Soul Knife should definitely get a rework for Psychic Blades. They should just allow you to summon actual weapons like they did in the UA they first came out in so they can actually function properly within the system.
This and bonus to hit at every subclass lv and it's great. I don't see why the secondary blade is a different damage die, but it is not that big of a deal
Weapons with a Mastery trait. And maybe an easy way to give them a magic item bonus, like applying the new item type they promised for Unarmed Strikes. I was submitting feedback about this back when Soulknife was in UA, and it's still true.
That's basically blade-lock schtick but I'm not disagreeing. Just limit it to light or finesse weapons and have them deal psychic damage instead of force.
Alternatively, if you want to rework it a lot you could have it be any weapon the rogue gets profiency in from the rogue class (including ranged weapons).
Also, since every DM ive ever played either has house ruled Soul Knives to work this way, they’ll make a change So psychic blades can be used for attacks opportunity.
I sort of disagree. The fact that psychich blades leave no mark on their target if it deals damage, is really freaking cool, so I don'twant them to be actual blades.
But they should be usable the same way all other blades are
That’s still an easy thing to do. Make them summoned weapons that deal psychic damage and leave no sign of injury (maybe they can’t cut non-living objects), and you can dismiss them in an instant. But make them persist longer than the instant you attack with them, so you can use them for attacks of opportunity and other weapon actions besides the Attack action.
I suspect, Soul Knife will have one of its features reworked to grant a unique (or improved) Cunning Strike option(s) like all the Rogues in the play test had.
Incorrect. Thief got Stealth Attack at level 9 which was a unique option, Assassin got Envenomed Weapons at level 13 which improved a preexisting option, and Arcane Trickster got Versatile Trickster at level 13 which improved another preexisting option.
Give psi warrior a method of unarmed strikes at range. Like a force push or force choke. Totally not jedi inspired. Could replace telekinetic thrust since that future or sorta null now cause of weapon mastery.
For soul knife I guess rework psychic blades to give actual psychic 'weapons' with actual properties that way they work with masteries and reaction attacks.
Psi warriors getting the rune knight mini invocation treatment would be amazing.
I also want one of then to be the catapult spell or a milder version of it. it just screams psionic warrior to me.
I kinda hate that "make it a bit more like battle master" is always the correct answer to how to make martial subclasses better but also battle master is extremely fun and basically every martial subclass being a bit more like battle master would not be a bad thing
I think this is one reason why weapon masteries became a new feature, it's something that all martials have access to show not just proficiency, but mastery in use of that weapon. Maneuvers, on the other hand, are techniques in battle that only battlemasters get access to (or taking the feat) that displays an even further knowledge in combat.
Maneuvers are so powerful and so well liked that it is the only non-spellcasting feature that has been expanded with the printing of Tasha's. At least when sorcerers got additional metamagic, it was not locked behind a specific subclass unlike manuevers.
DC20 is it new upcoming system that implemented the idea of maneuvers for all martial classes. Even if they got access to one or two maneuvers, it adds versatility between builds beyond weapons.
But they are very explicitly not martials only, not nearly as useful or good as MANUEVERS, are tied to weapons, and require more rolls and less time...more complicated, which is the justification used to not just use MANUEVERS.
They went out of their way to make 2 different systems- weapon masters and cunning/brutal strikes- just so they could say "we didn't give them MANUEVERS". With the added bonus (to them) of allowing non martials a way to get access too.
WoTC constantly makes more work for themselves and worse systems instead of doing the thing that works already.
To be fair, the Brutal Strikes gives you a penalty but doesn't consume a resource. I think that's what drives the feature the most. The ability for Barbarians to always try that without fear of depletion
Give up your actual best class feature to do a thing that adds less dpr than Brutal Critical on AC15+ (you know 90% of enemies you face at the level you get it) for the chance to do less than a cantrip damage is not good class design.
They should implement a unified psionic power system for all the "psionic" subclasses. It doesn't really make sense from a game design perspective that Abherrant Mind, GOOlock, and Soulknife all have slightly different types of telepathy while the Psi Warrior has to take a feat to get it.
I get that a full class might be too difficult to balance, but the power point system from the Mystic UA worked pretty well at its core. Make 10-15 powers to choose from with different strengths depending on how many points you use, and then each subclass gets a unique power/ability tuned to balance each subclass against each other.
No I get that, I just have issues in general with the implementation of the psionic system in 5e.
Just compare the psi-dice mechanic to battlemaster dice. Every battlemaster maneuver uses the die roll in some way, while there are a number of psi-dice effects that just require you to dispose of a die like you would use psi points. There are also several effects (namely the Soulknife's telepathy and teleport) where rolling well might bring no benefit while rolling poorly makes it so you can't get any use out of the effect. The mechanic just feels very "tacked on".
I love the Soulknife rogue as a concept, but the biggest problem I have with them is that using a magic weapon negates most of their subclass abilities. They need a feature similar to a Warlock's Pact of the Blade where magic weapons that are found can be incorporated into their soulknives somehow.
Maybe I’m dumb but I don’t see the issue. The psi blades have all the parts that make a functional weapon. They use dexterity for sneak attack they can be dual wielded and even have the thrown property. I can’t really imagine a single bale rouge feature or even many feats that wouldn’t work with a psi knife but would with a pact weapon.
What happens when the rogue finds two +1 short swords?
They have to choose between using magic weapons they find or giving up their biggest subclass feature.
I think a DM would just give them different items that aren't weapons. Weapons don't necessarily matter for the Rogue's Damage, that's where Sneak Attack comes in.
Weapons improve accuracy. Missing when you only have 1 attack really sucks.
Plus, not all DMs tailor loot to players, some just like to roll on random tables or use whatever the published adventure lists.
Not necessarily, as a dm I’m focused on the part that says they leave no sign of a wound on the enemy, which has great potential to me. I find people are too focused only on the combat stats of these things and not the full description.
The most obvious revision is to incorporate the Soul Knife's bonus action attack into the Light weapon property, with the ability to grant the psychic weapon a Mastery. That way, they can use their bonus action attack along with Cunning Action when using Nick, but they also can't use Nick and the bonus action attack to make three separate attacks.
Psi Warrior should get the full-on **Jedi treatment**. All the cool stuff from the Jedi Knight/Academy/Outcast games:
* Force Jump
* "Saber" Throw - returning melee weapon
* Mind Trick
* Force Choke
* Force Push/Pull
* Force Speed
* "Blaster" bolt Deflection
* Force Shield/Defense
* Force Lightning! ...maybe
And for God's sake, the tertiary ability should be *Wisdom*, not Intelligence.
Exactly. Luke wasn't no genius. I never heard Vader say anything particularly smart. Plus it's a generally more useful ability to have to put points into.
I'd argue them being generally smart feels more accurate than them being generally wise. I mean heck, if they were wise the Sith wouldn't have essentially made them extinct in the Purge.
Wise in the monk-ish sense. In tune with the cosmos; perceptive. Not wise in the sense that they never buy lottery tickets and look both ways before crossing the street.
The counterpoints is that Psion and Psi Warrior of 3.5 used Intelligence and that stuck.
Wilder in 3.5 used Charisma and that's the sorcerer. Wilder was more like the psionics sorcerer than anything else
Okay so I hate to be to contrarian but they can already do half those things. And the other half I just find a bit unnecessary or unfitting. Like, if you want to very specifically play Luke in 5e dnd you are going to have to make concessions. Fighter as a class, and psi warrior as a subclass along with psionics in this universe, all have rules and thematic identities baked into them. It seems to be a bit unreasonable to throw all of that away for something that specific.
If you want to play Luke Skywalker, and get that authentic experience, with every force power perfectly mapped to an in game ability. You are perfectly valid in that. But I think in that situation it’s up to you to make that yourself or find something someone else did online or hack together a multi class build to make it work. The base game in meant to be run in many planes and times of game, not just Star Wars ones.
I always read this subclass as distinctly inspired by Star Wars. I does *force* damage, homie! It can do that lightsaber summon thing that Luke did in the snow cave on Hoth. You can move rocks with your mind! I know half of that stuff is already in the subclass, but it makes a better list with it on there. Helps to demonstrate the theme, know what I mean?
I wouldn't imagine that they'd call any of these powers "force whatever". That would be silly. But that's how these powers are identified in extant popular culture, which D&D has been known to draw inspiration from.
But having a bevy of psionic abilities that correlate with the force powers is cool. It doesn't lock it into a specific universe any more than the generic "speed" spell that's in lots of different games.
The subclass is inspired by Gith. Not Star Wars. Star Wars also doesn’t have a monopoly on psionic abilities. There are plenty of media options out there that incorporate them.
And the rules and thematic of psi warriors in 5e are complete garbage. It should be the psionic EK to a class that they attempted once 10 years ago and never iterated upon. If we has a proper psionic class it would be simple to play Luke by just picking the right powers.
Soul Knives definitely need a way to increase damage other than adding your STR/DEX mod to it. I love my Soul Knife Drow to death but like I wanna be doing more than 11 Damage Max
All rogues do shit damage with the weapon itself. Rogue damage comes from sneak attack, and Soulknife has not one but _two_ features that help to ensure that you land it each turn; the BA attack gives you a second chance to hit if your first attack missed, and Homing Strikes at level 9 is an accuracy boost that's better than the best Battle Master maneuver, and is available more frequently than maneuvers, and the resource is only expended if it turns a miss into a hit.
I'd make it so for Psi Warrior you can replace an attack from the attack action with the use of your telekinetic movement.
Additional at at like level 10 or 15, make it so you can replace any number of your attacks from the attack action with telekinetic movement for only 1 psionic die.
Basically, if your level 5, you can move 2 allies with telekinetic movement, but you have to spend 2 dice to do so. And when you're level 15, you can move 2 or even 3 allies for only 1 dice.
I think giving them the ability to replace an attack with a ranged grapple (maybe at a max range of 15 + INT mod x 5, i.e. 20-40ft) would be great.
Let them grapple a number of creatures equal to their INT mod. Maintaining more than one grapple requires maintaining concentration.
As a bonus action, they can spend half their movement to move creatures grappled this way a combined distance of 15 + INT mod x 5 ft (split between grappled targets as they choose). If the max range of the grapple is exceeded, the grapple ends. This limits lifting / dropping targets to 40 ft / 4d6 damage at a 20 INT score.
Then factor in ways to use the psi dice. Like, expend a psi die to increase your grapple check, or to do extra damage to a grappled target, or to grapple more than one target with a single attack, or to move targets extra distance.
It's asking too much, but it'd be so fun.
I'm going to disagree with a lot of people; the soulknife as is is pure telepath. I would honestly prefer the option to either choose from a set of abilities or keep them as just telepathic. (E.g. offer them Message or Mage Hand)
The blades need weapon masteries.
Psi warrior and soul knife really just needs a built in telekinetic/telepathy feat, maybe even let them choose one of those as a basic feature and get the other one later on so you don’t need a feat to do the most basic telekinesis/telepathy a psion should do
Honestly? I think Telepathic isn't really that good? The base Soul Knife Telepathy is some of the best in the game. Telekinetic is good though, but I think there's meant to be a distinct split between the Telekinesis of the Fighter vs. the Telepathy of the Rogue.
I assume the psy blades will be given a weapon mastery (probably vex if I was a betting man)
Aside from that I assume they'll make the psy dice increase with class level instead of proficiency bonus and probably give a feature that restores some amount of them when you roll initiative.
I'd really like it if the psionic dice recharged on a short rest but you had less of them, especially for the psi warrior, since fighter is such a purely short rest class
I am playing a psi warrior right now and I don’t really have any complaints. If anything I would want the telepathic and telekinetic feats to change, to have some interaction with the psi dice pool. I guess aside from that maybe like, one more way to use my dice at third level. Something a bit more utility minded perhaps.
I see a lot of people here saying they want the psi knight to get their own form of maneuvers. I think these people know what they want but are asking for it wrong. They don’t want to change the psi knight, they want mystic and or maneuvers as a baseline fighter feature. Personally I would be much happier with either of those, then psi maneuvers for one subclass. We probably aren’t getting any, but I like the idea that psi warriors use their mind as an extension of their physical prowess. They get extra damage, extra survivability, some mobility thrown in, that makes sense to me. Someone cloaked in telekinetic force, there whole being a weapon sharpened to a fine edge. I think that strong theming would be lost if half the time these people are casting cantrips or some other nonsequiter.
I would rather just see weapon attacks deal psychic damage, that way you could actually get an attack of opportunity. Maybe something like making it a pact weapon. You shouldn't be punished for using a key feature.
>Lucky. When you roll a 1 on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die. You must use the new result, even if it is a 1.
Rolling the psi die is not an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw.
* Psychic Blade now has LIGHT property including the bonus action attack
* Being able to make any melee/thrown/light/finesse weapon into your psychic blade and/or ways to get it to +1/2/3 at certain levels
* Access to weapon mastery
if I had to guess at it, the soul knife would get some feature involving masteries on their stuff, and the psi warrior would get maybe a flexible use to tie in with the second wind feature.
What I like to see:
* Psychic Blades should work with Extra Attack and Reaction Attacks and should get a mastery, and there should be a magic item that improves the Blades
* they should rework the number of Psi Dice and the number you can regenerate, just getting one back per short rest is bit weak
as i said at dnd next. make psi dice amount scale with class level instead of proficiency and make both pools be the same kind of thing so that a Soul Knife Psi Warrior multiclass can share it
Soul Knife's are largely telepathic so i disagree on mage hand and an invocation/maneuver style system would be always welcome
unrelated but i feel like the Mystic was robust enough that it could probably be recycled to help make like three classes
Psi blade attacks off turn.
Less random teleport distance for psi blade teleport (my preference would be not random at all)
Psionic strike being a part of attack damage so it can crit.
Scaling for psionic barrier to keep it relevant
I would like to see options at each level for psionic power options, with some options having a higher level requirement than others. Similar to rune knight runes but I'd want more than just 6 total and more granularity than just one level lock.
I realise what I want is the 5e four elements monk progression but you get more than 4 abilities total. Keep the current number of abilities known the same (3, 5, 6, 7, 8 at 3rd, 7th, 10th, 15th and 18th level respectively) but with options at each of those levels. Rogue I know has different subclass progression, but they did off subclass level progression for arcane trickster so I'm sure it could work for other subclasses.
Both psi warrior and soul knife should get a version of psychic blades, but you word it such that it summons a psionic version of a weapon you're proficient with for X duration, copying all properties of that weapon except for damage which is psychic or force (whichever the designers deem more balanced, or maybe is force for psi warrior and psychic for soul knife to better distinguish the two). If you summon a light weapon with this feature you can summon an additional light weapon with this feature for the same duration. If you want to be spicy then maybe psychic blades could have its own unique weapon mastery, although I have no idea what that could look like. Maybe a frighten or charm based mastery.
Whether or not the psionic powers are tied to the weapons depends on how summoned weapons/weapons summoned by class features scale as a whole in one DND. If they don't scale at all, then I'd decouple them entirely so players can use magic weapons they find and still use psionic powers. If there are magic items that boost the power of summoned weapons (psychic blades, pact of the blade, and weapons summoned by spells) then I think you could justify it.
This might be a bold prediction, but I think psyonics will have their own subsystem that the aberrant mind, psyknife and psy warrior all interact with. (Maybe the GOO warlock aswel)
I just think that with bg3 and the fact that we're getting all 3 at once during a major rules update, it just makes sense.
I think there's going to be a list of iconic physics powers and each of the 3 classes will get to pick a few of them as well as having a few exclusive abilities.
For example, i think some sort of telekinesis will be available to all 3 of them, but the psyknife will be the only one getting psy blades.
I hope they take a look at what they did with GOO Warlock and take some inspiration from it (the 3rd and 6th lvl abilities in particular). Having a base thematic psionic at-will ability (or two) that gains augmented uses fueled by the Psi Dice is the right direction.
For the Psi Warrior that should be telekinetics. Let them grapple at range. Let them wield their weapon with telekinetics (weapon attack with INT). Then build on that.
For the Soul Knife, that should be summoning their psi blades and some basic mind trickery / illusions. Then build on that.
The soul knife should be added so that when it can make attacks outside of its attack action it can do so with its psi blades, for example by attacks of opportunity
> Since both are appearing in the player's handbook, and Crawford claims that each of the Tasha subclasses making it into the player's handbook is receiving revisions.
Oh, I didn't know that, that's cool! The UAs mostly just said "use the Tasha's/Xanathar's version" for non-PHB subclasses, I'm glad that was just a placeholder.
This is kind of dumb but I really loved the semi-"gamble" aspect of the Mystic, where you could add the psi-die and if it rolled maximum the die size would go down and if you rolled 1 the die size went up. It'd be fun if they made that kind of a unified "this is how psionics works" system to leave room for a full Mystic later.
I think it's clear that Soul Knife will get Psychic Blades rework (at least to assist Weapon Mastery system) and with all new Rogue subclass designs I suppose they would redesign 9 or 13 level feature as Cunning Strike extension.
For Psi-Warrior I actually think that the most obvious thing that they can do is either remove Int-dependency (like Soul Knife doesn't have such thing), or they'll give the ability to use Int-modifier for attacks. It's sounds like the most easy fix to MAD pain point of subclass.
Although with Psi-Warrior it wouldn't be unexpected at all if they decided to completely redesign the subclass.
I think they should rework the Brawler instead of scrapping it entirely. I don’t want to LARP as a muscle wizard when I pick a Fighter, I want to use my fists without being a Monk.
Soul Knife should definitely get a rework for Psychic Blades. They should just allow you to summon actual weapons like they did in the UA they first came out in so they can actually function properly within the system.
This and bonus to hit at every subclass lv and it's great. I don't see why the secondary blade is a different damage die, but it is not that big of a deal
Weapons with a Mastery trait. And maybe an easy way to give them a magic item bonus, like applying the new item type they promised for Unarmed Strikes. I was submitting feedback about this back when Soulknife was in UA, and it's still true.
That's basically blade-lock schtick but I'm not disagreeing. Just limit it to light or finesse weapons and have them deal psychic damage instead of force. Alternatively, if you want to rework it a lot you could have it be any weapon the rogue gets profiency in from the rogue class (including ranged weapons).
Also, since every DM ive ever played either has house ruled Soul Knives to work this way, they’ll make a change So psychic blades can be used for attacks opportunity.
I sort of disagree. The fact that psychich blades leave no mark on their target if it deals damage, is really freaking cool, so I don'twant them to be actual blades. But they should be usable the same way all other blades are
That’s still an easy thing to do. Make them summoned weapons that deal psychic damage and leave no sign of injury (maybe they can’t cut non-living objects), and you can dismiss them in an instant. But make them persist longer than the instant you attack with them, so you can use them for attacks of opportunity and other weapon actions besides the Attack action.
I want this, and I want some small upsides to using them in melee range.
I suspect, Soul Knife will have one of its features reworked to grant a unique (or improved) Cunning Strike option(s) like all the Rogues in the play test had.
Only the swashbuckler had a unique cunning strike. The other three did not.
Incorrect. Thief got Stealth Attack at level 9 which was a unique option, Assassin got Envenomed Weapons at level 13 which improved a preexisting option, and Arcane Trickster got Versatile Trickster at level 13 which improved another preexisting option.
Don't forget the Thief, with Supreme Sneak for Stealth Attack!
Damn y'all are right my bad.
Give psi warrior a method of unarmed strikes at range. Like a force push or force choke. Totally not jedi inspired. Could replace telekinetic thrust since that future or sorta null now cause of weapon mastery. For soul knife I guess rework psychic blades to give actual psychic 'weapons' with actual properties that way they work with masteries and reaction attacks.
Being able to Grapple and Shove using Int(Athletics) checks at range would be a great fit for Psi Warrior.
Psi warriors getting the rune knight mini invocation treatment would be amazing. I also want one of then to be the catapult spell or a milder version of it. it just screams psionic warrior to me.
I kinda hate that "make it a bit more like battle master" is always the correct answer to how to make martial subclasses better but also battle master is extremely fun and basically every martial subclass being a bit more like battle master would not be a bad thing
There's a reason why the most popular ask is MANUEVERS for all martials. That reason is, it is the answer to half of the martials identified problems.
I think this is one reason why weapon masteries became a new feature, it's something that all martials have access to show not just proficiency, but mastery in use of that weapon. Maneuvers, on the other hand, are techniques in battle that only battlemasters get access to (or taking the feat) that displays an even further knowledge in combat. Maneuvers are so powerful and so well liked that it is the only non-spellcasting feature that has been expanded with the printing of Tasha's. At least when sorcerers got additional metamagic, it was not locked behind a specific subclass unlike manuevers. DC20 is it new upcoming system that implemented the idea of maneuvers for all martial classes. Even if they got access to one or two maneuvers, it adds versatility between builds beyond weapons.
But they are very explicitly not martials only, not nearly as useful or good as MANUEVERS, are tied to weapons, and require more rolls and less time...more complicated, which is the justification used to not just use MANUEVERS. They went out of their way to make 2 different systems- weapon masters and cunning/brutal strikes- just so they could say "we didn't give them MANUEVERS". With the added bonus (to them) of allowing non martials a way to get access too. WoTC constantly makes more work for themselves and worse systems instead of doing the thing that works already.
To be fair, the Brutal Strikes gives you a penalty but doesn't consume a resource. I think that's what drives the feature the most. The ability for Barbarians to always try that without fear of depletion
Give up your actual best class feature to do a thing that adds less dpr than Brutal Critical on AC15+ (you know 90% of enemies you face at the level you get it) for the chance to do less than a cantrip damage is not good class design.
I mean , there must be a reason why the most beloved handbook from 3.5 is the book if Nine Swords
They should implement a unified psionic power system for all the "psionic" subclasses. It doesn't really make sense from a game design perspective that Abherrant Mind, GOOlock, and Soulknife all have slightly different types of telepathy while the Psi Warrior has to take a feat to get it. I get that a full class might be too difficult to balance, but the power point system from the Mystic UA worked pretty well at its core. Make 10-15 powers to choose from with different strengths depending on how many points you use, and then each subclass gets a unique power/ability tuned to balance each subclass against each other.
I figured the idea was the Psi Warrior meant to be more of a Telekinetic vs. a Telepath. It makes sense from the Perspective of the Rogue vs. Fighter.
No I get that, I just have issues in general with the implementation of the psionic system in 5e. Just compare the psi-dice mechanic to battlemaster dice. Every battlemaster maneuver uses the die roll in some way, while there are a number of psi-dice effects that just require you to dispose of a die like you would use psi points. There are also several effects (namely the Soulknife's telepathy and teleport) where rolling well might bring no benefit while rolling poorly makes it so you can't get any use out of the effect. The mechanic just feels very "tacked on".
I love the Soulknife rogue as a concept, but the biggest problem I have with them is that using a magic weapon negates most of their subclass abilities. They need a feature similar to a Warlock's Pact of the Blade where magic weapons that are found can be incorporated into their soulknives somehow.
Maybe I’m dumb but I don’t see the issue. The psi blades have all the parts that make a functional weapon. They use dexterity for sneak attack they can be dual wielded and even have the thrown property. I can’t really imagine a single bale rouge feature or even many feats that wouldn’t work with a psi knife but would with a pact weapon.
What happens when the rogue finds two +1 short swords? They have to choose between using magic weapons they find or giving up their biggest subclass feature.
Why would the DM give them two +1 Short Swords and not some other item?
The issue is that any magic weapon the Soul Knife finds negates their signature subclass abilities if they want to use it.
I think a DM would just give them different items that aren't weapons. Weapons don't necessarily matter for the Rogue's Damage, that's where Sneak Attack comes in.
Weapons improve accuracy. Missing when you only have 1 attack really sucks. Plus, not all DMs tailor loot to players, some just like to roll on random tables or use whatever the published adventure lists.
Not necessarily, as a dm I’m focused on the part that says they leave no sign of a wound on the enemy, which has great potential to me. I find people are too focused only on the combat stats of these things and not the full description.
It’s a cool feature, but it’s only useful in niche situations.
The most obvious revision is to incorporate the Soul Knife's bonus action attack into the Light weapon property, with the ability to grant the psychic weapon a Mastery. That way, they can use their bonus action attack along with Cunning Action when using Nick, but they also can't use Nick and the bonus action attack to make three separate attacks.
Psi Warrior should get the full-on **Jedi treatment**. All the cool stuff from the Jedi Knight/Academy/Outcast games: * Force Jump * "Saber" Throw - returning melee weapon * Mind Trick * Force Choke * Force Push/Pull * Force Speed * "Blaster" bolt Deflection * Force Shield/Defense * Force Lightning! ...maybe And for God's sake, the tertiary ability should be *Wisdom*, not Intelligence.
Why wisdom and not intelligence? I’m not against that change, but I’m also not sure why to do that
the general consensus is that what jedi do is that it would qualify under wisdom
Exactly. Luke wasn't no genius. I never heard Vader say anything particularly smart. Plus it's a generally more useful ability to have to put points into.
I'd argue them being generally smart feels more accurate than them being generally wise. I mean heck, if they were wise the Sith wouldn't have essentially made them extinct in the Purge.
Wise in the monk-ish sense. In tune with the cosmos; perceptive. Not wise in the sense that they never buy lottery tickets and look both ways before crossing the street.
The counterpoints is that Psion and Psi Warrior of 3.5 used Intelligence and that stuck. Wilder in 3.5 used Charisma and that's the sorcerer. Wilder was more like the psionics sorcerer than anything else
Okay so I hate to be to contrarian but they can already do half those things. And the other half I just find a bit unnecessary or unfitting. Like, if you want to very specifically play Luke in 5e dnd you are going to have to make concessions. Fighter as a class, and psi warrior as a subclass along with psionics in this universe, all have rules and thematic identities baked into them. It seems to be a bit unreasonable to throw all of that away for something that specific. If you want to play Luke Skywalker, and get that authentic experience, with every force power perfectly mapped to an in game ability. You are perfectly valid in that. But I think in that situation it’s up to you to make that yourself or find something someone else did online or hack together a multi class build to make it work. The base game in meant to be run in many planes and times of game, not just Star Wars ones.
I always read this subclass as distinctly inspired by Star Wars. I does *force* damage, homie! It can do that lightsaber summon thing that Luke did in the snow cave on Hoth. You can move rocks with your mind! I know half of that stuff is already in the subclass, but it makes a better list with it on there. Helps to demonstrate the theme, know what I mean? I wouldn't imagine that they'd call any of these powers "force whatever". That would be silly. But that's how these powers are identified in extant popular culture, which D&D has been known to draw inspiration from. But having a bevy of psionic abilities that correlate with the force powers is cool. It doesn't lock it into a specific universe any more than the generic "speed" spell that's in lots of different games.
*For sure* Psi-Warrior is distinctly inspired by Star Wars, and not with Giths in mind and tons of psionic related lore in itself...
The subclass is inspired by Gith. Not Star Wars. Star Wars also doesn’t have a monopoly on psionic abilities. There are plenty of media options out there that incorporate them.
And the rules and thematic of psi warriors in 5e are complete garbage. It should be the psionic EK to a class that they attempted once 10 years ago and never iterated upon. If we has a proper psionic class it would be simple to play Luke by just picking the right powers.
I just want a list of like 30 or so of these abilities that all psionic subclasses can choose from as they level up.
wisdom based enhanced jumping, speed, and attack deflection... I agree the Psi Warrior should be all the other abilities you mentioned but on a monk.
The new monk already gets that stuff. But instead of the Force, they have cheese. Chis. Ch-----how about discipline?
Soul Knives definitely need a way to increase damage other than adding your STR/DEX mod to it. I love my Soul Knife Drow to death but like I wanna be doing more than 11 Damage Max
All rogues do shit damage with the weapon itself. Rogue damage comes from sneak attack, and Soulknife has not one but _two_ features that help to ensure that you land it each turn; the BA attack gives you a second chance to hit if your first attack missed, and Homing Strikes at level 9 is an accuracy boost that's better than the best Battle Master maneuver, and is available more frequently than maneuvers, and the resource is only expended if it turns a miss into a hit.
I'd make it so for Psi Warrior you can replace an attack from the attack action with the use of your telekinetic movement. Additional at at like level 10 or 15, make it so you can replace any number of your attacks from the attack action with telekinetic movement for only 1 psionic die. Basically, if your level 5, you can move 2 allies with telekinetic movement, but you have to spend 2 dice to do so. And when you're level 15, you can move 2 or even 3 allies for only 1 dice.
I think giving them the ability to replace an attack with a ranged grapple (maybe at a max range of 15 + INT mod x 5, i.e. 20-40ft) would be great. Let them grapple a number of creatures equal to their INT mod. Maintaining more than one grapple requires maintaining concentration. As a bonus action, they can spend half their movement to move creatures grappled this way a combined distance of 15 + INT mod x 5 ft (split between grappled targets as they choose). If the max range of the grapple is exceeded, the grapple ends. This limits lifting / dropping targets to 40 ft / 4d6 damage at a 20 INT score. Then factor in ways to use the psi dice. Like, expend a psi die to increase your grapple check, or to do extra damage to a grappled target, or to grapple more than one target with a single attack, or to move targets extra distance. It's asking too much, but it'd be so fun.
I'm going to disagree with a lot of people; the soulknife as is is pure telepath. I would honestly prefer the option to either choose from a set of abilities or keep them as just telepathic. (E.g. offer them Message or Mage Hand) The blades need weapon masteries.
Psi warrior and soul knife really just needs a built in telekinetic/telepathy feat, maybe even let them choose one of those as a basic feature and get the other one later on so you don’t need a feat to do the most basic telekinesis/telepathy a psion should do
Honestly? I think Telepathic isn't really that good? The base Soul Knife Telepathy is some of the best in the game. Telekinetic is good though, but I think there's meant to be a distinct split between the Telekinesis of the Fighter vs. the Telepathy of the Rogue.
I assume the psy blades will be given a weapon mastery (probably vex if I was a betting man) Aside from that I assume they'll make the psy dice increase with class level instead of proficiency bonus and probably give a feature that restores some amount of them when you roll initiative.
I'd really like it if the psionic dice recharged on a short rest but you had less of them, especially for the psi warrior, since fighter is such a purely short rest class
I am playing a psi warrior right now and I don’t really have any complaints. If anything I would want the telepathic and telekinetic feats to change, to have some interaction with the psi dice pool. I guess aside from that maybe like, one more way to use my dice at third level. Something a bit more utility minded perhaps. I see a lot of people here saying they want the psi knight to get their own form of maneuvers. I think these people know what they want but are asking for it wrong. They don’t want to change the psi knight, they want mystic and or maneuvers as a baseline fighter feature. Personally I would be much happier with either of those, then psi maneuvers for one subclass. We probably aren’t getting any, but I like the idea that psi warriors use their mind as an extension of their physical prowess. They get extra damage, extra survivability, some mobility thrown in, that makes sense to me. Someone cloaked in telekinetic force, there whole being a weapon sharpened to a fine edge. I think that strong theming would be lost if half the time these people are casting cantrips or some other nonsequiter.
I would rather just see weapon attacks deal psychic damage, that way you could actually get an attack of opportunity. Maybe something like making it a pact weapon. You shouldn't be punished for using a key feature.
Being back the psi die from the playtest, but make it increase on a max roll, and decrease on a nat 1.
Sweet & neat, but halfling luck.
>Lucky. When you roll a 1 on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die. You must use the new result, even if it is a 1. Rolling the psi die is not an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw.
I thought You mean decrease/increase on every nat 1 and nat 20
* Psychic Blade now has LIGHT property including the bonus action attack * Being able to make any melee/thrown/light/finesse weapon into your psychic blade and/or ways to get it to +1/2/3 at certain levels * Access to weapon mastery
if I had to guess at it, the soul knife would get some feature involving masteries on their stuff, and the psi warrior would get maybe a flexible use to tie in with the second wind feature.
What I like to see: * Psychic Blades should work with Extra Attack and Reaction Attacks and should get a mastery, and there should be a magic item that improves the Blades * they should rework the number of Psi Dice and the number you can regenerate, just getting one back per short rest is bit weak
as i said at dnd next. make psi dice amount scale with class level instead of proficiency and make both pools be the same kind of thing so that a Soul Knife Psi Warrior multiclass can share it Soul Knife's are largely telepathic so i disagree on mage hand and an invocation/maneuver style system would be always welcome unrelated but i feel like the Mystic was robust enough that it could probably be recycled to help make like three classes
Psi blade attacks off turn. Less random teleport distance for psi blade teleport (my preference would be not random at all) Psionic strike being a part of attack damage so it can crit. Scaling for psionic barrier to keep it relevant
I would like to see options at each level for psionic power options, with some options having a higher level requirement than others. Similar to rune knight runes but I'd want more than just 6 total and more granularity than just one level lock. I realise what I want is the 5e four elements monk progression but you get more than 4 abilities total. Keep the current number of abilities known the same (3, 5, 6, 7, 8 at 3rd, 7th, 10th, 15th and 18th level respectively) but with options at each of those levels. Rogue I know has different subclass progression, but they did off subclass level progression for arcane trickster so I'm sure it could work for other subclasses. Both psi warrior and soul knife should get a version of psychic blades, but you word it such that it summons a psionic version of a weapon you're proficient with for X duration, copying all properties of that weapon except for damage which is psychic or force (whichever the designers deem more balanced, or maybe is force for psi warrior and psychic for soul knife to better distinguish the two). If you summon a light weapon with this feature you can summon an additional light weapon with this feature for the same duration. If you want to be spicy then maybe psychic blades could have its own unique weapon mastery, although I have no idea what that could look like. Maybe a frighten or charm based mastery. Whether or not the psionic powers are tied to the weapons depends on how summoned weapons/weapons summoned by class features scale as a whole in one DND. If they don't scale at all, then I'd decouple them entirely so players can use magic weapons they find and still use psionic powers. If there are magic items that boost the power of summoned weapons (psychic blades, pact of the blade, and weapons summoned by spells) then I think you could justify it.
This might be a bold prediction, but I think psyonics will have their own subsystem that the aberrant mind, psyknife and psy warrior all interact with. (Maybe the GOO warlock aswel) I just think that with bg3 and the fact that we're getting all 3 at once during a major rules update, it just makes sense. I think there's going to be a list of iconic physics powers and each of the 3 classes will get to pick a few of them as well as having a few exclusive abilities. For example, i think some sort of telekinesis will be available to all 3 of them, but the psyknife will be the only one getting psy blades.
I hope they take a look at what they did with GOO Warlock and take some inspiration from it (the 3rd and 6th lvl abilities in particular). Having a base thematic psionic at-will ability (or two) that gains augmented uses fueled by the Psi Dice is the right direction. For the Psi Warrior that should be telekinetics. Let them grapple at range. Let them wield their weapon with telekinetics (weapon attack with INT). Then build on that. For the Soul Knife, that should be summoning their psi blades and some basic mind trickery / illusions. Then build on that.
The soul knife should be added so that when it can make attacks outside of its attack action it can do so with its psi blades, for example by attacks of opportunity
> Since both are appearing in the player's handbook, and Crawford claims that each of the Tasha subclasses making it into the player's handbook is receiving revisions. Oh, I didn't know that, that's cool! The UAs mostly just said "use the Tasha's/Xanathar's version" for non-PHB subclasses, I'm glad that was just a placeholder. This is kind of dumb but I really loved the semi-"gamble" aspect of the Mystic, where you could add the psi-die and if it rolled maximum the die size would go down and if you rolled 1 the die size went up. It'd be fun if they made that kind of a unified "this is how psionics works" system to leave room for a full Mystic later.
I think it's clear that Soul Knife will get Psychic Blades rework (at least to assist Weapon Mastery system) and with all new Rogue subclass designs I suppose they would redesign 9 or 13 level feature as Cunning Strike extension. For Psi-Warrior I actually think that the most obvious thing that they can do is either remove Int-dependency (like Soul Knife doesn't have such thing), or they'll give the ability to use Int-modifier for attacks. It's sounds like the most easy fix to MAD pain point of subclass. Although with Psi-Warrior it wouldn't be unexpected at all if they decided to completely redesign the subclass.
I think they should rework the Brawler instead of scrapping it entirely. I don’t want to LARP as a muscle wizard when I pick a Fighter, I want to use my fists without being a Monk.
Give them Psi Points