William Brandes Stoddard
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UA 2025: The Psion Breakdown
🕑 Added 2025-06-06 19:44:51 +0000 UTCNot even the Ranger has had as many UA releases thrown at it as the Psion (née Mystic). Searching through the dusty, moldering archives of this very website, I see that I last wrote a UA breakdown about psionics in 2020, but it was already in good company. I was genuinely surprised to see a new attempt, because I honestly thought the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, Psi Knight Fighter, and Soulknife Rogue were WotC’s last word on the topic.
Psion Class
I appreciate the sidebar discussing the history of psionics in D&D. If you’ve read much of my writing here on Tribality, “appreciates history” should be one of the main things you know about me.
· Int-based class.
· d6 Hit Die. Okay, we’re positioning this with Sorcerer and Wizard, explicitly.
· Int and Wis as proficient saves. Sure, fits with Wizard.
· 2 skills from a pretty standard list.
· Simple weapon proficiency, no Armor or Shield Training.
· Spellcasting: Psions are full-progression casters. They start with only two cantrips, which is very lean, and have slightly more Prepared Spells than a Sorcerer. They still scale up to 22 prepared spells, and every subclass grants 10 bonus prepared spells.
o You can change one prepared Psion spell each time you gain a level.
· You don’t have Verbal or Material components, unless the Material is consumed or is costly. This is ripe for abuse. I’m betting that if you pick your spells carefully, you can find a good number of spells that mean you have no outward signifier that you’re casting, and that should be enough to make you a terror in a lot of scenes where it’s not a combat, but it would be if anyone knew you were casting. Looking at you, Raulothim’s Psychic Lance. And, of course, you’re immune to Silence.
· Psionic Power gives you a pool of dice, initially 4d6 and growing to 12d12. You can use these to do, uh, things. You regain one expended die on a Short Rest and all expended dice on a Long Rest.
o Telekinetic Propel lets you push or pull a target away from you (I’m not clear how push and pull are materially different in this context) as a Bonus Action. They get a Strength save, and if they fail they’re moved 5 ft x the Psionic Energy Die result. This is pretty cool, classic telekinesis stuff.
o Telepathic Connection lets you add 10 ft x the die result to your base 5-ft telepathy range. This is not going to feel good or cool during play, because you have to spend a Psionic Energy die every minute to sustain the connection. Rolling too low and having to move or reroll (basically, your call gets dropped) is going to feel stupid. Reading on to more of the things you can do with a PE die, using this is a straight-up trap choice and you should never do it.
o So, one useful feature, one feature so unreliable that you’ll plan on some other solution to your problem. But once we get to Psionic Disciplines, those options are going to hugely overshadow these two.
· Subtle Telekinesis gives you Mage Hand as a bonus cantrip, and the spectral hand is Invisible when you cast it. It would be weird if this weren’t here.
· Psionic Discipline at level 2 gives you two (4 at level 10, 6 at level 17) Disciplines, which are basically special moves that you spend Psionic Energy Dice on (hereafter, “PE die,” because I can’t keep writing out “Psionic Energy Dice” over and over again). There are eleven options here. Limit one use per turn.
o Biofeedback uses your PE die + Int modifier as a Temp HP kicker on any Necromancy or Transmutation Psion spell you cast.
o Destructive Thoughts adds your PE die + Int modifier as damage on a Conjuration or Evocation Psion spell you cast, against one creature that succeeded its save.
o Devilish Tongue (useful for speaking in the Nether Realms, IYKWIMAITYD) lets you add your PE die to ability checks you roll for the Influence action.
o Ego Whip replaces your Opportunity Attack, when provoked (I mean, it expends your Reaction, you could still choose an OA instead), and forces an Int save. On a failure, the target loses 10 ft of Speed and your PE die is penalty to its next damage roll. If It succeeds the save, the PE die isn’t expended.
o Expanded Awareness is like Devilish Tongue, but for the Search action.
o Id Insinuation uses your PE die (pay 2, roll 1) as a saving throw penalty for one target of an Enchantment or Illusion Psion spell you cast.
o Inerrant Aim uses your PE die as a bonus to one attack roll that you make and that misses. You only expend the PE die if the result turns a miss to a hit.
o Psionic Backlash lets you spend one PE die to roll two of them (as with Id Insinuation, this is awkward and I promise players are going to misplay it by accident) and uses your roll result as a penalty to an attack roll against you, and the target makes a Wis save, taking the roll result as Psychic damage on a failed save. This one is real good.
o Psionic Guards lets you burn a PE die to have Immunity to the Charmed and Frightened conditions, and Advantage on all Int saves, until the start of your next turn; it also ends the Charmed or Frightened conditions on you if you’re currently affected. This Discipline doesn’t count against the limit of one Discipline per turn.
§ I have to question how fair it is for the character to be aware they are Charmed, and decide to end that condition on themselves. I don’t think I like that.
o Swift Precognition expends your PE dice without rolling them to change the casting time of an Abjuration or Divination spell from an action to a Bonus Action. You spend dice equal to 1 + spell level, which will chew through your dice very fast indeed. It’s a nice-to-have, but so expensive that you probably shouldn’t buy it early.
o Tactical Mind is like Devilish Tongue and Expanded Awareness, but for the Study action. I appreciate that Expanded Awareness and Tactical Mind aren’t tinkering with action economy, at least.
· Psionic Modes at level 2 (we are packing a lot of stuff in here) gives you, basically, two stance options, Attack and Defense. Two per Long Rest, activated as a Bonus Action, 1 minute duration.
o Attacc Mode makes your Psychic damage ignore Resistance, and you can spend a PE die to reroll damage dice up to your Int modifier. So more or less a minute of free Empowered Spell Metamagic?
o Protecc Mode gives you Resistance to Psychic damage, and you can spend a PE die to add the result to a failed Int, Wis, or Cha save. That’s very strong if you’re in the kind of fight where it matters, but predicting that isn’t always possible.
· Psionic Subclasses come in at level 3, of course.
· Along with Ability Score Improvements/Feats at levels 4, 8, 12, and 16.
· Psionic Restoration at level 5 is a currency fixer for PE dice. It improves your PE dice regained from a Short Rest—one of your Short Rests in a day restores half of your PE dice. Making this just 1/Long Rest feels oddly stingy.
· Psionic Surge at level 7 is a currency fixer for Psionic Modes. You can burn a Hit Point Die when you roll Initiative to regain a Mode activation. Also, you can expend a Hit Die after any PE die roll; if you do, the die result has a floor of 4 (that is, 1s, 2s, and 3s are treated as 4s).
o Having two different currency fixer features really puts a spotlight on how many currency pools (spell slots, PE dice, Modes) you’re managing. I don’t dislike any of those things, but it’s more involved than a lot of classes.
o It’s super interesting to see alternate uses for HD as a significant part of a class’s function. We’ve seen this in feats every now and again, but I think this is the first class feature? Which means it’s been an obvious design space that WotC has mostly shunned for 11 years. Every sorcerer in the room is saying, “hey, can I get in on some of that? It’s the dead fucking center of class theme…”
· Epic Boon at level 19. Energy Resistance is the default.
· Enkindled Lifeforce at level 20 lets you “go nova” on PE dice expenditure—when you roll a PE die, you can expend and roll two more and add them to the result. By this point you’ve got 12d12 PE dice, so yeah. You’re going to want to do this (limit 1/turn)... except that your PE budget is pleading for mercy long before this feature shows up.
I like the core of the class, though as I said I think it’s not very newbie-friendly because there are so many things to manage, and I think you’ll need a reasonably nuanced grasp of the rules to make good decisions. Picking two out of the eleven Disciplines for what will be the majority of most campaigns (levels 2-9) is the area with the greatest chance for trap choices, depending on your subclass and your spell prep picks. I often like High Weird in class design—I really liked the weirdness of the UA Mystic, even though the mechanics were nonsense in a bunch of cases—but this Psion doesn’t go wild. If this became official as written, it would be solid.
Psionic Spell List
The level 1 spell selections need a lot of help. It’s to be expected that Psions are long on control and short on direct damage, but they’re really short on direct damage—Dissonant Whispers is their only damage-dealing level 1 spell. This document has a few spells, but I hope that any book that brings the Psion to official use can spend some page-space on adding more variety to their level 1 spells. (I’m not ignoring each subclass’s free prepped spells, but you’re waiting until level 3 for those.)
Reading the spell list also overturns a lot of expectation that was set up in the Disciplines. It’s not surprising that Enchantment is extremely well represented in this spell list, or that Necromancy isn’t, but when it comes to picking Disciplines, think very carefully about what you’re going to pick and use.
Finally, think hard about how much Concentration management you’re going to do, because the Psion list leans very hard to Concentration. That’s an obvious result of a control-heavy spell list, but it’s going to inform your round-by-round gameplay.
Psion Subclasses
This document has four subclasses, which is the right number to start with.
Metamorph
Oh, here’s the weird one. It’s some David Cronenberg body horror (as a healer) up in this subclass. Have you wanted to play a healer who is also a Vicissitude vampire from V:tM? This is your scene.
· Metamorph Spells include a bunch of healing, Alter Self (marginally better than in 2014, but still not good), Haste, Inflict Wounds, Polymorph, Stoneskin, and Contagion. Very much an offense/support split and what I’d expect from a metabolic psion.
· Organic Weapons lets you instantly turn your body into a weapon, for the duration of your Attack action or Opportunity Attack. Three weapon options:
o A 1d8 Piercing melee weapon, which also gives you Pack Tactics (Advantage on your attack if one of your allies is within 5 feet and not Incapacitated). Snikt, bub.
o A 1d10 Bludgeoning melee weapon, which also imposes Disadvantage on the next Str or Con save they make before the start of their next turn. It’s clobberin’ time.
o A 1d6 Acid crossbow hand, which adds +1d6 Acid damage to one of your shots on your turn.
o I understand that WotC probably regards this question as stupid (“it ain’t that kind of movie, kid”), but what happens to gloves, sleeves, or bracers you’re wearing while this happens? Does it matter if they’re nonmagical? To me, if you’re not shredding gloves, manacles, bracers, or whatever when you turn your hand into bone spike or an acid launcher, what are we even doing here?
· Extend Limbs, also at level 3, lets you burn a PE die for one of the following, with a 1-min duration:
o +5 ft reach
o +5 ft Speed
o Your Touch range is now 10 ft.
o This is really cool and freaky, but it’s not what you need at this point in your gameplay. Here, I’ll spoil it for you. What you need is Hit Points and AC. If you’re going to be in melee a lot of the time, d6 Hit Dice, Mage Armor, and Dex as your second or third best stat ain’t gonna cut it. Oh, you also don’t have Con as a proficient save to help with your Concentration.
o Did you know the Fantastic Four are coming to the MCU for really real this summer? This UA release sure the hell does.
· Extra Attack at level 6. Also, you can replace one of those attacks with a Psion cantrip.
o That’s really strong, but most of your cantrip options aren’t thematically in tune with the Metamorph’s body-as-weapon thing. I guess you can solve some of your survivability problems with Blade Ward, but that feels Bad. True Strike is a strong option.
· Quickened Healing, also at level 6, lets you cast Cure Wounds as a Bonus Action by expending 2 PE dice, and you roll 1 PE die and add it to the healing output. I really, really hope the designer’s answer to “you don’t have Hit Points or AC” is to just heal through, because you’re going to be both Unconscious and out of spell slots real frickin’ fast.
· Mutable Form at level 10 adds onto the effect of Extend Limbs with two more Reed Richards tricks, and one trick borrowed from Ben Grimm, the Ever-lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing.
o Stony Epidermis finally helps you maintain Concentration (level 10? Seriously?), and grants you Resistance to one of nine damage types.
o Superior Stride requires you not to be wearing armor for some reason, but lets you Dash as a Bonus Action and gives you a Climb Speed and Swim Speed equal to your walking Speed.
o Unnatural Flexibility gives you a +2 AC bonus (but you have to choose between this and the Concentration thing) and lets you squeeze through spaces as narrow as 1 inch; also you can escape nonmagical restrains or the Grappled condition by spending 5 feet of movement.
· Life-Bending Weapons at level 14 lets you splash AoE healing (10-ft Emanation) once per turn when you hit a creature with your creepy Cronenberg body. It costs a PE die every time, healts for PE die + Int mod, and deals Necrotic damage to one creature equal to your PE die result.
o This feature is insanely strong—it’s blowing the Warlock’s Lifedrinker Invocation away, and that is saying something—but it’s also chewing through your PE dice so fast that you can’t really afford to do anything else. It’s also harder to pair with the Viscera Launcher weapon, because if you’re using a ranged weapon you very much do not want to be within 10 feet of an active enemy.
The Metamorph has three serious problems: Hit Points, AC, and PE dice budgeting. Their features are very hungry for PE dice, but a Short Rest only gets you one back, so you’ve got to be very conservative with them until the boss fight. At the same time, though, you’re relying on spending PE dice for survivability. If they’re not solved in a level 3 feature, they’re not sufficiently solved, because that’s such a fragile time in the life of a d6 HD class. Having said all of that, the theme is working and I hope they give it another pass.
Psi Warper
So you can control both Space and Mind? Can I finally play a proper Mage: the Awakening Mastigos in D&D?
· Psi Warper Spells involve, of course, a zillion movement powers, plus Shatter, Haste, and Banishment. This is a lot like the spells I chose of my own volition for my Hexblade.
· Teleportation is, um, not working hard enough as a feature name. I’m just saying. It gives you one free Misty Step per Long Rest, and you can Misty Step by spending a PE die.
· Warp Propel, also at level 3, boosts your Telekinetic Propel (the Psionic Power option) to no longer roll the die for distance. Instead, it teleports the target to a space of your choice within 30 feet of you, potentially dropping them off cliffs or into the middle of a Spike Growth.
o If you can’t ruin your enemy’s plans with this, you’re not trying, like, at all. This is too good—it’s Vortex Warp for a PE die, and with even fewer restrictions.
· Warp Space at level 6 lets you spend a PE die to increase the radius of Shatter, and it sucks the targets that fail their save toward the center of the area. I like adding some forced movement to Shatter—not a ton of distance, but big points for style.
· Teleporter Combat, also at level 6, lets you cast a cantrip as part of the Bonus Action that you’re using to cast Misty Step. Casting two spells as part of the same Bonus Action is a weird idea, even if one of them is a cantrip—D&D doesn’t sell you ways to cast three spells (one or two of them cantrips) on your turn that often, now that you can’t use the Magic action when you Action Surge.
o As a result, your PE dice are acting like Extra Attack and doing a bunch of damage fixing. You don’t have to use one every round… only the rounds that matter. I’m laying odds against this making it to final release.
o Note that Teleporter at level 3 has given you a way to cast Misty Step without a spell slot, which is why you can cast a spell with a slot on your action.
· Duplicitous Target at level 10 lets you spend a PE die as a Reaction to swap places with a willing creature within 20 feet just as you’re about to get hit by an attack. Good for use with a high-AC ally, amazing for use with a Dominated enemy.
· Mass Teleportation at level 14 lets you spend four PE dice as an action, to teleport 5 creatures (if you don’t have 20 Int by level 14, you aren’t trying) to unoccupied spaces within 150 feet. Nothing stopping you from making that unoccupied space 150 feet up, including directly above other enemy creatures. (That jumps out here because there’s explicit handling to prevent that in Warp Propel.)
So once again, there are no features in this subclass other than Psi Warper Spells that don’t cost one or more PE dice. Recovering 1 PE die on a Short Rest just gives you next to nothing to work with on using your cool tricks, and the currency fixer at level 5 ain’t cuttin’ it. This has a lot of style, but not enough staying power for an adventuring day. Welcome back to your 15-minute adventuring day I guess?
Psykinetic
Love a telekinetic. Since it’s going to come up later, I’m surprised there’s not a Pyro- or Cryokinetic subclass too. I can only assume that would come along shortly thereafter.
· Psykinetic Spells are exactly what you’d expect—Stone Shape is the only surprise on this list, and I like it here.
· Telekinetic Techniques tacks another feature onto your Telekinetic Propel.
o Boost adds +10 to the target’s Speed (for when you herd your friends around).
o Disorient is Opportunity Attack denial. Doesn’t require a failed save, just the PE spend.
o Telekinetic Bolt deals damage equal to the PE die result if the target fails their save. It’s not a ton of damage, but it’s nice I guess.
· Empowered Attack Modes at level 6 (and honestly it’s surprising that the Metamorph and Psywarper don’t interact with Attack Modes, like, at all) gives you a Fly Speed of 60 ft and adds your Int modifier to one damage roll of each Psion spell you cast when you’re in Attack Mode.
o This is incredibly good, since it doesn’t eat your Concentration and applies to your AoEs. A lot of your big damage spells as a Psykinetic are Transmutation rather than Evocation, but it’s okay because this is better than Destructive Thoughts anyway! (And doesn’t cost a PE die, just a Mode use.)
· Rebounding Field, also at level 6, lets you spend a PE die when you cast Shield. You roll two PE dice and the target rolls a Dex save. If they fail (man, this is a lot of extra Stuff on what’s going to be a common Reaction), they take damage equal to your roll result and you gain an equal amount of Temp HP. On a successful save, they take half damage and you don’t gain Temp HP. (Their save affecting what you gain is not how D&D usually does things.)
o This is wildly more throughput for your PE die than, for example, Telekinetic Techniques.
· Enhanced Telekinetic Crush at level 10 lets you spend a PE die when you cast Telekinetic Crush to halve the targets’ Speed until the start of your next turn. Situationally nice to have; Telekinetic Crush has a long enough range that you might delay a group of enemies for a whole round of ranged/spell attacks.
· Heightened Telekinesis at level 14 lets you spend four PE dice as part of casting Telekinesis to change the duration to 1 minute, drop Concentration, and be able to target Gargantuan creatures. Dropping Concentration is very nice. Also very expensive, since you’re paying both a lot of dice and a level 5 spell slot.
o I think of baseline Telekinesis as being incredibly powerful, though—in our Tomb of Annihilation campaign, the sorcerer had TK running when Acererak arrived (too late to Counterspell), and Easy A couldn’t Dispel it for some reason, so this greatest of all liches got swirlied to death in a vat of lava or whatever it was. Really took the stuffing out of the big showdown.
The Psykinetic has the same problem of managing their PE budget that everyone else (so far) has, but it’s enough like playing a sorcerer that you can probably do okay without a lot of your features. You have a lot of extra maneuverability and avoidance coming from Empowered Attack Modes, so as long as you can afford one of those for every significant fight, you should be fine. Best of the three subclasses I’ve read so far, to me, for not being as stressful to manage in the long term.
Telepath
If you need the game to explain to you what a Telepath is, then friend, you need to go back to the source fiction. No judgment, everyone’s gotta start somewhere.
· Telepath Spells—well, Bane and Counterspell are at least not automatic fits for Telepaths, but I can get there. Speak with Plants is a stretch, for me.
· Mind Infiltrator lets you spend two PE dice when you cast Detect Thoughts to cast it without components or Concentration, and it covers your tracks when you probe its mind.
o Two PE dice is very expensive when you first get this, but getting rid of all outward markers that you’ve done anything is a great help in tense social scenes.
· Telepathic Hub, also at level 3, gives your telepathy a base range of 10 feet, and when you boost it with Telepathic Connection, you contact multiple creatures at once (1 + PE die result). Sorry, this is still really bad. You’re going to roll lower than the number you need to make your plan work some amount of the time, your party-line call is going to get dropped because you ran out of minutes, and I don’t know about you, but telepathic PCs in my games usually just want to be one-conversation-at-a-time switchboard operators.
o Worth saying that you need to spend a PE die to be as good at telepathy as a Great Old One Warlock’s Awakened Mind feature.
· Empowered Defense Mode at level 6 adds +1d4 to your saving throws to the effects of your Defense Mode, and creatures telepathically connected to you also gain the benefit.
o This turns the very frustrating Telepathic Connection Psionic Power into a necessary hurdle for your other stuff—to work “right,” this feature costs both a mode and a PE die. It also takes two Bonus Actions to spin up.
o Oh, and you can’t spin this up ahead of time, really, because Telepathic Connection and Defense Mode each have a 1-min duration.
· Potent Thoughts, also at level 6, adds your Int modifier to your Psion cantrip damage. Cantrips are a primary damage source for you as a Telepath, so yeah, this is necessary.
· Telepathic Bolstering at level 10 increases your base telepathy range to 30 feet makes you, more or less, a telepathic leader. When an ally fails an ability check or attack roll, you can take a reaction and spend a PE die to add the die result to your roll. The PE die is expended only if it flips the result to a success.
o Still costs a PE die to use, but at least you don’t have to use Telepathic Connection for basic function. You can reach a lot farther with this feature if you are using Telepathic Connection and happened to roll well. I think I’m interpreting correctly to say that the 30-ft telepathy is the new baseline and your PE die roll adds on top of that.
· Scramble Minds at level 14 lets you spend 4 PE dice when you cast Confusion to expand its area, and they roll two d10s for their confused behavior, taking your choice of action. That makes it slightly safer to include allies in the spell’s area, which you’re far more likely to do if you’ve tripled the spell’s radius.
o Nice to have I guess, but 4 PE dice? Doesn’t feel worth it in most cases.
The Telepath is just not good. What it’s trying to accomplish in its story is cool, I like the concepts, but it’s a resource hog on Bonus Actions, on Modes, on PE dice, on spell slots. The Great Old One Warlock sells a lot of the same theme, until you get to level 14, and does it with a lot less action and currency load.
To rank the four subclasses (descending) on expected fun at the table: Psykinetic, Psi Warper, Metamorph, Telepath.
Spells
We get seven spells, a mix of old and new.
Intellect Fortress has no meaningful changes except they cut a clause of distance-from-targets-from-each-other from Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot. Fine before, fine now. Had to be reprinted here because it came from TCOE.
Psychic Scream has no meaningful changes. Reprinted from XGTE, but, you know, crucial to the Psion spell list.
Raulothim’s Psychic Lance has been one of the most popular new spells of the whole post-TCOE era in my groups. Really only Silvery Barbs is competing for that title. The function is essentially unchanged, with some clarification that you have to use their proper name. Anyway, this spell is going to continue dominating our metagame.
Summon Astral Entity makes me look forward to a full-more Metacreative subclass (that’s an Expanded Psionics Handbook thing, for those of you newer to D&D than… [checks notes] 2004? Oh. Oh no. Anyway, this is a Summon like the rest of the ones in TCOE/2024, and you choose between Crystal, Ectoplasmic, and Ghostly. Crystal Entity is just incredible for tanking, because it has Uncanny Dodge with a free teleport. Solid, would use.
Tasha’s Mind Whip (Mind Whip? Mind Whip? Mind Whip? Three Mind Whips.) now locks out Opportunity Attacks, not all Reactions. Reaction denial is harder overall than it used to be, which is important because so many more monsters have a Reaction as a significant part of their stat block and narrative.
Telekinetic Crush is a big AoE cube. Level 3, so it’s obviously living alongside Fireball (not that Psions get Fireball). Giving the spell to Sorcerers and Warlocks, but not Wizards, is an odd choice to me.
Telekinetic Fling is “what if Catapult (from Elemental Evil Player’s Guide) were scaled down to a cantrip?” It’s Fire Bolt but Force damage, so it’s better, but it costs you 1 CP per use, as you need a fistful of needles, arrows, bolts, or bullets. It’s fine, though I’m pretty convinced it should have been Bludgeoning or Piercing rather than Force. (I just don’t like things defaulting toward the almost-unresistable damage type.)
Feats
Ten feats. This is how you play a Wild Talent. I don’t think the Wild Talent category otherwise exists? But I assume these are options at level 1 because it doesn’t say they’re not.
Atmokinesis is psychic weather control, that’s cool. It gives you Shocking Grasp and Fog Cloud, and later on Gust to Wind. A free use of Fog Cloud and Gust of Wind 1/Long Rest. You can also substitute Lightning damage in place of any Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing, or Psychic damage you would deal, 1/turn.
Biokinesis adds 1d4 to your healing output from spells you cast, PB times per Long Rest. (It’s gotten rare to see PB used as a scaling function, but sure.) It also gives you Spear the Dying, Healing Word (surprising because that’s a core healing spell Metamorphs don’t get), and later on, Arcane Vigor. I’m going to stop explaining that you get a free use of the leveled spells 1/Long Rest. Just keep assuming that’s how all of these feats work.
Clairsentience (thanks for teaching me new made-up words, Complete Psionicist’s Handbook!) gives you Advantage on Search actions PB times per Long Rest, as well as Guidance, Detect Evil and Good, and See Invisibility. More sources of See Invis are always good to have.
Cryokinesis does the same damage substitution as Atmokinesis, but Cold rather than Lightning. It also gives you Ray of Frost, Armor of Agathys (y’all, this spell is so OP), and Ice Knife. In this case you don’t wait until level 3 for another spell.
Empath gives you Advantage on Influence ability checks, PB times per Long Rest, and gives you Charm Person, then Calm Emotions at level 3. No cantrip for you.
Flesh Morpher lets you add your Int modifier to your Dex (Acrobatics or Sleight of Hand) checks PB times per Long Rest, and gives you Longstrider and Alter Self. This one is a little underwhelming, though the +Int bonus is nice.
Mind Whisperer gives you a telepathic connection to one creature within 120 feet for an hour, 1/Short or Long Rest (uh, this is very competitive with the Telepath’s whole deal), and gives you the Mind Sliver and Dissonant Whispers spells. This feat is incredibly strong.
Psi Trickster lets you add your Int modifier to Charisma (Deception or Persuasion) checks, PB times per Long Rest, and gives you Minor Illusion and Disguise Self. Solid feat, very worth it.
Psykineticist gives you +10 ft to your Speed when you Dash, PB times per Long Rest (really only good if you have Dash as a Bonus Action from another source). It also gives you Telekinetic Fling and Thunderwave. This is outstanding for Monks, and can probably sell a lot of your Airbender fantasy all by itself. It’s solid for other classes, but Monks need that ranged help more than most.
Pyrokinesis offers Fire damage substitution PB times per Long Rest, and Produce Flame, Burning Hands, and Scorching Ray. The only actual question here was whether you’d get Scorching Ray or Heat Metal.
And that, as they say, is that.
My initial read on the Psion was very positive. On a deeper read, I think it has a small number of meaningful problems in the core class, a lot of problems in the subclasses, and the spells and feats are fine. And, genuinely, that makes it one of the best UA releases, maybe ever.
Comments
Tim Baker
Thanks for the thoughtful breakdown. I always appreciate these.
