Basic Wilder Powers

[Elkad]

So I need a L5 Wilder. Game probably won't run past L10 or so. 32pt buy, limited race selection (no humans, nothing with a CHA bonus)

I'm really unfamiliar with psionic powers. I know about the Educated Wilder ACF, which I intend to take. Which nets me one Expanded Knowledge for most of the game.

I'd like to go more caster/summoner than some sort of gish. Preferably with some BFC or other utility. Archery+BFC would work as well.

What 3+1 powers do I want to start with?
Do I use a feat on a psicrystal?
What about my other (L3 feat) feat?

[Psyren]

Can you get Hidden Talent from the XPH sidebar? This will get you another power as your level 1 feat.

Yes, you should get a psicrystal, for the Vigor + Share Pain combo. The skill bonuses and other benefits are icing on the cake.

I would do:

1st level {Bonus}: Vigor (defense), Entangling Ectoplasm (archery + BFC), {Astral Construct} from Educated. If you can get Hidden Talent, I would then add either Control Flames (super cheap damage with a little utility) or Detect Psionics.

2nd level: Share Pain

At 6 I would get Dispel Psionics.

[Zaq]

I like having either Crystal Shard or Energy Ray on a Wilder as a basic, no-frills way to turn PP into d6s with an easy touch attack. It probably shouldn't be your primary strategy (you have lots of PP, but not that many PP), but I like it because it's very low-maintenance and fairly widely applicable.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Out of curiosity what are your racial choices? Also see if you can take the Educated Wilder ACF; it trades out your worse class features for a nice buff to your best.

[Elkad]

And I just realized I don't have a way to get archery proficiency. (Well, without another feat)

Light xbow? Javelins?

[Psyren]

And I just realized I don't have a way to get archery proficiency. (Well, without another feat)

Light xbow? Javelins?

Elf?

I had assumed you wanted a crossbow though - it's not like you'll even need to worry about Rapid Reload until level 8 or so.


Out of curiosity what are your racial choices? Also see if you can take the Educated Wilder ACF; it trades out your worse class features for a nice buff to your best.

OP already knows about that:


I know about the Educated Wilder ACF, which I intend to take. Which nets me one Expanded Knowledge for most of the game.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Ah sorry. I've been extremely sick lately and making a lot of boneheaded mistakes.

I do recall a being in a campaign where a wilder made amazing use of Energy Wall as BFC, mostly be cutting line of sight easily and preventing weaker enemies from safely moving into position. Not sure if that interests you or is relevant since most of the utility came from the fact our encounters often featured groups of enemies.

As for weapon proficiencies, see if your DM is willing to give weapon groups a try. They create a lot more flexibility in character creation and allow full BAB classes access to exotic weapons easily. I tried it literally once in a campaign now literally every campaign I know of in my area uses them save one, but that DM admits he hates DnD and ignores whatever rules inconvenience him.

There is no list for them, but I assigned them the same as bard, Basic + 2.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Astral construct is good. There's a psionic alter self in a 3.5 Dark Sun book, but the legality of that is questionable. If you can take it, you could use it on your psicrystal - almost like summoning, really.

Time hop is really neat. It has a lot of utility applications, since it affects objects. Door in the way? Send it 30 seconds into the future. Arrow in your gut? Send it 30 seconds into the future, then move. Need to trap an enemy? Send the floor 30 seconds into the future while they're standing on it.

[Soranar]

Ok so you get 4 powers

3 from class features
1 from expanded knowledge

possibly 1 more from hidden talent if you DM gives the ok

I wouldn't go with the vigor share pain combo

-you said yourself that you don't intend to tank
-it'll cost you 2 power knowns and 1 feat, that's a lot in your case

I would go for

Level 1
crystal shard
Inertial armor

Level 2

energy push

expanded knowledge
astral construct

hidden talent
Charm

So crystal shard works against anything. Inertial armor is great because you can augment it through a surge without any risk in combat. Energy push gives you good damage for your PP and it lets you move back creatures that get too close. Astral construct is your bread and butter and charm is your general social interaction power.

[Psyren]

Time Hop is indeed a good power for level 6, but he wouldn't be there at the start. Some of the suggestions of what to do with it though are off.


Arrow in your gut? Send it 30 seconds into the future, then move.

Doing this does nothing at best, the arrow already did its damage/delivered its payload if it's in your gut. At worst you'll now have an unoccupied hole in your gut instead, which would presumably bleed.


Need to trap an enemy? Send the floor 30 seconds into the future while they're standing on it.

The whole floor? Why stop there, Time Hop the planet so you can get some peace and quiet :smalltongue:

You might get away with Hopping a floor tile (assuming the battlefield is measurable in tiles) or platform though.

[syryous]

1st: Energy Ray/Crystal Shard, Vigor, Astral Construct, Synchronicity (with linked power).
2nd: Share Pain
3rd: Energy Wall, so much value here. Pick the Sonic version and destroy castle walls because it's duration is concentration. Pair this up with Synchronicity/Twin Power/Physic Meditation for ultimate battlefield control.

[ATHATH]

Might I recommend being an Athasian Human (from Dragon Magazine #319)? You get the standard Human bonus feat, 4 bonus powers known, and a sizable chunk of PP for the low, low price of +1 LA (which is insane if you play with LA buyoff rules). It might be an interesting roleplaying opportunity as well, if you fluff the character as actually coming from the Dark Sun setting. It even fits your class, as everyone and their mother in Athas has Psionics (yes, even the animals)(,) and (presumably) not everyone can afford to be trained in its use.

[J-H]

Here's my power & feat list for a Wilder that's built as a gish (melee using self-buffs). Astral Construct helps it be relevant at the mid-levels, and then at level 12 when Schism comes online, self-buffing gets more efficient.

Note that the two Dragonmark feats combine to give immunity to daze, which means the only downside to Psychic Enervation is PP loss. Someone did the math, and wild surging, on average, saves you 1-2pp over 10 occurrences even with Enervation factored in.

1 vigor
1ht astral construct
1ew expansion
2 share pain
2ek ego whip (cha/stun debuff)
3 Touchsight (replaces True Sight, darkvision, & see invisibility in most circumstances)
3ew hostile empathic transfer
4 Energy Adaptation
4ek Schism
5
5ew
6 Temporal Acceleration (for buffing)
7 Decerebrate (Fort or die for most enemies)
7ew
8 Mind Blank (shareable)
9 Reality Revision
9 Timeless body (immune to harm)

Three slots open, used for:
2 hustle (pw2/egoist3)
1 offensive precog (to-hit)
3 greater concealing amorpha)

Feats
1 Hidden Talent (Astral Construct, +2pp)
1H Sentinel Dragonmark (Shield Other 1/day)
Flaw psicrystal
3 Mark of the Dauntless (Eb/Dragonmarked book, immune to daze/stun, standard to touch someone to remove those conditions)
6 ek: ego whip
9 open
12 EK: Schism
15 open
18 open

[Psyren]

I would go for

Level 1
crystal shard
Inertial armor

Inertial Armor is wasted on a Wilder, you're proficient with light armor and have no spell failure. Just throw on a Chain Shirt.

Crystal Shard is good (though the CPsi nerf dulls the edge somewhat, natch)

[DeAnno]

Ego Whip is pretty good, not quite as well known as Crystal Shard et al but at level 5-10 especially you aren't going to have things noselling it everywhere the same way you would at 15-20. It also covers a Will save so is a nice complementary option for Energy Whatever that you might pick up later to cover Reflex and Fort and/or Crystal Shard for Ranged Touch SR No. Entangling Ectoplasm is another intriguing option in this area that shouldn't be ignored.

Nothing wrong with Vigor/Share Pain/Psycrystal but your resources are kind of limited and it's a lot to invest in defense (Not to mention some people talking about Inertial Armor...) A more offensive bias with only Vigor or perhaps not even that could be considered.

Maybe look over the Psychic Warrior list (maybe Lurk and Psionic Rogue too? Unsure if there's anything good) when considering your EK @ level 5. It has to be a level 1 power and aside from Astral Construct there is nothing special on the Psion Discipline lists there, Compression especially could be interesting for a naturally small race if you would like to sneak around.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Doing this does nothing at best, the arrow already did its damage/delivered its payload if it's in your gut. At worst you'll now have an unoccupied hole in your gut instead, which would presumably bleed.
Arrow isn't the right example, but there are some weapons that deal damage on removal (barbed spikes and whatnot). It's the concept of moving things without exerting force that's interesting.


The whole floor? Why stop there, Time Hop the planet so you can get some peace and quiet :smalltongue:

You might get away with Hopping a floor tile (assuming the battlefield is measurable in tiles) or platform though.
As far as I know, a planet is a series of 10' cubes of stone, which can be individually time hopped, if they fit in your weight limit*. But yes, the least controversial use is on floors and ceilings in buildings. Pretty good way of sneaking into heavily fortified castles, too.



*The base limit is 300 lb, about 135 kg. That limit is doubled for every 2 pp, and multiplies as real-world weight (so 2x2=4). A 10' cube of rock weighs around 2.5-3 times as much as water, which means the cube (volume: 27 cubic metres) weighs about 3*27 000 = 81 000 kg. So we need 2n > 81 000/135, or 2n > 600. That puts n at 9 or 10 depending on rock type, requiring 18 or 20 pp of augments, which is just about doable for a high-level manifester (5 pp base cost, torc, ML boosts).

[Psyren]

Arrow isn't the right example, but there are some weapons that deal damage on removal (barbed spikes and whatnot). It's the concept of moving things without exerting force that's interesting.

If the item says it does X on removal, then it will probably do X no matter what method you actually use to remove it, even if that method scientifically shouldn't. (RAW and science make poor bedfellows many times.)


As far as I know, a planet is a series of 10' cubes of stone

[citation needed]

[ExLibrisMortis]

If the item says it does X on removal, then it will probably do X no matter what method you actually use to remove it, even if that method scientifically shouldn't. (RAW and science make poor bedfellows many times.)
Well that's the thing: you never actually remove it, it's just not in your body. It's a grey area, maybe, but I doubt a DM will rule that you are harpooned when the harpoon is not touching you. Then again, it'd be moderately funny to harpoon someone, time hop the harpoon away, and then carry it with you (or destroy it), knowing that your target will never be able to reach the harpoon to end the "harpooned" condition.


[citation needed]
Well, for starters, PHB 165: "Very large objects have separate hit point totals for different sections". In my view, planets qualify outright.

Then, the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook has hit point values for 10'x10'x5' unworked walls of stone, which are one object. Arguably, stone planets are nothing but a series of unworked walls of stone, which means the planet isn't made of cubes (sorry) but cuboids. Shaves 2 pp off the augment for time hop, too.

Disintegrate famously affects a 10' cube, and the SBG tells us that will affect multiple layers of material. That is, a 10'x10'x5' unworked wall of stone forms a 10' cube with another such wall (or any other type), affected together by a single casting of disintegrate, so that's where the 10' cube association comes from.

[Fizban]

Swarm of Crystals (pre-Complete Psionic errata) is basically the most reliable damage effect there is. No attack roll, no save, no SR/PR, no type (that matters anyway), just damage. With the errata you can still just push through, DR 10 is effectively cl -4, annoying but not the end.

The only reason to be a Wilder is for the Wild Surge. This means you need to use Wild Surge, which means you should take Postpone Ennervation so you don't suddenly lock up during a fight, and maybe Enervation Endurance to reduce the cost of failure.

Aside from blasting, any power that has significant augments benefits from wild surge letting you cast that higher level version early. A power that does this starting at 1st level and keeps doing it until endgame is Astral Construct, the power every summoning spell wishes it was.

[Psyren]

Well that's the thing: you never actually remove it, it's just not in your body.

But it was, so yes, you did remove it.



Well, for starters, PHB 165: "Very large objects have separate hit point totals for different sections". In my view, planets qualify outright.

Where does it say planets are objects? Where does it say you can Time Hop "sections" of an object?



Then, the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook has hit point values for 10'x10'x5' unworked walls of stone, which are one object.

Can you cite where those walls are described as objects?

[Elkad]

This is my race list. Pretty thin.

Darfellan, Hadozee, Kenku, Killoren, Maenad, Raptoran, Rilkan, Shifter, Skarn, Spellscale, Xeph.

Xeph is houseruled to get their speed buff as a swift action 3/day, which is handy. (And would be good with Xeph Celerity if I wanted to go the gish route, which I don't)

I missed Spellscale on the list earlier, so I do have a +2Cha option.



Since the rest of you wandered offtopic, why would the world be 10' cubes anyway? 5' cubes would make far more sense :)
10 tons each (give or take for stone type), half that for dry dirt. Fudge wet dirt, sand, etc somewhere inbetween.

Or dig up my copy of How Heavy is My Giant (https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg013.pdf), which is one of my old Dragon issues I keep handy.
(asking Wolfram Alpha also works of course)

[ExLibrisMortis]

But it was, so yes, you did remove it.
At least in the case of a harpoon, removing it is a special action (that deals damage). So, no, time hopping a harpoon does not count as removing it.


Where does it say planets are objects? Where does it say you can Time Hop "sections" of an object?
Don't be obtuse. Planets are objects because that's the English word for things. Alternatively, they are objects because there are rules for stone walls, rocky planets are made of stone walls, and stone walls are objects. Take your pick.

You can time hop any object, and since unworked stone walls are objects, you can time hop them.


Can you cite where those walls are described as objects?
SBG, section on Attacking the Structure.


Now, I'm not interested in a RAW debate on the matter, I'm just establishing that time hop is a versatile power with a lot of creative uses. I've done that, you haven't done anything to dispute that, so we're done here.

[Psyren]

At least in the case of a harpoon, removing it is a special action (that deals damage). So, no.

This one I'll give you - 'hopping the harpoon out would prevent you from having to remove it this way. You'd still take the initial damage though, so it seems awfully situational.


Don't be obtuse. Planets are objects because that's the English word for things. Alternatively, they are objects because there are rules for stone walls, rocky planets are made of stone walls, and stone walls are objects. Take your pick.

None of this is relevant to RAW. It could be a reasonable houserule to treat them as objects, but that's all it is.


SBG, section on Attacking the Structure.

"Attacking the stronghold is like attacking any other object: the walls have armor class, hardness, and hit points. Each must be overcome in turn for you to destroy the structure."

The entire stronghold is treated like an object (note: specifically for the purposes of attacking it, not anything else, but I'll humor you for a second.) So you can Time Hop an entire stronghold, provided your ML is high enough. Nothing in that entry says parts of a stronghold are also objects, nor that blocks of the planet are objects either.


This is my race list. Pretty thin.

Darfellan, Hadozee, Kenku, Killoren, Maenad, Raptoran, Rilkan, Shifter, Skarn, Spellscale, Xeph.

Xeph is houseruled to get their speed buff as a swift action 3/day, which is handy. (And would be good with Xeph Celerity if I wanted to go the gish route, which I don't)

I missed Spellscale on the list earlier, so I do have a +2Cha option.

No Kalashtar? No stat bonuses, but no penalties either, and they get a lot of goodies.

[Elkad]

Well the DM has squashed both Educated Wilder and Hidden Talent. He's trying to hold the tier level down, which I understand, but I don't think Wilder is workable at this point with 3*L1 and 1*L2 powers. At least not for what I want to do. Party has BSFs aplenty.

On the other hand, Ardent is on the class list.
Wisdom based, abysmal skill list - not that it gets any skillpoints anyway, but 6 powers known (including 3rd level powers) at L5. I'm assuming custom mantles are out of the question.
No BFC I see on any list though.

4 Mantles, 6 powers (3-2-1), 2 feats.

Energy - Energy Ray(1) and Energy Push(2). Ugh, you can't augment Wall damage? That's a pretty significant limitation.
Creation. Astral Construct(1).
Magic. Dispel (3). Destruction is the other Mantle option for Dispel, UMD vs future Disintegrate access.

One more.
?Deception for Charm and Cloud Mind?
?Freedom for Hop and Hustle?

Is there a Psionic Resist Energy I'm missing (that I can apply to teammates)?

Feats?
L1 Psicrystal? Not much more than a skillbuddy, scout, and universal translator. I can make that work.
L3 EK for Entangling Ectoplasm?
L6? Psionic Meditation? Psicrystal Affinity? Something else?

[Rerednaw]

Well if you want staying power there's always the feat chain/combo: Earth Sense, Earth Power and Midnight Augmentation with Bestow Power. Net spend 1 PP, regain 2. Pick a race with bonus feats or flaws if allowed.

If you have Expanded Knowledge than Astral Construct is among the best powers. Energy Missile is good for direct damage if u prefer.

Another nice power is Amethyst Burst (Dragon Magic). Ranged Burst, SR no, Force effect.

Since I don't know what level of optimization the campaign is hard to give more pointers other than maybe the Quick Recovery feat from Lords of Madness.

Oh and dont surge that often. Psychic Enervation sucks eggs.