Sunday, September 28, 2025

Draw Steel Class Deep Dive: The Talent

 We might be getting through our "spellcasters" (though these guys don't strictly cast spells) quickly given that we're following up the Elementalist. But I do think this is a notable class to look at because it's the only one that (at least until they publish the Psion, which appeared in playtesting a few months ago) doesn't really have a strict D&D analogue, at least in WotC-published content (MCDM actually published their own 5E Talent, so that's your clear analogue).

The Talent is Draw Steel's full psionic class. While the Null uses a lot of psionic abilities, arguably actually using psionics just as much as Talents, the Talent is the more traditional "I fight with mental powers" class, and is another flavor of primarily ranged "caster" to go along with the Elementalist (the Conduit being the other, which is your divine spellcsater).

I realize one thing I've neglected to point out in my deep-dives is things like your max Stamina and number of recoveries you get from your class. Talents are among the "squishier" classes, with lower max Stamina and fewer recoveries. Ideally you'll be fighting from afar to avoid your foes' assaults.

Talents' primary characteristics are Reason and Presence, which both automatically scale up as you go to new echelons of play.

Like Elementalists, there are a lot of psionic traditions that could theoretically form the basis for a subclass in future releases, but there are only three presented in the core rules (unlike Elementalists, though, we get a number of abilities that belong to the traditions that don't get subclasses here).

Heroic Resource: Clarity (and Strain)

Talents have a unique relationship with their heroic resource in the form of Strain, which we'll get to in a moment. Like everyone, when combat begins, you gain an amount of Clarity equal to your Victories. At the start of each of your turns, you gain 1d3 Clarity (which subtly places this on the "chaos" side of the classes - interesting given that the other psionic class, the Null, is an Order class).

The first time in each combat round that a creature is force-moved, you'll gain one additional Clarity.

The big thing, though, is that you can spend Clarity you don't yet have. You can essentially go into Clarity debt equal to 1+ your Reason score (so -3 at level 1 and eventually -6). While you're in debt this way, at the end of each of your turns, you take 1 damage for each negative point of clarity, being your psychic nosebleed from pushing yourself beyond your limits. This can allow you to, right at the start of a fight, use an ability that would usually take you a turn or two to build up to, but with the following consequence:

While below 0 Clarity, you are strained, which will alter some of your abilities - often these create negative side effects, but on some abilities, Strain can actually enhance them as well. Both Clarity and Strain reset to 0 outside of combat.

Subclasses:

While there are eight psionic traditions, only three are presented as subclasses in the core rules. These are:

Chronopathy: giving you the ability to see across and manipulate time.

Telekinesis: giving you the power to physically manipulate objects and creatures.

Telepathy: giving you the power to read, communicate with, and manipulate the minds of others.

Core Features:

Mind Spike is a special ranged free strike (not unlike the Elementalist's Hurl Element) that does psychic damage and uses your Reason rather than Might or Agility. It does extra damage when you're strained, but you also take that extra damage.

Psionic Augmentation, similar to the one the Null gets, gives you one of several bonuses that can be swapped as a respite activity. Battle Augmentation increases your Stamina, increases your damage with weapon abilities, and lets you wear light armor and wield light weapons, as long as you don't already have a kit. Density Augmentation increases your stamina and grants some stability. Distance augmentation increases the range on your ranged psionic abilities. Force augmentation increases rolled damage from your damage-dealing psionic abilities, and Speed Augmentation increases your speed and the distance you can shift when disengaging.

Talent Wards are protective bonuses you can choose from, and can swap as a respite activity.

Entropy Ward reduces the speed of creatures that attack you and prevents them from taking triggered actions. Repulsive Ward lets you use a free triggered action when an adjacent creature damages you to push them. Steel Ward gives you some damage immunity after you take damage until the end of your next turn. And Vanishing Ward lets you become invisible after you take damage until the end of your next turn.

Talents also get Telepathic Speech, giving the the Mindspeech language and also lets you communicate (two-way) with creatures in your Mind Spike range if you share a language.

At level 3, all Talents get Scan. Once on each of your turns, you can search for hidden creatures as a free maneuver, and also, once you establish line of effect to a creature within distance of your Mind Spike, you always have line of effect to them (meaning that they could duck behind cover and you'd still be able to target them).

At level 4, you get Mind Projection, which lets you project your mind outside your body as a maneuver. Your mind is treated as a separate entity that can move through solid objects and automatically has concealment. Your psionic abilities originate from your mind, and both body and mind can take damage, which is deducted from your stamina. If you take damage, your mind returns to your body and this effect ends, or you can end it as a free maneuver.

Also at 4, Mind Recovery lets you spend a recovery while strained to regain 3 Clarity instead of restoring stamina, and also increases the clarity you get from creatures being force-moved.

Additionally at 4, you get Suspensor Field, which allows you to fly. While flying, your stability is reduced to 0 (and can't be increased). If you could already fly, you get a +2 bonus to fly speed instead. And if you are flying while strained, if you are force-moved, the effect is increased by 2 squares.

At level 6, you get Psi Boost, allowing you to spend varying amounts of Clarity to enhance any ability with the psionic keyword. You can apply as many of these boosts to a single ability as you want, but never the same boost multiple time on the same use of an ability. These can do things like increase the forced movement of an ability, expand the area of area-effect abilities, grant extended range, increase rolled damage, increase potencies, hit additional targets, or give you an edge on the power roll.

At level 7, you get Ancestral Memory, which allow you to replace some of your skills at the end of a respite with different ones from the interpersonal and lore skill groups until the next respite.

Also at 7, you get Cascading Strain, which lets you cause an enemy to take the damage you get from being strained as well.

And you also gain more Clarity at the start of your turns.

At level 9, you get Fortress of Perfect Thought, which gives you several benefits: You can breathe even when there is no breathable air. You get psychic immunity 10. Creatures can't read your thoughts unless you allow them to. You get to treat your Reason and Intuition as 2 higher for the purpose of resisting potencies, and you can't be taunted or frightened.

Finally, at level 10, you get a few features to cap things off:

Omnisensory increases the distance of your ranged abilities by 10 (doubling most of them). You also don't need line of effect to a creature capable of thought that you had previously had line of effect to.

Psion increases the Clarity you gain at the start of each turn again, and you can also simply choose not to take damage from being Strained, and you can also choose to use the Strained effect on your abilities even if you're not strained.

Vision is your epic resource. You gain an equal amount of Vision whenever you gain XP, and you can spend it as if it were Clarity. You can also spend Vision to use an additional psionic ability per turn (I assume this means you can effectively get another main action, maneuver, etc.) as long as you pay its entire cost in Vision. Abilities that don't cost any Clarity require 1 Vision to use this way. Like other epic resources, you only lose Vision when you spend it.

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