Power Creep - Are the newer options just plain better than the Core Rulebook ones?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Silver Crusade

Uwotm8 wrote:
I prefer the excitement over the landed sneak attack for massive damage more than the more consistent slightly higher damage. Plus, rogue talents actually are an interesting mix of abilities.

Massive? Yeah...nah. There's a lot of math to back that up, but I'll leave that for someone else to post, as I don't deal with damage calcs.

Also could you please list some of your favorite Rogue Talents? I'm curious to see which you find as solid ones.


Uwotm8 wrote:
Anzyr wrote:
Sneak Attack is just bonus damage and Rangers can do that way more consistently then Rogues can. Also, the vast majority of Rogue talents are literal wastes of page space, so again the Ranger isn't losing much there.
I prefer the excitement over the landed sneak attack for massive damage more than the more consistent slightly higher damage. Plus, rogue talents actually are an interesting mix of abilities.

I personally don't find "a few *ok* abilities hidden in a landfill of refuse" to be an interesting mix, but I guess some people like gambling so there's that.


Uwotm8 wrote:
Marroar Gellantara wrote:

Neither can fighters.

Hence, not even getting into pounce.

I'm going to say show me a build. 15 pt buy, standard WBL.

Eidolons don't care about point buy.

Stole this from Zuria via google search:
lv 14 Summoner's Eidolon
Huge Bipedal Eidolon
HD: 12d10+72 (138 hp)
Speed: 30ft
Fort: 16=8+6+2 Reflex: 5=4+1 Will: 8=8+0 Bab: +12 CMB: +27 CMD: 40
Ac: 26=10+1(dex)+17(natural)-2(size) Tch:9 Ff:34
Str 37 Dex 13 Con 22
Int 7 Wis 10 Cha 11

Bite (2d6+19, x2, BPS) +28, 15' reach
2 Claws (1d8+13, x2, S) +28, 15' reach

Evolutions: Limbs (arms, f), Limbs (legs, f), Claws (f), Bite x2 (2), Grab (bite, 2), Swallow Whole (3), Damage Reduction (10/alignment, 5), Large (3), Huge (4)

Special: Darkvision, Link, Share Spells, Evasion, Devotion, Multiattack

Feats: Power Attack, Improved Grapple, Improved Bull Rush, Awesome Blow, Great Fortitude, Intimidating Prowess

Skills
Climb: 28=12+13+3
Intimidate: 28=12+13+3
Perception: 15=12+0+3
Survival: 15=12+0+3

And that eidolon apparently has no gear or summoner buffs. Let's throw on barkskin, shield (via share spells ability), greater magic fang /amulet (+3 at this level for the spell) and a +6 str belt

AC 35
to hit +27
Attacks 3
Damages: 2d6+39, 1d8+28, 1d8+28

Based on the monster tables, this "class feature" hits on a 4 or higher against APL+3 monsters.

Oh and best part. This is not even all that optimized. I randomly selected the first result I got from "sample eidolon" google search.


N. Jolly wrote:

Massive? Yeah...nah. There's a lot of math to back that up, but I'll leave that for someone else to post, as I don't deal with damage calcs.

Also could you please list some of your favorite Rogue Talents? I'm curious to see which you find as solid ones.

I didn't say solid. I said interesting. It's a matter of taste. However...

Opportunist, Sniper's Eye, Black Market Connections, Stealth & Sleight of Hand & Disabling Stunt, Snap Shot, Deadly Cocktail, Hunter's Surprise, Positioning Attack, Another Day, Ki Pool, Lasting Poison, Honeyed Words, Bleeding Attack, Offensive Defense, Powerful Sneak, Deadly Sneak, Hide in Plain Sight, Knock-Out Blow, Skill Mastery, Stealthy Sniper, Unwitting Ally

Now, you tell me I'm wrong, can do 'x' elsewhere, criticize the level of the talent, "you can't take all those!," etc. and essentially try to argue a subjective measure. Good luck.


Just at a glance, someone saying Powerful/Deadly Sneak is either good or interesting probably hasn't actually read the full talent.

Likewise it's pretty objective to say spending the equivalent of a Feat to roll twice and take the better on a single skill check (not any skill check, just a specific skill) ONCE PER DAY is pretty bad.

Of those listed there, only a few can be considered good, like Offensive Defense.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I do agree that the synthesist can sometimes make the party barbarian feel pitiful, whereas the standard summoner (usually) doesn't.

"Your ability scores are what now?"

"Your effective hit points are what now?"

"How many attacks did you say you had?"

Which is both hilarious and ironic since the standard summoner is far more powerful than the synthesist, but fewer people seem to take notice of that fact.

I'm still not convinced that the synthesist or standard summoner are more powerful than other class options. Based on what I've heard, the master summoner makes the best run at brokeness, but I've not seen one in actual play, so I'm withholding my thoughts on that one for now.


The standard summoner does enough damage per round on a full attack, especially when considering reach and pounce, to end virtually any encounter at most levels, but their DPR really takes off around 8 or so. Gunslingers are virtually identical.

The difference between the two is that a standard summoner can use their battlefield control, buff the entire party, or whatever else they'd like, while the eidolon does that.

This has been hashed over in numerous DPR olmpics style threads. One major caveat is that at 20th level some capstones make classes that were struggling all of a sudden become competitive again.

One slight saving grace is that most published materials are not designed to withstand high levels of optimization from the rest of the classes, let alone these classes. My druid was by far the weakest melee combatant in my eyes of the ten group, yet on a full round pounce he'd easily one round most bad guys. I also got to do a bunch of other fun stuff as a full caster.

The master summoner can pump out summons are an impressive rate, and those summons are perfectly capable of dominating encounters as well. The main advantage a master summoner has over an analogous wizard (with Academy Graduate) is that the wizard has fewer max level standard action summones, doesn't have a much weaker eidolon, and when burning his high level spells on summons won't have the analogous spell options form his class. He does have better spells, though.


Ravingdork wrote:
I'm still not convinced that the synthesist or standard summoner are more powerful than other class options. Based on what I've heard, the master summoner makes the best run at brokeness, but I've not seen one in actual play, so I'm withholding my thoughts on that one for now.

I believe the issue is more that it's really freaking easy to optimize. Any player taking obvious choices will end up with a considerably powerful characters, even if they are not particularly interested in optimization... That makes Summoners stand out in games where the players are not optimizing. The class pretty much force-feeds powerful options down the player's throat.

The Synthesist, IMO, has the advantage of having great defenses... It loses on action economy (which is huge!), but gets amazing defenses and doesn't have to worry about the shared item lost thing (which is possibly biggest weakness of the class).

Silver Crusade

Uwotm8 wrote:

I didn't say solid. I said interesting. It's a matter of taste. However...

Opportunist, Sniper's Eye, Black Market Connections, Stealth & Sleight of Hand & Disabling Stunt, Snap Shot, Deadly Cocktail, Hunter's Surprise, Positioning Attack, Another Day, Ki Pool, Lasting Poison, Honeyed Words, Bleeding Attack, Offensive Defense, Powerful Sneak, Deadly Sneak, Hide in Plain Sight, Knock-Out Blow, Skill Mastery, Stealthy Sniper, Unwitting Ally

Now, you tell me I'm wrong, can do 'x' elsewhere, criticize the level of the talent, "you can't take all those!," etc. and essentially try to argue a subjective measure. Good luck.

In a perfect world, 'solid' and 'interesting' would be interchangeable here.

I'd have the same issues with Deadly Sneak as well as any talents that either emulated another class-ish (Ki Pool), gave odd bonuses (Black Market Connections), or were just feats (TOO MANY).

The issue I have with the Rogue is that other classes have interesting and solid talents. Alchemist are full of them, and the Investigator's talents are leagues above them. The golden example being:

Rogues
Hard to Fool (Ex): Once per day, a rogue with this talent can roll two dice while making a Sense Motive check, and take the better result. She must choose to use this talent before making the Sense Motive check. A rogue can use this ability one additional time per day for every 5 rogue levels she possesses.

Investigators
Empathy (Ex, Su): When attempting a Sense Motive check, the investigator makes two d20 rolls and takes the higher result. If an investigator uses inspiration on a Sense Motive check, he rolls the inspiration dice twice and takes the higher result. Once per day, the investigator can expend one use of inspiration to target a single creature that he can see and hear within 30 feet. Upon doing so, the investigator detects the surface thoughts of the target's mind, as if he concentrated for 3 rounds while using the detect thoughts spell, unless the creature succeeds a Will saving throw. The DC of this save is 10 + 1/2 the investigator's level + his Intelligence modifier. If the target fails, the investigator can continue to detect the surface thoughts of the target creature for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 his investigator level. An investigator must be at least 5th level to select this talent.

Interesting and powerful shouldn't be mutually exclusive.


Marroar Gellantara wrote:

Eidolons don't care about point buy.

** spoiler omitted **

And that eidolon apparently has no gear or summoner buffs. Let's throw on barkskin, shield (via share spells ability), greater magic fang /amulet (+3 at this level for the spell) and a +6 str belt

AC 35
to hit +27
Attacks 3
Damages: 2d6+39, 1d8+28, 1d8+28

Based on the monster tables, this "class feature" hits on a 4 or higher against APL+3 monsters.

Oh and best part. This is not even all that optimized. I randomly selected the first result I got from "sample eidolon" google search.

With an 8 will save I hope they never come up against a dismissal or banishment. At CR 14, that's an unlucky proposition. According to the stats by CR table, a primary caster DC is going to be 22. For something not even considered challenging, needing a 14 isn't exactly a sure thing. Easy is still a 13 to succeed. Feeblemind is also an option then. It's a relatively scary time to be a caster who's reliant on an outsider for their shtick. It's a nitpick, yes, but, it's a pretty large weakness at a point where magic and spells have crippling effects for such a character. It is strong against non-casters. I'll give you that.


Ravingdork wrote:

I do agree that the synthesist can sometimes make the party barbarian feel pitiful, whereas the standard summoner (usually) doesn't.

"Your ability scores are what now?"

"Your effective hit points are what now?"

"How many attacks did you say you had?"

Which is both hilarious and ironic since the standard summoner is far more powerful than the synthesist, but fewer people seem to take notice of that fact.

I'm still not convinced that the synthesist or standard summoner are more powerful than other class options. Based on what I've heard, the master summoner makes the best run at brokeness, but I've not seen one in actual play, so I'm withholding my thoughts on that one for now.

There is a vast difference between all and some. If you are putting the barbar to shame, you are invalidating basically every other melee concept, while at the same time being a decent caster. At the same time, the class actually makes it difficult not to do this. Sure some fullcasters when pulling out all the stops will make a synth or summoner feel silly, but it is not effortless.

I feel like the master summoner is a different matter. Assuming you don't let them have slow turns (which you shouldn't), their power is more limited by how many mobs they can control quickly. It is really difficult to play a master summoner well without ruining everyone's fun (slow turns). With that in mind, the master summoner is my favorite variant. Pooping summons is strong, but it doesn't really step on anyone's toes and tends to actually help out the martials via flanking and other cc. (one time I was playing master summoner with an improvised weapon fighter. He would throw my earth elementals at foes, My GM let me ready the elemental's action so that they attacked foes they were thrown at). The class is still wonky though, since it's main balancing mechanic is extremely meta (don't summon more than you as a player can responsibly control).


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Marroar Gellantara wrote:
There is a vast difference between all and some. If you are putting the barbar to shame, you are invalidating basically every other melee concept, while at the same time being a decent caster.

I don't believe barbarians are as powerful as everyone makes them out to be either. They are powerful, but not "blow all other martials out of the competition" powerful. The gap just isn't that big--I learned a long time ago that the internet tends to exaggerate things like perceived power gaps between classes.

Lemmy wrote:

I believe the issue is more that it's really freaking easy to optimize. Any player taking obvious choices will end up with a considerably powerful characters, even if they are not particularly interested in optimization... That makes Summoners stand out in games where the players are not optimizing. The class pretty much force-feeds powerful options down the player's throat.

The Synthesist, IMO, has the advantage of having great defenses... It loses on action economy (which is huge!), but gets amazing defenses and doesn't have to worry about the shared item lost thing (which is possibly biggest weakness of the class).

This rings truer to me than blanket claims of broken mechanics.


Ravingdork wrote:
I'm still not convinced that the synthesist or standard summoner are more powerful than other class options. Based on what I've heard, the master summoner makes the best run at brokeness, but I've not seen one in actual play, so I'm withholding my thoughts on that one for now.

I played a Master Summoner for a time. Essentially, the party was untouchable. For instance, our front-liner was threatened by 3 monsters. He was doing his thing while the party did its. One round, a few lucky shots including a crit or two dropped him to neg HP but still alive. On my turn I was able to summon 4 outsiders (some azata, iirc) and brought him back up to almost full health and introduced 4 new combatants each with over 100 hitpoint pools as a standard action. Next round was another summon with multiple creatures on the board with the other 4 summons still in place. It was just stupid easy to swing a battle back in our favor. I retrained him to a synthesist and it went from "untouchable party" to "untouchable me."


Uwotm8 wrote:
Marroar Gellantara wrote:

Eidolons don't care about point buy.

** spoiler omitted **

And that eidolon apparently has no gear or summoner buffs. Let's throw on barkskin, shield (via share spells ability), greater magic fang /amulet (+3 at this level for the spell) and a +6 str belt

AC 35
to hit +27
Attacks 3
Damages: 2d6+39, 1d8+28, 1d8+28

Based on the monster tables, this "class feature" hits on a 4 or higher against APL+3 monsters.

Oh and best part. This is not even all that optimized. I randomly selected the first result I got from "sample eidolon" google search.

With an 8 will save I hope they never come up against a dismissal or banishment. At CR 14, that's an unlucky proposition. According to the stats by CR table, a primary caster DC is going to be 22. For something not even considered challenging, needing a 14 isn't exactly a sure thing. Easy is still a 13 to succeed. Feeblemind is also an option then. It's a relatively scary time to be a caster who's reliant on an outsider for their shtick. It's a nitpick, yes, but, it's a pretty large weakness at a point where magic and spells have crippling effects for such a character. It is strong against non-casters. I'll give you that.

Let's assume the cloak of resistance in on the summoner.

Prot against evil + heroism puts that will save at +12 (and the ac at 37). Man but plus 12 sure is awful right.

Oh hello lvl 14 fighter with +5 cloak and 10 wis. Your will save is +9!? Well with iron will and a trait you can get up to +12, same as the eidolon. I'm sure the 15 point buy fighter is going to pump wis right?

NOTE: Feeblemind would do nothing relevant to the eidolon. Also the summoner is not even reliant on their eidolon. If it goes down, they can replace it with an SLA. Not only is the eidolon a better fighter than the fighter, it's completely expendable and way cheaper to maintain.


Master summoner sounds like the Angel Summoner from the descriptions here.


Marroar Gellantara wrote:
Let's assume the cloak of resistance in on the summoner.

Yay, the moving goalposts game...

Marroar Gellantara wrote:
Prot against evil + heroism puts that will save at +12 (and the ac at 37). Man but plus 12 sure is awful right.

It's still 50/50. That's not great.

Marroar Gellantara wrote:
Oh hello lvl 14 fighter with +5 cloak and 10 wis. Your will save is +9!? Well with iron will and a trait you can get up to +12, same as the eidolon. I'm sure the 15 point buy fighter is going to pump wis right?

The fighter doesn't have the same weaknesses here. It's an apples to oranges comparison. Even with a confusion he can still have a chance to act normally. Spells that can entirely wipe your most useful tool from the map are much more of a threat. The most apt comparison you're looking for is a prismatic spray that sends the fighter to another plane.

Marroar Gellantara wrote:
NOTE: Feeblemind would do nothing relevant to the eidolon. Also the summoner is not even reliant on their eidolon. If it goes down, they can replace it with an SLA. Not only is the eidolon a better fighter than the fighter, it's completely expendable and way cheaper to maintain.

Their summon SLA does not let them bring back their eidolon. They can still summon it even while feebleminded oddly enough. I'll let you figure out how. But, they can't cast spells to do it in a standard action which makes a feebleminded summoner whose eidolon has been dismissed/banished quite useless in a fight.


Uwotm8 wrote:
Marroar Gellantara wrote:
Let's assume the cloak of resistance in on the summoner.

Yay, the moving goalposts game...

You mean the game where you're complaining when he's giving you a handicap by assuming the Eidolon doesn't actually have the main save booster?

Uwotm8 wrote:
The fighter doesn't have the same weaknesses here. It's an apples to oranges comparison. Even with a confusion he can still have a chance to act normally. Spells that can entirely wipe your most useful tool from the map are much more of a threat. The most apt comparison you're looking for is a prismatic spray that sends the fighter to another plane.

Spells that can take your tool and turn it against you are even more of a threat.

Dominate is a threat to your Fighter.

And Hold Person, which has the same essential effect (taking him out of the fight).

Or just for shiggles, a Plane Shift. Bonus points because the Fighter just dies, the Eidolon can come back tomorrow, no charge.

Uwotm8 wrote:
Their summon SLA does not let them bring back their eidolon. They can still summon it even while feebleminded oddly enough. I'll let you figure out how. But, they can't cast spells to do it in a standard action which makes a feebleminded summoner whose eidolon has been dismissed/banished quite useless in a fight.

Yes, quite useless.

Except for all of those free summons they get. Which you seem to be aware of the existence of.

And buffs. I'd hardly call anyone who can cast Haste useless.


Uwotm8 wrote:
Marroar Gellantara wrote:
Let's assume the cloak of resistance in on the summoner.

Yay, the moving goalposts game...

Marroar Gellantara wrote:
Prot against evil + heroism puts that will save at +12 (and the ac at 37). Man but plus 12 sure is awful right.

It's still 50/50. That's not great.

Marroar Gellantara wrote:
Oh hello lvl 14 fighter with +5 cloak and 10 wis. Your will save is +9!? Well with iron will and a trait you can get up to +12, same as the eidolon. I'm sure the 15 point buy fighter is going to pump wis right?

The fighter doesn't have the same weaknesses here. It's an apples to oranges comparison. Even with a confusion he can still have a chance to act normally. Spells that can entirely wipe your most useful tool from the map are much more of a threat. The most apt comparison you're looking for is a prismatic spray that sends the fighter to another plane.

Marroar Gellantara wrote:
NOTE: Feeblemind would do nothing relevant to the eidolon. Also the summoner is not even reliant on their eidolon. If it goes down, they can replace it with an SLA. Not only is the eidolon a better fighter than the fighter, it's completely expendable and way cheaper to maintain.
Their summon SLA does not let them bring back their eidolon. They can still summon it even while feebleminded oddly enough. I'll let you figure out how. But, they can't cast spells to do it in a standard action which makes a feebleminded summoner whose eidolon has been dismissed/banished quite useless in a fight.

What is even going on? I never listed the summoner's saves, so why are you talking about them?

Those were the stats of a regular summoner's eidolon. We're talking about a class feature being better than the fighter. All the summoner is doing is providing buffs and handing over a fraction of his wbl to his eidolon.


Rynjin wrote:
You mean the game where you're complaining when he's giving you a handicap by assuming the Eidolon doesn't actually have the main save booster?

Stats were posted and then trying to be change after the fact in a "oh hey, let's do this" manner. It's the moving goalposts game.

Rynjin wrote:

Spells that can take your tool and turn it against you are even more of a threat.

Dominate is a threat to your Fighter.

The same is true of the weak willed eidolon.

Rynjin wrote:

And Hold Person, which has the same essential effect (taking him out of the fight).

Or just for shiggles, a Plane Shift. Bonus points because the Fighter just dies, the Eidolon can come back tomorrow, no charge.

All the same can be said about the eidolon except it'd require hold monster which is still a viable threat at the level the build was posted. Perhaps not perfectly free of charge, but if you want to wait a day then the fighter will in all likelihood be back as well except if the fighter is taken out then the summoner can reinforce his role. However, the summoner can not be replaced by the fighter. Losing the summoner is the greater loss. The weakness I was referring to was not necessarily the statistical weakness of a poor will save but rather the usefulness of the class and how much of a loss it can be. Also, a dominated fighter can be freed by the summoner with UMD or even cordon them off with a hold person of their own unlike a dominated eidolon which can be dismissed easily, yes, but, they're still dominated on being returning unless you use a purified calling spell. If you don't have then you might be waiting a couple weeks.

Rynjin wrote:

Yes, quite useless.

Except for all of those free summons they get. Which you seem to be aware of the existence of.

And buffs. I'd hardly call anyone who can cast Haste useless.

Feeblemind says you can't cast, period. No haste, no buffs. The summons is a fair point, though. With the eidolon gone they can have one active at a time and must twiddle their thumbs between rounds. To keep doing stuff they would need wands or some other gear.


OK so why is the summoner getting feebleminded at all times? Their will save would be at least +16.

I still don't know how that is relevant to whether or not the eidolon is better than the fighter.


On eidolons: They can be made to equal fighters in combat. Either that or many of us missed some broken rules.

On interesting options: Interesting is subjective. One person's "interesting" is another person's "this sucks". What we can measure however is what is useful. Interesting also does not really have a bearing on power creep or bloat.

To answer the OP's question, most builds I see have more core feats than non-core feats so some options will be better than core feats, but you are also comparing every non-core book to just the CRB, so even if it gets to the point where a build is 100% non-core feats it won't really be saying much.


Marroar Gellantara wrote:
What is even going on?

You listed eidolon stats when I asked for this awesome creature of a build you mentioned and I simply pointed out a critical flaw. Now a few others and I seem to be going back and forth over.... something, I don't know what, exactly.

Marroar Gellantara wrote:
I never listed the summoner's saves, so why are you talking about them?

I only mentioned them insofar as a hypothetical way to essentially neuter their usefulness compared to their regular state. The same isn't true of a fighter as they can be more easily managed by a summoner but the reverse isn't true.

Marroar Gellantara wrote:
Those were the stats of a regular summoner's eidolon. We're talking about a class feature being better than the fighter. All the summoner is doing is providing buffs and handing over a fraction of his wbl to his eidolon.

This is misleading. It's not just *a* class feature. The summoner's only uniqueness comes from the eidolon. Apart from that all the class gives is a really groovy casting list and a summoning SLA. Otherwise, the rest of the class is built around supporting and doing things with the eidolon across lots of class features. That puts the entire class to bear against another class save for two aspects which is basically spells and souped up SLA. So, it's disingenuous to say the summoner does what the fighter does with just one class feature when the summoner class has numerous features for supporting the eidolon. Denying the summoner their eidolon is inherently denying them several class features. You can certainly rival a fighter with just the eidolon class feature but it's not the same for the reasons I listed (mostly being vulnerable to planar effects that regular fighters typically aren't and the impact to a party by taking one out versus another).


Caedwyr wrote:
Master summoner sounds like the Angel Summoner from the descriptions here.

They're an "almost too good" option. For what they do in buffs and healing that pulls your rear out of a fire, I can't think of any evil outsiders that can be summoned that as efficiently inflicts damage on an enemy primarily because effects like healing are automatically accepted whereas to deal damage you have a difficulty to overcome to actually hit.


character options can have something resembling balance without being identical, even if it gives every character a way to contribute in every main scenario or at least in an equivalent number of scenarios

if you have a class that is really good at beating inanimate scarecrows with their signature weapon and can do nothing else, it is generally the fault of the designers to include that particular class in the same system as a class that can demasculate the universe by simply making gang signs with one hand and speaking thieves cant

you have to control the scope of the limitations of both skillsets as well as control the scenarios with which those skill sets shine and apply limitations that aren't easy to curb

now, a class that can simply spam pyrokinesis against everything and ignore fire immunity, is actually not much different from a warrior with a series of martial techniques derived from their martial training alongside the ability to use many weapons and engage in cinematic combat

if you have a class that can teleport, fly, summon monsters for days, and buff said monsters, not counting other things the class can do, you generally want a wuxia level warrior class that can fly, flash step as an immediate action, pounce, dispel magic effects by sundering the effects directly and tank the summoned monsters for days

if you have anything resembling even a D&D 3.5 Sorcerer, let alone a PF wizard or arcanist,even without prestige classes, you want

a Warrior that can swim for 6 weeks without fatigue, singlehandedly slay 9 sea serpents in one hour every night on the 5th week, rip off a level approrpiate giant's right arm with his bare hands with easy chance of success, singlehandedly slay a powerful and higher level sorcereress with a rusty old longsword and no magic items, and slay a dragon by slitting it's heart with a rusty knife throught it's scales

and the warrior has to be able to do all this at will


Uwotm8 wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
You mean the game where you're complaining when he's giving you a handicap by assuming the Eidolon doesn't actually have the main save booster?
Stats were posted and then trying to be change after the fact in a "oh hey, let's do this" manner. It's the moving goalposts game.

Stats were posted for a sample build chosen at random, which was highly unoptimized.

And considering he moved the goalposts TOWARD you, I wouldn't complain.

Uwotm8 wrote:
Rynjin wrote:

Spells that can take your tool and turn it against you are even more of a threat.

Dominate is a threat to your Fighter.

The same is true of the weak willed eidolon.

Rynjin wrote:

And Hold Person, which has the same essential effect (taking him out of the fight).

Or just for shiggles, a Plane Shift. Bonus points because the Fighter just dies, the Eidolon can come back tomorrow, no charge.

All the same can be said about the eidolon except it'd require hold monster which is still a viable threat at the level the build was posted. Perhaps not perfectly free of charge, but if you want to wait a day then the fighter will in all likelihood be back as well except if the fighter is taken out then the summoner can reinforce his role. However, the summoner can not be replaced by the fighter. Losing the summoner is the greater loss. The weakness I was referring to was not necessarily the statistical weakness of a poor will save but rather the usefulness of the class and how much of a loss it can be. Also, a dominated fighter can be freed by the summoner with UMD or even cordon them off with a hold person of their own unlike a dominated eidolon which can be dismissed easily, yes, but, they're still dominated on being returning unless you use a purified calling spell. If you don't have then you might be waiting a couple weeks.[/quote[

I'm not sure what your points are, here. Yes, all of those things are just as great of a thrat to the Fighter as the Eidoon. That's the point. Worst case scenario it's a net wash.

Except when you have the Summoner as a party member, instead of having your party of Fighter-Wizard-Rogue-Cleric or whatever, you have a party of Summoner-Eidolon (90% as good as a Fighter at worst)-Rogue-Cleric.

That is better, full stop.

Uwotm8 wrote:
Rynjin wrote:

Yes, quite useless.

Except for all of those free summons they get. Which you seem to be aware of the existence of.

And buffs. I'd hardly call anyone who can cast Haste useless.

Feeblemind says you can't cast, period. No haste, no buffs. The summons is a fair point, though. With the eidolon gone they can have one active at a time and must twiddle their thumbs between rounds. To keep doing stuff they would need wands or some other gear.

So the Summoner is Feebleminded now, at all times, AND his Eidolon is dismised?

That's a much bigger goalpost shift than N. Jolly was trying to help you out with.

Yes, if someone hits two different party members with save or sucks and they fail, you're gonna have a bad time.

But ironically you're in better shape now than your party would be with a Fighter.

Your enemy has taken out your Summoner and his Eidolon, instead of your Fighter and your we'll say Rogue (since he has the worst saves of the remaining).

So in the scenario where you have a Fighter, you're down to Wizard-Cleric, but in the other you now have Wizard-Cleric-Rogue.

That's a pretty big difference.


I'm still completely baffled that in a team game, casting buff spells on other party members is considered bad.

I'd expect that in like Paranoia, where all of the PCs are actually out to kill each other, but in Pathfinder? Seriously?

Edit: It's an outlook that just seems fundamentally hostile towards your own party, which is a big part of why I find it so baffling.

As to the OP: well, of course there's been. More options means there's more ways to do things, and with more ways to do things there'll come better ways to do things. (One of the more spectacular examples from 3.X was when WotC introduced feats to allow clerics to use their largely useless turn undead ability to start fueling metamagic feats and other special abilities. Those feats were gold, because suddenly a useless resource* become a very useful one.)

Occasionally something that's too good will come out and it'll be must-have (usually in the form of something that escalates rocket tag), but that's honestly par for the course.

One man's bloat is another man's substance.

* In 3.X, turning undead only worked on undead up to 4 HD above your cleric level. Post Monster Manual 1 undead had hitdice up or higher than twice their CR (and that was before their +4 or more turning resistance). Turn undead kind of didn't work part like 3rd level.

Sovereign Court

The newer options are just that...options. It really doesn't change the balance of the game.

In core only, rogue are still terrible, wizard and cleric are still the best.

With more options, you just happen to have classes who are better at doing something but still doesn't change the balance of power. Summoner can summon stuffs better...yay, cool story, Conjuration has always been the best school for the Wizard. It doesn't change anything.

Warpriests came, good option for people who wants to play low level battle clerics but at the end of the day, cleric is still better.

Just saying, that unless there is a massive system overhaul, the situation hasn't changed, Wizard are still laughing at the top, as other people get more options, they do too.

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