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Okay so having built several eidelons and getting comfortable with the balance I'm starting to notice some things that are just off in the pricing.
1) Gore is just too expensive, there's no reason to take it because it doesn't have any further evolutions that build off of it. If there was a powerful charge evolution that cost 2-3 points then gore might be worth it, but as of right now it's never gonna be taken unless you are intentionally kicking yourself in the crotch because your eidelon just has to have horns.
2) any evolution that mimics a feat should cost two evolution points. examples include armor training, improved natural attack, improved natural armor, and possibly trip.
3)Fast healing is overpriced, it should be a 3 point evolution to start, I could understand regeneration being 4 points for 1 point per round but fast healing is too pricey.
4) Frightful presence is overpriced, considering how low the creatures charismas are and there isn't a decent way to boost it, that makes the frightful presence evolution a waste of points. If there was a cheaper way to boost cha than ability bonus I'd understand, but seriouosly poison is more useful and more likely to be worth the investment than frightful presesnce. 2-3 points is all this should cost.
The size increases are incredibly underpriced.(about half the cost)
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2) any evolution that mimics a feat should cost two evolution points. examples include armor training, improved natural attack, improved natural armor, and possibly trip.
I would go farther and say that the eidolons get feats and evolutions should not mimic them at all. (Mind you trip seems more akin to wolf/dog trip than improved trip so I wouldn't include it on that list)
-James
I actually agree about trip which is why I added the caveat possibly to trip, however I do feel that it's close enough in nature to the feat that it should be considered for a bump.
and I would also agree with you on the feat point as well, there's a board that suggests new evolutions, pull a couple from that thread and replace the feat evolutions Jason :)
I actually think gore is appropriately priced. Anything that adds a new primary attack should cost 2 points. The problem is that some of the others are too cheap. Adding yet another primary attack to a creature with the eidolon's bab and str score is a big deal.
The ability to go from 1 use per day for a spell like ability to three uses is seriously underpriced, it should cost the same for each use of the ability.
I disagree with this. It looks like a caster eidolon is meant to be supported by the creation process, and that change would keep that from being feasible. It does need to scale a bit, though. I might charge an additional 1/3 or 1/2 the base spell level, minimum of 1.
3)Fast healing is overpriced, it should be a 3 point evolution to start, I could understand regeneration being 4 points for 1 point per round but fast healing is too pricey.Why?
I think fast healing is okay at 4; in most cases, any fast healing essentially means "As long as we take breaks, the eidolon starts each combat with full hp". That's some pretty significant healing, and I can see why they wouldn't be comfortable with it at 3.
On the other hand, I think additional points of fast healing cost entirely too much. 1 hp per round is negligible in actual combat, especially since the eidolon pops when it hits 0 regardless of its ability to come back. Cranking that up to 5 hp per round isn't a whole lot better in the world of level 11+; eidolons will be taking 20-40 damage per 5 they regain. I can't imagine ever investing more points than the base 4, which means the upgrades are too expensive.
Perhaps base fast healing of 1/round for 4 points, and the option to upgrade it to 5/round at level 15 for 2-4 more points. I might consider taking it over DR or SR, then.
Ok, probably not SR. But still...
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3)Fast healing is overpriced, it should be a 3 point evolution to start, I could understand regeneration being 4 points for 1 point per round but fast healing is too pricey.Why?I think fast healing is okay at 4; in most cases, any fast healing essentially means "As long as we take breaks, the eidolon starts each combat with full hp". That's some pretty significant healing, and I can see why they wouldn't be comfortable with it at 3.
On the other hand, I think additional points of fast healing cost entirely too much. 1 hp per round is negligible in actual combat, especially since the eidolon pops when it hits 0 regardless of its ability to come back. Cranking that up to 5 hp per round isn't a whole lot better in the world of level 11+; eidolons will be taking 20-40 damage per 5 they regain. I can't imagine ever investing more points than the base 4, which means the upgrades are too expensive.
Perhaps base fast healing of 1/round for 4 points, and the option to upgrade it to 5/round at level 15 for 2-4 more points. I might consider taking it over DR or SR, then.
Ok, probably not SR. But still...
I can agree with that, believe me I understand the advantage of healing up outside of combat, but like you said, in combat it's insignificant. So I can agree that instead of lowering the cost to get fast healing you instead lower the cost to get a decent boost to fast healing in combat. Your right about paying to get it but not to make it a decent amount, when building an Eidelon I bought fast healing and didn't bother to spend any points to boost it higher than 1. Maybe that's Jason's intention (that the fast healing is only used for out of combat healing), but if that's the case then it really shouldn't even be an option to increase it. An option no one is going to take isn't really a choice.
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Why?
For the feat equivalents its just not right, feats are a valuable resource and freeing up one for the cost of one evo point is a major boon, especially since they are feats most monsters wind up with anyways so it frees them to essentially get two feats, and in the case of improved natural armor, your actually getting the equivalent of 2 feats for the price of one evo points, and that I might even accept if the eidelon were the class, but its not all there is, you also get a free little caster sidekick as well. IMO they are just unfairly priced.
Pounce is too cheap. Mind you, I think pounce is overrated in general, but for 1 point it's kind of a must for quadrupeds.
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Pounce is too cheap. Mind you, I think pounce is overrated in general, but for 1 point it's kind of a must for quadrupeds.
I agree I thought I should point it out, but in general I like other options than pounce (not my bag of tea) so I didn't talk about it since I didn't consider it in the first place for my eidelons.
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I think that the large and huge size evolutions are mispriced as well, I went into more detail in another thread I'll try to see if I can find it.
EDIT found it:
to get to huge size is 7 points, they still have plenty of points to distribute and have a Str in the 30s with a CMB and attack high enough that they won't miss and won't fail CMs. And still have plenty of points to distribute, You have huge size at level 11, that's where you have 15 points. for which means you have 8 more points. just using the base quadraped eidelon form and putting the rest of your point into tentacles. You'll have a Str 30
That's a bite at +21 dealing 2d6+10 and 8 tentacles at +19 dealing 1d8+5.
You're not likely to miss with a single attack, and that's without buying anything but tentacles and size increases.
I'd be fine with large size costing 4 points and huge size costing 6 points, that would be 10 points to get to huge size leaving you with 5 points to buy evolutions.
I also think there needs to be a level limit on the # of tentacle attacks you can buy, or at least a cost increase.
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Anywho I didn't mean for this thread to be just my opinions, I was wondering what other people felt were over or underpriced evolutions.Out of curiosity, how do you factor in the level limitation into the price?
For instance, Huge size requires not only a level, but a pre-req. Sure it seems cheap piecemail, but it's a rather heafty price tag in aggregate.
On that note, look at the Ability Bonus. The biggest limiting factor there is the level requirements for better uses. Same for Natural AC.
IMO, an ability that can only be used after lvl 5 is worth something like 2x an ability that can be used at 1st. Therefore, a hypothetical 4pt ability that can be used at 1st SHOULD be weaker than all it's contemporaries, probably weaker than even some 3pt abilities (with higher pre-reqs).
If you couldn't redistribute your points every round I'd agree, But the problem is that every time you gain a level you get all your points back. meaning that when dealing with cost IMO you don't deal with level other than to acknowledge that it isn't a problem at lower levels. however a limit in the number you can have per levels you have is something that mitigates cost. I.E if ability bonus didn't have it's level gap it would be underpriced, but the ability to only have x at a given time balances it.