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Chronos
2019-07-18, 03:25 PM
New sorcerous origin: Psionic
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Sorcerers with the psionic origin (who are often called "psions") do not draw their power from their ancestry or from their connections to various aspects of the world, but rather by developing the power of their own mind. They are much more contemplative and studious than most sorcerers, and many of them come across as detached or disinterested in the mundane workings of the world.

Ascended Mind
The magic of a psion is learned and developed, not instinctive. Intelligence, rather than Charisma, is the spellcasting ability for psions. You use your Intelligence modifier whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability, and you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a sorcerer spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier
Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Psionic Discipline
When you choose this sorcerous origin, you must pick one of five psionic disciplines to specialize in: Clairsentience, psychokinesis, psychometabolism, psychoportation, or telepathy. Specialists in clairsentience (called "seers") are experts at sensing or perceiving from a distance. Specialists in psychokinesis (called "kineticists") can move objects using their minds, on a grand or microscopic scale. Specialists in psychometabolism (called "egoists") have trained themselves to alter their own bodies, and occasionally also those of others, using the power of their minds. Those who specialize in psychoportation (called "nomads") can instantly move themselves or others from place to place. Telepaths, those who specialize in telepathy, are skilled at reading the thoughts of others, or imposing their own thoughts.

At first level, depending on which discipline you choose, you learn one additional cantrip and one additional spell known. At later levels, you learn more spells, as shown on the associated lists. These spells do not count against your limit of spells known, and you cannot swap them out for other spells, not even using psychic surgery (see below). If a discipline spell does not appear on the sorcerer spell list, it is nonetheless a sorcerer spell for you.

Clairsentience
Psion level Discipline spells
1 Guidance, Detect Evil or Good
3 Augury
5 Clairvoyance
7 Locate Creature
9 Scrying

Psychokinesis
Psion level Discipline spells
1 Mage Hand, Unseen Servant
3 Heat Metal
5 Wind Wall
7 Otiluke's Resilient Sphere
9 Telekinesis

Psychometabolism
Psion level Discipline spells
1 Spare the Dying, Cure Wounds
3 Enhance Ability
5 Vampiric Touch
7 Polymorph
9 Greater Restoration

Psychoportation
Psion level Discipline spells
1 Lightning Lash, Longstrider
3 Misty Step
5 Blink
7 Dimension Door
9 Teleportation Circle

Telepathy
Psion level Discipline spells
1 Message, Dissonant Whispers
3 Detect Thoughts
5 Sending
7 Phantasmal Killer
9 Dream

Psicystal Affinity

At 6h level, you learn to shape a portion of your personality into tangible form, a companion called a psicrystal. You can cast find familiar as a ritual, except that the resulting creature is a construct, rather than a celestial, fey, or fiend, and no matter what form you choose, it appears to be a tiny crystal, possibly with spindly legs or ephemeral wings.

Psionic Focus

At 14th level, you have learned to focus your mind so as to maintain concentration on difficult tasks. By spending one minute in meditation (during which time you cannot take any other actions), you can enter a state called psionic focus, which lasts until you become unconscious or deliberately expend it. You cannot gain psionic focus while you are already psionically focused.

Thereafter, if you would ever have to make a Constitution saving throw in order to maintain concentration, instead of rolling, you may choose to instead expend your psionic focus. If you do, treat it as if you had rolled a 15 on the d20.

Psychic Surgery

At 18th level, you learn how to re-write the magical patterns within your own mind or that of another. By meditating for eight hours (during which time you can take no other actions), you can change what spells and cantrips you know. Alternately, if you maintain contact with another willing creature that knows spells and/or cantrips, you can similarly change what spells and cantrips that creature knows. While using this ability on another creature, that creature is incapacitated. If you are interrupted before the end of the eight hours, this ability has no effect.

To change a known spell of first level or higher, you must pay a number of sorcery points equal to the level of the original spell plus the level of the new spell. To change a cantrip known, you must spend one sorcery point. You can change any number of spells and/or cantrips at once, so long as you have enough sorcery points.

The new spell must be one that the creature could have chosen on leveling up, and cannot be of a higher level than that creature could cast from the relevant class. You cannot change your discipline spells in this way, nor those of another psion.

Chronos
2019-07-18, 03:26 PM
New Monastic Tradition: Way of the Psychic Warrior
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Psychic Warriors are monks who have trained to use the powers of their minds to give themselves benefits in combat, even to the point of reshaping their own bodies, or using their thoughts themselves as weapons. Monks of this tradition often find themselves training or otherwise associating with sorcerers who have the psionic sorcerous origin.

Soulknife
When you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you gain the ability to shape weapons out of pure thought. As a bonus action, you may call any monk weapon into being in your hand. This weapon appears as a shimmering field that sheds dim light in a 5' radius, and behaves exactly like the real weapon that it resembles, except that it deals psychic damage instead of that weapon's normal damage type. It cannot be wielded by anyone other than you, and it vanishes if it is ever out of your hand for more than a round, until you form a new weapon, or until you voluntarily dismiss it.

Psionic Manifester
Also at 3rd level, you learn how to use the power of your mind to manifest certain powers. A power requires you to spend ki points each time that you use it. You know two powers of your choice, which are detailed in the "Psionic Powers" list below. You learn one additional power of your choice at 6th, 11th, and 17th level.

Whenever you learn a new power, you can also replace one power that you already know with a different one.

Casting psionic spells
Some psionic powers allow you to cast spells. To cast one of these spells, you use its casting time and other rules, but you don't need to provide material components. Wisdom is your casting ability for these spells.

Once you reach 5th level in this class, you can spend additional ki points to increase the level of a psionic power spell that you cast, provided that the spell has an enhanced effect at a higher level, as cure wounds does. The spell's level increases by 1 for every additional ki point you spend.

The maximum number of ki points you can spend to cast a spell in this way (including its base ki point cost) is determined by your monk level, as shown in the table below.

Spells and Ki Points
Monk levels Maximum ki points for a spell
5th-8th 3
9th-12th 4
13th-16th 5
17th-20th 6

Psionic Powers
The psionic powers are presented in alphabetical order. If a power requires a level, you must be that level in this class to learn the power.

Animal Affinity (6th level required). You can spend 3 points to cast enhance ability, targeting yourself.

Body Adjustment. You can spend 2 ki points to cast cure wounds.

Breath of the Black Dragon (17th level required). You can spend 6 ki points as an action to spew forth a 60' cone of acid. Creatures caught in the cone must make a Dexterity saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wis modifier). A creature takes 8d8 acid damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Claws of the Beast. As a bonus action, you can spend 2 ki points to cause your fingernails to grow into fierce claws. While your claws last, your unarmed strikes deal slashing damage, instead of bludgeoning, and deal an additional 1d6 points of damage. Maintaining your claws requires concentration, as if concentrating on a spell, for a duration of up to 4 hours, after which your hands return to normal.

Claws of the Vampire (11th level required). You can spend 4 ki points to cast vampiric touch.

Concealing Amorpha (6th level required). You can spend 3 ki points to cast blur.

Dimension Slide (6th level required). You can spend 3 ki points to cast misty step.

Dissolving Touch. Once per turn, when you hit with an attack using your unarmed strike or a monk weapon, you can spend 1 ki point to deal an additional 1d6 points of acid damage.

Empathic Feedback (11th level required). You can spend 4 ki points as an action to activate this power. For the next hour, whenever any creature hits you with a melee attack, that creature takes 5 points of psychic damage.

Energy Adaptation (6th level required). You can spend 3 ki points to cast protection from energy, targeting yourself.

Expansion (6th level required). You can spend 3 ki points to cast enlarge/reduce, targeting yourself.

Force Screen. You can spend 2 ki points to cast shield.

Hustle. You can spend 2 ki points to cast Longstrider.

Inertial Barrier (17th level required). You can spend 5 ki points to cast stoneskin.

Personal Mindblank (17th level required). You can spend 6 ki points to cast mindblank, targeting yourself.

Prevenom. Once per turn, when you hit with an attack using your unarmed strike or a monk weapon, you can spend 1 ki point to attempt to poison you target. Your target must make a Constitution saving throw; on a failure, they take a extra 1d8 points of poison damage, and are poisoned for 1 round.

Truevenom (11th level required). Once per turn, when you hit with an attack using your unarmed strike or a monk weapon, you can spend 4 ki points to attempt to poison you target. Your target must make a Constitution saving throw at disadvantage; on a failure, they take a extra 4d8 points of poison damage, and are poisoned for 1 minute.

Vigor. You can spend 2 ki points to cast heroism.

Wall Walker (6th level required). You can spend 3 ki points to cast spider climb.

Chronos
2019-07-18, 03:35 PM
Instead of trying to create entire new classes, I think it's much more in the spirit of 5th edition to implement psionics with new subclasses. I think I've managed to capture most of the feel of the 3rd edition classes, here, while still fitting into a subclass (2e psionics was a royal mess, and I have no clue what if anything was in 4e for psionics, so I didn't try to match them).

The fact that sorcerers get their origin at 1st level opens up the possibility of an origin that changes their casting stat. And much of the feel of the psion is already present in the sorcerer: Their magic comes from within, not without, they can pull action-economy tricks using Quicken or Twin metamagic, they can expend points to make their spells more powerful, and so on. Adding extra spells known, on top of the sorcerer's base low number, allows the choice of discipline to have a significant impact on the class, but the similarity of many of the spells in each discipline reins in the power increase from gaining so many spells known.

The psychic warrior, meanwhile, is obviously based on the four elements monk as a template. The Soulknife ability is mostly just a ribbon, to enable anyone who wants to convert a soulknife character from 3rd level: It provides very little benefit over just using a physical weapon or unarmed strikes (very few things resist psychic damage, but then, very few things resist the damage from a monk's fists, either). Again, a lot of the iconic abilities are already present on the monk chassis, such as spending resources to make more attacks, or to move more swiftly. The spell (and other ability) list I've chosen is more useful for a martial character than those in the Way of Four Elements, a deliberate decision since I regard Four Elements to be an underpowered option.