Psion v1.3 - Preview Version!
Added 2020-08-13 06:35:42 +0000 UTCThe biggest of the changes are in the Expanded Options, and by biggest I mean it has two full new subclasses - Wandering Mind (Nomad) and Elemental Mind (Kineticists)
This update is not complete! There's obvious formatting issues, balance testing is still in progress, and there's a little more to come still. But since this is a big update, I wanted to get a preview version to give people a little time to digest it and offer some preliminary thoughts and feedback if they have anything they want to voice before the live version goes out.
This and the Occultist v1.0 have been in parallel for a bit now, so those are both coming soon, but as both of the subclasses for this are being tested now, I wanted to get this preview out to you guys now.
The following links are temporary versions and will not be updated; use them for preview purposes only, and the live PDF links and GMBinder links from my site will be pushed to the live version once it's out - sorry, not sure a good way to do preview versions other than this.
Psion
Expanded Options
Change Log 1.3
Awakened
- Full Awakening cost reduced to 2, but it no longer gives advantage on ability checks (now saving throws + attack rolls rather than foresight).
Unleashed
- Rampage now reduces to a d6 if it runs more than a minute (until you complete a short or long rest)
- Unstoppable Mind now kicks in at a d8 rampage.
Disciplines
- Telepathy: Removed double on Telepathic Intrusion, replaced by Reading
- Transposition: Changed Vanishing to blurring; similar effect but causes less confusion if it can be used for permanent out of combat invisibility after level 5 (it cannot).
- Pyschokinetics: Reduced the cost of Massive Elemental Blast from 3 to 1 for 15 feet, 2 for 30 foot cone, and 3 for 60 foot cone.
- Animate Objects removed from Telekinesis alternate effects.
Talents
- Added Mind Thrust Talent (turns Telekinetic Intrusion into an attack roll).
- Kinetic Slam and Mind Thrust wording tweaked; they can now critically strike on a 20.
- Psionic Defenses changed to 13 + Intelligence (from 10 + Dexterity + Intelligence).
- Physical Surge once more lasts for 1 turn instead of 1 minute. Builds that want to use other bonus action powers can opt to focus a physical stat with the other changes and talents in place.
Expanded Options Change Log 1.3
Subclasses
- Wandering Mind (Nomad) added
- Elemental Mind (Kinetics) added.
Talents
- Unchecked Power revised.
- Precise Power revised.
- Added Enhanced Regrowth
- Added Beam of Annihilation
- Removed Mental Reach (was redundant with the feat Psionic Sniper).
- Added Elemental Penetration
Spells
- Added Shockwave.
- Added Beam of Annihilation
Feats
- Psionic Sniper renamed Psionic Reach.
Comments
It's been moved to a Talent. It's a very powerful spell, and Telekinesis had a lot of spells, so taking that one off the top and moving it to a talent helps smooth things out. By that level you have enough Talents to get it fairly easily if you want it, but it makes the barrier a little higher to get it. I also felt that Animate Objects was a pretty advanced use case of Telekinesis that made sense to move to a Talent - that's a lot of delicate control over the power, a sort of specialization that makes sense to move to a Talent for both theme and balance.
KibblesTasty
2020-08-22 02:35:00 +0000 UTCI will probably tweak this slightly. It's intended to last for most of a fight and on average a 14 round fight where you do damage every round (as to not drop rampage) would be exceedingly rare - while it happens, many concentration spells are also 1 minute, so it's not particularly unfair to the Psion in my opinion. That said, I think the "problem" can be fixed without causing the issue, so I'm considering how to tweak it now (it's part of the reason we haven't gotten 1.3 yet as i have to test out other ways to fix that). The problem was that people were trying to keep rampage up at d12 indefinitely (including between combat) by just hitting things constantly; while initially I had no problem with this as it seemed thematic, many people it seems were taking it to the logical extreme of always doing that, so some patch is needed to force it reset at the start of a fight in a thematic and rules appropriate way.
KibblesTasty
2020-08-22 02:33:12 +0000 UTCAlso, I have to ask - why remove Animate Objects from the Telekinetic list? (I admit I am biased since Animate Objects is one of my favorite spells and my favorite 5th level spell...)
Atrenu
2020-08-22 02:03:43 +0000 UTCI like a lot of these changes as a whole - my main issue with the change to Rampage is the fact that, even if a fight were to last 14 rounds (and that's if I were dealing damage each round, which is not a guarantee), in theory, I could just game it to where when I hit 1 round before Rampage falls to a d6, I could just not deal damage, reset the die and the counter at the same time. Of course, if you mean "1 minute / 10 rounds in total" rather than "consecutively", this is a moot point.
Atrenu
2020-08-22 01:59:23 +0000 UTC
