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Playing a strait class anything is kind of boring to me, I love me some archetypes.
I keep looking for good synergies from adding Summoner dedication zo ozhrr classes, butIm having a hard time seeing it.
The spells that make help make an Edilon viable are not available through the Archetype.
I think an Alchemist's creations could make up for this, but the edilon also misses out on advancing in AC and weapons.
So start as a summoner and add on?
Is a edilon viable without spending feats on it?
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Maybe Oracle or Cleric? (I would lean towards oracle because they key off of Charisma) - this gives you access to divine magic so that you can pick up some healing and buff spells to cast on your eidolon.
Champion gives you limited healing combined with heavy armour training, and the champions reaction that you can eventually get could be helpful to protect your eidolon.
If you multiclass into rogue, you will be able to always guarantee your opponent is flat-footed for your sneak attack because with an eidolon you can always be flanking.
The marshal archetype is better than normal for classes that add an extra ally to the party.
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Bard seems best IMO since you're putting another party member into play, won't waste the Charisma, and can contribute w/o adding to MAP. Once the Eidelon's positioned, the Bard use its usual tactics, using Act Together to get a Strike as a bonus (perhaps w/ an energy type like Good to target a Weakness a Bard often can't). It also seems a decent way to get a support PC to share some of the frontline danger w/ less risk than normal.
ETA: Without Act Together, the Bard actually can't just act as normal while the Eidelon Strikes. Seemed too good. :)
But there are still several good combinations of actions.
The martials that seem like they can afford the Cha are Rogue or somebody in full plate. I like the thought of a Champion taking up that much more space and being able to protect its own pool of h.p. via its Reactions. The MAP would be bad, but maybe just use the Eidelon as a target(which can add significant damage w/ a Paladin), flanking, and Aid actions. :)
Unless the Rogue's in a party where it's difficult to make an opponent flat-footed, I'm not sure an Eidelon's worth the investment.
A Fighter seems to get little, not needing a protector and wanting to use its own MAP quota. And anybody going Sentinel's already tied up their Dedication for awhile.
I'd like to find a way to put a Barbarian's h.p. into the mix, but it just doesn't seem worthwhile. Maybe a low-Str/high-Con Barbarian that fights via proxy? That'd take a lot of damage potential off the table IMO. Probably better to go Summoner/MCD Barb w/ Barbarian Resilience if just wanting more h.p. "Who's that angry guy in the back?"
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In my opinion, archetyping into Summoner is super strong. You gain an Eidolon, period.
The only issue is that you don't gain any kind of action efficiency. So, the obvious uses:
- Third action no MAP attack. That's for casters obviously. Preferred choices are the Plant Eidolon (for Reach) or taking the ranged ability (ideally with the construct Eidolon).
- Reaction. Once again for casters, but you can have issues using your Reaction. A Devotion Phantom or a Plant or Construct with AoO are nice.
- Range option for martials. Either you choose the Fey Eidolon and use Electric Arc (but you don't gain proficiency in your magical tradition unless you take the Summoner feats for that) or a Ranged Eidolon (once again Construct is a basic choice).
The main advantage is that it costs you one single feat and you immediately have all the advantages. The drawback is that you also get the double hit box.
Archetyping out of Summoner is a bit hard. I don't see many things that synergize well with Summoner. Going for a martial archetype is mostly useless as you already have a pretty efficient martial that won't benefit from archetyping. Going for a caster seems half useless, unless you just aim for increased spell slots in your tradition.
In my opinion, the best thing to archetype into are skill based Dedication. Medic, Swashbuckler, these kind of things. As you have tons of actions, you can use and abuse skills. There's also Alchemist, as you have 4 actions per round and 2 characters who can deliver Elixirs.
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Bard is great for summoners, free dirge or inspire. Worked well for me in AoA. Rogue for skills is iffy, I made a build for it and your just getting a couple master level skills and some good extra skill feats. Bard for versatile performance gives you two legendary skills for the action you would use those skills most for. Also synethesia and more usable wands as well, summoner's should carry lots of wands.
A wand slinger archetype some day would be ace.
@Superbidi
You mention archetyping into Summoner as being strong, and list some good uses.
My concern is it never gets past trained in attack or defense.
Is there a way around that?
You also mention construct preferentially, for a ranged attacks and reaction.
What about construct makes it attractive?
A rogue with summoner dedication could use it for misdirection,as well as a flanking buddy.
Imagine your edilon, who looks just like you, surrendering while you stay hidden.
After the bad guys spill their guts monologing,poof, your gone.
You also have all the skills, of course.
My concern is it never gets past trained in attack or defense.
Is there a way around that?
Level 12 archetype feat gets it expert in both.
No way to go past that though so the archetype isn't great on martials.
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My concern is it never gets past trained in attack or defense.
Is there a way around that?Level 12 archetype feat gets it expert in both.
No way to go past that though so the archetype isn't great on martials.
Yeah, the Eidelon Strikes well at lower levels, but falls behind into "2nd Strike" territory later, much like a Wizard w/ a bow. This balances since the PC itself can cast a spell at the top of the curve in the same round.
And one wouldn't want other classes (i.e. a buffing Bard) to perform better with Eidelons than a Summoner does!It's similar to how picking up a casting MCD starts fine in terms of proficiency (though not spell quantity), but then falls behind regular casters. This is that, but with a martial slant, much like Fighter MCD also doesn't go above Expert until later feat even though it's something Fighters begin with.
And with Meld Into Eidelon available, Paizo has to balance against that too. Might be worthwhile for an Alchemist after making their alchemy, or maybe after running out of alchemy. Hmm. Probably not.
Trick though is the Eidelon can Trip (et al) really well if you invest in Athletics. And later they can Aid nearly automatically, all while you're somewhere else on the battlefield or maybe even it can Aid what you're doing.
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The main advantage is that it costs you one single feat and you immediately have all the advantages. The drawback is that you also get the double hit box.
The other rather large disadvantage is that the two of you will find it VERY hard to move at all. You can go steed form at level 4 but that makes you very vulnerable (squishy caster in melee range)
Coupled with the fact that your Eidolon starts with a stat of 16 and can't use barding means that I think you'd probably just be better off grabbing an Animal Companion (at least for the early levels)
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Pretty sure the summoner archetype is strictly inferior to getting an animal companion. You can't even pick up tandem feats to mitigate the action economy issues because you're specifically barred from them.
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Pretty sure the summoner archetype is strictly inferior to getting an animal companion. You can't even pick up tandem feats to mitigate the action economy issues because you're specifically barred from them.
Depends how many feats you want to invest; Animal Companions need to be updated to remain viable while the Eidelon uses many of the PC's stats. And the mechanics behind damage and death/dissolution/replacement run much differently which tie into the campaign's pacing & lethality.
And they aren't mutually exclusive if you want to go nuts.
I'm not sure. Let's think this out some.
The shared hit box for a 6 hit point caster is very dangerous as is the disadvantage on AOE saves to gain a martial attack on occasion. You can get an expert attack for a cost of 2 feats rather than all the feats to get an AC. The eidolon can also act as a partner for rituals given it has your skills. You could pick up feats to let it spend an action to give you the same blocking ability as a shield without having to carry a shield.
An eidolon would need to be built more for defense than offense for a martial. You could take an eidolon and give it the ability to cast spells You could give your eidolon magical ability to cast forbidding ward on you and sustain it. You could build it to provide the equivalent of a shield while using a 2-handed weapon.
If you made a champion with an eidolon, then used a 2-h sword by lvl 8 you could have the equivalent of a shield in battle. Might be interesting to try getting the best of both worlds using a big weapon and having a shield with the high champion AC.
A rogue could use a dex-based eidolon to disarm traps at range. It wouldn't protect him from damage, but might protect him from rider effects.
Those are some ideas I can think of off the top of my head.
An eidolon is more versatile and capable of more actions than a familiar or an AC, but is limited in that it provides no action economy boost until you pick up some kind of tandem action.
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it provides no action economy boost until you pick up some kind of tandem action.
Tandem actions are specifically NOT allowed for the summoner archetype.
So you're stuck with the 3 actions plus reaction for both characters forever.
Which, when combined with the hit point and save issues, is why I prefer an Animal Companion for at least the first few levels.
Note: above is purely from a mechanical point of view. Eidolon opens up huge numbers of roleplaying/story possibilities. Which can be more than enough to justify a mechanically weaker option
it provides no action economy boost until you pick up some kind of tandem action.Tandem actions are specifically NOT allowed for the summoner archetype.
So you're stuck with the 3 actions plus reaction for both characters forever.
Which, when combined with the hit point and save issues, is why I prefer an Animal Companion for at least the first few levels.
Note: above is purely from a mechanical point of view. Eidolon opens up huge numbers of roleplaying/story possibilities. Which can be more than enough to justify a mechanically weaker option
Yeah. And only cost 2 feats. I can see using them. I don't think they are optimal for combat, but you have a few uses you could carve out that could be interesting.
If you took Summoner dedication with ritualist with a familiar you could do the equivalent of 4 casters for a ritual if you were a wizard or a witch. That might make rituals more usable, which could be fun.
Pretty sure the summoner archetype is strictly inferior to getting an animal companion. You can't even pick up tandem feats to mitigate the action economy issues because you're specifically barred from them.
If all you want is a bag of HP to hit enemies with, definitely.
You pick up Summoner dedication for skills and other esoteric benefits first and combat second.
Trick though is the Eidelon can Trip (et al) really well if you invest in Athletics. And later they can Aid nearly automatically, all while you're somewhere else on the battlefield or maybe even it can Aid what you're doing.
This is what I've been mulling over. A mastermind rogue or an Empiricism investigator Sprite that focuses on mental stats and the Eidelon on physical [or cha as some start at 16]. Pick up the Meld into Eidolon/Steed Form to move faster, reach high shelves, ect and use the one with the high stat to do the skill while the other Aids. I do wish Meld into Eidolon allowed you to do purely mental actions: it seems quite odd that you become incapable of Recall checks.
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Pretty sure the summoner archetype is strictly inferior to getting an animal companion. You can't even pick up tandem feats to mitigate the action economy issues because you're specifically barred from them.If all you want is a bag of HP to hit enemies with, definitely.
You pick up Summoner dedication for skills and other esoteric benefits first and combat second.
Well maybe the archetype should cost skill feats instead, then. The skill benefits have to be very good for them to be worth your class feats and I just don't see that as the case.
I played a Summoner with a bard archetype ( i just have the dedication and the one that gives me inspire courage)
I use Inspire courage in place of Boost Eidolon( but some turns I do both, if my eidolon is in a good position to do several attacks)
I think Construct Eidolon or Fey Eidolon work really well, since they give you free evolution feats which makes picking up archetypes feel a bit nicer