Too powerful? What am I missing... (please help)

[KarinsDad]

But the point of combat summons isn't to win a duel. The point of combat summons is to soak up attacks while putting out as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. I don't really care if the summons sops up the damage through superior AC or through hitpoints, and I don't care if the summons gets killed/destroyed before the end of combat. if enemies attack it, then it's soaking up attacks that could be directed at PCs. If enemies don't attack it, then its hitpoints and AC don't matter.

Thus I'd argue that average damage potential over three rounds or so is far more important than AC or hitpoints.

Possibly. But there are other factors here:

1) Summoned creatures make good flankers. One can put a summoned or constructed creature into the middle of the enemies and give the PC Rogue and Fighter types flank.

This type of tactic tends to force NPCs to attack the creature because if they do not, it will continue to buff the party with flank. So, there are a lot of situations where having a high AC / high hit point creature is better than having one that does more damage, but falls quickly.

2) Such creatures can also be used to harass enemy spell casters. When a few such creatures or a PC and one such creature attack a spell caster, it forces the caster to concentrate on his attackers and not necessarily the caster or manifester who pulled in the creature.

3) A third such situation is bracing the front line. Terrain can occur where the front line Fighter types just cannot hold the front line. So as to give the PC casters / manifesters more time to attack, a creature can tactically be used to prevent enemy infiltration.


So sure, doing more damage is sometimes preferable. But, drawing attacks and preventing enemy movement can also often be preferable. There really is no way to say that one is better than the other on average.

 

[irdeggman]

But the point of combat summons isn't to win a duel. The point of combat summons is to soak up attacks while putting out as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. I don't really care if the summons sops up the damage through superior AC or through hitpoints, and I don't care if the summons gets killed/destroyed before the end of combat. if enemies attack it, then it's soaking up attacks that could be directed at PCs. If enemies don't attack it, then its hitpoints and AC don't matter.

Thus I'd argue that average damage potential over three rounds or so is far more important than AC or hitpoints.

If the point is to absorb damage then it is not, although it could be.

An Astral Construct is also immune to critical hits - a major advantage in survivability. Use it for flanking purposes (much like summoned creatures are) and a rogue can't apply sneak attack damage on it.

 

[Nail]

So sure, doing more damage is sometimes preferable. But, drawing attacks and preventing enemy movement can also often be preferable. There really is no way to say that one is better than the other on average.

Absolutely. Well said.

I played a summoner up throu level 21 (a cleric, no less!) with all the right summoning feats. Summoning creatures can do all sorts of great things, inside combat and out.

Still, when the psion came in with Astral Construct, it was clear who had the better summonable creatures. High AC, variable feats, excellent attacks, switchable supernatural powers, construct traits, can't be held back by Protection/X spells......the psion had the cleric beat.

 

[Enforcer]

Energy Missile and Energy Current are target selectable. Fireball and Cone of Cold are not. That means they are extremely good "in melee" powers.

Energy Missile is only somewhat target selectable, due to its area of effect constraint.

Sure, have the NPCs start to run away because the Wilder is doing an Energy Current. That just opens it up for him to do an Energy Ball or Energy Missile on the fleeing opponents (and of course, he can do a stronger Energy Ball on the initial incoming opponents than the Wizard or Sorcerer can). And it opens it up for other PC casters to blast away with ray or ranged touch spells.

If the Wilder wants to be a Kineticist so bad, he should be a Kineticist. Zero feats for this character, and much waiting for all the powers he needs. A Kineticist can use all the feats the Wilder spends on Kineticist powers and take Psionic Meditation and Metapsionic feats, allowing him match or even exceed (Quicken) the Wilder on output while having many, many more powers known. Not to mention he gets all the energy powers much sooner (three levels before the Wilder for every Kineticist-only power) in his career.

The problem is that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Either the enemies can just run away from the Wilder's 55 foot range (and then get blasted), or they stay and fight and just get blasted.

Neither can you. The Wilder can't stand there and blast without becoming the #1 target for enemy attacks and being killed shortly thereafter due to lack of defense.

And the repeated resource issue is mostly irrelevant. The faster opponents are dead, the less overall party resources used. Ohh. The Wizard can kill them all in 5 rounds. Great. The Wilder kills them all in 3 rounds and saves 2 rounds worth of extra healing and saves durations on short duration spells and potions so that the PCs can quickly move on, etc.

Sure it is, you're wasting power points on overkill, that's relevant.

No response to the argument that it's okay that Wilders are great blasters because Wizards and Sorcerers can be more effective than blasters with utility spells? Or that Wilders are easier to kill than arcane casters? Or that preventing the enemy from attacking saves more party resources than wounding them with blasts?

As for Astral Construct vs. Summon Monster:

1) Summoned creatures make good flankers. One can put a summoned or constructed creature into the middle of the enemies and give the PC Rogue and Fighter types flank.

This type of tactic tends to force NPCs to attack the creature because if they do not, it will continue to buff the party with flank. So, there are a lot of situations where having a high AC / high hit point creature is better than having one that does more damage, but falls quickly.

It's a very good tactic, but actually proves that Summon Monster is more useful than Astral Construct. More creatures (Summon Monster can summon multiples, Astral Construct cannot) mean less room to maneuver out of flanking for the enemy.

2) Such creatures can also be used to harass enemy spell casters. When a few such creatures or a PC and one such creature attack a spell caster, it forces the caster to concentrate on his attackers and not necessarily the caster or manifester who pulled in the creature.

Very good tactic. Again though, Summon Monster is better due to numbers and less room to escape.

3) A third such situation is bracing the front line. Terrain can occur where the front line Fighter types just cannot hold the front line. So as to give the PC casters / manifesters more time to attack, a creature can tactically be used to prevent enemy infiltration.

For which Summon Monster is again much better as it can be used to summon multiple creatures whereas Astral Construct is only one creature.

So not only can Summon Monster do more damage, but it harasses enemies better too, due to increased numbers.

 

[KarinsDad]

Still, when the psion came in with Astral Construct, it was clear who had the better summonable creatures. High AC, variable feats, excellent attacks, switchable supernatural powers, construct traits, can't be held back by Protection/X spells......the psion had the cleric beat.

Yup.

I forgot about the Protection From X spells. Starting around level 5, PCs and NPCs tend to use Protection From and Magic Circle of Protection a lot in our games. One just cannot beat the protection versus summoned creatures, let alone the other advantages of those spells. And the duration of the MCP version doesn't suck either.

 

[KarinsDad]

Neither can you. The Wilder can't stand there and blast without becoming the #1 target for enemy attacks and being killed shortly thereafter due to lack of defense.

Lack of defense? For a Psionic PC?

Granted, I have never played a Wilder before, but I've played a few Psions and they mostly laugh at danger. The Wilder should have enough defensive powers (like Vigor) to handle bad situations. I know my Psions always could.

I've never seen a PC Psion die in a game. They rarely even fall unconscious, even if they are the main target. I cannot speak for Wilders (since they have fewer powers and feats, but better BAB and hit points), but I have seen Wizards and Sorcerers go unconscious or die a lot. On paper and by my experience, being the main target is not necessarily a bad thing for psionic types, but it tends to be a terrible thing for arcane types.

So not only can Summon Monster do more damage, but it harasses enemies better too, due to increased numbers.

Yup. Getting more summoned creatures is very valuable. But, they tend to fall over quickly. More valuable than one creature that does not fall over quickly? That's debatable and situational dependent.

 

[Slaved]

No problem. He doesn't need an 18 Cha. He doesn't need 14 Dex. He doesn't need 13 Wis and Psionic Meditation. For this build, he needs Psicrystal Affinity, Expanded Knowledge Energy Missile and Privileged Energy Cold and 16 Cha.

So you are looking at energy current + solicity psicrystal for this?

All right then.

11th level wilder has a +4 wild surge. If he manifests energy current at maximum potential he will have an energy current that does 15d6+15 to a single target within 60' and possibly another guy within 15' of that guy for half damage. The saving throw will be a fortitude save of DC 21. There is a 20% chance that the wilder will be dazed which ruins concentration.

Afterwards, if the wilder is not dazed, manifest solicit psicrystal to pass off the concentration need to the psicrystal.

This is actually really nice right now. Sometime a couple of levels later and on opponents might have spell turning or reddopsi already up which would be really funny. Although resist energy is already a low enough level at this point that people could have energy resistance 30 most of the day.

It is definately great for power point conservation but the tactic has some problems. Although I would be hesitant to actually use the full +4 wild surge on it. Wasting that many power points all at once is a big hit!

Your point? The Wilder does not need to do this every single round. He can still do this 2 or 3 times per combat (or less), 3+ combats per day and still average more damage than other PCs.

Back to energy ray? You certainly do jump around a lot.

As shown earlier it will only be more damage on average against certain kinds of foes below certain amounts of armor class. Plus if the foes go into melee combat the wilders average damage drops rather quickly.

The real point is that he contributes and he contributes fast and hard.

Just like everyone else who tries to do so.

Fair enough. No need to surge it. Just Empower it and blast away at close range (i.e. within 55 feet, a good sized distance in DND) opponents.

Back to energy current it looks like.

Without the surge it has a range of 50'. Empowered and not surged the power is doing [9d6+9]x1.5 with a fortitude save DC of 18 for the current character. If a concentration check is failed and the power is lost the wilder will have to spend a full round action to regain focus to do this again.

It still does huge damage, much more than party Evoker for the cost and helps out the party immensely.

The party conjurer does more damage than the party evoker for the same cost as well.

And we have not yet taken in account the fact that with Surge+1 at 12th level, Energy Current can affect 3 targets instead of 2.

I think that reducing the damage and the saving through in order to hit one more potential target for half damage sounds like a bad idea. Especially since the secondary people have to stay within 15' of the primary target so it is very easy to get out of that radius.

If that is what you are calling me on, I'm not thinking that the Wilder is weak.

Has anyone said that the wilder was weak? Very focused in what they do, but weak? But yes, I am going to call you on things that you are applying incorrectly. Such as the character posted before who was breaking the rules.

Does it? Where is the rule that a Soliciting Psicrystal is obviously controlling a power? Hang the Psicrystal from a chain and it looks like an amulet.

The power talks about transferring the power to the psicrystal so it looks like the arcing of energy will now be coming from the psicrystal.

Plus there are skill checks to tell what is a creature and what powers are going on.

Then those definitions of Nova are in error.

I disagree.

Being able to constantly seriously damage one or more opponents for multiple rounds within 55 feet every single round and not using up a single action or additional PP after the first round to do so is huge.

While I would argue the validity specific points in this comment the point here is that you are not describing a nova.

Evidentally, you will not admit to it, but the facts speak for themselves.

The facts that the damage done is consistant with other characters of the same level?

I have admitted that. Are you speaking of some other facts?

And this is just one build. There are other synergies that can be done.

Yes, but not at the same time. The wilder is very limited in range of abilities but very powerful in those that it chooses to use. That is the whole point of the class.

But the only minor limitation of this tactic is range and the minimum range for this for the 12th level Wilder is 55 feet. That's actually fairly decent range for most DND combats. Your Barbarian has a range of 5 feet with his Greatsword, but I did not notice you mentioning that.

The range is actually imporant here because 55' is within charging range for just about everything that would want to charge. It is also too short for many combats that involve flying creatures.

The wilder does not want to be in melee. For the two damage dealing proposals you have made both are bad if the wilder is in melee and one of them is particularly bad if the foe is in melee.

The barbarian however wants to be in melee and is fairly good at getting there as well.

Sure, an opponent might Dispel. This can happen for any spell or power with a duration. So what?

For the tactic that I was mentioning it for if the solicit psicrysal or energy current are dispelled bad things have just happened.

Since it is extra sensitive that way it needs to be mentioned.

Unless the opponent already knows the power or makes a Psicraft check, the DM (if he is playing fair) would not typically perform a Dispel of the Energy Current immediately because if manifested on round one, opponents should not even consider dispelling it until it has done damage on round one and on round two (the current fires each round on the manifester's turn, it is not a continuous attack).

I am not really sure what you are trying to say here. A character who believes a continuous magical effect is happening who might not know exactly what it is but who had access to dispeling magic would choose to take damage a few times before doing anything?

Usually good moves are 1) dealing damage to the one creating the effect in hopes that it stops, 2) doing something else bad to the one creating the effect in hopes that it stops, 3) getting gone, or at least out of sight, and hoping that fixes the problem

Any individual creature will modify this list but those are pretty good all purpose solutions. In this case the third one is particularly effective since while they are out of range the power does nothing.

No it doesn't.

Yes it does. It means that you will almost never leave a certain energy type except when the situation absolutely demands it, such as a creature being immune to cold. Which means that the vaunted ability to switch around is neglected to such an extent that it places such a character in the same boat as characters who would normally have a lesser option.

Tell you what. You stay core and XPH only and so will I.

Nice of you to suggest something that I had already done for the fighter build and had done for the barbarian except in one of the end parts of one section of the comparison.

You take your Barbarian's magic items away and his damage drops by nearly half.

Yes, that is a problem with several of the players handbook classes. Other books and different base classes have done a much better job with this sort of issue.

This entire conversation between the two of us started with you questioning the 70% damage figure.

Which I showed why it was incorrect in a few short lines actually. I am glad to have helped you out with that.

you then moved on 1st level comparisons between a Wilder and a Barbarian.

You must have me confused with someone.. let me check.

Oh! It was you that brought up the barbarian. Why do you have me confused with you? That is just weird.

The math is against your POV.

Your math that was proven incorrect in a few lines because of a single assumption that was easily corrected or the math that showed that on a full attack sometimes the fighter and barbarian did more damage and sometimes the wilder did?

Both of those work just fine in my point of view. Which math is against those points?

 

[KarinsDad]

No response to the argument that it's okay that Wilders are great blasters because Wizards and Sorcerers can be more effective than blasters with utility spells? Or that Wilders are easier to kill than arcane casters? Or that preventing the enemy from attacking saves more party resources than wounding them with blasts?

If the Wilder picks and chooses his targets correctly, he tends to kill targets instead of wounding them.

As for being easier to kill, that is probably true at real high levels, but probably false at low levels. Course, one has to survive low levels to get to high levels.

 

[Slaved]

Ok, let's have it shall we?

Ok!

How about we run an Astral Construct III versus any of the options and/or the typical PC of the same level? A psioncist summons one verus an arcane using one.

Why?

I merely pointed out that the summon monster did more damage while the astral construct was harder to get rid of. That was pretty much the extent of my position. Although I did toss on the energy resistance and spell resistance because those can both be important at times and are hard for the astral construct to duplicate.

Personally, I'm open to the construct being bad at combat but I'm actually thinking it will win. Of the 3 summon monsterss you listed, not one of them will actually hit. Avg roll of d20 is 10.5 and not one of those creatures has an ATK of 10 or higher to hit the AC of 20 of the Astral Construct. Hell, I went through the ENTIRE ATK list and not one creature can actually hit the construct.

The astral construct OTOH, has an ATK of +7 and I just went through the list and only the fiendish dire bat is out of range.

What? Are you saying that when you test monsters effective damage you assume that they get a 10.5 and if the targets armor class is more than their attack bonus plus 10.5 then you assume the monster does no damage ever?

A better way is to see what percentage of the time a hit will be scored and then multiply that by the expected damage of a successful hit.

So, if a creature has a +4 to hit and needs to get a 20 assuming that it will never do any damage is no good, it will do damage sometimes. So we look at the numbers and see that if the dice roll comes up as 16 or higher the creature hits! That means that he has a 25% chance of hitting so we then find the creatures average damage and multiply it by 0.25 to find the average damage it will deal on a hit.

 

[Slaved]

Energy Missile and Energy Current are target selectable. Fireball and Cone of Cold are not.

Fireball and cone of cold can hit many targets at once and over a very large area. Energy missile and energy current cannot.

Plus, energy current is only selectable initially, after that it is random.

Oh, and with proper placement you can avoid hitting people you do not with the area effect ones as well, just not as well as the others.

It looks like they are good at different things to me!