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I think Summoners can be a problem because they are complicated and nearly impossible to audit.
It is part of the "why we can't have good things" problem. They created a class where you could make things that are complicated and people try to find ways to abuse it.
Too bad really, as it was a bold move by the Devs. I salute the effort.
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CoDzilla could do all of these things at once, and was a 9 level caster, and with dips into prestiges a cleric could become an abomination with a dozen domains, plenty of immunities, and control an undead army while doing this. He also could get 6+ skill points by becoming a cloistered cleric, and then get knowledge domain, trade that for knowledge devoution, get collector of stories with his plentiful skills, then get his knowledge domain back with a dip, and then beat people up with his smarts. Then take Divine metamagic and persist so he gets full BAB with divine power all day. So he's not just smarter than you, but probably outright better at hitting and killing things.
No, they are not CoDzilla. They might have a few perks, but they are far from the monstrocity of a lazer shooting dinosaur riding atop a T-Rex 3.5 druids were, or the full BAB, Full Plate wearing, Martial weapon wielding, fighter replacing, monster the 3.5 cleric was.
Edit: Summoners can keep a tally of their total used evolutions on the back of their paper or on another sheet. I've found this really helps to keep track of how many evolution points are used.
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No, CoDzilla was a game-breaker.
Summoners are mostly overpowered when the build is not done properly, frequently due to misunderstandings of the rules, not deliberate cheating.
While a well built summoner can be overpowered compared to some other classes, there are still other classes that are just as easy to make into munchkin toys as summoners.
Wizards come to mind.
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While perhaps not as bad an issue, they are the class that's the easiest to make overpowered with the most minimal effort. And unlike most other spellcasters, if a summoner can't cast a spell that'll be helpful that round, he still has his eidolon to do things with. That's much preferable to just doing some spell that won't be too effective, or not really necessary, or just throwing out a cantrip or bolt because they have nothing else to do.
While perhaps not as bad an issue, they are the class that's the easiest to make overpowered with the most minimal effort. And unlike most other spellcasters, if a summoner can't cast a spell that'll be helpful that round, he still has his eidolon to do things with. That's much preferable to just doing some spell that won't be too effective, or not really necessary, or just throwing out a cantrip or bolt because they have nothing else to do.
You could make a similar argument about druids or rangers with boon companion feat since their animal companions can be quite effective especially at certain levels.
Wizards that find themselves relying on d3 cantrips in combat when unable to throw their big spells around would not qualify in my mind as "optimized" wizards. An optimized wizard is going to have other options including scrolls, wands or magic items. Usually items they've constructed themselves.
Plus they can, you know, summon things.
I find that is most cases, I can generally beat a Synthesist Summoner with a Visectionist Alchemist.
I do think the way fusing stats work with the synthesist was a step in the wrong direction(It should be more like polymorph/wildshape).
Master summoner is cool, but if I have made oracles and sorcerers that can come pretty close(just lacking the duration on summons), while being able to do a lot of other things.
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The more I read this class and the more I think about it the more it feels like summoners are this editions version of CoDZilla.
You get the old style wild shape "Stat merging" with synth. You gain an absurdly powerful summon SLA that is broken in half with the master summoner. Even the vanilla summoner has absurdly broken eliodons with lance/gun builds.
In addition to this you get powerful spells such as haste, heroism, and black tentacles at the same level as the wizard but with a lower spell level. This appears to be negative but don't be fooled it's actually a buff. Metamagic rods and many other items become MORE favorable than unfavorable saving huge amounts of gold especially on quicken/dazing/any +3 metamagic.
They're not CODZillas, at least not compared to those classes. An optimized wizard will always be stronger. You can even have a pretty strong "eidolon" as a wizard with Planar Binding, despite the risk. Clerics can do this with less risk using Planar Ally instead.
A wizard can also spam the battlefield with summons, buff them, and so forth.
The big problem with the summoner is that it's only good at one thing and it's one of the most problematic things in the game--messing with the action economy. (They also fill the battlefield.) That's nothing a conjurer wizard couldn't do, but a conjurer wizard has more interesting things to do and so probably won't overuse that tactic. Certainly a conjurer wizard PC could be just as problematic, along with a cleric that focuses on summon spells to the exclusion of almost everything else.
If you want to fix the summoner, fix summoning.
The problem isnt the action economy, druids can have the same impact on the action economy and its not game breaking. What is game breaking is how much the summoner gets to choose.
The problem with the summoner boils down to one thing. They get to choose too much of what they get right out of the bag. A standard summoner picks all his spells, gets an sla that is extremely flexible (and can summon all sorts of creatures) and picks each and every attribute of his eidolon.
If you assigned a point value to everything the summoner and druid gets as a class, they would probably come out pretty near equal. But the druid is far less game breaking. Why? Because the summoner picks everyhing. If he doesnt want to spend 'points' on giving his eidolon scent, he doesnt have to, he can spend each and every thing on making his eidolon punch dudes harder. A summoner casually built is basically the equivalent of a hyper optimized druid where the player uses a dozen sources/archetypes/feats/alternate features to customize every aspect of the class and it's features.
If you want to fix the summoner, divine the evolution points an eidolon gets into categories like offensive, defensive, utility, and require the points being split between them. Do that and the summoner wont be more disruptive then a druid. Either that or create eidolon templates that include additional base evolutions as they level up, instead of just the base form and everything else being a manual choice.
I've played a druid more than any other class in pathfinder.
Believe me, if a player wants to do it, their druid can totally mess with the action economy. Especially if they are part of a party that scouts ahead, uses metamagic and enjoys controlling the battlefield.
I've had my druid enter battle with an army of summoned and befriended animals.
If you want to fix the summoner, divide the evolution points an eidolon gets into categories like offensive, defensive, utility, and require the points being split between them. Do that and the summoner wont be more disruptive then a druid. Either that or create eidolon templates that include additional base evolutions as they level up, instead of just the base form and everything else being a manual choice.
I actually like the idea of splitting a eidolon's points up into different pools. Whenever combat abilities and non-combat ones are coming from the same resource pool, it's going to encourage people to dump everything into combat. Splitting the eidolon's points between combat and non-combat pools would do a lot to make for a more diverse and flexible set of eidolon builds.
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The animal companion of druids/rangers are MUCH better defined. When in doubt, without even using their spell, an 8th level summoner can just walk up, DDoor, and get the eidilon into battle. The effects are things unheard of for player characters; and dividing up really doesn't happen. Is blindsense non-combat? If it is it's the biggest bargain @ 7 points; eliminate any sneaking, invisibility, or whatever else the monster sneaks.
CoDZilla was good in the sense it can buff and attack in the same round; so is the Summoner / Eidilon combo (the Summoner buffs / eidilon attacks). And their buffs go far beyond what the druid has available; hastes and Enlarge persons to make large eidilons huge are just a touch. Their Eidilons can do great damage and have AC well above the "hittable" range for their CR.
Also, CoDzilla could be an entire very good party. So can summoners. And we won't even get into what happens when Master Summoners and Synthasists actually become legal.
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CoDzilla still exists. It just hasn't gotten hopped up on as much nuclear energy, but it's still a rampaging tank destroying walking natural disaster. Clerics are still good at melee and tanking and are still full casters. Druids too. They were watered down but they are still CoDzilla (and they've even got some new tricks in which to arm themselves with).
Summoner is a full caster with an uberpet masking as a bard. It has access to the most powerful spells in the game like an arcane caster (it even has Simulacrum despite that having nothing to do with conjuration, nor summoning, and is a shadow spell), and it gets them at lower spell levels which allows for the purchase of some very high level arcane scrolls and items at low costs (2,400 gp for a greater planar binding scroll? Yikes!).
It's at least CoDzilla (IMHO it's a bit better than CoDzilla because they get most of the really good arcane spells, whereas Clerics and Druids usually need to be martial-lite until 5th+ level).
Last game, one of my player tried to pull an interesting trick with his Summoner. Before that, I did not think that the Summoner was OP, but now I am not sure.
Round 1: Summoner use his Summon Monster SLA to summon 1d3 monsters as a standard action. As soon as they appear, the monsters attack.
Round 2: The Summoner choses to delay his action to act after his summoned monsters. The monsters attack and then, the Summoner uses his Summon Monster SLA again to summon 1d3 new monsters. The firsts monsters instantly disappear and the new monsters appear and the player asked me if his new summoned monsters could attack immediatly. RAW I think he was right, but since the Summoner can only have one Summon Monster SLA active at any time, I judged it was against the spirit of the rule and ruled that since the monsters he summoned with his Summon Monster SLA already attacked this round, his new summoned monsters would have to wait the next round before acting/attacking.
What do you think about that? Should I have allowed to player to subsequently attack with two groups of summoned monsters in the same round? Does that make the Summoner OP?
The animal companion of druids/rangers are MUCH better defined. When in doubt, without even using their spell, an 8th level summoner can just walk up, DDoor, and get the eidilon into battle. The effects are things unheard of for player characters; and dividing up really doesn't happen. Is blindsense non-combat? If it is it's the biggest bargain @ 7 points; eliminate any sneaking, invisibility, or whatever else the monster sneaks.
Yeah, working out the details of how evolutions would be divided is where things would get tricky. I'd probably end up re-writing half the class if I tried to do it.
Last game, one of my player tried to pull an interesting trick with his Summoner. Before that, I did not think that the Summoner was OP, but now I am not sure.
Round 1: Summoner use his Summon Monster SLA to summon 1d3 monsters as a standard action. As soon as they appear, the monsters attack.
Round 2: The Summoner choses to delay his action to act after his summoned monsters. The monsters attack and then, the Summoner uses his Summon Monster SLA again to summon 1d3 new monsters. The firsts monsters instantly disappear and the new monsters appear and the player asked me if his new summoned monsters could attack immediatly. RAW I think he was right, but since the Summoner can only have one Summon Monster SLA active at any time, I judged it was against the spirit of the rule and ruled that since the monsters he summoned with his Summon Monster SLA already attacked this round, his new summoned monsters would have to wait the next round before acting/attacking.
What do you think about that? Should I have allowed to player to subsequently attack with two groups of summoned monsters in the same round? Does that make the Summoner OP?
Pretty sure that's legal, and it did cost him another use of his SLA.
Who need an eidolon when you can do that? The eidolon is for the Summoner what cantrips are for Wizards and Sorcerers.
Its a nova trick. He'll run out of those soon enough.
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Vanilla summoner would be okay if not for its bizarre spell list. The fact that Summoner and Eidolon share item slot would be enough to balance them if they had a normal 6-level spell list instead of a 9-level spell list cramped into 6 levels.
Master Summoner can be game-breaking, but an optimized full caster, even a Sorcerer or Oracle can still have even more absurd powers.
Synthesist, while less powerful because of the loss of action economy, has a really high survivability and doesn't have to worry about item slots.
Summoner is a cool concept, IMO, but it was very poorly executed. Their spell-list is grotesque and Synsthesist makes them even more confusing.
Really... Why the hell bring the old-style Wild Shape back?
Its a nova trick. He'll run out of those soon enough.
Which will force him to rely on standard Summon Monster spells and his eidolon. In other words, after using this nova trick that no other class can do, the Summoner would still behave like the other top tier classes (cleric, druid, oracle, sorcerer, witch and wizard).
I'm running a master summoner in a home game, complete with the +1 summon feat. Perhaps that's why I'm neither surprised nor all that concerned that this summoner did that.
As I said, its a nova trick, and you run out soon enough if you're pressed hard enough, long enough. Its something neat to throw out if you're temporarily overwhelmed, especially if you have to make up for a teammate being taken out during a tough fight. Since we don't always get away with short work days and our game master's a sadist, I don't feel all that overpowered. The druid in the party seems to be keeping up pretty well, for instance.
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Pretty sure that's legal, and it did cost him another use of his SLA.Last game, one of my player tried to pull an interesting trick with his Summoner. Before that, I did not think that the Summoner was OP, but now I am not sure.
Round 1: Summoner use his Summon Monster SLA to summon 1d3 monsters as a standard action. As soon as they appear, the monsters attack.
Round 2: The Summoner choses to delay his action to act after his summoned monsters. The monsters attack and then, the Summoner uses his Summon Monster SLA again to summon 1d3 new monsters. The firsts monsters instantly disappear and the new monsters appear and the player asked me if his new summoned monsters could attack immediatly. RAW I think he was right, but since the Summoner can only have one Summon Monster SLA active at any time, I judged it was against the spirit of the rule and ruled that since the monsters he summoned with his Summon Monster SLA already attacked this round, his new summoned monsters would have to wait the next round before acting/attacking.
What do you think about that? Should I have allowed to player to subsequently attack with two groups of summoned monsters in the same round? Does that make the Summoner OP?
/shrug
How is it more powerful than a conjurer (or any other full caster) using multiple summoning spells?
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Exactly! Your plan B is that you're a stealth full caster. THIS IS YOUR BACKUP PLAN! That's better than most classes plan A.Its a nova trick. He'll run out of those soon enough.Which will force him to rely on standard Summon Monster spells and his eidolon. In other words, after using this nova trick that no other class can do, the Summoner would still behave like the other top tier classes (cleric, druid, oracle, wizard, sorcerer).
Summoner is a 6 level caster. Just like a bard or a magus.
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Exactly! Your plan B is that you're a stealth full caster.Summoner is a 6 level caster. Just like a bard or a magus.
I think by 'stealth' full caster he meant that it's not technically a full caster, but gets around that by early access to spells (like haste as a 2nd level spell at 4th level, a level before a wizard gets it), and access to 9th level spell effects like Summon Monster IX and Gate, despite not technically having 'full caster levels.'
The 6th level summoner list includes a number of eighth (mass charm monster, greater planar binding, maze, etc.) and even ninth level (dominate monster, teleportation circle) wizard spells, and, IMO, is a fair bit sexier than the 6th level bard spell list, making it seem more like a full caster pretending to be a 3/4th caster.
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Exactly! Your plan B is that you're a stealth full caster.Summoner is a 6 level caster. Just like a bard or a magus.I think by 'stealth' full caster he meant that it's not technically a full caster, but gets around that by early access to spells (like haste as a 2nd level spell at 4th level, a level before a wizard gets it), and access to 9th level spell effects like Summon Monster IX and Gate, despite not technically having 'full caster levels.'
The 6th level summoner list includes a number of eighth (mass charm monster, greater planar binding, maze, etc.) and even ninth level (dominate monster, teleportation circle) wizard spells, and, IMO, is a fair bit sexier than the 6th level bard spell list, making it seem more like a full caster pretending to be a 3/4th caster.
Exactly this. It's not even a matter of saying "well less spells per day" because you're still casting high level mage spells. You're just doing it while also having a very powerful martial meatshield built in along with the ability to call forth wholly expendable creatures with many wondrous powers as desired and use them as lackies...while also casting 8th and 9th level spells, having a 3/5 BAB, and a d8 HD and the ability to cast spells while in armor (which means you yourself are at least much sturdier than traditional arcane casters).
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/shrug
How is it more powerful than a conjurer (or any other full caster) using multiple summoning spells?
Because it is Standard action. And if it is a Master Summoner, you can have a huge army cast 10 minutes before the battle. And you probably have more SLA than the conjurer has Summon monster spells, and you don't waste your spell slots to summon them, so you can use those spell slots to buff them.
Pretty sure that's legal, and it did cost him another use of his SLA.Last game, one of my player tried to pull an interesting trick with his Summoner. Before that, I did not think that the Summoner was OP, but now I am not sure.
Round 1: Summoner use his Summon Monster SLA to summon 1d3 monsters as a standard action. As soon as they appear, the monsters attack.
Round 2: The Summoner choses to delay his action to act after his summoned monsters. The monsters attack and then, the Summoner uses his Summon Monster SLA again to summon 1d3 new monsters. The firsts monsters instantly disappear and the new monsters appear and the player asked me if his new summoned monsters could attack immediatly. RAW I think he was right, but since the Summoner can only have one Summon Monster SLA active at any time, I judged it was against the spirit of the rule and ruled that since the monsters he summoned with his Summon Monster SLA already attacked this round, his new summoned monsters would have to wait the next round before acting/attacking.
What do you think about that? Should I have allowed to player to subsequently attack with two groups of summoned monsters in the same round? Does that make the Summoner OP?
/shrug
How is it more powerful than a conjurer (or any other full caster) using multiple summoning spells?
Standard action summoning, which means his SLA can be used during the surprise round (and the summoned creatures will be able to attack in the surprise round) and is more difficult to disrupt than most summoning spells which require a casting time of 1 round? Also, what Gustavo said.
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Summoner is a 6 level caster. Just like a bard or a magus.Exactly! Your plan B is that you're a stealth full caster. THIS IS YOUR BACKUP PLAN! That's better than most classes plan A.Its a nova trick. He'll run out of those soon enough.Which will force him to rely on standard Summon Monster spells and his eidolon. In other words, after using this nova trick that no other class can do, the Summoner would still behave like the other top tier classes (cleric, druid, oracle, wizard, sorcerer).
Which 9 level spell does the Magus have in his list? Because Summoner has a few.
Can a Wizard or Druid cast Stinking Cloud as a standard action at level 3 without spending gold on a scroll (via summoning a dretch)?
Can they cast Haste at level 4, again without using a scroll?
The spell list of the summoner may be more limited, but it encompass nearly all the best spells in the game. On top of that, nothing is preventing a summoner from maxing UMD and using scrolls and wands, thus becoming as versatile and blasty as a full caster.
Exactly this. It's not even a matter of saying "well less spells per day" because you're still casting high level mage spells. You're just doing it while also having a very powerful martial meatshield built in along with the ability to call forth wholly expendable creatures with many wondrous powers as desired and use them as lackies...while also casting 8th and 9th level spells, having a 3/5 BAB, and a d8 HD and the ability to cast spells while in armor (which means you yourself are at least much sturdier than traditional arcane casters).
And when you put his Summon Monster SLA in the equation, the Summoner has more ''high level'' spells per day than any full caster.
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Exactly this. It's not even a matter of saying "well less spells per day" because you're still casting high level mage spells. You're just doing it while also having a very powerful martial meatshield built in along with the ability to call forth wholly expendable creatures with many wondrous powers as desired and use them as lackies...while also casting 8th and 9th level spells, having a 3/5 BAB, and a d8 HD and the ability to cast spells while in armor (which means you yourself are at least much sturdier than traditional arcane casters).And when you put his Summon Monster SLA in the equation, the Summoner has more ''high level'' spells per day than any full caster.
Indeed. Their SLA is amazing. They could burn one every combat and never run out, and their longevity is epic win. The fact SLAs need no components (no vocal, somatic, material), cannot be countered, and lasts a very long time for summons is awesome.
By high levels you've got a lot of effective 9th level SM IX spells in que all the time. You can even summon on the move, which is really good from a tactical perspective.
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Giving the summoner the Eidolon was too much, as was extending the amount of time his summons could last....
So yeah this class is a little bit on the overpowered side
Naw, it's not CoDzilla.
It beats CoDzilla so bad that they wet their pants and cry themselves to sleep at night.
Unless you allow Persistant metamagic and unlimited Nightsticks. Man, that's so cheezy that they made a moon out of it.
I dont think they are overpowered.. but i dont like their spells list too. haste at lvl 4.. before a WIZARD?? no thanks.. this is a bad way to give too much things to a class. summoners are fun, my player has one and it's not so difficult to manage him. sometimes there's something 'strange' in the evolutions of the Eidolon because they leave a lot of way to read them. for example.. but i dont want to go out of theme, the always in act discussion about
Improved Natural Armor (Ex): An eidolon’s hide grows
thick fur, rigid scales, or bony plates, giving it a +2 bonus
to its natural armor. This evolution can be taken once for
every five levels the summoner possesses.
I FIGHT with my summoner's player two days because d20 e someone says that you can take this at first level and then every 5 level.
I explain him that, in my opinion, this is:
lvl 1.: Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 2 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 3 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 4 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 5 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? YES
so (i repeat) in my personal opinion you can take imp. nat. armor at 5-10-15-20. there are some way to interprete here, but i dont think so.
But d20 wrote that it could probably be 1-5-10-15-20... and they will write it in the next printing of the APG.
how could it possibile?? at lvl 20.. regardless about the possibility of taking this at lvl 1 or 5.. at lvl 20 you POSSESSE 5 levels of summoner 4 times. so tell me why you (probably) will take this evolution 5 times.
In my opinion this, and other little things bad explained and ruled, let the summoner get too much powerful. 2 AC at level 1 or not make differences. and this is only an example.
It's a class that should be written again, cause it often break the rules (too much for me).
if clarified and with a re written of the spells list it could be an interesting class.
Why people have an issue with the Summoner just baffles my mind.
Lets compare a Level 20 Summoner to a Level 20 Conjuration (Teleport) Wizard or a Druid.
Summoner vs Wizard
D8 vs D6 (Average difference of 20 HP)
6th level casting vs 9th level casting
Limited spell list vs Wizard spell list
Eidolon vs Permanent Summon Monster IX (Or 1d3+1 SM VIII)
Armored Casting vs Teleport power
Summoner vs Druid
D8 vs D8
6th level casting vs 9th level casting
Limited spell list vs Druid spell list
Eidolon vs Druid pet
Armored casting for both
SLA summons vs Wildshape
Its not even close. The Summoner is a very powerful class dont get me wrong. And they shine in the early levels (where most games are played), but they are far from the most powerful class in the game.
I FIGHT with my summoner's player two days because d20 e someone says that you can take this at first level and then every 5 level.
*snip*
if clarified and with a re written of the spells list it could be an interesting class.
You should take a look at the FAQ page. Paizo offically says that eidolons can get improved natural armor at 1st level, and again at 5th level. They simply mis-worded things in the original printing.
If they had meant for players to not be able to take that evolution until 5th level, they would have put a level restriction on it instead of limiting it in such a roundabout way.
i've already done but i dont like it and i dont agree with them! that's it
by the way.. FAQ are FAQ.. so they are welcome. i will let my player use
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I FIGHT with my summoner's player two days because d20 e someone says that you can take this at first level and then every 5 level.
I explain him that, in my opinion, this is:lvl 1.: Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 2 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 3 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 4 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 5 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? YESso (i repeat) in my personal opinion you can take imp. nat. armor at 5-10-15-20. there are some way to interprete here, but i dont think so.
But d20 wrote that it could probably be 1-5-10-15-20... and they will write it in the next printing of the APG.if clarified and with a re written of the spells list it could be an interesting class.
It isn't d20pfsrd stating this, it was addressed in the FAQ
We have a summoner cohort in our group. Granted she's 2 levels behind, but even for that and being built towards damage it's not terribly impressive. The many attacks, even with rend, haste, energy attacks and an amulet of mighty fists with shock don't deal a lot of damage, when dealing with DR, resistances etc. at higher levels. And the most useful summoner spells are usually buffs.
Personally I love the class and the eidolon, for the amount creativity it allows.
Abuse will always lead to broken characters and just because this class has more potential for being abused doesn't make it broken. Because it's always the player who uses it, and the GM who allows it. Although i'd cut some slack for the GM, because the whole build of a summoner is hard to gauge by just looking at it.
Standard action summoning? Clerics can do that. And just as scary so can casters with Words of Power. Which after looking at I really wish would get more support since it does appear to be rather underrated.
Super customizable pet?
Fun fact; druids can get a new pet everyday for free and have 9th level spellcasting. Summoners have to wait until each level to make changes to their pet.
Terrifying melee powerhouse with a scary pet? I call them CAvaliers and rangers.
As to the spell list? They o get quite a bit a couple levels earlier than even wizards which is the only honest issue I see with them. But even here the issue is slightly mitigated by the fact that they just don't have the same amount of spells that said wizard would have.
We have a summoner cohort in our group. Granted she's 2 levels behind, but even for that and being built towards damage it's not terribly impressive. The many attacks, even with rend, haste, energy attacks and an amulet of mighty fists with shock don't deal a lot of damage, when dealing with DR, resistances etc. at higher levels. And the most useful summoner spells are usually buffs.
chances are that this cohort doesn't spend a lot of gold in his eidolon. Not as much as a PC would. AoMF help to overcome DR