Wilder?

[Skjaldbakka]

I've been hearing people talk down the wilder lately. What's the deal?

[tyckspoon]

It has a painfully small number of powers known (capping at 11 at 20th level. Imagine playing a sorcerer who can only ever know 11 spells, distributed amongst all 9 spell levels.) and its other primary class feature can daze it and chew up more power points. That negative side effect becomes more likely as the Wilder gains levels, instead of the progression of virtually every single other class, where the drawbacks of their class features become less damaging as they advance.

[Fishy]

(Imagine playing a sorcerer who can only ever know 11 spells, distributed amongst all 9 spell levels.)

It's not quite as bad as that. Because of the way the augmentation mechanic works, if you pick your powers carefully, some of the low level powers will be useful throughout your career. In theory.

[tyckspoon]

It's not quite as bad as that. Because of the way the augmentation mechanic works, if you pick your powers carefully, some of the low level powers will be useful throughout your career. In theory.

This is true, but it still sucks- you get as many powers known at 20th level as a Psion had at 5th. And he's getting some bonus feats, which are generally going to be more useful than the Wilder's class features. If you're trying to fill a general caster role, the Psion is going to stomp all over the Wilder with his much greater pool of powers. If you're looking for a psychic warrior, well.. there's a class for that. It's called Psychic Warrior. It's got better hit dice, more powers, armor proficiency, better weapon proficiencies, and a power list that is better suited to smacking the heck out of things. The only advantage the Wilder has is a bigger power point pool.

Hmm. Wilder kind of reminds me of the Warlock, actually- a very limited number of things he can do, but he can do them nearly as much as he wants. Except the Wilder has to pay for his 'Eldritch Blast' equivalent and it doesn't scale for free.. unless he uses Wild Surge, in which case he risks making himself unable to act for the next turn and wasting another chunk of power.

[Human Paragon 3]

Wilder is actually a pretty good dip for a psionic class to get surge, and makes a great 1/2 gestalt with psion or psychic warrior. With increased powers and power points, the extra manifester level(s) and free augments become awesome. Or you could just take overchannel.

[Dullyanna]

It makes a good dip for a few levels (3/4 BAB, wild surge, and more PP) and a decent entry into psionic prc's. But a good class is more than a good dip.

[CASTLEMIKE]

It has a painfully small number of powers known (capping at 11 at 20th level. Imagine playing a sorcerer who can only ever know 11 spells, distributed amongst all 9 spell levels.) and its other primary class feature can daze it and chew up more power points. That negative side effect becomes more likely as the Wilder gains levels, instead of the progression of virtually every single other class, where the drawbacks of their class features become less damaging as they advance.

The Educated Wilder variant gets 4 or 5 more known powers bringing the total to 15 or 16 depending on which web page you hit (I've seen one where it gets the extra known powers at 5, 9, 13 and 17 and one where it gets them at 3, 7, 11, 15, and 19 for losing either Surging Euphoria or Volatile Mind).

Going psion with the Spells to Power variant could be pretty sweet cherry picking the best spells from all the different lists to augment some choice psion powers. Fast Healing 1 for 1 PP, Alter Self for 3 PP, Shadow Conjuration for 7 PP, Adept Heal for 9 PP, SM7 for 13 PP to summon a Movanic Deva to cast Commune or Raise the Dead or use some of it's other abilities.

The Erudite has potential particularly with the Spells to Power and the potential to learn and know lots of spells/powers despite limited access to them but you use lots of high level ones for situations.

Spells like Miracle would be interesting for 17 PP, but I'd probably go Cerebrancer with for more versatility using something like the Beguiler at first level with the Precocious Apprentice Feat would probably be best for SAD - Int synergies and Beguiler if legal in your campaign Beguiler - 1, Erudite - 3, Cerebrancer - 10, AI - 1 and 5 more PRCs to taste since the Beguiler has lots of useful known spells at every level and can wear light armor with No ASF.