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Okay, so I should probably preface this by saying that I love summoners. Conceptually fantastic, fun to build, and fun to play. But it's really no secret that they are exhibit 1A in the case for power creep in PF. In the last home game that I participated in, three players showed up with summoners.
Three. In a party of six.
And honestly, who could blame a player for being drawn to summoners? Double the HP. Double the actions. Quadruple the attacks. Flanking bonuses at will. Amazing spellcasting potential. They even get every knowledge skill for some damn reason.
Bearing that in mind, I think I've stumbled on to the simplest and most profoundly fair fix for summoners: make the eidolon only available a certain number of rounds per day. Shall we say, CHA + 3 rounds per day, with an extra 2 rounds each level? And just make it a full round to summon it. Bam.
I don't know if anyone has ever proposed this on the here, but mechanically, it only seems fair. Barbarians can't rage for 16 hours straight, bards can't perform for 16 hours straight, but the signature ability of the summoner is essentially limitless. (Even in a rounds/day format, your basic eidolon beats the pants off of those other two abilities.)
It would be an enormous improvement thematically too. I mean, they're called summoners, but how often do they actually SUMMON?? Master summoner notwithstanding, every summoner I see just has the damn thing hanging out all the time. Far cooler I think, would be the mage that's forced to conjure his personal combat avatar in the midst of an intense battle, rather than the guy who struts around all day with a bizarre extra party member.
Anyone have an opinion? Gimme yo thoughts.