I'll leave the nit-picking to the professionals, but overall both classes look great. My brother is going to nerdgasm over the summoner.
Witch is fantastic, some of the hexes (etnernal slumber, forced reincarnation) are balls-to-the-wall awesome.
Summoner and Witch for the win!
I'm very impressed with both classes so far.
They're way cooler than the Cavalier and Oracle, IMO.
My only concern is that it seems we have a "glut" of new spellcaster classes. I'm willing to bet that the Alchemist will be a spellcaster also, so that would be 4 new spellcasters, 1 new melee class.
I really can't begin to guess at what the Inquisitor class might be, but hopefully it's melee oriented so that we can balance this out a little bit.
I do need a ruling on the Level 16 Merge Forms ability. My GM has decided that casting spells while merged uses the Eidolon's standard action.
I'm also disappointed in the class as a whole. I was hoping for more of a DR Moreau style (Transmutation), or a DR Frankenstein (Necromancy, or Transmutation for animated objects). The only part about the summoner I liked much was the fact that they get the bards ability to wear light armor. But no decent weapons to go with it to pair up with that better base attack bonus.
Both the witch and summoner are limited list casters. The summoner is more of a partial caster fulfilling a support role like the bard does. Unfortunately it looses a good deal of effectiveness if you banish or kill the Eidolon.
As for the Witch? The only problem I can see off hand is the Familiar spell book. Since the familiar holds your spells for you like a spell book for a wizard, if the familiar gets killed (I have a sadistic GM some days) you loose your spell book equivalent and have to start over from scratch. A wizard can make a second copy before hand, a witch is prety much boned.
I really like the 2 new classes.I would even say these are the work of a genius. They are full of flavour, with simple yet interesting and original mechanics. Now I need to play both.
I would have just some considerations:
- the witch familiar is a bit too fragile. It is one of the central pieces of the mechanics of the class, and deserved some more power and survivability. Maybe it could not truly be killed unless you use the right tool, instead, desapearing for some time.
- IMO the classes are balanced with the others. the extended power of the summoner with "summoning" is completely justified, and the other caster classes are able to compensate for that with versatile spell lists, blasting, and they own class abilities. the witch's hexes are not overpowered when compared with the damaging potential of a sorcerer of the same level.
- There should be some rules on how the summoner would behave in prestige classes. An increased caster level would count for its eidolon? If not, most prestige classes woul be nearly useless for him.
- The witch's familiar grows with classes that have familiars. I would have it growing with caster level.
- There should be some way to make an Int based eidolon or with high base Cha. Not every summoner should have focus his eidolon in combat. I know you can raise the stats with evolution, but starting with Int 7, this would be a slow investment. I sugest some alternate starting builds.
- I would add some class specif feats, like extra evolution, extended aspect, familiar feats (btw, how would a improved familiar feat work with the witch?)
- I wish we could find later some dark spells for the witch, like stealing youth and beauty, some new powerful curses, brewing powerful spells.
My congratulations on the work. I can't imagine how did I ever play without those classes. I hope they will stay cool like they are in the final version.
Summoner looks very cool! I want to roll one up! I always liked having cool pets. :)
The witch doesn't do anything for me, but that's not a fault of the class: I just don't care for the flavor of it. However for a player who wants to play a witch player concept, the design is really good for it. :)
At first blush, I really like the Summoner and the Witch, and admittedly more than the Cavalier and the Oracle, but only a little. :)
I've been trying to encourage my players to download the PDFs, not sure if they have yet, and they are still (stubbornly) clinging to their (now) level 10, level 11 characters. I'm hoping at least a couple of them come to the table with ideas/concepts using any of the four new classes.
I'm pleasently surprised that the summoner is a male gnome. (Aawww Lini has a friend.)
I also like the artwork for the Witch (and her fox familiar.)
Nice job.
TMW
Both the Summoner and the Witch look interesting at first glance. I will have to read over the hexes again.
What is an Eidilon? Where does it come from? Is the answer to this like many things right under my nose?
Tomorrow I will need to get this printed then I can take a closer look.
Main Entry: ei·do·lon
Pronunciation: \ī-ˈdō-lən\Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural ei·do·lons \-lənz\ or ei·do·la \-lə\
Etymology: Greek eidōlon — more at idol
Date: 1828
1 : an unsubstantial image : phantom
2 : ideal
This is what merriam-webster had to say on it.
My first impression of both where much better than that of either the 2 from the first play test.
As I read the summoner I thought that this was another Arcane Warrior type class one could use which is great do to the amount of requests for one from the community recently. I found it strange that the evolution points could only be changed when the summoner leveled. I would wish for some mechanic that could allow you to change them rarely with much effort.
The Witch I was less interested in but it was still solid. As I read other posts about it I also came concerned about how easy it could be to destroy the witches familiar. A wizard could have a back up spell book but a witch seems to have no such way to back up her spells. This also seems a way for you to play your warlock class :P. Wait I mean a male Witch.
Looking at the two classes, without roling one up much less playing one myself, or my group I have to say....
The big issue will be the familiar for the Witch. Over all the flavor and class is okay, seen better but thats mainly because I think Paizo kinda went for heavy combat concept for the class overall, this might be fine due to the over all game's power creep but is less to my liking. That being said too much power is tied to such an easy target, one which will have to be protected every combat, far more so then a Wizard.
I would have perfred a Book of Shadows, holding her spells, more powerful then a mear spell book they could have allowed it to contain Witches knowledge (like a bardic roll) and perhaps something like a seconed sight type of spell that gives flashes of critical information to the wicth, be it passed event, alarm to danger (either personal or to a friend). Perhaps the book could even call foruth the familiar giving a portion of its essece thus making the familiar the back up spell book.
In either case as it stands the familiar, if it remains the same will be reworked altogether.
The Summoner is a more complicated issue. Balance and clase features wise its fine, again just looking at it, but this is the one class so far that really should have been a PC, its too specialized and too focused. I could maybe see it for a region kinda like a Ninja in OA but for all of Pathfinder RPG? On the other hand I would banish it from the table.
As to the new classes being magic as opposed to martial orinted, I tend to agree. An Archer class done very well is needed, No I don't think Fighter/Ranger does it well enough.
TTFN DRE
I disagree. when I first heard about this class (Summoner) I thought -damn, this should just be a cool PrC. But they have really done a nice job making mechanically different from everything else. Its a solid base class
I think the summoner has a lot of potental as a base class. Being able to basicaly make your eidolon to be any shape, size and have a wide range of attacks can make it fit a lot of different character concepts. I have been thinking of different creatures you could make from an Angel to Dragon to whatever and then the flavor itself that could be put behind the character because of the creature you can summon. Plus it is nice to have a 2nd class that only has 6 levels of spells.
I was really disappointed. The summoner seems very cartoony to me. I thought it was going to have a more varied feel, like Dr. Frankenstein building his Creature, or someone having a Guardian Angel, or someone discovering a strange egg and raising it to adulthood as a companion, or someone having an ancestral spirit acting as a guide and protector. But it DID turn out to be a summoning juggernaut. I kind of like the evolution points, but I think there should be some kind of mechanic to change it more often than at each level.
I don't like the witch either. It's basically just a wizard with some tacked on Hex powers instead of school powers, and your spellbook can walk around on its own. I don't think it should be Int based, it is lacking several class skills, and the spell list is a bit too blasty and flashy for me. I was hoping for a new type of magic system, possibly skilled based.
Ideally, I was hoping for a witch that had Charisma-based Hex powers, Int-based skill-based Incantations (which would have a hard DC, but was reducible by increasing the casting time, and allowed Aid Another actions by other Witches, therefore having a built-in reason for Covens), and a Wisdom-based Visions ability, providing insight and divinations, and possibly healing. Familiars would provide different flavors of witches, with Black Cats providing bonuses to Hexes and Curses, Bats providing Flight, Rats providing Necromancy, Frogs providing polymorphing, Vipers would provide poison use, etc. etc.
That way, a Witches' Coven could have a Charisma-priority Witch for Hexes (Maid), and Intelligence-priority Witch for Incantations (Crone), and a Wisdom-priority Witch for Visions (Mother).
And the spells or incantations should be relatively subtle, focusing on enchantments, illusions, and mind-affecting necromancy. Transmutations, Weather-related spells, and healing would round out the spell list.
Discussing these with a few of my players yesterday. a number of things came up.
1) Summoner: WOW is he overpowered. An arcane caster with nasty spells and a permenant, modifiable, walkiing beat-stick that is tougher than other melee classes at te same level! And he gets good HP and BAB!
This one needs to be trimmed down or I'm not allowing it in any of my games.
2) Witch: Not too bad, but the touch = AOO and the fragile familiar thing seem too limiting. I'd rather see some sort of Animal Companion or construct comapanion, maybe at L/2, instead...
I like the new spell lists on both though.
