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I’ve been neck deep in ideas, projects, and just honestly have been trying to prioritize what I need to be done versus ones that need to take a back seat. Two of the projects, along with my novel revisions are the Artificer and Mystic homebrew content. The Artificer has not been the issue per se, but the Mystic has proven to be quite the challenge. Each Mystic specialization has a different thread of Disciplines (or Psionic regiments) that belong to the specialization’s category. Sort of like a school of magic for spellcasters. Unfortunately, when crafting new specializations, you also generally want to create some psionic disciplines of your own to complement the subclass. As you can surmise, this makes the work a lot more time consuming, it’s practically crafting a new school of magic or a long series of spells.

Today, we’re going to look at one of the Disciplines I crafted for the Shaper specialization. Shapers are masters of metacreativity, in other words, they mold their psychic energies into a solid mass. They can create powerful constructs that fight for the Mystic, they can create real-world substances and materials with their mind and ultimately gain the ability to set up their own demiplane. Right now, the main subclass features are still under review, and I’ve only written two entire disciplines. So, I’m to share the Astral Construct Discipline. Please note, Mystic specialization does not bar a Mystic from learning a discipline from another specialization as currently written in the Unearthed Arcana material (found here). You can also read my review for the Mystic class here.

A shaper creating a small Astral Construct

Astral Construct Discipline

Shaper Discipline

You create a powerful construct made of psychic energy. With greater psi energy, you can alter and improve its combat capabilities to become the ultimate protector.

Psychic Focus. While focused on this discipline, you can advantage on Intelligence checks regarding the construction, function, and implementation of mechanisms, machinery, and tools.

Astral Construct. As a bonus action, you manifest a creature into physical form using your psychic energy. When you use this ability, you can choose one or more of the following effects. Each effect has its own psi point cost. Add them together to determine the total cost. Select a Medium or smaller sized beast with a challenge rating of 1 or less. This construct lasts for 1 minute until its hit points are reduced to 0, you die, or you fall unconscious. On your turn, it can mentally direct it to attack, move, or interact. It counts as a construct. It cannot be charmed. It is immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition. It has darkvision with a range of 60 feet. Additionally, if you are the target of a melee attack and the construct is within 5 feet of the attacker, you can use a reaction to command the servant to use its reaction to make a melee attack against the attacker.

Armored (2 psi). The astral construct is reinforced with stronger psychic energy. It gains a +2 bonus to AC.

Buff (2 psi). The astral construct gains additional hit points equal to your Mystic level plus your Intelligence modifier.

Climbing (2 psi). The astral construct gains hooked appendages and gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. If their form already has a climbing speed, increase it by 20 feet instead.

Elemental Attacks (3 psi). The astral construct converts some of your psychic energy into elemental damage. It deals an additional 1d6 acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage (your choice when created).

Enlarged (2 psi). The astral construct grows in size. Increase its size category by one, you can apply this feature more than once, up to Large size. Add 1d4 extra damage to all attacks.

Flight (5 psi). The astral construct gains a flying speed equal to your walking speed. If their form already has a flying speed, increase it by 20 feet instead.

Psychic Senses (3 psi). The astral construct can see invisible creatures and objects within 10 feet of it.

Swimming (2 psi). The astral construct gains a swimming speed equal to your walking speed. If their form already has a swimming speed, increase it by 20 feet instead.

The Shaper was a Psion specialization during the 3.5 Edition of D&D. The Shaper Psion was a gifted user of mental energies, but mostly invested most of their psi points into building a powerful combatant to defend them. Over time, the single psionic power gained more features and nuances with the Ectopic Adept from the Complete Psionic supplement. I tried to not return to that design with an all or nothing attitude but certainly, allow a Mystic to channel their maximum allotment of psi points into this discipline of they so desired. The specialization would certainly favor the discipline and reward its user. One would think.

If you like what you see, there will be more as I work out more of the kinks. If you had suggestions or ideas on this homebrew or any previous homebrew, send me an email or message me on Twitter.

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