Psionic Powers in Tanaheim

How Psionic powers work in Tanaheim as per D&D 5e experimental rules.

Effect

Psionic Focus gives you a special object that is your casting focus. Its effect is to allow you to reroll 1s on force and psychic damage dice. (As with all damage rerolls, you reroll once and keep the result, even if it’s another 1.) I don’t feel like an object of any kind is a common requirement for psions in fiction, though an enhancing or resonating object is pretty common (Cerebro, do you even lift?) Psionic Devotion touches on “devotion” as D&D’s word for low-end psionic powers. It teaches you friends (but keep reading), mage hand, or message, for empaths, telekineticists, or telepaths. You have to have your psionic focus on you to use this. Crucially, it also improves whichever of those cantrips you pick, changing the casting to a bonus action and: Friends no longer turns targets hostile. Solving the problem in one little phrase! Mage hand is invisible, and you can control it as a bonus action. Message doesn’t require that you point or whisper. That’s all to the good for selling telepathy.

Thought Form at 6th level turns you into a spectral form – this was a top-end power in some previous UA mystics – for 10 minutes at a time, Int modifier times per long rest. It’s a bonus action to start, and you have to have your psionic focus on you. A luminous being are you (5-ft glow), not this crude matter. You cast psionically (no components other than expensive material components), and you gain resistance to psychic damage and non-magical B/P/S damage. This feature makes a definite and unusual statement about what psionics look like in D&D: most of the time it doesn’t look like psionics. Instead you can power up to a true psionic state. This is saying “psionics through wizardry” rather than “wizardry is just a chassis for our psionics,” because you have a focus object and you expend a power-up to achieve psionic spellcasting. Mental Discipline at 10th level teaches you dominate person (telepaths), scrying (clairvoyants), or telekinesis (…yeah), and lets you cast it without components. Once per long rest, you can cast it without expending a spell slot. An extra 5th-level spell per day is nice to have, no matter what. This is about using one classic psionic move a little more often. Empowered Psionics, also at 10th level, adds your Int modifier to your damaging psychic and force spells. This touches on the issue of the whole subclass trying to get you not to lean on fireball and other classic damaging wizard spells. Thought Travel at 14th level improves your Thought Form so that it behaves more like classic incorporeality – you fly, and you can pass through creatures and objects, presumably including walls. You take damage if you end in the same space as an object. There’s also a section on psionic-themed spells. They’re existing D&D wizard spells that fit well, or well enough, with the aesthetic expectations of psionics – psychic and force damage only, influencing minds and emotions, teleportation, that kind of thing. It’s essentially saying that if you want to play this concept, it’s on you to sell it with spell choice at least as much as it’s on the subclass to incentivize those choices.
The Psion shares a lot of the foundational problems of the Enchanter: an enormous number of creatures are immune or invalid targets for many of your core spells: immunity to charmed and frightened, or not a person. Also, a bunch of single-target, no-effect-on-save spells, which to my mind promises a frequently frustrating gameplay experience. In fairness, a casual survey of psionic themes and D&D makes those outcomes look inevitable – but that’s something I would hope to see addressed at least lightly in the subclass.
The things the subclass does, in themselves, are interesting and fun. They’re not fated to satisfy many of the people who are most invested in the aesthetics of psionics. 5e has fixed its star on psionics are magic, rather than psionics aren’t magic, and that too is an irreconcilable point for some. Psionics being constrained in the form factor of existing spells takes away the radical adaptability and on-the-fly innovation that some fans value, and that previous mystics were trying to sell. (My take: the previous mystic was not, in itself, a lost cause – there were just some really odd decisions that needed to go back to the drawing board.)

Side/Secondary Effects

There are nine new psionic-themed spells, all available to bards, sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards. Ego whip at 4th level is a single-target disabling spell, imposing disadvantage on everything they do and locking them out of spellcasting. It’s a more decisive way to screw over spellcasters than silence, but targeting Int saves does mean that a lot of the people you most want to disable are best able to resist it. I’d generally rather use some of the AoE disabling spells, though, because someone in the group will fail that save and I’ll get something for my spell slot. It may not be as severely disabling, but I hate spending an action and a 4th-level spell slot and having nothing to show for it.


Id insinuation at 1st level might as well have been called Tasha’s hideous witch bolt. It’s much better than either one, and I’m gonna say it’s purely overpowered at 1st level.
Intellect fortress at 5th level is a very serious defense: advantage on all saving throws for the caster, and you can spend your reaction to let an ally within 30 feet reroll a failed save. I’d love to know how this got benchmarked at 5th level, which feels maybe one level high for me – but I don’t get to play a lot of mid-to-late-game 5e, when 5th-level slots become more available.
Mental barrier at 2nd level is a defensive reaction, which is always nice to see. It’s triggered when you make an Int, Wis, or Cha save, granting you advantage on those saves and resistance to psychic damage until the beginning of your next turn. I like this one a lot.
Mind sliver is an enchantment cantrip, previously released in the recent UA: Sorcerer and Warlock. I liked it then and like it now.
Mind thrust at 2nd level is a single-target attack that goes multi-target if you spend a higher-level slot. Its damage is not amazing, but if they fail the save, they can only Disengage or Dash on their next turn. Getting to constrain an enemy’s actions in a way that locks out Attack and Cast a Spell is a huge power move.
Psionic blast is the big news: a 3rd-level 30-ft cone of psychic damage that also knocks targets back and knocks them down. For raw damage (5d8 psychic) it doesn’t keep up with fireball (because fireball breaks the rules), but if you’re in a situation where a cone is good, adding a 20-ft knockback and knockdown is unbelievably good. It’s the Thunderwave Protocol. This is a serious competitor for your Big Third-Level AoE Damage Spell, alongside fireball and lightning bolt. (20-ft knockback + prone: target isn’t getting to you next round, either.) Oh, and the damage scaling function, 1d8 per spell level, is marginally better than fireball.
Psychic crush at 6th level is still my favorite REM song. It’s a single-target spell that absolutely devastates the target on a failed save – 12d6 psychic damage and stunned for 1 minute. They do get to keep making saves to break out of the stun, of course.
Thought shield is a long-duration, no-Concentration defense, which is a space that this collection of spells really needed to cover. It blocks telepathy, detect thoughts and similar mind-reading, and grants advantage on zone of truth and similar effects. Also, you can cast it on other people.
This collection of spells covered the five classic attack modes of 2e psionics, but only three of the classic defenses. The absence of tower of iron will is a slap in the face (please read this as ironic exaggeration!) to any true fan of psionics (you know I’m kidding because I just made a No True Scotsman argument and those are basically always garbage). Mind blank, of course, is already the last word in mental defenses.
New Feats
We’re still not done. Standing in for wild talents, we have the Telepathic and Telekinetic feats.
Telekinetic gives you +1 Int (sure, necessary), invisible mage hand, and a bonus action 5-ft shove using your mage hand. That shove is a Strength save rather than ordinary Shove mechanics. This is worth buying for a fair number of characters, especially Psychic Warriors.
Telepathic gives you +1 Int, proficiency in Deception, Insight, Intimidation, or Persuasion, and 30-ft telepathy. If it’s not okay to give out the message cantrip and we have to restrict that to 30-ft telepathy, maybe message is the thing that’s too much? That’s still weird to me.
I like these feats, though. Big fan.