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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scion" data-source="post: 1774824" data-attributes="member: 5777">Nah, not selling short, merely mentioning its shortcomings. It is important not to ask it to do more than it can and summon monsters, while having issues of their own, do have a few nice advantages over the other. Hence the problem with saying that astral construct is so incredibly overpowerful as some have said (saying it is worth 3 or 4 is effectively doing so). At best it is misleading, it simply doesnt 'mean' anything except that it will make people feel it is overpowered when it isnt. I have tried to stress that it is a nice option, and good for what it was made to be good at, but it still falls short in a few areas.I still find it odd that a guy completely covered in a spider web is able to weild his thw properly, but still, sure. It doesnt matter much anyway, mainly because the spider should have zero chance of doing anything useful to the fighter. Of course, the spider does get 11 feats, maybe one of those will negate his ability to counter the aoo.So, he is entangled (likely), being attacked by a guy with a 30' reach, might get hit and poisoned (he actually might fail the save, possibly, and if he does he is in for some serious hurt), and might be grappled (if successful he probably wont be able to escape. All of this from a guy who should effectively pose him no challenge at all ::shrugs::Still an option <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />I did not say it was bad (as least I didnt mean to if I did) I said it doesnt give enough for its cost. Basically it costs two feats for what it does since the first feat mostly has no effect at all. For its cost I would think that it would help as it does, and help out where most animals have the biggest deficit, in their AC. So, making it an enhancement bonus makes it slightly worse, but giving the +4 to dex as well helps it out. I figured it was a good tradeoff.I think the feat is great, and it is likely too strong for a first teir, but given its prereqs I think it misses how powerful it should be.I said it was a factor. It is what people have told me makes the halfogre unplayable. So, I figured I would put it up on here. It is a bonus after all. It can be very nice indeed, especially in a few interesting circumstances.But, it is there. At least some of the time it will save them.Also, not always are your opponents the same level or higher. Sometimes they might even use wands. In any circumstance where the caster level is lower than a full caster of the same level you are it grows in power.So, at least some of the time it will save them. This is what matters. It is yet another benefit that can help that the astral construct does not have. Sometimes it matters more, sometimes less, but it is always there just in case.The only way the astral construct can even try is by spending a menu C ability. Although it isnt quite as good as the menu C ability it is still close, and summon monsters have it from the very beginning.::shrugs:: those are the rules of course. It would make sense that they would understand both common and language X actually. Still, who knows what the primary languages are of whatever realm they come from, assumeing that they are even 'real' to begin with.I know that you, for some reason, put a very low value on both spot and listen (as we saw in the fighter/psychic warrior thread) but personally I think they are very good indeed.Various spells that can be cast can be very nice, various skills may be used, and other nice little abilities are very good.Sure, the guys arent around very long, but their senses help them to pick up where foes are. Even if you dont know that they are there it helps greatly.Sometimes being able to have a climb speed is good, sometimes having a swim speed is good, sometimes just being able to do whatever random task you need helps.The astral construct is nonintelligent. It can only do what you tell it and so one must direct it constantly for tasks that would require thinking (strangely, combat seems to not require intelligence, what does that say about the world? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> )Of course, but then there are also spells that will hurt them specifically.Immune to some? sure, that is always cool. However, most people know what constructs are immune to anyway so know how to work around it. The lack of saves is definately a bit painful. Disintegrate? dead construct. (I dont know how common it is in your games, generally pc's in my games always have at least a couple of those sitting around 'just in case' once they get high enough to do so.. it is just too generally useful, constructs, undead, random walls, whatever)Just putting it forth as another thing that they have, but it isnt very specific. It isnt so much misleading as it is incomplete. But completing it would take hours so I was hopeing that the general and a few examples would help. I guess not.Summonings tend to have a series of specials that all of them get. SR is a pretty big one, energy resistance is another, DR is yet another, and a whole bunch of various others such as scent, constriction, various spell like abilities, whatever.. the list goes on and on (even blood drain, if that floats your boat).The astral construct three that you put up against the troll earlier has pretty much zero chance of killing the troll. Each round the troll has a good chance of simply killing it outright. The astral construct four will last for a little bit longer, but mainly only because of its 2 more points of AC. d6 +10 + d4 fire is pretty good damage, and the troll has a pretty low ac, but it is only 15.5 damage on average and the troll gets 5 back each round.Actually, for level 4 summon monster the celestial lion is pretty nice. It charges, gets an aoo from the troll (likely to hit), the lion then gets claw, claw, rake, rake, bite (attempt to grapple, if it succeeds then it gets two more rakes). As the troll is evil one of those can have an extra 5 points of damage, helping to stave off the death. If it is grappled (far from assured) then it is in a bad situation, it basically has to break off the grapple, then the lion can try again next round.It will still lose most of the time, but it can keep the troll for quite some time indeed.Against less.. difficult.. foes this lion guy might be able to pounce several times during the battle, upping the damage by a great deal that it deals. Fun times.</blockquote>

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