Well, after what feels like a very recent revision of the UA Arcane subclasses, we're getting yet another UA today with a second pass on the Psion class.
If published, this would be only the second non-PHB class (published by WotC) to appear in all of 5E, and the first to be made with the 2024 revisions already locked in.
I've given the class a once-over, and while I haven't compared it directly to the previous Psion UA, overall the class appears to be fairly similar to that incarnation: it's a squishy spellcaster that incorporates some of the Psionic Energy Dice from the Soulknife and Psi Warrior subclasses as a base feature. You get to ignore verbal and most material components on spells, and the spell kit is largely built around spells that are less traditional elemental effects and more blasting with force, psychic, and a little bit of necrotic damage and affecting the minds of foes.
This UA comes with three subclasses (down from the four in the previous one) and several spells, which are either revisions of spells found in Xanathar's and Tasha's or brand-new ones.
In this post, I'm going to look at the base class. I think we're going to just take this on its own terms rather than comparing it with the previous version. I'll cover the three subclasses (Metamorph, Psykinetic, and Telepath) as their own posts, and then do a separate post for the spells.
Psions will naturally draw comparisons with Sorcerers and Wizards, as they are unarmored d6 classes. Like Wizards, Psions use Intelligence as their spellcasting ability, and get Intelligence and Wisdom saving throw proficiencies if they're your level 1 class.
Level 1:
Psionic Power:
This feature gives you a number of psionic energy dice that scale up in both number and value as you level up. To start with, you have 4d6. At level 5, they become 6d8. At level 9, they're now 8d8. At level 11, they're 8d10, at level 13 they become 10d10, and finally at level 17 onward you have 12d12.
You can use these dice to fuel various class features. At baseline, you have two: Telekinetic Propel and Telepathic Connection. Some require you to expend dice. You regain one expended PED (Psionic Energy Die - not going to be typing that out over and over) on a short rest, and all of them on a long rest.
PED features that have a DC use your spell save DC.
Telekinetic Propel: As a bonus action, you can choose a large or smaller creature you can see within 30 feet. They make a Strength save and move 5 feet straight toward or away from you on a failure. Alternatively, you can roll a PED and the distance becomes 5 times the number rolled on the die. The die is only expended if they fail the save.
Telepathic Connection: You have telepathy out to a range of 30 feet. As a bonus action, you can roll a PED and increase the range of your telepathy by 10 feet times the number rolled. You can do this once for free per long rest, and then expend the die for any subsequent uses.
I like the fact that there are free versions of each of these.
Spellcasting:
You have the Spellcasting feature, learning two Psion cantrips, and gaining another at levels 4 and 10. Psions are a "learned spells" caster, so you can only swap out a single prepared spell when you level up (or if your DM allows, of course).
Intelligence is your spellcasting ability.
Special for Psions, you have Psionic Spellcasting, which allows you to ignore the verbal and material components for your psion spells, except when the material component is either consumed or has a cost associated with it.
In other words, no need for a spell focus. I will say that I wish you could also ignore somatic components, as I feel that's the usual benefit of psionics - that people have no way of knowing you're the one casting the spell unless there's some other obvious thing going on.
The spell list is too extensive to list here - Psions are full casters, with up to 9th level spells. You aren't going to get a lot of the classic elemental damage spells like Fireball or Cone of Cold, so I feel like I really need to see these in action to get a sense of how their own spells compare.
Subtle Telekinesis:
You know the Mage Hand cantrip and can cast it without somatic components. You can also make the hand invisible.
So, not very exciting if you wanted to play a Githyanki or Githzerai, but certainly a shenanigans-enabler.
Level 2:
Psionic Discipline:
Psions have a list of Psionic Disciplines that are fueled by your PEDs (yes, I realize that the plural acronym would also just be PED, shush). You learn two of your choice, and can replace one on level up. You also get new disciplines at levels 5, 10, 13, and 17.
You can only apply one discipline per turn unless otherwise noted. There are 11 total.
These are, I think, fairly core to the class, so I'll list all 11 here.
Biofeedback lets you expend PEDs up to your Int mod when you cast a Necromancy or Transmutation spell, and gain Temp HP equal to the total rolled plus your Int mod.
Temp HP can be nice if you're getting attacked a lot, though in general, you'll want to stay out of the way.
Bolstering Precognition lets you expend a PED when you cast an Abjuration or Divination spell and choose a creature you can see within 60 feet and give them a bonus to their next d20 test equal to the amount rolled.
This could potentially be a nice little support boost, but not terribly flashy.
Destructive Thoughts lets you expend up to your Int Mod of PEDs when you cast a Conjuration or Evocation spell that forces a creature to make a saving throw. The creature takes Psychic damage equal to the amount rolled plus your Int Mod, regardless of whether they make the save or not.
I like this, getting some guaranteed damage, though as a note, there are limited options for low-level Conjuration and Evocation spells that call for saves.
Devilish Tongue lets you add your PED to the roll for an Influence action, and you expend the die only if you succeed.
Eh, this feels kind of throwaway unless you're in a campaign where everyone's going to have to be able to talk their way through high-stakes situations.
Expanded Awareness lets you add your PED to the roll for a Search action, and you expend the die only if you succeed.
Search is probably the most common ability check action, but I'm not really excited by this.
In Insinuation lets you expend a PED when you cast an Enchantment or Illusion spell that forces a creature to make a saving throw, subtracting half the number rolled (rounded up) from the creature's save.
There's a lot of Enchantment and Illusion magic on the Psion list, and given that these are often "save for none" kind of effects, giving you a way to make it more likely that they fail their save is pretty attractive.
Inerrant Aim lets you expend a PED when you miss with an attack roll, adding the amount to the attack and only expending the die if you miss.
If you're an attack-focused character (the Metamorph is kind of built for this) this could be really great - a 9th level Soulknife feature gained at level 2 and more flexible.
Observant Mind lets you add your PED to the roll for a Study action, and you expend the die only if you succeed.
Like the other similar ones, this is pretty situational. As Study typically uses Intelligence skills, you'll often be better at these checks, but also, your party might rely on you to succeed on those checks more often.
Psionic Backlash lets you use a reaction when you're hit with an attack to roll a PED and reduce the damage you take by twice the rolled number plus twice your Intelligence modifier, and the attacker makes a Wis save, taking the amount the damage is reduced as Psychic damage on a failure.
I like this: it's going to be pretty universally useful, even if we're going to try to avoid getting hit as much as we can. It's also a pretty beefy damage reduction.
Psionic Guards lets you expend a PED at the start of your turn. Until the end of your next turn, you have immunity to the Charmed and Frightened conditions, and advantage on Intelligence saving throws. This will end those conditions on you if you're already affected. You can also use this with another Discipline on the same turn.
This will be absolutely clutch when you need it, but it's definitely situational.
Sharpened Mind lets you expend a PED at the start of your turn, and gain the following benefits for 1 minute or until you're incapacitated: Damage from your weapons, psion spells, and psion features ignore resistance to Psychic damage. Once per turn, if you deal psychic damage to one or more creatures, you can replace the number rolled on one of the damage dice with the number recorded when you rolled for this discipline. You can also use this with another Discipline on the same turn.
This one is interesting: I don't think there's much in the way of psychic-resistant monsters (it's one of those damage types that I think immunity is more common for). Also, if you use this and roll like crap on your die, the secondary part might not be great. That said, if you roll well, it's potentially some nice damage every turn. I think it's maybe weird enough to make it a cool choice.
Level 3:
Here, you just choose your subclass and get 2nd level spells.
Level 4:
As with most classes, you get your first General feat, and get more at levels 8, 12, and 16 (with 19 giving you an Epic Boon).
Level 5:
Psionic Restoration:
You can meditate for 1 minute to regain all your expended PEDs. You can do this once per long rest.
So, effectively, you can say that you've got twice as many PEDs per day, as 1 minute is a pretty reasonable time to gather them up. I really think the intent here is that you should be quite liberal with PEDs, which is good, because classes should feel comfortable expending their resources.
Level 7:
Psionic Surge:
After you roll one or more PEDs, you can expend a Hit Point Die and treat any roll on the PED of 1, 2, or 3 as a 4.
So, this is interesting. Using your own hit dice is a way to spend your own vitality without directly taking damage or otherwise losing life. Now, how does this change your average roll? At this level, your PEDs are d8s. Now, on average that's a 4.5. The thing is, because we choose to use this after we roll, we're only improving the roll of one of these dice, so "averages" aren't really the right way of looking at this feature. What it means is that, for a cost, you have a floor of 4 for any of these rolls. Considering a feature like Id Insinuation, this could be a pretty big deal - minus 4 to a save is the best you can get out of a spell like Bane. Given how opt-in this is, I think it's probably better than a lot of those "if you roll low, upgrade the result" features.
Level 18:
Yes, no unique core features from level 8 to 17, but remember that we're also going to be getting higher level spells and more Disicplines, along with subclass features.
Psionic Reserves:
When you roll initiative, you regain PEDs until you have 4 if you started with fewer.
This is the best format for this kind of thing: no need to spend every last PED to get the benefit from this, but it means you'll have your core class thing in every fight (and honestly, with 4, there's a good chance you'll never really run out of these in combat).
Level 20:
Enkindled Life Force:
Once per turn, when you roll one or more PED for a psion feature, you can expend one or two of your Hit Point Dice. For each HPD expended, you can roll an additional PED without expending it and add those numbers rolled to the total.
So, at this level, your PEDs are d12s, meaning that for the cost of a bit of short rest healing, you can add an average of 13 to any of these PED rolls (on top of the 6.5 on average you're getting anyway). Truly, I think this can make a massive impact - say you were attacking the Tarrasque with some Metamorph flesh weapon and use Inerrant Aim. If you rolled a natural 2, perhaps at this level you have a +11 to hit, so you're only at 13 for your attack roll, which is just over half of the thing's AC. You add your single d12, which would only turn that into a hit if you maxed out the roll. But with 3d12 now, that's adding an average of 19.5, meaning that there's honestly a very good chance you can hit the highest (base) AC monster in the game. (Hell, you'd also be likely to hit Sul Khatesh even if she uses the Shield spell, and she's notably not immune to psychic damage). Use this with Psionic Backlash, and you're talking about probably reducing an incoming attack's damage by 49.
Overall Thoughts:
I think there are some cool ideas here. In terms of power, I don't know that it's going to necessarily live up to the Wizard and Sorcerer. The class will live or die based on its spell list, and I don't feel very good at evaluating the list we have. But I think that even if it is behind those two (and I could be wrong about that,) there's a lot of cool and thematic stuff here that could make the class a lot of fun to play.
I'd love for there to be some option - maybe a Psionic Discipline - that allows you to skip the Somatic components of spells. I'd highly recommend considering Silence, which is a Psion spell, as you can use it asymmetrically against enemy spellcasters.
I'll try to go over each of the subclasses in their own posts.
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