I ran a playtest at level 20 and here are the results


Secrets of Magic Playtest General Discussion

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Dataphiles

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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I made a rovagug/tarrasque themed dungeon, the party composition

Phantom Summoner
- Archetyped into rogue because he didn't like any of his high level feats.

Beast Summoner
- Archetyped into bard to be a buffer
- Took conduit focus and conduit wellspring just for inspire heroics.

Slide Magus
- Gnome, using a gnome flickmace
- No archetype
- Took Capture Spell and Spell Parry, never used them (the only available time to use capture spell, it would have been useless because the enemy was immune to its own spell)
- Bought a bunch of potions of quickness and used one before every encounter.
- Bought like 100 true strike scrolls and had an independent valet familiar to draw them.

Pick + Light Pick Fighter
- Medic archetype
- Took dual-weapon warrior as well for dual onslaught and flensing slice.

Building rules
- 160000GP
- Anything of any rarity, items need a price to be able to purchase

Playtest rules
- 150min time limit
- All characters revive 10 min after death with 1 HP.

For this I used the "Arcane Dungeon" Paizo flipmap.

The encounters
- Balor + 4 Shemhazians (80XP) - I sized these down to medium and made them humanoid cultists so they'd fit in the dungeon.
- Weak Grim Reaper + 5 Elite Lesser Deaths (115XP)
- 2 Weak Dragonshard Guardians (120XP)
- Mu Spore + 3 Vorpal Executioners (84XP) - the mu spore was also sized down to medium.
- Tarrasque (240XP) - I expected this to TPK.

Play Experience (In the order they had the encounters)

1) Dragonshard Guardians
- This fight took place in the room with the 3 coloured pools and coloured gas.
- This fight took the longest by far at 7 rounds and nearly ended in a TPK. There were a few battle medicine checks on unconscious characters. The magus went down twice, both summoners went down once. Fighter healed each once with battle medicine.
- Resist 24 physical is rough. The magus had an adamantine flickmace so she got to ignore it, and the phantom summoner had a thundering rune so he did normal damage (-24 physical and +24 sonic). I ended up not using reverberation, except on the thundering rune or on the magus' spells, because it would take too long for a single d6 of damage. The Magus switched to using acid splash because it doesn't trigger reverberation.
- Ran into our first problem almost immediately: Devotion Aura. It's incredibly tedious and barely does anything. 5 less damage when the enemies do 50+ is barely noticeable, and then having to check if you're in range of the eidolon, reduce the damage by 5 and then reduce the summoner's HP by 2 afterwards took a while. Also, it made the summoner die farquicker than the rest of the party because they were taking an extra 10-12 from the AoE effects.
- A dragonshard guardian crit failed its save vs the breath weapon of another dragonshard guard.
- There wasn't much point using the weakening breath because everyone had juggernaut, I used it once, they all crit succeeded, so I just used fire breath instead.
- Overall, felt really rough for the summoners, who basically did nothing else. No ability to put special materials on their eidolons means even if they knew about the guardians in advance, they were helpless. Perhaps an evolution to let your eidolon get a special material, or perhaps tack it onto evolution surge?

2) Weak Grim Reaper + 5 Elite Lesser Deaths
- This fight took place in the room with the statue.
- These enemies are awful. The misfortune aura made everyone feel miserable.
- The Grim Reaper cast finger of death twice and it did nothing both times due to successful save + juggernaut.
- The magus used whirlwind spell... and missed 5/6 of them, hitting only one lesser death, despite only needing to roll a 5+ to hit them - misfortune aura really screwed her there.
- Party was too afraid to do anything cast-y after the first round because of the threat of 6x Lurking Death.
- Ended it after round 2 because the outcome was clear - was gonna be a TPK.

3) Balor + 4 Shemhazians
- This fight was supposed to take place in the room in the bottom left (left of the room with the green gem) but the party lured them to the room with the statue.
- Fighter lost his weapon in round 1 due to hitting the balor. It was the runed one too, so he was basically useless the rest of the fight (he picked up one of the shemhazian's spears which I ruled to be +2 greater striking, but still it wasn't super effective).
- Magus did really well against the Shemhazians - Whirlwind Spell + Weird (I ruled the -DoS applied to the secondary save as well on a crit). She crit 3 of them, causing them to instantly die because they failed (->crit fail) the initial save and failed the secondary save.
- Phantom Summoner died in this fight, a few hits from the balor brought him to dying 1, he was already doomed 1 from the reapers prior and a crit failed save against the balor's death throes knocked him to death.

4) Mu Spore + 3 Vorpal Executioners
- This fight took place in the room with the coloured squares.
- I was mostly playing this encounter for some variety, and had the spore constantly use the inhalation ability to drag the players into traps. Unfortunately, Juggernaut made them crit succeed the saves a lot so I didn't get my memes going that much, but it was still a difficult encounter.
- The beast summoner went down due to getting crit a lot by the vorpal executioner.
- There was some questions on what happens if your eidolon gets decapitated, or even if a phantom eidolon can be decapitated.
- Magus used Fiery Body and hit a bit with it, but most of the damage came from the weapon.

5) Jabberwock
- This fight took place in the room with the circle platform and three coloured archways in the top left.
- This fight felt like a pushover
- Seriously this monster does no damage
- Beast summoner made a lot of use out of transpose here
- Magus hit with a polar ray after missing it the first time, did a fair amount of damage
- Beast summoner hit it with a 4-way overlapped meteor swarm doing a fair amount of damage.
- Otherwise this fight felt like 4x fighter, because the magical abilities didn't do anything or weren't used.

6) Tarrasque
- This fight took place on the second map.
- I expected them to TPK and they did.
- Magus did the most damage... only because she crit once. Striking spell and cast spells did nothing.
- Both summoners did nothing, though one did get their eidolon swallowed whole and then used evolution surge to make it huge so the tarrasque couldn't swallow anymore.
- Fighter hit like a couple times, but resist 25 physical is too much.
- They did about 70 points of damage to it before TPKing.

Some thoughts
- Against the level- enemies, magus felt strong. It also felt strong when it was flanking and buffed by inspire heroics and true strike.
- Against the level+ enemies, or when not buffed, it felt weak.
- Both summoners, when archetyped, felt more like a bad version of their archetyped class than a summoner.
- Transpose was cool and useful
- Boost Eidolon felt both mandatory and useless at the same time somehow. It felt necessary to keep the eidolon up to scratch, but not potent enough.
- Capture spell needs some work I think - it's too narrow right now.
- Devotion Aura definitely needs a change - way too tedious mathematically for what it does.

I'll look through the log and get some stats when I can be bothered.


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Great write up. And I noticed that the first two points you mentioned were in line with some of my thoughts on the Magus. With Striking Spell crit-fishing nature being a "Win more" class feature, rather than bread and butter, while being REALLY awful by playing against stronger monsters. It was exactly like our Alchemist, during our Age of Ashes run, the player felt really awful against higher level monsters, sometimes barely engaged during those fights (this was in person).

I also noticed that the Fighter felt useless after losing his weapon... I'm glad to see that I wasnt wrong and everyone that voted for keeping Potency and Striking Runes was a mistake. In the voice of Raymond Holt "VINDICATION!!!".

One question, this Magus performance was with all the True Strike scrolls taken into account (as in, they were used whenever possible and often)?


Quote:
(I ruled the -DoS applied to the secondary save as well on a crit). She crit 3 of them, causing them to instantly die because they failed (->crit fail) the initial save and failed the secondary save.

This is interesting question... Not sure if Dev Team would be in favor of how you ruled it (DoS upgrade to both Saves), but perhaps it may not be as simple as saying "it doesn't apply to both". Even if that is the case it won't increase BOTH DoS, what if the first Save was NATURALLY a CritFail/CritHit due to roll/Nat1/Nat20? Should the Spellstrike DoS effect then apply to the 2nd Save? When 2nd Save is contingent on 1st CritFailing (or on CritHit if spell attack) the relation is clear, but what about spells that have 2 parallel saves?

On 2 Weapon Fighter losing Runed weapon, yeah that is vulnerability that perhaps players need to account for. I think people are pushed to Doubling Rings and think that is sufficient replacement for 2nd Runed weapon, but maybe not. Reasonably characters can afford 2nd Runed weapon, which could be different damage type/traits when "main" one isn't optimal. Perhaps a Doubling Ring for "off hand" Agile weapon should be in addition to that 2nd Runed Weapon, not replacing it. Obviously at lower levels you wouldn't have all that, but also "stepping down" to non-Runed weapon is at least OK if you get disarmed etc.

Dataphiles

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Lightning Raven wrote:
One question, this Magus performance was with all the True Strike scrolls taken into account (as in, they were used whenever possible and often)?

Yep, the magus used True Strike whenever it was available pretty much, though there were some issues with relying on the familiar to feed her the scrolls. The familiar is squishy as hell, and given how many of the monsters had attacks of Opportunity or AoE, it got burst down pretty hard. There was some times when she needed to move a lot and couldn’t cast it as well. Though most of the time she was in a position to do so (I.e. within a Stride range of the enemy, which given she had a 55 speed was quite often) she used a true Strike scroll before continuing with striking spell.

One thing that did come in useful was magus potency. She couldn’t use her flickmace while swallowed so she just cast magus potency and started whacking.

Dark Archive

Quandary wrote:
Quote:
(I ruled the -DoS applied to the secondary save as well on a crit). She crit 3 of them, causing them to instantly die because they failed (->crit fail) the initial save and failed the secondary save.

This is interesting question... Not sure if Dev Team would be in favor of how you ruled it (DoS upgrade to both Saves), but perhaps it may not be as simple as saying "it doesn't apply to both". Even if that is the case it won't increase BOTH DoS, what if the first Save was NATURALLY a CritFail/CritHit due to roll/Nat1/Nat20? Should the Spellstrike DoS effect then apply to the 2nd Save? When 2nd Save is contingent on 1st CritFailing (or on CritHit if spell attack) the relation is clear, but what about spells that have 2 parallel saves?

On 2 Weapon Fighter losing Runed weapon, yeah that is vulnerability that perhaps players need to account for. I think people are pushed to Doubling Rings and think that is sufficient replacement for 2nd Runed weapon, but maybe not. Reasonably characters can afford 2nd Runed weapon, which could be different damage type/traits when "main" one isn't optimal. Perhaps a Doubling Ring for "off hand" Agile weapon should be in addition to that 2nd Runed Weapon, not replacing it. Obviously at lower levels you wouldn't have all that, but also "stepping down" to non-Runed weapon is at least OK if you get disarmed etc.

What is DoS?

Also, for the runes, I have a very different experience. I did a dual wielding character who upgraded each weapon instead of using doubling rings in Age of Ashes. My character alone, mostly because of those two weapons, accounted for 70% of the party wealth, very disproportionate to the other four members of the party (though I always asked out of character if it was alright, and asked everyone to have their characters voice any disagreement with my character taking the lion's share of the loot just to keep his weapons up to par. My party was fine with it, but I always felt bad about the ridiculous cost to keep weapons level appropriate (weapons without any special materials whatsoever).

Dataphiles

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

DoS = Degree of Success.


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Interesting. The special materials issue is pretty huge.

Dataphiles

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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I decided to take some time looking through the game log, here are the stats

Formatting is like this
Hits - total number of hits/number of attacks made
Crits - of which, how many were crits
Damage - total damage dealt
Striking spell failure - Number of failures vs save spells on striking spell/successes on attack roll
Striking spell critical - of which, how many were critical
Spells & Spell effects - Spells cast and their effects
Double spellstrike - Number of times this feature came into play and had any effect (i.e. attack spell didn't miss/save spell wasn't crit saved)
Hits taken - number of hits taken/number of times attacked
Crits taken - of which, how many were crits

---

Total Stats:

Magus
Hits - 17/35
Hits (True Strike) - 4/4
Crits - 5
Damage - 1,153
Striking Spell failure (save)/success (attack) (post-hit) - 9/16
Striking Spell critical failure (save)/critical success (attack) - 5
Non-damage Spell effects - success vs slow x6, instant death x3, frightened 1.
Double Spellstrike did anything - 1/3
Hits taken - 17/23
Crits taken - 3

Beast Summoner
Hits - 9/18
Crits - 2
Damage - 583
Spells cast - Electric Arc x1, Ray of Frost x1, Slow x1, Meteor Swarm x1, Swarm of Vengeance (Attempted, Interrupted)
Non-damage spell effects - 3x success and 2x fail vs slow
Hits taken - 20/27
Crits taken - 8
Inspire Heroics - 6/14

Phantom Summoner
Hits - 9/28
Crits - 2
Damage - 486
Spells Cast - Synesthesia (lv 9)
Spell effects - 5x successful save vs Synesthesia
Hits taken - 14/20
Crits taken - 6

Fighter
Hits - 30/56
Crits - 9
Damage - 1,398
Hits taken - 14/21
Crits taken - 8

---

Encounter 1 stats (Dragonshard guardians):

Magus
Hits - 5/7
Hits (True Strike) - 1/1
Crits - 1
Damage - 32+37+90+47+41 = 247 (+ spell damage) = 302
Striking Spell failure (save)/success (attack) (post-hit) - 1/5
Striking Spell critical failure (save)/critical success (attack) - 1
Spell effects - 16dmg+slowed for 1 round+39 damage
Double Spellstrike - 0/1
Hits taken - 3/3
Crits taken - 1

Beast Summoner
Hits - 1/5
Crits -
Damage - 47 (+spell damage) = 83
Spells cast - Electric Arc
Spell damage - 36
Hits taken - 5/9
Crits taken - 1
Inspire Heroics - 1/3

Phantom Summoner
Hits - 6/12
Crits -
Damage - 43+38+44+33+55+53 = 266
Hits taken - 1/1
Crits taken -

Fighter
Hits - 11/16
Crits - 2
Damage - 28+27+36+27+30+35+96+69+32+29+29 = 438
Hits taken - 5/7
Crits taken - 2

---

Encounter 2 stats (Grim Reapers):

Magus
Hits - 2/12
Hits (True Strike) -
Crits -
Damage - 38+35 = 73
Striking Spell failure (save)/success (attack) (post-hit) - 1/1
Striking Spell critical failure (save)/critical success (attack) -
Spell effects -
Double Spellstrike - 0/1
Hits taken - 4/8
Crits taken -

Beast Summoner
Hits - 3/4 (2 were hero points)
Crits -
Damage - 29+28+32 = 89
Spells cast -
Spell damage -
Hits taken - 7/9
Crits taken - 2
Inspire Heroics - 0/1 (disrupted)

Phantom Summoner
Hits - 1/3
Crits -
Spells cast - 1
Spell effects - 5x success vs synesthesia
Damage - 42
Hits taken - 5/10
Crits taken - 2

Fighter
Hits - 5/6
Crits - 3 (All 3 of these were hero points)
Damage - 79+84+88+31+22 = 304
Hits taken -
Crits taken -

---

Encounter 3 stats (Balor + Shemhazians):

Magus
Hits - 5/5
Hits (True Strike) - 1/1
Crits - 4
Damage - 34+82+45 = 161 (+spell damage) = 191
Striking Spell failure (save)/success (attack) (post-hit) - 3/4
Striking Spell critical failure (save)/critical success (attack) - 3
Spell effects - 30 damage + 3x instant death
Double Spellstrike (any non-crit fail/success) - 1/1
Hits taken - 1/1
Crits taken - 1

Beast Summoner
Hits - 2/2
Crits - 2
Damage - 98+92 = 190
Spells cast - Slow
Spell effects - 3x success, 2x fail
Hits taken -
Crits taken -
Inspire Heroics - 2/3

Phantom Summoner
Hits - 2/4
Crits - 2
Damage - 94+84 = 178
Hits taken - 4/4
Crits taken - 2

Fighter
Hits - 3/3
Crits - 1
Damage - 81+25+23 = 129
Hits taken - 2/4
Crits taken -

---

Encounter 4 stats (Mu Spore + Vorpal Executioners):

Magus
Hits - 3/3
Hits (True Strike) -
Crits -
Damage - 38+40+23 = 101 (+ spell damage) = 230
Striking Spell failure (save)/success (attack) (post-hit) - 2/2
Striking Spell critical failure (save)/critical success (attack) - 1
Spell effects - Both were produce flames from fiery body, dealing 74 and 33 damage respectively, also 22 damage from persistent.
Double Spellstrike -
Hits taken -
Crits taken -

Beast Summoner
Hits - 1/1
Crits -
Damage - 38
Spells cast - Ray of Frost (miss)
Spell damage -
Hits taken - 2/2
Crits taken - 2
Inspire Heroics - 1/1

Phantom Summoner
Hits - 0/2
Crits -
Damage -
Hits taken - 1/2
Crits taken -

Fighter
Hits - 5/6
Crits - 2
Damage - 32+76+44+26+102 = 280
Hits taken - 2/3
Crits taken - 2

---

Encounter 5 stats (Jabberwock):

Magus
Hits - 2/3
Hits (True Strike) - 1/1
Crits -
Damage - 46+44+38 = 128 (+ spell damage) = 218
Striking Spell failure (save)/success (attack) (post-hit) - 1/3
Striking Spell critical failure (save)/critical success (attack) -
Spell effects - 44 damage+drained 2
Double Spellstrike -
Hits taken - 2/2
Crits taken - 1

Beast Summoner
Hits - 2/6
Crits -
Damage - 46+48 = 94 (+spell damage) = 183
Spells cast - Meteor Swarm
Spell damage - 178, halved for 89
Hits taken - 2/2
Crits taken -
Inspire Heroics - 1/4

Phantom Summoner
Hits - 0/2
Crits -
Damage -
Hits taken - 1/1
Crits taken -

Fighter
Hits - 3/11
Crits -
Damage - 29+34+35 = 98
Hits taken - 1/1
Crits taken - 1

---

Encounter 6 stats (Tarrasque):

Magus
Hits - 0/3
Hits (True Strike) - 1/1
Crits -
Damage - 37 (+ spell damage) = 139
Striking Spell failure (save)/success (attack) (post-hit) - 1/1
Striking Spell critical failure (save)/critical success (attack) - 1
Spell effects - 102 damage
Double Spellstrike -
Hits taken - 7/9
Crits taken -

Beast Summoner
Hits -
Crits -
Damage -
Spells cast -
Spell damage -
Hits taken - 4/5
Crits taken - 3
Inspire Heroics - 1/2

Phantom Summoner
Hits - 0/5
Crits -
Damage -
Hits taken - 2/2
Crits taken - 2

Fighter
Hits - 3/14
Crits - 1
Damage - 24 +32+93 = 149
Hits taken - 4/6
Crits taken - 3


Not that I would call it invalid, but how much do you think the DPR of the Magus would have been affected without 100 scrolls of True Strike?

Also, were you hasted in this scenario? I'm assuming that's how you would have been able to True Strike + Spell + Strike in the same turn?

Maybe just highlight what the standard routine in a round was for the Summoners and the Magus, that might help me visualize how things worked.

Also if True Strike scrolls were available to the Summoner in the same capactiy, would it have affected the DPR of the Eidolon's in a similar fashion?

Thanks again for the report!

Dataphiles

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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Midnightoker wrote:
Not that I would call it invalid, but how much do you think the DPR of the Magus would have been affected without 100 scrolls of True Strike?

After checking the log, out of the 39 attacks the magus made, only 4 of them were affected by True Strike... which is a lot less than I thought honestly. So probably not that much lower than current. That being said, the Magus did use up quite a few of her slots (I counted 3/4 top level slots used - Fiery Body, Polar Ray, Weird - she used a ring of wizardry IV and a spell battery familiar for the slow slots) and still only ended up at 1153 total damage compared to the fighter's 1398.

Midnightoker wrote:
Also, were you hasted in this scenario? I'm assuming that's how you would have been able to True Strike + Spell + Strike in the same turn?

Yep, the Magus drank a potion of quickness before every single encounter.

Midnightoker wrote:
Maybe just highlight what the standard routine in a round was for the Summoners and the Magus, that might help me visualize how things worked.

Standard Magus routine was Striking Spell, Stride, Strike, She moved around a lot.

Standard summoner routine was
- Beast Summoner - Use permanent quickened from capstone to boost eidolon, act together (Inspire Heroics + Eidolon Stride/Strike), Eidolon strike, something else. Usually the something else was Transpose because he also wanted to move around a lot.
- Phantom Summoner - Didn't take the capstone. At first he didn't boost, he used Act Together (Sneak+Eidolon Strike), Eidolon Strike, something (usually a third strike, hence why he has 9 more attacks than the beast summoner but almost the same number of hits). Afterwards he kind of ditched the sneaking angle because... he stood far enough away to not get hit much (most of those hits were on his eidolon), and he didn't think he did enough damage without boost. So he switched to Act Together (Boost+Strike), Strike, something movement related.

Midnightoker wrote:
Also if True Strike scrolls were available to the Summoner in the same capactiy, would it have affected the DPR of the Eidolon's in a similar fashion?

I don't know... summoners had massive accuracy issues looking at the numbers. Maybe it was because the phantom summoner rolled really poorly, but he did less than half the damage of the magus despite making about 80% of the attacks.


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Intriguing! Thanks for the response :)

What do you think was the main issue with the Summoner? I have seen other playtest data that suggested their damage was higher than the Magus, but at level 20 it seems to be the opposite case.

Were there higher level abilities that made the Magus feel stronger or was there a lack of these on the part of the Summoners?

Sorry for all the questions!

Dataphiles

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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Midnightoker wrote:

Intriguing! Thanks for the response :)

What do you think was the main issue with the Summoner? I have seen other playtest data that suggested their damage was higher than the Magus, but at level 20 it seems to be the opposite case.

Were there higher level abilities that made the Magus feel stronger or was there a lack of these on the part of the Summoners?

Sorry for all the questions!

Accuracy was a big problem, the summoner was at effectively caster hit bonus because the eidolon starts with 16s and can't apex, so they were master + 20 stat which is effectively the same as expert + 24...

No higher level ability really made the magus feel stronger aside from permanent quickened making their action routine actually kind of flexible, it's mostly just... the eidolon being wonky really. The 16s will mean they're a point of accuracy behind half the time, and no apex means they're always behind once at level 17.

I wish I could tell you more, but most of the abilities never got used. Beast's charge was never used. Primal Roar and Whirlwind Maul were both used once... and failed spectacularly both times. The beast summoner contributed the most by just using inspire heroics over and over.

Dutiful Strike didn't really work out with the weird build the phantom summoner had, where the summoner kept hiding and sneaking away, nor was I actually ever incentivised to attack him. It got used maybe a couple of times in the balor fight and that was it. Steadfast Eidolon never did anything. Dedication Aura I've already outlined the problems with - too may calculations, not enough impact. On top of that, both of them took barely any summoner feats - the beast summoner took

2 - Bard Dedication
4 - Hymm of Healing
6 - Hulking Evolution
8 - Inspire Courage
10 - Transpose
12 - Conduit Focus
14 - Towering Evolution
16 - Inspire Heroics
18 - Conduit Wellspring
20 - Eternal Boost

Hulking Evolution/Towering Evolution was more of a penalty than a bonus seeing as there's no way to turn it off. Luckily, most of the corridors were 10ft wide so the eidolon could move through as difficult terrain.

The Phantom summoner took

2 - Rogue dedication
4 - Tandem Move
6 - Trap Finder
8 - Ranged Evolution
10 - Protective Bond
12 - Skill Mastery
14 - Resilient Evolution
16 - Winged Evolution
18 - Evasiveness
20 - Sneak Savant

Neither really felt like their feats were worth all that much.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Can a summoner even use true strike to make their Eidolon more accurate? I haven't really looked closely at that class, but true strike on martial attacks are usually not a valuable use of actions and limited resources, unless you have the ability to really pack a focused punch, like with power attack. Otherwise, you are usually better off just attacking more. the playtest Striking spell does concentrate the value of true strike, but will continue to do so on every version of the ability that does not get an arbitrary fortune tag. I also have found that it is still not usually worth using true strike as a magus unless you are casting one of your 4 big spells, and in those instances, I kinda wish there was a way to build true strike into the class to make it obvious "this is what you are supposed to do." With cantrips, even with a staff of divination, it is only worth it to true strike if you miss with the striking spell attack on the round it was cast and you are desperate to land the specific cantrip because of weaknesses.


Why did your Summoners not cast spells? One has only cast once, the other one a bit more, but 2 cantrips... and Slow is nice when you use a low level spell slot to cast it. In my opinion, they haven't played high level spellcasters to make such bad spell choices.
So, basically, out of 5 fights, they have cast 2 valid spells. It's extremely few.


SuperBidi wrote:

Why did your Summoners not cast spells? One has only cast once, the other one a bit more, but 2 cantrips... and Slow is nice when you use a low level spell slot to cast it. In my opinion, they haven't played high level spellcasters to make such bad spell choices.

So, basically, out of 5 fights, they have cast 2 valid spells. It's extremely few.

Probably because they are doing act together+move in tandem+boost+reinforce+ attack with eidolon.

Not room for much else. And if the fights are hard your not likely to succeed in the spell anyways. Prebuff would have been nice I guess.


Martialmasters wrote:
SuperBidi wrote:

Why did your Summoners not cast spells? One has only cast once, the other one a bit more, but 2 cantrips... and Slow is nice when you use a low level spell slot to cast it. In my opinion, they haven't played high level spellcasters to make such bad spell choices.

So, basically, out of 5 fights, they have cast 2 valid spells. It's extremely few.

Probably because they are doing act together+move in tandem+boost+reinforce+ attack with eidolon.

Not room for much else. And if the fights are hard your not likely to succeed in the spell anyways. Prebuff would have been nice I guess.

TBF, as written, Act Together doesn't allow activities, so it may be a case of them running the strict RAW.

I personally plan to play with Mark's suggestion of allowing it to work with Activities, because otherwise, the round to round is pretty action restricted (particularly for spells).


Martialmasters wrote:
SuperBidi wrote:

Why did your Summoners not cast spells? One has only cast once, the other one a bit more, but 2 cantrips... and Slow is nice when you use a low level spell slot to cast it. In my opinion, they haven't played high level spellcasters to make such bad spell choices.

So, basically, out of 5 fights, they have cast 2 valid spells. It's extremely few.

Probably because they are doing act together+move in tandem+boost+reinforce+ attack with eidolon.

Not room for much else. And if the fights are hard your not likely to succeed in the spell anyways. Prebuff would have been nice I guess.

I think this is probably why act together needs to be able to be the first part of a spell casting action. As is I just don't see summoners spending the actions to actually cast much very often other than their boost cantrips or other one action cantrips/focus spells from archetypes.

Dataphiles

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
SuperBidi wrote:

Why did your Summoners not cast spells? One has only cast once, the other one a bit more, but 2 cantrips... and Slow is nice when you use a low level spell slot to cast it. In my opinion, they haven't played high level spellcasters to make such bad spell choices.

So, basically, out of 5 fights, they have cast 2 valid spells. It's extremely few.

Found it too awkward action econ wise with RAW act together. You need to 3-1 split actions summoner-Eidolon to do so (as act together doesn’t allow activities).


Would the summoner casting spells do much? They can't cast attack spells with the shared map. So some kind of save spell with a lower DC or a buff might be useful.


Summoner spells would have been helpful I think, it really contributes a lot to their power. I feel it's definitely worth giving up a round of attacking with an eidolon, but if the eidolon starts next to the enemy you get the best round with a full attack bonus attack + a powerful spell.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

So wohoo for someone actually doing the level 20 playtest :D And with variety too! Though I did kinda cringe at the whole "weak adjustment grim reaper" thing because the misfortune aura doesn't have DCs and its most powerful ability of the creature. Like seriously, Grim Reaper when combined with any amount of mooks is just horrifying, I think the creature is more of "Oh shit let's run because its literally the death" type monster than suitable for "fair" fights.(I mean, its monster that forces you to roll twice and take lower AND has insta death abilities. Yeah its not really fair monster)

Also bit cringed at party lacking any kind of dedicated healer besides the fighter since I feel like battle medicine is more of panic bandaid than something that really helps party when they need healing in combat. I'm honestly really scared of playing this edition without clerics unless all enemies are equal level or lower :'D

But yeah I could see some of things being result of players not being used to play with classes since the lack of spells being used at all seems kinda notable for summoners.

Anyhoo, not particularly surprised by fighter feeling useless without weapon since that +3 major striking weapon is really nice, but I'm surprised at weapon being destroyed in single hit? Like did 2e do nothing to change how easy it is to destroy magic weapons? Kinda saddened to hear that since magic weapon damage rules haven't come up yet in my games so I wouldn't remember that on top of my head.

But yeah, I do think this does great job of illustrating that magus and summoner as classes that go into melee really need little bit of boost to feel more useful vs boss enemies.

Dataphiles

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
CorvusMask wrote:
So wohoo for someone actually doing the level 20 playtest :D And with variety too! Though I did kinda cringe at the whole "weak adjustment grim reaper" thing because the misfortune aura doesn't have DCs and its most powerful ability of the creature. Like seriously, Grim Reaper when combined with any amount of mooks is just horrifying, I think the creature is more of "Oh s~+@ let's run because its literally the death" type monster than suitable for "fair" fights.(I mean, its monster that forces you to roll twice and take lower AND has insta death abilities. Yeah its not really fair monster)

I tried to find some thematic monsters while also having a decent mix of enemies and encounter types. It was originally a regular grim reaper with some lesser deaths, but I was already testing in a severe encounter against level+1 monsters with the dragonshard guardians. I had a moderate against a level+0 with the balor, but I did also want a severe with a level+0 to see the difference.

Maybe it was the wrong monster, but there isn't that much variety at level 20 unfortunately.

CorvusMask wrote:
Also bit cringed at party lacking any kind of dedicated healer besides the fighter since I feel like battle medicine is more of panic bandaid than something that really helps party when they need healing in combat. I'm honestly really scared of playing this edition without clerics unless all enemies are equal level or lower :'D

My only specifications were that at least one person play a summoner and at least one person play a magus. Also if there were multiple summoners/magi they pick different synthesises/eidolons (or one of the summoners goes synthesis for the same eidolon).

I just guess no one wants to play a healer in a level 20 one shot.

CorvusMask wrote:

But yeah I could see some of things being result of players not being used to play with classes since the lack of spells being used at all seems kinda notable for summoners.

Anyhoo, not particularly surprised by fighter feeling useless without weapon since that +3 major striking weapon is really nice, but I'm surprised at weapon being destroyed in single hit? Like did 2e do nothing to change how easy it is to destroy magic weapons? Kinda saddened to hear that since magic weapon damage rules haven't come up yet in my games so I wouldn't remember that on top of my head.

But yeah, I do think this does great job of illustrating that magus and summoner as classes that go into melee really need little bit of boost to feel more useful vs boss enemies.

The balor does 3d6+10 damage to any weapon that hits it. I rolled 25 on that. A pick is mostly wood, but seeing as it has a metal head, I ruled it to be a thin steel item similar to a sword... which means 20HP, 5 hardness. Instantly destroyed.

If I ruled a thin wood item, same as a club, it would have 3 hardness and 12HP, standing no chance.

You need an adamantine or orichalcum weapon for it to not break or shatter in 1-2 hits.

Darkwood, Silver, Dragonhide and Mithral all have 8 hardness 32 HP, so they'll break in 2 hits.

Cold Iron and Sovereign Steel have a bit more at 10 hardness 40 HP, but will still break in 2 hits on average.

Adamantine has 13 hardness 52 HP, so will break in 4 hits and Orichalcum has 16 hardness 64 HP so will break in 7-8 hits.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Yeah I'm not particularly surprised by mundane weapon breaking in single hit on 3d6 + 10 damage, I was surprised that apparently runes don't add hardness or hp on the weapon(or if they do I can't find where that is mentioned)


CorvusMask wrote:
Yeah I'm not particularly surprised by mundane weapon breaking in single hit on 3d6 + 10 damage, I was surprised that apparently runes don't add hardness or hp on the weapon(or if they do I can't find where that is mentioned)

\

Found this out with corrosive rune crits on monk robes. Only saving grace is it seems the runes aren't destroyed, just the armor. So you can get the runes put on new robes. There is no increase in hardness. It is pretty easy to destroy any non-metal armor.


Deriven Firelion wrote:
CorvusMask wrote:
Yeah I'm not particularly surprised by mundane weapon breaking in single hit on 3d6 + 10 damage, I was surprised that apparently runes don't add hardness or hp on the weapon(or if they do I can't find where that is mentioned)

\

Found this out with corrosive rune crits on monk robes. Only saving grace is it seems the runes aren't destroyed, just the armor. So you can get the runes put on new robes. There is no increase in hardness. It is pretty easy to destroy any non-metal armor.

If the Monk is like Kenshiro, that's more or less expected in most fights.


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Exocist wrote:
SuperBidi wrote:

Why did your Summoners not cast spells? One has only cast once, the other one a bit more, but 2 cantrips... and Slow is nice when you use a low level spell slot to cast it. In my opinion, they haven't played high level spellcasters to make such bad spell choices.

So, basically, out of 5 fights, they have cast 2 valid spells. It's extremely few.
Found it too awkward action econ wise with RAW act together. You need to 3-1 split actions summoner-Eidolon to do so (as act together doesn’t allow activities).

Among your six fights, 3 are against many creatures (4, 5 and 6 respectively). A level 7 scroll costs 600gp, which is negligeable considering what you gave as money to your players. A 7th level Chain Lightning against 5 creatures does roughly 150 points of damage if all creatures succeed at their save, which is a third of what your Summoners did in the whole 6 fights.

And one of your player has cast Ray of Frost and Electric Arc, at level 20...

So, I highly question the way they play their Summoners. In my opinion, it was not overwhelmingly hard to get more out of the Summoners than what they got. The main conclusion I'll draw from your playtest is that your Summoner players were not used to level 20 casters.


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SuperBidi wrote:
Exocist wrote:
SuperBidi wrote:

Why did your Summoners not cast spells? One has only cast once, the other one a bit more, but 2 cantrips... and Slow is nice when you use a low level spell slot to cast it. In my opinion, they haven't played high level spellcasters to make such bad spell choices.

So, basically, out of 5 fights, they have cast 2 valid spells. It's extremely few.
Found it too awkward action econ wise with RAW act together. You need to 3-1 split actions summoner-Eidolon to do so (as act together doesn’t allow activities).

Among your six fights, 3 are against many creatures (4, 5 and 6 respectively). A level 7 scroll costs 600gp, which is negligeable considering what you gave as money to your players. A 7th level Chain Lightning against 5 creatures does roughly 150 points of damage if all creatures succeed at their save, which is a third of what your Summoners did in the whole 6 fights.

And one of your player has cast Ray of Frost and Electric Arc, at level 20...

So, I highly question the way they play their Summoners. In my opinion, it was not overwhelmingly hard to get more out of the Summoners than what they got. The main conclusion I'll draw from your playtest is that your Summoner players were not used to level 20 casters.

If summoner's DC wasn't 2 behind a wizard I'd think about using chain lightning at that level. Since it is behind, I tank my summoner's charisma on my beast eidolon and focus on buff/support spells and Athletics for the eidolon (Wich would still be woefully behind a martial art that level due to no maneuvers traits or potency runes or Apex items.

If I wanted to chain lightning I'd play my wizard, or witch or druid or any legendary scaling caster.

I'm not the op's player but this is how I feel about the class.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Yeah. I have a similar thread, although at a much lower level.

My player just felt very incentivized to just focus on the Eidolon as opposed to being a caster.

Dark Archive

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It somehow doesn't surprise me that, generally, the Magus pulls out all the stops, uses potions, uses scrolls, casts spells, and still ends up doing less damage than the Fighter did without all that extra stuff.

Scarab Sages

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Spells look to be balanced on a full casters progression, and without the proficiency/stats of a full caster and not enough action economy tricks like a full martial the hybrids just fall behind in so many ways.


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Martialmasters wrote:
SuperBidi wrote:
Exocist wrote:
SuperBidi wrote:

Why did your Summoners not cast spells? One has only cast once, the other one a bit more, but 2 cantrips... and Slow is nice when you use a low level spell slot to cast it. In my opinion, they haven't played high level spellcasters to make such bad spell choices.

So, basically, out of 5 fights, they have cast 2 valid spells. It's extremely few.
Found it too awkward action econ wise with RAW act together. You need to 3-1 split actions summoner-Eidolon to do so (as act together doesn’t allow activities).

Among your six fights, 3 are against many creatures (4, 5 and 6 respectively). A level 7 scroll costs 600gp, which is negligeable considering what you gave as money to your players. A 7th level Chain Lightning against 5 creatures does roughly 150 points of damage if all creatures succeed at their save, which is a third of what your Summoners did in the whole 6 fights.

And one of your player has cast Ray of Frost and Electric Arc, at level 20...

So, I highly question the way they play their Summoners. In my opinion, it was not overwhelmingly hard to get more out of the Summoners than what they got. The main conclusion I'll draw from your playtest is that your Summoner players were not used to level 20 casters.

If summoner's DC wasn't 2 behind a wizard I'd think about using chain lightning at that level. Since it is behind, I tank my summoner's charisma on my beast eidolon and focus on buff/support spells and Athletics for the eidolon (Wich would still be woefully behind a martial art that level due to no maneuvers traits or potency runes or Apex items.

If I wanted to chain lightning I'd play my wizard, or witch or druid or any legendary scaling caster.

I'm not the op's player but this is how I feel about the class.

The Summoner's behind a full caster but the Eidolon's behind a full martial. If you focus on only one aspect you play either a bad martial or a bad caster. Congratulations, you failed at properly playing a hybrid character.

And even with a -2 to your save DCs, a level 7 Chain Lightning does 95% of the damage of a Greatsword Dragon Barbarian primary attack. So, not bad. At high levels, spells easily outdamage martial attacks. Not using them is voluntarily dumping your overall efficiency.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

SuperBidi, I think you forgot this part:

Quote:
Since it is behind, I tank my summoner's charisma on my beast eidolon and focus on buff/support spells


WatersLethe wrote:

SuperBidi, I think you forgot this part:

Quote:
Since it is behind, I tank my summoner's charisma on my beast eidolon and focus on buff/support spells

Well, it doesn't change massively what I say: In my opinion, the Summoners were not played optimally. Even the DM says it, as one of the Summoner was sneaking and at some point stopped because of how useless it was. Both players were learning their class.

I won't consider such a test the proof of an issue with the Summoner. And I clearly think it's ten times easier to properly play a Fighter than a Summoner.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I think there is a reality that "focusing on buff/support spells" in PF2 is not as game shifting a strategy as it was in PF1, and if you do go that route, you are usually much better off as a team casting those spells on your most damage focused martial than you are spreading them around on other characters, like your Eidolon. Even full casters struggle to stack more than one of these on any character at a time, and it is nearly impossible to be a sustained buff caster without relying heavily on having lots of lower level slots. Scrolls are cheap, and the summoner doesn't have nearly the full hands issue of the magus for utilizing scrolls heavily, but it is pretty clear that most players don't realize the value of scrolls for casters without playing a caster for an extended amount of time and seeing how effective scroll usage can be.

I haven't looked closely at the summoner yet, but the idea that being 2 or 3 points behind in casting proficiency means you can't use any offensive spells doesn't hold up in my play experience. It just requires focusing on different kinds of spells (more AoE and saving throw spells with decent effects on a save), rather than discarding them entirely.

What are 20th level summoners spending money on that they can't have a substantial budget for wands, staves and scrolls?


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Set wrote:

It somehow doesn't surprise me that, generally, the Magus pulls out all the stops, uses potions, uses scrolls, casts spells, and still ends up doing less damage than the Fighter did without all that extra stuff.

That's how it is with these hybrid classes. Hard to balance them and Fighters are really good at damage now too.


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SuperBidi wrote:
WatersLethe wrote:

SuperBidi, I think you forgot this part:

Quote:
Since it is behind, I tank my summoner's charisma on my beast eidolon and focus on buff/support spells

Well, it doesn't change massively what I say: In my opinion, the Summoners were not played optimally. Even the DM says it, as one of the Summoner was sneaking and at some point stopped because of how useless it was. Both players were learning their class.

I won't consider such a test the proof of an issue with the Summoner. And I clearly think it's ten times easier to properly play a Fighter than a Summoner.

Did you check the percentage chance of success of their spells? They only get 4 spells. Then you have compare the success chance of their spells against using the eidolon. Using 2 actions to cast reduces the eidolon to a single attack possibly with boost.

They are using master casting and I'm not even sure it's worth the investment to max out charisma and get an Apex item with charisma. Would put their spell DC at 43. Do any of those have a high chance to fail on a 43? Maybe, but hard to sell.

Too bad they didn't make the Summoner's casting stat Constitution. Now that would be a real help with 4 spell slots and a shared hit point pool.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I agree that playtesting high level caster classes is incredibly complicated in PF2. It is just too hard to grow into the class and get a feel for what items you really want to be stockpiling, what spells you want to use and how to most effectively use them.

That is a big part of the reason that players can have such radically different experiences with casters and one will feel like casters generally are garbage and another will feel like their caster was the heroine of the party.

A lot of the things I like best about the magus, for example, are probably too subtle to see making it into the final class, even though, with just a little system mastery, I think the magus can significantly outpace a fighters damage output. (as Exocist's experience hints at with some of their combats)

Adding new caster classes is going to be a challenge into the future because of this, and I am interested to see how the very intelligent and creative team navigate incredibly turbulent waters of player expectations looking for new classes to "fix" the problems that they have had with past classes, without just killing those old classes with newer, better options.


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SuperBidi wrote:
Martialmasters wrote:
SuperBidi wrote:
Exocist wrote:
SuperBidi wrote:

Why did your Summoners not cast spells? One has only cast once, the other one a bit more, but 2 cantrips... and Slow is nice when you use a low level spell slot to cast it. In my opinion, they haven't played high level spellcasters to make such bad spell choices.

So, basically, out of 5 fights, they have cast 2 valid spells. It's extremely few.
Found it too awkward action econ wise with RAW act together. You need to 3-1 split actions summoner-Eidolon to do so (as act together doesn’t allow activities).

Among your six fights, 3 are against many creatures (4, 5 and 6 respectively). A level 7 scroll costs 600gp, which is negligeable considering what you gave as money to your players. A 7th level Chain Lightning against 5 creatures does roughly 150 points of damage if all creatures succeed at their save, which is a third of what your Summoners did in the whole 6 fights.

And one of your player has cast Ray of Frost and Electric Arc, at level 20...

So, I highly question the way they play their Summoners. In my opinion, it was not overwhelmingly hard to get more out of the Summoners than what they got. The main conclusion I'll draw from your playtest is that your Summoner players were not used to level 20 casters.

If summoner's DC wasn't 2 behind a wizard I'd think about using chain lightning at that level. Since it is behind, I tank my summoner's charisma on my beast eidolon and focus on buff/support spells and Athletics for the eidolon (Wich would still be woefully behind a martial art that level due to no maneuvers traits or potency runes or Apex items.

If I wanted to chain lightning I'd play my wizard, or witch or druid or any legendary scaling caster.

I'm not the op's player but this is how I feel about the class.

The Summoner's behind a full caster but the Eidolon's behind a full martial. If you focus on only one aspect you play either a bad martial or a bad caster....

square peg round hole, it holds up in my play experience that even if you are a optimally statted primary caster you fail more often than feels worthwhile at your spells, and summoner is behind on that metric still.

not asking for them to get to legendary casting, i dont really care, but don't come at me because i dont feel like gambling my few spell slots on maybe's. id rather my round feel fruitful consistently.


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Unicore wrote:

I think there is a reality that "focusing on buff/support spells" in PF2 is not as game shifting a strategy as it was in PF1, and if you do go that route, you are usually much better off as a team casting those spells on your most damage focused martial than you are spreading them around on other characters, like your Eidolon. Even full casters struggle to stack more than one of these on any character at a time, and it is nearly impossible to be a sustained buff caster without relying heavily on having lots of lower level slots. Scrolls are cheap, and the summoner doesn't have nearly the full hands issue of the magus for utilizing scrolls heavily, but it is pretty clear that most players don't realize the value of scrolls for casters without playing a caster for an extended amount of time and seeing how effective scroll usage can be.

I haven't looked closely at the summoner yet, but the idea that being 2 or 3 points behind in casting proficiency means you can't use any offensive spells doesn't hold up in my play experience. It just requires focusing on different kinds of spells (more AoE and saving throw spells with decent effects on a save), rather than discarding them entirely.

What are 20th level summoners spending money on that they can't have a substantial budget for wands, staves and scrolls?

its not about spells, its about action economy and proficiency scaling

you all can talk about success on saves and whatnot but in the end you still failed to do what you tried to do and got a consolation prize, id rather just miss and have a higher base success rate.


Martialmasters wrote:
square peg round hole, it holds up in my play experience that even if you are a optimally statted primary caster you fail more often than feels worthwhile at your spells, and summoner is behind on that metric still.

Ok, let's make it simple.

Consider that instead of doing what they did, the Summoners had just cast Magic Missile at each and every round using their spell slots, 6 Wands of Manifold Missiles 7 and 10 scrolls of Magic Missile 7 (cost 96k = 60% of their money). I count 20 rounds (I don't know how many rounds there have been, but the Fighter did 56 attacks so there was clearly more than 20 rounds). They would have dealt 1057 points of automatic damage on average.
I can even do more, by using 2 Wands of Magic Missile 5 per combat (36k = 21% of their money) and just using 2 actions at round 1 of each combat and then do nothing else, I would have outdamaged the Phantom Summoner in 24 rounds. There have been easily 30 rounds of combat in total. I can outdamage him in 2 actions per fight with a few low level items....
I'm nearly sure the Phantom Summoner didn't had even a single Wand of Manifold Missiles.

So, if I manage to outdamage them with 1980's AIs, I think I can safely say they played their character "non optimally" (I actually think "non optimally" is a very nice word).
In my opinion, they have no high level experience and no mid to high level caster experience. I don't consider this as a valid level 20 Summoner playtest.


SuperBidi wrote:
Martialmasters wrote:
square peg round hole, it holds up in my play experience that even if you are a optimally statted primary caster you fail more often than feels worthwhile at your spells, and summoner is behind on that metric still.

Ok, let's make it simple.

Consider that instead of doing what they did, the Summoners had just cast Magic Missile at each and every round using their spell slots, 6 Wands of Manifold Missiles 7 and 10 scrolls of Magic Missile 7 (cost 96k = 60% of their money). I count 20 rounds (I don't know how many rounds there have been, but the Fighter did 56 attacks so there was clearly more than 20 rounds). They would have dealt 1057 points of automatic damage on average.
I can even do more, by using 2 Wands of Magic Missile 5 per combat (36k = 21% of their money) and just using 2 actions at round 1 of each combat and then do nothing else, I would have outdamaged the Phantom Summoner in 24 rounds. There have been easily 30 rounds of combat in total. I can outdamage him in 2 actions per fight with a few low level items....
I'm nearly sure the Phantom Summoner didn't had even a single Wand of Manifold Missiles.

So, if I manage to outdamage them with 1980's AIs, I think I can safely say they played their character "non optimally" (I actually think "non optimally" is a very nice word).
In my opinion, they have no high level experience and no mid to high level caster experience. I don't consider this as a valid level 20 Summoner playtest.

So you would recommend a heavy investment in magic missile scrolls and wands?


Deriven Firelion wrote:
So you would recommend a heavy investment in magic missile scrolls and wands?

Not at all. I just took a very simple example, with no rolls needed, to show that the damage of at least the Phantom Eidolon was completely subpar.

Now, I think buying Wands of Manifold Missiles is a very solid investment. As I said, even level 5 ones (3k per wand, so nearly nothing considering they had 160k of money) used with 1 action at the start of each combat would have dealt more than 500 damage (considering 2 wands per combat as you have 2 hands). So, I think it's a solid start up to build upon. But level 7 scrolls (600 gp each, so nothing) would have also dealt considerable damage (but with more action economy issues). One excellent spell for Divine/Primal Summoners is Life Beacon. It heals a lot for 1 action all the time. Buying scrolls of Life Beacon 7 or 8 would have been also a solid investment.

There are tons of things you can do with a high level caster. They did none of that. They didn't even used their 4 spells per day. Hence my conclusion.


SuperBidi wrote:
Deriven Firelion wrote:
So you would recommend a heavy investment in magic missile scrolls and wands?

Not at all. I just took a very simple example, with no rolls needed, to show that the damage of at least the Phantom Eidolon was completely subpar.

Now, I think buying Wands of Manifold Missiles is a very solid investment. As I said, even level 5 ones (3k per wand, so nearly nothing considering they had 160k of money) used with 1 action at the start of each combat would have dealt more than 500 damage (considering 2 wands per combat as you have 2 hands). So, I think it's a solid start up to build upon. But level 7 scrolls (600 gp each, so nothing) would have also dealt considerable damage (but with more action economy issues). One excellent spell for Divine/Primal Summoners is Life Beacon. It heals a lot for 1 action all the time. Buying scrolls of Life Beacon 7 or 8 would have been also a solid investment.

There are tons of things you can do with a high level caster. They did none of that. They didn't even used their 4 spells per day. Hence my conclusion.

Do you think casting with a Master spellcasting stat is worthwhile? Or are you recommending trying to use some kind of casting to enhance the summoner's capabilities? I could see using heals or buffs if possible.

Those encounters look a little crazy to me. They were some of the tougher monsters in the game.


Deriven Firelion wrote:
Do you think casting with a Master spellcasting stat is worthwhile?

Clearly. As I said above, a level 7 Chain Lightning deals nearly as much damage as the first attack of a Greatsword Dragon Barbarian against a same level enemy when cast with Master Proficiency. A single Meteor Swarm cast on 4 enemies (so the expected number of targets) deals more than 300 damage. It's a fourth of what their Fighter did in 30 rounds of combat.

At high level, casters are easily outdamaging martials. But, you know as much as I do that casting in PF2 is not a one round activity. You have to invest a significant amount of resources in scrolls, staves and wands to be able to sustain casting. Especially with Summoners who have a very limited spell list.

If I had to build a Summoner for such a challenge, I would have gone certainly for Sorcerer Dedication to grab Master Spellcasting in a second tradition (and the Breadth for 2 spells per level). A good deal of scrolls and maybe wands on top of that, focusing on one action spells (Wands of Manifold Missiles, Life Beacon, Implosion...). I don't say I would have outdamaged the Fighter, but I would at least have dealt a similar amount of damage. Not the ridiculous damage both Summoner dealt.

Another very interesting Dedication is Oracle. You have the Vision of Weakness Cursebound spell which gives you for one action and no check all the Weaknesses of the enemy and their worst saving throw. The only drawback is that it cost you 4 feats.

Dataphiles

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Most of the cash was spent on +3 major striking runed weapons (at least 50k), +3 greater resilient armour (24k, none of them went major resilient its too expensive), apex item (15k) and 2 +3 skill items (30k). That’s 119k already gone on, add an eyes of the eagle for the perception bonus 120k.

The rest was usually spent on consumables - scrolls of mind blank, energy aegis, etc. that were cast before they entered the dungeon.

Some manifold missile wands definitely would have helped the phantom summoner.

The beast summoner, I forgot to mention, did cast both Regenerate and Storm of Vengeance in the Tarrasque fight. Regenerate didn’t do too much, and Storm was interrupted by an AoO.


SuperBidi wrote:
Deriven Firelion wrote:
Do you think casting with a Master spellcasting stat is worthwhile?

Clearly. As I said above, a level 7 Chain Lightning deals nearly as much damage as the first attack of a Greatsword Dragon Barbarian against a same level enemy when cast with Master Proficiency. A single Meteor Swarm cast on 4 enemies (so the expected number of targets) deals more than 300 damage. It's a fourth of what their Fighter did in 30 rounds of combat.

At high level, casters are easily outdamaging martials. But, you know as much as I do that casting in PF2 is not a one round activity. You have to invest a significant amount of resources in scrolls, staves and wands to be able to sustain casting. Especially with Summoners who have a very limited spell list.

If I had to build a Summoner for such a challenge, I would have gone certainly for Sorcerer Dedication to grab Master Spellcasting in a second tradition (and the Breadth for 2 spells per level). A good deal of scrolls and maybe wands on top of that, focusing on one action spells (Wands of Manifold Missiles, Life Beacon, Implosion...). I don't say I would have outdamaged the Fighter, but I would at least have dealt a similar amount of damage. Not the ridiculous damage both Summoner dealt.

Another very interesting Dedication is Oracle. You have the Vision of Weakness Cursebound spell which gives you for one action and no check all the Weaknesses of the enemy and their worst saving throw. The only drawback is that it cost you 4 feats.

Do you think the summoner can sustain investment in consumables while also investing in a weapon and armor to keep the eidolon up to par or do you think that will be another weakness of the summoner being a hybrid martial/caster? It is absolutely essential the summoner maintain a max level weapon and armor to remain competitive with the eidolon as his primary source of damage.


Exocist wrote:

Most of the cash was spent on +3 major striking runed weapons (at least 50k), +3 greater resilient armour (24k, none of them went major resilient its too expensive), apex item (15k) and 2 +3 skill items (30k). That’s 119k already gone on, add an eyes of the eagle for the perception bonus 120k.

The rest was usually spent on consumables - scrolls of mind blank, energy aegis, etc. that were cast before they entered the dungeon.

Some manifold missile wands definitely would have helped the phantom summoner.

The beast summoner, I forgot to mention, did cast both Regenerate and Storm of Vengeance in the Tarrasque fight. Regenerate didn’t do too much, and Storm was interrupted by an AoO.

In my opinion, the Beast Summoner did ok. His build is valid, it's a classical support Summoner, just not as optimized as it would have been if he had played all 20 levels (I suspect there was no need for the level 18 feat for focus points for example). Of course, a big part of his impact on battle was Inspire Courage + Inspire Heroics, which is completely invisible as it buffed the three other characters damage. He tried to use spells, in my opinion not enough, but I won't criticize him too much. He could have done better, but I assume he roughly did ok.

But the Phantom Summoner is a joke. The build is totally invalid (4 useless feats out of 5 from the Rogue Dedication, one being his level 20 feat). He nearly didn't cast spells. He did third attacks with his Eidolon. He didn't even managed to deal as much damage as a support character...


Deriven Firelion wrote:
Do you think the summoner can sustain investment in consumables while also investing in a weapon and armor to keep the eidolon up to par or do you think that will be another weakness of the summoner being a hybrid martial/caster? It is absolutely essential the summoner maintain a max level weapon and armor to remain competitive with the eidolon as his primary source of damage.

The Eidolon is the primary source of damage at low level. At high level, spells are the Summoner's primary source of damage and the Eidolon the secondary one. As said earlier, his 4 spells deal as much damage as all the attacks he made with his Eidolon. Martials are strong at low level, casters at high level.

Anyway, I can't tell you exactly what proportion of your money you should invest on the Eidolon and on your casting abilities. That's why I've spoken of level 7 scrolls and level 5 Wands because they are quite cheap at that level and can be included easily. But to know the proper proportion, I would need to play a high level Summoner. At some point, theorycrafting meets its limits.


SuperBidi wrote:
Deriven Firelion wrote:
Do you think the summoner can sustain investment in consumables while also investing in a weapon and armor to keep the eidolon up to par or do you think that will be another weakness of the summoner being a hybrid martial/caster? It is absolutely essential the summoner maintain a max level weapon and armor to remain competitive with the eidolon as his primary source of damage.

The Eidolon is the primary source of damage at low level. At high level, spells are the Summoner's primary source of damage and the Eidolon the secondary one. As said earlier, his 4 spells deal as much damage as all the attacks he made with his Eidolon. Martials are strong at low level, casters at high level.

Anyway, I can't tell you exactly what proportion of your money you should invest on the Eidolon and on your casting abilities. That's why I've spoken of level 7 scrolls and level 5 Wands because they are quite cheap at that level and can be included easily. But to know the proper proportion, I would need to play a high level Summoner. At some point, theorycrafting meets its limits.

It will be interesting to test. Action to draw the scroll, then 2 actions to cast. That would pretty much be your round. 1 attack from the eidolon in position. But that isn't a terrible tradeoff. No boost. But a little extra damage with AoE.

You wouldn't be able to use other than single target AoE in position or you risk killing yourself, which is funny but sad at the same time. So things like chain lightning and horrid wilting would be necessary unless things were well position. Or things you can precisely place.


Deriven Firelion wrote:


It will be interesting to test. Action to draw the scroll, then 2 actions to cast. That would pretty much be your round. 1 attack from the eidolon in position. But that isn't a terrible tradeoff. No boost. But a little extra damage with AoE.

You wouldn't be able to use other than single target AoE in position or you risk killing yourself, which is funny but sad at the same time. So things like chain lightning and horrid wilting would be necessary unless things were well position. Or things you can precisely place.

First, there's no action to draw the scroll. Summoners have 2 hands and nothing to do with them, so you can have 2 scrolls/wands at hand + your spells + a shifted staff if you want. And if you find yourself drawing lots of scrolls, grabbing a Familiar is just one feat.

Also, for AoEs, there is Spell Immunity. Being able to include your Eidolon in your AoEs is quite nice, and it lasts 24h (and also protects from enemy spells). For a Summoner, it may be expensive, but if you have multiple casters, it can be worth using it.

But I agree that Chain Lightning and Horrid Wilting are excellent spells. Horrid Wilting does 10d10 damage, 55 average. On 4 to 6 creatures, it's 200-300 damage. And save for half, which means a nearly automatic 100-150 damage. With 4 spell slots, it means around 500 damage if all enemies succeed at their saves, which is all the damage the Summoners did in 6 fights!

AoE damage has the drawback of not focusing damage, but god it deals pain.

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