RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32
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I have a player who wants to play a clerical type but with alternative abilities. he basically wants to mix cleric with summoner. So he came up (with my suggestions) with this archetype. now i have burned myself before by not realizing the impact that seemingly innocuous things will cause on the life of the campaign. Could someone take a look and tell me what you think and, perhaps, some suggestions for improvements?
Divine Caller (Cleric Archetype)
Skill Ranks per level: 4 + Int modifier. This alters the cleric’s class skills.
Dedicated Summoner: A Divine Caller depends on summoned allies to overcome her foes, which affords little experience with martial pursuits. A divine caller loses proficiency in medium armor. This ability alters the cleric’s armor proficiencies.
Additionally, without the training domain abilities, a divine caller loses access to any domains. This modifies the cleric's domain abilities.
Servant of the Devout: At 1st level, the Divine Caller gains the ability to summon to his side a powerful outsider called an eidolon. The eidolon forms a link with the divine caller, who, forever after, summons an aspect of the same creature. A Divine Caller’s eidolon must be of a type that serves her deity. It can speak all of the Divine Caller’s languages. Eidolons are treated as summoned creatures, except that they are not sent back to their home plane until reduced to a number of negative hit points equal to or greater than their Constitution score. In addition, due to its tie to its divine caller, an eidolon can touch and attack creatures warded by protection from evil and similar effects that prevent contact with summoned creatures. A divine caller can summon his eidolon in a ritual that takes 1 minute to perform. When summoned in this way, the eidolon hit points are unchanged from the last time it was summoned. The only exception to this is if the eidolon was slain, in which case it returns with half its normal hit points. The eidolon does not heal naturally. The eidolon remains until dismissed by the divine caller (a standard action). If the eidolon is sent back to its home plane due to death, it cannot be summoned again until the following day. The eidolon cannot be sent back to its home plane by means of dispel magic, but spells such as dismissal and banishment work normally. If the divine caller is unconscious, asleep, or killed, his eidolon is immediately banished. The eidolon takes a form shaped by the divine caller’s desires. The eidolon’s Hit Dice, saving throws, skills, feats, and abilities are tied to the divine caller’s class level and increase as the divine caller gains levels. In addition, each eidolon receives a pool of evolution points, based on the divine caller’s class level, that can be used to give the eidolon different abilities and powers. Whenever the divine caller gains a level, he must decide how these points are spent, and they are set until he gains another level of divine caller. The eidolon’s physical appearance is up to the divine caller, but it always appears as some sort of fantastical creature. This control is not fine enough to make the eidolon appear like a specific creature. The eidolon also bears a glowing rune that is identical to a rune that appears on the divine caller’s forehead as long as the eidolon is summoned. While this rune can be hidden through mundane means, it cannot be concealed through magic that changes appearance, such as alter self or polymorph (although invisibility does conceal it as long as the spell lasts).
Summon Divine Ally: Starting at 1st level, a summoner can cast summon monster I as a spell-like ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Wisdom modifier. The divine caller can use this ability only to summon monsters particularly appropriate to her deity. This includes creatures whose alignment is within one step of her deity, or creatures of an elemental subtype that matches a domain granted by her deity. Drawing upon this ability uses up the same power as the summoner uses to call his eidolon. As a result, he can only use this ability when his eidolon is not summoned. He can cast this spell as a standard action and the creatures remain for 1 minute per level (instead of 1 round per level). At 3rd level, and every 2 levels thereafter, the power of this ability increases by one spell level, allowing him to summon more powerful creatures (to a maximum of summon monster IX at 17th level). A summoner cannot have more than one summon monster spell active in this way at one time. If this ability is used again, any existing summon monster immediately ends. These summon spells are considered to be part of his spell list for the purposes of spell trigger and spell completion items. In addition, he can expend uses of this ability to fulfill the construction requirements of any magic item she creates, so long as she can use this ability to cast the required spell.
Channel Link: At 2nd level, whenever the divine caller uses channel energy to heal, she can include all of her summoned monsters and/or her eidolon, even if they are out of her normal channel energy radius, or if it is a creature type that would not normally be affected.
Mighty Divine Ally: At 4th level, a divine caller receives Augment Summoning as a bonus feat, and is considered to have Spell Focus(conjuration) for the purposes of prerequisites for feats that have Augment Summoning as a prerequisite. At 8th level, she gains Superior Summoning as a bonus feat.
Transform Calling: At 6th level, whenever the divine caller has her eidolon active, she may use her Summon Monster spell-like ability to temporarily replace her eidolon with the monster she chose to summon. This monster appears in the same square that the eidolon occupied or in the nearest open space that will accommodate the creature or creatures. She may recall her eidolon by expending another use of Summon Monster or by waiting for the spell to expire. If the summoned monster is returned to it’s home plane for any reason beside those listed above, her eidolon can only be summoned back by the standard ritual.
Divine Legion: At 10th level, a Divine Caller can use her summon monster spell-like ability even if her eidolon or another summon is already active. Using this ability expends three uses of her summon monster ability.
Summoning Surge: At 12th level, by expending a use of the divine caller’s Summon Monster spell like ability, she can infuse her eidolon with any evolution whose total cost does not exceed 2 evolution points. You may only grant one evolution, however you can grant evolutions that allow her to spend additional points to upgrade that evolution. This power cannot be used to upgrade a power the eidolon already possesses. The eidolon must meet the prerequisites of any selected evolution. This ability does not allow an eidolon to exceed it’s maximum number of natural attacks. At 14th level, this ability can infuse up to 4 points of evolutions to her eidolon and 2 points to a summoned creature. At 16th level, this ability can infuse up to 6 points of evolutions to her eidolon and 4 points to a summoned creature. This effect lasts for 1 minute per Divine Caller level.
Divine Intervention: At 20th level, once per day, the divine caller may call a servant of her deity as if using one of the following spells: Lesser Planar Ally, Planar Ally, Greater Planar Ally, or Gate. The divine caller must pay any material component costs, but most creatures summoned will forego any additional payments (and the negotiations that go with it) for simple tasks, and much reduced payments for longer or particularly dangerous tasks.
I think it's too weak. Add three more Eidolons and full Arcanist exploit progression and it should be a lot better.
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More seriously, though, the archetype essentially trades medium armor proficiency and domains for a full-progression summoner Eidolon and full progression on the Summon Monster SLA - two of the most powerful class features for summoners. To give you an idea of how powerful that is, an archetype that trades Medium Armor+Domains for the Summon Monster SLA alone would be a top-tier, very powerful archetype. Add the Eidolon on top and it quickly becomes pretty silly.
EDIT: Just noticed he added 4+INT skills to it as well. Oi vey.
Bump him down to Inquisitor casting and it will be a bit more reasonable.
The Spirit Summoner archetype of the Summoner class (with Life as the selected spirit type) pretty well covers this theme.
I don't like everything about the Spirit Summoner, but you could take some inspiration from it. I think making a divine-casting summoner is much better than starting with cleric.