Ectopic Adept worth?

[crimsonqueen]

I was looking through my brothers books for ideas and I came across the Ectopic Adept Prestige class in Complete Psionic and I was wondering if it was worth it or not? Any thoughts?

[eggs]

Its main Ectopic Ally abilities are pretty bad; its best effect is its capstone partially repealing the Astral Construct nerf implemented in the same book.

Constructor (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625b)'s usually better at what the EA does. Especially with the Personal Construct ACF (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070411a).

But if the choice is "Ectopic Adept or stock psion," EA's not a bad choice. At worst, the Standard Action manifesting is decent and the capstone is kind of nice, if you can look at it outside its context.

[crimsonqueen]

Its main Ectopic Ally abilities are pretty bad; its best effect is its capstone partially repealing the Astral Construct nerf implemented in the same book.

Constructor (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625b)'s usually better at what the EA does. Especially with the Personal Construct ACF (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070411a).

But if the choice is "Ectopic Adept or stock psion," EA's not a bad choice. At worst, the Standard Action manifesting is decent and the capstone is kind of nice, if you can look at it outside its context.

Hmmm interesting would this be a good gestalt combo?

Incarnate 15//Psion 6/Constructor 9

[eggs]

That sounds like a plan. Psionics and incarnum do good things to each other.

The one tweak you might think about is taking the Constructor dead-manifesting level on the Incarnate side, since Meldshaper levels are a bit cheaper than manifester levels.

[crimsonqueen]

That sounds like a plan. Psionics and incarnum do good things to each other.

The one tweak you might think about is taking the Constructor dead-manifesting level on the Incarnate side, since Meldshaper levels are a bit cheaper than manifester levels.

ummmm so it would look something more like this? Incarnate 14/Constructor 1//Psion 7/Constructor 8?

[Psyren]

The main issue with the class is that using it is implicit acceptance of the CPsi nerf to Astral Construct. If your group ignores that, then the only remaining issue is the Ectopic Form feat; it costs you one to enter (plus a dead feat) and repays you with two.

But is it worth it? Let's examine that feat in greater detail.

Ectopic Form basically allows you to, instead of customizing your astral construct, create a premade one with pre-selected abilities. Your tradeoff for doing this (rather than making your own) is that the AC ends up with more abilities than normal, relative to a customizable AC. But there is a caveat here - Most of these forms get multiple lower-menu items rather than the high-menu items, which means that Boost Construct will almost never be as useful for them as it is for a customizable AC.

Note there is a bit of potential cheese here - the book doesn't actually come out and say you can't choose abilities (as normal with the AC power) to add onto these forms. However, the book does say these are "predefined" which your DM could interpret to mean they can't be customized further by the power. If you can get your DM to swing the former reading then by all means these are totally worth it. If not, you can always manifest customizable ACs to use alongside these or just skip the feats altogether.

Your options are:

Agile Loper: A speedy centaur-shaped construct. Gets a nice initiative boost at low levels, and trample at high levels.
Alabaster Aerial: a slowish flier with mild defensive bonuses. It starts out flying faster than the standard AC, but ends up breaking even by level 4. It then gets a (very weak) poison at high levels.
Amber Tunneler: A burrowing construct. Notably, is almost as fast as the Loper, a little bit tougher, and gets a buff to its grapple check.
Anathemic Carapace: A bull-rushing beetle that explodes on death or command. This one is great for low levels (2d6 fire for 1 PP, and it gets to move and attack first too!) but the DC is low. Gets a smite ability and power attack later for additional alpha-strike potential.
Astral Aquan: A swift swimmer that's good at grappling. This one's notable for getting a menu B ability (Imp. Swim) at 1st-level. Mild cold resist and INA round it out.
Ebony Stinger: Oddly, this one's poison is actually weaker than the Aerial's. It's also not a menu ability. I'd avoid this one, it's not worth a feat imo.
Emerald Gyre: Now we're talking - Tripping and grappling, and gets a menu B at 1st-level. It's also faster than the Tunneler and gets pounce for free later. Still no Menu C but is nice.
Iridiscent Serpent: Potentially useful against blasters at low levels, but nothing special. If only it had constrict... (Oddly, it seems to lose Cleave as it levels.) Muscle + Imp. Grab make it the best native grappler on the list.

Again, the big problem here is that none of the options gain Menu C abilities - which means they miss out on the most useful abilities like Greater Invis., Blindsight, Constrict, move-action teleportation and SR. And because they don't have access to menu C abilities, they won't get them from Boost Construct either.