I downloaded the newest update of the Guide in anticipation of creating my first PFS character... my favorite character has been the Master summoner since its inception and for home games I've made a number of them (without a single complaint from anyone for slowing down the game thank-you-very-much), and I was crestfallen to discover that it had been banned...
...but there's nothing in the guide that I can see that says it is. Under Chapter 2, Step 2 of the character creation process classes and archetypes that have been banned or altered are listed and nothing about the Summoner is mentioned whatsoever.
So now I'm toying with building a mounted Wild Caller now but I put a lot of work into my builds and now I'm worried about banned or altered feats, traits, etc. Is there anywhere I can find a comprehensive list of what is allowed, what is not and what must be changed?
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Yeah its a pain.
Go Here for the additional resources page.
The wild caller is out of the advanced race guide
Scrolling down unfortunately you will see
Half-Elves: all alernate racial traits except drow-blooded and drow magic are legal for play; all racial subtypes except drow-descended are legal for play; all favored class options are legal for play; all racial archetypes except wild caller are legal for play.
I have to say that one makes no sense to me.
Yeah its a pain.
Go Here for the additional resources page.
The wild caller is out of the advanced race guide
Scrolling down unfortunately you will see
Half-Elves: all alernate racial traits except drow-blooded and drow magic are legal for play; all racial subtypes except drow-descended are legal for play; all favored class options are legal for play; all racial archetypes except wild caller are legal for play.
I have to say that one makes no sense to me.
Are you kidding me?.
This is now the third character I've tried to make and its the third one that's been banned. What could possibly be the reasoning behind so much restriction, and this one in particular?EDIT: Wow. I just started browsing the link you provided. I have to say with that many exceptions and addendums it feels like I'm tip-toeing on eggshells just to try and make a character. My first impulse is to say 'no thank you' - it saps the fun out of the game anticipating your next new idea to either be squashed out of hand or knowing that at any time something that WAS fully legal can suddenly become... not.
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This is now the third character I've tried to make and its the third one that's been banned. What could possibly be the reasoning behind so much restriction, and this one in particular?
The master summoner did take a long time for some people. A flock of eagles each making 3 attacks could take up more time than the rest of the party.
EDIT: Wow. I just started browsing the link you provided. I have to say with that many exceptions and addendums it feels like I'm tip-toeing on eggshells just to try and make a character. My first impulse is to say 'no thank you' - it saps the fun out of the game anticipating your next new idea to either be squashed out of hand or knowing that at any time something that WAS fully legal can suddenly become... not.
To be fair the vast majority of it was always banned, but yeah, i really hate not knowing the why so i don't know what to steer clear of in the future.
The master summoner did take a long time for some people. A flock of eagles each making 3 attacks could take up more time than the rest of the party.
This is now the third character I've tried to make and its the third one that's been banned. What could possibly be the reasoning behind so much restriction, and this one in particular?
No, I meant any idea why they would ban the Wild Caller? I can't believe that it would be because of 4-5 extra evolution points, especially considering that you give up a good bit for it. It must have something to do with feat schennaigans associated with Summon Nature's Ally.
.Damn. I was getting really excited about the character too.
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Remember that an archetype, PrC or any other option for your character isn't necessarily banned, it just hasn't been unlocked yet. So there's every chance that Wild Caller hasn't been unlocked, rather than banned.
Mike asked in this thread if having options unlocked in scenarios was something the community wanted. The response so far has been positive.
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The pure fact of the matter is that most Summoner archetypes just aren't allowed, and a lot of that is because of balance and flavor issues.
Sadly, it's a giant pain in the back end, but them's the breaks.
Fun fact: Gunslingers also catch a lot of flack from players/GMs, so be aware not everyone likes guns in their fantasy should you choose to play one. (P.S. It never stopped me, though!)
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You could just play a regular ole summoner. Use your Eidolon for a few levels and when you get to level 3 or 5. Get superior summoning and augment summoning. Then dismiss your eidolon and summon down 1. ie at level 3, you summon level 1 monsters with summon monster II. You can only do it once, but you could have 2-4 level 1 Eagles. Then you buff or crowd control.
At level 5, you can summon 2-4 Earth Elementals and create Pit under the bad guys. Earth Elementals can dig into the earth without having to worrying about falling into the pit and taking damage. So put the baddies in a box and then make them fight it out with your elementals. Whatever makes it saves from pit, you let the rest of the party deal with or grease them into the pit too.
The ban wasn't completely uncalled for. I wish they could have just nerfed us to only so many summons out at a time, but the simple answer was they couldn't. Now I am level 6 and playing a straight summoner and I believe my Eidolon is more powerful than any 3-4 summons combined. 4 attacks per round even with charge of 80-120 feet(Hellooooo pounce!). +11 to hit and +2 on charge. Its kind of ridiculous and I think once I actually begin playing him again, my group is going to want my simple summons back. They did far less damage and were much easier to kill. lol
cheers!
Technically optimisation-wise you give up nothing as a wildcaller as the strongest Eidolon builds dont actually use any of the evolutions blocked by the archtype. Thus its stronger than a Vanilla summoner, the SNA SLA doesnt actually come into it much as raw summoners and wild callers will rarely use their summoning SLA's, the biggest thing was people could frontload their eidolons alot earlier with wildcaller and halfelf (especially combined) giving them a large amount of levels in which they could trivialise encounters till they reach the 7-11 tiers when eidolons and ACs have a harder time due to the NPCs having access to options that can actually be effective against such creatures.
The strongest eidolons don't use Energy Attacks, Damage Reduction or Spell Resistance?
That's news to me...
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The pure fact of the matter is that most Summoner archetypes just aren't allowed, and a lot of that is because of balance and flavor issues.
Sadly, it's a giant pain in the back end, but them's the breaks.
Fun fact: Gunslingers also catch a lot of flack from players/GMs, so be aware not everyone likes guns in their fantasy should you choose to play one. (P.S. It never stopped me, though!)
Gunslingers are insanely powerful, and they're especially powerful against the big bads at the end of the game who are supposed to be hard to kill, but gunslingers targeting a touch ac can just mow through.
The strongest eidolons don't use Energy Attacks, Damage Reduction or Spell Resistance?
The spell resistance is too low, and you can just buy the energy attacks on an amulet.
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The pure fact of the matter is that most Summoner archetypes just aren't allowed, and a lot of that is because of balance and flavor issues.
Sadly, it's a giant pain in the back end, but them's the breaks.
Fun fact: Gunslingers also catch a lot of flack from players/GMs, so be aware not everyone likes guns in their fantasy should you choose to play one. (P.S. It never stopped me, though!)
Gunslingers are insanely powerful, and they're especially powerful against the big bads at the end of the game who are supposed to be hard to kill, but gunslingers targeting a touch ac can just mow through.
The strongest eidolons don't use Energy Attacks, Damage Reduction or Spell Resistance?The spell resistance is too low, and you can just buy the energy attacks on an amulet.
Touch AC or no, even if they used regular AC like those wacky Archer Fighter builds, people would still be screaming and crying to get the guns out of their fantasy.
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Remember that an archetype, PrC or any other option for your character isn't necessarily banned, it just hasn't been unlocked yet. So there's every chance that Wild Caller hasn't been unlocked, rather than banned.
Mike asked in this thread if having options unlocked in scenarios was something the community wanted. The response so far has been positive.
To Clarify Mike has decided to hold off on that now since he can't promise they will make it on Chronicles, so the stuff that was held back for this reason will be added in September.
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Touch AC or no, even if they used regular AC like those wacky Archer Fighter builds, people would still be screaming and crying to get the guns out of their fantasy.
Yes, the medieval purist is going to be against the gunslingers no matter what, but their rules and implementation has meant that they're being joined by the melee fighter (who can't get to the thing before the gunslinger kills it), the archer (who has to deal with ac), and the wizards (who have to deal with spell resistance)
There are just very few defenses in the game against guns atm. Guns are an emerging technology, rules, and the spells and items haven't adapted to their presence yet. Going through steel plate is one thing, but going through adamantium armor or +5 magical armor like cheese is just silly.
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I was disappointed about the Wild Caller as well, but mostly because I love the idea of monster building. That list of Additional Resources is a bit daunting because of all the "this is allowed, but not this" language. Sometimes I just go back and make a fairly vanilla build but with lots of RP flare!