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Druids are my favorite class, while I have been toying with the idea of playing a summoner for sometime. The Elemental Ally archetype is making me stop and think about it..
Giving up wild shape seems like a huge loss. Eidolon without evolution points is another blow. However, with these losses are the Eidolons basically now just animal companions anyway? They gets skills instead of tricks. I feel the possibility of having a "Swiss army knife" of 4 companions quite temping. Making a couple skill monkey types, one for scouting/disarming. Another one for fighting. Another for intimidating/diplomacy (diplomacy seems odd but hey...). Get the idea.
Always loved the druid spell list feel like that's a huge plus over the summoners spell list.The idea of effecting elemental with animal spells also sounds awesome. Seems like we are always coming across some type of elemental in scenarios.
Should I just stick with a summoner for a bigger eidolon? or Would a Elemental Ally Druid Build be a good possible build for a character?
While I am thinking about this for PFS (I know the additional resources isn't out yet for the book, encase it does is it possible class?)
Elemental Ally seems good for a pure caster Druid.
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Elemental Ally seems good for a pure caster Druid.
I'd agree pure caster would work well for this druid. However comparing this to say a storm druid, a storm druid is much better caster. Having the 4 eidolons worth the loss of domains and wild shape. I'm not 100% sure.
This is funny, because he doesn't actually qualify for anything that gives animal companions an evolution pool, on account of not having an AC (at least as far as I can tell).
I too laugh and sigh at that section. I wish they got some points even the 4th level point. Most animal companions get a boost at 4th or 7th, should have been given a small pool then.
Elemental Ally seems good for a pure caster Druid.I'd agree pure caster would work well for this druid. However comparing this to say a storm druid, a storm druid is much better caster. Having the 4 eidolons worth the loss of domains and wild shape. I'm not 100% sure.
Well, it depends, to a certain extent.
Since each of the eidolons get feats, you could go biped and just have them swing away. Nice, simple, heck don't even buy more than one weapon (just give them all the same weapon proficiency, and give the one weapon to whoever you are summoning right then).
The lack of evo points is a bit of a turn off though. I don't think they need a huge number of evo poits, or even evo options. The fact that you have 4 eidolons with unique movements and their own set of feats mostly makes up for that.
But they can't go largee (ignoring the stats, it is fairly iconic for summoning a big monster, and it has nice reach which is good tactically on a biped), and they can't put points into natural armor (which makes them 10 AC squishier than every other kind of eidolon- maybe 8 AC since you get a single evo point). So that is a huge problem. Slightly alleviated since you can put animal growth or atavism on them, but it is still a problem.
Comparing that to a base druid with an animal companion...even a caster would enjoy wildshaping BECAUSE OF ELEMENTALS. I mean- air elemental is a FANTASTIC defensive buff- flight, good AC, etc. And then, at level 12, they get DR 5/- and immunity to bleed/sneakattack/crits.
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The lack of the evolution points is fine, if they hadn't severely limited the archetype by taking away the Wild Shape completely when they could have treated this almost similarly to the Treesinger archetype and made it limited to only Elemental Shapes, and a progression similar to the Plant Shape variant given to that particular archetype.
If they weren't going to allow the wildshape, then a small list of available Evolutions with a small Pool would have made up for this, because they lose all four ediolons if one dies, leaving them literally with only spells, and that's not necessarily a viable build when talking a Druid.
If adjusted, and there are likely going to be a few GMs that do adjust this for their groups, it certainly could be a worth it option. I like the idea of an elemental companion, but not the fact that I can't wildshape or summon if I lose one of them in combat... because it Can and Does happen. Particularly if saves are failed. It means a loss of two major core Druid abilities.
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Might I add a simple fix for players and GM's alike. We're playing Skull and Shackles at the moment and this build seemed quite fun (except for the lack of evolution pool... immediate turn-off for this class archetype in my opinion as a DM).
Since Druid's get full lvl 1-9 spell casting, why not just give them an evolution pool at a slow progression instead of a medium progression? Ex: just follow the BAB of a wizard 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, etc. That would also line up nicely with large unlocking at 8th level and huge unlocking at 12th level. I would however take away Elemental Magic though to avoid unnatural spells from druids, making gargantuan elementals running around haha.
Because, let's be honest, the main attraction of Eidolon's is clearly their growth in size... who would want 4 (possibly large with animal growth) medium or small sized elementals doing your dirty work.
Also, adding a smidge more thoughts to this post... why did they stop giving the class things at level 4? If we're making a class similar to summoner and ALSO taking away wild shape, I'd add way more things to raise the appeal of it. last time I checked, Nature's Bond, Wild Empathy, Wild Shape and Resist Nature's Lure were most of the druid's abilities; gotta love that trackless step :P
Why not just give this archetype a new class altogether and add it to the HYBRID classes (Druid + Summoner) then make it a pure caster with elemental summons, evolution pool, aspect, merge forms and nature's ally summons. And just for flavor's sake, instead of having 20th level ability of twin eidolon, have a 1/day "Elemental Convergence" where you summon all 4 of your Eidolon's into the area as a full round action and they hang out for a minute to cause pure elemental chaos to your foes :D
Just my thoughts... *ahem* last I checked, this wasn't the homebrew section, BUT this is one of the only sections on this class that I've come across lately... So for those Googling this class, I hope ya'll come across this.