Skill Feats and the Eidolon

[Deriven Firelion]

Maybe I missed it, but the Eidolon doesn't seem to get access to your skill feats. So it can't do much extra with Athletics with combat maneuvers unless you increase it in size. It's strength is limited. You would solely be building up athletics for a better escape and combat maneuver roll which your eidolon would not benefit from.

It seems the Summoner would focus on increasing mental skills to get access to useful extra actions like Intimidate or Diplomacy to help in other areas and to use his Charisma. This may make your Eidolon weak in Athletics making him an easy grab target.

Hmm. Not quite liking how that feels given a lot of creatures have Grab, Engulf, and Swallow Whole. All very dangerous abilities.

Would like to see more syngergy between Eidolon and skill feats.

[Orithilaen]

There's a real issue here because the eidolon can't benefit from skill feats like Titan Wrestler. But the eidolon can still use your skills, so you're still going to invest in Athletics for both its offensive and defensive uses.

[KrispyXIV]

I dont think its going to be controversial to say that Eidolons need some sort of way to benefit from skill feats.

A feat unlocking an action or focus spell to temporarily share the benefits of a skill feat would be one option, if this needs to be restricted.

Simply allowing Eidolons to take skill feats instead of the summoner would be another.

Having no interaction at all though is both uninteresting and causes issues for skills (as noted for example, Titan Wrestler).

[Orithilaen]

The simplest solution is just to let your eidolon benefit from your skill feats, just like it benefits from your skill proficiencies and item bonuses. It's not game-breaking because you're still sharing an action economy (if anything, the very different roles of a summoner and eidolon makes picking shared skill feats tricky). It diminishes complexity and book-keeping, just like sharing item bonuses. I could well be missing something but this solution feels so natural that I was pretty surprised that I couldn't find a rule so providing, and I still wonder if lack of sharing is RAI.

[singingzombies]

I wouldn't mind if the concern is future-proofing against skill feats that don't make sense for an Eidolon to see if in the Skill Feat section of the Summoner to list certain skill feats that can be taken for the Eidolon instead at those levels.

Otherwise, I think you can just add the usual verbiage of GM adjudicates what makes sense and just either state skill feats can be taken for either the Summoner and the Eidolon or they state the Eidolon can benefit from the Summoner's Skill Feats.

I do think having the Skill Feats just be shared feels a bit much. The feats are generally flavored to be unique choice of the player character and the Eidolon sharing those is starting to cross over into the Twinned Summoner feel too much.

I don't mind the skill proficiencies being shared since it does simplify alot of the bookkeeping across two statblocks. Feats being shared is pushing a bit far for me. I think the Eidolon should get their own and would love to see them get a few skill feats for free even as they level up to feel distinct.