A Troll as a Summoner (Play Test)


Advanced Player's Guide Playtest: Final Playtest


OK, So I had my players go through a troll toll bridge encounter to cross a big bridge.

The group consisted of:
6th Level Artificer
5th level Cleric (war and destruction/ 1st level War Priest
6th Level Druid (Wolf companion)
4th Level Wizard/1st level Swordsage/1st level Incantatrix

However, the twist is that I gave the Troll 5 levels of Summoner with a Eidolon in the form of a Giant Crayfish.

Eidolon's Evos:
4 Point Evo: Large
1 Point Evo: Pincers
1 Point Evo: Gills
2 Point Evo: Limbs

Note: This Eidolon was design around concept and not about power.

Both the Eidolon and the Troll had Bull's Strength on them as well as haste. Because the Troll saw them coming a mile away he was able to prepare. He had also fed his eidolon a potion of regeneration 10 per round.

Second Note: I buffed them like this because my PCs have decent firepower and are pretty good at working as a team. They are also know for combo attacks.

The Results of the PC versus the Eidolon:
Attack wise the eidolon worked out very well. He could hit hard and even often but was not over kill. In fact he hit just hard enough so that it scared them.

Defense wise it was little hard to test because my character had a gun that shot cannonballs with a crit multiplier of 4 that he created. Well he got a crit and nearly killed him out right. After that all the PCs focused on the eidolon almost killing him with in the first round. They didn't know about the regen though so he popped up again. He managed to survive another two rounds but that was based on pure luck. Defensively I think that it could be a little tougher.

The Results of a monster with summoner levels:

The troll became quite the opponent after the summoner levels. His attack became quite good and because of his ability to buff himself could enhance himself rather well. Also since he was near a river he summoned a croc that grabbed the druid and death rolled him into a a flowing river. However, besides enhancing his own physical abilities he couldn't do much with his spells.

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ItoSaithWebb wrote:

OK, So I had my players go through a troll toll bridge encounter to cross a big bridge.

The group consisted of:
6th Level Artificer
5th level Cleric (war and destruction/ 1st level War Priest
6th Level Druid (Wolf companion)
4th Level Wizard/1st level Swordsage/1st level Incantatrix

However, the twist is that I gave the Troll 5 levels of Summoner with a Eidolon in the form of a Giant Crayfish.

Eidolon's Evos:
4 Point Evo: Large
1 Point Evo: Pincers
1 Point Evo: Gills
2 Point Evo: Limbs

Note: This Eidolon was design around concept and not about power.

Both the Eidolon and the Troll had Bull's Strength on them as well as haste. Because the Troll saw them coming a mile away he was able to prepare. He had also fed his eidolon a potion of regeneration 10 per round.

Second Note: I buffed them like this because my PCs have decent firepower and are pretty good at working as a team. They are also know for combo attacks.

The Results of the PC versus the Eidolon:
Attack wise the eidolon worked out very well. He could hit hard and even often but was not over kill. In fact he hit just hard enough so that it scared them.

Defense wise it was little hard to test because my character had a gun that shot cannonballs with a crit multiplier of 4 that he created. Well he got a crit and nearly killed him out right. After that all the PCs focused on the eidolon almost killing him with in the first round. They didn't know about the regen though so he popped up again. He managed to survive another two rounds but that was based on pure luck. Defensively I think that it could be a little tougher.

The Results of a monster with summoner levels:

The troll became quite the opponent after the summoner levels. His attack became quite good and because of his ability to buff himself could enhance himself rather well. Also since he was near a river he summoned a croc that grabbed the druid and death rolled him into a a flowing river. However, besides enhancing his own physical abilities he couldn't do much...

Hola! As a gm it is your prerogative, but I felt I should point out 2 things. 1. the large evolution isn't available until 6th lvl summoner. 2. Haste is no longer a 2nd lvl summoner spell so he would have to wait until 7th to cast it( however potions of haste could certainly get around this ).

having the summoner cast Mage Armor and Shield on his eidolon would have raised the ac by 8. That should have been enough to get him to about a 24 AC ( not including dex bonus which should have at least been +1 if not +2 ). I'd probably drop gills and give him the imp nat armor evolution instead. Both are thematically appropriate and the gills won't help him in the fight. So if you are going to drop one thematically appropriate element at this point, I'd have to say gills. That would have brought you up to 26 - 28 ac. While not impossible to hit by a group of 6th level characters, it would have certainly been difficult.

Nice play test! I hope your PCs had lots of fun being eaten by a Troll and his monster!

EDIT: I liked the crab idea. Here was my setup for a 5th lvl eidolon crab.

Evolutions:
Quadruped Base Form

Imp Nat Armor 1 point
Limbs( arms ) 2 points
Pincers 1 point
Imp Damage( Pincers ) 1 point
Ablty Inc( Strength ) 2 points
Gills 1 point

Mr. Squiggles
Quadruped Move: 40ft
Ac 29 ( assumes shield and mage armor )
Hp 30 ( average hp of 5.5 per hd taken. +2 hp/hd from con )
Stats: Str 18, Dex 16, con 14, Int 7, Wis 10, Chr 11

Power Attack
Melee: Bite +8( 1d6 + 4 )/ +6( 1d6 + 8 )
2xPincers +6( 1d8 + 2 )/ +4( 1d8 + 4 )

Feats: Multi-Attack, Power Attack

He may not be damage dealer of the year, but he should stay alive for a little bit. As a note, I kept with the Crustacean theme. had he been Large I would have added the grab evolution. Not sure if rake would really fit, but it's a possibility.


With the troll having regen, did he at any point start shifting hp over to the Eidolon?

I think a hiding troll summoner with an Eidolon using that ability would be particularly.. terribad.. to a group.

its almost dead.

its not!

its almost dead again..

its not!

lol
repeated until the troll dies or is wounded enough that it just stays hidden, heals up, and summons his pet back later on.

-S


Selgard wrote:

With the troll having regen, did he at any point start shifting hp over to the Eidolon?

I think a hiding troll summoner with an Eidolon using that ability would be particularly.. terribad.. to a group.

its almost dead.

its not!

its almost dead again..

its not!

lol
repeated until the troll dies or is wounded enough that it just stays hidden, heals up, and summons his pet back later on.

-S

Ya that was kind of the idea, but they caught on quickly because they didn't really know what they were dealing with. The druid kept on slamming his call lighting into it just to make sure it was double dead. Once it was past it's constitution score in the negative I ruled that it was sent back to it's home plane.


Draeke Raefel , where does it say that I can't use the large evolution till level 6? As far as I was aware as long as you had the points you could buy whatever you wanted.

However, my biggest problem was the the reduction in HD. I mean I could have been mean and given the eidolon full HP but that wouldn't be a fair to the test or my players.

The gills were so it could hide underwater but also it was a story telling aspect as it's owner is a Scrag.

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ItoSaithWebb wrote:
Draeke Raefel , where does it say that I can't use the large evolution till level 6? As far as I was aware as long as you had the points you could buy whatever you wanted.

it is usually at the end of the evolution description. Most of the non 1 point evolutions have level requirements.

Large (Ex): An eidolon grows in size, becoming Large. The eidolon gains a +8 bonus to Strength, a +4 bonus to Constitution, and a +2 bonus to its natural armor. It takes a –2 penalty to its Dexterity. This size change also gives the creature a –1 size penalty to its AC and on attack rolls, a +1 bonus to its CMB and CMD, a –2 penalty on Fly skill checks, and a –4 penalty on Stealth skill checks. The eidolon must be Medium to take this evolution. The summoner must be at least 6th level before selecting this evolution.
If 4 additional evolution points are spent, the eidolon instead becomes Huge. The eidolon gains a +16 bonus to Strength, a +8 bonus to Constitution, and a +5 bonus to its natural armor. It takes a –4 penalty to its Dexterity. This size change also give the creature a –2 size penalty to its AC and attack rolls, a +2 bonus to its CMB and CMD, a –4 penalty on Fly skill checks, and a –8 penalty on Stealth skill checks. These bonuses and penalties do not stack with those gained from becoming Large. The summoner must be at least 11th level before selecting this option.


Draeke Raefel wrote:
ItoSaithWebb wrote:
Draeke Raefel , where does it say that I can't use the large evolution till level 6? As far as I was aware as long as you had the points you could buy whatever you wanted.

it is usually at the end of the evolution description. Most of the non 1 point evolutions have level requirements.

Large (Ex): An eidolon grows in size, becoming Large. The eidolon gains a +8 bonus to Strength, a +4 bonus to Constitution, and a +2 bonus to its natural armor. It takes a –2 penalty to its Dexterity. This size change also gives the creature a –1 size penalty to its AC and on attack rolls, a +1 bonus to its CMB and CMD, a –2 penalty on Fly skill checks, and a –4 penalty on Stealth skill checks. The eidolon must be Medium to take this evolution. The summoner must be at least 6th level before selecting this evolution.
If 4 additional evolution points are spent, the eidolon instead becomes Huge. The eidolon gains a +16 bonus to Strength, a +8 bonus to Constitution, and a +5 bonus to its natural armor. It takes a –4 penalty to its Dexterity. This size change also give the creature a –2 size penalty to its AC and attack rolls, a +2 bonus to its CMB and CMD, a –4 penalty on Fly skill checks, and a –8 penalty on Stealth skill checks. These bonuses and penalties do not stack with those gained from becoming Large. The summoner must be at least 11th level before selecting this option.

Well that sucks and I find it a bit unnecessary because I think the amount of your evo points is enough control. Although I could understand the level Req for the spending of the extra points to attain huge.

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Well I think it is to prevent the 2nd level summoner with a bi-pedal form eidolon from trivializing all encounters by making the eidolon large.

2x claws +8( 1d4 + 7 ) with 10' reach would pretty much kill 1 or 2 creatures per round at lvl 2.

Sovereign Court

Just a question... what is a Potion of Regeneration 10? Never heard of such an item.

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King of Vrock wrote:
Just a question... what is a Potion of Regeneration 10? Never heard of such an item.

I was imagining a single use magic item that cast regeneration on the imbiber... obviously wondrous instead of a normal potion.


King of Vrock wrote:
Just a question... what is a Potion of Regeneration 10? Never heard of such an item.

Personally, I was wondering why the troll didn't just sell the regeneration potion for thousands of gold instead of shaking down travellers for peanuts.

Oh well, no one ever said that trolls are smart...


Maybe he tried.

Can't you just imagine the troll at the market, trying to sell regeneration in a bottle?
Even side stepping the whole issue of a troll at a market to begin with, he'd have to have a hefty bluff mod to pull that off.

"No, really.. its regeneration in a bottle.. we've been using it for years!"

-S


hogarth wrote:
King of Vrock wrote:
Just a question... what is a Potion of Regeneration 10? Never heard of such an item.

Personally, I was wondering why the troll didn't just sell the regeneration potion for thousands of gold instead of shaking down travellers for peanuts.

Oh well, no one ever said that trolls are smart...

Ahh well you see he would use the potion only groups that look tough. Also once he shook down a target who is to say that he wouldn't then attack for the rest of the goods. If he fails he just runs away 2000 gp richer, that was his toll btw but if he wins he keeps the money plus everything else as well. To him it was a win win situation.

Still though I think there is a problem with the whole HD because they just went through the Eidolon like it was made of butter. Then again perhaps it was just my players.

I might work in another eidolon encounter and see if they can do it again. Perhaps it was just a flook.


I'm not at all surprised your players tore through the eidolon. I wouldn't expect the pet of a CR4 monster (and that's what the eidolon is when your troll has 5 summoner levels) to hold it's own against party level 6.


PJFrost wrote:
I'm not at all surprised your players tore through the eidolon. I wouldn't expect the pet of a CR4 monster (and that's what the eidolon is when your troll has 5 summoner levels) to hold it's own against party level 6.

Hmmm perhaps you are right. Well next time I will bump it up. Actually they never did actually kill the the Scrag because he was standing in the river when they took him down and the river washed him away.


Ditto PJFrost's sentiment. Levels of summoner are nearly irrelevant to a troll's natural abilities; you may as well ask why a level 5 sorcerer couldn't defeat a 6th level party. That encounter was CR 7 at worst, and with the troll splitting his attention between combat and spells, it became even easier - as a general rule, Summon monster III is not a good standard action for a large humanoid monster with str 25+.

Next time, at least bump up to 7 or 8 levels of summoner. That'll give you a good CR 9-ish encounter, perfect for challenging a high-power level 6 party.

That said, it's apparent your game is pretty rife with core rule oversight and high-powered homebrews, so I don't know how much real structured advice we can really provide. I can't even put a price point on a potion of regeneration 10, and a 'gun that shot cannonballs with a crit multiplier of 4' sounds degenerate.


Maeloke wrote:

Ditto PJFrost's sentiment. Levels of summoner are nearly irrelevant to a troll's natural abilities; you may as well ask why a level 5 sorcerer couldn't defeat a 6th level party. That encounter was CR 7 at worst, and with the troll splitting his attention between combat and spells, it became even easier - as a general rule, Summon monster III is not a good standard action for a large humanoid monster with str 25+.

Next time, at least bump up to 7 or 8 levels of summoner. That'll give you a good CR 9-ish encounter, perfect for challenging a high-power level 6 party.

That said, it's apparent your game is pretty rife with core rule oversight and high-powered homebrews, so I don't know how much real structured advice we can really provide. I can't even put a price point on a potion of regeneration 10, and a 'gun that shot cannonballs with a crit multiplier of 4' sounds degenerate.

No it is not apparent and your reply is on the verge of an attack. You see only the top of the ice berg and not the underlying structure underneath. As far as advice, although always welcome, this thread was not intended for that but simply to report what happened when I tried using a monster with Summoner levels.

However, you your advice of bumping up the levels of Boss like creatures more is sound. Quite honestly I just took over my group and been moving it over to Pathfinder, cutting out over 80% of the old house rules (that were for 3.5) and while I haven't GMed a game since back when AD&D was still in print I am still getting the feel for how to create challenges as it is a lot different then back in my AD&D days, but even after my second game I have GMed since getting back into the saddle I think I am doing fine.


PJFrost wrote:
I'm not at all surprised your players tore through the eidolon. I wouldn't expect the pet of a CR4 monster (and that's what the eidolon is when your troll has 5 summoner levels) to hold it's own against party level 6.

You know that I think of it when I had originally wrote up the Troll Summoner and his Eidolon it was back when it would have still have been a CR 5. Although as Maeloke as pointed out that the party is high powered this I cannot deny so.

By the time they get to another spot where I can throw another Summoner at them they will be at least a level 7 group although their gear should more or less not change. Since boss battles are fun perhaps a level 12 or Higher summoner and his pet might offer a challenge.


ItoSaithWebb wrote:
No it is not apparent and your reply is on the verge of an attack. You see only the top of the ice berg and not the underlying structure underneath. As far as advice, although always welcome, this thread was not intended for that but simply to report what happened when I tried using a monster with Summoner levels.

Sorry, I didn't mean that to come off as aggressive. I was just pointing out that your report about the summoner's performance is very difficult to assess from a normal standpoint because you're using rules that break PF precedent by very significant margins. You managed to mention at least three points in evidence of this in your brief write-up, so I concluded that they were indicative of a greater trend. You labeled this thread as a playtest one, but the introduction of so many elements not controlled by paizo makes the utility of your data suspect.

The crux of it is, my players would lynch me if I gave an enemy an eidolon with evolutions beyond its level, or potions of powerful monster abilities. Apparently it works for your game, and that's cool, but do please be cognizant of how far you deviate from the base rules that most of us are working with.

Again, I don't mean to be a jerk, and I'm happy to make suggestions to help you put together a fun game for your players. You're just a bit off the map as far as rules balance goes, so my sense of what's appropriately challenging may not line up with yours.

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<threadjack>

It sounds like you are putting together a game that is fun for your group right now :) The challenging part is harder. I recommend trying to use monsters that A. Use terrain/tactics to increase the difficulty level rather than just increasing HD/Levels of encounters( while this does work, it might lead down a slippery slope as increased cr challenges tend to drop better gear which ends up in the hands of your players ). Ambushes, single use items( alchemists fire, tanglefoot bags ), interesting SLAs( I like creatures with suggestion 1/day ), or difficult terrain can cause an encounter to feel vastly different to the party.

Not trying to say you didn't already know that, just adding my 2 cents on how to make it challenging without increasing the level of the encounters. Though if your party is against a single NPC with class levels, you probably want to make those class levels equal to average party level + 2.

Sorry about the thread jack

</threadjack>

Thanks for the information about the play test. It would be interesting to know what kind of gear your pcs had and what classes/levels ( I assume they are all lvl 6 ). Hmmm.... If you equipped the troll with potions of water walk and a Mighty Composite Bow adjusted for his strength... He could even cast Expeditious retreat on himself to ensure he can keep out of the players reach...


Yes having fun right is the main point of the game anything else would just an obsession. I have also been doing a lot of repair work atm because we were playing 3.5 and our old DM in my opinion went way overboard with house rules. It was like 10+ pages long. However, except for our old DM's character our characters really didn't use anything from his homebrew stuff. At least I know I avoided it like the plague.

Back when I was a player the overpowered part of our characters was kind of do the character I played before I took over which is now a DM character (you know that half NPC have PC thing). My character class was the eberon artificer and through some good feats I had a bunch of discounts that allowed our group at the time I was a player to make a mess load of money. This enabled us to gear up big time. Offensively the only one with the high powered weapon is my artificer's hand cannon which had a lot of work put into the design, took a long time to build and was expensive as hell to make. The weapon does 3d6 point of damage and has a crit range of X4 but it doesn't happen that often so it has been pretty moderate damage wise. They all do have whistles of summoning but honestly that has really not been a problem against the encounters I give them. Defensively however the group is very strong via the use of various types of different AC bonuses and the such.

Remember this all happened before I took over being the GM, switching over to Pathfinder or what not.

The Troll I had written up I just though it would be interesting to see what happens if I wrote it in a real play type environment. The problem with playing a straight up play test is that it is to controlled of an environment and thus may only work under those controlled conditions.

I plan on weening them off for the next few levels from acquiring new gear so it will start leveling out soon.

Draeke Raefel: For that play test I actually did use the terrain to my advantage because the fight was right next to a raging River which was the Scrag's home. In one part of the fight the troll summoner knock the Druid'd companion wolf into the fast moving river, which also took the wizard out because he had a fly spell on at the time and flew off to go rescue him. Then the croc that the summoner summoned pulled the druid into the river with a deathroll and he to was going down stream.

Lets not talk about this here though because terrain tactics sounds like a fun thread to do in general or something.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Selgard wrote:

Maybe he tried.

Can't you just imagine the troll at the market, trying to sell regeneration in a bottle?
Even side stepping the whole issue of a troll at a market to begin with, he'd have to have a hefty bluff mod to pull that off.

"No, really.. its regeneration in a bottle.. we've been using it for years!"

-S

Didn't you know? You only make bluff checks when you are actually lying. If you are being totally truthful, then you come off as sincere to everyone, automatically!

Ford Prefect did exactly this in a small bar when he told everyone there that the world was going to end very, very soon. Everyone believed him. Why? Because he was telling the truth!


OK, Round 2

Now that I know that I am made some mistakes prior I am going to have another Summoner Boss for them to fight. This time I am not going to have it to have monster levels because that will mess up my plot line big time. This time they will be facing a Drow Nobel Summoner. Because she is going to be a Boss character and the group will either be level 7 or 8 by the time they get to her I am making her 11th level. In addition she will be geared up similar to the PCs but most of her gear will only function for Drow, although some of her gear that I left open for the PCs to use won't make them overly stronger than they are now. This way I can challenge them while at the same time they don't get more gear to make them even more powerful. I think this should level out the playing field a little. Plus the rest of the group funds will be going into Airship construction which they know means that my Artificer won't be crafting a whole lot for them.

I think for this encounter making her Eidolon something like a spider will be good for story line. This time instead of being a brute force she is going to be a tactical summoner. She will know that the PCs will be coming because she will have set up an Alarm spell but also I think she will know way before hand because the PCs have to go through an army of giant mutated ants before they can get to her.

Because she will be alerted to the PC's presence and because she expect trouble sooner or later she will have spell prepared to start buffing her self.

Her Feats: Extra Rings, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Improved Init, Exotic Cross bow Prof. and Augment summoning.

She will have on her self Cat's Grace, Greater Invisibility, Fire Shield, and haste.

On her Eidolon she will have buffed him with Mage Amor, Bull's Strength, Invisibility, fire shield, stone skin and finally haste.

Her Tactics:

First she will summon per her ability, then she will cast Summon Monster 4 but summon in level 3 monster so she can keep the PCs busy. Her Eidolon will then attack coming out of his invisibility spell to start messing them up. She will then proceed to start shooting them up with her repeating crossbow (she took the feat) but since she is under greater Invis they won't know where she is unless they have the right spell. If the PC's summon anything themselves then she will use Dismal which I assume works like a low grade banishment, couldn't find it in the core book. Lastly she will have some grease spells handy in case the PCs get through all her monsters and Eidolon.

If all goes to plan it is going to be one hell of a fight. I will of course tell them that the gloves are now coming off.

To be fair however, the druid of the party is a Dream Sensitive (a new trait a made up) and he has the Dreamteller feat which he loves because of how I make up prophetic dreams. So he of course will get some kind on inkling of what is to come to pass.

BTW on a side note: Wouldn't Dimensional Anchor prevent a Eidolon from being banished or dismissed?


Just worked up the Eidolon spider Evolutions.

Eidolon Evos
Large: 4 evos
Pounce: 1 Evo
Bite: 1 Evo
Limbs 1: 2 Evos
Poison: 2 Evos
Web

And it would have at least these feats: Improved Natural Attack (bite) Improved Natural Attack (Claw), dodge, and the rest improved natural armor.

I think that should be nasty enough along with the buffs.

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