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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Magic
The following are NOT legal for play:
Archetypes: broodmaster summoner, clone master alchemist, gravewalker witch, pack lord druid, master summoner, reincarnated druid, sanguine wildblooded, synthesist summoner, undead lord cleric, vivisectionist alchemist archetypes are not legal for play.
If you want to play a summoner in PFS you must own Pathfinder Unchained! and play the version found there. Virtually none of the standard archetypes save for Evolutionist work with this version.
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If you want to play a summoner in PFS you must own Pathfinder Unchained! and play the version found there. Virtually none of the standard archetypes save for Evolutionist work with this version.
thats not quite true...
if you have a summoner from before the unchained. You can continue to play it..
there are a few grandfathers summoners out there ( not many left)
but there are a few..
any new ones made must be from unchained though...
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If you want to play a summoner in PFS you must own Pathfinder Unchained! and play the version found there. Virtually none of the standard archetypes save for Evolutionist work with this version.
Naturalist also works. The unchained summoner has all the class abilities that the archtype replaces and it does not alter the base form or type of the eidolon.
I'm sure there may be a few others but I know this one works.
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I fondly remember my first time playing D&D (it was 2nd edition). I had to play the wizard, because why not start with the hardest class. The DM (who was also new) didn't understand the difference between hit dice and hit points.
DM: In the next room is a large dragon.
Me: I cast lightning bolt, dealing 20 damage.
DM: ((Rolls save)) It dies. Here is it's hoard.
Me: °o°
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^If PF had been around when I first started gaming (age 13) I can almost guarantee I would've wanted to go with a class that gets an AC/eidolon/familiar. But since I started with AD&D 2ed my brother and the rest of the players wisely steered me towards a fighter until I became a little more familiar with the game. There's just something very cool about having your own little buddy/sidekick, especially at that age :)
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Master summoners are banned for good reason
Meh. The only real problem exists when the player is unprepared with the monster stats especially when augmented summons and templates are applied, but this is still a problem with a summoning wizard, especially one with access to the Thassilonian archetype and/or the feat Acadamae Graduate
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Meh. The only real problem exists when the player is unprepared with the monster stats especially when augmented summons and templates are applied, but this is still a problem with a summoning wizard, especially one with access to the Thassilonian archetype and/or the feat Acadamae Graduate
A Master Summoner has far more uses of their Summon Monster ability than an equivalently leveled wizard. For a conjuror dropping 2 Summon Monster V in a single fight is a huge investment of resources, usually saved a special situation. For a Master Summoner it's an average Tuesday.
Meh. The only real problem exists when the player is unprepared with the monster stats especially when augmented summons and templates are applied, but this is still a problem with a summoning wizard, especially one with access to the Thassilonian archetype and/or the feat Acadamae GraduateA Master Summoner has far more uses of their Summon Monster ability than an equivalently leveled wizard. For a conjuror dropping 2 Summon Monster V in a single fight is a huge investment of resources, usually saved a special situation. For a Master Summoner it's an average Tuesday.
Top that with access to Haste as a second level spell, and you get all sorts of ugly.
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Master summoners are banned for good reasonMeh. The only real problem exists when the player is unprepared with the monster stats especially when augmented summons and templates are applied. . .
Exactly! The problem is that you just described 90%+ of the players. Back when they were legal I was at tables with several different people who played Master Summoners. Only one was tolerable. His turn rolls up and he immediately says "I summon" (rolls die) "looks like three Celestial wolverines" He picks up a large handful of color-coded dice and rolls them. "Does a 15 hit? How about 18? 20? OK then, one primary and one secondary for a total of . . . 10 points of damage." His turn was the longest at the table but not horribly so.
Far more common were the players who started their turn with "Hmmm. It looks kinda chaotic. Maybe I should summon a Hound Archon. But man, I hate giving up the extra creatures from summoning lower level creatures. If I go with the SMIII list I get 1d3 creatures. Maybe I should go with Lantern Archons instead. They have touch attacks. Or just trample it with Aurochs. . ." eventually settling on "OK, I'm going to summon 1d4+1 celestial wolves. Let me look up what the celestial template does..." (time passes) Finally he or she would start rolling attacks one at a time (without damage dice). After missing with all the attacks "Guess I'll bring in some Lantern Archons next round. But I'll leave the wolves out. I might still hit on a 19 and I'll definitely hit on a 20."
Which is a long-winded way of saying it takes a lot of table time practice until you are able to play summoned creatures quickly. Time that the Master Summoner made worse as you could have multiple summons out at once.
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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Just a general question out there. Have people seen many unchained summoners in play? I use to see the occasional APG summoner but I can't say I've seen a single unchained one.
I feel like summoning Rosc to this conversation.
I've played with lots of unchained summoners, but most of them have belonged to him! He's always building interesting and wacky builds off that class!
Hmm
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I fondly remember my first time playing D&D (it was 2nd edition). I had to play the wizard, because why not start with the hardest class. The DM (who was also new) didn't understand the difference between hit dice and hit points.
DM: In the next room is a large dragon.
Me: I cast lightning bolt, dealing 20 damage.
DM: ((Rolls save)) It dies. Here is it's hoard.
Me: °o°
Oh the good old days!
Not really. First, druids and wizards simply get fewer summons. Second, it's a much less viable tactic for them to spam their summons. Third, their summons last less long, which discourages them from just summoning in a huge swarm of lantern archons and powering through the whole adventure.
Fourth—and this is a bit more subtle—note the casting times. With wizards, clerics and druids, the summons takes a whole round. That gives the player lots of time to choose their summon, even if they're inexperienced. With summoner, they have to decide instantly.
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Wizards, Clerics and Druids who are summoning are almost certainly doing so as standard actions. One round summoning is rarely worth it.Not really. First, druids and wizards simply get fewer summons. Second, it's a much less viable tactic for them to spam their summons. Third, their summons last less long, which discourages them from just summoning in a huge swarm of lantern archons and powering through the whole adventure.
Fourth—and this is a bit more subtle—note the casting times. With wizards, clerics and druids, the summons takes a whole round. That gives the player lots of time to choose their summon, even if they're inexperienced. With summoner, they have to decide instantly.
But those are specific builds and not intuitive or baked into the class. Like I guess the summoning druids are easier to find, but those are also easier to play, I'm summoning my animal, always. But the wizard or cleric don't have easy and obvious way to summon quickly.
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A Master Summoner has far more uses of their Summon Monster ability than an equivalently leveled wizard. For a conjuror dropping 2 Summon Monster V in a single fight is a huge investment of resources, usually saved a special situation. For a Master Summoner it's an average Tuesday.
At some point the number of uses is no longer relevant because you have enough for the encounters within the scope of a PFS scenario. The same can be said for duration. There isn't really much difference between 10 rounds and 10 minutes considering encounters in the typical PFS scenario are not happening is such a short period of time.
I am currently playing a Thassilonian conjurer with Acadamae Graduate, a scroll-case full of buff spells like haste and a hand-full of pearls of power. With that load-out I find I have plenty of summoned creatures to cause as much havoc as a master summoner would. At the same time the master summoner gains access to summon monster V, I will have access to four summon monster V, five SMIV, 6 SMIII, and at least seven of the lower level SM. That does not account for pearls of power or other magic items that can store or recharge spell slots. Since a wizard does not have the same expensive needs for weapons/armor like a martial character it leaves much more available for expendable resources like scrolls of haste, bull's strength, animal growth, etc. that can boost a summoned creature from a lower list to equivalent to a higher level one.
All I'm saying is that there are other ways to simulate a master summoner such that it renders the ban mostly unnecessary.
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Exactly! The problem is that you just described 90%+ of the playersIf that is the case, then why aren't the other builds that can summon large numbers of creatures also banned? Master Summoner is probably the easiest to break, but summoning druids, wizards, etc. are just as problematic and legal
I know that you know of what you speak, Bob.
And I agree that those can be problematic as well. (Actually I've found 11th level wizards trying to decide on the *perfect* spell to be the worst offenders. Especially those with a bonded item and a Blessed Book. When I'm the GM I usually end up putting them on timers but I can't force other GMs to do that.)
The difference is that (with the exception of the Acadamae Graduates) the classes you mention have a 1-round cast. Which means they have a round to pick out their summons. It's still a problem with the Unchained Summoner. Where I saw the big problem with the Master Summoners was the option to use the ability without ending the previous summon. As long as they didn't have an eidolon out - which few of them did as it was so weak. When they could throw out 10+ summons a day at the highest level available to them, there was no reason to be conservative.
Guess I should have bolded the last part of my rant upthread. It's what made the Master Summoner such a slowdown machine
Guess I'll bring in some Lantern Archons next round. But I'll leave the wolves out. I might still hit on a 19 and I'll definitely hit on a 20.
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It's what made the Master Summoner such a slowdown machine
I can see your point with respect to inexperienced players. I guess my issue is that the problem does not rest with the archetype, it rests with the players using it. We really should never ban options because someone feels they are too powerful because that opens a can of worms we really don't want to deal with. In most cases, the reason things are banned is because they do not fit the campaign dynamics. Things like drow, evil PCs, etc certainly warranted. There are only a few because they are considered disruptive and I guess master summoner would fall into that category.
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Whoa, got ninja'd while typing that.
Yes, Bob, you can come close to doing what a Master Summoner does. Though a 9th level MS is probably going to be rocking 12-13 summon monster V SLAs - which can be turned into an awful lot of sm III creatures.
I would point out one thing - in order to make your build a player has to have played one character up to at least 7th level. Or GMed at least one scenario that involves an awful lot of summoning. (Obviously you've personally done far more than that.) Master Summoners were an option for brand new players.
Edit: ninja'd again! Thank you for the polite discourse, Mr. Jonquet.
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I am certainly interested to see if my conjurer is as "broken" as some other builds that seem to be acceptable. To be honest, with all the options available to players these days, banning any single option or rule seems to be very selective and has little impact on the over-all play experience. There is simply a massive laundry-list of builds that can either curb-stomp encounters in solo fashion or are soo complicated that they slow down play to the disruptive level either because it takes a long time to perform all the necessary actions or because the player has to keep explaining to the rest of the table how they are doing what they suggest.
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haha, yeah. I have the feeling much of what's banned now is power related. Why the ninja archeypte for vigilante banned? Seemingly because it was better than the stalker in the same way ninja was better than rogue. Why is Armor Specialization for AAT banned? Probably because it is better than other options. The spirit boosting medium armor property? Banned for being too good for it's price on mediums. The bard oath in divine anthologies? Probably because it's better than the recently released martyr paladin.
Like I understand banning evil stuff or ambiguous stuff. But more recently I feel there's just lots of stuff banned.
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Don't forget the nerfs to legal options in general. I can barely remember all the mechanics for everything I learned because of how much errata there was. The thing I dread is I know more is to come. Hide your Advanced Player's Guide it last received errata 12/01/2010.
I would be much happier if errata was used to fix things which don't function properly and leave it up to the players what power level of characters they want at their table. Players already have the power to leave the table for any reason and are never forced to play with anyone. Let them decide what their comfort level of 'power' is in their game.
I don't think material should be banned or errataed for power reasons.
To be honest I wondered how much play unchained summoner was seeing because I felt the APG summoner should actually be legal again.
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We really should never ban options because someone feels they are too powerful because that opens a can of worms we really don't want to deal with.We could have skipped much bitterness and divisiveness if this was an actual policy. Thank you for saying it.
That I have to disagree with as a blanket statement though I do agree with the general idea.
In part it depends on who "someone" is. That's part of the job of Campaign Leadership. To determine when something is going to be so powerful that it is going to - to borrow a phrase from e-sports (PFS e-sports?) - "disrupt the meta."
It's a question of power relative to existing options. Because if the gross power level jumps, that makes older scenarios less difficult and requires making newer scenarios harder if you want to maintain the challenge level. Which in turn makes preexisting character options less desirable. That works fine for something like Hearthstone where an evolving metagame is expected and players' decks are constantly being tweaked. But for PFS that's a big turnoff for a lot of players. Especially if it means you are forced to buy new books to keep your characters from dying horribly. Find someone who played in the Bandit Kingdoms in Living Greyhawk and ask them about power creep. Everyone I've talked to describes an "arms race" between players and scenario writers.
So just because *I* (or Bob, or Tim) thinks something is too powerful, that's no reason to ban it. But if John or Linda looks at a character option and sees it having a negative impact on scenario difficulty it should be banned. And they do look at discussions we have in the PFS and general boards in making those decisions.
TL;DR What's good for my character is not necessarily what's good for the health of the campaign.
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[some sarcasm and hyperbole]
Right... The ninja getting unchained completely destroys all sense of balance in the game.
Unchained rogues getting spellcasting, man, I can see how this would COMPLETELY WRECK scenarios more than anything before that option.
The ninja vigilante, Definitely too OP.
Armor specialization AAT, Yeah, fighters having scaling AC on top of full plate is too much, definitely scenario braking compared to the fullplate wearing barbarians with scaling AC bonuses.
Desna Divine Fighting for CHA to attack and damage, I can see how that just increases the power level of some classes to out damage all other classes While being a face that it's invalidated the need for a party as they can solo everything now.
[/some sarcasm and hyperbole]
And under your definition I'm surprised that AAT and AWT got through, they are clearly better options than not taking them and obviously "disrupted the fighter meta" that now any archetype that traded those away are suddenly far less desirable then they were before those abilities became useful.
EDIT: sure there are things like divine protection giving cha to saves for divine caster. Clear meta shift and easy to see that it's creating things far stronger than previously possible. But lots of this stuff getting banned isn't anywhere near the upper edge of power levels at a given job/role. Which makes it hard to understand why these options are being banned.
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Just taking your card game example most of those games have an 'eternal' format of some kind though where everything can be used.
I actually think most new options have been fairly conservative in power level, probably intentionally, though it be impossible that a new option wouldn't somehow be mechanically superior to another option eventually at least circumstantially in some way.
At the very least we have the Core Campaign to regulate the base power of the game. It acts much like the Classic set in Hearthstone does to regulate the base power of a game. To be honest I feel like core options tend to be some of the most powerful in the game because they often are static numbers to your stats. They aren't often trap options.
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I need to get better at pulling the key points out of my posts:
Which in turn makes preexisting character options less desirable.
That's the crux of the matter. If a new feat is strictly better than an old feat (+2 instead of +1 and fulfills the same prerequisites, for example) why would anyone take the old feat? If there was a bloodrager archetype that was exactly like a barbarian but also gave you spellcasting, who would take the barbarian?
Or maybe it's slightly different. A fighter archetype that trades bravery for an (equally scaling) increase to AC when wearing medium armor.
Power creep isn't a logarithmic leap. It's creep.
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I'm also struggling to see how those of you in favor of making every option legal view Unchained. That's a book where everyone from the publisher to the entire Design Team said "We've had a few years of actual play experience now and we didn't get the balance quite right when we initially created some of these classes. We think that overall the rogue and monk need a bit of a boost but we need to depower the summoner some to bring it in line with the other classes."
Is your opinion that they were correct in boosting the monk and rogue but wrong to tone down the summoner?
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many things I mostly agree withWe really should never ban options because someone feels they are too powerful because that opens a can of worms we really don't want to deal with.We could have skipped much bitterness and divisiveness if this was an actual policy. Thank you for saying it.
Started to go into some specific examples, but it's not worth re-hashing all over again.
I only commented as I was pleasantly surprised to see that comment from an RVC and felt that some positive feedback might have been a nice change.
A Master Summoner has far more uses of their Summon Monster ability than an equivalently leveled wizard. For a conjuror dropping 2 Summon Monster V in a single fight is a huge investment of resources, usually saved a special situation. For a Master Summoner it's an average Tuesday.At some point the number of uses is no longer relevant because you have enough for the encounters within the scope of a PFS scenario. The same can be said for duration. There isn't really much difference between 10 rounds and 10 minutes considering encounters in the typical PFS scenario are not happening is such a short period of time.
I am currently playing a Thassilonian conjurer with Acadamae Graduate, a scroll-case full of buff spells like haste and a hand-full of pearls of power. With that load-out I find I have plenty of summoned creatures to cause as much havoc as a master summoner would. At the same time the master summoner gains access to summon monster V, I will have access to four summon monster V, five SMIV, 6 SMIII, and at least seven of the lower level SM. That does not account for pearls of power or other magic items that can store or recharge spell slots. Since a wizard does not have the same expensive needs for weapons/armor like a martial character it leaves much more available for expendable resources like scrolls of haste, bull's strength, animal growth, etc. that can boost a summoned creature from a lower list to equivalent to a higher level one.
All I'm saying is that there are other ways to simulate a master summoner such that it renders the ban mostly unnecessary.
It's still not nearly the same. The conjurer true, acquires more slots for summoning spells as they level. But those spells are staggered, x amount of first, second, third.
In contrast, every one of the Summoners SLA's can be used for the highest level summon monster spell they are qualified for. In addition to that, you also have all of their spontaneous casting slots which can be used for even more summoning if they choose to learn the spells. whereas the conjurer has to choose on spending spell slots for summoning, utility, defense, or offense.
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I'm also struggling to see how those of you in favor of making every option legal view Unchained. That's a book where everyone from the publisher to the entire Design Team said "We've had a few years of actual play experience now and we didn't get the balance quite right when we initially created some of these classes. We think that overall the rogue and monk need a bit of a boost but we need to depower the summoner some to bring it in line with the other classes."
Is your opinion that they were correct in boosting the monk and rogue but wrong to tone down the summoner?
I don't really have any opinion on that. It didn't matter to me at all. My preference would be everything they created which could reasonably be allowed in the campaign should be. Removing things for 'power' reasons doesn't make much sense to me.
I think the answer to the barbarian question is fairly obvious that people routinely do take mechanically inferior options quite often. I trust them enough that they make the decision they would most enjoy. Sometimes people just don't want a magical character at all and wouldn't take a Bloodrager even if it was superior in every aspect.
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It's still not nearly the same...
My point is that many of the advantages a master summoner enjoys in a non-PFS session is mitigated by the nature of how PFS scenarios are developed and the limited number of encounters you have to plan for. I would argue that in the cast majority of cases, my conjurer is just as powerful as a master summoner. Perhaps I cannot use all my spells to summon nothing but the highest level monsters for minutes at a time, but I posit I don't need to in PFS.
IMO, the power-level of a master summoner being OP or not is not a justifiable reason to ban it. However, I can see how someone with an underdeveloped knowledge of the game could have more easy access to the same abilities that can easily become disruptive at the table. It is with that consideration in mind, I can see the justification for the banning.