If you have any comments, suggestions, corrections, or other ideas, feel free to use this thread as a discussion thread.What do you think about the Wellspring Mage archetype for Summoners? Do you think that's a good idea in terms of optimization? I don't know much about the system so I think it would be good to see your opinion on it.
I tried to love wellspring on the summoner. I did. It's just not worth it as written. Like, you could make the feats free, and it *still* wouldn't be worth it - not unless you're running something like 6+ encounters per day on average.
Wellspring is a cool idea, but making it anything other than a hard lose is the sort of thing that would require significant houseruling.
I think wellspring is nice in the right theme.
My girlfriend is working on a post apocalyptic airship steak punk campaign where magic is out of whack and everyone fears spellcasters.
To represent that spontaneous casters get obligatory wellspring dedication at level 1.
Otherwise yeah it's kinda bad.
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I think wellspring is nice in the right theme.
My girlfriend is working on a post apocalyptic airship steak punk campaign where magic is out of whack and everyone fears spellcasters.
To represent that spontaneous casters get obligatory wellspring dedication at level 1.
Otherwise yeah it's kinda bad.
I hope she has something in there to adjust for the damage that Wellspring will do to them.
...or, I suppose, that she means to encourage people to not play spontaneous casters.
Even with the free dedication, it's still actively bad.
The one upshot to Wellspring Summoner is that unlike most casters you have a solid routine that doesn't rely on your magic. It's not too hard to fill up your routine with things that aren't spells, so if things go poorly for you you aren't as crippled as other characters.
So you can go Nova really hard in your first combat and then just hope you get lucky with surges.
But the numbers aren't really in your favor. You're looking at something like 5-6 encounters to break even... if you start those encounters with no spell slots.
From looking at the numbers and seeing it in practice, Wellspring (like most of the SoM alternative caster rules unfortunately) is designed to make you worse, not better without some very particular assumptions about your campaign.
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I think the Wellspring Mage relies on how psychologically "hoping I get an extra spell if I roll well here" is rewarding but "well, if I use this slot in this fight I will be out of nth level spells" which is the normal experience.
It's not better, but it could feel better and that's really what matters.
It's not better, but it could feel better and that's really what matters.
I mean, both should matter.
It's not better, but it could feel better and that's really what matters.
I am too much of an optimizer at heart. For me, investing critically limited build resources into something that will only ever weaken me will never feel better.
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I mean, spending feats for flavor isn't the worst thing in the world, especially if you know how to work around it.
But it's also not really a big ask to suggest that a feat shouldn't make you outright worse most of the time either, and 'but gambling addiction' doesn't really make it better.
But this isn't really the thread to talk about how much Paizo phoned in the SoM casting archetypes.
Like my favorite class in all of d20 elf games is the 13th Age Chaos Mage where you don't even get to decide what kind of spell you're casting (the randomizer sets you on offense, defense, or utility and you pick from those options) so I really want to play a wellspring mage character in a game, but it probably works better for a class with a very strong routine that doesn't use spell slots. The Summoner is an option, but the forthcoming Psychic might be a better one.
I think wellspring is nice in the right theme.
My girlfriend is working on a post apocalyptic airship steak punk campaign where magic is out of whack and everyone fears spellcasters.
To represent that spontaneous casters get obligatory wellspring dedication at level 1.
Otherwise yeah it's kinda bad.
I hope she has something in there to adjust for the damage that Wellspring will do to them.
...or, I suppose, that she means to encourage people to not play spontaneous casters.
Even with the free dedication, it's still actively bad.
The goal is indeed to discourage people from playing an abundance of spontaneous spellcasters, and to create a theme for why spontaneous casters are vilified.
But that didn't stop me from planning to play dashing captain rick bolt the twice cursed, tempest Oracle !
We have this opening scene in mind that's me and the crew on a life raft with everyone being super pissed at me because I accidently burned down our ship ^^
Is Animate Dead considered a summon spell?
Yes
Nice. I wasn't sure about Animate Undead because it was a Necromancy spell. Good to know.
Is Animate Dead considered a summon spell?
Your magic dredges up a corpse or skeleton and fills it with necromantic life, and you force the dead to fight at your command. You summon a common creature that has the undead trait and whose level is –1; this creature gains the summoned trait. Heightening the spell increases the maximum level of creature you can summon.
Animate Dead is just a summon spell with Necromancy trait instead of Conjuration. Furtunally but unfun you cannot use it from a corpse.
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Oh, wow, it's been a while. Good to see you all, everyone. I've been involved with some other projects, as well as studying abroad, so I've had my hands full with some other things for some time, but I've returned to overhaul the guide for the Remaster. I've rewritten a lot of sections, including cantrips & other spells, ancestry ratings, Refocus-related feats, and so on and so forth. I've also included ratings for the newer Elemental eidolons, as well as full builds for each element. I also wrote ratings for the newer multiclass archetypes. Full(-ish) notes are in the changelog within the guide.
If there's anything I've missed, let me know.
What do you think about the Wellspring Mage archetype for Summoners? Do you think that's a good idea in terms of optimization? I don't know much about the system so I think it would be good to see your opinion on it.
Pretty late to reply to this compared to everyone else, but yeah. The amount of friendly fire it brings about makes it seem not worth it on paper, and might make your party members a bit upset.
As someone who is new to pathfinder and just starting their first campaign today, your guide for summoner has been huge for me. Do you by chance have discord? Or willing to update your guide at all?
If you have discord please add me! Magia Erebea#4141
Also pretty late to this, but I'm glad the guide has been of use to you. If you're still in that campaign, I hope the new update to the guide makes it continue to be useful.
Hello !!
So i noticed the -master summoner- feat notes spells in the core and secrets of magic books specifically for it to quallify, while -animate dead- is in the advanced player's guide. This my be why it doesn't mention it in the description, rather than an intetntion to leave it outside, maybe?Thanks for the awesome guide
Oh, that's probably a likely reason. It still makes me wonder why they left out something like summon giant, though.
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Actually, scratch that. Summon is just a trait spells can have as of the Remaster, probably to solve this very issue, and the replacement for animate dead, summon undead, has the trait.
Love the guide! A few things I noticed while reading through:
--Elemental (Air) Eidolon: Long Jump says "You Leap a distance equal to your check result rounded down to the nearest 5 feet. You can't jump farther than your land Speed." The first part is how far you can jump, the second is a restriction. I'd read "can... Long Jump twice as far" as impacting the distance, but not lifting the restriction. Might be worth mentioning to expect table variance.
--Undead Eidolon: is there a reason Divine tradition is listed yellow here when it's green everywhere else, or was this missed in the update?
--Efreet: Blazing Aura actually does buff your eidolon. Regaining actions is always the last thing that happens during the start of your turn (i.e. after "Your turn begins" triggers) so you'll be quickened on the same turn that you use this.
Love the guide! A few things I noticed while reading through:
--Elemental (Air) Eidolon: Long Jump says "You Leap a distance equal to your check result rounded down to the nearest 5 feet. You can't jump farther than your land Speed." The first part is how far you can jump, the second is a restriction. I'd read "can... Long Jump twice as far" as impacting the distance, but not lifting the restriction. Might be worth mentioning to expect table variance.
--Undead Eidolon: is there a reason Divine tradition is listed yellow here when it's green everywhere else, or was this missed in the update?
--Efreet: Blazing Aura actually does buff your eidolon. Regaining actions is always the last thing that happens during the start of your turn (i.e. after "Your turn begins" triggers) so you'll be quickened on the same turn that you use this.
Thank you for reading the guide!
1. It is a bit table-dependent, but as I noted in my rating, that functionality is presuming it works similarly to Cloud Jump, which has somewhat similar rules text and triples your jump distance.
2. Whoops, I missed that. Fixed.
3. ...I rechecked the rules, and you're correct. I completely glossed over rules text in the "Start your Turn section" and based my interpretation solely on the rules text for the Quickened condition. Fixed.
Thanks for making the guide!
re: Cloud Jump, this is part of why I reached the conclusion I did. Cloud Jump has this text: "You can jump a distance greater than your Speed by spending additional actions when you Long Jump or High Jump. For each additional action spent, add your Speed to the limit on how far you can Leap." So yes, it triples your jump distance, but that doesn't get around the limit of not jumping more than your speed (with one action).