Wizards of the Coast has released playtest material for Dungeons & Dragons 2024. The new Unearthed Arcana is notable since it contains another attempt at creating a new character class: the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Psion.
The Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Psion Unearthed Arcana
In an official post on D&D Beyond, Wizards of the Coast released the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Psion Unearthed Arcana. The post was accompanied with a video of Todd Kenrick interviewing the design team on the playtest material. Notably, this is the first video not featuring the (now departed) design leads of Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford.
The Unearthed Arcana contains playtest material for the Psion class, four Psion subclasses, several unique spells, and new Wild Talent feats. The Psion is effectively a psychic take on the Wizard. They both have no armor training and only a d6 hit die. The unique resource the Psion has the Psionic Energy Die, which can be rolled and added to certain ability checks and attack rolls.
Keeping in line with utility, the four Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Psion subclasses are geared towards different forms of play. The Metamorph allows you to psychically alter your body and the body of others. The Psi Warper lets you bend space between objects. The Psykinetic focuses on powerful bursts of energy and defensive shields. The Telepath enables you to delve into the minds of your enemies.
Lastly, the Unearthed Arcana’s Wild Talent feats allow other character classes to dip into the new psionic power. They are similar to the Magic Initiate feat. Take this feat and your Fighter or Barbarian has limited access to some of the Psion’s abilities like pyrokinesis or disguising your appearance with psychic power.
The Psion is the first attempt by Wizards of the Coast to create a new character class in eight years. Their last attempt was a similar psychic-themed class, the Mystic, in 2015. That class was ultimately abandoned, generally because it was considered too powerful due to versatility through psi points.
The new Psion class by comparison, is more closely inspired by other psychic-themed subclasses like the Psi Knight Fighter or the Soulknife Rogue. As for whether or not this class will be refined and released in a future book, that will depend on community feedback.
