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...Part 1.
Hey guys! I came by to drop off my first bit of actual-play data for the Summoner. The following document details the first portion of my 4-Lv8-Summoner Run of PFS 1-25, Grim Symphony. The document currently records all of the crunch of the scenario up til about 2/3rds of the way, as well as having links to view the (mostly accurate) builds for my four Summoners. Each one is heavily Archetype'd to try to fill a different weird combat niche while the Eidolons are about what you'd expect.
Link to the document is HERE, and I have included some comments as part of the scenario log whenever something happened to cross my mind.
I'll update the thread once we wrap up the scenario, but feel free to ask any questions or comments in the thread if you have them.
As a result, all of the builds start with Dual Studies, and out of the remaining 16 feats from the set of 4, only 3 of the feats were selected from the Summoner pool.
It might be worth looking into making some of the earlier Eidolon evolutions either more powerful, or making them into stepping stones for more interesting feats later on that either add to the Eidolon's DPS or give them more unique options in combat.
That said, I'm pretty satisfied being able to archetype with impunity and not feel like I'm losing any combat prowess, but it does feel weird having not many class feats that catch my eye.
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On your comment about Archetype Feats being more attractive than class feats -
I've noticed this myself very strongly with Cleric and Wizard as well, and to a lesser degree with Sorcerer.
I don't see it with Casters with very strong internal class features like Druid or Bard.
It probably does indicate that Summoner feats could be a bit more exciting or punchy, though I would note that I don't currently have an issue finding at least one that suits me at most feat levels.
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I don't personally feel like I had much incentive to pick Summoner feats over Archetype feats for most levels. Most evolutions don't feel like they would meaningfully contribute to combat, and the Eidolons are a pretty strong package by default.
As a result, all of the builds start with Dual Studies, and out of the remaining 16 feats from the set of 4, only 3 of the feats were selected from the Summoner pool.
It might be worth looking into making some of the earlier Eidolon evolutions either more powerful, or making them into stepping stones for more interesting feats later on that either add to the Eidolon's DPS or give them more unique options in combat.
That said, I'm pretty satisfied being able to archetype with impunity and not feel like I'm losing any combat prowess, but it does feel weird having not many class feats that catch my eye.
I've seen a lot of people that like/are okay with evolutions as class feats, but I think the main advantage of separating them from feats is so they don't need to compete with multiclassing. In a lot of other classes, class feats improve your options, maybe with a numerical boost here or there. A lot of the evolutions aren't big option improvements (some are just straight numerical bonuses and nothing else), so they don't compete well with the wealth of options provided by archetypes. That's why I'm an advocate for making eidolon building a separate system, so I can make my eidolon run faster or swim-capable without missing the chance to pick up Tandem Move and similar as-yet-unseen tandem actions which do improve my combat options in a meaningful way.
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On your comment about Archetype Feats being more attractive than class feats -
I've noticed this myself very strongly with Cleric and Wizard as well, and to a lesser degree with Sorcerer.
I don't see it with Casters with very strong internal class features like Druid or Bard.
It probably does indicate that Summoner feats could be a bit more exciting or punchy, though I would note that I don't currently have an issue finding at least one that suits me at most feat levels.
I will say that two combats in, I do have a greater appreciation for Tandem Move, as the extra mobility has been a pretty decent investment on my Phantom Summoner. Sadly I can't say I've seen much of a reason to use Distracting Summon Spell, which admittedly might be more of an Act Together problem, but still is somewhat disappointing.
I do think the biggest issue with most of the current evolutions is that they opted more for "minor stat adjustments" rather than "combat options." Like, I don't think +10 Speed will ever interest me as an option, but if there was like an Evasive Evolution that let your Eidolon Step and Stride/Stride and Step as a 1-action Flourish, that excites me more as a concept since it opens up options despite being arguably weaker in most cases. The minor buffs also admittedly feel weaker when everyone gets Evolution Surge as an option by default.
Considering the Summoner has a very strong baked-in class feature, I'd like for straight-summoner to feel as good as something like Druid or Bard, but currently it feels like the Eidolon just doesn't gain much of merit from any of the evolutions compared to what they gain innately. That said, I'm still enjoying my time with Archetype Summoners, so at least the bones of the class are functional.
On your comment about Archetype Feats being more attractive than class feats -
I've noticed this myself very strongly with Cleric and Wizard as well, and to a lesser degree with Sorcerer.
I don't see it with Casters with very strong internal class features like Druid or Bard.
It probably does indicate that Summoner feats could be a bit more exciting or punchy, though I would note that I don't currently have an issue finding at least one that suits me at most feat levels.
I like the sorcerer feats. This surprises me. I had trouble getting archetypes for the sorcerer as there were so many good sorcerer feats.
Cleric, wizard, and summoner I went mostly archetype feats. So has everyone else who has ever built one.
Maybe intended to make the summoner the chassis to build some other class with a pet where the class is the secondary ability.
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---Full Crunch Writeup is finished.---
Feel free to skip the turns where the boss fight turned into a slog; that starts at Round 5. Bad Dice vs High AC is a pain, especially when one party member crit-fails a Confusion save and is busy hitting themselves with Haste.
If this were a real PFS game, we would have cut the fight for time after Round 5, but since it wasn't, the GM decided to be a cheeseball and hide the boss in a corner so I couldn't flank him. Funnily enough, I almost blocked the boss from even having this option due to the raw number of bodies in play on my end.
Thoughts:
Overall, I had a good time. Summoner feels like it benefits a lot from speccing into one-action archetypes, like Bard or 1-act heal spam. Poog was very effective as primary healer, as he could maintain respectable DPS while healing Eidolons through their Summoners on the backline with Doctor’s Visitation and Elixir of Life spam. Divine spell list definitely felt the most limited though, might be worth adding options to pick up Deity spell options in final publication, similar to the Sorcerer feat from Gods and Magic or just giving them to Divine Sorcerers outright somehow. Occult and Arcane also have the benefit of being able to opt into Wand of Manifold Missiles, which is great passive DoT for a 1-action. Bard multiclass is great for speccing into this option as well for the other traditions. Bard Multiclass is already very good starting at level 8 due to Inspire Courage being able to be cast off of Act Together; will likely be a popular build.
Draconic Frenzy feels great, V was an incredibly fun build while he wasn’t hitting himself. Beastmaster Animal +Eidolon makes for a fun combo since you can flank with yourself to set up a large number of attacks at once. Might be my favorite build of the set.
Tandem Move might be better than I thought it was originally, can’t say the same about Distracting Summon Spell unless Act Together gets retooled to allow for Activities. Dutiful Strike is incredibly situational, and fairly restrictive in terms of setting up. It practically requires evolutions to be functional (ranged evolution, tandem move to stay adjacent while still contributing to the fight). Probably could be buffed in some way, maybe by allowing it to strike from first range increment if you later pick up Ranged Evolution.
Beast’s Charge is pretty nice, and even isn’t a status bonus so unlike Boost Eidolon or Inspire Courage, it actually stacks with your other buffs. That said, it interacts badly with the current version of Act Together, as you want to Boost Eidolon as an opener, but if your Eidolon is out of melee range, you have to waste an action if you want to use Beast’s Charge to engage. (Act Together: Boost Eidolon/??? > 2 act Beast’s Charge, since act Together currently disallows Activities.) If Act Together remains unchanged, I’d rather Beast’s Charge be edited to work like Cat Pounce so that it can be properly used alongside Boost Eidolon off of Act Together as an engagement tool.
Spells felt good for dealing with groups of adversaries, didn’t feel particularly limited in spell slots due to packing wands and having the free Scrolls from PFS school training items. That’s probably an okay spot for spells to be in. Summoners are also the only martial that can be run as a set of 4 and comfortably haste every frontliner round 1, so that is a nice quirk of the class. Haste definitely feels like the optimal strategy to say the least. False Life is also godlike to keep on a wand at least, due to it being free HP for the pair. Not used in this session, but Resilient Sphere also is highly effective defense to have as an option in case an opponent targets the Summoner backrow. Had one fun round where the Dragon Eidolon and Primal Summoner set up a tag-team 30' Cone Blast after the Beastmaster's Cat killed the enemy occupying the perfect space for it, and it was satisfyingly effective vs the mooks on the field. Don't know how often I'd want to use the Summoner spells vs larger enemies, but vs a group of enemies they seemed as effective as I'd have expected a spellcaster to be. The eidolon seems much more well-suited for single-target combat anyways.
Please specify how Confusion and other conditions that modify the kind of actions you can do affect the Eidolon and Summoner. As-is, Confusion gave me PTSD trying to figure it out on the fly and made me feel sick every time it rolled around to V’s turn. Part of that is just that it was a crit-fail save vs Confusion, but it’d at least feel better if I didn’t think I’d need to roll to see how many actions V or his Eidolon took, or if I was supposed to “try for the highest damage option,” as one person suggested, or if V was just completely unaffected and would have been able to just move and not give Griffon actions to bypass the Confusion effect entirely.
Fights didn't take longer than my actual run of the scenario back during GenCon, except for the exception of the final boss, who was admittedly a special case and was cut for time during the GenCon run due to understanding the fight was basically over and what was left would be a dull slugfest. Skill checks were handled well even without me remembering to Aid half the checks with the Eidolon; the raw number of skill check rolls was generally sufficient. Recall Knowledge through Shared Senses in Exploration is a solid tactic and I look forward to using it in the final release.
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Not included in the writeup, but we also ran vs a Gogiteth (since it was one of the only single-monster extreme encounters for Level 8 that lacked a breath weapon and was unlikely to lead to a turn 1 effective win) but the fight was quickly devolving into "summoners hide in a corner and wait for it to attack us" as it is uniquely well built for kiting (the thing can move 120'+ while attacking three times along the way), which was very hard for a party of spread-out characters to fight. Once we realized that was going to be the best strategy, we called it off since the fight lost its charm; all other strats would have been too slow to keep up with it and still attack it while it was climbing 30' up the wall
Next test will either be in a one-shot level 10 this weekend with some acquaintances, or a fight vs 2 CR 10 enemies from the Beastiary in an Extreme-Level encounter to see how the lv8 Summoners fare there. (I believe we selected a Troll King and a Gug.)
If you're just Arena-ing the Gug, I'd reccomend running the encounter in both a closed in and open environment to see if there really is a marked difference in your ability to manage its nasty whirlwind attack ability.
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If you're just Arena-ing the Gug, I'd reccomend running the encounter in both a closed in and open environment to see if there really is a marked difference in your ability to manage its nasty whirlwind attack ability.
I'll be sure to keep it in mind. For our recent Gogiteth run, we were using a mildly adapted version of the arena the boss fight of Grim Symphony boss fight takes place in, which is an arena that has a small amount of terrain variance but is otherwise just a rectangle that's just big enough to allow for a Magic Missile to pretty much hit anything from almost any square. So we'll see how it goes.
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Gug/Troll King playtest has been ran about as far as we care to play it out, and boy did I walk away with some vitriol about how terrible Manifest Eidolon is. Did a quick statistical analysis after the fight to make sure the d20's were relatively fair on each side to ensure the data was relatively un-skewed, and more or less that appeared to be the case. I'll do a full writeup of what we played out, but the long and short of it follows.
tl;dr: Party of 4 Summoners feels like roleplaying the cast of a Horror Movie. As soon as a member of the party goes down, the action tax for re-upping your Eidolon may as well be so severe that your character has been removed from the fight, and I had one of the only situations in my entire Pathfinder career where I could not justify the action cost required to get someone back up, even if the characters in question weren't in an AoO reach.
Extended thoughts below, context is that the fight stopped with Gug defeated and Troll King at either 60/75 HP left (depending on if Wall of Fire procs before or after Regeneration does, we couldn't figure out which took precedence from the wording.) Summoner side had 2 people standing at near full and half health respectively, near full was the only Summoner with an active Eidolon. This was written directly after we called it for the night when I was still engaged in a fit of anger at how bad Manifest Eidolon was.
Manifest Eidolon is a trash action in combat, and I can't justify spending any actions on using it. Your Eidolon spawns in adjacent and gets no actions, while you as the Summoner are still prone, so at that point all you really accomplish by getting a Summoner back up is resurrecting a Spellcaster with limited slots. In addition, the heavy cost of the Manifest makes it feel like a Summoner is constantly walking on eggshells, and planning out turns feels miserable since you know that even one screwup can completely end your combat effectiveness.
If Manifest Eidolon has to be a three action effect with no range that provokes, then the Manifest should at LEAST give the Eidolon additional actions like a normal Summon spell does, eg, Eidolon gets 2 actions the turn its summoned. Its UNREAL that you can burn 3 actions to accomplish NOTHING in the moment, only to have an AoO crit you, knock you back unconscious, and/or disrupt the action, completely wasting your turn.
Its unlikely that when you resummon, you'll ever be back up to full, so after you re-manifest, half the time all that your turn will mean to an enemy in the long run is that you will drain 1 action on their turn as they crit you back down to 0 and force you one step closer to dying.
For comparison, the Eidolon is the worst action tax to get back in the fight in the game. You have to burn 3 actions, survive a turn, and then move it into the fight again on the following turn, assuming the fight is not on top of the Summoner (which again, is the only case where you will ever be able to feasibly resummon the Eidolon ANYWAYS, since if the fight is on top of your Summoner, they'll be unconscious again before the Eidolon's turn rolls around) potentially eat an AoO on the way there, and THEN get a chance to attack. There was an earlier thread on this forum where someone claimed that "three actions is roughly how long it takes for the fighter to be back in the fight, but that is bunk, since if the Fighter gets knocked down and healed back up, they can opt to just Grab their Weapon and attack from Prone, since they're presumeably still within range to attack the opponent, unlike the Eidolon which is likely starting from up to 100' away. All without having to Provoke since the Fighter could still just opt to punch instead of drawing their weapons. AND if the opponent does NOT have an AoO, then the Fighter can just opt to Stand, grab their weapon and attack once. If they're a shield fighter, they can skip the shield for action economy, or if they're a dual-wielder, they can still pick up just one blade in order to remain useful in-the-moment.
The point is, these are all options the Summoner DOES NOT HAVE, which makes the entire prospect of re-manifesting mid fight downright detrimental at all levels of play, so there goes your pet forever the moment you hit the floor. This is unironically the only thing that even Animal Companions can unquestionably do better than Eidolons, and that feels like garbage piled on top of what will arguably be an already dire situation whenever this happens to come up.
I can honestly say that this was one of the most miserable and dispair-riddled combat experiences I have ever faced, and I've played Doomsday Dawn Part 5.
I wasn't expecting to walk away from this session with the takeaway that Manifest Eidolon is the most broken part of the current Playtest, but here we are.
Hmmm. That definitely needs to be fixed. If you're going to spend 3 actions summoning the eidolon back, it needs to be able to do something.
I wasn't expecting to walk away from this session with the takeaway that Manifest Eidolon is the most broken part of the current Playtest, but here we are.
The concern was raised elsewhere, and it doesnt really surprise me.
For most characters in 2E, the big issue with getting back into a fight after going down once is risk - once you've been downed, its MASSIVELY more likely that you die from going down the next time.
But effectiveness? You're good on effectiveness.
Summoners though, are essentially out FOREVER when they're brought back into a fight...
I dont think there's as much of an issue with manifest eidolon out of combat, and there are legitimate issues where if it allowed for extra actions essentially it could be exploited...
What if Manifest had this clause...
Special: When you lose the dieing and unconcious conditions, you may immediately spend your Reaction to Manifest your Eidolon.
...having it appear protectively over you as you regain consciousness, for no additional action cost?
And is completely non-exploitable.
I wasn't expecting to walk away from this session with the takeaway that Manifest Eidolon is the most broken part of the current Playtest, but here we are.The concern was raised elsewhere, and it doesnt really surprise me.
For most characters in 2E, the big issue with getting back into a fight after going down once is risk - once you've been downed, its MASSIVELY more likely that you die from going down the next time.
But effectiveness? You're good on effectiveness.
Summoners though, are essentially out FOREVER when they're brought back into a fight...
I dont think there's as much of an issue with manifest eidolon out of combat, and there are legitimate issues where if it allowed for extra actions essentially it could be exploited...
What if Manifest had this clause...
Special: When you lose the dieing and unconcious conditions, you may immediately spend your Reaction to Manifest your Eidolon.
...having it appear protectively over you as you regain consciousness, for no additional action cost?
And is completely non-exploitable.
Do you think it would be exploited? You spend 3 actions to get 2 actions with no boost? If you used manifest for other than starting or getting back into the fight, you would be giving yourself less actions every turn. The 2 actions for using Manifest Eidolon is just a "At least you don't get to do nothing" for a round small addition.
Then again if it wasn't a really good heal to get you back up, then you're probably go down again quick and possibly die sending your eidolon back in with the shared hit point pool. You have no real buffer, so once you start going down as a summoner with shared hit points both of you are going down a lot.
So your first round after going down and getting healed to stand up would be Manifest Eidolon from the prone position. Next round would be stand up, pick up anything you dropped from going unconscious, and then send Eidolon into battle again using Act Together. So 2 rounds to get back into action and you'll be back fully into the battle likely by the 3rd round.
With the shared hit point pool, you lose your eidolon and end up unconscious and prone every time it goes down.
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I wasn't expecting to walk away from this session with the takeaway that Manifest Eidolon is the most broken part of the current Playtest, but here we are.The concern was raised elsewhere, and it doesnt really surprise me.
For most characters in 2E, the big issue with getting back into a fight after going down once is risk - once you've been downed, its MASSIVELY more likely that you die from going down the next time.
But effectiveness? You're good on effectiveness.
Summoners though, are essentially out FOREVER when they're brought back into a fight...
I dont think there's as much of an issue with manifest eidolon out of combat, and there are legitimate issues where if it allowed for extra actions essentially it could be exploited...
What if Manifest had this clause...
Special: When you lose the dieing and unconcious conditions, you may immediately spend your Reaction to Manifest your Eidolon.
...having it appear protectively over you as you regain consciousness, for no additional action cost?
And is completely non-exploitable.
Hmm, I might rather have you not lose the eidolon in the first place, in case there are extra benefits tied to manifesting. For an example of something kinder than the current system but that handles this situation, maybe something like dropping does not unmanifest the eidolon, but if the eidolon gets specifically hit after that, it can unmanifest instead of increasing your dying condition. And if it does unmanifest, it still takes the time to manifest it again.
Hmm, I might rather have you not lose the eidolon in the first place, in case there are extra benefits tied to manifesting. For an example of something kinder than the current system but that handles this situation, maybe something like dropping does not unmanifest the eidolon, but if the eidolon gets specifically hit after that, it can unmanifest instead of increasing your dying condition. And if it does unmanifest, it still takes the time to manifest it again.I wasn't expecting to walk away from this session with the takeaway that Manifest Eidolon is the most broken part of the current Playtest, but here we are.The concern was raised elsewhere, and it doesnt really surprise me.
For most characters in 2E, the big issue with getting back into a fight after going down once is risk - once you've been downed, its MASSIVELY more likely that you die from going down the next time.
But effectiveness? You're good on effectiveness.
Summoners though, are essentially out FOREVER when they're brought back into a fight...
I dont think there's as much of an issue with manifest eidolon out of combat, and there are legitimate issues where if it allowed for extra actions essentially it could be exploited...
What if Manifest had this clause...
Special: When you lose the dieing and unconcious conditions, you may immediately spend your Reaction to Manifest your Eidolon.
...having it appear protectively over you as you regain consciousness, for no additional action cost?
And is completely non-exploitable.
Can take a number of hits equal to your Cha mod?
I keep looking to put in a cha mod class feature lol. Right now I feel like dumping Cha is what I'll do every summoner I get outside a face summoner.
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Hmm, I might rather have you not lose the eidolon in the first place, in case there are extra benefits tied to manifesting. For an example of something kinder than the current system but that handles this situation, maybe something like dropping does not unmanifest the eidolon, but if the eidolon gets specifically hit after that, it can unmanifest instead of increasing your dying condition. And if it does unmanifest, it still takes the time to manifest it again.I wasn't expecting to walk away from this session with the takeaway that Manifest Eidolon is the most broken part of the current Playtest, but here we are.The concern was raised elsewhere, and it doesnt really surprise me.
For most characters in 2E, the big issue with getting back into a fight after going down once is risk - once you've been downed, its MASSIVELY more likely that you die from going down the next time.
But effectiveness? You're good on effectiveness.
Summoners though, are essentially out FOREVER when they're brought back into a fight...
I dont think there's as much of an issue with manifest eidolon out of combat, and there are legitimate issues where if it allowed for extra actions essentially it could be exploited...
What if Manifest had this clause...
Special: When you lose the dieing and unconcious conditions, you may immediately spend your Reaction to Manifest your Eidolon.
...having it appear protectively over you as you regain consciousness, for no additional action cost?
And is completely non-exploitable.
Loving parent Eidolon ftw
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Hmm, I might rather have you not lose the eidolon in the first place, in case there are extra benefits tied to manifesting. For an example of something kinder than the current system but that handles this situation, maybe something like dropping does not unmanifest the eidolon, but if the eidolon gets specifically hit after that, it can unmanifest instead of increasing your dying condition. And if it does unmanifest, it still takes the time to manifest it again.I wasn't expecting to walk away from this session with the takeaway that Manifest Eidolon is the most broken part of the current Playtest, but here we are.The concern was raised elsewhere, and it doesnt really surprise me.
For most characters in 2E, the big issue with getting back into a fight after going down once is risk - once you've been downed, its MASSIVELY more likely that you die from going down the next time.
But effectiveness? You're good on effectiveness.
Summoners though, are essentially out FOREVER when they're brought back into a fight...
I dont think there's as much of an issue with manifest eidolon out of combat, and there are legitimate issues where if it allowed for extra actions essentially it could be exploited...
What if Manifest had this clause...
Special: When you lose the dieing and unconcious conditions, you may immediately spend your Reaction to Manifest your Eidolon.
...having it appear protectively over you as you regain consciousness, for no additional action cost?
And is completely non-exploitable.
Can take a number of hits equal to your Cha mod?
I keep looking to put in a cha mod class feature lol. Right now I feel like dumping Cha is what I'll do every summoner I get outside a face summoner.
Making Charisma more valuable is good.
A Feat to ignore a certain number of hits equal to Cha when it would otherwise drop the Summoner would also be something to look into?
Maybe but it would feel mandatory to my mind