| siegfriedliner |
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So at the moment it seems that the best thing a summoner that is native to his class is cast boost or reinforce. These are functional activities but not particulary exciting.
So here comes the problem/ not problem depending on your frame of mind. The summoner really benefits far more than other other classes for fishing for better things to do from arctypes. Arctypes like the medic, the beast master, the Bard offer powerful one action effects and any of the spellcasting Multiclass arctype can pretty much double your spellcasting.
So me personally I would like a few more neat single actions you could do natively to the summoner without adventuring into arctypes does anyone have any good ideas of stuff that would fit the bill.
| KrispyXIV |
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So, rather than boost or reinforce I'd say the most "fun" option currently in the class for me is Evolution Surge.
It shrinks battlefields and overcomes obstacles on demand, and I think it has potential for development and expansion.
I really wish the developer described "Eidolon Focus Spells" had made it into the playtest, because it sounds like based on their description that they may actually address a lot of peoples concerns in this sort of category.
Beyond that though, there are currently a few potent tricks in class - like Transpose, for example.
We could certainly use more.
That said, I dont know that you can get away from the "Summoners are good at archetypes" thing, simply because so many benefit from the Summoners generally enhanced action economy (unlike monk action economy, which is generally limited to a subset of actions). I dont know this is a real problem... but it definitely sets a higher bar (and therefore a harder, more narrow target) for making Summoner feats potent and interesting.
Falgaia
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Honestly, I think my favorite weird quirk I've discovered so far in the playtest was Scout Eidolon paired with a Loremaster Summoner. Scout Eidolon can Stealth ahead of the party while Loremaster can use their boosted Any Lore to recall knowledge about what the Eidolon sees through Share Senses.
That and Beastmaster Summoner pulling off 5 attacks after moving their pets in to flank. That might have been my favorite turn I've taken in recent memory even if it might have been "subpar" mathematically due to lacking Boost. E Haste Stride, E Aact Together Stride, S Act Together Command an Animal, AC Cat Pounce (stride into flank and Attack), AC Strike again, E Draconic Frenzy the now flanked target for 3 strikes. Perfect turn, imo.
| Alchemic_Genius |
I'm honestly at a weird place with the summoner in terms of its native abilities. Just looking at the chassis, it actually extremely exciting to me. The eidolon gets good enough proficiencies that it can meaningfully fight, the summoner's casting ability feels like a comfortable in between of a multi class caster and a full caster, evolution surge is a wildly fun focus spell, and since the eidolon gets all of your skills and the ability to use the aid reaction, it can even help out a bit with skills. There's really never a time where the summoner can't contribute something to the adventure, and I love that.
That said, it's early level class feats just don't honestly feel super exciting. I don't think they are weak, exactly, and I do actually dig the evolutions-as-feats approach, but few of them actually grant new actions, and are mostly just passive buffs. Now, there's nothing wrong with eidolon buffs (especially with things that grant new movement types), but I was kinda hoping to see evolutions that granted the eidolon access to new actions, like Grab, or a power attack kinda thing, or the ability to envenom it's next attack, and so forth. The unarmed evolution also feels pretty limited in terms of the traits you can add to your battle monster.
The summon focused metamagic feats look really cool, as well as boost summons, but are severely hampered by not having access to 10th levels and only having 2 max level summons a day.
I feel the later summoner feat don't have this issue; transpose, protective bond, summoner's call, transmorgify, and twin eidolon all add some seriously cool tools into your kit. Permanent fly speeds are really fun. Eidolon's Avatar actually seems pretty neat, granting a get out of jail free card and that commune boost (I'm personally a huge fan of rituals, and commune was one of my favorite divination spells in 1e, so there might be some bias), though I'm not really sure how strong it is compared to other 20th level feats