Hey everyone, here's my data from a playtest with a 4-person team including a Summoner, with a GM throwing increasingly hard encounters at us. The party was able to defeat some startlingly strong enemies, but it was clearly due to the Luck Domain Cleric and Fey Sorcerer.
Team:
Summoner1 (me)
Mr. Kitty (Eidolon) Quadrapedal, Evos: Claws, Claws, Pounce
Cleric1 (Shelyn--Luck and Protection)
Sorcerer1 (Fey--Colour Spray and Mage Armour)
Paladin1 (Little Impact Except Dying at Crucial Junctures)
The GM chose encounters that had brawler enemies who could not kite us with flight and did not have insane DR or weird powers.
First Encounter: 2 Ogres (CR 5)--
We all rolled awfully in this encounter, and the Ogre targetted by Colour Spray made its Will save. I moronically forgot to use my ability to take damage instead of the Eidolon, so it died. We won by the skin of our teeth because the Fey Sorcerer is amazing. His Touch of Laughter is honestly the most important ability in all of these fights, and Colour Spray too. Mr. Kitty hurt one of the Ogres a bit before he dropped (thanks to the Luck Touch for rerolls on all five of his attacks), and the rest of the team managed to drop that while the Sorcerer Colour Sprayed the other. By then the Paladin was down. We won.
Second Encounter: 12 Goblins (CR 5)--
The Paladin couldn't convince the goblins to attack it. The goblins all swarmed Mr. Kitty, but their damage was too crappy to keep up with the Cleric's healing and the Summoner syphoning damage the one time Mr. Kitty was low. The goblins kept being hit to exactly staggered and then dropping themselves to get in one more attack. Only a few were legitimately dropped. Just weird luck there.
Third Encounter: Giant Frilled Lizard (CR 5)--
It started the fight with some kind of crazy charge that made the Paladin Shakened. This caused the Paladin to miss every time. Then I Enlarged Mr. Kitty, and the Cleric granted a Luck Touch and we started ripping into the lizard. The Sorcerer used his Laughter Touch to keep the lizard from doing anything, and we defeated it before it got another attack.
Fourth Encounter: Ankylosaurus (CR 6)--
This was the scariest encounter by a lot. The Ankylosaurus was too slow to charge us. The Cleric blessed, Mr. Kitty was enlarged and luck touched, as usual. He hurt the Ankylosaurus a lot. Karl used his Touch of Laughter, and Mr. Kitty did some more damage. Things started going south here. Karl's Colour Spray failed to Stun the dino, so the Ankylosaurus tail slammed Mr. Kitty with a DC 23 Fort save or be stunned. I managed to keep Mr. Kitty up, and then Karl did another Colour Spray that failed, so the rest of us Aid Anothered AC on Mr. Kitty up to 22 AC. It hit anyway, and my Summoner let the Eidolon be unsummoned as a lost cause. We basically surrendered, but we kept on the playtest anyway. The Paladin tanked for long enough to get a successful Colour Spray, and we did a bit more damage, then the Paladin died. The Cleric of Shelyn critted with her Glaive for x3, and that was the crucial juncture. It was then staggered, and it dropped itself while killing her dead.
Fifth Encounter: Dire Bear (CR 7)--
We were scared stiff after the Ankylosaurus was so hard, but the GM ensured us that the bear had lower AC. Standard tactics for us--Bless, Luck Touch, Enlarge (by the way, lest I forget, if I don't tell you what a character does, it usually flanks with Mr. Kitty and then Aids Another for Attack Rolls, except the Cleric who used Luck Touch every round unless otherwise specified). and the bear charged the Paladin and unavoidably grappled him. The Sorcerer Laughter Touched, which left it without enough actions to maintain the grapple on its next turn, and the Paladin Layed on Hands all the damage away. Mr. Kitty pounced it and hit with every attack due to the low AC and the Luck touch and it being grappled. Then the bear didn't get to attack, and Karl threw a successful Colour Spray. Mr. Kitty attacked again, the bear was stunned, and Mr. Kitty attacked once again. We barely dropped it before it got a turn. Victory, and all thanks to the Sorcerer
Sixth Encounter: Dire Tiger (CR 8)--
We felt a victorious rush after the bear dropped so easily and were ready to face the tiger. The Paladin was not pleased with what happened next...standard buffs, and the tiger pounced the Paladin and killed him, leaving an unrecognisable corpse. Karl's Laughter Touch landed as usual, and we pounded on it twice before it could go. But it made its Will save against Karl's Colour Spray, fortunately rolling low on damage, pounding the Eidolon to a state where the Summoner and Eidolon were both Staggered (note--the Summoner had 18 Con and Toughness). The Cleric healed instead of Luck Touching, and the Sorcerer got off a Colour Spray (we think--the tiger illegally had Improved Iron Will instead of Iron Will, so the GM substituted in Iron Will and raised its Will save), but we didn't need it--the Tiger dropped. Note again, without the Fey Sorcerer's Touch of Laughter, this was a clear loss. Also, Luck Touch is incredible for the Eidolon.
Seventh Encounter: Mastodon (CR 9)--
Our Waterloo. The Paladin was trampled to death immediately. Standard buffs. The Eidolon provoked the AoO this time and survived thanks to the Summoner taking the bulk of the damage. This let the Touch of Laughter go off, and things looked okay (we had dealt it around 50), until we found out that the Mastodon had Iron Will and Improved Iron Will, legit this time. The Colour Spray failed, and our friend the Mastodon double Natural-20ed Mr. Kitty. Fortunately, by this point my Summoner had begun to Summon (this was the first time this was relevant because summoning was usually stupid, but the GM let the summon last 2 rounds / level, so 2 rounds). With one SLA dog and one normal summoned dog up, we ate the Mastodon's next full attack on Summoned creatures (recall, it's an animal and nothing else had attacked it yet). The Cleric cast True Strike, and the Sorcerer got a Colour Spray to stick. This allowed two dogs to be out again on the Mastodon's next attack, and the Cleric got a 25 damage x3 crit and one dog hit and failed miserably to trip. Unsurprisingly it went for the Cleric and the dog that hit (the SLA dog thankfully). The Cleric died, the dog popped, it saved vs Colour Spray, another dog appeared. It killed them both. Another dog appeared, the gnome used his last Colour Spray, it saved again, then threatened the mastodon with his weapon. The Gnome and the Dog died, a new Dog popped. It hit. The Dog died and the Mastodon moved to the Summoner. A new Dog popped. One more hit, but then total wipe. The Mastodon was at 12. This was the only fight where I really used Summon Monster, and it didn't really help at all.
Hope this was helpful!
My conclusion? The Eidolon was just the focus of all our buffage. It could have easily been a Barbarian, and with a Barbarian, all those Aid Anothers needed to baby the kitty for its low attack rolls would have been unnecessary, so the number of attacks we got per round would not have dropped as much as you may think. The key character was the Fey Sorcerer. the Fey Touch of Laughter is vastly better than the 1d6 rays, the claws, or the Shaken touches (which covers most other Sorcerers). Note that those last few encounters were obviously a degenerate case of a fight that was way too hard to win without keeping the enemy from ever taking a turn, in which debuffing thus became crucial. You might ask why we didn't have better spells tailored for this fight, but we insisted on using the Cleric's standard spells prepared, and the Sorcerer chose his spells for Council of Thieves, not for this specific playtest. I'll be sure to keep you all updated on our actual CoT encounters if you're interested in seeing us fight something that isn't one giant bruiser monster.
Oh, one more encounter that we ran after I wrote the initial post. It shows what I mean about the Eidolon not being so important. We added a second Paladin focused on damage rather than tanking. Considering the ridiculouslness of the monsters, this was a good idea. It was now a team of 5. We faced a Frost Giant (Evil--woot!).
Standard tactics on round 1, except that Frosty rolled a mod 0 on init, so the tank Paladin (from now on Krunk) moved forward to block charge against the rest of us and Total Defensed. So now's the part where Krunk dies again, right? Actually, Frosty's Power Attack made his attack miss, and Krunk roared in triumph at being alive. Krunk took the AoO and it shockingly missed again. Everyone cheered for Krunk. Mr. Kitty charged forth, and Laeni (the other Paladin) received another Enlarge Person before attacking herself. She had a Greatsword, so she hit for an amount that was competitive with the Eidolon (about as much as three hits our of five for Mr. Kitty). Karl used his Touch of Laughter. We all attacked the giant again because it couldn't attack us. Karl's Colour Spray failed, but Krunk got a crit and rolled very well for 18 damage and gave a victorious arm pump. Then the Giant hit Mr. Kitty for 30 (not enough quite to drop both Eidolon and Summoner) and then 36 (Summoner just let Mr. Kitty take all the damage there). However, Laeni killed it anyway.
I think this shows that Mr. Kitty can hold his own with other damage dealers, but he didn't overshadow her. She also had 6 more AC in case it started attacking her.
Same Team Against Fire Giant (CR 10):
It's AC was 23. This did not look good for our heroes. We wind up doing exactly the same as against the Frost Giant to start, except it hits with its AoO and kills Krunk (it still misses with its Charge). It makes EVERY save against Colour Spray, though it needed a 7 to save, so on average it would fail one of them. We managed to get it to 13 HP before Laeni the Paladin fell, and then a lucky Dog hit brought it to 4, but it killed us all, methodically. Once again, the Gnome was the key, and he didn't deliver more than the Laughter Touch round, so we lost. We were pretty darn close though.
As an aside, I'm surprised the Laughing Touch ability was so useful; once you use it, the target is immune to it for 24 hours. So it's nice for making the enemy waste a turn, but no more than one turn.
As an aside, I'm surprised the Laughing Touch ability was so useful; once you use it, the target is immune to it for 24 hours. So it's nice for making the enemy waste a turn, but no more than one turn.
Yep, that's why he switched to the much-less-accurate Colour Spray after the first Laughing Touch. If Laughing Touch affected the same target more than once per day, we would have pretty much auto-won against the Fire Giant as well.
It's pretty easy to go nova on just about any encounter. I think it's one of the reason dragons have skewed CR's because it's almost expected they will be the target of 100% of your resources.
Also with being level 1 no one is going to take more then a couple hits even the fighter types. It turns into Party Members = Hit Points.
I mean a party of six level 1 commoners, naked except greatswords can take down a Dire Bore without a TPK.
It's pretty easy to go nova on just about any encounter. I think it's one of the reason dragons have skewed CR's because it's almost expected they will be the target of 100% of your resources.
Also with being level 1 no one is going to take more then a couple hits even the fighter types. It turns into Party Members = Hit Points.
I mean a party of six level 1 commoners, naked except greatswords can take down a Dire Bore without a TPK.
Certainly true, with some parties, especially those with Psions in 3.5, I've seen major Novaing do some crazy stuff.
But since the Sorcerer had so many Laughing Touches per day, it wasn't really Nova to start with one. I'm confident we could have taken 2 fights with the Dire Bear, back-to-back, since to beat the Dire Bear, everyone used 1 spell, plus 1 Laughing Touch out of 7 and 3 Luck Touches out of 7. Add in the second Paladin, and we wouldn't need the Enlarge Person to win, and in that case, we could have probably taken 3 or 4 consecutive Dire Bear fights. Of course, in one of those the dice may have turned against us and killed us, but with all else being equal on rolls, we would have had the staying power for four of those with the extra Paladin to add some damage. The second Paladin was also a much better target for Aid Another since her damage was concentrated in a single attack that did as much damage as three of Mr. Kitty's attacks. One thing that people who call the Eidolon "overpowered" may miss is the variety of ways to get a bonus to your "next attack" which help Smite-Paladins or Barbarians a lot more.
It might be worthwhile to try again against something with DR or Hardness. It's been my experience with a very similar Eidolon that the multiple attacks are very nice until you're only doing a bit or none at all. That's when a fighter with a greatsword shines a lot harder.
I agree. We barely beat a Barghest in playtest--by sheer luck with Acid Splash cantrip and almost everyone down. With the other Paladin instead of my Summoner, the Barghest was an utter cakewalk.
Playing Council of Thieves right now, but the Sorcerer is doing solo stuff. I'll update soon on the official fights.
CoT Playtest Report (not really any spoilers here yet, but you can avoid if you prefer):
So, the sewers in CoT were not a very fruitful place to playtest the Summoner because everything in them was so easy to kill. The Eidolon was ahead of the group and killed all the forward encounters by himself, and the Sorcerer was behind the group and killed all the backward encounters by himself. The Eidolon needed a lot of healing, though, and he used up more of the party's resources healing him than the Sorcerer used up in his victories, so advantage Sorcerer there.
Still, it is true that Mr. Kitty soloed several fights. A Barbarian or Paladin (or Fighter I guess) with Cleave would have done so as well, though, and the Paladin (or Fighter) would have been much less the worse for wear in the likely possibility that they had higher AC.
I found this highly useful. I'm about to run CotCT tomorrow for the first time, and one guy wants to be summoner.
I found this highly useful. I'm about to run CotCT tomorrow for the first time, and one guy wants to be summoner.
I'm glad you found it useful--I hope you didn't take away that the Summoner was too powerful from this; like any other class, it can combo well with a good party and perform amazing feats of heroism. It's important to think about the Eidolon's strengths and weaknesses vis-a-vis other damaging classes, and I hope the playtests helped you with that.
My player has been trying to convince me to let the eidolon take one of each form (3 total) and be in a form based on what he summons that day. The evolutions wouldbe seperate for each form, but the feats would be static. My response?
Let's just try it as it is updated on the SRD website first.
My player has been trying to convince me to let the eidolon take one of each form (3 total) and be in a form based on what he summons that day. The evolutions wouldbe seperate for each form, but the feats would be static. My response?
Let's just try it as it is updated on the SRD website first.
Good call. That sounds to me like the versatility would make it too powerful (choose one to handle skills, one for many small attacks, one for some other utility or to tank, etc). The only disadvantage is that presumably he would be forced to resummon it each day, which eliminates the rather nasty (in the player's favour) trick of unsummoning a near-death Eidolon as a battle winds down and resummoning with full HP before the next fight starts (since he'll have already summoned it once in the last 24 hours). The suggestion by your player would make a pretty nifty character for a campaign with only one or two players, though. I'm imagining the other PC as a Seer Cleric for heals and trying to divine what sorts of madness they'll get themselves into that day (and thus which form is needed). In a full group, though, there's probably only one role the Eidolon needs to fill (mine needed to fill a damage-dealing role, as we had a tank, a healer, and a mage already).
If the player is mostly trying to make a concept of a Summoner that knows several different sorts of creatures she can summon, a la Final Fantasy, perhaps consider the following options:
1) The easiest, perhaps see if your player might be okay with making several Eidolons who have different appearances (a wolf, a panther, a wingless chinese dragon, etc) and powers that are effectively equivalent (maybe it says 'Claws' on paper but the attacks are actually talons or stubby wings tha tcan't fly).
2) Perhaps make it an Evolution to be Mutable--in other words, if the Eidolon takes this Evo which costs, say, 2 Points, the Summoner can have one alternate form to summon (but all of the forms are missing 2 Evo points). All further forms would cost 1 Evo point each instead of two (since the utility of having extra forms drops dramatically after 1, and all of them become progressively weaker). What do you think? Certainly at level 1 it won't be too powerful, since it would cost 2/3 of the Evo points to just have two choices. If you wanted 5 choices, you could pay 6 points (which is still nearly 1/4 of all your points even at the highest levels). I think it would work, actually.
Actually Final Fantasy nails it exactly on the head. The last character they built had an oversized greatsword of adamantine and great cleave. Guess who? LOL
I should clarify that I had him build multiple eidolons on it while getting ready to release my character sheets. Without him the eidolon sheet wouldn't have been much good, and he's unofficially part of Wicked K Games. He has a bunch of builds like the summons on FF IX and FF X. I ended up telling him that we may try to find a house rule later on, but we have 5 people already. The only limitation I had insisted upon so far was that if the summon took a form, it was in that form until it was unsummoned and rested for 8 hours. In game it would take time to reshape in the ether. Mecchanically it reduces the brokeness. Also, there would only be one form per 3 levels after 1st maxing at three forms at 10th.
I like your ideas though and will take them into account.