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Eidolon’s designed like animal companion.
Eidolon Trait: The summoner can spend 1 action to give the eidolon 2 actions or 2 actions to give the Eidolon 3 actions.
BOOST EIDOLON CANTRIP 1 UNCOMMON CANTRIP EVOCATION SUMMONER. Cast [one-action] verbal. Range 100 feet; Targets your eidolon. Duration 1 round
You channel magical power into your eidolon through the link between you and your eidolon and boost the power of your eidolon’s attacks. You gain one of the following effects:
Add one 1d4 damage of the same type as its physical attacks and a +1 status bonus to hit.
3rd level: You may instead add 1d4 acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage to its physical attacks.
5th level: You may instead add force, positive, or negative damage to its physical attacks. If you worship a deity you may add an alignment component to its physical attacks that matches the alignment components of your deity.
7th: Increase the damage you can add to 2d4.
9th: You may make the eidolon’s physical attacks hit as silver, cold iron, or adamantine instead of adding damage to the physical attacks. You must possess at least a low-grade piece of the appropriate material as a material component to channel this power into the eidolon’s attacks.
Eidolons: 10 hit points per level with the summoner gaining 6 per level.
Celestial Warrior: Your companion is a celestial warrior who has agreed to serve you from the realms of good.
Size Medium
Melee Single Action fist or weapon, Damage 1d8 choose type of weapon or attack
Secondary Attack Fist, shield, or weapon 1d6 damage bludgeoning
Might Add in some customization to make the shield functional, so the eidolon can raise it with one it's actions.
Str +3, Dex +3, Con +3, Int +0, Wis +3, Cha +2
Note: Higher mental stats fitting for a celestial being. Mental stats for the eidolon to do not hurt combat balance, while showing meaningful differences between a fairly mindless creature like an elemental and a highly intelligent creature like a celestial.
Hit Points 8
Skill Diplomacy, Religion
Associated Spellcasting: Divine
Senses Darkvision
Speed 30 feet, fly 30 feet
Movement: If movement is ok for an animal companion, it should be fine for an eidolon.
Starting Power: Hallowed Strikes. Cast divine lance as a cantrip at will.
Advanced Power: Celestial Aura: Operates like bless.
Greater Power: Divine Power: Cast heal, divine decree, divine wrath, or divine aura once per day.
Weakness evil 5. Weakness evil 10 at 12th level.
Why this system?
1. Creature feels like a real independent celestial creature.
2. Boost Eidolon feels like you get better at boosting it to attack. You can vary the damage and attack weaknesses giving you a good reason to recall knowledge or use your eidolon in a tactical manner with real options as you level. It is more optional than required as your eidolon already does decent damage with its base die of damage.
3. The Eidolon trait gives you to option to increase it's attacks by spending more of your option while still allowing it to act somewhat independently.
This is direction I would prefer to see and am working on myself. I want to see how it compares in capability to other classes. I'm betting it brings them to the slightly stronger end of damage more like a barbarian, rogue, or flurry ranger. I think that is more the right place for a summoner than a low damage monk.
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Eidolon’s designed like animal companion.
Eidolon Trait: The summoner can spend 1 action to give the eidolon 2 actions or 2 actions to give the Eidolon 3 actions.
Not against this being the case, but it has been stated by Mark that they are trying to avoid allowing a Summoner/Eidolon to each take a 2-action activity in the same turn, as 2-action activities are intended to be balanced around only having one be useable per turn (source) so if they're balancing Eidolons in that way, I think the suggestion Mark levies in that thread would be the ideal update. (Act together becomes 1-to-3 actions that one character can use for an activity, and the other character takes a free 1-act in conjunction; its earlier in the thread.)
(If you're wondering why Animal Companions can 2 action activity in conjunction with the druid, they were were likely balanced to be worth the 1 action command cost.)
BOOST EIDOLON CANTRIP 1 UNCOMMON CANTRIP EVOCATION SUMMONER. Cast [one-action] verbal. Range 100 feet; Targets your eidolon. Duration 1 round
You channel magical power into your eidolon through the link between you and your eidolon and boost the power of your eidolon’s attacks. You gain one of the following effects:
Add one 1d4 damage of the same type as its physical attacks and a +1 status bonus to hit.
3rd level: You may instead add 1d4 acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage to its physical attacks.
5th level: You may instead add force, positive, or negative damage to its physical attacks. If you worship a deity you may add an alignment component to its physical attacks that matches the alignment components of your deity.
7th: Increase the damage you can add to 2d4.
9th: You may make the eidolon’s physical attacks hit as silver, cold iron, or adamantine instead of adding damage to the physical attacks. You must possess at least a low-grade piece of the appropriate material as a material component to channel this power into the eidolon’s attacks.
Also not against this as an update, but it doesn't feel like it currently addresses the main issues people are having with Boost Eidolon outside of being sometimes a boost to overall dps. It still remains an action tax that supports sedentary summoner play, so while its a decent boost, I'm not sure it would make the summoner more exciting to play.
Eidolons: 10 hit points per level with the summoner gaining 6 per level.
Celestial Warrior: Your companion is a celestial warrior who has agreed to serve you from the realms of good.
Size Medium
Melee Single Action fist or weapon, Damage 1d8 choose type of weapon or attack
Secondary Attack Fist, shield, or weapon 1d6 damage bludgeoning
Might Add in some customization to make the shield functional, so the eidolon can raise it with one it's actions.
Str +3, Dex +3, Con +3, Int +0, Wis +3, Cha +2
Note: Higher mental stats fitting for a celestial being. Mental stats for the eidolon to do not hurt combat balance, while showing meaningful differences between a fairly mindless creature like an elemental and a highly intelligent creature like a celestial.
Hit Points 8
Skill Diplomacy, Religion
Associated Spellcasting: Divine
Senses Darkvision
Speed 30 feet, fly 30 feet
Movement: If movement is ok for an animal companion, it should be fine for an eidolon.
Starting Power: Hallowed Strikes. Cast divine lance as a cantrip at will.
Advanced Power: Celestial Aura: Operates like bless.
Greater Power: Divine Power: Cast heal, divine decree, divine wrath, or divine aura once per day.
Weakness evil 5. Weakness evil 10 at 12th level.
Outside of the HP distinction which I won't talk about here since there are currently 2 threads devoted to it, I'm not really sure how much this changes outside of just piling more onto the base eidolon. Fly is probably broken at 1 just due to invalidating early level skill check challenges ("Climb this! oh wait") and I feel like the only reason its balanced for animals is because they can't carry people or do fine manipulation. That said, I wouldn't be against some of the eidolons getting it as an automatic evolution after a certain point.
I like some of the ideas here though and could see them being worked in. Eidolon having a set cantrip or maybe sharing it with the summoner as well seems like a neat flavorful option similar to Bloodline spells. Celestial Aura or a similar effect might be broken at 7 considering there's like a Cleric 16 feat that does that already, but it would be balanced as a final evolution based on what already exists. Weaknesses also aren't a bad idea as a counterbalance for certain abilities being stronger as well, but idk how well it'd roll out in testing. Enough's been said about stat block variability at this point and I'm probably not suited to talking about it, but tbh I think if they just said you had +9 to distribute between the stats and a maximum of one -1 stat, then I'd be okay with it since that's just literally how adventurer stats work.
While some of the ideas are neat, I don't really see this as being a fix to anything outside of the Action Economy situation, which has already been addressed by the devs. Maybe I'm just missing something? Feel free to fill in anything I might be missing here.
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Eidolon’s designed like animal companion.
Eidolon Trait: The summoner can spend 1 action to give the eidolon 2 actions or 2 actions to give the Eidolon 3 actions.
We should be able to divide freely 4 actions between the summoner and the eidolon IF both of them get at least 1 action.
BOOST EIDOLON CANTRIP 1 UNCOMMON CANTRIP EVOCATION SUMMONER. Cast [one-action] verbal. Range 100 feet; Targets your eidolon. Duration 1 round
You channel magical power into your eidolon through the link between you and your eidolon and boost the power of your eidolon’s attacks. You gain one of the following effects:
Add one 1d4 damage of the same type as its physical attacks and a +1 status bonus to hit.
3rd level: You may instead add 1d4 acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage to its physical attacks.
5th level: You may instead add force, positive, or negative damage to its physical attacks. If you worship a deity you may add an alignment component to its physical attacks that matches the alignment components of your deity.
7th: Increase the damage you can add to 2d4.
9th: You may make the eidolon’s physical attacks hit as silver, cold iron, or adamantine instead of adding damage to the physical attacks. You must possess at least a low-grade piece of the appropriate material as a material component to channel this power into the eidolon’s attacks.
So free weakness exploit, but less damage than current version. I don't like that. I want to be able to give elemental damage to my eidolon if it's appropriate for its type/concept, but the way you implemented it makes me feel like I'm forced to use whatever type is more effective depending on the situation, regardless of my concept. I don't want to use ice attacks on my fire elemental eidolon just because it's what's more appropriate for a specific encounter and because the power given by the flexibility of Boost Eidolon was accounted for in the power budget of the class.
Eidolons: 10 hit points per level with the summoner gaining 6 per level.
NO. The eidolon is not a second character. The eidolon + summoner are one character and shouldn't get more ressources than the other characters. That would eat way too much of the power budget of the class...
Str +3, Dex +3, Con +3, Int +0, Wis +3, Cha +2
Note: Higher mental stats fitting for a celestial being. Mental stats for the eidolon to do not hurt combat balance, while showing meaningful differences between a fairly mindless creature like an elemental and a highly intelligent creature like a celestial.
Again, no. The eidolon's stats are built the exact same way the stats for the other characters are built. Giving him more stats is risking to make it unbalanced. Just allowing us to allocate freely the stats of the eidolon would be enough.
Speed 30 feet, fly 30 feet
Movement: If movement is ok for an animal companion, it should be fine for an eidolon.
An eidolon is (or at least should be) nearly as much powerful as another character in term of fighting power while an AC is (or should be) way less powerful than that. Giving unlimited flight to the eidolon at level 1 would be game breaking (trivialize skill challenge and melee-only fight).
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My changes to the summoner class would be
1) To change expert eidolon unarmed defense to first level.
2) To only roll once on an area effect save that catches both eidolon and summoner in an area effect spell. Use the saving throw bonus of the summoner. I would also give the eidolon the same saving throw bonuses as the summoner (it wouldn't calculate it's own saves).
3) Add an ability or feat that allows the summoner to remain at 1 HP as a reaction if the eidolon goes to 0 hp once per day. The eidolon is still dismissed.
1. Yes, good.
2. Interesting... it does greatly simplify things, and means that things like Canny Acumen become more valuable on the Summoner.
3. This seems like a useful safety valve that straddles the line between 'bonded creature' and 'separate entity' nicely.
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3) Add an ability or feat that allows the summoner to remain at 1 HP as a reaction if the eidolon goes to 0 hp once per day. The eidolon is still dismissed.
I greatly enjoy this from both a mechanical and thematic perspective. I believe something like this getting throw in as a part of the level 1 package just feels incredibly right.
3) Add an ability or feat that allows the summoner to remain at 1 HP as a reaction if the eidolon goes to 0 hp once per day. The eidolon is still dismissed.I greatly enjoy this from both a mechanical and thematic perspective. I believe something like this getting throw in as a part of the level 1 package just feels incredibly right.
Something like an Orc's ferocity? Sounds good to me. Making sure to specify only if the eidolon is the one getting hurt here. Allowing the summoner to be reckless and wander into a trap and live with 1 hp while the eidolon stands by would not look good for most of the party.
You could even flavor it as the summoner dismisses the eidolon at the last second before it dies completely.
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Eidolon’s designed like animal companion.
Eidolon Trait: The summoner can spend 1 action to give the eidolon 2 actions or 2 actions to give the Eidolon 3 actions.
Not against this being the case, but it has been stated by Mark that they are trying to avoid allowing a Summoner/Eidolon to each take a 2-action activity in the same turn, as 2-action activities are intended to be balanced around only having one be useable per turn (source) so if they're balancing Eidolons in that way, I think the suggestion Mark levies in that thread would be the ideal update. (Act together becomes 1-to-3 actions that one character can use for an activity, and the other character takes a free 1-act in conjunction; its earlier in the thread.)
(If you're wondering why Animal Companions can 2 action activity in conjunction with the druid, they were were likely balanced to be worth the 1 action command cost.)
Why would the developers think that giving two actions to the summoner and two actions to the eidolon when the summoner cannot boost eidolon in the same round he does this would be imbalanced? The eidolon does weak damage without boost eidolon. The summoner already has severe limitations on the class in terms of slower DC/attack roll progression, very few spell slots, and very low damage when not using boost.
This doesn't seem to make mathematical sense to me. How many different limits are they going to place on the Summoner class before it becomes so limited as to not be fun or competitive?
I am left to wonder.
I will keep working on my own thing. Then test the class against other classes to see how it does. Right now the summoner feels immensely limited and under-tuned.
My goal is less about "skill challenges" being important and more about eidolons being conceptually appropriate and interesting and the overall class being balanced in combat on the higher end. Closer to overall druid and barbarian capabilities, less monk capability.
The numbers in real play will guide me over arbitrary and overly limiting design rules.
Eidolon’s designed like animal companion.
Eidolon Trait: The summoner can spend 1 action to give the eidolon 2 actions or 2 actions to give the Eidolon 3 actions.
Not against this being the case, but it has been stated by Mark that they are trying to avoid allowing a Summoner/Eidolon to each take a 2-action activity in the same turn, as 2-action activities are intended to be balanced around only having one be useable per turn (source) so if they're balancing Eidolons in that way, I think the suggestion Mark levies in that thread would be the ideal update. (Act together becomes 1-to-3 actions that one character can use for an activity, and the other character takes a free 1-act in conjunction; its earlier in the thread.)
(If you're wondering why Animal Companions can 2 action activity in conjunction with the druid, they were were likely balanced to be worth the 1 action command cost.)
Why would the developers think that giving two actions to the summoner and two actions to the eidolon when the summoner cannot boost eidolon in the same round he does this would be imbalanced? The eidolon does weak damage without boost eidolon. The summoner already has severe limitations on the class in terms of slower DC/attack roll progression, very few spell slots, and very low damage when not using boost.
This doesn't seem to make mathematical sense to me. How many different limits are they going to place on the Summoner class before it becomes so limited as to not be fun or competitive?
I am left to wonder.I will keep working on my own thing. Then test the class against other classes to see how it does. Right now the summoner feels immensely limited and under-tuned.
My goal is less about "skill challenges" being important and more about eidolons being conceptually appropriate and interesting and the overall class being balanced in combat on the higher...
You did read the linked post right? Trying to avoid the double two action activities is not to limit what the class can and can't do and not because it's too damaging but because those actions tend to be the 'do three things for the price of two' and Mark would prefer to not have to add flourishes to the base class which being able to do that type of split action economy every turn would probably require.
Despite how you feel, think or calculate it, there IS reasoning behind these decisions and they are in no way 'arbitrary.'
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NO. The eidolon is not a second character. The eidolon + summoner are one character and shouldn't get more ressources than the other characters. That would eat way too much of the power budget of the class...
How does this account for an animal companion power budget where every other class can pick up an animal companion, but somehow it doesn't upset their power budget having a companion with a separate hit point pool?
Sorry, you're making up this power budget idea as being severely hampered by a second hit point pool. There are already enough limiters on the summoner without the hit point pool causing an imbalance.
Right now a druid has 28 spells on the base class per day versus 4 for the Summoner at lvl 20.
Druid has no shared MAP with an animal companion.
Druid has the same or better proficiencies than a summoner.
Druid has an animal companion with a separate hit point pool, high stats that don't even require item bonuses to be only 2 points behind hitting for the eidolon, and separate skills it can raise to master level on an animal companion with master on all saves.
The beastmaster allows any class to obtain an animal companion including powerful martial classes like the barbarian who need extra riches like Jeff Bezos needs more money.
But somehow an eidolon having a separate pool will ruin the budget because you think there is some arcane method the designers use to budget for power on a class? Ok. Let's just say it does not appear to be working very well beyond the Core Rulebook.
As far as I can see every class in the APG is weaker than Core RPG classes save for perhaps the monk. And the Secrets of Magic seems to be following that pattern with two of their PF1 power classes reduced in effectiveness to a shadow of what they once were.
At some point do you take off the handcuffs and let some of these classes in supplemental books test the higher end of the combat range or do you keep putting this overly large value on situationally applicable combat versatility in these power budgets?
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...Eidolon’s designed like animal companion.
Eidolon Trait: The summoner can spend 1 action to give the eidolon 2 actions or 2 actions to give the Eidolon 3 actions.
Not against this being the case, but it has been stated by Mark that they are trying to avoid allowing a Summoner/Eidolon to each take a 2-action activity in the same turn, as 2-action activities are intended to be balanced around only having one be useable per turn (source) so if they're balancing Eidolons in that way, I think the suggestion Mark levies in that thread would be the ideal update. (Act together becomes 1-to-3 actions that one character can use for an activity, and the other character takes a free 1-act in conjunction; its earlier in the thread.)
(If you're wondering why Animal Companions can 2 action activity in conjunction with the druid, they were were likely balanced to be worth the 1 action command cost.)
Why would the developers think that giving two actions to the summoner and two actions to the eidolon when the summoner cannot boost eidolon in the same round he does this would be imbalanced? The eidolon does weak damage without boost eidolon. The summoner already has severe limitations on the class in terms of slower DC/attack roll progression, very few spell slots, and very low damage when not using boost.
This doesn't seem to make mathematical sense to me. How many different limits are they going to place on the Summoner class before it becomes so limited as to not be fun or competitive?
I am left to wonder.I will keep working on my own thing. Then test the class against other classes to see how it does. Right now the summoner feels immensely limited and under-tuned.
My goal is less about "skill challenges" being important and more about eidolons being conceptually appropriate and interesting and the overall class being
I see what he is arguing. Suffice it to say that having that nova capability a few times per day would make the class far more interesting than it is. This nova capability is possessed at least one time a day for any class that can Quicken Spell.
It is a pretty easy fix. Write into the abilities that on a round where the eidolon uses an AoE magical attack like a breath weapon or AoE spell, the summoner cannot cast a spell due to the magical energies within the eidolon interfering with their ability to cast.
Then you can even use that to add a feat like Quicken Spell where the eidolon is and the summoner can jointly cast an AoE one time a day like quicken spell.
Easy addition. It won't be any more complicated than all the additional rules they added to classes like the Swashbuckler with Finishers, Oracle with curses, or the witch with with hexes. If they can add rules into those tags, they can easily add in a rule to prevent overuse of the nova attack between the eidolon and summoner.
Eidolon Trait: The summoner can spend 1 action to give the eidolon 2 actions or 2 actions to give the Eidolon 3 actions. The eidolon cannot spend a 2 action magical attack or spell in the same round a summoner casts a spell other than a cantrip as the magical energies are drawn from the same source.
Easy additional text added to prevent this nova abuse. Glad it was brought up.
The HP limit and shared actions being "balance" or "flavorful" just seems like people trying to justify the mechanic regardless of how many weird rule interactions it adds. Or how much it doesn't fit the Summoner class it self.
They are not supposed to have a death pact. Its supposed to be something the Summoner does to get an extra turn out of the Eidolon.
Seifter is contemplating a change to Act together to make the summoner the ultimate summoner. Now if he would give a Divine Font of summons equivalent, uber summoner army would be in place for maybe good fun.
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The HP limit and shared actions being "balance" or "flavorful" just seems like people trying to justify the mechanic regardless of how many weird rule interactions it adds. Or how much it doesn't fit the Summoner class it self.
They are not supposed to have a death pact. Its supposed to be something the Summoner does to get an extra turn out of the Eidolon.
Only Paizo gets to decide what a Summoner is 'supposed' to be.
The rest of us only get to state what we'd like.
Also, you're dismissing here the possibility that people actually like the mechanic and feel it fits like its a possibility, just because you personally don't think so. As if its not even possible that it does make sense to a large number of people, who legitimately feel it fits.
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The HP limit and shared actions being "balance" or "flavorful" just seems like people trying to justify the mechanic regardless of how many weird rule interactions it adds. Or how much it doesn't fit the Summoner class it self.
They are not supposed to have a death pact. Its supposed to be something the Summoner does to get an extra turn out of the Eidolon.
I don't think that's what people have been saying at all. Personally I like the shared hp because it's a unique mechanic that no other class in the game gets. It allows for new and unusual ways of doing things. Not explicitly because of balance and flavor, but both of those ARE considerations as well, so please don't belittle opinions talking about them.
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Why is the Eidolon having a separate HP pool bad for balance? Specially when the Summoner already only gets 4 spells and they can never get 10th level spells (which the druid I mentioned does get).
Temperans, not one of your examples of a seperate HP pool is tied to an element that has player character capabilities (an Eidolon can do anything a player can do, unlike an Animal Companion or Familiar) - making attacks isn't the only important thing. An Eidolon can stabilize a dieing Ally or open a door, in addition to having a full range of combat capabilities.
Moreover, none of the other things with a separate hp pools have the level of combat ability an Eidolon does. As it currently stands, it significantly outclasses an Animal Companion and I know myself and most players hope that it will still be tuned slightly upwards so that it doesn't lag behind players with lower starting and final stats.
Theres simply no way its fine for it to bring player capabilities alongside another players worth of effective hitpoints. An Eidolon is not equivalent to your other examples of separate hitpoint pools - its superior in pretty much every other way.
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Heck a Druid Beastmaster with a Leshy familiar and a Shield would have 5 HP pools. 1 Druid, 1 Druid Companion, 1 Beastmaster Companion, 1 Leshy familiar, 1 Shield. Meanwhile, Druid still has full casting. Do people complain about that for being too broke? Because I have never heard anyone complain about that combination. Heck that Druid can still get Effortless concentration and sustain 2 Summon Creature spells. Thats now 7 HP pools.
It's important to note that all of these options are "opt in." The druid player in question who created their character chose this level of complexity. They're also still constrained by action economy while the summoner is looking to work around that mechanically. I'm not going to say that untying the HP pools changes that, but it's a consideration. What benefits are given with tied HP and what are the drawbacks?
Any new player should be able to pick up a class and play it without having any more extra cognitive load. Obviously there's going to be variance (spell prep vs flurry, for instance), but making sure that a baseline ability for a class is clean from a design perspective isn't something to be discounted.
I think it's interesting that it's often brought up that players can handle more complicated choices. I mean, they absolutely can. I would say that most of us on these forums have no problem with just about any mechanic. But I also am far more interested in this game than my players, who show up for beer and laughs. The number of times I've been asked, "Is that a d20 roll?" by people who have been playing the system for a long while is... well, not surprising. To so many, this game is just another board game or social gathering. The rules are there for them, but they aren't there to learn the system. They show up to play "Garlock the dashing swashbuckler."
What I'm saying is, starting with a baseline level of simplicity and allowing players to add in as much complexity as they feel they need seems to be the plan. I believe Jason Bulmahn even stated it outright during the original playtest.
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Together the class is weaker than all other classes with few redeeming qualities and is in desperate need of a buff.
And rather than address those issues, you have decided that the HP pool is the problem?
I didnt mean to belittle Sedoriku. But I do think that just because its new doesn't mean it should be used.
It felt that way, personally. Sorry if I offended. But again, there are multiple ways to gain another hit point pool, but no way to share one. This is a new and unique way to do this.
And just because there are examples of separate hit points pools in precedence doesn't mean it should be used.
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Together the class is weaker than all other classes with few redeeming qualities and is in desperate need of a buff.
Its weaker than any of them, because it has twice the focus area of any of them.
Its slightly weaker than a martial, and slightly weaker than a caster...
But its both of those at once. Being almost a martial and almost a caster at the same time is a huge benefit.
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So its not a matter of being more simple, just different for the sake of being different. And to me that is not enough justification to keep a rule.
Because you've brought this into every thread, I'm just linking to make my life easier. Do you remember this?
Your response was this, which still ignores the fact that there are numerous reasons to keep/use/playtest the mechanic. It just so happens that you don't like those reasons, so you've chosen to ignore them.
You can not like HP pools, but people can also say, "Oh hey, here are the reasons for it." Like, something not meeting your standards does not equate to being incorrect wrong-bad-fun.
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Why would the developers think that giving two actions to the summoner and two actions to the eidolon when the summoner cannot boost eidolon in the same round he does this would be imbalanced? The eidolon does weak damage without boost eidolon. The summoner already has severe limitations on the class in terms of slower DC/attack roll progression, very few spell slots, and very low damage when not using boost.
Its pretty clear that they do. That seems to be the whole reason behind act together and tandom move. You can't get a two action activity each.
but you can get 2 single actions on one and 3 single actions on the other.I guess two action is a spell or a significant combat maneuver and that feels like a primary attack. So they don't want you both to be able to do it in the same round. If two actions each were possible, with the right evolutions you could both cast fireball in the one round.
A not unreasonable concern.
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I'm reasonably happy with Deriven's proposal
The action system is far simpler. The complexity of the playtest version is an issue.
But I think you need to keep the MAP penalty and also a rule that the Summoner and Eidolon can't both cast spells in the same round.
Because balance. Make it a property of the Eidolon.
Automatic scaling of your cantrip is good. But don't over do it. I'd probably spread some of that over feats. The Eidolon has to be able to cope a little with out it.
NO. The eidolon is not a second character. The eidolon + summoner are one character and shouldn't get more ressources than the other characters. That would eat way too much of the power budget of the class...How does this account for an animal companion power budget where every other class can pick up an animal companion, but somehow it doesn't upset their power budget having a companion with a separate hit point pool?
Sorry, you're making up this power budget idea as being severely hampered by a second hit point pool. There are already enough limiters on the summoner without the hit point pool causing an imbalance.
Right now a druid has 28 spells on the base class per day versus 4 for the Summoner at lvl 20.
Druid has no shared MAP with an animal companion.
Druid has the same or better proficiencies than a summoner.
Druid has an animal companion with a separate hit point pool, high stats that don't even require item bonuses to be only 2 points behind hitting for the eidolon, and separate skills it can raise to master level on an animal companion with master on all saves.
The beastmaster allows any class to obtain an animal companion including powerful martial classes like the barbarian who need extra riches like Jeff Bezos needs more money.
But somehow an eidolon having a separate pool will ruin the budget because you think there is some arcane method the designers use to budget for power on a class? Ok. Let's just say it does not appear to be working very well beyond the Core Rulebook.
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I agree. but I was hoping that the Eidolon would be a bit stronger than the Animal Companion so if I have to get a MAP, I'll take it.
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Again, mediocrity should not be a desired goal; If a Druid can do what a Summoner can do mechanically but better or more efficiently, that's quite a problem.
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Outclassing an animal companion is not hard. They are not meant to be the focus point of none of those classes. Just an extra you can do.
The Eidolon + Summoner needs to be as strong as a martial or caster. The eidolon using boost Eidolon is currently barely as strong as the Monk or Rogue. Both of which are the weakest martials for damage. The Summoner has less spell slots than all other classes even spellcasting archetypes, and they cap at master proficiency.
Together the class is weaker than all other classes with few redeeming qualities and is in desperate need of a buff.
I don't think the rogue is a weak damage dealer. Both a thief and a ruffian have been among the highest damage dealers in the groups I've seen in them. Sneak Attack is very easy to set up once you obtain Gang Up.
You could argue that the rogue is limited in so far as he must coordinate with another PC to set up his attacks, but doing that is very worthwhile for damage. A rogue has a lot of effective roles in the group dynamic and does more damage than a monk.
Monk from what I have seen of the numbers in the group dynamic is just above a sword and shield user out of the martials. That is where the summoner was.
In the group I was playing in the summoner using boost eidolon was the 3rd best damage dealer out of the martials with a swashbuckler and precision ranger archer with animal companion. The other two classes were ahead by quite a wide margin as was the druid with the animal companion.
When the barbarian is usually in that group, he is often the best damage dealer save for good AoE rounds by the druid where she pulls substantially ahead. When I substituted the current iteration of the summoner using boost eidolon his damage was substantially lower than the barbarian to where the rest of the party noticed it and our kill speed was much slower leading to us taking higher damage.
I immediately switched back to the barbarian. It was too much of a drop off in group effectiveness to use the angel summoner in place of the barbarian. It leads me back to my conclusion that at times there is too much of a premium placed on situational versatility when designing some of these classes. Situational versatility is only useful if it can be applied to a combat. Absent a serious hazard, then most groups using Medicine can handwave serious hazards or problems like climbing until they are finished regardless of how long it takes. I really hope hazards or skill challenges allowing for nearly no chance of true, module derailing failure are not part of this "power budget' that is presumed by some.
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Again, mediocrity should not be a desired goal; If a Druid can do what a Summoner can do mechanically but better or more efficiently, that's quite a problem.Have you played with an animal companion at levels 5+? An animal companion is a movable wall of meat that occasionally buffs your attacks. And while they're quite good at what they do an eidolon should be more than that, and already is. The eidolon might need changes to make it even more because of how easy it is to get a companion, but it is not being out shown by one now.
It is true that the eidolon itself is better than an animal companion. I do not argue this part. The math on this is clear, especially with boost eidolon.
But what is also true with clear math is that the druid with animal companion combined is far more effective than a summoner and his eidolon. In fact, nearly any class with an animal companion is more effective than a summoner and his eidolon.
Animal companions are very popular in my group for rangers. Easy extra damage and tanking for a handful of feats. No brainer.
Flurry ranger does more damage with animal companion eidolon and summoner.
Precision Archer same.
Storm druid with animal companion the same.
If I have multiple classes clearly more effective than the combined package of a summoner and his eidolon, then that class becomes less attractive to play and isn't very well balanced. So far I'm seeing an eidolon even using boost as one of the weakest damage dealers among the martial classes. Since the summoner will be competing for martial spots in a group, it's important they compete in that group. They are not casters and cannot compete with casters for group spots.
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I didnt mean to belittle Sedoriku. But I do think that just because its new doesn't mean it should be used.
There are a lot of people that say its good because of flavor. But then old life link is literally what they had. Some say its because balance. But then there are a ton of ways to get multiple hp pools and those dont break the game. Familiars, Animal Companions, Summoned Monsters, Shields.
Heck a Druid Beastmaster with a Leshy familiar and a Shield would have 5 HP pools. 1 Druid, 1 Druid Companion, 1 Beastmaster Companion, 1 Leshy familiar, 1 Shield. Meanwhile, Druid still has full casting. Do people complain about that for being too broke? Because I have never heard anyone complain about that combination. Heck that Druid can still get Effortless concentration and sustain 2 Summon Creature spells. Thats now 7 HP pools.
Why is the Eidolon having a separate HP pool bad for balance? Specially when the Summoner already only gets 4 spells and they can never get 10th level spells (which the druid I mentioned does get).
Having multiple HP pools isn’t what’s broken, it’s multiple HP pool and Old Life Link that was broken.
All of those examples you gave? They have to be healed like every other character normally, the Druid doesn’t get an option to siphon their health off as reaction if they feel like it to instantly heal their compassion(s), that saves on so much action economy it’s kinda obscene.
The new version of Lifelink maintains the feel without allowing for that brokenness and callousness of treating your eidolon as disposable, both pluses in My view.
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And yeah I don’t really get where people keep using Rogues and Monks as low benchmarks, in this edition they’re really good.
The only “weak” martial we have is Investigator, but if you were wanting to do a lot of damage, you wouldn’t pick that class to begin with. You play Investigator for the cool Investigator stuff.
And yeah I don’t really get where people keep using Rogues and Monks as low benchmarks, in this edition they’re really good.
The only “weak” martial we have is Investigator, but if you were wanting to do a lot of damage, you wouldn’t pick that class to begin with. You play Investigator for the cool Investigator stuff.
I have found monk damage to be greatly over-shadowed by every other class as they level up. The damage seems ok when you start out and then clearly becomes weaker as other classes start to obtain damage enhancing abilities that the monk doesn't scale up to.
Now the rogue is fine. He scales well and is extremely useful. I would put rogue on the upper end of group martials. You have a well-built, well-played rogue in your group and you will know it and know when they are gone. Now a monk you won't care if they're there one way or the other. They don't add a lot to the group.
The monk would be easily fixed by making ki strike a 1 minute duration focus spell affecting one flurry per round. Ki Strike as a focus spell for 1 flurry per combat is good at low level, but doesn't scale well at all and severely impedes the monks ability to use focus points on other abilities. If it had a duration of 1 minute, it would only impede him until he gained the ability to regain multiple focus points between battles. Then he could activate his Ki Strike to maintain scaling damage and work in other ki abilities like the ki burst ability or quivering palm.
How is old life link more broken than the duck taped mess that is the current rule being used?
It literally the same as every class with a companion with a single additional rule. Unlike the 3+ different rules in the current version not counting all the weird exceptions and weird rule interactios it has.
I don't think you need life link with 3 of the 4 options having available heals. You could add in a focus spell heal or hit point transfer. I would just create the two hit point pools and let the summoner figure out how to keep it alive, same as they have to do right now with a shared hit point pool and no means to self-heal without using 1 of their 4 spell slots or hoping the cleric helps them.
I don't think you need life link with 3 of the 4 options having available heals. You could add in a focus spell heal or hit point transfer. I would just create the two hit point pools and let the summoner figure out how to keep it alive, same as they have to do right now with a shared hit point pool and no means to self-heal without using 1 of their 4 spell slots or hoping the cleric helps them.
Even though life link was in the original summoner it always felt like a side effect of the insane eidolon health rules. Not a core principle. But a way to balance the wierd complex hit point situation, and the strange rules about normal heals not working on Eidolons
the strange rules about normal heals not working on Eidolons
What do you mean by this? I don't remember anything wonky with healing magic on an eidolon.
the strange rules about normal heals not working on EidolonsWhat do you mean by this? I don't remember anything wonky with healing magic on an eidolon.
He may mean the way it disappeared on zero and couldn't be summoned until the next day. In PF1 if your eidolon went down, it was down for the count until the next day you got it back with half-hit points and had to heal it up. You eventually got some decent eidolon heal spells, but at lower level the life link was pretty essential to keeping it from disappearing for the day. You also got a spell to temporarily summon your eidolon back.
That's why I don't care much about the life link. It was a low level fix for a weird hit point issue that eventually became a non-issue as the eidolon gained more hit points and you had more powerful and effective heals.
I'd rather it just have a separate hit point pool and follow the dying rules like the animal companion. The summoner can heal it with medicine or spells to keep it alive with maybe something like the spirit link spell which is cooler than life link as a focus option for a non-divine caster.
Also there's the lack of natural healing, so unless you have a healing spell or wand, there's no way to get more than half hit points on your eidolon, even after a week of down time.