Summoner could use a summon focus

[Invictus Novo]

I've just started building out my Summoner for the playtest and am happy with so many things so far. What I'm missing though, is summons. With the spells being limited to 4 spells ever that doesn't leave much room. The big gap in this build seems to be the ability to feel like a master summoner.

I could see fixing this pretty easily with a Lvl 1 focus spell for Summon XYZ where it is determined by your Eidolons trait (aka summon animal, summon construct, summon celestial [need this spell in the book], etc.). I think it would balance well and should be able to be used even with your Eidolon out. After all, with the way minions are done in 2e, the action economy takes care of itself.

Something like:
------
Summoning - Focus 1
Traits: Conjuration, Summoner, [matching Eidolon's Trait]
Cast: 2 actions
Duration: Sustain up to 1 minute

You conjure an otherworldly being to fight for you. Choose a creature sharing the trait of your Eidolon whose level is -1. Heightening the spell increases the maximum level of creature you summon.

-----

Of course they would need to make sure that they have ample creatures of each level for the various Eidolon's trait for this to work, but I think that is easily doable with Bestiary 3 coming as well as other books between now and then.

[Verzen]

They are already planning a summon celestial for this book. The playtest heavily insinuates it.

What they should do though is give them a summoning font. 1+cha which allows you to cast a summon monster spell up to level 10 summon monster.

[David knott 242]

I suspect that they are actually trying to make the summon spells available to the Summoner but discourage the Summoner from actually casting such spells. In PF1, the Summon Monster SLA was available only when the eidolon wasn't present -- but in the new playtest, it is very rare for a Summoner to lose access to the eidolon while conscious.

[Kendaan]

Verzen wrote:

They are already planning a summon celestial for this book. The playtest heavily insinuates it.

What they should do though is give them a summoning font. 1+cha which allows you to cast a summon monster spell up to level 10 summon monster.

If they give a summon font to the Summoner, I sure hope it won't scale with Charisma, as it is the Key stat for them, and it is already a strong attributes (strong skills both for social and combat activities, synergy with innate magic, lots of good class to multiclass to).

[Invictus Novo]

Kendaan wrote:

Verzen wrote:

They are already planning a summon celestial for this book. The playtest heavily insinuates it.

What they should do though is give them a summoning font. 1+cha which allows you to cast a summon monster spell up to level 10 summon monster.

If they give a summon font to the Summoner, I sure hope it won't scale with Charisma, as it is the Key stat for them, and it is already a strong attributes (strong skills both for social and combat activities, synergy with innate magic, lots of good class to multiclass to).

I was thinking about this as well and would love the Summon Font solution. To your point though, it shouldn't scale from CHA as that is the primary stat for Summoner. Would be great if it scaled on CON which seems to be the secondary stat for this class given you need the HP to sustain both the Summoner and Eidolon

It also makes sense, as the language used often refers to sharing lifeforce.

That said, by tying it to a Focus Point spell, it would make the Summoner decide on whether they wanted to buff their Eidolon OR bring in a summon. I think this takes the spirit of the P1 version where the SLA was only available if the Eidolon wasn't present, but not being as restrictive.

[Shenvall]

I don't know. It seems pretty fair for encounter economy. You have a growing repertoire, but you only have 4 spell slots. You still have cantrips for combat casting, but 4 times in between daily preparations, the summoner can use those 4 slots to cast summon spells at the beginning of a fight. That's four encounters per day, that you can lead with a summon. So far in our playing, even before the playtest, I've found that our party rarely gets into more than 4 encounters per day. Assuming you keep your eidolon out, and there's no reason not to, thematically, it's intelligent, and has a mind, and likely feelings, so why not keep it out, you don't have to manifest it at the start of combat. Your first round of combat, you summon. After that, you use your Act Together action, to sustain and command your summons, while moving your eidolon, or attacking with your eidolon, then you decide how best to split those last 2 actions. While you can't dump spells and use your summons to attack, and your eidolon all in the same round due to action economy, you can still get a lot of fairly balanced combat done, manipulate the board into flanking positions to help out the party, and keep pressure on specific enemies.
Now I do imagine that some groups run encounter heavy, and so, perhaps a focus spell that can be gained as a class feat sometime around 6th level or higher, would be useful, a Focus spell that mimics the effects of a summoning spell in the summoners repertoire, that is of at least one spell level lower than the focus spell. (IE; at 9th level you have access to 5th level spells, so the focus spell would be a 5th level spell, and be able to cast a known summon spell at level 4 or lower.) That seems more balanced, than max level summons all the time, but honestly, it feels fair, and balanced with the 4 spell slot summons per day as is. The eidolon is already a potential powerhouse, given it's combat proficiencies, and the fact that it gains the effects of invested items. Handrwaps of Mighty Blows, an additional invested weapon, allowing potency, striking, and an extra property rune, not to mention the armor runes, then adding a summoned creature, and the Summoners own potential actions, and you're already looking at having more of an effect on the battlefield than most other character classes, and potentially the most consistent damage per round. By 7th level, that dragon eidolon is going to be making three hit multi attacks all of which will have have a potency rune, a striking rune, and two property rune effects, plus strength, and then using act together, you'll likely reposition your eidolon, while sustaining your summons, and having it take two more actions. That's a lot of steady every round damage, flanking, and more. If you could do that every single encounter, while never running out of your highest level summons, the class would be broken.

[Castilliano]

I would be willing to give up the Eidelon for a chunky Summoning Font (or Focus Spell for Summons) if the Eidelon boosts could be used on the summoned creature(s).

I'd want there to be a similar feat chain to that of a Wild Shape Druid, where you could pick up new summons which would also give a passive bonus to other summons.

One trouble with linking summons to the Eidelon is some types would start too high, i.e. Summon Dragon is a 5th level spell. Not sure the back room reasoning though.

[Invictus Novo]

Castilliano wrote:

One trouble with linking summons to the Eidelon is some types would start too high, i.e. Summon Dragon is a 5th level spell. Not sure the back room reasoning though.

While certainly not a game breaker if it was a more generic summon, my thinking of linking it to Eidolon type was that it.

A) made it somewhat unique and thematical
B) that between now and the actual release they would even out the summoning pool with the next Bestiary, splatbooks, and/or the Secrets of Magic itself
C) they've already made mention even in the playtest that they expect to expand upon summoning spells (see the Angel's sidebar)

[Dubious Scholar]

One thing to be careful of here is that summoned creatures are almost always going to be weaker than the eidolon I think, though they offer a lot of unique abilities not otherwise available.

[Castilliano]

Dubious Scholar wrote:

One thing to be careful of here is that summoned creatures are almost always going to be weaker than the eidolon I think, though they offer a lot of unique abilities not otherwise available.

There's no doubt they'd be weaker, but they'd be versatile, disposable extra h.p., and you can place them on the battlefield at range. Unfortunately the ones from one's top slots are still weaker enough they can't be a martial presence unless the Summoner somehow boosts them, has a huge supply, or can summon/maintain multiple creatures (though not all of those would be required).

[manbearscientist]

I feel that Summon Font should take cues from both Wild Shape and Divine Font.

Scales up automatically (focus spell)

Starts with a basic option no matter the tradition (Animal Form)

Have some benefit over using summon spells by themselves (+2 status bonus to attacks if using own modifier)

Gain additional options through feats (Dragon Form)

1 + offstat uses per day (1 + CHA Divine Font uses)

Dependent on starting choice (Deity options for Font)

So what does that look like? At level 1, you can use the 1st level summon spells of your tradition. But you can also take feats to use summon spells from any tradition.

The tricky part is figuring out what benefit it should have. Divine Font doesn't have a benefit, but I really do feel that Summon Font should. Rather than baking it into the Summon Font itself, I like the idea of the subclass making it so that Boost Eidolon and Reinforce Eidolon naturally works with your Summons (what Boost Summons does now).

Too strong at level 1? Maybe. That's the direction I'm seeing right now.

[Stack]

With the focus on the eidolon, a summoner that actually summons should just be a different class. By the time you swap out all the eidolon stuff with a class archetype, you are basically there.

[Eoni]

Would it be too strong if the Summoner's focus spell summon was 1 spell level higher? It would give them an on level creature that wouldn't just get popped like a balloon and make them unique in that their summons can do more than other casters.

Edit: I'm picturing this as a 1st level class ability focus power that you can lower the level of or heighten to 1+ your caster level, allowing you more flexiblity with your summons. I'd also love a Master Summoner subclass without an eidolon and instead maybe with something like Alter Summon Monster as a conduit spell?

[oholoko]

Eoni wrote:

Would it be too strong if the Summoner's focus spell summon was 1 spell level higher? It would give them an on level creature that wouldn't just get popped like a balloon and make them unique in that their summons can do more than other casters.

Edit: I'm picturing this as a 1st level class ability focus power that you can lower the level of or heighten to 1+ your caster level, allowing you more flexiblity with your summons. I'd also love a Master Summoner subclass without an eidolon and instead maybe with something like Alter Summon Monster as a conduit spell?

1 level higher seems a bit much but maybe the ability to increase the level of the creature summoned or giving it the elite array.

[Invictus Novo]

oholoko wrote:

Eoni wrote:

Would it be too strong if the Summoner's focus spell summon was 1 spell level higher? It would give them an on level creature that wouldn't just get popped like a balloon and make them unique in that their summons can do more than other casters.

Edit: I'm picturing this as a 1st level class ability focus power that you can lower the level of or heighten to 1+ your caster level, allowing you more flexiblity with your summons. I'd also love a Master Summoner subclass without an eidolon and instead maybe with something like Alter Summon Monster as a conduit spell?

1 level higher seems a bit much but maybe the ability to increase the level of the creature summoned or giving it the elite array.

Agreed, because of the different types of things you can summon, it might not scale well being a full level higher. However an augmented summoning increasing to-hit, AC, and possibly damage a bit would be ok I think.

[Eoni]

Invictus Novo wrote:

oholoko wrote:

Eoni wrote:

Would it be too strong if the Summoner's focus spell summon was 1 spell level higher? It would give them an on level creature that wouldn't just get popped like a balloon and make them unique in that their summons can do more than other casters.

Edit: I'm picturing this as a 1st level class ability focus power that you can lower the level of or heighten to 1+ your caster level, allowing you more flexiblity with your summons. I'd also love a Master Summoner subclass without an eidolon and instead maybe with something like Alter Summon Monster as a conduit spell?

1 level higher seems a bit much but maybe the ability to increase the level of the creature summoned or giving it the elite array.

Agreed, because of the different types of things you can summon, it might not scale well being a full level higher. However an augmented summoning increasing to-hit, AC, and possibly damage a bit would be ok I think.

I could live with that. It's pretty much what the Conjuration Wizard gets. Maybe the Summoner could have it as a free action upon completion of a summoning spell or would this just be an innate class feature?