Does UA Psionic Wizard's Though Form let you ignore non-consumed material components with a cost?

Question

UA Psionic Wizards get a special ability called Thought Form where they become beings of pure energy. Part of that ability is Psionic Spellcasting.

Thought Form

Psionic Spellcasting.

When you cast a spell while in thought form, you can cast the spell psionically. If you do so, the spell doesn’t require verbal, somatic, or material components that lack a gold cost.

What does this mean? Functionally, you have an arcane focus as a class feature so material component usually doesn't matter.

This means you can't cast spells like Glyph of Warding (200gp dust, consumed) for free. However, can you cast spells that don't consume the materials like Chromatic Orb (50gp, diamond)?

Otherwise, the "no material component" seems irrelevant as you have your psionic focus already to activate the ability.

Answer 1

No

The feature only lets you cast spells without

material components that lack a gold cost

The diamond required for chromatic orb still has a cost, even if it isn't consumed.

However, that doesn't mean the material component part of the feature doesn't do anything. If you are casting a spell with a material component you would need a hand free to interact with that item. Typically this would be done with the same hand providing the somatic component and holding a focus or reaching into a component pouch.

Answer 2

It means simply that it does not require materials that cost gold, whether they are used up or not

The ability simply says that the spell does not require material components that lack a gold cost. Since something such as a 50 gp diamond has that 50 gp gold price, even if it is not used up, it is still required to cast the spell, similar to a spellcasting focus.

We can come to this conclusion through the spellcasting focus rules, which read

A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus in place of the components specified for a spell. But if a cost is indicated for a component, a character must have that specific component before he or she can cast the spell.

Since this more or less reads the same as the Psionic Spellcasting ability, and it does phrase it specifically as "you must have that specific component", it can be assumed that it is intended to be the same for this