BACE's page

TheGentlemanDM wrote:

Oh god that's a lot of pointless minutiae abilities.

I will agree that the chained summoner had a lot of little evolutions.

Unchained did better by of loading a lot into free subtype evolutions and simplifying some stuff.

I would not be opposed to PF2 simplifying the weakest evolutions to be more generic. But Eidolons still need to have options for evolutions that are not tied to feats.

The lack of options and the bottleneck nature of class feats is what I see as a problem.

***********************

*P.S. I tried to convert the Unchained Eidolon evolutions to fit more PF2.

One of the things I did was remove the attack evolutions. But I still left the mobility evolutions.

I know you've talked a bit about giving evolutions on a sort of spell progression. And, to start this off, I really don't want to talk about the viability (page count or otherwise) of such a system. I'm just kind of wondering about the implementation, because it is, if nothing else, an interesting system.

I'm curious what power level you imagine these being? Since spells are tied to a consumable resource, they would have to be weaker than a spell of an equivalent level. So what would an appropriately-powered evolution look like, under this system? Shield is a cantrip, so we can probably give the eidolon the ability to Raise a Shield without a shield for a +1 circ bonus to AC. At level 1? Easy enough. But is that worth a whole evolution? Normal spellcasters get 5 cantrips, after all. So should an evolution be worth 2 cantrip effects? Or 3? Instead of normal Shield, should it be an action that gives +1 to AC and a saving throw? Or all Saving Throws?

I think this is kind of an interesting thought exercise, more than anything, and I'm curious to hear what people think would be an "appropriate" power level for evolutions under such a system.

BACE wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

Based on when (and the two feat plus a stance cost) Fighters get to add reach to any attack they like, I don't see this happening at level 1. Gnome Flick Mace isn't a good comparison, as its something of an extreme exception to the base rules as it stands.

I have to disagree here. Fundamentally, first, because Fighters can add reach to any melee weapon attack starting at level 2 with the Lunge feat. The stance just lets you do it with AoOs. Letting an eidolon get reach on just one of their starting melee attacks seems fine, considering the fighter can do it with any weapon a level later.

Getting things before a Fighter does is the sortof benchmark I'm talking about though when I say I'm against a Summoner stealing other classes identities.

I'm not saying don't give Eidolons reach, I'm saying that giving it to them before The Class that is Best at Fighting might be the sort of thing that upsets Fighters.

But if you can add reach to a single one of your starting melee attacks, that's not doing the same thing as the Fighter. It's objectively worse. Fighters can do Lunge with any melee weapon. Greatswords, rapiers, whatever. If the Eidolon gave reach to one melee attack, then it's basically just a 1d8 reach or a 1d4 agile, reach. This is not better than the fighter thing. In any way. If you want to complain about it doing something better than another class, maybe you have ground to stand on with monk. Maybe.

BACE wrote:

Verzen wrote:

TheGentlemanDM wrote:

With the way it looks like it go, we'd have that online by... 6th or 8th level?

Plant base (comes with the Primal List). NA Human to pick up ELEMENTAL STRIKES at 1st level.

We pick up the supporting cantrip at 2nd level to highlight their defensive nature.

At 4th level, Unarmed Evolution to we can Trip with our vines.

Breath weapon is probably a 6th level evolution in the best case scenario? I'd probably buff it to more than just Xd6 to make it worth the wait.

Do ancestry feats effect our eidolon? Don't think they do.

I mean, Natural Ambition gets you a free class feat, so I'm pretty sure this is a clear case where you don't have to worry about whether or not it has an effect on the eidolon. It's an evolution feat that you're getting, in the end. Definitely works.

Ah I misread mainly because the Summoner doesn't have an elemental strike feat. Its an assumption.

Yeah, looks like Gentleman was building on the assumption that would be available, and extrapolating from there.

Based on when (and the two feat plus a stance cost) Fighters get to add reach to any attack they like, I don't see this happening at level 1. Gnome Flick Mace isn't a good comparison, as its something of an extreme exception to the base rules as it stands.

I have to disagree here. Fundamentally, first, because Fighters can add reach to any melee weapon attack starting at level 2 with the Lunge feat. The stance just lets you do it with AoOs. Letting an eidolon get reach on just one of their starting melee attacks seems fine, considering the fighter can do it with any weapon a level later.

TheGentlemanDM wrote:

With the way it looks like it go, we'd have that online by... 6th or 8th level?

Plant base (comes with the Primal List). NA Human to pick up ELEMENTAL STRIKES at 1st level.

We pick up the supporting cantrip at 2nd level to highlight their defensive nature.

At 4th level, Unarmed Evolution to we can Trip with our vines.

Breath weapon is probably a 6th level evolution in the best case scenario? I'd probably buff it to more than just Xd6 to make it worth the wait.

Do ancestry feats effect our eidolon? Don't think they do.

I mean, Natural Ambition gets you a free class feat, so I'm pretty sure this is a clear case where you don't have to worry about whether or not it has an effect on the eidolon. It's an evolution feat that you're getting, in the end. Definitely works.

Gortle wrote:

Themetricsystem wrote:

I totally agree with OP.

Trash number of Spell Slots for EXTREMELY weak casting a total of 4-6 times a day depending what Magic Items you invested or if you choose Arcane is totally brain dead.

Remove non-cantrip spell casting altogether, give them a splash more Focus Spells as they level up based on their Tradition and add 4 full pages (no art) of Evolutions to customize and kit out your Eidolon and Summons you cast from your new Focus Spell versions of them.

I do want those pages of options that you are talking about. I don't see that the right way to go about it is to remove spells.

The spell casting is interesting - there is a huge amount of variety there. Its not weak. The spell DCs are reasonable unless you choose to sack your Charisma.

It would be a massive loss to do away with spell casting all together. Whats the summoner going do then? Ping with a bow, and use a very limited set of focus spells ?!?!

The summoner has to have at least a few spell options. PF1 Summoner was a great caster.

If something has to be lost to make a more interesting and effective eidolon what else can you take away? Currently spell casting is a very large part of the summoner's power, but I think a more interesting eidolon would be more of what it seems like most people want from the summoner.

I really like having the different casting traditions based on the eidolon type. I hope that can be preserved even with a reduction in casting capability.

Absolutely agree. Spellcasting seems like a pretty big power drain, and I would give up spellcasting in a hearbeat to get more interesting options for the eidolon. I do agree, though, that they need to give something more interesting for the summoner to do. Boost Eidolon is, frankly, dull, and it's just an action tax on the extra action you're given, making you use that extra action to keep your damage up.

Also, people in this thread acting like the classes are in complete disrepair and need complete overhauls, two things here:

1) They tend to release the most "out-there" options during playtests, not the safe stuff they're more certain will work.

2) If they made Striking Spell take a total of 2 actions instead of 3, I really don't think many people would complain about the Magus. Similarly, if they gave us a little bit more eidolon customization, I don't think many people would complain about the Summoner.

manbearscientist wrote:

there won't be room for 100 evolution feats in the 13-16 pages the class gets in the book

While absolutely true, they can flex things a bit by creating options that work off existing mechanics.

Like if you had an evolution that let you add some existing weapon traits to the eidolon unarmed attacks, that can effectively give you a handful of different choices without having to write a significant amount of new next.

Certainly not peak customization either, but it'd be something.

This could definitely work. For instance, you have something like the current Unarmed Evolution, except it has

Special You can select this feat any number of times.

Or you could make a higher level feat that does something similar (although maybe with a more spaced out progression), something like (if we assume they use character level as prerequisite)

Monstrous Combat Evolution 6

Choose Grab(?), Constrict, or Push. The damage entry of one of your eidolon's starting melee attacks gains that effect, and your eidolon can use the corresponding actin.
Special You can select this feat an additional time starting at 10th level, 14th level, and 18th level. Starting at 10th level, add Rend and Knockdown to the list of effects you can choose.

Not saying this is necessarily balanced as-is, but you get the idea. These two evolutions count for up to 18 evolutions, assuming that you can choose a different trait and starting melee attack for unarmed evolution each time.

Now while these kinds of things would help with book space, I feel like giving the eidolon 30 evolutions throughout its lifespan might be excessive, and they might have to be pretty severely weakened for that to happen. Right now, the reason spells sort of "get away" with having so many slots is that they're a resource that you have to expend for effect. Evolutions would, theoretically, be (mostly) things that are always available to you.

They have the draconic language, they are arcane only, not primal, they have the DRAGON TRAIT which means it is immune to sleep and paralysis.

Lol dude, the dragon trait doesn't mean that at all. It's literally just a marker so they can have things that affect "dragons" specifically. The dragon trait has no inherent rules baggage. Here's the dragon trait:

Dragons are reptilian creatures, often winged or with the power of flight. Most are able to use a breath weapon and are immune to sleep and paralysis.

See here

Most are immune to sleep and paralysis. It's setting expectations, not giving you rules. As it stands now, the dragon eidolon is immune to neither of those things.

This is the dragon Eidolon, right? Well, at 1st level, what if I wanted Engulf? (This is JUST an example. I'm not sure if Engulf is a little too powerful or not) He doesn't get the dragon's breath attack, but he does get the engulf instead.

But the dragon Eidolon is STILL available as a package for those who want to choose to have the Eidolon. And some of the packages may have abilities that the create-your-own option does not have access to... some unique abilities.. like the Dragonic frenzy, for example... it would stay with the dragon Eidolon package. But I can definitely see how multiple different Eidolons aside from dragons might have a breath attack.

Ah, I misread your original post as saying that a dragon somehow wouldn't be able to get a breath weapon, and might have to pick up something weird like engulf instead. Which didn't make sense in my mind, and now I see that I was just parsing it wrong. Thanks.

I do have a question, Verzen. I noticed you mentioned your "Hungry Dragon," and I can't quite see why that would necessarily be an issue. Can you elaborate on why this would happen under your system? It seems like if there were even just 4-5 options at each tier, you would end up largely being able to get something that fits the vision of your eidolon.

I actually really like this idea.

My only question would be this...would you get to choose your own school of magic and skill proficiencies as well?

Also I approve of the really hungry dragon :)

I imagine your spell tradition would probably be related to the creature type you choose for your eidolon. The skill, though...no idea. Maybe pick 2 from a list?

I wonder if we could just build eidolons with character creation. Like, give us the base forms, they give some abilities and spell list and stuff. And then they give ancestry boosts. So you pick a background for them, and get the background boosts. Hell, maybe your eidolon's form only gives 1 skill instead of 2, and the other skill comes from your eidolon's background. Then you pick a "class" like the ones Gentleman suggested, one for each ability score, and maybe this grants your eidolon a bonus or evolution or something. And then you get free boosts. Boom, complete customization of your eidolon's ability scores, using a framework that already exists.

Edit: Just read verzen's full system. Just giving raw numbers and saying "put them where you want" would also work, and be simpler.

If Mark comes back around around (or if anyone else thinks they can answer this), I have two questions. Let's say, for the sake of argument, you are currently synthed. Your ally goes down in battle and is dying. You run up to them, and want to Administer First Aid. You were wearing a bandolier with healer's tools. The requirements for Administer First Aid say "You have healer's tools". But while synthed, can you actually use those tools?

And this is reaching even more into hypothetical land, but let's say that somehow, you had access to Battle Medicine while synthed. Battle Medicine's requirement is "You are holding or wearing healer's tools." Same question: If you had healer's tools in a bandolier before synthing, could you actually still access those tools?

BACE wrote:

I have a question for you, Mark, if you're still around.

There's a lot of talk here about giving the summoner more evolutions throughout their career than they currently have. I don't want to ask about your thoughts about the ideas themselves, because that seems a bit unfair and like I probably wouldn't get an answer anyway.

I am curious, though: Would this be feasible with the page count? Let's say, for the sake of this example, that such a system would require 40 class feats and 40 evolution feats, for a total of 80 feats. (Note that I don't think you would actually need 40 evolution feats, but for the sake of this question, we'll go with it.)

By my quick count, it looks like a page can hold about 10 feats. Would there, hypothetically, be room for 4-5 extra pages of feats in a book? I don't know how tight your page count would be in such a situation, so I was hoping you would be able to answer.

It would be a challenge to grab 4 or 6 pages from somewhere else (can't do 5), and something will always be lost to make that happen, that's sort of the way things are. Sometimes things also take more space than we expect in layout. Like in APG we lost some archetypes (that we will find a home for in a later book) because oracle and champion both took more space than we expected. If necessary, it'd probably mean we lose out on a whole bunch of brand new spells and magic items.

Thanks for the response! It's always interesting (and a bit weird) to hear about how page counts can affect things. I'm overall in agreement that I'd rather have a full class that plays well over magic items and spells, but I also recognize that not everyone will share that view. I think overall it probably depends how many pages are dedicated to those things. If there are 20 pages of items and 20 pages of spells, then losing 2 pages of each won't hurt (in my opinion). Now, if there are 6 pages of items and 6 of spells, that changes things.

As long as it doesn't cause Dinosaur Fort to get dropped, I think I'm willing to sacrifice items and spells. But I feel a bit like Farquaad saying that.

"Some of you may die, but that's a risk I'm willing to take."

I have a question for you, Mark, if you're still around.

There's a lot of talk here about giving the summoner more evolutions throughout their career than they currently have. I don't want to ask about your thoughts about the ideas themselves, because that seems a bit unfair and like I probably wouldn't get an answer anyway.

I am curious, though: Would this be feasible with the page count? Let's say, for the sake of this example, that such a system would require 40 class feats and 40 evolution feats, for a total of 80 feats. (Note that I don't think you would actually need 40 evolution feats, but for the sake of this question, we'll go with it.)

By my quick count, it looks like a page can hold about 10 feats. Would there, hypothetically, be room for 4-5 extra pages of feats in a book? I don't know how tight your page count would be in such a situation, so I was hoping you would be able to answer.

This is really annoying.

Both sides are saying to give Eidolon bonus evolutions and yelling at each other that they are wrong. Its really stupid when all that time could had beem spent on thinking on a good way to implement those bonus evolutions. Also bonus feats in my opinion are not "easier" or better customization. Because they fall into the trap of being level locked for no reason.

Which is why I prefer the point system (which Paizo copied and gave to familiar).

The Unchained System specifically is generally the best way to do it after some balance changes to fit PF2. The Unchained System lets all of you who want a chassis get a chassis. But it also allows Vezren to get his generic Eidolon via a "generic" Eidolon subtype.

And no the Unchained Eidolon system is not complicated:

1) Choose a subtype. This gives you a set of subtype specific abilities, some choices of free evolutions, and a chpice of base form.

2) Choose a base form. This determines the stats and and some free evolutions.

3) Get evolution points. This is how many abilities you can get.

3) Get evolutions. Pick the evolutions that you want by spending evolution points.

Thats it. No special weird feats. No blob as a base character (unless you pick the generic or protean). No cookie cutter Eidolons that are just weird reskins.

And for balance well Paizo can handle balancing. And the 3 action system inherently removes the #1 issue in pathfinder being multiple natural attacks.

Yeah, I've been trying to express that people are just talking past each other, but it doesn't seem to change much. But anyway, I think this is somewhat reasonable, but a lot of people seem to be very against a points-based system as a whole, heralding it as too complicated. Which I guess I can see. You're holding onto a resource that you can only use at level up, so it's just a weird little bit of extra bookkeeping. I agree that it isn't that complicated, but a lot of people are against it, so maybe it's worth looking into alternatives. Also, to touch on

they fall into the trap of being level locked for no reason.

There's a pretty good reason for things like permaflight to be level-locked, and that's so you can't just get permaflight at level 5 when every other character has to wait for level 15+. It just doesn't quite fit that the eidolon could do this super early.

That still runs into massive amounts of feat bloat to support it, I fear.

It might, but definitely less so than Verzen's system. The summoner is, effectively, closer to a martial than a caster. A lot of martials, baseline, have 50-60 feets just in the books they were printed in. Let's say we want, on average, 2 evolutions/level available that you can choose from. It'd probably be frontloaded a bit just to give more options at those low levels. Level 1 you have 4 evolutions to choose from. Level 2 you have 2. Level 3 you have 2. Etc. This leads to a total of 42 evolution feats needed. Okay, yeah, that's a lot. But not all of them need their own entry. You can get away with stuff like

Lifesense

You have a limited ability to sense life force. You gain lifesense as an imprecise sense with a range of 10 feet. This allows you to sense the life force within living creatures and its counterforce that animates the undead, though you can't distinguish between the two.
Special You can select this evolution an additional time starting at 15th level. When you do, your eidolon instead gains Lifesense with a range of 60 feet.

This means you now need 41, since 1 evolution can have basically an "Improved X" version built-in. Or, hell, what if they gave us this as an evolution?

Talented Evolution Feat 2

Your eidolon develops its own unique skillset, independent from your own. Your eidolon gains an archetype feat it qualifies for.
Special You can select this evolution an additional time starting at at levels 4, 6, 8, and every even levels thereafter. When you do, choose from archetype feats your eidolon has access to, granting your eidolon those feats. As usual, your eidolon can’t take additional dedications until it has taken enough archetype feats first.

This adds so many options, and all it takes is one feat with a nice little Special entry. It might be a bad idea, I don't know, but you can at least see what I'm going for here. All told, you could probably get the number of options required in maybe 30 feats. That still leaves at least 30 feats open for non-eidolon summoner stuff, or they could inflate the number of class feats by 10-20 and still have 40-50 normal class feats. I think it could work without being too much bloat.

I'm just gonna put my full opinion out because I don't know that I've actually done so yet in this thread.

I want more customization for the eidolon. Does this mean that I agree with Verzen? Yes, technically. However, I don't think completely erasing the subtypes is the way to do it. That makes the class so ridiculously bloated and unwieldy. And taking evolutions to specifically give number bonuses? No thanks, I'm good. Maybe let people have some more customization with the ability scores of their eidolon. Has a similar effect to an extent.

Honestly, I think Krispy has proposed a fairly elegant system here that does what I, as a player, want from the class (at least, I believe it was Krispy that mentioned it first). Let me just absolutely devour evolutions. Let me give it a breath weapon, flight, swim speed, barbarian rage, cool two-action activities, whatever. And Krispy's proposed system (bonus class feats at odd levels for just Evolutions) does that wonderfully. I can take 20 evolutions if I want to throughout my career. 20! Or, I can take the baseline number of 10, and then also take class feats to help me work better with my eidolon, give me more focus spells, etc. Or anything in between.

I can take my Angel base, or Construct base, or dragon base, or whatever, and modify it from there. And I really like that.

And if you want tentacles? Fine! There should be a "Reach Evolution" that lets you slap on the reach trait to one of your attacks, and you can say that you get that from tentacles. And I can say my eidolon's reach comes from lightning-fast movements to quickly dart out of its space, strike, and then dart back in.

Yes, because that's not actually a choice. You take it, it's too mechanically advantageous not to. Same as the stat boosts and such in 1e - you just take them.

That's not the issue that was being addressed, though. The issue was one of flavor. And the flavor is flexible, that's my point. I honestly like Krispy's idea of giving them a rogue skill feat progression for evolution feats. I think that's about exactly where I want the class. But it sounds like Krispy is also taking the things Verzen is saying a bit out of context, and not really paying attention to what the other is saying.

But Krispy's argument is basically that flavor text shouldn't exist. Like, look at Resilient Evolution, something that already exists. It says "Your eidolon grows a tougher hide, manifests armor, or otherwise becomes particularly resilient against physical attacks. They gain resistance to physical damage equal to their Constitution modifier."

Does this mean that your eidolon at level 1 can't look like it has armor or a tough hide? No. Of course not. It's flavor text. It's saying "Hey, here are some ways you might want to flavor this in-character." It's not saying "Your eidolon can't have armor or a tough hide without this feat."

It's flavor text.

No, it objectively isn't. Again, the core, root, necessary assumption that underlies your proposal is specifically that "more customization" is the same as "more mechanical distinctions". That is what I am objecting to.

You cannot propose examples of feats that say things like

Armored

The Eidolon has tougher scales, is wearing armor, or some other form of protection. Your Eidolon gains +1 status bonus to AC.

and then dismiss the criticism that this means that if I wanted to describe my eidolon as LOOKING like it has tough scales or armor, that narrative character choice is now suddenly locked behind a mechanical option as "a strawman".

Point blank, you are being called on the assumption that describing an eidolon as being made of living ice MUST mean that the eidolon is immune to cold energy damage, vulnerable to fire damage, etc, and therefore if you cannot get those mechanics, you cannot describe your eidolon that way. All those things about having 8 arms and lots of eyes and so on are not non sequiturs, they are specific examples of things that work under a more generic system but would not work under yours for the same reason as you objected to a hypothetical ice eidolon.

He's not saying those should be gated behind anything. It sounds like you just have an issue with the flavor text he put in it. The flavor text is literally just saying "there is something about your eidolon that makes it harder to hit well. Here are some examples of what might be causing the effect."

If it were called "Defensive Evolution" and it said "Your eidolon is especially hard to hit, having gained a new way to protect itself from incoming blows. Your eidolon gains a +1 status bonus to AC." would you have an issue with it?

My #1 issue is, is that it feels like the summoner himself is infinitely more customizable than my Eidolon which feels bad. It should be the exact opposite.

I agree. Between being forced to use class feats for customization PLUS the fact that a lot of the current evolutions feel uninspired, there needs to be more customization. But I think Krispy's idea is much more likely to see print, just because it's simpler and requires less book space. And it still accomplishes that. You get your eidolon base still, which I know you don't like, but then you also get evolutions at every odd level, including first level. That's a minimum of 10 evolutions. And then you can take evolutions as class feats on even levels. That's a maximum of 20 evolutions (or more, if you're a human). 10-20 evolutions in addition to still getting class feats to do fun stuff seems like a huge upgrade from what we currently have.

Honestly, I think you two are kind of converging on a general system here. You've both agreed that things like "extra legs" and "extra arms" are dumb. You've both agreed that evolutions should have mechanical benefit, with the way that benefit physically manifests left up to the player. You've both agreed that there should be some sort of increased progression for evolutions, whether that be through a unique pool of evolutions that you pick up like a spellcaster would, or through a rogue-like "bonus feats" system.

At this point, you're agreeing in basically all but two ways:

1) Number of evolutions the eidolon should get

2) What those evolutions should/can replace

Quote:

Because making enough Evolution Feats at level 1 for their to be three meaningful choices is too much work - plus, the only way to do it would be to break out basic functionality and make such things faux optional.

As in, it looks like its optional but it isnt because its basic functionality.

And how exactly doesn't this occur with ancestry feats, class feats, general feats, and skill feats, Krispy? It's weird how your fears don't work with any of those other feat options but it's all of a sudden a concern with evolution feats.

Ancestry and skill feats already exist. They don't have to print 100 new ancestry and skill feats to make the class work. With your system, they would have to print a bunch of evolutions. And class feats neat 3-4 options per level. If you're taking 3 evolutions at level 1, you're going to want 8-12 options to choose from, most likely. That's a huge difference.

many of which the Eidolon won't be able to participate in because they are limited in languages.

...
On that note, Eidolons can't by default communicate with the summoner. Angels for instance get only Celestial, and can't get another language. Well, not many ancestries get Celestial as a bonus language. This seems incongruent with the idea the Eidolon and Summoner are in sync.

You're correct, this is incongruous, and thankfully it doesn't work that way. The eidolon and summoner share languages, page 18 under the "Language" entry of "Reading an Eidolon Entry"

So, in general I'm against giving Eidolons everyone elses toys and allowing them to be monster Barbarians, or Fighters or Monks or what have you.

But then I remembered, wait, anyone can get most of that stuff via Multiclassing anyway. Anyone can already steal Rage, or Inspire Courage, etc. via multiclassing! That's not unique to anyone!

So uh yeah, we could totally use the multiclass and archetype availability levels as a benchmark for making abilities to Eidolons.

...so, yeah, all aboard for giving Eidolons cool stuff at approximately the same level anyonr else could take it via multiclassing, with essentially the same restrictions.

Raging, Hunt Preying, Spellcasting Eidolons with more than two slots - seriously, why not? Anyone with literally zero class features could accomplish that via multiclassing anyway.

Magical Evolution could probably be a four feat chain that follows the progression for Spellcaster dedication, Basic Spellcasting, Expert, and Master regarding spell slots. Add in breadth too.

I dont see how this actually could be broken, if its using claa feat resources.

Anything I'm missing with using "Multiclass Equivalent" as a reasonable and desired standard?

Mark, if you read this - is there some developer side reason a Eidolon shouldn't be able to pick up something like full Multiclass Spellcasting progression thag I am missing? If I'm spending class feats on these resources and I'm literally comparing multiclass wizard and magical evolution, shouldn't they be roughly equivalent in effect?

I get that currently the investment for magical evolution is lower (and the spells scale slightly better), but would something like Spellcasting Breadth (+ lower level spell slots) be reasonable?

I had this epiphany sometime last night, and I agree 100%. Although, I couldn't decide if it should be multiclass archetypes specifically, or just any archetypes. I was kind of leaning towards any archetype. Let me have a Scout eidolon!

Quote:

I think the lack of evolution options is the single most universal complaint right now. Some people are thinking to solve this by going back to the 1e system and oh god no, for reasons you've already gone over.

Give me ONE reason why not.

Don't you agree the only reason the 1e system didn't work was because of the design flaw of 1) having X points to distribute as you wish and 2) having unequal power in evolutions?

Why wouldn't it be balanced and more interesting if they could pick X from a 1st level list, X from a 2nd level list etc like spellcasters do and to make sure that the 1st level list is all relatively balanced? What's so wrong with that idea? No one has refuted it. You guys sound like you have nightmares about the original system and then rather revisiting the base concept and seeing if we can balance it, you guys just want to throw it out, which is not a good reason.

Honestly, if we take slotted spells away from summoner, I wonder if they could give class feats on even levels, and evolutions on odd levels. And then they work basically like class feats that only affect your eidolon. Give class feats for tandem activities, focus spells, etc. Give evolutions that do cool evolution/monster things. This system gets you 10 evolutions total, and perhaps most importantly, you'd get one at level 1 to make your eidolon feel unique. Of course, this is mostly a bit of spit-balling, and I don't know exactly how you would work out the power budget on such a system. But your eidolon is currently a weaker martial, and with no slotted spellcasting, I think there's definitely room.

If i had to boil it down:

The main problem of the Eidolon is that it doesnt feel like an Eidolon.

If all it does accomplish is "stride and strike" then it's no different than a generic martial.

The class severely lacks the "monster" abilities that turn your eidolon from "generic martial" to a "monster".

To make matters worse, for the majority of any encounter the Summoner is just a Boost-stick.

Again:

It's not about the math issues, those can easily be resolved, nor is it about making the eidolon a "better fighter", it's all about making the Summoner a class about controlling a monstrous(Angelic/draconic/beast/whatever) Entity wth everything this entails.

This, a million times. The issue, for me at least, isn't that the eidolon has bad damage. The issue is that the only thing it can do in combat is damage, so why is it bad on top of that? The attack routine for a lot of classes is interesting, at least. Monk can use Flurry to be super flexible, working in stances, intimidates, etc. Fighters get lots of interesting two-action activites. The summoner just doesn't. If my eidolon could do something cool like Intimidate, Rage, Boost/Strike? Yeah, I'd be down for that. But currently the routine will almost always be Boost/Stride, Strike, Strike or Boost/Strike, Strike, Strike.

the "fight-togheter summoner" which should still be weaker than a "fight-togheter ranger" since the summoner will have focus and limited casting options.

I just kind of want to look at this a little bit more. Ranger is a full martial, and will pretty much always be more useful in combat than the eidolon, right? So that means you're saying some focus spells + 4 spell slots per day is equivalent to the animal companion plus the lost martial power from the ranger to the eidolon. Am I correct in saying this?

Because if so, I don't know if I agree. At least not with what we have right now. 4 spells per day is just so abysmal. I would much rather see the slot casting stripped out. Give the class better focus spells and a better eidolon.

Especially a better/more interesting eidolon. The eidolon having more flexibility in combat with evolutions could at least make up that power, in my mind.

I just want to say, I think Krispy and Verzen are largely just talking past each other. Verzen wants customization to make the eidolon feel uniquely their own. Krispy wants to be able to flavor their eidolon, without being told "no, sorry, that's not allowed."

But unless there's something I'm missing, there's nothing that says these have to be mutually exclusive. Stop thinking about evolutions as "I buy more arms. I buy some eyes. I buy some legs."

Instead, you can have "I get lifesense. My eidolon has a third eye on their forehead. The eye's color is a dark gray, and its pupil pulses with a faint purple light." Or you can have "I get lifesense. My eidolon develops tiny hairs across its body that stand on end whenever a living creature is nearby." You can have mechanics that aren't inherently tied to some aspect of your eidolon's physiology or personality.

if for nothing else than the fact that each concept I cover sufficiently well is going to take up a certain number of pages and we would eventually run out.

What? You mean you can't just make this a 1000-page book with 200 pages of evolutions? Well then WHY DOES THE CLASS EVEN EXIST?

Snes wrote:

I'm against this idea, at least as far as comparing it to clerics' divine font. If summmoners get do get bonus summon spells, I really think they should be gated behind a feat, not built-in as a class feature.

I've said this before, but I think keeping the name "summoner" was a mistake. Binder, invoker, caller, eidolist... anything that doesn't set up the expectation that conventional minion summoning is their modus operandi.

Having it as an option instead of their current spellcasting is one thing Mark Seifter just mentioned. I'd be fine with that, and it allows you to choose which you get, which sounds workable to me.

Not doubting you, just curious so I can see for myself: When you say Mark "just mentioned" this, where did he mention it?

Alright, here we go, I'm taking a crack at it. First of all, they should remove the Synthesis feat, full-stop. Then, split the class into three subclasses: These can be the "Summoner's Tether." The tethers available in this book are:

Master Summoner: Loses the Evolution Surge spell. Gets a weaker or no eidolon. Gets a focus spell that acts as a "Summon X" spell, that can be improved with feats similar to how Wildshape works. OR get max-level slots equal to one of your modifiers (cha? maybe wis?) that you can only use on "Summon X" spells. I got a number of people on discord saying this should be removed, since it isn't really what the Summoner is about. Which is fair, but I figured it would be good to put it out here anyway.

Synthesis: Loses the Evolution Surge spell and gains another in its place (or maybe just keep Surge? Not sure). Loses spell slots, and probably non-focus cantrips too. Use eidolon's stats when synth'd. You can still cast spells and use any of your or your eidolon's actions as normal. You obviously can't use tandem actions. Feat to use one/all of your mental stats as normal somewhere down the line.

Invoker: Basically the class exactly as it exists right now.

ShikiSeiren wrote:

Falgaia wrote:

ShikiSeiren wrote:

Party of 4 vs party of 10. If summoner, 5 vs. 10. Let there be 3 ranged enemies (because people all say their DM's use rather few of those...) and the enemies have a modicum of intelligence.

I'm sorry, but if your GM is using encounter scaling rules as listed in the Core Rulebook, which is presumeably what we're using for balance here, then this example is citing, at absolute worst, an encounter with 10 creatures that are all at Character Level -3. Even with mooks this weak, this is still described as a fight that should be incredibly dangerous to any party despite probably evaporating in the presencevof a single fireball. I don't know if we should be balancing the Summoner against hypothetical edge-case danger scenarios that only occur in a badly balanced party anyways.

No, the DM is not using those. He is doing 10 vs 4 with the enemy level at party -1, because the difficulty rating as written makes absolutely 0 sense. And from what I've seen, if your DM sends you enemy numbers equal to your own, then he is in the minority. But sure, let's do that : 5 enemies vs 4 party + 1 eidolon.

2 ranged target the obvious caster, and depending on their knowledge about summoners, the 3 melees slam the eidolon. Dead summoner.

Even if only one melee slams the eidolon and 2 another melee, that is still 3 attacks against the summoner's HP.

so.... what the difference between 5 enemies dogpiling on the summoner than say, 5 people dogpiling on the rogue?

I think their point is that it's easier to dogpile on the summoner, since you have two bodies. One could end up nearer to one group of enemies, and one ends up near the others. And now suddenly you have a higher chance of getting attacked.

This seems pretty nice. Lets you keep up with decent damage out put using 2-action activity+strike, lets you keep a 3rd action free to make use of the 3-action economy, and isn't quite as crit-fishy as what we currently have. You have your "standard" damage, and then ~4 novas you can throw out every day.

And with more actions freed up, we could maybe even take the syntheses and turn them into specializations, with each one getting a magical stance and a focus spell, or something like that. Give slide magus access to some sort of fast movement/short-range blink stance. Give us an echo knight magus that enters a stance that lets him control a duplicate he can swap places with (thanks, person from one of the old threads). I think this change would be very nice. It's not like the Magus really has much in the way of versatility, anyway.

My main issue with the current Evolution pool is that they are mostly just movement options or incredibly mundane ones (large/huge, smell, etc).

We need more stuff like Eidolon covered in an energy form (flaming wyrms and etc), grabbing and constricting snakes, healing angels, mesmerising fey, and etc

In short, current evolutions are bland for lack of better word.

Honestly, same here. The eidolon already isn't as customizable as a lot of people would like. And the fact that a lot of the customization you can do is so boring just makes the problem feel even worse than it already is.

BACE wrote:

WatersLethe wrote:

Put me in the camp that says Synthesist should be a class path chosen at the start. Would make it way easier to balance, and the crossover feats could have any requisite nerfs to prevent cheese.

I want to start by saying that I fundamentally agree. However, Paizo is obviously using the eidolon type as the class path, and it seems they don't like having two different class paths. I would love for them to give us class paths for these kinds of things. I wonder if there's some other way they could do it? Maybe give the Summoner a 1st-level class feat, and make the only 1st level feats effectively equivalent to class paths? Only choose at level 1, can't retrain out of them, etc? This does seem like it's getting a bit overly complex though

Eidolon types (dragon, beast, etc) should be like wizard's Arcane Schools and we should get something like Arcane Thesis for synthesist/not synthesist.

You know, I hadn't even considered Wizard. That makes them basically the only class with two "sub-class" choices then, I think. But it means there's precedent! So let's do it!

Wizards get (arcane spellcasting, arcane school, arcane bond, arcane thesis) while Summoners get (eidolon, spellcasting, conduit spells) so we definitely have room for something like Arcane thesis for Synthesis/not synthesis and one more which imo should focus strictly on summon monster and grant a font for summon monster = 1+cha.

In addition, Eidolons need unarmored defense of monks and more customization.

I'd even be willing to say drop the spellcasting entirely and trade it for evolutions that you pick on the same grading scale as that of a wizard. For example. At level 4, they'd get 3 1st level evolutions and 3 2nd level evolutions.

At 20, they'd get 3 evolutions per level up to level 9.

This would allow for a lot more customization and I'd completely be willing to remove any spellcasting to make the Eidolons more customizable.

That way of doing evolutions is very interesting. I would definitely enjoy the customization. I think they need to keep at least Conduit spells though to give the summoner some options in-combat. Of course, the synth could just lose spells completely...

Put me in the camp that says Synthesist should be a class path chosen at the start. Would make it way easier to balance, and the crossover feats could have any requisite nerfs to prevent cheese.

I want to start by saying that I fundamentally agree. However, Paizo is obviously using the eidolon type as the class path, and it seems they don't like having two different class paths. I would love for them to give us class paths for these kinds of things. I wonder if there's some other way they could do it? Maybe give the Summoner a 1st-level class feat, and make the only 1st level feats effectively equivalent to class paths? Only choose at level 1, can't retrain out of them, etc? This does seem like it's getting a bit overly complex though

KrispyXIV wrote:

demon321x2 wrote:

The Eidolon/Summoner combo is not powerful enough to outshine other characters even without that weakness.

Determining this in play is the point of the playtest.

I'm not convinced of this level of weakness - a lot of the negative scenarios people are contemplating just don't happen in my experience.

I'm already preparing my explanations for my fellow players as to why its balanced that my pet has the same AC and attack bonus as them, because most people don't see that as appropriate for another players pet.

The math alone shows it.

Fighter vs Eidolon
Chance to hit 65%/35%
Damage done (avg) 10.5/around 9 depending
Chance on crit 15%/5%

Do the same with Barbarian, barbarian will get a slightly higher chance to hit than the Eidolon, but more AC. However where the barbarian really outshines is the damage output.

Using a two handed 1d12 and a rage bonus of +4.

1d12+8 = 9 to 20 damage per hit. 14.5 dmg on avg.

Rangers are probably comparable since they get multiple attacks at a reduced rate.

Rogues? They get sneak attack for added damage.

All martials deal a lot more damage, have higher AC, higher attack than the Summoner AND they don't suffer from the AOE weakness the summoner suffers from.

I am not convinced the limited spells they get will be able to make up for that.

One thing I don't get is why you keep showing a fight between a Fighter and a Summoner. Just seems like a weird comparison. Wouldn't it be better to talk about the Fighter and Summoner each against the same enemy? In which case, the Eidolon's to-hit is 15% lower than the Fighter's, or 5% lower than any other martial with an 18 in their main stat.

I see a simpler solution, just allow them access to all of there abilities, feats, and features while in synthesis mode (with the exception of tandem abilities), but have them use there eidolon's ability scores in place of their own.

Sure you can still cast spells and take other actions, but with your lower mental ability scores those spells are going to be pretty useless for affecting anything other than yourself and your allies.

This largely solves every issue that has been presented so far and is far from overpowering. Loosing out on tendem abilities looks like a serious nerf to the summoners capabilities, so a regular summoner is still better in almost every situation.

Honestly, the best solution I can see is to use the above changes, and then have a high-level feat which makes it so that you can choose to use your own ability scores or your eidolon's when you summon it. That way, you cannot be competent in melee and magic at the same time, but can still ultimately match the relative versatility of the base summoner and play as a monster to boot.

On the surface, this seems pretty reasonable. Because at least you could still use reactions and skill feats you pick up. But I do worry it might be too much. So hard to tell..

14) An archetype that worked something similar to the Echo Knight fighter option from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount.

I had to look this up, but damn that sounds fun.

BACE wrote:

More kineticist homebrews will always be good in my book. At least until we get the real thing.

Good sir, what you've accomplished here is "the real thing" in my book: an exemplary case of homebrew > RAW.

I appreciate the kind words! There are definitely things I'm not satisfied with yet, but hopefully I'll get those worked out soon enough.

And the homebrew can't possibly be > RAW, since the RAW doesn't exist yet! Or does that mean it must be better than RAW? Ah, regardless, you get my point. I'm glad you like it!

glass wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Ed Reppert wrote:

Legendary Kineticist looks pretty good.

There are apparently not going to be as many base classes in PF2E as there were in PF1E. I wonder which ones we might still see?

Considering 4-6 classes have dropped from the pool isn't that statement already true even if all the other classes get implemented?

Only if they do not create any completely new ones....

_
glass.

I want to say there was an interview where they said they wanted to make new classes, not just port over all the old 1e classes.

I also remember this, although I'm not sure exactly when they said this.

My favorite thing in Pathfinder ever is the kineticist, so I died a little inside when I saw it isn't coming out next year. But I would be happy if we got mechanics that could bring casters closer to that style of play. Metamagic could easily work like infusions, and cantrips like blasts. There would probably have to be a trade off somewhere, in addition to costing feats. I see something like a cantrip master archetype; requires spell slots and at least one attack cantrip known, and it's a line of feats that is basically metamagic that can only be applied to attack tagged cantrips. Maybe doing damage in a line, increasing damage, etc at the cost of an action. And possibly costing one spell slot per level you can cast (except for 10th).

In case you're not aware, there are a number of homebrew kineticists out there for 2e. If you want something published, Legendary Kineticist is something to check out. But there are also at least 3 other homebrews I'm aware of. This is, of course, assuming that homebrew/3pp is something you're interested in/okay with.