So, WOTC has released the Psion, with the summary in Dragon magazine and the chargen material in the character builder, and it's really, really interesting. It's enough of a departure from classes we've seen to date that while I think it has some pitfalls, it seems clever an interesting.

Before I get onto the class, I need to remark on the presentation. The PDF from dragon magazine includes commentary from the designers, which is nice to read, but more interestingly it does not actually include the text of the powers. Instead it simply has the title of the power and a hyperlink to the power entry in the compendium. This is, to be frank, a giant pain in the ass. Yes, it sort of means that they can update powers in only one place, but really this just feels like more knee-jerk anti-piracy, and while it does not reflect on the quality of the material, I'm not terribly happy with it.

So, the Psion is going to be a controller, which is no great shock. The half of the class they're showcasing is the telepath, and it sounds like the other half is a telekinetic (lots of push and slide by the sound of it) and the general shape of the class abilities had no surprises. Where it gets interesting is in the handling of the powers.

The Psion has no encounter attack powers, and every time he would get a new encounter attack, he gets new At Will powers. This is complemented by a pool of power points which gets bigger over time. Those points (which refresh each encounter) can be used to enhance At-Will powers, either a little or a lot. Enhancing an attack with 1 point gives it a nice bump, and enhancing it with 2 makes it roughly comparable with an encounter attack. The upshot is that you can burn your points for potency or spread them out for flexibility.

As the designer notes point out, this is a really clever way to avoid one of the classic pitfalls of a power-point system. Even if the player runs out of points, he can still use the at-will powers, so he never gets totally jammed up. On some level, I really dig this - the flexibility this allows is really compelling, and the idea of at-wills as a foundation to build on is one that has begged to be kicked around (I think the Barbarian was actually an interesting nod in this direction, albeit with dailies, but it's much more tentative). While I'm sure there's some room for abuse, having the target of the encounter powers to use as a baseline seems well designed to keep things in check.

The number of at-wills is capped at 3, with the Psion rotating in new powers as they level up. They seem to get more potent at higher levels (often in ways other than increasing damage) though this is a bit rough to eyeball. My gut read is that they're kept a little bit in check for fear of abuse.

I don't have a very good read on the budget of the power points, and I think a lot is going to hinge on it. It's very clearly thought through very thoroughly, and balanced against the increasing cost of augmentation, but there's definitely some voodoo in their application.

Taken to a high level, this approach (and the Hybrid classes WOTC's been kicking around) can really be seen as a large concession to fans of D&D 3.x. One of the things a lot of people miss is that sense of character customization which the PHB and PHB2 don't really provide, so it's no great surprise to see options start emerging that might let people scratch that itch. I admit I'm not really convinced of the necessity of it - I'm vastly more interested in party building than I am in tweaking individual characters. At the same time, I recognize that it's a smart path for WOTC to take in their design because, hey, I suspect it will sell.

That said, it failed the ultimate test for me - I'm not that excited to play one. Sure, I'm curious to see it in action just to test out the mechanics, but it doesn't excited. That's maybe not the fairest of yardsticks, but there it is and it's noteworthy since I'm pretty trivially excited - most of the classes to date have made me want to play them.

Afterthought: Having slept on it, I think there are a few big contributors to the lack of excitement.
1. The formatting sucks away a lot of the fun. Since a lot of the sense of a class comes from reading through the powers, the necessity to click out for each and every one makes it hard to build an overall impression, so in the end it comes across as kind of dull, even if the powers are intensely interesting in their own right.
2. There is a half-full/half empty question of whether the at wills are cool powers that get better with augmenting or if they're crippleware that needs the augmentation to work. I waffle on this, but I am coming down slightly on the half empty side, possibly because the cap on at-will's seems low. This concern can be addressed through play, and I don't hold it strongly, so we'll see.
3. This is a good, interesting mechanic, but it ventures dangerously close to "If this is the game I want, I have better choices than D&D", at least on paper. Again, testable.
4. I think psionics make an interesting addition to the game, but they don't excite me. I think the elements of presentation that I find bland may actually be mental points of insertion for the players who have been waiting for psionics from day 1. That's not a bad thing, just not something for me.