Psywar vs Psion

[woodenbandman]

I'm trying to build a gestalt character for Operation shoestring's no core game, and I can't decide between Wilder and Psychic Warrior. Here's the build:

Pixie Warblade5/Bloodstorm Blade1//Other Class 6. Character creation rules linked for your convenience: http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=15412169

Feats: Dodge^b, Weapon Finesse^b, Throw Anything^b, Force of Personality, Rapid Shot, Ironheart Aura^b, Stormguard Warrior, Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Two Weapon Fighting.

A psychic warrior would give me tasty tasty feats, which I would greatly appreciate because I am trying out my gatling shuriken cannon build that I proposed a while ago. Also I wouldn't have to spend a feat on expanded knowledge to learn Compression.

On the other hand, Wilder has ridiculous charisma synergy and a much higher number of power points per day. They also get the tasty wild surge for free augmentation, and I can boost it even further. My charisma right now can reach all the way up to 24.

I can't put anything less than a full BAB class on my warblade side, because it'll delay BSB entry, which will in turn delay my gatling shuriken shenantics.

Help me decide: Wilder, or Psychic Warrior.

[PhaedrusXY]

Why not a Psion?  They have Int synergy with the Warblade, almost as many bonus feats as the Psiwarrior until you get to the higher levels, and have Int-based manifesting. The lack of BAB and crappy HD won't matter, either, for a gestalt build.

[Lycanthromancer]

In gestalt, I'd see about going with psion or psychic warrior. Wilder is such a crappy class it's not even funny.

Even if you go psion, just spend 200 xp per level of the power you want to learn, and toss it on. Or take Expanded Knowledge. Or grab the feat leech power and suck someone else's EK feat. Or any of a number of other ways to grab a power (sticks, stones, tattoos, etc).

You'll get more pp as a psion, more powers than either psion or psywar, you get bonus feats 1/5 levels, and gestalting will cover over all of its weaknesses.

[Samb]

wilder is different but hardly crappy. The educated variant is the very decent. I've started a wilder handbook but I think for gestalt a psion is better. For traditional PC I'd say wilder is very servicable as any role provded you know what you are doing.

[veekie]

I'd go for psion or psychic warrior, depending on how closely you're bound to the options you presented. Egotist or Nomad has some nice options for gestalt warblades.

If you're playing Wilder, I hope you got the Psychic Enervation thing dealt with.

[Operation Shoestring]

I did very nicely allow switching to CHA based manifesting at cost of a feat.  And there are no Wilders in Cantios.  Cantiosans don't believe in silly!gimped classes.  (there are no Soulknives or Monks either).

I should really get back to writing the setting, but finding a serious, non-snarky way to explain that "everything ebberon does with magic items/machines, we do with incarnum/psionic items machines"... eh.

I kinda want to have incarnum powered magic carpets, but i just know the players will discover a way to abuse them....

[woodenbandman]

Hmm... Well there's no real benefit for that unless I do psychic warrior, since my charisma is marginally higher than my wisdom. Int and Cha are interchangeable.

Okay, new contest is between Psion and Psychic Warrior. I do need and want feats, especially Fighter feats, which Psychic Warrior gives me. All Psion gives are psionic feats. On the other hand, Psion gets much more powers and I can pull double duty rather than just fighter duty.

Egoist would be good except the polymorph line is banned. Does get Hustle, though. Nomad... is ehh. Telepath sounds fun.

Help guys which do I chose?

[Lycanthromancer]

Hey, Shoestring, are 3rd party sources up for grabs? He could use my psionic powers revision.

[DavidWL]

I agree with the others  go Psion.

Also, given the rules of the game, it is a no-brainer to take a +2 LA template.  (you only have to give up 4 points from your point buy).

Best,
David

[woodenbandman]

Unfortunately phrenic is banned. Would've been hot, though.

[DavidWL]

Unfortunately phrenic is banned. Would've been hot, though.

Half Celestial?  Shadow Creature?  Saint?  Petal? ...

[Samb]

I'd go for psion or psychic warrior, depending on how closely you're bound to the options you presented. Egotist or Nomad has some nice options for gestalt warblades.

If you're playing Wilder, I hope you got the Psychic Enervation thing dealt with.

All addressed in the wilder handbook.  Not complete, but not like wilder was in that much demand to begin with.  Pswar vs wilder is addressed in there as well.  Please refer at your convenience.

[veekie]

Well, I do love the wilder, it's just the damned Enervation...

[Samb]

Well, I do love the wilder, it's just the damned Enervation...

Think about what wild surge does and compare that to it's side effects. Even at +6 it still has a 70% chance of working great. The fact that the extra PP is paid for as well makes 30% chance of daze for one round seem like small potatoes.  I personally feel 15% is worth the risk even though cvazi recommends to stop at wild surge +2.

If you want to find ways around ennervation then take a look at the handbook, it has all you need to get started. 

[PhaedrusXY]

The nail in the coffin for me was the fact that the PP loss scales with Wilder class level, not how much you surge for, or your manifester level. So it is in your best interest to get out of the class ASAP and into a PrC.

Add in the fact that you have to take Expanded Knowledge to gain access to any discipline powers, and you get no bonus feats (even though you need to take like eleventeen Expanded Knowledges not to suck), and you're a level behind Psions and Ardents on power aquisition, and the Wilder makes it near the bottom of the "worst designed classes in all of D&D" for me. It is amazing that the same book that brought us the Psion and Psiwarrior also brought us the Soulknife and Wilder. The latter two are basically the bastard step-children of psionics.

[Samb]

Wild surge pays for augmentations, and when you really count it out the PP useage is the same over 20 manifestations or even com out ahead if you are lucky.  Did you expect to get free ML for no risk whatsoever?

Just to keep the math simple, say you use wild surge +2 at level 18 wilder, ten times. You get 18 free PP from your surge and 18 lose from ennervation. That's breaking even at level 18! At lower levels you would come out ahead in the long run.  And trust me, that extra ML makes a noticable difference.   

How bout this? A level 19 wilder will manifest with wild surge +6 for a 30% chance of ennervation.  So when you want to manifest a 9th level power as if you were a 25th wilder, you would lose 15 PP over 10 such manifesting. 15 PP at level 19 is laughable.  And that is from using a surge way out of the recommended range.

 Mind's eye has already addressed the need for EK by introducing the educated variant.  In exchange for volitile mind you get a free EK instead. Psywar can't manisfest anything above 6th and have no PP to speak of even if you have a non suringing wilder. With a surging wilder you get bonuses to your damage and attack as well, putting you higher than a psywar.  Main thing psywar gets are feats which the wilder makes up for with more PP, higher ML, and higher level powers.

Don't knock it till you try it. 

[Operation Shoestring]

Hey, Shoestring, are 3rd party sources up for grabs? He could use my psionic powers revision.

Isn't that desrigned to brin up psioics to be more even with magic?  the point in my campaign is kinda that psionics < magic, but the players are gestalt to make up for the fact that Arcane/divine > Incarnum/psionics/tob.

[veekie]

Naw, I don't mind the pp loss, that's a fair wager, though it'd have been nice if that scaled with the amount you surged for. It's the dazing, slim odds as it is.
It works, I know, even at high levels, played enough of them to be sure of that. It's pretty good if you've got Cognizance Crystals to take up the slack, near the end of a busy day.
No skin off my nose if the pp hit brings me below 0, when I use it to make my very last 20pp count for far more than they should. And then continue like nothing happened with my Cog Crystals(or Metamind, if I'm feeling masochistic)

If you're meleeing though, you'd want the feats over the risk of dazing. I'd not like to be the Wilder dazed on a bad surge. Powers augment freely anyway, so not having 9th level powers is less crippling than not having 9th level spells. Your 1st level powers can be augmented to effectively 9th anyway.

[Lycanthromancer]

Hey, Shoestring, are 3rd party sources up for grabs? He could use my psionic powers revision.

Isn't that desrigned to brin up psioics to be more even with magic?  the point in my campaign is kinda that psionics < magic, but the players are gestalt to make up for the fact that Arcane/divine > Incarnum/psionics/tob.

It's not so much that it brings psionics up to core magic, because I hate core magic and how stupidly broken it is.

The point in making it was that it gives psionics a lot more options, brings a lot of the more useless powers up to par and depowers the overpowered (and occasionally broken) powers down to the median baseline (both of which make all of your power choices available more-or-less equal in terms of viability), cuts out all of the abusive combos I could find (though it allows for effective combos if you play smart), reduces redundancy in having multiple powers that do the same thing, and lets psionic characters fine-tune their pp expenditure by allowing them more control over what their powers do via more augmentations and negative augments.

Tempest Stormwind (author of most of the excellently-balanced Untapped Potential) uses my powers revision and thinks it's very well-balanced, if that means anything.

However, if you do find anything unbalanced or broken therein, I'm more than willing to fix it and incorporate the fixes into the document.

[Samb]

lychan: where can I get a copy of both?

And what's a shoestring operation?

I'm gonna add a section to my wilder handbook on break even points for wilders since people are concerned about PP lose. Here's the basics chart on when your PP gain and PP lose break even:
Wild surge +1: level 19/38
Wild surge +2: level 18/36
Wild surge +3: level 17/34
Wild surge +4: level 16/32
Wild surge +5: level 15/30
Wild surge +6: level 14/24
So what this means is that wild surge +6 is useless since you get it after your break even point. But it also means that if you use the respective wild surge under your break even point you will almost always come out ahead. The easiest way to make a profit is ennervation tolerance. Which is the number after the backslash. 
This makes wild surge profitable all the way to +8 evan into epic levels.  Of course, it is advisable to take up a PrC to enhance your combat capabilites, or increase your powers known, but PP lose should not be one of them.

The daze effect from ennervation is not troublesome because there are so many ways around it. Sanctified mind makes you immune to stun and daze for the most part, quick recovery with hustle works just fine, or schism will bypass it all together.