Psionic Sub Classes for 5E

I've been watching The Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour, lately. He's been showing off some of his design process a lot of it full of idea boards just tossed into a word document and him speaking about the story and feeling he wants represented in play. This is a messy process and it is inspiring to see such a prominent lead do this kind of work in public in an hour. He doesn't always finish what he starts in an hour but he makes a fair bit of progress. A few episodes ago he started looking at creating a psion like sub-class for Wizards. He made enough progress and had enough potential he went on to do this for the fighter and now the monk.


But, enough about how I feel about the videos. The import part is that it has inspired me to think about design. Largely in part because during a few episodes Mike mentioned that there was a design element for Barbarians thought of as the Nova Barbarian. The idea being when the Barbarian stops raging there is an affect that happens. What the design team found out was that it prompted players to enter rages and then end them the next turn to get that effect. This wasn't satisfying and didn't really feel like a barbarian tactic, so it was scrapped. I was thinking about this concept and wanted to try and make it work. That got me on the path to thinking of a barbarian that rages and while raging builds up a pool of damage that is dealt to everyone around her at the end of the rage. The longer the barbarian rages the more damage she will be able to do. But, I couldn't figure out a theme for it until Mike started the psionic sub class series. It made a lot of sense for this Nova Barbarian to be psionic themed. In addition it got me thinking of other classes and concepts to explore. So before showing off my Psionic Barbarian Path, the Path of the Telekinetic. I want to outline a few other sub class and psionic ideas in general. Mostly so when Mike beats me to developing them I can say I tried.

Telekineticist - Barbarian - This class' psionic power is fueled by raw emotion. They are the most terrifying kind of wild talent because thing move and jump around them and often they will never control or understand their power. Those that do are terrible and dangerous because they've learned to tap into their internal turmoil and inflict it physically upon the world.


Mind Spiker - Rogue - This rogues sneak attack does psychic damage. At higher levels it causes confusion and maybe even lets them interrogate the minds of people outside of combat. In addition the mind spiker might even be able to render himself invisible to observers by removing the memory of his presence all together. The mental link to interrogate people might be the kind of thing that is a non-combat ability that the Mind Spiker achieves by "pickpocketing" the mind of another and allowing scrying like abilities on that person.


Mental Mage - Wizard - Mike already covered this and it might be better to run with his idea if it is ever released as an Unearthed Arcana. However I think there might be more options or space to play in particularly if this mage is about fear effects, illusions, and confusion, rather than the psychic damage/thought theft that Mike took the subclass in.


Psychic Surgeon - Bard (specialized in mind & body) - The bard already borders on psionic powers because this class is often about influencing emotions. But taken to an even higher level this class is so in tune with the effects of mind over matter that it can heal the body or tear apart the fragile minds of those that oppose it.

Etheric Summoner - Druid (summons the essence of nature) - This "druid" is attuned to the spirit of nature such that it understand the mind of wild beasts and plants and is able to bring into reality the truest essence of the form. This druid would be able to summon not a bear but instead it summons the essence of a bears rage manifested in a form that perfectly fits that beasts emotion. Or perhaps the druid can cloak herself in the essence of a lionesses' stealthy strike granting her a form and powers beyond just becoming a lion, then after the strike has been made the druid channels the stability and resilience of the spirits in the rocks around her to protect her for the rest of a fight.

Wild Talent - If the design encourages adding some "psionic" abilities that are generic across all the psionic classes or even a pool of abilities that are psionic and not specificall exclusive to class this would make them available to everyone in addition it might be nice if a player wants to add more psionic abilities to their class.


As you can see these classes above are still germinating ideas. But I hope they interest people enough to want to play them and also to want to make their own ideas. However this post has grown long enough that I think the Barbarian should in it's own post. That will be posted this afternoon once I have cleaned it up a little.

Path of the Telekinetic Rage

As I mentioned in my previous post here is the for the Path of the Telekinetic Rage. And please if you play this or like the idea but think it needs improvement let me know. If you hate the idea please don't let me know. I am not sure I want to deal with that kind of vitriol the internet can produce here.

Barbarian: Path of the Telekinetic Rage

This document presents a personally created and playtest quality option for the Barbarian: Path of the Frenetic Rage 

This Is Unofficial Content 

This is content has not be vetted by or reviewed by Wizards of the Coast. It was developed after listening to too much “Mike Mearls’ Happy Fun Hour”. I wanted to take a stab at a design the Mike Mearls shied away from. Feedback and comments are welcome.  

Primal Path 

At 3rd level, you choose a path that shapes the nature of your rage. At the DM’s discretion, the following primal path is available to a barbarian in addition to those offered in the campaign. 

Path of the Telekinetic Rage 

Those who choose the path of the Telekinetic Rage might have been thought of a possessed by spirits as a child or worse a controller of foul magics. As things around them occasionally moved.  But in truth it was just the force of their emotions acting upon the world. As they grew they learned to control and harness those emotions until they could embrace The Path of the Telekinetic Rage. Releasing that emotional force as an attack and cathartic release. 

Building Rage 

Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you can exert your emotion energy upon the world. When choose to enter a rage you may choose to enter a Building Rage. A Building Rage grants you a rage pool that adds one die at the end of every turn you are raging. When your rage ends for each die in your rage pool inflict 1d4 force damage to every creature within 10’ of you in addition you suffer one level of exhaustion. 

Kinetic Control 

Beginning at 6th level you are able to control your emotions enough to alter the world around you in more subtle ways. This allows you to cast mage hand at will. 

Rejuvenating Rage 

Beginning at 10th level you no longer suffer a level of exhaustion when you expend your Rage Pool and it results in damage to at least one enemy. In addition when you score a critical hit you may expend all the dice currently in your Rage Pool without ending your Building Rage. 

Ranged Rage 

Starting at 14th level when you expend your Rage Pool you can channel the energy to a point you can see within 50’. This creates a creating a 10’ burst centered on the target. 

Unboxing Birthright

The original Birthright Boxed Set had a ton of goodies in it. I had forgotten just how much was there until I cracked open the box again. Here is a list of everything, according to the back of the box:

• The Atlas of Cerilia: 32 Pages detailing the history and features of the continent
• The Rulebook: 96 pages of information on royal-blooded characters, governing kingdoms, and the Cerilian Pantheon
• The Ruins of Empire book: 96 pages describing kingdoms waiting to be conquered
• Two poster Maps illustrating the lands of Cerilia.
• A Battle Mat and 112 War Cards for resolving all types of military clashes plus a custom-designed War Chest for storing the cards.
• A four-panel DM^tm Screen specifically for Birthright campaigns.
• Twelve card sheets packed with handy reference material and descriptions of major enemies.

When I opened the box this is the chaos I was greeted with. Really no that teribble given all the stuff inside. You can see a smattering of “War Cards” and the custom-designed “War Chest” the chest was clearly designed to hold future expansion packs of cards. This just has a basic smattering of Anuirean forces (Anuir being the default starting realm for PCs in this game) Archers, Scouts, Knights, conscripts, siege engines, mercenaries, etc. As well as some common regional monsters, opposing nation units, terrain, and battlefield wide spell effects.

The next book I found was the rulebook. There is a lot of information packed into these 96 pages and will in fact be the basis for most of the remaining posts discussing Brithright and adapting it to 4E. But I think I have rambled a length about some of my ideas. The rest I will present in a more structured format in the future.

Delving deeper I uncovered Ruins of Empire. This is very much a DMs book. It breaks the world down into 5 basic regions. Southern Coast, Western Coast, Heartlands, Northern Marches, and Eastern Marches. Each section discusses some of the regional politics, threats to the area, and meta-plot that might inspire a campaign for the region. Each page outlines a nation for a region, provides a bit of color about the people details about the ruler and factions as well as statistics for provinces and armies. There are three other sections to this book as well. An introduction with world details, instructions on reading a nation’s statistics (necessary reading), and a few other bobs added in. The final sections contain dossiers on several prominent leaders around the world with special focus on the Southern Coast and a short adventure to familiarize DMs with how to structure a game of Birthright. This is especially important because the PCs are not expected to go dungeon crawling as often as those in in traditional campaigns and doing so takes time and resources away from other actions that can be taken during the game.

After that I was present with the 12 card sheets and DM’s screen. These are card-stock nuggets of double sided goodness. The first is a cultural sheet, very fluffy and shows the depth of detail Rich Baker put into this world (probably far more than would be done in a product today. I’m not trying to pass judgement but a game with several pronunciation guides based on region, race, etc. is a lot more effort and detail than I have the time or memory-bandwidth for today). The second and third deal with domain turns and records, emphasizing how important leadership was to this game. The fourth and fifth are maps of the area and hex maps for detailing a region even more. The sixth is a another fluff card with some art depicting the dress of regional military, I like this extra bit a lot because a picture is worth 1,000 words and clothing styles help give a feel for what real world culture inspired them. The last 6 sheets are monsters, some special versions of creatures for Birthright and some abominations special powerful enemies intended to be epic threats in the world.

The final book in the box is the Atlas of Cerilia. This is the fluffiest piece. It discusses the world the migration of races. The history of the people and cultures as well as the regions. It is intended for both players and DMs but I can’t see many DMs being thrilled with the amount of information duplicated between the Atlas and the Ruins books. The forward to this has a very telling story by Rich Baker. In it he describes leaving the navy and writing a 225,000 word novel that was unpublishable. He used it to get hired at TSR to prove he could “write a lot of words”. However, this omnibus was eventually used to create parts of TSRs next campaign setting. What I do not know is if it was Rich’s intent to use so many strange and made up, and often vaguely Celtic words, or just what was the fashion for game design and fantasy in the mid 90s. Either way the trend didn’t bother me then, but it does now. Mostly because today I understand just how badly I butchered the pronunciations of things which I didn’t notice or care as much about back then. Either way this book is good for perusing for ideas but I think it contains far too much detailed about a very broad area to see extensive use in many campaigns.

The final three things in the box are poster maps. The first is a map of the Southern Coast region with nations broken up by provinces additionally there is a domain record log that has Anuirean dates included on it. The next map is the Mattle Mat. This is for use exclusively with the War cards, it allows for a very stylized and abstract mass combat system. A useful inclusion to the game but not something I can wrap my head around right now. The final map is of the continent of Cerilia. This shows all the world’s nations, as well as province borders, however names are left out for either the DM to fill in by guessing and using Ruins of Empire, or future expansions to the line. The continent is impressive and while too well defined to really fit in with POL I am sure something can be done to assist with that.

So ends my unboxing and preliminary review of the Birthright boxed set. I leave you with a photo of what everything looks like when spread out.

_{Post Script: I was toying with having a semi eclectic background of gaming accouterments to add something to these photos. I don’t think it adds anything and in fact seems a little distracting. Unfortunately, I wanted to get this post out quickly and I don’t have a lot of time for photo editing so these less than ideal photos are getting used. If anyone has suggestions or comments about photographing game components they are welcome to leave them below along with any other comments on this post.}

Tillam's Thoughts 3

[This post, the previous one and the next soon to follow contains over 2 months worth of play reports summed up. For more details on our adventures follow the live tweets for mmaranda, or check out the compilations made from those tweets here]

I woke up early. And went to see if Alexi had made it to the drop point we were interested in. It was a brothel, how exciting. I later learned this was the brothel Alexi grew up in and still calls home. More to the point Alexi wasn’t anywhere, but drunk and waiting, was Banacek. I was able to defuse him, not that he needed that much defusing. It seems he kidnapped or unkidnapped or rekidnapped the girl. That made him happy but loosing the box was a bit of a sore spot. He agreed to pay me half of what was owed, on top of that he’d take off the other half if I do a new job. He left me with details about where to meet the team I’d be working with. I wasn’t thrilled with the proposition, but if the house came calling on my debt I couldn’t pay it off so I had to do it. Yet another mess dad left for me.

Regardless I’d had a meeting to attend with Kiin, Hrothgar, Caleb, and Nero assuming the later bothered showing up. Upon arriving it was apparent Kiin had been busy. He met with some people last night including a representative of Yan Liao working as a middle man for House Taiapetra, the same people that put me and onto the path that got me here. They wanted to have a chat with Ingrid because they know she sold information to House Dandolo, as Dandolo is a house that deals in information I think Taiapetra is upset they almost got scooped. I was also able to guess that I could get a good deal this way. Kiin wants me on his team and Taiaptra through Banacek was going to remove my debt. While getting paid twice would be unthinkably grand getting a higher than average premium for my skills. The crew was the same as last night. Alexi, me, Hrothgar, Nero, Kiin, Hu, and Caleb.

Speaking of Hu, it seems he did very well for himself a the game last night. gaining a title as a minor baron of Vrolens  and partial ownership of the Stabientia Blues.

Now we had to get down to business. We needed details about where Ingrid might have gone to ground. Hrothgar and I checked in with a fence of mine, Skjelmund, to see if he had heard of anything recently or if he might have known any of the old hidey-holes. He wasn’t able to provide us much. But Alexi and Nero discovered the gang might have come from the theater district. While Caleb believed they were from somewhere else. After regrouping we decided to split into three teams. Alexi and I would snoop around the theater district. Caleb, Hu, and Kiin would go check their sources, and Hrothgar and Nero would return to the Wyvern’s Sting to see if any stragglers came by or survivors returned.

Alexi and I took a private gondola to the theater district. Ovidio, our gondolier, was able to give us a good idea of the theater district; he also thought it was charming that Alexi should his son out to the theater. We noticed we had picked up a tail and decided to loose it. The easiest method was to duck into a show. We happened into a one man Bruthalese how in High Salumar and the resulting scholarly discourse. Fortunately I was able to understand it and could navigate the groups leading us safely to the back entrance. In case of the tail having followed us in I also helped start a debate that came to blows.

Ducking out the back we realized how close we were to the bordello side of the district. Given the natures of the house/people we were looking for, it seemed a reasonable place to continue looking for leads. We checked out two brothels with little luck, and while going to a third and final spot fort the evening ran into a pack of Varonian Marines. I was able to out talk them before things got terribly violent and sent them off to wreak havoc on little Shan-Li town. Our last spot of the night was fruitful. Using my stature and good nature as a distraction, Alexi got a name the name Tulio. Apparently he’s a small operator around here, that has been hiring a lot of girls and flashing coin around like he had just pulled off a big job. Amber, a slight young Salumar girl, was most talkative to me. I was able to ply her well and learn where Tulio’s place was, the nature of the back door the girls and wine had been brought through and a layout of the area. 2+ floors, 12+ guys and there were groups. Varonian and Skraeling there. It also seemed Tulio wasn’t in charge of the Skraeling and took orders from them.

With that info we went to regroup at the Swinging Claymore. I decided to grab some sleep and went to a room we had rented out.  Before crashing I got the report of what the others did. Hrothgar and Nero went back to the Wyvern’s sting. There were was a Varonian gang looking for Scraeling. They evaded them and took up position in a nearby inn to watch for other stragglers, unfortunately they were tailed and a group of Varonians attacked them. They took out thier attackers and beat a hasty retreat. Caleb and company had a similar incident. Unfortunately Mr. Hu, took the brunt of the attack. However, they grabbed one of their assailants. and brought him back here. Kiin is going to interrogate him and wanted Alexi’s help.  

That was when we heard a commotion accompanied by what sounded like squeaking rats. Just then Alexi burst in an letting us know of trouble. Rushing down stairs we find a standoff between Kiin and a gang. He seemed to have shot a girl in the head, and was psoturing to scare thje group off. With us rushing downstairs the Shan Li gang beat feet dragging the girl with them. After that we planned our assault. We had to move quickly. With a few more details provided by Kiin captive we were ready to move.

We came to the decision to go in through the back using Hrothgar’s race and gang knowledge to get us in. That worked until Hrothgar was ushered off and our cover was blown. I’m not really sure of the details after that. A Skraeling rushed me with an axe. I was able to get inside his guard which resulted in the blade missing me. But a kick to the head was good enough to knock me out.

When I regained consciousness I learned that when the rest of the group began looking for Hrothgar and Ingrid, they found the place abandoned. There was an escape route used and the token resistance gave anyone else around enough time to escape. We were able to take one captive a weaselly rat faced punk, unable to provide us with much information. The safehouse also had a dragon roosting in the roof some treasure was able to be pulled out but once Momma dragon returned we left the safe house. The only other thing of note was a safe. I found a poison needle trap on the safe and deactivated it. However, I didn’t have time to unlock it and had to bring it home with me. With some potential powerful enemies it seemed best if we split up and went to our respective homes. We agreed to meet again in the morning and regroup on how to find Ingrid.

After sleeping, I woke up early and woke Ping up as well. I introduced him to the safe and taught him how it could be cracked. He was interested and will hopefully be a quick study. Inside was little of interest other than a map of the city of Varo with 9 locations picked out and some Scraeling script. My guess this shows all the safe houses. I also found a necklace made of dragon teeth. Locking them both up I decided to rejoin the team.

With that Tillam and the crew were alerted that Tendyra was insight.

Last PC Creation Post: Going Shopping

This will be my last post about character creation until Tillam dies horribly (possibly eaten by rats or in a fire). But I wanted to discuss something that seems to have taken a back seat in 4th edition. Equipping a PC with mundane items and having a detailed inventory of all your equipment how you are carrying it and how much it all weighs.

There are many schools of thought for equipping a PC. The quick summary of those I've encountered are:

1) Spend all your gold on a wide and varied selection of things eventually you will find a use for that stuff.
2) Buy only those items you know you will need. Gold can be spent on items as you know you need them.
3) Buy a standard set of equipment the same list of items every time for every character.

I must admit I usually option for something between options 1 and 3. This time, however, given that the campaign will be city based and Tillam is a moderately well to do businessman I've decided to go with a foppish style of equipment mostly clothing and changes of it along with a few pieces any good thief would need.

Very little of my equipment needs explanation it is all the basic stuff from the PhB but here I present his equipment. All the while trying to stay acutely aware of my carrying capacty of 35 lbs. I also do try to keep track of what is on Tillam's person and where in the event a pickpocket attempt happens.

Item	Notes	Weight	Local.
Belt		-	Worn
Cloak	Cloth	-	Worn
Leather Armor	AC 8	15	Worn
Dagger	2 on belt 2 in boots 1 on chest	5	Worn
Thieves Tools	Special Set	1	Belt
Boots	Soft	0	Worn
Surcoat		0	Worn
Tunic		0	Worn
Breeches		0	Worn
Hose		0	Worn
Gloves		0	Worn
Sack Large		.5	Pack
Sack Small	x2	.2	Pack
Backpack		2	Worn
Pouch Small	x2	1	Belt
Pouch Large		1	Belt
Flint & Steel	in S. Pouch 1	0	Worn
Chalk	in S. Pouch 1	0	Worn
Hooded Lantern	Backpack	2	Worn
Lamp Oil	x2 in L Pouch	2	Worn
Lamp Oil	2		Stored
Torch			Stored
Sealing Wax			Stored
Gloves			Stored
Hose	3		Stored
Breeches	2		Stored
Tunic	2		Stored
Boots	Soft		Stored
Belt			Stored
	Total Weight	31.9

Skills, Kits, and Proficiencies Oh My!

Creating The First Character Continued

When we left off Tillam had stats and a background but that was about it. Now I’ve got a lot of things to add to flesh him out. Including starting gold, assigning my languages, my non weapon proficiencies (the things I’m really good at), my weapon proficiencies (the weapons I know how to wield effectively), assign my rogue skill points, and pick a kit (a way to further customize my character similar to prestige classes or paragon paths but for 1^st level characters)

 Now Tillam is, in AD&D terms, an exceptionally smart person so he knows 4 languages in addition to common and thieves cant, which is exclusive to rogues. I decide to spend 3 of them on regional languages of the system. I keep on in reserve this is because we are using an optional rule that allows bonus languages to be spent on additional Non-Weapon Proficiencies. The languages I have chosen are Shan-Li (a common language among the working class), High Salumar (the Latin of this world), and Channar (the language of poets)

From there I began looking towards my Non-Weapon Proficiencies (NWP). Rogues get the short end of the stick here because they start with only 3 NWPs and get a new one ever 4 levels unlike the other classes which get a new NWP every 3. The PhB and other expansion books cover a lot of skills and deal with the things common people adventurers and skilled laborers would do.

I should also pause here for a second; especially since I’m ranting. Some Kits require specific NWPs be taken or provide you with bonuses so I should pick one before I go one. So I should look at that before going onward. The kit that most fits what I envision for Tillam is the Troubleshooter. This odd kit is a security expert, he is in many ways a white hat hacker. I like that about it. The kit requires the Observation NWP. It also has some bonuses to my thief’s skill. Aside from that the advantage and disadvantage is I’m a walking lightning rod for Murphy’s Law and for plot. Anything can go fantastically or terribly for me. It is up to the DM to dole that luck out in equal measure. I’m sure Oodja is up to that job.

Now to, finish selecting my NWPs. I have observation. I also want to emphasize the business man aspect of Tillam so I add the Locksmith NWP witch will also work for clock repair. Tillam’s a charismatic guy and to emphasize that plus his intelligence I take Fast Talking hopefully it will help me bamboozle hirelings into taking a cheaper rate and also give me an advantage when working out contracts. Finally since I have High Salumar as a spoken language I should take Reading/Writing to emphasize his learned aspect and because High Salumar is mostly dead language found primarily in writing.

Next I look at weapon proficiencies. I immediately decide to select the dagger as one of them. It is an excellent weapon because it is a ranged and melee weapon. As a ranged weapon it is thrown and Halflings gain a +1 attack bonus to thrown weapons. As a melee weapon I can fight with 2 of them (one in each hand) and make one attack as normal and the second attack with a -1 penalty to the attack (the penalties are -2 & -4 with your dexterity modifier added as an offset but cannot provide bonuses). The second weapon I choose is a hand-crossbow. It will be a while before I can afford that 300gp luxury but I want to be able to use it when I buy one. Any other weapons I suffer a -3 penalty to attack with.

Now I the next to last step to my character needs to have thieves skills picked out. I have a lot of modifiers. There are the base skills. The 60 points I get to allocate (no more than 30 can go into an one skill) the bonuses from my race and high DEX, the bonuses from my kit, and the bonus to lockpicking from the locksmith skill. I think it is best to use a simple grid to outline what is going on here

Name	Starting Value	Modifiers	Discretionary	Total Value
Pick Pockets	15	-	7	22
Open Locks	10	+30	11	51
Find/Remove Traps	5	+10	15	30
Move Silently	10	+15	1	26
Hide in Shadows	5	+20	1	26
Detect Noise	15	+5	0	20
Climb Walls	60	-15	5	45
Read Languages	0	-5	20	15

In another installment I’ll discuss equipment I will let everyone know that while rolling for starting gold I got the slightly below average 50gp starting value.

But I think the next topic I talk about will be contacts who they are and what we can do with them. While not an item from an actual AD&D product (although the Lankhmar rules might have mention of the concept) it is something this campaign is using, inspired by ShadowRun.