|
So, an Eidolon with 10 hit points takes 18 hit points worth of damage.
It's 10 hit point Summoner can't use Life Link yet, because it explicitly doesn't work unless the Eidolon takes enough damage to 'send it back to it's home plane,' which is negative hit points equal to it's Constitution score (in this case, -13).
He's got three choices here;
1) He can ignore it. If the unconscious Eidolon fails to stabilize, at -13 he can use Life Link to give it up to 10 of his own hit points, but it will *still* be unconscious (at -3), and he'll have dropped himself to zero hit points, so this choice is just plain stupid, as he could just shoot himself with a crossbow and achieve the same tactical situation.
His best possible option here is for it to fail to Stabilize and die, so that he can resummon it at half-health the next day.
2) He can un-Summon it. It then goes back to wherever, and, if it stabilizes, he'll summon it back the next day, and it will be at somewhere between -8 and wherever it made it's 10% Stabilization check. Or maybe it will have died, on it's home plane, a situation for which there are no rules. Who knows. If it was a demon lord or god, it could die *permanantly* if he's dumb enough to actually use this un-Summon class feature (which, in this case, might as well be named the 'Permanantly Lose Your Class Defining Ability' class feature, akin to the rarely used Wizard class feature of 'Set My Spellbook on Fire and Laugh'), but it's not a demon lord or god, so perhaps bleeding to death on it's home plane is no more dangerous than dying on this plane.
Maybe it can't bleed to death on it's own plane, because it's formless there. I have no idea, and I wonder if, at some point, something changed, and a class ability that made sense got utterly borked up.
3) He can walk over to it and coup de grace it, which will be the most effective use of his class abilities, allowing it to return the next day at half hit points.
So, the question. Did any of the playtesters run into this situation, where using either Life Link or the ability to un-Summon the Eidolon was flat out the worst possible choice one could make? Is there a situation where un-Summoning your Eidolon is a better choice than letting it die? You're not gonna see it until tomorrow anyway, and your choice is to see it again with half hit points (cause you let it die) or seeing it again with whatever vastly less than half hit points it had when you 'saved it' from certain death.
What am I missing? How is this power not profoundly nonsensical? Why is the Summoner being *punished* for attempting to save his boo, instead of letting it die a glorious death, and come back much stronger than if he'd 'saved' it?
Someone's Eidolon had to go into negatives, at some point during playtesting, so what was the big solution? 'Cause this just doesn't make any sense at all.
Relevant rules;
'Eidolons are treated as summoned creatures, except that they are not sent back to their home plane until reduced to a number of negative hit points equal to or greater than their Constitution score.'
'A summoner can summon his eidolon once per day in a ritual that takes 1 minute to perform. When summoned in this way, the eidolon hit points are unchanged from the last time it was summoned. The only exception to this is if the eidolon was slain, in which case it returns with half its normal hit points.'
'Whenever the eidolon takes enough damage to send it back to its home plane, the summoner can, as a free action, sacrifice any number of hit points. Each hit point sacrificed in this way prevents 1 point of damage done to the eidolon. This can prevent the eidolon from being sent back to its home plane.'
Life Link, as it currently works, doesn't work very well. A Summoner cannot simply 'trade off' (as at first glance the ability seems to intend to do) his own hp to the Eidolon to keep him going during the fight, but it is simply a 'band-aid' for the damage the Eidolon sustains between 0 and -Con (and to Reebo Kesh, yes, the Eidolon is still in existance at negative hit points - this is a special rule of the Eidolon itself:
"Eidolons are treated as summoned creatures, except that they are not sent back to their home plane until reduced to a number of negative hit points equal to or greater than their Constitution score. In addition, due to its tie to its summoner, an eidolon can touch and attack creatures warded by protection from evil and similar effects that prevent contact with summoned creatures." )
Moreover, if the Eidolon is killed by an effect which DOES NOT deal hp damage, the Life Link ability doesn't even trigger off. Luckily in Pathfinder there are very few abilities which kill without hp damage, but they still exist:
- Con reduced to 0
- Phantasmal Killer spell, failing both saves
- Weird spell, failing both saves
- Power Word Kill spell
- Death Knell spell on a negative hp victim
- Circle of Death spell
- (optional rule) Massive Damage, failing Fortitude save
- the most common one... Coup de Grace, failing Fortitude save
This is basically what happened in the last session I GMed this Sunday, when the Summoner's Eidolon was Coup de Grace'd by a Goblin (for 3 hp damage !) and failed his Fortitude save (DC 13) (on a side note, I initially thought the DC was 15 + damage dealt, but the Eidolon rolled a natural 1 anyway...)
It sounds like it works better at higher levels. At higher levels, the summoner will have more hit points. Additionally, attacks do more damage so it is more likely that you go straight from conscious to "dead" without passing through unconscious.
If the Eidolon has 5 hit points left and the Summoner has 40, 20 points of damage to the Eidolon would trigger Life Link, and possibly heal the Eidolon back to 24 hit points while still leaving the Summoner conscious.
It does seem like it would work better as an ability that either triggered at negative hit points or whenever the Eidolon takes damage.
|
|
It sounds like it works better at higher levels. At higher levels, the summoner will have more hit points. Additionally, attacks do more damage so it is more likely that you go straight from conscious to "dead" without passing through unconscious.
A good point. It could just be the wonkiness of the Eidolon having more negative hit points than positive hit points at 1st level (since an Eidolon without Toughness will only have 6.5 hp at this level).
It does seem like it would work better as an ability that either triggered at negative hit points or whenever the Eidolon takes damage.
If the Eidolon, like other summoned critters, pretty much vanished at zero hit points, the power would probably make a lot more sense as written.
My GM has ruled that the Eidolon doesn't 'bleed to death' on it's own plane, and will return with half hp despite having been dismissed at negative eight or so, but it seems strange that a house rule would have to be enacted for something that probably should have come up at least once during playtest, since my sample Eidolon has both Improved Natural Armor and Toughness, making it well above average, and he ended up at negative hit points in his second combat.
A less defensively optimized playtest Eidolon probably would have ended up at negatives in his *first* combat, and yet, the class-as-written seems to have been written as if this wasn't an option (which suggests to me that the pre-APG playtest Eidolon *did* vanish at zero hit points, and so the situation never came up in the internal playtesting).
Life Link, as it currently works, doesn't work very well. A Summoner cannot simply 'trade off' (as at first glance the ability seems to intend to do) his own hp to the Eidolon to keep him going during the fight, but it is simply a 'band-aid' for the damage the Eidolon sustains between 0 and -Con (and to Reebo Kesh, yes, the Eidolon is still in existance at negative hit points - this is a special rule of the Eidolon itself:
"Eidolons are treated as summoned creatures, except that they are not sent back to their home plane until reduced to a number of negative hit points equal to or greater than their Constitution score. In addition, due to its tie to its summoner, an eidolon can touch and attack creatures warded by protection from evil and similar effects that prevent contact with summoned creatures." )
Moreover, if the Eidolon is killed by an effect which DOES NOT deal hp damage, the Life Link ability doesn't even trigger off. Luckily in Pathfinder there are very few abilities which kill without hp damage, but they still exist:
- Con reduced to 0
- Phantasmal Killer spell, failing both saves
- Weird spell, failing both saves
- Power Word Kill spell
- Death Knell spell on a negative hp victim
- Circle of Death spell
- (optional rule) Massive Damage, failing Fortitude save
- the most common one... Coup de Grace, failing Fortitude saveThis is basically what happened in the last session I GMed this Sunday, when the Summoner's Eidolon was Coup de Grace'd by a Goblin (for 3 hp damage !) and failed his Fortitude save (DC 13) (on a side note, I initially thought the DC was 15 + damage dealt, but the Eidolon rolled a natural 1 anyway...)
I was there...
Don't want to be too drastical but why not ALSO allowing Life link at summoner discretion (I mean even if the eidolon has just lost 5 hp) as a standard action?
Or as a full round? ...
|
It sounds like it works better at higher levels. At higher levels, the summoner will have more hit points. Additionally, attacks do more damage so it is more likely that you go straight from conscious to "dead" without passing through unconscious.
If the Eidolon has 5 hit points left and the Summoner has 40, 20 points of damage to the Eidolon would trigger Life Link, and possibly heal the Eidolon back to 24 hit points while still leaving the Summoner conscious.
It does seem like it would work better as an ability that either triggered at negative hit points or whenever the Eidolon takes damage.
The Life Link doesn't say it heals damage, only prevents damage. I think you can only transfer hit points to cover the damage of the last attack, which would still leave the Eidolon conscious at 5 hp and the Summoner down to 20 hp.
The Life Link doesn't say it heals damage, only prevents damage. I think you can only transfer hit points to cover the damage of the last attack, which would still leave the Eidolon conscious at 5 hp and the Summoner down to 20 hp.It sounds like it works better at higher levels. At higher levels, the summoner will have more hit points. Additionally, attacks do more damage so it is more likely that you go straight from conscious to "dead" without passing through unconscious.
If the Eidolon has 5 hit points left and the Summoner has 40, 20 points of damage to the Eidolon would trigger Life Link, and possibly heal the Eidolon back to 24 hit points while still leaving the Summoner conscious.
It does seem like it would work better as an ability that either triggered at negative hit points or whenever the Eidolon takes damage.
you are right... the word is 'sacrifice', ok I didn't understand
So, this power is far less appealing to me now.
Ex: eidolon has 4 hp, takes 9, goes down at -5 hp. it stays here until -14 hp. you summoner can do nothing. Now the big ogre who has smitten it from +4 to -5 can:
1) go on with someone else (very likely) -> your life like is uneseful
2) or continue to smash stupidly the poor eidolon on the ground (very unlikely) -> now your life link can be used
3) if the ogre is just a little bit smart it can coup de grace your eidolon -> your life like is uneseful
So I can use the life link only in an very unlikely situation?
Moreover, if the Eidolon is killed by an effect which DOES NOT deal hp damage, the Life Link ability doesn't even trigger off. Luckily in Pathfinder there are very few abilities which kill without hp damage, but they still exist:
- Con reduced to 0
- Phantasmal Killer spell, failing both saves
- Weird spell, failing both saves
- Power Word Kill spell
- Death Knell spell on a negative hp victim
- Circle of Death spell
- (optional rule) Massive Damage, failing Fortitude save
- the most common one... Coup de Grace, failing Fortitude save
Yep, I raised this same point in the beta with no dev response. I'm hopeful that they did see my post and make the needed changes. Note that this also matters for being re-summoned once it dies; if it dies to something other than HP damage, there's no provision for healing that condition prior to or as a part of re-summoning it. If your Eidolon takes its Con score in Con damage or drain, it is perma-dead, as in "you are now a very crummy Sorcerer forevermore" dead, at least as the rules are written. No sane DM would ever enforce that, but it's an easy rules trap to close.
|
I had similar fears when I first started playing as a summoner... in fact for my first 2 or 3 levels I used my standard action summons almost exclusively. After that the eidolon is tough enough that he's only been brought to negative hps three times. The most recent time I had him intentionally provoke an AoO while jumping into (not over) a pool of lava so I could kill him off and summon without having to waste an action. And yes, the lava was precisely to ensure that he didn't drop to the aweful grey zone below zero and above -con.
The other two times my eidolon dropped below zero we got him positive with in-combat healing and clerical channeling, much like one would do with a BDF party member.
There was one particularly dangerous fight in which he suffered a bunch of ability damage that I dismissed him, in part to prevent the hassle of summoning a "permadead" eidolon and in part because popping standard action d3 summons seamed more useful than a single (impaired with ability damage and hampered by a DM that had just ruled that I couldn't cast enlarge on my eidolon) eidolon. (Yes, I know the DM was wrong but at the time I wasn't able to find the single line in the APG that proved that he was a legal recipient of the spell... I was so dumbfounded that my brain shut down.)
Interestingly enough I can only think of two adventures (not including the one with the lava) where I bothered to use my standard action summons after level 4 or so... I guess that shows how utterly powerful eidolons are that standard action summons are rarely a better option.
Ooops! I forgot to mention that as of lvl 10 (or is it 11?) I can't recall ever having used life link... wierd!
I have found that since synthesist's eidolons don't DO unconscious, it is a much stronger ability for them.