AlasterGR's page

I really would have helped if you had said that form the start! All three of us that posted in this thread assumed you to be the Summoner's player.

Well, I never said anything of the like, so that's all your pressumption XP It made me chuckle, though XD Eh, all's good...

I understand how none of you would want fun spoiled by an immature player but I wrote my view on this - so long as everyone's having fun and stuff works I am pretty laid back about it... The one and only reason I am being so insistent on my asking is because I want to understand, regardless of me being a player or a GM :)

Is that "knowledgable guy" the aforementioned Summoner player, a new Summoner's player, or a entirely unrelated person?

None of the above. He is a pretty awesome dude who is relevant since he has been DM-ing for decades, is an endless repository of knowledge and experience on the classical D20 system, has been hanging out with my friends (who I also play several settings with) and teaching and playing with them and a hard-core logical thinker.

Is there even a new Summoner, or is this just brainstorming?

Neither. I run a Pathfinder campaign and a player has taken a Summoner (like, 1 year ago), as I wrote, and we had long established how his character & Eidolon fit into the setting. We even tweeked a couple of stuff as not to be unsettingly (pun intended X'D) over-powered. With his character as the cause, me and the other knowledgable guy had the mentioned discussion.

But all the above are irrelevant : I am searching to understand for knowledge's sake.

You asked "If said Eidolon can travel through the Planes at his own will, can it pop back to the Summoner before 24 hours have passed", I have a hard time looking at that question as anything but an attempt to bypass the "cooldown".

More like what happens to the cooldown. Since the Eidolon can be summoned after a minute or two with 1/2 of his HP and is inherently a strong entity, I can't find the cooldown that limiting. Your mileage may vary though, I have only sat on the table with 1 or maybe 2 Summoners ever, the cooldown was non-deterrent to the class's power.

Similarly, all that stuff about what preexisting creature the Summoner can bond with sounds like an attempt to get the abilities of said preexisting creature on the Eidolon.

Again, presumptions :P It would make an awesome story element, though. However, I would not easily allow it. I am leaning towards the Eidolon being at most an aspect of said Outsider (if not a VERY imaginative person's imaginative friend as MrCharisma pointed out ;) ) so inherent Outsider abilities would be mostly a no-no. If a player would like to play a character linked with an Outsider, I'd take a different approach.

For instance, the mentioned Plane Shift ability - there is no Evolution that grants that, so where is the ability to "travel through the Planes at his own will" coming from?

I can think of 3 ways ways that an entity (including an Eidolon if there is nothing exclusively barring) can be fitted with such abilities: Deity given or plot-driven (GM's discretion) and item-used (an Eidolon could easily possess sufficient UMD ranks using relevant wands). I am aware that an Alchemist or a Priest cannot transfer such spells on another (and for the sake of my sanity hope I am not proven wrong :P ).

However I was told about something else entirely that simply blows the whole level of inquiry completely out of proportion : an Eidolon with class levels, able to re-train itself. Not sure if it is mechanicaly allowed since racial HD cannot be retrained and the Eidolon could not(?) ever gain levels in a class. Not 100% sure aobut that, though.

AlasterGR wrote:

I am not sure what would happen should a slain Eidolon and his Summoner were placed in less than 10k feet of each other, in his home plane, before the one day period has passed. I think that they ought not be linked and the Eidolon doesn't need to be active as her ability but I am not sure I understand it correctly.

What's the goal here? Do you want to make a quest about the Summoner visiting the Eidlon on its home plane? That could be a lot of fun, but would require some worldbuilding on your (the GM's) part. Or is there something else going on?

The goal here, as with most of this thread, is to understand the mechanics before I decide how I want it on my games and settings. Not that I wouldn't love for the Summoner to end up communicating with her Eidolon ~ I simply love integrated role playing and the world building. If I ever played as a Summoner, I'd definitely love to build the what's what of my imaginary friend. Bonus if I ended up playing a demented person ! XD

Thanks for the answers, people :) I really appreciate it.

I don't know if you're legitimately trying to work out the flavor, or if you're trying to basically cheat. To be honest, it looks a lot like the latter, in which case you should stop.

You know, I could take offense in this but I will let it pass, just this once...

Like MrCharisma said, you can come up with basically any flavor you like (and the GM agrees on), but don't try to milk any mechanical benefit form it.

I have no idea what would constitute "mechanical benefit" from any of the possible answers to my questions and I am not trying to "milk" anything. I was challenged on my understanding of the class and the game mechanics and I am trying to make sense out of the rules while conversing with relevant people. However, if you feel like I am being underhanded, please feel free to ignore me.

Well, the Eidolon is an outsider that's subject to Banishment and anything that affects outsiders. The flavor can't voilate that.

I 100% agree. No flavor should change or bypass mechanics, unless all parties agree with it.

However, I feel like you are kind of contradicting your previous post with your next statement but you are being very clear so I get what you mean.

I really loved you Deep Space 9 reference ! XD

Think of it this way: The Eidolon is the Summoner's imaginary friend, but the summoner is VERY imaginative.

That's a very neat way to describe it XD

... but if you were doing this to try and bypass the limit on having the eidolon and your summon monster ability in use at the same time I might have your eidolon mutter something about "section 2, subsection IIIb of the standard summoning contract" to refuse - nothing says it's obligated to leave its home without being summoned.

That's a very nice way to put it, but why would I be trying to bypass said limit ? It works pretty balancingly with the class. After all, a Summoner has access to Summon Monster as a spell as well ~ there's the Master Summoner archetype if you want to have both Eidolon and Summon Monsters Spell-Like Ability on the field.

The reason I am wondering how would the mechanics play out is because I am not sure what would happen should a slain Eidolon and his Summoner were placed in less than 10k feet of each other, in his home plane, before the one day period has passed. I think that they ought not be linked and the Eidolon doesn't need to be active as her ability but I am not sure I understand it correctly.

By the way, I am the GM in a game where one of my players has taken a Summoner and we had long established what the Eidolon means to the setting and to us, we have had 0 problems with that. I have no idea why anyone got the impression that this is a thread about cheating, but that is not the case. As I said, I was challenged by another knowledgable guy and I am having a conversation here as a result. Not that I have anything against players trying to exploit the game ~ so long as they are upfront about it, they have fun, the exploitation or their attitude don't ruin the fun for other players and are consistent in their roleplay, I welcome it. But that's just me...

Anywho, I believe I got the gist of what you are all trying to say :) I will definitely talk carefully with players about how my world is set up in regards to this class beforehand.

Derklord, MrCharisma, avr, thank you for taking time to write you point of views ! I appreciate it.

Good day and thank you for taking the time to answer.

A creature doesn't "become" an Eidolon. For mechanical purposes, the Eidolon doesn't exist until the Summoner calls it for the first time.

So, if we are playing a more realistic adventure, the GM has absolutely no obligation to accept that said Eidolon actually exists since he has no past actions that justifies his existence :P The "Summoner" could just as easily be a delusional person that can't even summon.

Questions #2-5 presume an existing outsider that was turned into an Eidolon, but that's (mechanically) not the case, so the questions don't apply.

No, they do apply and you just answered them because you are saying that :

2. Eidolon is a label term for said Outsider.
3. 4. 5. No

AlasterGR wrote:

7. What is the state of the Eidolon when sent back to his home plane after "dying", mechanicaly speaking ?

Is it considered *alive* and with how many current Hit Points ? If said Eidolon can travel through the Planes at his own will, can it pop back to the Summoner before 24 hours have passed and at how much HP (since she did not technically summoned him back before 24h period) ?
Unspecified, but pretty much irrelevant because the Eidolon can't "travel through the Planes at his own will".

Ok, so what if she Plane Shifts (the material component is very easy to come by for the Summoner) ? Per the mechanics they should link again when they get nearer than 10.000ft in his home plane but what about the Eidolon's health ? What if they get into a battle ? Also, why can the Eidolon not travel through the Planes at his own will ? If he possesses the ability, what stops him ?

Then again, the handbook mentions that the Summoner calls on an aspect of the Eidolon, per the wording not the Eidolon himself. So, if these two are separate, how should we treat any scenario that places them and the Summoner on his home plane ?

If I understand you correctly, the Eidolon as a creature, his background and relevance to the world is created during the Summoner's 1st level. However I find it of ectremely poor consistency that such a significant entity is created retroactively for the needs of a class. I understand that everything can be alright so long as there is some laxiness on the "reality" of the setting played but if the player or the GM need to be thorough, I am still left with questions.

Thank you very much for taking the time to write such a big reply. It helps me as I try to make sense of this.

Dearest community, greetings.

I searched long in the Rules Question and I believe I did not find any sufficient answers to my questions. If there do exist please direct me and I will be happy to have this thread deleted as well.

I have just had a heated discussion about the Summoner's "Eidolon" class feature. I find the class simply marvelous and very interesting with the wording of the official source not enough to clarify. For the sake of simplicity, the Outsider and corresponding Eidolon are "he/his/him" and the character that can become a Summoner is "she/her" :

"A summoner begins play with the ability to summon to his side a powerful outsider called an eidolon. The eidolon forms a link with the summoner, who, forever after, summons an aspect of the same creature. An eidolon has the same alignment as the summoner that calls it and can speak all of his languages."
[http://aonprd.com/ClassDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Summoner]

1. Can any entity with the "Outesider" type become an Eidolon ?
For example, if a Golarion human for some reason ends up with the "Outsider" type would he be able to become an Eidolon ?

2. Is "Eidolon" a label given to linked Outsider's summonable aspect or is it merely another word for the Outsider himself (within the context of summoning his aspect and
apart from the class feature name) ?

3. Is the Outsider's alignment being relevant to the Summoner a prerequisite for forming the link ?
For example can a Lawful Evil Outsider form a link with a Chaotic Good person in order for said person to become its Eidolon's Summoner ?

4. Is the Outsider's knowledge of all of the Summoner's languages a prerequisite for forming the link ?

5. Is forming a link with the Outsider (that is to become the Summoner's Eidolon) a prerequisite in order to take the first level in the class or can one become a Summoner without being able to call forth an Eidolon right from the get go ?
An example of it would be a player who picks the class for their character who she trains to become a Summoner, comes in contact with an outsider that sucessfully lies to and never actually linking with her SO she ends up donning the class but without an Eidolon from the start.

6. Can the Outsider retract their link from a Summoner? If so, what happens to the character, do they lose their class or only the relevant class features, are they capable of forming a new link with the same or different Outsider, do they stop progressing as Summoners and/or do they automaticaly switch to a relevant class (such as Sorceress) ?

Also :
"Eidolons are treated as summoned creatures, except that they are not sent back to their home plane until reduced to a number of negative hit points equal to or greater than their Constitution score.
...
A summoner can summon his eidolon in a ritual that takes 1 minute to perform. When summoned in this way, the eidolon hit points are unchanged from the last time it was summoned. The only exception to this is if the eidolon was slain, in which case it returns with half its normal hit points. The eidolon does not heal naturally."
[http://aonprd.com/ClassDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Summoner]

7. What is the state of the Eidolon when sent back to his home plane after "dying", mechanicaly speaking ?
Is it considered *alive* and with how many current Hit Points ? If said Eidolon can travel through the Planes at his own will, can it pop back to the Summoner before 24 hours have passed and at how much HP (since she did not technically summoned him back before 24h period) ?

8. Under whose perspective does the 24h period need have passed, the Summoner's or the Eidolon's, given how time can flow differently throughout the Planes ?

9. What exactly constitutes natural healing and would this disallow something to grant the Eidolon the ability to heal itself over time (like potions or spells like Heal and Regenerate or abilities like Fast Healing) ?

My personal understanding is this :
An Outsider needs to be an entity sufficiently powerfull, at GM's arbitrary discretion in order to be elligible for granting an Eidolon. Eidolon is the label term for the Outsider's aspect that a Summoner may call forth. A link is a very vague term for "information or magic exchange" regardless of languages or alignment but with the chance and ability of comunication as a prerequisite. A character taking 1st level at Summoner means the following series of events take place in order :
0. Magic is working and the character and Outsider are compatible with it.
1. Character becomes capable of summoning an Eidolon.
2. A "sufficiently strong" Outsider "forms a link" with the character registering an aspect with her.
and as a result,
3. The character gains the ability to Summon the Outsider's Eidolon.
4. Said Eidolon immediately adopts the Summoner's alignment and languages, regardless of the Outsider.
Also, Eidolon returning to its home plane means that his registered aspect simply goes "poof" and actually the quality of the link gets some sort of backlash, returning at full power after 24h worth of time has passed from the Summoner's point of view. The same Outsider can be linked with various Summoners at the same time and various Eidolons of his can be present at once.

Thank you for taking time to read all this. Any and all perspectives and insights at mechanics is greatly appreciated.

Hello, Bober and I wish you great games :D

To begin with, I am pretty sure that Mystic Theurge gives level to only 1 of the 2 spellcasting classes, per level not both. I don't like it but I think that's the official way.
Secondly, you ought to take the Theurgy magic feat ( https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/theurgy/ ) which, when spellcasting, augments the spell with the other category's power. In all honesty, I can't understand why it isn't offered officialy for free when in MT ^_^