Slaved said:
Non-classed opponents often have more hit dice than their challenge rating.
At early levels we have things like the riding dog. This creature has 13 hit points and a touch armor class of 12. A first level wilder who surges and chooses either fire or cold will do an average of 9 points of damage on a hit and with a 14 dexterity will hit 55% of the time.
So with one surge the wilder is doing about 5 damage which will take about 3 shots to take out the dog.
If the wilder does actually hit then a single hit on average is 69% of the dogs total hit points but hitting is not guarenteed.
Plus, once the dog gets up to the wilder on a riding dog versus wilder 1 the dog has a pretty good chance of taking out the wilder in a single hit.
So at this point this seems pretty well in line. The damage on a successful hit is about 70% but the average is far lower and I would expect anyone who is going to be doing damage directly to be doing similar damage at this point.
This is a silly argument.
The average touch AC in the MM is less than 11. You picked the lowest level Wilder class who averages the least relative damage and then picked a powerful opponent for him with twice as many hit dice, with Str, Dex, and Con 15 and a high (for the wilder's level and higher than average in the MM) touch AC opponent. You then said: "Oh, the Wilder only does 69% of the dog's hit points on an average successful hit". Only 69%.
Not very persuasive of an argument.
The Surge threat does not really kick in until 3rd level (as shown by my tables).
Go to 10th level when the Wilder hits most touch ACs 95% of the time.
Or examine 6th level or higher when he takes Energy Missile with a feat and is picking and choosing which opponents to hit with Empowered Energy Missile, killing some, seriously wounding some, and significantly wounding the rest.
Slaved said:
This seems to again assume that a hit is made or the saving throw is failed or whatever other resistances that there could be are inapplicable. Why is this assumed?
This is not assumed. We are talking standard damage potential here.
And if you go to the recent Orb threads, you can find out that even at low levels, a caster with a ranged touch attack can have a very high percentage of hitting (80%+). A wilder has a higher chance. Without any magic or any feats or special abilities or anything else, a Halfling Wilder with Dex 16 (very common for halfling PCs) has a 85% chance of hitting touch AC 11 at 4th level. No feats. No magic. Just an appropriate race. It's not hard to get this up to 95%, even at 4th level.
By 10th level with magic and feats, he is hitting the 93% of all creatures with touch AC 14 or less in the MM (and probably a similar percentage of classed opponents) 95% of the time.
Slaved said:
I would like to note that an 18 strength and a longsword weilded in one hand will be doing almost 9 points of damage on an average hit as well. This might be with a worse chance to hit but with the bonus of being able to do it many more times and without the penalty of possible enervation.
A character with a two handed sword and a 14 strength will be doing 10 points of damage on average per hit.
A rogue with a rapier and who is flanking will be dealing 2d6 plus other bonuses for an average of 7 plus other bonuses.
These are all options at first level as well.
I think that you are ignoring anything that might mitigate the damage being dealt and ignoring the damage potential of other characters.
I think you are ignoring the math.
I never claimed that a Wilder was overpowered at first level, but that is the level you are using because it illustrates that the Wilder is balanced at first level. If you pick the weakest Wilder level and give him a strong opponent, sure, he will not look too powerful.
But, consider. When the Wilder gets to 2nd level, he is doing 4.5 more points of damage with a surge. The Barbarian does the same damage. The Rogue does the same damage and will not do more damage until 3rd level and he cannot always pick and choose when to sneak attack, the situation has to be favorable (e.g. he can never sneak attack an undead shy of wierd splat book stuff). The Rogue increases damage D6 per 2 levels whereas the Wilder increases damage D6+1 per level. The Barbarian doesn't significantly increase damage until he get full round attacks.
Every single level, the max surge damage goes up and every three levels out of four, the Wilder's chance to hit goes up. On the other hand, touch ACs tend to not increase too much as levels increase whereas normal ACs increase more on average.
The only downside the Wilder has is that he is a one trick pony that can quickly run out of shots.
Note: my tables above did not include Surging Euphoria either.
