage dealing because it allows you to deal force damage. Very few creatures are resistant to that type of damage. The other thing about it is that it is still considered a melee attack not a ranged attack. Even if the monster is within 5ft of you it still works as a melee attack.

What are your thoughts on this?

1. It looks to me that your build is spending PP in massive quantities. You won't last more than one fight, maybe two burning through points like this.

2. The Wu Jen: your thoughts on damage reduction are inspired! Well done. However, Armored Form requires concentration. Meaning ANY damage taken will force a check on you to keep it up. A Wu Jen should not be anywhere near melee IMO, as they are a caster type, rather than a melee type. Simply standing behind someone else or being out of range is much better for Damage Negation than resisting it. Not to mention that Armored form lasts only a minute and is one of the more costly abilities.

3. The Soul Knife: this is actually a solid idea. My only problem with the Soul Knife really is that it doesn't get Extra Attack. I'm hoping they will add it before publication.

4. Githzerai: I suppose I could bump this to orange, but I really don't see much of a point. The wisdom boost is near to useless for the class, and while the spells are nice, they are only once day abilities. Monastic Training is sweet for any light or unarmored user, but it really doesn't matter that much in the long run. I think these were geared more for being monks and rogues than mystics.

5. Animate Weapon: while this does good damage, it's cost prohibitive. Unless you have a particular weapon that you need to hit your opponent with, I really don't see justifying the use of so many PP for one attack, at least not repeatedly. At lower levels, Mind Thrust is almost exclusively better (psychic is only slightly more resisted than force).

Overall, I think you have some excellent thoughts here. Keep up the playtesting, and I'm sure we will see some improvements in the finalized publication.
-Carr

[Psychokinetix]

1. It looks to me that your build is spending PP in massive quantities. You won't last more than one fight, maybe two burning through points like this.

2. The Wu Jen: your thoughts on damage reduction are inspired! Well done. However, Armored Form requires concentration. Meaning ANY damage taken will force a check on you to keep it up. A Wu Jen should not be anywhere near melee IMO, as they are a caster type, rather than a melee type. Simply standing behind someone else or being out of range is much better for Damage Negation than resisting it. Not to mention that Armored form lasts only a minute and is one of the more costly abilities.

3. The Soul Knife: this is actually a solid idea. My only problem with the Soul Knife really is that it doesn't get Extra Attack. I'm hoping they will add it before publication.

4. Githzerai: I suppose I could bump this to orange, but I really don't see much of a point. The wisdom boost is near to useless for the class, and while the spells are nice, they are only once day abilities. Monastic Training is sweet for any light or unarmored user, but it really doesn't matter that much in the long run. I think these were geared more for being monks and rogues than mystics.

5. Animate Weapon: while this does good damage, it's cost prohibitive. Unless you have a particular weapon that you need to hit your opponent with, I really don't see justifying the use of so many PP for one attack, at least not repeatedly. At lower levels, Mind Thrust is almost exclusively better (psychic is only slightly more resisted than force).

Overall, I think you have some excellent thoughts here. Keep up the playtesting, and I'm sure we will see some improvements in the finalized publication.
-Carr

I really like your thoughts; I do think that a Wu Jen is best suited out of melee range but, that can't always be avoided. Here are some of my thoughts on this and Mind thrust is better until level 8 when you receive potent psionics. Then I think it is on par or better with only 1pp to spend.

To point 1) If your DM has more than 1 to 3 fights then yes it could be troublesome. However, if you add in psionic mastery and use your points wisely you should be fine.

To Point 2) at level 14 elemental mastery states that if you have resistance to a damage type (Damage type not specified and how you have resistance is not specified) then you can spend 2PP to gain immunity to that damage type until the end of the next round. This means that you take no damage from that damage type (Piercing, Slashing, Bludgeoning, Acid, Fire, Cold, Necrotic, Radiant, Poison, Lightning, Thunder, Force, did i miss any?) This is because Wind and water can do bludgeoning damage and so on. It also states that as a reaction when you take damage of that type(It does not specify that it has to be from magic). This means that in the end you take no damage from that type and don't have to worry about a con save.

To point 3) Add Celerity in and receive an extra attack for 5PP.

To point 4) I would say orange or black at the most. Awesome Defense, +1 to INT, and one less stat to worry about using a point buy system or with a bad roll.

To point 5) Animate weapon allows you to make a ranged Melee attack. Essentially you melee attack reach is now 30ft. It gives you your Discipline modifier for attack and damage rolls. 1pp ads 1d10. at level 14 you have a total of 2d8 you can add to any attack. with spear mastery, Potent Psionics, Level 14, a spear, 1pp on animate weapon you do 1d10+3d8+10 to damage. With a melee attack roll modifier of your psionic discipline (+10 at level 14) with any weapon regardless of proficiency as long as they are one handed. That is a hidden gem really because it will never suffer from range disadvantage due to the fact that it is a melee attack and not a ranged attack. Mind Trust at lower levels is good to add in as well as energy beam. By rotating these things you have great versatility.

Add in Psionic Mastery and you can potentially have up to 44 more psi points to spend however you like in reserve. It also never states that you have to use them when they are first conjured only that it takes an action to do so. There is not a time limit on them either. Also, a Soul knife can replenish his Psi Points by killing small animals out of combat. it does state that whatever creature he kills (regardless if it is monster in combat or not gives him 2PP per kill)

What do you think about this?

[Jerrykhor]

To point 3) Add Celerity in and receive an extra attack for 5PP.

What do you think about this?

Attacking as a bonus action is not really extra attack. Also, you can already do that as a Soul Knife.

[Psychokinetix]

Attacking as a bonus action is not really extra attack. Also, you can already do that as a Soul Knife.

This is true but wouldn't you need to get the dual wielding feat for it to be more useful?

[Jerrykhor]

This is true but wouldn't you need to get the dual wielding feat for it to be more useful?

Why would you need Dual Wielder feat? Soul knife pretty much have that feat built in, besides the +1 AC.

[Psychokinetix]

Why would you need Dual Wielder feat? Soul knife pretty much have that feat built in, besides the +1 AC.

I was thinking about the +1 AC. The Bonus attack is one more attack so, one more d8 to damage for that turn. Also, I was thinking of the Two Weapon fighting style which allows you to add your ability modifier to the second damage roll. I forgot that feat doesn't actually allow you to use the two weapon fighting style.

[Jerrykhor]

I was thinking about the +1 AC. The Bonus attack is one more attack so, one more d8 to damage for that turn. Also, I was thinking of the Two Weapon fighting style which allows you to add your ability modifier to the second damage roll. I forgot that feat doesn't actually allow you to use the two weapon fighting style.

What are you talking about? Surge of Action does nothing. It doesn't bring you from 2 attacks to 3 attacks per round. You hit once with your action, then bonus action to hit again. It has some use if you are wielding 2 handed weapons, but Soul knife get nothing.

[carrdrivesyou]

I really like your thoughts; I do think that a Wu Jen is best suited out of melee range but, that can't always be avoided. Here are some of my thoughts on this and Mind thrust is better until level 8 when you receive potent psionics. Then I think it is on par or better with only 1pp to spend.

To point 1) If your DM has more than 1 to 3 fights then yes it could be troublesome. However, if you add in psionic mastery and use your points wisely you should be fine.

To Point 2) at level 14 elemental mastery states that if you have resistance to a damage type (Damage type not specified and how you have resistance is not specified) then you can spend 2PP to gain immunity to that damage type until the end of the next round. This means that you take no damage from that damage type (Piercing, Slashing, Bludgeoning, Acid, Fire, Cold, Necrotic, Radiant, Poison, Lightning, Thunder, Force, did i miss any?) This is because Wind and water can do bludgeoning damage and so on. It also states that as a reaction when you take damage of that type(It does not specify that it has to be from magic). This means that in the end you take no damage from that type and don't have to worry about a con save.

To point 3) Add Celerity in and receive an extra attack for 5PP.

To point 4) I would say orange or black at the most. Awesome Defense, +1 to INT, and one less stat to worry about using a point buy system or with a bad roll.

To point 5) Animate weapon allows you to make a ranged Melee attack. Essentially you melee attack reach is now 30ft. It gives you your Discipline modifier for attack and damage rolls. 1pp ads 1d10. at level 14 you have a total of 2d8 you can add to any attack. with spear mastery, Potent Psionics, Level 14, a spear, 1pp on animate weapon you do 1d10+3d8+10 to damage. With a melee attack roll modifier of your psionic discipline (+10 at level 14) with any weapon regardless of proficiency as long as they are one handed. That is a hidden gem really because it will never suffer from range disadvantage due to the fact that it is a melee attack and not a ranged attack. Mind Trust at lower levels is good to add in as well as energy beam. By rotating these things you have great versatility.

Add in Psionic Mastery and you can potentially have up to 44 more psi points to spend however you like in reserve. It also never states that you have to use them when they are first conjured only that it takes an action to do so. There is not a time limit on them either. Also, a Soul knife can replenish his Psi Points by killing small animals out of combat. it does state that whatever creature he kills (regardless if it is monster in combat or not gives him 2PP per kill)

What do you think about this?

1. You only get to use Consumptive power once (Max bonus of +7), and Psionic Mastery yields you (at 17th) 36PP over the course of 4 uses. That's a max of 43 bonus PP for emergencies. While it is an effective use of abilities, I would honestly use those pools for specific reasons. Consumptive would be a last ditch effort; meanwhile, Psionic Mastery would be quite useful in the way of setting up some nasty combos. Set up a wall on top of someone and then Force Weapon them to death.

2. This is true, however, they have made sure to spread out the resistances. You'll either need to be focused on a particular Elemental type, or use a discipline's ability to gain that resistance (Energy Adaptation from Adaptive Body for elementals and Steel Hide from Iron Durability for physical types). So try to do some research on your enemy beforehand to capitalize on this. Nothing to make a dragon more furious than having him melt the boulders around you with his breath only for you to brush off some dust and tell him he needs a tic-tac.

3. This ties up your bonus action which could be better used for other things.

4. I'll make it orange. I think that's honestly the best synergy it's gonna get.

5. Honestly, for all of that, you could just simplify the equation and use a bow with nomadic arrow. It's basically the same thing for ranged attacks. Potent Psionics applies as well, simply because it does not say it was restricted to only melee weapons. It just says "when you hit a creature with weapon." This would be a more economical use of points and time. (Simplify right?)

[Psychokinetix]

1. You only get to use Consumptive power once (Max bonus of +7), and Psionic Mastery yields you (at 17th) 36PP over the course of 4 uses. That's a max of 43 bonus PP for emergencies. While it is an effective use of abilities, I would honestly use those pools for specific reasons. Consumptive would be a last ditch effort; meanwhile, Psionic Mastery would be quite useful in the way of setting up some nasty combos. Set up a wall on top of someone and then Force Weapon them to death.

2. This is true, however, they have made sure to spread out the resistances. You'll either need to be focused on a particular Elemental type, or use a discipline's ability to gain that resistance (Energy Adaptation from Adaptive Body for elementals and Steel Hide from Iron Durability for physical types). So try to do some research on your enemy beforehand to capitalize on this. Nothing to make a dragon more furious than having him melt the boulders around you with his breath only for you to brush off some dust and tell him he needs a tic-tac.

3. This ties up your bonus action which could be better used for other things.

4. I'll make it orange. I think that's honestly the best synergy it's gonna get.

5. Honestly, for all of that, you could just simplify the equation and use a bow with nomadic arrow. It's basically the same thing for ranged attacks. Potent Psionics applies as well, simply because it does not say it was restricted to only melee weapons. It just says "when you hit a creature with weapon." This would be a more economical use of points and time. (Simplify right?)

I really like your insights on this. I do have to say that I am using MoWaE on my Wu Jen. I did that so that he would have a skill that did not require the enemy to make a save. This also adds to his ability to resist and negate damage. My Soul Knife on the other hand I fully intend to have using nomadic arrow.

[Sinon]

Attacking as a bonus action is not really extra attack. Also, you can already do that as a Soul Knife.
Actually, the interesting thing about Surge of Action is that, unlike the bonus attack with the off hand, this extra attack isn't contingent on having used the Attack Action already.

So, you can us your Action to manifest a power, for example, and attack with a weapon in the same round. TWF can't do that.

I still don't know that this is worth 5 psi points, but it is different than other types of bonus attack, and there's potential there.

Credit where credit is due: I didn't think of this until jaappleton pointed out a similar feature of a Scimitar of Speed in his "Power of a Magic Item" thread.

[jleonardwv]

This thread is useful to consider all the mystic options. I posted what I have below as a separate thread, but thought it might be useful here since this is probably the home of most people interested in mystics.

So I have a couple of character concepts where the PC is seemingly a nobody, by-stander, servant, whatever. The PC is actually a Psion (mystic) whose Talents and Disciplines have no visible source or effects, such that no normal NPC would ever know or suspect the Psion. I've created this guide to help me and thought it might help you. Archetype powers, disciplines, and talents are all rated based on whether the PC Psion could be definitively pinned as the source of the effects. I took a very conservative approach to the ratings, since perhaps DMs would let NPCs suspect the PC at the slightest hint of a "power" being used.

Warning: This could totally hack off the DM and make Sorcerer's subtle spell metamagic seem pathetic.

Green: These powers have no visible effects and/or no way to tell the source of the power in normal settings. If Psion is visible and alone with a BBEG, it might be impossible to hide the source of these effects.
Black: Nothing necessarily RAW reveals the source of the effect. This will depend on role-playing, character choices about the power, or DM rulings.
Red: It is clear that the Psion is the origin of this effect perhaps because it originates at the Psion or changes the physical appearance of the Psion or maybe gives the PC superhuman abilities.

Telepathy: In a crowd, you are probably unnoticed.
Strength of Mind: Not detectable.
Potent Psionics: Target probably knows you are the source of the extra damage.
Consumptive Power: Affect the Psion physically, but maybe not visibly.
Psionic Mastery: No visible effect.
Psionic Body: Will have a noticeable effect on the physique.



Avatar:
Armor Training: No one knows this is Psionics.
Avatar of Battle: No one knows the source.
Avatar of Healing: No one knows the source.
Avatar of Speed: No one knows the source.

Awakened:
Awakened Talent: No one knows this is Psionics.
Psionic Investigation: Anyone watching figures you have some power--maybe a spell. If the Psion is alone this is Green.
Psionic Surge: No one knows the source.
Spectral Form: Your body changes.

Immortal:
Immortal durability: Maybe you are just extra quick or tough, but clearly harder to hit/damage.
Psionic Resilience: You are regaining HP, a physical change.
Surge of Health: Might make someone suspicious.
Immortal Will: Didn't we just kill him?

Nomad:
Breadth of Knowledge: Not usually detectable as Psionics.
Memory of One Thousand Steps: You teleported.
Superior Teleportation: You teleported.
Effortless Journey: You teleported.

Soul Knife:
Martial Training: No one knows this is Psionics.
Soul Knife: Your fists are knives.
Hone the Blade: No one knows this is Psionics.
Consumptive Knife: See Soul Knife.
Phantom Knife: See Soul Knife.

Wu Jen:
Hermit’s Study: No one knows this is Psionics.
Elemental Attunement: No one knows this is even happening.
Arcane Dabbler: Depends on spell selection. Probably red.
Elemental Mastery: A physical effect.




Adaptive Body
Focus: Not usually noticeable.
Environmental Adaptation: You touch someone.
Adaptive Shield: A physical effect.
Energy Adaptation: You touch someone.
Energy Immunity: You touch someone.

Aura Sight
Focus: No visible effect.
Assess Foe: No visible effect.
Read Moods: No visible effect.
View Aura: No visible effect.
Perceive the Unseen: No visible effect. Might suspicious that you can see everyone if you mention it.

Bestial Form
Focus: No visible effect.
Bestial Claws: You got claws.
Bestial Transformation: All of them have visible and/or physical effects. Perhaps Tough Hide could be hidden by good RP.

Brute Force
Focus: No visible effect.
Brute Strike: Extra damage visible.
Knock Back: Extra physical effect.
Mighty Leap: How did you jump 140 feet?
Feat of Strength: Hide with RP?

Celerity
Focus: Nothing more than Monk or some races might have.
Rapid Step: Too fast to hide.
Agile Defenses: Impressive, but could easily be hidden with good RP.
Blur of Motion: Invisible!
Surge of Speed: Physical effet.
Surge of Action: Might hide with RP. Kinda like Fighter at 5th or War Cleric 1.

Corrosive Metabolism
Focus: Would be evident that damage is reduced.
Corrosive Touch: Physical effect.
Venom Strike: Physical effect.
Acid Spray: Physical effect.
Breath of the Black Dragon: Physical effect.
Breath of the Green Dragon: Physical effect.

Crown of Despair
Focus: No visible effect.
Crowned in Sorrow: No visible effect.
Call to Inaction: You talked to your target.
Visions of Despair: No visible effect.
Dolorous Mind: No visible effect.

Crown of Disgust
Focus: Physical effect.
Eye of Horror: Target is avoiding you. Maybe you could RP an explanation.
Wall of Repulsion: No one knows the source of this wall.
Visions of Disgust: No one knows the source of this effect.
World of Horror: They are frightened of you.

Crown of Rage
Focus: They feel compelled to attack you. Can you RP this without them knowing the source of this feeling?
Primal Fury: No one knows the source of this effect.
Fighting Words: You talk to the target.
Mindless Courage: No one knows the source of this effect.
Punishing Fury: No one knows the source of this effect.

Diminution
Focus: No visible effect.
Miniature Form: Physical effect.
Toppling Shift: Physical effect.
Sudden Shift: Physical effect.
Microscopic Form: Maybe no one notices?

Giant Growth
Focus: Physical effect.
Ogre Form: Physical effect.
Giant Form: Physical effect.

Intellect Fortress
Focus: No visible effect.
Psychic Backlash: You affect an attacker.
Psychic Parry: Seems like everything happens in the mind.
Psychic Redoubt: No visible effect or source.

Iron Durability
Focus: Could easily RP this minor effect.
Iron Hide: Physical effect.
Steel Hide: Physical effect.
Iron Resistance: Physical effect.

Mantle of Awe
Focus: No visible effect.
Charming Presence: Charm clearly has a source.
Center of Attention: I think you could RP this.
Invoke Awe: You are giving orders.

Mantle of Command
Focus: No visible effect.
Coordinated Movement: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Commander’s Sight: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Command to Strike: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Strategic Mind: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Overwhelming Attack: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mantle of Courage
Focus: No visible source.
Incite Courage: No visible source.
Aura of Victory: [/B] How would anyone know the source of this effect?
[COLOR="#008000"]Pillar of Confidence: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mantle of Fear
Focus: No visible effect.
Incite Fear: Target knows it's you.
Unsettling Aura: Target knows it's you.
Incite Panic: Targets know it's you.

Mantle of Fury
Focus: No visible source.
Incite Fury: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Mindless Charge: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Aura of Bloodletting: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Overwhelming Fury: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mantle of Joy
Focus: No visible source.
Soothing Presence: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Comforting Aura: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Aura of Jubilation: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Beacon of Recovery: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Air
Focus: Physical effect.
Wind Step: Physical effect on you.
Wind Stream: Effect originates with you.
Cloak of Air: Physical effect on you.
Wind Form: Physical effect on you.
Misty Form: Physical effect on you.
Animate Air: It obeys your verbal commands.

Mastery of Fire
Focus: Noticeable reduction in damage.
Combustion: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Rolling Flame: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Detonation: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Fire Form: Physical effect on you.
Animate Fire: It obeys your verbal commands.

Mastery of Force
Focus: Could probably RP this to avoid suspicion.
Push: Appears to originate from you.
Move: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Inertial Armor: Physical effects are obvious.
Telekinetic Barrier: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Grasp: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Ice
Focus: Noticeable reduction in damage.
Ice Spike: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Ice Sheet: [/B] How would anyone know the source of this effect?
[COLOR="#ff0000"]Frozen Sanctuary: Physical effect.
Frozen Rain: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Ice Barrier: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Light and Darkness
Focus: No visible effect.
Darkness: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Light: Touch effect.
Shadow Beasts: They obey your verbal commands.
Radiant Beam: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Water
Focus: Physical effect.
Desiccate: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Watery Grasp: Appears to originate from you.
Water Whip: Appears to originate from you.
Water Breathing: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Water Sphere: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Animate Water: It obeys your verbal commands.

Mastery of Weather
Focus: Physical effect.
Cloud Steps: Seems awfully convenient that the stairs just appear in front of you.
Hungry Lightning: I suppose the lightning could come from above.
Wall of Clouds: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Whirlwind: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Lightning Leap: Appears to originate from you then you teleport.
Wall of Thunder: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Thunder Clap: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Wood and Earth
Focus: Might be able to RP this minor effect.
Animate Weapon: You are holding the weapon.
Warp Weapon: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Warp Armor: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Wall of Wood: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Armored Form: Physical effect
Animate Earth: You verbally command.

Nomadic Arrow
Focus: Lucky roll? Good shot?
Speed Dart: Originates from you.
Seeking Missile: Lucky roll? Good shot?
Faithful Archer: Originates from you.

Nomadic Chameleon
Focus: No detectable effect.
Chameleon: Are you just good at hiding?
Step from Sight: Are you just good at hiding? Making party is not traceable to you.
Enduring Invisibility: How can they know what happened to you?

Nomadic Mind
Focus: No one knows how you got these abilities.
Wandering Mind: Could RP this.
Find Creature: Depends on how you RP this.
Item Lore: No visible effect.
Psychic Speech: No visible effect.
Wandering Eye: No visible effect.
Phasing Eye: No visible effect.

Nomadic Step
Focus: Teleport
Step of a Dozen Paces: Teleport.
Nomadic Anchor: Teleport.
Defensive Step: Teleport.
There and Back Again: [/B] Teleport.
[COLOR="#FF0000"]Transposition: Teleport.
Baleful Transposition: Teleport.
Phantom Caravan: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Nomad’s Gate: Teleport.

Precognition
Focus: RP no problem.
Precognitive Hunch: RP this.
All Around Sight: Physical effect.
Danger Sense: RP this.
Victory Before Battle: RP this.

Psionic Restoration
Focus: Physical effect.
Mend Wound: Physical effect.
Restore Health: Physical effect.
Restore Life: Physical effect.
Restore Vigor: Physical effect.

Psionic Weapon
Focus: Your weapon is enhanced.
Ethereal Weapon: Your weapon is enhanced.
Lethal Strike: Your weapon is enhanced.
Augmented Weapon: Your weapon is enhanced.

Psychic Assault
Focus: Undetectable.
Psionic Blast: Undetectable.
Ego Whip: Undetectable.
Id Insinuation: Undetectable.
Psychic Blast: Originates from you.
Psychic Crush: No one knows it's you.

Psychic Disruption
Focus: No visible effect.
Distracting Haze: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.
Daze: No one knows it's you.
Mind Storm: Untrackable.

Psychic Inquisition
Focus: No one knows.
Hammer of Inquisition: No one knows.
Forceful Query: You talk to the target.
Ransack Mind: You concentrate for an hour? Seems suspicious.
Phantom Idea: You concentrate for an hour? Seems suspicious.

Psychic Phantoms
Focus: No one knows.
Distracting Figment: No one knows it's you.
Phantom Foe: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.
Phantom Betrayal: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.
Phantom Riches: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.

Telepathic Contact
Focus: RP this.
Exacting Query: You talk to the subject.
Occluded Mind: In a crowd, no one would know who is asking.
Broken Will: In a crowd, no one would know who is commanding.
Psychic Grip: What's wrong with him? *shrugs shoulders* I don't know.
Psychic Domination: Concentration, but no range limit once the creature has been targeted.

Third Eye
Focus: No visible effect.
Tremorsense: No visible effect.
Unwavering Eye: No visible effect.
Piercing Sight: No visible effect.
Truesight: No visible effect.




Beacon Physical effect.
Blade meld Physical effect.
Blind spot RP this.
Delusion No visible effect.
Energy Beam RAW the beam doesn't need to originate with you.
Light step RP this.
Mind Meld No visible source.
Mind Meld No visible source.
Mystic Charm Charmed by you.
Mystic Hand No visible source.
Psychic Hammer No visible source.

[carrdrivesyou]

This thread is useful to consider all the mystic options. I posted what I have below as a separate thread, but thought it might be useful here since this is probably the home of most people interested in mystics.

So I have a couple of character concepts where the PC is seemingly a nobody, by-stander, servant, whatever. The PC is actually a Psion (mystic) whose Talents and Disciplines have no visible source or effects, such that no normal NPC would ever know or suspect the Psion. I've created this guide to help me and thought it might help you. Archetype powers, disciplines, and talents are all rated based on whether the PC Psion could be definitively pinned as the source of the effects. I took a very conservative approach to the ratings, since perhaps DMs would let NPCs suspect the PC at the slightest hint of a "power" being used.

Warning: This could totally hack off the DM and make Sorcerer's subtle spell metamagic seem pathetic.

Green: These powers have no visible effects and/or no way to tell the source of the power in normal settings. If Psion is visible and alone with a BBEG, it might be impossible to hide the source of these effects.
Black: Nothing necessarily RAW reveals the source of the effect. This will depend on role-playing, character choices about the power, or DM rulings.
Red: It is clear that the Psion is the origin of this effect perhaps because it originates at the Psion or changes the physical appearance of the Psion or maybe gives the PC superhuman abilities.

Telepathy: In a crowd, you are probably unnoticed.
Strength of Mind: Not detectable.
Potent Psionics: Target probably knows you are the source of the extra damage.
Consumptive Power: Affect the Psion physically, but maybe not visibly.
Psionic Mastery: No visible effect.
Psionic Body: Will have a noticeable effect on the physique.



Avatar:
Armor Training: No one knows this is Psionics.
Avatar of Battle: No one knows the source.
Avatar of Healing: No one knows the source.
Avatar of Speed: No one knows the source.

Awakened:
Awakened Talent: No one knows this is Psionics.
Psionic Investigation: Anyone watching figures you have some power--maybe a spell. If the Psion is alone this is Green.
Psionic Surge: No one knows the source.
Spectral Form: Your body changes.

Immortal:
Immortal durability: Maybe you are just extra quick or tough, but clearly harder to hit/damage.
Psionic Resilience: You are regaining HP, a physical change.
Surge of Health: Might make someone suspicious.
Immortal Will: Didn't we just kill him?

Nomad:
Breadth of Knowledge: Not usually detectable as Psionics.
Memory of One Thousand Steps: You teleported.
Superior Teleportation: You teleported.
Effortless Journey: You teleported.

Soul Knife:
Martial Training: No one knows this is Psionics.
Soul Knife: Your fists are knives.
Hone the Blade: No one knows this is Psionics.
Consumptive Knife: See Soul Knife.
Phantom Knife: See Soul Knife.

Wu Jen:
Hermit’s Study: No one knows this is Psionics.
Elemental Attunement: No one knows this is even happening.
Arcane Dabbler: Depends on spell selection. Probably red.
Elemental Mastery: A physical effect.




Adaptive Body
Focus: Not usually noticeable.
Environmental Adaptation: You touch someone.
Adaptive Shield: A physical effect.
Energy Adaptation: You touch someone.
Energy Immunity: You touch someone.

Aura Sight
Focus: No visible effect.
Assess Foe: No visible effect.
Read Moods: No visible effect.
View Aura: No visible effect.
Perceive the Unseen: No visible effect. Might suspicious that you can see everyone if you mention it.

Bestial Form
Focus: No visible effect.
Bestial Claws: You got claws.
Bestial Transformation: All of them have visible and/or physical effects. Perhaps Tough Hide could be hidden by good RP.

Brute Force
Focus: No visible effect.
Brute Strike: Extra damage visible.
Knock Back: Extra physical effect.
Mighty Leap: How did you jump 140 feet?
Feat of Strength: Hide with RP?

Celerity
Focus: Nothing more than Monk or some races might have.
Rapid Step: Too fast to hide.
Agile Defenses: Impressive, but could easily be hidden with good RP.
Blur of Motion: Invisible!
Surge of Speed: Physical effet.
Surge of Action: Might hide with RP. Kinda like Fighter at 5th or War Cleric 1.

Corrosive Metabolism
Focus: Would be evident that damage is reduced.
Corrosive Touch: Physical effect.
Venom Strike: Physical effect.
Acid Spray: Physical effect.
Breath of the Black Dragon: Physical effect.
Breath of the Green Dragon: Physical effect.

Crown of Despair
Focus: No visible effect.
Crowned in Sorrow: No visible effect.
Call to Inaction: You talked to your target.
Visions of Despair: No visible effect.
Dolorous Mind: No visible effect.

Crown of Disgust
Focus: Physical effect.
Eye of Horror: Target is avoiding you. Maybe you could RP an explanation.
Wall of Repulsion: No one knows the source of this wall.
Visions of Disgust: No one knows the source of this effect.
World of Horror: They are frightened of you.

Crown of Rage
Focus: They feel compelled to attack you. Can you RP this without them knowing the source of this feeling?
Primal Fury: No one knows the source of this effect.
Fighting Words: You talk to the target.
Mindless Courage: No one knows the source of this effect.
Punishing Fury: No one knows the source of this effect.

Diminution
Focus: No visible effect.
Miniature Form: Physical effect.
Toppling Shift: Physical effect.
Sudden Shift: Physical effect.
Microscopic Form: Maybe no one notices?

Giant Growth
Focus: Physical effect.
Ogre Form: Physical effect.
Giant Form: Physical effect.

Intellect Fortress
Focus: No visible effect.
Psychic Backlash: You affect an attacker.
Psychic Parry: Seems like everything happens in the mind.
Psychic Redoubt: No visible effect or source.

Iron Durability
Focus: Could easily RP this minor effect.
Iron Hide: Physical effect.
Steel Hide: Physical effect.
Iron Resistance: Physical effect.

Mantle of Awe
Focus: No visible effect.
Charming Presence: Charm clearly has a source.
Center of Attention: I think you could RP this.
Invoke Awe: You are giving orders.

Mantle of Command
Focus: No visible effect.
Coordinated Movement: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Commander’s Sight: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Command to Strike: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Strategic Mind: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Overwhelming Attack: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mantle of Courage
Focus: No visible source.
Incite Courage: No visible source.
Aura of Victory: [/B] How would anyone know the source of this effect?
[COLOR="#008000"]Pillar of Confidence: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mantle of Fear
Focus: No visible effect.
Incite Fear: Target knows it's you.
Unsettling Aura: Target knows it's you.
Incite Panic: Targets know it's you.

Mantle of Fury
Focus: No visible source.
Incite Fury: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Mindless Charge: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Aura of Bloodletting: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Overwhelming Fury: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mantle of Joy
Focus: No visible source.
Soothing Presence: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Comforting Aura: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Aura of Jubilation: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Beacon of Recovery: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Air
Focus: Physical effect.
Wind Step: Physical effect on you.
Wind Stream: Effect originates with you.
Cloak of Air: Physical effect on you.
Wind Form: Physical effect on you.
Misty Form: Physical effect on you.
Animate Air: It obeys your verbal commands.

Mastery of Fire
Focus: Noticeable reduction in damage.
Combustion: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Rolling Flame: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Detonation: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Fire Form: Physical effect on you.
Animate Fire: It obeys your verbal commands.

Mastery of Force
Focus: Could probably RP this to avoid suspicion.
Push: Appears to originate from you.
Move: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Inertial Armor: Physical effects are obvious.
Telekinetic Barrier: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Grasp: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Ice
Focus: Noticeable reduction in damage.
Ice Spike: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Ice Sheet: [/B] How would anyone know the source of this effect?
[COLOR="#ff0000"]Frozen Sanctuary: Physical effect.
Frozen Rain: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Ice Barrier: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Light and Darkness
Focus: No visible effect.
Darkness: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Light: Touch effect.
Shadow Beasts: They obey your verbal commands.
Radiant Beam: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Water
Focus: Physical effect.
Desiccate: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Watery Grasp: Appears to originate from you.
Water Whip: Appears to originate from you.
Water Breathing: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Water Sphere: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Animate Water: It obeys your verbal commands.

Mastery of Weather
Focus: Physical effect.
Cloud Steps: Seems awfully convenient that the stairs just appear in front of you.
Hungry Lightning: I suppose the lightning could come from above.
Wall of Clouds: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Whirlwind: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Lightning Leap: Appears to originate from you then you teleport.
Wall of Thunder: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Thunder Clap: How would anyone know the source of this effect?

Mastery of Wood and Earth
Focus: Might be able to RP this minor effect.
Animate Weapon: You are holding the weapon.
Warp Weapon: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Warp Armor: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Wall of Wood: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Armored Form: Physical effect
Animate Earth: You verbally command.

Nomadic Arrow
Focus: Lucky roll? Good shot?
Speed Dart: Originates from you.
Seeking Missile: Lucky roll? Good shot?
Faithful Archer: Originates from you.

Nomadic Chameleon
Focus: No detectable effect.
Chameleon: Are you just good at hiding?
Step from Sight: Are you just good at hiding? Making party is not traceable to you.
Enduring Invisibility: How can they know what happened to you?

Nomadic Mind
Focus: No one knows how you got these abilities.
Wandering Mind: Could RP this.
Find Creature: Depends on how you RP this.
Item Lore: No visible effect.
Psychic Speech: No visible effect.
Wandering Eye: No visible effect.
Phasing Eye: No visible effect.

Nomadic Step
Focus: Teleport
Step of a Dozen Paces: Teleport.
Nomadic Anchor: Teleport.
Defensive Step: Teleport.
There and Back Again: [/B] Teleport.
[COLOR="#FF0000"]Transposition: Teleport.
Baleful Transposition: Teleport.
Phantom Caravan: How would anyone know the source of this effect?
Nomad’s Gate: Teleport.

Precognition
Focus: RP no problem.
Precognitive Hunch: RP this.
All Around Sight: Physical effect.
Danger Sense: RP this.
Victory Before Battle: RP this.

Psionic Restoration
Focus: Physical effect.
Mend Wound: Physical effect.
Restore Health: Physical effect.
Restore Life: Physical effect.
Restore Vigor: Physical effect.

Psionic Weapon
Focus: Your weapon is enhanced.
Ethereal Weapon: Your weapon is enhanced.
Lethal Strike: Your weapon is enhanced.
Augmented Weapon: Your weapon is enhanced.

Psychic Assault
Focus: Undetectable.
Psionic Blast: Undetectable.
Ego Whip: Undetectable.
Id Insinuation: Undetectable.
Psychic Blast: Originates from you.
Psychic Crush: No one knows it's you.

Psychic Disruption
Focus: No visible effect.
Distracting Haze: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.
Daze: No one knows it's you.
Mind Storm: Untrackable.

Psychic Inquisition
Focus: No one knows.
Hammer of Inquisition: No one knows.
Forceful Query: You talk to the target.
Ransack Mind: You concentrate for an hour? Seems suspicious.
Phantom Idea: You concentrate for an hour? Seems suspicious.

Psychic Phantoms
Focus: No one knows.
Distracting Figment: No one knows it's you.
Phantom Foe: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.
Phantom Betrayal: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.
Phantom Riches: You remain close by for a minute. Suspicious.

Telepathic Contact
Focus: RP this.
Exacting Query: You talk to the subject.
Occluded Mind: In a crowd, no one would know who is asking.
Broken Will: In a crowd, no one would know who is commanding.
Psychic Grip: What's wrong with him? *shrugs shoulders* I don't know.
Psychic Domination: Concentration, but no range limit once the creature has been targeted.

Third Eye
Focus: No visible effect.
Tremorsense: No visible effect.
Unwavering Eye: No visible effect.
Piercing Sight: No visible effect.
Truesight: No visible effect.




Beacon Physical effect.
Blade meld Physical effect.
Blind spot RP this.
Delusion No visible effect.
Energy Beam RAW the beam doesn't need to originate with you.
Light step RP this.
Mind Meld No visible source.
Mind Meld No visible source.
Mystic Charm Charmed by you.
Mystic Hand No visible source.
Psychic Hammer No visible source.



This is well thought out and very useful. My last Mystic capitalized on people not knowing he was the source of the strange goings-on around town. Very effective in ANY campaign. My favorite, all in all, has got to be the Phasing Eye from Nomadic Mind. Talk about some awesome spy stuff! I'll add this into the guide and credit you! Thanks!

[sambojin]

Any nicely broken combos people have thought of using Psionic Mastery? I'll put it as the 15th lvl version (ie: 11PP) and assume that everyone knows all disciplines (or the ones used in the combo at least), no matter how disparate they seem, so we can show off the better ones.

First obvious one is "Shields up!"
Bestial Transformation (Tough Hide, 2), Cloak of Air (3), Comforting Aura (2), Steel Hide (2), Coordinated Movement (2).

That's +2AC, disadvantage to attacks against you, +d4 on saves for you and two others, resistance vs B/P/S for the rest of this turn and your next, and five allies get a free reaction half-move (you might not be the only one in danger, and your party can "dodge" potential aoe's this turn using this). Not an easy thing to do, is hitting you.
---------

Another is "Instant Garden Maze".
Wall of Wood (3), Ice Barrier (6), Darkness (2).

What's better than one wall? Two walls that they can't see their way around. Way better if you can zigzag walls in a grid, but having the double still let's you create problems for them no matter what your DM rules on this. Could sub out 20' darkness for another vision blocking Wall of Clouds, or if you can zigzag them properly the Ice Barrier for a Wall of Thunder (you just made a trapped passageway). Or a 40' tall Cloud Step, so you just made an instant mini-castle. So many good things to do with multiple walls it's silly.
---------

My Little Army
Animate Earth/whatever (7), Shadow Beasts (3), Cloud Steps (1).

The big guy pounds on them, the shadows stat zap them, all while you and your ranged party members look on from your cloud tower. Action economy is ace.


Anyway, there's plenty to do with PM, including multi-save BC, nova'ing, as well as blowing through legendary resistances very quickly. What's some others that people have thought of?

[carrdrivesyou]

But those are MY secrets! :smalleek:

[Mortis_Elrod]

I thought if it before but it’s been awhile, but can you use consumptive power along with psionics mastery ? I doubt it be allowed but that’s a lot more points to work with.

Regardless of that I think i had a super reach build somewhere....

Bugbear for more reach but any race will do


Psionics mastery 11 points.
2 points mantle of fury including you
2 points ogre form
7 points giant form
Focus on giant growth

This gives +2d6 and 2d4 on every melee weapon attack for a minute and also 30 temp hp and Huge size and +20ft in reach.

If able to charge up further and you are soul knife you can Hone the Blade for +4/+4 1d8 knives.

Attack and use Knock Back from brute Force to launch anyone that is 25 (30 if bugbear) fret from you another 70 feet (7pts) potentially doing another 7d6.

[carrdrivesyou]

I thought if it before but it’s been awhile, but can you use consumptive power along with psionics mastery ? I doubt it be allowed but that’s a lot more points to work with.

Regardless of that I think i had a super reach build somewhere....

Bugbear for more reach but any race will do


Psionics mastery 11 points.
2 points mantle of fury including you
2 points ogre form
7 points giant form
Focus on giant growth

This gives +2d6 and 2d4 on every melee weapon attack for a minute and also 30 temp hp and Huge size and +20ft in reach.

If able to charge up further and you are soul knife you can Hone the Blade for +4/+4 1d8 knives.

Attack and use Knock Back from brute Force to launch anyone that is 25 (30 if bugbear) fret from you another 70 feet (7pts) potentially doing another 7d6.

1. Psionic Mastery specifically states that you cannot spend other points on the disciplines you activate with it.

2. Ogre form and Giant Form do not stack. You are either large or huge. This becomes debatable when you are a race such as a goliath that counts as a different size for different purposes.

3. Honestly, one of my favorite things to do is use Giant form to become Huge, then use Nomadic Arrow's Speed Dart and Faithful Archer; alongside Potent Psionics and Cloud Steps. Be a Cloud Giant launching trees at people. Very deadly trees.

[Mortis_Elrod]

1. Psionic Mastery specifically states that you cannot spend other points on the disciplines you activate with it.

2. Ogre form and Giant Form do not stack. You are either large or huge. This becomes debatable when you are a race such as a goliath that counts as a different size for different purposes.

3. Honestly, one of my favorite things to do is use Giant form to become Huge, then use Nomadic Arrow's Speed Dart and Faithful Archer; alongside Potent Psionics and Cloud Steps. Be a Cloud Giant launching trees at people. Very deadly trees.

1. Wrong check again. Nowhere does it say you can’t use different effects from the same discipline

2. No, you can’t but the text on both of these effects only happen when you see smaller. Thus if you are smaller than large you large but large is still smaller that huge, so now you are huge. So you end at Huge.

[sambojin]

It's a pity all the blade whirlwind effects tend to say within 5' of you, or with 5' of your original target. Can anyone track down a badly written UA or something where it doesn't say this? There's been a lot of Rangers over 5e's history, so there might be something in one to become an AoE of great huge weapon'y awesomeness.

(Fighter 5/Mystic 15 isn't too bad of a build anyway if you want to go martial/magic. Makes for a perfect controller, and can be an excellent Warlord if you go BM. Works fine with anything that gets a second attack at fifth/sixth really. With a pretty open but reasonable reading, you could probably Wu Jen up Pally smite slots too if you felt like it. Deep dips either way, from either start class are great with Mystic, since you're a bit powercapped with martials anyway, but combined you are captain planet).

[jleonardwv]

I ask myself this question: What mystic talents/disciplines that target an enemy automatically succeed? I hate wasting PP, although I suppose the same idea applies to other spell-casters. So here are the irresistible Psi powers:

Talent: Delusion - sound or image automatically seen/heard by target. I would assume the DM would require some sort of "interaction" by the target to detect that it was only in the mind.

Wu Jen's Elemental Attunement can't be avoided or resisted.

Disciplines:
(Several damaging effects can cause extra Psi damage, but since they already require an attack roll, I don't consider them as auto-succeed.)

Aura sight: Hmm. These allow no saving throw, but really don't "affect" the enemy directly.
Corrosive Metabolism, Acid spray allows no ST.
Intellect Fortress, Psychic backlash allows no ST.
Mantle of Awe, Charming Presence is auto-succeed on creatures affected similar to Sleep spell.
Mantle of Fear, Unsettling Aura allows no ST.
Mantle of Joy, Aura of Jubilation has no ST.
Mastery of Air, Cloak of Air use reaction to make the creature attack itself cannot be resisted.
Mastery of Fire, Rolling Flame allows no ST.
Mastery of Fire, Fire Form allows no ST.
Nomadic Mind, Find Creature can't be resisted, even by a deity, RAW.
Psychic Assault, Psionic Blast - like Magic Missile, causes auto-damage.

[jleonardwv]

For optimization or just a thought exercise, I wonder what Psi disciplines/talents have the greatest average chance of success? Someone on Reddit made a spreadsheet of every monster in the Monster Manual, including their ability scores. The average of all monsters in the Monster Manual had:

STR 16
DEX 12
CON 15
INT 9
WIS 12
CHA 11

So the Mystic has a huge advantage already, since many powers (19) target INT. Next would be CHA saves (9) then WIS (13) and DEX (11). Finally, CON (10) and STR (11). So powers that target those would be on average least successful. Here is a complete list of the Mystic Talents/Disciplines organizated by ability targeted and listed in the order the powers appear in the UA PDF.

STR
Brute Force, Knock Back
Diminution, Toppling Shift
Mastery of Air, Wind Stream
Mastery of Force, Push
Mastery of Force, Grasp
Mastery of Water, Watery Grasp
Mastery of Water, Water Whip
Mastery of Weather, Whirlwind
Mastery of Weather, Wall of Thunder
Mastery of Wood and Earth, Warp Weapon
Psychic Hammer talent

DEX
Corrosive Metabolism, Corrosive Touch
Mastery of Force, Move
Mastery of Ice, Ice Spike
Mastery of Ice, Ice Sheet
Mastery of Light and Darkness, Light
Mastery of Light and Darkness, Radiant Beam
Mastery of Water, Water Sphere
Mastery of Weather, Hungry Lightning
Mastery of Weather, Lightning Leap
Psionic Weapon, Ethereal Weapon
Energy Beam talent

CON
Corrosive Metabolism, Venom Strike
Corrosive Metabolism, Breath of the Black Dragon
Corrosive Metabolism, Breath of the Green Dragon
Mastery of Fire, Combustion
Mastery of Fire, Detonation
Mastery of Ice, Frozen Rain
Mastery of Water, Dessicate
Mastery of Weather, Thunder Clap
Mastery of Wood and Earth, Warp Armor
Mind Slam talent

INT
Mantle of Awe, Invoke Awe
Psychic Assault, Ego Whip
Psychic Assault, Id Insinuation
Psychic Assault, Psychic Blast
Psychic Assault, Psychic Crush
Psychic Disruption, Distracting Haze
Psychic Disruption, Daze
Psychic Inquisition, Ransack Mind
Psychic Inquisition, Phantom Idea
Psychic Phantoms, Distracting Figment
Psychic Phantoms, Phantom Foe
Psychic Phantoms, Phantom Betrayal
Psychic Phantoms, Phantom Riches
Telepathic Contact, Exacting Query
Telepathic Contact, Occluded Mind
Telepathic Contact, Broken Will
Telepathic Contact, Psychic Grip
Telepathic Contact, Psychic domination
Mind Thrust talent

WIS
Crown of Despair, Call to Inaction
Crown of Disgust, Wall of Repulsion
Crown of Disgust, Visions of Disgust
Crown of Rage, Fighting Words
Crown of Rage, Mindless Courage
Crown of Rage, Punishing Fury
Mantle of Fear, Incite Fear
Mantle of Fear, Incite Panic
Nomadic Step, Baleful Transposition
Psychic Assault, Mind Storm
Psychic Inquisition, Hammer of Inquisition
Psychic Inquisition, Forceful Query
Blind Spot talent

CHA
Crown of Despair, Crowned in Sorrow
Crown of Despair, Visions of Despair
Crown of Despair, Dolorous Mind
Crown of Disgust, Eye of Horror
Crown of Disgust, World of Horror
Crown of Rage, Primal Fury
Mantle of Awe, Center of Attention
Mantle of Fury, Overwhelming Fury
Mystic Charm talent

[sambojin]

Thanks for this. Not only does it show why Mystics are so good, it also gives me some ideas for multi-tap Psionic Mastery "packages", where I use fairly low PP abilities to slap a silly amount of conditions and effects on a target.

Sure, Mystics might not be uber AoE'ers, but having about 11d6 of potential damage and maybe 4-5 saves to roll against or the effects come tumbling in makes them VERY GOOD at BC and single target lock-down. Even at lvl11 (about when other classes get their really big bonus), having an effect storm of 9PP worth is pretty amazing as an ability. I may have thought Mystics scaled a bit weirdly before, but now I'm more looking at it as scaling into awesome "construct your own uber spell, have another every two levels" territory. So much better than what warlocks get :)

[carrdrivesyou]

For optimization or just a thought exercise, I wonder what Psi disciplines/talents have the greatest average chance of success? Someone on Reddit made a spreadsheet of every monster in the Monster Manual, including their ability scores. The average of all monsters in the Monster Manual had:

STR 16
DEX 12
CON 15
INT 9
WIS 12
CHA 11

So the Mystic has a huge advantage already, since many powers (19) target INT. Next would be CHA saves (9) then WIS (13) and DEX (11). Finally, CON (10) and STR (11). So powers that target those would be on average least successful. Here is a complete list of the Mystic Talents/Disciplines organizated by ability targeted and listed in the order the powers appear in the UA PDF.

STR
Brute Force, Knock Back
Diminution, Toppling Shift
Mastery of Air, Wind Stream
Mastery of Force, Push
Mastery of Force, Grasp
Mastery of Water, Watery Grasp
Mastery of Water, Water Whip
Mastery of Weather, Whirlwind
Mastery of Weather, Wall of Thunder
Mastery of Wood and Earth, Warp Weapon
Psychic Hammer talent

DEX
Corrosive Metabolism, Corrosive Touch
Mastery of Force, Move
Mastery of Ice, Ice Spike
Mastery of Ice, Ice Sheet
Mastery of Light and Darkness, Light
Mastery of Light and Darkness, Radiant Beam
Mastery of Water, Water Sphere
Mastery of Weather, Hungry Lightning
Mastery of Weather, Lightning Leap
Psionic Weapon, Ethereal Weapon
Energy Beam talent

CON
Corrosive Metabolism, Venom Strike
Corrosive Metabolism, Breath of the Black Dragon
Corrosive Metabolism, Breath of the Green Dragon
Mastery of Fire, Combustion
Mastery of Fire, Detonation
Mastery of Ice, Frozen Rain
Mastery of Water, Dessicate
Mastery of Weather, Thunder Clap
Mastery of Wood and Earth, Warp Armor
Mind Slam talent

INT
Mantle of Awe, Invoke Awe
Psychic Assault, Ego Whip
Psychic Assault, Id Insinuation
Psychic Assault, Psychic Blast
Psychic Assault, Psychic Crush
Psychic Assault, Distracting Haze
Psychic Assault, Daze
Psychic Inquisition, Ransack Mind
Psychic Inquisition, Phantom Idea
Psychic Phantoms, Distracting Figment
Psychic Phantoms, Phantom Foe
Psychic Phantoms, Phantom Betrayal
Psychic Phantoms, Phantom Riches
Telepathic Contact, Exacting Query
Telepathic Contact, Occluded Mind
Telepathic Contact, Broken Will
Telepathic Contact, Psychic Grip
Telepathic Contact, Psychic domination
Mind Thrust talent

WIS
Crown of Despair, Call to Inaction
Crown of Disgust, Wall of Repulsion
Crown of Disgust, Visions of Disgust
Crown of Rage, Fighting Words
Crown of Rage, Mindless Courage
Crown of Rage, Punishing Fury
Mantle of Fear, Incite Fear
Mantle of Fear, Incite Panic
Nomadic Step, Baleful Transposition
Psychic Assault, Mind Storm
Psychic Inquisition, Hammer of Inquisition
Psychic Inquisition, Forceful Query
Blind Spot talent

CHA
Crown of Despair, Crowned in Sorrow
Crown of Despair, Visions of Despair
Crown of Despair, Dolorous Mind
Crown of Disgust, Eye of Horror
Crown of Disgust, World of Horror
Crown of Rage, Primal Fury
Mantle of Awe, Center of Attention
Mantle of Fury, Overwhelming Fury
Mystic Charm talent

I'm going to add this into the guide. This will seriously save people time in deciding which disciplines to use and take. Well done friend.

[PancakeMaster80]

I've actually found a pretty sweet setup for the soul knife order.

With dex 18 and inertial armor my level 3 character has 18AC, 20 if they use their bonus action to block.

Using hone the blade to give my weapon +4 (since it's not a discipline nor does the description mention the psi limit I believe I can do this) and incite fury my character is attacking for +8 to hit and does a combined damage of 2d8 + 2d4 + 12.

Later on the build can pick up more AC from tough hide and the focus from iron durability.

[masterjoda99]

Is the Mystic still just Unearthed Arcana, or has it seen release in a more official capacity?

[carrdrivesyou]

The Mystic is still in UA, although recently Mike Mearls has been talking about adding a bunch of Psionic Subclasses and creating the Psion class. From my understanding, he is pilfering a lot of the Mystic's stuff and moving it into other classes. For example, the Soul Knife would become a Rogue psionic subclass. There would be a fighter and a wizard psionic subclass plus a whole suite of psionic spells that only psionic subclasses have access to. Whatever is left is likely to be turned into the Psion class. And frankly, I think this is the worst possible direction for the Mystic. I thought the Mystic needed a few tweaks but not dissection and dissemination of abilities.

I do not agree with the direction they are taking the class, but I really don't have much of a say in it either. I'm seriously outnumbered.

[Mortis_Elrod]

The Mystic is still in UA, although recently Mike Mearls has been talking about adding a bunch of Psionic Subclasses and creating the Psion class. From my understanding, he is pilfering a lot of the Mystic's stuff and moving it into other classes. For example, the Soul Knife would become a Rogue psionic subclass. There would be a fighter and a wizard psionic subclass plus a whole suite of psionic spells that only psionic subclasses have access to. Whatever is left is likely to be turned into the Psion class. And frankly, I think this is the worst possible direction for the Mystic. I thought the Mystic needed a few tweaks but not dissection and dissemination of abilities.

I do not agree with the direction they are taking the class, but I really don't have much of a say in it either. I'm seriously outnumbered.

to be more clear most of the mystic will probably still be in the Psion class. Mearls said as much but you should watch the relevant Happy Fun Hour s .

as far as subclasses go there break down is this:

Psionic Warrior- Fighter
Soul Knife - Monk
Lurk- Rogue
Mentalist- Wizard

Then the Psionic Class (Poll was taken for name I think Psion won) will have the following subclasses
-Avatar
-Nomad
-Constructor
-Metamorph
-Telekineticist
-Telepath

[Jerrykhor]

The Mystic is still in UA, although recently Mike Mearls has been talking about adding a bunch of Psionic Subclasses and creating the Psion class. From my understanding, he is pilfering a lot of the Mystic's stuff and moving it into other classes. For example, the Soul Knife would become a Rogue psionic subclass. There would be a fighter and a wizard psionic subclass plus a whole suite of psionic spells that only psionic subclasses have access to. Whatever is left is likely to be turned into the Psion class. And frankly, I think this is the worst possible direction for the Mystic. I thought the Mystic needed a few tweaks but not dissection and dissemination of abilities.

I do not agree with the direction they are taking the class, but I really don't have much of a say in it either. I'm seriously outnumbered.

I don't agree with Mearls too (then again, I never liked anything Mearls suggested lol). A Soul Knife is first and foremost a psion, so it should be a Mystic subclass.

[carrdrivesyou]

I don't agree with Mearls too (then again, I never liked anything Mearls suggested lol). A Soul Knife is first and foremost a psion, so it should be a Mystic subclass.

Glad to hear a like minded person out there! As far as I am concerned though, as long as I am wearing the GM hat (and depending on how they do the psionic subs), the psionic subs will likely be banned and i'll keep the UA Mystic as it is. Maybe make a few tweaks to balance it.

[Drascin]

Well, you already know what I think about the idea of just making disciplines into selectable spells. Namely, it's lame as heck. I really like the package design of the Mystic. Yes, the packages are horrendously balanced between them in terms of comparative utility, but they're so neat and flavorful.

Also, man, that list really puts into perspective how uphill my decision of focusing purely on Wu-Jen disciplines is going to make my life. So many Str and Con saves, and so many enemies with those scores way high up.

[Sception]

I don't agree with Mearls too (then again, I never liked anything Mearls suggested lol). A Soul Knife is first and foremost a psion, so it should be a Mystic subclass.

It should be it's own class, or if it has to share a class with anything, it should be a separate, 'half-psionic' class shared with psychic warrior, akin to the paladin or ranger, with its own bespoke list of powers/disciplines focused on channeling psionic power through their own body to attack and defend, where the psion should be the full caster with powers/disciplines that manipulate target objects & creatures directly.

The insistance on shoving every character concept up under the skirts of as few classes as possible has squashed multiple ideas already, most notably the poor bladelock, and will continue to squash more and more as 5e continues.

Frankly, I'm half shocked that even mystic/psion is getting a class at all. Given how things have been going, I would have expected them to try getting away with psion as an 'arcane tradition' and nothing more. And the more they strip out of the mystic, especially if they ditch themed package disciplines for individual spell-type leveled powers, the more they might as well have done so regardless.

[jleonardwv]

I've applied to 3 play by post games with a Mystic and can't get any DM to take me. (I've got 5 kids so don't have the ability to set aside 3 hours a week to play table top.) Maybe prejudice against Mystics out there? Maybe my characters are lame in some other way?

And I agree that UA Mystic has a lot of cool alternative powers that I'd hate to lose in an "official" class. Honestly, though, some of the Disciplines have powers that aren't very useful in my mind, so if a Mystic could replace them with powers from other Disciplines, I'd be more happy. If every power were a "spell" instead of packaged with a discipline, this would be possible.

[Daithi]

I do not agree with the direction they are taking the class, but I really don't have much of a say in it either. I'm seriously outnumbered.

For what it worth, I agree with you. I've been watch the Happy Hour stuff and its... Sad Hour. Now I need one of those Kona beers.

[furby076]

Reading some of the abilities, powers and rules in the v3 guide, it always looked like there would be a core mystic class with the abilities akin to what we have seen so far. There would be psionic based feats, skills, equipment, etc and there would be stuff for non mystics to take. Maybe Psinic initiate, psion focused subclasses that belonged to other classes, etc. This is also how previous editions played it. It fits well with creatures that have some psionic abilities, plus it works with a future release of dark sun where everyone will have some kind of psionic ability. All in all, I see nothing wrong with some other class getting a smaller subset of abilities (ala sub class), just like every class mix and matches some stuff. Gives flavor and spread the love

[Anauroch94]

Just watch mearls makin the mind mage a better Psion than the Psion...
Honestly i don't get why he's using the wizard as a base (read, close to copying). Psions were incredibly boring back in 3.5 because, besides flavour, they were bad wizards. Why did they removed the psi point system? Just so that it's easier for other full-caster (again, wizard, if i was slightly more paranoid I would say there's a tiny bit of favouritism towards this class) can dip into it without sacrificing spell slots?
I am honestly confused, and really sad because i wanted to play a nomad in an upcoming campaign. I guess time will tell but I'm not optimistic

[Daithi]

So far, I'm not a big fan with where Mearls is going with this. I much prefer the Mystic UA they released last year over this revised version. Just my opinion -- which means squat.

[werescythe]

First off, I just wanted to say, I really like the guide. I played RIFTS a long time ago and my favorite class was the Mind Melter, and I hope some day to try to bring back my RIFTS character using the Mystic class (really just depends on what WotC do with the release of this class).

I will however, be making an argument as to why the Linguist Feat should be rated higher.

Reasons:
1. It gives a +1 to our main stat INT.
2. Sure Nomadic Mind allows us to be able to use "all languages" however that means you have to dedicate a whole Discipline to it. Where as you could just devote a feat (a free one with variant human) to learn 3 of them instead while gaining the other benefits this feat has to offer.
3. You can create your own ciphers, this is basically; "Hey I want to communicate to my party without ANYONE else knowing what we are saying, so let me create my own language." Not only that but if you want to be super complex you could even create a unique cipher for each party member, which could have some interesting roleplaying features. It's literally I want to create a secret society and here is the way we communicate.
4. In the case of Nomadic Mind you can't make ciphers, you simply know all languages and depending on your GM you might not even be able to determine what a cipher is.

So personally I wouldn't rate this as a bad option (red) but would instead rate it as a situational option or even a black option. :smallwink:

[sightlessrealit]

First off, I just wanted to say, I really like the guide. I played RIFTS a long time ago and my favorite class was the Mind Melter, and I hope some day to try to bring back my RIFTS character using the Mystic class (really just depends on what WotC do with the release of this class).

I will however, be making an argument as to why the Linguist Feat should be rated higher.

Reasons:
1. It gives a +1 to our main stat INT.
2. Sure Nomadic Mind allows us to be able to use "all languages" however that means you have to dedicate a whole Discipline to it. Where as you could just devote a feat (a free one with variant human) to learn 3 of them instead while gaining the other benefits this feat has to offer.
3. You can create your own ciphers, this is basically; "Hey I want to communicate to my party without ANYONE else knowing what we are saying, so let me create my own language." Not only that but if you want to be super complex you could even create a unique cipher for each party member, which could have some interesting roleplaying features. It's literally I want to create a secret society and here is the way we communicate.
4. In the case of Nomadic Mind you can't make ciphers, you simply know all languages and depending on your GM you might not even be able to determine what a cipher is.

So personally I wouldn't rate this as a bad option (red) but would instead rate it as a situational option or even a black option. :smallwink:

Ciphers are nice but it mostly gets beaten out by the mystics base telepthy feature. Which can be further upgraded by Telepathic Contacts Psi Focus. Which taking as a disapline is amazing.

[werescythe]

Ciphers are nice but it mostly gets beaten out by the mystics base telepthy feature. Which can be further upgraded by Telepathic Contacts Psi Focus. Which taking as a disapline is amazing.

Yes, but that is also assuming that in the world you are playing in, psionics are okay. If society is anti-psionics (like in RIFTS) it wouldn't be wise to just start talking telepathically to the other players/characters because they might be against psionics.

I'm just saying that it should be upgraded from a Bad feat to a Situational feat.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Yes, but that is also assuming that in the world you are playing in, psionics are okay. If society is anti-psionics (like in RIFTS) it wouldn't be wise to just start talking telepathically to the other players/characters because they might be against psionics.

I'm just saying that it should be upgraded from a Bad feat to a Situational feat.

if your party is against psionics then you have alot more problems than trying to come up with a secret way to communicate to each other.

Telepathy literally takes away anything useful from the feat. Cyphers are moot, nomadic mind has more uses than just languages and cyphers are written only anyway. AND can be overcome by magic.

[HorusTheThird]

In your "Mastery of Weather," you say that whirlwind is good for the wizard, who can toss a fireball and daggers in the mix. By daggers I assume you mean the cloud of daggers spell which is wonderful. But I don't think you realize that fireball has the same area as whirlwind! I also am in conflict with your rating of the focus. Two damage resistances at first level is at least blue. Don't mind my criticism, I'm just trying to help improve this excellent guide.

[Wolvenreign]

I'd been meaning to post here for a while, so I'll start by reposting something I posted on Reddit.

Frozen Id = Id Insinuation + Ice Barrier: 5d8 Psychic Damage, then taunt the enemy into wasting their turn hurting themselves by attacking your ice barrier. Depending on how your DM rules it, if they do more than 30 damage to the Ice Barrier in one swing (quite possible by level 11 when you get Psionic Mastery), they take all of the damage they dealt to it on top of the 5d8, and their turn is wasted. Truly deliciously nasty.

Distracting Figment + Overwhelming Attack = Battlefield Butterfly: Deal Xd10 Psychic Damage, then sic a whopping 5 of your allies on an enemy who is too distracted by the pretty butterfly to not get hit. Remember, they get attack actions, not just one attack.

Distracting Figment + Coordinated Movement + Overwhelming Attack = Superior Battlefield Butterfly: Same as before, but this time you can also get all of your allies into position before attacking. Combine with Mantle of Command's Psychic Focus if you need even more movement.

Cloud Steps + Wall Of Thunder = Watch Your (Cloud) Step: Create a set of stair clouds that let you rain hell from above. Angle the stairs so that you don't have to pass through the Wall of Thunder that you position beneath it. When your hapless idiot enemies try to chase you up the cloud stairs, dissipate the stairs and watch them fall into the wall of Thunder, taking falling damage for however high you built the cloud stairs, and then 6d6 Thunder damage, not to mention all the pain they had to go through to get to you in the first place and all of that time you spent in the air. Bonus if you fling them into a spike, trap, or other area hazard.

Mind Blast + Anything = No Escape: Your abilities rely on your enemies failing their saves, for the most part. This deals damage and makes them way more vulnerable to whatever you want to follow it up with.

Frozen Rain + Rolling Flame + Shadow Beasts = Frozen Hell: Invite your enemies to a fireside chat that they can't escape unless they use their action to try to break free, and even then fail most of the time, especially as your Shadow Beasts drain their strength every round. Meanwhile, the damage from both the Shadow Beasts and the rolling flame is adding up.

Now for my personal favorite, and one you don't even need Psionic Mastery for...the one, the only...TINY TAXI, aka POCKET COMMANDER!

Diminution + Mantle of Command + Psionic Restoration = Tiny Taxi aka Pocket Commander: Shrink to miniature form for 2 PSI, and hide in your allies' pockets (with their knowledge and cooperation, of course). Ungodly great as it is, since Diminution grants +5 to stealth on top of the pocket's concealment, and all Psionic abilities don't require any verbal or somatic component, which means that it doesn't break your stealth, especially for invisible attacks like the fantastic Mind Thrust cantrip or any other psychic attack. Also, you can silently communicate with your teammates with telepathy. On top of that, you never have to take any movement actions. Briefly pop your head out of the pocket to make an attack, and pop back in. Your ally is who defines your movement speed now, so it's even better if you pick a particularly fast ally who can outrun you. And remember, this is 2 PSI and concentration for 10 minutes, or 60 combat rounds.

But that's not the end of it, oooohhhhhh no! Mantle of Command takes all of that and pumps it up to a whole new level of crazy wicked awesome, especially with it's Psychic Focus, which lets you use your reaction to move your ally within 30 feet of you up to half their speed as long as you don't move. But because your ally is doing the moving for you, this Psychic Focus moves both you and him at the same time, as well as meeting the non-moving requirements for the Psychic Focus every round. But that's not all; because it's using your reaction, and not your allies' action, bonus action, reaction, or movement, it doesn't provoke attack of opportunity by RAW. Meaning you can use this to force your ally to dodge all kinds of attacks once per round, saving both you and him from taking damage and forcing your enemies to lose their turn. If your ally is fast enough and the AOE is small enough, you can even dodge AOEs as a reaction, which is great, because that was about the only weakness inherent in the Tiny Taxi strategy before Mantle of Command comes along. All of this for the cost of your Psychic Focus and reaction, way more than worth it.

All of this, before the other abilities you get for taking Mantle of Command, including Coordinated Movement which moves you and your ally for the cost of moving 1 ally out of the 5 you get to move. Not to mention Command to Strike and Overwhelming attack, fantastic abilities that give your allies attack ACTIONS, which is another way of destroying the only threat to your utter dominance, AOEs, by crushing low-AC AOE casters who are otherwise very hard to hit with Int save attacks.

You thought we were done? Not even close. Psionic Restoration takes this already coked-out combo and force feeds it Adderall. Let's say your enemies manage to pierce the ridiculous defenses of Mantle of Command, and actually hurt your ally. Because you're in their pocket, you are always within touch range for all of the healing abilities, meaning you can heal your ally on top of being able to prevent damage every round. Did they manage to knock your Taxi PC out? Switch your Psychic Focus to Psionic Restoration with your bonus action and stabilize him next round with your bonus action. Then heal him up. Your enemies will not believe how many times your Taxi PC can get back up, all the while they can't even detect any magic that's getting him back up because you're Psionic and not magical. Even if they cut him in half, you can still use Restore Life to put him back together again. You can also remove status conditions, debuffs, ANYTHING. It's great.

So yeah. Tiny Taxi, aka Pocket Commander FREAKIN RULES. Seriously, try it, absolute Psionic God Tier tactic. What are some of your favorites?

Edit: By the way, you forgot to mention the Mind Thrust cantrip in your list of what powers are invisible. Should be the same as the Psychic Assault discipline.

Also, be sure to add the Stealthy feat to the list of feats, because for Mystics, it is absolutely an amazing feat. Diminution + Stealthy = just try to find me, you silly bastards.

Edit 2: Suggestion; add the current list of Mystic Combinations to the opening post, including mine and whoever else posts them. After all, these combinations are core to high level Mystic play.

[HorusTheThird]

...
So yeah. Tiny Taxi, aka Pocket Commander FREAKIN RULES. Seriously, try it, absolute Psionic God Tier tactic. What are some of your favorites?



Wonderful. I have three comment though, psionics is a form of magic. It say so, in the Psionics ability description, that "psionics is a special form of magic use, distinct from spellcasting. Also, 10 minutes is 100 combat rounds, not 60. one round is six seconds. And you can probably see through cloth if you're tiny and you're right next to it.
I see a big problem with this though. It reduces your size, but not your weight. It probably would be obvious to anyone something weird is going on if a massive guy was struggling under the weight of his pants.

[PKgaston]

This discipline will likely see some major changes before publication methinks. Perma-darkness that blocks darkvision and cancels out light spells is waaaaayyyy too overpowered for league play. That's just asking for abuse as you have so aptly put. I do like the current abilities, and the point cost seems appropriate. I imagine that after publication, the Darkness ability will have the same limitations as the Light ability listed beneath it (1 minute, concentration) which makes much more sense.

But as it is, it is quite OP, which led me to its dual colored rating.

Same inital thought.
I was going to say have it be 15 foot effect at all levels,and last a number of rounds equal to psi points spent, no concentration. I just feel like this isnt a good enough effect to eat up concentration because mystics have literally 1 attack roll ability, and there are better ways to impose disadvantage.

Question guys-


what do you think is the best follow up to a Mind Storm?

[Wolvenreign]

Wonderful. I have three comment though, psionics is a form of magic. It say so, in the Psionics ability description, that "psionics is a special form of magic use, distinct from spellcasting. Also, 10 minutes is 100 combat rounds, not 60. one round is six seconds. And you can probably see through cloth if you're tiny and you're right next to it.
I see a big problem with this though. It reduces your size, but not your weight. It probably would be obvious to anyone something weird is going on if a massive guy was struggling under the weight of his pants.

Actually, it changes your size category, but not your might. The Tiny size classification is specified as 10 pounds. (I'm new here so I can't post links.) So you might have something reasonably heavy in your pants, but really it's not too bad as long as you have some strong buckles or whatever to keep your pants tied to your waist.

Huh, you're right about the combat rounds. It's even better than I thought it was.

[tuskiomi]

hello, i have created this account for the sole purpose of telling you why "there and back again" may be the best ability in 5e, even though it's rated lower than most of your other abilities.

here's the set up.

you need to get a mithril, silver, or adamantium spike. something the size and shape of a spear tip.

attach it to a chair, or the seat of your armor, or somewhere on your butt. just make sure it's real sturdy..

let the fight begin. you need one of two things: A) an ally who knows levitate, or B) something really tall to climb. i love trees. get as high as you are able.. can you see where I'm going with this?

when the big baddie comes out from hiding, it's your time to shine, you're going to use your pool ability "there and then back again", and teleport directly over the baddie. spike down.

as you gain speed, you'll hit the bad guy with more and more damage. I'll note first that there's no standard rules for a "plunging attack", but most dms will put the monster at the butt end of the attack.

spike down brace for impact. roll tons of dice for damage. Mario stomp the turds out of the baddie. then end your turn, and teleport back up, (hopefully) out of reach of the angry monster.

watch as your DM never gives you an encounter in the open air again.

[Wolvenreign]

Oh, and Energy Beam should get your highest rating. This is an insanely useful talent, most DMs will let you use it to light things on fire, freeze or electrocute pools of water, use acid to melt things (like locks [!!!!!]), and thunder to explode stuff. It might actually be one of the most utility-heavy talents in the game.

[jleonardwv]

Oh, and Energy Beam should get your highest rating. This is an insanely useful talent, most DMs will let you use it to light things on fire, freeze or electrocute pools of water, use acid to melt things (like locks [!!!!!]), and thunder to explode stuff. It might actually be one of the most utility-heavy talents in the game.

I agree. Pick damage type. And Assess Foe gives ability to detect vulnerability which synegizes. And Elemental Attunement ignores resistance which can also synergize.

[maskedone1]

Delusion doesn't seem to say you are limited to one delusion at a time on a single creature.
It seems like over the course of 10 turns you can work away at a creatures mind as it loses track of what's real and what's not.
Not sure though, just a thought.

[furby076]

Delusion doesn't seem to say you are limited to one delusion at a time on a single creature.
It seems like over the course of 10 turns you can work away at a creatures mind as it loses track of what's real and what's not.
Not sure though, just a thought.

I thought a creature could only be under the impact of a spell once at any given time? Like you can't have two shield spells on you at once (they don't stack). Given that, if there were 4-5 guards, you could spend that many rounds confusing the heck out of them. If a violent race/culture (orcs, barbarians, etc) you could get them to fight each other. If a bit more civil then that, you might distract them down a tunnel so you can slip by

[Wolvenreign]

I thought a creature could only be under the impact of a spell once at any given time? Like you can't have two shield spells on you at once (they don't stack). Given that, if there were 4-5 guards, you could spend that many rounds confusing the heck out of them. If a violent race/culture (orcs, barbarians, etc) you could get them to fight each other. If a bit more civil then that, you might distract them down a tunnel so you can slip by

Psionics are not spells.

[igor140]

I didn't read all 7 pages, but your guide is great! I agree completely with 92% of what's in it. The only two points I would raise are that INT is not necessarily the most important, and melee Mystics are ABSOLUTELY viable (quite amazing, in fact).

Intelligence is, of course, required for a lot of the Talents, a handful of Disciplines, and a few Order features, but you can definitely build a Mystic without it. I would not at all recommend dumping it, but I would argue that it is less important than DEX; and, if you go Immortal Mystic, less important that CON as well. If you're building a straight Mystic, then you will absolutely want to be mindful of how your character is built and whether or not you are dependent on INT, but it can be done with out it. The best thing about Mystic, IMO, is the fact that it is hands down THE BEST all-purpose multiclass conceivable. And the reason for this is precisely the fact that it DOESN'T require any specific Ability. Want to give your rogue some harder hitting abilities? Mystic. Want your Eldritch Knight to have more ranged abilities? Mystic. Want your Paladin to be able to turn invisible and teleport across the battlefield? Mystic. Want to give your Ranger elemental damage? Mystic. Want to make your Wizard more robust? ... probably not worth sacrificing the spell slots... but Mystic would technically work.

Point in case, my personal character is a Hexblade who will, at level 13 (he will be reaching 12 tomorrow), will multiclass into a Mystic. That will-- over the next few levels-- give him telepathy, teleportation, even more burst damage, languages, defense, and scouting... and the only thing I'm losing is my Mystic Arcanum.

As to the other thing, I actually built a melee Mystic for a campaign that never really got off the ground (though I would very much like to go back to that character). He was (is) an Air Genasi Immortal Mystic with the Mastery of Air Discipline. I worked out a deal with the DM that my dude had the very basic Martial Arts training of a Monk-- meaning that his unarmed attacks grew in strength at the same rate as a Monks, and were DEX based-- in exchange for never being able to carry any metal objects AT ALL except for one gold piece (this "trade off" was mostly for flavor; a quarterstaff wielded with two hands would hit harder than a monk for most of his career). He was-- like most non-heavy armor classes-- somewhat weak at first, but by level 6, he basically would have been a god. Around that point, and continuing thereafter, he would have hit harder than the Rogue, been more resilient than the Paladin, and had more flexibility than the Druid.

Potent Psionics basically emulates the Extra Attack most martial classes get, except that Mystics get it TWICE; as well as adding INT bonus to Talents ("cantrips for Mystics"), which only Warlocks can get.
Psionic Weapon gives you the strongest "smite-like" damage in the game, meaning that you hit harder in melee than pretty much anything... other than stacking Psionic Weapon on top of another Smite ability : )
I didn't have this at first level, but eventually I would get a BASE of 20 AC, +1 if I focused on Iron Durability, +1-7 as a reaction (basically, Shield+)
The temporary HP from Psionic Resilience is basically a /5 damage reduction to the first hit of every turn at higher levels... which is assuming that anything gets past your 28 AC (before magic items)

So between these benefits (in addition to the DOZENS of others), it is extremely possible to make a strong, durable, versatile melee Mystic. He'll even have powerful ranged abilities : )

[furby076]

Just watch mearls makin the mind mage a better Psion than the Psion...
Honestly i don't get why he's using the wizard as a base (read, close to copying). Psions were incredibly boring back in 3.5 because, besides flavour, they were bad wizards. Why did they removed the psi point system? Just so that it's easier for other full-caster (again, wizard, if i was slightly more paranoid I would say there's a tiny bit of favouritism towards this class) can dip into it without sacrificing spell slots?
I am honestly confused, and really sad because i wanted to play a nomad in an upcoming campaign. I guess time will tell but I'm not optimistic

Mearl's stuff is not official though is it? I do think some of the mystics (mind) powers pale compared traditional spells. I'm more talking about the mental abilities, not the blaster ones. Personally, I think wizard/sorcs should be better blasters than mystics, and mystics just dominate (pun intended) the mental arena.


Psionics are not spells.

Thanks Mr. Pedantic. Any other words of wisdom? No, good, carry on. There is no way they will allow stacking to occur because it would be brutal debuffing nonsense.

[igor140]

I don't think that's being pedantic... the description is very explicit that Mystic abilities are not spells. This has a lot of implications. Most immediately, they don't require VSM components. Secondary to that, they can overlap. Now, I still think it's quite reasonable that you can't have the same EFFECT stack on a single target, but that's different than spells/ psionics stacking.

As for your potential Mystic build in this upcoming campaign... try it! If you build it right, it has basically infinite utility and consistent damage. You'll never do the AoE damage of a wizard, but if that's what you want, play a wizard. You'll never take the beating a Paladin can, but if that's what you want, play a Paladin. Mystic is intended to be a jack-of-all-trades... and they do it EXTREMELY well. What part of the build are you worried is not viable?

[Alderic78]

I don't think that's being pedantic... the description is very explicit that Mystic abilities are not spells. This has a lot of implications. Most immediately, they don't require VSM components. Secondary to that, they can overlap. Now, I still think it's quite reasonable that you can't have the same EFFECT stack on a single target, but that's different than spells/ psionics stacking.

As for your potential Mystic build in this upcoming campaign... try it! If you build it right, it has basically infinite utility and consistent damage. You'll never do the AoE damage of a wizard, but if that's what you want, play a wizard. You'll never take the beating a Paladin can, but if that's what you want, play a Paladin. Mystic is intended to be a jack-of-all-trades... and they do it EXTREMELY well. What part of the build are you worried is not viable?

On the mystic pdf I have (v3 I think, not sure if there is another) there are a lot of "psionic disciplines are magical and they function like spells" there is also a paragraph on stacking that's quite clear A specific option of a discipline does not stack with itself.

I'll be testing an Immortal Mystic, but I don't think it will become the melee monster, getting high AC will be quite easy, but it's just as easy for a full plate wearing, shield wielding fighter or paladin. And any of those "extra damage on your next attack" while powerful are activated before the attack roll... not sure I'll be using them that much, unless I know I have advantage on the attack and the target is easily hit.

Also... why is it that the so called "living weapon" is limited to simple weapons and has no Martial Arts like option ?

[Wolvenreign]

Thanks Mr. Pedantic. Any other words of wisdom? No, good, carry on. There is no way they will allow stacking to occur because it would be brutal debuffing nonsense.

The difference is hardly pedantic in nature. There are rules about spells that don't apply to Psionics, just like you can't apply the War Mage feat to Psionics. Nothing in the UA or anywhere else does it say that a creature can only be under the effect of one Psionic ability at a time, be it buff, debuff, or anything else.

[MrStabby]

I had ruled out the mystic class before - but there may be an upcoming game in which I could use one so I am giving it some thought.

I am a bit worried from what people have said that it is a bit strong - what are the most powerful and broken abilities that I should avoid? Are any of them ok but break in combination with others.

The whole class structure is new to me and there are a lot of moving parts (yeah, had to read the class twice before I could even kid myself I got how everything worked), so understanding how it works in practice from those that have played it would be good.

I wanted to build a fey themed/witch type character - bits of enchantment, illusion, debuffs, teleport skills and wondered what the best way to do it would be?

At the moment I am thinking Awakened (nomad appeals due to abilities, Wu Jen appeals but only for arcane dabbler to help fill any gaps). As it is I feel a bit shoehorned into picking the path that gives me access to the disciplines I want:



Crown of disgust:
eye of horror - to give a low cost way to influence a fight to conserve PP
Wall of repulsion - seems a very PP efficient method of crowd control and something you could use most fights by mid levels
Visions of disgust - guessing this is supposed to be equivalent to a level 3 spell. 5d6 hard to resist damage on an uncommon save is ok, but not special for single target. With a melee party this is better. With summons it looks awesome. Animate objects in the party for a horde of tiny creatures could be horrific. Depending on DM an Insect Plague could be pretty damn lethal.
World of Horror- seems a great crowd control spell, for equivalent of a level 5 spell slot. 6 creatures, fireball levels of damage and a massive debuff on a failed save. Even better some of the guys that failed their save be still be severely limited for more than one turn.

Mantle of fear - seems to have a hefty overlap with crown of disgust in terms of uses so may not need both early, good focus though
Incite fear - it's ok... the restriction on when saves can be made is good but otherwise doesn't seem that special. Cause fear out of a level 2 slot seems better.
Unsettling aura - seems one for higher levels where you have the PP to burn. Awesome duration, great radius, bonus action to use and potentially a powerful (if indirect) impact on a battle. Obviously better if playing with ranged friends. Depends on what concentration effects you are looking for.
Incite panic - natural to compare to the fear spell, and I think this looks good. No friendly fire, no awkward shape and 8 enemies will be well over half of most encounters in my experience, better effect than just frightened and running away, probably harder to recover from as needing 3 passed saves following a fail is probably tougher than running round a corner and passing 1. After 3 turns the fight is often pretty much decided anyway.


Awakened Disciplines

Mantle of awe
Charming presence - more out of combat utility than a combat spell, still good though
Centre of attention - situational with power between stupidly good and stupidly bad. Best case scenario where you can remain unable to be attacked easily and it is like a cut price banishment. Added non-combat use for party stealth. You look innocuous and the whole party sneaks by, then use the blind spot talent to sneak by yourself.
Invoke Awe - broadening saves out to int saves now, this one seems a little DM dependant on its impact. What does "attack" mean? Is "Hold Person" spell an attack? How about dispelling magic on someone? A wall of force cutting them off... If you want to waste the high level spell slots of non wizard casters this could be good - hits a fair number of people as well. You probably don't want to be attacked just to let more enemies be a valid target.

Precognition - I feel this should be on the list, not super exciting though. Feels like a nice fluff pick though.
Hunch - at 2PP it feels steep for a bless spell that also does skills but only targets yourself. At low levels the PP are scarce, at high levels you have better use for concentration
All around sight - I would prefer shield, one attack effected here. Sure it is good for dodging criticals but at 3 PP it had better be.
Danger sense - yes a lot of nice abilities, not sure it is worth it to go the whole day without another concentration effect for though.
Victory before battle - 7 PP is a lot for this.

Psychic assault - what I would be using if I wanted some direct damage I guess
Psyonic blast - doesn't seem worth the PP. You have talents probably a better use of action
Ego Whip - doesn't seem worth it with other control effects available
Id Insinuation - still not great, modest damage and one turn of control on a single target
Psychic Blast - OK... now much better. More damage, more enemies, good scaling and also hard to save, hard to resist.
Psychic crush - This looks really good. Respectable damage on a good area and with a really nice stun effect thrown in.

Psychic Disruption
Distracting haze - wow, a really cheap way to give your whole ranged party advantage on attacks. And some damage thrown in. Would only use this for the 1 PP I suspect.
Daze - it's OK I suppose. 3 PP is a bit steep but on a character with a lot of other control it doesn't seem to add enough more to get excited about. Still, potentially a great way to break concentration on some spells.
Mind storm - Awesome. Basically a better fireball. On average just a little lower damage, unexpected scaling here. Upsides are damage type and save. Downside is that another wisdom save on this character doesn't give a lot of diversity. Oddly enough a dex save might be better.

Psychic Phantoms - I also feel I should have this for thematic reasons
Distracting figment - the melee target counterpart to distracting haze. Better if your party is mainly melee. Still pretty awesome.
Phantom foe - a minor debuff but some good recurring damage. Unlike spells this seems to stand out as the upcasting does extra damage turn after turn. I really don't know how to rate this.
Phantom betrayal - whut?! Dominate monster but available at level 5. No disadvantage for use in combat. Sure you can't do explicit control and it gets a save every turn, but it doesn't have the rider that it makes a new save on taking damage either. Yes, it may not burn it's best and most limited resources under DM discretion but this seems ridiculous. Sure the no charm stipulation applies some limits... but not anything too tight.
Phantom riches - I would be down with this were it not for phantom betrayal seeming to just be better.


Immortal

Psionic Restoration: I feel the character should have some healing, good fluff-wise but otherwise a bit situational. When the party needs it... it really needs it though and it does seem very flexible.
Mend wounds - cure wounds isn't inspiring. This is worse.
Restore health - oddly, I think this is better, simple because you are a little less likely to already have someone who can do this better.
Restore life - very situational, nice to not need material components though.
Restore Vigour - I would have thought you would have better use for PP

Nomad

Nomadic Chamaeleon
Chameleon - The talent is a better way to go if you want this, talents are limited so maybe?
Step from sight - invisibility but as a bonus action. Pretty good.
Enduring invisibility - yeah ok, somewhat weakened by looking to take a lot of other effects that grant advantage.

Nomadic Mind - thematic for someone looking at scrying, I should aim to get this sometime
Mostly out of combat abilities so will depend on what the campaign throws at us. The eyes might be useful in dungeons though.

Nomadic step - It looks both good and fun. I feel teleportation is very "fey"
Step of a dozen paces - niche but nice to have in the repertoire. Could be a 1 pp way to avoid death
Nomadic anchor - Obviously a good escape spell but also nice for springing traps. There doesn't seem to be a limit beyond PP for how many of these you can create.

Defensive step - almost as good a defensive bonus as shield against that attack and whilst the AC is one attack only getting out of the danger through a mini teleport is also pretty good.

There and back again - is a truely commedic ability, although I would have thought it better on a multiclass/melee character that can strike so hard at a distance and retreat to safety - on a fast character this could add around 75ft to a surgical strike on a caster or similar. Great for multiclass assassins, less so for what I have in mind. Still handy though.

Transposition - Seems really niche that you would care so much about swapping locations that you would be willing to spend more PP on it. the 60ft range is also modest for this.

Baleful Transposition - A lot of funny things you can do, but simply being able to capture enemies by teleporting them into gaol is a good start. Not so niche in many cases though.

Phantom caravan - party escape button. In daylight. With good visability. Ok, I guess.

Nomad's gate. In case you want to set up a public transport network. Less abusive than other gate spells as it is "creatures" that are affected.

Third Eye
Pretty much everything is a bit situational except access to true sight and tremorsense.


Wu Jen

Mastery of Air - I kind of saw this as an element of a storm-witch theme
Wind step - a possible alternative to teleportation, more limited, less cool but with the rest of the discipline added.
Wind stream - good if you fight in long corridors and could be a decent use of an action. The damage is weak, prone is week but hitting multiple targets for as low as 1 PP is pretty good.
Cloak of air - seems a really low PP for this ability. And a great ability all in all. The concentration requirement just means that it gets in the way of everything proactive I want to do.
Wind form - standard flying
Mist form - great for splitting the party and getting trapped without support.
Animate air - a good summoning ability


Mastery of Ice
Ice spike - yeah, nice but too much overlap as a debuff with other abilities to get too excited by it.
Ice sheet - quite funny and the ability to block off areas to multiple enemies is pretty nice. A bit DM dependent on how they rule travelling 10 ft to step off the ice on a grid.
Frozen sanctuary - ok at low levels. Boring at all levels.
Frozen Rain - Awesome ability. Not that far behind fireball for damage and with a nasty debuff attached. Bonus marks for not needing a mental save so diversifying options.
Ice barrier - walls are pretty good generally and this may hold a lot of enemies up for a turn or two.

Mastery of Light and darkness
Focus - one of the main attractions
Darkness - with focus it is appealing. Generally a useful spell to have on hand anyways.
Light - not sunlight nor suppressing darkness spells. Lame radius.
Shadow beats - tools of near genocide in the wrong hands
Radiant beam - other damage + debuff spells are probably a better use of your PP. Radiant damage option is nice though.


Are my assessments wildly out in practice?

Reviewing this my plan is probably:
Level 1: Mantle of Fear, Psychic Disruption, Psychic Phantasm
Level 3: Mastery of Air
Level 5: Third Eye
Level 7: Nomadic Chameleon
Level 9: ???

Would this be sitting in about the right part of the power spectrum for somewhat optimised characters?

[Sinon]

Mantle of Fear – I would definitely take this.
Psychic Disruption – Another good one. Distracting Haze is cheap, and Mind Storm is a nice set up for later attacks.
Psychic Phantasm – Not bad, but I think Disruption is better, and since they both target Int, I’d consider some other options, like:

Intellect Fortress – You can impose disadvantage and boost a crucial save at a crucial moment. And, since one of those saves is Wis, you can more safely switch out your proficiency with something like Dex using Strength of Mind.

There are other good choices besides Intellect Fortress, but regardless, I’d consider something for defense.

Mastery of Air – is ok, but Mastery of Force makes you a Jedi, plus gives you better-than-mage armor and a wall of force.
Mastery of Wood, an extremely good wall and a force-added ranged-weapon attack based on Int; Potent Psionics can actually get some mileage this way, too, and if you take Brute Force later, you can add damage as a bonus action (Brute Strike) and as a reaction (Knockback).

Third Eye – Nice
Nomadic Chameleon – I’d put this off until level 9; that’s when you can use 7pp and Enduring Invisibility, maybe even later for use with Psionic Mastery, level 11.

So, for level 7, I’d pick something for movement, like Nomadic Step.
There’s also Bestial Form; the benefits are situational, but you have so many situational benefits, water breathing, climbing, swimming, seeing invisibility – and none require concentration. Compare the flight you get to that of Mastery of Air.

[MrStabby]

Mantle of Fear – I would definitely take this.
Psychic Disruption – Another good one. Distracting Haze is cheap, and Mind Storm is a nice set up for later attacks.
Psychic Phantasm – Not bad, but I think Disruption is better, and since they both target Int, I’d consider some other options, like:

Intellect Fortress – You can impose disadvantage and boost a crucial save at a crucial moment. And, since one of those saves is Wis, you can more safely switch out your proficiency with something like Dex using Strength of Mind.

There are other good choices besides Intellect Fortress, but regardless, I’d consider something for defense.

Mastery of Air – is ok, but Mastery of Force makes you a Jedi, plus gives you better-than-mage armor and a wall of force.
Mastery of Wood, an extremely good wall and a force-added ranged-weapon attack based on Int; Potent Psionics can actually get some mileage this way, too, and if you take Brute Force later, you can add damage as a bonus action (Brute Strike) and as a reaction (Knockback).

Third Eye – Nice
Nomadic Chameleon – I’d put this off until level 9; that’s when you can use 7pp and Enduring Invisibility, maybe even later for use with Psionic Mastery, level 11.

So, for level 7, I’d pick something for movement, like Nomadic Step.
There’s also Bestial Form; the benefits are situational, but you have so many situational benefits, water breathing, climbing, swimming, seeing invisibility – and none require concentration. Compare the flight you get to that of Mastery of Air.


Cheers. Intellect Fortress had seemed... actually not that great for me. I expected a pretty low AC so psychic backlash isn't that unlikely to make someone miss. 2d10 damage is a nice bonus but still prefer to not be hit. Psychic parry seemed to use a lot of power points for what it does. On average less than bless for similar resources and for one save, not many... and for one person not three. Oh, and only for mental saves.

Psychic redoubt seems better, but for two reasons. 1) thinking of a gnome for race. 2) my proactive stuff generally needs concentration. I do see the need for something defensive though - I take your point.
Personally I am leaning more towards nomadic step - I think it works better with the theme, doesn't eat up concentration so much and seems really fun to use (as well as being good). I could swap this out for one of the early mind control elements where there is redundancy.

Level 11+ looks interesting for having double concentration... but I don't know if we will get that far.

[Wolvenreign]

I had ruled out the mystic class before - but there may be an upcoming game in which I could use one so I am giving it some thought.

I am a bit worried from what people have said that it is a bit strong - what are the most powerful and broken abilities that I should avoid? Are any of them ok but break in combination with others.

The whole class structure is new to me and there are a lot of moving parts (yeah, had to read the class twice before I could even kid myself I got how everything worked), so understanding how it works in practice from those that have played it would be good.

I wanted to build a fey themed/witch type character - bits of enchantment, illusion, debuffs, teleport skills and wondered what the best way to do it would be?

At the moment I am thinking Awakened (nomad appeals due to abilities, Wu Jen appeals but only for arcane dabbler to help fill any gaps). As it is I feel a bit shoehorned into picking the path that gives me access to the disciplines I want:



Crown of disgust:
eye of horror - to give a low cost way to influence a fight to conserve PP
Wall of repulsion - seems a very PP efficient method of crowd control and something you could use most fights by mid levels
Visions of disgust - guessing this is supposed to be equivalent to a level 3 spell. 5d6 hard to resist damage on an uncommon save is ok, but not special for single target. With a melee party this is better. With summons it looks awesome. Animate objects in the party for a horde of tiny creatures could be horrific. Depending on DM an Insect Plague could be pretty damn lethal.
World of Horror- seems a great crowd control spell, for equivalent of a level 5 spell slot. 6 creatures, fireball levels of damage and a massive debuff on a failed save. Even better some of the guys that failed their save be still be severely limited for more than one turn.

Mantle of fear - seems to have a hefty overlap with crown of disgust in terms of uses so may not need both early, good focus though
Incite fear - it's ok... the restriction on when saves can be made is good but otherwise doesn't seem that special. Cause fear out of a level 2 slot seems better.
Unsettling aura - seems one for higher levels where you have the PP to burn. Awesome duration, great radius, bonus action to use and potentially a powerful (if indirect) impact on a battle. Obviously better if playing with ranged friends. Depends on what concentration effects you are looking for.
Incite panic - natural to compare to the fear spell, and I think this looks good. No friendly fire, no awkward shape and 8 enemies will be well over half of most encounters in my experience, better effect than just frightened and running away, probably harder to recover from as needing 3 passed saves following a fail is probably tougher than running round a corner and passing 1. After 3 turns the fight is often pretty much decided anyway.


Awakened Disciplines

Mantle of awe
Charming presence - more out of combat utility than a combat spell, still good though
Centre of attention - situational with power between stupidly good and stupidly bad. Best case scenario where you can remain unable to be attacked easily and it is like a cut price banishment. Added non-combat use for party stealth. You look innocuous and the whole party sneaks by, then use the blind spot talent to sneak by yourself.
Invoke Awe - broadening saves out to int saves now, this one seems a little DM dependant on its impact. What does "attack" mean? Is "Hold Person" spell an attack? How about dispelling magic on someone? A wall of force cutting them off... If you want to waste the high level spell slots of non wizard casters this could be good - hits a fair number of people as well. You probably don't want to be attacked just to let more enemies be a valid target.

Precognition - I feel this should be on the list, not super exciting though. Feels like a nice fluff pick though.
Hunch - at 2PP it feels steep for a bless spell that also does skills but only targets yourself. At low levels the PP are scarce, at high levels you have better use for concentration
All around sight - I would prefer shield, one attack effected here. Sure it is good for dodging criticals but at 3 PP it had better be.
Danger sense - yes a lot of nice abilities, not sure it is worth it to go the whole day without another concentration effect for though.
Victory before battle - 7 PP is a lot for this.

Psychic assault - what I would be using if I wanted some direct damage I guess
Psyonic blast - doesn't seem worth the PP. You have talents probably a better use of action
Ego Whip - doesn't seem worth it with other control effects available
Id Insinuation - still not great, modest damage and one turn of control on a single target
Psychic Blast - OK... now much better. More damage, more enemies, good scaling and also hard to save, hard to resist.
Psychic crush - This looks really good. Respectable damage on a good area and with a really nice stun effect thrown in.

Psychic Disruption
Distracting haze - wow, a really cheap way to give your whole ranged party advantage on attacks. And some damage thrown in. Would only use this for the 1 PP I suspect.
Daze - it's OK I suppose. 3 PP is a bit steep but on a character with a lot of other control it doesn't seem to add enough more to get excited about. Still, potentially a great way to break concentration on some spells.
Mind storm - Awesome. Basically a better fireball. On average just a little lower damage, unexpected scaling here. Upsides are damage type and save. Downside is that another wisdom save on this character doesn't give a lot of diversity. Oddly enough a dex save might be better.

Psychic Phantoms - I also feel I should have this for thematic reasons
Distracting figment - the melee target counterpart to distracting haze. Better if your party is mainly melee. Still pretty awesome.
Phantom foe - a minor debuff but some good recurring damage. Unlike spells this seems to stand out as the upcasting does extra damage turn after turn. I really don't know how to rate this.
Phantom betrayal - whut?! Dominate monster but available at level 5. No disadvantage for use in combat. Sure you can't do explicit control and it gets a save every turn, but it doesn't have the rider that it makes a new save on taking damage either. Yes, it may not burn it's best and most limited resources under DM discretion but this seems ridiculous. Sure the no charm stipulation applies some limits... but not anything too tight.
Phantom riches - I would be down with this were it not for phantom betrayal seeming to just be better.


Immortal

Psionic Restoration: I feel the character should have some healing, good fluff-wise but otherwise a bit situational. When the party needs it... it really needs it though and it does seem very flexible.
Mend wounds - cure wounds isn't inspiring. This is worse.
Restore health - oddly, I think this is better, simple because you are a little less likely to already have someone who can do this better.
Restore life - very situational, nice to not need material components though.
Restore Vigour - I would have thought you would have better use for PP

Nomad

Nomadic Chamaeleon
Chameleon - The talent is a better way to go if you want this, talents are limited so maybe?
Step from sight - invisibility but as a bonus action. Pretty good.
Enduring invisibility - yeah ok, somewhat weakened by looking to take a lot of other effects that grant advantage.

Nomadic Mind - thematic for someone looking at scrying, I should aim to get this sometime
Mostly out of combat abilities so will depend on what the campaign throws at us. The eyes might be useful in dungeons though.

Nomadic step - It looks both good and fun. I feel teleportation is very "fey"
Step of a dozen paces - niche but nice to have in the repertoire. Could be a 1 pp way to avoid death
Nomadic anchor - Obviously a good escape spell but also nice for springing traps. There doesn't seem to be a limit beyond PP for how many of these you can create.

Defensive step - almost as good a defensive bonus as shield against that attack and whilst the AC is one attack only getting out of the danger through a mini teleport is also pretty good.

There and back again - is a truely commedic ability, although I would have thought it better on a multiclass/melee character that can strike so hard at a distance and retreat to safety - on a fast character this could add around 75ft to a surgical strike on a caster or similar. Great for multiclass assassins, less so for what I have in mind. Still handy though.

Transposition - Seems really niche that you would care so much about swapping locations that you would be willing to spend more PP on it. the 60ft range is also modest for this.

Baleful Transposition - A lot of funny things you can do, but simply being able to capture enemies by teleporting them into gaol is a good start. Not so niche in many cases though.

Phantom caravan - party escape button. In daylight. With good visability. Ok, I guess.

Nomad's gate. In case you want to set up a public transport network. Less abusive than other gate spells as it is "creatures" that are affected.

Third Eye
Pretty much everything is a bit situational except access to true sight and tremorsense.


Wu Jen

Mastery of Air - I kind of saw this as an element of a storm-witch theme
Wind step - a possible alternative to teleportation, more limited, less cool but with the rest of the discipline added.
Wind stream - good if you fight in long corridors and could be a decent use of an action. The damage is weak, prone is week but hitting multiple targets for as low as 1 PP is pretty good.
Cloak of air - seems a really low PP for this ability. And a great ability all in all. The concentration requirement just means that it gets in the way of everything proactive I want to do.
Wind form - standard flying
Mist form - great for splitting the party and getting trapped without support.
Animate air - a good summoning ability


Mastery of Ice
Ice spike - yeah, nice but too much overlap as a debuff with other abilities to get too excited by it.
Ice sheet - quite funny and the ability to block off areas to multiple enemies is pretty nice. A bit DM dependent on how they rule travelling 10 ft to step off the ice on a grid.
Frozen sanctuary - ok at low levels. Boring at all levels.
Frozen Rain - Awesome ability. Not that far behind fireball for damage and with a nasty debuff attached. Bonus marks for not needing a mental save so diversifying options.
Ice barrier - walls are pretty good generally and this may hold a lot of enemies up for a turn or two.

Mastery of Light and darkness
Focus - one of the main attractions
Darkness - with focus it is appealing. Generally a useful spell to have on hand anyways.
Light - not sunlight nor suppressing darkness spells. Lame radius.
Shadow beats - tools of near genocide in the wrong hands
Radiant beam - other damage + debuff spells are probably a better use of your PP. Radiant damage option is nice though.


Are my assessments wildly out in practice?

Reviewing this my plan is probably:
Level 1: Mantle of Fear, Psychic Disruption, Psychic Phantasm
Level 3: Mastery of Air
Level 5: Third Eye
Level 7: Nomadic Chameleon
Level 9: ???

Would this be sitting in about the right part of the power spectrum for somewhat optimised characters?

Just to throw it out there real quick, don't neglect your defense. As a Mystic, whose abilities require no verbal, somatic, or material components, you can often do your best stuff from Stealth. So I recommend you grab Diminution for defense, stealth and blow your enemies away with powers. Especially great if you hide in a fast ally's pockets. Check out what I wrote about Tiny Taxi, one of the best Mystic combos in game and you can do it pretty early.

[Rix911]

This. Was. Amazing! Thank you for all the work you put in! I have some questions for you, if you have the time.

So far I have played a Bard to lvl 7 and loved her. I also played a Monk... not so much my jam. I play another Bard in a Pathfinder game. I dont have a ton of experience so if you guys could help me prove a seasoned DM wrong...

My brother is starting a campaign. He loves flavor and is willing to homebrew some stuff... such as my boyfriend is playing a Goliath Warlock who is trapped in a Grey Render's body. The grey render is going to be bonded to my character who is a Kalashtar Mystic. This is where things get fun. She is going to be a gimp so she only has half move speed but she gets bonus Psi points to compensate. I want to base her off a character I saw once from 1999X. Obviously, the lack of movement complicate fighting, so I need distance damage. I want psycic damage and some healing and buffs. I chose Awakened and have Psychic Phantoms, Psychic Assult(?), and chose Psionic Restoration.

A seasoned DM told my brother that the Grey Render and I would fail with our quirks and that Mystic was to complex and broken. I chose it because I thought it fit my vision of a lame character that couldn't really do much physically, but could destroy your mind. As the Grey is going to be covering my burden, I want to help heal and buff him. There seasoned DM is going to be the third character. If you guys could help me with this, I would love it! We are, again, starting at lvl 1 with the typical 27pb system. I also ended up with 130 gold so what would you buy with it?

[Exocist]

This. Was. Amazing! Thank you for all the work you put in! I have some questions for you, if you have the time.

So far I have played a Bard to lvl 7 and loved her. I also played a Monk... not so much my jam. I play another Bard in a Pathfinder game. I dont have a ton of experience so if you guys could help me prove a seasoned DM wrong...

My brother is starting a campaign. He loves flavor and is willing to homebrew some stuff... such as my boyfriend is playing a Goliath Warlock who is trapped in a Grey Render's body. The grey render is going to be bonded to my character who is a Kalashtar Mystic. This is where things get fun. She is going to be a gimp so she only has half move speed but she gets bonus Psi points to compensate. I want to base her off a character I saw once from 1999X. Obviously, the lack of movement complicate fighting, so I need distance damage. I want psycic damage and some healing and buffs. I chose Awakened and have Psychic Phantoms, Psychic Assult(?), and chose Psionic Restoration.

A seasoned DM told my brother that the Grey Render and I would fail with our quirks and that Mystic was to complex and broken. I chose it because I thought it fit my vision of a lame character that couldn't really do much physically, but could destroy your mind. As the Grey is going to be covering my burden, I want to help heal and buff him. There seasoned DM is going to be the third character. If you guys could help me with this, I would love it! We are, again, starting at lvl 1 with the typical 27pb system. I also ended up with 130 gold so what would you buy with it?

While Awakened isn't terrible, it isn't really that great at doing psychic damage compared to the other options. Personally, I would go with Nomad or Immortal anyway, but if you really want Awakened it's not the worst choice.

Kalashtar don't really have great stats for a Mystic, but Stats should be:

STR: 8
DEX: 14
CON: 13 (Take Resilient for Constitution as a feat for your first ASI)
INT: 15 (+1 Racial = 16)
WIS: 13 (+1 Racial = 14)
CHA: 9 (+1 Racial = 10)

With 130 GP, you want to buy Studded Leather Armor (45 GP, 85 Remaining), a Light Crossbow (25 GP, 60 remaining), 20-60 Crossbow bolts (1-3 GP, 57-59 remaining), an Explorer's Pack (10 GP, 47-49 remaining) and whatever else you feel like (I would suggest a Hammer, a Crowbar, A bag of 20 Caltrops, a Lantern, some oil, a Grappling Hook and a bag of 1000 ball bearings).

[Rix911]

While Awakened isn't terrible, it isn't really that great at doing psychic damage compared to the other options. Personally, I would go with Nomad or Immortal anyway, but if you really want Awakened it's not the worst choice.

Kalashtar don't really have great stats for a Mystic, but Stats should be:

STR: 8
DEX: 14
CON: 13 (Take Resilient for Constitution as a feat for your first ASI)
INT: 15 (+1 Racial = 16)
WIS: 13 (+1 Racial = 14)
CHA: 9 (+1 Racial = 10)

With 130 GP, you want to buy Studded Leather Armor (45 GP, 85 Remaining), a Light Crossbow (25 GP, 60 remaining), 20-60 Crossbow bolts (1-3 GP, 57-59 remaining), an Explorer's Pack (10 GP, 47-49 remaining) and whatever else you feel like (I would suggest a Hammer, a Crowbar, A bag of 20 Caltrops, a Lantern, some oil, a Grappling Hook and a bag of 1000 ball bearings).

Ahhh! Thank you for your reply. What would you choose from those two if you were going to be support or buffing?

[Exocist]

Ahhh! Thank you for your reply. What would you choose from those two if you were going to be support or buffing?

Nomad is definitely more supporty (swappable proficiencies let you fill holes in the party’s out of combat set), immortal is more survivable.

The best way to support is by buffing or debuffing. Unfortunately mystic doesn’t buff all that well so debuffing is the way to go

I would suggest grabbing psychic assault for single target debuffing (Ego Whip is great), mastery of ice for area debuffing (Frozen Rain and Ice Barrier)

[sambojin]

I would also give the Wu Jen an honorable mention for the supporting role. The wizard spells can easily be chosen with support roles in mind, and being upcastable to 5th level gives you plenty of flexibility in what's good to use. Ignoring resistance against damage also keeps heaps of the lockdown effects of disciplines relevant into later campaign levels, against most foes, while still dishing out plenty of hurt. 1PP for double the damage is nice, even with PP limits in place.

[Didact]

I made this account just so I could add this comment.

First of all, absolutely love this guide. I've just built my first character (a mystic) and this guide was an absolutely invaluable resource. Thanks to all of you who helped refine it and special thanks to OP.

All that said, I think you missed the mark on mind meld. I'm fairly sure that, at least RAW, it allows you to communicate with animals. I believe RAI, as well. It's the only telepathy ability that references an intelligence threshold, instead of a language requirement.

[charroboo]

To the OP. The reason why SoulKnife gives you proficency in martial weapons, even if you make your own is because your soulknife is actualy a martial weapon, it says so in the description. So if it didint give you that proficency in martial weapons your attacks with the soul knife would be at disadvantage.

[sightlessrealit]

To the OP. The reason why SoulKnife gives you proficency in martial weapons, even if you make your own is because your soulknife is actualy a martial weapon, it says so in the description. So if it didint give you that proficency in martial weapons your attacks with the soul knife would be at disadvantage.

Using a weapon that you don't have proficiency just means you don't add your proficiency modifier when attacking with it. It doesn't impose disadvantage.

[carrdrivesyou]

To the OP. The reason why SoulKnife gives you proficency in martial weapons, even if you make your own is because your soulknife is actualy a martial weapon, it says so in the description. So if it didint give you that proficency in martial weapons your attacks with the soul knife would be at disadvantage.

Good catch. Although why it wouldn't just give you proficiency with the bleeding things is beyond me lol.


Using a weapon that you don't have proficiency just means you don't add your proficiency modifier when attacking with it. It doesn't impose disadvantage.

You are correct. You do not suffer Disadvantage for fighting without being proficient with your weapon.

[Didact]

@carrdrivesyou

Any thoughts on my Mind Meld observation? I feel pretty confident about the interpretation, and if I'm reading it correctly I think MM should be bumped at least to black or blue. I don't have enough experience to know for sure how useful it would be to communicate with animals, but in some contexts it may even be worth bumping to green.

[Sinon]

@carrdrivesyou

Any thoughts on my Mind Meld observation? I feel pretty confident about the interpretation, and if I'm reading it correctly I think MM should be bumped at least to black or blue. I don't have enough experience to know for sure how useful it would be to communicate with animals, but in some contexts it may even be worth bumping to green.

I think it is a little redundant as you get Telepathy at level 2 anyway, but your idea has a lot of potential that I hadn’t noticed before. (Previously, I only sort of liked it for the access to a person’s memory, which I thought would fun and flavorful for an investigative psychic character.)

But, why try to trick or intimidate the bandit in to revealing the location of their hideout when you can ask his horse how to find it? (Always have an apple or some sugar cubes in your pouches.) Or make friends with as many of the sewer rats as you can? (What parts of a dungeon haven't they seen?)

To this end, two Orders, Awakened and WuJen offer Handle Animal as bonus skills, and the Bestial Form discipline (which is already good) gives you advantage as a psychic focus. Good synergy opportunities there.

I don’t know how often you’ll get a chance to interrogate an animal, but a creative a player and a DM who rewards that creativity could make this a good choice.

You get few enough Talents (and as of yet no ways to get extras through multiclassing, feats, or racial choices) that I still don’t know if I’d rate it more than orange, maybe black, but your observations do push it up from red, in my opinion.

[carrdrivesyou]

I made this account just so I could add this comment.

First of all, absolutely love this guide. I've just built my first character (a mystic) and this guide was an absolutely invaluable resource. Thanks to all of you who helped refine it and special thanks to OP.

All that said, I think you missed the mark on mind meld. I'm fairly sure that, at least RAW, it allows you to communicate with animals. I believe RAI, as well. It's the only telepathy ability that references an intelligence threshold, instead of a language requirement.


@carrdrivesyou

Any thoughts on my Mind Meld observation? I feel pretty confident about the interpretation, and if I'm reading it correctly I think MM should be bumped at least to black or blue. I don't have enough experience to know for sure how useful it would be to communicate with animals, but in some contexts it may even be worth bumping to green.

It states two particular requirements: a minimum INT of 2, and it has to be friendly. It's DM fiat as to whether or not sewer rats or someone else's horse is "friendly." Indifferent perhaps, so it really depends on how the DM sees it. Maybe if you did bribe an animal with food it would like you well enough to let you try. Not sure how one would react to having a foreign mind probing in their heads. RAW and RAI, it is possible though. I will adjust rating to Black, simply because I had overlooked its utility being much more situational than I had previously thought.

Thanks for the input!
-Carr

[Didact]

Huzzah! I contributed! Thanks again for all the work you put into this.

I hadn't put much thought into the "friendly" caveat... That could limit it a lot more than I had initially thought. Is "friendly" a status or condition or anything that has a technical definition in the rules somewhere, or are we to apply a common language interpretation?

[charroboo]

Good catch. Although why it wouldn't just give you proficiency with the bleeding things is beyond me lol.



You are correct. You do not suffer Disadvantage for fighting without being proficient with your weapon.

The reason i prefer it that way, is because it gives you proficency with all martial weapons, so it opens up new builds like one im currently making, that uses the soul knife+a heavy x bow that shoots psyquic bolts thanks to psionic weapon, and boosting it up with Nomadic Arrow+psi dmg from lvl 8 feature of mystic+sharpshooter+other dmg boosters to make it kind of a "one shot, one kill" kind of psi assasin build. It even has seeker missile to make sure that you land your devastating hit.

And yeah, i confused the efects of not having proficency with the one from the armors, that does give you disadvantage.

[Matrix_Walker]

I know I posted something to this effect once before, but the OP did not think I had it right I guess. Maybe some others can back me up on this?

The OP Indicates:

Nomadic Arrow (Ranged attacks only.)
Focus: Removes Disadvantage. Can’t benefit from Advantage.


But the UA actually says...

Psychic Focus. While you are focused on this discipline, any attack roll you make for a ranged weapon attack ignores disadvantage. If disadvantage would normally apply to the roll, that roll also can’t benefit from advantage.




This does not mean you can never enjoy the benefits of Advantage, it just means that if there is a source of disadvantage eliminated by the ability, THAT ATTACK cannot benefit from Advantage. The cancellation of Advantage effect of the disadvantage remains. If there is no source of disadvantage, the attack has advantage as usual.

Can some people back me up here?

[Sinon]

This does not mean you can never enjoy the benefits of Advantage, it just means that if there is a source of disadvantage eliminated by the ability, THAT ATTACK cannot benefit from Advantage. The cancellation of Advantage effect of the disadvantage remains. If there is no source of disadvantage, the attack has advantage as usual.

Can some people back me up here?Yes, I think your reading is not only correct, but not controversial; though carrdrivesyou's sparse wording may be open to some misunderstanding, I don't think the UA is.

[carrdrivesyou]

I know I posted something to this effect once before, but the OP did not think I had it right I guess. Maybe some others can back me up on this?

The OP Indicates:


But the UA actually says...





This does not mean you can never enjoy the benefits of Advantage, it just means that if there is a source of disadvantage eliminated by the ability, THAT ATTACK cannot benefit from Advantage. The cancellation of Advantage effect of the disadvantage remains. If there is no source of disadvantage, the attack has advantage as usual.

Can some people back me up here?

You are correct here. Perhaps I should explain myself to be more clear.

The focus removes all counts of disadvantage, but also states that if disadvantage applies, you can't get advantage either. This applies only to ranged attacks.

Given that one count of advantage will nullify one count of disadvantage, the real gem here is that this focus removes ALL counts of disadvantage.

If you have multiple counts of advantage, then this becomes RED. If you have multiple counts of disadvantage, this becomes BLUE.

You can still gain advantage. Never said you couldn't; but given that most likely you will end up failing a save for a save or suck spell, causing you disadvantage, this will soothe the ache until you can remove those negative spell effects.

Does this make my rating more clear?


Huzzah! I contributed! Thanks again for all the work you put into this.

I hadn't put much thought into the "friendly" caveat... That could limit it a lot more than I had initially thought. Is "friendly" a status or condition or anything that has a technical definition in the rules somewhere, or are we to apply a common language interpretation?


Huzzah! I contributed! Thanks again for all the work you put into this.

I hadn't put much thought into the "friendly" caveat... That could limit it a lot more than I had initially thought. Is "friendly" a status or condition or anything that has a technical definition in the rules somewhere, or are we to apply a common language interpretation?

As far as I am aware, this is mostly DM fiat. 3.5 had a whole chart and section describing different levels of social standing (hostile, indifferent, friendly, etc.). So I would check with your DM about it. There are several effects in this edition that apply to "hostile" creatures. Take the Cleric of Light's channel divinity for example, does 2d10 plus cleric level in damage to all HOSTILE creatures. who is hostile and who is not really depends on the DM.

Edit: Added commentary for Didact.

[mangosta71]

I don't get why Energy Beam is black while Mind Thrust is green. Sure, the average damage per die is 1 less, and the range is a little shorter, but being able to pick the damage type makes it better against targets with vulnerabilities.

[sightlessrealit]

I don't get why Energy Beam is black while Mind Thrust is green. Sure, the average damage per die is 1 less, and the range is a little shorter, but being able to pick the damage type makes it better against targets with vulnerabilities.

Harder save, rare damage type and a better damage die.

[mangosta71]

Harder save,
Depends on your target.

rare damage type
Sure, very few things are resistant to psychic, but very few things are vulnerable to it, too. And I can't think of anything that's resistant to ALL of the elemental damage types.

and a better damage die.
Yeah, I mentioned that. Again, it's only 1 point of damage per die on average. And Energy Beam gets docked for "not scaling well", but Mind Thrust doesn't scale any better.

If Mind Thrust is green, Energy Beam should be at least blue imo.

[Sinon]

Yes, it does depend on the target, but a lot more targets have low Int compared to low Dex.

According to this sheet: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/6o8m8v/5e_monster_spreadsheet_with_ability_scores_which/

66 of 692 creatures have a negative dex mod, while 335 have a negative int.
More than twice as many have a positive dex mod compared to int.

There may be some errors on that spreadsheet, but not that many.

And, yes, few creatures are resistant to all the energy types, but your character isn’t going to know for sure whether the creature is or isn't resistant or to what by any means but trial and error.

Faced with a random or unknown creature, you’re better targeting int saves with psychic damage than dex with an energy type. The fact that Mind Thrust does more average damage is almost an afterthought, but still worth remembering.

You also have to consider opportunity costs in talent selection.

Casters start knowing 2 or 3 cantrips and can learn up to 4 or 5. By dipping or through feats, they can get more. Races get to know some cantrips.

You start knowing only one talent, and while eventually you get up to four, it takes a while and there are no other ways to learn more. You are likely going to know only one damage talent for most of your career.

And, while you can also dip into caster classes or take the relevant feats, none of the cantrips you grab are going to have as good a damage type or target int.

I will say one value to Energy Beam is that it is very easy to design a Mystic with a considerable number of disciplines that target int saves and/or do psychic damage. That can be a problem when you do run into a smart or psychic resistant creature, and in that event, it would be nice to fall back on something like Energy Beam.

[Alderic78]

Does anyone know if there is going to be an official version of the mystic any time soon, and how much it will be changed from what we have now?

[carrdrivesyou]

Does anyone know if there is going to be an official version of the mystic any time soon, and how much it will be changed from what we have now?

Last I checked, Mearls had decided to create the Psion class and several psionic subclasses. Apparently the Mystic has been cancelled as far as a class, much to the chagrin of many. The decision to abandon the Mystic for the Psion and others (Psion+), has been controversial to say the least. There have been a few threads about it.

Meanwhile, Since the Mystic went through three ENTIRE renditions, it's practically a finished product. There are a few obvious holes in some of the abilities, such as Darkness in MoLaD, which has no time limit in text, but it can easily be extrapolated by comparison to similar abilities.

Because of all this, many DMs that I have spoken with allow the Mystic with slight changes to its abilities to prevent abuse. Honestly, it would be stupid of WotC to abandon this class this far into revision.

The appeal of the class stems from its difference in structure compared to other classes. It doesn't follow the same exact formula as the other classes and can be used to mix things up a bit. As a splash class, it spices up just about EVERY build I have seen, Cheeselock notwithstanding.

In closing, the Mystic class is "officially" scrapped, but many home games will likely make enough use of it to see a published edition down the road.

[druid91]

One thing I'm not sure of. Mastery of Light and Darkness's Radiant Beam is THE top tier attack power. If you need it dead, Radiant Beam can do it as long as you hit. ESPECIALLY combined with Consumptive power, because Consumptive power allows you to break out of the 7 point limit, but most powers can only go up to 7. Radiant Beam does not.

So basically, you spend as much HP as you think is safe and absolutely NUKE something with your death-ray.

[Jerrykhor]

One thing I'm not sure of. Mastery of Light and Darkness's Radiant Beam is THE top tier attack power. If you need it dead, Radiant Beam can do it as long as you hit. ESPECIALLY combined with Consumptive power, because Consumptive power allows you to break out of the 7 point limit, but most powers can only go up to 7. Radiant Beam does not.

So basically, you spend as much HP as you think is safe and absolutely NUKE something with your death-ray.

What makes you think that the Psi Limit wouldn't apply to Radiant Beam?

For Consumptive Power, its arguable that Psi Limit wouldnt apply to the HP cost, but I would lean towards no. The limit is on the cost of Psi Points, and then only you convert it to HP cost to cast it. So it would still apply.

[Sception]

Last I checked, Mearls had decided to create the Psion class and several psionic subclasses. Apparently the Mystic has been cancelled as far as a class, much to the chagrin of many. The decision to abandon the Mystic for the Psion and others (Psion+), has been controversial to say the least. There have been a few threads about it.

The psion thing is just a name change. The mystic class wasn't scrapped for the psion, the mystic name was. The next version of the class is still, afaik, expected to be a pretty radical departure from the current playtest mystic, but any mechanical changes we do see would have happened regardless of the name change.

[mangosta71]

What makes you think that the Psi Limit wouldn't apply to Radiant Beam?

For Consumptive Power, its arguable that Psi Limit wouldnt apply to the HP cost, but I would lean towards no. The limit is on the cost of Psi Points, and then only you convert it to HP cost to cast it. So it would still apply.

I agree with this reading. The table puts an absolute limit of 7 psi points on any discipline you use, regardless of the source of the psi points. There are a couple of other powers that also have the capacity to be augmented (see Breath of the Black Dragon under Corrosive Metabolism as an example). There's nothing in the ability descriptions that implies that you can ignore your psi point limit when using them.

[Millstone85]

Does anyone know if there is going to be an official version of the mystic any time soon, and how much it will be changed from what we have now?After a quick rewatch of the Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour series, the current idea seems to be:

Barbarian

Path of the Immortal

Bard

College of the Ardent

Fighter

Psychic Warrior

Monk

Way of the Soul Knife

Psion

Order of the Awakened
Order of the Metamorph
Order of the Nomad
Order of the Shaper

Wizard

School of the Kineticist

[mangosta71]

After a quick rewatch of the Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour series, the current idea seems to be:

Barbarian

Path of the Immortal

Bard

College of the Ardent

Fighter

Psychic Warrior

Monk

Way of the Soul Knife

Psion

Order of the Awakened
Order of the Metamorph
Order of the Nomad
Order of the Shaper

Wizard

School of the Kineticist


So you won't be able to take disciplines from other orders? That really strips the appeal from the class.

[Millstone85]

So you won't be able to take disciplines from other orders? That really strips the appeal from the class.On the contrary, all these subclasses would use the psion spell list, much as the eldritch knight and the arcane trickster use the wizard spell list.

And yes, I said spells. However:
* Those spells would be upcastable cantrips. For instance, you could get the equivalent of mage hand and telekinesis into one package.
* Upcasting would use spell slots, though the spell-point variant from the DMG would be reprinted in whatever book introduces psionics (possibly a Dark Sun one).
* There would be a variant rule to reduce transparency between psionics and regular spellcasting.

Personally, I approve of this approach.

[mangosta71]

Not as bad as I was afraid of, but using spell slots instead of psi points cuts into the flexibility that made me interested in the class.

[Sception]

Also cuts into the mechanical novelty of it. Though it's too soon to really say, I'm somewhat concerned that, say, the psionic warrior won't feel meaningfully distinct from the eldritch knight in play, etc. We already have seven full classes and additional subclasses of spell slot users. Would rather see a different mechanic myself, but so be it.

[Millstone85]

In addition, those cantrips will be concentration ones, though possibly with their own special concentration, replacing Psychic Focus as the stance mechanic.

And you will no longer be able to use higher-level options while in an unrelated stance.

[sambojin]

Might not be too hard if they mix a watered down bit of pact magic (lower level but possibly more slots) on short rests with a long-rest slot allowance as well.

Would retain the versatility of mystics being able to drop lots of 1-3PP equivalent powers on stuff over the course of the day, with some bigger kabooms allowed as well.

[druid91]

I agree with this reading. The table puts an absolute limit of 7 psi points on any discipline you use, regardless of the source of the psi points. There are a couple of other powers that also have the capacity to be augmented (see Breath of the Black Dragon under Corrosive Metabolism as an example). There's nothing in the ability descriptions that implies that you can ignore your psi point limit when using them.

Psi Limit

Though you have access to a potent amount of psionic energy, it takes training and practice to channel that energy. There is a limit on the number of psi points you can spend to activate a psionic discipline. The limit is based on your mystic level, as shown in the Psi Limit column of the Mystic table. For example, as a 3rd-level mystic, you can spend no more than 3 psi points on a discipline each time you use it, no matter how many psi points you have.



Consumptive Power

At 10th level, you gain the ability to sacrifice your physical durability in exchange for psionic power. When activating a psionic discipline, you can pay its psi point cost with your hit points, instead of using any psi points. Your current hit points and hit point maximum are both
reduced by the number of hit points you spend. This reduction can’t be lessened in any way, and the reduction to your hit point maximum
lasts until you finish a long rest. Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

You have a limit on the number of psi points you can spend, not on the number of hit points you can spend. And Consumptive Power is very clear in that it is not converting Hit Points to Psi Points, but rather you are spending entirely and directly from your HP pool. The fact that you can't use Psi Points and must ONLY cast from HP, and the fact that you can only do this once per long rest strongly implies it's meant to be potentially powerful but risky given it lowers your hit point maximum along with the damage itself.

Your interpretation would make it completely and utterly pointless. As there would be almost no scenario in which you would WANT to use it.

As for Radiant beam, all other attack powers have a built in cap in the power, even ignoring the psi limit general rule. Radiant Beam does not, so once you find a way around the general rule.... like with Consumptive Power. You can push it as high as you deem safe.

[sambojin]

I honestly like the life-fuelled giga-laser idea.

[furby076]

You have a limit on the number of psi points you can spend, not on the number of hit points you can spend. And Consumptive Power is very clear in that it is not converting Hit Points to Psi Points, but rather you are spending entirely and directly from your HP pool. The fact that you can't use Psi Points and must ONLY cast from HP, and the fact that you can only do this once per long rest strongly implies it's meant to be potentially powerful but risky given it lowers your hit point maximum along with the damage itself.

Your interpretation would make it completely and utterly pointless. As there would be almost no scenario in which you would WANT to use it.

As for Radiant beam, all other attack powers have a built in cap in the power, even ignoring the psi limit general rule. Radiant Beam does not, so once you find a way around the general rule.... like with Consumptive Power. You can push it as high as you deem safe.


Quote Originally Posted by Mystic v3
Consumptive Power

At 10th level, you gain the ability to sacrifice your physical durability in exchange for psionic power. When activating a psionic discipline, you can pay its psi point cost with your hit points, instead of using any psi points. Your current hit points and hit point maximum are both
reduced by the number of hit points you spend. This reduction can’t be lessened in any way, and the reduction to your hit point maximum
lasts until you finish a long rest. Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

I would agree with you, except for the part I bolded. If it weren't for that language I would say sure, but they threw in language that said psi point cost. Frankly, I'd need to see a Sage clarification, or when this is officially released

[druid91]

I would agree with you, except for the part I bolded. If it weren't for that language I would say sure, but they threw in language that said psi point cost. Frankly, I'd need to see a Sage clarification, or when this is officially released

Eh? that makes no sense though. Normally powers have a Psi Point Cost. Not a Hit Point Cost. This is Specifying WHAT you are paying with the Hit Points. Not saying it's not a Hit Point cost.

[mangosta71]

The table gives the maximum psi point cost you can spend on any single use of any discipline. Consumptive Power allows you to pay that cost with your hit points, but it does not say that you can exceed that maximum. As for other powers that don't explicitly have the 7 psi point cap and add more damage the more psi points you pay to manifest them:
Corrosive Metabolism - Breath of the Green Dragon
Crown of Despair - Visions of Despair
Mastery of Water - Watery Grasp
Mastery of Water - Water Whip
Mastery of Weather - Lightning Leap
Psychic Disruption - Mind Storm
Psychic Phantoms - Phantom Foe

As for being useless, Consumptive Power would let you get one last desperate shot off at the end of a hard day after you've spent all your psi points.

[carrdrivesyou]

Also cuts into the mechanical novelty of it. Though it's too soon to really say, I'm somewhat concerned that, say, the psionic warrior won't feel meaningfully distinct from the eldritch knight in play, etc. We already have seven full classes and additional subclasses of spell slot users. Would rather see a different mechanic myself, but so be it.

This is exactly what I feel. The appeal for me is the different mechanic. It's an entirely different approach than the rest of the classes. Honestly, I'm sick of seeing more subclasses being added in. The novelty of the idea has worn off. It's like adding more class archetypes in pathfinder. It isn't the same as a new class entirely. While we will be gaining the Psion, it will be the same as the others in mechanic. Which is not as appealing. In this case, why didn't the Artificer get it's own class? It had two subclasses that were both interesting, but lacked in core components. I worry that they are cutting too many options away from the Psion to really appeal to anyone.


I honestly like the life-fuelled giga-laser idea.

This made me chuckle. Definitely gonna use this next time I play a Mystic.


You have a limit on the number of psi points you can spend, not on the number of hit points you can spend. And Consumptive Power is very clear in that it is not converting Hit Points to Psi Points, but rather you are spending entirely and directly from your HP pool. The fact that you can't use Psi Points and must ONLY cast from HP, and the fact that you can only do this once per long rest strongly implies it's meant to be potentially powerful but risky given it lowers your hit point maximum along with the damage itself.

Your interpretation would make it completely and utterly pointless. As there would be almost no scenario in which you would WANT to use it.

As for Radiant beam, all other attack powers have a built in cap in the power, even ignoring the psi limit general rule. Radiant Beam does not, so once you find a way around the general rule.... like with Consumptive Power. You can push it as high as you deem safe.

RAW, you are correct. The specific verbiage does state Psi Points, not hit points. RAI however, I would say that the Psi Limit is supposed to remain a hard cap for Consumptive Power. Otherwise, as soon as you hit 10th level, you would unlock a life powered death beam that would outright destroy a Dracolich. That is a bit much methinks...

Overall, it really depends on the DM. Depending on their ruling, you could be a walking, talking, psychic doom laser. Special points for calling it the Special Beam Cannon. And charge it for five minutes. But considering how short battles take in DnD...well, you get the point...

[Alsc]

Is Immortal Durability +1 hp per mystic level calculated at each level up? Or is it +1 hp for each NEW mystic level?

Basically, as a lv 10 Order of the Immortal Mystic, should I have:

A.) 10 hp extra from Immortal Durability (10 mystic lvs = 10 hp)

OR

B.) 55 hp extra from Immortal Durability, from calculating bonus mystic level hp at each level up?
(1+2+3+4+5+etc etc etc)

I'd appreciate any response for this! I know there's some talk about mystics being overpowered so I'd hate to make a 45 hp mistake here.

[carrdrivesyou]

Is Immortal Durability +1 hp per mystic level calculated at each level up? Or is it +1 hp for each NEW mystic level?

Basically, as a lv 10 Order of the Immortal Mystic, should I have:

A.) 10 hp extra from Immortal Durability (10 mystic lvs = 10 hp)

OR

B.) 55 hp extra from Immortal Durability, from calculating bonus mystic level hp at each level up?
(1+2+3+4+5+etc etc etc)

I'd appreciate any response for this! I know there's some talk about mystics being overpowered so I'd hate to make a 45 hp mistake here.

I believe by the verbiage, ""Starting at 1st level, your hit point maximum increases by 1 per mystic level," they intend for it to be 1 per level, for a total of 20 over your career. That puts you well within the range of most fighters. Pretty good for a caster of any sort really. A bonus of 55 seems a bit much, especially for a class that is already a bit above the power scale at mid levels.

[Giatro]

Very impressed by your guide, and by your staying involved in the comments ... disappointed about the expected radical re-write of the class after three playtests.

I understand that multiclassing a UA class is discouraged ... but there's been a lot of discussion of it anyway. And I have tried to understand your opinion on taking a 1 level dip in Rogue ... can't figure out what it means ... Expertise, Sneak Attack, Thieves Cant ... don't see how these have any impact on bonus actions, or even how they help the Mystic much. I'm probably missing something obvious, but what?

[carrdrivesyou]

Very impressed by your guide, and by your staying involved in the comments ... disappointed about the expected radical re-write of the class after three playtests.

I understand that multiclassing a UA class is discouraged ... but there's been a lot of discussion of it anyway. And I have tried to understand your opinion on taking a 1 level dip in Rogue ... can't figure out what it means ... Expertise, Sneak Attack, Thieves Cant ... don't see how these have any impact on bonus actions, or even how they help the Mystic much. I'm probably missing something obvious, but what?

I'm glad you like the guide. Sad that the class got scrapped. I'm gonna remake it into the one for the Psion when it drops though. Hopefully it won't need too much revising.

As for the rogue dip, the reason I suggest it is that it synergizes well with most builds. The expertise goes a long way in skill builds, extra skills are nice, an extra d6 of damage is always useful, and Thieves Cant is just flavor. At a 2 level dip, you get Cunning Action, which is VERY useful, but the Mystic is chock full of bonus action abilities already. Overall, the dip here is mostly a small boost, but at a level or two, it will meaningfully add to your character while not taking away from your Mystic progression.

[mangosta71]

I have a DM that's letting me play the third-pass Mystic, and it's a lot of fun. Valenar High Elf, Order of the Immortal, it's a hell of a gish. Without armor I have the highest AC in the party (21) at level 4. And everyone at the table was shocked when I enhanced a swing with Lethal Strike and critted for a total of 52 damage.

But anyway, I've been making pretty heavy use of this guide. And I'm really sad that the Mystic class is getting disintegrated.

[RealBallOfFluff]

Exacting Query: You could just yell at them. Or I don’t know… TALK to them?
Isn't it Forceful Query and makes them have to tell the truth?

[carrdrivesyou]

Isn't it Forceful Query and makes them have to tell the truth?

There is Forceful Query via Psychic Inquisition, then there is Exacting Query by Telepathic contact. They do about the same thing, forcing a truthful answer out of the target on a failed save. The difference is that the latter is telepathic, while the former requires they be able to see and hear you.

The reason it is rated so poorly is because you could easily solve this with an intimidation or other social skill check. If you REALLY want to do the social intrigue thing and interrogate someone, a few points in CHA is a better investment.

[mangosta71]

The reason it is rated so poorly is because you could easily solve this with an intimidation or other social skill check. If you REALLY want to do the social intrigue thing and interrogate someone, a few points in CHA is a better investment.

Depends on the build. Some won't be able to afford stat points in CHA.

My Immortal mystic was unstoppable (the DM *tried*; I retired the character out of mercy), but I already needed high DEX, INT, and CON. I had to use both STR and CHA as dump stats. I was seriously considering Psychic Inquisition for several reasons; our highest CHA character had died (that player took over as DM when our current DM had a change in his availability) so we didn't have anyone who was good at that, and my character was also a secret Zhentarim agent so being able to interrogate people without being dependent on the rest of the party would have been incredibly useful from a RP perspective. I was never going to be able to intimidate, or persuade, etc., so "force truth out of this person with your brain" was an extremely appealing option.

[carrdrivesyou]

Depends on the build. Some won't be able to afford stat points in CHA.

My Immortal mystic was unstoppable (the DM *tried*; I retired the character out of mercy), but I already needed high DEX, INT, and CON. I had to use both STR and CHA as dump stats. I was seriously considering Psychic Inquisition for several reasons; our highest CHA character had died (that player took over as DM when our current DM had a change in his availability) so we didn't have anyone who was good at that, and my character was also a secret Zhentarim agent so being able to interrogate people without being dependent on the rest of the party would have been incredibly useful from a RP perspective. I was never going to be able to intimidate, or persuade, etc., so "force truth out of this person with your brain" was an extremely appealing option.

Well, YMMV. no character can really account for every situation, and especially not a party member dying. So, you situation sounds like it was more of a story development than anything else. It wasn't planned for. But I understand what you are saying. And you would be right in concluding either option to be a decent stand-in for a few good Intimidation rolls. Unfortunately, there is a save involved with both. All my guide and I are saying is that they are suboptimal options by comparison. If that's the way, you want to play it, go right ahead. It *IS* your character after all lol.