Hot on the heels of its recent class feature variants, Wizards of the Coast has released three new archetypes for Dungeons & Dragons, which draw upon the power of the mind to defeat foes and strengthen allies.
From knights that enhance their martial prowess through runes, to rangers that call upon swarms of fey spirits to aid in battle, Wizards of Coast has truly upped the ante with its Dungeons & Dragons Unearthed Arcana playtesting. But this week we welcome three new archetypes that don’t use magic, but the power of the mind.
The Fighter, Rogue and Wizard are the first three classes to undergo the psionic transformation. The Wizard unlocks the Psionic Arcane Tradition at level 2, while the Fighter and Rouge unlock the Psychic Warrior and Soulknife at level three.
Psychic Warrior
Awakening to the psionic power within themselves, a Psychic Warrior is a fighter who augments their physical might with psychically infused weapon strikes, telekinetic lashes, and barriers of mental force. As a Psychic Warrior, you might have honed your psionic abilities through your own disciplined practice, unlocked it under the tutelage of a master, or developed it at an academy dedicated to wielding the mind’s power as both weapon and shield.
Soulknife
A Soulknife possesses powerful psionic potential. They channel this reservoir of inner magic into tangible blades of psychic energy, striking at their victims’ minds. They find easy employment as members of thieves’ guilds, being particularly sought after as assassins, since their signature psychic blades leave behind no visible wounds. As a Soulknife, your psionic abilities might have haunted you since you were a child, only revealing their potential when your psychic knives first appeared. Or you might have sought out a reclusive order of psionic assassins and spent years learning how to manifest your deadly blades.
Psionics
Wizards study magical power in all its forms, including the magic of psionics. Those wizards who follow the tradition of Psionics hone the magical potential of their own minds. Sometimes called psionicists or mentalists, these wizards interact with the multiverse through the lens of their psionic aptitude and awareness. Psionicists channel their magic by focusing their minds. By doing so they can transcend their physical bodies, adopting forms of pure thought, casting spells psionically to bypass the need for components, and perceiving the world with a broader range of senses. As a member of the Psionics tradition, you might have awoken your psionic potential through the strain of your esoteric studies, or perhaps you joined a scholarly order
With the new archetypes comes a number of new psionic-themed spells and feats, which are open to a number of classes, so even if there isn’t a mind-altering archetype that tickles your fancy, you can still add some psionic flavouring to your character.
Now, there’s been murmurings online by some that these new playtests are muddying the waters of many of the classes, blurring the lines between traditional martial and magic archetypes. For many though, Unearthed Arcana has been welcomed with open arms, allowing players to explore a wealth of new possibilities with their characters. At the end of the day, if a DM doesn’t want a particular archetype in play, all they need to do is tell their players. Simple, right?
To download the latest Unearthed Arcana head over to the Wizards of the Coast website.