Wolvenreign
2019-07-27, 08:35 AM
Hello everyone, I've wanted to write some random advice about Mystic for quite some time, sharing what I've learned as a Mystic player, at least from the tactical side of things. This will use the Mystic v3 UA as a base. This isn't a complete guide, just my various thoughts on Mystic battle tactics, and maybe some feats and misc things.
Let's start with talents. First of all, because of the wording of the Potent Psionics feature, you're going to want to get Mind Thrust pretty much no matter what. It is the ONLY talent that Potent Psionics applies to, giving you a +INT to your Mind Thrust damage. But that's fine, because Mind Thrust is pretty amazing anyway. Because it doesn't use Verbal, Somatic, or Material components (much like all Psionics, but more on that later), has no visible trace, and forces a saving throw instead of being considered "an attack", it doesn't break stealth, meaning that you can use this high-damage bad boy while remaining hidden. As I'll discuss later in this post, stealth is actually key to playing Mystic well. I would even go so far as to say that it is an absolute cornerstone for the class.
My other two favorite talents are Energy Beam and Psychic Hammer. While it's true that Energy Beam does specify a creature, in my experience most DMs find this kind of odd and just let you use it on objects, which is great, because electrifying pools of water or other liquids that enemies are standing in is fun, not to mention using acid beam on locks, walls, the unstable bridge the enemy is standing on and more is a whole lot of useful fun. Psychic Hammer's main use is in combining with other disciplines. I'll talk about its individual synergies with each discipline as I get to them.
Now let's move on to the fun part, disciplines! I'll start talking about them in no particular order, but these are my absolute favorites among the Mystic discipline list.
Let's start with the classic; Psychic Assault. The Psychic focus for this is pretty good, once again specifically listing conditions that only Mind Thrust benefits from (talents that deal psychic damage), and is another reason to pick Mind Thrust. +2 isn't too bad to tack on to a cantrip for the Psychic Focus slot, but it doesn't scale super well into the later levels.
Psionic Blast is pretty nasty, acting as an invisible, single-target D8 Magic Missle that the Shield spell can't block, and also can't be counterspelled just like any other Psionic ability (again more on this later). Truthfully though, you should save this for a last resort instead of relying on it as a main damage dealer, or for when you need to remove a low-health enemy from the equation NOW and you can't risk them passing your Discipline DC. This is because other options in this discipline have more tactical uses that allow you to deal the same damage or more while erasing actions that are useful to the enemy.
Ego Whip is a good example of this, able to stop a single target from using spells OR attacks. When your party is up against a single big bad, especially one with a low INT score, this Devo-tee (CRACK THAT WHIP) ability should be your go-to option, forcing him/her to dodge, disengage, or hide. (And good luck hiding from a Mystic, you can easily get a passive perception of 20 or more by picking the right skills and feats.)
Id Insinuation is Ego Whip but worse. Worthless against high-INT casters since they're probably going to make the save, and useless against melee enemies since they'll just, I dunno, ATTACK. Honestly the only thing I can think of is using it on CHA and WIS casters, but otherwise, a waste of 5 Psi, if you really need that damage at this level you're better off with a 5 point Psionic Blast and skip the risk of the enemy passing your save DC.
Psychic Blast: Hohohoho, now I have a(n) machine gun AOE nova. 8D8 psychic damage in a nasty 60 foot cone, with half damage on a save. Invisible, psionic Cone of Cold that deals psychic damage (No, Psionic and Psychic are not the same, that was not redundant.) Side note; unlike Psiblast/Ego/Id, this AOE doesn't require you to see your enemies. If your enemy goes invisible, somehow manages to pass your Passive Perception and has a limited range of movement, use this to remind them why YOU are the undetectability king. Good luck passing an 8D8 concentration save to keep up that invisibility, rando enemy. Plus, add just ONE Psi point when you get Psi Limit 7 to add 2d8! This might just be the Mystic's signature attack.
Psychic Crush: Another AOE that doesn't require sight, this is the crown jewel of the Psychic Assault discipline. A 20 foot cube of pure psychic tactical nuke, it does the same damage as Psychic Blast, but also stuns enemies when they fail their save! Bonkers good, eliminates enemy actions and sets them up for a 100 percent surefire (pun intended) fireball confirmed hit from your friendly caster as long as they're between your turn and theirs. I used to think that picking up Psychic Disruption was a great idea because of Mind Storm, and although the differing Psi costs make them kinda like comparing apples and oranges, in the end you only have so many discipline slots, and the Stun effect, while not as wide-reaching as the disadvantage on ALL saving throws that Mind Storm hands out, still covers a lot of AOE effects which require Dexterity or Strength saves, and is much more sure to hit. It kinda comes down to what your party has, but Fireball is super common and super effective following a Psychic Crush. (Also it can be deployed up to 120 feet away, combined with the size of the AOE this is the farthest reaching psychic attack available.) Not to mention that your allies are going to get advantage to hit them! My advice is to take Psychic Assault as your main, and perhaps only blasting tool, as well as the first Discipline that you ever pick up.
Next up is a solid contender for my favorite discipline and another excellent reason to not split the party, Mantle of Command. Instead of running on your discipline DC, this bad boy is powered by your own tactical knowledge of the game (and PSI points of course). Mostly this is centered on repositioning tools, but the Command to Strike and Overwhelming Attack options are fantastic uses of your turn when the enemy is likely to pass your saving throw DCs, are immune to your damage types (particularly psychic), or when your ally is out-DPSing you without the use of spells or psionics. Also good to use when they're in a situation where your allies have advantage to hit.
Most importantly, though, this will allow you to scale your DPS up when your other party members inevitably surpass you DPS-wise in the later levels of the game. Remember that these abilities apply to ranged attacks as well as melee attacks, and are a FULL ATTACK ACTION. Meaning that if your allies have multi-attack, they are an even better candidate for this option. For Overwhelming Attack, if you're missing party members to fill in that 5 attack slot, don't be afraid to use the rest of the slots on summons, such as the excellent summon from the next discipline that I'll talk about. (It's still preferable to use it on 5 leveled PC martial units, however.)
The repositioning tools in this package are equally important, however; the psychic Focus, which uses a reaction at the end of your turn (and technically doesn't provoke Attack of Opportunity) and Coordinated Movement, which uses 2 PSI and a Bonus action and lets you move up to 5 allies, these half-speed movements can combine with your allies' own movement to do everything from creating flanking situations to moving tanks and rogues into position to combining with Psychic Hammer (which is an action and a talent) in order to keep allies just out of your enemies' melee reach to keeping them out of the way of your next AOE. Positioning means a LOT in this game, particularly with flanking rules in place.
Commander's Sight is a nice little bonus, but there are usually better ways to get advantage on a target. If those options aren't available, though, CS is here for you. Strategic Mind is also good, further enabling your positioning options by avoiding attacks of opportunity, as well as enabling your allies to get into position much faster. A little added offensive accuracy rounds this ability out nicely, but there are usually better uses for concentration. Still, not bad overall.
Next is a vastly underrated discipline, Mastery of Light and Darkness. This one has a lot of synergy with other disciplines, as you'll soon see. The Psychic Focus here is very important, as it's essential to be able to see through your own magic-level Darkness in order to use the ability to its highest effect, and if you can get items for your allies that can allow them to see through the darkness as well, especially melee and ranged martial units, you will get a hell of a lot of traction from the ability to create a 10-70 foot wide sphere of darkness. It grants advantage to hit them, disadvantage to hit you, utterly SHUTS DOWN enemy mages because spells often require a visible target, allows you to move freely without provoking attacks of opportunity because they need to be able to see you to do so, and generally just makes a very sad day for your opponents. It's especially effective in small rooms where the exit isn't easy to find for a blinded target. This can also act a smoke bomb for when your rogue or other sneaky ally is spotted, allowing them to restealth and wreak havoc all over again. Lovely combo with any ally PC with Devil's Sight, Truesight, Blindsight, Tremorsense, Magical Darkvision etc. Also note that there is no time limit on Darkness or even a requirement for concentration! One hell of a boon.
As previously stated, the blind condition is a big deal in 5E, shutting down a ton of options and making your allies way more effective against the blinded target. But what do you do when you're facing a foe that has Magical Darkvision or Truesight, but not Blindsight? How then will you rob them of their effectiveness? Radiant Beam is the answer for you, my friend; it'll force them to make a Dex save versus your DC or be temporarily blinded and take a nice fat chunk of Radiant Damage to boot (which can cover your damage types as well, remember to take Energy Beam at some point and you'll have Psychic, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Thunder, Necrotic AND Radiant, combined with Mantle of Command you can add weapon damage types as well). Watch as the big bad weeps from his blind eyes, unable to use single-target abilities or avoid getting hit. The blind condition absolutely RULES.
Now for one of my favorite options, Shadow Beasts! Oh man these things are awesome, you get 2 of these for the price of 3 PSI and concentration, and they are hella tactical. To get the most out of these, remember the following Shadow Rules...
Summon them in flanking positions. If your allies are facing an enemy without anything on your side at its back, that's a place for your shadows to appear and thus strike them with advantage.
ALWAYS use Shadow Stealth with them, it's a bonus action and the only bonus action they have. There is almost always a way for them to hide, even if it's in a character's non-magical shadow. A stealthed Shadow gets to attack with advantage as well as tricking enemies into provoking attacks of opportunity from them, and Shadows do not have any other uses for their reactions outside of AOOs. Every hit matters, the Necrotic damage isn't all that great but the 1d4 strength damage really racks up over time and will result in an instant death if their strength hits zero. Great for killing glass cannons and making STR tanks worthless. If you play your cards correctly, your 2 shadows can end up attacking four times per round total WITH ADVANTAGE.
Don't forget the attributes of Shadows, they have a ton of resistances and even some outright damage AND condition immunities, making them very effective from a defense perspective, especially against enemies that use necrotic and poison damage. They're amorphous which means they can move through enemy spaces, and being in areas of even somewhat reduced light gives them +6 to their stealth, which again is VERY important.
Mantle of Command can apply to your Shadows! If they don't have a means for provoking Attack of Opportunity, use Command To Strike or include them in an Overwhelming Attack. If they aren't in a flanking position, use the Mantle of Command Psychic Focus and/or Coordinated Movement to get them into place. Remember, Shadows move 40 feet, and they can move through enemy spaces.
If a non-evil humanoid is killed by your Shadows, they will become a Shadow 1d4 hours later. Use this if you're playing an evil campaign to wipe out goody-two-shoes villages and those so-called "innocent bystanders" with a plague of shadows that can't be proven to trace back to you. If you're playing for XP and you don't mind a little innocent slaughter, create a shadow in this fashion and then blow it to smithereens with the Radiant Beam you got in the Mastery of Light And Darkness package. Boom! Instant XP against an enemy that you created and has a built-in weakness against another ability you have as a consequence of having this one.
Triple or Quad Shadow Beasts is easily the best use of a Psionic Mastery charge, in my opinion. Create 6 to 8 flanking positions with a maximum of 12 to 16 strength drain attacks with advantage per round, possibly instantly murdering an enemy via a Strength Zero kill in the round that you summon them. Combining them with Nomadic Step or friendly teleports can have the enemy moving to trigger AOOs from stealthed shadows as they attempt to move towards you. Add a barrier of some variety from either yourself or an ally and you'll leave them locked out of attacking your party while your shadows and ranged allies shred them from behind the barrier.
Don't forget to assist them with one of your many devastating stun abilities to give them advantage yet again, or use Psychic Hammer to nudge the enemy into a Shadow's range. Many of your stun abilities do not require concentration and so will not override your concentration on your Shadows. Mantle of Command (Bonus Action + Reaction) and Psychic Hammer (Action) can go a long way towards uniting your enemies with a horrible Shadowy death. If they're in open sunlight, summon a sphere of Darkness to cover them (which doesn't require concentration nor does it have a time limit). This way they can peek out of the darkness sphere, attack an enemy, and pop back in to stealth.
Moving on, let's cover Diminution and why I think it's one of the most important Mystic Disciplines that there is. Advantage and +10 on Stealth meshes wonderfully with a core truth about Psionics; each and every Psionic ability does not require verbal, somatic, or material components, and as such, Psionic abilities largely tend to not break stealth, especially when they force the enemy to roll saving throws, which is a very large majority of your abilities. The Mind Thrust cantrip is a core part of the Mystic playset, and is a good example of this, as is your telepathy ability which allows you to silently communicate and coordinate with your allies. Therefore, stealth is actually every bit as core to the Mystic as it is to the Rogue, the difference being that the Rogue largely uses Stealth as a means of offense and infiltration, while the Mystic uses it as a means of defense (and sometimes attack, but the bonuses gained from that break stealth). Now then, why would I recommend Diminution over Nomadic Chameleon, another Discipline that does mostly the same thing and also takes up a concentration slot? It's because Diminution provides many more opportunities for infiltration and nondetection while not being as vulnerable to common anti-invisibility methods such as Truesight. Most importantly, it allows you to fit inside an ally's pocket or purse, thus boosting your concealment while still allowing you to act on the battlefield. Furthermore, if you use this tactic and also pick up Mantle of Command and Psionic Restoration, you can move your ally around while moving yourself and still not breaking stealth, and when your pocketer ally takes damage, you will automatically be in range to use a touch heal, and all Psionic Restoration options are touch based. There are also additional defensive options included in Diminution, which is important to keeping your concentration by avoiding damage. It also combos well with Mastery of Light and Darkness, allowing you to sneak around in your tiny or microscopic form before setting up a non-concentration sphere of darkness in a dark corner of the room, releasing concentration on your tiny form before using it on something else (like Shadow Beasts, muahahahahah). And lets not forget the havoc you can wreak in tiny form using Psychic Assault! Watch everything die as they scramble to figure out the cause! Delicious.
Lastly, I'll quickly cover Precognition and Nomadic Step. Precognition is important because of your stuns and disables, you want to get ahead of the enemy and prevent key units from taking tactically important actions. This is also important for Mantle Of Command, because if the rest of the party gets surprised (you won't because of Danger Sense), you will need them in optimal positions NOW, which you can use your bonus action and reaction for. The Psychic Focus of Precognition is easily the most valuable one to pick up as well, because you don't constantly need to have it on to benefit from it; have it active at the start of battle to gain your advantage on initiative, then use a bonus action to switch to another psychic focus. This disposability synergizes fantastically with the nature of Psychic Focuses. Also, using Victory Before Battle combined with Danger Sense means that you go first, your allies go second, and your enemy goes third. This is the optimal sequence for you to throw down a Psychic Crush or a Mind Storm, and have your ally follow that up with a Fireball before the enemy is even allowed to go, which they won't be because they're stunned. Mantle of Command also means that your allies will be able to move out of the way of the coming storm of magic and psionics. Precog also has a couple of nice defensive options, forcing disadvantage against you using All Around Sight and giving you a D4 on a ton of stuff using Precognitive Hunch. Great discipline. (And, again, goes well with Mastery of Light and Darkness. Lay down a dark sphere on those mages before they can touch your party, woo!)
Nomadic Step is great because teleporting is great. Switch places with a stealthed Shadow, teleport out of danger, get your allies to where they're going faster with Phantom Caravan, build a trap house for a Dragon before entering his lair and using Nomad's Gate to forcefully teleport him there without a saving throw and dive in after him, closing the portal before he has a chance to return. Send non-flying enemies to their doom by spawning one end of the Nomad's Gate on top of them and the other end a mile into the sky, then shove his buddy into the gate with a Psychic Hammer. Then have your bard trick another enemy into thinking that the grey cube (the Nomad's Gate) is a secret entrance into the treasure dimension when it's just a portal to the Mile Die Club. Then place a Darkness sphere around the cube so that enemies just stumble right into it. Then have your Wizard place a fireball sigil on the spot where the enemy is going to land. The fun never ends! Combine with Mantle Of Command for tricky tactical transposition plays.
Phew! That's disciplines taken care of! Now for some quick notes on feats, ASIs, races, and a fun Mystic tactic to bait counterspellers.
Race: Be a Variant Human. There is just no better race for Mystic, Gith surprisingly suck at it. I recommend Observant (INT), +1 Int and +1 Wis. It also fits the Mystic thematically; humans are the ultimate at adaptation, at Psionics have the ultimate level of difficulty to adapt to. Mastery of Light And Darkness' psychic focus can help remedy the darkvision issue, but you should also pick up goggles of darkvision. Try to find an item that can give you truesight eventually, which would mean that you never have to use MOLAD psychic focus ever again when you use your Darkness ability, freeing up the slot for other psychic focuses.
ASI: Max your INT and find a Tome of Clear Thought if you can. Once that's done, start picking up feats.
Feats: Pick Observant combined with choosing the Hermit background and picking Perception as one of your skills, you'll be at passive perception 20+ before you know it, which is insanely useful.
Alert is essential for Mystics, being unsurprised will allow you to turn the tide of battle, and the +5 to initiative will eventually stack with your Danger Sense and Victory Before Battle to net you a total of +25 with advantage on your initiative.
Stealthy boosts the stealthy core of your Mystic, which as mentioned is a key component to the class.
Magic Initiate is a somewhat overrated choice, although Mold Earth is pretty great. Problem is that these require the VSM that the rest of your class does without. Maybe consider something else, but if you do pick this up use the Wizard list.
If you pick up the Giant Growth discipline, you must also take Sentinel and Polearm Master. Melee builds aren't my favorite, but these three go together extremely well.
War Caster doesn't work for you.
Resilient isn't bad, it goes well with Strength Of Mind.
Fade Away freakin RULES for a Mystic Gnome (I still prefer Human).
Bountiful Luck can apply to your shadows. But Halfling is still very much suboptimal for Mystic.
Lucky is good for anyone, but combined with Strength of Mind, it's even better.
If your DM allows you to take homebrew feats, take the excellent Mystic Initiate feat. Another discipline, talent, and 2 psi points? YES PLEASE
Savage Attacker is BRUTAL, UTTERLY DEVASTATING when combined with Potent Psionics and Psionic Weapon. Rerolling the damage on Lethal Strike alone is INSANE. Imagine rerolling weapon damage + 2d8 + 7d10 + 3 + STR/DEX mod. I'd say this is essential for any Mystic melee build since Mystic melee is so reliant on big nova burst damage that requires a long rest to recharge. Edit: Nevermind, Savage Attacker only applies to the actual weapon damage.
Sharpshooter works phenomenally well with Nomadic Arrow, if you take one, take the other.
Armor Feats: Take your fill, there are no restrictions to using Psionics while armored.
Actor: Most people would say this is useless. However, I have come up with a niche use for it that goes well with the nature of Psionics.
Psionics doesn't require any Verbal, Somatic, or Material components, and they are not spells. However, with Actor (and Mystic Charm or Psychic Disruption/Psychic Phantoms psychic focus if you want to go that far psychic psychic psychic psychic), you can trick enemies into attempting to counterspell your psionics by pretending that you are casting a spell. Use the Actor feat to mimic the sound of a spell being cast and wave your arms around while you fire off a visible Psionic talent such as an Energy Beam and voila! Wasted reaction and spell slot trying to counter the uncounterable, and your Energy Beam still goes through. I recommend talents with this tactic, but you can do disciplines as well.
So, quick recap to wrap it all up...I like the following disciplines and talents, and they go well together.
Diminution
Mantle Of Command
Psychic Assault
Mastery Of Light and Darkness
Precognition
Nomadic Step
Mind Thrust
Energy Beam
Psychic Hammer
Thanks for reading, hope it was helpful.
Let's start with talents. First of all, because of the wording of the Potent Psionics feature, you're going to want to get Mind Thrust pretty much no matter what. It is the ONLY talent that Potent Psionics applies to, giving you a +INT to your Mind Thrust damage. But that's fine, because Mind Thrust is pretty amazing anyway. Because it doesn't use Verbal, Somatic, or Material components (much like all Psionics, but more on that later), has no visible trace, and forces a saving throw instead of being considered "an attack", it doesn't break stealth, meaning that you can use this high-damage bad boy while remaining hidden. As I'll discuss later in this post, stealth is actually key to playing Mystic well. I would even go so far as to say that it is an absolute cornerstone for the class.
My other two favorite talents are Energy Beam and Psychic Hammer. While it's true that Energy Beam does specify a creature, in my experience most DMs find this kind of odd and just let you use it on objects, which is great, because electrifying pools of water or other liquids that enemies are standing in is fun, not to mention using acid beam on locks, walls, the unstable bridge the enemy is standing on and more is a whole lot of useful fun. Psychic Hammer's main use is in combining with other disciplines. I'll talk about its individual synergies with each discipline as I get to them.
Now let's move on to the fun part, disciplines! I'll start talking about them in no particular order, but these are my absolute favorites among the Mystic discipline list.
Let's start with the classic; Psychic Assault. The Psychic focus for this is pretty good, once again specifically listing conditions that only Mind Thrust benefits from (talents that deal psychic damage), and is another reason to pick Mind Thrust. +2 isn't too bad to tack on to a cantrip for the Psychic Focus slot, but it doesn't scale super well into the later levels.
Psionic Blast is pretty nasty, acting as an invisible, single-target D8 Magic Missle that the Shield spell can't block, and also can't be counterspelled just like any other Psionic ability (again more on this later). Truthfully though, you should save this for a last resort instead of relying on it as a main damage dealer, or for when you need to remove a low-health enemy from the equation NOW and you can't risk them passing your Discipline DC. This is because other options in this discipline have more tactical uses that allow you to deal the same damage or more while erasing actions that are useful to the enemy.
Ego Whip is a good example of this, able to stop a single target from using spells OR attacks. When your party is up against a single big bad, especially one with a low INT score, this Devo-tee (CRACK THAT WHIP) ability should be your go-to option, forcing him/her to dodge, disengage, or hide. (And good luck hiding from a Mystic, you can easily get a passive perception of 20 or more by picking the right skills and feats.)
Id Insinuation is Ego Whip but worse. Worthless against high-INT casters since they're probably going to make the save, and useless against melee enemies since they'll just, I dunno, ATTACK. Honestly the only thing I can think of is using it on CHA and WIS casters, but otherwise, a waste of 5 Psi, if you really need that damage at this level you're better off with a 5 point Psionic Blast and skip the risk of the enemy passing your save DC.
Psychic Blast: Hohohoho, now I have a(n) machine gun AOE nova. 8D8 psychic damage in a nasty 60 foot cone, with half damage on a save. Invisible, psionic Cone of Cold that deals psychic damage (No, Psionic and Psychic are not the same, that was not redundant.) Side note; unlike Psiblast/Ego/Id, this AOE doesn't require you to see your enemies. If your enemy goes invisible, somehow manages to pass your Passive Perception and has a limited range of movement, use this to remind them why YOU are the undetectability king. Good luck passing an 8D8 concentration save to keep up that invisibility, rando enemy. Plus, add just ONE Psi point when you get Psi Limit 7 to add 2d8! This might just be the Mystic's signature attack.
Psychic Crush: Another AOE that doesn't require sight, this is the crown jewel of the Psychic Assault discipline. A 20 foot cube of pure psychic tactical nuke, it does the same damage as Psychic Blast, but also stuns enemies when they fail their save! Bonkers good, eliminates enemy actions and sets them up for a 100 percent surefire (pun intended) fireball confirmed hit from your friendly caster as long as they're between your turn and theirs. I used to think that picking up Psychic Disruption was a great idea because of Mind Storm, and although the differing Psi costs make them kinda like comparing apples and oranges, in the end you only have so many discipline slots, and the Stun effect, while not as wide-reaching as the disadvantage on ALL saving throws that Mind Storm hands out, still covers a lot of AOE effects which require Dexterity or Strength saves, and is much more sure to hit. It kinda comes down to what your party has, but Fireball is super common and super effective following a Psychic Crush. (Also it can be deployed up to 120 feet away, combined with the size of the AOE this is the farthest reaching psychic attack available.) Not to mention that your allies are going to get advantage to hit them! My advice is to take Psychic Assault as your main, and perhaps only blasting tool, as well as the first Discipline that you ever pick up.
Next up is a solid contender for my favorite discipline and another excellent reason to not split the party, Mantle of Command. Instead of running on your discipline DC, this bad boy is powered by your own tactical knowledge of the game (and PSI points of course). Mostly this is centered on repositioning tools, but the Command to Strike and Overwhelming Attack options are fantastic uses of your turn when the enemy is likely to pass your saving throw DCs, are immune to your damage types (particularly psychic), or when your ally is out-DPSing you without the use of spells or psionics. Also good to use when they're in a situation where your allies have advantage to hit.
Most importantly, though, this will allow you to scale your DPS up when your other party members inevitably surpass you DPS-wise in the later levels of the game. Remember that these abilities apply to ranged attacks as well as melee attacks, and are a FULL ATTACK ACTION. Meaning that if your allies have multi-attack, they are an even better candidate for this option. For Overwhelming Attack, if you're missing party members to fill in that 5 attack slot, don't be afraid to use the rest of the slots on summons, such as the excellent summon from the next discipline that I'll talk about. (It's still preferable to use it on 5 leveled PC martial units, however.)
The repositioning tools in this package are equally important, however; the psychic Focus, which uses a reaction at the end of your turn (and technically doesn't provoke Attack of Opportunity) and Coordinated Movement, which uses 2 PSI and a Bonus action and lets you move up to 5 allies, these half-speed movements can combine with your allies' own movement to do everything from creating flanking situations to moving tanks and rogues into position to combining with Psychic Hammer (which is an action and a talent) in order to keep allies just out of your enemies' melee reach to keeping them out of the way of your next AOE. Positioning means a LOT in this game, particularly with flanking rules in place.
Commander's Sight is a nice little bonus, but there are usually better ways to get advantage on a target. If those options aren't available, though, CS is here for you. Strategic Mind is also good, further enabling your positioning options by avoiding attacks of opportunity, as well as enabling your allies to get into position much faster. A little added offensive accuracy rounds this ability out nicely, but there are usually better uses for concentration. Still, not bad overall.
Next is a vastly underrated discipline, Mastery of Light and Darkness. This one has a lot of synergy with other disciplines, as you'll soon see. The Psychic Focus here is very important, as it's essential to be able to see through your own magic-level Darkness in order to use the ability to its highest effect, and if you can get items for your allies that can allow them to see through the darkness as well, especially melee and ranged martial units, you will get a hell of a lot of traction from the ability to create a 10-70 foot wide sphere of darkness. It grants advantage to hit them, disadvantage to hit you, utterly SHUTS DOWN enemy mages because spells often require a visible target, allows you to move freely without provoking attacks of opportunity because they need to be able to see you to do so, and generally just makes a very sad day for your opponents. It's especially effective in small rooms where the exit isn't easy to find for a blinded target. This can also act a smoke bomb for when your rogue or other sneaky ally is spotted, allowing them to restealth and wreak havoc all over again. Lovely combo with any ally PC with Devil's Sight, Truesight, Blindsight, Tremorsense, Magical Darkvision etc. Also note that there is no time limit on Darkness or even a requirement for concentration! One hell of a boon.
As previously stated, the blind condition is a big deal in 5E, shutting down a ton of options and making your allies way more effective against the blinded target. But what do you do when you're facing a foe that has Magical Darkvision or Truesight, but not Blindsight? How then will you rob them of their effectiveness? Radiant Beam is the answer for you, my friend; it'll force them to make a Dex save versus your DC or be temporarily blinded and take a nice fat chunk of Radiant Damage to boot (which can cover your damage types as well, remember to take Energy Beam at some point and you'll have Psychic, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Thunder, Necrotic AND Radiant, combined with Mantle of Command you can add weapon damage types as well). Watch as the big bad weeps from his blind eyes, unable to use single-target abilities or avoid getting hit. The blind condition absolutely RULES.
Now for one of my favorite options, Shadow Beasts! Oh man these things are awesome, you get 2 of these for the price of 3 PSI and concentration, and they are hella tactical. To get the most out of these, remember the following Shadow Rules...
Summon them in flanking positions. If your allies are facing an enemy without anything on your side at its back, that's a place for your shadows to appear and thus strike them with advantage.
ALWAYS use Shadow Stealth with them, it's a bonus action and the only bonus action they have. There is almost always a way for them to hide, even if it's in a character's non-magical shadow. A stealthed Shadow gets to attack with advantage as well as tricking enemies into provoking attacks of opportunity from them, and Shadows do not have any other uses for their reactions outside of AOOs. Every hit matters, the Necrotic damage isn't all that great but the 1d4 strength damage really racks up over time and will result in an instant death if their strength hits zero. Great for killing glass cannons and making STR tanks worthless. If you play your cards correctly, your 2 shadows can end up attacking four times per round total WITH ADVANTAGE.
Don't forget the attributes of Shadows, they have a ton of resistances and even some outright damage AND condition immunities, making them very effective from a defense perspective, especially against enemies that use necrotic and poison damage. They're amorphous which means they can move through enemy spaces, and being in areas of even somewhat reduced light gives them +6 to their stealth, which again is VERY important.
Mantle of Command can apply to your Shadows! If they don't have a means for provoking Attack of Opportunity, use Command To Strike or include them in an Overwhelming Attack. If they aren't in a flanking position, use the Mantle of Command Psychic Focus and/or Coordinated Movement to get them into place. Remember, Shadows move 40 feet, and they can move through enemy spaces.
If a non-evil humanoid is killed by your Shadows, they will become a Shadow 1d4 hours later. Use this if you're playing an evil campaign to wipe out goody-two-shoes villages and those so-called "innocent bystanders" with a plague of shadows that can't be proven to trace back to you. If you're playing for XP and you don't mind a little innocent slaughter, create a shadow in this fashion and then blow it to smithereens with the Radiant Beam you got in the Mastery of Light And Darkness package. Boom! Instant XP against an enemy that you created and has a built-in weakness against another ability you have as a consequence of having this one.
Triple or Quad Shadow Beasts is easily the best use of a Psionic Mastery charge, in my opinion. Create 6 to 8 flanking positions with a maximum of 12 to 16 strength drain attacks with advantage per round, possibly instantly murdering an enemy via a Strength Zero kill in the round that you summon them. Combining them with Nomadic Step or friendly teleports can have the enemy moving to trigger AOOs from stealthed shadows as they attempt to move towards you. Add a barrier of some variety from either yourself or an ally and you'll leave them locked out of attacking your party while your shadows and ranged allies shred them from behind the barrier.
Don't forget to assist them with one of your many devastating stun abilities to give them advantage yet again, or use Psychic Hammer to nudge the enemy into a Shadow's range. Many of your stun abilities do not require concentration and so will not override your concentration on your Shadows. Mantle of Command (Bonus Action + Reaction) and Psychic Hammer (Action) can go a long way towards uniting your enemies with a horrible Shadowy death. If they're in open sunlight, summon a sphere of Darkness to cover them (which doesn't require concentration nor does it have a time limit). This way they can peek out of the darkness sphere, attack an enemy, and pop back in to stealth.
Moving on, let's cover Diminution and why I think it's one of the most important Mystic Disciplines that there is. Advantage and +10 on Stealth meshes wonderfully with a core truth about Psionics; each and every Psionic ability does not require verbal, somatic, or material components, and as such, Psionic abilities largely tend to not break stealth, especially when they force the enemy to roll saving throws, which is a very large majority of your abilities. The Mind Thrust cantrip is a core part of the Mystic playset, and is a good example of this, as is your telepathy ability which allows you to silently communicate and coordinate with your allies. Therefore, stealth is actually every bit as core to the Mystic as it is to the Rogue, the difference being that the Rogue largely uses Stealth as a means of offense and infiltration, while the Mystic uses it as a means of defense (and sometimes attack, but the bonuses gained from that break stealth). Now then, why would I recommend Diminution over Nomadic Chameleon, another Discipline that does mostly the same thing and also takes up a concentration slot? It's because Diminution provides many more opportunities for infiltration and nondetection while not being as vulnerable to common anti-invisibility methods such as Truesight. Most importantly, it allows you to fit inside an ally's pocket or purse, thus boosting your concealment while still allowing you to act on the battlefield. Furthermore, if you use this tactic and also pick up Mantle of Command and Psionic Restoration, you can move your ally around while moving yourself and still not breaking stealth, and when your pocketer ally takes damage, you will automatically be in range to use a touch heal, and all Psionic Restoration options are touch based. There are also additional defensive options included in Diminution, which is important to keeping your concentration by avoiding damage. It also combos well with Mastery of Light and Darkness, allowing you to sneak around in your tiny or microscopic form before setting up a non-concentration sphere of darkness in a dark corner of the room, releasing concentration on your tiny form before using it on something else (like Shadow Beasts, muahahahahah). And lets not forget the havoc you can wreak in tiny form using Psychic Assault! Watch everything die as they scramble to figure out the cause! Delicious.
Lastly, I'll quickly cover Precognition and Nomadic Step. Precognition is important because of your stuns and disables, you want to get ahead of the enemy and prevent key units from taking tactically important actions. This is also important for Mantle Of Command, because if the rest of the party gets surprised (you won't because of Danger Sense), you will need them in optimal positions NOW, which you can use your bonus action and reaction for. The Psychic Focus of Precognition is easily the most valuable one to pick up as well, because you don't constantly need to have it on to benefit from it; have it active at the start of battle to gain your advantage on initiative, then use a bonus action to switch to another psychic focus. This disposability synergizes fantastically with the nature of Psychic Focuses. Also, using Victory Before Battle combined with Danger Sense means that you go first, your allies go second, and your enemy goes third. This is the optimal sequence for you to throw down a Psychic Crush or a Mind Storm, and have your ally follow that up with a Fireball before the enemy is even allowed to go, which they won't be because they're stunned. Mantle of Command also means that your allies will be able to move out of the way of the coming storm of magic and psionics. Precog also has a couple of nice defensive options, forcing disadvantage against you using All Around Sight and giving you a D4 on a ton of stuff using Precognitive Hunch. Great discipline. (And, again, goes well with Mastery of Light and Darkness. Lay down a dark sphere on those mages before they can touch your party, woo!)
Nomadic Step is great because teleporting is great. Switch places with a stealthed Shadow, teleport out of danger, get your allies to where they're going faster with Phantom Caravan, build a trap house for a Dragon before entering his lair and using Nomad's Gate to forcefully teleport him there without a saving throw and dive in after him, closing the portal before he has a chance to return. Send non-flying enemies to their doom by spawning one end of the Nomad's Gate on top of them and the other end a mile into the sky, then shove his buddy into the gate with a Psychic Hammer. Then have your bard trick another enemy into thinking that the grey cube (the Nomad's Gate) is a secret entrance into the treasure dimension when it's just a portal to the Mile Die Club. Then place a Darkness sphere around the cube so that enemies just stumble right into it. Then have your Wizard place a fireball sigil on the spot where the enemy is going to land. The fun never ends! Combine with Mantle Of Command for tricky tactical transposition plays.
Phew! That's disciplines taken care of! Now for some quick notes on feats, ASIs, races, and a fun Mystic tactic to bait counterspellers.
Race: Be a Variant Human. There is just no better race for Mystic, Gith surprisingly suck at it. I recommend Observant (INT), +1 Int and +1 Wis. It also fits the Mystic thematically; humans are the ultimate at adaptation, at Psionics have the ultimate level of difficulty to adapt to. Mastery of Light And Darkness' psychic focus can help remedy the darkvision issue, but you should also pick up goggles of darkvision. Try to find an item that can give you truesight eventually, which would mean that you never have to use MOLAD psychic focus ever again when you use your Darkness ability, freeing up the slot for other psychic focuses.
ASI: Max your INT and find a Tome of Clear Thought if you can. Once that's done, start picking up feats.
Feats: Pick Observant combined with choosing the Hermit background and picking Perception as one of your skills, you'll be at passive perception 20+ before you know it, which is insanely useful.
Alert is essential for Mystics, being unsurprised will allow you to turn the tide of battle, and the +5 to initiative will eventually stack with your Danger Sense and Victory Before Battle to net you a total of +25 with advantage on your initiative.
Stealthy boosts the stealthy core of your Mystic, which as mentioned is a key component to the class.
Magic Initiate is a somewhat overrated choice, although Mold Earth is pretty great. Problem is that these require the VSM that the rest of your class does without. Maybe consider something else, but if you do pick this up use the Wizard list.
If you pick up the Giant Growth discipline, you must also take Sentinel and Polearm Master. Melee builds aren't my favorite, but these three go together extremely well.
War Caster doesn't work for you.
Resilient isn't bad, it goes well with Strength Of Mind.
Fade Away freakin RULES for a Mystic Gnome (I still prefer Human).
Bountiful Luck can apply to your shadows. But Halfling is still very much suboptimal for Mystic.
Lucky is good for anyone, but combined with Strength of Mind, it's even better.
If your DM allows you to take homebrew feats, take the excellent Mystic Initiate feat. Another discipline, talent, and 2 psi points? YES PLEASE
Savage Attacker is BRUTAL, UTTERLY DEVASTATING when combined with Potent Psionics and Psionic Weapon. Rerolling the damage on Lethal Strike alone is INSANE. Imagine rerolling weapon damage + 2d8 + 7d10 + 3 + STR/DEX mod. I'd say this is essential for any Mystic melee build since Mystic melee is so reliant on big nova burst damage that requires a long rest to recharge. Edit: Nevermind, Savage Attacker only applies to the actual weapon damage.
Sharpshooter works phenomenally well with Nomadic Arrow, if you take one, take the other.
Armor Feats: Take your fill, there are no restrictions to using Psionics while armored.
Actor: Most people would say this is useless. However, I have come up with a niche use for it that goes well with the nature of Psionics.
Psionics doesn't require any Verbal, Somatic, or Material components, and they are not spells. However, with Actor (and Mystic Charm or Psychic Disruption/Psychic Phantoms psychic focus if you want to go that far psychic psychic psychic psychic), you can trick enemies into attempting to counterspell your psionics by pretending that you are casting a spell. Use the Actor feat to mimic the sound of a spell being cast and wave your arms around while you fire off a visible Psionic talent such as an Energy Beam and voila! Wasted reaction and spell slot trying to counter the uncounterable, and your Energy Beam still goes through. I recommend talents with this tactic, but you can do disciplines as well.
So, quick recap to wrap it all up...I like the following disciplines and talents, and they go well together.
Diminution
Mantle Of Command
Psychic Assault
Mastery Of Light and Darkness
Precognition
Nomadic Step
Mind Thrust
Energy Beam
Psychic Hammer
Thanks for reading, hope it was helpful.