Secrets of Magic Playtest!

Hypppppe!

Live footage of me reading through the playtest rules.

Welcome everyone! I hope you enjoy the classes, and I'll see you in the summoner subforum.

Nuuuuuuuuu, SELTYIEL IN A SHIRT WHYYYYYY

More seriously love the new art, especially the Summoner and the GIANT PLUSHIE EIDOLON YESSSSSS

Society Playable?

Is that iconic a god-caller?

Seltyiel doesn't wear shirts, this must be someone else.

We got a new Iconic for the Summoner. Why?

Probably to delve more into God Caller lore, rather than "I just randomly summoned a giant snek chicken cause I was scared and hungry".

Is that a Child or a Gnome?

Now you kids just remember where we parked, all right?

Is that a Child or a Gnome?

Maybe I'm bias as I've been doing a Sarkoris Scar campaign, but the new iconic looks like a young Sarkorian godcaller. I hope so, an iconic of Sarkoris is pretty exciting and I hope it brings attention to the region beyond just demons and the Worldwound.

My compliments to whomever came up with this version of limited casting. This is a fantastic answer to the balance question.

I'm torn between "Cool! I know lot of people like summoners" And "oh god, not again. There goes the game, just like last time". I doubt it will work like that. My scars are still healing :D

AT LAST!!!

Welcome everyone! I hope you enjoy the classes, and I'll see you in the summoner subforum.

I *love* them both and cannot wait to playtest!

Oh man, an unarmed brawling Magus sounds SO FUN.

Society Playable?

I hope so!

Seltyiel doesn't wear shirts, this must be someone else.

Glad to see someone else address this travesty!

I love this setup on summoner. Eidolons having custom unarmed attacks was one of the things I was hoping for, and I'm really glad to see it.

First major question about the mechanics:

The Summoner and Eidolon share a pool of HP. Whose Constitution score do you use for this? Does this mean that summoners (other than if they use the Synthesis feat) need to have excellent Constitution in order to keep their eidolon from being a weakling?

So what part of the Summoner makes them good at summoning things? I see the feats related to summons. They are few and feel underpowered. This class may as well just be called Eidolonmaster.

When summons feel tacked on to a class called Summoner I feel a tweak of some sort is needed.

For people wondering about Organized Play integration: We're currently working out some final considerations as to whether and to what extent the playtest will be integrated with Pathfinder Society. We're aware of the short time span for the playtest and will have more guidance by the end of this week. Thanks for your patience!

So what part of the Summoner makes them good at summoning things? I see the feats related to summons. They are few and feel underpowered. This class may as well just be called Eidolonmaster.

When summons feel tacked on to a class called Summoner I feel a tweak of some sort is needed.

On the other hand, having a class invalidate being a Summoner wizard or cleric because they get the same summoning spells but better is a bit lame.

I see it as them being cautious of stepping on too many toes.

First major question about the mechanics:

The Summoner and Eidolon share a pool of HP. Whose Constitution score do you use for this? Does this mean that summoners (other than if they use the Synthesis feat) need to have excellent Constitution in order to keep their eidolon from being a weakling?

Summoner. The Eidolon section specifies you and your Eidolon share *your* Hit Points. Summoner Hit Points are d10 + their Constitution mod.

Its good to treat the new Summoner as a martial/caster hybrid. Summomer handles spellcasting while the Eidolom handles martial combat, but they share their fate together.

The Eidolon gets a Con score to help determine its Saving Throw and any Con checks I presume.

First find: The sidebar on page 5 clarifies that Acid Splash indeed does splash damage in adjacent squares! XD Whoop!

Also, the Magus has the same spell progression table as the Summoner... is this right? Can a Magus only prepare spells of the two highest levels that they can cast?

cartmanbeck wrote:

First major question about the mechanics:

The Summoner and Eidolon share a pool of HP. Whose Constitution score do you use for this? Does this mean that summoners (other than if they use the Synthesis feat) need to have excellent Constitution in order to keep their eidolon from being a weakling?

Summoner. The Eidolon section specifies you and your Eidolon share *your* Hit Points. Summoner Hit Points are d10 + their Constitution mod.

Its good to treat the new Summoner as a martial/caster hybrid. Summomer handles spellcasting while the Eidolom handles martial combat, but they share their fate together.

The Eidolon gets a Con score to help determine its Saving Throw and any Con checks I presume.

I agree, but does this change when you use the Synthesis feats? Because it says: "While manifested in this way, you use your eidolon’s statistics." So do you gain a bunch of hit points from your eidolon's Con score, and they disappear if you de-manifest the eidolon? Is this now the new Rage-then-dead-Barbarian?

Is the Magus Spell Slot list correct?

On the Summoner, the weirdness is explained, but in the Magus they seam to just ignore the fact that the spell slots are restricted.

SkylerJB wrote:

cartmanbeck wrote:

First major question about the mechanics:

The Summoner and Eidolon share a pool of HP. Whose Constitution score do you use for this? Does this mean that summoners (other than if they use the Synthesis feat) need to have excellent Constitution in order to keep their eidolon from being a weakling?

Summoner. The Eidolon section specifies you and your Eidolon share *your* Hit Points. Summoner Hit Points are d10 + their Constitution mod.

Its good to treat the new Summoner as a martial/caster hybrid. Summomer handles spellcasting while the Eidolom handles martial combat, but they share their fate together.

The Eidolon gets a Con score to help determine its Saving Throw and any Con checks I presume.

I agree, but does this change when you use the Synthesis feats? Because it says: "While manifested in this way, you use your eidolon’s statistics." So do you gain a bunch of hit points from your eidolon's Con score, and they disappear if you de-manifest the eidolon? Is this now the new Rage-then-dead-Barbarian?

Good question. I would assume that you do change your Hit Points to your Eidolon as you are using their statistics. That does mean Rage-then-dead-Barbarian situation can happen. I'm not sure if this is RAI. Time to post in the Playtest forums!

Is the Magus Spell Slot list correct?

On the Summoner, the weirdness is explained, but in the Magus they seam to just ignore the fact that the spell slots are restricted.

Considering the existence of the Martial Caster feat (level 6), I think that table is right.

Interesting. I had not even considered the fact that the Secrets of Magic book is including two classes whose magic is more limited than others. It is a funny thought.

Super excited for this. Haven't had a chance to dive into the playtest yet. Robed Seltyiel is a bittersweet thing. He looks cool. But the chest. Lol

Is the Summoner supposed to get Summon X spells in their repertoire automatically? The Angel Summoners and Summon Spells sidebar seem to be indicating something like that but I didn't see anything about it.

Very interesting.

I'm not quite sure if the Magus has enough spells to actually make use of their unique Class Features to the degree that would be nice, but cantrips do help...

Summoner just looks very solid. I really like the 'treat them as one character' nature of it.

Is the Magus Spell Slot list correct?

On the Summoner, the weirdness is explained, but in the Magus they seam to just ignore the fact that the spell slots are restricted.

As JackieLane notes, the table is almost certainly correct, but Magus probably does need an explanatory paragraph regarding it like Summoner has.

Huh. No 10th level spells. Well, I'll be darned. Looks like I was wrong.

Bugs me a little that Summoner can't use 10th level summon spells, but it looks like the class is less focused on summon spells overall in this incarnation.

And Magus still at least gets 10th level cantrips for damage, even if they can't heighten their other damage spells to 10th level.

EDIT: The blog post saying that magus gets spell slots "as high as wizard" seems a little misleading in that light, though, since wizards get 10th level slots and magi don't.

I am guessing that 16 Con and 18 Cha would be standard stats for a summoner -- which means that by the time they get to using the synthesis feats, the summoner may well have a better Con than the eidolon.

Seltiyel seems to be going for that runelord or "evil archmage" look

I am guessing that 16 Con and 18 Cha would be standard stats for a summoner -- which means that by the time they get to using the synthesis feats, the summoner may well have a better Con than the eidolon.

I doubt it unless they're going Synthesis almost all the time. The Summoner themselves is an unarmored caster and thus needs to focus on Dex over Con to be survivable.

Now, I would expect their Con to be respectable, but 16? Nah.

Sooo looking forward to this! Thank you!

Am I reading this right? That spellstrike is a free action to place a spell into the weapon but you still need to cast the spell. So 2 actions to cast a cantrip then use your 3rd action to move or attack? That would place melee magi at a significant disadvantage to ranged magi just on action economy alone.

Am I reading this right? That spellstrike is a free action to place a spell into the weapon but you still need to cast the spell. So 2 actions to cast a cantrip then use your 3rd action to move or attack? That would place melee magi at a significant disadvantage to ranged magi just on action economy alone.

Check Slide Casting, it adds a free Stride (or Step) to that, making for solid melee action economy. Sustaining Steel means that two-handed weapon users face more difficulties, though.

Am I reading this right? That spellstrike is a free action to place a spell into the weapon but you still need to cast the spell. So 2 actions to cast a cantrip then use your 3rd action to move or attack? That would place melee magi at a significant disadvantage to ranged magi just on action economy alone.

That's what the Slide Casting synthesis is for, giving you a free Stride/Step as part of casting.

Will we see old summoner and spiritualist iconics as art in this book? :3 (yeah phantoms are type of eidolon now)

First impression is meh.

The evolutions have a lot of text but dont seem to fo much. Spending a level 16 feat to give the eidolon Winged flight? That seems really bad and most of the others dont look better. Meanwhile, Eidolon is described as "No mere minion" but has less actions than a minion if it were not for Act together. They really arent equals its more like they are conjoined twins.

On the other hand a few feats seem really fun.

The Magus looks better due to all the cool and/or synergistic feats. But having to make two or more rolls to see if a spell hit is not very encouraging.

So, first Summoner question: Can I use the action granted to the Summoner by Act Together as part of a spell or other multi-action activity?

An Eidolon basically makes you a full martial as well as a partial caster, and with action economy benefits to boot. That's pretty effective all on its own.

Some of the Feats are maybe a tad lackluster, I'll grant, but the basic stuff is really solid and awesome.

Spellcaster MC dedication on Magus sounds good at first glance.

Spellcaster MC dedication on Magus sounds good at first glance.

It is, though you can get some of the same effect via Martial Caster. Maybe too good.

I'm really not convinced Magus has enough basic spell slots to really do the thing they seem to be aiming for. Multiclassing really helps with that, but should probably not be as good or necessary as it looks like it might be.

Also I like how Sentinel dedication now covers PF1's class features of gaining heavier armor proficiencies.

Raise Tome you say? It's time to tip the scales!

...This very silly thing makes me extremely happy.