Messing with Blaster Wilder

[wintersjackson]

First proper time DM here, messing around with psionic characters and...well, I understand adaptability is worth a tonne, but this still seemed ridiculous enough I wanted to make sure my calculations weren't completely off in some way I don't understand.

Starting with a Blasting Wilder, level 4 to fit the party, with the elemental blast and psionic meditation feats. First off, the wording is weird as hell-would the Wilder be able to get psionic focus as a move action then immediately use it for a blast as a free action? The phrasing says the free action attack is only available if the wild surge was already used that round, and while I presume that means in preparation its unclear.

Which brings me to my second question. Its 2d6 base, +2d6 for wild surge, +50% for empowered at 4pp using the modified blast free feat, +4 for the elemental blast option, +1 for surging euphoria...For a total of 23 damage at a +4+dex to hit touch attack as a move action? for only 4 PP?

(Or if you use combat prescience with that standard action, 38 damage for 5?)

Someone please tell me I'm wrong, because even for a class as focused as this, that's like half to most of a CR4 creature's health, very hard to block and using 1/6th to 1/8th of his daily pp.

...Please?

(Warp surge if it matters, so even if they hit enervation that's just -3 to hit total, -1 to damage, and some stuff they don't care about. Would this count as a damage roll? Because if so, it would at least cancel out the prescience.)

[Unbodied]

Not familiar with the Wilder I'm afraid, Wild Surge is supposed to be pretty powerful but in return it has a 30 or something % chance of hurting the Wilder. Is this Paizo psionics or dreamscarred?

[Elricaltovilla]

So it's a blast that does 1/2 an appropriately CR'd enemy up to about 8 times per day? That's not really that impressive. It means that the Wilder would have to use 2+ blasts per CR 4 enemy to down them, so they could only take down about 4 enemies per day max and then they're out of PP.

Compare that to a barbarian with a greatsword, who can rage for a minimum of 12 rounds per day, and probably has about 26 STR to throw behind his attack. That's 2d6+12 damage assuming no power attack, but with power attack it becomes 2d6+18 damage, an average of 27 with a better crit chance and almost assuredly a better chance to hit, 12 times per day.

Using psionic meditation to gain psionic focus as a move action is exactly what it does. So yes, as a move action, you could gain psionic focus, then end it as a free action and manifest your blast. But that's only one blast per round.

Lastly, the number one rule of Psionics: You can't spend more power points than your Manifester Level on any one ability. That means that at level 4 you can't spend 5 pp on your blast at all.

[Unbodied]

Lastly, the number one rule of Psionics: You can't spend more power points than your Manifester Level on any one ability. That means that at level 4 you can't spend 5 pp on your blast at all.
Unless you have the Overchannel feat. But that's only one extra pp at this level and you take damage if you don't have the Talented feat.

[Elricaltovilla]

Not familiar with the Wilder I'm afraid, Wild Surge is supposed to be pretty powerful but in return it has a 30 or something % chance of hurting the Wilder. Is this Paizo psionics or dreamscarred?

Paizo doesn't do Psionics, they do "Psychic Magic." Wilder is a Dreamscarred Press class and Blaster Wilder is a specific archetype for the Wilder.

[Unbodied]

Paizo doesn't do Psionics, they do "Psychic Magic." Wilder is a Dreamscarred Press class and Blaster Wilder is a specific archetype for the Wilder.
I haven't paid much attention to "Psychic Magic" so I wasn't sure if they recycled names or not.

[wintersjackson]

It wouldn't have been 5 powerpoints on the surge-as I explained, combat prescience is what gets you the rest of the damage, and thats its own power, performed in the free standard action. Secondly, the wilder almost certain has a betterchance to hit, because they're only going after touch armour.
Next, overchannel can't be used alongside wild surge or it'd be even more crazy =P
It's a 15% chance of enervation, but all that does is a stackable sickened and you lose the same amount of pp again.
And while that level of damage from the barbarian is reassuring, a lot of my incredulity was at the fact you could do this as a move action and still take your normal shot. (And this can be done from outside the barbarian's range, to boot) But yeah, guess my party just isn't particularly optimized towards damage yet, which makes sense.

Also I think your maths on the barbarian is a little off, but not by a huge amount. Enough that they're nearly the same, at any rate

[Elricaltovilla]

It wouldn't have been 5 powerpoints on the surge-as I explained, combat prescience is what gets you the rest of the damage, and thats its own power, performed in the free standard action. Secondly, the wilder almost certain has a betterchance to hit, because they're only going after touch armour.
Next, overchannel can't be used alongside wild surge or it'd be even more crazy =P
It's a 15% chance of enervation, but all that does is a stackable sickened and you lose the same amount of pp again.
And while that level of damage from the barbarian is reassuring, a lot of my incredulity was at the fact you could do this as a move action and still take your normal shot. (And this can be done from outside the barbarian's range, to boot) But yeah, guess my party just isn't particularly optimized towards damage yet, which makes sense.

Also I think your maths on the barbarian is a little off, but not by a huge amount. Enough that they're nearly the same, at any rate

I could pretty easily tune up the damage on the barbarian to the point that it would blow the wilder out of the water. What I was trying to illustrate was more that 1/6-1/8 of your daily PP for ~1/2 the health of a CR appropriate enemy is totally fair, even a little inefficient. Instead of using 1 CR 4 enemy (which for the record is supposed to be a pretty easy encounter for a 4 man party at level 4) try using 2-3 CR3 creatures. The wilder will have to burn more resources and thus run out faster. More enemies usually makes for a better or more interesting encounter than one big enemy.

[StygianRose]

Something to remember is that the Wilder has to activate a power in order to wild surge, and that they can only activate the surge blast as a free action after they surge. The reason the free action is there is specifically so you can activate standard action powers and still blast.

The most common or useful way to use the surge and blast is actually Inevitable Strike unaugmented.

Move Action - Gain Psionic Focus; Standard Action, manifest Inevitable Strike for 1PP - +20 to Hit; Wild Surge on Inevitable Strike; Surge Blast as a Free Action.

You mentioned their dex to be +4 so they would have a 1d20+27 to-hit and deal 4d6 damage.

Honestly speaking the big deal about Blasting Wilders is their efficiency rather than their raw damage. They're damage is mediocre at best and tanks by comparison after other classes reach +6/+1 or in effect the first iterative because they are activating only one surge blast a round that does considerably less damage than you think as damage in pathfinder comes from flat modifiers.

See the barbarian example and consider that the barb does more than the average of the 4d6 (14) purely from his flat damage. His average is also better than the Wilders max damage unless they are augmenting the surge and at low levels that is expensive unless you are allowing the five minute adventuring day.

He could also use a swift action power and surge that, as developers mentioned that while you only get one free surge blast per round you could actually use a standard action blast and the free action blast with the same expenditure of psionic focus. It is important to note that the free blast happens ONLY if you have wild surged in the round and that Wild Surge requires that you manifest a power. Again, at low levels this is expensive and I would personally prefer the first option because for 1 PP I almost guarantee putting damage on the board while spending only one point of ammunition.

EDIT-

Unless you have the Overchannel feat. But that's only one extra pp at this level and you take damage if you don't have the Talented feat.

They actually can't do this because using a Wild Surge prevents the use of Overchannel and Overchannel would have no effect on a Surge Blast as they have no manifester level to augment. Overchannel might be a useful measure for a Blasting Wilder to still be able to 'Surge' on utility powers though.

[Nifft]

3.5e Wilder could use Wild Surge + (Greater) Psionic Shot to be very PP-efficient, but it took a bunch of feats before it came together, and it still wasn't as good as a Wizard with a [Reserve] feat.

[Elricaltovilla]

Something I think I forgot to mention is that 4 CR=APL (average party level) encounters is what the game expects you to run. Each of them should use up about 25% of the party's resources. So if at the end of the day your party Wilder is down more than 25% of their PP, then that actually means you're doing things "right." As such, the numbers you're getting for wilder's damage vs. PP expenditure is entirely appropriate and well within the expected parameters of Pathfinder and the D20 system.