Edea
2020-08-01, 06:37 PM
I'm trying to homebrew a wilder that's...not so awkward, and I wanted to see what objections might be raised to these changes to the wild surge and powers known mechanics.
When invoked, add +X manifester level to the manifested power. Under normal circumstances, this now expends your psionic focus, and you must pay any additional points yourself for augmenting the power up to its new manifester level. If you do both of these things, no psychic enervation occurs.
However, when wild surging, you can also choose to 1) forego expending your focus, 2) forego spending any of the augmentation points yourself (as if effectively supplied by the wild surge), or 3) both. Doing any of these, however, carries the risk of psychic enervation; if you choose to forego expending your focus, there's a 5% chance per manifester level added that you will be dazed until the end of your next turn. If you choose to have the wild surge effectively supply the additional power points, there's a 5% chance per manifester level added that you will be forced to pay an additional number of power points equal to the amount needed to manifest the base power being affected by the wild surge. If you do both, the percentage chances are rolled separately.
While you cannot stack the ML increases from Overchannel and wild surge simultaneously (as before), a wilder possessing the Overchannel feat can choose to take 1d6 damage per ML added when wild surging instead of risking any form of psychic enervation for that particular manifestation.
Instead of the glacially slow acquisition of generic psion/wilder powers, I kind of want them to use a mantle-esque system. However, instead of just building up multiple mantles and still picking from them, they'd pick a single "mantle" (I've been calling it their "Passion") which represents their primary emotion (the one that they draw power from as a wilder) and would automatically know all of the powers from it (much like a fixed-caster spell list). Each "Passion" would have two powers of each level (1st through 9th), so it's still a strict repertoire but it can be made thematically appropriate and can include powers which would otherwise be very difficult to find on the same list. In addition, all of them would know the wild blast 1st level power, which would be an eldritch blast-analogue (not the same mechanics, just the same general purpose) that ensures the wilder always has something 'blast-y' to use their wild surges on.
Do these changes make the wilder more attractive as a play option? I'd make a couple other changes (a wilder would hands-down have the most power points to work with, their BAB would go back down, their skill list needs revised, etc.), but those are probably the two most critical ones.
Also, I'm certain wilder's already been hit with a bunch of homebrew, so would be very happy to see those for other ideas.
When invoked, add +X manifester level to the manifested power. Under normal circumstances, this now expends your psionic focus, and you must pay any additional points yourself for augmenting the power up to its new manifester level. If you do both of these things, no psychic enervation occurs.
However, when wild surging, you can also choose to 1) forego expending your focus, 2) forego spending any of the augmentation points yourself (as if effectively supplied by the wild surge), or 3) both. Doing any of these, however, carries the risk of psychic enervation; if you choose to forego expending your focus, there's a 5% chance per manifester level added that you will be dazed until the end of your next turn. If you choose to have the wild surge effectively supply the additional power points, there's a 5% chance per manifester level added that you will be forced to pay an additional number of power points equal to the amount needed to manifest the base power being affected by the wild surge. If you do both, the percentage chances are rolled separately.
While you cannot stack the ML increases from Overchannel and wild surge simultaneously (as before), a wilder possessing the Overchannel feat can choose to take 1d6 damage per ML added when wild surging instead of risking any form of psychic enervation for that particular manifestation.
Instead of the glacially slow acquisition of generic psion/wilder powers, I kind of want them to use a mantle-esque system. However, instead of just building up multiple mantles and still picking from them, they'd pick a single "mantle" (I've been calling it their "Passion") which represents their primary emotion (the one that they draw power from as a wilder) and would automatically know all of the powers from it (much like a fixed-caster spell list). Each "Passion" would have two powers of each level (1st through 9th), so it's still a strict repertoire but it can be made thematically appropriate and can include powers which would otherwise be very difficult to find on the same list. In addition, all of them would know the wild blast 1st level power, which would be an eldritch blast-analogue (not the same mechanics, just the same general purpose) that ensures the wilder always has something 'blast-y' to use their wild surges on.
Do these changes make the wilder more attractive as a play option? I'd make a couple other changes (a wilder would hands-down have the most power points to work with, their BAB would go back down, their skill list needs revised, etc.), but those are probably the two most critical ones.
Also, I'm certain wilder's already been hit with a bunch of homebrew, so would be very happy to see those for other ideas.