This video is brought to you by the Web DM Weird Wastelands Kickstarter! www.kickstarter.com/projects/webdm/worlds-of-web-dm-weird-wastelands?ref=8fu8nk
Thanks for this review and feedback . We have already addressed a lot of your concerns and notes. This was a first for me, it's so nerve-racking to have someone talk about your creation. I'm glad you liked it, and I think the final version will live up to your expectations.
Thank you for your honesty and your work. Your channel has been a source of inspiration to me in my fledgling content creation. I and I'm sure many others are excited for the release of Weird Wastelands!
I'd like to see some of the damaging powers get some sort of level based increase similar to cantrips, even if it's a small bump. 1d6+mod is very low for an actions worth of damage. Spellcaster cantrips scale, I think "talents" should as well to some extent
I actually like the third edition psion. You could play an Str-based psion or a dex-based psion, each of the six disciplines were tied to their own stat.
@@mcullennz he is but I especially connect with the Shaman, both mechanically and thematically. It's the best representation of a Circle of Spirits druid I wanted to make not too long ago when the College of Spirits bard UA was released.
Such an incredible reimagining of psionics in 5e. Every other implementation has felt so lackluster and really like a bad/unnecessarily complicated spellcaster (Mystic). The subtle and simple implementation of the "Zone of Influence" is a wonderfully elegant way of conveying the idea of having some control over the things around you. I love it and I'm so excited for more!
Not sure if I'm fully for this design of the Psionic. While it's way less overpowered compared to the WotC's Mystic, it does feel weird to me that part of the healing aspect of the class you are using the resources of the other character or you are making a challenge 5% easier unless you dump more Power Points into it. It's not bad per se, that aspect feels pretty underpowered for someone who can launch a 1,000 lbs creature at 1st-level (while that fully depletes them than their basic abilities). But, we still don't have the other features/sub-classes to see what else they've planned. Again, not bad, but it hasn't fully convinced me yet to bring this version to my groups
would love more official stuff for psychic stuff but there's a lot of stuff I'm excited to get to, I've enjoyed webdm content for a bit and was happy to back this
Theres going to be a couple of Psion like classes coming from 3rd party sources in the coming month's, MCDM I believe is going to make one, Wed DM, and a few others.
Am I missing some important details, or are most of these abilities functional replications of existing 5e spells or class features? It seems like there's a design pattern here taking an existing concept (or even rules text), nerfing it so it's not OP to start with, then giving it ways to scale it up to match or exceed the WotC option it's paralleling. The Telekinesis ability really stands out, since almost all of the text there is identical to the Telekinesis spell, with the addition of restrictions to its power and a way to raise that limit. I assume this is allowed under the OGL... but is that really a good choice? It certainly seems to miss out on a huge opportunity to distinguish psions from wizards...
As someone constantly trying to design their own psion, I like some of the ideas here. Though I still dislike going for the full power point system of older editions, and instead have been trying to rig up something using the psionic energy dice system to stay more consistent to the psionic subclasses that are already in game. I may just incorporate some of their concepts into my own homebrew.
So far, that Psion fits what I have always wanted in a true psion. I like the way that you can not put more PP into an ability than you have put skill points, as you level, into a given ability. My only regret is that it will not be implementable on D&D Beyond. Perhaps, as a stretch goal, they might make a deal with D&D Beyond, as Nerdarchy did with their Out of the Box kickstarter. I'll have to join Web DM's kickstarter now just for the Psion.
As interesting as this presents itself I’m very satisfied with the Korranberg Chronicle take on psionics that includes 3 separate classes, one for each mental score
Have you looked at any of Kibblestasty's homebrew? I personally find his stuff to be some of the best balanced homebrew I've seen for 5e. His Psion is IMO the best version I've seen for 5e so far.
Can only second this. And with the Psion kibblestasty somehow managed to make the powers (disciplines) realy versatile without becoming too wordy/complicated to implement.
IMO Psionics should be broken down in the vein of Julian May and the book series 'Saga of the Exiles'. They had Creation, Coercion, Psychokinesis, Farsensing and Redaction.
I kinda like it. I agree the UA mystic was broken... I play tested a mystic that started a cult. I saw how op he was getting and volunteered to switch characters. but for some reason, the dm seemed to have it out for me after that, because he turned my own cult against me. Normally I would say that's just using my own creation in the story, but.... when he decides that suddenly my cults 2nd in command is a lvl 20 assassin killing me in my sleep, there's an issue... I never found out what it was either. he did this to at least 2 of my characters. some part of me thinks he enjoyed watching how I challenged him with new tricks trying to escape, but ...some of it was too far. This Psion looks good though. Has potential.
The Psion looks really weak. look at the psychic probe for comparison. By 9th level you could use all 5 of your points to have rank 5 Telepathy, which seems alot weaker than say a wizard who has focused on just taking the spells that mimic these effects such as detect thoughts, rary's telepathic bons and modifiy memory. Not to mention the power and versatility that a wizard has. This psion cannot deal any damage without blowing powerpoints. Even with there high damage effects say at 9th level they can only deal I believe it was 6d10 to one target for a rank 5 psychic crush and I believe the psychic blade would deal 6d6 damage on a hit for 5 power points. Which you could only do 3 times with your 18 power points before you had nothing left. The class needs a scaling damage power that scales for free like cantrips
I think all their at will stuff should scale like cantrips do. I know they want to break away from cantrips and spell slots but cantrips aren't the only thing that use the cantrip progression.
@@giorgitsiklauri840 They could scale the at will stuff directly with the ranks. Each rank a free 1d6 damage, so you psiblade deals 5d6 damage for 5th rank at level 9, would make the class usable without doing the cantrip level progression table. But I still think the class is too focused. You can see the table that by 5th rank the class has some powers that are comparable to a 5th level spell. But you need to be completely focused to get that 5th rank, giving up everything else. Who wants to play a class that can only use telekinesis, or can only modify memory, with power points that let you do it less often than what spell slots grant.
@@giorgitsiklauri840 Too strong? We are only talking about one attack here and for the psion to be effective compared to a caster its at wills need to land inbetween the caster and the fighter. For arguments sake lets raise this to 11th level because its when cantrips hit there mid damage. Rank 5 seems to be the psions highest rank. So at 11th level a Warlock will do 3d10+15 (31.5) damage with eldritch blast, The Wizard deals 3d10+5 (21.5) with Firebolt. The Fighter deals 6d6+21 to +51 (42-72) (GWF) with a +2 greatsword. Now lets ignore the fact that the fighter can double there damage with action surge and the wizard has disintegrate at this point. Where in that scale should the Psion land. 5d6+5 is only 22.5 damage. We could get away with giving the psion two attacks at that damage for 10d6+10 (45 damage) as long as their high damage moves cannot compare to the fighter, wizard or warlock.
Off topic, but I was wondering if the pride merch was going to continue after pride, my having a living space is in flux rn, so I was hoping I could snag one later
I played psionics heavily in 2e Dark Sun Games and 3.5 when a DM allowed it. I tried the 5e mystic and hated the munchkin garbage it produced. This seems like the fix it has always needed. This makes psionics different from casting, but keeps it simple enough. Based on how it presents now it feels similar to a sorcerer, but more versatile. However it doesn't feel like it steals from other classes roles right now. The biggest issue with Psionics in the past and 5e Mystic is they have no assigned role, they are a swiss army knife, but either too good and outshine other classes or are weaker than other classes and no real role in the party. Because of the radius component they are going with I have a suspicion they may implement things like auras/mantles. Tricky but if done in a balanced fashion as a subclass with good power creep limits it would make this class really useful to a party.
I'm currently working on a psion class myself right now that has some similarities to this, but does lean more into "spells" to keep the familiarity for players. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this as well!
There's no point in psionic spell casting class - it might as well be just a Sorcerer or Wizard subclass, like the Abberant Soul Sorcerer from Tasha's. I like this Psion with it's novel psionics system. It would be interesting twist to eliminate spell casting classes from a Weird Wastlands campaign and have psionics replace them.
Extremely reminiscent of Dark Sun and 2E psionics. I really do like it, but I'm not certain about some of the mechanics. For example, five feet of teleportation, even for a "cantrip" level expenditure (one action, no power points) seems kind of pointless to me. The lack of bonus action or reaction abilities is rather disconcerting as well. Also, it would be almost criminal not to point out that, even at level 20, if you decide to expend the maximum (5) psi points on every ability you use, which you might want to do at high levels, then your "spell slot" equivalent is basically identical to a warlock's ... and without Invocations to bolster you. Of course, if you want more than two disciplines, then you won't be able to spend five power points on every ability you use, so there's that ... Anyway, we'll have to see what the subclasses bring us before we can really pass judgment on the class, won't we? ;)
It's not a setting book exactly, I hope it is enough of one to scratch my Dark sun itch. The setting is only implied , essentially the book is a toolkit that expands on exploration, everything else builds on that idea , travelling the wilds is dangerous and an adventure in itself. You can take the places monster, classes and plop them into any setting .
Feels weak the psi points feel too limited and the disciplines are cool ideas but don't seem to have much reward to focus on and I think it's implied that the power only comes from heavy investment in 1 or 2 disciplines... and why use a psion over a paladin or cleric or wizard or anything with this so far... I don't like that as a psionics fan boy I'm kinda meh on this. But the static range is nice hope we can increase the range and such
Its the same old recycled content... I have something very new, powerful, easy to use, no psp's... and psionics is related to gold... that's your only hint.
Still fells overpowered. How many abilities does level characters have on average? This class seems to have way more. Subclasses would potentially add more abilities.
this is giving me Mystic vibs and I dont like that !!! it is also trying to do everything. and I have to say why d you try to make a whole new system while spell casting exist you can use spell casting but flavor it as psionics it works ine. you can add more caviat to make it non magical if you truly wants that but psionics is magical in nature ... I mean what is magic if its not exirting ones well into the weve ?
This video is brought to you by the Web DM Weird Wastelands Kickstarter! www.kickstarter.com/projects/webdm/worlds-of-web-dm-weird-wastelands?ref=8fu8nk
Thanks for this review and feedback . We have already addressed a lot of your concerns and notes. This was a first for me, it's so nerve-racking to have someone talk about your creation. I'm glad you liked it, and I think the final version will live up to your expectations.
Thank you for your honesty and your work. Your channel has been a source of inspiration to me in my fledgling content creation. I and I'm sure many others are excited for the release of Weird Wastelands!
Your beard to hair ratio is pretty solid right now. Thanks for all the great DnD news!
I’ve seen another Psion Class made by KibblesTasty which was very good and balanced in my opinion. He also had a lot of homebrews that I really love.
I'd like to see some of the damaging powers get some sort of level based increase similar to cantrips, even if it's a small bump. 1d6+mod is very low for an actions worth of damage. Spellcaster cantrips scale, I think "talents" should as well to some extent
Maybe increase the die size through to d12 with level, with the damage from spending power points also benefiting from the increased die size?
I actually like the third edition psion. You could play an Str-based psion or a dex-based psion, each of the six disciplines were tied to their own stat.
My view of psionics was always different than spellcasters and magic in general so glad to see they followed through and kept up with this idea
It’s incredible how well D&D ventures do on Kickstarter. Really says something about the community.
seems really cool! Just curious as to why mind spike does force damage instead of psychic damage
Being tired while writing. That has been rectified. haha
Pls do a review on Ross Leiser's Shaman class, it's so awesome
Agreed. Ross is a great class designer
@@mcullennz he is but I especially connect with the Shaman, both mechanically and thematically. It's the best representation of a Circle of Spirits druid I wanted to make not too long ago when the College of Spirits bard UA was released.
@@mrhatnclogs2391 i was hoping for a spirit domain cleric (summoning) to be in strixhaven. Based off the cards.
Goddammit Ted, you finally convinced me to back this. The Psionics sound pretty cool, maybe slightly OP compared to the vanilla 5e classes.
Such an incredible reimagining of psionics in 5e. Every other implementation has felt so lackluster and really like a bad/unnecessarily complicated spellcaster (Mystic). The subtle and simple implementation of the "Zone of Influence" is a wonderfully elegant way of conveying the idea of having some control over the things around you. I love it and I'm so excited for more!
Not sure if I'm fully for this design of the Psionic. While it's way less overpowered compared to the WotC's Mystic, it does feel weird to me that part of the healing aspect of the class you are using the resources of the other character or you are making a challenge 5% easier unless you dump more Power Points into it. It's not bad per se, that aspect feels pretty underpowered for someone who can launch a 1,000 lbs creature at 1st-level (while that fully depletes them than their basic abilities). But, we still don't have the other features/sub-classes to see what else they've planned. Again, not bad, but it hasn't fully convinced me yet to bring this version to my groups
I think this looks pretty great. It is really cool to see something NEW instead of something that is a rehash.
would love more official stuff for psychic stuff but there's a lot of stuff I'm excited to get to, I've enjoyed webdm content for a bit and was happy to back this
Theres going to be a couple of Psion like classes coming from 3rd party sources in the coming month's, MCDM I believe is going to make one, Wed DM, and a few others.
Am I missing some important details, or are most of these abilities functional replications of existing 5e spells or class features? It seems like there's a design pattern here taking an existing concept (or even rules text), nerfing it so it's not OP to start with, then giving it ways to scale it up to match or exceed the WotC option it's paralleling. The Telekinesis ability really stands out, since almost all of the text there is identical to the Telekinesis spell, with the addition of restrictions to its power and a way to raise that limit. I assume this is allowed under the OGL... but is that really a good choice? It certainly seems to miss out on a huge opportunity to distinguish psions from wizards...
Sorcerer should of been like this. I would love to see Web DM take on sorcerer.
As someone constantly trying to design their own psion, I like some of the ideas here. Though I still dislike going for the full power point system of older editions, and instead have been trying to rig up something using the psionic energy dice system to stay more consistent to the psionic subclasses that are already in game. I may just incorporate some of their concepts into my own homebrew.
Sounds like a really cool class.
Like the colors on that triforce
I love the psion and have had great campaigns with korranberg chronical supplement from DMS guild. This looks awesome.
I really like the Area of Influence. I think more of the features of this class should scale with level like that.
Very much looking forward to this! I'm a strong fan of psionics, but WotC has failed to create it appropriately so far IMO
So far, that Psion fits what I have always wanted in a true psion. I like the way that you can not put more PP into an ability than you have put skill points, as you level, into a given ability.
My only regret is that it will not be implementable on D&D Beyond. Perhaps, as a stretch goal, they might make a deal with D&D Beyond, as Nerdarchy did with their Out of the Box kickstarter. I'll have to join Web DM's kickstarter now just for the Psion.
As interesting as this presents itself I’m very satisfied with the Korranberg Chronicle take on psionics that includes 3 separate classes, one for each mental score
It's the one I use as well
Can you share a link for it please
The wilder subclass is one of my favorite things iv ever played. Highly underrated supplement that I hope gets covered here on the channel.
@Anas B. It’s actually on the DMs Guild
Have you looked at any of Kibblestasty's homebrew? I personally find his stuff to be some of the best balanced homebrew I've seen for 5e. His Psion is IMO the best version I've seen for 5e so far.
Can only second this. And with the Psion kibblestasty somehow managed to make the powers (disciplines) realy versatile without becoming too wordy/complicated to implement.
Kibbles Psion is really fun. I'm excited for the book version.
Been waiting for this video since they said you were doing it
Very pumped for this class. Probably the only third party I'll be ok with since it's done so well.
IMO Psionics should be broken down in the vein of Julian May and the book series 'Saga of the Exiles'. They had Creation, Coercion, Psychokinesis, Farsensing and Redaction.
I can't WAIT to playtest this!!
Looking forward to this - really want to try it. I love the area of influence idea
whoo hoo! some of my favorite folks!
I kinda like it. I agree the UA mystic was broken... I play tested a mystic that started a cult. I saw how op he was getting and volunteered to switch characters. but for some reason, the dm seemed to have it out for me after that, because he turned my own cult against me. Normally I would say that's just using my own creation in the story, but.... when he decides that suddenly my cults 2nd in command is a lvl 20 assassin killing me in my sleep, there's an issue... I never found out what it was either. he did this to at least 2 of my characters. some part of me thinks he enjoyed watching how I challenged him with new tricks trying to escape, but ...some of it was too far.
This Psion looks good though. Has potential.
Check out the Psion class by Kibblestasty bro
Looking forward to watching this
This made me want to design a psychic class. Has great ideas but I'd use them differently
The Psion looks really weak. look at the psychic probe for comparison. By 9th level you could use all 5 of your points to have rank 5 Telepathy, which seems alot weaker than say a wizard who has focused on just taking the spells that mimic these effects such as detect thoughts, rary's telepathic bons and modifiy memory. Not to mention the power and versatility that a wizard has. This psion cannot deal any damage without blowing powerpoints. Even with there high damage effects say at 9th level they can only deal I believe it was 6d10 to one target for a rank 5 psychic crush and I believe the psychic blade would deal 6d6 damage on a hit for 5 power points. Which you could only do 3 times with your 18 power points before you had nothing left. The class needs a scaling damage power that scales for free like cantrips
I think all their at will stuff should scale like cantrips do. I know they want to break away from cantrips and spell slots but cantrips aren't the only thing that use the cantrip progression.
I had similar feelings. I get an impression the subclasses fix this, I hope.
@@giorgitsiklauri840 They could scale the at will stuff directly with the ranks. Each rank a free 1d6 damage, so you psiblade deals 5d6 damage for 5th rank at level 9, would make the class usable without doing the cantrip level progression table. But I still think the class is too focused. You can see the table that by 5th rank the class has some powers that are comparable to a 5th level spell. But you need to be completely focused to get that 5th rank, giving up everything else. Who wants to play a class that can only use telekinesis, or can only modify memory, with power points that let you do it less often than what spell slots grant.
@@scetchmonkey007 That'd prolly be too strong, maybe increases by a d6 every two ranks instead?
@@giorgitsiklauri840 Too strong? We are only talking about one attack here and for the psion to be effective compared to a caster its at wills need to land inbetween the caster and the fighter. For arguments sake lets raise this to 11th level because its when cantrips hit there mid damage. Rank 5 seems to be the psions highest rank. So at 11th level a Warlock will do 3d10+15 (31.5) damage with eldritch blast, The Wizard deals 3d10+5 (21.5) with Firebolt. The Fighter deals 6d6+21 to +51 (42-72) (GWF) with a +2 greatsword. Now lets ignore the fact that the fighter can double there damage with action surge and the wizard has disintegrate at this point. Where in that scale should the Psion land. 5d6+5 is only 22.5 damage. We could get away with giving the psion two attacks at that damage for 10d6+10 (45 damage) as long as their high damage moves cannot compare to the fighter, wizard or warlock.
Off topic, but I was wondering if the pride merch was going to continue after pride, my having a living space is in flux rn, so I was hoping I could snag one later
Since I don't just have a rainbow pride shirt, got the pans flag and the trans flag but no gay yet
I played psionics heavily in 2e Dark Sun Games and 3.5 when a DM allowed it. I tried the 5e mystic and hated the munchkin garbage it produced. This seems like the fix it has always needed.
This makes psionics different from casting, but keeps it simple enough. Based on how it presents now it feels similar to a sorcerer, but more versatile. However it doesn't feel like it steals from other classes roles right now.
The biggest issue with Psionics in the past and 5e Mystic is they have no assigned role, they are a swiss army knife, but either too good and outshine other classes or are weaker than other classes and no real role in the party.
Because of the radius component they are going with I have a suspicion they may implement things like auras/mantles. Tricky but if done in a balanced fashion as a subclass with good power creep limits it would make this class really useful to a party.
Great, now I fuckin' need this. I have no money, damn it!
I'm loving this
I'm currently working on a psion class myself right now that has some similarities to this, but does lean more into "spells" to keep the familiarity for players. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this as well!
There's no point in psionic spell casting class - it might as well be just a Sorcerer or Wizard subclass, like the Abberant Soul Sorcerer from Tasha's.
I like this Psion with it's novel psionics system. It would be interesting twist to eliminate spell casting classes from a Weird Wastlands campaign and have psionics replace them.
Oh how about the monster hunter-ish thing that got funded like 6000%. Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting
You're saying that a bunch of guys on a Kickstarter had more creativity for their class than WoTC had for the Artificer? ...
It wouldn't be the first time and it won't be the last
YEEEAHHHH FUCK YEEEAHHH LETS GOOOOOO
Extremely reminiscent of Dark Sun and 2E psionics. I really do like it, but I'm not certain about some of the mechanics. For example, five feet of teleportation, even for a "cantrip" level expenditure (one action, no power points) seems kind of pointless to me. The lack of bonus action or reaction abilities is rather disconcerting as well. Also, it would be almost criminal not to point out that, even at level 20, if you decide to expend the maximum (5) psi points on every ability you use, which you might want to do at high levels, then your "spell slot" equivalent is basically identical to a warlock's ... and without Invocations to bolster you.
Of course, if you want more than two disciplines, then you won't be able to spend five power points on every ability you use, so there's that ...
Anyway, we'll have to see what the subclasses bring us before we can really pass judgment on the class, won't we? ;)
You can get out attacks of opportunity which is pretty cool
Also it just looks cool
I am not so interested in their world cause I like my own worlds. Not saying it is not good. But I am wanting the Psion. It looks great.
It's not a setting book exactly, I hope it is enough of one to scratch my Dark sun itch. The setting is only implied , essentially the book is a toolkit that expands on exploration, everything else builds on that idea , travelling the wilds is dangerous and an adventure in itself. You can take the places monster, classes and plop them into any setting .
I’m I the only one who feels creatures should be able to make strength/charisma/whatever the psion casting stat
Feels weak the psi points feel too limited and the disciplines are cool ideas but don't seem to have much reward to focus on and I think it's implied that the power only comes from heavy investment in 1 or 2 disciplines... and why use a psion over a paladin or cleric or wizard or anything with this so far... I don't like that as a psionics fan boy I'm kinda meh on this. But the static range is nice hope we can increase the range and such
So it's a dumbed down version of 2e psionics.
Its the same old recycled content... I have something very new, powerful, easy to use, no psp's... and psionics is related to gold... that's your only hint.
Still fells overpowered. How many abilities does level characters have on average? This class seems to have way more. Subclasses would potentially add more abilities.
this is giving me Mystic vibs and I dont like that !!!
it is also trying to do everything. and I have to say why d you try to make a whole new system while spell casting exist you can use spell casting but flavor it as psionics it works ine. you can add more caviat to make it non magical if you truly wants that but psionics is magical in nature ... I mean what is magic if its not exirting ones well into the weve ?