[Warning: long text, TL;DR at the end] My thoughts on why the summoner might feel uninteresting and a possible way to fix it.

[Hikiomaru]

I think the summoner is a pretty interesting class, with a fantasy capable of delivering lots of different concepts and with the attractive of being highly customizable. That being said, the summoner that we have in this playtest in my opinion feels kinda "off".

Altough there are things that look pretty good, like the possibility of flavouring your eidolon like whatever concept you have in mind with the standarization of "it's whatever you want to say it is, it just does 1d8" not constraining concepts with evolutions that feel more like manacles instead of giving freedom, or getting it's magic attacks from your own weapons continuing on the same direction of not putting superfluous evolutions that i think is a total succes, a lot of people have voiced that this iteration of the summoner seems... Uninteresting, and that's where i think the problem is.

It's not as much a problem of balance as a problem of the summoner feeling bland and generic, like knowing that the summoner is cool but feeling like it lacks "something". It's curious that while this iteration gives us a lot more freedom on how we picture our eidolon being (your angel can be a iconic sword wielding planetar-like while mine can be a ball of light with 4 wings), it ends up feeling like "they're all the same".

A lot has been talked about how to make the summoner get around that stone in the way, but it seems to be focusing on two things mainly; making more and more different base eidolons, and trying to implement some sort of evolution point system. And while i agree with the first (more eidolon types with different defining and diverse abilities) i kinda disagree with the latter. Evolutions are a cool and unique concept, and should be part of the summoner, but we are talking about the PF2 summoner here, doing a carbon copy of the PF1 summoner is missing an opportunity for new exciting twists in desing.

The problem comes, in my opinion, from the generalist role that the summoner takes whithout exceling in anything (which makes it difficult to stand out in a game) and from the disjointed connection that the summoner and the eidolon have now, each one feeling like simply a "placeholder fighter" and "placeholder buffer" and both together feelling like almost less than the sum of it's parts (shouldn't the concept of the summoner be the exact opposite?).

So, all that said i started thinking, what could make it interesting? What mechanic could be used that, while maintaining the generalist role of the summoner, could make up for that lack of “distinction” and also be a source of customization? And i think we have it right here with tandem actions.

The tandem actions represent a part of that “special connection” that the summoner and the eidolon have, acting in consonance with each other in such a way that they produce effects greater than their separate actions. Now that is unique, that screams “we are not just two separate beings, we are a whole” but the tandem actions that we have right now feel like just actions needed to fix the summoner’s action economy. And while those are necessary, what if we delve deeper in the tandem actions in order to create something that’s unique and stands out as “the summoner thing”?

In a game without teamwork feats like PF2 is, this tandem actions can do effects that no one can replicate and that can buff the summoner while making him more interesting and not overpowered. We could add to the differentiation of the eidolons with those too, giving special tandem actions for each specific eidolon as we level up.
For example choosing a phantom could grant you a special tandem action at X lvl that improves a skill check in some way representing the phantom discussing with you with her knowledge of previous life, a beast one could give you the ability to make two combat maneuvers contributing to the MAP only once representing a primal “takedown” style or whatever better and more interesting things than this designers can find (which is not so hard considering my own design ability), giving more things to the eidolon/summoner as it levels up and making each eidolon subtype feel more special, maybe opening different summoner styles (if one of those actions makes us able to attack both improving only once the MAP or giving a bonus, you could be interested in spending resources on better armors and weapons and go in the front to fight back to back with your eidolon for example) or opening new niches for new eidolon subtypes that could feel boring otherwise, like a possible twinned eidolon ala PF1 that can use our feats with a tandem action, while also putting something special into the summoner that her PF1 counterpart doesn’t have.

I could be talking total nonsense as this is just an idea that just sparked or someone else could already have talked about this. If that’s the case sorry, but if this can spark a good debate and maybe contribute to people giving new ideas that’s all i wanted.

So, what do you think of that approach?

TL;DR: The summoner might feel more special and the eidolons feel more unique if we focus on the tandem actions system that the playtest introduced with more different actions that do effects that surpass the simple “action economy fixer” gating some of those to progression with a specific eidolon subptype

[Gortle]

I do agree that the "choose whatever you want it just does 1d8" does seem to not have the flavour I'd like. No doubt some rule like this has to be in the design to give it balance. It would be nice if there were some options with a little more variety.

The converse of this is you get situation where certain abilities are only available for certains paths - like in PF1 you couldn't ride your biped who had bought extra legs, you had to go with a quadraped.
I hope that Paizo will have a bit more look at the detail when they finalize the design.

Actual weapon use option would be good.

[Gortle]

Tandem actions are a good idea. I don't see them as compulsory but just like the Rangers Side by Side, a few more of these would add to the game.

Tandem Move - really just seems like an action economy fix and probably should be part of the base class.

Some form of special tandem attack should exist and would be cool.

But I don't see it as the core of the class, just an Option. In my head the Summoner should be about a dangerous monster up front with a weaker summoner behind.

[Dubious Scholar]

Gortle wrote:

I do agree that the "choose whatever you want it just does 1d8" does seem to not have the flavour I'd like. No doubt some rule like this has to be in the design to give it balance. It would be nice if there were some options with a little more variety.

The converse of this is you get situation where certain abilities are only available for certains paths - like in PF1 you couldn't ride your biped who had bought extra legs, you had to go with a quadraped.
I hope that Paizo will have a bit more look at the detail when they finalize the design.

Actual weapon use option would be good.

See, I'm a huge fan of the pick whatever it's 1d8 compared to 1e, where you had a ton of slightly different options that had their own compatibility quirks with other abilities.

It was always annoying to try and model some ideas in 1e because of that setup (and costs, but). While I can't perfectly make a dragon in 2e, I don't have to fight against a budget or anything for it, I just pick which attacks I'll actually use (also, extra attack evolution please).