Grrrrr.... Maybe I Might Try Nightreign (I Haven't Yet)

 The games industry has had it in for single-player games for a while now. If you'll permit this nearly-40-year-old (one year and one week, baby!) to talk about "back in my day" for a second, the very notion of having a video game console connected to the internet was something that only came about in the third generation of consoles that I actually played (which I think is typically called the fifth generation? I'm talking about the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube era). The video games that I cut my teeth on, like Super Mario World, Ocarina of Time, and even games famed for their multiplayer like GoldenEye and Super Smash Bros, were built assuming no connection to that grand network of information that sits at the center of modern society.

Gamers did have "LAN Parties," where they'd connect computers to what I think stood for Local Area Network, and could play things like Quake together. But I didn't really do that much, and so for me, a multiplayer game was one that I typically played on a split-screen. Yes, those old boxy CRT TVs where what would now be considered a rather standard-sized TV would be considered an enormous big-screen, would be divided into two or even four segments for different players to occupy.

The thing is, in this era, you knew the people you were playing with. Oh, sure, you could go to a friend's house and meet someone new, obviously, but it wasn't the kind of purely random people that you get on the internet.

There is a tension in multiplayer: if you want to play with friends, you need to schedule and coordinate. You also need to calibrate varying levels of enthusiasm. You might want to play for four hours, but your friend might find their enthusiasm flagging after one. Or vice versa, you have to feel bad that you're bringing the fun to an end when you're not really feeling it anymore.

The solution of online matchmaking, then, allows for you to play when you feel like it - if you drop out, the people you were playing with can just find someone else. Or, if the people you're playing with drop out, you can find someone else.

But it's not going to be as fun as playing with people you know.

This blog started as an exclusively World of Warcraft-focused one. I had been playing WoW for a couple years before, during Wrath of the Lich King, I had a really good dungeon group and the party leader invited me to their guild. During Wrath, for the first time (having started in late Vanilla, but late enough that I didn't hit the level cap until Burning Crusade, so I wouldn't have had the chance to do any raiding in vanilla anyway) I had a guild that did weekly raid nights (actually, I think for a time we'd do two nights a week). It was great, and I gradually became one of the raid leaders (my main being a tank helped push me into a leadership role). It was great, though when Cataclysm came out and the difficulty of raiding went up quite precipitously, our momentum stalled out. Off and on, we'd have periods where we got back together to run raids, even downing the first boss of Antorus during Legion in the first week (a big accomplishment for our very casual guild). But as younger players in the guild went off to join more progression-minded raiding guilds and players sort of drifted away, the guild is a shell of its former self, rarely having more than two or three members on at a time.

Today, I still play WoW, but as the game has developed more solo-content, I've found myself focused more and more on that. Honestly, I don't really do much raiding even in LFR (the match-made lowest raiding difficulty) and primarily do Delves, a new feature that is like a dungeon that can be for 1-5 players. I could probably play WoW offline if that were an option and not change much about my playstyle.

And that's fine in some ways: as I discovered D&D, my weekly "get together with people for some fantasy game stuff" became that instead of raiding, and I find it more exciting because of how much creativity is involved.

But it comes back to the weird thing: In a lot of ways, the online nature of WoW can often be the worst part of it. It isn't always - sometimes it's really exciting to be there with other players working toward some shared goal.

So, what about Nightreign?

Well, I adore Elden Ring. It and Bloodborne both are probably in my top 10 favorite video games (I haven't made a list or anything, but that feels right). And, having thought Shadow of the Erdtree might be the last we ever see of that universe (given its success, I could imagine a direct sequel, but I also suspect that they might choose instead to develop a new IP for their next spiritual sequel to Demon's Souls - I read Dark Souls III as being a cautionary tale about the very notion of prolonging a story past its natural ending). But I can't deny the allure of discovering new things about the world of Elden Ring, even if there's a general consensus that this game is extra-canonical, in a separate timeline or something.

Like how many fans have rejected much of Dark Souls II because it wasn't directed by series creator/auteur Hidetaka Miyazaki (it's insane to me that they released DSII, Bloodborne, and DSIII as annual releases back to back,) I wonder if people will find that the ideas and lore of Nightreign doesn't truly sit as a piece with the broader ideas of Elden Ring.

But is that such a crime? After all, the auteur theory is kind of bullshit (another game I adore, Alan Wake II, is all about rejecting the idea of the auteur theory, and the man who is often treated as the auteur of Remedy Studios, Sam Lake, has emphasized how important collaboration is).

Visually, the game looks stunning, and I'm very curious about the stories it wishes to tell.

The question, though, is how effectively a game can tell a story when it is built around the short-term gameplay loop of a co-op and somewhat roguelike system.

I'm on the fence, but this is arguably movement toward Nightreign, as I had been largely convinced I was staying away from it.

UA Psion: Updated Spells

 For our last post on the Psion Unearthed Arcana, we'll be looking not at the brand-new spells (which I covered in the first post) but rather all the spells that are getting potential revisions. These spells come from either Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything or Fizban's Treasury of Dragons (the latter of which has the Gem dragons, who all have psionic powers).

Heads up, this could be very short, depending on how much these spells change.

Intellect Fortress:

This spell appears unchanged except adding Psions to the classes that can pick it up.

Psychic Scream:

The only subtle difference here is that it no longer requires a creature to be killed by the damage, only to reduce their HP to 0 to cause their head to explode. This is actually functionally important, as this spell can instantly kill a player character who would otherwise simply go unconscious. (Most DMs have monsters die once reduced to 0 HP, so it shouldn't change things when a PC uses it against monsters/NPCs.)

Raulothim's Psychic Lance:

Again, one subtle distinction: if you can't see the target and use their name to target them instead, you must use their actual name, not a nickname, alias, or pseudonym. Interestingly, this actually makes the importance of "true names" kind of a big deal - it could be a cool lore reveal in the middle of combat, as frustrating as it might be for the player casting this.

Tasha's Mind Whip:

This spell has actually gotten a pair of nerfs. The old version calls for an Intelligence saving throw and deals 3d6 psychic damage on a failed save or half as much on a success, with a failed save also preventing reactions until the end of their next turn and forcing the target to choose between an action, bonus action, or movement on their next turn. The UA version changes this from reactions to just opportunity attacks, and also makes the target choose between an action or bonus action, but they can still use their movement regardless.

    The change to opportunity attacks is likely to prevent this from shutting down a creature with "legendary reactions," such as the stat block for Vecna, which is funny, because the 2025 Monster Manual went back to more traditional legendary actions. Clearly a nerf no matter which way you slice it.

And that's actually it - the other spells, Summon Astral Entity, Telekinetic Crush and Telekinetic Fling are all brand new.

So, given how short this post is:

I think it's an interesting choice to make the Psion use Spellcasting. It's one of those ideas that in theory I find a little safe and boring, but I also understand how this system is tried-and-true, and especially as someone who remembers the craziness that was the Mystic, this is a much more workable solution. It also lets the class dovetail better in multiclassing situations.

I do think it's a bit funny, though, that the Psion's spellcasting is arguably inferior to the Aberrant Sorcerer's Psionic Spellcasting feature, which allows ignoring all spell components. I think there probably needs to be something extra to really make Psions feel like a different kind of spellcaster.

I also worry that their Psionic Energy Die progression simply matching that of the Soulknife and Psi Warrior might wind up feeling insufficient - those subclasses have the rest of their base class to rely on.

Another thing that is just a little peeve of mine is that treating PEDs as both a resource and a die that you can roll leads to some odd moments: you can expend a PED and wind up rolling more than one of them, or even sometimes expending multiple PEDs but only rolling one of them.

I think it would probably work better if they were "Psi Points."

That said, I also think you run into some weird overlap here - many have noticed some similarities to the Sorcerer, and I am left wondering a bit what an Aberrant Sorcerer is if the "Stephen King character with mental powers" archetype is now its own separate class.

These aren't dealbreakers, but given that this would be a brand-new, fully-fledged class, I'd hope we see future iterations of the Psion in future UAs before it gets published (and given that this doesn't match the theme of any announced book coming this year, I suspect we might).

UA Psion: Feats

 Naturally, the giant headliner of the most recent Unearthed Arcana post by WotC was the introduction of a full new class, which, if it sees publication, would be the only the second full-fledged class to be added to the game outside of the PHB for all of 5th Edition, joining the Artificer.

There are some new spells, which I detailed in the initial Psion post (though I didn't go over reprinted/revised spells to see how they might have changed). However, what we're going to touch on here are the Wild Talent feats.

My understanding is that in earlier editions, playing in setting with Psionics like Dark Sun, you'd roll at character creation to see if you got Psionic abilities as a separate thing from your class, representing the in-born ability to use such powers.

Here, Wild Talents are effectively new Origin Feats, but with a rule that you can only take one (normally I'd avoid spending an ASI on getting a second Origin Feat, but if you're, say, a Human who gets two anyway, that might be relevant). These feats will be connected with new, as-yet-unpublished Backgrounds, but for now are considered alternative options to the Sage and Noble.

Let's go through them and see what I think!

Atomkinesis:

You gain the following benefits:

Lightning Jolt: once per turn when you cast a spell or hit with an attack roll and deal bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, or psychic damage, you can change the damage type to Lightning.

    Given how resistance to normal weapon damage has become far, far rarer (and I don't think anything's immune to all three) the value of this is somewhat questionable, though clutch in the right circumstance, but probably useless most of the time.

Psionic Talent: You know the Shocking Grasp cantrip. You also have Fog Cloud prepared and can cast it once per long rest for free, or use spell slots you have for it. These spells require no Verbal or Material components, and you can choose Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma as your spellcasting ability for them. When you hit level 3, you get Gust of Wind, which you can cast in a similar way.

    Well, as someone whose longest-running character is a Triton, this is all quite familiar, and thus this feat would be useless to him (other than, I guess, getting Shocking Grasp. Or I guess a second free cast of those two spells). (Actually, my other current character is an Air Genasi, who gets Shocking Grasp and never has a reason to use it).

    Much as I like Lightning damage as an elemental theme, I don't know that this is all that good.

Biokinesis:

You gain the following benefits:

Bend Life Energy: When you cast a spell that restores HP to a creature, you can roll 1d4 and add the number rolled to the total HP restored. You can use this benefit a number of times equal to your PB per long rest.

    Ok, it's not huge, but for an Origin Feat, that's a decent amount of extra healing. Notably, a Battle Smith Artificer's Steel Defender is technically a creature, so you could theoretically use this when casting Mending on it (though it's still limited in uses per day).

Psionic Talent: You know Spare the Dying, and you always have Healing Word prepared, which you can cast once for free per long rest and also spend spell slots on, and you ignore verbal and material components, and choose Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma as your spellcasting ability for the spell.

At level 3, you also get Arcane Vigor in a similar way.

    Ok, this is actually really good. Healing Word, especially buffed as it is in 2024, is a very good spell, and being able to take this on any spellcaster is awesome. Genuinely a really good feat.

Clairsentience:

You gain the following benefits:

Minor Foreknowledge: When you take the Search action (as in, any Wisdom skill other than Animal Handling) you can give yourself advantage as part of the action a number of times equal to your PB per long rest.

    With Perception and Insight checks often being really important ones, this is a nice benefit.

Psionic Talent: You know Guidance, and, as in the previous examples, you get Detect Evil and Good, and then at level 3, See Invisibility.

    Yeah, I think these are both good spells to have when you need them. Thumbs up on the feat as a whole.

Cryokinesis:

You gain the following benefits:

Ice Manipulation: this is like Atomkinesis' Lightning Jolt but for Cold damage.

    Again, I don't know that this will be all that good, and arguably not as good as Atomkinesis as more monsters have Cold resistance or immunity.

Psionic Talent: You get Ray of Frost, and then Armor of Agathys and Ice Knife both from the get-go, the latter of two can be cast each once for free per long rest.

    So, Armor of Agathys is very good if you can upcast it (and especially if you can replenish temp HP frequently, as it can now be "recharged" in this way). Ice Knife is decent, though always remember it's a save-for-none spell. And Ray of Frost is a fine ranged cantrip option. So, I think the latter half of this is probably better than Atomkinesis.

Empath:

You gain the following benefits:

Emotional Sense: when you take the Influence Action (which is most Charisma skills as well as Animal Handling) you can give yourself advantage PB times per long rest.

    Ok, sure. Good for a party "face."

Psionic Talent: You get Charm Person, and at level 3, get Calm Emotions, working like other Psionic Talent features.

    Interestingly you don't get a cantrip with this one - I'd think Friends was a pretty obvious choice. Again, both spells can be quite useful, so it's a reasonable feat option.

Flesh Morpher:

You gain the following:

Flexible Flesh: When you make a Dexterity (Acrobatics or Sleight of Hand) check, you can gain a bonus equal to your Intelligence modifier PB times per long rest.

    Interesting that it's those two but not Stealth, which I guess makes sense thematically. Acrobatics comes up less often than you'd think it would, but this could be good for lockpicking. It can make your Intelligence-based character decent at these checks, which is nice (especially if you also have a decent Dex modifier).

Psionic Talent: You get Longstrider and at level 3, Alter Self

    Again, no cantrip. Alter Self is arguably not as good as you'd want it to be, though I think it can be very useful if you have to fight underwater. Overall I think this feat's a bit more niche than some of the others.

Mind Whisperer:

You gain:

Limited Telepathy: As a Magic action, you can choose a creatuer you can see within 120 feet of yourself, gaining a telepathic connection with them for 1 hour, where you can communicate if you're still within 120 feet. You have to share a language. You can use this once per short or long rest.

    Naturally, we're going to need to compare this with the Telepathic feat, which is a General Feat, which gives half the range, but unlimited use of Telepathy and no action required. But, you know, a General Feat.

Psionic Talent: You get Mind Sliver and Dissonant Whispers, as with other Psionic Talent features.

    Both strong spells. The Limited Telepathy is going to be good to keep communication with a party member while scouting, though not terribly far. Yeah, I'm going to say this is a decent feat, though we don't get a 2nd level spell at level 3.

Psi Trickster:

You gain:

Cunning Mind: When you make a Charisma (Deception or Persuasion) check, you can gain a bonus to your check equal to your Intelligence modifier PB times per long rest.

    Again, helps your Intelligence-based character go outside their wheelhouse a bit. These checks can be pretty important ones, depending on the campaign.

Psionic Talent: You get Minor Illusion and Disguise Self.

    Actually this all comes together pretty well thematically, and both of these are popular spells, which might make up for the lack of a 2nd level spell there. Decent feat if you really need to be the one to talk your way into places for the group.

Psykineticist:

You gain:

Psi Boost: When you take the Dash action, you can increase your speed by 10 feet until the start of your next turn (so probably Dash before using regular movement) PB times per long rest.

    Naturally will be better on a class that can Dash as a bonus action, or a Sorcerer with Quickened Spell.

Psionic Talent: You get Telekinetic Fling (as seen in my initial Psion post) and Thunderwave.

    Telekinetic Fling is interesting, though it's a cantrip you'll need to keep buying ammo for (though ammo is also pretty cheap). Thunderwave is decent as a low-level AoE, though of course it doesn't scale amazingly. I'm not sold on this feat.

Pyrokinesis:

You gain:

Firestarter (was just going to make a reference to that Stephen King book, but they beat me to it): Like Atomkinesis and Cryokinesis, this lets you change a spell or attack that deals Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing, or Psychic damage to Fire. (Punctuation here is a little unclear, but I assume the damage types refer just to the attack, but it might also mean that the spell has to deal that kind of damage).

    Now, while Fire is among the most resisted damage types in the game, it's also a damage type that you see vulnerability to, and also sometimes affects creatures in specific ways, like shutting down a Troll's regeneration or activating a Flesh Golem's aversion to fire. So this is actually probably useful, especially because you can choose when to use it.

Psionic Talent: You gain Produce Flame, Burning Hands, and at level 3, Scorching Ray

    Obviously Fire Bolt is a better cantrip in most cases, but these are some decent and rather straightforward options. Yeah, I mean, this feat overall might not be amazing, but it sure lets you thematically work with one of the true classic Psionic archetypes.

And there we have it!

That's all the feats in the Psion UA. While somewhat limited in power, one must remember that these are replacements for Origin Feats, not General Feats, and thus need to be judged accordingly. In a lot of ways, they act similarly to the Magic Initiate feat, but balance the lack of choice for which spells you learn by giving you some additional features along with the psionic spellcasting part of it, where you only need to provide somatic components.

Essentially, I think these are pretty good overall.

Hopefully Getting a Chance to Try Out Daggerheart

 My best friend works at an afterschool program that runs D&D games for kids. As such, as a professional expense, he was able to pick up the recently-released Daggerheart Core Set. I also just watched the first episode of Age of Umbra, Critical Role's first major showcase of the final game.

I haven't actually gotten a chance to read through the rulebook (I don't think my friend has yet either, as he got it yesterday) but I am certainly curious to see.

The game is built around dualities, and one element of that is that apparently every class has two Domains, and each shares a domain with another class. The domains give certain abilities and features (again, I've got just the basic gist here - I'm reading the SRD to make sure). What this does seem to imply, though, is that it'll be very hard to add classes to the game, unless they're ok with certain domains getting more representation. That said, if they treat classes as broad archetypes like 5E does, this might not be a problem, at least in these early days.

The central dice roll is 2d12 (so if you're a 5E player and never get a chance to roll those, this will be nice), but also, you make note of which die is which, because a roll can succeed or fail based on the total rolled, but also gives Hope or Fear depending on which of your dice rolled higher. Hope is a resource your character gets to use on certain abilities, while Fear goes to the GM to use against you.

It reminds me of systems like Edge of Empire, the Star Wars TTRPG, which I believe had a similar idea of a kind of "secondary result" for die rolls.

Daggerheart does seem to be intended to tell stories like you'd tell in D&D, being generally built for heroic fantasy.

The combat system seems quite different: while you do have an Evasion value that is functionally similar to your AC, the damage you take is not the same as losing hit points - instead, depending on how hardy you are, you have certain damage thresholds - if it's below your Major threshold, you just take 1 damage, if it's equal to or higher than the Major threshold, but below your severe threshold, you take 2, and if it's equal to higher to your severe threshold, you take 3.

Functionally, this means that I think characters will have far fewer hit points than in 5E, but the real equivalent measure of having a lot of HP would be having higher thresholds. I don't yet know if you get more HP as you level up, or if it's just that your thresholds go higher (I also don't know if there's a way for a creature to inflict more than 3 HP loss at a go).

Armor, then, appears to be a way to reduce damage from one level to a lower one, but is an expended resource and must be repaired to replenish it.

This does address one of the oddities of D&D's AC, which is that there's functionally no difference between an agile monk dodging out of the way of incoming attacks and a heavily-armored fighter absorbing strikes with their shield. Given how damage is effectively simplified here, though, I wonder if that takes care of some of the crunchiness that would result in giving D&D an Evasion vs Armor system.

Anyway, I'm only scratching the surface of these rules, figuring out what kind of characters you can build and stories you can tell. But I hope I'll be able to try the game out at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Kinda Sounds Like I'm Not Going to Get Nightreign

 The announcement of something new Elden Ring-related a few months ago shocked me, coming so soon after the release of the staggeringly massive Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, which could have passed for a sequel if the base game hadn't been even bigger.

Of course, the discovery that Nightreign was a fast-paced multiplayer-focused game built less on the gradual discovery of a massive world but instead on repeatable gameplay loops for teams of three players, I got a little skeptical.

I'm pretty much the only one I know who actually likes these games, and while I'm very happy to write my blog posts and watch hours upon hours of lore analysis videos on YouTube, I've never been someone who loves playing with people I've met online (the exception being the World of Warcraft guild I'm still technically in, but doesn't have enough active players to do any real organized content anymore).

I'm also not even sure to what degree I need to care about the lore of Nightreign, as it appears to be kind of extra-canonical, or rather, has a separate lore canon from the base Elden Ring game. Which means that its label as an Elden Ring game appears to be a mix of branding and an opportunity to re-use assets (which From already did in Elden Ring, re-using plenty of Dark Souls stuff).

Anyway, I don't mean to be the grumpy old man on a porch, and perhaps some people are really enjoying the game (though critics seem to be quite mixed - I've seen 9/10s and 7/10s and maybe even a 6/10). But it does mean that I've got to just sit down and pass on this one while I wait to see what comes out of FromSoft next.

I'd be excited for The Duskbloods, but this appears to also be a multiplayer game. (And I assume not in the way that technically all the Souls-likes have been.)

Oh well.

Medical Metaphor and Plot Versus Meaning

 I've been watching the videos of "Charred Thermos," a YouTube channel that focuses on lore from Bloodborne, and focuses on a particular argument: that Bloodborne is an extensive metaphor for the development of medical science in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The videos are interesting, and make a very thorough and careful argument (if I have a critique, it's that they recap their previous arguments perhaps too often, though in today's attention-lacking culture, perhaps this is a feature rather than a bug).

It's actually quite fascinating, as the author connects Yharnam with the history of medical research in Edinburgh, Scotland, and explores the way in which the elements of the story and its world each connect to various aspects of medical research, with Hunters acting as doctors, beasts representing patients and cadavers, and rituals being cadaver dissection.

While not every argument the channel makes fully convinces me, there's quite a decent amount of evidence to suggest that this metaphor was, indeed, at the center of the inspiration for the game.

Indeed, I might elaborate on some of his metaphorical observations with my own: that the game's metaphorical horror is largely how medical science, for all its benefits to humanity, also requires a kind of dehumanization of the human body, so that a doctor may engage with the visceral in a manner that we are instinctively disinclined to do.

And, indeed, the malpractices and crimes of the medical field tend to come about when doctors (and health insurers, though I don't think they're part of the game's metaphorical structure) dehumanize their patients, thinking them "naught but beasts."

Still, it does raise an interesting question:

The games of FromSoft are famously vague - giving you very little explicit explanation for what is going on or what motivates people, but with a deep and rich hidden story that is revealed (though never fully settled) when you dig into the subtle details.

But I do find myself wondering: to what extent should we interpret this as a story in its own right, or purely as a metaphor?

I remember watching a lengthy (I want to say like six or eight hours) video analyzing Twin Peaks, and making the argument that the entire show was a metaphor for the state of television, breaking down nearly every element of the show as part of that metaphor.

Frankly, the video kind of pissed me off, in part because the video's author, who appeared as a talking head in much of it (for some reason I tend to prefer a faceless voiceover, but this isn't a hard and fast rule) seemed so smug about it, but also because it reduced the human story of the show to something purely in service of the metaphor.

Ironic, especially, because I think a large part of the motivation behind Twin Peaks was humanizing its central murder victim, Laura Palmer - and that I think David Lynch was deeply humanist in his worldview, even if his works were so dreamlike.

Still, though, if the works of Hidetaka Miyazaki and David Lynch both share a refusal to explain themselves explicitly, I'd say that the thing that the former lacks, or perhaps to be less judgmental, simply chooses not to focus on, it's that FromSoft games tend not to get you terribly invested in them on a human level.

Perhaps that's unfair: after all, Solaire from Dark Souls, Warrior Jar Alexander from Elden Ring, and others have become beloved by the games' fandom. But I'd argue that each of these games encourages an almost Brechtian detachment in its audience/players.

Consider this: in the weeks since finishing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I've found myself kind of agonizing over which of the endings I chose, with the larger part of the internet fanbase seeming to agree that I chose the "bad" ending. COE33 is very much about connecting with the characters on an emotional level - indeed, the reveals and secrets of the game make the entire conceit something quite deeply personal to some of its characters. And so, I'm left really questioning my choice, even if I felt that there was a sound moral and ethical argument in its favor.

With FromSoft games, while there's similarly some ambiguity over which of, say, Elden Ring's endings is the "good" one (though I feel like the one we can probably rule out is the Lord of Frenzied Flame one - that's got to be bad, right?) I think it feels much more like a philosophical and cerebral question than an emotional one.

Perhaps that's in part due to the fact that our player character is something of a blank slate for us (I haven't played Sekiro, the only one of their games with a set protagonist).

Charred Thermos suggests, for example, that the Great Ones we discover in Bloodborne are not eldritch gods, but are actually representations of organs within the body, for example Ebrietas being the lungs and larynx, and the Brain of Mensis obviously being the Brain, and while he doesn't make this argument, most likely Oedon being the blood (formless because it's a liquid).

So, what I find myself wondering is: should we even engage with the surface-level narrative at all, then? Are we meant to ignore it and only pursue the grand metaphor?

I think there's a certain fun to finding out the hidden truths behind a story, and certainly literary analysis (of which this kind of video game analysis is a closely-related cousin) focuses a lot on this exploration of the deeper hidden meaning and themes.

But I also think that there's a danger in pursuing this kind of analytical understanding of art. A work of art that exists purely to convey some kind of lesson can become propagandistic.

I studied screenwriting in college, intending to go out to Hollywood and write movies. While I'm still sort of hoping to make a living writing fiction, I remember in the earlier days attending a screenwriting seminar here in LA, where we'd read and comment on each others' screenplays. I remember one in which a person had a scene from their screenplay or teleplay that had two characters sitting on a bench, and the way it read was essentially that one had perfect wisdom that they were just conveying to the other.

No real dramatic stakes - it was really just a scene to convey what I presumed to be the writer's worldview spoken through the voice of an authoritative character.

Now, there is a philosophical tradition dating back to Ancient Greece, where a Socratic Dialogue is essentially a philosophical essay written not as the author speaking directly to the reader, but as two characters who are discussing a topic, as if it's a little stage play.

But I think that it would be an error to mistake one of these dialogues for a play, even if the line between the two media is blurry. (After all, you can have a compelling story that is just people arguing. Consider 12 Angry Men.)

Anyway, FromSoft's works are naturally works of art - even if the story were pure metaphor and we were meant to see past the surface-level narratives, the video game medium still has artistry in its gameplay and mechanics (if Editing is the unique aspect of film as a medium, gameplay is the unique aspect of video games).

I don't mean to accuse Charred Thermos or any authors who look into the symbolic meanings of these games (another favorite being Tarnished Archaeologist) of reducing the games purely to metaphor. The metaphor is the underlying bedrock of these stories.

But I do think it's interesting that, given how obscure FromSoft's storytelling style is, that these underlying metaphors take perhaps an outsized place within our understanding of their stories.

UA Psion Subclasses: Telepath

 In this last of the Psion subclasses, we'll be looking at the subclass that focuses most on the interaction of mind to mind. Telepathy and Telekinesis are kind of the two most "standard" elements of the psionic fantasy, so let's see what this subclass does with the former.

Telepath Spells:

1st level: Bane, Command

2nd level: Detect Thoughts, Mind Spike

3rd level: Counterspell, Speak with Plants

4th level: Compulsion, Confusion

5th level: Awaken, Modify Memory

    Command is really good, but I'm not sure that we're looking at a profoundly powerful group of spells - instead leaning much more on utility.

Level 3:

Mind Infiltrator lets you expend two PEDs (Psionic Energy Dice) when you cast Detect Thoughts to remove its spell components and no longer require concentration, and also doesn't alert a target that you're probing their mind when they fail the Wisdom saving throw.

    While expensive, this can be very powerful in some tense social encounter. Trying to find some crucial piece of information in the mind of that guy you're pretty sure is working with the evil cult, but who has the social status to make things very bad for you if you aren't careful? This will come in handy.

Telepathic Hub, another 3rd level feature, gives you telepathy to a range of 10 feet (remember that we get a base of 5 feet from the base class). When using a PED with Telepathic Connection to increase the range of the telepathy, for the duration you can simultaneously contact a number of creatures equal to 1 plus the number rolled on the PED.

    So, the hub thing is a little DM-dependent. Generally, because talking doesn't require an action, I tend to let players who are able to speak telepathically with others to convey messages as if they were all on one big group call. Granted, that sometimes makes spells like Rary's Telepathic Bond less useful. It's a bit messy.

Level 6:

Empowered Defense Mode lets you add a d4 to your saving throws while in Defense Mode. Also, while Defense Mode is active, you extend this benefit to anyone you are connected to via Telepathic Connection.

    So, functionally, you're largely going to be using this feature to boost peoples' saving throws, which is nice. By this level, the average range-extension is 45 feet, which I think is on top of your base of 10, so this should usually (unless you get unlucky with a roll) allow you to keep connected to everyone.

Potent Thoughts lets you add your Intelligence modifier to any damage you deal with a Psion cantrip.

    A decent if not huge boost to your damage. Not totally sure why Telepaths get this and others don't.

Level 10:

Telepathic Bolstering gives you telepathy out to 30 feet (which I believe will further increase the range of your Telepathic Hub/Empowered Defense Mode). When a creature you can see within the range of your telepathy fails an ability check or misses with an attack roll, you can use a reaction to expend a PED and roll it, adding the number to the d20 and potentially turn the check or attack into a success. The die is only expended if it becomes a success.

    The wording here probably needs clean-up (technically I'd say "you roll the die" at the start and then "it's expended if the check succeeds or the attack hits as a result"). But, I think this is very good, giving you a Flash of Genius-like boost to help your allies (or you) out. Can't work on saving throws, but still pretty good. And I like the bad-luck protection.

Level 14:

Scramble Minds lets you expend 4 PEDs when you cast Confusion to modify the spell so that the radius of the sphere is 30 feet (up from 10). Additionally, creatures under the spell's effects roll two d10s to determine their behavior, and you choose which result affects them.

    So, Confusion can be very powerful, but is unpredictable. This is a pretty expensive feature to use (on top of a 4th level spell slot) but it lets you hit a ton of enemies with the spell (30 foot radius is massive. By tripling the radius, you're effectively multiplying the spell's horizontal area by 9) and by letting you choose between two results, you're going to much more frequently get the kind of thing you want. Confusion has a 20% chance to just allow a creature to act as normal on their turn, but this will get that down to 4%.

Overall Thoughts:

    I think this subclass is ok, but like the Psykinetic, it feels like maybe it's lacking a little oomph - though perhaps not quite as much so. Unfortunately at this stage I don't really have a sense for how powerful some of the class' base features are going to be, and so it's hard to evaluate subclass features that alter or enhance them.

This concludes the Psion subclasses, meaning that the only stuff left in the UA to examine are the updates to existing spells (we've already covered the brand-new spells) and the set of Wild Talent Feats, which are alternate Origin Feats that will come with new backgrounds, but for the time being are available as alternatives for the Noble or Sage backgrounds.