Jason Chapman 97's page

Everyone, thank you for the comments! Y'all have verified my assumptions. If I have time before next Wednesday I'll try to roll up a sorcerer (again) and see if I can get anything fun out of it.

Is there anything better than pathbuilder2e? Character creation is really overwhelming, especially at 18th.

The OP is playing a bard with a summoner archetype.

Correct. Seemed like it had better spell options. The same amount of hp though.

Pulled up the 18 Summoner and don't see anywhere listed where they can summon other than spells. According to pathbuilder, there are 3 level 8 and 2 level 9 summons. All 5 have "Duration until the end of your next turn". All of the summons have pretty poor damage, especially the level 8 spells.

Is it possible to summon by not using spells?

If my math is correct, I could only keep three summoned critters up if I'm spending 1 action each to keep them here.

The monsters the eidilon was trying to hit needed a roll of 14+. Pretty sure the the had around 300 hp.

Can't paste images so here goes:

Eidolon:

Fist: hit: d20+30 Damage: 3d8+7 +1d6 acid. (maybe his two hits were more than 10, but it was WAY below the Swashbuckler who was critting every round.

Wing: hit: d20+30 Damage: 3d6+7 +1d6 acid

Str +5, Dex +4, Con +5, Int +3, Wis +2, Cha +0
AC 40
HP 222 (shared)

Is there something better to use than pathbuilder?

I think it is really challenging to convert to PF2 in the middle of a campaign that has hit 18th level. Is there a reason your GM decided to jump now and not finish the campaign and then start a new PF2 campaign at low level?

There are just so many things that are different about the games, especially at high level, that if you try to jump right into high level play it is very easy to miss stuff and not realize that certain spells that used to be good for certain things are not, while other types of spells, which used to feel underwhelming, are much better now. This is in addition to the fact that it seems you built a bard character who is dressed up as an summoner, but don't really want to play to support your allies, but rather boost your own summons/eidolons, which is really difficult to do action economy wise (the summons from spells act when you summon it and your songs don't kick in until you do them again, and your archetype eidolon is not a great combat ally, as it seems you have discovered).

It is kind of like wanting to play a high level damage-oriented gish in PF1 by putting half your levels into Fighter and half your levels into wizard instead of building a Magus or picking up prestige classes that advance spell casting and BAB.

Is there anyway to keep the summoned around longer than 2 rounds?

I think it is really challenging to convert to PF2 in the middle of a campaign that has hit 18th level. Is there a reason your GM decided to jump now and not finish the campaign and then start a new PF2 campaign at low level?

There are just so many things that are different about the games, especially at high level, that if you try to jump right into high level play it is very easy to miss stuff and not realize that certain spells that used to be good for certain things are not, while other types of spells, which used to feel underwhelming, are much better now. This is in addition to the fact that it seems you built a bard character who is dressed up as an summoner, but don't really want to play to support your allies, but rather boost your own summons/eidolons, which is really difficult to do action economy wise (the summons from spells act when you summon it and your songs don't kick in until you do them again, and your archetype eidolon is not a great combat ally, as it seems you have discovered).

It is kind of like wanting to play a high level damage-oriented gish in PF1 by putting half your levels into Fighter and half your levels into wizard instead of building a Magus or picking up prestige classes that advance spell casting and BAB.

Allies? You mean those non-Elven creatures that keep following me around? F those guys. ;)

Using pathbuilder, I built 5 summoners, 2 wizards, a sorcerer and 2 bards. On paper, the current bard has the best numbers.The bard seemed to have much more spell utility than the straight wizard. Doing the eidilon route was the only way to get a decent amount of hitpoints (222). My 1e summoner had almost that much as base.

We finished the campaign with this party years ago. The GM wants to bring those characters back but in PF2e.

As far as playing a straight summoner, you get 5 spells at 18th. Three 8 and two 9. The 9th level summons last until the end of your next turn. So you get 2 rounds with a 9th level summons? 10d10 being the most damage between the two. That's pretty weak for a 9th level spell. At best, I could summon 5 creatures for a total of 10 rounds of combat. Then be pretty useless after that with some 11d4 cantrips. Or, am I missing something?

Just realized that I was giving my Eidilon 4 actions as well as 4 for my Bard each round. Not that it mattered because the Eidilon couldn't hit. But that makes the builds usefulness even less.

According to Pathbuilder thats all he could do.

... How are you playing an Eidolon while playing a Bard? Like, you're performing so many rules violations I can't tell if the problem is with the feel of the SUmmoner or whether nobody was following the rules

Apparently I was taking double the amount of actions I was supposed to.

There is a build where a Bard can take an Eidilon.

I had runes on the Eidilon. He just couldn't hit. Heck, he was attacking 3 times each round but the damage is way weak. He hit twice (the entire gaming session) and both were single digit damage.

We're using Pathbuilder 2e. Could that be part of the problem?

Just realized that I was giving my Eidilon 4 actions as well as 4 for my Bard each round. Not that it mattered because the Eidilon couldn't hit. But that makes the builds usefulness even less.

The guy playing the swashbuckler was way OP in PF1. Heck the Oracle was way OP as well. In PF2e they are still very useful. Pretty sure the if the Swashbuckler beat me on initiate, he could kill me in one round.

My PF1 character could let my PF2e character attack for a few rounds and then kill him without worry. Spent hours and hours building characters, optimizing and trying to make something fun. The best I can do is pitiful damage and an Eidilon that can hit 1/6 of the time and does pitiful damage for something 18th level.

After a long week of work, gaming is supposed to be fun. This is not. I don't mind overly complicated (had spreadsheets built to keep track and run summons) when there is a payoff and my character is being useful. But this is complicated and my my usefulness is taking damage and debuffing something so someone else can kill it. Not fun or rewarding.

Years ago we finished up Kingmaker (Pathfinder 1st edition). We are a combat heavy group. I played an Elven Summoner named Harm that hated everyone except Elves. This included party members. He extra-hates gnomes. It was a really fun campaign.e and the gnome Oracle had a lot of fun. Ran him up to 18th mainly summoning devils and demons. My most favorite character in over 25 years of playing. Fast forward to now, our GM has a plan and wanted us to convert our characters to PF2e. Holy crap, summoners suck, a lot. Harm could summon pairs of demons at a time and then start blasting. I can't make anything close that is powerful enough to pull off "being Harm". All the spellcasters I've built are useless for combat. Trying a Bard because they have a lot of spell slots. Im sorry, but buffing/debuffing isn't fun. Being in a long hallway and dropping a megalodon on the bad guys and killing them is fun. We are a party of 4. The Swashbuckler was doing >200 damage per round. I was doing about 40. Felt useless. This was our second game using the new characters. I took a good bit of damage and didn't even care. If it had been old Harm he would have cast Dragon Form and bulked up. Even that spell is nerfed in 2e.

Sorry, just needed to rant. Sad what they did to spellcasters.