The playtest shows many reasons to play a psychic, from their choices in casting stat being smarts and emotions to the choices of being Telepath, Telekinetic or clairvoyant. All of these have great appeal. But in the middle of play outside of character creation and leveling up you have two different augments unique to psychic.
Amps for your cantrips and Unleash Psyche.
Between these two I think Unleash Psyche is far more fitting to the class's tropes and appeal then Amps.
Amps are very cool, but I think they are better to be saved for a different future class more build around cantrips then Psychic. This is for a couple of reasons. Cantrips are currently still in my opinion somewhat rooted in an age of design where 2e needed to exist and not neccesarly to have individual aspects experimented on. But now it's out it's very much time for that, but with an idea like Amps I'd much rather see it be it's own completely fleshed out unique base for a class then somewhat used to fill a whole that may or may not be there.
Amps being a fundamental platform to build an entirely new class off of with a spell list akin to that of magus and summoner, I think would be brilliant. It would really allow for the designers to push the idea of "cantrips" to their creative limits.
I also don't see Amps being that much specifically a Psychic's thing.
Unleash Psyche on the other hand is absolutely brilliant, a sort of rage state for a caster is incredibly fitting for a Psychic, amplifying their spells by pushing their mind past it's limit. I'd love to see this be the focus of the class rather then just a half that could in the worst case scenario be mildly undercooked.
One thing I'd love to see would be the a unique augment that the base Unleash Psyche applies to spells related to your Conscious mind.
Telepaths Unleash Psyche allowing them to really full fill the fantasy of the Yu-gi-oh mind crush.
Telekinetics ripping their environment fully apart in near uncontrolled telekinetic shoves.
Clairvoyants pushing their awareness to a point where they might be manipulating fate.
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Tl;Dr Save amps for a wholely new class and focus on pushing unleash psyche to the creative limits.
If you believe that amps are a fitting addition to psyche I'd love to hear it if you think I'm wrong. I'd much rather be given a new lens to view amps through.
Well amps to me seem like what the class is designed around to the extent that Unleash Psyche exists to benefit amping. I'm not sure why you see Unleash Psyche as a separate class features from amps when it benefits amps. What is being unleashed are your psychic amplifications to your psychic abilities (cantrips in this case)
Well amps to me seem like what the class is designed around to the extent that Unleash Psyche exists to benefit amping. I'm not sure why you see Unleash Psyche as a separate class features from amps when it benefits amps. What is being unleashed are your psychic amplifications to your psychic abilities (cantrips in this case)
While unleashing your psyche does give you three free amps over the 4 turns you have your psyche unleashed (or 5 if you take a feat for more rounds of unleahs psyche)
This is to me more so just making them interact on a surface level. Your do not require Unleash Psyche to Amp and you can just as easely forgo Amps during your Unleash Psyche in favor of regular spells.
They are two different class features that I don't think interplay well with eachother currently. They don't really augment one another beyond making the Amps not cost focus points.
I agree with you that it's currently Amps are the focus point of Psychic but I personally think Unleash Psyche should be as I think it is a better system for Psychic.
I personally don't really see what you mean with
What is being unleashed are your psychic amplifications to your psychic abilities (cantrips in this case)
I don't think thats the case since, in unleash psyche its self is not mentioning your amps or cantrips and influences your regular spells all the same.
Though if you eleborate on what you mean I'd love to try and understand you better.
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Amps are an adaptation of the PF1 Psychic's phrenic amplification class ability, which gave you a pool of points to spend on special abilities that boosted your spells. They're important as a bridge between the two classes for those like myself who liked
Unleash Psyche is part inspired by the PF1 Abomination discipline's Dark Half ability, which put you in a souped up spell casting mode for a limited number of rounds per day, and partially by the classic DnD 3.5 era Wilder psionic class.
Unleash Psyche says:
A psychic who taxes their abilities to the limit thins the barrier between their inner mind and the outer world, truly unleashing their psychic power. However, this state also causes one or more aspects of your mentality to become exaggerated or exposed to outside influence. When you Unleash your psyche, it lasts for 3 rounds, and during this time, you can amp one psi cantrip each round without paying the Focus Point cost. Each psyche action has requirements you must meet to Unleash your psyche, and each typically also has an additional effect and a drawback while that aspect of your psyche is unleashed. Other rules for while your psyche is Unleashed are described in the psyche trait on page 8. While you might later learn of other aspects of your psyche, all psychics know how to Unleash Focused Intent.
Following this is the specific extra bonus you get for your level one unleash psyche which adds damage. The main meat here is benefitting your amps by giving you five rounds of amped casting in total straight from level one, which is usually the whole combat and with feats it goes to seven rounds, and I don't know if you get a third focus point down the line but that would bring it to 8. So even long combats you're fully amped. The bonus damage is just an extra little gravy. Think about what an amp is, short for amplification or amplifier, you are exerting your psychic abilities to over charge your spells. This is taken further with a feat that lets you take damage instead of paying focus points as a free action to keep going even after your pool is drained and Unleashed Psyche ends. The whole things reads to me as one cohesive whole. You seem to be viewing the specific extra bonus of Unleash Focused Intent as Unleash Psyche's main component when that isn't the case. It's one specific unleash bonus, but no matter what unleash bonus you pick to use the extra rounds of amp-ing always stay. If I use the level one psyche feat instead, "Unleash Self Defense," I don't get the damage or Unleash Intent but I still get the extra rounds of amping you get for Unleashing your Psyche no matter what
Well nothing says that it must be the only class to use the mechanic.
If something like Kineticist happens could use a system similar, "amping" the blast for more power with focus points or burn themselves when out of focus if necessary per example.