Welcome to the Summoner Class Playtest!

[KrispyXIV]

Temperans wrote:

A lot of people seem to only be remembering the weird ban reasons people gave but not how the Summoner actually played.

Like a lot of it seems to be "the summoner was banned it must be because the evolution system". When the only reason it was banned was because chained summoner had a stupid amount of actions from summons along with early haste.

While the unchained version was banned again because all of the actions from summons, but also because people heard the chained version often got banned.

The only real point were Summoner was overwhelming was early levels due to being relatively front loaded. But even then the class quickly stabilized as other classes leveled up.

******************

It very much a case of people having pre conceived notions of the class being unbalanced for no reason other than they heard it was unbalanced.

Master Summoner and Synthesist peing power houses certainly helped to promote that misconception.

Uh, no, please don't tell us what we know or about our experiences.

I saw it banned both because it was overpowered, and the entire Evolution system was built to be powergamed by allowing players to customize exactly what abilities they wanted to relentlessly create a combat monster without regard for story, plot, and reasonableness.

It was banned not just because it was OP, but because it dominated tables and left other players feeling like they made a mistake for not playing two characters that were each essentially a PC, instead of their crappy fighter.

It was banned because while it was a cool concept from the ground up, it wasn't until Unchained that it even approached reasonable - and even then, all of the evolution choices were still perceived as being a 'powergamer mechanic' as opposed to a 'fun' one.

It was not banned regularly just because of any one thing.

[CrimsonKnight]

KrispyXIV wrote:

The idea that a Multiclass anything caster can compete with two top level spells is ridiculous. The Summoner's spell allotment is easily the equal of everything a Multiclass caster gets, and scrolls of top level -2 spells are cheap - there's nothing a multiclass caster gets that compares you with having spells of a relevant level.

not that cheep. If your summoner wants to waste all their gold on spell scrolls then they can't get decent equipment. if you want to bring in lots of non-renewable resources then any comparison is pointless. high level spell slots are not that big because it is tempting to only look at damage spells after all you only have four.

It is actually very easy Rog/wiz heighten invisibility and foil senses make a great combo. add some will effects on the eidolon and you will be killing yourself. confusion is a great 4th level spell Unless the summoner critically succeeds they are at least stunned.

ranger/eldritch archer turned the summoner into a pincushion before they got close enough to cast a spell

[KrispyXIV]

CrimsonKnight wrote:

ranger/eldritch archer turned the summoner into a pincushion before they got close enough to cast a spell

You appear to be doing PVP - the game is not balanced for that.

Also, when you first have access to 9th level spells, 7th level spell scrolls cost a whole 2% of your wealth each. Lower level scrolls are even less.

At 5th level spells, a 3rd level scroll is... less than 2%.

And it only gets even cheaper the lower you go.

Scrolls are nowhere near expensive to use to replace the spellcasting you don't have relative to a multiclass character. You can afford them and your gear easily.

The OPPOSITE is not nearly true. Each cast of a Top Level spell costs something like 10% or so of your characters wealth. Thats not doable more than once.

[Midnightoker]

Temperans not sure how much PF1 you played, I had the notion that you had not played it or hadn’t played it a lot but maybe I’m misremembering, but I can tell you that my position on summoners from PF1 is rooted wholly in play experience. Play experience that resulted in unhappy moments at tables I was at strictly because of the Summoner.

There were no “preconceived notions” because I played with these classes and archetypes when they were released. There’s nothing preconceived when it didn’t exist before.

People weren’t crazy for banning a class that almost everyone agrees was overpowered and it got banned often because in most cases it deserved it.

Did it “level out” later on? Who cares. PFS ended before high level and after about level 13 the system turned into rocket tag anyways. Being too strong for nearly all of the playable levels of the game is functionally the same.

[graystone]

KrispyXIV wrote:

without regard for story, plot, and reasonableness.

You don't need a particular system to do so: all you need is a lack of caring about those things. The person that didn't care when making a PF1 summoner isn't going to care when making a PF2 fighter or a rogue. That, IMO, is a problem with a person, not a system. Not everyone places the same importance on those things and/or agree with everyone's sense of "story, plot, and reasonableness". heck, pick any 2 people here and you're unlikely to perfectly match those.

KrispyXIV wrote:

I saw it banned both because it was overpowered

When people I know had issues with it, it was the multiple natural attacks with pounce and the specialized spell list. I have to say, I don't recall issues that didn't relate to either of those issues.

[Verzen]

KrispyXIV wrote:

CrimsonKnight wrote:

ranger/eldritch archer turned the summoner into a pincushion before they got close enough to cast a spell

You appear to be doing PVP - the game is not balanced for that.

Also, when you first have access to 9th level spells, 7th level spell scrolls cost a whole 2% of your wealth each. Lower level scrolls are even less.

At 5th level spells, a 3rd level scroll is... less than 2%.

And it only gets even cheaper the lower you go.

Scrolls are nowhere near expensive to use to replace the spellcasting you don't have relative to a multiclass character. You can afford them and your gear easily.

The OPPOSITE is not nearly true. Each cast of a Top Level spell costs something like 10% or so of your characters wealth. Thats not doable more than once.

Uhh PVP is a good way to see how balanced classes are.

[Verzen]

Midnightoker wrote:

Temperans not sure how much PF1 you played, I had the notion that you had not played it or hadn’t played it a lot but maybe I’m misremembering, but I can tell you that my position on summoners from PF1 is rooted wholly in play experience. Play experience that resulted in unhappy moments at tables I was at strictly because of the Summoner.

There were no “preconceived notions” because I played with these classes and archetypes when they were released. There’s nothing preconceived when it didn’t exist before.

People weren’t crazy for banning a class that almost everyone agrees was overpowered and it got banned often because in most cases it deserved it.

Did it “level out” later on? Who cares. PFS ended before high level and after about level 13 the system turned into rocket tag anyways. Being too strong for nearly all of the playable levels of the game is functionally the same.

There is a HUGE difference between tuning and the system itself. The tuning was off in PF1. It was very OP. But that doesn't mean the general evolution point system is bad. Just retune it and tune it primarily for 'options' rather than maths and power.

[Arachnofiend]

Verzen wrote:

Uhh PVP is a good way to see how balanced classes are.

If you use PVP to determine how good a class is then the bard is gonna look like hot garbage, which I would really hope you agree isn't true. PVP and cooperative games have different metas that value different mechanics.

[KrispyXIV]

Verzen wrote:

There is a HUGE difference between tuning and the system itself. The tuning was off in PF1. It was very OP. But that doesn't mean the general evolution point system is bad. Just retune it and tune it primarily for 'options' rather than maths and power.

Verzen, you keep ignoring this when its pointed out - you may have perceived merely the tuning as being off, but other people saw issues with both the tuning, and the base system itself because of how the base system encouraged optimization based power gaming.

It was perceived by many as two separate issues.

[Midnightoker]

Arachnofiend wrote:

Verzen wrote:

Uhh PVP is a good way to see how balanced classes are.

If you use PVP to determine how good a class is then the bard is gonna look like hot garbage, which I would really hope you agree isn't true. PVP and cooperative games have different metas that value different mechanics.

Yeah PVP isn’t even a useful metric in most games today that involve any amount of cooperative play. Especially one v one scenarios.

And this example practically proves that, since the Bard is basically the gold standard of casters right now.

[Verzen]

KrispyXIV wrote:

Temperans wrote:

A lot of people seem to only be remembering the weird ban reasons people gave but not how the Summoner actually played.

Like a lot of it seems to be "the summoner was banned it must be because the evolution system". When the only reason it was banned was because chained summoner had a stupid amount of actions from summons along with early haste.

While the unchained version was banned again because all of the actions from summons, but also because people heard the chained version often got banned.

The only real point were Summoner was overwhelming was early levels due to being relatively front loaded. But even then the class quickly stabilized as other classes leveled up.

******************

It very much a case of people having pre conceived notions of the class being unbalanced for no reason other than they heard it was unbalanced.

Master Summoner and Synthesist peing power houses certainly helped to promote that misconception.

Uh, no, please don't tell us what we know or about our experiences.

I saw it banned both because it was overpowered, and the entire Evolution system was built to be powergamed by allowing players to customize exactly what abilities they wanted to relentlessly create a combat monster without regard for story, plot, and reasonableness.

It was banned not just because it was OP, but because it dominated tables and left other players feeling like they made a mistake for not playing two characters that were each essentially a PC, instead of their crappy fighter.

It was banned because while it was a cool concept from the ground up, it wasn't until Unchained that it even approached reasonable - and even then, all of the evolution choices were still perceived as being a 'powergamer mechanic' as opposed to a 'fun' one.

It was not banned regularly just because of any one thing.

Again. The tuning is off. For example. Let's change how the evolution system works.

Eidolons get 3/2/3/2/3/2 etc evolution points.

What can you spend evolution points on?

Resistance - cost 1 point - Gain 1 point of resistance against B/S/P/energy
Breath attack - cost 2 points - Gain a 1d4 breath attack weapon. Can be upgraded for 1 point to increase it to 1d6 or 2 points to increase it to 1d8.
Charge - cost 2 points - Stride twice then attack. Doing so provides a +1 bonus to attack.
Energy attack - Cost 1 point - Gain an energy attack that deals 1d4 damage of your choice. Can only be chosen once.
Damage shield - cost 2 points - Gain a 1 energy of your choice damage shield that deals 1 damage to anyone who attacks the Eidolon with a natural weapon or unarmed strike. Can be upgraded for 1 point to increase it to 1d4 damage or 2 points to increase it to 1d6 points of damage. Cannot be taken again for a different element once chosen. Can only ever go up to 1d6.

Essentially what I am doing with this idea is making sure I am NOT increasing damage per attack with ANY of the evolutions nor am I increasing attack with any of them. Nor am I using any evolutions to increase AC or spell resistances. Nor do any of the evolutions increase stats.

As long as we stay away from ALL of those, we actually end up with some interesting builds that do NOT rely on just increasing maths as we all know, the increase in maths is what made Summoner broken in 1e. If we stay away from maths increases and primarily focus on interesting actions or interesting passives (such as a damage shield or gaining an energy attack or a breath attack, we could create a system for evolutions that is both interesting and dynamic.

[Ruzza]

Verzen wrote:

Uhh PVP is a good way to see how balanced classes are.

Not to pile on, but absolutely not. In no world is this correct. Why do you feel like this is true?

[Verzen]

Ruzza wrote:

Verzen wrote:

Uhh PVP is a good way to see how balanced classes are.

Not to pile on, but absolutely not. In no world is this correct. Why do you feel like this is true?

Because you can pit the maths against one another and see if one class has better usage of said maths or not.

[KrispyXIV]

Verzen wrote:

Ruzza wrote:

Verzen wrote:

Uhh PVP is a good way to see how balanced classes are.

Not to pile on, but absolutely not. In no world is this correct. Why do you feel like this is true?

Because you can pit the maths against one another and see if one class has better usage of said maths or not.

Real Talk Time - Its a cooperative, not competitive game.

Its not a DPS race, its not a 'you must be this good to qualify', its 'Can you make a meaningful contribution, and not make yourself and the party feel bad?'

Comparing maths like this is utterly, completely irrelevant.

[Midnightoker]

Verzen wrote:

Ruzza wrote:

Verzen wrote:

Uhh PVP is a good way to see how balanced classes are.

Not to pile on, but absolutely not. In no world is this correct. Why do you feel like this is true?

Because you can pit the maths against one another and see if one class has better usage of said maths or not.

In chess, do you measure a Queen as a bad piece because the Knight can take it when the Queen can’t?

That’s how that sounds to me.

[Arachnofiend]

Verzen wrote:

Ruzza wrote:

Verzen wrote:

Uhh PVP is a good way to see how balanced classes are.

Not to pile on, but absolutely not. In no world is this correct. Why do you feel like this is true?

Because you can pit the maths against one another and see if one class has better usage of said maths or not.

The way you do this is comparing both player characters against the same enemy and see how they compare - and even then that fails to account for anything that isn't raw DPR. PC vs. PC overvalues burst and fails to account for the fact that cooperative games have far less obligation to be "fair" than pvp (enemies with overinflated HP for their level significantly reduce the value of burst damage compared to a player vs player scenario for example).

[Verzen]

Arachnofiend wrote:

Verzen wrote:

Ruzza wrote:

Verzen wrote:

Uhh PVP is a good way to see how balanced classes are.

Not to pile on, but absolutely not. In no world is this correct. Why do you feel like this is true?

Because you can pit the maths against one another and see if one class has better usage of said maths or not.

The way you do this is comparing both player characters against the same enemy and see how they compare - and even then that fails to account for anything that isn't raw DPR. PC vs. PC overvalues burst and fails to account for the fact that cooperative games have far less obligation to be "fair" than pvp (enemies with overinflated HP for their level significantly reduce the value of burst damage compared to a player vs player scenario for example).

You can also compare both PC's to each other. This works better when comparing martials. Less so with casters.

[Midnightoker]

Most of the complaints are because the Summoner invalidated the party or others in a similar role (such as a Fighter with a Synthesist).

It wasn’t because the Summoner could one v one other party members, it was because the other party members didn’t matter/contribute as much by proxy.

[Arachnofiend]

Midnightoker wrote:

Most of the complaints are because the Summoner invalidated the party or others in a similar role (such as a Fighter with a Synthesist).

It wasn’t because the Summoner could one v one other party members, it was because the other party members didn’t matter/contribute as much by proxy.

Once played with a guy who's entire strat was dumping the enemies into a Create Pit and letting his eidolon wail on them freely. Sure was fun sitting an entire session out with my Bloodrager that literally could not do anything without falling into the pit myself.

[Midnightoker]

Arachnofiend wrote:

Midnightoker wrote:

Most of the complaints are because the Summoner invalidated the party or others in a similar role (such as a Fighter with a Synthesist).

It wasn’t because the Summoner could one v one other party members, it was because the other party members didn’t matter/contribute as much by proxy.

Once played with a guy who's entire strat was dumping the enemies into a Create Pit and letting his eidolon wail on them freely. Sure was fun sitting an entire session out with my Bloodrager that literally could not do anything without falling into the pit myself.

Back when Conjuration Creation spells blew up whole encounters all on their own lol

[KrispyXIV]

Arachnofiend wrote:

Midnightoker wrote:

Most of the complaints are because the Summoner invalidated the party or others in a similar role (such as a Fighter with a Synthesist).

It wasn’t because the Summoner could one v one other party members, it was because the other party members didn’t matter/contribute as much by proxy.

Once played with a guy who's entire strat was dumping the enemies into a Create Pit and letting his eidolon wail on them freely. Sure was fun sitting an entire session out with my Bloodrager that literally could not do anything without falling into the pit myself.

One of my few experiences playing with a Summoner was building a synthesist based on a cool looking character from Anima tactics. I was replacing a deceased character a mid level, and I was like, "Hey! I can build this!"

So I did - I just built this winged angel of death with a Scythe, with no real effort to powergame it out. It was just a cool image.

Turns out my base stats and progression made me every bit as powerful as a fighter, the 'boring' armor bonuses and strength I added on as filler took me past that, and the permanent flight meant that any fight that could challenge me couldn't be participated in by the rest of the party - and any fight without flying I could simply murder from the air. Ranged attacks that didn't hit my party-mates on a 2 more or less couldn't touch me. It was literally a case of, "Dont worry mortals, I'm here to dominate all the challenges for you!"

I rerolled after one session and apologized for ruining that session for the rest of the party.

[Ruzza]

Arachnofiend wrote:

Midnightoker wrote:

Most of the complaints are because the Summoner invalidated the party or others in a similar role (such as a Fighter with a Synthesist).

It wasn’t because the Summoner could one v one other party members, it was because the other party members didn’t matter/contribute as much by proxy.

Once played with a guy who's entire strat was dumping the enemies into a Create Pit and letting his eidolon wail on them freely. Sure was fun sitting an entire session out with my Bloodrager that literally could not do anything without falling into the pit myself.

Oh man, I GM'd a very similar game where a rogue sat above the pit throwing rocks down while the two fighters sparred with each other. Sure was lucky we had pizza to assuage any hard feelings.

[drakkonflye]

Mark Seifter wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

Bestiary/monster version of things like Constrict.

That's one thing we all have to take into consideration here: According to some data I have, summoner is a class whose high concept is extremely attractive to brand new to RPG players (or it was in PF1), but then the complexity of building them caused some issues. That wasn't immediately obvious to an options junkie of a player like me who just wants to make lots of different decisions at every step, but whatever the final method of building winds up being, it needs to be simple but powerful, allowing as much depth as well as narrative customization and variety of options for your eidolon's story, thematics, and visuals as we can without too much complexity.

I am so, so, SO liking the concept of playing a Summoner Synthesist who's Eidolon is actually his alter ego, a Devotion Phantom who manifests any time the Summoner is overwhelmed with choices he can't or is afraid to make, where he takes a back seat and let's the Eidolon take over. I can even picture the Eidolon as having his appearance, only amplified to being the "perfect" being and physically augmented, sort of the "I wish I was this" persona. I can even see when the two of them are separate beings, the Eidolon acts as his subconscious, arguing with the Summoner's choices and playing devil's advocate and sounding a lot like the Summoner's parents (and other ancestors). Those spells, though...

Sorry, but I am on the "give them one spell per level even if it is only a Summon spell" bandwagon

Need more Conduit spells and more Tandem feats, really. I know you have the Inquisitor on the back burner to reintroduce at some future time; wouldn't it make sense to let the Summoner and his Eidolon have access to some of those future "teamwork" feats now since they ARE a team?

[Verzen]

I want to play a Summoner Synthesis similar to Ichigo's hollow form.

[CrimsonKnight]

KrispyXIV wrote:

Verzen wrote:

Ruzza wrote:

Verzen wrote:

Uhh PVP is a good way to see how balanced classes are.

Not to pile on, but absolutely not. In no world is this correct. Why do you feel like this is true?

Because you can pit the maths against one another and see if one class has better usage of said maths or not.

Real Talk Time - Its a cooperative, not competitive game.

Its not a DPS race, its not a 'you must be this good to qualify', its 'Can you make a meaningful contribution, and not make yourself and the party feel bad?'

Comparing maths like this is utterly, completely irrelevant.

one it wasn't pvp you do fight other INTELLIGENT humanoids so they can have classes.

two there are so many things the summoner has difficulty doing. Ok great cooperate with the party. the other classes shouldn't feel like they compete on anything. The more summoner can do the safer your character is and the more the characters can do as a TEAM. If the summoner's strength will help all win.

The games I played and ran, the summoner failed to pull its weight. the person who played when I ran wanted to remake the character half way through the dungeon because all they could do was cantrips (that was the only resource they had left).

[Ruzza]

CrimsonKnight wrote:

one it wasn't pvp you do fight other INTELLIGENT humanoids so they can have classes.

NPCs are not built like PCs in this edition and using player math versus player math as your standard will not produce actual usable results.

As for the rest, I don't think anyone has claimed that summoner is perfect as is and should be shipped in it's current state. That's why we're playtesting it and filling out these surveys.

I would absolutely recommend filling out the survey with your experiences.

[graystone]

Ruzza wrote:

NPCs are not built like PCs in this edition

They can be.

PC-Style Build: Gamemastery Guide pg. 72
"If you do choose to build an NPC fully using the PC rules, your NPC should generally end up being an appropriate challenge as a creature of their level."

[Ruzza]

graystone wrote:

Ruzza wrote:

NPCs are not built like PCs in this edition

They can be.

PC-Style Build: Gamemastery Guide pg. 72
"If you do choose to build an NPC fully using the PC rules, your NPC should generally end up being an appropriate challenge as a creature of their level."

Do you, Graystone, feel that mocking up PvP battles is a good test of any class?

[Temperans]

PvP battles do show where a class is failing and/or succeeding compared to another class.

As for the Chess example, none of the Chess pieces have the same value. Chess pieces are not balanced against each other to have perfect balance, they are balanced to meet a certain goal.

[Ruzza]

I'm seeing a running theme in "PvP is a cool and good way to accurately test classes" posters.

[Sedoriku]

Again, some classes exist solely to boost other classes, you can't expect the cleric to be able to fight a fighter and then definitively say the fighter is better. Running two or three mock battles where the only variable changed is a summoner and whoever you are wanting to compare them against might be the best way to handle this, but a PvP situation is only good for judging how well a class can kill humanoids (and maybe plants or whatever other races you are using).

Chess is balanced Team vs. Team, not piece vs. piece. there might be something said for a team of PCs vs a team of PCs but still ignores the fact that a good percentage of the time those teams would not be able to expect to face humanoids (or pc race types).

[graystone]

Ruzza wrote:

Do you, Graystone, feel that mocking up PvP battles is a good test of any class?

Not particularly, no, but that wasn't what I was commenting on. I specifically cut out the part that I thought needed commenting on, that you can indeed make up an NPC just as you do a PC. No more, no less.

[Arachnofiend]

graystone wrote:

Ruzza wrote:

Do you, Graystone, feel that mocking up PvP battles is a good test of any class?

Not particularly, no, but that wasn't what I was commenting on. I specifically cut out the part that I thought needed commenting on, that you can indeed make up an NPC just as you do a PC. No more, no less.

An enemy constructed with PC rules is fundamentally different than pitting two PC's against each other because that enemy is designed to be competitive with four PC's, either because they're overleveled or they've got a lot of friends. If the former then the Fighter looks really good, if the latter then you'd like to have a Wizard.

[Deadmanwalking]

graystone wrote:

Ruzza wrote:

NPCs are not built like PCs in this edition

They can be.

PC-Style Build: Gamemastery Guide pg. 72
"If you do choose to build an NPC fully using the PC rules, your NPC should generally end up being an appropriate challenge as a creature of their level."

This is correct, but such enemies are vanishingly rare (I believe, at the moment, zero Paizo published adventures include even a single one), making them generally a poor barometer for PC capabilities in actual play.

Even in homebrewed games, they're gonna remain rare for two big reasons, the first being that they're harder to create and the second being that they must be used sparingly or the Pcs wind up with way too much money.

[CrimsonKnight]

Sedoriku wrote:

Chess is balanced Team vs. Team, not piece vs. piece. there might be something said for a team of PCs vs a team of PCs but still ignores the fact that a good percentage of the time those teams would not be able to expect to face humanoids (or pc race types).

Ok chess analogies. One of the complaints that keep coming up is how the PF1 summoner was so powerful (the Queen) and my character couldn't make a decent contribution (the pawn)

Yes the summoner should not be the queen but it should not be the pawn. As far as team you should want any strength added to your team.

[Ruzza]

CrimsonKnight wrote:

Sedoriku wrote:

Chess is balanced Team vs. Team, not piece vs. piece. there might be something said for a team of PCs vs a team of PCs but still ignores the fact that a good percentage of the time those teams would not be able to expect to face humanoids (or pc race types).

Ok chess analogies. One of the complaints that keep coming up is how the PF1 summoner was so powerful (the Queen) and my character couldn't make a decent contribution (the pawn)

Yes the summoner should not be the queen but it should not be the pawn. As far as team you should want any strength added to your team.

You might be missing the chess analogy here, in which the pieces are individually powerful, but cannot actually function without each other. To take your analogy and adjust it a bit here, the PF1 summoner played the entire army for the rest of the team, who often felt superfluous.

But the thing is, this playtest isn't some weird retribution for PF1 summoner turning out the way it did. It's a playtest to see what works and what doesn't. You said you saw problems with the summoner? GOOD! Note it down, report your observations, and work with other people to discuss solutions. The devs read these forums, so feedback like "The games I played and ran, the summoner failed to pull its weight," is a start, but I'm certain devs want to know why.

"Add more strength to the summoner," however, doesn't help anyone. "I feel like the summoner needs more presence in fights. Their few number of spell slots caused my player to..." Super good!

[Verzen]

Ruzza wrote:

CrimsonKnight wrote:

Sedoriku wrote:

Chess is balanced Team vs. Team, not piece vs. piece. there might be something said for a team of PCs vs a team of PCs but still ignores the fact that a good percentage of the time those teams would not be able to expect to face humanoids (or pc race types).

Ok chess analogies. One of the complaints that keep coming up is how the PF1 summoner was so powerful (the Queen) and my character couldn't make a decent contribution (the pawn)

Yes the summoner should not be the queen but it should not be the pawn. As far as team you should want any strength added to your team.

You might be missing the chess analogy here, in which the pieces are individually powerful, but cannot actually function without each other. To take your analogy and adjust it a bit here, the PF1 summoner played the entire army for the rest of the team, who often felt superfluous.

But the thing is, this playtest isn't some weird retribution for PF1 summoner turning out the way it did. It's a playtest to see what works and what doesn't. You said you saw problems with the summoner? GOOD! Note it down, report your observations, and work with other people to discuss solutions. The devs read these forums, so feedback like "The games I played and ran, the summoner failed to pull its weight," is a start, but I'm certain devs want to know why.

"Add more strength to the summoner," however, doesn't help anyone. "I feel like the summoner needs more presence in fights. Their few number of spell slots caused my player to..." Super good!

"Add more strength" is a pretty good suggestion since the Eidolon starts out with only 16 str.

[manbearscientist]

Verzen wrote:

The problem with this is that none of the feats improve the power of the Eidolon. All they do is increase the versatility of the Eidolon. Like.. I can get aquatic traits, climbing, faster Eidolon, etc. Nothing that really improves -power-

I don't think this is a problem. Giving them purely power fixing feats might adjust the overall power of the class closer to expectations, but it introduces other issues that should be avoided if possible.

These include:

Mandatory feats - See Agile Grace for many Fighters

Feats that give equal power to multiclass - See Wild Shape

Trap options - Cool ability, or +2? +2 wins mathematically.

Class feats are best served when they increase options, and primarily increase power only through slight action economy increases, MAP reductions or improvements to optional features.

If the power of the Eidolon is too low (as opposed to it not having option), the answer is in adjusting proficiencies and stats and giving them more Swipe (class feat) and Rend (monster ability) options.

[Midnightoker]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Even in homebrewed games, they're gonna remain rare for two big reasons, the first being that they're harder to create and the second being that they must be used sparingly or the Pcs wind up with way too much money.

Here I am just using that Android app on Bluestacks to smash out these guys....

Though, I don't give them WBL appropriately, so I guess that avoids the gold issue.

But I do make a lot of NPCs with PC rules right now. For one, it allows me to playtest things and discover more builds than I otherwise could for character variation. And two, it's just fun to make them sometimes.

But even then, they still have lackies who are just normal creatures/npcs, so the whole "PvP" thing still doesn't hold up.

Temperans wrote:

As for the Chess example, none of the Chess pieces have the same value. Chess pieces are not balanced against each other to have perfect balance, they are balanced to meet a certain goal.

So you agree that classes are not balanced around how well they can kill other classes then?

Because that was my point.

Summoner was never balanced period, and just because a Ranger could maybe take them down by charging in a 1v1 (arguable to be honest, AoOs still existed in PF1) doesn't change the fact that the Summoner was a Queen and a Ranger was a knight.

The goal of Chess is to check the King. Not kill the Queen or the Knight.

[Dargath]

I think in the current campaign I am in I am subbing out my character for a Summoner so I can get some real life experience in a variety of situations and report my findings based on actual in game play in the surveys.

However, I can't decide which Eidolon to use and who my summoner is...

I have at least 3 different ideas..

[Deadmanwalking]

Midnightoker wrote:

Though, I don't give them WBL appropriately, so I guess that avoids the gold issue.

They'll be significantly underpowered for their level without appropriate gear, for the record. The balance is predicated on PCs, or those built as PCs, having weapons, armor, and apex items as appropriate to their level, at the very least.

Midnightoker wrote:

But I do make a lot of NPCs with PC rules right now. For one, it allows me to playtest things and discover more builds than I otherwise could for character variation. And two, it's just fun to make them sometimes.

Oh, it's definitely fun, but it's always gonna be the exception rather than the rule, IMO. I bet you don't add more than one such NPC any encounter at most, and that's the encounters with humanoids.

The total number of PC Rules NPCs as compared to creatures using the monster rules is always gonna be a minority.

Midnightoker wrote:

But even then, they still have lackies who are just normal creatures/npcs, so the whole "PvP" thing still doesn't hold up.

Yeah, definitely.

[Midnightoker]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Midnightoker wrote:

Though, I don't give them WBL appropriately, so I guess that avoids the gold issue.

They'll be significantly underpowered for their level without appropriate gear, for the record. The balance is predicated on PCs, or those built as PCs, having weapons, armor, and apex items as appropriate to their level, at the very least.

Oh sure, but then I just build them a few levels above the PCs anyways.

[Sedoriku]

CrimsonKnight wrote:

Sedoriku wrote:

Chess is balanced Team vs. Team, not piece vs. piece. there might be something said for a team of PCs vs a team of PCs but still ignores the fact that a good percentage of the time those teams would not be able to expect to face humanoids (or pc race types).

Ok chess analogies. One of the complaints that keep coming up is how the PF1 summoner was so powerful (the Queen) and my character couldn't make a decent contribution (the pawn)

Yes the summoner should not be the queen but it should not be the pawn. As far as team you should want any strength added to your team.

Oookkkaaaay. Kinda not the point of the first chess analogy. It was more against pvp being a good balancing tool. But I guess if you're wanting to make a different analogy off of chess then it's okay?

Also I think Ruzza had a great counter point there.

[drakkonflye]

Dubious Scholar wrote:

I think the lack of evolution options is the single most universal complaint right now. Some people are thinking to solve this by going back to the 1e system and oh god no, for reasons you've already gone over.

We do need to see more things like other special attacks via evolutions, or sidegrades to allow different tactics. A combat reaction would be valuable to have available (all the core martials except Rogue have an AoO variant available, and Rogue gets Opportune Backstab). I'd want to be able to add more traits to the unarmed attacks (grapple is the big missing one). But for the most part, evolutions should be limited strictly to things like combat activities and special attacks (Sudden Charge, breath weapons, etc) or major sidegrades to base functionality (amphibious, flight, major senses like tremorsense, etc). They absolutely should not affect statistics (because that would become mandatory-ish under 2e math) or physical form (having to buy arms to then buy claws and s&#~ can stay in 1e).

I think the idea of bonus evolution feats every so often may be valuable to consider, depending...

The issue here is again, the Eidolon is not a class feature, but the entire class as it is currently written. We might as well call it the Eidolon class instead of Summoner. The Eidolon could use more abilities, yes, but the reality is it still leaves the Summoner just sitting in the back row "boosting" the Eidolon when IMO at least, they should be working in concert as a team. I would like to see more Tandem feats where they complement each other instead of the Summoner just sending in the Eidolon and using their limited actions to Boost, Reinforce, and Call Eidolon back when things get too tough.

To me, this should be more of a tag team thing. After all, if they are telepathically linked, they should be able to do more in tandem than just Stride or Strike, and they can't even do THAT well given the Summoner's limited combat capabilities. Maybe give the Summoner light armor at least so they can better defend themselves, and how about a feat like Tandem Strike where the Summoner gets to deal precision damage to a foe when flanking with their Eidolon (and ONLY when flanking with the Eidolon)? Just as an example...

[Verzen]

My opinion when designing the initial Eidolon, we need as many side grade options as possible so we can get that flavor and so every Eidolon is different.