TL;DR: Would removing the save from the Poison evolution, but making it only last one round for 2 evolution points be too strong?
Long Version: I'm Running a game for a player who wants to make his Shadow Eidolon as close to a real shadow as possible. Almost everything to do this is pretty straight forward with Evolutions except the Shadow's touch attack.
First off, it does not appear that any evolutions make an Eidolon's attack a touch attack.
The touch attack deals Strength damage with seems easy enough to replicate with the Poison evolution, but the Shadow's touch attack has no save. So I'm thinking of modifying the Poison evolution to do what he'd like, but don't want to make it so broken I just cause problems for myself down the road. Here's what I'm thinking:
Shadow Attack(Ex)
An eidolon's attack deals negative energy, draining the strength from its enemies. Pick one bite or claw attack. Whenever the selected attack hits, the target takes strength damage.
Eidolon Strength Damage (Su) - This is a Negative Energy effect (injury); save Will negates; effect 1d4 Str damage.
The save DC is equal to 10 + 1/2 the eidolon’s HD + the eidolon’s Constitution modifier.
For 2 additional evolution points, this attack deals 1d6 Strength damage instead and no longer has a save. This effect can be used no more than once per round. The summoner must be at least 7th level before selecting this evolution.
I have thought about making it a touch attack for an additional 2 evolution points, but thinking about it this just seems WAY to strong. The compromise I thought made sense was actually just clarifying the Incorporeal evolution so that while it is in effect all attacks do behave like touch attacks as it would for an Incorporeal creature.
So I made a couple updates that I feel were fitting. Updates in bold.
Shadow Attack (Su)
An eidolon's attack deals negative energy, draining the strength from its enemies. Pick one bite or claw attack. Whenever the selected attack hits, the target takes strength damage.
Eidolon Strength Damage (Su) - This is a Negative Energy effect (injury); save Will negates; effect 1d4 Str damage.
The save DC is equal to 10 + 1/2 the eidolon’s HD + the eidolon’s Charisma modifier.
For 2 additional evolution points, this attack deals 1d6 Strength damage instead and no longer has a save to negate the effect. This effect can be used no more than once per round. The summoner must be at least 7th level before selecting this evolution and have already selected the Shadow Form and Shadow Blend evolutions.
I also made the following notes as clarifications to how I understand various rules would interact with this ability.
Shadow Attack Notes:
This attack deals Negative Energy, and thus will affect undead the same as any other Negative Energy effect.
This attack must deal damage for the ability damage to be applied, and thus according to the DR rules, this attack will not deal Strength damage if a creature's DR reduces its damage to 0.
Unless the Eidolon is also Incorporeal this attack is affected by all natural armor, armor, and shields as normal and does not bypass these bonuses to AC. If the Eidolon is Incorporeal treat this attack as an incorporeal touch attack that bypasses natural armor, armor, and shields.
So, ANY feedback would be appreciated. The questions I've been rolling around in my head are more or less the following:
Is this ability too strong for the Eidolon and the summoner class?
Is it just more convenience instead of power boost for the player, considering a Shadow Caller Summoner is able to summon an actual Shadow with the full blown no save strength damage touch attack at 1/minute per level, 8 times a day anyway.
Is it underpowered and not really worth the evolution points compared to other combat options a Summoner could take?
How does it compare to the original Poison evolution? Better? Worse? About the same with different pros and cons?
Is it stronger? Not until the eidolon gets the ability to become incorporeal (15th at the earliest) at which point 1d6 strength damage 1/round won't be a big deal. Assuming the summoner spends the 2 extra evolution points it's OK, but the basic version isn't worth getting IMO. Maybe if it costs 1 EP instead of 2 EP like the poison does. A save based off Cha and no lasting effect like the poison makes it strictly worse.
It may be that the player picks this on flavour of course whether or not it's a power boost.
Is it stronger? Not until the eidolon gets the ability to become incorporeal (15th at the earliest) at which point 1d6 strength damage 1/round won't be a big deal. Assuming the summoner spends the 2 extra evolution points it's OK, but the basic version isn't worth getting IMO. Maybe if it costs 1 EP instead of 2 EP like the poison does. A save based off Cha and no lasting effect like the poison makes it strictly worse.
It may be that the player picks this on flavour of course whether or not it's a power boost.
Avr, thanks for the feedback. That's pretty much what I was hoping to hear. I had the same thought about the incorporeal aspect, that its very strong to get a touch attack with no save, but by that level it should be cool, but not so strong it trivializes combats.
I also agree that the initial effect the eidolon gets for 2 points is strictly worse than the Poison evolution. I honestly did this somewhat purposefully so nothing was taken away from the Poison evolution. For instance, if the 2 EP Shadow Attack had no save I can't really see why anyone would choose to try to build around the Poison evolution since you have to focus resources into increasing the DC of the save.
Changing the cost to 1 EP instead of 2 EP is an interesting idea that does feel appropriate. I was mostly just considering how this ability would be balanced with a full commitment to the evolution (ie. Spending 4 EP). In that context I suppose the question is should a 1d6 Stength damage per round, on a successful attack, with no save, cost a total of 3 EP or 4 EP.
Comparing it with the 4 EP Poison it feels to me like its strictly better since you go from 1d4 to 1d6 damage per round, and make the save essentially auto fail compared to just changing the damage type from Strength to Constitution. The main advantage I see with the Poison doing Con damage over Str is that for each failed save the next save will be more likely to fail (so arguably strictly worse), and the target will most likely be killed a bit faster than with Str damage since they're likely also taking damage from the eidolon's allies and con will also reduce their total Health Pool. But the 4 EP Shadow Attack goes straight to the opponent auto failing their save, and Str damage will make opponents less likely to hit, do less damage, and eventually not even be able to move. It also allows the eidolon to take living prisoners since bringing the Str score to 0 just makes them go unconscious. But this does feel a bit nit picky.
I think I feel comfortable enough with the ability to let my player try it out for at least one level and see how useful it is in practice, but I'm always looking for more feedback and different perspectives.