I've been really excited about the summoner class, and I'm about to put together my first NPC one to throw at my players. The wide variety of creatures that can be created with this class is quite simply amazing. However, I think there's one thing the class is lacking: variations on the summoner himself.
Think about it. The summoner class basically leaves it very open to the player to create his own description and background for the creature that he's summoning, but he really isn't that different from any other summoner. Why not take things a step further, and give the summoner class the equivalent of bloodlines or schools which give them flavor to match their fancy pet?
You could have summoners who are calling some angelic being to help it on its quest to rid the world of evil, or a variant of the dragon bloodline sorcerer who is (or thinks he is) calling forth one of his draconic ancestors to asssist him in his quest, or even one who has made a pact with some sort of demonic creature for aid. These are very different themes for the summoner, and the powers of the summoner and the spells he gets should reflect that just like sorcerer bloodlines. Each summoner variant would get a few bonus spells and abilities to match the type of creature that he's summoning, and then just give the eidolon a special base form to go with it. For example, a summoner calling an angel might get healing.
I will admit that adding this in might make the summoner class even more complex, but it would at least shift some of the focus to the summoner himself. The way the summoner is right now people are just wondering why the eidolon wasn't made into an alternate class feature or improved companion feat for the druid and wizard even though the eidolon would have to be nerfed to the ground to avoid making those classes overpowered when paired with it.
Edit: I just remembered that the summoner does get one bit of customization: Aspect. That doesn't come up until level 10 though, I was thinking of something that would give the summoner a little personality at earlier levels.
The Eidolon itself is almost infinitely customizable. Honestly, I don't think they need anything like bloodlines to differentiate themselves -- the Eidolon is the core of the class and every single Eidolon is going to have its own quirks. When the Summoner eventually gets Aspect, Greater Aspect, Twin Eidolon, and so on, that just enhances what's already present.
The Eidolon itself is almost infinitely customizable. Honestly, I don't think they need anything like bloodlines to differentiate themselves -- the Eidolon is the core of the class and every single Eidolon is going to have its own quirks. When the Summoner eventually gets Aspect, Greater Aspect, Twin Eidolon, and so on, that just enhances what's already present.
Sorry, I must not have done a good job of explaining myself, lol. I'm not really suggesting more customization for the eidolon, I'm suggesting more customization for the summoner himself. Specificaly in the areas of the summoner's spell pool and abilities. Don't you find it odd that the eidolons are so varried, but the summoners are all the same until level 10 no matter what form his eidolon comes in?Bloodlines was just one example of a way to customize the summoner a bit.
I mean, if the character's Eidolon is (in his backstory) an angel or a demon, don't you think it would have a much greater effect upon him than just letting him use Aspect or Greater Aspect to grow some wings or an immunity? Aspect and Greater Aspect are nice, but I just think there should be more to it than that.
Since the class is already complex, the simplest thing to do would be to give the summoner a few different optional spell sets he could replace his 'Summon Monster' class ability with. If a player intends to be a generic summoner, he can stick with Summon Monster. If he's claiming that his eidolon is an angel or holy being of some sort he could instead get progressively more powerful cure spells instead of Summon Monster. If it is something from the abyss, maybe he could get destruction spells. Remember, this spell set would be the only spells he would be getting which match the spell level of a wizard or cleric of the same level, so whatever he chooses will end up being very important to the character.
*shrugs* at least, that's the change that is coming to mind at this moment for me, but it doesn't need to be something that replaces his summon monster ability. I just think that players should get the option to give their summoner a theme, not just their pet. At least, more of a theme than they they're getting from 2 evolution points at level 10, lol. That's kind of a long time to wait.
Here are some thoughts -- just thoughts, mind you, they might either be good or bad -- that "Summon Monster" might be replaced with the following, based on plane of origin:
- Plane of Shadows -- shadow step 1-3/day, darkness
- Ethereal Plane -- blur 1-3/day
- Astral Plane -- dimension door 1-3/day
- Positive Energy Plane -- cure light wounds (beefs up to mod?)
- Negative Energy Plane -- ghoul touch
- Plane of Water -- summon water elemental (etc. with other elemental planes)
I can imagine a PrC used to align a summoner with the various outer planes -- Hell, the Abyss, Elysium, Gehenna, etc. etc. to make them thematically appropriate for what one is going for. Say, a PrC would "taint" the Eidolon with an infusion of another plane's powers.
Thoughts?
The Eidolon itself is almost infinitely customizable. Honestly, I don't think they need anything like bloodlines to differentiate themselves -- the Eidolon is the core of the class and every single Eidolon is going to have its own quirks. When the Summoner eventually gets Aspect, Greater Aspect, Twin Eidolon, and so on, that just enhances what's already present.Sorry, I must not have done a good job of explaining myself, lol. I'm not really suggesting more customization for the eidolon, I'm suggesting more customization for the summoner himself.
I know what you meant. What you're missing is that the Eidolon is the class. You're playing the Eidolon as much as you're playing the Summoner, if not more. Thus, the fact that the Eidolon is by far the most customizable class feature in any version of D&D means there's no need to give Summoners even more ways to differentiate themselves from each other. Every Summoner is going to be totally unique from every other Summoner just by virtue of their Eidolon.
Most of the things you are describing seem to me at least, to be largely cosmetic.
If you want your Pc to have a particular heritage then just describe them that way. if he's fiendishly inclined have him summon the appropriate creatures with his Eidolon also looking the part.
While I wouldn't let a PC describe himself as a completely different race, slight skin tinting, eye/hair color and other cosmetic things that are largely within the realm of their race is certainly acceptable.
(I know my hair is purple.. blame it on my great great (x10) demonic grand father) and so on.
It can be done with the existing mechanics of the game simply by the PC making the choices of his spells and such.
Freddy:
the sheet for Big E should already be in the hands of the player. big E isn't some random NPC- its a creature that is in the direct control of the PC. All of its decisions are made by the player.
that being said- the Big E is pretty static in what it is. You get to choose evolutions each time you level up not everyday. There is some variation with the Aspect abilities but even then its the player's responsibility to keep track of that. I'd make him track it just like I make spell casters track spells. No one gets an hour to do their turn. Be prepared or get skipped.
(incidentally this goes for their buff spells. Presumably alot of the Summoner's time will be spend buffing Big E.. make sure the player has done the math before hand for some of their more common uff spells, to keep the game movin smoothly)
-S
Plane of Shadows -- shadow step 1-3/day, darkness
Ethereal Plane -- blur 1-3/day
Astral Plane -- dimension door 1-3/day
Positive Energy Plane -- cure light wounds (beefs up to mod?)
Negative Energy Plane -- ghoul touch
Plane of Water -- summon water elemental (etc. with other elemental planes)
I can imagine a PrC used to align a summoner with the various outer planes -- Hell, the Abyss, Elysium, Gehenna, etc. etc. to make them thematically appropriate for what one is going for. Say, a PrC would "taint" the Eidolon with an infusion of another plane's powers.
Yep, that's basically what I'm thinking of. That PrC idea's interesting btw.
What you're missing is that the Eidolon is the class. You're playing the Eidolon as much as you're playing the Summoner, if not more. Thus, the fact that the Eidolon is by far the most customizable class feature in any version of D&D means there's no need to give Summoners even more ways to differentiate themselves from each other. Every Summoner is going to be totally unique from every other Summoner just by virtue of their Eidolon.
I can understand that, but honestly I don't like it. The Eidolon takes so much focus away from the summoner that many people on these forums are calling for the summoner to just become a shapeshifter class where he turns into the Eidolon in the first place. When the pet overshadows the character that much then there's something wrong, lol.
Edit: I would agree with the summoner not having any special abilities to set him apart from other summoners if he was the equivilent of a pokemon trainer and didn't do anything except for call out his pets to fight. However, they do have their own abilities that they use durring fights, and I would think that at least one of them would think 'hmm, I'm calling this angelic being from the positive energy plane...I wonder if I could draw healing powers from it.' or something simmilar if he had a special Eidolon.
Most of the things you are describing seem to me at least, to be largely cosmetic.
If you want your Pc to have a particular heritage then just describe them that way. if he's fiendishly inclined have him summon the appropriate creatures with his Eidolon also looking the part.
.....
It can be done with the existing mechanics of the game simply by the PC making the choices of his spells and such.
Yea, the roleplaying part definately is possible. However, the summoner has such a limited spell selection that I don't think it is possible to have his abilities reflect any of that. The summoner spell list is just generic buff and summon spells like mage armor and magic fang.
If he had a wider variety so that he could get a bit of a theme behind his spells, then I guess I would be happy, but I think that just adding fireballs and cure spells to the general spell list for the entire class would be overpowered. That's why I was suggesting something like sorceror bloodlines which add a few additional spells to his selection. That way if he wanted to go with a holy summoner theme of some sort, he would get his cures but not be able to throw around fireballs at the same time.
I can understand that, but honestly I don't like it. The Eidolon takes so much focus away from the summoner that many people on these forums are calling for the summoner to just become a shapeshifter class where he turns into the Eidolon in the first place. When the pet overshadows the character that much then there's something wrong, lol.
It's certainly your right not to like it.
However, 1) I've not seen anyone call for Summoners to become shapeshifters, let alone "many people"; 2) there's no reason for the Eidolon to overshadow the Summoner unless the person playing the character intends to play it that way; and 3) Paizo has specifically and explicitly stated that it's intended for the Eidolon to "be the character" if the player wants to play it that way.
And by the way, since it seems like your suggestions center around spell lists, keep in mind that the Advanced Players Guide will have many new spells and those spells will appear (at least some of them, anyway) on the Summoner's spell list. There will likely even be Summoner-exclusive spells beyond just transmogrify (which is mentioned in the beta version of the class).
It's certainly your right not to like it.
However, 1) I've not seen anyone call for Summoners to become shapeshifters, let alone "many people";
Here's a link to the "Replace summoner with monster class" thread. It didn't start out being about turning the summoners into shapeshifters, and they didn't start off using the same reasons I did, so yea, I guess I was wrong about the 'many people' part XD
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/advancedPlayersGuidePlaytest/round2/replaceSummonerWithMonsterClass
2) there's no reason for the Eidolon to overshadow the Summoner unless the person playing the character intends to play it that way; and 3) Paizo has specifically and explicitly stated that it's intended for the Eidolon to "be the character" if the player wants to play it that way.
I have no problem with a person letting the Eidolon be the character, and I know it is the point of the class for the Eidolon to be the more powerful of the two, but I just don't see why the summoners themselves have to be made so generic. They barely do anything other than cast buff spells and summon additional creatures. There has to be a way to do it without making the class be overpowered.
I edited this into my last post before you replied here it is. There's a lot of stuff in the planes, and I would think that some summoner out there would think "oh, my Eidolon is from the plane of shadow/fire/air/ect, I wonder if I can use it as a means to gain shadow/fire/air/ect powers for myself. I'm bound to the thing after all."
Hmmm maybe this stuff would be better in a prestige class instead of the main summoner classes? That's one option. The problem is that prestige classes tend to be pretty specialized, and there's a lot of different planes in pathfinder.
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An undead or construct centric Summoner / Eidolon concept would definitely be welcome. The Eidolon would have access to energy drain / ability damage / incorporeal and similar effects, in the case of an undead-centric Summoner / Eidolon, while a Construct 'Summoner' would call up an Eidolon with Construct traits.
Instead of basing it on planes, I'd be more prone to base it on creature types.
'Gozreh's Avenger' might conjure up a Plant creature, with thorny venomous vines, instead of energy-damaging tentacles, for instance.
An undead or construct centric Summoner / Eidolon concept would definitely be welcome. The Eidolon would have access to energy drain / ability damage / incorporeal and similar effects, in the case of an undead-centric Summoner / Eidolon, while a Construct 'Summoner' would call up an Eidolon with Construct traits.
Incorporeality, level drain, and construct traits (immune to Fort saves, immune to mind-affecting, immune to death effects, immune to necromancy, immune to paralysis, immune to sleep, immune to stuns, immune to ability damage, immune to ability drain, immune to energy drain, immune to nonlethal damage, immune to fatigue, AND a bunch of extra hit points) are all three WAY more powerful than anything the Eidolons currently have access to as presented in the Beta document. Ability damage is already available in the form of the Poison evolution, which is actually pretty powerful.
As for the 'Gozreh's Avenger', you can already do that. It sounds like an Eidolon with tentacles, grab, construct, a tail (aka another tentacle) with the Poison evolution, and so on, to me.
An undead or construct centric Summoner / Eidolon concept would definitely be welcome. The Eidolon would have access to energy drain / ability damage / incorporeal and similar effects, in the case of an undead-centric Summoner / Eidolon, while a Construct 'Summoner' would call up an Eidolon with Construct traits.
Both undead and constructs are pretty nasty in terms of immunities and abilities, but maybe it would be possible for some sort of prestige class to allow it. Maybe something like the dragon disciple PrC, where anyone can take it, but it is best if the propper base class (summoner in this case) does due to stacking abilities?
Flavor wise, it is harder to explain why a construct comes back after it is killed unless your character builds new ones *really fast* haha. Still, it would be cool. After all, people can already use the leadership feat to get fancy creatures or they can simply build shield guardians, so building classes around these things should work too.
Edit: Maybe the real problem with the summoner class is that it looks like it can do almost anything, but then people like me see what few things couldn't fit into the design and then say "I want it to do that too!" lol XD
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Both undead and constructs are pretty nasty in terms of immunities and abilities, but maybe it would be possible for some sort of prestige class to allow it. Maybe something like the dragon disciple PrC, where anyone can take it, but it is best if the propper base class (summoner in this case) does due to stacking abilities?
The various immunities would need to be broken down into an assortment of different evolutions (and some of them, such as immunity to mind-affecting effects, might not even be relevant, if one's construct possesses intelligence). At the lower levels, the Construct Summoner would be stuck with a fairly weak critter, more like a Homonculous or small Animated Object, compared to a Summoner who uses a living base type (due to the off-set cost of all those immunities). At higher levels, his Eidolon would be finally reaching Golem-like power levels, and be appropriately scary.
Flavor wise, it is harder to explain why a construct comes back after it is killed unless your character builds new ones *really fast* haha. Still, it would be cool. After all, people can already use the leadership feat to get fancy creatures or they can simply build shield guardians, so building classes around these things should work too.
Yeah, I definitely like the idea of opening up the Summoner to have Eidolons that use different creature types (Construct, Undead, Outsider, Aberration, Ooze, Plant). Repairing constructs shouldn't be any more difficult to justify than summoning up a living Eidolon that was 'killed' yesterday. Instead of flesh and blood being rewoven together, it's rock or iron or whatever.
At higher levels, his Eidolon would be finally reaching Golem-like power levels, and be appropriately scary.
I foresee the Eidolon taking the place as a wizard's defensive brick, trope-wise, and golems filling more of a "seek and destroy" purpose, as per the creature of legend.
Just put a scroll in its mouth with the target's name, and off it goes to destroy to its heart's content. What's worse is that there's absolutely no way of tracking it back to its source (without magic, or some completely plot devices, of course!)
As long as it stays within range, anyway.. otherwise it loses 1/2 HP then goes poof.
The Range issue is a very hard line restriction to alot of things that would otherwise prove to be very over powered.
(eidolon assassins, etc..)
-S
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As long as it stays within range, anyway.. otherwise it loses 1/2 HP then goes poof.
The Range issue is a very hard line restriction to alot of things that would otherwise prove to be very over powered.
Yeah, it ends the possibility of the Summoner staying home and just sending the Eidolon out to go adventuring for him. 'Cause you know someone would try that. :)