D&D's Forgotten Class (And How to Play It)

so in 2014 D and D launched with 12 playable classes and in 2019 the artificer was added to the game that is the story you know but it's not the whole story in fact there have been numerous Valiant attempts to add another class to the game a class that has been released that's been play tested but has never been officially published a class that is just lost to time this is how to play The Mystic D and D's forgotten class the story of its rise and the tragedy of its fall so the Mystic was released in 2015 then again in 2016 and the final version we ever got the full subclass was in UA Mystic 3 in March of 2017 basically a two-year-long development process for this class 2 years which is the same amount of time that the entire of 1 D and D has had behind its release and the version in 2017 that's the version we're going to go over right now so Mystics are basically the psychic Pokémon of the D and D they are spellcasters kind of but they don't have spell slots they're not like Sorcerers or wizards no spell slots but they they do magic stuff your hit dice is a d8 you have Proficiency in light armor and simple weapons so far you are just the same as a warlock you also have Proficiency in wisdom and intelligence saving throws like the wizard and you get two skills from this list so at first level you get this cionic talents feature this is basically the mystics version of cantrips you get one at level one and you unlock more as you level up and you can cast these psionic talents without any sigh points more on s points later there's stuff here like energy beam which is basically your version of the sacred flame cantrip but you choose the damage type um there's the Mystic charm one which is basically the friends cantrip you get the idea this is the stuff that you can do every turn without burning a resource you also get cic disciplines which are kind of like a mix between a spell and a feat you get one at first level and you finish the game with eight at level 20 plus any that you get from your sub classes all of this stuff is shown in the Mystic table we'll talk more about that later um and intelligence is your spellcasting modifier for all of these psionics there are 40 of these psionic disciplines right and instead of using spell slots they use S points which are a lot like a monks key points you can use these s points to do cool things like deal extra damage to someone when you hit them with a weapon attack or knock someone backwards Etc the number of side points you have is super janky it's a ridiculous level curve you start at four at level one up to 71 by level 20 it's all in the table but all you need to know right now is that you spend these points to do cool things and they recharge when you finish a long rest now each of those 40 psionic disciplines also has a psionic focus this is the part of the discipline which is basically like a feat you can use a bonus action to focus on any cionic discipline you have and you gain a passive benefit while you're focusing on it it doesn't cost concentration or anything and it lasts until you're incapacitated or you use it again it's basically a permanent buff just for having that discipline but psionic disciplines are also your smells right so let's take a look at one let's take a look at the psionic discipline Brute Force the psionic focus of brute force is that you have Advantage On Athletics checks that's the permanent buff which is always on after you use a bonus action to focus on it now let's take a look at the abilities that you can use points to access you can use a bonus action to boost the damage of your next melee attack roll for 1 D6 per s point you spend that one is basically like a mini Divine Smite you can also use a reaction to knock an enemy back 10 ft per s point you spend when you hit them with an attack if they fail a strength save this one's kind of nasty I I this one's a little crazy with Spike growth this one's good or you can spend any number of s points to LEAP up to 20 ft per s Point spe bent this doesn't technically increase your movement speed but considering you can leap up to 140 ft with this feature i' totally allow it if you wanted to burn all your side points into a Mega Jump finally you can spend two side points as a bonus action to gain a plus five to all strength checks until the end of your next turn Okay so that's a lot right and that's only one discipline there are 40 of these it is absolutely not an exaggeration to say the Mystic is by m the most customizable class ever considered for DND D there is a discipline that lets you just become Ant-Man yes literally you become Ant-Man so having 40 disciplines to choose from each of which has like four abilities baked inside it makes the Mystic incredibly complicated but you only really need to track the ones that you actually have and you don't have that many especially in the early game just pick a couple that look cool to you and use S points to activate their abilities that's it so there's one thing left to talk about at level one and that is your sigh limit this thing is also shown in the handy little table no matter how many s points you have you can just never spend more than your sigh limit on any ability at any one time this forces you to not spend all your s points on one crazy Mega superpowered Punch at level one funny though that sounds okay so that's the most complicated part of the class done now let's talk about later abilities and sub classes but first what's this what's up Bros as a sexually active male myself I sure do hate it when my woman goes shopping okay that was a lie I I I I I'm not actually a sexually I I I guess you could say I'm in between partners right now that was also kind of a a stereotype I I I I wouldn't I don't have any problem with people shopping um I I just wanted to look cool in front of you guys I guess I the the point of the sketch was going to be that uh going shopping with your girlfriend is boring I would imagine I'm uh completely alone but wouldn't it be great if shopping wasn't boring in D and D well now it doesn't have to be ghostfire gaming Seeker guide to enchanting emporiums is out now on Kickstarter it's a 250 page Illustrated anthology of magic item stores and traveling Traders every shop has a history and PCS quests Adventure outlines encounter prompts and unique products and services I love that they also include role playing advice alongside game statistics so you have everything you need to bring your game to life we could even roleplay being in a relationship or something like if one of us was lonely I don't know it might help just kidding JK JK trolling I'm doing fine make DND more than a Dungeon Crawl bring magic items and personality into your narrative with the seeker's guide to enchanting emporiums out now on Kickstarter link below now back to the Mystic so at second level you get this feature called Mystic recovery which is pretty simple when you spend s points to activate an ability you can use a bonus action on that turn to gain temporary hit points equal to the side points you spent this means that psionic abilities that don't use your bonus action get a Little Bit Stronger because they leave that bonus action free to tank up with temporary hit points now this isn't that much defensively at lower levels right you're probably spending two s points per turn at most but at higher levels this can translate to up to 71 temporary hit points across a day which is pretty good you also get telepathy at level two it's basically the telepathic feat it's good cuz you can act as sort of a an invisible uh undetect cable communication relay between your party at level four you get your ASI and a pretty wacky feature called strength of mind which basically lets you swap out your wisdom save proficiency for a proficiency with another saving throw of your choice you can do this anytime you finish a short or long rest and honestly having Proficiency in wisdom saving throws is probably the best proficiency to have saving throws with anyway but if you know what you're going to be fighting if you know something is coming up that attacks a specific spe saving throw you can swap your proficiency to that to give yourself an edge against it if you know you're going to be fighting a green dragon you can pump up your con saves to defend against that Poison by taking a short rest before you go into battle however this feature is is kind of broken and I don't mean like overpowered um it literally doesn't work because if you multi-glass into Mystic right if you start as a fighter and multi class into Mystic you don't have wisdom saving throw proficiency what does this feature do if you don't have that inial initial wisdom safe proficiency uh and honestly nobody knows this is what happens when a class gets abandoned before these Niche interactions can be ironed out but anyway at eighth level you get this thing called potent psionics and respect to the the Mad lad at wizards of the ghost who did this but they literally just took the cleric's potent spellcasting and divine strikes features smushed them together and gave them to the Mystic you get extra damage when you hit a creature with a weapon and you get to add your intelligence modifier to all damage roles from your psionic talents those are your cantrips remember then at level 10 you get this consumptive power feature which is very cool and it's a very Blood Hunter style ability now instead of spending s points on an ability you can spend your own hit points instead you want to spend seven s points to activate an effect you just reduce your maximum hit point total by seven and you take seven damage and boom it happens you can Channel your powers using your own flesh and blood and this is a a huge boost to the available s points that you have across a day for all the power Gamers out there cooking up a combo right now I'm going to remind you that you can't use your hit points to fuel an ability and then use a bonus action to get temporary hit points equal to the hit points you just spent with your second level ability uh they don't interact like that your Mystic recovery feature only works when you spend s points not when you spend hit points to replicate the effect of s points then at level 11 you get probably the most infamous Mystic ability psionic Mastery you get nine special s points they are different to your other s points it would be nice if they had a different name but they don't so we live in a world of confusion when you use these special s points to fuel an ability that requires concentration like the wall of repulsion from the crown of disgust psionic discipline it doesn't stop you from concentrating on other psionic disciplines basically you can concent at on multiple concentration effects at once which no matter how any class or subclass tries to balance this is always disgustingly powerful plus it's just nine free s points on top of your hit points finally at level 20 you get psionic body giving you the following benefits you resist bludgeoning slashing and piercing you don't age you're immune to disease poison damage and the poison condition and anytime you die you roll a D20 and if you get a 10 or above you don't actually die you just vanish and reappear 3 days later on the same plane that you died with all your gear and the benefits of a long rest pull anobi on Kenobi you straight up dip out of there that final feature sounds amazing right but honestly it's not that great it's much better to avoid dying at all than having this 50% reliable safety valve if you do happen to die even then a party of players at level 20 has a th000 th ways to resurrect you if you do die without ever needing to use this feature still it does beat a bunch of other Capstone abilities like the utter trash that monks and Sorcerers get at level 20 but that isn't above to Mystics okay just because some other classes suck like they're objectively badly designed at high levels doesn't mean the Mystic one is suddenly broken it it's okay it's fine for a level 20 ability but wait there is subclasses to talk about and even though there's a lot we could say about the Mystic already you're going to want to hear this there are six Mystic subclasses and by the way I just want to point out that this single UA document from 2017 has only one fewer subass than the Druid who's been around for the entirety of 5 we need more Druid subclasses okay so every subass gives you two bonus disciplines from that specific subclasses discipline list every subclass has their own few disciplines that you get to pluck from at level one then each subass has their own little bit of flavor the order of Avatar gives you medium armor and Shields and some light buff effects for the party including healing order of Awakened is basically a detective style subass that lets you see the history of an object that you study it's a really good roleplay class with an amazing late game ability which is basically just the monks empty body feature but four levels earlier than the monks get it because you know Screw MKS right order of the immortal gets you an extra hit point per level basically turning you into a d10 hit die class and unarmored defense similar to the Barbarian it's one of the weaker Mystic subclasses but it does have a pretty cool level 14 ability that lets you pretty much pop up from zero hit points every single turn order of the Nomad just gives you a ton of teleportation abilities it's blissfully simple in such a complicated class and it's really fun this is probably the best one for beginners who want to try the Mystic then you've got the order of the Soul knife and this one might actually ring a few Bells because Soul knife is now an actual Rogue subass the Mystic Soul knife gives you medium armor Marshall weapons and a couple of Soul knives that deal one d8 on a hit you can also use a bonus action to gain plus two to your AC by parrying incoming attacks with your knives and you can ignore enemies AC and deal extra damage by the end of the game honestly this one is a really cool subclass and even though I do like the Rogue Soul knife as well I like this one even more finally the order of the woen lets you learn a few wizard spells like say Fireball Fireball and Fireball and you can cast them using spell slots you create with side points this is kind of nasty in fact it's borderline unfair because like just for reference at level 9 you can craft six fifth level spell slots in a day when full casts have access to only one okay so those are the core Mystic mechanics and the time has come to ask are Mystics actually broken and the answer is yeah like totally have you been paying attention m scks are the best class in the game no doubt but are they so broken they can never be used and the answer to that is no by level 9 Mystics are better Marshall characters than even the most outrageously power gamed Fighters and by level 11 they're pretty clearly the strongest class in the game around levels 13 to 15 the power sort of swings back in favor of full spellcasters because they get access to Bonkers spells like Similac clone and force cage and as we all know those spells are just kind of ridiculous but Mystics also have some other quirks which are less obvious that make them powerful psionics aren't spells so they can't be counter spelled there's no need to save gold to copy spells into a spell book or buy costly Spell components they just don't exist so just dropping a Mystic into your game right now would probably mean there'd be one player who is way stronger than all the others but there is another option if you want to try the Mystic why not let everyone play it this this is by far the most versatile class ever conceived of by watsi you can have a party of six Mystics who are all totally different like way more different than a fighter Barbarian and Ranger would be from each other and then everyone's roughly on the same power level they're trying something new and it it's honestly just really cool it's almost like playing a variant of DnD d a DLC download Dungeons and Dragons Mystic Edition where everyone is sure more powerful but the DM can make the enemies more powerful as well but there is one more question we've got to answer and that is will the Mystic ever be printed and the answer is sadly no and that is the tragedy behind this story contrary to what people say the Mystic isn't off the table because it's broken it's actually quite easy to fix a class which is too powerful the concept is solid a talented designer with a little time and passion could fix this subclass pretty quickly in fact I would do it myself if I had the time and the Mystic was in the SRD but it's not Wizards would rather do nothing with the Mystic than let someone else fix it and that's kind of rough on waty so let's be fair for a second they have kind of done something with the Mystic class the reason the Mystic won't ever be printed is because psionics have been done another way in Dungeons and Dragons now we have psionic casters with the aberant Mind sorcerer we've got the soul knife Rogue and the sinite fighter these are all actually pretty cool subclasses and they take the place of psionics in D and D the problem is these Sonics basically have zero identity at all for the sorcerer CICS are just more spells they still use spell points and for the other classes the sonics aren't anything to do with spells they're just random abilities the downside here is that we've lost an opportunity for a spellcasting type class that doesn't use spell slots one of my most popular shorts this year was all about removing spell slots from D and D this is a really cool design space that people are really interested in but it's been cannibalized by honestly less interesting ideas One D andd is even making the spellcaster variance problem worse by removing packed Magic from warlocks they're just normal half casters now I hate this I'm not going to lie I hate that change no doubt it is harder to make a variant spellcasting system for the upcoming DND D VT but it still sucks DND D is a smaller less interesting game because of this restriction but even worse is that to my reading there is more love and passion and exciting design done in this UA from years ago than has been in any DND D book since tash's someone really cared about the Mystic and their hard work and creativity deserves to be celebrated and played by you they made it for you the Mystic is worth saving but the truth is it won't be maybe one day a great third-party publisher will make millions of dollars with a kick starter that totally shakes up spellcasting in D and D they'll introduce a whole new system and it will be awesome but the Mystic is not the way that is going to happen at least not officially but that doesn't stop you from playing The Mystic you can reach back through time grab this UA and give it a shot you can be Ant-Man it's literally Ant-Man the amount of combos for this class are insane the Mystic is a whole books worth of content on its own it does not deserve to be forgotten but while we're talking about exping D and D why not swing on by the D and D shorts patreon to expand your game with hundreds of pages of Epic content right now you get four full magazines of content if you sign up today each with their own one shot Adventure ready to play right now and yeah that's basically all I got remember to like And subscribe share this with your group get a Mystic game running together and I'll see you next time

Channel: DnD Shorts

Views: 254,049

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Id: WL2AYYpPZJc

Length: 19min 52sec (1192 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 14 2023