Unearthed Arcana 5E Psionics Alert! The Mystic Is Back In Unearthed Arcana

It's back! The long-awaited new version of the mystic - 5th Edition's psionic class - is here. "The mystic class, a master of psionics, has arrived in its entirety for you to try in your D&D games. Thanks to your playtest feedback on the class’s previous two versions, the class now goes to level 20, has six subclasses, and can choose from many new psionic disciplines and talents. Explore the material here—there’s a lot of it—and let us know what you think in the survey we release in the next installment of Unearthed Arcana." Click the image below for the full 28-page PDF!

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[Patrick McGill]

Personally, I feel like having psionic subclasses of the other subclasses is just a better way to go. Just my honest opinion. The mystic to me has always felt very contrived.

 

[cbwjm]

Cool, I like how they have incorporated the wu jen into it, really cool. I think I'm going to have a look at creating a wu jen for my next character, either as a caster like class or as some kind of elemental empowered ninja.

I will ignore the quirks for any mystic I build, I don't think they really fit in with my image of a psychic.

 

[TwoSix]

<slow clap> I'm only about halfway through the disciplines so far, but I'm really impressed so far. Very subtle balancing in the discipline abilities. Weaker than an equivalent spell but spammable early abilities balanced against strong high impact later abilities. Still a lot to process, but you can see the thought behind this.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

My initial thoughts:
-It's still essentially a full spellcasting class, with Psionic Mastery essentially being the ability to cast 6th level and above spells.
-The Potent Psionics feature is essentially both types of the equivalent Cleric domain abilities that add either wisdom to cantrips or bonus damage to weapon attacks.
-Awakened Mind's ability is only once per long rest, while many other orders get a lot more usage. I feel they should they get the ability to break up it's 10 minute usage, or have a short duration for 1/short rest instead.
-Nomad's Memory of One Thousand Steps, seems like it only works on attack rolls that hit the Nomad, from it's description I feel that it should trigger on any damaging effect such as a fireball.
-It's interesting they put the Wu Jen in the Mystic, as it was always a class that was sort of half-wizard/half-druid in many ways.
-Soulknives at level 14 are always going to use Phantom Knife and the bonus damage from Potent Psionics will be added, from what I read.
-From previous editions the orders are based on Ardent/Divine Mind, Telepath/Seer, Nomad, Battlemind/Psychic Warrior/Egotist, Soul Knife and Wu Jen.
-Mantle of Command, is quite a lot of what the Warlord did. I think it was designed just to piss off Warlord fans...

 

[castlewise]

There is a lot of good stuff in here. I really like the basic setup for psionics. I especially like the way disciplines come as packages of thematic abilities. (Although changing your focus as a bonus action seems abusable.) The class does seem to be all over the place thematically. I don't really know what the core concept of a mystic is other than "uses psionics". Its almost like the early 5e playtests where it seemed like everything would be a subclass of one of the core 4 classes. If psionics are going to be part of the general rules it might make sense to split things up.

 

[devincutler]

Am I reading the soul knife 6th level ability wrong, or does soul knife + bag of rats = infinite psi points?

 

[mellored]

I find the lack of Extra Attack for at least one of the combat-oriented orders (Soul Knife and Immortal...the latter being more just tankish than actual martial combatant) seems...off. Sure, if you pick the Celerity discipline, there you go....but making it a "discipline tax" feels off. Sure, other useful stuff attached to Celerity, but geez, even a valor Bard gets extra attack at 6th and they can be just as versatile with their spells.

All of them get +1d8/+2d8 damage to weapon attacks instead. Same as cleric.

So a level 14 soul knife will be doing 4d8+dex and hit on a 4, with the option of adding +4 damage and missing only on a 1.

 

[Raunalyn]

I'm really digging the Order of the Avatar! I love the Ardent feel to it, and their choices of Mantle abilities are interesting. Though, the Mantle of Command seems a bit OP to me...it specifically says "can use their reaction to make an attack action." I'll have to think about it...

 

[Krachek]

18 pages of spells and cantrips that are exclusive to the Mystic Class.
But nothing new, spells using a spell point system.
It will give the possibility to play a class totally different from others, but it will be harder to master.
and may give headaches to DM, who wont know by hart all discipline.
But it is also a waste a good ideas. Some of these discipline are interesting spell that could be useful to other classes. Why make them exclusive to the Mystic classes, just to say that they are psionic and not magic?

 

[cbwjm]

18 pages of spells and cantrips that are exclusive to the Mystic Class.
But nothing new, spells using a spell point system.
It will give the possibility to play a class totally different from others, but it will be harder to master.
and may give headaches to DM, who wont know by hart all discipline.
But it is also a waste a good ideas. Some of these discipline are interesting spell that could be useful to other classes. Why make them exclusive to the Mystic classes, just to say that they are psionic and not magic?

Unless the issue is playing in adventure league, just homebrew up the spell adaptations, shouldn't be too hard to work out the level. Also, I DM and hardly know all of the current spells by heart. Only a few iconic spells are really known. I have a relatively spell-lite group so run into plenty of spells I'm not prepared for.