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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 446041" data-attributes="member: 3051">And while ACs are tunable the wide variety of SM makes it fairly tunable itself.  ACs are focussed on mellee combat which is cool the thing is SM at quite a few elvels has high CR monsters made for a fight.Ironically, I've found the opposite; Summon Monster has more brute-force melee combat (like you pointed out, they have a big HP advantage), but far less variety.  I mean, looking at the table, there are only maybe 3 creatures per alignment per spell level.  That doesn't give you too much choice.  A friend of mine played a Wizard who used SM a lot, and it was almost always the same..."Dire Bear, Dire Bear, Dire Bear... maybe a Formian this time... Dire Bear..."(levle 3 AC still have 10hp they were on something there)No kidding.  Level 3s have too few HPs.  Level 4s only get one Table 2 ability.  My character pretty much jumped straight from 2s to 5s.It's the size category.  1-3 are Medium, then they go Large, and it makes all the difference.   Being constructs they do have some valuable abilities, but fiendish/celestial is fairly solid in itselfI'd still rather have Construct.  Too many celestial/fiendish abilities scale with HD (their DR, SR, resistances), so until you get to the highest summons you're not gaining a huge amount.  And, being totally immune to all the unusual stuff (poisons, mind-affecting spells, critical hits, etc.) to me is much stronger; I can use spells to protect them from the other stuff.I'm not sure about maximize or fortify the HP of a AC, even if it did work generaly just summoning the higher level AC would net you close to as many HP, and enough other stuff not to amke it worth it.  One: it does work, AFAIK, cuz I think Piratecat did it when the Trillith killed two of his players with maximized constructs.  Since they were betatesting the psionics rules at the time I'm guessing that's how it works.  Besides, it makes sense.Two: metamagic works differently for psions than for other classes; instead of "must use high-level spell slot" it's "total cost must be less than or equal to your caster level".  My character took a PrC that continued to raise his manifester level without giving higher-level spell slots.  So, at level 20 I might only be able to cast 7th-level powers (Mass Cocoon!), but I'll be able to throw a lot of metamagic on.Three: I didn't take each AC spell.  Just three of them so far; any more would be a waste of slots.  So, maybe I'd prefer an AC7 to a double-fortified AC5, but I don't know the AC7 power.But overall you're right, you're better off just summoning a bigger AC (until you hit level 20 and can Fortify AC9)Astral taskers are cool though.  That was my favorite minds eye yet, really helped the shaper which I love. I jsut hope I get to play again(instead of dming) sometime so I can play one. They're fun.  I summon a Tasker 1 every day to be my assistant; I call him "Spot".  Also, notice that taskers get DR and such; they're surprisingly survivable.The one really upsetting thing for me was the Shadow Mind.  I look at the class, and think, "This is perfect!  It's exactly the sort of character I wanted to make."  Until I see the part where all items they make are Subpsionic items.  Since my character makes a living running a magic shop, that wouldn't work.</blockquote>

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