Lessons I learned from my Angel Summoner

[siegfriedliner]

So I have played a session of my Angel Summoner and I won't go over my game-play experience here in detail but I just wanted to go over some of my impressions and lessons I learned.

The first lesson I learnt was that I needed to give up on my Angela being similar to the angels in the monster manual or mythology. This class is balanced so my dreams of a playing something like iconic angel were pipe dreams even at higher levels don't think your ever have something like a Planetar or a Solar as you BFF.

The second lesson I learnt is that class was more customizable than I thought it was, the unchained summoner when it gave your set evolutions would make force you to play something in line with traditional perception of type. In 2e the only thing binding you to core concept is trait which says paraphrasing here you are an Angel. This meant that I had pretty much freedom to interpret my Angel however I liked her. Which means she looks like Lucifer from Devilman Crybaby (because even if she could never actually be a seraphim she could at least look like the part) and because it fit in the theme with both the summoner and angel peackocking because they were insecure.

The free choice of natural weapons fluff meant I got to make use Angela's useless wings as weapons as she smacks people around with them, her Agile weapon was just a fist strike. Personally I found I never used the 1d4 weapon because the damage drop never felt worth the +1 to hit and I hate those caltrops.

The third thing I learnt is talking to myself and using multiple voices is really hard to maintain. Not sure any of you wanted to know that one but role-playing two characters is more intensive than I thought it would be. Especially making sure that the Eidolon had a voice and agency.

[beowulf99]

In a similar vein, I once played a Lashunta Technomancer who was mute, and used his wrist computer to "speak" to people. Using my laptop, I put everything I wanted to say in character into a VTT program.

This was VERY difficult to keep up, you don't realize how much faster speech is than typing until you are trying to keep up in a conversation between characters.

I ended up pre-typing a few common phrases, and even came up with a catch phrase, "I no longer believe in you." Sounded pretty hilarious in the deadpan VTT voice.

Around 4 or 5 sessions in I revealed to the rest of the party (Was our first experience with Starfinder, so nobody really looked too close at anything they weren't playing) that Lashunta have limited Telepathy in a pinch. The incredulity was worth every frantic keystroke.

Edit: On topic, did you feel like the Eidolon was useful, despite not exactly fitting what you wanted to build? How did the class feel to play overall, and what feats did you end up taking to kit out the class?

[siegfriedliner]

I only I played at level 1 so alas I had no assess to class feats, well that's a bit disingenuous I chose Electric Arc over a class feat. I didn't regret the choice the first level feats failed to impress me. As for the eidiolon play style it was fine, I am certain if I had played it higher levels I would be frustrated by the fact Angel didn't have a range of attacks (combat feats) that I could switch between but at first level it wasn't really much of a problem. I had fun that may of partially been because I am sucker for novelty and I got to experiment with a whole new character and voice.

I have copied a bit of feedback I put on the welcome thread if your interested.

siegfriedliner wrote:

So I finally actually did some playtesting and it's not bad. I played an Angel Summoner through one session of plaguestone and I didn't get to use my spell our paladins lay on hands did all the healing we needed.

The damage my eidolon did was alright and given everyone but the champion was ranged the existence of me as melee character (I was a cloistered cleric before) helped him get more use out of his reaction.

Luckily the gm mostly chose to target the shield paladin so my Angels low AC wasn't such a problem and the bards inspire courage and flanking meant she was hitting reliably.

Things I liked

I had some fun with my Angel Angela 312 the youngest member of a particularly large family and created by a particularly absent minded God. She was particularly unhappy to be tied to such an incompetent cleric who couldn't even channel energy. My gm let me go with my own fluff here under the assumption whilst it probably was awful in lore terms it didn't really matter.

My role playing may have made me come off as unhinged, as I started interrupting my own sentences to tell myself what I was saying was rubbish in mid-sentence. I had fun at least.

I liked having a decent number of skills and two bodies on the field.

Things that irked me,

The Angels +1 good damage is an irritating feature, I know it can trigger vulnerability with some demons and undead. But it didn't in plaguestone and because it was 1 damage that didn't always apply I forgot I had it a lot of the time. I am hoping my gm remembered but i didn't notice either way. I would much rather have had an active ability.

I didn't like that the inspire courage damage didn't stack with boost, so it was a choice to spend an action to get a +1 damage. But on the positive side it meant I used recall knowledge which I rarely leave the actions to do in usual play.

I would have preferred a few more options for my summoner but I know their are some I can grab at later levels and I didn't choose battle medicine (because I wanted to use the missionary background for the AP). Most of the time it felt like my only viable choices where recall knowledge, boost or movement.

I tried varying up my method (using an innate electric arc with my summoner) but that still ended up with my summoner having an extra action where the options were the same.

I found with one spell slot I was loath to use it encase I needed to pull my eidolon or the champion back from unconsciousness. This ended with me not using the spell at all.

Overall I had fun, I don't feel it's a great chassis but the bones are there.