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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scion" data-source="post: 2307358" data-attributes="member: 5777">Actually, you can. If you choose not to then there is already a problem.And here is the problem. It does not beg this question, the question you just possed is completely irrelevant at the time being. Hence why I said to ignore it. The question you just possed clouds the point I was making and tosses in things akin to, 'well, fireball does fire damage and a lot of it, comparing it to cone of cold, which does no fire damage at all, fireball is completely overpowered! up to 10d6 of fire damage vs 0 fire damage! unbalanced!'The spell and the power are aimed at different things. Ac is based on being able to stand up in melee and effectively nothing else. The summons dont do very well in melee generally (some do, some do incredible jobs in melee in fact but that isnt the point), so if you compare a specialist power that does one thing to a generalist spell which does many things but not merely the one thing they other can do.. I am sure that everyone can see the problem with comparing the two for only melee combat.If not I'll try again. If we compare two things, one which is good in a narrow band of situations and another that is good in a wide range of situations then I will expect the first to win out in its emphasis nearly 100% of the time. If it doesnt then something is wrong.After that, coming in and saying that the first is broken because it beats the second just doesnt make any sense.Now, now nail.. this is beneath you. It is relevant as a balancing point for the power in general. Which is part of the question I was asking. Also, as I said ignoring the summons as much as possible, yet again bringing point number 1 to bear.It is a very important balancing feature. The manifestor leaves himself unable to do anything until his next turn. During which time nothing has happened and his power may be disrupted. Sure, you wont always be disrupted, but again nothing has happened until just before his next action. This means that any other single action power could've been used instead to gain some other more immediate benefit. Definately a major balancing point.Being put even further behind on the resource list. Really, the amount of resource investment that is being either ignored or tossed aside here is staggering.The cleric has so many other benefits far outstripping the psion that it is incredible to even think that the cleric would need something else above and beyond the psion.The cleric already gets a free scaling version of summon monster, more so than the psion. The cleric gets domains for more abilities and whole extra lists of spells that might generally be out of his reach. Better hd. Better BAB. Better saves. More abilities. More casting potential. Better heals. Better party buffs. Armor proficiency.So, the cleric doesnt even have to spend a feat to get the 'freely heightened' version of summon monster. The tradeoff for them is that they can only summon certain alignments.Who is behind the power curve in this comparison again?But they are, for what they were meant to do. Going back to the earth elemental they arent terribly dissimilar, but the construct comes out ahead in direct melee.. of course the elemental has other benefits (such as earth glide). So even while being behind in one area the elemental is ahead in others.and a 33% chance of being 3, and a 33% chance of being 2, or a 66% chance of being higher than 1, or an average of 2.The 'option' is there for one while it is not there for the other. If you feel that the option should be better complain to the summon monster powers that be to make it better, dont go around nerfing everything else.Yes I have, and if you will be kind enough to read I even mentioned the trade (it is mentioned in the very next sentence of what you quoted strangely enough.It is a small list of abilities, the summon monster list is orders of magnitude larger. Even failing that however the number of choices one can get is very small. For AC 1, 2, and 3 they only get a single choice of the A list. That is it. I'd definately call that a limited selection. Even after that, say AC 4, 5, 6, they only get one choice of B or two from A. Generally speaking the higher level lists are better, so you can get two lower level abilities instead of a higher one. Good for options, sometimes bad for power.While it is customizeable to a good degree it still sucks for the constructs, they dont have a lot of options.Going back to the summon monsters pretty much all of them have a good amount of resistances, some amount of SR, Damage reduction pretty early on, smite of some kind, and various other abilities that all come standard. Each one gets a lot more in the 'stuff' category but less ability to pick and choose. Which of those two choices is stronger depends on the who gets what of course and the situation one is in. But, given that, it is very possible for the summoning to come out way ahead and in fact it does pretty often for this sort of thing.For the first I'll just say, says you. But, even with that, dispel magic tends to be common enough that it is all that is needed. Failing that however in any game which actually has psionics incorporated (not a difficult task, no more difficult than adding stuff from any other book, and it is designed to lend itself to this easily) will see some of the others.Still, it is just one thing on the list. It is a hinderance, it is a balancing point, and it is completely unimportant if it effects both equally well.Yeah, the summoner isnt playing to his strengths very well.I only say this because trying to fit a round peg into a square hole doesnt work very well. Like the example above if someone starts complaining that their cone of cold doesnt deal enough fire damage (something it isnt designed to do at all to begin with) that doesnt suddenly mean that fireball is overpowered or that cone of cold is underpowered.If a caster type wants his summons to do something that they are not very good at then that sounds like prc territory to me. Give up a few feats, and maybe some caster levels, and pop out with much more impressive summons.If this is the same summoner that was mentioned before (the cleric) then it is no wonder there is some difference going on, if you cut out over half of your options then you should be weaker in that department. Especially considering the base class that the person is coming from.If the specialist who is behind in every/nearly every other way (and incredibly so as compared with the cleric) isnt leaps and bounds ahead in his area of emphasis then something is seriously wrong.Second, if the comparison is going with one persons strengths and against the second persons then there is zero reason to change either one to make them the same.Once again though, the question is, 'are the astral constructs too powerful as written?' and not 'are they too powerful as compared with summon monster?'. At least as far as I have written. If we do the second question first then we 'still' have to answer the first, if we answer the first then the second question is unimportant. I see no reason to try to answer both when only one is needed.</blockquote>

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