Summoner

[Verzen]

I was told to put up or shut up with my criticism of the Summoner in the playtest. These are just mechanical concepts I've spent the day working on.

Tell me what ya'll think... It's not nearly complete yet nor is it "presentable" but these are just the backbone I have working off of for right now.

Synthesis/Eidolon focused (They get evolution points)/Summon Monster focused
HP 6 (for summoner)
HP 8 (for Eidolon)
Summoner gains trained light armored defense at level 1, expert light armored defense at level 7, mastered unarmored defense at 13.
Summoner gains expert simple weapons at level 5, master simple weapons at level 13.

Summon Monster focused
Summoners Font (2 actions)
You can cast a Summon spell who's level is equal to half your level, minimum 1 an amount equal to 1 + cha per day
Empower Summoning (Focus spell) (1 action)
You augment the abilities of a summoned creature. The target gains a +1 status bonus to all checks (this also applies to the creature's DC's, including its AC) for the duration of its summoning, up to 1 minute.
Heightened (+2): The status bonus increases by +1.

Synthesis Focused
Gain the Manifest Synthesis action
Manifest Synthesis
You merge forms with your Eidolon and become something more than either one of you were as individuals. Increase your HD to 10 HD per level. You gain all Eidolon traits, proficiencies and evolutions associated with your Eidolon, including creature type, attacks, defenses, and special abilities. You keep the physical stats of your Eidolon and the mental stats of the summoner or vice versa (Chosen at level 1 and cannot be changed). When you gain a stat boost at 5, 10, 15, 20, you instead provide two boosts to the summoner and two boosts to the synthesis.
The summoner and the Eidolon is intricately linked and never unmanifests itself from the Synthesis unless unmanifested by the summoner.
You gain an additional action per turn while attached to your Synthesis that can only be used for focus spells or focus cantrips.
Choose two skills for the Eidolon. When you manifest your Synthesis you gain those two skills.

Eidolon Focused
You manifest an Eidolon with 8HD and has 2 actions. The tenuous strain of having control over an Eidolon causes the Summoner to gain slowed 1 as a permanent condition while their Eidolon is Manifested.

Gain the Manifest Eidolon action (3 actions)
Manifest an Eidolon in an adjacent square as you.

Gain the Life Link reaction (As a summoner reaction)
All damage dealt to the Eidolon until the end of the turn is dealt to the Summoner instead.

Your Eidolon gains the Suppress Power action (1 action)
The Eidolon can remove the slowed 1 condition from the Summoner due to this link until end of turn. If they have another slowed condition from a different source, that slowed condition is not removed.
At level's 5/10/15/20 when you boost stats, distribute the stats 4 times to your Eidolon and 4 times to your Summoner.

Eidolon
The Eidolon gains
HD:8
Your Eidolon gains a stat array of 18/16/14/12/10/8. Choose how to distribute these stats in any way you wish.
expert unarmored defense at level 1, master unarmored defense at level 13,
expert unarmed attack at level 5, master unarmed attack at level 13.
Pick two saves. Your Eidolon is an Expert in both those saves.
At level 7, pick a save to go from expert to master. Increase a save to go from trained to expert.
At level 13, pick a save to go from expert to master.
At level 17, pick a save to go from master to legendary and another save to go from expert to master.
At level 1...
Pick a creature type. Your Eidolon is considered any one of the creatures listed from the creature type.
Choose two different common simple or martial weapons. Your Eidolon gains the damage and the traits associated with that weapon, but the attack itself can be described as anything associated with your Eidolon. One of these attacks can instead of traded for 1d6 damage of an energy type of your choice or 1d4 damage if ranged.
Each Eidolon gains evolution points to spend at your leisure. These evolution points, once spent, cannot be changed. The Eidolon gains 2 evolution point per odd level that can be distributed as it wishes and 1 evolution point per even level for a total of 30 points at level 20.

Evolutions
1 point
Breath Attack (2 actions) - Gain a breath attack for 1d4 damage. You may spend an additional point in Breath Attack to increase this damage to 1d6 damage and again to 1d8 damage for total of 3 points. After you use this ability, you cannot use it again for another 1d4 turns.
Resistance - Pick a resistance and weakness from this list. You gain 1/2 level in both the correlating resistance and weakness.
Resistance Fire/Weakness Cold.
Resistance Cold/Weakness Fire.
Resistance Electricity/Weakness Acid
Resistance Acid/Weakness Electricity
Climb - Your Eidolon gains a climb speed equal to its normal speed.
Aquatic - Your Eidolon gains the aquatic trait and can breath in water. Your Eidolon gains a swim speed equal to its land speed.
Mount - Your Eidolon gains the mount trait and can be ridden by the Summoner.
Senses- Your Eidolon gains low light vision. Spend 1 additional point to give your Eidolon dark vision. Spend 1 additional point (total of 3) to give your Eidolon smell at 30 feet.
Magical - Pick a spell list. Your Eidolon gains 2 cantrips from that spell list. For every 2 additional evolution points you spend, your Eidolon can cast one spell as a spell like ability once per day the spell level is equal to at most half your level and is sequential to how many evolution points you spend. This can only be taken once per spell level. Your Eidolon gains trained in spell proficiency. (Spend 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19 points total for your Eidolon to gain a 10th level spell at level 20)
Negative Healing - Your Eidolon is harmed by positive energy and is healed by negative energy instead.

2 points
Charge (2 actions) - Stride twice and then attack. Gain a +1 status bonus to your attack.
Expert Magical Prowess (Requirement - Magical, level 9)
Ancestral evolution - The Eidolon gains an Ancestry feat that the summoner currently has. You can take Ancestral evolution more than once, picking a different ancestry feat that the Summoner has each time.
Alacritous - Gain a 5 foot increase to movement speed. Can be taken twice total.

3 points
Adapted - Your Eidolon gains a dedication or archetype. The dedication or archetype does not grant any proficiency to the Eidolon and the Eidolon only gains the abilities that the archetype provides. Any ability that requires a certain weapon to perform, such as the weapon improviser dedication can be achieved through the Eidolon, replacing an improvised weapon with his own attacks. Each feat obtained through the dedication or archetype requires 3 additional evolution points. This evolution can only be taken once for every 9 evolution points dedicated to this evolution.
Mastery Magical Prowess (Requirement - Expert Magical Prowess , level 17)
Hulking - Your Eidolon becomes a large creature, gaining reach. Your Eidolon can suppress this size increase as a free action.
Critical Force(Requirement, level 7) - Gain the critical specialization effect of the weapon your Eidolon is mimicking.
Improved Resistance (Requirement - Resistance, level 8) - Your Eidolon gains the resistance and weakness chosen with the resistance evolution, but has resistance/weakness equal to your level instead of 1/2 your level.
Fast Healing - While in combat, the Eidolon gains fast healing equal to 1/2 your total level.

4 points (Requirement - level 7)
Improved Fast Healing (Requirement, Fast Healing) - While in combat, the Eidolon gains fast healing equal to your total level.
Physical Resistance - Pick a physical resistance. Your Eidolon gains resistance that that physical attack type equal to 1/2 your level.
Incorporeal (3 actions) - Your Eidolon is able to switch from being incorporal to corporeal. While Incorporeal, your Eidolon can take no actions except for movement actions and can only stay incorporeal a number of rounds equal to 1/2 your level per day.
Towering (Requirement, Large) - Your Eidolon becomes a huge creature. Your Eidolon can suppress this size increase as a free action.
Engulf - Your Eidolon gains the Engulf monster ability, but instead of suffocating, the creature is dealt damage equal to your normal unarmed damage once per turn as a free action. The rupture damage is equal to half the Eidolons maximum HP.
Grab - The Eidolon gains the grab ability.
Constrict - The Eidolon gains the constrict ability. It deals damage equal to its normal attack damage per turn as a free action.
Flight - Your Eidolon gain wings. In order to fly, your Eidolon must be of normal size in order to fly and cannot be mounted nor can it attack while in the air.
Improved Flight (Requirement, level 12) - Your Eidolon can fly while large. The Eidolon can be mounted and the Eidolon can attack while in the air.
Greater Flight (Requirement, level 18) - Your Eidolon can fly while huge.
Greater resistance (Requirement-Improved Resistance, level 16) - Your Eidolon gains immunity to the resistance they picked with the resistant evolution and their weakness increases to double your level instead of your level.
Creature Immunity - Pick an immunity tied to the creature type your Eidolon is associated with aside from energy. Your Eidolon gains that immunity. Your Eidolon can select this evolution multiple times. (For example, if you select dragon as your Eidolon form, you can choose the Eidolon to be immune to sleep or paralysis, but not both unless picked multiple times.) (May need to make a list)
Feats
** = From the playtest.
Level 1
Distraction (1 action) (Focus Cantrip)
One target is treated as flat footed for one attack against the Eidolon or summoned creature.
Command Eidolon (1 action) (Focus Cantrip) (Cannot be taken by the Synthesis)
Command the Eidolon or summoned creature to stride or strike.
DUAL STUDIES**
UNFETTER EIDOLON** (Requires Eidolon)
Level 2

Level 4
Energized Aura (1 action) (Focus Cantrip)
Deal 2d6 damage of an energy type of your choice to every creature surrounding the Eidolon or summoned creature in a 5 foot radius. Reflex save.
Heightened +1 - +1d6 damage. (3d6 damage at level 5, 4d6 at 7 etc.)
TANDEM MOVE**

Level 6
Translocate (As a summoner reaction)
If the summoner is attacked, the summoner can trade places with his Eidolon. The attack and all subsequent attacks target the Eidolon instead of the summoner.
Level 8
Level 10
Level 12
Level 14
Level 16
Level 18
Level 20

[Ruzza]

Alright, glad to see you've put in the work! But here comes the messy part, going back to reiterate why a lot of these ideas don't work. The good news, my opinion is my own and is definitely wholly invalid when it comes to homebrew material you plan to use at your table.

I'm going to start by saying that I'm going to avoid noting where design philosophies don't match up. Square peg in a round hole is one thing, but a lot of this feels like square peg being put into a jigsaw puzzle. 2e design philosophy seems to be managing power levels, buying options through feats, and putting a reasonable cap on hyper-specialization while streamlining a lot of the chaff (like an over abundance of edge case rules when eliminating the source would be simpler).

I should also not that I am in no way a power gamer or a minmaxer. It's one of the reasons I really like this edition.

I'm going to look at the Eidolon Focused path as that's something you've been a big champion of and something that you've advocated for at length.

To start, the slowed condition and the Suppress Power action seems very limiting in design space. I understand that it's unlinking the action pool of the summoner and the eidolon, but interacts with other effects in wonky ways (such as becoming immune to the slowed 1 condition since the effects do not stack and forcing a limited interaction with the 3-action system, especially if your eidolon is incapacitated).

I, personally, don't understand the "pick a creature type" since it seems to be just set dressing. I can slam whatever evolutions on to it and call it a Beast, Dragon, or Demon. It actually lacks customization by making it so open. Giving mechanical benefit to the choice is nice, but you run the risk of giving an edge to one over another. Currently, the way I see it working is finding a way to somehow gain an advantage through a specific creature type (such as having a number of undead boosting spells or bonuses through a cleric).

I don't think I enjoy the stat array much either just because you toss the 18 into your key stat (unless you're going the spellcaster path, that goes into Dex or Str), then get your Con and you're pretty much set. Much less of a choice here than it appears to be. Also, I want to make sure that the eidolon follows the same rules for ability boosts as any other character (You move from 18 to 19, not 18 to 20). That's important to note since they aren't a character class so it's unclear how they interact with the system.

The weapons are... oof. If you're going this route, you need to reign in that freedom somewhat because any common simple or martial weapon with the traits and getting access to any ol' energy attack is too much. Here's an example:

My level 1, 18 Strength Undead Eidolon has a 1d10+4 slashing damage, reach, trip tail with a +7 to hit. With 16 Dex, he can also open his mouth up and shoot blasts of 1d4 cold damage at range with a +6 (what range?) With a +7 in Athletics, I can keep things Tripped from range and ruin an opponent's action economy. Heck, with only 2 actions, I can just Ready to Trip every time they stand up. And I've got that nice decent martial level 18 AC with about 10 HP (no ancestry bonus, I guess that balances us out; I'm weal or woe here)

Now right here I've invalidated a lot of other choices cold damage has the most weaknesses while having few resistances or immunity. But that's playing with dumb numbers, really. There's a plethora of weapon options that just don't stack up? Why get a battleaxe when a greataxe exists?

But moving on, that's definitely workable and not dangerously egregious (the "choose any energy type" more than likely is). Let's talk about the evolutions, which right now don't work? I'm going to address that and then imagine the way you wanted that written.

Eidolon Evolution Rules wrote:

Each Eidolon gains evolution points to spend at your leisure. These evolution points, once spent, cannot be changed. The Eidolon gains 2 evolution point per odd level that can be distributed as it wishes and 1 evolution point per even level for a total of 30 points at level 20.

Okay, so I begin play with two evolution points and will get another one at level 2. However, once spent, I cannot change them. This means that if I want three-point or four-point evolutions, I need to not spend my points from level to level? There aren't any rules about that, but I assume that's what you want, which feels very "gamist." Like, "I grew in power, but old Skelebro here isn't because then he's gonna become Huge NEXT level. Er, well, he would, but next level is an even level, so... NEXT-next level." That's a very good example of "feels bad" gameplay.

But on to the evolutions! First we gotta talk about energy types again. I don't have the hard facts to back me up on this one, but I cannot picture the player that takes "Resist Cold/Weak Fire" over "Resist Fire/Weak Cold." Maybe if you're playing in an Irrisen game, but then that choice is so obvious it still takes away options. Climb, Aquatic, Mount... fun, flavorful options! I hope we don't stack them up against crunchy ones because then they wouldn't fare so well. Y'know, like pitting class feats against skill feats. Oh! For 1 point, I can either get low-light vision or... spellcasting. Or a breath weapon. There's actually a problem with vision in that it's sort of like a feat tax since you eventually need to get your eidolon darkvision, either through spell or... well, they can't use items. So yeah. Those are 2 points taken away. Not sure who is going whole hog and making their eidolon smell for an extra point (I know you meant scent, but how could one resist).

I could point out a few more things, but... You can give your eidolon a dedication?! The problem with the old summoner was that they invalidated the other players at the table! Oh, to heck with this, Skelebro is definitely hording his points. He's getting fighter dedication at 2 (what fun, not actually using evolution at level 1) and he's 100% picking up Opportunist at level 4. I now have my own fighter. Just stand in front of me Skelebro, trip things, and stop anything from getting close to me while I turn into an electric arc turret. I am very happy with this thrilling and engaging gameplay. I better save up even more points so that I can make you Huge and negate the need for any help. I still have my magic and class feats to round everything out!

I'm sure I could play around with the evolution stuff some more, but... I'm already ahead of the power curve. I have a whole 'nother second character and I haven't even touched my summoner. I had this whole plan about just making a silver bullet eidolon that just had answers for any weakness, but no need. Skelebro!

EDIT: The point I'm trying to make here is that while this system appears to have lots of customization options, you've just gone backwards to 1e's problem points. Choices that nullify options, power level that nullifies other characters, and creating a system to game out the best traits while avoiding the worst (y'know, Min-Maxing).

[Verzen]

The reason I chose stat array, I made it open ended. You can have a 18 cha caster Eidolon instead of just a melee one.

[Verzen]

and I dont see how my Eidolon would outclass a fighter. Fighters still gain more attack, have more fighter based feats, have heavy armor, have power attack, etc. But the numbers with an array of 18/14/16 for melee stats id have...

+7 attack, 17 AC, 11HP for my Eidolon
Vs...
+9 attack, 20 AC, 23 HP for a fighter.

At level 1 I can get some neat customization options over the fighter but I'll never get the attack bonus of a fighter or the heavy armor of one. Even if they get adapted.

I also meant to include a summoner feat to provide 2 additional evolution points to the Eidolon so in order to get those options for 3 and 4, you need to sacrifice feats. Some parts if it are still buggy.

[CrimsonKnight]

Verzen wrote:

and I dont see how my Eidolon would outclass a fighter. Fighters still gain more attack, have more fighter based feats, have heavy armor, have power attack, etc. But the numbers with an array of 18/14/16 for melee stats id have...

+7 attack, 17 AC, 11HP for my Eidolon
Vs...
+9 attack, 20 AC, 23 HP for a fighter.

At level 1 I can get some neat customization options over the fighter but I'll never get the attack bonus of a fighter or the heavy armor of one. Even if they get adapted.

I also meant to include a summoner feat to provide 2 additional evolution points to the Eidolon so in order to get those options for 3 and 4, you need to sacrifice feats. Some parts if it are still buggy.

+7 attack, 17 AC, 11HP for my Eidolon

Vs...
+6 attack(with a sword or bow), 19 AC, 12 HP for a wizard. add the spell magic weapon and... +7 attack

[Cyouni]

CrimsonKnight wrote:

Verzen wrote:

and I dont see how my Eidolon would outclass a fighter. Fighters still gain more attack, have more fighter based feats, have heavy armor, have power attack, etc. But the numbers with an array of 18/14/16 for melee stats id have...

+7 attack, 17 AC, 11HP for my Eidolon
Vs...
+9 attack, 20 AC, 23 HP for a fighter.

At level 1 I can get some neat customization options over the fighter but I'll never get the attack bonus of a fighter or the heavy armor of one. Even if they get adapted.

I also meant to include a summoner feat to provide 2 additional evolution points to the Eidolon so in order to get those options for 3 and 4, you need to sacrifice feats. Some parts if it are still buggy.

+7 attack, 17 AC, 11HP for my Eidolon

Vs...
+6 attack(with a sword or bow), 19 AC, 12 HP for a wizard. add the spell magic weapon and... +7 attack

So where's your wizard getting that heavy armour from?

And as a side note, the level 1 Swash I just built has +7 attack (1d6 damage), 18 AC, and 17 HP.
The sample rogue from the same campaign has +7 attack (1d6+4 damage), 18 AC, 19 HP.
Or how about the barbarian? Under rage, +7 attack (1d10+6 damage, reach), 17 AC, 20 HP.
And Ruzza's eidolon? +7 attack (1d10+4 damage, reach), 18 AC, 10 HP that doesn't matter because it literally can't die.

You'll notice the eidolon is better than the rogue in combat, even with sneak attack. Probably better than the swashbuckler using a finisher. Doesn't have any downsides.

[CrimsonKnight]

I like 95% what you did but...
Mount - Your Eidolon gains the mount trait and can be ridden by the Summoner. (why is it limited to the summoner)
usually requires it to be large:
Hulking - Your Eidolon becomes a large creature, gaining reach. Your Eidolon can suppress this size increase as a free action.
Ancestral evolution - The Eidolon gains an Ancestry feat that the summoner currently has. You can take Ancestral evolution more than once, picking a different ancestry feat that the Summoner has each time. (it can be taken advantage of such as human summoner multitalented -> oracle dedication -> star mystery -> Physical Resistance (all) 1/2 level)

suggestions
split hulking (3points) into
large 1 point Your Eidolon becomes a large creature. Your Eidolon can suppress this size increase as a free action.
Reach 2 points (because it is the combat portion) Eidolon gains reach 10'. (long arms or tentacle like attacks)

[Ruzza]

Oh man, I also made a mistake in actually valuing traits other than agile, finesse, and reach. These are unarmed attacks, so Skelebro can trip, shove, grapple with no problem regardless. Talk about efficiency.

In comparison to a fighter, it's... real close. But I never said that the eidolon is better than a fighter, I said it invalidates it. The class feature of one class shouldn't replace the entirety of another class. I didn't even touch on the fact that I can get it trained in Thievery, run it into traps, apparently ignore MAP(?), even grab a few healing spells, and just replace the party.

This is all on one eidolon without touching the summoner. If just the eidolon were the class, it would still fare... decently. I think build-your-own class is certainly an idea, but as you can see it does replace everything. But we can't forget that the summoner is the actual class and should be getting normal advancement (class feats, spells, general/ancestry/skill feats).

Don't even get me started on the "here's a feat to get more Evolution Points," because suddenly I can just buy power which is the exact opposite direction that PF2 is going in. Assuming the summoner, like other casters, doesn't get a level 1 feat, I grab a breath weapon for more silver bullet action, cantrips (for more silver bullet OR self buffs since I honestly think going divine is the key to snapping the game in half with Evolution Points). Then at level 2, I can grab the Evolution Point feat, get fighter dedication. Then I'm right back on track.

As a side hobby, I write solo adventures. They're a real challenge to write because the game is not in any way balanced around them, so you have to be incredibly careful about encounters (combat and non) since you never really know what a PC will be capable of. But a summoner with this system would walk through any adventure like that without breaking a sweat. Higher levels would really only compound the problems and I would put very good money on them being able to solo full party modules.

Y'know, the PF1 problem.

[CrimsonKnight]

Cyouni wrote:

CrimsonKnight wrote:

Verzen wrote:

and I dont see how my Eidolon would outclass a fighter. Fighters still gain more attack, have more fighter based feats, have heavy armor, have power attack, etc. But the numbers with an array of 18/14/16 for melee stats id have...

+7 attack, 17 AC, 11HP for my Eidolon
Vs...
+9 attack, 20 AC, 23 HP for a fighter.

At level 1 I can get some neat customization options over the fighter but I'll never get the attack bonus of a fighter or the heavy armor of one. Even if they get adapted.

I also meant to include a summoner feat to provide 2 additional evolution points to the Eidolon so in order to get those options for 3 and 4, you need to sacrifice feats. Some parts if it are still buggy.

+7 attack, 17 AC, 11HP for my Eidolon

Vs...
+6 attack(with a sword or bow), 19 AC, 12 HP for a wizard. add the spell magic weapon and... +7 attack

So where's your wizard getting that heavy armour from?

No heavy armor needed

no armor other than mage armor. (armor bonus)
Protective Ward (status bonus)
shield spell (circumstance bonus) (5 hardness if necessary)

[thaX]

So, the threads in the playtest are all closed, so I will make my comment here.

All the discussion about point buy for the Eidolon reminds me of the 3.5 Psionics discussions. All before Pathfinder, of course, but one of the main reasons it fell to another third party company to introduce Psionics is that the point buy mechanics just never worked well in 3.5 or in the overall rules mechanics in Pathfinder.

This is more prevalent in this new system in PF2, and it will be interesting to see if the point system is jettisoned for Psionics as well, given how PF2 can be configured.

Let's be clear, Psionics were broken in 3.0, and became merely overpowered (and could nova) in 3.5. When they tried to introduce it in 4th edition.... it tanked the system even more.