Just a collection of my play experience and my thoughts about it, things that didn't feel like they fit properly in the survey.
Playing as a Kobold with a dragon eidolon.
Joined an AP game in progress at level 12. Party was supposed to be a champion, a rogue, a cleric and a druid. With all the bases covered for roles I asked to try out the summoner and got the go ahead. However when I joined the game I found out the champion had dropped out.
So felt a bit rough having lost the martial front line.
Out of combat was mediocre, nothing came up that I could do that the rogue couldn't do much better.
The first fight was an ambush, in water. I used evolution surge for swim speed, and tried to get some hits in. My summoner was eaten before I could get away. Out of 3 dragon frenzy attempts, I got 2 hits, for mid 20's damage.
The rogue did some summoning and then moved in to use a monk stance and get some flurry attacks, doing mid 30's to low 40's damage.
The druid used plant form and got a bunch of reach hits for mid 40's damage.
Battle cleric tried to melee and a few spells and did no damage the whole fight I think, did some nice heals though.
My Eidolon got eaten and confused so I cast a level 6 lightning bolt to get some damage in to get free as I could not make the damage quota to get out otherwise. The enemy crit succeeded, but the GM reversed that as he couldn't get on board with shooting lighting from inside something and not getting a hit. So I managed to get free, we kept chipping away at the monsters until I went down, got healed back up, dropped another lightning bolt and finished up the fight.
Overview: I felt that my Eidolons damage was very sub par and had a very low chance to hit, 13 or above to hit. While the enemy was hitting me on a 5 or above. Aside from the crit success, my upcasted lightning bolt felt like alright damage, if I could have hit multiple targets and such.
Out of combat: seemed to be the AP was written in a way to make what the group was doing difficult, coming up with our own solutions and such. So we sorta bungled through things and I didn't feel like I brought anything to the table anyone else didn't, since we all ran into the same problems.
Second fight, boss fight. Started out fighting some minions, wrecked one and the other tried to run away, I tried to make my Eidolon huge to stop them but couldn't get into the right spot in time so just made an attack on them and missed. Let out some lightning breath down the hallway they ran through and got some damage, the rogue tossed a fireball and finished them off. Then the boss came in, they had a hard time getting through the small hallway, and as I was the only one with reliable ranged I got another breath attack in and some ranged evolution attacks before engaging. The whole group suffered some aoe damage, my summoner was in the next room so was fine. We all got blinded, so the battle was very rough from there.
We had an alchemist join us, who was able to hit the enemy weakness and did the majority of damage in this fight. I used share senses to allow my Eidolon to see through my eyes and still keep attacking. My Eidolon and the cleric took the majority of the bosses attacks, getting hit for 40-50 damage per strike, reinforce Eidolon doing a little reduction to the physical +elemental attacks. I was using reinforce plus having my Eidolon cast shield to up my AC and have a bit of DR.
Overview: the breath weapon is alright damage, the recharge can be nice, better then most other similar dragon breath effects. Couldn't hit the enemy at all with Eidolon attacks. Went down in the last round before the boss finally died.
Hit level 13, Eidolon attack went up, Summoner AC became the same as Eidolon, felt real bad.
More skill stuff that didn't really play well for anyone.
Third fight, the cleric and druid engaged some dwarves, who ran away shortly. I had my Eidolon pin them in the room they ran to as they got reinforcements. Hit them all with a breath attack, a few crit fails made the damage feel nice. Still couldn't get a chain of hits to ever make using boost feel good. Melee hits widdled me down while my stone skin nearly ignored ranged attacks. Got off another good breath attack before I went down and the group cleaned up quickly.
Overview: fighting lower level things felt good, getting some hits and damage in, keeping enemies in range for a good breath attack is nice if you can roll low for recharge.
Next fight was mostly the same, against a set of rogues that couldn't get flanking so didn't do much damage, I resisted all the poison attacks and we took them down quick enough.
Moved quickly onto the next fight to preserve stone skin on two characters.
Next fight was 6 rogues, blasted them with breath attack but they have really good saves so only got about 40ish damage total. Druid turned into a green dragon and got a nice breath attack out. Druid took lots of damage, being the largest target in the fight. Luckily none of the enemy got flanking so couldn't get sneak attack. Boss alchemist appeared on round 3 and started doing a bunch of damage to the druid. Our alchemist spent a bunch of time healing the druid.
I got a second breath off and continued to try and take the one target next to my Eidolon. I spent a whole turn summoning a young bronze dragon, covering a door way so the enemy couldn't escape. Got three hits with a dragon frenzy with no boost, so then I started using boost and couldn't get more then 1 hit for the rest of the fight. My summon did a great job tanking, the GM was even amazed that these rogues that were 2 levels higher then the dragon could not hit it. Our rogue used his cloak of elven kind to keep invisible and take down the boss with a few regular hits and two crits for over 60 damage each. I did a third breath, all the rogues crit saved, the young dragon was immune and so I only did damage to our invisible rogue. We finished the fight and called it a night.
Overview: again fighting lower level things felt nice, I could get some hits and with a luck streak got 3 hits in one round. Summoning was alright, think I just got lucky, I think had I done it in the other boss fight it wouldn't have worked so well. My young dragon lost half their health in 3 rounds against 2 enemies two levels higher then it was.
Overall experience: damage felt very sub par compared to druid or rogue, the breath weapon felt nice when I could get two in one fight. Skill capabilities were vastly over shadowed by the rogue. I had the second highest health in the group after the dwarven cleric, so took a large portion of the damage in most fights. Not a lot of options for tactics.
Not sure what the intended role within a group the Summoner is supposed to fill, having lower to hit and damage than any martial, having fewer skills and skill feats compared to even a swashbuckler, medium AC with high caster health, very few spell slots for utility. With the feat options now it doesn't seem like you can really focus on filling a role within your group, it's just a bunch of interesting pieces that I don't see coming together to make a whole.
Hopefully this is just the bare bones of the class and there's a lot of things that have already internally been confirmed to work well so didn't need testing, but it feels like the class is full of flavor but the mechanics are lacking. Being 1 point behind in to hit and 1-3 points behind defense just feels bad. Summoning in general feels bad having creatures so far below your level, making them mostly useless as front line combatants, I understand the idea behind limiting them due to just using one slot and having the potential to waste a bunch of enemy actions and such, but as creatures you want to be effective they don't feel like they fit the bill. I didn't find a single moment where the shared HP was a problem, even when both summoner and Eidolon were being targets, I feel it allows your Eidolon to survive longer by allowing it to have a much higher HP pool then it would otherwise be allowed, and any changes would leave you with having no Eidolon by the end of many fights, never mind how splitting HP would likely leave your Summoner having very low HP.
Compared to the two powerhouse characters of wildshape druid and Rogue with spellcasting and monk dedications, my summoner couldn't really contribute much other then being a punching bag and some mild AOE damage. So I think the class is missing a lot of power, especially at higher levels, as well as diversity. Hopefully there will be either more robust Eidolon selection options, sub class options, or feats that really let you focus on actively filling a role in your group.
The first fight you mentioned was rough on both the parties I ran it for, as the baddies have a lot of advantages and its almost impossible to see them coming. Even with a swim speed, they have enough reach and speed to make that battle a real slog.
Can you confirm your Eidolon is only -1 behind martial attack bonuses in your party? I know the alchemist I ran for spent a lot of time at only -1 down, and while it seems like it shouldn't be much it doesnt feel that way in play. Its one of the reasons I think they need to smooth out combat math for the Eidolon - mine feels pretty good at level 6-7, where I'm as accurate as anyone else. Your experience fighting uphill seems to support this, as does your better fight going downhill on levels.
The fight with the guy that blinds everyone is also a pain for anyone who wants to make a lot of attacks...
As an aside, I have to wonder does the Rogue have a single Rogue feat, or just Monk and caster MCDs?
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Eidolon's are the lowest end martial damage even with boost. It's basically sword and board or monk damage. You need only look that it is a d8 weapon as the primary attack with a d4 weapon as the agile attack.
Their strength maxes out at 20 for a +5 at lvl 15. Their weapon specialization maxes at master.
So they will at best do 4d8+5 strength +6 master specialization + 8 boost = 37 damage on average a hit with the the main attack and 29 with the agile. If you don't use the boost, then the damage even at level 20 is pitiful.
You only play the summoner if you like the concept. Power wise it is on the weaker end of classes with a much too high cost for situational versatility. Not sure what they're doing with the new classes, but I guess they wanted to keep the core classes the strongest right now. All the new classes from the APG are weaker than classes in the Core Rulebook.
Eidolon's are the lowest end martial damage even with boost. It's basically sword and board or monk damage. You need only look that it is a d8 weapon as the primary attack with a d4 weapon as the agile attack.
I think there's a strong argument to be made for maybe increasing the die size to 1d10/1d6(Agile)
Eidolon's are the lowest end martial damage even with boost. It's basically sword and board or monk damage. You need only look that it is a d8 weapon as the primary attack with a d4 weapon as the agile attack.
Their strength maxes out at 20 for a +5 at lvl 15. Their weapon specialization maxes at master.
So they will at best do 4d8+5 strength +6 master specialization + 8 boost = 37 damage on average a hit with the the main attack and 29 with the agile. If you don't use the boost, then the damage even at level 20 is pitiful.
You only play the summoner if you like the concept. Power wise it is on the weaker end of classes with a much too high cost for situational versatility. Not sure what they're doing with the new classes, but I guess they wanted to keep the core classes the strongest right now. All the new classes from the APG are weaker than classes in the Core Rulebook.
How do the numbers stack up, boosted, at level 5?
What about level 12 if Eidolons had 20 str?
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I think there's a strong argument to be made for maybe increasing the die size to 1d10/1d6(Agile)Eidolon's are the lowest end martial damage even with boost. It's basically sword and board or monk damage. You need only look that it is a d8 weapon as the primary attack with a d4 weapon as the agile attack.
I imagine to the designers they are using the fighter as a baseline. They view the versatility and casting of a summoner as requiring they put a downward limit on the summoner.
If the designers add in a summoning font and provide an accuracy boost as a component of summoner summoning, then the damage should stay as it is with supplemental damage coming from summoned creatures.
If the intent is to have the eidolon as the main source of damage with little supplementation other than an occasion al spell, then raising the damage die might be smart.
This level of eidolon power is almost perfect for a master summoner supplementing his eidolon's damage with summoned creatures with an accuracy boost. It's weak for a synthesist or any summoner relying on their eidolon as their main source of damage.
I'm fairly certain the designers are looking at damage interactions. Part of their focus on eidolon power is a balance between the eidolon taking actions and the summoner.
If the idea in Mark's head is set the class up as ideal to use summon creatures with, then so far it is well set up for that if they provide a summoning font up to 10th level and an accuracy boost. Then it truly would be the ultimate summoner, even moreso than PF1.
I would love to see if that is the case because I for one would completely embrace that play-style. I like to use summoned creatures. I'd be absolutely ok with an eidolon about this power level supplemented by various summoned creatures, so that aggregate damage was pretty strong given an accuracy increase.
I'm hoping this class is built for people who love to use summoned creatures. An eidolon for flanking and tanking supplemented by various summoned creatures is a play-style right up my alley.
There's no reason for my Eidolon to be behind by more then one point, at 15 it will catch up and then be behind (ignoring apex) by one point at 20. We all have greater striking handwraps.
We're all missing a lot, but I think it's just so much worse for the Eidolon because when you do hit, there's far less payoff.
The blinding fight wasn't so bad, for me, because of the blind as I found a way around it, but just the steady damage and small room (we did not go into the boss room). That's a huge point for all the fights I've been in, all in tiny rooms or in water so there's been little to no mobility, no flanking, no other martials to do trips or stuns or anything to help improve the math or swing things in our favor. Every time I've given up after missing a few dragon frenzies in a row and tried to trip or aid the Rogue or Druid pulls out a crit and destroys the target.
Not sure how the other Eidolons might play but with dragon I'm always trying to set up my breath or frenzy, rarely ever casting spells(even cantrips) and I think at higher levels that can make the miss streaks feel real bad.
I have no idea what the rogues build is, but he uses tiger stance and other then the fact he's managed to crit in almost every fight so far, I can't see how that stance is worth it. I think I've gotten one crit hit out of 5 fights. His summon (create) undead he used was downed in one maybe two hits, I think he's mostly trying to get up to being able to cast heightened invisibility, as he uses that every fight via cloak of elven kind and potions so far.
Rogue, barbarian, druid, etc all have bonus damage that scales up with level and much easier to get. I wouldn't mind keeping the low damage if we got a bump to legendary unarmed to be just 1 behind a fighter and have interesting evolutions for attacks. I don't like boost very much, mostly due to how often I miss, I can't count on hitting to make the action used for boost mean something, but I'm usually fairly sure that reinforce is going to be helpful. Not sure how I feel about the DR from reinforce though, it's a bit low, and it really doesn't mix with resistant evolution well.
I made sure to pick up a summon spell and use it last game to test out how I feel about that being a core part of the class, as in a lower game I played in the bard used summon fey and it was just a waste of time and couldn't really effect the fight. Considering mine did OK and we were fighting a bunch of -2 things, I'm still not sure I feel the summon spells are worth much. I also don't like disposable minions though. I hope if there is a focus on summoning spells the class gets a good base bonus for them, like sharing your potency and item bonuses. Though I suppose if we get a bunch of slots like font, then you could have a few summons out at once and that might get out of hand.
As much as I want the class to just be stronger, I think the key focus needs to be on what should the class be able to do. Damage, tanking, support, in combat heals, etc. It might be falling into the able to do so many things it can't really be good at anything. Arcane Eidolons are the only spell casters that don't get a heal, is dragon breath and dragon frenzy there to make them more damage focused instead? Will we get an Eidolon that has something similar to shield block? Will our Eidolon choice not just be thematic but also a base for a playstyle?
What will more Eidolon type evolutions look like? So many interesting things that could be done.
So they will at best do 4d8+5 strength +6 master specialization + 8 boost = 37 damage on average a hit with the the main attack and 29 with the agile. If you don't use the boost, then the damage even at level 20 is pitiful.
Looks like you are missing some runes.
Looks like you are missing some runes.
So they will at best do 4d8+5 strength +6 master specialization + 8 boost = 37 damage on average a hit with the the main attack and 29 with the agile. If you don't use the boost, then the damage even at level 20 is pitiful.
If he's excluding runes from other classes for comparison purposes, that's not a serious issue.
If the damage comparison was between an Animal Companion and an Eidolon, it would matter - but since Eidolons have equal access to PC classes to runes...
Looks like you are missing some runes.
So they will at best do 4d8+5 strength +6 master specialization + 8 boost = 37 damage on average a hit with the the main attack and 29 with the agile. If you don't use the boost, then the damage even at level 20 is pitiful.
I am excluding property runes because rune set up varies greatly in effectiveness, accessibility, and personal preference.
More play experience. Forums are still here so going to add more.
Had 3 fights, managed to sneak past an extra one.
Set off the first fight early because I forgot game devs don't know how animals act so my reasonable attempt at something instead got right into combat. My Eidolon got slowed so I couldn't reasonably cast and attack so just did a ranged attack and my defensive combo, zero damage done.
Next round I got restrained and so two actions gone, got out and cast shield/reinforce.
Got crit for 1\3 my health so next round I cast stone skin.
Rogue steps up in tiger stance and crit for mid sixties and hits for high thirties damage. Druid wild morphed and hit for low twenties plus 2d6 bleed.
I did boost and hit for thirty damage in the last round. Nothing else of note hapened. Just more seeing the difference in damage the group can do.
Used a scroll to facilitate interactions and start the group on a side quest.
Next fight, got ambushed and both summoner and Eidolon got restrained, Eidolon got out with two tries, summoner failed and then I just had my Eidolon cast shield. Found the enemy could hit the party on a 2 or above, so lots of damage incoming. Summoner got out round two then just continued to Dragon frenzy and reinforce/shield combo.
Took a lot of damage but overall with just 3 actions the single enemy didn't do all that much to us. Some rogue crits and circle of protection helped make it quick. Chugged a few healing potions and continued on.
Last fight. Druid and Eidolon in front. Druid gets hit and crit for hefty damage. Eidolon gets hit. Whole party takes two not aoe but totally aoe attacks.
Druid casts sunburst for 50 damage on the one visible target and hitting the others as well. Eidolon does breath attack, 3 crit saves and one save that then got resisted. Rogue spent the turn setting up, pulling out wands and such.
Druid takes another 4 hits and a crit to drop to dying 2 and another hit to dying 3. Eidolon gets a hit in and summoner goes around the corner. Rogue uses potion on druid and goes around corner. Druid casts field of life and wild morph.
Whole group takes aoe attacks. Druid searches and gets one attack in. Rogue goes out, uses wand of missiles and FoB for one hit one conceal miss. I had my summoner go up some stairs to try and get out of the punishing aoe while Dragon frenzy for one hit.
Druid goes down with another crit, rogue runs up the stairs and turns invisible, I planned on dimension door to get out but took a crit and a hit to down me. Invisible rogue uses potions on us both, I cast invisibility, rogue uses potion on druid and drags him out the door.
So near tpk. We use all our potions, medicine check to get rid of wounded and came at it a different angle. I used see invisibility and share senses so my Eidolon could see the enemy, we went in with Dragon breath and sunburst followed by rogue doing some nice hits. We all take heavy aoe damage. Dragon frenzy for a little damage. Druid used Dragon shape for big breath damage and we cleaned up after that. At the end we were still down to under half health.
First two fights were understandable, slow prevented me from using evolution surge like I had planned but still managed to get some hits. As always taking a lot of damage so feel I need stone skin.
Second fight was rough but with rogue crits it was over rather fast.
Third fight was brutal, I think the main reason we got through is the alchemist, player never showed up so GM just had him throw bombs all day, but hitting for 7 damage to all enemies on a miss 3 times a round easily out did the damage the rest of us were doing. Having so few slots I had a bit of paralysis on when to cast my summon spell, so I never did and it might have made all the difference, or died in one round to the crazy damage we were taking. Aside from that I still don't feel like I'm bringing much to the table, being outdone by the (as I've come to find out) sub optimal party I'm in. Druid doesn't have max casting stat, rogue was trying to fill in for the sorcerer who left the group much earlier.
We're all having a hard time, but I feel everyone else has options for standing out. I really need to use my top two slots for just summoning next game and see how that goes. Any special attacks or tandem buffs or something to give more options would help a lot I think, just to broaden the combat tool box a bit.
I think the change to act together to be used with any amount of actions would be a huge help, getting stunned or slowed as a caster can be brutal, so casting a spell and still being able to move or attack would feel much better.
This assessment isn't surprising. The summoner is well on its way into the game on the bottom of the power scale with the main evidence otherwise anecdotal on those occasional rounds when lucky rolls make the summoner feel like they did something. On a round for round basis, this class is going to have trouble contributing compared to much better designed and powerful classes.