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I've been looking at this class recently and the evolutionist summoner gains the ability to change their Eidolon's base form once a level and I was just wondering how powerful an ability people think this is (Except for 20th level when you can never use it again :)). Is this a powerful ability to change your Eidolon from quadraped to Avian then next level to Biped, is it an average ability, is it a weak ability that's not much use because an Eidolon's power is in the evolutions not the base form? I'd appreciate thoughts from those who've played one please.
I haven't played an Evolutionist, only a regular Summoner, but in an average campaign, I don't see any reason to ever use that ability.
Quadruped is just so much better than anythign else, because Pounce reigns supreme, that for any part of a campaign where you expect regular combat, you want your silly putty friend to be Quadruped.
Base forms apart from Biped and Quadruped are flavor only, as the differences are pretty small and easily done on a different bae form with a few evolutions; and Quadruped and Biped have base form-exclusive stuff that puts tham notably ahead of the other forms (Pounce and increased reach from large, respectively). Thus changing to them is never justified from a mechanical viewpoint - for instance, if you move to a portion of the campaign that takes place underwater, adding the Gills and Swim evolutions to your Quadruped Eidolon is way better than switching to Aquatic base form.
The only exception I can see is when a notable and disctinct part of the game is in a social setting, and you want your Eidolon to be humanoid during that time, and Quadruped otherwise.
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That's pretty much what I was thinking as far as abilities go it doesn't seem like something that would get used much. Possibly switching to Biped in a city especially if you can try to disguise it as a normal person or aquatic. However limiting it to level up pretty much makes the ability a non-starter as the odds of wanting to make a change needs to first line up with when you get a level and look like it'll last long enough for you to level up again.
I'm debating house ruling it but well I want to know how powerful it was considered by those who've used it first. The change evolution abilities I can see as quite powerful but base form one . . . well honestly if I were to go with my first inclination I'd make being able to change it a x/day ability say 1/day at lvl 8 then + 1 a day for every 4 levels gained. However I do have a personal hatred of this kind of ability as even if you're unlikely to get to level 20 I can never shake the whole "I have obtained ultimate power . . . and now I can never use this ability again because I can only use it on level up." So I'm trying to get others opinion on its power value.
Sure it probably still wont see to much use (unless there's more abuse in biped/quadraped changes than I'd expect) but I'd at least feel the ability has some value. On the other hand getting transmogrify one/day with no material cost is a pretty nice ability.
The change evolution abilities I can see as quite powerful but base form one (...) On the other hand getting transmogrify one/day with no material cost is a pretty nice ability.
I'm not even sure about that. Mutate Eidolon is too costly to just do just for some creative stuff, and by the time you get the Transmogrify SLA, you shouldn't have any need for it. If you want some evolution for some short specific thing, the Evolution Surge line of spells does that job well enough. I'm sure you will find uses for the SLA, but those are unlikely to be more than gimmicky.
I did once play a summoner who retrained into the evolutionist archetype and then took the quadruped base form on the next level-up because we needed to carry as large as possible an amount of gold somewhere -- and a huge quadruped eidolon with maximized strength did the job quite nicely.
I probably would not have done it if the GM had not given us advance warning that we would need to do this, as spells like Evolution Surge were generally quite sufficient by that level.