
Subparhiggins |
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This is a Golarion specific complaint but this also kind of destroys the very idea of a Sarkorian Godcaller. The lore for eidolons in Golarion as hinted with the Summoner iconic, and the blurbs in various books, was that either it was a manifestation of your soul/personality, or some type of extraplanar entity that you enter into a bargain.
Sarkorian Godcallers are specifically supposed to have eidolons that are the manifestations of the many folk/heroes and gods of their religion. They aren't outsiders. They are very minor but, to the Sarkorians, very important deities that take on hundreds of different forms. It is supposed to be mysterious, because some scholars claim that they are just normal eidolons, either a planar anomaly or just manifesting in that way because thats what the Sarkorians want to see. Yet all of the eidolons can recall personal details of past summoners lives their own current summoner isn't privy to, and even seem to know each other when two 'gods' are in the same place. It expands on the world in a new, and deliciously in lore contentious way.
All of that flavor goes flat when you look at the stat block, and say, "It's a devil."

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The Eidolons of the Sarkorian Godcallers definitely need their own unique 'type,' which seems to be, from the examples in the novels, more likely to take on an animal, elemental or humanoid form, representing a natural force or creature or ancestral spirit. (I remember a wolf and an eagle, in particular, but they used 'rules' that were incompatible with the current rules, as the eagle was sent out to scout far beyond any sort of tether would allow.)
{The Sarkorian Godcaller Archetype, paradoxically, *reduces* the tether range. Eh.}
Having the Godcaller use divine spells instead of arcane spells, would be an interesting option, as well as having the eidolon be able to choose to activate certain abilities (like transposition), as it is more of an individual than the standard eidolon.
Similarly, like a cleric and their god, having the eidolon of a Godcaller be able to have an alignment one step away from each other, instead of identical, could be interesting, and add to roleplay possibilities.

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the UnEidolon fixed some of the power problems, but none of the theme problems. What I wanted out of unchained was support for a single-attack eidolon, a ranged eidolon, and a spell-casting eidolon.
Unfortunately, I think that's a deeper problem that affects other creatures and animal companions as well. There needs to be either more and better support for creatures that don't pounce or that have only one big attack (like a wolf's bite), or, and I shudder to even say this out loud, less pouncing and multiple attacking on the part of big cats, velociraptors, etc. The disparity is too jarring, IMO. Ideally, the solution shouldn't immediately leap to 'nerf the pouncers!' but I wouldn't cry if that was *part* of the solution, along with buffing up the single-attackers and non-pouncers, so that bears, wolves, etc. became more competitive with cats and raptors in combat. (And this solution would blend over to affect eidolons with a pouncy many-claw build vs. non-pouncy eidolons with a single slam or bite.)
They don't need to be identical, but the offensive potential of a serpentine or avian eidolon should be competitive with a quadruped or biped. You shouldn't be able to say, 'that choice is objectively wrong.'
Right now eidolons, and animal companions, are objectively better spamming out three to five attacks via pounce, than a single big bite or slam, and that's not good, since it encourages cookie-cutter design *and* takes up more time at the table (if anything, the mechanics should go the other way, and encourage *less* time taken at the table by animal companion / eidolon actions...).
And there should definitely be some 'other' options. A Sarkorian Godcaller, for instance, should not be restricted to an 'Agathion' build, since there's no reason at all in the lore that a Sarkorian 'god' can't be Evil.
But yeah, support for ranged and / or 'caster' (or other support role, like buffer / debuffer) eidolons is, IMO, also sorely lacking.

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I have to admit I had a couple of specific Eidolon/summoner builds in mind when I started playing around with the class recently based on the Pern series of books. One large dragon mount and a broodmaster series of small dragon companions (not useful for combat just concept building).
Neither is doable in unchained. The large dragon mount uses more evolutions than you get unless you have it be basically "Yep that looks like a dragon" without actually being much real use as a mount/fighter even at 20th level. On top of which my options for quadraped mount are basically an evil outsider (daemon, demon, devil), an elemental being (fire, earth, water, air) or a protean (chaos) creature. So no gold/bronze/brown/blue/white dragon creature and if I want to ride it as a mount well I need to either have an evil creature summoned, a chaotic creature summoned or a dragon made of earth/air/fire/water which is obviously NOT a dragon. As for the broodmaster concept that's dead out of the gate as it specifically is not compatible with unchained summoner.
Then I started looking at just how limited your options really are with this . . .
General alignment nastiness
I want a psychopomp Eidolon for the flavour. . . need to be within one step of Neutral though they specifically state their fine with anyone as long as you don't deal with those who try to avoid their natural death.
Base form restrictions
Good or lawful hope you enjoy having a bipedal Eidolon as that's pretty much the only option you can have. I mean seriously the Kami are described as spirits of nature but you can't have a quadraped/serpentine form one? I summon my giant wolf spirit of nature?
Evolutions locked to odd choices
An elemental fire Eidolon can take poison but aberrant one's can't?
One I stumbled across in herolab that just confuses me
Wildcaller get special plant Eidolon's including the . . .
Cactus (desert): Size Medium; Speed 30 ft.; AC +2 natural armor; Saves Fort (good), Ref (good), Will (bad); Attacks slam (1d8), sting (1d4); Ability Scores Str 14, Dex 14, Con 13, Int 7, Wis 10, Cha 11; Free Evolutions limbs (arms), limbs (legs), sting, tail.
Why does a cactus creature have a tail?
All in all I doubt I'd ever want to play an unchained summoner not because of the power levels but because it just feels like its removing any ability to be creative or play a lot of concepts.