The rules seem intentionally vague on describing eidolons.
What do they look before being summoned?
What explanation do you have for their existence in your campaign?
What does their home plane look like?
What do they do when not helping a summoner?
Do they talk to each other?
Do they have houses and families?
Do they have hobbies or activities they do in their free time?
IMO (very important), I see them as astral entities, formless, shapeless, ageless. I can see them coming to the material plane at the summoners call for the chance to experience life, sensation, and emotion. Similar in concept to the Binder from Tome of Magic.
Anybody play a summoner want to share how they roleplay their eidolon? Do you treat them as just another summoned monster or do you give it a name and unique personality? Do you have it interact outside of combat with other PCs and NPCs often?
I like Keirato's explanation, but I also hope we get a few words on this topic in Ultimate Magic when it comes out. Of course, a few Summoner-specific spells and new evolutions and feats wouldn't hurt either...!
It doesnt matter, it doent exist without the summoner and it can look like and be like anything you want.
Just say the summoner creates life from nothingness and be done with it.
The eidolon is a powerful extraplanar creature (it could be an aeon, an azata, a devil, a demon, a daemon, an angel, an archon, an elemental, a genie, an unclassified outsider, etc.) with the ability/obligation to project an aspect of itself to the material plane with the help/intervention of a summoner. In other words, it can be whatever you want. :)
For me, eidolons are sparks of sentience floating about in the chaotic energies of the Maelstrom, grabbing bits of leftover planar substances (Abbadon, the elemenal planes, etc.), devoid of the sensate experiences a physical body grants. When an eidolon and a summoner bond, the eidolon is able to feel, smell and taste all the things that we mortals take for granted when they are summoned to this earthly plane. The summoner gains a glimmer of understanding of realms beyond through the eidolon, and the eidolon gets to indulge in the senses.
At least, that's how I would roll it. :)
Now for the campaign that I'm playing I had to be a bit more creative because planar travel is forbidden due to a plot device whose details are currently unknown to the party. I eventually thought of being the result of an botched experimental res attempt (little to no res magic either). So I'm effectively summoning a portion of my own soul. My body got the reason and rational side of the soul while the eidolon is the primal and aggressive side.
ditto but the inner-child/imaginary friend
I see them as Cartoon Characters.
:D just kinding :D
So far, every one i have seen played is a Multi-tentacled creature, like from a love-craft novel.
I've been working on a noble Summoner who's Eidolon looks like a maid. She has the tentacles evolution which expresses itself as braids of hair.
And as for what they look like before being summoned, it's left deliberately vague and is entirely up to you as the GM. Use whatever fits best in your game.
I see them as Cartoon Characters.
:D just kinding :D
So far, every one i have seen played is a Multi-tentacled creature, like from a love-craft novel.
thats a f-up inner-child
I've been working on a noble Summoner who's Eidolon looks like a maid. She has the tentacles evolution which expresses itself as braids of hair.
And as for what they look like before being summoned, it's left deliberately vague and is entirely up to you as the GM. Use whatever fits best in your game.
I wanted to see how everybody else roleplays them. In my Norse-themed campaign, they are fylgia, or guardian spirit animals normally not visible to mortals, that summoners can bring into the normal world.
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After reading the summoner rules again in more detail, I've come to the conclusion that the Eidolon is less of a pet and more of a summoned force - the inspiration for the class seems to be the kind of summoning effects you see in games like Final Fantasy. The hero summons some kind of spirit-creature to fight the BBEG.
After reading the summoner rules again in more detail, I've come to the conclusion that the Eidolon is less of a pet and more of a summoned force - the inspiration for the class seems to be the kind of summoning effects you see in games like Final Fantasy. The hero summons some kind of spirit-creature to fight the BBEG.
Yes, but it's also intended to mimic the summonings of Fate: Stay the Night and the pets of Pokemon/Digimon.
This intended broadness is why the rules are sometimes confusing.
After reading the summoner rules again in more detail, I've come to the conclusion that the Eidolon is less of a pet and more of a summoned force - the inspiration for the class seems to be the kind of summoning effects you see in games like Final Fantasy. The hero summons some kind of spirit-creature to fight the BBEG.Yes, but it's also intended to mimic the summonings of Fate: Stay the Night and the pets of Pokemon/Digimon.
This intended broadness is why the rules are sometimes confusing.
It reminded me of Forbidden Planet. And of the dragons in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.
The rules seem intentionally vague on describing eidolons.
They are. A key point that your questions illustrate that you are missing, however, is that Eidolons, by the rules, do not exist as Eidolons except when they are summoned by their Summoner. They are not independent entities; they are a fraction of an independent entity's power/consciousness. Thus, Eidolons themselves do not have a home plane, do not do anything when they aren't helping their summoner, don't talk to each other or have houses/families/hobbies. When they aren't summoned, they don't exist as independent entities.
Specifically, the rules state that a Summoner always summons an aspect of the same creature; not the creature itself.
This is a good thing, because if they had an existence outside of the Summoner's summoning, they could be permanently killed by simple means of gating them in (or other conjuration [calling] spells).
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An eidolon is a fragment of a dead race of mystic beasts, which the summoner has studied at great length and learned to summon up with his own power.
An eidolon is a tulpa, a thoughtform made manifest through mental exercise and will.
An eidolon is a minion of the summoner's distant masters, ageless creatures from before the reign of the gods. The summoner does not know that everytime he summons his eidolon, they leave pieces of themselves behind, strengthening the grip of the Old Ones on the world.
An eidolon is a spark of genius that the summoner assembled through science and reconstructs.
An eidolon is, importantly, whatever your campaign needs it to be. And I would be upset if the game actually slammed me with any particular explanation.
One of the players in my game ran a Summoner. Her Eidolon was a creature born from her own drive to control herself, being a child born of a family that prized itself on strict control (One of her parents was a LN Hellknight). Through a study of magic she came across a means to purge her wild and primal emotions in a ritual that spawned her Eidolon, and as such it was primal and free in ways she could not be. While summoned she became cold and logical, but when it was gone she was unsure / unable to work properly due to the flood back of her own emotions.
I felt it was a interesting twist on the whole take of it. She was unsure if it was born purely of her own ID, or if some planar being took in those energies and was given shape... something she wanted to study further.
What about roleplaying the eidolon? Do you give it its own voice and personality when you play?
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Oh yes. My battle llama occasionally bluffs his way along as a pack mule, but takes every opportunity to spit insults at passersby when their backs are turned. Other times, he is bold and will challenge anyone in his way. "What'ya mean I can't have a ticket for the opera? I have gold just like anyone else you specist biped!"
My panther walks next to a guy pretending to be a ranger. He doesn't reveal himself in public, but forgets himself when a pretty girl is skritchin' his ears.
Someone pointed out once that Eidolons are the only beings aside from deities that can be in multiple places at one time because by the rules you only summon an 'aspect' of it. Ever since then I've been picturing them as CR 20-30 nearly godlike outsiders that for some reason like to interact with mortals by having their aspects be summoned.
They'd have to be really powerful if at level 20 you are still only summoning a 15 HD 'aspect' of your Eidolon. Heck, in 3.5 the "Aspect of Bahamut" and "Aspect of Tiamat" creatures from the Dragon Magic book are only CR 12 and 13 respectively (though maybe they are those god's equivalents of level 1 aspects, haha).
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Whatever I feel like making my character/ eidolon interaction like.