This review consists of two sister products, both by Darel Dominguez - The Psychic and the Expanded Psionics Booklet. These were published in Feburary and May 2023, and this review is looking at the versions updated in February 2024. Psionic powers are innate supernatural abilities that are not magic.

Psionics

Before reviewing individual rules elements, it’s important to understand the subsystem this pair of supplements provides.

Powers. Powers are a set of supernatural abilities that use many of the same rules as spells - targeting, duration, even concentration. The most basic powers are called talents, the equivalent to cantrips, but their damage scaling is unusual; they tend to increase in both the number and size of dice, giving them a lot more punch in tiers 3 and 4 compared to cantrips at those levels.

Disciplines. There are five psionic disciplines, which should be familiar to anyone who’s been exploring this space — Metacreativity, Psychokinesis, Psychometabolism, Telekinesis, Telepathy — just leaving off Clairsentience from the six in 3.5.

Psionic Energy. Powers consume Psionic Energy dice; sometimes these dice are rolled to determine an effect, other times they are just expended. Some powers have an “Additional Dice” section that explains how to increase their effect. Unlike other implementations, there’s no “psi limit” or other gating mechanism that prevents a power user from using all of their Psionic Energy dice on a single power, leaving the power user to only have their talents for the remainder of an encounter. The appendix clarifies that all psychic classes are intended to recover on a short rest, so this does provide some limit on nova capability, but the strong talent scaling and the high base costs of most powers compared to their scaling strongly incentivizes blowing all of your Psionic Energy in one action and then relying on talents for the rest of combat.

The balance of powers vary dramatically, there doesn’t seem to be a clear internal guideline as to the intended impact of spending a Psionic Energy die; damaging powers in particular seem skewed by the ability to blow every single Psionic Energy die on a single usage. As another comparison, Create Elemental replicates Conjure Elemental (a 4th level spell) for 10 Psionic Energy dice, which is available at level 5. Etherealness replicates the same-named 7th level spell for 13 Psionic Energy dice, which is available at level 10. Freedom of Movement replicates a 4th-level spell for 13 Psionic Energy dice. This isn’t just a matter of psionics being stronger or weaker in some areas as a way of reinforcing themes — it’s a fundamental failure to adhere to the power curve and capabilities established by the core 5e design.

Magical Equivalence. Powers are treated as spells for the purpose of most effects, including counterspell and the Magic Resistance feature. Powers don’t have components, but the rules here specifically call out that “spellcasters can detect the manifestation of any psionic energy”.

The Psychic

The psychic is an intelligence-based power manifester much in the mold of the PHB wizard.

Basics. The hit die, saving throws, and proficiencies match the wizard exactly — this class is intended to be a backline controller far away from scary enemies with axes and hammers.

Psionics. The core feature of this class, almost all of the psychic’s power budget is in their psionics. They only start with 2 talents but end up with 5 at level 13. Their Psionic Energy pool starts at 2d6 and grows rapidly to 10d8 by level 5, but slow down and only grow to 12d10 by level 9; the pool eventually grows to 19d12 at level 17, capping out at 20d12 at level 19. This pool refreshes on short rest, similar to a warlock or several other psions reviewed in this series.

Psychic Awakening. Psychics choose their subclass at first level; those options are covered later.

Autohypnosis. A 2nd-level ribbon feature focused around languages, this at least isn’t trying to sell itself as a viable combat option like Countercharm; it’s something you jot down on a character sheet and ignore in most campaigns.

Psionic Focus. Psychics have access to a pool of features much like eldritch invocations; they gain one at 2nd level and an additional at every proficiency-increasing level. The power levels vary dramatically — Thermoregulation gives advantage on Constitution saving throws against extreme weather, while Transvection grants a full flight speed equal to walking speed while not wearing armor. Strangely, there’s no level or other requirements on any of these.

Body Supremacy. This 7th-level feature lets the psychic shift their “strong save” proficiency around between Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom, which is actually a pretty useful ability — you can usually anticipate on a day-to-day basis what kind of attacks you need to be ready for. The second benefit, reducing the time of a short rest to 10 minutes, ensures that the psychic can still get their reloads even in a time-sensitive adventure.

Consumptive Power. This staple of the genre allows a level 11 psychic to replenish their psychic energy, at a cost. The first hit each day is free, but additional uses cost hit points. Each use can replenish up to the psychic’s level in dice, which equates to 2/3 of the pool at level 11 but grows to the entire pool by level 20. This is a fairly substantial renewal, but the health cost on additional uses is quite steep - an average of 7 damage per two dice restored for the second use, or 14 for the third use. The third use is only available at the smallest amount of restoration, and even the second probably can’t be used for a full rejuvenation. Also keep in mind that restoring points naturally is only a 10 minute short rest away, so this is for the battles where you really need to go all-out.

Mind Supremacy. Starting at level 15, psychics gain resistance to psychic damage and immunity to charm, frighten, and thought reading. This feature, while standard across all implementations of the psion as a class, remains very campaign dependent — some games it’s extraordinarily helpful, others it does nothing. It’s a core class feature, however, so it’s not like you have a choice either way.

Psionic Apex. A level 18 pseudo-power, each day the psychic can choose one of five powers to have access to. The cost is 18 psychic dice, or almost the entirety of the psychic’s psionic energy pool; if you intend to manifest other powers after these you’ll need to regenerate dice with consumptive power. The design notes compare it to a 9th level spell, which seems appropriate power-level wise but again runs into the issues around the class design overly-incentivizing dumping all Psionic Energy into a single action.

Self Supremacy. The psychic capstone removes aging as a threat, guarantees two Psionic Energy dice per turn, and grants a self-only astral projection once per day. Two Psionic Energy dice is practically nothing at these levels, but the personal astral projection is more likely to be useful in the context of level-capped shenanigans than it would be at lower levels.

Psychic Awakening

The psychic’s subclasses are “Awakenings”, and grant features at 1, 3, 6, 10, and 14, mostly matching the sorcerer but with the additional feature at 3.

Awakening of the Collective

This telepathy-oriented subclass is built around its starting Mind Link feature, which allows the psychic to connect themself and up to Int mod other creatures within 30’ for up to an hour. The psychic can use this proficiency per long rest, and it’s a full action to establish the link, so there’s a significant cost to establish the link if you can’t anticipate a combat. It’s also punishing if people asynchronously leave the range of the link, as it’s a full action to re-establish the link with a character.

The other 1st-level feature, Shared Proficiencies, allows any linked creature to gain another’s proficiency for the turn as a bonus action. This is a fairly powerful feature, helping enormously with exploration challenges where the whole party needs access to Athletics or Stealth proficiency.

Psychic Unity at 6 is a straightforward +2 or +3 bonus to all damage rolls for every party member, assuming the party is clumped within the narrow radius. The gameplay of encouraging clumping for a minor, passive conditional numerical bonus is a bit questionable — an important part of 5e’s design is it’s gotten away from this exact structure of feature that adds cognitive load and “Did you remember to add X”.

The level 10 feature, Shared Mind, allows the Psychic to replace an ally’s mental saving throw bonus with their very high Intelligence saving throw bonus at the cost of 3 Psionic Energy dice and the psychic’s reaction, so roughly equivalent the cost of a 2nd level spell slot. This is a genuinely strong feature that becomes available just as it’s desperately needed; 5e’s saving throw system makes it very difficult for frontline characters to protect themselves mentally in the double-digit levels, and this feature elegantly fixes that problem. The main downside is actually the range of the mental link to keep the psychic close enough to the frontline to use it.

Level 11 doesn’t formally grant a feature, but does upgrade Mind Link from 30’ to 60’ — a much-needed boost entering tier 3 as mobility and drama scale up.

The final feature at level 14, Shared Pain, effectively turns the linked creature’s health pools into a combined resource. While it doesn’t directly reduce damage, it does help with the classic issue of incoming damage being unevenly distributed across the party. The reaction cost is significant, although the characters that need to take the damage (mid-line characters) are less likely to be needing those reactions.

Awakening of the Egoist

This monk-like subclass starts with Psionic Strength, which grants ~13+Int AC (Light armor proficiency + swap Int for Dex) as well as psionic grapples. This is legitimately a good feature, allowing the psychic to invest much more heavily in Constitution without as much need for Dexterity (and thereby compensate for the d6 hit die).

The other half of the subclass’s core competencies don’t come until level 3, with Psionic Strength granting competitive Intelligence-based force damage unarmed attacks. It remains an issue that the psychic only has a d6 hit die if they want to wade into melee, but the numbers here are better than talents for levels 3 and 4 (at level 5 the talents upgrade before Extra Attack comes online, catching them up to the unarmed attacks). It’s also worth noting there’s a Psionic Focus option that is immediately competitive, as Mastering Touch also gives Intelligence-based weapon attacks.

The unique Extra Attack at level 6 allows substituting a talent for one of the attacks, which should basically always be used; this should really be read as “Before or after using a talent, the psychic can make an unarmed attack as a free action”. That’s a good feature although maybe not something you should always try to proc. It pairs exceptionally well with the Body Affliction talent, which already does above-average damage. If you spend a Focus on Mastering Touch to get Int-based ranged weapons and otherwise have proficiency, that opens up much safer options compared to this faux-monk identity the subclass suggests.

Bodyshifting at 10 is a good reaction, granting a +4 to +6 bonus to a saving throw at the cost of a reaction and 3 Psionic Energy dice (a ~2nd level spell) by dynamically adjusting saving throw proficiencies. It’s not guaranteed to work, and ideally the psychic was able to prepare at the long rest, but this is a good defensive feature when caught unawares or facing multiple types of saving throws.

The 14th level feature, Leptokinesis, is an unusual take on a Rage-like mechanic that provides massively increased durability. Unlike Rage, it decreases the psychic’s threat level by preventing them from manifesting new powers, shutting off the main damage source of Extra Attack. Because of this it’s hard to see when it would ever be good in a real fight, as the enemies should just ignore the psychic.

Awakening of the Lurk

This controlling subclass starts with a basic but potent feature in Debilitating Psionics, constantly applying disadvantage to a single attack at the cost of a bonus action.

The 3rd level feature Psychic Assault costs an entire action and is a sidegrade to the Disengage action in most situations — it forces a singular adjacent enemy to make a Constitution saving throw against half speed and no reactions. It can be unusually powerful with the recent trend to design monsters that have multiple reactions in place of legendary actions, but outside of that seeming-exploit/unintended interaction there’s the fundamental risk that the creatures that want to be in melee also have good Constitution saving throws.

The 6th level feature Psychic Decay improves Psychic Assault, upgrading the condition to the effects of the slow spell. This significantly improves the action tradeoff, but the problem remains that it’s still only affecting a single adjacent creature in a class that has terrible defenses; the limited uses (half prof/LR) are less relevant than not ever being safe to use this in the first place. Also, this takes concentration, so is mutually exclusive with any concentration powers and is vulnerable to getting smacked out of maintaining the slow effect after relying on melee delivery.

Psychic Assault further improves at level 10 with Quintessence Consumption, allowing the psychic to pump any number of Psionic Energy dice into a single creature that failed the saving throw to deal necrotic damage and heal up. While potent, this highlights a common theme of the class encouraging blowing all Psionic Energy dice in one attack and then spamming talents the rest of combat.

As an alternative to Psychic Decay, the 14th level feature Mental Shattering imposes a feeblemind style effect. Unlike feeblemind, the saving throw remains Constitution based and the maximum duration is only a minute, with both concentration and fresh saves at the end of each turn serving as ways to break the effect early.

Awakening of the Psion

This versatile subclass starts off with Intuitive Aptitude, which grants a flexible proficiency that can change on long rest; while it’s usually going to be parked in a single choice, it’s nice to be able to shift around to say Stealth in anticipation of a heist.

The level 3 feature, Advanced Talent provides both an additional talent known as well as adding a “half damage” rider to every talent; this is just a plain good feature in a class that’s incentivized to dump all of their Psionic Energy into a single power than spam talents.

Fundamental Psionics at level 6 is a plain extra manifestation of a low-cost power 1/LR; what’s handy is this power choice can change on long rest, reinforcing the subclass’s flexibility. It also plays nicely with the class’s incentives by encouraging selection of a utility power.

Empower Psionics is a 10th-level feature that trades 3 Psionic Energy dice for +3 to the DC of a power; at these levels that’s sometimes useful for a damaging power, but is very useful for any debilitating powers.

Mind Control at 14 is a 1/LR Dominate Monster — an 8th level spell that normally is only accessible at level 15 for a full caster — and be re-used for 12 Psionic Energy dice. While not always the solution to every problem, this is an extraordinarily powerful ability that allows a psychic to break assumptions about the availability of spells of this power level.

Awakening of the Wilder

This chaotic subclass starts with Destructive Focus, which punishes enemies for breaking the psychic’s concentration by dealing psychic damage back. The damage is decent — psychic level + Int mod — but the priority should usually be on not losing concentration.

The core feature of the subclass, Wild Surge, becomes available at level 3. For one minute the psychic creates a maelstrom of energy within 10’ of themselves, dealing light damage at the end of each turn they manifested a talent or power. Uses return on a short rest, so it’s up reasonably often; the bigger issue is like other features, it requires being in close range of enemies while having no defensive capabilities. What’s better is activation is only a bonus action.

Psychic Surge at level 6 provides more fuel for the “all psionic energy in one action” pile, giving 3 free dice that only last for one turn.

The level 10 feature Destructive Surge provides one outlet for dumping Psionic Energy dice, granting an action to manually trigger the damage and adding each die expended to the damage roll. While risky, this can be a very effective way to vaporize multiple enemies in close proximity to each other.

Controlled Surge at 14th level allows the psychic to slowly expand or shrink their Wild Surge; it takes a bonus action for each 5’ adjustment, so it can’t reach the maximum 30’ until the 5th round. This creates some interesting incentives around when to active the surge and how to leverage the area with Destructive Surge.

Awakening of the Mesmer (Expanded Psionics Booklet)

This supplemental subclass is themed around mental control and domination. Its first ability, Animal Magnetism, is an at-will single-target charm or frighten; this isn’t something that should be used in combat, but can be very effective in social situations.

At level 3 the psychic gains Trance, an at-will action that trades the psychic’s action for a basic action of a willing target, such as casting a cantrip or making a single attack. This isn’t very efficient but can be situationally useful, especially if the psychic is out of power points for higher impact actions of their own. Unlike most “grant a basic action” type features, this doesn’t cost the target’s reaction.

Pain Suppression at 6th level enhances Trance, adding a modest number of temporary hit points 1/SR. This is a quality ability, with the usual caveat that because temporary hit points do not stack it is less useful if allies already have ways to gain THP.

Calling the Shots at level 10 is somewhere between a Command and Dominate Monster; it doesn’t deny the creature their turn, but does allow the psychic to trade 3 Psionic Energy dice and their action for an enemy’s basic attack or movement. This isn’t useful every fight, but there’s plenty where it’s better than anything else the psychic could be doing.

The 14th level feature Siren’s Voice can best be compared to mass suggestion, which itself is a 6th level spell. This affects fewer creatures (typically 5) and only lasts for 8 hours instead of 24, but it’s a good effect to have available and does a good job of reinforcing the theme of the subclass.

Awakening of the Seer (Expanded Psionics Booklet)

This supplemental clairsentience themed subclass starts with Eyes of the Seer, which is a straightforward feature that improves Perception and initiative checks and grants immunity to surprise.

Premonition at level 3 is a cross between a readied action and a delayed turn, allowing the psychic to take their action during another creature’s turn; this is useful and can help set up some combos when used on an ally, but the more devastating choice is to use it to selectively apply a hard control effect to an enemy based on their initial movement choice.

Fate Weaver at level 6 is a d4 costless Cutting Words or Bardic Inspiration, which would be a lot stronger if the psychic didn’t already have so many good uses for their reaction in the talent and powers list (this gets better with a later feature but until then there’s still the competition). Still, it’s always useful to be able to shave off 1d4 from a target’s saving throw or attack roll or to bolster an ally’s.

The 10th level feature Psychic Loom improves Fate Weaver by allowing the psychic to spend a Psychic Energy die to roll 2d4; this shouldn’t be the default use, but there’s going to be days where there’s a lot of skill checks and opportunities for short rests without other uses for Psionic Energy.

Artisan of Destiny at level 14 alleviates the pressure on the psychic’s reactions, granting a second reaction purely for Fate Weaver. That’s a very good benefit, although it does reinforce that someone playing this subclass needs to stay on top of what’s happening in the game.

Psychic Feats

The Psychic contains half a dozen feats intended to either enhance a psychic or provide some psychic flavor to a character looking to dabble.

Cerebremancy helps out dual psionicist-spellcasters and establishes the exchange rate of 1 spell level is 2 Psionic Energy Dice, a rate which doesn’t seem to hold up in the the actual powers and features of the rest of the book but is still a useful point of reference. The actual feat is bad not because of its effect but because its requirements and goals make for an ineffectual build.

Combat Focus is a psionic version of War Caster that leaves off the opportunity attack cantrip/talent; it’s still good because concentration is valuable, and a necessity on an Egoist that wants to get into melee and use ranged damaging talents.

Gifted is a half feat that’s also a Magic Initiate equivalent, granting one power and two Psionic Energy dice that replenish on a short rest in addition to a mental score increase.

Improve Talent is a clean upgrade that adds ability modifier to talent damage. There’s no talents that multiply this like Agonizing Blast with Eldritch Blast, but talents are a core part of gameplay for the psychic.

Psionic Arcana is another psionicist-spellcaster hybrid feat that allows pumping resources into bonus damage; it runs into the same issue of cerebremancy where while the feat’s effect is good, it’s trying to support a bad build. The one caveat is that the bonus damage does scale well and applies to all targets, so for a pure blaster build it’s conceivable that this is a better way to scale up damage at higher levels than acquiring higher level spell slots.

Reactive Psionics is the other half of War Caster, granting opportunity attack talents. This is maybe good for a psychic trying to engage in melee, although there’s plenty of other demands on reactions, including several talents.

Expanded Psionics Handbook

Rather than a single supplement of psionics, the miscellaneous options — additional subclasses for PHB classes, races, as well as additional feats and powers — are available in the Expanded Psionics Handbook.

Ceremorph

This playable Mind Flayer is themed as being a “partial transformation”, justifying their weaker innate powers. Beyond being an aberration, this race only has psionic powers for features, although there’s a larger variety than is typical for a race with innate spellcasting. All told it’s got a lot more emphasis on active rather than passive features than a typical race; it also has a few feats supporting it.

Tentacles is a feat that gives a ceremorph character a fairly powerful natural weapon - Int based, 1d10 damage, and automatically grappling a creature on hit. The issue of course is finding an intelligence-based class that wants this kind of offensive melee capability, since the opportunity cost of a feat is so high.

Food for Thought follows up Tentacles; it’s not exactly the Extract Brain ability, but it turns follow-up tentacle hits into auto crits Prof/LR. By itself this isn’t very good — only 1d10 additional damage — but it’s much stronger when it’s enabling something like a smite (tentacles are not eligible for sneak attack). The problem is that there’s a fundamental conflict between the tentacles being Int based and the classes that like to add lots of bonus damage dice to attacks.

Mind Blast massively upgrades the built-in access to telepathic explosion, trading the weak damage for a stun. Confusingly it switches the saving throw from Intelligence to Wisdom, but this is a high quality feat.

Subclasses

The book contains two martial/psionic subclasses and two psychic subclasses; the Awakening of the Mesmer and Awakening of the Seer were covered above but are technically part of the Expanded Psionics booklet.

Path of the Kineticist

This psionic barbarian subclass runs off of “Kinetic Psionics”, which generates Psionic Energy dice by taking damage while raging. It uses Strength for its psionic ability, minimizing MAD concerns. These dice last until a short rest, so in situations with multiple combat encounters between rests they can really accumulate. Also, there is a maximum the barbarian can accumulate, so they can’t store more than a few incoming attacks worth of dice; the maximum grows very quickly and then peters out, so the number of hits to cap out on Psionic Energy changes dramatically across levels.

Psionic Rage has a fixed list of powers it can use while raging (all of which are present in The Psychic rather than this supplement) — physical enhancement, a short-duration buff to Strength or Dexterity scores, psychic blast, a line of thunder damage, and psionic charge, a bonus action power which adds psionic energy dice to the next melee attack. Physical enhancement gets into territory that 5e has wisely avoided with temporary ability score adjustments, but also is a terrible use of action economy. Psychic blast has very weak damage — only half of the dice expended as damage, which is below even the DMG’s lackluster standard for a spell with multiple targets. Psionic Charge by contrast has very good scaling at a 1:1 ratio but is uniquely capped by the manifester’s proficiency bonus.

The 6th level feature, Enhanced Durability, lets the barbarian spend, rather than gain, Psionic Energy dice when they take damage to reduce the damage. This is sometimes necessary to do, especially if there’s a lot of incoming damage or you’re generating more than you can spend with Psionic Charge, but in general the preference should be taking damage and turning it into bonus damage with psionic charge.

The 10th level feature Adrenaline Rush is basically “start combat with one free hit worth of Psionic Energy dice”. It’s a solid feature that helps the barbarian be aggressive quickly.

Bodily Augmentation at level 14 trades 3 Psionic Energy dice and a bonus action to grow one size category. Unfortunately, the only real mechanical benefit here is an extra 1d4 damage per size category; unless carrying capacity is specifically important, it’s far better to ignore this feature and just spend the resources and bonus action on psionic charge.

Psychic Knight

This fighter subclass is structured as a fairly straightforward “third psionicist”, much in the way that the Eldritch Knight is a third caster. It also has a better Weapon Bond-style feature called Psionic Weapon, which allows manifesting a weapon from nothing as a bonus action.

The 6th level feature, Combat Psionics, is a predictable but nevertheless quality “get an attack as a bonus action after manifesting a talent”.

The level 10 feature, Adrenaline Surge, is a handy 1d10 extra force damage on each attack made during an Action surge. It doesn’t change the decision making around how to use Action Surge, but it’s a good amount of bonus damage.

Psionic Recovery at 15th level is another solid but unexciting feature, recovering Int mod (so ~3) Psionic Energy dice upon using Second Wind.

Mental Shield at level 18 is good because Indomitable is bad; it trades a use of the reroll for never losing concentration on an effect due to taking damage. Given the frontline role that a Psychic Knight is expected to play, even a high constitution modifier and advantage doesn’t guarantee maintaining concentration at these levels, and Indomitable is a very weak feature.

Feats

Half a dozen more feats expand character options. The racial feats for the ceremorph were included earlier in its section.

Life Casting isn’t tied to psionics at all — instead it’s a spellcasting callback to Consumptive Recovery, trading hit dice for a spell slot. This isn’t as good as increasing the primary spellcasting stat, but for a backline character who never uses hit dice this is a good way to extend reserves.

Psionic Adept allows almost any character to pick up a Psionic Focus; while many options are mostly useless or are just weaker versions of other feats, Transvection stands out as an easy way for any unarmored character to gain a flying speed.

Magic Items

These pair of books include four magic items that interact with psionics.

• Energy Crystal is like a psionic Pearl of Power and functionally increases a psychic’s Psionic Energy capacity by its value — recharging on a short rest makes it very easy to refill.

• Memory Stone is an interesting way for an item to give access to new powers, but also could be used for spells or proficiencies.

• The Psi-Band amounts to a +X weapon for powers

• Psionic Larva is a very powerful “extra concentration” for powers, at the cost of interacting with what is surely to become a plot-critical cursed item.

The Analysis

This pair of supplements should probably be considered one supplement altogether; The Psychic by itself is quite basic and lacks the richness that a divergent psionics system should support. There’s no bestiary here at all, which is a bit disappointing, but also understandable given the choice to stick close to the core 5e identity while still publishing outside of the DMsGuild since most of the classic D&D psionic monsters are left out of the SRD.

What Went Right

Production Design. The art is plentiful and high quality, there aren’t grammar or templating issues, and the product is well laid out. The credits could be a little clearer as to which art piece is from which artist, but overall this is a quality investment

Theme and Flavor. This feels like psionics — the mechanics are distinct from basic 5e spellcasting, the powers and features tap into iconic psionics from pop culture, while still paying homage to D&D’s history of psionics.

What Went Wrong

Balance. The balance of the character options is all over the place; some are well above curve, others are far below it. This applies to both damage and utility spells — a 5th level psychic being able to do one single 5d8 area of effect power per short rest at the cost of all of their Psionic Energy is simply unimpressive, but being able to Crush for 7d8 force damage every turn the creature fails a Strength saving throw while it’s restrained is excessively powerful, even at the cost of an action.

Fiddly Design. Throughout the supplements there are features and powers that lean into more 3.5-style design of small, conditional, and temporary bonuses that 5e has intentionally eschewed. While these do work within the framework of the rules, there’s a reason they’re more prominent in BG3 than tabletop: Mental load. Having to constantly recalculate bonuses is taxing and annoying. Physical Enhancement in particular is galling for the ripple effects that direct ability score increases cause; on a VTT that’s manageable, but in pen and paper it’s downright obnoxious.

Conclusion

This pair of products needed more outside review of the design and implementation of the system; it’s quite likely that playtesting would’ve uncovered the same issues discussed in this review. The aesthetic treatment of the product is good, which is something many other designers struggle with, but bringing this to a table is going to need significantly more negotiation between DM and player to avoid ending up on either end of the “I feel useless” to “Gamebreaking” spectrum.