...clock of resistance...
I want one of those so I never age. =)
I'm just going to add in that the inability to have a cloak of resistance on both the summoner and eidolon at high levels can hopelessly cripple you, that is the one reason why I hate the item restriction. I swear, my Eidolon spent half of his existence from level 16-20 being feared or banished because of his horrible saves.
Though, I guess you can get around this by having the summoner wear a Robe of the Archmagi and the Eidolon wear the Cloak of Resistance. I wish I had thought of this at the time actually. Still, that's a lot of money on top of trying to afford a good Amulet of Might Fists....
IIRC the eidolon can get spell resistance. It should eliminate a decent portion of the saves. Having a GM with every caster having "perfect" solution to your character is also an issue, assuming that "half" was not an exaggeration. Getting improved iron will also helps out. Yeah it is only once per day, but between SR and the reroll the eidolon should be ok.
OP: No I haven't had a chance to try it out yet and I think that it hampers the summoner when compared to the druid since the druid has some spells too beef up his animal companions capabilities. ie Strong Jaw.
I would like to see a reduced list that an eidolon could use such as rings, amulets, boots and bracers. Just throwing some ideas out there as a fully equipped eidolon could become game breaking.
Another idea would be to have a feat that allows the eidolon and summoner to both use a magic item in the same slot or possibly two slots. It could be based off charisma (force of will) and it strengthens the bond between summoner and eidolon, give it three ranks or just make it a re-purchasable feat that can apply to a new slot each time.
I rather like the restriction. It gives me an additional challenge to consider when building melee summoners. It's much more interesting when I have to look at builds, crafting, and other clever ways to get around or avoid the problem altogether then the problem not existing at all.
And really the shred item problem really isn't a big problem.
Eidolon gets the belt, weapon and shield. You get the headband, possibly the cloak (or the eidolon if your saves are sufficient) one of the rings and miscellaneous crap. Once you divide things up from stuf you need versus stuff that's nice things add up to be about okay. Keep in mind even without the eidolon the Summoner is far from defenseless. You are still one of the better buffers in the game (behind bards and clerics) and you still have umpteen billion free standard action summons.
So yes, the shared items thing is a balance issue that's a fair means of keeping things level while giving a blatant optimizer myself a good challenge.
IIRC the eidolon can get spell resistance. It should eliminate a decent portion of the saves. Having a GM with every caster having "perfect" solution to your character is also an issue, assuming that "half" was not an exaggeration. Getting improved iron will also helps out. Yeah it is only once per day, but between SR and the reroll the eidolon should be ok.
My GM wasn't really targeting my weaknesses, he just has certain monsters that he liked using... and they tended to have fear auras. Other things just happened to be in the module he was running. I believe I had spell resistance, but it never seemed to do much. Maybe my eidolon was just unlucky. You're right though, I probably should have gone for Improved Iron Will.
It wasn't a much of an exaggeration though. Let me just say this: Unholy Word is a *horrible* spell for an eidolon to fail a save against at the start of the day, and he even gets a -4 penality to the roll vs day long banishment. That alone lead to me being without an eidolon for an entire dungeon.
I'm just going to add in that the inability to have a cloak of resistance on both the summoner and eidolon at high levels can hopelessly cripple you, that is the one reason why I hate the item restriction. I swear, my Eidolon spent half of his existence from level 16-20 being feared or banished because of his horrible saves.
Aren't there rules for shifting items to different slots?
I believe you can make a cross-slotted item for 1.5 times cost.
Like bracers of physical perfection instead of a belt, etc.
the eidolon and summoner share items for a reason, you are expected to equip the summoner. the reason the eidolon doesn't have it's own set of item slots is because it gets such massive DPR bonuses, that the only real competition is the ALLCAPS builds. Such as AM BARBARIAN.zen archer, vivisectionist beastmorph alchemist, melee druid, and gunslinger. If they weren't intended to wear gear then they wouldn't be allowed to wear gear.
@Mojorat Apes do have opposable thumbs but they can't really use them for anything more than grabbing.
@cheapy +1
Just make your AC a Panda Bear instead od an Ape: they have fully opposable wrists (that act like opposable thumb). It is one special trait (a few marsupials do too) that it has.
In my kingmaker campaign, the optimized eidolon from our summoner outperformed most of the other players in combat. With an insane AC at low level and a large number of attacks with elemental bonus damage and reach, the DPS and versatility was terrifying.
Now that the group has reached level 10 the issue isn't THAT bad anymore (at least most monsters now have a decent chance to hit the eidolon), but a few levels before that, the situation had reached a point where I wanted to ask the player to change is character...
Don't want to imagine how that eidolon would have performed if it had used it's own set of magic equipment... X_x
I currently am playing a halfling summoner in Kingmaker. The Summoner is optimized for Saving throws, but the Eidolon is not very optimized at all. That said, Chonze the Eidolon usually dominates the battlefield.
Though, we are only tenth level, the splitting of magic slots is mostly a nonissue. I have never playtested "not" doing the split.
As much fun as I am having with them, I still was expecting something like the Palladium Fantasy Roleplay summoner when the playtest discussions started. *shrugs*
Greg
I'm just going to add in that the inability to have a cloak of resistance on both the summoner and eidolon at high levels can hopelessly cripple you, that is the one reason why I hate the item restriction. I swear, my Eidolon spent half of his existence from level 16-20 being feared or banished because of his horrible saves.Aren't there rules for shifting items to different slots?
The GM can allow you to do so, but it is entirely GM fiat if he allows it.