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View Full Version : New Astral Construct Feats [3.5, PEACH]



Violet Octopus
2010-07-27, 11:13 PM
I've had astral constructs on the brain, and wanted to combine them with other alternate magic systems. So far I've only got the Incarnum ones to a presentable state, but I hope to make more for ToB, shadow, and pact magic, as well as expanded menu choices. Pact magic is tricky because of its mechanical similarity to incarnum, and I'd appreciate suggestions for that, as well as criticism for these.

MANIFESTING CONSTRUCT [PSIONIC]
You can imbue your astral constructs with psi-like abilities.
Prerequisites: Know the astral construct power, Boost Construct
Benefit: When manifesting astral construct, you can expend your psionic focus to augment the power in the following way:

Augment: By spending X power points, you can imbue the astral construct with the ability to manifest one of your known powers once as a psi-like ability. This power must cost X power points.
The power you imbue the astral construct with can itself be an augmented one, additionally if you have a second psionic focus (such as through the Psicrystal Containment feat), the power can have a metapsionic feat applied to it.
The manifester level of the astral construct's psi-like ability is equal to X, and its DC is that of the power imbued, using the construct's Cha modifier (generally +0).
For example, Jenny, an 8th-level shaper, manifests astral construct and expends her psionic focus. She spends 2 power points augmenting it to a 2nd-level astral construct, and 5 more giving it the ability to manifest mind thrust once. At some point during its existence, the astral construct can manifest mind thrust, dealing 5d10 damage on a failed Will save (DC 13)
Later that day she manifests astral construct again, this time with her trusty psicrystal adjacent to her. She expends both psionic foci and augments the power by 7 power points, granting the astral construct one use of quickened psionic grease.

COBALT CONSTRUCT [PSIONIC, INCARNUM]
You can invest soul energy in your astral constructs, awakening extra abilities.
Prerequisites: Know the astral construct power, essentia pool of 1 or greater
Benefit: When manifesting astral construct, you can invest essentia in it as part of the same action.This invested essentia grants the construct additional special abilities. Menu A abilities cost 1 essentia each, Menu B abilities cost 2 each, and Menu C abilities cost 3 each. You can only use this feat to give astral constructs abilities from a menu it already has an ability from, or from a lower menu.
For example, if you create a 7th level astral construct (which has one ability from Menu C), you could invest 3 essentia to give it another Menu C ability, or a Menu A and a Menu B ability. However, if you traded the Menu C ability that normally comes with a 7th-level astral construct for two Menu B abilities, you could only invest essentia to gain more Menu A or B abilities.
Once invested, these essentia cannot be reassigned, but return to your essentia pool when the construct is destroyed, dispelled, or its duration expires.
When you use this feat, your manifested astral construct has a silver-blue appearance, and while it doesn't become intelligent or gain speech, it displays echoes of personality in its movements and behaviour.

CONSTRUCT SOULMELD [PSIONIC, INCARNUM]
You can link your soul with your astral constructs, and transfer soulmelds to them
Prerequisites: Know the astral construct power, Cobalt Construct, ability to shape soulmelds
Benefit: When you manifest astral construct, you can transfer one of your shaped soulmelds and any essentia currently invested it to the created astral construct. You lose all benefits of the soulmeld, but the astral construct gains them.
You cannot use this ability to transfer a soulmeld bound to one of your chakras.
The soulmeld and any invested essentia return to you when the duration of the astral construct power expires. If the astral construct is destroyed or dispelled, you still regain the essentia and soulmeld, but you take damage equal to 1d6 + 1d6/essentia invested. You are sharing part of your soul with the astral construct, and are thus vulnerable to its demise.
Special: If you use this feat in conjunction with Cobalt Construct, the astral construct may not reassign essentia between those powering its extra special abilities and its soulmeld.

zagan
2010-07-28, 01:29 PM
All very good feat, I'm personnaly a fan of this power myself.

Manifesting construct is very nice and remind me a lot of link power so it seem balanced.

Cobalt construct idea is interesting but it seem inferior to boost construct because for this one you don't need to "pay" anything (in this case invest essentia). Unless you can invest 3 essentia to get 3 menu A power in that case it's good but it's not clear that you can do that.

Construct soulmeld, typo in the prereq you use cerulean construct instead of cobalt. The idea is very nice but I'm not fan of the damage considering you lose the benefit of your soulmeld for the duration.

Idea for the other "magic system":

Pact: A feat that allow to grant an ability from a vestige to the construct in exchange you can't use it until the construct is destroyed. (very close to construct soulmeld but it fit)

ToB:
-You can grant a stance to the construct but you can use it in the meantime.
-You can use a boost on the construct inteast of yourself
-You can use a strike but it's the construct that deliver it.

Shadow: I don't know enough about that to really help but perhaps granting the dark template to the construct ?

Hope that help.

Prime32
2010-07-28, 04:29 PM
Pact: A feat that allow to grant an ability from a vestige to the construct in exchange you can't use it until the construct is destroyed. (very close to construct soulmeld but it fit)If Cobalt Construct was modified so that you could change the amount of essentia invested each round but you lost the invested essentia when it was destroyed...

Maybe added an Ectopic Form feat or menu item which turned the construct into a weapon...

You now have an Oversoul. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLQy6O3Yy2s)

Violet Octopus
2010-07-29, 10:10 AM
All very good feat, I'm personnaly a fan of this power myself.

Manifesting construct is very nice and remind me a lot of link power so it seem balanced.

Cobalt construct idea is interesting but it seem inferior to boost construct because for this one you don't need to "pay" anything (in this case invest essentia). Unless you can invest 3 essentia to get 3 menu A power in that case it's good but it's not clear that you can do that.

Construct soulmeld, typo in the prereq you use cerulean construct instead of cobalt. The idea is very nice but I'm not fan of the damage considering you lose the benefit of your soulmeld for the duration.

Idea for the other "magic system":

Pact: A feat that allow to grant an ability from a vestige to the construct in exchange you can't use it until the construct is destroyed. (very close to construct soulmeld but it fit)

ToB:
-You can grant a stance to the construct but you can use it in the meantime.
-You can use a boost on the construct inteast of yourself
-You can use a strike but it's the construct that deliver it.

Shadow: I don't know enough about that to really help but perhaps granting the dark template to the construct ?

Hope that help.
Hadn't seen Linked Power. That makes me less worried about Manifesting Construct. Though disappointed that my mechanic is nowhere near as original as I'd thought. :smalltongue:

Yes, Cobalt Construct lets you get more than one extra ability if you put in enough essentia. Altering the wording to make that clearer.

Thanks for noticing the slipup on Construct Soulmeld's prerequisite. That's what I get for a last-minute namechange. Once I look through Magic of Incarnum and check that nothing's too scary on an astral construct, I may drop the damaging part of Construct Soulmeld. It's not a hefty amount of damage though, and I like it for flavour reasons. I could change it to nonlethal.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking with pact magic, but it is very similar to Construct Soulmeld. I also don't want to suspend the character's vestige abilities - the way I see it it's like the binder/psion is creating another thing the vestige can experience existence through, so

ToB: granting maneuvers to the construct is the way to go, but the specific implementation eludes me. I do like the idea of "you can use boosts on the construct" though.

Dark template would make a good prerequisite shadow feat for the idea I'm toying with: since shadowcasters get so few mysteries per day, a feat that lets them put a self-buffing mystery they know on the construct without expending it. But I need to work out how balanced it is, whether I'd need to put in some power point expenditure or not.


If Cobalt Construct was modified so that you could change the amount of essentia invested each round but you lost the invested essentia when it was destroyed...

Maybe added an Ectopic Form feat or menu item which turned the construct into a weapon...

You now have an Oversoul. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLQy6O3Yy2s)

I take it you refer to the people summoning giant weapons? That feels like something psychic warriors should do. Could make an extra augmentation option for call weaponry...

Alternately it's just the sort of outlandish thing soulknives ought to be able to do at higher levels. Perhaps a mini-martial discipline that requires a mindblade or incarnum weapon.

Prime32
2010-07-29, 11:16 AM
I take it you refer to the people summoning giant weapons? That feels like something psychic warriors should do. Could make an extra augmentation option for call weaponry...At the start of the series the characters allow ghosts to control their bodies, later on they learn them to channel them into thematically-appropriate objects to create physical constructs. Weapon-shaped ones are the most common (particularly since most of the main characters use weapons as mediums) but there are others which resemble giant versions of the spirit, sometimes with exaggerated features. There's one guy who impersonates a vampire by channeling bat spirits with blood as a medium to create an Oversoul shaped like a cape (he can even "turn" people by injecting blood into them and controlling the blood).

zagan
2010-07-29, 03:55 PM
Hadn't seen Linked Power. That makes me less worried about Manifesting Construct. Though disappointed that my mechanic is nowhere near as original as I'd thought. :smalltongue:

I was sure that you know about it seeing the wording the only real difference is that with link power they take effect one after the other in consecutive round while with your you can delay a little waiting for the right time but it run the risk of having the construct destroyes before hand. It's probably well balanced and it allow you to manifest personal range power on the construct wich can probably be usefull.


Yes, Cobalt Construct lets you get more than one extra ability if you put in enough essentia. Altering the wording to make that clearer.

In that case it's a great but seing the rarity of essentia it's probably balanced particulary on a multiclass character.


Thanks for noticing the slipup on Construct Soulmeld's prerequisite. That's what I get for a last-minute namechange. Once I look through Magic of Incarnum and check that nothing's too scary on an astral construct, I may drop the damaging part of Construct Soulmeld. It's not a hefty amount of damage though, and I like it for flavour reasons. I could change it to nonlethal.

Non-lethal is probably a good middle point, I'm not sure.


Yeah, that's what I was thinking with pact magic, but it is very similar to Construct Soulmeld. I also don't want to suspend the character's vestige abilities - the way I see it it's like the binder/psion is creating another thing the vestige can experience existence through, so

Good point from a fluff perspective, but I'm not sure it's balance because it double your ability to use the granted ability particulary those with 5 round recharge time.


ToB: granting maneuvers to the construct is the way to go, but the specific implementation eludes me. I do like the idea of "you can use boosts on the construct" though.

I though a bit more about that here's my idea in more detail:

Transfer strike (tentative name)
(fluff)
Prereq: (not sure apart from knowing the power and at least one maneuver, concentration rank)
Benefit: You may expand your psionic focus (a free action) and iniate a strike maneuver and have your astral construct deliver it in your place. The construct must be able to attack, charge or act in any of the way required by the strike. (need to work on the wording, basically it allow you to use strike at range)

Share stances:
(fluff)
Prereq: (again not sure)
Benefit: When manifesting astral construct, you can expend your psionic focus to augment the power in the following way:

Augment: By spending 2 (?) power point you can have the astral construct share the benefit and penality of the stances you are currently using, if you change stances the construct does the sames.
(not sure on this one)



Dark template would make a good prerequisite shadow feat for the idea I'm toying with: since shadowcasters get so few mysteries per day, a feat that lets them put a self-buffing mystery they know on the construct without expending it. But I need to work out how balanced it is, whether I'd need to put in some power point expenditure or not.

Don't know much about shadow magic but spending power point seem reasonable.