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

[Slaved]

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.

Works for both really.

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.

Sounds like more damage and spell resistance may come in handy here!

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.

Which is why it is good to have a summon with those nifty movement modes. Burrow is great, swimming can come in handy, climb might even be useful on occasion.

Scent and blindsense can help root out pesky invisible or hiding creatures.

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.

Special tactical abilities are also preferable sometimes. 0: )

 

[Slaved]

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.

Make sure that you do not attack that summoned creature or the protection goes away!

The summon also has spell resistance in most cases which will give it a chance to bypass it that way as well.

 

[Enforcer]

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.

I didn't say Psionic PC, I said Wilder. I'm glad we have that clear. As you yourself noted (and as I all but yelled previously), the Wilder has zilch for Powers Known, making defense a problem. And the Wilder in your example becomes pointless if he's wasting actions on Vigor rather than blasting, and doesn't need Vigor if he's not blasting with all his might (because no one has a reason to attack him). It's an interesting catch.

Also, Vigor may keep you up for while, but at the expense of pps and actions. Unfortunately this is the best defense the Wilder has (again, he doesn't need Inertial Armor or Force Screen due to starting feats).

But compare Stoneskin to the psionic equivalent. Where's the psionic Protection from Arrows? How about Mirror Image? Making up for this lack is the improved psionic Resist Energy (which when augmented at a high enough manifester level can be done as an immediate action, also the resist all energy power which is undoubtably awesome). I call it a wash from a Psion (and not Wilder) vs. arcane standpoint on defense.

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.

I was merely pointing out that the three tactics you mentioned were all actually better served by Summon Monster than by Astral Construct due to numbers. Which spell/power is truly better will always be situational, of course, and I'm not saying that Astral Construct never beats Summon Monster (it certainly does in several situations already mentioned). I would note that Astral Construct is discipline-only, like pretty much every psionic power that is or can be better than its arcane equivalent, however.

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

The arcane guys do just as well by disabling their targets or buffing the party. Better in the cases that the Wilder doesn't kill because disabling prevents damage to the party and saves healing (and there are tons of high hit point enemies out there that the Wilder can't kill and are just as dangerous wounded as when healthy). Different != Broken.

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.

And I disagree that it's probably false at low levels. Few hit points, mediocre AC, and no room to take defensive powers (the best of which already overlap with his starting feats) and no time to manifest them if he wants to do anything useful for the party. He can either a) blast and draw all the enemy fire, and die or b) spend time manifesting marginally useful defensive powers like Biofeedback or Defensive Precognition while the enemies are unaffected and uninterested by him.

 

[Slaved]

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 do not see you ever answering which long range power all psions and wilders should obviously have. Maybe I missed it, could you tell me again?

So how many powers do you think that this wilder has anyway? It seems that every situation the wilder should have a power just for it but from what I can tell the wilder has an incredibly small pool of powers. Something has to give.

I've never seen a PC Psion die in a game.
I have seen Wizards and Sorcerers go unconscious or die a lot.

All of these are extremely fragile classes. If you have seen one die and the other not I am betting it is because one was luckier and-or simply played better than the others.

 

[KarinsDad]

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.

No more funny than for other arcane blasters.

If the DM pulls out this card a lot, it is easy to focus the Current on what appears to be non-arcane types and blast casters with other powers:

Effect and area spells are not affected. Spell turning also fails to stop touch range spells.

Although resist energy is already a low enough level at this point that people could have energy resistance 30 most of the day.

Some people. Those who have 11th level casters available. And most will typically not have Resist Energy Cold up unless the DM is fudging (very few spell attacks are cold, most are fire or acid or even electricity).

Resist Energy is an "after observing the Wilder" type of response. It is not very often a "all of the NPCs are protected by Resist Energy Cold 30. Too bad."

You really are stretching here.

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!

The +4 surge only uses up a lot of points 20% of the time. Most of the time, a powerful surge is not need for the Current. It is only needed for dire situations. The rest of the time, doing 60% to target #1 on round one and another 60% on round two without surging is sufficient.

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 damage per level is the same for the other powers, they just affect more targets.

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.

Yup. Not a real consistent strategy until he can pass it off to the Psicrystal.

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.

That's not the real point of the build. It's a side effect that helps in some circumstances. The real point is blasting every round without using up actions or PP.

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.

Potaatoe, potatoe.

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.

That's not stated. The power only talks about transferring the concentration, not the origin point. In fact, the power does not even state that the Psicrystal control changing the targets of the attacks. Presumably, the Wilder does.

Even if a DM rules that way, it does not happen until round two when the psicrystal attacks with it.

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

Whatever dude. Pretend all you want that doing 100+ points of damage per round without using PP and without using actions is not Nova-ing. Pretend all you want that doing 60% more damage than an Evoker can do at 3rd level is not Nova-ing.

At this point, you are just arguing just to argue. Finding minutia and pretending it is pertinent. Ignoring the math. Talking about rare defenses as if everyone has them. Whatever.

 

[pawsplay]

A 3rd level wilder launched a 5d6 energy ray as a ranged touch spell with no save and there's no damage cap.

So, a 3rd level wilder, burning few as many pp as possible and taking a 10% chance of being a lamp post, can do an average of 3 more points of damage than a 3rd level fighter on horseback using Spirited Charge, or 50% more than a rogue who wins initiative and catches an opponent flat footed. That's what we're talking about here.

What's the problem?

 

[Enforcer]

So, a 3rd level wilder, burning few as many pp as possible and taking a 10% chance of being a lamp post, can do an average of 3 more points of damage than a 3rd level fighter on horseback using Spirited Charge, or 50% more than a rogue who wins initiative and catches an opponent flat footed. That's what we're talking about here.

What's the problem?

Hehe, you can see the can of worms a question like that opens from reading the thread.

My answer? No problem at all, good day sir.

 

[KarinsDad]

So, a 3rd level wilder, burning few as many pp as possible and taking a 10% chance of being a lamp post, can do an average of 3 more points of damage than a 3rd level fighter on horseback using Spirited Charge, or 50% more than a rogue who wins initiative and catches an opponent flat footed. That's what we're talking about here.

What's the problem?

The fact that with the same basic highest level attack (Scorching Ray), the Evoker (Mr. Nuke) does 14 points whereas the Wilder does 22.5. At 4th level, it is still the Evoker's highest level spell and he still does 14 points and the Wilder does 27.

The OP has a problem that the Wilder blows away opponents so quickly and he doesn't have to be on a charging horse to do so.

 

[Slaved]

No more funny than for other arcane blasters.

What arcane blasting spells are targetted? Are there that many?

If the DM pulls out this card a lot, it is easy to focus the Current on what appears to be non-arcane types

Every character has a response to it. In case that matters.

You really are stretching here.

Easily available options are stretches? We have very different ways of looking at the game!

The +4 surge only uses up a lot of points 20% of the time.

Taking my quote in context is very important. Dazing yourself while using a concentration power makes for a very large chunk of power points just go away.

Whatever dude.

There is a lot of hostility in your posts. I would appreciate it if you did not do that. Thanks!

Pretend all you want that doing 100+ points of damage per round without using PP and without using actions is not Nova-ing.

Without using power points or actions? I must have missed the post where the wilder was doing this. I have seen the melee guys doing it but I doubt anyone would call them novaing either.

At this point, you are just arguing just to argue.

I am sorry that you feel that way. I feel that I have raised very serious issues and used solid analysis techniques.

 

[Slaved]

The fact that with the same basic highest level attack (Scorching Ray), the Evoker (Mr. Nuke) does 14 points whereas the Wilder does 22.5. At 4th level, it is still the Evoker's highest level spell and he still does 14 points and the Wilder does 27.

Does anyone else think that picking an evoker and implying that this was a good choice is a bad thing?

Next up, necromancers ability to create and control undead versus the cleric!