is mystic hate justified?

[Bannan_mantis]

I have been playing a bit of mystic these past few sessions in my group, I was playing a order of the immortal and emphasised his abilities with the theme of it almost being a monk with semi wildshape. He had a lot of the immortal's traits and I used beast form a lot whilst mixing the abilities of the other disciplines to make a more magical type of mystic. In my group I didn't feel it was that bad really, I felt that I had a lot more choices than anyone else but I wasn't doing nearly as much damage as our fighter, the rogue was more skilled and agile and the barbarian was more tanky. So it was confusing too see how much hate the mystic gets online, I even talked to the other players and the dm and they said that the character I played was perfectly fine.

This is more of a post too discuss this and see people's opinions on this. I myself feel that the main reason people like the mystic is within the very theme of the class and mechanics, not as a psionic master but as a very high option based class. I saw this in XP to Level 3's video on how to play mystic and while I feel he brought up good points I feel that he had a distaste for it from the theme alone. He said that he didn't like how "mystics can do almost anything" but to me as long as anything doesn't include gamebreakinig instant kill mechanics or whatever I feel it's ok, the mystic is meant to be a subclass that can shift the very nature around it with nothing but it's mind.

I do see how some abilities are quite OP (cough cough mystical recovery cough cough) but with a few changes they can be fixed but I don't see how all the things about mystic are OP, even the level 20 ability if you compare it to other level 20 abilities. Being able to have a 55% chance of resurrection is cool but the cleric could bring you back with resurrection at earlier levels with resurrection or if it's quick then revivify.

[Dualswinger]

Mystics are disliked because they get to maximise their damage output very quickly compared to other classes, plus the generalisation of the abilities means that they synergise with almost any class. It’s not difficult to be doing in excess of 400 damage at level 11 if you pick your abilities right, and it only gets more bonkers from there.

Above 10, their output might plateau a little, but then they gain abilities like multi-concentration that makes many people feel “whatever a class can do, mystic does better”

[Bannan_mantis]

Mystics are disliked because they get to maximise their damage output very quickly compared to other classes, plus the generalisation of the abilities means that they synergise with almost any class. It’s not difficult to be doing in excess of 400 damage at level 11 if you pick your abilities right, and it only gets more bonkers from there.

Above 10, their output might plateau a little, but then they gain abilities like multi-concentration that makes many people feel “whatever a class can do, mystic does better”

I am unsure of the fact that the mystic's damage maximises quickly, when I was playing my big attacks were dealing around 20 damage at level 4 which is really good but that's something I can only do a few times per long rest so I had to use it sparingly. Compared to the fighter/ranger which with action surge was able to do up to 25-30 damage every 2-3 encounters and then the average damage of him being higher and etc. Again I am still a little unsure and would like to see some comparisons is all.

Also to note before anyone calls me out on doing math wrong or anything this is just observations, not calculated math with averages and things like that.

[Dungeon-noob]

Even though i have only seen a lvl 1 mystic in play, i have read the document a few times, and what i see is basicly this: the mystic is both incredibly versatile in that it can be built to do anything, or take advantage of any weakness, and it can do some things almost no one else can. The first is mostly represented with the different trees: a mystic can heal, debuff, blast, cc, skillmonkey, or investigate as good as anyone, and it can respec at levelups. This means that the mystic very likely is going to be either/both be highly and efficiently specialist and using the most effective tools for the current scenario.

The second shows up in some of the weirder trees. Psychic damage galore, targeting int saves, those sort of things that never come up and are therefore more powerfull, are things a mystic can specialize in.

Combined with the fact that a mystic can be very precise in their resource alocation, means that it is an incredibly efficient class. Seeing as how a lot of its abilities are also either very strong or pretty much OP, all of it coalesces into a quite frankly OP class as a whole.

Feel free to ask me to specify particular statements, i can, but i didn't want to make this a 2 page post.

[Bannan_mantis]

Even though i have only seen a lvl 1 mystic in play, i have read the document a few times, and what i see is basicly this: the mystic is both incredibly versatile in that it can be built to do anything, or take advantage of any weakness, and it can do some things almost no one else can. The first is mostly represented with the different trees: a mystic can heal, debuff, blast, cc, skillmonkey, or investigate as good as anyone, and it can respec at levelups. This means that the mystic very likely is going to be either/both be highly and efficiently specialist and using the most effective tools for the current scenario.

The second shows up in some of the weirder trees. Psychic damage galore, targeting int saves, those sort of things that never come up and are therefore more powerfull, are things a mystic can specialize in.

Combined with the fact that a mystic can be very precise in their resource alocation, means that it is an incredibly efficient class. Seeing as how a lot of its abilities are also either very strong or pretty much OP, all of it coalesces into a quite frankly OP class as a whole.

Feel free to ask me to specify particular statements, i can, but i didn't want to make this a 2 page post.

Hmmm that is a justified summary of it but I feel the mystic has one key weakness compared to other classes. It's reliance on psionics. Idk if this is fully true but aren't mystics a lot less powerful when they lose psionics and overall become the weakest member of the party? That's just from what I have seen but again you seem to be very knowledgable of this so I'd like to see your opinion on it.

[Trustypeaches]

I just feel the Mystic is pretty messy in terms of design.

[Aett_Thorn]

Hmmm that is a justified summary of it but I feel the mystic has one key weakness compared to other classes. It's reliance on psionics. Idk if this is fully true but aren't mystics a lot less powerful when they lose psionics and overall become the weakest member of the party? That's just from what I have seen but again you seem to be very knowledgable of this so I'd like to see your opinion on it.

No more so than when any other spellcaster (barring Warlocks) runs out of spell slots and has to rely on Cantrips. However, even Energy Beam has great versatility for a single Cantrip, since you can choose from a variety of elemental type damage that they can do with it, which is handy.

[Willie the Duck]

Hmmm that is a justified summary of it but I feel the mystic has one key weakness compared to other classes. It's reliance on psionics. Idk if this is fully true but aren't mystics a lot less powerful when they lose psionics and overall become the weakest member of the party?

This is true, but runs into a real problem -- extremely powerful options with glaring (and potentially un-mitigatable) weaknesses are extrememly hard to balance against other options. In no small part because, well, exactly how many issues of Superman can you have him run up against Kryptonite (and the existence of Kryptonite does ****-all to stop him from running away with the plot in issues where it doesn't show up)? Third edition had this in spades -- monks and sorcerers were hands down weaker than wizards and weapon-using martials... except when an opponent targeted the wizard's spellbook or the DM threw an ogre with an adamantine heavy mace and the sunder feat at weapon-users. That's great and all, but how often can you do that without the players yelling at you about opponents custom made to exploit their weak spots?

[supergoji18]

After looking over the class I came to realize that yes, it is 100% justified. The design philosophy of the mystic was "screw the rules," as there are countless features that just straight up break core rules of 5e. One of the most blatant examples is the level 11 ability that lets you concentrate on multiple disciplines at once. Its far from the only one though.

The class is also superbly convoluted, which is made even more apparent when compared to the streamlined class design of 5e. Between the psychic focuses, disciplines and talents, and the psi points, the amount of book keeping required will make the wizard look simple by comparison. This only gets worse at later levels when you have abilities that tamper with your psychic focus, and worse still when you reach level 11.

If the feature isn't breaking the rules, then its extremely overloaded. The Awakened's Psionic Investigation is a perfect example, as it basically combines the spells alarm and scrying all into one with the added benefit of being able to see into the past. So once per day you get the benefits of a 1st level spell combined with a 5th level spell... at 3rd level.

There's also the nomad's whole "I can switch out my proficiencies whenever I want" that allows them to do really stupid things like learn a language at will thanks to one of their discipline's psychic focuses.

And now, allow me to rant about the level 11 class ability...

The more I read this ability, the more confused I was as to how it works. In summary, you spend an action to gain 9 "special" psi points. These psi points can be used to concentrate on multiple disciplines at once, but while using them you can't use your normal psi points... I think. I'm not sure. This ability is, in my opinion, the epitome of everything wrong with the mystic class. Its without a doubt the most complicated class feature in 5e. Furthermore, it breaks one of the major rules of 5e about concentration (i.e. you can't concentrate more than 1 spell at a time). This is the worst example of the class breaking core rules, as it means they can start stacking benefits from their disciplines, which is explicitly what the designers of 5e wanted to AVOID when they implemented the concentration rule. Its a rule that I agree with and I feel has made the game more balanced and more fun as a result. So the fact they decided to allow one class to be a special snowflake and ignore the rule is baffling to me.

[mer.c]

Even though i have only seen a lvl 1 mystic in play, i have read the document a few times, and what i see is basicly this: the mystic is both incredibly versatile in that it can be built to do anything, or take advantage of any weakness, and it can do some things almost no one else can. The first is mostly represented with the different trees: a mystic can heal, debuff, blast, cc, skillmonkey, or investigate as good as anyone, and it can respec at levelups. This means that the mystic very likely is going to be either/both be highly and efficiently specialist and using the most effective tools for the current scenario.

The second shows up in some of the weirder trees. Psychic damage galore, targeting int saves, those sort of things that never come up and are therefore more powerfull, are things a mystic can specialize in.

Combined with the fact that a mystic can be very precise in their resource alocation, means that it is an incredibly efficient class. Seeing as how a lot of its abilities are also either very strong or pretty much OP, all of it coalesces into a quite frankly OP class as a whole.

Feel free to ask me to specify particular statements, i can, but i didn't want to make this a 2 page post.

I'm playing in a level-5 party with a Mystic and can confirm. I actually crunched some numbers on it and it's pretty disgusting.

That said, I think the base class is probably fine in most respects. The problem is the orders are out of whack, and too plentiful. This probably contributes a lot to what we see in perceptions: Some people feel like their mediocre mystic is getting crapped on, and the ones doing the crapping are having PTSD from running with OP orders.

My party's Level 5 Nomad Mystic gets:

2 bonus Nomad disciplines (which are incredibly powerful)
27 extra HP per LR from Mystical Recovery (for 65 total; about 71% bonus) (free)
120-foot Telepathy (free)
1d10, 120-range Cantrip that targets Int (free)
1d8, 90-range Cantrip that can be whatever element will deal double damage
1-targtet minor illusion that always succeeds
Better friends but without the drawback
Ranged attacks can't have disadvantage (free)
+1d10 psychic damage per psi spent on next attack that his this turn, so 27d10 nova capacity with 5d10 max per use (sorry Paladins)
The above can miss, but... he has a reaction to reroll misses (2/27 psi)...
... and 1 minute of Extra Attack (5/27 psi)
2 proficiencies per LR (free)
Another bonus proficiency of choice (skill, tool, or language) as an action (free)
Yet another proficiency (2/27 psi)
Limited scrying (2/27 psi)
Identify an number of items (2/27 psi)
Teleport per SR (free)
+10 speed (free)
Scalable Misty Step (1+/27 psi)
Budget shield spell with teleport built-in (2/27 psi)
Teleport allies (3/27 psi)
Teleport enemies (5/27 psi)
Bonus-action stabilize creatures (free)
Scalable 1d8 HP heal as a bonus action (1+/27 psi)
Remove conditions and diseases (3/27 psi)
Resurrect (5/27 psi)
Because of how psi points work, he also essentially uses the Spell Point rule variant, which as we know is immensely powerful. (While also having almost double the psi points than a full caster would have spell slots, despite N psi points often pulling around the same weight as an N-level spell.)

And that's only counting 3 of his 5(!) disciplines known. (3 base plus two from Nomad order.) I don't even know what the other ones are. And he can replace them on level up.

Looking at the resource costs on some of these abilities, it's pretty clear that they're severely overtuned. Top-tier cantripping targeting Int, holding pace with a full Martial's attack progression (but with no disadvantage ever, rerolling misses, and 27d10 psychic damage to toss around), 3+ proficiences that can be chosen and retooled at will, equaling or exceeding top-tier Wizard spell effects, outstripping a Life Cleric's combat healing (as a bonus action), rezzing 5 creatures per day at level 5, keeping pace with a monk, scrying, gobs of extra HP... he kind of outclasses just about anyone at just about anything. Need a skill monkey? Mystic. Need nova DRP? Mystic? Battlefield mobility? Mystic? Medic? Mystic. Sustained DPR? Mystic. I know most of these things cost a LR resource, but that resource is plentiful considering how powerful the effects are, let alone the flexibility the huge range of abilities gives him.

And remember, this guy is level 5. As he levels, not only does he get stronger abilities, more psi points, and more max psi spent per ability. He also gets even more orders. Other things might include automatically knowing when someone is lying and forcing truthful answers, getting swimming/flying/+2 AC, AoE advantage on Int/Wis/Cha saves (for 10 min at a time), give literally everyone advantage against a creature (no save), freely see through magical darkness while also incidentally being able to cast darkness on the cheap (hello cheese), AoE invisibility as a bonus action, greater invisibility but cheaper as a bonus action, advantage on Initiative with self-targeted bless plus Guidance, 10 minutes of +3 enhancement for less than a 3rd-level spell slot (oh and you can also ignore AC and target Dex with your attacks, doing half damage on a save), insane-scaling int-targetting higher-damage-but-also-psychic fireball or spend 1 more psi to do the same thing but also stun, read minds and rewrite memories, and tons of other things I missed because I was skimming. And these aren't exclusive. They keep piling up every 2–3 levels, while also gaining more abilities from each, and getting more psi to spend, and getting max psi per ability increased.

All of that said, aside from the OP "cantrips," all of these things boil down to two things: Having too much selection of disciplines, and (some of) those specific disciplines being OP/having too many features. (His are Nomadic Arrow, Nomadic Mind, Psionic Restoration, and 2 others I don't know, for the curious/unscrupulous.) The Mystic UA has plenty of elements that are much better balanced. So you can easily build, and I'm sure many people have built, totally balanced Mystics—even if their number of specializations does get pretty out of control.

All that is to say: Yes, I'd say the mystic hate is justified. For these reasons and a bunch already mentioned here, the class is an overwrought, overtuned, convoluted mess of a design. However, any given Mystic could be fine from a balance perspective. But you should also understand that people who have played with Mystics will likely bring their baggage to the table. If that's not reflective of your character, you can walk them through it if you'd like. Or just let them (hopefully) warm up to it by example. And if the above is reflective of your character, just go in understanding that it's kind of a mess of balance (as a UA), and you're going to get blowback from that. Although that said, there are more abusive things in the game, so if you're in a party full of munchkins, you're probably not going to draw too much fire unless you start getting too close to what too many other PCs do.

[Jerrykhor]

Its definitely not justified. There are some things that stand out as OP, sure, but its not many. You might as well call the Wizard an OP class because of Wish+Simulacrum spam. Most of the feedback I've seen are people who don't know what they are talking about, who just call OP on everything the Mystic has.

They also like to point to the 28-page document and call them too versatile, but forgot that Wizards have a long spell list that completely dwarfs that amount, can cherry pick the best spells, and then learn even more during downtime. They might start off near equal footing, but as the Wizard adds more spells to his spellbook, he only becomes more versatile. Take it from me, who is in a party with a non-optimised Wizard: They are more versatile than Mystics. They are also more efficient in spending resource, because of Rituals. Mystics cannot replace the PHB casters, they dont even have a simple Detect Magic! They got nothing similar to Wizards' best spells like Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Wall of Force, Forcecage, Polymorph, Simulacrum etc.

A Wizard is simply a better team player. A Mystic might not die from fall damage with Mastery of Air's Focus, but the team would appreciate the Wizard's Feather Fall more.

For example, they like to point out that Mystics can reach very high AC by picking certain Disciplines. But those Disciplines, while have good Focus, usually have poor powers. Take a look at Iron Durability or Mastery of Wood and Earth. Wizards don't have such problem, and they can reach similar AC with Bladesinger.

[mer.c]

Its definitely not justified. There are some things that stand out as OP, sure, but its not many. You might as well call the Wizard an OP class because of Wish+Simulacrum spam. Most of the feedback I've seen are people who don't know what they are talking about, who just call OP on everything the Mystic has.
IMO, a level-17 spell combo isn't comparable to being able to equal or exceed most specialists at most things those specialists do from level 1 or 3 onwards.

Wizards definitely out-utility Mystics, which is good. Flexibility and utility are a huge part of the Wizard's design space. (Of course they're also limited by what spells they've prepared outside rituals, but we'll set that aside for now.) But that doesn't mean that Mystic isn't overtuned in terms of breadth of roles they fill and/or degree to which they outstrip other dedicated classes on.

[Willie the Duck]

Its definitely not justified. There are some things that stand out as OP, sure, but its not many. You might as well call the Wizard an OP class because of Wish+Simulacrum spam. Most of the feedback I've seen are people who don't know what they are talking about, who just call OP on everything the Mystic has.

None of this actually makes your position wrong, but I just want to point out that using Wish+Simulacrum (that combo that I'm going to guess 0.1% of DMs will allow) as your counterpoint, and stating that people who disagree don't know what they are talking about is approximately a perfect storm of ways not to convince others.

Wish+Simulacrum, in particular-- well, yes, it does exist. However, it is like saying that 3e tier 1 classes aren't overpowered because Pun Pun exists and is so much more powerful that that. I mean, great, but I'm not going to run into either Pun Pun or 5e Wish/Simulacrum in any actually played games. So it doesn't really inform how bringing a mystic into a group is going to effect the game.

[Mr.Spastic]

If you take into account the potential synergies the mystic has with other classes, it gets pretty bonkers. If you have both the Brute Force and Psionic Weapon features and pair that with five levels of fighter your chance to land a lethal strike and then stack on brute force becomes ridiculous. If you max out on an attack with a greatsword you can do 2d6+str+7d10+7d6 on one hit at the cost of 14 psi points and a bonus action. Taking in account that you would have to be level 9 to be able to max out psi point costs and adding five fighter levels gets you to 14 that's pretty insane. Oh, and you would have 57 psi points so you could do that 4 times a day.

[Waterdeep Merch]

The Mystic has a few broken-good options but it's pretty obvious which ones are the serious offenders (Psychic Disruption and Telepathic Contact especially). You can avoid them reasonably easily. The rest is "pretty balanced", though definitely on the strong side of the power curve.

The real problem with the Mystic is that it's an excellent build-a-system.

No, seriously.

You get to cherry pick powers and gain enough options that you can go for flavorful choices while still maintaining reasonable competence. Even the warlock doesn't have this flexibility. Just look at how many people use the Mystic as a base for simulating other fictional characters. It's so good that every other class feels boring and constrained by comparison, and that's going to draw envy.

I wish every class worked more like the Mystic, with batches of selectable powers.

[Prince Vine]

My party's Level 5 Nomad Mystic gets:

2 bonus Nomad disciplines (which are incredibly powerful)
27 extra HP per LR from Mystical Recovery (for 65 total; about 71% bonus) (free)
120-foot Telepathy (free)
1d10, 120-range Cantrip that targets Int (free)
1d8, 90-range Cantrip that can be whatever element will deal double damage
1-targtet minor illusion that always succeeds
Better friends but without the drawback
Ranged attacks can't have disadvantage (free)
+1d10 psychic damage per psi spent on next attack that his this turn, so 27d10 nova capacity with 5d10 max per use (sorry Paladins)
The above can miss, but... he has a reaction to reroll misses (2/27 psi)...
... and 1 minute of Extra Attack (5/27 psi)
2 proficiencies per LR (free)
Another bonus proficiency of choice (skill, tool, or language) as an action (free)
Yet another proficiency (2/27 psi)
Limited scrying (2/27 psi)
Identify an number of items (2/27 psi)
Teleport per SR (free)
+10 speed (free)
Scalable Misty Step (1+/27 psi)
Budget shield spell with teleport built-in (2/27 psi)
Teleport allies (3/27 psi)
Teleport enemies (5/27 psi)
Bonus-action stabilize creatures (free)
Scalable 1d8 HP heal as a bonus action (1+/27 psi)
Remove conditions and diseases (3/27 psi)
Resurrect (5/27 psi)
Because of how psi points work, he also essentially uses the Spell Point rule variant, which as we know is immensely powerful. (While also having almost double the psi points than a full caster would have spell slots, despite N psi points often pulling around the same weight as an N-level spell.)

And that's only counting 3 of his 5(!) disciplines known. (3 base plus two from Nomad order.) I don't even know what the other ones are. And he can replace them on level up.


Nomad (and to a lesser extent awakened) skills can be just crazy, there is definitely a lot of room for refinement for the subclasses.

It doesn't address everything but there are a few issues with that list.

To start he seems to have at least twice the number of talents (cantrips) that he should.

A lot of those abilities also can't be active at the same time, so he generally can't have the option to be extra fast, ignore disadvantage and stabilize in the same turn. Most of the other ones compete for his bonus action.

The non-self teleports require him to switch places with the target, which can sometimes be awkward, as well as the ally teleport and the misty step variant requiring his move as well as his bonus action.

It is on the high end of the curve still, but not off the chart. I do think they need to rework how switching focus is done and maybe limit point expenditure to per round instead of per discipline.

While in theory requiring your action, reaction and bonus action (+5d10, reroll miss arrow or the psionic weapon/brute strike combo) as well as a third of your spell slots to do something awesome could be balanced, in practice people see it as too much and it really cranks up the 5 minute workday problem.

[Prince Vine]

If you take into account the potential synergies the mystic has with other classes, it gets pretty bonkers. If you have both the Brute Force and Psionic Weapon features and pair that with five levels of fighter your chance to land a lethal strike and then stack on brute force becomes ridiculous. If you max out on an attack with a greatsword you can do 2d6+str+7d10+7d6 on one hit at the cost of 14 psi points and a bonus action. Taking in account that you would have to be level 9 to be able to max out psi point costs and adding five fighter levels gets you to 14 that's pretty insane. Oh, and you would have 57 psi points so you could do that 4 times a day.

While you aren't wholly wrong (see above for my concern with point limits being per discipline) it does specifically say the mystic is not balanced to multiclass yet.

Also as an aside Lethal Strike and Brute Strike both require a bonus action so could not stack. You could still get the 7d6 extra with Knock Back if the enemy failed a Strength save and there was a convenient wall nearby though, so it is a touch trickier but not enough to make me feel you should be able to spend double your limit on a turn by burning your bonus AND reaction (or triple if you throw in your action).

[mer.c]

Nomad (and to a lesser extent awakened) skills can be just crazy, there is definitely a lot of room for refinement for the subclasses.

It doesn't address everything but there are a few issues with that list.

To start he seems to have at least twice the number of talents (cantrips) that he should.

A lot of those abilities also can't be active at the same time, so he generally can't have the option to be extra fast, ignore disadvantage and stabilize in the same turn. Most of the other ones compete for his bonus action.

The non-self teleports require him to switch places with the target, which can sometimes be awkward, as well as the ally teleport and the misty step variant requiring his move as well as his bonus action.

It is on the high end of the curve still, but not off the chart. I do think they need to rework how switching focus is done and maybe limit point expenditure to per round instead of per discipline.

While in theory requiring your action, reaction and bonus action (+5d10, reroll miss arrow or the psionic weapon/brute strike combo) as well as a third of your spell slots to do something awesome could be balanced, in practice people see it as too much and it really cranks up the 5 minute workday problem.

That's all fair. Like I said, the problem isn't really the class overall or even most of the individual abilities. It's some key things that badly tuned, which then become kind of absurd given the breadth of them you can take together. Such as 27d8 bonus-action healing on a super-mobile character with great sustained DPR who outnovas a Paladin at a range and is also a top-tier skill monkey.

[Grod_The_Giant]

They Mystic as it stands has threekey structural issues.

First, they're front-loaded. This pops up a lot with UA material; cramming more features into the levels where people actually play means that more features get playtest time. It would certainly be more balanced if things were spread out more, but you'd have fewer data points. I suspect that even at the time of the release, they were intending to break things down more for the final version, but... yeah. They're overstuffed, meaning that they have way more options and potential synergies than other classes. (My level 4 Mystic has 17 magic abilities, between focuses and talents and disciplines. A level 4 Bard has 10)
Secondly, and related, the Mystic as it stands is filling up way too much design space. It's a build-a-class framework, not a traditional D&D class. It's trying to cover pure psychics, mind-over-matter warriors and rogues, warlord-type auras, and Avatar-style elementalists. Again, I suspect the goal was always to break things up into multiple classes or subclasses, but at this stage of design, it's like a traditional caster that can pick spells from every list in the game.
Finally, the power point paradigm turns them into sort of an anti-Warlock: both work out okay when stretched out over the expected adventuring day. They both have issues with 1-2 encounter days... but where the Warlock gets dull and a bit weak if it doesn't get the day it wants, the Mystic goes nuts and out-shines everything else.

There are also individual abilities here and there that are broken in one way or another, but those are distinctly secondary.

[8wGremlin]

I've played a mystic from 1 to 9th level
It has been a pleasure to play, the versatility has been good, there are some broken powers in there, and some of the features need to be turned down, and some need clarification.

However, they are vastly outstripped in all areas reasonably quickly, by the other classes.
They are very versatile, and you can approach any concept with relative ease.

Power points are a little on the high side in the later levels it seems, but you have a very limited selection of abilities to which you can actually use.

They can replace a paladin (sorcadin), Wizard, or Druid, but they soon run out of steam and have to fall back to basic cantrips and attacks.

I would definitely let them be played in my campaigns, with a few changes, after all, it is a playtest.

One thing to mention is that Psionics have been in D&D (original Dungeons & Dragons Supplement III – Eldritch Wizardry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldritch_Wizardry). ) for more years than the Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger, Sorcerer or Warlock, but as it doesn't fit into peoples view of fantasy sword and magic they have an instant dislike for it.

[MagneticKitty]

I've been playing one from lv 2 through 6. Here is my experience:
-The class uses a lot of int saves, a lot of monsters aren't very smart since it's a very uncommon save.
-The elemental part (wu jen) is what most people say is op so we've excluded it as an option for my mystic.
-The mystic uses spell point variant equivalent (this means you can cast only high level spells and don't have to mess with low levels if you don't want to. This can make it very bursty)
-I've not really run out of points once..
-Not much resists psychic damage which can unbalance it a bit.

Other then that it seems ok. But our play style does get less daily encounters than most I think

[Justin Sane]

1-targtet minor illusion that always succeedsWell, not true - the fact that Delusion is single target and that it dissapears if touched, when Minor Image requires an Intelligence (Investigation) check makes it a strictly worse option.


Better friends but without the drawbackWell, true - but while Friends affect the caster, Mystic Charm requires a saving throw, and lasts for one round.


Scalable 1d8 HP heal as a bonus action (1+/27 psi)

Such as 27d8 bonus-action healingMend Wounds is an action.

Not saying I disagree with your overall points - but those stood out to me.



I actually crunched some numbers on it and it's pretty disgusting.Could you share them, please?

[Prince Vine]

I do want the mystic finished and balanced, though in my mind the base casting aspect of the mystic is what the sorcerer should be, a limited array or thematically linked abilities with increased flexibility within those spells.

In fact I suspect if I do some tweaking of the talents, change some damage types/saves (psychic/force and Int saves only work for limited concepts) and completely rearrange the subclasses I might use the second cousin of the mystic instead of sorcerers for my next world.

[Damon_Tor]

I would start by dialing back the options dramatically, both for balance and for options-paralysis problems.

1. The class as a whole receives no disciplines at level 1.
2. The class as a whole gains 1 unlimited discipline at levels 3, 9 and 15
3. Each order (except the soulknife) gains 2 disciplines from their specialty at level 1, and another 1 at levels 6, 12, and 18.
4. The "Talents" concept is removed/rolled into "focus". The focus ability of certain disciplines would be access to an at-will cantrip-like action. For example, Mastery of Fire would have it's focus changed to "Focus: As an action, you can fire a beam of searing heat at a creature or object you can see within 90 feet of you. It must pass a dexterity save or take 1d10 fire damage."

So most mystics will have access to far fewer "spells" than they do currently, and most of those spells would be limited to the specialty of their subclass.

[Prince Vine]

I would start by dialing back the options dramatically, both for balance and for options-paralysis problems.

1. The class as a whole receives no disciplines at level 1.
2. The class as a whole gains 1 unlimited discipline at levels 3, 9 and 15
3. Each order (except the soulknife) gains 2 disciplines from their specialty at level 1, and another 1 at levels 6, 12, and 18.
4. The "Talents" concept is removed/rolled into "focus". The focus ability of certain disciplines would be access to an at-will cantrip-like action. For example, Mastery of Fire would have it's focus changed to "Focus: As an action, you can fire a beam of searing heat at a creature or object you can see within 90 feet of you. It must pass a dexterity save or take 1d10 fire damage."

So most mystics will have access to far fewer "spells" than they do currently, and most of those spells would be limited to the specialty of their subclass.

That is very close to what my variant sorcerer will probably look like.

I may take the scaling out of the abilities themselves and write in a universal set of things to spend extra points on, like metamagic, including stuff like 'add a die of damage' or even 'upgrade all dice of damage'

[carrdrivesyou]

I figured this might come up eventually, so allow me to weigh in.

1. Mystics are psionics, and psionics already have a bad reputation from previous editions. This has carried over to 5e. Psionics have not been very popular for a lot of tables, simply because they function differently than what most are used to. It just seems like ANOTHER set of rules to learn. It isn't commonplace.

2. The Mystic class chassis is stately different from the other classes. They gain their abilities at different levels and their power scales on a different plane. They are MUCH more powerful in the mid-levels, but fall short in the end game content. But let's be honest; most games do not last to higher levels. Meaning that the Mystic is seemingly OP compared to the rest of the party.

3. Versatility. The Mystic can take the Nomadic Mind discipline and thereby can do literally EVERYTHING with proficiency at the cost of a bonus action. This steps on peoples toes, and can make the character seem like a spotlight hog. While not everyone who plays a Mystic does this, the fact that it is possible irks people.

4. Limits. Akin to the previously mentioned power scaling issue, Mystics have a different limit than other classes. This is because their Psi Point limit is slightly elevated by comparison to other casters until about 12th-14th level. This puts them ahead in nearly every category of character development. They can outshine their friends without putting that much effort into it. Combined with the SAD of the class, and you really have a lot going on for a small investment. This makes dipping MUCH more profitable.

5. Unearthed Arcana. Lastly, there are several tables that simply do not use playtest material. Some DMs are uncomfortable with it. I respect that. By technicality, UA is WotC homebrew. This is tastefully prohibitive to many DMs, as it has not been tested thoroughly.

I hope these opinions help.
-Carr

[Willie the Duck]

1. Mystics are psionics, and psionics already have a bad reputation from previous editions. This has carried over to 5e. Psionics have not been very popular for a lot of tables, simply because they function differently than what most are used to. It just seems like ANOTHER set of rules to learn. It isn't commonplace.

It's historically been the case that it isn't just ANOTHER set of rules to learn, but also another set of rules that interacts poorly with the baseline ruleset.

[carrdrivesyou]

It's historically been the case that it isn't just ANOTHER set of rules to learn, but also another set of rules that interacts poorly with the baseline ruleset.

Quite right friend. Even the 5e version states that psionics are distinct from spellcasting. Still unsure how they are going to do make the psionic subclasses as well as the psion class are going to handle the rulings. Likely to stay the same, and still face the same table prejudice.