Easy Summoner fix?


Homebrew and House Rules


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I absolutely love Summoners as they are, and our group almost always features either a standard, a master summoner or a wild caller. Having said that, I have to give ear to those who are concerned about their relative and potential power level. I don't think they need to be overhauled or anything like that, but I did come up with these tweaks:

Standard Summoner or Wild Caller:
They do not gain the Summoner Monster class feature. They can still cast the spell as normal and still have full access to their eidolons.

Master Summoner:
They do not gain an eidolon at all. Their uses of the Summon Monster class feature scales up with level at a rate of CHA + 1/2 class level (minimum 1). This might result in a slightly more powerful end-game character but it evens out the power curve a bit levels 1-12 by slightly reducing the hordes they can summon at one time - and at higher levels the effectiveness of summoned creatures begins to dip anyway. The change also creates a pleasant progression where at odd levels the potency of creatures you can summon improves while at even levels the number of uses of the ability increases.

1st level Master Summoner, 19 Charisma = 5/day vs. 9/day
4th level Master Summoner, 20 Charisma = 7/day vs. 10/day
12th level Master Summoner, 24 Charisma = 13/day vs. 12/day
20th level Master Summoner, 28 Charisma = 19/day vs. 14/day

No one in our group would ever play a Synthesist or a Brood Master so I haven't bothered tweaking those.

Some additional changes we've made have been:

The Gate class feature at 19th level has been done away with, though it has been added as a spell to the Summoner's spell list as a 6th level spell. In its place they gain the ability of 'Perfect Summons' which brings summoned creatures or their eidolon into existence with maximum hit points. This ability applies to the class feature only and not the spell version of these abilities.


Does the master summoner get a familiar in place of the Eidolon?


Cheapy wrote:
Does the master summoner get a familiar in place of the Eidolon?

Not unless they get it by some other means (Eldritch Heritage feats, etc.).

We're actually running a Way of the Wicked campaign right now and one of the characters being played is a Master Summoner using this rule variant. She seems quite happy with it, but then she's never run a standard version so she might not be knowing what she's missing. The relative power levels seem a lot smoother in comparison to other characters.

Liberty's Edge

Exactly what I have been looking for! make the eidolon an option. I would still play the master summoner with no qualms.


I changed the evolution pool to match the summoner level (so max 20) and stretched out the max attacks scale so it caps at 6 attacks starting at 17th. I also reduced the sla's to Charisma modifier (minimum 2) and also removed gate, but gave toughness to all summons so a similar idea there. I do like your alterations though, they support archetypes a bit better than mine.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

It'd be a nice touch to redo the class skills for the Wild Caller I think. For a more primal flavor of summoner, you've still got the knowledges and still lack the physical skills.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Homebrew and House Rules / Easy Summoner fix? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules
Fighter Rechained