I have not seen any real discussion of this archetype. It strikes me as having a lot of potential, largely due to the eidolon.
"Eidolon of Chaos
A morphic savant's eidolon must be of a chaotic alignment (if using the Unchained Summoner, the eidolon must have the azata, demon, or protean subtype). The morphic savant's eidolon has three base forms: biped, quadruped, and serpentine. Each form has the same feats and skills, but has its own set of evolutions.
When the summoner meditates and regains his spell slots for the day, he can select any of the three base forms of his eidolon. The eidolon has 1 fewer evolution point than normal for an eidolon of the morphic savant's summoner level, and has 1 fewer skill point per Hit Die.
This ability alters eidolon."
It seems to me you can build the 3 eidolons very differently, dedicating one as a mount, one for stealth, one for combat, one for skills, and there must be other possibilities. True, each eidolon is slightly inferior to a normal summoner and you can only change between them when you meditate to recover spells, which takes time.
However, this does give you a lot of flexibility in what your eidolon can do.
Likewise, from level 2 you can give monsters summoned with your SLA ability a 1 point evolution. Again, this is very flexible. One obvious use is giving the summoned critters skilled.
I don't like the changes to your spells. But its a downside that may be worth it.
Is this archetype as promising as it appears to me?
I'm just sad that it's incompatible with the Devil Imposter archetype. I would love to play a Chaotic Good summoner with three Azata friends who infiltrates and sabotages infernal organizations.
If you can use the original summoner it's pretty good. With the unchained summoner you get few enough evolution points as is, reducing them by one more probably leaves you too few to specialise well.
Also it's unclear what happens if you take an (unchained) azata or protean base form, which don't have the basic evolutions given for some of the forms.
I have not played much Pathfinder since the Unchained rules came out, and I have not read them.
By the sounds of things unchained is a misnomer for what the rules do to summoners, which were seen as overpowered.
The potential of this archetype lies mostly in its summon monster shenanigans and how well it pairs with Superior Summoning. While eidolon flexibility is nice, being able to summon 3 critters off the top level list 50% of the time as a standard action AND being able to evolve them is far, far more powerful.
The eidolon part is flavorful, but highly restrictive if you're playing the unchained version of the class.
Morphic Savant is great for Unchained Summoner! It lets you take Protean and give them all three base forms, for instance. You keep the bonus evolutions that normally only work with serpentine form. It's also good because it nearly triples you evolution pool by letting you have a flying mount form, a combat form, and a utility form.
Just make sure you don't go too heavily into grappling... it tends to make fights boring.
Does this stack with Evolutionist?
You can take more than one Archetype so long as they do not replace or alter the same class features.
These two archetypes don't so you can take both.
I am not sure they stack so well though. They both allow you to have a different eidolon given some time. It allows you to do the same thing two ways, and you give up good features to be able to do so.
Serisan- You could be right about the summon monster shenanigans, as you call it, being more powerful.
I called being able to evolve summoned monsters flexible, but you can also call it power. One evolution point doesn't sound a lot, but it is on every summoned creature and can be chosen for the situation.
Does anyone know of or have a build for these guys?
It certainly fits with the chaotic theme, which eidelon is with him now, and what can the bloody things do now? It is also great if you hate trees, given the number of character sheets you will burn through.
Notes worth considering:
- Because the eidolons can be independently customized, the best use of them is as skill monkeys. Use the Skilled evolution to focus each form for different tasks.
- You can pair the Improved Damage and Primordial template increase on a single natural attack. This can make for some pretty devastating options, like the Ankylosaurus moving from 3d6 to 6d6 on its primary attack. At the level I built to, you'll likely be summoning a lot of bison and rhinos.
- Feat order: Spell Focus: Conj, Augment Summoning, Superior Summoning, Versatile Summon Monster, then take your pick.
Most interesting Serisan.
I believe you went for the human over half elf because your focus is on using the summoning SLA rather than the eidolon.
Most interesting Serisan.
I believe you went for the human over half elf because your focus is on using the summoning SLA rather than the eidolon.
Indeed. The extra feat, in particular, was essential to getting up and running quickly.
Serisan- your second last post was made while I was making my last.
I would really have to build and play one to be sure, but off hand I don't think you would want all 3 eidolons as skill monkeys. Only one is bipedal after all. There will be situations where your summoning SLA has run out and taking the minute to bring a combat capable eidelon in is the way to go.
Also, once you get up some levels, you can summon things with skills then give them the skilled evolution.
Versatile summon monster is an excellent idea I wasn't aware of.
All this said, if you can play one, and I am not thinking of the unchained rules which I have not read, a Master Summoner still has more raw power. If power is your goal.
And finally, since we are having an interesting dialogue here, you might want to have a look at another thread in "advice" entitled "Bouda Build". I created that a few days ago, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.
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Morphic Savant is my favorite PFS legal archetype. The variety means your Eidolon can serve as a combatant, skill monkey, combat mount, or some other utility. The fact that you can switch on the fly makes this an ideal way to play in PFS with the unpredictable party compositions.
It also single handedly makes Proteans woth playing before level 8. Normally, if you want to make use of the Grab evolutions, you might want Weapon Finesse and maybe Agile Maneuvers because of the Dex based statline. But once you get Large size, which you NEED to make Grab land, the stats shift to slightly favor Strength. Even from level 1, casting Enlarge Person makes it a 14/14 split. But with Savant you can bide your time with a perfectly servicable Biped with Grab on some claws.
My only complaint is a hiccup in the Summoning rules. As written, Morphic Savant can only summon chaotic creatures. It also makes you use the chaotic summon template for Summons that would have been Celestial or Fiendish. But said template does not actually alter the animal's alignment, meaning they are invalid canidates for Summon Monster. Thus, RAW, you can't cast Summon Monster until about SM 3.
I have a bunch of character ideas for this archetype, but I'm phone posting from work at the moment. I'll whip them up later tonight.
Serisan- your second last post was made while I was making my last.
I would really have to build and play one to be sure, but off hand I don't think you would want all 3 eidolons as skill monkeys. Only one is bipedal after all. There will be situations where your summoning SLA has run out and taking the minute to bring a combat capable eidelon in is the way to go.
Also, once you get up some levels, you can summon things with skills then give them the skilled evolution.
Versatile summon monster is an excellent idea I wasn't aware of.
All this said, if you can play one, and I am not thinking of the unchained rules which I have not read, a Master Summoner still has more raw power. If power is your goal.
And finally, since we are having an interesting dialogue here, you might want to have a look at another thread in "advice" entitled "Bouda Build". I created that a few days ago, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.
Not very familiar with the Bouda, whereas I've had many discussions about the Morphic Savant. Gonna have to pass on that one.
While bipedal allows for things like Disable Device, you can easily have a not-so-terrible knowledge buddy and, at early levels, they can have better UMD than you. Once you've reached a certain point in available evolution points, you can start to differentiate them better and move more to the biped, of course, but you risk diluting your eidolon's skill points once that happens. That said, as you go higher and higher, you will find different uses based on your campaign and can balance around that.
Re: daily uses, I'm seeing 7 uses of the SLA at level 1, scaling up as you improve your gear. The most useful combat level for your eidolon is level 1-2, as well, since it's not likely to be a one round wonder and will have better damage than an eagle in most combats. As such, I'm not terribly concerned here. When you feel the need to ration your summons, you can leverage your spells instead and handle effective control for the party or provide reasonable buffs.
Morphic Savant is my favorite PFS legal archetype. The variety means your Eidolon can serve as a combatant, skill monkey, combat mount, or some other utility. The fact that you can switch on the fly makes this an ideal way to play in PFS with the unpredictable party compositions.
This is quite close to what attracted me to the archetype. And I can see the use in the PFS of the different eidolons.
My only complaint is a hiccup in the Summoning rules. As written, Morphic Savant can only summon chaotic creatures. It also makes you use the chaotic summon template for Summons that would have been Celestial or Fiendish. But said template does not actually alter the animal's alignment, meaning they are invalid canidates for Summon Monster. Thus, RAW, you can't cast Summon Monster until about SM 3.
The offending part of the rules reads:-
"Since a morphic savant's power is drawn from planar energies aligned with chaos, all the creatures he summons must be of a chaotic alignment.
If a creature would normally be celestial or fiendish, it is instead an entropic creature."
That does not actually say what you do is apply the entropic template.
In fact if you read the two paragraphs together, it makes more sense if it means the creature is of chaotic alignment. It is clear as mud.
I have a bunch of character ideas for this archetype, but I'm phone posting from work at the moment. I'll whip them up later tonight.
Sounds interesting.
While bipedal allows for things like Disable Device, you can easily have a not-so-terrible knowledge buddy and, at early levels, they can have better UMD than you. Once you've reached a certain point in available evolution points, you can start to differentiate them better and move more to the biped, of course, but you risk diluting your eidolon's skill points once that happens. That said, as you go higher and higher, you will find different uses based on your campaign and can balance around that.
I am afraid I don't know what this paragraph means. It is probably because i haven't read the unchained rules, and if so don't worry, I am not going to go read the rules unless I am about to play in a game using them.
Ah, I misremembered the eidolon as having different skills/feats per form. That's why that paragraph is incoherent.
No harm done.
What is not made clear is what happens if your 3 eidolons wind up with different numbers of skills, eg by taking the ability increase evolution [intelligence] for Mr Clever and not for Mr Stabby.
I would think they would have the same skills except for Mr Clever's extra skill, but it is not made explicit.