D&D: For A Psion Subclass All About Psychic Communication—But The Telepath Sure Is Hard To Get A Read On
The Telepath is the fourth and final Psion subclass introduced in the latest Unearthed Arcana. And it’s giving some seriously mixed signals.
Of all the subclasses included in the Psion Unearthed Arcana, the Telepath is the one that both makes the most sense conceptually, but has the most muddy mechanics. Odd that the subclass all about connections struggles to hit home. But in the Telepath you’ll find a lot of new ways to spend your limited Psionic Energy Dice for a variety of effects. Some are great. Some, not so much. But this class, more than others, relies on you having Psionic Energy Dice to feel like you’re doing the thing you signed up to do.
The Telepath: Reach Out and Touch a Mind
We’ve talked before about how resource-intense the Psion feels. And I think a big part of it comes down to the fact that this is a spellcasting class that also has other features. So it’s easy to look at the small pool of Psionic Energy Dice and think “but that’s not enough to do the cool things I want to do” while ignoring the fact that you’re still also a spellcaster.
But there’s no denying that the Psionic Energy Dice mechanic creates this weird feeling of scarcity. I think because so many features are tied to this limited pool of resources. With the Telepath especially—nearly every feature you gain gives you a new way to spend your Psionic Energy Dice. And this on top of all the other ways a Psion wants to spend them.
While it’s nice to have the variety of options, it feels like you’ll never get to choose them all. But again that’s just a knee-jerk reaction. Playtesting might prove differently—only if you’re going to playtest, you’d better do it quickly because the survey won’t be open forever (thought it is open now at the link below). Weirdly enough, WotC comes out and says “you don’t have to have playtested a feature to rate it”—so it sounds like they really just want a vibe check. But hey, that’s up to them.
At any rate, the Telepath is the subclass all about reaching out and exploring someone’s mind. When I hear Telepath, I think Professor X. Jean Grey. Lwaxana Troi. And let’s see how it all plays out.
The Telepath: So Many New Ways to Spend Psionic Energy Dice
The Telepath is a master of mind magic. In the description they are said to “use their psionic powers for all matters of the mind, whether they bolster the mental defenses of allies or probe the thoughts of others undetected.” And to accomplish this, it has some surprisingly useful features—as long as you’ve got the Psionic Energy Dice to power them.
Starting at level 3 with the Mind Infiltrator feature. This is perhaps the single most looked-for feature in the whole playtest, because Mind Infiltrator lets you change the Detect Thoughts spell so that you can cast it in secret and nobody knows you’re reading their mind. To that end, you can spend two Psionic Energy Dice (which is half of your pool at level 3) to cast the spell without any spell components or Concentration, and your target doesn’t know you’re probing its mind if it fails the saving throw.
And in 5.5E, the rules explicitly state that you don’t know you’re making a saving throw if the spell being cast at you has no visual effects. So there’s no way for a target that fails their save to know anything is up. Meaning you can learn all their darkest secrets from the safety of your own mind.
You also get Telepathic Hub which enhances the base Psion’s Telepathic Connection. This feature gives you Telepathy out to 10 feet and lets you simultaneously contact up to 1 + the number you rolled on the Psionic Energy Die you have to spend to activate the “connect to other creatures at longer range” part of the feature. This feature comes into play at higher levels, and is actually extremely important to the Telepath even though right now this is all it does.
Finally you get a list of bonus Telepath Spells that are many of the ones you’d expect: Bane, Command, Detect Thoughts, Mind Spike, Counterspell, Speak with Plants (for Plant Telepathy), Compulsion, Confusion, Awaken, Modify Memory. But you’ll notice some obvious missing ones here. For a class that’s all about Mind Magic – where’s the mind control? No Charm or Dominate Person? Not even a Hold Person? That feels like such a missed opportunity. They seem so obvious. Especially over, say, Bane or Awaken. Anyway, it feels like WotC really dropped the flavor ball on this one.
Higher Level Telepathy Means More Minds Matter
At level 6, you get to do extra stuff with your simultaneous multiple telepathic connections, thanks to Empowered Defense Mode, a feature that lets you add an extra 1d4 to all your saving throws while Defense Mode is active. You can als give that benefit to any creature you’re telepathically connected with. And this is the first of two whole features that doesn’t cost you an extra Psionic Energy Die.
The other is Potent Thoughts. This feature lets you add your Intelligence modifier to the damage you deal with any Psion cantrip. Those are limited enough, but you have at least three to pick from, and one is True Strike.
At higher levels, though, we’re right back to being Psionic dice intensive. Telepathic Bolstering does a few different things. First, it extends your Telepathy to 30 feet—meaning you can always speak to someone’s mind directly within 30 feet. Cool.
It also gives you a new Reaction. Whenever someone you can see misses an attack roll or fails an ability check within range of your telepathy (which can be extended with a Psionic die) you can spend a Psionic die, roll it, and add the number rolled to the d20. If the attack or check succeeds, you spend the die, if not you didn’t actually spend it. So there’s some conservation here, at least.
And at 14th level, you get Scramble Minds. This feature lets you spend four Psionic Energy Dice when casting Confusion to modify the spell into a 30 foot radius Sphere. And you get to roll 2d10 when deciding which Confusion effect you want creatures under the spell to have to use.
All in all, a solid subclass that does a few different things. But I think it could benefit from some more focus/rework of some of its features. What I think doesn’t add up to much though—WotC really wants to know what you think. So check the link below to take the survey and find the playtest packet!
Telepathy is a fun time!
