Mystic build help

[Zarcus]

So my dm is wanting me to play a mystic from the UA and I’m trying to deside between immortal or soul knife. I’ll be play as a revant form ua as well. Our starting stats are 16,14,12,11,9,7 and we are currently at lvl 12.
I’m curious about which one you guys would pick and what kinda of build would you do. Side note he has requested that I don’t multi class. Thanks again

[Ventruenox]

Immortal. You get two extra Discipline suites as opposed to a pair of blades. (Unless you want to get really cheesy and slaughter rats to refill your PP whenever you want.) Read carrdrivesyou's Mystic Guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?542539-Mind-Over-Matter-A-Guide-to-the-5e-Mystic) for some excellent build advice. Also, talk with the rest of your table about playing a Mystic, because at level 12 it can easily dominate almost every encounter.

[Damon_Tor]

So my dm is wanting me to play a mystic from the UA and I’m trying to deside between immortal or soul knife. I’ll be play as a revant form ua as well. Our starting stats are 16,14,12,11,9,7 and we are currently at lvl 12.
I’m curious about which one you guys would pick and what kinda of build would you do. Side note he has requested that I don’t multi class. Thanks again

A Mystic can be anything you want it to be. Huge tank? Sure. Massive burst damage? Yep. Control? Okay. Summoning? That too.

One thing to note, a Mystic is probably the single best one-classed grappler in the game. They can turn themselves huge, gain advantage and huge bonuses on athletics checks, and they can leap 140 feet vertically into the air for a crazy suplex.

[Man_Over_Game]

A Mystic can be anything you want it to be. Huge tank? Sure. Massive burst damage? Yep. Control? Okay. Summoning? That too.

You know, that brings up an interesting point. What the hell is the Mystic even for?

When it comes to any other class, you can figure out what their overall goal is. Rogue is for skills and using teamwork to set up high damage. Barbarians are highly effective melee warriors who are better suited to dealing with high CR monsters than Fighters. Druids are designed to enhance team sustainability and maintaining long-term control of the battlefield.

But the Mystic? They just decided to throw a bunch of ideas into a blender and figured that they'll make it work by adding some unique mechanics. "It's like magic, but it's different!" isn't a real design goal, but that's exactly what the Mystic feels like. That's probably why it fell so flat and is being rearranged as various subclasses. It might be an unpopular opinion, but I'm looking forward to it.

[Damon_Tor]

They were trying to make a single class that encompassed all the psionic classes of other editions. It was never a very good plan.

The current plan as I understand it is to introduce the Psion as a new class while having other concepts get turned into psionic subclasses of existing classes. The soulknife would be a monk, the psychic warrior would be a fighter or barbarian, the wilder would be a sorcerer, etc.

The new plan is better. The Mystic as written is hard to justify.

[Yunru]

You know, that brings up an interesting point. What the hell is the Mystic even for?

When it comes to any other class, you can figure out what their overall goal is. Rogue is for skills and using teamwork to set up high damage. Barbarians are highly effective melee warriors who are better suited to dealing with high CR monsters than Fighters. Druids are designed to enhance team sustainability and maintaining long-term control of the battlefield.

But the Mystic? They just decided to throw a bunch of ideas into a blender and figured that they'll make it work by adding some unique mechanics. "It's like magic, but it's different!" isn't a real design goal, but that's exactly what the Mystic feels like. That's probably why it fell so flat and is being rearranged as various subclasses. It might be an unpopular opinion, but I'm looking forward to it.

"We're going to make a power source a class!"
"Wouldn't that be better as various subclasses?"
"No! Everything else will be various features of it."
"Features? Not even subclasses?"
"Yes."

[Grod_The_Giant]

You know, that brings up an interesting point. What the hell is the Mystic even for?

When it comes to any other class, you can figure out what their overall goal is. Rogue is for skills and using teamwork to set up high damage. Barbarians are highly effective melee warriors who are better suited to dealing with high CR monsters than Fighters. Druids are designed to enhance team sustainability and maintaining long-term control of the battlefield.

But the Mystic? They just decided to throw a bunch of ideas into a blender and figured that they'll make it work by adding some unique mechanics. "It's like magic, but it's different!" isn't a real design goal, but that's exactly what the Mystic feels like. That's probably why it fell so flat and is being rearranged as various subclasses. It might be an unpopular opinion, but I'm looking forward to it.
The Mystic is really an entire magic system's worth of classes smooshed together-- like if instead of the Cleric, Wizard, et al, there was just one "Magic-User" class with equal access to all the lists. Including the Ranger and Paladin and all the extra stuff needed to make the half-casters balanced with full-casters. I sorta see why they'd playtest it this way, and it is really nice from a character customization standpoint, but it's a nightmare to balance.

For my currently-unfinished rewrite, I cut it in half, into a full-caster Psion and a half-caster Psychic Warrior, and sorted out powers by class and subclass. You get access to a suite of generic Disciplines from your base class, and then each subclass opens up five more (mostly) unique Disciplines and sets your casting stat to something thematic. Something like...
Psion-- Intellect Fortress, Mastery of Force, Mastery of Light and Dark, Psionic Restoration, Psychic Assault, Psychic Disruption, Psychic Inquisition, Psychic Phantoms, Telepathic Contact, and a new telekinesis-focused Discipline.

Empath (Cha)-- Crown of Despair/Disgust/Rage; Mantle of Awe/Fear
Wu Jen (Wis)-- Mastery of Air/Fire/Ice/Water/Wood
Seer (Int)-- Aura Sight, Celerity, Nomadic Mind, Precognition, Third Eye


Psychic Warrior-- Brute Force, Intellect Fortress, Iron Durability, Nomadic Arrow, Psionic Weapon

Egoist (Wis)-- Adaptive Body, Bestial Form, Corrosive Metabolism, Diminution, Giant Growth
War Mind (Cha)-- Mantle of Awe/Command/Courage/Fury/Joy
Lurk (Int)-- Celerity, Nomadic Chameleon/Mind/Step, Third Eye


That adds a lot of much-needed structure to the class, both mechanically and conceptually.

[Man_Over_Game]

The Mystic is really an entire magic system's worth of classes smooshed together-- like if instead of the Cleric, Wizard, et al, there was just one "Magic-User" class with equal access to all the lists. Including the Ranger and Paladin and all the extra stuff needed to make the half-casters balanced with full-casters. I sorta see why they'd playtest it this way, and it is really nice from a character customization standpoint, but it's a nightmare to balance.

For my currently-unfinished rewrite, I cut it in half, into a full-caster Psion and a half-caster Psychic Warrior, and sorted out powers by class and subclass. You get access to a suite of generic Disciplines from your base class, and then each subclass opens up five more (mostly) unique Disciplines and sets your casting stat to something thematic. Something like...
Psion-- Intellect Fortress, Mastery of Force, Mastery of Light and Dark, Psionic Restoration, Psychic Assault, Psychic Disruption, Psychic Inquisition, Psychic Phantoms, Telepathic Contact, and a new telekinesis-focused Discipline.

Empath (Cha)-- Crown of Despair/Disgust/Rage; Mantle of Awe/Fear
Wu Jen (Wis)-- Mastery of Air/Fire/Ice/Water/Wood
Seer (Int)-- Aura Sight, Celerity, Nomadic Mind, Precognition, Third Eye


Psychic Warrior-- Brute Force, Intellect Fortress, Iron Durability, Nomadic Arrow, Psionic Weapon

Egoist (Wis)-- Adaptive Body, Bestial Form, Corrosive Metabolism, Diminution, Giant Growth
War Mind (Cha)-- Mantle of Awe/Command/Courage/Fury/Joy
Lurk (Int)-- Celerity, Nomadic Chameleon/Mind/Step, Third Eye


That adds a lot of much-needed structure to the class, both mechanically and conceptually.

I kinda understand the part of being versatile, but the Mystic doesn't do that. How you design it might have a lot of different options, but the end result isn't versatile at all. It's like saying that because the Warlock has invocations, a Pact Boon, and a Patron, it's a versatile caster, and it's probably the least versatile of them all!

I guess "balance" isn't necessarily my concern. It's that there's no real playstyle goal that it's aiming for. Fighters get tankier and hit harder. Sorcerers manipulate spells. Warlocks can cast their spells recklessly because they recharge quickly.

But Mystics? They...are customizable? That's a character creation mechanic, not a gameplay one.

I guess I ask the GitP community, what do people expect a psionic to do in actual gameplay?

[Yunru]

I guess I ask the GitP community, what do people expect a psionic to do in actual gameplay?

Be psychic.
If it starts with tele- I want my character to be able to do it.

[Max_Killjoy]

I found that about 11-12 levels of it was enough to map an antagonist from a thing I'm working on into 5e... :smalleek::smallconfused:

Seriously, though, it's not going for a niche or a gameplay role, it's going purely for an "archetype".

It's literally all the different "tele______" and mentalist powers from comic books and pulps and new age woo, some "eastern mystic" stuff, and so on, all in one "master of the self, mind over matter, etc" package.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I kinda understand the part of being versatile, but the Mystic doesn't do that. How you design it might have a lot of different options, but the end result isn't versatile at all. It's like saying that because the Warlock has invocations, a Pact Boon, and a Patron, it's a versatile caster, and it's probably the least versatile of them all!

I guess "balance" isn't necessarily my concern. It's that there's no real playstyle goal that it's aiming for. Fighters get tankier and hit harder. Sorcerers manipulate spells. Warlocks can cast their spells recklessly because they recharge quickly.

But Mystics? They...are customizable? That's a character creation mechanic, not a gameplay one.

I guess I ask the GitP community, what do people expect a psionic to do in actual gameplay?
If it helps, you can think of the Mystic as it currently stands as a sort of classless system hacked in to the D&D framework. It's a toolkit of a class. No flavor of its own, but it lets you create exactly the sort of thematic character you're interested in.

(Also, the end result is pretty damn versatile. If you look at a 5th level Mystic and convert Talents/Disciplines into conventional abilities, you've got something like 2 cantrips, 5 invocations, and like ~20 spells known. That's nuts. Besides the point, though)

[Max_Killjoy]

So my dm is wanting me to play a mystic from the UA and I’m trying to deside between immortal or soul knife. I’ll be play as a revant form ua as well. Our starting stats are 16,14,12,11,9,7 and we are currently at lvl 12.
I’m curious about which one you guys would pick and what kinda of build would you do. Side note he has requested that I don’t multi class. Thanks again


Is there something you'd like to do in the game, or something the group would otherwise be missing?

[sambojin]

Go Immortal, be a 4E Monk, except really good at what you do.

With 8 disciplines (6 normal, two Immortal) at lvl12, you can pretty much choose anything. Grab Bestial Form and Iron Durability(focus) so you've got some nice AC (10+Dex+Con+2+1) and can non-concentration fly and nova-punch in melee a bit (Bestial Claws doesn't actually take an action. It should, but it doesn't). With Psionic Resilience and Mystical Recovery, you're actually pretty tanky, soaking a little bit of damage every turn and rehealing bigger lumps as you please. Then just grab whatever disciplines you want. Celerity fits nicely for Monk stuff (though isn't truly necessary), and Mantle of Command is insane for what it gives you with nearly any party makeup so should always be chosen (Monk-up everyone!). Brute Force (for 70' movement push-punches), Mastery of Weather (Lightning Leaps, AoE stuns and utility) and Nomadic Step (teleports and later campaign utility) are all pretty monk'ish too. Then, just, whatever. Choose four to five more on top of Beastial Form, Iron Durability and Mantle of Command. Maybe some of the above, maybe something else.

Want more elements or ranged? No worries. Want some mindbanging? Go for it. Teleporting or info grabbing? Yeah, there's plenty. Bit of summoning? There's a bit. Walls or CC? They're everywhere....

But basically, you're a really good Four Elements Monk that uses your psi to boost your damage output and party coordination, plus you've got plenty of utility elemental "skills" as well. Or, you know, lightning bolts and stuff. Grab whichever Talents you like, but having a backup blaster one is very worthwhile, just like with any "caster" build grabbing their cantrips.

Coming at Mystics from this angle keeps them pretty cohesive, while still being pretty good in combat, yet can have some fun in other roles as well. Not really a blaster, not really a great puncher or toolkit, but a bit of everything with a Monk'ish theme to it.

Some stuff seems broken-as, but with the class being as MAD as it is (if you want all your disciplines to work well, while still being a tanky "Monk"), it isn't as bad as you'd think. Every other Mystic style is, but Immortal played as a melee-centric monk is ok'ish for a DM to handle. Yes, you *could* try and say that you have the option of 64x d10 damage Bestial Claw swings in one turn, but don't. Just don't. Pretend it uses an action. Things like Iron Hide are better than they look as well. It's a customizable shield spell that lasts until the end of your next turn (thus mitigates AoO against you as well), but it's a pretty heavy psi investment for that ability, so isn't too bad. Oh, and if you ever have another player annoying you, feel free to walk them off a cliff or into danger with Mantle of Command's stuff, right when they thought you were saving them. There's not much else that gives you that sort of option so easily and amusingly in any other class.

There's heaps of stuff to do with Mystics, and then you go into the weird deep end of working out how many shenanigans you can pull off with Psionic Mastery. It's a lot. Everything from instant fortresses, wall mazes or super-buffs, to crippling out a BBEG's legendary resistances in one turn, where any effect landing is bad enough that they have to blow through them all.

It's not a well written class, but it is a fun one. I kinda wished that they'd just tidied up the wording and balance of it and released it similar to how it is. I like psi points and the versatility. Then again, I like Druids and Wizards, and apparently people think they're properly balanced in 5e compared to everything else, even at high levels.......

[Zarcus]

Is there something you'd like to do in the game, or something the group would otherwise be missing?

My party currently has a nature cleric, a revised ranger beast master, a Hexblade warlock and another warlock ( not sure what) but the second warlock is more blast then melee. So a melee charter that can stealth somewhat would be helpful.

To the post above. (Couldn’t figure out how to quote both of you lol.) that does seem like a interesting build and I am going to look into it.

Thank you both.

Note to self mystic is a hot topic in the d and d community lol

[Max_Killjoy]

My party currently has a nature cleric, a revised ranger beast master, a Hexblade warlock and another warlock ( not sure what) but the second warlock is more blast then melee. So a melee charter that can stealth somewhat would be helpful.

To the post above. (Could figure out how to quote both of you lol.) that does seem like a interesting build and I am going to look into it.

Thank you both.

Note to self mystic is a hot topic in the d and d community lol

For multi-quoting: the button to the right of the reply-to-post link, that looks like a quotation mark with a plus to the right of it, will add posts to quote -- then hit the reply to thread button at the bottom, and your post will include all the quotes you picked.

[Max_Killjoy]

Starting at level 12, so you get 3 Talents and 6 Disciplines, plus 2 bonus Disciplines from your "Order" (which is nuts) -- the bonus Disciplines must come from the Order you choose.

So... I'd go with Order of the Immortal

Talents:
Blind Spot -- makes sneaking past that one guard easier
Energy Beam -- gives you a ranged attack with variable damage type
And one other of your choice, because none of them scream "melee" or "stealth" really

Disciplines:
Brute Force (Immortal bonus)
Celerity (Immortal bonus)
Diminution
Iron Durability
Intellect Fortress
Mastery of Force
Psionic Weapon
(One other of your choice)


Your stealth "powers" (on top of making sure you have Stealth proficiency) are going to come from the Blur (in Celerity), Diminution, and Blind Spot.

[sambojin]

There is almost never any reason to not grab Bestial Form as a Mystic (any of them). +2AC and/or flight, with no concentration needed, is just that good. The keen senses bit of Bestial Transformation is nice to have sometimes too (perception checks come up all the time, you've probably got low Wis, but still don't have to be bad at them).

Some people get shields. You get Bestial Form. It also gives you a nova option, but when a potential 7d10 attack is the worst part of a discipline, it's probably worthwhile having on any build. No matter how badly written the nova punch is.


I still also stand by Mantle of Command. There's not much in 5e that can do that sort of stuff for other party members. It makes you very unique, and very cool. Fairly cheap for what it does psi-wise too. Better in some parties, but handing out mini-action-surges to your party is a thing no-one else can do. It makes you that whole Warlord class that some people want, while still being able to do heaps more. Not taking it makes you significantly more boring in combat (just a blaster/puncher/controller). And, I mean, everyone can do all that, can't they? No one can do Mantle of Command stuff though. Except you :)

Your beastmaster will think you are a god amongst men. Your hexblade is probably going to like you as well. Even just the 100% chance advantage giver is nice, depending on initiative order, to open up EB barrages. But yeah, grab that. It adds so many combat options, many of them at bonus action speed, that it's totally worth a discipline slot.

[Max_Killjoy]

There is almost never any reason to not grab Bestial Form as a Mystic (any of them). +2AC and/or flight, with no concentration needed, is just that good. The keen senses bit of Bestial Transformation is nice to have sometimes too (perception checks come up all the time, you've probably got low Wis, but still don't have to be bad at them).

Some people get shields. You get Bestial Form. It also gives you a nova option, but when a potential 7d10 attack is the worst part of a discipline, it's probably worthwhile having on any build. No matter how badly written the nova punch is.

I still also stand by Mantle of Command. There's not much in 5e that can do that sort of stuff for other party members. It makes you very unique, and very cool. Fairly cheap for what it does psi-wise too. Better in some parties, but handing out mini-action-surges to your party is a thing no-one else can do. It makes you that whole Warlord class that some people want, while still being able to do heaps more. Not taking it makes you significantly more boring in combat (just a blaster/puncher/controller). And, I mean, everyone can do all that, can't they? No one can do Mantle of Command stuff though. Except you :)

Both of those were on my "one other of your choice" shortlist, and if the stealth need were secondary (and it's one of the few things hard to do with Mystic), I'd say go both Bestial Form AND Mantle of Command, just go nuts.

[sambojin]

Here's what I'd go for:

Bestial Form (Immortal, movement types and AC)
Iron Durability (Immortal, more AC, mostly focused for +1AC, but focus stealth or whatever when needed)
Mastery of Weather (big AoE stun, damage, utility/movement)
Mantle of Command (party boosting, action economy)
Nomadic Chameleon (all the invis/hide + stealth focus)
Telepathic Contact (social laziness, mindbanging and hold monster spell)
Choose two others (blasty, summony, healy or teleporty, whatever you want).

Maybe Psychic Assault (super scalable single-target auto-hit magic missile and some other big AoE damage/control/stun stuff, very good discipline) then maybe Mastery of Wood and Earth (just a random wall/summon filler, really unnecessary, but fun for psionic mastery wall mazes). Nomadic Mind or Nomadic Step are also highly prized options, one for tier 3-4 campaign breaking levels of information, one to just be more monk'y and party-member-save'y as well as teleport'y. If you go to lvl20, you'll definitely want both. They are the end-game disciplines. But you choose you, there's probably better options for what you want to do.

Makes you fairly well rounded for social, stealth, and combat, with a smattering of whatever else you want as well. Some have fairly high psi costs, but they do some pretty good things for it. Others are just low/medium cost, but often do a thing that's kinda useful to have on-call whenever.

I know there's not any multi-punch proper Monk stuff going on with the build, you're more of a smiter/blaster really. But since your "punches" can be 60' auto-hit psychic damage ones, or (psi)xd10 slashes, it still works ok. And when you do stun things, you tend to stun lots of them, at range, in a large AoE (I can't think of anything that's immune to thunder and psychic, so you're covered). Your at-will melee combat is kinda lacking, but at lvl12 you should have enough psi points to keep ticking out damage for a while.

At lvl12, you're into tier 3 content. So considering you've got 1 attack, some ASIs/feats, and bugger-all AC/tHP(even though you built around that), you'd better be able to auto-hit or AoE, or condition generate, or heavy-stealth the entire party, or do some damned thing usefully. Maybe sub out my Mastery of Wood and Earth suggestion for Nomadic Mind, because you'll feel weak otherwise. But keep the Psychic Assault one, it's rather nice.
It feels silly to nerf a fairly "power capped" class in later content, when you do need these levels of kabooms or features to toolkit readily (plus NM lets you toolkit skillwise at a decent proficiency bonus as well).

Not sure what I'd go for race/stats, but I'll edit this later when I come up with something nice.

[sambojin]

Just remember, look at Mystics more as Dragon Ball (Z?) Monks, not as 5e 4E Monks, or any crappy "just on an air bender" stuff.

You've got weird whacky stuff. Maybe a psionic power pole to hit stuff with, maybe a mind trip ability for that episode, maybe a McGuffin ability that you've never really used before until now (and might not do as regularly as you should do again), or maybe just a damn-near city destroying ki-blast. By 12th level, you are over 9000. Don't be ashamed of it. Wizards and Druids are probably more broken than you by this point, even while every other class just got really powerful too. Remember, and I hope your DM does too, that it could be hordes of magic bears/wolves/whatever by now, or "I think imma gonna magic whatever, can I buy some scrolls?". In comparison, you're really easy to deal with.