D&D 3E/3.5 astral contruct 3.5

[James McMurray]

The hit die progression of the larger AC's is a steady 3 hit die per level. The rest of their abilities and size increases may also be chartable (I haven't checked). In the game I'm playing a Shaper in we'll hopefully make up or own X, XI, and XII contructs.

 

[Mac Callum]

I don't have the book yet.

Are these guys just tanks then? Not too much "utility"?

 

[reiella]

I'm feeling more in the "suckified" camp. It's not so much that you can only create one at a time for me. It's the whole single menu ability no matter the level (except 9, which gets 2 C menu abilities). The special abilities don't do much for me (DR 5/magic starting at 5th level, when you're a 9th level manifester? How many 9th level characters don't have access to at least a +1 weapon?)

The high ACs are quite nice, though.

Better question here is how many encounters does a 9th level character face that don't have DR/Magic piercing attacks.

I suspect it may be a reasonable enough amount to warrant its use (At least in some campaigns).

I understand both flavor (and balance) why they aren't adamantium resistance (they are after all made more or less from ectoplasm/astral goo).

 

[James McMurray]

MAc: They don't have a lot of utility uses other than being big and strong. But they didn't really have a lot of utility uses before. IME if someone wanted utility, they usually went the Summon Monster route instead.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Better question here is how many encounters does a 9th level character face that don't have DR/Magic piercing attacks.

I suspect it may be a reasonable enough amount to warrant its use (At least in some campaigns).

I understand both flavor (and balance) why they aren't adamantium resistance (they are after all made more or less from ectoplasm/astral goo).

Hmmm. I guess most of what I've been dealing with are other adventurer types.

 

[Urbanmech]

DR/Magic may be crap versus a lot of other adventurers and humanoids but it does come in handy against a lot of the 3.5 Outsiders who just have alignment based DR. Quite a few are just treated as chaotic and evil or what have you with their attacks. While the construct can't get through the alignment based DR they are quite strong for their level allowing them to do some damage vs the fiends. I don't know a single Summon Monster IX creature with a 43 Strength (well maybe the elder elementals...)

Maybe there will be a new version of the Constructor that allows for trading lower level abilities up for higher abilities and summoning multiple Astral Constructs. Or just make it a feat.

Astral Platoon (Metapsionic) If you expend your psionic focus while manafesting Astral Construct you gain 1d3 Astral Constructs rather than just one. PP cost: +0 (maybe needs to be +2 but I'm basing this off of the normally lessened power costs of metapsionics)

Astral Army (Metapsionic) Prerequisite: Astral Platoon. If you expend your psionic focus while manafesting Astral Construct you gain 1d4+1 Astral Constructs rather than just one. PP cost: +2

 

[James McMurray]

Yeah, if you fight equally levelled NPCs a lot, DR of x/magic isn't really all that useful. However, if you fight a lot of grunts, big monsters such as elementals, dire animals, etc. then DR of 3/magic probably still isn't much.

If the DM allows Extend Construction from the Mind's Eye, DR of 3/magic coupled with a psion that knows Psionic Repair Damage means constructs that stay around to fight for quite a while.

 

[James McMurray]

Urbanmech: I think it would be better just to get your DM to let you augment Astral Construct as follows:

If you pay 2pp extra, you get 1d3 constructs. If you instead pay 4pp extra you get 1d4+1 constructs. This augmentation can only be applied once.

Even adding an augmentation that stacked with itself and granted +1 construct per pick might not be abad idea. I'd want to playtest that one though, especially with Overchannel and Talented available.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Well all they are is tanks and even at that there not very good, and I guess that's my problem. Getting past protection v evil is cool, but they jsut aren't that good IMO. They have a solid AC but they frequently have less HP than medium to high level SM, and they usually do less damage as well. Heck elementals at almost all levels you can summon them would beat the crap out of a AC of the same level. And you have a ton more options with SM. About the only thing that AC can do over SM is lift more.