Psionics Reloaded-the Psion and Psychic Warrior; ALL DISCIPLINES NOW COMPLETE (PEACH)

[Grod_The_Giant]

Wu Jen subclasses up!

Now for feedback... <cracks knuckles>

Both classes are mechanically very busy. You have both talents and disciplines, the psi points that you track to cast your disciplines, a psionic focus for each discipline that you know, and the psi die that gets used for several abilities. This is not necessarily bad, just figured it's worth pointing out.

A little bit, yeah. <Shrug> I've been looking mostly at the Warlock as a baseline, and they also have three things (spell slots, cantrips, and invocations, vs disciplines, focuses, and talents).

- The tables look kind of messed up. I assume the Psychic Warrior is not supposed to have twice as many psi points as the Psion, and that the Psychic Warrior's psi limit isn't supposed to shrink at 17th level.

Right now that's an artifact of the PsyWar being long-rest and the Psion being short. Initially they were both short rest classes, but a playtest of the PsyWar at level 5 found that they didn't feel like they had enough points to do anything interesting. Then again, the short rest was initially part of a balancing mechanic to keep you from throwing all your points at one encounter, but between the rebalanced powers and the rewritten psi limit, maybe that's not necessary? I'm still going back and forth on this one, though with psi dice in the mix the PsyWar can probably stick to the short rest model.

- I'm very happy to see that you decided to make the psi die unlimited, since it's functionally that way already and this way you avoid players getting screwed out of their class features by RNG. Very good. Also really like that the psion can spend psi points to deliberately enlarge it, giving them some control over the mechanic.

Yeah.

- The flavor text of the Empath is oddly setting-specific compared to the other, more generic subclasses.

I don't usually enjoy writing flavor text; apparently I was motivated enough to do something that day...

- The new Kineticist subclass is cool! It really does capture that mind over matter archetype that you get with a lot of psionic characters. Very well done. That said....

Thanks!

- Telekinetic Routine: Why roll the psi die for the duration? Nobody tracks time closely enough for it to become relevant whether you need to use another action to restart the routine every 10 minutes or every 20 minutes. It's not like it'll run out in the middle of combat if it lasts 10 minutes at the least. This is a problem I have with a few of the Talents, where it feels like they roll the psi die for the sake of including the psi die, with no actual reason for doing so.

They all needed a psi die roll for resource tracking purposes, because that is how you track it-- you roll and see if it gets bigger and smaller. Though... now that you mention it, I guess I could use the "reduce your die size one step" mechanic from the UA instead-- would that be better, do you think?

Also, the wording on what to do about ability checks is very unclear. Do you use the result of the psi die in place of the d20 ability check? Do you use it to determine a virtual ability score which then rolls the ability check? Not sure how that is supposed to function.

The latter; I'll work on the wording.

- Bullish Mind: This is very strong battlefield control for what is essentially a cantrip. Even at first level, it's gonna push an enemy 40 or 30 feet on average. Sure, it's single target and allows for a save, but even so it has the potential to completely change an encounter all on it's own! I'd at least half the distance that it moves people.

Talents are meant to be a little stronger than cantrips, since the Psion isn't quite a full caster, but fair-- distance reduced.

- Crushing Mind: This is too much. It's essentially permanent Quickened Spell. Give it limited uses per rest or give it a point cost, at least.

Done.

- Predictive Combat: This is an actually really neat version of True Strike. Still not sure if I'd ever use it, but the flavor is on point and I can actually see it being useful.

- Retroactive Preparation: Abilities like these are the coolest. Always love them.

Thanks!

Psychic Warrior

- Meditation: What is the reasoning behind giving a class that has traditionally been combat-focused, already is good in combat while also having many useful psychic powers, and can get plenty of bonuses to skill checks from its focuses a free-floating version of Expertise? I'm all for martials having stuff to do out of combat, but this seems gratuitous.

I put Meditation in with the previous draft so that they'd have something going on at first level-- the half caster pattern is a ribbon at first and the real class feature at second. Psychic Talent is probably enough on its own, though.

- Mind and Body: This ability seems deceptively strong, combining both the Monk's Diamond Soul and the Paladin's Aura, at least on the Psychic Warrior himself. I wouldn't say it's overpowered, though. Might need some playtesting.

Mmm... maybe if it's just using your Wisdom score, but only getting proficiency if you were already proficient in that type of save? Or specifically rolling a Wisdom check?

- The Lurk gets two more expertises? Just because it's a stealth subclass doesn't mean you have to step on the rogue's toes that hard!

Really though, at most I would give Stealth for free as a normal proficiency since it is so central to the subclass and it's not on the Psychic Warrior's regular skill list. They already can take plenty of disciplines that give them advantages at stealth that a mundane character could never have.

Yeah, they probably don't need those anymore.

- Change Appearance: So, unless my character has seen a lizardfolk at some point in his life, they can't give themselves a natural weapon and the natural armor? I'd rephrase it to let the player add those freely onto any form, to be honest. Most of them time this will only be used for the cool factor of being a badass shapeshifter anyways.

It's the language from the Changeling. <Shrug> I agree with your interpretation, though.

- Mental Chain: I'd add a line indicating that other characters who share your focus also use your psi die. Just for clarity's sake.

There shouldn't be any reason for them to need a psi die? Focuses are all passive.

- I find it kind of funny how two of the Psychic Warrior's subclasses let you hold multiple focuses, yet the psion is unable to do that ever. It gives him something unique, though, which is neat.

Back to the previous draft again-- with Focuses as the only at-will option, they needed a bit extra there.

Disciplines

- Hooray for a return of the displays! Do Talents have them too, though?

...they should, yes.

- Mental Catapult: How far away can the object that you're throwing be? If you toss a magic weapon at someone, can you toss it again from where it lies on the next round?

You've got to be holding it-- fixed.

- Delusion: If you end up rolling a lower number of creatures than you'd like to affect, can you decide not to affect anyone and just roll again until you roll a sufficient number? This also kinda ties in with the above question of whether Talents have displays that would prevent something like this.

Despite the questions though, I quite like this as a flavorful psionic alternative to Minor Image.

Mmm... that's probably an argument for using "drop one die size" for powers like this. Good questions though-- language added clarifying

- Mute Display: If Talents have displays, does this work on them too? Is it automatic in that case?

Yes, yes, and no respectively, I think. Language added.

- Feed the Mind: Why make this so fiddly by rolling the psi die? Who cares whether you can last five hours or six without food and water when you can just reactivate this at will, and you only have to eat daily anyways? There's absolutely no need to roll on this. Honestly, I'd just make it a passive, permanent ability if you want to keep it as a talent.

Talents have to be active, to distinguish them from Focuses. But... another point in favor or auto-die-size-drops.

- Brute Force: Why does this focus increase Insight rather than Athletics?

Typo.

- Very happy you brought back all the corrosive metabolism stuff. One of the best parts of playing a psychic warrior in 3.5 was turning into a horrible eldritch abomination at high levels that would make the artists on Akira blush. All that's missing is an equivalent to Form of Doom. But hey, that's what reflavoring is for.

Heh.

- Currently, none of the disciplines are marked as exclusive to any one subclass. As such, if I want to take a discipline I first have to check the relevant subclasses on the Psion and the Psychic Warrior.

Yeah... I'll go back and add this soon.

- Nomadic Mind: The talent is a bit weird. In play, what would stop me from just using that talent time and time again to try for additional knowledge checks until I have exhausted the minds of everyone around me? I know that the GM could simply decide that another roll is not possible on a given topic, but that seems like a very meta resolution to something a player might feel he could reasonably do in character.

Normal rules about rerolling ability checks?

Speaking of which, some notes on the Wu Jen! Who I am still not sure why he is a psionic class now, but WotC made that decision for some reason!

Indeed!

- The Discipline List for Wu Jen lists their talents, while their Talent List lists the Talents of the Psion.

Whoops.

- Good decision to give all the elemental cantrips for free. They are way too niche to just give one.

I'd argue that Shape Water and maybe Move Earth are worth it, but yeah.

- Mastery of Elements: I'm not too broken up that you have to give up one element, but it does mean that I can never become the Avatar.

Heh. It's only one of the two themed Disciplines, though!

- Elemental Perfection and Elemental Immunity synergize nicely with the exclusive disciplines of the Wu Jen, though they make some racial options far more attractive than normally. The more resistances the race has now, the better.

<shrug> I figure that there are enough options in-class alone to make it worth it.

- I see that the name of the capstone is different on the table as opposed to the text, so I assume you'll change that around still. Didn't see that initially, so I was about to suggest a Paladin-like approach where each subclass has a specific capstone because copying the Psion's would be a bit boring, but it seems you already have a better idea.

... butts. That was not intended; I typed "Elemental Apocalypse" into the table, then forgot to actually write an ability before I copied stuff to Homebrewery. I like your idea of subclass-specific capstones better, though.

- Light Step: It's niche, but too awesome not to like.

- Elemental Burst: This seems to be strictly better than Elemental Strike, since it is an AOE with the same damage and probably better chance to hit in most situations. Sure, it comes with the risk of hitting your allies, but it's such a small radius that you can easily work around that.

Upped Smite to a d10 and downgraded Burst to a d6. They def should not have been the same, my bad.

- Iron Heart: This seems way too good for a talent. You get twice as many chances to save against any effect, plus further saving throw against effects that would not otherwise offer one. Why would any Psychic Warrior take anything else? The action cost is big, but at almost any occasion where you'd want to use this talent, your only options will be to do so or waste your turn.

- Cleansing Touch: This also seems strong for a talent, but not quite as strong as Iron Heart. Though it's less egregious since this requires you to use up your turn to help someone else.

Clarified that you can only use them against stuff like Hold Person with a "new save at the end of each round" clause.