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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scion" data-source="post: 2302118" data-attributes="member: 5777">hey nail <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=";)" />Leaving the issue of summon monster aside for the moment (it tends to have less direct power and instead a huge range of options that the ac cant hope to compete with, and the cleric guy by default is way behind even the wizard for summon monsters anyway).Astral constructs, are they too powerful as written?They do tend to be pretty tough in the direct combatant department, but that is their sole job. Saying simply, 'they are too good at it' is just as useful as saying, 'healing spells are too good at it' or 'swords are too good at dealing damage'.Now, obviously you have seen them in play (I have as well for that matter, all the way up to ac 8 in fact), and have formed some opinions about them.Again, leaving aside the summon monster guy because that clouds the issue at hand, are the astral constructs too powerful as written?Now, this power has a few limitations which definately come into play.1) One round casting time. Now, sometimes this isnt a major issue, other times it is. If you need some sort of damage or blocking 'right now', then the power is useless. If you are in a position where people can disrupt your power somehow then it is a big risk. If you are slowed then it takes this power mostly out of the equation (I mention this mainly because I have seen it be an issue in a few very important encounters).While it isnt all encompassing it definately is an issue that needs to be tossed out there.2) Shaper only power. Now, this is also a pretty serious issue. I know that some people like to dismiss this out of hand, that is a major error. A major limiting factor in picking psionic powers is that many of the spells that mages take for granted are distributed into these little disciplines. The part that matters for this discussion is that having this power means that they gave up other things. They are a specialist and so dont have access to 5 other disciplines or they spent a feat to gain it. Both of those are big issues.Effectively this means that the psion who chooses this discipline is in a class specialized in doing such things. Specialists 'should' be stronger in their area of specialty than others who are not specialized.3) Only one construct in a single manifestation. Sometimes having only a single bruiser simply isnt good enough.4) Small list of abilities to choose from and very few to pick. Each construct only gets 1 pick (until 9th). A higher list ability can be turned in for 2 of the next lower list in order to gain more abilities, but then you have to pick from generally weaker abilities.5) Dispel magic, dispel psionics, dismiss ectoplasm, dissipator weapon, suppression weapon, antimagic field, etc.. Sometimes they just dont stick around long. Spending your whole round getting one only to have it and your party hit by an area dispel kindof sucks. Albiet, this is a fairly minor issue at times, it definately comes into play.With all of this the constructs were made pretty rough and tumble. They take a ton of pp to keep up in effectivness for the level of bad guys that you go up against and should be treated as such.Looking back at summon monsters briefly they tend to have a lot of out of combat options or options in combat that the constructs can never get. They each have different strengths and weaknesses. Typcially the construct is deadlier in direct melee combat (but not always) but it is definately much weaker in other areas.Again though, as for my first question, going by monsters (since the constructs are mostly useless outside of combat) of appropriate CR's and the expenditure of pp (same CR against party means roughly 20% resources spent to overcome) and time (1 round action) are the astral constructs too powerful?I'd love to see some examples given about how they are too strong/weak. Making up actual constructs for given situations. This sort of thing has to be done a large number of times in different ways to give a good overview though, not many are willing to put in that sort of time.So far it sounds like nail has had issues with ac's being more powerful than summon monsters, I am not sure if this means he thinks that the ac's are too powerful, summons are too weak, or some combination of the two. I have seen ac's and summon monsters used quite a bit and have had no serious issues with the ac (the biggest issue with the summon monsters is that they are very rarely good in direct melee combat, but their other tactical options are very impressive).</blockquote>

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