Marthkus |
But even if they are totally balanced with core characters in the global sense, due to the fact that they can do things that core characters cannot immediately give them the perception that they are more powerful.
Perception of being more powerful has nothing to do with game balance or good game design.
Tsoli |
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I'm playing a first level synthesist, and yes, I dumped my strength. I'm roleplaying the character (sort of a naive savage from a tribe outside of civilization) to see herself in a dual manner. There are things that her animal self is able to do, other things that she is better at. She's terrible at climbing, but likes to do it as a human anyway. I have been having a lot of fun with the other players, them pointing out that I could probably climb better if I were *ahem* a monster, but what would be the fun of that?
One little houserule we've created between the GM and myself is that you cannot live in the eidolon armor. I sleep as a human every night. In town I am always out of my suit. I think of it as though I'm a horrible, ugly superman. I never transform in front of people if I can help it.
Arcutiys |
One little houserule we've created between the GM and myself is that you cannot live in the eidolon armor. I sleep as a human every night. In town I am always out of my suit. I think of it as though I'm a horrible, ugly superman. I never transform in front of people if I can help it.
I believe that when you fall asleep, your eidolon always disappears no matter what. As for always being out of your suit otherwise, I can see how that would work, but the long ritual for summoning the eidolon really puts a damper on my desire to see that in action, especially considering how common ambushes are in urban environments. I'd probably houserule the eidolon summoning time to something shorter, say, maybe 2 full round's worth.
Cyrad RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16 |
Tormsskull wrote:But even if they are totally balanced with core characters in the global sense, due to the fact that they can do things that core characters cannot immediately give them the perception that they are more powerful.Perception of being more powerful has nothing to do with game balance or good game design.
That's actually not true. How a player perceives an option plays a large role in design and balance. A good option perceived as poor may indicate it's not fun or satisfying enough for the player. A bad option perceived as good may indicate the option is a newbie trap. Either case is not good design.
The game balance can suffer for it because designers often feel inclined to compensate an unsatisfying option by making the benefit more powerful. There's plenty of developers, like Riot Games, who deliberately reworked game mechanics because they couldn't buff unappealing options without making them overpowered.
While a player's perception may not directly change the mechanics, I'd call it a fallacy to say that perception of power has nothing to do with game balance and good design.
Buri |
I believe that when you fall asleep, your eidolon always disappears no matter what. As for always being out of your suit otherwise, I can see how that would work, but the long ritual for summoning the eidolon really puts a damper on my desire to see that in action, especially considering how common ambushes are in urban environments. I'd probably houserule the eidolon summoning time to something shorter, say, maybe 2 full round's worth.
In the APs, Paizo doesn't hesitate to write out various peoples' superstitions and myths. If you have a roleplaying GM, he should be playing these out. A synthesist suit monster guy would utterly freak out most NPCs due to these. I don't see how players can expect to wear it all the time. It's generally safe to assume that if you're going out of town, in a cave, etc that you should put your suit on before you actually get into danger. Urban campaigns can be tricky. On the other hand, elve's get a racial favored class bonus that can ultimately reduce the summoning ritual down to a single round.
Arcutiys |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Arcutiys wrote:I believe that when you fall asleep, your eidolon always disappears no matter what. As for always being out of your suit otherwise, I can see how that would work, but the long ritual for summoning the eidolon really puts a damper on my desire to see that in action, especially considering how common ambushes are in urban environments. I'd probably houserule the eidolon summoning time to something shorter, say, maybe 2 full round's worth.In the APs, Paizo doesn't hesitate to write out various peoples' superstitions and myths. If you have a roleplaying GM, he should be playing these out. A synthesist suit monster guy would utterly freak out most NPCs due to these. I don't see how players can expect to wear it all the time. It's generally safe to assume that if you're going out of town, in a cave, etc that you should put your suit on before you actually get into danger. Urban campaigns can be tricky. On the other hand, elve's get a racial favored class bonus that can ultimately reduce the summoning ritual down to a single round.
Eidolons don't have to look like monsters, you know. They can look somewhat similar to regular people. Like maybe a knight in full fancy armor, that armor being his skin. Of course he'll look WEIRD, but hey.
And that problem exists for preeetty much every class. I doubt villagers would be keen on Grippli druids riding giant toads or mages rolling in with a quiver full of wands and rods, or heck, even a half orc when you get down to it. I certainly don't mind people being weirded out by eidolons sometimes, but it should be no more deal-breaking than any other class or race, with the possible exception of human rogues and bards.
And having what amounts to a race requirement for classes would be almost as f&~*ing insane as alignment restrictions
Buri |
They actually do.
The eidolon's physical appearance is up to the summoner, but it always appears as some sort of fantastical creature. This control is not fine enough to make the eidolon appear like a specific creature.
You can't even say "looks like a human." An eidolon has a very high fantasy appearance no matter what general form you give it.
Arcutiys |
They actually do.
Quote:The eidolon's physical appearance is up to the summoner, but it always appears as some sort of fantastical creature. This control is not fine enough to make the eidolon appear like a specific creature.You can't even say "looks like a human." An eidolon has a very high fantasy appearance no matter what general form you give it.
But it doesn't look like a human. It looks like a suit of armor. People just assume there is a human or some such in there. That's the point of what I gave as an example.
I also never said "looks like a human."
Buri |
Fantastical != (monstrous && frightening)
Those are qualities determined by the beholder. If you're going into a backward village with deep seated superstitions, then you should expect them to spook easily and should play accordingly. Even well established cities in pathfinder are highly opinionated on such things. Just take a flip through the ISWG.
Arcutiys |
Marthkus wrote:Fantastical != (monstrous && frightening)Those are qualities determined by the beholder. If you're going into a backward village with deep seated superstitions, then you should expect them to spook easily and should play accordingly. Even well established cities in pathfinder are highly opinionated on such things. Just take a flip through the ISWG.
If you're going in to a backwater village*, then anything you do will be perceived as THEY'S THE DEVIL MAMA, GET MY CROSSBOW
If you're singling out the summoner, that's bad GMing
*The kind that doesn't have shamans and stuff
Buri |
Why do people assume being a peasant makes them closed minded, hateful, bigots?
To paraphrase Arcutiys, that's not what I said. It's how a ton of the city and village write ups are done. It's not me. It's Paizo's take on the general culture of the various societies. They each have boogeymen and an eidolon's appearance is rife with chance for the GM to use that in social situations.
Chris Lambertz Digital Products Assistant |
Shimnimnim |
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People keep suggesting that because an eidolon can be banished that a synthesist is not overpowered. I insist that this is not the case.
Yes, an eidolon can be banished. But doing so requires a DM design encounters with this in mind, and doing so means completely demolishing the build. You're left with a series of encounters where either the synthesist is overpowered or the synthesist is underpowered, and that isn't fair at all to anyone on the team.
Note that the worst things about the synthesist comes from its other, summoner abilities. It's full of, we'll call them traps.
- A summoner has only 6th level spellcasting, which makes people think it has spellcasting equivalent to the bard. This is not true. The summoner gains a huge number of spells at earlier levels than wizards, gaining what are often the wizard equivalent of 8th and even 9th level spells. They get these significantly cheaper when using scrolls, wands, etc, and that too can cause some huge problems.
The sythesist takes what is a very capable spellcaster and adds some very, very solid physical power to that. It's an issue for new players especially, who do not know how to optimize. You'll find the sythesist will sort of optimize itself.
voska66 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Why do people assume being a peasant makes them closed minded, hateful, bigots?
Peasants are closed minded, hateful and bigoted. There is a reason for that though. If you can keep you peasants uneducated they will be closed minded and less like to challenge your authority. Give those you rule something to hate and you have can control them. Use the fear to make your peasants bigoted so that they will not willing accept outsiders and will report that which is out of sorts. The reason those who rule encourage those traits in peasants as it makes it easier to maintain authority over said peasants.
You see happening today with the dumbing down of the school system, Socialism is evil and muslim's are out to kill you.
Marthkus |
Marthkus wrote:Why do people assume being a peasant makes them closed minded, hateful, bigots?Peasants are closed minded, hateful and bigoted. There is a reason for that though. If you can keep you peasants uneducated they will be closed minded and less like to challenge your authority. Give those you rule something to hate and you have can control them. Use the fear to make your peasants bigoted so that they will not willing accept outsiders and will report that which is out of sorts. The reason those who rule encourage those traits in peasants as it makes it easier to maintain authority over said peasants.
Being uneducated does not mean you have to be closed minded.
Kimera757 |
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Higher education is negatively correlated with xenophobia.
I don't know if real life peasants were like that (hard to tell with a lack of time travel) but the typical Medieval Western Europe view of them is that yes they often were. Racism and xenophobia are a fact of life and it was worse back then. (See education, lack thereof.) Just not sure if it was the nobles, peasants, or both who felt that way.
Arcutiys |
Higher education is negatively correlated with xenophobia.
I don't know if real life peasants were like that (hard to tell with a lack of time travel) but the typical Medieval Western Europe view of them is that yes they often were. Racism and xenophobia are a fact of life and it was worse back then. (See education, lack thereof.) Just not sure if it was the nobles, peasants, or both who felt that way.
Everyone was a jerk to everyone. Again, if you're singling out the summoner for that jerkish behavior, you are not being a good DM.
Marthkus |
Higher education is negatively correlated with xenophobia.
Being open minded doesn't mean your smart either.
Correlation is not causation, and I for one doubt that education impacts xenophobic tendencies. The more educated a person is the better they can rationalize their own prejudices.
Buri |
It does, actually. At least, it did in 2000. A quick scholarly article search resulted in the following conclusion:
The rise of the far right, racism, anti-semitism and one-nation agendas is a product of the fear of large population inflows interacting with ignorance of the other which have created so many conflicts and abuses of human rights in the past. As nations and cultures become ever more inter-twined, it become ever more imperative that education systems develop policies and programs to counter the resurgence of discrimination, racism, ethnic violence and xenophobia which has erupted at the close of the Twentieth century.
http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/iej/articles/v1n3/power/begin .htm
This is true of us "enlightened, modern folk." How bad do you think that ignorance was in the middle ages and before?
Marthkus |
It does, actually. At least, it did in 2000. A quick scholarly article search resulted in the following conclusion:
Quote:The rise of the far right, racism, anti-semitism and one-nation agendas is a product of the fear of large population inflows interacting with ignorance of the other which have created so many conflicts and abuses of human rights in the past. As nations and cultures become ever more inter-twined, it become ever more imperative that education systems develop policies and programs to counter the resurgence of discrimination, racism, ethnic violence and xenophobia which has erupted at the close of the Twentieth century.http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/iej/articles/v1n3/power/begin .htm
This is true of us "enlightened, modern folk." How bad do you think that ignorance was in the middle ages and before?
Indoctrinating our youth to be more open minded is not the same thing as general education lowering discriminating tendencies.
insaneogeddon |
A Player in one of my current campaigns wants to go a synthesis summoner. I told him I would have to get back to him on it because I've heard alot of bad things about the archtype. But neither me nor him understand why the archtype is banned and what makes it so "over-powered". So I want to go to the forums first and ask if there are any concrete reasons why I should -not- let him play a synthesis summoner or things I should disallow if i am going to let him become one.
Thanks in Advance For All The Help! ^_^
I know munchkins that defend it but its clearly:
1 character with the HPs of 2
1 character with the stats of 2
1 character with the physical boons of one character and the spell casting of another.
A sugary free ac and save bonus for being gestalt.
With d.door thrown in at 6th as a bonus.
The best bonus of all:
Only 1 character that needs magic items (we know wealth levels and items can make/break characters exp. at high levels). No point having a buff animal companion when they turn on the party at the mention of a will save.
Worse is when all enemies target you because they KNOW killing you kills 2 characters - synthesists avoid such cause and effect issues that games cannot avoid but mere theorising and nanny games/infinite wealth games can.
If you think gestalt is too much, don't do it. If you are fine with gestalt do. I have seen a synthesist in a gestalt game- with its double HPs and effective double stats it out performed others who had 2 sets of class abilities and saves that often couldn't be used in sync!
Arcutiys |
Damiancrr wrote:A Player in one of my current campaigns wants to go a synthesis summoner. I told him I would have to get back to him on it because I've heard alot of bad things about the archtype. But neither me nor him understand why the archtype is banned and what makes it so "over-powered". So I want to go to the forums first and ask if there are any concrete reasons why I should -not- let him play a synthesis summoner or things I should disallow if i am going to let him become one.
Thanks in Advance For All The Help! ^_^
I know munchkins that defend it but its clearly:
1 character with the HPs of 2
1 character with the stats of 2
1 character with the physical boons of one character and the spell casting of another.A sugary free ac and save bonus for being gestalt.
With d.door thrown in at 6th as a bonus.
The best bonus of all:
Only 1 character that needs magic items (we know wealth levels and items can make/break characters exp. at high levels). No point having a buff animal companion when they turn on the party at the mention of a will save.
Worse is when all enemies target you because they KNOW killing you kills 2 characters - synthesists avoid such cause and effect issues that games cannot avoid but mere theorising and nanny games/infinite wealth games can.If you think gestalt is too much, don't do it. If you are fine with gestalt do. I have seen a synthesist in a gestalt game- with its double HPs and effective double stats it out performed others who had 2 sets of class abilities and saves that often couldn't be used in sync!
I'd like to see it compared to a summoner/druid who gets 3 standard actions a turn. Or even a regular summoner who gets 2.
Action economy counts for a lot. A lot more than having a poopy natural weapon or acid orb.
LazarX |
Why do people assume being a peasant makes them closed minded, hateful, bigots?
Just because something that looks like a monster freaks you out doesn't make you a "closed minded hateful bigot", when most things that look like monsters ARE monsters that consider villagers either great items for sport, or staples for the dinner menu. The average peasant lives in a world far far more dangerous than we do without the protections of a large town or city. I think they can be forgiven for assuming the worst.
Arcutiys |
Marthkus wrote:Why do people assume being a peasant makes them closed minded, hateful, bigots?Just because something that looks like a monster freaks you out doesn't make you a "closed minded hateful bigot", when most things that look like monsters ARE monsters that consider villagers either great items for sport, or staples for the dinner menu. The average peasant lives in a world far far more dangerous than we do without the protections of a large town or city. I think they can be forgiven for assuming the worst.
Again: Half Orcs. Tell me how humanoid, fantastical Eidolons are viewed as monsters bent on killing them when Half Orc barbarians aren't.
Wyrd_Wik |
Yeah the whole idea of people breaking freaked out by a synthesist anymore than other pretty common things in elf land doesn't really hold water.
The synthesist is not worth the headache it will give you at the table. I like the concept but the archetype as written isn't workable. Not really a fan of the class either.
Arcutiys |
In most reasonable scenarios, illiterate and ignorant peasants would be terrified of a half-orc barbarian ... because the operative words in the phrase are "orc" and "barbarian."
So what's the point of pointing out that Synthesists would be seen as weird? Every friggin class and race looks like a murder hobo at best, religious zealots at worst, and weird fantastical/monster men at ugliest.
Drothmal |
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I would like to add my 2cp...
Having DMed for both a synthesist and a vanilla summoner, I found that although the regular summoner was indeed more powerful due to action economy, the synthesist was perceived (by me and other players) as more powerful: In my opinion, this difference between numbers on paper and perception comes from how the lack of weaknesses in the synthesist affects the DM when building encounters/challenges.
I'll give some examples (The synthesist was played levels 3-9)
-Through AC evoluitons + increasing DEX (increasing base + evolutions + spells/items) + mage armor + extra AC ('cause class), the syntyesist's AC was 6+ higher than the fighter, and that is not even counting when he had time to prepare for a fight and cast shield on himself. This disparity in AC for frontliners made it very difficult to choose appropriate challenges, since things that would hit the synthesist would hit the fighter with 8+ on the dice (which meant even iteratives hit), or you were left with enemies that could not hit the synthesist at all.
If this had been a normal summoner, I would feel less bad ignoring the pet, since at least I would still get to hit the caster.
- Through pounce + multiple attacks, the synthesist was getting full round attacks on round 1, while the fighter was running behind only getting one attack of (usually the combination of the 2 killed most non-boss enemies, so they had to move to the next enemy and once again only one of them got multiple attacks in. Like with the to hit, this made calibrating the enemies AC and HP very difficult.
I am aware that a normal summoner makes at least as much damage. But it was just the hopelessly outmatching of the fighter at fighting that made it feel so bad.
- Through skilled or evolution surge, the syntheisist could get +8 to any skill check. Combined with a high INT (thanks to placing STR and DEX at 8, which is low but not a super dump) and a more than decent set of class skills, he was at least as good of a skillmonkey as the rogue. And, since skilled allows to get +8 to diplomacy, guess who the party face was? I had to readjust all the diplomacy DCs or otherwise the whole adventure would have turned into "I ask the king for the key to the treasury. He agrees. I win"
In a normal summoner, you probably get as many skills, but it doesn't feel like you have an uber character that can do everything better than everyone, and the ridiculous +8 to skills doesn't come into play until later.
- Our cleric couldn't make it for a couple sessions. Guess who did not care at all, since they had crafted a wand of restore eidolon? Even after giving the rest of the party a wand of CLW, the synthesist only had to take care of himself, while the others had to share precious resources.
Before I am accused of being a bad DM (which I know I could do better)
- I was banishing the eidolon from time to time. But like it was pointed out before, there is a limited times you can do that without looking like you are just targeting one player (at which point I believe it was easier to just ask him to change classes)
- I was attacking them before they were prepared: The synthesists was actually one of the ones that handled this best, since he could still use summons and spells when the fighter didn't have an armor or the cleric his holy symbol.
I could go on (like how the synthesist can switch his immunity evolutiosn whenever a new level comes around, allowing the perfect counter to the elemental themed dungeon), but I think I have made my general point: For me, the problem with the synthesist is that it makes it very hard for the DM to make a balanced encounter where everyone has fun/feels risks, forcing either very easy encounters that will be completely overpowered by the synthesist, or very hard encounters that will make other characters feel useless.