The first fight of the tournament proper. GM might have scaled the map, but we as players are generally very happy to play on bigger maps. Started the team-v-team fight at 200ish ft distance, if I'm remembering right.
Right, that map. That is the actual scale, assuming the teams start at the far ends. It's a big map. Course, having a fighting tournament where the teams are so far apart is itself kind of weird. Imagine a boxing match where you have to run a 200m sprint to get to your opponent.
Str o Thousands has kinda been significantly damaged by us casters 3 being forced to start every bloody combat 1 or 2 Strides distance from the loud troops / monsters / etc trying to kill us. And not being able to ya know, move backward off the edge.
SoT does have a lot of tiny maps.
Discovering that SMN is literally not built to keep up is recent, as most of Ruby Phoenix may have been using their maps, which caused us issues.
If everyone else is on foot, SMN can keep up just fine if you have Tandem Movement. The problem I have with that is it's basically a feat tax.
We've got a Large Fighter with a Large bear, a Commander that rides a Large spider, and had another Large player that dropped. My PC is a med human with a med phantom, and a shoulder familiar.
Legit had party-too-big problems, because Paizo's maps are so slagging small.
I almost never have people doing mounted stuff in my games (for whatever reason the players just don't want to, maybe its past history from PF1), but if you have people using mounts for extra movement and actions Summoner will definitely have issues because it's just not great at that, yeah.
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The first fight of the tournament proper. GM might have scaled the map, but we as players are generally very happy to play on bigger maps. Started the team-v-team fight at 200ish ft distance, if I'm remembering right.
Str o Thousands has kinda been significantly damaged by us casters 3 being forced to start every bloody combat 1 or 2 Strides distance from the loud troops / monsters / etc trying to kill us. And not being able to ya know, move backward off the edge.
That GM did a side quest for us, with its own maps, and engagements actually starting out of range was like playing a completely different game. Kinda sours normal pf2 play, to be honest.Discovering that SMN is literally not built to keep up is recent, as most of Ruby Phoenix may have been using their maps, which caused us issues.
We've got a Large Fighter with a Large bear, a Commander that rides a Large spider, and had another Large player that dropped. My PC is a med human with a med phantom, and a shoulder familiar.
Legit had party-too-big problems, because Paizo's maps are so slagging small.
Too small maps for a lot of battles against immense creatures with PCs that can transform into immense creatures is also a problem Paizo could work on.
If everyone else is on foot, SMN can keep up just fine if you have Tandem Movement. The problem I have with that is it's basically a feat tax.
From my PoV, it looks to be the other way around.
If you are un-mounted, then you're in trouble because the eidolon is stuck at 25 move spd, but the SMN is going to be faster.
Unlike PCs, they will not increase that as the levels go up. You can't give them Tailwind wands, Boots etc.
Because of Act Together, even if the eidolon is slow, mounting them means you get one free move of both halves each turn.
Tandem Movement doesn't work like that. It's got to be one of your real actions, and is not even Haste compatible. Mounted movement, meanwhile, does work with Haste.
But that did reminded me that Tandem Movement is stealing a feat slot, so I could retrain that into Shrink for Small, then retrain something else to get Tiny.
Though we just got the tournament schedule, so 2x retraining is probably not possible for this entire AP book...
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If everyone else is on foot, SMN can keep up just fine if you have Tandem Movement. The problem I have with that is it's basically a feat tax.Unlike PCs, they will not increase that as the levels go up. You can't give them Tailwind wands, Boots etc.
Well, technically you *can* give them longstrider, since eidolons can get trick magic item via skilled eidolon, and trick magic item allows the user to use magic items they normally can’t.
“You examine a magic item you normally couldn’t use in an effort to fool it and activate it temporarily.”
“For the rest of the current turn, you can spend actions to activate the item as if you could normally use it.“
This does require dropping either paragon battle medicine or godless healing from your eidolon though, so probably not worth it for most summoner builds, there’s only a few self only spells with any relevance. The only time I’ve seen it be worthwhile is to cast personal ocean on a swarm summoner to drown people in. I guess it would also be worth it if your DM rules that eidolons can’t use non-magic healer’s tools, but in that case you’re best off finding another class to play.
If you want a speed bonus without having to take trick magic item on your eidolon, you can of course feed your eidolon something that boosts speed. Moderate prey mutagens are probably the best balance of speed and cost, and prebuffable with a 10 minute duration. I definitely wouldn’t be doing this unless I could prebuff it though, doesn’t seem worth the actions in combat.
I'm a primarily Alchemist player, and even I have never asked if Prey Mutagen was allowed.
It's so obviously OP, that it's a caricature of "rarity equals power."
A +30 to speed, and a no-limit Reaction to +3AC and Step?
That's arguably more stupid OP than Bottled Night, lol.
I did totally forget about Trick Magic Item being possible via skilled eidolon, that's... a very weird can of worms. Especially because I did give them cantrips, so they use the SMN's spell DC.
SMN action economy actually means I would be tempted to use it in combat. Legit handing my Eidolon my daily arch-Witch wand for close range spells would be worth the +1A too often, I think. Already having trouble getting all the way in to use my Synesthesia wand.
Actually, that would give me more reason to upgrade my staff, as once loaded for the day, it seems legit for it to be a TMIed as a variable wand.
For the sake of the headache of actually playing, I do think Shrinking the Eidolon via the SMN's TMI seems like the way to go for the next fight. After that, I might commit the retraining to keep the eidolon Tiny, or investigate other alternatives.
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Again, the issue is the text of Steed Form does not convey that, at all. It appears as if the feat enables a new possibility, and makes no effort to restate the pre-feat situation. (which is why AoN injects the sidebar text)
I'm looking at my copy of SoM and the sidebar and steed form are one page turn apart. This is a complete non-issue and I'd be shocked if anyone ends up being legitmately confused as to what steed form does once they've read both pages.
I'm looking at my copy of SoM and the sidebar and steed form are one page turn apart. This is a complete non-issue and I'd be shocked if anyone ends up being legitmately confused as to what steed form does once they've read both pages.Again, the issue is the text of Steed Form does not convey that, at all. It appears as if the feat enables a new possibility, and makes no effort to restate the pre-feat situation. (which is why AoN injects the sidebar text)
I don't know how to tell you this, but I'd guess 90+% of SMN players don't open the SoM book, nor the pdf...
You're kinda operating on a foreign wavelength over there.
More people probably use specifically Nexus for their characters than there are people consult the base text.
Update for my SMN and thoughts after another session.
The previous fight resumed, the Eidolon finally made it into melee range. Did not ever use Reactive Strike, which turned out to be a good thing.
Didn't notice a foe had serious reach, ate a Reactive Strike from them. The eidolon did contribute to the fight via one casting of Ele Arc.
The Reactive Strike during my turn, plus two foes swinging on the Eidolon, was enough to 100 --> 0 my PC before I got any actions.
Got super lucky and the 120ish half-crit that would have dropped me was a flurry, so it combined two strikes of damage into one hit/instance.
Reaction was available, so an R2 wand allowed me to react and cast Sever Conduit to poof the eidolon and avoid the damage.
A huge help for a remaster would be to change this spell NOT require the PC to hit 0. Right now, you are only allowed to use that reaction if the damage would knock you unconscious.
Being able to recognize that my eidolon was about to get dogpiled, and poofing them out of the fight sooner, would have made a significant difference.
For the sake of being smoother/better for actual table play, the spell also needs to remove the "eidolon still suffers other adverse effects" clause, imo.
I cannot think of any debuff or condition that makes sense to actually affect the PC while the eidolon is poofed and non-existent, which just leaves you this awkward "homework" to remember and do after the fight.
The spell also should have its [contingency] trait removed, or get text to override the "one only" limit.
This tag on the spell just nerfs the SMN class specifically; the SMN-specific fixer spell competing for all [contingency] spells is a gross dingleberry topping a crap sundae.
IDK, maybe Paizo could invent a class-specific [contingency] spell for all other casters, then the detail would at least have a chance to affect the different caster classes, and not just Summoner.
(Seriously though, arcane Summoners who have to either-or between the og Contingency spell itself and the Precaution spell, are genuinely dinged by that.)
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I did have the time to grab that Shrink wand before the exhibition match the next day.
I do like the idea of sticking the eidolon on a shoulder to avoid moving them, as well as to lower their combat presence a bit. But I think I'll not use my own shoulder next time.
The fight had a neat, but convoluted novelty where each side had a VIP in a polymorphed form. Everyone was chained to the VIP, and if the VIP hit 0 HP, the fight was over.
It was kinda annoying as a player to realize the foe team was clearly written to be optimized around the fight's "surprise" gimmick, but we still stomped the crap out of them.
They were all monks, but had some unique super long range air punch, plus close range cones of AoE elemental damage. And could all air-walk over the water.
In-character, we talked w/ them and said something to the effect of: if they had thought to air walk higher, above our melee reach, they had a serious chance to win the match.
Turns out that even at high level, pf2 really does not have the HP numbers to support a simple tactic like focus-firing.
If the AP is ever going to get a remaster / errata, those unique polymorphs need to add like 200 HP to their subjects. Though, that actually is less than 1 round of focused dmg from my party, so maybe it should be +400 tHP or something, lol.
Aside from me, no PC on our team considered the fight to be more than a speed bump. But AoE damage is such a kryptonite, that my PC's combat contribution was more or less over after half the foes had a turn within cone range. The same moment the 2nd cone attack revealed that to be a pattern instead of a 1-off, I was fully swapped into "don't die" mode. From a game dev PoV, that's a bad outcome.
I have to treat my familiar as being able take 1 single AoE and stay up, so when the second monk revealed they also had a custom elemental cone attack before my turn even came around, my familiar was sent Dying, falling into the water without a swim speed.
Having the ediolon shrunk Tiny and on the opposite shoulder meant my PC ate a lot of dmg, and while below half HP, they did not get KOed. Burned 2 hero points due to a double SMN/eido nat 1 save though, lol.
I still might have been KOed before my turn came around, but my party of Fighter/Barb, Rogue/Guardian, Commander/Witch all spent their cone-range turn shredding the foe VIP with Strikes, and once the VIP hit 0, the fight immediately ended.
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Overall, I have enough system mastery to allow the SMN PC to be a real help in combat. Starting the fight to spend 1/4 spells on R7 Haste, then using L16's Effortless Concentration to keep chipping at the foes with Concussive Caw-Cawphony Phantom Orchestra is genuinely good. The GM decided the tournament allows 2 turns before the bell for prebuffs. Within that context, I can consistently hit the whole team with R7 Haste.
For non-tournament fights, the martials will be sprinting out of Haste range before my turn happens, lol. And yeah, my ability to help is seriously diminished.
Even if this setup allows my PC to contribute, they are actually a glass cannon support. I drop in situations no one else does; being 10 HP/Lvl really does not add as much tankiness as I thought it would.
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Next fight test:
I'll see if I can attach the Tiny phantom to the shoulder of the Rogue or Fighter, and prep Thoughtful Gift in my R1 & R3 witch slots for long range item delivery. If that turns out to be a genuinely a good strategy, I can remake/upgrade my staff to add Thoughtful Gift to it.
If the PC themself stays at ~120 ft to avoid damage, that can remove danger from the familiar still on my shoulder, while also giving me room to chug healing elixirs to keep the eidolon up.
The eidolon has Electric Arc, and I'll change Flex Transmog out of the Reactive Strike and into Ranged Combatant or Phase Out (if can still use alch items while semi-ghosted).
If the GM allows the familiar ability item delivery to generically allow the familiar to use Activates for alch items, then it makes more sense to put the familiar on the martial's shoulder instead of the eidolon.
After dinging to Lvl 16, I was excited to use the Shed Spirit witch familiar ability, but I've literally not been able to use the 20ft thing once. Every time the SMN themself has gotten within close range, they get pancaked.
It will be harder to keep the familiar alive upon an ally's shoulder, but the payoff is much higher than the eidolon. I'll likely spend 1/2 prebuffs on giving the familiar fast healing via soothing tonic to help with that.
The little crow has (literally) died once, but falling off my shoulder means being in range for Shock to the System revival. (and spending actions on death prevention means that my PC is not spending actions to help the team fight)
If the familiar dies, a one week downtime penalty to re-manifest them would be a very serious cost in-story due to the day by day speed of the tournament.
Honestly, such a setback would be a fitting development for the adventure, though my PC obviously is going to do what they can to prevent that from happening.