The Psionic Class – The Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour! June 14, 2018Zoltar hello everyone and welcome back to the happy fun hour I’m your host Mike Merrill’s the creative director on Dungeons & Dragons and this week we’re going to continue our quest for psyonix you might see sort of lurking behind my head is a Microsoft Word file that has the basic foundations of new character class the mystic well not the mystic the Sion I have not yet gone through and found and replaced the every that’s actually I’ll do for the next hour I’ll just find mystic everywhere and do it by hand change it now the classroom is gonna be called the Sion d100 hitpoints right dark elven double 0 that’s right that’s the first change we need to make is one do you 100 right here keep it forever but you only get 6 at each level beyond that the so this is basically building on everything we talked about last week the if you were here uh you have to sit through a quick recap for everyone who wasn’t here how what we talked about was what the sign the Sion character class might look like now that we’ve done a few subclasses and we figured out kind of where they fit in and what kind of parts of the psionic system might reside in other classes what what is the focus for the actual core class it’s very much like taking arcane magic if we’re adding that to a game and saying ok we know we want a wizard but the warrior mage does that sit in the wizard does that sit in the fighter things like that so one thing that we talked about that I thought about a bit over the week and that I think makes a lot more sense is since we are going for a d6 hit die for the Scion it probably makes sense to really have the telepath just be in this class rather than try to have it be in the wizard because it is just something that’s really core to what people expect from this character class um I don’t think it makes sense to say if you want to be a mind reader go somewhere else that I would just expect that that stuffs are just reside in this class but I was thinking that what we might then do with the mentalist wizard is keep some of that flavor that light touch on psyonix and actually let the energy manipulation end of Sonic’s rest over there because the wizard already has fireball lightning bolt and all those spells it’s pretty easy to imagine that this is just a more psionic friendly take on a wizard I think we can actually keep it as is and maybe kind of recast it as the MU gen or that kind of character and then think of it as yeah the Sion who just blows stuff up that’s that that’s that that’s not that in that character we we sort of cast the mujin as an elementalist in the first pass so I think that actually makes some sense it might mean I want to go back and revisit the class which was a little bit the but yeah I gained Bentham diem essentially a Wizards become like the pyrokinetic or set you know cryo kinetic because I think this is easier rather than having to reinvent the wheel that spell list crossover just feels like it’s very well adapted to having the wizard serve that function rather than just just try to recreate a bunch of energy based attack spells Under the Sun expel list it just seems like that’s just a lot of extra work where we remember when we look back at the Mentalist we found well there weren’t a lot of spells in the wizard list that we’re giving us that ESP feel so the and the the name would Jen they call me Tomo to I don’t know if we’ll use that name because I just don’t I don’t know if it makes like I know the game has the history of it but my understanding of it that it’s really just means like it’s some sort of like kind of garbled Japanese for Wizards so I don’t know if I’ll actually keep it but the concept is what I’d want to move over the I don’t want people to think oh this is the the the Asian flavored wizard that that’s not that would be my intent there so the so we’ll figure out a better name for it I don’t know exactly would it be it might even just still be Mentalist but I can know to capture that ESP feel but I think that might not be capturing that the intent that it’s there to capture that and that enter that that crossroads of psionics and channeling a you know elemental energy you know fireball all that stuff can assist elementalist it might be these easiest way to go you know with it but the psychokinetic says yes I’m like that well but we’ll throw and get back to it I’m gonna that’ll be one of the last things we probably work on the numerals list yeah son who can command my dogs which would not be me my dogs do not listen to me these days I think I’ve been traveling too much lately so the yeah the the Baker is coming for you yeah the fund of the firestarter trope if you’re familiar with the the Stephen King movie you know controlling energy so so that’s what we’ve got let’s see what we’ve got here so actually I’m gonna reverse these windows because if I remember right my head is on the right side of the screen as far as I see so we’ll do this so I’m just blocking some of my handy-dandy D and D beyond window which most that stuff you’ll need to see will be in the middle so um what I wanted to do was go back and show the look I want to go back and take a look at the core features for the the Siam character class now that we have a much much clearer vision of what we want to do how much of this still makes sense so this class was built on the cleric chassis using that as a starting point so moving over to using wizard does mean some things will probably have to shift one thing is you could ignore this table because the Society of talents known disciplines downside points we’re just like as I mentioned earlier we’re gonna start by using spell slots I want to design it that way then see how easily does this transfer we’re using the spell point system from the dmg and if that’s working well but I think I’d rather just take that approach and let dm’s who want to opt into using Sai points can just do that I suspect that if we can make if it works fine with spent with spell slots I think it’ll work fine with points and keeping in mind also that one of the ideas we had was decided that this class will naturally stack powers on top of each other essentially using your can trips which might we might call them talons to make that make it clear they’re very different and then using that is your basic thing and then augmenting with your spell slots essentially spells that sit on top of them that might not be true for everything but I think for a lot of cases that’s how the models gonna work the the so yeah it’ll just basically whatever DMS feel come from with especially if you’re if you’re coming for a prior addition and you want to use points I’m hoping that’ll work out but like with everything until you design it till you play it you not exactly sure it’s gonna how it’s gonna roll out so the we can skip a few of these first couple class features because there’s describing the stuff on the table sonic talents I’m disciplined sigh points silent all that let’s go to sew mystic order so this is obviously would be sanic probably order we’ll just keep that for now so we know this just has to be up today this is just where you’re picking your your subclass this will kill Mike recovery so you know you are just gonna watch me change mystic to sonic throughout the entire day deal will the focus mechanically somehow translate I suspect it will I want to sort of delve into the pieces here then we’ll see but I think there might be something to do with focus my very first concept of it was essentially focus is your second your ability to concentrate on a second thing and that you can break your focus to get a bigger effect but we’ll see how it all comes together the that it’s one of the challenges when you’re dealing with like you know an expectation of a prior design is there is always a lot of attention as you’re building it do you make room up front for it and and accept that everything across the board has to be a little less deep because you don’t want to overwhelm you know the class with complexity or you just have to design and see where it ends up falling in I think what we’re gonna do is I just wanna kind of start designing and we’ll see where it falls in but I kind of think this idea that being able to focus on two things at once just will naturally lend itself to it but but we’ll see alright so we’ve got our choice of first of all which I think makes total sense as we’ve talked about before the divide between classes you get something at first level for your subclass or third level the wizard of court and the wizard and druid to being at second level for reasons we talked about last week which is we wanted there’s features we wanted to give you at first we can wait till second this is a class I think that you start out you think of yourself as having that flavor the type of Scion you want to play so this would I think that’s where we want to keep that with Sonic recovery the world this is a manner in which you can draw a figure from psy energy choose to you can yeah you can draw a figure from the site energy you use to power your psionic disciplines immediately after you spend side points on a sonic discipline you can take a bonus action to regain hit points eagle the number of side points you spend so this is a good example and hey I’ll do this now zooming and begin so this is an example over the point doesn’t necessarily work here but it would not be hard to change this to spell slots I’m gonna do a quick change for that the the so this just be spell yeah we don’t want this minister I work on can trips telecasting so in me after you cast a sanic spell we’re just going to spell language for now that might change but that’s um we need you could take about action to regain hit points equal to the level these balance lot you spent so now the flavor behind this was to get this idea that if you’re using that sonic magic and power comes from within and that you can use it to sort of buoy yourself up that channeling it strengthened you it was a two-way street the but I’m not necessarily sure yeah all didn’t seventy I’d understand why it’s core force ions to recover health and I don’t know if I don’t know if we necessarily need this because now as I think about it I think this is something that can rest inside of basically if we want to give you ability to recover hit points you can just choose those powers so I put that in red I don’t think we need it anymore so the yeah like the you know this might be something with like a specific subclass might give you or some like that so we’ll see I’m just gonna put this in red because I just don’t think this is cord what we think of the Scion we set up front right we’re giving you d68 points for your hit die I don’t like design where it’s like I’m giving you these six eight points but I’m letting you heal really easily that just I just make it a d8 if we thought that class durable enough how just increase the hit dye it wasn’t super like it was like 90% t6 last week when we talked about d6 vs. d8 it was like 6040 so yeah let’s just put this one aside and put it in red just so we know it was there but I don’t think we’re gonna keep it um telepathy second level your mind awakens to the ability to communicate communicate by a telepathy you can telepathically speak to any creature you can see with 120 feet of you in this manner you don’t need to share language of the creature for to understand your telepathic messages but the creature must be a little understanding least one language so that that language is nothing to make sure you don’t tell telepathically talked like a news or something like that it’s gotta be able to talk back to you I think this is what I want to keep I think when I think of a basic ability for telepathy I think a Scion should just be able to get that the I don’t want to go to I want to keep some elements in the core class that define what unifies all Saiyans the nice thing about this is it’s pretty simple loud knocks just why second-level that’s a really good question and I think that this might actually be something that I would move up to first level if we’re giving you your order ability and just the basic psionic stuff here I kind of want to make this first level because I think this is not something it’s simple enough I don’t think you need to wait for it so I want to bed up to first and I’m gonna go up to the and just drop it in there just sorry I remember I did that and then I want to do this just remember that I did that so now we don’t have anything at 2:00 but I think that’s gonna be okay because I have a feeling we’re not gonna be but not to be short on stuff these guys can do we have our ASIS are our lovely ability score improvements you get a bunch of those these are typically something in class design we try to make sure your first one drops in at fourth and then progresses from there it is largely though based on how the class progression is shaping up it’s not sorry I should strike that it’s not like we would not give a class these it’s just typically we think upfront if a class has a lot of features it needs to deal with we can afford to not have as many here is to post other classes I don’t ever recall in the development of the core game thinking of ability score improvements as like a balancing thing like we’d say well this class gets more than that class so that is an advantage we just saw it all is the important thing was the sum effectively your class features this is just one that allows for more flexibility the what was always a spiral out of the question what was the design process by not making it normal telepathy is described in the Monster Manual that’s a good question let’s take a look let’s do a quick side here let’s do telepathy let’s see if that picks oh you know what actually yeah let’s just search for telepathy here it’s possible that that was just drift the sets clear Samberg Dungeon Master’s okay do we have a oh here we go some languages the monster manuals telepathy let’s see-oh doesn’t need to see you contacting ok so this was essentially – so yeah I can see why this is here we didn’t want this to become something that was more powerful enough that it took on more weight it’s really there more for flavor so that’s why as written you I believe and I might party this wrong but double-check that in this version of telepathy you have to you can speak which you can see so but that’s really why you see that change there with monsters we’re not as worried because it’s more flavorful and we like the idea that a lot of monsters that have it money use it in a kind of a creepy manner so that’s why you don’t you don’t see those necessarily sync it up and that’s something which in 5e we don’t do too often but we’re okay with a power that ability of player has or power it can have some drift to its name something similar for the DM side because you know they’re not necessarily meant to go over and it’s not why is this one only one wage yes and that’s the same thing we didn’t want this becoming to load-bearing in terms of its power again it’s really meant to be a ribbon whereas if you could go two ways that would be pretty useful in some role-playing situations now obviously though there’s also a world thing here a little bit of one where multiple Saiyans could talk to each other and it’s also I think in the flavour you think of this is a sign of character assembled with other adventurers it gives them a little bit of that flavor being a little strange right like they you know that it’s not just something that’s super utility that this is now our communication network for the party everyone speaks through the Scion using telepathy it is that that that one-way thing so the but yeah so that’s we’ve got there so then let’s take a look at so that we’ll use second level empty one thing to keep in mind if you take a look at the wizard let’s peek at that because the Wizards are kill our best compañera you see whenever you give a character class a d6 hit die it’s almost always gonna be built in a very manner similar for the wizard one of the things we look at the wizard this was this will requires me to make a few changes here we tend to give you nothing that a spell at a character level in which you gain a new level of spell so 2 5 7 9 essentially the the odd-numbered abilities the odd-numbered advancement points on the for the wizard are blank and I think first yeah first is the only time you get that so that’s something I’d want to look at here and probably re-engineer a bit so we probably want to do this that mystic that Sion order feature will move to there 5 is blank 7 is blank okay so we basically have these here we have other ones which we want to look at clearing out ok getting a new level spells is pretty potent so it’s not necessary something that we want to do getting that and other things and I’ll just copy need freak so I don’t know if we want to give you an order thing at second level but we’ll see right then when we get to the orders we’ll take a look at that and I always love it oh those things so then strength of mine comes in at 4th level let’s take a look at that one what do we have your strength of mind even the simplest psionic technique requires a deep understanding of a house ionic energy can augment mind and body this understanding allows you to alter your defenses to better deal with threats I remember the states are now starting fourth level you can replace your proficiency and wisdom saving cards whenever you finish yeah I don’t know if I’m like this is like something that’s kind of flexible but you know I think this gets lost in the shuffle a lot chat do I cut this I think I might because I’m thinking when I think sound I think I want stuff that’s a little more flavorful than this this feels like you know use it yeah this one this confuses yeah I remember getting a lot of lot of static like how does this work Multi classing cut it cut it oh no oh random a kloves it cut cut I never end up using it leading towards cut go through my gut is to cut it costal on Kenobi yeah the feedback survey was confused it was it was pretty it wasn’t crazy about it and the feedback survey was this actually is a great question the feedbacks I’m gonna put in red I think we’re good yeah making a spell yeah human double Oh – I like that that meant we might end up doing the if we think that’s important to like a shape-shifter adaptability will make it you can just make make it a spell begin gonna make it what discipline I can just spend a slot change change my saves that’s easy or just become proficient in the save for a while no way okay so get squished give it to the bard we’ll just get everything the bard being jack-of-all-trades we just give them everything we cut so okay so I need to remind myself that we zap that there is an ability score improving sitting there so it’s not super important I put something there but let’s go all right then we getting another order feature and up an eighth level so this is another one this is gonna get cut if you’re not familiar with a cleric when we talked about it since this bit this was built on the cleric chassis that meant that an eighth level we just need to drop in and apply one way for our field so this is potent psionics at eighth level you gain your village you gain the ability to infuse your weapon attacks and psychic energy this is just basically since you only get one attack around we wanted to augment your damage a bit so you could keep up if you did clobber someone with your mace so whatever keep it on par with the can drip we just we don’t need this because that’s not what this does class is not a weapon user anymore this is actually a great example of how I think having that better focus really helped the class I think there’s a lot of players who look at this and go oh hey this is a feature and it’s like cooling it is load-bearing you might be it’s meant to be like Oh neat how about a new thing but it’s not supposed to be something I think it’s a good example of in terms of the design it was not supposed to be something real like yeah this is awesome it’s defining it’s like now it’s just kind of there that it help you keep up if you were keeping tab of your characters damage and you’re just using weapons playing a cleric you might find like god I’m not doing as much damage there ever has everyone else on average so the way it goes all right let’s zoom up to 10th all consumptive power just the name alone suggests to me people probably didn’t like this one so context consumptive power P generally in D&D players don’t like giving up things to get things like take damage to get a benefit it’s a classic if you play Magic the Gathering that is a classic mechanic for for black cards and my experience though is that generally especially beginning players they don’t understand like they don’t like taking drawbacks at all give them a drawback they will avoid it it’s also hard to balance because you you have to balance it assuming the player will find a way just circumvent the drawback my experience is like if you in your design try to no no it can make this like 10% better because there is a drawback there is always a way to get that drop pack erased so let’s see what this one’s doing so we kind of know where we’re going here right but we’ll see maybe maybe this one will pull it through ok Tech W gain the ability to sacrifice your physical durability exchange sonic power whatever this ability will do a wonderful will come with a drawback when activating discipline you can pay its side points with your current hit points interviews any side points yeah and it does you I don’t I don’t want to do this one chat you guys can can tell me I should save this but I’m gonna get rid of it because I just because this is goes back that hit point manipulation thing we’re dealing with where you know we had you were gaining hit points yet idiot hit die uh you go away now we’re coating everything nothing left but you know actually I wouldn’t be sad if there was just nothing left cuz that’s me would say hey we’re kind of on I mean again we’re recon cepting this class quite a bit the yeah so yeah get a subclass right I think Costa Wan kenobe we like you and I aren’t seeing mine here this is you know an order power yeah I think this is something which we could make part of a specific subclass but not for everybody okay what’s this a psychic mastery business mastery begin you’d eleventh level your master your sonic energy allows you to push your mind beyond this normal limits as an accident action you can gain nine special side points that you can spend only on disciplines that require an action bonus action you can use all nine points one discipline this is just basically giving an extra spell slot can’t spend you know this disciplines this is very techie I’m like waiting for something shot to like make the example of so I came has to use amazingly filter on that note this is you know what’s fun about having the time I know through it for a lot of you it’s frustrating that we spend all this time between design things but it’s fun to go back and just laugh at what I really I thought this was a good idea what was my problem back then I mean it’s I look at this it’s everywhere this is just we don’t oh you know what this was doing I think this was just a hack to get around the limit on how many power points you could spend on six level and higher spells I think it smells super hacky I’m just gonna get rid of it for now until I see a reason why because it’s just gonna get caught up in your spell slots like we don’t need to like give me more spell slots oh man the mystic you’ve got nothing left so I use a lesson here I hope everyone’s taking away from this you know this is what’s good about going back in your work don’t get Precious about it right like it’s it’s got to work or it doesn’t and you know yeah exactly this is like a John a myth though right it’s just moldy consecration be so much more fun right oh that’s interesting that’s different that’s actually something which if I’ve played a wizard I’ve been frustrated a killing come straight on one thing we’re actually give you something different and academic it’s kind of funny going back and reading this I’m like ah this is why I didn’t play test like it’s a lot of reasons why I didn’t plate as well but this is a lot of it alright sonic body will you be the last one to fall let’s see or will it stand stand tall okay so sonic body here we go the last stand for this character class a 20th level lose capstone abilities that should be big your master your sonic power causes your mind to transcend the body your physical forms infuse the sonic energy you gain the following benefits I’m a sucker for class features that give you bullet point lists of cool things cuz they’re always really fun I okay you gain resistance alright like not just to non-magical to all that’s cool xx level no longer aged okay whatever that’s flavor you’re immune to disease poison image and the poison condition pretty good if you die roll the d20 on a 10 or higher you just coorporate with zero hit points instead of dying what can you fall unconscious you would instead of okay so instead of dying you fall unconscious you and your gear disappear you appear to spot every choice one d3 late days later on the well that’s cool on the plane of existence I’m gonna give myself a little like good job that’s kind of funky right this is actually kind of a funny ability because you could imagine points where it’s like oh crap we’re we’re the scion like you know if things are going really bad for you see the and you don’t actually die you just cooperate that’s pretty kind of fun so yeah okay so I think yeah it sounds like yeah I think your Force Coast thing was going here so I think I’m gonna keep this I think this is a fun little capstone ability makes your really hard to kill which I think makes it it feels like it’s it’s talking about Sonics and you’re sort of blending and forming in the oh wait the Spyro Hawk wants me to keep it so I have to cut it now I’m just getting science my rock megaphone yet the yeah it’s it’s it’s not too hard to resurrect but what this does is it it this might be something you never use but it’s just something cool that no you have in your character sheet that it’s come you know you have this funky little ability that no one else gets and that’s such a fun thing about character classes if you’re building any game of character classes what’s the really fun thing that you can give to a player that they can’t get anywhere else that is what defines our character class and the best expression you can do is when that’s tied to the story identity so you’re like hey I’m a knight and here’s what Knights do and it that feels like something that Knights would do and then do something cool if we decide as we do the orders that we need a capstone ability for the orders I think this one could stand and I could just give you another like an order ability that slots in here to give you some specific flavor but yeah yeah tacky and real again it’s kind of a psychic glitch thing it’s kind of like this kind of feel right you’re very hard to destroy permanently so yeah put exactly pulling in obi-wan of Erath oh okay so it was not all grim destruction a few things did survive so I’m just gonna go through delete these don’t worry I have the text elsewhere in case we need to go back yeah we’re doing a lot of stuff it is good that we’re deleting all this stuff to you I mean this is the class had some issues so to say oh it’s perfect would be really goofy because it’s kind of dumb to say class has issues but it’s perfect make no sense alright so let’s take a look now at our orders and so what I want to do is see what what do we need to fit inside of them in order to really express them because then that will give us a sense of how many of these levels should be taken up with order features versus core class features I think you know obviously telepathy being something that everyone gets makes sense I think a feature coming in second level is probably too soon like you’re getting a feature order and you should get one at first like when you choose the the subclass you should get something from it not just the me of essentially you make the first choice when you make your choice when it makes sense for to come in so the the oh I shared DVI we it’s an excuse to use the word noosphere just like we’re like it’s it makes you sound smart when you use that word oh yeah so you emerged you could do something we flav you can see dude like become something like you know more like this like you know you are really embedded in it but I’ll get to that later but I think that’s an interesting idea I’ll store it away so it’s not just simply you disappear maybe in that time you disappeared you are pure psychic being and there’s like restrictions on what you can do but you can do things the you kind of like obi-wan you know use the Force Luke great that kind of thing the I always think it’s fun to of a classes dead the I’m sorry class of a character dies like to give the player of things they can still do that’s always fun without it being cheesy the okay so we talked about last time and now you want to talk about deleting I’m actually gonna just go through again this is the text I still have this text elsewhere so I can just kind of delete a lot of this stuff so avatar we said we’re likely going to move over to the bard so I’ll just save that for later and use that to build a the ardent under the bard order be awakened is our sort of mind reader so I think I want to keep I’m gonna keep that one wanna see what we can get out of it order the immortal I think this is this is probably end up going under the Barbarian so I’m trying to cut it for now you might find things over there elsewhere that work well you know I have my notes in two things so we had Nomad we want to keep because that’s one of those we talked about keeping some life we don’t need to keep around anymore because that is now a monk that this one weighed upon to Keeble Jen can go away because we’re going to put our caneta cyst under the wizard and there we go so let’s take a look then now we also know we want to throw in the constructor or the shaper and a metamorph and those will be the two new ones will get to the look into those first later but let’s right now check out the order they waking so this is our mind reader or our telepath and I’m not sure you know I think order we can we can just keep it around for now we might we’ll probably change the name so it’s something maybe that says more clearly telepathy but we’ll see the okay so what we want to see here are class features that make it clear this character is all about reading lines this is our RESP focus character so we’ve got you telepathy so bonus disciplines that’ll be we might want to keep this around because there’s might be something we want we might want to point to in the Sam expel us we might want to organize it by school so I just wanna keep that there as a reminder that’s something to think of awaken talent at first level you gain proficiency with two of the following skills of your choice animal handling deception insight intimidation investigation perception and persuasion ah you know I’m looking at this and I think I don’t know if I just want to give you some more skills because up here I’m giving you telepathy at this level your skill is you’re getting two skills are kind of history and so yeah I don’t think giving you extra skills this goes back to when the class is all over the place and I think these were here to just kind of give you more utility so I don’t think we need to I don’t think we need this I’ll get rid of it in fact I’m gonna at first level here’s what we’re gonna do first level you gain an enhanced version luckily that allows two-way communication and continuing communication even if line-of-sight there I think that uh would fit in pretty well Thor ESP class that you can just naturally have a superior version of telepathic communication so the I think that they come with Tomy rather than having expertise we probably give you a spell or discipline that just gives you a probably a can trip that lets you make in to check with a bonus that would then maybe be our gateway to our more advanced mind control abilities the so I think that’s a pretty that’s a pretty simple one sonic investigation starting at third level you can focus your mind remember these levels will shift you can focus your mind to read the sonic imprint left on an object if you hold an object can concentrate for ten minutes you learn some basic fact to this this to me seems like this should just be a I don’t I don’t think this should be unique to this character I think you should probably a spell because it seems like oh cuddly yeah we could even do that extended to more planning extend to more targets so you are the the other Prairie professor Eck’s yeah close make a note here I think this one’s gonna put a dash here the yeah I think this should just be a object reading psionic spell so I don’t know if this should be this needs to be unique so there is this thing that you can embed an intangible sonic sensor within the object that could be a it’s got in here to sonic surge six level we can overload your psychic focus to batter down an opponent’s defenses you can impose disadvantage and a target saving throw against a discipline or talent use the cost of using your psychic focus your psychic focus merely ends if it’s active you can’t use it until you finish a short : this is actually pretty nifty I like this one I like this ability to I can check in sort of narrow my focus in my mind to just batter down your defenses especially cuz it’s on a shorter long rest timer I kind of like that the what I like about this too is it’s got a it is a drawback so you know a lot of players might not want to use it but it’s also something which you will know when to use except I need to land this savings there on this guy I really need to know that this ability has to pay off the yeah I think we could do that so I’m just make a note up here bow will move that out and I like surge I like keeping that you know it also feels correct to me for this character to do that sort of ability I’m gonna throw this down here just I like to just keep text around later because I just think that the that feels right that I have more control over my abilities and other characters I can batterbatter through and seize control of you or make you do something alright don’t got spectral form and 40w gain the ability to become a ghostly figure of sonic energy as an action you can transform into transparent ghosty version of yourself this feels like the metamorph ability so I’m just gonna take this right out the I kind of see what I was going for but I again now that we have this feels much better doing the class with this approach the okay so that means right now we don’t have a we have a couple things to build on but not not a ton of stuff let’s go down to the Nomad real quick let’s walk through these the subclasses we have here looks like we back to this the the the psychic and the Nomad and let’s see we’ve got then that’ll start to give us a sense of like how much space we have to fill in alright so bonus disciplines I’ll just keep it in there again this idea that we’ll probably want to organize these by schools within the sonic spell list breadth of knowledge you gain the ability to extend your knowledge when you finish a long rest you gain two proficiencies of your choice two tools two skills or one of each you can replace one or both of these selections with languages this benefit lasts until you finish a long rest so I get what I was doing here the idea of the Nomad was there Wanderers and that they could pick up abilities depending on where they needed to go but part of the kind of wonder should this be under the telepath no you know I kind of like that for the flavor though I’d like to keep this your Excel really do like that flavor that you are like this this traveler he’s there noosphere more please yeah I kinda I want to keep that in here just for now but you know here’s this other thing too I would really like to move maybe that’s just me wow that’s a question if I say that’s going to be a cantrip style spell it means anyone can take it should anyone be able to take it I don’t know yet don’t know yet we’ll see memory 1,000 steps at third level you gain the ability to use sign next week all your steps as a reaction when you’re hit by an attack you can teleport to an unoccupied space that you occupied since the start of your last turn the attack misses you once you use this feature you can’t use it again until you finish it well that’s the someone was playing overwatch from a design that’s that’s basically kind of like a tracer ability to rewind time okay I could see that the with d6 hit died you’re gonna be happy or having something that’s more than to a defensive like this the one thing I don’t like about this though is it requires me when it’s not my turn to remember where I was yeah make you consumed you’re fine Sonic focus yeah mm-hmm that’s really kind of interesting yeah I think tacky and railgun it’s hard to keep track of because you’re gonna move there’s gonna be times and you don’t move see this is what this is what really makes me not want to keep this the exactly the way it is there’ll be times when you don’t move and you want to use this new trick oh crap I need to make sure I move so what the play pattern this might encourage is just imagine using a miniatures and you’re like well I want to be able to use this cuz hit by an attack so it could be a ranged attack that I’m just trying it at the end of my turn I reason to take a step back and take a step forward or something like that so it’s just that’s a little silly but I think I think there’s something here for the nomads but again it’s like should this just be a spell right now the I don’t know you know so uh I don’t know what to do Chad help right Thea yeah I want to leave this here for now but I’m not crazy about it yet it’s a mystery to me cease up his reactions kind of like this yeah stabby row games I think whenever and anytime you can just point out a spell that does this does something so this might just be we’re getting too clever for I’m good at six level you get a superior talent teleportation we use a sign of discipline to tilt what in distance you crease that distance up to ten feet it’s fine I mean if you really like I needed that extra ten feet but this this isn’t fun right it’s like okay nine numbers get bigger the effortless journey starting at fourteen level your mind can mystically move your body once on each of your turns you can forfeit up to 30 feet of your movement to tell where the distance you forfeited you must teleport to an unoccupied space you can see okay that one’s that one’s more fun I’m actually letting you teleport but you know what here’s let’s just do this right look what should before we can actually start tearing this apart because I think it’s gonna have to be torn apart um we need to understand what this guy’s can trip style abilities are gonna be so we’re gonna take a little bit of a side tour into building what that can trip could be so here’s what I want you know what I want chat I want a quill a teleportation here’s the thing now this is gonna be a catcher but I don’t remember all the headers we’re just gonna be so hat will teleport cam sure look teleportation is really good not necessarily in the sense that of combat it does in a fight have some when it’s useful it’s super useful the bad guys have closed off the door I just teleport behind them the evil wizards getting away he loved it ate sup i teleport up next to him so it can be really good the real like a irritating thing as a DM of this ability is outside of combat you’re teleporting everywhere right my teleporter up to the window I can see i teleport across the pit oh look a trap i teleport past it yes Iker is a TV at will let’s set this okay what would at-will teleportation look like so we know we don’t want this to be something that just short-circuits any a physical barrier that he might face in the adventure right that’s something that is a little too good we know right off the bat so here’s one thing in the state off the bat you know it’s gonna be restricted verticality this might end up being too complicated but you know what you don’t know until you try right it should be shorter than walking it should replace your movement I don’t think I want you to move teleport then move some more I think you want to do this in place of moving so it’s gonna require sand you know what require concentration this is a pretty subtle thing but it’s important if I say that this is concentration yeah in ground you can see oh that’s the one yeah here’s what’s cool what’s gonna happen here is I can’t I have to I can’t have two buffs up or two talents up and do this right this is gonna pop in and displace one of them so that’s so we’re getting some now we’re kind of getting somewhere there’s some places where you don’t want to do it yeah Banff baby right exactly accuracy TV the yeah I think jazz restrictions on to say we want to put a pretty short range on it should it require an action on moon silver TV that’s something interesting should require an action you know it might I think that actually right off the bat I think I’m off the bat that starts to say like we’re really serious you want to teleport because this is our Admiral version now remember we’re going to be able to now augment this with other spells so let’s take a step back here’s what I imagine happening when I use I have as a Sion I have two concentration slots most characters only have one when I use on I can trips my column something else but I’m gonna see I can choose why half Duke’s I’m using the can’t trip I pop one of my can trips into that concentration slot and now I’m concentrating on a thing then I have spells that say you can cast a spell if you’re concentrating on this thing and here’s what happens and this is where a lot of our crazy bopping around stuff may then start coming through what is interesting about this though is if I am a if I’m the Scion I use my action to concentrate on this then I just leave it up there right I’m not you know I’m just going to use it the start of the day if I really want to from a nomad I really want to teleport a lot I’m gonna leave it there so what I think as a starting point I’m gonna say while you are this is not the final text as just prep drop concentrating on this canned trip as an action you can teleport ten feet to a position you cannot you know what I think ten feet might be enough to let you go up and down I’m just leave it in there for now the duration of the concentration game phantom diem and basically as long as you can until you take a long rest you can have that locked in distance should improve yeah that should this world probably what we can price scale this up like a note just some scales up and there you go while concentrating is an action when you teleport in this manner you can’t otherwise some stuff whatever Crawford will know how to make that make sense but the idea is I do want to look you’re just teleporting this round you’re not running up teleporting then continuing on your movement so I think that’s actually a pretty good starting point right now when we think about one thing we could say is path between you and your destination must be clear again we can we can clean that up that is you can’t teleport necessary through a window that might be too restrictive but you know I’m gonna leave that outside rather play test without it and then make have angry dm’s tell me the abilities was too good then have players just not use it because we you don’t want is that players just you know they focus on it they just never actually use the core thing so no you don’t on North and Kyle I believe the AO opportunity attack rule specify teleportation doesn’t work but um what we’ll figure that we do a more detailed pass the so yeah okay that’s ever us elects designed to be cross we will fix this there is some truth to that so but I think there’s something here like I think we have some language so Chad do you think this is broken do you think this is too good just just let’s throw that out there do you think this that this is too good coca-cola the idea is that this is just to make it more restrictive so you feel like I’m giving up something when I’m teleporting because this is really useful but it’s not something that I can just use to bounce around too much I think it gets too flexible I think it’s yeah actually I think it’s good a grumble first I think it’s actually good that beginning me some people gets too costly because I think it’s this is one where ya underpowered no-nos the reason that bad no no it’s fine okay not broken but not great okay it doesn’t have to be yeah using a Reuben action is a lot I just well you know what we could say you can’t move here what’s I’ll be nice you can’t move after till the flavor here could just be you’re a little disoriented when you come out so I can move up and teleport that I’m done you know what that’s actually right now grumble first Jukes I think one of the things we want to avoid this is supposed to be a mobile class we don’t want you to feel like you’re immobile you know that you’re worried too much about that so I think that’s really good yeah it’s really good outside of combat really bad inside combat XJ DoDEA and I think that’s what I’d be aiming for the yeah not range of Derek you have the concentrations you can’t miss or spam it I mean you can keep using this thing but you can’t use other things the yes I think saying the you know you can teleport but then you can’t keep moving I kind of like that because as a player you just know I’m gonna go to that space so that my turns going to end and I think that’s okay I think that’s a nice restriction on this so let’s keep it there so now that we have that in place the you know obviously will probably give you that can’t ship for free I do like this idea of keeping the flavor of the Nomad is being like hey they know stuff they can move through the noosphere [Music] and that you get some some flexibility here I kind of you know what I’m gonna I kind of want all the Saiyans to have this because you know what we’re missing we don’t have a lot in the core class and the idea of an intelligence based class that’s got that flexibility yeah I’m gonna move this unless I see Chad explode infuriating move this the core class cuz the core class needs stuff Stiga beefy Claire um if you fall out speak can you teleport the last second to be fine it’s a real question I think rules is written yeah cuz he would the fall would end the physics might disagree don’t try teleporting at home like I would not if you having a little teleport I would not try using that I believe you will you will maintain your momentum wherever you teleport and go and hit the ground pretty hard but in D&D it’s fine I do that I like the idea that I have to include a I felt compelled to warn you that a case you actually can teleport like don’t necessarily believe what I’m telling you okay so you know I want breadth of knowledge too because you know the scion class is pretty thin and I think that’s a really good and fun second level of feature and Chad has not rose up in Revolt we’re all traces now yes we all should be physics in magic never worked together they might be in at odds the I don’t see a riot in chat so I think I’m gonna keep this just found our second level second level feature that feels psionic to me that because you’re smart character intelligence is gonna be your key stat and I like that idea that it’s thing yeah the warlock link from destiny it’s a little bit yeah I think a little bit of a feel like that we want Flynn Nomad and it’s actually it’s funny cuz I remember right in destiny they did they think they through her cool down on the after you teleported you couldn’t immediately attack especially for PvP the I was are I never had the reflexes to actually use that ability to do anything other than dunk into walls when I was trying to escape from getting murdered by the players the okay so now here’s something kind of fun here okay let’s do this with memory a 1000 steps the what if instead of this beam is kind of techy I get missed by an attack ability which I think I think this could just be a spell or you know what actually we could do is we don’t need to say your rewinding it took memory 1,000 steps gain abilities assign extra color steps as reaction you’re hit by an attack you can teleport or knocking I’m occupied space that weakens this is it we’ll just do this oh wait cool down this doesn’t have to rewind boom done so I think that rather than have the restriction I like the idea that hell yeah you could it’s flavorful but it’s just I get why this is trying to be defensive I like the idea of a defensive teleport that just rests on top of everything else I don’t think I don’t want him in here’s actually here’s why I don’t necessarily want to make this spell what do I want I get a spell yeah whatever we’ll get to that one in a second let’s do this real quick because I’m being fool and what I really should be doing is going to our spells going the door spell list everyone feel free to yell at me I don’t want to show what I want to do is find every spell that uses the word teleport so though food do I have oh let’s see if this is they’re not as no oops I misspelled it teleportation boom I should have done this to the start but I didn’t because alright so let’s see what we got here what spells to be up sitting around out here so here’s Missy step it’s a bonus action tell put up so here’s what we’re establishing right here the core game your first teleport comes in at second level and is a bonus action teller 30 feet this is what’s nice about having spells you know and charging you for a resource I can make this available more liberally so I look at this compared to our canned trip and for the Nomad as a whole I feel pretty good that if you’re gonna take this and transform it to a zero level catch-up spell yeah we’re going from bonus action to an action and we’re reducing the range by a third and requiring concentration and then let’s see thunder step I believe that sisty teleport and do some yeah you teleport away you teleport an occupied space maybe I could disappear a boom within the the place you left that’s basically your like you know partying shot to people like oh hey see ya suckas and you someday man just so okay that’s a good word spell not to sir something it’s a good complement into our fourth level this is an action the one nice thing about dimension door is you can tell what places you can’t see so you’re at the exact the spot desired it can be a place you can see or when you can visualize or one you just described so you can bring long objects as long as their weight doesn’t exceed what you can carry you can also bring along one willing creature so that’s another stake in the ground we can put it forth level and then the rest of them hype so make sure is there anything here that’s like see bonus action 60 feet you can keep bonus action oh that’s actually one thing to keep in mind the concentration spell and keep okay so that’s fine the yeah okay the nurse detail operations are Larkin gate okay so I think what we’ve done there is not too far out of the way and then our best comp for an ability that is cancels the attack is shield which is the first of all spell so but this one is combining shield with some additional things so gonna rewind a second we already have shield in the game and here’s a secret for you guys to know shield is one of it’s probably the spell in the game that is the most broken in the sense of for a first level slot canceling out an attack is really really really good is the only spell when we look at balancing creatures if we give a creature a shield it actually does it could potentially alter the challenge writing more than the damage rating of a for a simple spell so the so what if we I think I’m okay is giving you as a reaction to turn it attack into a mess once push or short or long rest should this come in at third level I don’t think so cuz we already have third level that’s where we’re getting spells but I think putting one of these in at fourth or sixth would be good if we sent six I’m gonna put it in at six cuz that’s just where we have the connect like a clear gap but we never know I might change so that’s pretty so that that works out fine increasing you distance by ten feet I’m just I don’t care just not how many what percentage of players do you think will actually remember to use this ability right Oh gramma will sport maybe fourth yeah it’ll be still be 64th if we find more core features we’ll put it forth the but there is an ability score increase there the yeah this doesn’t like yeah that’s like I think it happy a huge number – uh yeah spy rock it’s just not enough to be noticeable I’m gonna get rid of this I think if I want to do something that does alter your teleportation I have a thought let me see what does 14th probably want to put something in at ninth and what I’m thinking of doing is are charged Eric mentioned something about an AC bonus here’s what I’m gonna do here I think this idea that you are moving between the planes and can I’m gonna be really lazy and just copy and paste my formatting is I just typing it like a reasonable rational human being so spectral teleportation and what I’m gonna do say is when you teleport until the start of your next turn you get damage resistance the we’re gonna drop this one a tenth so this is gonna really encourage you to teleport as often as you can time to push I don’t you know the nomads maybe that will be at 14th level we’ll see but a tenth level okay this is gonna be pseudocode you gain resistance to weapon I’m gonna say weapon attacks because I imagine physical stuff rather than energy cuz I don’t need just you’re always taking half damage yeah so basically yeah a shadow kind of feel so you can Bruce weapon attacks till the start of your next turn there we go so I like that because I think it’s something you’re gonna remember because it’s a big effect it is a little narrow skins weapon users match weapon attacks yeah the combo – I would do that I would say you know magic alone because it is limited and since this is a d6 hid die class you’re probably happy if people are making attacks against you I would allow it to go against both yep after teleporting oh it’s gonna turn after you teleport Yeah right you just get resistance to the end of your next turn always the start of your next turn it’s like okay that’s that’s useful let’s take a pitch and then see emili´s journey you starting at 14th level your mind can mystically move your body once on each of your turns you can forfeit to 30 feet – I don’t we don’t need this because we are giving you a can trip that’s letting you teleport so at fourteenth level let’s see we got so I think okay so that makes sense if we do that there we might want to do something at 18th in fact I think I want to say we do want something 18th the orders might be getting a bit too big but I think we can fill both of these I do like the idea of doing some sort of time manipulation Idaho time travel in games is really difficult because we don’t you know we don’t want to miss our shackle people into doing something that they okay now everyone has to do this stuff or send you back in time but what I think we could do is stack so in 4th level you can travel through blows time so what I wanted to do is basically you teleport you can also choose to move ahead in time yeah maybe something to play with initiative a simple thing yeah China gonna go for in time and I think yeah okay yeah that’s yeah that’s easier right because you’re not trying to change things back but I think what I think wise means you when you tell what you can choose to skip forward in time and what I think I want and actually no this might be our 18th availability and what I’m just gonna throw in is just like mechanically what this will do you are isolated for one round to do what you want so the idea is you step forward in time it’s almost like a time stop thing you take a round off and that’s xx up with dark tomato Derek at 25 you can change the game we’re playing to a previous edition of deep D now my that was just totally playing in my armor class being really low is actually helping me if I go back far enough but that is like some sort of like time stopped ability that I can teleport through time I get around to do whatever I want then I pop out the other side this would obviously be a long rest the you know I think I actually would make this 14th level and then say second use or longer use kind of if you yeah well I think I would want to put in a cool-down because I think the what I think you’re going to do is use this to take a round off to either reach each swap out what you’ve got prepared what you’re concentrating on the and then or throw healing yourself and then popping in yeah I think yeah I think that makes it pop back of the initiative and you know I think we could do is this is we could say you know off or take an extra restrictive action what I mean by this is this let’s say it’s around five of the fight and realize it’s a big epic battle I need to take it take it round off I could use this to essentially fold in this extra action to my turn so I take my turn I take two actions one of which is gonna be like an I throw spell or something like that then I travel through time and pop out an initiative count 20 on the next turn the next round or I could say I want to go at the end so I’m essentially missing a few things I’m letting a few monsters go they’re gonna waste their attacks so yeah I think that’s fun and I think the nice thing is taking a page in the giant soul one of the things that Jeremy did that I really like when we were he was doing the final design on it was let you stack if you remember at 14th level you can go size large an 18th level you get a second use but you can stack them I really like that mechanic because it lets you go look I want to alpha strike so I think when we give you that that second use of Tim portal step you can use it and then you can burn both of them to essentially step out of time even further and get an additional actions worth of stuff to do so yeah the I think that’s fun so then and then pop back the initiative so there we go all right well we’re at 1:59 so wow that was a little over I feel pretty good about the Nomad I think we’re getting a good sense that this is gonna be a class it’s very much driven by the sub class in terms of what you’re getting but I love look look chat this is a beautiful very beautiful wizardly looking class feature order right out in front of us boom this is pretty so ok so I think we made some good progress here so next week we’ll delve into the other subclasses and see what we come up with and yeah thanks a lot everyone this was really fun and I’m feeling pretty confident what we’re doing here so I will see you all next week we’ll continue work on this until then keep gaming and we’ll see you then goodbye [Music] Share this:TweetWhatsAppTelegramEmail