| Pinky's Brain |
I'm seeing a repetitive pattern in Pathfinder lately which annoys my power gaming optimizer sensibilities ... maybe I'm not the target audience, but still I thought a modicum of balance was design intent here ...
Quadraped Eidolon/Mobile Fighter/Beast Totem Barbarian/Lion Shaman
What do all of the above have in common? They all have in common that they are one of a set of choices, between effective and gimp (in the fighter's case this is only true for melee builds and in the Druid case for shaman summoning builds).
Fighters/Barbarians/Eidolons/Animal Companions/Summons ... all these things are meant first and foremost to do damage, it's not the only thing they should do but it's their primary aim. Things like crit riders, grappling, tripping etc. are nice abilities, but at the end of the day you should still be able to put the hurt on ... since you can put the hurt on anything, and those other abilities are situational. A choice that more than half the damage output available to you or your Eidolon/Animal Companion/Summons is a choice to gimp yourself, in a low power game this isn't necessarily a bad thing ... but still, having only one good choice available is never a good thing ... and that's quite simply where we are in a lot of areas of the game.
What do I suggest? Well first I personally don't really want huge erratas like 4e, so balancing should be best done with new/alternative content where possible (some call that power creep, I personally call it re-evaluating failed design decisions).
- Mobility enhancers to trade a swift action for a move action should be available as magic items for all (not extremely expensive either, belt of battle type costs ... except without the belt of battle's ability to work like a cheap metamagic rod). Saving gp and a slot and getting it unlimited times per day would still make it attractive to get it without items, but at least it wouldn't be the only viable build.
- The SNA/Animal Companion lists should be redone in some sort of unearthed arcana book. Especially the changes to bears are just ugh ... brown bear vs tiger is just no contest now that the bear was nerfed, yet they are still both SNA4/CR4? The bear animal companion is also just sad.
- The Eidolon, ohh that one is hard ... I just see no alternative to a 4e style errata here (mostly because damage needs nerfing). The mobility item will make non quadrapeds more interesting, but given slot contention it would still make it a non choice really ... I'd say make pounce available to any form with 4+ legs.