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Most of the stuff in my personal thread was the same things people have been talking about, but this one seemed worth breaking out for discussion since I hadn't seen it come up.
Psychic only gets one or two top-level slots. That means only one or two reasonable attempts at Charm, Calm Emotions, Suggestion, Dominate, or any other similar spells. Sorc gets three times as many attempts when you hit a new spell level, while Witch, Bard, and even Summoner get twice as many.
The result is that Psychic is the worst Occult caster at some of the most Psychic/Mesmerist-like spells, except on even levels when Summoner's casting proficiency has fallen behind. So, 8, 16, and 19-20 when 10th level slots show up.
Anyway, it's not a big enough thing to redesign the whole class to fix, but it bugged me. A metamagic, non-cantrip amp, or unleash effect to add +1 to spell level for calculating incapacitation effects would be enough to let a specialized Psychic outperform Sorc in a narrow thematic area. If it's capped at max spell level, they at least keep up with Sorcerer.
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This is an interesting point to bring up. Perhaps another solution could be to offer feats that give you one casting of one of these spells per day, but have it auto heighten, and maybe do one additional thing like give you a bonus to cha skill checks against enchanted targets?
As a feat, it gives a path for those who want it without saddling the whole class with it
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I know nothing about balance math so take my opinion with a grain of salt but what if we got focus spell equivalents of some of the classic ‘psychic’ spells? It would essentially make them the best casters of these spells since they’d auto-heighten and not have to deal with incapacitation. Or if not focus spells, give them a font keyed to wisdom to represent their dominating willpower.
This is an interesting point to bring up. Perhaps another solution could be to offer feats that give you one casting of one of these spells per day, but have it auto heighten, and maybe do one additional thing like give you a bonus to cha skill checks against enchanted targets?
As a feat, it gives a path for those who want it without saddling the whole class with it
Yeah, I figure any solution is likely to be a feat. It's not something important to Infinite Eye, for instance. All the stuff I was suggesting was in the same category of proposed feats.
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I don't see why the psychic can't just get 1 more spell per level per day.
they were overestimating current power of amps and unleash. Theyll probably keep the 2 slots if they lift up those mechanics accordingly. If they don't want to change it much they'll probably throw a third slot back to them.
Hrmm, if psyches are kept being unleashed at round 3 (maybe round 2 on the rare case) then maybe the base one that the class gets should allow the Psychic to avoid Incapacitation effects on spells from spell slots while unleashed, but give anyone who would normally benefit from the boost in saves to instead gain a +2 to their save. Makes is so things can still critically fail a spell saving throw, but are less likely to in general.
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My thought is something like master summoner, where a psychic can split a slot in two to get two spells assuming they are both "mental" or "emotion" spells, and there would be some per day limit to stop them going completely nuts, maybe casting stat spell slots can be split?
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Losing spell slots would would be severely hamper the psychic by the limitations of 3 focus points maximum. Even if Unleash Psyche allowed them to cast a focus spell for free once per turn, unless unleashing is an option earlier than turn 3, a combat immediately after a previous one would leave them with basic cantrips until they could Unleash.
Additionally, their versatility would also plummet, the only spells they have are what were specifically written for them, and (given how many other classes there are) the publishers aren't likely to add class specific things for them over a new occult spell that many classes can use.
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I don’t see a issue with lousing slots. Versatility would not plummet unless they don’t add more focus spells to the class. Consider the number of focus spells available to the cleric I don’t see the problem. Second the 3 point limit can easily be change for the psychic but giving them a class feature. No it would be a issue if they changed the design to anticipate the needs of the class
Your suggestion would make the issue I brought up much, much worse. Now instead of "The Sorcerer can cast Psychic-like incapacitation spells twice as often," it's "I can't do any Psychic-like incapacitation abilities." No Charm, no Suggestion, no Dominate, etc.
You're suggesting a class that would need a different name, because it would be missing the availability of so many things like mind-reading, telepathy, levitation, etc. It's unreasonable to say, "just write as many focus spells as Cleric gets", because Cleric's focus spells support three classes so far and support the setting by tying into deities.
It would also leave the role of psychic-themed Occult caster still vacant.
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I don’t see a issue with lousing slots. Versatility would not plummet unless they don’t add more focus spells to the class. Consider the number of focus spells available to the cleric I don’t see the problem. Second the 3 point limit can easily be change for the psychic but giving them a class feature. No it would be a issue if they changed the design to anticipate the needs of the class
Unless they released as many Cantrips as there are Occult spells then yes versatility would plummet.
The rest of your suggestion is about breaking the system which is just not a good idea, gimmicky classes tend to suffer (look at pre and post playtest Alchemist and Oracle).
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My suggestion drops slots entirely make the psychic a purely focus cast give them options for a larger variety of focus spells and a chance to get 4 or 5 focus points. This will make them much more intriguing and makes them completely different from other casters. Like other classes with focus spells they could get feats to give them regular focus spells instead of slot spells. Possibly even automatically give them a new focus spell at certain levels to replace the spell slots
I would be incredibly uninterested in psychic with only focus spells and cantrips. Spellcasting as a class feature provides a level of flexibility and customization that is integral to my class fantasy of the psychic and would be remarkably difficult to replicate in 2e in a way I would find satisfying. There would need to be enough modular focus options that it would feel as flexible and customizable as spellcasting currently does, which would take a lot of page space to imitate something that exists, but in a way that would be more limited and harder to expand with later books. I would greatly prefer to see psychic as caster.
Maybe an just make it an actual focus spell? It's the kind of effect that's too powerful for an amp that can be freely accessed through a Psyche.
Empowered Mesmerization Focus 4
Uncommon, Enchantment, Metamagic, Psychic
Cast A (verbal)
You channel the strength of your mind to push a spell beyond its usual limits. If the next action you take is to Cast a Spell from your psychic spell slots that's an enchantment spell that targets one creature, the spell is treated as if it were up to 1 level higher, to a maximum of Empowered Mesmerization's spell level or 9th level, whichever is lower. This does not enable the spell to target more than one creature even if a higher level version of the spell could target multiple creatures.
Heighten 9th The spell is treated as if it were up to 2 levels higher instead of 1.
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.. wut
Yes giving them just focus spells to pick form would cap their versatility, making focus spells copy actual spells would be underwhelming.
Occult is the most on point spell list for Psychic, not sure where this complaint is coming from.
And I don't understand the "bad Bard/Sorcerer and adding more spells would make it worse".
Making it "unique" just for the sake of uniqueness isn't necessarily a good thing.
"that will actually feel like a psychic" I'm not sure how this tracks, we all have different visuals in our heads of what psychic "should be", but that line is vague and rather meaningless. How does removing their spellcasting make them "feel like a psychic"?
The 2 slots per level will only work if they have class features to make up for it. I like the 2 slots per level because it gives the designer the power budget to add power elsewhere.
This class is dead if they don't nail the psi cantrips w/ amps and the unleash mechanics, because of the lack of fall back to spells.
Since Psychic should be the best at mind affecting spells, I hope they include some way to get around the incapacitation mechanic, even if it's just temporary, like the ability to use charm spell that ignores the incapacitation trait but only while unleashed.
Or perhaps a new unleash that allows you to treat incapacitation spells as if cast at the highest spell slots
Psychic should be best at mind spells, but the play test has them falling short on this regard
I'm just going to chime in on this, even though it's a bit late. I agree with pretty much everything here, except that an unleash effect wouldn't support anything subtle, because they need to be used in fights. It would be odd for Psychic to be better at charming someone trying to stab them than someone they've been talking with for a little while.
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I don't see an issue with the psy cantrips getting less focus. The psychic is a full caster. If you give them one more spell per level per day, keep amp cantrips as is and add an ability to add some other amps to slotted spells, that seems like a unique enough chassis to differentiate it from other casters while still being a full caster.
This would also take the pressure off of the amped cantrips to be better.