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First things first, let me preface this by saying I want this to be the very best. Also, there will be memes.
I have ran a game as Summoner finally, and am pleased to say the general playtest feel mostly aligns with my impressions, which were overall positive. However, where I found Magus to be flavorfully satisfying but mechanically lacking, Summoner is the opposite - mechanically great, but could use some extra salt.
Context first: We ran a lv9 homebrew adventure, using two magi and two summoners. For the summoners, we went in very different directions - I ran a pokemon master style summoner focused on summoning and buffing, while my buddy was a tag team melee summoner. Each had its own positives and negatives.
The styles
My "pokemon master" was a smol gnome summoner with angel eidolon (TK & Angemon from now on). Some asked me if Angemon felt lackluster because the angel abilities seem much more passive, but no. It felt very much as strong and useful as BYWD. The passive abilities simply meant there was less variety in my attacks, and what little edge BYWD had in area effects I covered in immunising people from flanked. Boosting was done almost all the time, and my magic was tendentially kept on the down low and only used when specifically convenient (such as by using Holy Cascade on a group of undead).
My buddy was a tall slender elf with a dragon eidolon (Kaiba & BYWD from now on). For most of the time, they played as a tag team, giving each other flanking and fighting. Eidolon Boost was not as used, but they worked effectively and managed to pull some neat trick (Act Together with Intimidate, for example, or to grapple). Magic was, again, used sparingly.
I have generally found that most of my actions were used towards the Eidolon side, with TK being normally reduced to a single action (Boost Eidolon from Act Together) and only taking more when in need of repositioning or when occasionally casting a spell. I don't mind this, because it was a deliberate choice and I saw Kaiba being a lot more balanced in his action distribution, but there is little encouragement for a third, "summoner-centric" style in the playtest. Synthesist could probably be meant to fullfill this niche, but it was not playtested, and from plain reads it does not feel like it would - if anything, it removes the summoner element, and looks generally like a high price to remove the vulnerable half of your character at the expense of boosts and magic.
The Eidolons
Both were effective, strong, and valuable in their own way, and they fit their role very well. In fact, they fit their role almost exactly in the same way.
While there is value in having standardised statlines (no Eidolon is straight up better than the other), the abilities are not enough to distinguish them, and the evolutions tend to feel either too minor or too situational to truly make them stand out. Having two summoners felt like having two characters, but having two eidolons felt like sharing the same feature. In particular, Angemon and BYWD's attacks shared the same attack modifier, damage (with 1 situational point of difference) and traits, and no evolution allowed to distinguish them in a meaningful way. Unarmed Evolution seemed to be a step in the right direction, but Disarm is very niche, Nonlethal suffers from murderhoboism, Shove and Trip are much less effective when talking about an eidolon which likely has hands, and versatile helps making up not having secondary attacks, but eidolons have secondary attacks. These traits would fit well as a second choice if the feat gave a more meaningful first option, but that's not the case.
The shared action and HP pool were perfectly fine and I did not mind them at all, but there was some question on treat wound multi-targeting and the occasional odd interaction. One thing that I definitely learned was not to walk both summoner and eidolon through a wall of fire.
Conduit Spells
I abused the hell out of Boost, and Kaiba managed to still do well without spamming it all the time. Evolution Surge was used for gaining reach and a good way to fill a turn, and while not exactly top tier it's a good baseline power. Reinforce also seems solid, and Unfetter is more of a situational deal which I could see as good for a sneakier eidolon or the like.
If anything, we could use more powers -perhaps something a bit less situational- to justify the existence of multi-focus feats.
Feats
There was some question on nesting Tandem action (ex. can I Tandem Move while Acting Together?) which the doc does not address very well. Some feats seem to be made to work in a certain way but suffer from poor interaction, such as Ostentatious Arrival, which specifically refers to manifesting an Eidolon - but Manifesting has no range, making it a pretty poor choice to trigger it. A lot of evolutions are good but minor, and struggle to find their power. The higher level feats seem to be a lot better off, and there is a pattern of lackluster low-level caster feats in most casting classes, but Summoner is not a pure caster and should probably be made to feel a bit more impactful, especially considering what noted above. The lack of any benefit from Large eidolons was particularly disappointing (but Huge grants reach so that was good).
4-spell progression
I stated that the 4-slot progression felt fine on Magus as it gave impactful magic. It does not feel as good on Summoner.
The reason is that Magus is a prepared caster, and if needed he can alter his spells to fit a different situation, or use situational spells. Summoner is not prepared, and does not have such luxury. Even what little secondary casting I could get (Magical Evolution) is much weaker than the Magus' correspondant (Martial Caster). The combination of narrow spell selection and small spell pool contributed to both generalism and potion syndrome, meaning I felt discouraged to choose narrow application spells but at the same time from using them too often (or at all, really). A similar feeling seems to have led Kaiba's choices. Staves, while normally a good way to expand a spontaneous' repertoire, were used in basically standard form, because I certainly did not have the slots to spare.
As an additional note, Angemon gave me the Divine spell list. I ran a Warpriest before, and the biggest value I found in Divine spells back then was in leveraging self-only buffs (mostly defensive ones) to support my frontline capabilities. I could not do so with Summoner, because my magic was on TK and my frontline was on Angemon. Being able to use self-only spells as Touch on an Eidolon, even as a feat, could very much help in expanding the applicability of the various spell lists.
As I said, this was mechanically a very good class to play and very interesting.
It just needs to also generate a more individual character, and gain some personal flavour.
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i experienced almost exactly the opposite in most of your examples. interesting.
i find the summoner mechanically lacking and the magus flavorfully lacking outside a couple feats.
the only real variation in my rounds as a summoner were if i couldnt attackx2+boost+reinforce, normally due to movement. other than that, thats all i did, beasts charge? nope (i used beast eidolon), and the variation actually lowered for me when i took the ranged attacking eidolon feat. wich was interesting but looking back i suppose kind of an obvious outcome.
my eidolon felt weak, as did my summoner.
feats in the mid levels were good, but every feat for 16/18/20 i actualy avoided for feats level 12 and under as i saw them both more useful and more powerful.
i did not feel i had room to use variety in my spells as a magus.
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attackx2+boost+reinforce
Just hit the buttons on the controller... A,B,B,C every round with a D tossed in for movement. Yep, that's pretty much it and it never really seemed as good a 'normal' class just using 3 actions to me. For instance, when I play a class with an animal companion, it feels like I'm getting more out of it than individual creatures: the sum greater than it's parts. Summoner seems less than it's parts, with the summoner working twice as hard to get 2 attacks out of the Eidolon and not having any actions left for themselves.
magus flavorfully lacking
Yep. it's basics work but there isn't much else. It needs more activities to do instead of just spellstrike: throw some 1 action attacks in that also strike, some 1 action cantrips and/or focus spells to liven things up. As it is, it's a one trick pony. The spellstrike could use a bit of rework to remove the crit fishing element to instead buff the chances the spell lands too.
Ediwir,
Thank you for the playtest report. Well written and presented.