This character wants to be a Synth. Summoner AND have a squire? I can't think of a faster loophole past a 10pt buy, honestly. It smells like cheese to me, Arc.
The Synthesis Summoner only has to buy half the stats as everyone else, their Eidolon picks up the rest. They can summon extra stuff not restricted by the 10pt buy. Oh, and they have a whole extra character at level 3...
Wait are you going to restart from 0 the AP and all the players are going to start at lv7?
Summoner synth is very good in my opinion because the eidolon act like and armor, I really don't suggest to take fighter; he can take the recruit feat and have and arsenal of cohort to follow him (of course only 1 can take in the adventure); if he survive and reach evolution 2 he can let the eidolon to have the profecient in all material weapon. The problem in this build it's that you need to focus your feats in improve your eidolon and have some melee/ranged feat
You won't know if the player is trying to cheat the system until you see their synthesis stats. Ask them for two character sheets--one with the eidolon active and one without.
If there is an obvious gap in power, ask them about it. "I noticed your stats here kind of subvert the 10-point-buy I enforced with the other players. Was that the goal here?" Having a polite discussion is a great idea--you are probably friends and there is no reason you can't talk about it. You can even ask them, "Hey, I am worried that your character will be far tougher than the others and could make them feel useless or weak. Can you play this character but still support the others and let them get their hits in?"
Summoners can be an absolute blast as a buffer, too. Haste is great and there are many ways to use summoned creatures as tools and shields to keep your fellow players alive without taking away from their effectiveness. When I played a conjurer wizard, I would typically summon packs of ankylosauri and split the enemy group--our players took the half they wanted, I took the half they didn't. I always kept the party informed on my spells and how I could use them so I didn't make them feel inadequate or useless. I flanked for the rogue, hasted the party, made cover for the cleric, and had a handful of other buffs to make the day better. The summoner should be able to do most of that (but maybe not a synthesis summoner focused on fighting).
Now to the important question--why the heck are you're in nursing school? I ask because I am a nurse. You don't have to answer, that's way off topic, but I feel like I forgot why I got into this field years ago.
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*takes deep breath*
The Synthesist player isn't "cheating the system". He only does what's in the human nature, to adapt in the face of adversity. He does exactly what the game is all about.
The actual problem here is that "my players are using a ten point buy in order to make the adventure path harder" is an utterly wrong presumption. It doesn't actually work like that. The classes aren't well balanced, and low point buy doesn't affect everyone equally. The classes that are already by far the strongest are almost unaffected by a low point buy, because they're SAD and/or because they have combat options aviable that don't actually scale with ability scores. Other classes are de facto disfunctional on a low point buy, and these are the classes already weakest to begin with.
Picking stronger and less ability score dependent classes is the natural reaction to a point buy that leaves many classes virtually unplayable.
Shooting half the classes in the game in the proverbial knee is not the way to true difficulty.
Actual, real difficulty without f$$~ing up inter-class balance worse than it is to begin with lies in the hands of the GM. Playing enemies smarter (especially using environment more) and adding monsters to encounters or templates to existing monsters is the way to do it. Keeping the PCs a level behind expectation might also work.
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Templates are great for increasing difficulty.
As is doubling the number of minions in encounters.
I run high point buys (25+) and allow access to as much Paizo material as possible (all of it) in an effort to level the playing field, honestly.
The challenge is determined by how well the enemy tactics combat the party's strategy. And that isn't affected by point buys or materials available.
There are like four broken synthesisist builds and 200 that are fine. You know this guy better than we do what's he going to pick?
Synthesist gets a lot of undeserved hate, but it really shouldn’t be combined with point buy of any kind and especially not a low point buy.
In general, a synthesist is actually weaker than a regular summoner. You cut your action economy in half to gain a few more hitpoints. The only real problem with it is how it breaks point buy.
The problem with low point buy is that it doesn't do much to slow down a min-maxer. There are more than enough Single Ability Dependent builds to go around. And many of those SAD builds are also among the most powerful.
In the future if you want to increase the difficulty of a published adventure, then just add the advanced simple template to most of the enemies.
My preferred method of ability generation is collaborative rolling. That's where you get all of your players to roll a stat array and then players can choose one of those arrays for their stats. I find the standard 4d6 drop the lowest works fine for this, but if you wanted lower stats over all, you might try just 3d6 or 3d6 with reroll all 1s.
Hello All
I have a question regarding a class one my player are wanting to play. My group has had some issues with scheduling so we voted to restart our strange aeons AP. The party will consist of a bard, blood rager( arcane blood line ) , gun slinger , Oracle , and finally a synthesis summoner . Now I usually don’t allow summoners in my group but he’s wanting to play a synthesis summoner with the squire feat at level 3 and once he gets level 10 go fighter... Should I allow this player to play this class or just rise to the challenge. I’m also worried about him over shadowing the other party members . The reason I ask is bc I’ve played in games where the summoner and cleric destroy everything and the rest of the party members just sit there .(I was the summoner )
Thank you for your time
Arc
As GM, Summoner is the one class I will require my players to use the Unchained version of, end of story. The Summoner is not a balanced class IMO. I recommend the unchained version of the other ones too as they are either superior (rogue, monk), more balanced (summoner), or easier to keep track of (barb). Even though you're using an extremely low point buy there is still that danger. However, if you decide to allow it I wouldn't lose any sleep. If it does become a problem that's when you could have a conversation with him. It's just easier if things are set that way at the beginning.
The summoner was balanced against the druid. The druid has better combat options and more spells, while the summoner has better summoning and a better companion. The problem with the summoner is that the eidolon puts a spotlight on the caster vs martial disparity, but it's not actually a bigger offender of CvM than any full caster.
I think point buy favors the min-maxer. They can precisely have the most powerful stats possible for a given specialization, without caring about anything else. I think the main benefit of point buy is that it theoretically puts everyone on the same footing, but it strongly favors SAD classes over MAD classes and encourages hard dumping of less used stats like charisma. I've made multiple alternatives to fix this SAD vs MAD disparity in point buy, but none were perfect.
Collaborative rolling is just as "fair" as point buy and lets the players enjoy the fun of rolling for stats. The "problem" with it is the randomness, though that's also a draw. Even with a low rolling method, there is always the small possibility that a very high array could sneak in. There is also an incredibly small chance that all of the arrays are unplayably low, but that's easily fixed by adding in a second set of rolls.
His stats are
Str 17
dex 13
Con 13
Int 12
Wis 16AC 17
I don't have his HP in front if me. His attacks are two claw attacks and a bite with poison damage. Its been alright so far. HE does add alot of combat to the party. Right now the party consist of Blood Rager, investigator, occultist, and him. Had some players change classes and one quit.
I don't know why he got 17 str since in the end when he use his eidolon he changes the str,dex and con of the eidolon
I think those were the adjusted stats when fused.
The summoner was balanced against the druid. The druid has better combat options and more spells, while the summoner has better summoning and a better companion. The problem with the summoner is that the eidolon puts a spotlight on the caster vs martial disparity, but it's not actually a bigger offender of CvM than any full caster.
Oh I think it's definitely not balanced, especially with some of the archetypes a player can pick. In fact in PU it says explicitly the spell list alone was greatly revised to remove "a number of imbalances." Imbalances can occur with most any class if you've got a good enough min-maxer, an exploiter wizard is cheese that comes easily to mind. But really the Summoner IMO was over the line, so I'm glad they changed it. It's perfectly fine if we disagree though.
Overall I really think PU had some good changes to the four classes it addressed, though I don't agree with some of the other stuff included in that book. One of the other things I did like was the idea of fractional base bonuses for multiclass or prestige class characters, which I don't think most players implement but is a good thing.
J
Balance depends on what you are balancing something against. Do you feel the summoner is stronger than the druid? There is an imbalance in the spells though, because it can mess up the economy of the world. Early access spells can allow for early access scrolls and wands. But you can just as easily houserule that summoners use wizard spell levels for crafting spell trigger and completion items, without needing to change the class spell list.
Master Summoner is the only really overpowered summoner archetype. Synthesist is only a problem if you use point buy, because it can ignore half of its stat array.
Well if he just starting I think he will put at least 4 points in int, but still don't understand why he put 17 in str unless he wants a muscle summoner
Well if he just starting I think he will put at least 4 points in int, but still don't understand why he put 17 in str unless he wants a muscle summoner
He probably didn't put any points in strength. Most of his points went to mental ability scores, while his physical ability scores were dumped, except maybe enough points to have a decent constitution score and prevent sudden change death syndrome. Those are the physical stats of a level 3 biped synthesist. I'm surprised he didn't go quadruped for the pounce, but reach biped is actually a superior fighting style for the synthesist, because you can cast on your turn and use attack of opportunity off your turn.
Honestly, this character is a good example of why you should never allow synthesist in a point buy or low stats game. Conversely, if it'd been a high stats game, the synthesist may even fall behind a little.
PS: This thread is weeks old and that character may have been level 4 when those stats were published.
... he said he would take levels in fighter to make the character not as strong
This is either a fallacy or an outright lie. The synthesist is very front loaded. While it's strong 1 through 20, you could gain a lot of power by dipping past the low levels. I imagine he's going far enough into summoner to get the large evolution and then intends to combine that with something like a huge earth breaker to get a weapon that does a high number of damage dice.
Since the synthesist spends most of its actions attacking instead of casting, giving up its spell casting to multiclass isn't as hard of a hit.
So why not to create a synthetic summoner/2h fighter/Eldritch knight with this he can get a very good battle mage build
There will also be more than that oversized weapon to consider. The 9th synthesist level gives the multi attack feat, so he’ll be able to attack with various non-arm natural attacks while full attacking with the earth breaker, with only a -2 to those natural attacks.