I was reading a thread about Summoners and how their Eidolon steps on some toes. My question is whether or not a Master Summoner would work in a balanced party. I really like summoning, but I find that the round action needed tends to be too long for most encounters. Master Summoner seems like a great choice, but I am mildly lactose intolerant when it comes to my characters.
Regular summoners also have the power to summon with a standard action. I find that someone who controls more than 2 people on the field really starts to eat up too much time in an encounter and sucks the fun out of things.
Regular summoners also have the power to summon with a standard action. I find that someone who controls more than 2 people on the field really starts to eat up too much time in an encounter and sucks the fun out of things.
Regular summoners are normally doing crazy things with their eidolon and they can only have one SLA or an eidolon out at a time.
I expect a master summoner to keep up with full casters which requires the ability to summon lots of stuff.
Round time is an easy thing to managed. Just summon SLA using monster, or big monsters with big attacks instead of dire tiger/lions
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Gouda. Definitely Gouda.
The master summoner can spam his SLA to fill the battlefield with summons because he's not limited in how many SLAs can be active unless his eidolon is also out. His eidolon is never out.
But whats wrong with filling the battlefield? How is that any different than spamming battlefield control spells?
I was mostly infering that your teammates might have an opinion on you controlling an army of beasties. I think its important to cover with them before you use a character like this. In play I don't really know what its like, but I would think that having a personal army is at least a little bit cheesy.
Its different because it feels like your owning the field with an army of rhinos, as opposed to letting an opponent roll to get knocked out or fall into a pit.
I was mostly infering that your teammates might have an opinion on you controlling an army of beasties. I think its important to cover with them before you use a character like this. In play I don't really know what its like, but I would think that having a personal army is at least a little bit cheesy.
Its different because it feels like your owning the field with an army of rhinos, as opposed to letting an opponent roll to get knocked out or fall into a pit.
I've found that my party is happy that my cannon fodder is taking all the hits instead of them.
I would expect the Wizard to win any encounter where he spends 4 of his highest lvl spells. Which for a master summoner is what his SLA's are. Unlike a wizard though the master summoner has less spells to fall back on and his spells generally have lower DC's. He makes up for this by having 5+cha SLA's per day.
I use a master summoner and my eldion is always out. I find taking the best thing off the list 2 levels lower with superior summoning nets me at least three creatures usually more, and my eldion has wings and allot of UMD more than enough to spam 1st level wizard spells using her wands they are cheap enough.
Oh I also took 1 level of druid and boon companion, gives me an extra friend in the area of and its an ape so its strong. I have Eldritch heritage for a familiar as well. my little dino gives me an init bonus and runs around throwing out caltrops, thunderstones and tanglefoot bags galore, might get around to taking improved familiar for a mephit at one point.
Presently my favorite is small air elemental vortex cheese. Oh and without improved init I'm running around with a +9 init without improved init yet.
For my group the extra help is appreciated and everyone digs having a team. Cleric spams out blesses and other buff goodness throws a selective channel out whne needed and also has a wasp companion (eldritch heritage again she grabbed the sylvan bloodline.) Magus thanks to the extra hands does the skirmish thing, witch controls the battlefield and rangers picks things off with archery. Groups is seriously tough tobeat.
Take the master summoner and enjoy your cheese without shame!
I would expect the Wizard to win any encounter where he spends 4 of his highest lvl spells. Which for a master summoner is what his SLA's are. Unlike a wizard though the master summoner has less spells to fall back on and his spells generally have lower DC's. He makes up for this by having 5+cha SLA's per day.The difference is he hasn't used a spell. He has a full retinue of a medium Casting class with their buff spells and then reasonably 9+ of the highest Summon that can be used at their level (i.e. if they could cast 4th level spells they can cast a full retinue of 4th level spells AND have 9+ (reasonably) summon monster 5 at any given time.)
Its basically they get spells equal to a medium casting class and then 5+ cha modifier extra spells equivalent to a full casters highest spell level that last 10 times the regular length. Something is unreasonable about 9 extra spells at the spell level that could be only be cast by a full caster of your level :P
Edit: to put it better imagine building a summoning focused sorcerer. Instead you demand a higher HD, more skills, higher BAB, a reasonably weak but flexible cohort, and 5+ Cha modifier extra spells of your highest spell level (aka by level 12 you could see 14 extra spells) with augment summoning for free.
Fine points, but the Summoners spells lack the same punch as a traditional full caster. The DCs are lower and they 24 less spells per day than a sorcerer. No damage spells mean that lower spell slots become less useful. Metamagic is a bad option and most of your class features center around a cohort that gets half normal levels.
On the flip side, you get 5+cha great summons and can do more summoning with your spells slots. Which should be balance. You spam the same spell over and over again.
One summons can't teleport or summon other creatures, but I get what you are saying.
I just don't think a horde of low lvl meat bags is vastly superior to a few well placed wizard spells or even a properly built fighter.
Since a summoner is a buffer, his spells aren't the best combat option. He has to kill things with his summons. His spell are just for buffing himself, party members, and summons
When I play a Master Summoner, I usually build my eidolon as a scout, making him small and giving him skilled evolutions for stealth and perception before eventually increasing his mobility via fly. Having a scout with dark vision who can communicate telepathically has proven incredibly useful to me and the rest of the party.
As far as summoning, what people say about spamming summons is true, but you are quite limited in how many summons you get a day. Generally I'll work to keep one creature out at a time, buffing or assisting the rest of the group as needed and replacing it when it goes down. There have been times, however, when it was worth it to burn a full day's worth of summons at once, such as when summoning earth elementals (earthglide) to lay seige to a castle.
I've played a Master Summoner with a number of other players in three different groups - never once has anyone ever complained about me being over-powered or hogging the attention. Its been my experience that grown-up players generally don't do that. Instead, most have been happy to have whatever I brought to the table as it meant the group had a better chance of success than it would have had without me...
One summons can't teleport or summon other creatures, but I get what you are saying.
This is a classic example of either 1) how people judge the Summoner class without ever really understanding its abilities or 2) the errors gamemasters make in adjudicating the summoner class which eventually causes other players to resent it.
I use a master summoner and my eldion is always out. I find taking the best thing off the list 2 levels lower with superior summoning nets me at least three creatures usually more, and my eldion has wings and allot of UMD more than enough to spam 1st level wizard spells using her wands they are cheap enough.
Oh I also took 1 level of druid and boon companion, gives me an extra friend in the area of and its an ape so its strong. I have Eldritch heritage for a familiar as well. my little dino gives me an init bonus and runs around throwing out caltrops, thunderstones and tanglefoot bags galore, might get around to taking improved familiar for a mephit at one point.
Presently my favorite is small air elemental vortex cheese. Oh and without improved init I'm running around with a +9 init without improved init yet.
For my group the extra help is appreciated and everyone digs having a team. Cleric spams out blesses and other buff goodness throws a selective channel out whne needed and also has a wasp companion (eldritch heritage again she grabbed the sylvan bloodline.) Magus thanks to the extra hands does the skirmish thing, witch controls the battlefield and rangers picks things off with archery. Groups is seriously tough tobeat.
Take the master summoner and enjoy your cheese without shame!
Ugh, where to begin...
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One summons can't teleport or summon other creatures, but I get what you are saying.This is a classic example of either 1) how people judge the Summoner class without ever really understanding its abilities or 2) the errors gamemasters make in adjudicating the summoner class which eventually causes other players to resent it.
So is that it? Case closed, master summoner is good not cheezy and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't understand the rules?
So is that it? Case closed, master summoner is good not cheezy and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't understand the rules?One summons can't teleport or summon other creatures, but I get what you are saying.This is a classic example of either 1) how people judge the Summoner class without ever really understanding its abilities or 2) the errors gamemasters make in adjudicating the summoner class which eventually causes other players to resent it.
I don't think that's what he's saying. The Summoner class is full of exemptions, exceptions, and odd-ball rules though. I'm not a huge fan of the class personally, but I do agree that a lot of the dislike of the class stems from poor understanding (or exposure to GMs/players who didn't properly understand it).
I am Dutch, and therefore qualified to declare it Gouda. Delicious, delicious Gouda.
However, we still allow all versions of the summoner at our table. We'll revisit that if someone gets too obnoxious with it. xP
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To my mind, it really depends on what your GM and fellow players think. It's not about power level, really. It's about combat turn time and fun.
If your group is really efficient at combat and can keep things flowing well, it might not be so bad. But if not, a Master Summoner can end up bogging things down while one player makes 20 different decisions and rolls, and everybody else gets bored and starts playing with their phones.
One thing I would recommend: if the Master Summoner player has a huge army, the GM can have him split control of his monsters up among the other players. That way everybody has something to do.
To my mind, it really depends on what your GM and fellow players think. It's not about power level, really. It's about combat turn time and fun.
If your group is really efficient at combat and can keep things flowing well, it might not be so bad. But if not, a Master Summoner can end up bogging things down while one player makes 20 different decisions and rolls, and everybody else gets bored and starts playing with their phones.
Well players shouldn't play classes that they can't play. It's like saying your GM and fellow players should decide whether or not wizards are allowed because some people take forever to prepare spells and that drags the game.
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Well players shouldn't play classes that they can't play. It's like saying your GM and fellow players should decide whether or not wizards are allowed because some people take forever to prepare spells and that drags the game.To my mind, it really depends on what your GM and fellow players think. It's not about power level, really. It's about combat turn time and fun.
If your group is really efficient at combat and can keep things flowing well, it might not be so bad. But if not, a Master Summoner can end up bogging things down while one player makes 20 different decisions and rolls, and everybody else gets bored and starts playing with their phones.
...and I would definitely let them make that decision, if they felt it was causing major problems and couldn't come up with a better way of solving it.
But the Master Summoner's action economy definitely makes this a serious danger inherent to the class. If it's making the game tediously unfun for everybody, then banning it is a sensible response.
If, for example, you have a group of 6 players, and the Master Summoner's turn is taking up the same time as everybody else's put together, than I'd say that's a problem.
Like I said, though, the more experienced and conscious your group is, the more likely that you can make it work.
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I was mostly infering that your teammates might have an opinion on you controlling an army of beasties. I think its important to cover with them before you use a character like this. In play I don't really know what its like, but I would think that having a personal army is at least a little bit cheesy.
Its different because it feels like your owning the field with an army of rhinos, as opposed to letting an opponent roll to get knocked out or fall into a pit.
how is any of this different from a necromancer
Necromancers can't summon up the whole army at once, they require a field of corpses and a large amount of prep time. Also, their minions can be used as props rather than a summoners intent as pawns of war.(not that they can't be used in problem solving.)
*bump*
Kinda depends upon your group and your efficiency.
Many groups/players do not like it when 1 player is suddenly taking all the action time.
Fighter - I attempt to chop of the head of the evil cleric.
Wizard – I cast acid arrow at the evil cleric to disrupt his spell casting.
Summoner – I cast create pit … the rhino tramples for … the Ape grabs and rends … the air elemetals are using whirlwind to stop the archers … the earth elementals are dragging the barricades out of the way … it can go on and on.
Yes it can happen to a certain extent with druids and conjurers, but it is often greatly exaggerated with master summoners.
Plus if you as a player are not extremely efficient and organized you can make it even worse by flipping through pages to find out which has what ability, bonus, attack, DR, spells, …
Unless your GM is pretty good, it can really wreck his game and encounters since he also has to at least partially keep track of all your summons at least as they relate to his combatants. (I will admit I personally am not that good. I start losing track pretty quickly and doing dumb stuff or having to really slow down and think about it.)
Many people say they are over powered. I would agree they are a first tier, but I’m not yet convinced they are overpowered. From the little I’ve seen, other fairly optimized characters are at least in the same ball park in effectiveness. But they are complex. And when they are in the wrong sort of encounter they get in a lot of trouble faster and worse than many that are out of their element. If a caster has been learning about them and comes prepared to dismiss or even take over summoned creatures… Suddenly the summoner has gone from power, to weak, to actually created more opponents for the party to fight.
What it boils down to is, talk to your group. See if they are willing for you to give it a go or if they would rather not.
The master summoner is strong. If it is too strong is subjective.
But it is rather unique in what he does so he is less likely to step on other guys' toes than other strong classes so it is better manageable.
So PFS doesn't allow master summoner. Is this because an unprepared player could slow down the game or is there another reason?
Partially that, partially balance reasons. They're fairly related though. Flooding the battlefield is very powerful.
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OP
So is a Master Summoner Good or Gouda?
If you have to ask.... then at the least, it certainly resembles cheese.
OP
So is a Master Summoner Good or Gouda?If you have to ask.... then at the least, it certainly resembles cheese.
I asked because I saw that other people thought it was cheezy. I wanted to know why people thought that. I don't really see the problem with the class as long as the player doesn't take forever on their turn.
Another way to think of it is that Paizo themselves called it a strong candidate for a solo game.
... I asked because I saw that other people thought it was cheezy. I wanted to know why people thought that. I don't really see the problem with the class as long as the player doesn't take forever on their turn.
Like alot of things. It depends upon your campaign, GM, group, and the person playing the master summoner. If the player was already an extreme optimizer and/or attention hog, this can make it worse. If your GM has trouble with a cambat that can suddenly go from 5 total combatants to 30, then this could give him fits. If your group already has 6 players with maybe a wizard and ranger already having pets, then it could easily overcrowd things.
I don't know that I would call it cheezy, but it does have the potential to cause unpleasant problems.
I would suggest trying it if seems like a fit for your group.
I've actually considered playtesting master summoner alone vs an AP.
I have actually played a master summoner in PFS until it was banned.
My observations:
I choose MS becsause I wanted to, you know, summon. Without it I had to spend a standard action to dismiss the eidolon or do without a major class feature.
1) except at low levels (when you can't summon much) 1/2 strength eidolons are not combat worthy.
2) I actually asked people if they wanted to play one of the critters, or if they felt I was taking too long. Both answers were no.
3) the most I ever had out at one time was 9 lantern archons.
i) that takes 3 rounds - summon first batch, dismiss eidolon, summon second batch.
ii) against a big bag of hit points, it still takes several rounds to kill things doing only 1d6 damage.
iii) I was rolling 18 to hit rolls plus dmage rolls. It was not as much fun as you think.
4) If you have that many monsters out, pre roll attacks and damage then give the DM the numbers.
let my repeat number 4) If you have that many monsters out, pre roll your attacks and damages.
1/2 powered eldions can still have wings and a sick umd, at higher levels become full on skill monkeys and a decent smattering of SLAs and senses.
For low to mid levels a class dip and a feat can afford you an ape animal companion that can easily keep up into 9th level or so as a meat shield, invest in gear he gets better or even better id you DM allow take eldritch heritage with alternate bloodline sylvan and get an animal companion -2 lower than the druid without multiclassing at all.
I forgot my point.
In hack and slash mods, master summoners are okay. The fighter types still get more done. Your summons work better as meet shield. (choose high AC, high hp) but not too high or nothing will choose to attack it.
In puzzle mods, summoners of all types can pull out various tool summons. The long duration helps with scouting. Master summoners can just do it more ofter.
If you have any choice in the matter, do not allow summoners of any type without prewritten monster stats for at lest 3 monsters of each spell level. This is a class that requires homework and a player unwilling to do that homework will slow down the game.
Summary. Master summoner is Good. No gouda.