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This is more home brew than pfs. An eidolon (or even animal companions) personality isn't something that a DM can really play and take over without knowing the animal companion , which is hard when you keep switching Dms.
And by the rules the handle animal rules provide very little limit on a characters ability to control their pet if the player knows what they're doing.
Eidolons have above animal levels of intelligence. You don't need to control them because you can simply tell them what you want them to do. Now, you are right that the Eidolon could disobey, but:
Eidolons: Outside the linear obedience and intelligence scale of sentient and nonsentient companions are eidolons: intelligent entities magically bound to you. Whether you wish to roleplay this relationship as friendly or coerced, the eidolon is inclined to obey you unless you give a command only to spite it. An eidolon would obey a cruel summoner's order to save a child from a burning building, knowing that at worst the fire damage would temporarily banish it, but it wouldn't stand in a bonfire just because the summoner said to. An eidolon is normally a player-controlled companion, but the GM can have the eidolon refuse extreme orders that would cause it to suffer needlessly
Basically, your proposing a new set of of rules to govern Eidolons so they aren't so overpowered so you can use the old summoner instead of the new? I can tell you that you're wasting your breath on this one. And personally I don't see the point. Trying to balance Eidolons from an RP perspective works as well as trying to balance Paladins by shackling them with RP guidelines.
People are just salty that they lost the overpowered Eidolon.
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I don't know about everybody else, but I would never trade new summoner with a functional eidolon for old summoner with a non functional one. Unless your whole plan was to play a master summoner to begin with. And I just want to state I'm not a huge fan of the new summoner, I definitely preferred the more open design of the old summoner, but I'm also a huge fan of not having class features that can work against the party, so...
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So wait.
The problem is people were building pouncing attack monsters that slaughter whole combats before the other PCs even get to the table.
You want to fix that by saying "Okay, you can have your pouncing attack monster, but once it is turned on, you can't turn it off."
And you think this will make the situation *better*?
The players who were a problem before with the old eidolon are the players who have already demonstrated that they have problems showing restraint. Now instead of hogging the spotlight, they will hog the spot light *and* cost the rest of the table prestige points.
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This seems like a possible solution for a home game (if your GM comes to the conclusion that it is an issue), it does not seem like a workable solution for organized play.
EDIT: Eidolons and animal companions are already NPCs, and GMs are technically in control of them. And obviously everyone should use the handle animal rules correctly.
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Many people are, true. I am not. I am upset that they are removing the ability for us players who like to role play to make an eidelon based on a concept rather because a few people have created overpowered eidolons.
Actually the new eidolons are more concept and flavorful than the old "here is a bucket of points" eidolons. I have seen very few concepts that are not supported better by the new system. (LG mount is one of them, sadly, and I am still hoping that gets fixed.)
"The problem is people were building pouncing attack monsters that slaughter whole combats before the other PCs even get to the table.
You want to fix that by saying "Okay, you can have your pouncing attack monster, but once it is turned on, you can't turn it off."
And you think this will make the situation *better*?"
Again, role playing game. Better yet, thinking game. The summoner has to weigh the risks of summoning their eidolon. Summoners won't just have their eidolons out all the time like some do. And, the personality templates I gave were just examples; not everything would be based on attack/non-attack but their would be other templates to choose from.
There are already risks to summoning your eidolon. You have to decide if you want to be able to summon, or if you want your eidolon's support.
"The players who were a problem before with the old eidolon are the players who have already demonstrated that they have problems showing restraint. Now instead of hogging the spotlight, they will hog the spot light *and* cost the rest of the table prestige points."
Once. After costing the party prestige points once they might learn the value of restraint. And, from experience, I can tell you that it doesn't take a berserk eidolon to make one player cost the party prestige points. The difference is, when the player is in complete control they don't care how much their having fun screws over the party, when they don't have complete control but it is still their fault then they start to listen to the other players.
Hardly. This is a solid gold boon to the guys who sit down at the table and start killing mission objectives and stuff like that and when called on it say "I am just playing my character." Now they can say "Hey, don't complain to me, it isn't my fault, it's the rules, I tried to make it stop."
In large gaming centers it may only happen once, because after that people won't game with anyone who has an eidolon, and we will have mass petitions to get the whole class banned again as well.
It's not needed in a home game. In a home game the GM and players can discuss the tone of the game they want (the Game Mastery Guide suggests doing this) and the GM can straight out tell a player if they are acting against the game style the group has decided on. In PFS the GM cannot do this short of players openly insulting other players or PC v PC actions taking place.
No. The GM can't reshape the scenario to fit the characters, but he can definitely discuss tone. And a player who is disruptive to the table and the gaming style of the group can be invited not to come back.
Paizo saw a problem in PFS and made a solution that handicapped all PFS players because of the action of a few. I'm proposing a solution that would help bring PFS back into line with what it originally was created to be without punishing the people wh weren't responsible for the problem as much.
The eidolon was hardly the only problem with the old style summoner. The massively broken spell list (access to haste a level earlier than full casters?) was another.
Out of curiosity, what outsider concept are you currently unable to build under the new system? Maybe we can help you solve the problem so that you don't feel "punished" (I don't feel punished because my eidolon actually got stronger under the new system!)
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Attack, probably the first trick that a druid goves their animal companion. So, rules as written, when the party goes into combat the druid can point and yell attack as a free action and the animal companion does just that. It's one of the animal's tricks and the druid does not need to do a handle animal check.
Yes, the druid still needs to make a Handle Animal check to get his animal companion to attack. If the companion knows the trick, it's a DC 10 (and the Druid gets a +4 because it's his animal companion); if it doesn't know the trick, then the Druid has to push the animal companion with a DC 25 Handle Animal check (again, the Druid gets a +4 to the check because it's the Druid's animal companion.)
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Granted, unless the druid has dumped charisma, it is a check they probably can't fail by second level (2 ranks + 3 (class skill) + 4 (Link) )
Sure, though if the animal companion has is wounded or has taken ability score damage, the DC increased by 2. It is true that, in most cases, it will be an auto-success, but the check is required. I doubt they would fail at first level, either, but you never know about the corner cases where some increase in the DC or a penalty on the roll will apply.
Developer
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Considering that the wild rager barbarian archetype is not allowed in the organized play program, even if this change were implemented by the rules team, the Pathfinder Society team would not incorporate it into the campaign. It would be too disruptive and prone to killing off innocents and fellow PCs.
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Actually the new eidolons are more concept and flavorful than the old "here is a bucket of points" eidolons. I have seen very few concepts that are not supported better by the new system. (LG mount is one of them, sadly, and I am still hoping that gets fixed.)
Many people are, true. I am not. I am upset that they are removing the ability for us players who like to role play to make an eidelon based on a concept rather because a few people have created overpowered eidolons.
Miniature pirate ship that attacks.
Puppets that attack.
Water spirit (ala Spirited Away).
Floating chair you ride in.
The Luggage from Color of Magic.
Shall I go on?
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Edit to add:
If they just put out an errata/FAQ that said that Eidolons can not use weapons without the evolution that would close down some of the bad stuff. Right now some people use feats to gain weapons while others use the evolutions.
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Miniature pirate ship that attacks.
Couldn't really do this under the old rules. It would be an outsider, not a construct. Under the new rules I would build this as a serpentine psychopomp based on a viking longboat with black sails and a dragon head prow and tail that can both animate to attack.
Puppets that attack.
Inevitables
In fact these are better than your old eidolon, because they actually *are* quasi objects, and gain many of the defenses of objects.
Water spirit (ala Spirited Away).
Serpentine Water elemental. Again, better implemented than the old eidolon, since it gets many of it's water spirit powers for free.
Floating chair you ride in.
Not implemented in the old rules as eidolons could not be objects in the old rules. They had to be outsiders.
In the new rules, I would probably go Protean, given their chaotic repertoire of shapes. It would start as a chair that scuttles along the ground, I would take mount and magic flight (and cash back in magic flight at level 12 when I get it for free.)
The Luggage from Color of Magic.
Not implemented in the old rules as eidolons could not be objects in the old rules. They had to be outsiders. Thus it is missing many of the immunities an animated object should have.
This is probably the hardest one. I think I would go psychopomp (based on the luggages ability to follow you even into the next world. It also makes it more "object like" given the psychopomps immunity to death magic.
Shall I go on?
Sure.
I'll note that in most of those, you are using summoner to give your character an animated object. Which isn't what old summoner did, it gave them an outsider ally. So basically you are doing this under the old summoner by ignoring the flavor text of the class, while stating that the new summoner (which enforces the flavor text) is removing the flavor of the old summoner.
In otherwords, the new summoner is forcing you to stop reskinning. Which was the other thing people were doing with the class.
Considering that the wild rager barbarian archetype is not allowed in the organized play program, even if this change were implemented by the rules team, the Pathfinder Society team would not incorporate it into the campaign. It would be too disruptive and prone to killing off innocents and fellow PCs.
Back to the forums the day after Con.
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What's interesting is that many of the evil Eidolon types (for the Unchained Summoner) are described as serving a mortal master against their will and ultimately with ulterior motives.
I could see this staged as a CHA check (not a skill) similar to how Charm works. Which wouldn't be outright terrible considering that is the Summoner's casting stat.
If you think the APG summoner is overpowered, but like it better than the unchained one, make this simple change:
The eidolon has no HP of his own. The summoner and the eidolon share a single pool of hit points. Damage to the eidolon is damage to the summoner.
Let's see your pouncy murder beast put himself in harm's way now.
Can I drop the mic? I really want to drop the mic.