Which talent subclasses are best and what are they good at?
The talent is MCDM’s take on a psionics class. It eschews traditional spellcasting with psionic powers which function in a similar way to spellcasting, but with some crucial differences. Most notably, they don’t use spell slots, instead, implementing a strain system that can lead to debuffs each time you use a psionic power.
Alongside this class, MCDM have produced 7 subclasses for the talent. 6 of these specialise in specific areas of psionics while 1 other attempts to be an all rounder, capable with all psionic disciplines.
For this article, I’ve analysed every talent subclass to understand how good each subclass is and which is best.
Chronopath
What are they?
Talents that specialise in the manipulation of time. Speeding it up, slowing it down or pausing it completely.
Key abilities
- Chronopath adept (lv2) – More likely to successfully learn chronopathy powers and less likely to gain strain when using chronopathy powers.
- Rapid manifestation (lv2) – You can sometimes manifest powers more quickly like casting psionic powers that require an action, with a bonus action.
- Decay (lv6) – Turn objects (or chunks of objects) into dust by gaining a strain. Can also damage constructs by gaining multiple levels of strain.
- Fickle readiness (Lv10) – You can’t be surprised unless incapacitated and can prevent surprise on others by expending strain. You can also swap the initiative of 2 creatures.
- Time pocket (Lv14) – Attempt to temporarily remove a creature from space and time and cause damage.
What are they good at?
At doing more than other talents. Chronopaths can make more of their turns and even ensure they and others get their turns first.
They also happen to be good at chronopathy spells, casting these more reliably.
How effective are they?
Chronopaths are pretty good. Rapid manifestation is like a better version of a sorcerer’s quickened spell metamagic which is one of the better options and means you can easily do more with your turns.
Decay has some interesting utility and means you can decay a 5ft cube out of anything. This could mean breaking down doors and walls or jail cells making entering and exiting buildings easy. There’s likely loads more you can do here too.
Initiative manipulation is a really interesting option. It does beg the question of how you tactically use this to swap initiative between allies and enemies when you don’t know an enemy’s initiative score. Some DMs might force you to just pick a creature and hope for the best, others might let you swap with the highest initiative creature. I think the intention is to allow the latter option and I’d be tempted to work it that way at my table.
Time pocket is basically painful banishment which is a really good option as it completely nullifies one enemy and the strain required isn’t huge.
I think all of this makes for a strong talent subclass, especially if you want to use more chronopathy powers.
Score: 5/5
Metamorph
What are they?
Members of the Academy of Body, metamorphs specialise in body changing powers. These might grant superhuman powers, restore wounds or even bring creatures back from the dead.
Key abilities
- Metamorphosis adept (lv2) – Makes you better at learning metamorphosis powers and more likely to use these powers without developing strain.
- Psionic toughness (lv2) – Increase a creatures hit points maximum and improve their death saving throws a few times per long rest.
- Mind surgeon (lv6) – Heal someone by 1d10 or remove a disease or poison per strain used.
- Super senses (lv6) – Improve your perception checks by an amount equal to your intelligence modifier.
- Death foiled (Lv10) – Restore someone (including yourself) to life with an hour and 8 strain.
- Psionic evolution (Lv14) – Improve the effects of psionic toughness by granting disease and poison immunity and increasing speed and damage.
What are they good at?
Buffing and healing. Metamorphs make themselves and allies better in combat while having some healing capabilities.
How effective are they?
Psionic toughness is pretty decent but I feel mind surgeon is a bit weak. A chronopath does twice this damage with their features for the same strain. D&D 2024 already increases healing for most spells and this lags behind with 2014 levels of healing. It’s balanced against other forms of healing, but healing often feels weak compared to damage dealing in the 2014 edition.
But healing and raising from death are still good. The increased perception is good too, but talents are generally poor to rely on for ability checks as these go quickly under strain. Interestingly, psionic toughness can be applied to multiple creatures simultaneously allowing you to buff the whole party ahead of combat if you can anticipate the need.
Score: 3/5
Pyrokinetic
What are they?
Pyrokinetics harness the innate energy in all things to explosive effect, allowing them to control and manipulate fire.
Key abilities
- Flame on (lv2) – Gain a ball of flame that can be used for melee and ranged attacks and can allow you to make up to 4 attacks (eventually) when used.
- Pyrokinesis adept (lv2) – Makes you better at learning pyrokinesis powers and more likely to use these powers without developing strain.
- Bend flame (lv6) – Turn fire damage from psionic powers into force damage and prevent allies being harmed by your pyrokinesis powers.
- Heat seeking (lv10) – Flame on gets increased range, ignores half and three quarters cover and gains a damage boost.
- Immolate (Lv14) – Set creatures on fire with pyrokinesis powers causing damage each turn until they pass a saving throw.
What are they good at?
Dealing damage and especially dealing damage to multiple targets.
How effective are they?
The features are great for a damage dealer and scale up nicely. Once you hit level 14, you’ll want to be spreading pyrokinesis attacks around and basically spreading as much fire as you can to ensure as many enemies as possible are ignited and getting their damage whittled away. This is easily done with flame on, but there aren’t loads of psionic powers that will let you hit multiple targets in the way fireball does.
There is scorch which is a 2nd order power, but this is weak, though you can increase its order which scales it’s damage. Mainly though, you’re waiting for 5th order powers like detonate or 6th order powers like crucible which many pyrokinetics won’t reach. Still, the features are strong on a damage dealer and protecting allies from the harm of your flame is a useful option.
The features for the pyrokinetic are good, but you really need higher order powers to get the most from them.
Score: 3/5
Resopath
What are they?
Resopaths specialise in the psionics of resopathy allowing them to reshape objects and creatures.
Key abilities
- Manipulate terrain (lv2) – Create an area of difficult terrain which you can move as a bonus action or move a creature in the area to another space in the area.
- Resopathy adept (lv2) – Makes you better at learning resopathy powers and more likely to use these powers without developing strain.
- Manifest ally (lv6) – Create a soulless beast ally with a CR equal to your level divided by 3.
- Imagination creation (lv10) – Create a mundane object from thin air.
- Nightmare terrain (lv14) – Manipulate terrain now causes damage to up to 3 creatures in it each round.
What are they good at?
Resopaths specialise in utility elements of psionics. They can control the battlefield, create any mundane object you need and even create a soulless ally.
How effective are they?
Manipulate terrain is quite good and the thing that makes it extra good is the fact you can move the area or move a creature within the area. This gives you loads of flexibility to keep enemies stuck in this terrain. Later, you’ll even get some low level damage you can cause.
Manifesting an ally is handy as it can be done with a bonus action and the beast you create is of the same CR as a moon druid’s wildshape. This should make for decent enough capabilities to have an impact in combat or for some other need you might have.
Imagination creation could be a little DM limiting, but it would be easy to create something large (like a statue) that allies can hide behind for cover, for example. You can also reproduce the key to a keep just by touching the real one and there’s potential for loads of other utility here too.
Score: 4/5
Telekinetic
What are they?
Talents that specialise in psionic powers that can move objects and creatures with their minds.
Key abilities
- Invisible armor (Lv2) – Use a reaction to increase the AC of a creature hit by an attack for the rest of the round.
- Telekinesis adept (Lv2) – Makes you better at learning telekinesis powers and more likely to use these powers without developing strain.
- Strong mind (Lv6) – Can increase how far you move things with psionic powers by 10ft and can expend a strain to make strength or dexterity saving throws with intelligence instead.
- Reflective armor (Lv10) – When invisible armor causes an attack to miss, the attacker might be hit instead.
- Mind wings (Lv14) – Gain a flying speed of 60ft and move other creatures with your bonus action.
What are they good at?
Being defensive. Telekinetics are great at protecting themselves and others using their minds.
How effective are they?
Invisible armor is a strong safety feature. Apply this to allies that are likely to get hit a lot and help them take more of a beating. This gets even better at level 10 as you can redirect attacks back on your enemies. Telekinetics are also better at strength and dexterity saving throws and can eventually fly which is another defensive feature, allowing you to avoid many enemies.
All the options here are pretty good and makes for a decent team player.
4/5
Telepath
What are they?
Read and manipulate minds with a specialism in telepathy.
Key abilities
- Greater telepathy (Lv2) – Speak telepathically to other creatures.
- Telepathy adept (Lv2) – Makes you better at learning telepathy powers and more likely to use these powers without developing strain.
- Emotional intelligence (Lv6) – Enhanced ability checks for deception, insight, intimidation and persuasion adding your intelligence modifier.
- Not in the face (Lv6) – Prevent creatures attacking you when they fail a saving throw against your telepathy powers for a turn.
- Shared connection (Lv10) – Those linked with you through greater telepathy can use the senses of other linked creatures and can use the help action for each other using a bonus action, regardless of distance.
- Truth hurts (Lv14) – Cause additional damage and gain strain when a creature fails a saving throw against one of your telepathy powers. Or you can force a creature to answer a question honestly which also causes strain.
What are they good at?
Being a strong party face and buffing the party.
How effective are they?
A telepath can be quite a good party face by level 6. If you can manage to build in a bit of charisma too, you can even surpass the capabilities of charisma classes in this area too. Just be aware that strain quickly affects a talent’s ability checks which will also harm your ability to work as a party face so there’s some amount of conflict there.
There are a bunch of extras that can be done with minimal action economy here. Preventing creatures from harming you happens as part of your telepathy powers. It’s probably a good idea to grab some 1st order telepathy powers to use when your strain is high. But this also works if you affect multiple creatures simultaneously on each creature so AoE telepathy powers could be excellent here. At level 14 you can add a fair bit of damage to some telepathy powers. You also have bonus action help actions for the whole party which can be really good, especially considering it has no range and everyone in the party can be sharing this out. Great for parties with not enough to do with their bonus action.
4/5
Maverick
What are they?
Mavericks don’t specialise in any psionic discipline, instead they hone their talents in a way that enhances all their psionic powers.
Key abilities
- Raw power (Lv2) – All your damage dealing 1st order powers gain a damage boost equal to your intelligence modifier.
- Reduce stress (Lv2) – Reduce the strain you gain once per rest.
- Energy unleashed (Lv6) – Cause 1d6 damage per strain to a creature each time you take strain.
- Shock absorption (Lv10) – Use a reaction to gain 1 strain and halve incoming damage.
- Full force (Lv14) – Deal full damage from a power once per rest.
What are they good at?
Being damage dealers. Mavericks have a lot of ways to cause more damage. Their features also benefit all their powers, not just those from one specialism.
How effective are they?
Mavericks are going to be your best option for plenty of low strain, 1st order powers. But they also happen to be better at using powers that might cause strain. This is partly because you can reduce your strain, but also because you can throw around extra damage each time you gain strain.
With shock absorption, you’ll want to time it for when you get hit by something powerful. Reducing damage from a fireball is far more potent than doing so from a stray arrow (unless that stray arrow is about to knock you to 0HP). Equally for full force, you’ll want to choose the power for this carefully. It’ll be best on an AoE power where the full damage is applied to all creatures. This alone makes this very potent, especially as you might be using it nearly once per major combat.
Ultimately, with the maverick, you can do more with most of your psionic powers and use more psionic powers than other orders making this subclass the most flexible.
4/5
Which talent subclass is best?
Comparing the talent subclasses is a tad tricky as most occupy different roles, differing more than most casters. They also happen to be fairly well balanced with all the subclasses having a decent role they perform and features that genuinely enhance them.
However, I do think the chronopath is the best talent subclass. They can banish enemies, do more in a turn and even mess with enemy and allies initiative while possessing the utility of decay.
Other subclasses aren’t far behind. None of the subclasses are bad either, but I do think the pyrokinetic is let down a little by not having enough pyrokinesis powers that can truly benefit their powers until late on. I also felt the metamorph was slightly underpowered compared to the others, but these are still decent subclasses.
Here’s how I’d order them, though some are very close in power levels:
- Chronopath – 5/5
- Telekinetic – 4/5
- Resopath – 4/5
- Maverick- 4/5
- Telepath – 4/5
- Metamorph – 3/5
- Pyrokinetic – 3/5
