Viability of Sythesist summoner + Scarred witch doctor as a party of 2?

[Phil-D-fferent]

I'm currently pondering the viability of these two (well-known as high-powered) classes/archetypes for starting a new campaign with only two players.

Caveat: some of you will be quick to (kindfully) suggest Druid or other "pet classes" to make up for the small number of players, but one of my players played an optimized (though Core-only) Druid just 4 months ago and is in for something different.

[LoneKnave]

A normal summoner would be better than the Synth for this same reason... Not that it's not better in general. In fact, a witch archetype with a familiar would, again, be better for this. Especially since now not INT based anymore, the witch won't have that many skill points either.

The witch is a bit less good about handling multiple opponents and battlefield control stuff than a wizard. The Summoner can help on that front tho. Really, the only real problem I see is skills at low levels (when they still mean something).

[Renegadeshepherd]

very viable until you have negative levels issues that stack up on ya. even then you should be fine as long as no major dumps stats. my question is human or half orc for the witch?

[Melkiador]

I really don't get where people see the synthesist as being any more high powered than base summoner. Its action economy is cut in half. Having to choose between attacking and casting is not fun.

Sure you can dump some physical stats but then you are in trouble when you need to pull out the SLA.

[Blakmane]

Totally viable. Synthesist is not that high-powered: normal summoner or master summoner would do better. It's still fine though.