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I rewrote the eidolon ability and added some new functionality. Give it a read and let me know any issues or what you think. I modified it a bit conceptually and mechanically.
Eidolon: You have learned to summon and form the essence of another plane into a formidable creature known as an eidolon. You use your life force as a conduit to manifest the eidolon into the mortal world. An eidolon is a being formed of ephemeral essences of another plane and given life through its link to your spirit, mind, and body. It’s appearance, personality, and values are a reflection of your own view of the type of bond you have with the creature and the nature of the plane you summoned it from.
Choose what type of eidolon you have from the options beginning on page 18. In this playtest, the options available (and the spellcasting tradition each option grants you) are angel (divine), beast (primal), devotion phantom (occult), and dragon (arcane). When you choose your eidolon, you also determine their appearance and general form within the parameters for that particular type of eidolon. Once you establish your eidolon’s type and general appearance, these features can’t later be changed.
The link between you and your eidolon has a visible manifestation on each of your bodies. This can be anything from flaming eyes if you summon a fire elemental, the symbol of your deity blazing with holy light if summoning an angel, your eyes crackling with electricity if summoning a blue dragon, and so on. You determine the visible manifestation when you choose your eidolon and its association. This visible manifestation cannot be hidden while your eidolon is active. It is clear to any intelligent enemy that this visible manifestation is a link to your eidolon.
Your eidolon is no mere minion; the two of you share the same life force and have a magically infused bond. When you manifest the eidolon, your actions are reduced to two and your eidolon gains two actions as it is imbued with a portion of sentience from you. Your eidolon shares your hit point pool but gains temporary hit points equal to its level times its Constitution modifier that cannot be healed when it manifests. When these temporary hit points are reduced to 0, it draws from your shared life force for continued existence. Each round, either you or your eidolon can use your reaction.
Damage taken by either you or the eidolon once its temporary hit points are gone reduces your Hit Points, while healing either of you restores your Hit Points (but not temporary hit points). Due to the nature of your shared lifeforce, area damage spells or effects or damaging spells or effects that attack multiple targets within a given range like Horrid wilting affect you and your eidolon only once. When you and your eidolon are caught in an area effect that would heal or damage you both, only the greater amount of healing or damage applies. The summoner can choose to save or have the eidolon save, but must accept the result once chosen. The summoner and eidolon do not have to save twice against a spell or magical damage effect that targets them both. Physical or weapon attacks that target individuals treat the eidolon and summoner as individual creatures as do effects that cause other types of conditions.
If you are able to rest for 10 minutes and are healed back to full hit points, your eidolon regains their temporary hit points.
This life link doubles as a conduit that allows you to manifest your eidolon in this world. You gain the Manifest Eidolon activity, allowing you to make your eidolon appear at your side.
MANIFEST EIDOLON [three-actions] CONCENTRATE CONJURATION MAGICAL MANIPULATE SUMMONER TELEPORTATION
Your eidolon appears within 30 feet of you. If your eidolon was already manifested, choose whether to unmanifest them or teleport them to an open space within 30 feet. When you first manifest your eidolon, it can use its 2 actions.
Special This action has the trait matching your eidolon’s tradition (arcane, divine, occult, or primal).
Your eidolon doesn’t have the summoned or minion trait, but the conduit that allows them to manifest is also a tether between you. They must remain within 100 feet of you at all times and can’t willingly go beyond that limit. If forced beyond this distance, or if you’re reduced to 0 Hit Points, your eidolon’s physical form dissolves, and you need to use Manifest Eidolon to manifest them again.
Your connection also allows you to communicate with your eidolon telepathically at all times, even when they aren’t manifested. This ability lets you coordinate your actions with your eidolon to accomplish more than either of you could alone. You gain the Act Together and Share Senses actions.
ACT TOGETHER [one-action] SUMMONER TANDEM
Frequency once per round
You or your eidolon can grant the other an action. You choose which of you gains the action. This action is added to your action pool at the start of your round and the actions can be used individually or as part of a multiple action ability.
SHARE SENSES [one-action] CONCENTRATE DIVINATION MAGICAL SUMMONER
Requirements Your eidolon is manifested.
You project your senses into your eidolon. When you do, you lose all sensory information from your own body but can sense through your eidolon’s body for up to 1 minute. You can Dismiss this effect.
Special Your eidolon can also use this action to project their senses into your body.
While your eidolon can’t wear or use magic items except for companion items that specifically mention that they work for eidolons, their connection to you means they benefit from certain items once you invest in those items. Your eidolon gains item bonuses to Perception and skills from any magical items you’ve invested, as well as the benefits of the potency and resilient runes on your armor or the item bonuses of any bracers of armor you’ve invested. Your eidolon benefits from the potency, striking, and property runes on your handwraps of mighty blows, and you can Invest a single magic weapon to share the benefits of those runes from the weapon as well, even though you normally can’t Invest a magic weapon. Your eidolon gains the ability bonus increase gained from an invested apex item.
Your eidolon can benefit from any spells that have only you as the target like true strike or fire shield which activate on them if within the 100 foot range. You can target invisible creatures if either you or your eidolon have abilities or spells like see invisibility or true seeing active if you or the eidolon can also see the target.
Your eidolon gains the benefits of all of your skill feats it meets the prerequisites for and its form allows it to use.
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My goal in the rewrite was to make the eidolon mechanic feel a little more like an independent creature that was in line with how summoning in PF2 works and make it fit a little better with the original concept as I see it.
I didn't like the lack of access to skill feats. I would prefer an eidolon section where you built the eidolon as a separate creature with its own skills, skill feats, and the like as the old one was, but this seems to be the direction they are going. So it is easiest to let them access your skill feats if able.
Part of my concern with the summoner, is it will be necessary for them to focus on at least one physical skill like Acrobatics or Athletics, likely both or it makes it incredibly difficult for the eidolon to escape grapples or swallow wholes. I have seen these become a serious issue in my games as the monsters that grab and swallow usually have very high Athletics making it very difficult for even a Legendary Athletics player to escape much less someone with a lower skill. If the eidolon becomes highly susceptible to swallow, grab, or engulf attacks due to a lack of focus on at least one of the physical skills, then that will be an issue in play.
Given the current design of the eidolon and summoner, it means a portion of skill ups for the summoner must focus on Athletics and Acrobatics. And this would be supported by the summoner having to focus on acquiring skill feats for either of those skills for the eidolon to access.
I also wanted to include an Apex Item as usable. This also likely to be spent on a physical stat for the eidolon, likely strength, but perhaps Con or Dex depending on if the eidolon is Dex constrained for its AC. If the eidolon is not Dex constrained for its AC, then it might be worthwhile to focus on a high Dex for the Eidolon to boost AC.
I also wanted the actions to be more in line with how summoning works as the a summoned creature usually gains 2 actions for the cost of 1 action. I incorporated this into the basic action structure, while making Act Together serve for the purpose of shifting actions in a mechanically similar manner to what was proposed.
The advantage of this mechanic is it becomes unnecessary to track actions gained or lost as a unit. You can track action effects individually with the summoner and eidolon both being impacted by slow and haste individually. Whether or not this is imbalanced is yet to be determined, but I intend to test it as it could lead to rounds that allow up to 6 actions, which is to my understanding possible with an actual summoned minion if the minion is hasted. So is in line with how summoning would work in PF2 with the extra action limited to a stride or a strike for each component.
The main thing to test here is if the summoner using an action with no MAP along with boost eidolon with an eidolon with two attacks will pose a damage balance problem. I do not believe it will, but it will require some testing.
The natural action constraints upon both the eidolon and summoner should limit damage in the same way they do with an animal companion and a druid with the eidolon doing more damage than an animal companion and a summoner doing about the same damage as a druid engaging in martial activities absent the use of wild shape. I do not think this will cause the summoner to deal overwhelming damage as I have yet to see a caster with caster level martial ability do so.
I'll test this out as this will likely also serve as my house rules if the summoner is released without modifications.
I like alot of this (not all, but alot.) The shared action change in particular seems nice, although I did need to read Act Together twice to realize you weren't getting 5 actions.
Another thing I noticed is that the second-to-last paragraph, (can't quote, on my phone) would likely need a rewrite. My Eidolon can target invisible creatures but does that remove it's hidden condition? What about concealment? Does it still need to make a flat check? Observation and Concealment rules are kind of complicated is what I'm getting at.
Also although I like the changes to the actions, I would like to point out that if the eidolon becomes slowed 2 (or stunned or paralyzed or petrified etc.), you can't actually use the manifest eidolon action to unmanifest it, due to a lack of actions. Not sure if that's intentional or not.
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Act Together costs one action to give the eidolon or summoner an extra action. The action cost of act together provides the action payment to give the other a 3 action round. Neither should ever have 2 or 4 actions absent haste.
Conceptually, the summoner is either focusing his thoughts on increasing the eidolon action pool or drawing his thoughts more to himself limiting the action pool of the eidolon.
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Also although I like the changes to the actions, I would like to point out that if the eidolon becomes slowed 2 (or stunned or paralyzed or petrified etc.), you can't actually use the manifest eidolon action to unmanifest it, due to a lack of actions. Not sure if that's intentional or not.
Good point to bring up. I would make demanifesting the eidolon a single action like dismissing a spell. So if the eidolon becomes petrifed, slowed, or stunned 2, it is effectively useless unless you use Act Together to enhance it's action pool. So it would be better to dismiss the eidolon using a single action and focus on using your capabilities at that point.
If you get slowed 2, petrified 2, or stunned, then fortunately the eidolon can still act to defend and protect you until hopefully a party member can get you free.
Also although I like the changes to the actions, I would like to point out that if the eidolon becomes slowed 2 (or stunned or paralyzed or petrified etc.), you can't actually use the manifest eidolon action to unmanifest it, due to a lack of actions. Not sure if that's intentional or not.Good point to bring up. I would make demanifesting the eidolon a single action like dismissing a spell. So if the eidolon becomes petrifed, slowed, or stunned 2, it is effectively useless unless you use Act Together to enhance it's action pool. So it would be better to dismiss the eidolon using a single action and focus on using your capabilities at that point.
If you get slowed 2, petrified 2, or stunned, then fortunately the eidolon can still act to defend and protect you until hopefully a party member can get you free.
Seems like a great fix.
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though the choose who saves is overpowered. The summoner would always have the better creature take the save. It would incentivize min-maxing the stat boosts more then the other PCs.
I do not believe this would occur as there are many individually targeted spells that can destroy you and many effect spells that would not apply as the change only applies to damage spells requiring both to save, which would make devaluing a save a bad idea.
What it would do though is stop the summoner from having to roll a save with disadvantage as it is currently set up.
the hit points of the summoner will go down to the other caster's with this temp hp set up and it would be harder to maintain with in battle healing.
I will test this to see if it causes issues. My feeling right now is the hit point buffer will give the summoner some leeway given he is attackable at two points.
with how you worded act together it seems you are asking to as standard 3 actions each to become one having 2 actions and the other with 4
They both start with 2 actions. Act Together costs 1 action to use to give the other 1 action. That is a 3/1 action exchange.
some self only target spells are made that way to help keep squishy casters alive like mirror image and blur, putting these and other spells on an eidolon at range would be devastating
I do not think it would be any worse than a fighter or other martial class using these, which I have seen quite a few times with MC casters. It wasn't devastating as mirror image is quickly carved through and true strike requires an action to give one attack advantage. That isn't devastating unless you have capabilities to severely boost your attack damage like a raging barbarian or power attack fighter or spell strike magus or disintegrate mage. It would be an occasional mild damage increase.
with "Your eidolon gains the benefits of all of your skill feats it meets the prerequisites for and its form allows it to use." is this to make it so beasts (who many times have no arms or hands) are under powered or encourage all the players to make Hecatoncheires so they can have equipped all the tools in the game.
I included that for DM rulings. At the moment I do not believe beasts are disadvantaged on anything by RAW.
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I like alot of this (not all, but alot.) The shared action change in particular seems nice, although I did need to read Act Together twice to realize you weren't getting 5 actions.
Another thing I noticed is that the second-to-last paragraph, (can't quote, on my phone) would likely need a rewrite. My Eidolon can target invisible creatures but does that remove it's hidden condition? What about concealment? Does it still need to make a flat check? Observation and Concealment rules are kind of complicated is what I'm getting at.
Yes. It would remove it's hidden condition. Given the summoner is spell constrained, I figure sharing a buff spell like true seeing or see invisibility would not make the summoner suffer for having spent a spell to allow him to attack invisible creatures.
If the spell sees through concealment, then no, neither would have to make a flat check if both can see the target.
Given how the summoner plays, most of the summoners actions are focused on empowering the eidolon so it should rarely come up. But if it does, then I thought why punish the summoner for spending 25% of his spell slots on an ability to attack an invisible creature.
See invisibility causes them to be concealed anyway. If the summoner is spending a slot or magic item to cast true seeing, he should not have to cast it twice to benefit his eidolon.
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MANIFEST EIDOLON [three-actions] CONCENTRATE CONJURATION MAGICAL MANIPULATE SUMMONER TELEPORTATION
Your eidolon appears within 30 feet of you. If your eidolon was already manifested, choose whether to unmanifest them or teleport them to an open space within 30 feet. When you first manifest your eidolon, it can use its 2 actions. You can dismiss your eidolon as a single action.
Special This action has the trait matching your eidolon’s tradition (arcane, divine, occult, or primal).
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(Just a note, I think you'll get better results from testing the playtest rather than running a one-person playtest for your homebrew. Proposing stuff makes sense, but I think that Paizo's gonna be better at tweaking the final version. But, it's your time, and it's not like I've found an opportunity to play these classes myself!)
Thoughts on what I'd like to see from this in the actual Summoner, and what I wouldn't.
+ Visible manifestation is way better than the rune. Bolding because I feel strongly about this! Much more flexible on the flavor, gets the same job done, doesn't feel as weird. That said, it's only doing half the job. There isn't the clue that the eidolon isn't an actual angel/dragon/beast that the rune provides even if you're hiding. I much prefer that, personally, but I imagine that's part of Paizo's goal.
- I don't care at all about the Eidolon's Con getting more use, and I don't like the change. It'd definitely need to get brought down to an 8hp/level class (or you'd be rocking way more HP than a barbarian), and that just makes it even more important for the Summoner to hide and never show their face. Definitely wouldn't want that healing system.
- I prefer the existing AoE/multi-target rules. This produces much weirder results, like times you want to be in the area together and times you don't.
+/= Manifest Eidolon changes are all right, but I'll take any fix to the "spend three actions after getting knocked out and do nothing that turn" problem. I'm happy to leave that to the designers.
+ I'd appreciate flexible choice with Apex, buuuut if Magus can't boost both Int and Str or Dex, then I guess it's fair that Summoner has to choose as well. So, in the end, I agree.
- I dislike this action fix. Making a caster eidolon allows you both to cast on the same turn, which breaks the balance of two-action activities. I'll take Mark Seifter's fix any day (whoever uses more actions grants the other an extra, solitary action that can't be combined). For the sake of not having every guide recommending abusing the only way to do two two-action activities in a round, I'd take the existing system over this.
+ Shared skill feats. Heck yeah! Really like having a way to give my eidolon some more abilities. I'm cool with Paizo throwing in something to prevent getting around "bolstered against" text (doubling up on Combat Medic, Scare to Death, etc.).
= I'm okay with the shared spells as a way to get self-only stuff on eidolons. That targeting rule is more than I want to deal with in a game, though. Share Senses already provides a way to do this.
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(Just a note, I think you'll get better results from testing the playtest rather than running a one-person playtest for your homebrew. Proposing stuff makes sense, but I think that Paizo's gonna be better at tweaking the final version. But, it's your time, and it's not like I've found an opportunity to play these classes myself!)
I've tested the playtest. This is drawn from the playtest.
A barbarian can't be attacked at two points by separate creatures, so an extra maximum of 100 temporary hit points to account for that seems reasonable. It is definitely something I would test.
- I prefer the existing AoE/multi-target rules. This produces much weirder results, like times you want to be in the area together and times you don't.
I have directly experienced critical fails on AOE saves multiple times against powerful creatures. Rolling a damaging saving throw twice and taking the worse result is a recipe for absolutely getting decimated.
I have experience such pain from AoE spells and effects that I consider Will save to be the lowest value save. I would rather be dominated, charmed, and generally mentally messed up than to critically fail a dragon breath weapon attack or a lvl 10 fireball. The damage is insane.
For example, yesterday my druid dropped a chain lightning on a group and one critically failed it's save taking 158 points of damage with a 6th level spell.
Right now the summoner rules as written have you roll twice and take the worse result. If you are hit by a cataclysm or meteor swarm or dragon breath weapon with two chances to critically fail, you will practically be one-shotted by that attack. The radius on these spells is huge. Almost impossible to avoid unless you are in some huge, wide open area.
An ancient read dragon requires a DC42 reflex save. It does 20d6 in a 60 foot cone or an average of 70 points of damage. If you critically fail, you take 140 points. Even at lvl 20 with a maxed out 22 Con with Toughness you will have 348 hit points, which means you'll take 40% of your hit points in a single hit. This is assuming there is only one and no one else is launching AOE.
I have also fought two high level wizards launching AoE on a group and a lich. If you are rolling reflex and fortitude saves with in essence disadvantage (rolling twice and taking the lower roll), you are going to get absolutely wasted and destroyed quickly.
One thing I absolutely know for certain is if they leave this "Roll twice and take the worst result in" is going to lead to some very, very unhappy summoners at high level as they get leveled by AoE spells and effects. They 100% have to fix this before release. Damage on AoE effects like auras, spells, breath weapons, and the like become devastating at high levels.
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- I dislike this action fix. Making a caster eidolon allows you both to cast on the same turn, which breaks the balance of two-action activities. I'll take Mark Seifter's fix any day (whoever uses more actions grants the other an extra, solitary action that can't be combined). For the sake of not having every guide recommending abusing the only way to do two two-action activities in a round, I'd take the existing system over this.
The only eidolon where this is a concern at all is the Dragon Eidolon. The maximum spell an eidolon can cast using an evolution is 2nd level. Cantrips are demonstrably inferior to physical attacks, especially when using a Master level attack roll to hit at most with no item bonuses to hit.
2 action activities breaking the balance of the game is I believe provably over-stated. But I will test it and see if someone using optimal play given the short-duration of combat and the need set up the battlefield for AoE attacks will be able to exploit two action activities to a level of obviously superior performance.
My feeling is if 2 action activities were the problem stated on here, then every caster would invest in Quicken Spell and spend the coin to obtain a powerful, spellcasting minion of Challenge 17 from animate dead or similar rituals.
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- I dislike this action fix. Making a caster eidolon allows you both to cast on the same turn, which breaks the balance of two-action activities. I'll take Mark Seifter's fix any day (whoever uses more actions grants the other an extra, solitary action that can't be combined). For the sake of not having every guide recommending abusing the only way to do two two-action activities in a round, I'd take the existing system over this.The only eidolon where this is a concern at all is the Dragon Eidolon. The maximum spell an eidolon can cast using an evolution is 2nd level. Cantrips are demonstrably inferior to physical attacks, especially when using a Master level attack roll to hit at most with no item bonuses to hit.
2 action activities breaking the balance of the game is I believe provably over-stated. But I will test it and see if someone using optimal play given the short-duration of combat and the need set up the battlefield for AoE attacks will be able to exploit two action activities to a level of obviously superior performance.
My feeling is if 2 action activities were the problem stated on here, then every caster would invest in Quicken Spell and spend the coin to obtain a powerful, spellcasting minion of Challenge 17 from animate dead or similar rituals.
It's true that I don't necessarily have a big concern with the specific playtest eidolons; we've only got four so far. My concern is more that it would permanently limit what they could give eidolons. Whatever it is, it would need to be able to happen at the same time as an eighth/ninth level spell for all four rounds of a big combat for the day.
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(Just a note, I think you'll get better results from testing the playtest rather than running a one-person playtest for your homebrew. Proposing stuff makes sense, but I think that Paizo's gonna be better at tweaking the final version. But, it's your time, and it's not like I've found an opportunity to play these classes myself!)
I've tested the playtest. This is drawn from the playtest.
A barbarian can't be attacked at two points by separate creatures, so an extra maximum of 100 temporary hit points to account for that seems reasonable. It is definitely something I would test.
- I prefer the existing AoE/multi-target rules. This produces much weirder results, like times you want to be in the area together and times you don't.
I have directly experienced critical fails on AOE saves multiple times against powerful creatures. Rolling a damaging saving throw twice and taking the worse result is a recipe for absolutely getting decimated.
I have experience such pain from AoE spells and effects that I consider Will save to be the lowest value save. I would rather be dominated, charmed, and generally mentally messed up than to critically fail a dragon breath weapon attack or a lvl 10 fireball. The damage is insane.
For example, yesterday my druid dropped a chain lightning on a group and one critically failed it's save taking 158 points of damage with a 6th level spell.
Right now the summoner rules as written have you roll twice and take the worse result. If you are hit by a cataclysm or meteor swarm or dragon breath weapon with two chances to critically fail, you will practically be one-shotted by that attack. The radius on these spells is huge. Almost impossible to avoid unless you are in some huge, wide open area.
An ancient read dragon requires a DC42 reflex save. It does 20d6 in a 60 foot cone or an average of 70 points of damage. If you critically fail, you take 140 points. Even at lvl 20 with a maxed out 22 Con with Toughness you will have 348 hit points,...
Well, you've done more actual playtesting than me, so I can't really argue there! I'm still skeptical about getting more hitpoints than the barbarian (and the weird healing of the temp hitpoints is something I'd expect to be fixed by Paizo), but you've convinced me about the AoE issue.
For the 2 two-action activity issue, I actually think it's a bigger thing for the beast eidolon.
I think that alot of people forget that while two-action activities are balanced around only being able to use once per round, they're also balanced around having an action to move into position.
If both you and your eidolon are using two-action spells you're both immobilized for the round.
You maybe able to cast a two-action spell and Draconic Frenzy but if nobody's in reach of your eidolon there's not much point.
And similar issues with positioning and breath weapon.
Beast gets the most benefit with its charge but that means it's only moving in straight lines or not receiving any bonus. And the summoner would still be frozen if they're casting.
Movement and mobility became a lot more important in PF2, even for casters.
If you can set it up, it can be alot of Nova damage... if you can set it up the round before.
TLDR: I don't think allowing 2 two-action activities would be as imbalanced as alot of people think.
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This is an interesting proposal
One potential problem around the temp HP is the ease with which they can be restored
Eidolon runs out of temp HP? 1 action dismiss at the end of a turn so it can't be hit any more, three summoner actions to manifest it back with full temp HP and then the eidolon gets two actions immediately? You've just done the equivalent of a near top-level single target heal for the net loss of two actions a round and no expenditure of resources, and you can do it every two rounds without limitation, with your eidolon getting an uninterrupted 2 actions every turn, and the pair of you unhasted getting a total of 5 actions every second turn.
If you have your heart set on 2/2 action split and some temp hp, there has to be a less exploitable way to manage this, even if it's just preventing the eidolon from acting on the turn it is manifested.
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Say to make a summon, say that you are summoning it (not manifested). And that its no mere minion, it does not get the minion trait instead it does [insert action rules here].
Summoned trait is auto-linked to the Minion Trait: it's easier to make a new trait/word than try to force the old trait to fit by making exceptions to it.
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This is an interesting proposal
One potential problem around the temp HP is the ease with which they can be restored
Eidolon runs out of temp HP? 1 action dismiss at the end of a turn so it can't be hit any more, three summoner actions to manifest it back with full temp HP and then the eidolon gets two actions immediately? You've just done the equivalent of a near top-level single target heal for the net loss of two actions a round and no expenditure of resources, and you can do it every two rounds without limitation, with your eidolon getting an uninterrupted 2 actions every turn, and the pair of you unhasted getting a total of 5 actions every second turn.
If you have your heart set on 2/2 action split and some temp hp, there has to be a less exploitable way to manage this, even if it's just preventing the eidolon from acting on the turn it is manifested.
It doesn't work like you stated. Not even the base manifestation mechanics work that way. You would be spending 3 actions to gain 2 actions with your eidolon. That is a net loss over and over again of actions. It is not exploitable at all. I did it to fix a problem pointed out where if the summoner is knock unconscious, then he doesn't have to manifest his eidolon and do nothing.
It doesn't heal the temp hit points upon manifestation. It only heals them if you are healed to full hit points and spend 10 minutes resting. I based this mechanic off the Juggernaut Elixir. It works similar to that. Manifesting does not restore the temporary hit points.
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Say to make a summon, say that you are summoning it (not manifested). And that its no mere minion, it does not get the minion trait instead it does [insert action rules here].Summoned trait is auto-linked to the Minion Trait: it's easier to make a new trait/word than try to force the old trait to fit by making exceptions to it.In that case make an Eidolon trait. Have it say that it counts as Summoned for the purpose for any effect that targets, affects, or requires summoned creatures. But it does not get the Summoned trait. Obviously the language would need to get cleaned up but its not that much space.
Take that space to also add in the eidolon action rules and separate it from the class.
You could do something like that but it leads to interesting results like being able to banish a beast Eidolon back to it's plane but it's already on it's plane which does what? It also makes multiclass wizard particularly attractive: Arcane School Spell [Augment Summoning] gets you a focus spell for +1 status bonus to all checks (including DCs/AC) for 1 minute. It's a buff for eidolon skill use, stacks with Boost and buffs their special attacks [like dragon breathe and pretty much blows Reinforce out of the water.
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It doesn't heal the temp hit points upon manifestation. It only heals them if you are healed to full hit points and spend 10 minutes resting. I based this mechanic off the Juggernaut Elixir. It works similar to that. Manifesting does not restore the temporary hit points.That makes more sense, but you may want to fix the line in your writeup:
Your eidolon shares your hit point pool but gains temporary hit points equal to its level times its Constitution modifier that cannot be healed when it manifests
As it implies that whenever the eidolon is manifested it gains the temp hp and the later line of regaining them after healing to full and 10 minutes only would apply in a situation where the summoner, for whatever reason, hasn't simply popped it out and back in
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Well I dont think eidolons should be from the martial plane period. Beast Eidolons should be from the First World or Agathions (Who can often look like true animals).
Summoners are supposed to be the best at Summoning. I dont mind if a Summoner getting Augment Summoning makes them even better at it.
Finally, I never liked Boost Eidolon so it could go away and replaced by some other ability (like more customization) for all I care.
I kind of agree with all this but as you mentioned, it'd be better to fix/replace some things. I'd rather see conjurers jealous of what a summoner gets instead of the other way around.
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An eidolon is a being formed of ephemeral essences of another plane and given life through its link to your spirit, mind, and body. It’s appearance, personality, and values are a reflection of your own view of the type of bond you have with the creature and the nature of the plane you summoned it from.
This isn't a quote from the playtest that I missed is it?
It seems to me to me to make the Eidolon infinitely less of a unique, independent creature.
It completely removes the idea of a Angelic Mentor or bound Demon manifested in a limited body which has capabilities that are limited by the power of the Summoner, and you've put it in the Rules as Written for this version of the Summoner.
We go from having an Eidolon that has existence outside the Summoner, to one that is only significant by its relationship to the Summoner.
Suddenly, all arguments that you're actually calling an Angel or Demon are literally counter to Rules as Written.
Instead of having a True Angel, I have an image of an Angel that reflects me.
I want an Eidolon with a home life and its own agenda.
This change precludes having an Eidolon that isn't a reflection of yourself, an alien creature on a psychic leash, etc.
It may reflect how you think the mechanics work currently, but those are way less important for writing a characters backstory than this part of the class description IMO.
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Mechanics wise, your ideas aren't bad or anything, but it includes a lot of buffs that I personally don't see as warranted.
Your change to how the actions work isn't bad necessarily, but it does ignore a stated design goal of the developers looking to avoid that particular action split. I don't know if its an issue, I only know that they they think it might be.
Extra actions on Manifesting is a straight up buff that I'm not sure is needed at all. Or maybe it helps? Dunno on this one. Looks scary to me, though its mechanically sound and reflects summoning spells.
The temporary hp on manifesting needs to be more limited IMO, if its needed at all. I've still yet to encounter a situation where my Summoner + Eidolon actually felt squishier than normal - they've felt vulnerable a couple times, but it felt more like an appropriate weakness than a real limitation on character viability.
Share Spells is thematic and a great callback and I conceptually like it. I still want a feat that allows the Eidolon to be the origin point of your spells, and therein by capable of 'virtually' casting them and this is possible something that would get rolled in there, but...
Fully Shared Skill Feats scares the crap out of me. My party already sees my Summoner as 'Overpresent' for skill challenges during exploration (I'm the best candidate to make a skill check way more than anyone else), and this would make me the best skill user in the party by far. My character would be everywhere for skill checks, and it would make me far more involved in the game than any other character. This is one of those things that massively increases the resources of a Summoner over other players, and its extremely visible. Its an aspect that probably isn't mechanically broken, but it certainly feels like it is when there's no cost or restriction. I prefer something significantly more limited than this given how powerful a Summoner looks at skills to other players as it is.
The most awesome thing I think you've done here is the Visible Manifestation change. Mark, please make this happen :)
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The playtest eidolon has no existence outside the Summoner, has the same skills as the summoner, takes the same damage as the summoner, and must share actions with the summoner.At best the only case for them having a life is a single lv 20 feat that kind of maybe implies it. But which doesn't tell you anything, besides "commune with another plane, you might be friendly with some of then".
No mechanical existence and no narrative existence are different things. The writeup is quite clear that multiple eidolon types are real creatures of their type independent of you.
The fact that you personally only recognize one of them is irrelevant. Thats your personal hangup.
This rewrite eliminate it on both sides, and that is unacceptable to me.
You do realise currently the Dragon eidolon unmanifested is a smear of dragon memories trapped in the Astral sea and the beast ediolon is a pool of life/nature energy unmanifested. Both are just pools of primal/draconic power the summoner binds into a form.
Yep - but they're specific cases, and not the base class rule. My post referenced "multiple eidolon types " instead of "all eidolons" because of this.
Theyre also still a specific smear of dragon memories, or nature energy - theyre not a mental and emotional reflection of the summoner.
The implementations also seem fully structured to support the inclusion of those specific base types, as Dragons and Beasts aren't ectraplanar entities by default.
I fully expect the descriptions of demons, psycopomps, fey etc though to be consistent with what we have for Phantoms and Angels - and for them to be described as specific creatures given limited form in the material plane from the Abyss, Boneyard or First World as applicable.
The playtest eidolon has no existence outside the Summoner, has the same skills as the summoner, takes the same damage as the summoner, and must share actions with the summoner.At best the only case for them having a life is a single lv 20 feat that kind of maybe implies it. But which doesn't tell you anything, besides "commune with another plane, you might be friendly with some of then".
No mechanical existence and no narrative existence are different things. The writeup is quite clear that multiple eidolon types are real creatures of their type independent of you.
The fact that you personally only recognize one of them is irrelevant. Thats your personal hangup.
This rewrite eliminate it on both sides, and that is unacceptable to me.
YOU HAVE TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION
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YOU HAVE TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION
Thanks for your nuanced contribution to the conversation. It definitely captures the grey area in extremes between doing things entirely via narrative and putting them in the rules.
While I do support reskinning and narrative flexibility in general, I think its best to keep things as open as possible when you can including mechanics.
In this case, by not defining Eidolons as a reflection as a Summoner in the base text you allow for multiple interpretations by default as opposed to requiring a discussion with a GM - whose limits on narrative flexibility may differ from your own. What is most limiting is text in the class itself that precludes common summoner tropes explicitly by making things like a bound demon a "houseruled exception" instead of a default choice.
It doesn't heal the temp hit points upon manifestation. It only heals them if you are healed to full hit points and spend 10 minutes resting. I based this mechanic off the Juggernaut Elixir. It works similar to that. Manifesting does not restore the temporary hit points.That makes more sense, but you may want to fix the line in your writeup:Your eidolon shares your hit point pool but gains temporary hit points equal to its level times its Constitution modifier that cannot be healed when it manifestsAs it implies that whenever the eidolon is manifested it gains the temp hp and the later line of regaining them after healing to full and 10 minutes only would apply in a situation where the summoner, for whatever reason, hasn't simply popped it out and back in
Thank you, sir. Now I see why you thought that way. My bad. Appreciate the feedback.
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An eidolon is a being formed of ephemeral essences of another plane and given life through its link to your spirit, mind, and body. It’s appearance, personality, and values are a reflection of your own view of the type of bond you have with the creature and the nature of the plane you summoned it from.
This isn't a quote from the playtest that I missed is it?
It seems to me to me to make the Eidolon infinitely less of a unique, independent creature.
It completely removes the idea of a Angelic Mentor or bound Demon manifested in a limited body which has capabilities that are limited by the power of the Summoner, and you've put it in the Rules as Written for this version of the Summoner.
We go from having an Eidolon that has existence outside the Summoner, to one that is only significant by its relationship to the Summoner.
Suddenly, all arguments that you're actually calling an Angel or Demon are literally counter to Rules as Written.
Instead of having a True Angel, I have an image of an Angel that reflects me.
I want an Eidolon with a home life and its own agenda.
This change precludes having an Eidolon that isn't a reflection of yourself, an alien creature on a psychic leash, etc.
It may reflect how you think the mechanics work currently, but those are way less important for writing a characters backstory than this part of the class description IMO.
This is where we disagree. Because I wrote the description to be more in line with mechanics. I know you seem to have glossed over the mechanics to imagine you have a bound angel, but if the creature isn't separate with separate actions, hit point pool, and the like, my imagination isn't buying it.
That is where we differ in our opinions of how the mechanics model the idea.
So I took a different route. Instead of trying to build a completely independent creature mechanically, went the other way and changed the conceptual idea behind the eidolon to eliminate the idea of independence that isn't reflected in the mechanics.
So I took a different route. Instead of trying to build a completely independent creature mechanically, went the other way and changed the conceptual idea behind the eidolon to eliminate the idea of independence that isn't reflected in the mechanics.
But it is reflected in the rules.
And I quote, "Though a true angel, your angel eidolon’s link to you as a mortal prevents them from casting the angelic messenger ritual, even if they somehow learn it."
It lays out that your eidolon is a true angel, and details a rules way in which it differs from others of its kind.
Are there any true angels that aren't independent creatures?
Clearly, its an independent creature, because the rules say so.
I get that don't like shared HP and actions.
But those are mechanical constructs, to ensure balance by limiting the capabilities of a Summoner plus Eidolon to the capabilities of a single player. They do not, and were never intended to, imply that the Eidolon is not its own creature.
Its not a case for rewriting the flavor of the class and destroying most of its core examples of summoning or binding powerful, actual creatures, to force it to resemble any givens persons take on the rules.
You can have shared actions and hp between two independent creatures. Its not even hard. You just have to... accept it as a cost of having a balanced class, with more potent capabilities than you'd have if they were mechanically independent.
Extra actions on Manifesting is a straight up buff that I'm not sure is needed at all. Or maybe it helps? Dunno on this one. Looks scary to me, though its mechanically sound and reflects summoning spells.
This fixes being unable to act when Manifesting the eidolon. Remember when one of the playtest threads mentioned that manifesting the eidolon after being knocked unconscious led to dead rounds?
Think about how this plays. You spend 3 actions manifesting your main source of damage like drawing your weapon, to get 2 actions to attack or do something with.
For a summoner manifesting an eidolon is like drawing a weapon. So when a warrior draws his weapon, he gets 2 actions to attack. So when a summoner manifests his eidolon, he gets two actions to attack. It essentially turns Manifest Eidolon into the equivalent of drawing your weapon.
There is no exploit or net action gain spending 3 actions manifesting. It's a rule to let the summoner do something on the initial round he summons his eidolon or if he gets back up.
The temporary hp on manifesting needs to be more limited IMO, if its needed at all. I've still yet to encounter a situation where my Summoner + Eidolon actually felt squishier than normal - they've felt vulnerable a couple times, but it felt more like an appropriate weakness than a real limitation on character viability.
I messed this line up. It shouldn't be gained on manifest. I will rewrite it to make it more clear.
Fully Shared Skill Feats scares the crap out of me. My party already sees my Summoner as 'Overpresent' for skill challenges during exploration (I'm the best candidate to make a skill check way more than anyone else), and this would make me the best skill user in the party by far. My character would be everywhere for skill checks, and it would make me far more involved in the game than any other character. This is one of those things that massively increases the resources of a Summoner over other players, and its extremely visible. Its an aspect that probably isn't mechanically broken, but it certainly feels like it is when there's no cost or restriction. I prefer something significantly more limited than this given how powerful a Summoner looks at skills to other players as it is.
If your party is lacking a rogue or investigator, I can see this. From what I have seen most of my players, even the cleric surprisingly, focuses heavily on Athletics and Acrobatics. The bard has crafting and diplomacy, but no one much focused on knowledge skills. Just skills mechanically usable in combat. No one even built up thievery. This is our first campaign, so I'm hoping in future campaigns they start to see more the value of other skills.
So I took a different route. Instead of trying to build a completely independent creature mechanically, went the other way and changed the conceptual idea behind the eidolon to eliminate the idea of independence that isn't reflected in the mechanics.But it is reflected in the rules.
And I quote, "Though a true angel, your angel eidolon’s link to you as a mortal prevents them from casting the angelic messenger ritual, even if they somehow learn it."
It lays out that your eidolon is a true angel, and details a rules way in which it differs from others of its kind.
Are there any true angels that aren't independent creatures?
Clearly, its an independent creature, because the rules say so.
I get that don't like shared HP and actions.
But those are mechanical constructs, to ensure balance by limiting the capabilities of a Summoner plus Eidolon to the capabilities of a single player. They do not, and were never intended to, imply that the Eidolon is not its own creature.
Its not a case for rewriting the flavor of the class and destroying most of its core examples of summoning or binding powerful, actual creatures, to force it to resemble any givens persons take on the rules.
You can have shared actions and hp between two independent creatures. Its not even hard. You just have to... accept it as a cost of having a balanced class, with more potent capabilities than you'd have if they were mechanically independent.
The description of the concept says so. That I agree on.
I want to make this clear. I can see that you are easily able to imagine what the concept text is telling you. And that's ok. It is what the Paizo designers intend. The designers want the players to buy the conceit that the creature you summon is a separate and independent entity. It is clearly in the text. You are able to buy into it.
All I am stating is that myself and some others feel the mechanics feel otherwise. We feel the creature does not feel independent even if the concept text is telling us it is so. It feels more like some strange manifestation of a second form of our character made to look like a beast or angel or dragon rather than a separate creature. More like a second persona manifested into some kind of physically powerful creature and less like an existing creature we summon from another plane.
We can go back and forth about what the designers intend, but we'll continue to disagree on what we feel the mechanics model. I think at this point it is ok for each side to think the way they do. The designers will have to consider both of our viewpoints and see if they can do anything to bring these sides together again hopefully.
Your eidolon is no mere minion; the two of you share the same life force and have a magically infused bond. When you manifest the eidolon, your actions are reduced to two and your eidolon gains two actions as it is imbued with a portion of sentience from you. Your eidolon shares your hit point pool when it manifests, but the eidolon gains temporary hit points equal to its level times its Constitution modifier that cannot be healed . When these temporary hit points are reduced to 0, it draws from your shared life force for continued existence. Each round, either you or your eidolon can use your reaction.
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I made a slight change to the temporary hit point modification. Hopefully this is clearer.
Now I'm going to work on eidolon customization. I want the eidolon to be more like the creatures you summon and not so generic. I feel this can be accomplished following a similar model to animal companions using the already modeled eidolon advancement rules without requiring a feat. This is a more difficult balance task, but I think it can be done modeling how they balanced weapons. We'll see how it goes.
Have your read Milton or Gaiman Angelic free will has always been one of the more interesting question can a tool of divine authority countermand it wonderful stuff.
So I took a different route. Instead of trying to build a completely independent creature mechanically, went the other way and changed the conceptual idea behind the eidolon to eliminate the idea of independence that isn't reflected in the mechanics.But it is reflected in the rules.
And I quote, "Though a true angel, your angel eidolon’s link to you as a mortal prevents them from casting the angelic messenger ritual, even if they somehow learn it."
It lays out that your eidolon is a true angel, and details a rules way in which it differs from others of its kind.
Are there any true angels that aren't independent creatures?
I am not sure I have read any Gaiman books. I really should. I have read so many different authors and yet I think I have forgotten to read Gaiman.