Yawning Portal Campaign - teleporting mystic rogue & healer/utility mystic

[Genius3e8]

Hello wonderful community,
I've spent a ridiculous amount of time on these forms over the years and I love the thought that good into so many of your responses. I'm looking for some input on a character concept that I'll be playing soon in my son's first game he's running. We decided on the Yawning Portal Campaign book and we're starting at level 1.

He likes creative ideas and I've been wanting to try a mystic for some time now. He's asked me to run two characters because we're short a person, so I thought I'd try a caster mystic and a melee mystic. He's rolled up some crazy stat stays for us to use, so I'm not worried about boosting stats at ASIs. This is not about min/maxing, but I'm having trouble deciding on the details of the concepts. I've heard that the Yawning Portal takes you through level 16.

Races I'm interested in because I don't usually get to play them in "civilized" settings:
Yuan-Ti Pureblood - advantage vs spells and magical effects plus immune to poison

Bugbear - reach out and yank someone into the shadows with their +5 ft reach

Tabaxi - run full tilt into shadow and come running out somewhere else, Scooby Doo style.

No PHB races or variant human, too vanilla

Teleporting sneaky skill monkey trap finding mystic:

Wishing their was a rogue subclass for mystic.
Considering shadow monk for first 6 (shadow step) or 7 (evasion) levels for survivability then going into nomad mystic for the skills and teleporting for the rest. I would probably take mystic 1 as either my second level.


Healer & utility/control mage mystic:

For all around oh crap utility, one or two levels of Druid to get goodberry and maybe wild shape.
Life cleric 1 for healing boost and spells.
Avatar mystic the rest with psionic restoration.

Other members of the party are an Aasimar Warlock blaster mage and a big dumb low int high Wis character that loves animals, especially guinea pigs. He still needs to be fleshed out and I've suggested a Firbolg barbarian. Thought it'd be funny if he rages because his druid friend gets hurt while in animal form or if my other character gets hurt, assuming one of the three races listed above, because "no hurt animal friends!"

[Genius3e8]

I forgot to mention that if anyone has played through the campaign before, your insights from a player perspective and helpful hints for a new DM would be appreciated. Fun ideas are also welcome!

[Ventruenox]

One of our posters put together a rather useful guide to the current version of the 5E UA Mystic. It can be found here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?542539-Mind-Over-Matter-A-Guide-to-the-5e-Mystic)

Having played a Mystic before, I would recommend creating separate spreadsheets to keep track of your powers, their costs, and where your current psychic focus is. Organizing them by Action, Bonus Actions, and Reactions will be invaluable.

[Genius3e8]

One of our posters put together a rather useful guide to the current version of the 5E UA Mystic. It can be found

Having played a Mystic before, I would recommend creating separate spreadsheets to keep track of your powers, their costs, and where your current psychic focus is. Organizing them by Action, Bonus Actions, and Reactions will be invaluable.

Thanks for your input! I've been looking at that guide a lot, which is how I narrowed my choices down. It's fantastic!

[Keravath]

Tales from the Yawning Portal isn't a "campaign" but a set of separate adventures/dungeons that you could set anywhere in your game world. It is different from the other hardcovers this way since all the dungeons are sourced from earlier versions of the game and converted to 5e. As a result, you will likely need a small local world framework containing the character's base (it could even be in Waterdeep at the Yawning Portal tavern where they hear about the dungeons through rumors and decide which to explore next). Anyway, the book does not contain the overall surrounding setting for a campaign based on the dungeons but typically just the dungeons themselves, some of which are set in a forest/mountain/jungle type area for example.

All that said, TFTYP can certainly be used as the basis of a campaign.

[Waazraath]

I'm running the first adventure in Yawning Portal at the moment, and find it fine to run with only 3 players. I gave them a little bit more starting gold, and had 'em roll for ability scores in a more liberal way than usual, and with that, they do fine. With only 1 hardcore optimizer in the party.

This might be easier and more balanced than having 1 player run 2 characters, also for you. So something you might want to consider.

[carrdrivesyou]

Races I'm interested in because I don't usually get to play them in "civilized" settings:
Yuan-Ti Pureblood - advantage vs spells and magical effects plus immune to poison

Bugbear - reach out and yank someone into the shadows with their +5 ft reach

Tabaxi - run full tilt into shadow and come running out somewhere else, Scooby Doo style.

No PHB races or variant human, too vanilla

Teleporting sneaky skill monkey trap finding mystic:

Wishing their was a rogue subclass for mystic.
Considering shadow monk for first 6 (shadow step) or 7 (evasion) levels for survivability then going into nomad mystic for the skills and teleporting for the rest. I would probably take mystic 1 as either my second level.


Healer & utility/control mage mystic:

For all around oh crap utility, one or two levels of Druid to get goodberry and maybe wild shape.
Life cleric 1 for healing boost and spells.
Avatar mystic the rest with psionic restoration.

Other members of the party are an Aasimar Warlock blaster mage and a big dumb low int high Wis character that loves animals, especially guinea pigs. He still needs to be fleshed out and I've suggested a Firbolg barbarian. Thought it'd be funny if he rages because his druid friend gets hurt while in animal form or if my other character gets hurt, assuming one of the three races listed above, because "no hurt animal friends!"

If you aren't worried too much about min/maxing or optimizing, just do what is fun lol.

If you still want to have fun, here are a few suggestions:

Bugbear warrior - He's already got an extra 5ft reach, so go Immortal and barbarian. use Giant Growth to increase in size for that extra reach, (should be able to max it out at 20ft). Also take the Sentinel feat. you will literally be a wall that your friends can hide behind.

Round 1: Giant Growth, then Rage.
Round 2: Hulk Smash.

As for the caster type you were considering, go Nomad X and Sorcerer 3. You'll get misty step and shield as spells and a lot of spell slots to burn on it. also managing your spell points could yield higher benefits. Nomad will give you unbeatable versatility and some verrryyyy useful class abilities that will synergize with casting Misty Step all willy-nilly. This is less race intensive, so play as you like. I think the Yuan-ti would be a better fit from what you listed though.


Lastly, your healer type. While Mystics aren't terribly good at healing, they do get Psionic Restoration, which acts as having Cure Wounds as well as the restoration spells. add in your Mystical Recovery, and you should also benefit from healing others as well. as for which Order...hear me out here...Soul Knife. I know i rated it pretty badly, but there is a single mechanic that you may be able to exploit.

Consumptive Knife
Starting at 6th level, whenever you slay an enemy creature with a soul knife attack, you immediately regain 2 psi points.

As pointed out in the guide, this may be the MOST broken thing in the game so far. But given that this is your son's first time running, it could be more beneficial than anything else. Buy a bag of chickens from the stables and just go to town on them whenever you run out of Psi Points.


Hope this helps,
Carr


Avatar with their Avatar of healing at 6th seems nice, but not much else in that area would benefit you unless you plan on playing a paladin with a handicap.

[moonfly7]

If you want only honest opinions, don't be the guy who plays the mystic. As someone whose played a campaign where they were everywhere, and also the final boss, I can safely say they aren't balanced. My DM and I actually rebuilt the class after my entire party read through it and were appalled. The level 20 ability gives you a 55 percent chance to not die, ever. The subclasses like spulknife and undying are crazy op. It's got the casting power of the wizard, but the hit dice of a monk, with damage out put of one too, while casting spells that can't be counter spelled.
Wizards only work because of spell slots and because they're glass cannons, the psychic focuses and high health make mystics unbalanced and unfair.
But if playing a psychic is important to you, check out the gith. They easily and awesomely made magic look like psychic powers via flavor, you could easily do that with any caster without playing a terribly broken class.
That's just my opinion though, feel free to ignore me if you don't agree.