Psionics is both overpowered and underpowered, in almost every place and in the dumbest ways imaginable. Thanee mentions how magic and psionics have different benefits and limits. Sure, that's fine. I just don't like arbitrary, nonsensical limits, especially if they aren't needed, and especially if they're introduced after the fact.
Why is it broken to have more than one astral construct at once? They still only last round/level each manifesting, just like summon monster, and without the summonmonster option of getting multiple weaker creatures in one use. If turn length is the issue causing that CPsi change, wouldn't it make more sense to place it on the summon spells, which more easily fascilitate the problem? The "real" trade-offs between AC and SM/SNA are trading more variety in choice and number (summons) versus a slightly more powerful creature and effectively getting all 9 spell levels in one. Of course, outside of core casters got other goodies like Ice Beasts and the SpC summons that give you a single very powerful summon at the price of needing to keep concentration on it, to eat away at the more powerful benefit of AC. Those are fundamental differences based on how the systems function. Saying, "oh, you can only have one AC" is not.
As for Crystal Shard, it is stupid that powers have to deal with DR and spells do not. I don't care that psionics gives an element choice. Casters have easy access to Energy Substitution, loads of Force damage spells, and more spells known to begin with to cover their bases, all helping to counteract that advantage for psionics. They also get many ore acid spells, rarely resisted. And while psionics gets sonic as an option, it's effectively losing a dice size in the process, same as most arcane sonic blasting spells. But let's say spells w/o one of the five energy types (fire, cold, acid, electricity, sonic) did have to contend with DR as well (a horrible idea, since blasting already is weak). At least the spells are scaling in damage for free with level. The psion up until the spell hits its dice cap has to effectively burn his highest level "spell slots" (in terms of PP equivalence) in order to keep up, and if the enemy has DR, may very well have to in order to do damage at all. If you're level 10, it's punishing to blow 10 PP every time you want to damage the enemy, but if 5 PP has little chance of doing anything beyond the foe's DR, what choice do you have?
[sblock]My general opinion of psionics is that it's an awful system that exacerbates the problems faced with spellcasting even further. It's more difficult to sustain power throughout many fights, and even easier to blow through resources like mad if only facing one or two, making it much more of a pain for the DM to balance encounters and adventures. But this thread's already gone rather off-track, and that's just my opinion.[/sblock]
