Please, share your opinion about Eidolon mechanics

[pontoark]

So far, Eidolon is build like a mister potato, using Quadruped, Biped and Serpentine as base and building in top of that with evolution points. What is your take on

1 - This design approach, do you thing it brings good/bad situations in your adventures?
2 - Evolutions, Is there any you think its potentially dangerous, too hard to describe or deal with?
3 - Summoner Eidolon interaction mechanics (Life Link, Bond Senses), is there any one you find particularly clumsy or cool?
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1 - I rather D&D class system over gurps buy points system, and in a similar way I would rather a pre defined set of creatures to choose from than a more abroad approach, while an Archon, an Hydra or even a Celestial Lion have a picture, a description, some times a history and as a DM I have a general idea of how it behaves or should behave, the actual Eidolon barely have a defined shape, might get one arm bigger than the other, pincers in one arm and a weapon in another and even worse, he just might lose his pincers over night and get a tentacle on his forehead.
The way he works now, Eidolon has no history, personality or even shape, I don't mean it can't have, a good DM/Player can work things out but the system is not helping at all...

2 - Besides the fact that evolutions can often turn your Summon into a true mister potato freak (Especially with Reach, Weapon Training and Armor Training), I think pounce is a "Cookie cutter" temptation, and so is Large and Huge. I Liked pull and push, both those abilities sounds fun.

3 - Bond Senses duration is sort of too small if you want to use your Eidolon as a scout, everything else is too soon to say for me.

[Mortagon]

I think the free-form approach is great, it allows for great creativity and variation. That said a few ready to play eidolons with pictures or at least descriptions would be nice. Ideally one of each form per level, but I guess that would require to much space. Maybe an eidolon web-enhancement pdf, or a fan made document.

[Kolokotroni]

I like the free form idea, I have always been a fan of options, and because of how customizable the eidolon is it can fill a huge number of ideas and concepts. What I am concerned with is the potential for minmaxing. There are lots of different abilities available and the amount of evolution points have that in mind, but if someone were to say, put everything they had into make it the ultimate pouncer, or ultimate grappler, it could be overpowering.

I wonder what people opinions are on having the evolutions put into groups, like mobility evolutions, attack evolutions, defensive evolutions, and utility evolutions, and assigning some kind of limit to how many evolution points can be spent on each category?

[Heladriell]

I realy like the Eidolon mechanic. And I think that the is no need to "dumb down" the mechanic. after all, it an Advanced Player guide, not Basic player guide. It is original, creates a lot of diverse ways to play the class, and have balanced and cool abilities.

[Dennis da Ogre]

I know this section of the book is already seriously bogged down... but a sample build would probably help. I look forward to an Eidolon Home page where we can post our Eidolons and battle them ;) Ok... maybe not battle them :D

[F. Wesley Schneider]

Mortagon wrote:

...or a fan made document.

Well there's a really strong idea.

From the get go one of the core ideas behind the summoner was that monsters are one of the coolest parts of RPGs and only the GM really gets to use them, alter them, make them his own freely. Sure, you can get animal companions and summoned monsters, but they're limited. Now making monsters is in the PCs court, and if they want to adventure along with a hell hound, a Lovecraftian horror, the Rancor from Star Wars, or any other monster they can imagine or that we haven't yet or can't publish, now it's all theirs!

Personally, I'd love to see websites devoted to things like all the monsters from Thundarr the Barbarian as eidolons, Star Wars creatures as eidolons, great horror movie monsters as eidolons, pulp fantasy creations as eidolons, even classic RPG creatures as eidolons. Heck, one might even go through the Bestiary picking out creatures you could easily build as eidolons. There's TONS of room for expansion here that we're unlikely to thoroughly mine (I don't see us doing any big books on a single option from one class). So go for it folks!

[jreyst]

F. Wesley Schneider wrote:

Personally, I'd love to see websites devoted to things like all the monsters from Thundarr the Barbarian as eidolons, Star Wars creatures as eidolons, great horror movie monsters as eidolons, pulp fantasy creations as eidolons, even classic RPG creatures as eidolons. Heck, one might even go through the Bestiary picking out creatures you could easily build as eidolons. There's TONS of room for expansion here that we're unlikely to thoroughly mine (I don't see us doing any big books on a single option from one class). So go for it folks!

With that said, if anyone (current collaborator or otherwise) wants to start adding custom eidolons to d20pfsrd.com I can either add you as a collaborator (if you are not one already) or you can send them to me for inclusion. I'd rather the former as I already have enough work to do on the site but will accept the latter as well. Up to you folks if you'd like to see an eidolons section on the site or not.

[LazarX]

jreyst wrote:

With that said, if anyone (current collaborator or otherwise) wants to start adding custom eidolons to d20pfsrd.com I can either add you as a collaborator (if you are not one already) or you can send them to me for inclusion. I'd rather the former as I already have enough work to do on the site but will accept the latter as well. Up to you folks if you'd like to see an eidolons section on the site or not.

I would advise the following.

1. Wait and see how the class evolves.. it's still in playtest. what we see now may differ radically from what finally rolls down the quays.

2. Encourage your submitters not to use IP in thier submissions. You might stay under the radar, but why chance it?

[MaverickWolf]

1.) I like it. That said, most of the groups I've played in involve people who have been playing for years (some longer than I've been alive), and we're all quite comfortable with modifying rules as need be, so a preset system for generating a creature like the eidolon is a cakewalk.

2.) I think there's a few that need to be looked into to get fixed or get a better explanation. Reach at the moment is kind of confusing. Gore isn't worth the cost. We can't do an avian form at the moment.

3.) I agree that bond senses is too short of a duration to be particularly useful. Life link is flavorful, but the penalties are too harsh, and the ranges should expand with level.