Mystics: Can they be balanced?

[ChaseC311]

Mystics are usually seen as the most infamous classes in terms of balance (right behind PHB Rangers). Is there any way to reel them back to make them a balanced class? The concept of using Psionics as opposed to Magic seems like the only concept that isnt covered by the other dnd classes in terms of flavor (disregarding the psionic subclasses).

From what I can gather from the class, the main issue stems from its immense level of versatility, rivaling if not surpassing the roles of several other classes, essentially making alot of the original classes weak by comparison. Especially with the generous hitdice and Proficiencys

Personally I think it'd be funny to drop the hitdice to d4s just to make it the ultimate glass cannon, but that would definitely only exacerbate the balancing fiasco, so I figured itd be best to consult the forums

[Edea]

The chassis itself is alright.

The main issues were that certain disciplines and sub-classes were still in a 'beta' phase and not really appropriate for use even on their own (Soulknife and Telepathic Contact immediately come to mind), and much more importantly that your choice of Mystic Order did nothing to restrict which disciplines you could pick. It's a mix-and-match free-for-all.

With the Psionic Mind being a subclass coming up in TCoE, I have a feeling that 'psionic' stuff is going to be released as subclasses for classes that've already passed mustard. So the mystic's pretty much a done deal at this point.

[Jerrykhor]

Personally I think it'd be funny to drop the hitdice to d4s just to make it the ultimate glass cannon, but that would definitely only exacerbate the balancing fiasco, so I figured itd be best to consult the forums

That wouldn't do. D8 hit die is just about enough for Soul Knife, Immortal and Avatar, but Awakened and Wu Jen should be dropped to d6.

Feels like every once in a while a Mystic thread pops up. Not that I don't want to discuss it, but I have written plenty on the class, and could probably write a book on it after playing it for about 2 years+.

As a player, I never felt I was too overpowered, except if I spam Nomadic Mind's Focus in switching proficiency in whatever skill/tool you want. That thing is OP and potentially spotlight stealing, but its easy to reign in like Guidance spam. Though the feedback from my DM and fellow players is that my class is still on the OP side overall, especially during levels 6 to 10, and that I cannot deny. But my opinion is, they can be balanced by fixing a few things.

[Dork_Forge]

Flip the script on their disciplines so that they need to pick most of them from their own order a la EK/AT, make some tweaks to a few disciplines and talents to reign in their power and vary them a little. Despite the uproars they really aren't broken, it's UA being north of the power line is intentional for final balance purposes.

By far the most common problem people seem to complain about is versatility, if you have a problem with that then you'd be better served chopping the Mystic up into parts. Personally I have no issue with that, versatility is not a bad thing just because you don't carry a spellbook.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Oh, sure. To be honest, it's not really that hard-- there are really only three things you need to do.

First, either psi limit needs to be a per-round thing, or you need a rule like conventional spellcasting has where you can only cast one leveled spell per turn. (The equivalent would be "can only spend psi points on one power per turn"). Mystics had an obscene ability to nova, and the single biggest reason for that was that they could cast multiple max-level-equivilent abilities PER TURN, burning through power faster than even Sorcadins can manage. Putting a limit on that goes a long way.

Second, you should cut their psi point maximum down to one third its original size but let it refill on a short rest. That forces players to spread their casting out over multiple encounters. It also opens up design space for Psionic Focuses-- they're kind of too strong for a full caster, but they fit right in as an Invocation-parallel on a Warlock-type caster.

Third, the generic "mystic" needs to get broken up into a psion, psychic warrior, and wu jen. The reason the class gets such a bad rap for versatility is that it is several classes mashed into one. Or heck, just limit discipline selection to your subclass-specific options.

There are still issues with individual disciplines here and there, some ugly bits of design, whatever the hell they were thinking with the Soulknife, but the above tweaks will go a long way towards fixing the class' issues.

(Or, you know, you could do a total rewrite (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/g8T2tW3Z7). That works too).

[Zhorn]

I think breaking it up into subclasses for the other classes was the better option. Mystics were just too broad in all the roles they could fill that the class's own identity felt diluted.
Breaking it up into being subclasses of other classes allows each type of mystic to fit into it's matching class theme of what it's been pair with, while focusing on the "like [x], but psychic" schtick.

[Cybren]

“Mystics were just too broad” I mean yes it was clearly paralleling how they developed the phb classes, where everything was jumbled together for play testing.

Both the response to the mystic and what WotC has said about it mystifies me. I genuinely don’t know what WotC was expecting when they released it and why they took the lessons from it that they did