Strife2002
|
(TL;DR summary at the bottom)
Hello! I brought this up in the Pathfinder Unchained errata thread a couple years ago or so, but it didn't get any input from the devs and now it's creeping up in my game.
An azata eidolon gains an energy form it can switch back and forth from at 20th level. The text says that in this form, it becomes incorporeal, doubles its fly speed, but can't make any natural or manufactured weapon attacks. It can, however, activate any spell-like ability evolutions it possesses.
That bold part brings up an issue. None of the evolutions listed in Pathfinder Unchained grant spell-like abilities, and the azata eidolon doesn't gain any automatically, either. Before Pathfinder Unchained, however, there were some evolutions introduced in Ultimate Magic that granted spell-like abilities, specifically basic magic, minor magic, major magic, and ultimate magic. Unfortunately, the unchained summoner's evolutions now have base form and subtype prerequisites, and only the evolutions from Advanced Player's Guide got a reprinting and tweaking for Pathfinder Unchained, leaving out the evolutions from Ultimate Magic and the two from the fetchling section of Advanced Race Guide.
TL;DR summary: the 20th-level azata eidolon ability mentions it can use any spell-like ability evolutions while in its energy form, however none of the spell-like-ability-granting evolutions from Ultimate Magic are apparently eligible to be taken by unchained summoners, as they weren't included in the write-up for it and therefore weren't given base form/subtype prerequisites for the unchained eidolon's new mechanics.
| blahpers |
Only some unchained evolutions have base form or subtype prerequisites. However, it does appear that the magic line of evolutions were not ported to unchained. This is unfortunate, as they were lackluster to begin with and didn't need dropping. In fact, when Pathfinder Unchained was released, I'd been waiting for a summoner archetype to happen that granted an eidolon with proper magical powers, presumably in exchange for some of the physical stuff and/or other summoner abilities. Color me unimpressed.
There are some psychic magic evolutions for eidolons, but they aren't spell-like abilities and thus won't benefit from the azata's capstone ability.
TL;DR: Call it either an editing mistake or attempted futureproofing. At present, there are no spell-like ability evolutions for unchained eidolons with the azata subtype.