So, the UA Mystic...

[Phhase]

I'm a bit late to the party, and I know that this class is generally regarded as "L0LBROKENXD" (for good reason), but I have a question. Possibly related to the previous statement.

The discipline Mastery of Light and Darkness. It has a technique called Shadow Beasts that lets you summon some Shadows. I love shadows and always wanted some but

If they kill something (Very likely thanks to the cool but very dangerous strength drain)

Does that mean you get new, permanent shadows.

Because, like

Cheese is delicious and nutritious and part of a healthy diet but

That's a little broken, even for me. (Not even considering the possibility of having 6 shadows at once at level 11 with Psionic Mastery...)

[VividMatter]

I'd say no, both as a player having played a Mystic with this ability and as a DM.

Looking over both the Shadow statblock and the Mystic ability, no part of either of these implies the new shadow is controlled by anything. I would rule it just becomes either: A new hostile creature / A benign creature until provoked / Remove the shadow-creating ability from the summoned shadows completely (Which is what my table did).

It seems more like a headache to try to manage these new enemies in the first place, unless you were compiling them to later form a horde of shadows past. Which would be cool, to be fair.

[Jerrykhor]

Shadows are hardly the most broken thing for the Mystic, they are so weak they die to any random area damaging abilities.

[Phhase]

Shadows are hardly the most broken thing for the Mystic, they are so weak they die to any random area damaging abilities.

True. But, consider this. They have lots of resistances, making them good targets for things like Soothing Presence (Wads of THP) and other buffs (Ex. Mage Armor via Wu Jen, or, god forbid, Haste from another party member...). Combined with the fact that the strength drain pretty much makes the enemy's effective HP equal to their strength score...

Out of curiosity, what ARE the most broken things about Mystic?

[Jerrykhor]

Out of curiosity, what ARE the most broken things about Mystic?

Probably Nomadic Mind's focus. Being able to swap to any skill/tool/language proficiency is too bonkers versatile.

Soul Knife's gaining points by killing with their soul knife is another. Basically getting a level 1 spell slot back on each kill. Hordes of minions are walking psi points to me.

Augmented Weapon is Magic Weapon on steroids. Lots of steroids. This is one of the many examples of Mystic having a spell like ability that is 'like spell X, but waaaaay better'. See Psychic Blast (Cone of Cold), Psychic Grip (Hold Monster), and Truesight (they get it as a Level 3 spell).

Bestial Forms is a big one. You can have all the buffs up for 1 hour for little cost, and they dont take up Concentration.

[Phhase]

Probably Nomadic Mind's focus. Being able to swap to any skill/tool/language proficiency is too bonkers versatile.

Soul Knife's gaining points by killing with their soul knife is another. Basically getting a level 1 spell slot back on each kill. Hordes of minions are walking psi points to me.

Augmented Weapon is Magic Weapon on steroids. Lots of steroids. This is one of the many examples of Mystic having a spell like ability that is 'like spell X, but waaaaay better'. See Psychic Blast (Cone of Cold), Psychic Grip (Hold Monster), and Truesight (they get it as a Level 3 spell).

Bestial Forms is a big one. You can have all the buffs up for 1 hour for little cost, and they dont take up Concentration.

Hrm. Figures it's the more boring ones.

[8wGremlin]

I'm a bit late to the party, and I know that this class is generally regarded as "L0LBROKENXD" (for good reason), but I have a question. Possibly related to the previous statement.

The discipline Mastery of Light and Darkness. It has a technique called Shadow Beasts that lets you summon some Shadows. I love shadows and always wanted some but

If they kill something (Very likely thanks to the cool but very dangerous strength drain)

Does that mean you get new, permanent shadows.

Because, like

Cheese is delicious and nutritious and part of a healthy diet but

That's a little broken, even for me. (Not even considering the possibility of having 6 shadows at once at level 11 with Psionic Mastery...)

I crunched the numbers back then, but one of the issues is that the shadows aren't around anymore to tell the new shadows to follow your every command.

Shadow Beasts (3 psi; conc., 1 min.). As an action, you cause two shadows to appear in unoccupied spaces you can see within 60 feet of you. The shadows last until your concentration ends, and they obey your verbal commands

If a non-evil humanoid dies from this attack, a new shadow rises from the corpse 1d4 hours later.

thus your shadows disappear 1 minute after you call them, say they can kill one weak commoner every round, so you have 20 dead commoners, who raise up 1d4 hours later. Nothing says you can control them, or that they will be friendly to you.

that's the problem.

[Phhase]

I crunched the numbers back then, but one of the issues is that the shadows aren't around anymore to tell the new shadows to follow your every command.





thus your shadows disappear 1 minute after you call them, say they can kill one weak commoner every round, so you have 20 dead commoners, who raise up 1d4 hours later. Nothing says you can control them, or that they will be friendly to you.

that's the problem.

True. I've been thinking about that for a little while now. I think I have a funny solution. Barring RP shenanigans, the simplest method is just to

A, reduce the bodies to a manageable size (Say, a skull. This step isn't strictly necessary, but, it's helpful for avoiding clutter, see step B...)

B, cast Leomund's Secret Chest. It can hold a mini-bag of holding worth of nonliving matter (Such as a dead creature. Or part of a dead creature. Or, easily arguable, an undead). Put the corpses, or corpse parts, in the chest. Dismiss.

And last, C. Recall when you need to open Pandora's Box on some fool. Just make sure you're not the target of the Dark's wrath, which is easy enough, just use Magic Circle , Sanctuary, or Invisibility (Recalling the chest doesn't break invisibility...), to name a few.

If you want to take a REALLY technical route though, cast Hallow in a very small circle around the inside of a Bag of Holding's entrance. Toss corpses in. They become shadows, which can't pass through Hallow. Turn the Bag inside out to unleash the Dark.

If this all sounds cheesy, well, it kinda is. But it's cool. And I do have a have decent-ish idea for a character based around the concept.

Spoiler: Gerard Shadowsack

Show

The crux of this guy is that he's sort of like Kalista from League of Legends. If that means nothing to you, here's the Cliff's Notes. If there's a person that's running out of time or life, or whatever, and wants vengeance, closure, or any number of things in their life they can't get, Gerard makes a deal. One, his shadows put you out of your misery (Now, later, whenever). You then hang out in the bag for some time. Gerard makes the bag nice, with plenty of books (Including one on Drow sign language, since shadows can't speak/don't have any languages), a table with several card games, etc. Every now and then, you do stuff for him. In exchange, he gives you the chance to exact revenge/acheive some goal/whatever. I know shadows are supposed to be evil mindless undead that are not actually the creature that died, but c'mon. It's a cool idea, innit?

(Inside the bag, dimly lit by a purple driftglobe)

(Several shadows around a table, playing poker. Think that Dogs Playing Poker painting)

Shadow 1: (Gestures "Raise")

Shadow 2: (Gestures "Call")

(Hands are revealed. Shadow 1 collects the dosh.)

Shadow 3: (Exasperated gesture)

Shadow 2: (Middle finger)

(A short distance away, a hole opens up in the ceiling, light shining through. Noises of combat outside. A heavily armored knight falls in.)

(Shadows turn as one to look at the intruder)

Voice from outside: "Spook em', boys!"

(Hole closes)

Shadow 3: (Reaches out to shut off the driftglobe)

(Cut to very, very black)

Eh? Ehhhh?

[Waterdeep Merch]

True. But, consider this. They have lots of resistances, making them good targets for things like Soothing Presence (Wads of THP) and other buffs (Ex. Mage Armor via Wu Jen, or, god forbid, Haste from another party member...). Combined with the fact that the strength drain pretty much makes the enemy's effective HP equal to their strength score...

Out of curiosity, what ARE the most broken things about Mystic?

To my mind, there's five disciplines that are over the top. With just one being too far gone to ever be properly balanced.

Psychic Assault has several very powerful attacks, mostly tied to devastating status effects, all at absurdly efficient prices and targeting the weakest monster save in the game. Even if the enemy has Legendary Resistances, Ego Whip is horrifying enough that you're liable to eat through them quickly at the low cost of 3 psi a click. And this is assuming you're the only reason they'd need Legendary Resistance.

Psychic Disruption comes out the gate with a mid-long range blinding spell, quickly goes into a cheap single target lockdown with Daze, and ends with a fireball-sized, near-fireball level damage psychic attack (which is, pound for pound, superior to fireball by virtue of targeting Wis and dealing the rarely resisted psychic damage) while also wrecking all their saving throws for a full turn. Even if you only hit a single creature with this, it's insane.

Psychic Inquisition has Phantom Idea, which is horrifying when used cleverly. Remember that Mystics don't have spell components when 'casting', so there would be no way to tell that one is using Phantom Idea. So long as they can just be near a target for a full hour, they can wreak narrative havoc in relative safety. Example- enter a king's castle while they're holding court. Stand next to one of their most loyal and trusted personal guards- implant the idea that the king has been implanted with a mindflayer tadpole. If this doesn't end up with the king's death or whatever chaos you wanted/needed, go back the next day and see who else you can just be near, since there is absolutely no way to tell you were the culprit. Make a small rebellious conspiracy in town if they get too paranoid at the castle. Gets even easier if an ally can make you invisible for the duration or anything like that.

Psychic Phantoms is extremely powerful in the hands of that one player that's real, real good at using the spells phantasmal force and phantasmal killer. See above about how an enemy can't tell you're the 'caster'- you can do some really horrible things in any civilization setting.

Finally, we get to the super cheese- Telepathic Contact. Forget all the rest- this one is pure Jarlsberg, letting you control people in and out of combat to an absurd degree, with Occluded Mind being especially cheap given that it costs a mere 2 PP. The only weaknesses in the entire discipline are how a failure on 3/5 of these abilities means you can't use it on the same target for 24 hours (fortunately you target Int) and that only Psychic Grip works on a creature that is immune to being charmed. It's cool, though- Psychic Grip is basically a better Hold Monster. You get it two levels before a wizard can, you get to target the easier Int save, your's works on undead, and you can force it to move with your reaction. The only advantage Hold Monster has is +30 feet of range. It's insulting how superior it is, and it's not even the best ability in the discipline.

The rest of the disciplines do get to do things that are, in points, better than what other classes get to do, but I don't really consider that to be 'unbalanced'. If the Mystic is incapable of holding a niche where it's better at doing something, then there isn't really much point to it in a specialization-heavy game like 5e.

[Damon_Tor]

Out of curiosity, what ARE the most broken things about Mystic?

There are a few.

They're the best grapplers by a large margin, able to give themselves athletics advantage at-will, an additional +5 to strength checks for some extra psi points, and they can make themselves large and later huge. But the biggest problem in terms of their grappling is their mobility: they can jump 140 feet into the air (apparently ignoring the normal limits of your movement speed on your jumping) while grappling somebody then drop them for a 14d6 suplex.

Generally they're too good at being able to blow a huge chunk of their daily resources in a single round.
Be a Soul Knife with +4 Soul Knives in Giant Form with your focus on Psychic Assasult (-14 PSI for the setup)
As a bonus action: Lethal Strike for 7 PSI.
Then as your action, Animate Weapon for 7 PSI.
When it hits, as a reaction, use Knockback for 7 PSI.
That attack just dealt 14d10+1d8+8d6+11 damage using what amounts to 5 5th level spells in a single turn.

[Phhase]

(apparently ignoring the normal limits of your movement speed on your jumping)

Fair enough. Or, well. Unfair enough. You know what I mean. And that's not even taking into account the possibility that Jump synergizes with that.

As an aside, I did a little calculation just for kicks. I'm not sure what the limits on movement per round when falling or jumping are in RAW, but I found a funny little quirk of physics that lines up with some of the rules.


Assuming everything except for the fact that you're way the duck up in the sky is normal, you reach terminal velocity in 12 seconds of free fall. 2 rounds. Neat!

On the first round, you fall 500 feet. On the second, round, you fall 1000 feet. On subsequent rounds, you maintain a "velocity" of 1000 feet per round.

And then, on the nth round, you hit the ground, punch through the planet's crust and planar barrier alike, fall through all 8 preceding layers of Baator, and elbow drop Asmodeus in the nuts for (ahem)

damage, where A is Asmodeus and L is how much of a L̶̨̳͚͙͕̲̣̙͜U̫̻̰͉͍̻̹͇̞͞C̖̬͙̜̕H̦͎̲̹̦͇̲̼̠͝A̷̻͙̞̞̺͉̜͝ͅ ͚D͖̳͔̰͔̣̪̟O̡̭̦̫̘͈͓͠Ŗ̞͇̤̣͇̖͎͢͝ you are.

[Dork_Forge]

There are a few.

They're the best grapplers by a large margin, able to give themselves athletics advantage at-will, an additional +5 to strength checks for some extra psi points, and they can make themselves large and later huge. But the biggest problem in terms of their grappling is their mobility: they can jump 140 feet into the air (apparently ignoring the normal limits of your movement speed on your jumping) while grappling somebody then drop them for a 14d6 suplex.

Generally they're too good at being able to blow a huge chunk of their daily resources in a single round.
Be a Soul Knife with +4 Soul Knives in Giant Form with your focus on Psychic Assasult (-14 PSI for the setup)
As a bonus action: Lethal Strike for 7 PSI.
Then as your action, Animate Weapon for 7 PSI.
When it hits, as a reaction, use Knockback for 7 PSI.
That attack just dealt 14d10+1d8+8d6+11 damage using what amounts to 5 5th level spells in a single turn.

They're pretty good at nova and utility, though from experience you'd quickly find yourself without psi points and Mystics don't have cantrips to fall back on like casters (talents are nice, but you get so few of them).

Is there any mechanicaly benefit to going two sizes up to grapple? Or just enabling grappling of bigger monsters?

Whilst it may be RAW to use animate weapon on a soul knife, as a DM I personally wouldn't allow it, they're basically stuck to your fists.

Worth noting at the level you're talking about as well full casters have access to 5th level slots, so Animate Objects shenanigans amongst other things.

After running and DMing Mystics I don't think they're really that out of line, just a couple disciplines need tweaking here and there.

[Lord Haart]

I think that's relevant here as well…

Mystic: you have the most advanced toolbox ever, choke full of next-gen powered tools. Your screwdriver is sonic, your hammer is a jackhammer, your knife is tacticool swiss army knife with a hydrospanner and a tactical flashlight built in. You can has a powerarmor. You can has a plasma rifle. You can has a satellite giving you an auto-map with all enemies marked on it.

And you have to power it all with a single cheap Chinese battery.

You can break all limits and make any other class green with envy — but if you do so, you run dry in three rounds flat. A warlock in your situation would be down to cantrips until the next rest; except warlock has Eldritch Blast and needs only a short rest, while you need a long rest, and your cantrips are all worse than what a cleric gets.

Want to blast better than a wizard? Support like a bard and cleric combined? Outmonk the monk, outfight the fighter, and outsneak the rogue? Sure, take your sweet three rounds of being exactly as OP as people imagine you to be. After that, well, enjoy the weak-ass cantrips and whatever concentration effects you got up. With no way to recover PPs (unless you play Soulknife, i guess; haven't played that subclass).

Want to enjoy your power outside the combat, or enter combat already prepared? Sure, you're the best. You can make the whole party invisible, and turn surprise against you into a surprise round against the attackers, and have a solid buffer of temp HPs, and so much more. But that, too, will take a round's worth of PPs out of your three-rounds-per-day allotment of awesome.

"But wait", you start thinking, "can't I, say, only spend PPs on standart action powers and not on bonus actions, thus prolonging this window to five rounds per day? Can't I use my powers non-augmented, spending less PPs for a lesser effect?" Sure you can. Enjoy rationing your PPs, constantly thinking "What if there's a tough fight next encounter? I need to avoid running dry before that" and consequently contributing less than other party members while still having less juice.

There is a balance point somewhere between going nova and being a miser with your power, but it's a torture to find. Even if you do, however, you still play like a wizard would, if it had even stronger, extra-effects-laden spells, but lost all lower-level slots.


Sure, you also get lots of impressive-looking freebies from your subclass and psionic focus. But, again: these are practically strong options that have to be installed on a weak chassis, and are hard to synergise well. For the simplest example: getting martial weapon proficiency, armor proficiencies, and a constantly renewing buffer of temp. HPs sounds great, but those are locked behind three different subclasses; if you want to tank in melee, you'll be wielding a simple weapon, or sacrifice lots of durability (or multiclass/pick a proper race, but those can hinder you in other ways). To outfight a Fighter in melee, you have to devote your build to it and still use up PPs in the actual fight for damage. Meanwhile, the Fighter gets it all for free, at-will… and his own Great Badass Nova is on a short rest cooldown.

There are some good AND efficient options, but you have to grasp for those. Frozen Sanctuary is great not because it gives you 20 temp. HPs — you are still a squishie — but because it only costs you 3 PPs in the process. For another 3 PPs, you can command a Fighter to make an Attack action in your place, which is by far the best thing you can do for that cost.

But again, if all you do all day is having hit points and making your Fighter attack, why not just play, well, a Fighter?

Well, the fighter doesn't have your awesome peak powers. Wanna raise the dead? You do it, no diamonds required. But once you decide you want that, that's another 5 PPs that you have to forever keep in reserve, just in case someone dies. LOL IMAGINE IF TWO PARTY MEMBERS DIE AND YOU'VE JUST BLASTED OUT ALL YOUR JUICE AND CAN'T RAISE THEM SUCKER

To me, that feeling of "can't afford to do anything cool in this fight, because it's known we'll have three more fights today" and especially "can't activate True Vision in this situation where it would be totally appropriate to check for hidden or illusionary stuff, because it costs 1/6th of the cool things i can do this day, runs for only a minute, and if there's no hidden or illusory stuff here it will be a total waste" felt like a big and very real balancer/power limiter on an otherwise OP class; enough to make me really appreciate all those cool things clerics and wizards can do out of their 1st and 2nd-level slots without wasting anything of value.

There are, of course, some points that can be broken simply due to bad writing (the aforementioned jumping trick, if it works, seems to belong in that category), but coming from 3.5, i can tell that's nothing new for a non-core class, especially a draft published in UA. If used in good faith, i don't think Mystic is broken outside of maybe some levels 3-4, where it can snag some ahead-the-curve abilities (Shadows, Frozen Sanctuary, extra attacks) which stop being game-breaking at level 5. It has a niche — or, rather, is versatile enough build-wise to pick a niche and be good in it — and within it, it's better here, worse there, and saddled with drawbacks it can't fully solve without party support.

Waterdeep Merch's post is very thoughtful, but I should note that "abuse lack of visible components and abundance of mind control to rule the society" is 1. in the Psion's design since at least 3e, 2. very campaign-dependant and 3. most importantly here, also avaiable to core Sorcerer.

[HiveStriker]

Waterdeep Merch's post is very thoughtful, but I should note that "abuse lack of visible components and abundance of mind control to rule the society" is 1. in the Psion's design since at least 3e, 2. very campaign-dependant and 3. most importantly here, also avaiable to core Sorcerer.

It's actually, sadly, much worse than you say it.
Sorcerer requires to learn Subtle metamagic, for first so it's a huge requirement.
Second, it does nothing about components: you still need to get materials or draw a focus, so unless you can actually Hide before casting, there are chances to be noticed and get hostility.
Third, Sorcerer is still using magic: barring Counterspell because you managed to Subtle cast, there are always Detect Magic, Dispel Magic, Antimagic fields.

Mystic has NONE of that. People simply can't detect/understand what happens, unless the Mystic lays it out blatantly (like telepathing "hi I'm speaking directly in your mind, rad right"?).
Pair that with all Mystic features providing skills, mind reading, mind manipulation and the like...

I have one Mystic player in a campaign, that branched out Druid. I really needed to set up some houserules on Mystic's features as Wild Shape, because otherwise that guy would be totally unmanageable... (Since mystic ability is NOT spellcasting, so not explicitely forbidden in Wild Shape, and more importantly since it's something purely "from the mind" and Wild Shape makes you retain mental stats and consciousness there is no logical argument against allowing it).

"... And that's how, my children, a simple half-humanoid half mosquito became the all-time emperor of all worlds". XD

5E simply does not have the relevant mechanics to keep psionics in check (yet).

[Dork_Forge]

It's actually, sadly, much worse than you say it.
Sorcerer requires to learn Subtle metamagic, for first so it's a huge requirement.
Second, it does nothing about components: you still need to get materials or draw a focus, so unless you can actually Hide before casting, there are chances to be noticed and get hostility.
Third, Sorcerer is still using magic: barring Counterspell because you managed to Subtle cast, there are always Detect Magic, Dispel Magic, Antimagic fields.

Mystic has NONE of that. People simply can't detect/understand what happens, unless the Mystic lays it out blatantly (like telepathing "hi I'm speaking directly in your mind, rad right"?).
Pair that with all Mystic features providing skills, mind reading, mind manipulation and the like...

I have one Mystic player in a campaign, that branched out Druid. I really needed to set up some houserules on Mystic's features as Wild Shape, because otherwise that guy would be totally unmanageable... (Since mystic ability is NOT spellcasting, so not explicitely forbidden in Wild Shape, and more importantly since it's something purely "from the mind" and Wild Shape makes you retain mental stats and consciousness there is no logical argument against allowing it).

"... And that's how, my children, a simple half-humanoid half mosquito became the all-time emperor of all worlds". XD

5E simply does not have the relevant mechanics to keep psionics in check (yet).

In reality it isn't really much of an issue, one of the inherent benefits to psionics is meant to be it's compononentless nature. If you dipped into Druid for Wildshape then sure you oculd do that stuff, just like you have ways now to use telepathy in wild shape forms etc. but the dip would hurt your Mystic progression and make the problem of psi points worse.

In reality how often does stealthly casting things matter? It was cool to roleplay stuff just happening, but it meant very little outside of some more RP orientated scenarios.

A Mystic can do a wonderful array of things and give some prep and a full round or two can be really impressive, then after those two rounds of combat are over they're stuck with a dagger and whatever talents they have until they long rest. Not even Warlocks have that kind of resource issues because of cantrips, invocations and short rest recharge.

A Mystic is also using magic, psionics is just another form of magic (anything that relates specifically to a spell can't touch it, but there's no reason the rest of what you said couldn't).

Outisde of all of the above the Mystic also stops progressing in power in a linear fashion like casters do. Once the psi limit hits 7 there's literally nothing more impressive you can do (it comes down to managing your new psi points to juggle concentration effects) whereas casters keeping getting higher level slots and spells.

TL:DR- Mysitc is cool and versatile, but unless you have a 5minute adventuring day they won't be able to get crazy. Whilst some disciplines need to be tweaked a bit (though I don't really think any of the ones already mentioned are particularly bad), in actual play a Mystic isn't really any more disruptive than a Wizard.

[HiveStriker]

In reality it isn't really much of an issue, one of the inherent benefits to psionics is meant to be it's compononentless nature. If you dipped into Druid for Wildshape then sure you oculd do that stuff, just like you have ways now to use telepathy in wild shape forms etc. but the dip would hurt your Mystic progression and make the problem of psi points worse.

In reality how often does stealthly casting things matter? It was cool to roleplay stuff just happening, but it meant very little outside of some more RP orientated scenarios.

A Mystic can do a wonderful array of things and give some prep and a full round or two can be really impressive, then after those two rounds of combat are over they're stuck with a dagger and whatever talents they have until they long rest. Not even Warlocks have that kind of resource issues because of cantrips, invocations and short rest recharge.

A Mystic is also using magic, psionics is just another form of magic (anything that relates specifically to a spell can't touch it, but there's no reason the rest of what you said couldn't).

Outisde of all of the above the Mystic also stops progressing in power in a linear fashion like casters do. Once the psi limit hits 7 there's literally nothing more impressive you can do (it comes down to managing your new psi points to juggle concentration effects) whereas casters keeping getting higher level slots and spells.

TL:DR- Mysitc is cool and versatile, but unless you have a 5minute adventuring day they won't be able to get crazy. Whilst some disciplines need to be tweaked a bit (though I don't really think any of the ones already mentioned are particularly bad), in actual play a Mystic isn't really any more disruptive than a Wizard.

"In reality how often does stealthly casting things matter? It was cool to roleplay stuff just happening, but it meant very little outside of some more RP orientated scenarios."
Well. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

That's the thing you don't get apparently. Mystic can already be masters at manipulating, but at least they need to invest other resources to go around undetected.
As an animal, you're absolutely untraceable because it's like a fusion of Disguise Self and Polymorph at the same time, except better. And many Mystic abilities require a very small amount of Psi points to be efficient.

You really just didn't have it tried yet. Do it and you'll realize what I mean. ^^
(Of course, it's manageable if you follow straight-up book quests. Problems arise as soon as you try and make a living evolving world).

[Dork_Forge]

"In reality how often does stealthly casting things matter? It was cool to roleplay stuff just happening, but it meant very little outside of some more RP orientated scenarios."
Well. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

That's the thing you don't get apparently. Mystic can already be masters at manipulating, but at least they need to invest other resources to go around undetected.
As an animal, you're absolutely untraceable because it's like a fusion of Disguise Self and Polymorph at the same time, except better. And many Mystic abilities require a very small amount of Psi points to be efficient.

You really just didn't have it tried yet. Do it and you'll realize what I mean. ^^
(Of course, it's manageable if you follow straight-up book quests. Problems arise as soon as you try and make a living evolving world).

I've played a Mysitc and Dm'd Mystics in homebrew worlds, this wasn't ever really an issue. You don't really seem to be taking onboard the limitations: If you blow your psi points on manipulating social scenarios you won't have the psi points to fight effectively. If you dip two levels of Druid for Wildshape you lose progression and need to meet the requirements for it. On top of those things, you'd still need the targets to fail saving throws and nothing is stopping a detect magic revealing you.

You're also not actually giving any examples of manipulation, what disciplines would you be using and what is that small psi cost you're talking about? And how is any of that more OP than a Sorcerer just holding a staff and casting suggestion or something similar subtly?

At the end of the day it's a UA, a DM can just say no multiclassing or just talk to the player so their RP heavy game isn't disrupted.

[Misterwhisper]

EGO WHIP, is the main reason that I will never allow one.

3 points, so pretty cheap.
Int save for some damage and stopping them from doing anything but dodge, disengage or hide.
HOWEVER, if they make the save it halves the damage, but it does not say they stop the killing of their action.

So 3 Psi Points and you take their biggest gun out of the fight, no chance to stop it.
Legendary save does not matter, let them make it, who cares.
It is not a normal stun/sleep or whatever effect so no natural immunities.

That and the fact that any go the subclasses can take any abilities anyway so everyone can cherry pick the broken stuff.
Multiple of their normal focus abilities are pretty crazy too.

[Lord Haart]

HOWEVER, if they make the save it halves the damage, but it does not say they stop the killing of their action..

Well, i mean, when there's an ambiguously written ability with pretty clear intent but poor wording, choosing to interpret it in the broken way then banning the whole class on these grounds is… one way of excluding the possible broken use from your games.

[Dork_Forge]

EGO WHIP, is the main reason that I will never allow one.

3 points, so pretty cheap.
Int save for some damage and stopping them from doing anything but dodge, disengage or hide.
HOWEVER, if they make the save it halves the damage, but it does not say they stop the killing of their action.

So 3 Psi Points and you take their biggest gun out of the fight, no chance to stop it.
Legendary save does not matter, let them make it, who cares.
It is not a normal stun/sleep or whatever effect so no natural immunities.

That and the fact that any go the subclasses can take any abilities anyway so everyone can cherry pick the broken stuff.
Multiple of their normal focus abilities are pretty crazy too.

It explicitly says "On a failed save, the creature takes 3d8 psychic damage, and it is filled with self-doubt, leaving it able to use its action on its next turn only to take the Dodge, Disengage, or Hide action." If the target doesn't fail the save it doesn't lose its action.

The subclass thing is no different than a casters subclasses not being restricted to certain parts of their list, it basically amounts to having domain spells etc.

[HiveStriker]

I've played a Mysitc and Dm'd Mystics in homebrew worlds, this wasn't ever really an issue. You don't really seem to be taking onboard the limitations: If you blow your psi points on manipulating social scenarios you won't have the psi points to fight effectively. If you dip two levels of Druid for Wildshape you lose progression and need to meet the requirements for it. On top of those things, you'd still need the targets to fail saving throws and nothing is stopping a detect magic revealing you.

You're also not actually giving any examples of manipulation, what disciplines would you be using and what is that small psi cost you're talking about? And how is any of that more OP than a Sorcerer just holding a staff and casting suggestion or something similar subtly?

At the end of the day it's a UA, a DM can just say no multiclassing or just talk to the player so their RP heavy game isn't disrupted.

First, free telepathy, at frigging LEVEL TWO.
This is enough to strongly disrupt any low-level world interaction by itself: typically, cheating with a friend in any card game becomes trivial*. Still, there are some ways to counter: people scrutinizing any observer, allowing only players in an enclosed, window less room, etc... It's doable, but already far above any "common place" adventurers may visit. The only real risk is that they make a sulfurous reputation of "anormally lucky" for themselves if they push it too far.

* Plz don't even try strawmaning over that: it's just the most basic example I could find in my head because it has been months since my last play, but any kind of cross-spying you can think of is fair game (of thrones? Xd).

Enter Wild Shape: you can now be a mosquito, rat or whatever else nobody will pay any attention to. And it's up to 120 feet, so it's easy to work out.

Enter minor Talents like Mystic Hand: not awesome by itself, like some kind of invisible Mage Hand. Except it's "undetectable cast" (since no components), which is already creating a major imbalance against every "illusion/sneaky/tricky" caster, Subtle Sorcerer included.

Mystic Charm: no drawback (creature is not aware it was charmed -nor that you even tried-), no limitation (you can spam it until you succeed), no detectability since psionic.
That is a level of imbalance that should have not even got into UA.
"Yeah it's just advantage on Charisma checks". Yeah, sure, but as long as you have a decent amount of time to try (like 3 or 4 "rounds") it's basically a free advantage on any social check, on any creature.

Delusion: like a Phantasmal Force of sort, with weaker effects but non concentration, non detectable. You can easily set chaos in enemy ranks, or disrupt an object exchange (making like the object is here where it's not). It lasts only one minute, but is non concentration, so can be repeated on any number of people, or for as long as required.

Now for things that are potentially game-breaking by themselves unless you act as a ruthless DM, and definitely become so when paired with the inocuity of a beast:
Telepathic Contact from Awaken: Intelligence saving throw (which is the lowest save in general for most creatures), and you can either force truth against one question OR make creature believe something. In both cases, you can find ways to avoid being identified as the one "telepathing" (easy for Occluded Mind since you directly set up things in its mind).
And it's unCounterspellable, undetectable.
Those are effects you can normally achieve with that level of efficiency for a much higher cost, like 2nd or 3rd level spell.
Now imagine all you can do as an animal, like a rat on a man's shoulder, or a bee hidden in his hair: EVEN if you DM decide that the creature "feels where telepathy is coming from", there is absolutely no ground in the rules to decide that the creature knows which other creature is interacting with. And doing so would sadly make half the features of Mystic near unusable or would definitely trigger a witch hunt sooner or later.

Psychic Inquisition is the other game-breaking one: again, for an extremely low cost, and for very little risk, you can force creatures to give you reliable and potentially critical information.

Pair that with Nomadic Mind to get prime leads (although this doesn't care about Wild Shape) and Nomadic Chameleon (which one however totally synergizes with Wild Shape by removing the "people could at least notice the beast" part, although you could also just cast an Invisibility spell before shaping)...

And with social/observation feats...
And you get the game breaking manipulation/social god beast I'm talking. Because even if there are many creatures immune to charm (thus blocking in essence most Mystic abilities), there are still many more that aren't.
And information, at least until char level 17 or so, is still the best weapon one can have in any campaign. "Knowledge is power" as many say. :)

[Waterdeep Merch]

A bit more on why the component-less thing is huge- you rarely have an "adventuring day" filled with encounters on the same day that you are in a civilization. They tend to be separated, and players tend to only leave town after a long rest. I don't think I've been through an entire campaign in all of D&D where someone didn't take advantage of this to pull something. Sometimes, I was that player.

While adventuring, it's a rare dungeon where every monster just waits in a room and jumps at the players once the door's open. Seizing the initiative, whether by surprising your opponents or luring them into a bad situation (poor terrain for them, favorable terrain for you, traps, splitting off from allies, even fighting amongst themselves), or even bribery and negotiation with enemies is a common feature, and would be boring without it. Mystics can very cheaply create these opportunities, and the component-less portion lets you get close enough to do it from safety where only sorcerers could get before, and with much stricter limitations. Even the stupid level 2 telepathy is impressive when used right.

I'm not theorycrafting- I played with these disciplines. I got a DM's permission to try it out, and a few games later I asked that same DM to let me switch characters when it became clear how abusive this stuff really is. I met a merchant I didn't like in town- I convinced her prized show horse to try to eat her. I made an orc war band descend into brutal madness before any other player even entered. I made a captor let us go and give us their equipment before leaving them to die naked in the wilderness. I turned a three brute mega fight into a joke by having them kill each other while we watched and feigned weakness. I turned mayors (multiple) into puppets to let me get away with whatever I wanted in town. I never once paid for my time at an inn. I disrupted the trade at a sea port to deliver exotic teas and spices to me no matter where in the world I might be. I drove a major antagonist into murderous paranoia and watched the ensuing havoc. I convinced a flying demon it didn't have wings- in mid-flight. I convinced a dragon it was a chicken.

And I was never running up against my PP limits doing this sort of thing. I rarely burned it for inane things like 'damage', since damage was the least effective thing I could do.

[Damon_Tor]

I've been playing with a "Wilder" Sorcerer subclass for a Dark Sun game I might be starting. In it, Psionics is still spellcasting: they don't need material components for their sorcerer spells* but they still have somatic and verbal components to their spells. Their verbal and somatic spell components are reframed as a way the wilder focuses his abilities rather than arcane gestures and chanting to bend the weave to their will, so a wilder might thrust his hand forward and shout where an arcane caster would swish their fingers around and incant an ancient language. Intelligence (Arcana) checks to identify the spell they're casting have disadvantage.

Anyway, that's been my solution to the "free subtle spellcasting" problem of the Mystic.

*spells which normally consume material components worth 10gp or more instead consume 1 hit die for every 10 gp of value they would normally consume. At 6th level they gain the ability to deduct 10x their ConMod from that value

[Dork_Forge]

First, free telepathy, at frigging LEVEL TWO.
This is enough to strongly disrupt any low-level world interaction by itself: typically, cheating with a friend in any card game becomes trivial*. Still, there are some ways to counter: people scrutinizing any observer, allowing only players in an enclosed, window less room, etc... It's doable, but already far above any "common place" adventurers may visit. The only real risk is that they make a sulfurous reputation of "anormally lucky" for themselves if they push it too far.

* Plz don't even try strawmaning over that: it's just the most basic example I could find in my head because it has been months since my last play, but any kind of cross-spying you can think of is fair game (of thrones? Xd).

Why is that impressive? GOO Warlock gives free telepathy at level 1 and Ghostwise Halfling gives it racially. Be a Ghostwise Halfing Druid and the same things you're talking about come online at level 2 instead of level 4 and being MAD...

You also can't become a flying creature without 8 levels in Druid, at 10th level none of this is impressive.

Enter minor Talents like Mystic Hand: not awesome by itself, like some kind of invisible Mage Hand. Except it's "undetectable cast" (since no components), which is already creating a major imbalance against every "illusion/sneaky/tricky" caster, Subtle Sorcerer included.

Mystic Hand is NOT Mage Hand, if something is suspended mid air when your turn ends it falls to the ground. Both of the Gith get a psionic mage hand which is better than this and are published material.

Since you'll be looking at Talents I want to point something out: Talents are not cantrips, they are by design meant to be more powerful and more scarce (a total of 4 known max).

Mystic Charm: no drawback (creature is not aware it was charmed -nor that you even tried-), no limitation (you can spam it until you succeed), no detectability since psionic.
That is a level of imbalance that should have not even got into UA.
"Yeah it's just advantage on Charisma checks". Yeah, sure, but as long as you have a decent amount of time to try (like 3 or 4 "rounds") it's basically a free advantage on any social check, on any creature.

It lasts one round, if you think that's game breaking then you're playing some very niche social heavy games.

Delusion: like a Phantasmal Force of sort, with weaker effects but non concentration, non detectable. You can easily set chaos in enemy ranks, or disrupt an object exchange (making like the object is here where it's not). It lasts only one minute, but is non concentration, so can be repeated on any number of people, or for as long as required.

It affects one person at a time, you would probably need to spam it for an entire minute and then you'll just have it fading on people one by one. Hardly the kind of disruption in the ranks you're talking about and something with an illusion spell is (even minor illusion) can achieve similar things with player creativity.

Everything you said about Telepathic Contact

The equivalent of a 1st level spell in points, they still need to fail that saving throw and then there's immunity to charm and presumably advantage on the save for (Half) Elves. I assume you have an issue with subtly casting Detect Thoughts as well? After all that gives you information without any kind of save and then you can push for more with a save.

I don't really understand your obsession with doing any of these things in Wildshape, but by the time you've taken the minimum 2 dip (8 if you want a flying insect) these things aren't really very impressive and you've ended up with a bunch of spells that don't really mesh with your character.

Everything Waterdeep Merch said

To be frank that sounds like a DM issue, a lot of those things sound flat out ridiculous and I'm very curious how you got a horse to try and eat its owner (or well any of the things you just gave an example of).

I'll also throw out there that in social situations you can already go along way with a handful of cantrips and expertise in social skills. Nothing covered so far really seems out of the realms of the existing game mechanics.

To be clear I DO think that some parts of the Mystic need tweaking, but I don't understand the whole ridiculously broken thing that seems to go around here. Anything that involves multiclassing can be solved with "If you go Mystic you have to single class" or common sense like "no you can't focus your mental energy in the middle of a rage."

[Waterdeep Merch]

To be frank that sounds like a DM issue, a lot of those things sound flat out ridiculous and I'm very curious how you got a horse to try and eat its owner (or well any of the things you just gave an example of).

Said merchant got mouthy with me about my request for a ship at... well, a fairly unreasonable price, but it was plot-relevant. The DM had hand-waved my attempt at tricking her into believing we already mostly paid for it by making her psionic as well for no other reason than to block it. Yes, he tried to block me out a lot by making a lot of uber powerful characters wandering around that were plot immortal and were essentially unaffected by anything you'd want to do unless/until they suddenly became a boss. It's a habit he hasn't stopped doing and I get the horrible feeling I'm the reason for it.

We attended an owlbear race (don't ask) where she happened to also show up. As a reasonable fellow, I used Phantom Idea on her horse while everyone was distracted to implant the idea "My owner's head is a tasty carrot". The horse quite easily fails those Int saves, and first chance it gets, tries to eat it's owner's head. Her guards ended up putting it down. I trotted off on my own warhorse with a smug grin, telling her she ought to train her pets better.

[Dork_Forge]

Said merchant got mouthy with me about my request for a ship at... well, a fairly unreasonable price, but it was plot-relevant. The DM had hand-waved my attempt at tricking her into believing we already mostly paid for it by making her psionic as well for no other reason than to block it. Yes, he tried to block me out a lot by making a lot of uber powerful characters wandering around that were plot immortal and were essentially unaffected by anything you'd want to do unless/until they suddenly became a boss. It's a habit he hasn't stopped doing and I get the horrible feeling I'm the reason for it.

We attended an owlbear race (don't ask) where she happened to also show up. As a reasonable fellow, I used Phantom Idea on her horse while everyone was distracted to implant the idea "My owner's head is a tasty carrot". The horse quite easily fails those Int saves, and first chance it gets, tries to eat it's owner's head. Her guards ended up putting it down. I trotted off on my own warhorse with a smug grin, telling her she ought to train her pets better.

Again seems like a DM issue, though you spend an entire hour concentrating within 30ft of that horse and spent the psi point equivalent of a 4th level spell to pull off a prank. I'm not really seeing the brokenness of that?

[Waterdeep Merch]

Again seems like a DM issue, though you spend an entire hour concentrating within 30ft of that horse and spent the psi point equivalent of a 4th level spell to pull off a prank. I'm not really seeing the brokenness of that?

Just a prank, yes. But that's because it was a move of pure, petty spite instead of a desire to wreak serious havoc. One which I had no reasonable chance of failure, nor ability to be found out.

This same thing can be used on people and creatures that can have a much larger impact. There were multiple stalls of owlbears I had access to just in that situation, her guards wouldn't have fared much better, and under normal circumstances where the deck wasn't intentionally stacked against me, I could have given a deadly idea to the merchant herself.

Even if I failed, there would have been no consequences for it. Even had I immediately been thrust into a full adventuring day's worth of encounters, I was barely diminished at all. Be a little stingy for an encounter or two and it evens right back out.

And had there not been an adventuring day? I could have tried this exact same thing several times, to several different people or creatures, at the cost of nothing more precious than a few hours of my time.

[Dork_Forge]

Just a prank, yes. But that's because it was a move of pure, petty spite instead of a desire to wreak serious havoc. One which I had no reasonable chance of failure, nor ability to be found out.

This same thing can be used on people and creatures that can have a much larger impact. There were multiple stalls of owlbears I had access to just in that situation, her guards wouldn't have fared much better, and under normal circumstances where the deck wasn't intentionally stacked against me, I could have given a deadly idea to the merchant herself.

Even if I failed, there would have been no consequences for it. Even had I immediately been thrust into a full adventuring day's worth of encounters, I was barely diminished at all. Be a little stingy for an encounter or two and it evens right back out.

And had there not been an adventuring day? I could have tried this exact same thing several times, to several different people or creatures, at the cost of nothing more precious than a few hours of my time.

Can't really comment on how depleted you were unless you said what level you were doing this at, but at the level this becomes available (7th) you'd have burned about 15% of your daily resources hardly a trivial amount (especially since the Mystic eats psi points like no tomorrow to actually seem impressive in combat). "Being a little stingy for an encounter or two" is also you not really pulling your weight for the party because you burned your resources in a social encounter of your own creation.

But again, you spent an entire hour concentrating within 30ft of your target, a DM wouldn't exactly need much excuse to not allow this to work without resorting to making everyone Mystics. Of all things a Mystic could be broken for doing this kind of thing is the most easily mediated and quite frankly the silliest. All it takes is for you to lose sight of the target at any point within that hour, for them to move further than 30ft away or for something concentration breaking to happen.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Can't really comment on how depleted you were unless you said what level you were doing this at, but at the level this becomes available (7th) you'd have burned about 15% of your daily resources hardly a trivial amount (especially since the Mystic eats psi points like no tomorrow to actually seem impressive in combat). "Being a little stingy for an encounter or two" is also you not really pulling your weight for the party because you burned your resources in a social encounter of your own creation.

But again, you spent an entire hour concentrating within 30ft of your target, a DM wouldn't exactly need much excuse to not allow this to work without resorting to making everyone Mystics. Of all things a Mystic could be broken for doing this kind of thing is the most easily mediated and quite frankly the silliest. All it takes is for you to lose sight of the target at any point within that hour, for them to move further than 30ft away or for something concentration breaking to happen.

It's not perfect, but it has the potential to wreck a campaign if it's used at the right time, and those opportunities are only hard to engineer if the DM actively works against you. Which is a situation that both the player and the DM ought to avoid if at all possible. It's better to negotiate a fix for it like letting the target know you did it afterwards, because otherwise I don't think Psychic Inquisition is especially damaging unless you're specifically playing in a mystery campaign, in which case there's no saving it. Burn it with fire, it will ruin the whole game.

Telepathic Contact is the one that can no-holds-barred wreck everything trivially and should be banned outright. Unless every major NPC is undead for some reason, you can enact all this much faster and more heinously by immediately making people attack out of nowhere or carry out short-term orders, even horrible things. Imagine how simple it is to target a guard with Occluded Mind and tell them "X needs to die immediately no matter the cost".

For 2 PP.

[Dork_Forge]

It's not perfect, but it has the potential to wreck a campaign if it's used at the right time, and those opportunities are only hard to engineer if the DM actively works against you. Which is a situation that both the player and the DM ought to avoid if at all possible. It's better to negotiate a fix for it like letting the target know you did it afterwards, because otherwise I don't think Psychic Inquisition is especially damaging unless you're specifically playing in a mystery campaign, in which case there's no saving it. Burn it with fire, it will ruin the whole game.

Telepathic Contact is the one that can no-holds-barred wreck everything trivially and should be banned outright. Unless every major NPC is undead for some reason, you can enact all this much faster and more heinously by immediately making people attack out of nowhere or carry out short-term orders, even horrible things. Imagine how simple it is to target a guard with Occluded Mind and tell them "X needs to die immediately no matter the cost".

For 2 PP.

You seem to be mistaking them believing a ten word long statement as them following it like an order regardless of it's impact on their personal safety. There's no need for an NPC to be undead, just immune to charm or if (half)Elven they should at least get advantage on the save and the utility is limited by needing to see what you want to create the statement about and that it only lasts 5 minutes. This doesn't really seem any more influential than Suggestion, if anything it's far more restrictive than it.

So far it seems no more "game breaking" than a multiclassed charisma character with an aim towards these kinds of shenanigans (subtle spell/expertise/at will Disguise Self) and hardly "no-holds-barred wreck everything trivially and should be banned outright."