Astral Construct vs. Shadow

azhrei_fje

First Post
In a nutshell, can an astral construct hit an incorporeal shadow without a miss chance?

It seems like the answer should be "no", as they are ectoplasm and not a force effect, but I thought there might be other factors at work.

Note that this question is from a campaign without magic-psionics transparency. (Although having an SR gives a creature PR=SR-10 and having a PR gives a creature SR=PR-10.)
 

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Sadly, an astral construct cannot even injure an incorporeal foe at all, because its attacks are merely treated as magic for purposes of overcoming dr, while an incorporeal enemy requires an actual +1 enhancement bonus or greater to injure.

Assuming you are able to augment its natural attacks (say a druid casts magic fang on it), the 50% miss chance would still apply.
 

If you give it Concussion, yes (as it's a Force Effect). Otherwise, not so much. I'd need to look more closely to see if Energy Bolt or Energy Touch could do the job.
 

Sadly, an astral construct cannot even injure an incorporeal foe at all, because its attacks are merely treated as magic for purposes of overcoming dr, while an incorporeal enemy requires an actual +1 enhancement bonus or greater to injure.

Where does it state that an astral construct's attacks are treated as "magical" for overcoming DR?

I might have missed it but I didn't see it under the astral construct entry nor is it an ability of the contruct type. They are immune to criticals though.
 

Where does it state that an astral construct's attacks are treated as "magical" for overcoming DR?

I might have missed it but I didn't see it under the astral construct entry nor is it an ability of the contruct type. They are immune to criticals though.

It's a factor of the critter having DR/Magic, itself. Only applies after a certain point, though.
 

Sadly, an astral construct cannot even injure an incorporeal foe at all, because its attacks are merely treated as magic for purposes of overcoming dr, while an incorporeal enemy requires an actual +1 enhancement bonus or greater to injure.

Assuming you are able to augment its natural attacks (say a druid casts magic fang on it), the 50% miss chance would still apply.
Wow, good catch. I hadn't noticed that at all.

So I have the Ectopic Form feat (Irridescent Serpent), so that my constructs can always have an energy effect. I usually choose fire or electricity, but cold and sonic are available also. Since energy attacks bypass DR, those attacks would work, right? And can those attacks be performed using a melee touch attack instead of the constructs normal Slam attack? (I'm just thinking the AC might be better for a touch attack.)

If you give it Concussion, yes (as it's a Force Effect). Otherwise, not so much. I'd need to look more closely to see if Energy Bolt or Energy Touch could do the job.
I looked at the Energy-type powers and it's not clear at all. While they are manifested through the mental power of the psionicist, they appear to be true elements. Like fire, for example. In a normal game, that would make them magical energy attacks, I suppose, but since this game is not using magic-psionics transparency, I'm at a bit of a loss here. :(

Before last night's game session ended, I told the GM that I wanted to fire 3 or 4 energy ray effects at the shadows and evaluate how well they did. The GM now has a week to think about it before the question comes up again. :)

The "do Energy-type powers bypass DR" is actually a pretty important question for this campaign, since I expect we'll be meeting a lot of shadows and similar creatures. And I have a few dorjes loaded with these effects as well.

Thanks for your input so far. I'm fairly new to playing psionics (this is only the second time I've played one and the first was a soulknife many years ago).
 


Wow, good catch. I hadn't noticed that at all.

So I have the Ectopic Form feat (Irridescent Serpent), so that my constructs can always have an energy effect. I usually choose fire or electricity, but cold and sonic are available also. Since energy attacks bypass DR, those attacks would work, right? And can those attacks be performed using a melee touch attack instead of the constructs normal Slam attack? (I'm just thinking the AC might be better for a touch attack.)

Be careful with the ectopic feats.

Your astral constructs don't get those abilities in addition to the normal astral construct you get to manifest that type of astral construct (as specified in the table). So you can't mix and match abiltities. Basically the ectopic form feats give more abilities albeit much more focused than would a standard astral construct. IMO they are generally not worth the cost of a feat because of this, if it was in addition to the normal mix abilities then it would be but it is not.


I looked at the Energy-type powers and it's not clear at all. While they are manifested through the mental power of the psionicist, they appear to be true elements. Like fire, for example. In a normal game, that would make them magical energy attacks, I suppose, but since this game is not using magic-psionics transparency, I'm at a bit of a loss here. :(

It doesn't matter if you are using magic-psionic transparency or not.

Psionics are handled like magic. The difference when using transparency is that SR and PR and dispel magic and dispel psionics work equally well against magic and psionics.

DR only works against: weapons, natural weapons and unarmed attacks. It does not affect poisons or diseases.

But note that whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack like injury poison and injury disease.

Before last night's game session ended, I told the GM that I wanted to fire 3 or 4 energy ray effects at the shadows and evaluate how well they did. The GM now has a week to think about it before the question comes up again. :)

The "do Energy-type powers bypass DR" is actually a pretty important question for this campaign, since I expect we'll be meeting a lot of shadows and similar creatures. And I have a few dorjes loaded with these effects as well.


This is a power and is treated like a spell for this type of effect since it is not a weapon, etc.
 

Be careful with the ectopic feats.

Your astral constructs don't get those abilities in addition to the normal astral construct you get to manifest that type of astral construct (as specified in the table). So you can't mix and match abiltities. Basically the ectopic form feats give more abilities albeit much more focused than would a standard astral construct. IMO they are generally not worth the cost of a feat because of this, if it was in addition to the normal mix abilities then it would be but it is not.
Wow, so you think that using those feats to create an astral construct produces a "non-normal" construct in terms of not being able to combine, for example, the Boost Construct feat to give it an extra choice from one of the menus? Or when you say "mix and match abilities" are you referring to something else? (Maybe there's missing punctuation in that first sentence? ;) )

(Edit: Maybe I've figured out what you mean. The text says,
CompPsiHbk said:
Benefit: The astral constructs you create using this feat vary in appearance and talents.

Special: You can gain Ectopic Form multiple times. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new form of astral construct. You can only apply one of the following feats to each astral construct you create. When you use this feat, refer to the preconstructed astral constructs of particular kinds on pages 121-128.
So you're saying that multiple Ectopic Form feats cannot be combined on a single construct, but other feats (like Boost Construct) can still be used on constructs created using Ectopic Form. Right? For me this is fine, since my PC isn't going to take Ectopic Form again, but you're right that it's pretty limiting.)

Thanks a bunch for your insight! I'll have to go back and re-read the description of the Ectopic Form feat(s) and see if maybe I missed something.
 
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Auxiliary question: if an astral construct has an energy attack (such as via the Ectopic Form (Irridescent Serpent) feat, their slam attack does an additional 1d6 of energy damage.

Do they have to use a slam attack or can they use a melee touch?
 

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