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View Full Version : Messing around with a Wilder (advice needed)



Binks
2010-08-13, 08:52 PM
Putting a character together for a game. Pretty limited book selection (Core+XPH+Complete*+ToB). Having already played a swordsage, and being not all that interested in any of the Core classes right now I thought I'd take a look at the psionic classes, since my psionic experience thusfar has been limited to the bleach d20 rules (which use some psionic powers and kidou and the pp system).

Looking through the classes I settled on a Wilder, since the fluff was interesting, the class was on a decent tier, and I liked the concept of the class abilities. I read a handbook and put together a character...but I'm not very impressed thusfar. I think I may have strayed way too far from what the wilder's designed for, so I'm looking for some build advice. Going for a bit of a silly character who's nonetheless intelligent and charismatic...just a bit odd in combat.

My rolls were pretty good, 11/12/13/14/14/16, and it's level 5 with normal WbL. Right now I'm kind of going for party tank, with the psicrystal+shared pain+vigor trick to give me a good amount of hp. Already asked if I can go Educated Wilder, I'm assuming it's allowed until I hear back from the DM. Current power choices are Vigor/Inertial Armor/Shared Pain/Astral Construct (expanded). Fighting with two deep crystal sickles...mainly because I started out with a sickle, then liked the idea of fighting with 2 weapons (even if it is a bit weaker), then found the deep crystal material.

I've heard it said a couple of times that there's basically two ways to play a wilder, gish (which is sort of what I'm going for right now) or a blaster. I'd be fine with either to be honest, I just liked the idea of a little psionic whirling death machine a bit more than a ranged psionic death machine when I was putting the sheet together.

Current sheet here - http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=231130

I'm not going for optimized, though I do want to be at least optimized enough that I'm not a drain on the party. What I'm really looking for is something distinctive. Right now the main quirk is astral construct...but I'm not a big fan of summoning to be honest, and it doesn't seem distinctive enough.

Any ideas/advice on what I can do to stand out as a bit crazy? Fine with just about any kind of crazy, as long as it's not 'hurt the party on purpose' crazy (accidentally hurting the party is fine :P). I'd be perfectly fine with dropping everything I have and completely changing the build/personality if that's the best way to improve it. I'd like to stick to Wilder mainly, because I really like the class features, but a dip's fine by me (normal multiclass rules). Species are limited to human/elf/half-elf and half-orc...and there'd have to be a pretty good reason to give up the human feat to get me to swap that.

Thanks!

*Not sure if that means all completes, or one in particular. I plan to ask if I see anything cool in one of them Complete (whatever)'s.

The Glyphstone
2010-08-13, 10:14 PM
Can you change your build yet? Wilders are exceptionally difficult to play, mainly because of their extremely low Powers Known, and also that their signature class feature gets worse as they level up. Psion going into Anarchic Initiate from Complete Psionic has all of the wildness flavor and is far more mechanically effective - you'd be a Psion 5, and start taking levels in AI at 6.

Binks
2010-08-13, 10:51 PM
I don't think the DM would have any problem with me changing classes (most of the other players don't have characters yet).

EDIT: And now that PrC is growing on me. Still not sure I want to play a Psion, but Anarchic Initiate is a definite possibility for later...

EDIT2: Deleted most of the post, because the idea of going psion (with an eccentric personality) then anarchic initiate is growing on me quite a bit. I just really don't like overchannel at all...though with vigor I guess it could be bearable. Discipline wise how much worse is Nomad or Seer than Telepath? I know there's some fun powers in Telepath but Nomad or Seer might make more sense for the character.