Post/Author/DateTime	Post
narfi78 06-13-07, 03:27 PM	Thanks for the clarifications for Wild Surge, for those of you that responded, now I'd like some advice. I looked at the Wilder optimization thread, and saw that the suggested builds were "melee" and "social". I had been thinking about playing a ray blaster type. Does this not work?
InkBlot 06-13-07, 04:45 PM	You could have just asked this in your previous thread. Anyway, ray-focused blasters, and blasters in general, are viable but weak. At 1st and 2nd level, a crossbow beats out an energy ray or crystal shard in nearly every way. At 10th level, a wilder who relies on energy ray and crystal shard won't be as strong as one who relies on telekinetic thrust. At 15th level, Power Resistance, Energy Resistance, and Damage Resistance will make your life very difficult indeed. Not to mention, in order to hit multiple targets with a ray you need to use Metapsi feats, and the focus requirement makes that impractical. Normal non-ray-focused blasting is more practical, because you get more ways to circumvent that design's weaknesses. However, enemy HP and resistances still scale faster than your ability to deal damage. Just want to reiterate - a blasting wilder isn't neccessarily dead-on-arrival. Make sure you have two or three more generic powers (take Expanded Knowledge if you need to), and you should be fine. It's not the most mechanically optimized choice, but you're not shooting yourself in the foot either. Think of it as "softening up enemies for the fighters" or "enabling great cleave" rather than as "I'm going to kill you with my mind".
narfi78 06-13-07, 04:57 PM	I could have, and would have asked in my first post if I had realized that there might be a problem. I didn't continue in the first thread because my questions were no longer about Wild Surge, but the Wilder class in general. This is unfortunate, as now I have to rethink my character concept so that it can be viable. This in itself is difficult due to the fact that my character has no ability scores above 14. Thank You. On second thought, maybe I'll go through with a social/blaster and see if my DM will let me tweak my abilities.
CrimsonDeath 06-13-07, 07:54 PM	If you have no ability scores above 14, you may want to rethink playing a primary manifester in the first place. Even if you start with Cha 14 and put all your level-up bumps into Cha, you won't get a level 9 power until level 20.
narfi78 06-13-07, 08:20 PM	That problem is not lost on me, however it's a role that is not being filled by the other players, and one that I really was wanting to play. The problem is that I've always been dissatisfied with how my DM has us assign ability scores, and this time I got stuck with mediocre rolls. I just wish we could do point-buy, or use a variant that has us start weak but increase ability scores faster than normal. Oh well, I'm rambling now, and this is not your problem.
Lycanthromancer 06-13-07, 08:51 PM	If you want to make a ray-blaster, creative use of psionic disintegrate and energy conversion can seriously up your damage output later on. For instance, an Empowered, Split Psionic Ray'd psionic disintegrate can do some serious damage, even on a successful save. The problem is that psionic disintegrate doesn't scale on its DC (but it gets some nice damage). With energy conversion (if you're seriously wanting to specialize in ray-blasting), using metamorphosis on your psicrystal to turn it into something living, then sharing schism with it, then unleashing myriad Wild Surged Split Psionic Ray'd, Chain Power'd energy conversion beams can unleash 8 rays per round on your enemies, dealing truly hellacious damage if they all hit (and that's not including Greater Psionic Shot). Do the calculations yourself on how much you can do at minimum manifester level for this combo (13). AND it's the most efficient nova in existence for any caster/manifester. Don't expect that last one to get past your DM for too long, though. It can seriously be detrimental to his game, unless it's about to be a TPK (and then it's okay).
InkBlot 06-13-07, 09:45 PM	Wait, nothing above a 14? Is your highest score a 13 or a 14? If your highest score is 13 you get to reroll all your ability scores. Similarly, you get to reroll your ability scores if the sum of all your ability modifiers is 0 or lower (before adding racial modifiers or level bonuses). It's all on page 8 of The Player Handbook. Thankfully, augmentation doesn't rely on your manifesting stat. A telepath with an 11 Int can still manifest the equivalent of charm monster through augmenting psionic charm. It's looking like blasting won't be very viable. With a 14 Int, you'll have to avoid powers that give a saving throw (especially those who's saves don't augment), and conserve your power points even more than normal (since you're not getting many bonus power points).
narfi78 06-13-07, 10:29 PM	My lowest roll was a 10. My highest roll was a 14. I'm seriously going to talk with my DM about it when I'll be over at his house Friday, the day before we start this campaign. I don't necessarily have to use rays, (although I've often thought of using a ray specialist), but I'd like to play a damage dealing primary caster/manifester. Our party's going to consist of a spiked-chain wielding swashbuckler/fighter, a bard, an imagist (3rd party casting class with no offensive spells, but gets a cohort for free at 1st level) with a vow-of-poverty monk cohort, and a soulknife/bow, and me. Looking over it again, it'd probably be best to do AoE effects. I just thought that the Wilder looked cool, and the Anarchic Initiate looked really cool (as long as the entry requirements are tweaked). I just got the idea for this crazy little gnome Wild/Chaos Surging and creating Wild Magic zones with his erratic mood swings.