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Something ive been pondering for a while, which is the better summoner? The actual summoner class (Ignoring eidolon's obviously) or the Herald caller, by simple virtue of being a 9th level caster.
In terms of pure summoning ability, it's hard to tell, because while the summoners summons last longer, the herald caller has stuff they can fall back on when summons don't work.
So...which is it?
For a summoning-focused Cleric, I prefer an Evangelist Cleric. The reason being, an Evangelist can buff everything they summon with Bardic Performance. Still a full 9/9 caster, still summoning as a standard action via Aura/Sacred Summons, but the whole party [plus all the summoned creatures] can benefit from Inspire Courage.
Carry a +1 Impervious Whipwood Longspear, flying the Banner of Ancient Kings, and wear a Dervish Sikke. Pick up the Flagbearer feat around the same time you can afford the Banner of Ancient Kings, use Combat Reflexes and stand next to the archer to protect them with your AoO/reach. You can start a Performance as a move action at level 7, allowing you to fire up Inspire Courage and standard action Summon Monster [via Sacred Summons] in the same round. This is about the same time you will probably be getting the Banner of Ancient Kings, as well... Inspire Courage is probably +4 to attack and damage with the banner/Flagbearer and a Dervish Sikke.
Life is good...
Probably depends on level. At very low levels, normal summons don't last long enough to be usable, so a Summoner is the only class that can make it viable. After that (as you're allowing stuff they can fall back on when summons don't work), a wizard, because wizard (or insert your own favourite 9-level caster here).
I would also go for Evangelist Cleric with Sacred Summons, Bardic Performance, and Glory Subdomain's Aura of Heroism. Wear a Poet's Cloak to give Summons Raging Song + Reckless Abandon. Take the Community-Minded trait to really get the most out of Aura of Heroism & Raging Song.
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Herald Caller is IMO better than Evangelist for overall summoning as well as general play.
1) It has built in to the class more features geared towards summoning. You certainly don't need to invest money into items and actually even if you didn't invest any additional feats you would still be decent. Evangelist needs to invest feats and money into specific items.
2) If you do chose to invest feats then you will become overall a better summoner quicker. Alternatively you have spare capacity as a HC for something like Animal domain + boon companion feat. Evangelist doesn't have this built in spare capacity.
3) You communicate automatically and perfectly over any distance with any summons. You don't need any specific languages. The Evangelist cannot do this.
4) Using your special Channelling ability, you can selectively heal over any distance any of your summons. This boosts durability. The Evangelist cannot do this.
And just in general....a Herald Caller gains 4 skill points/level and doesn't lose any Channelling dice or Spont Heals.
Now going back to the original question
Overall, its fairly even although I think the Summoner does win it due to getting standard action summons automatically at 1st level. The minutes/level summons help too at Lv 1-5.
Overall the HC is going to be the more effective character due to being a 9th level prepared caster.
As well you could have an Animal domain HC to put more bodies on the battlefield. If I remember correctly, the Summoner cannot have his Eidolon and summons in play at the same time?
They can't so when making a summoner you have to choose which one you're gonna focus on.
The herald caller is not just a 9th level caster; they are a prepared divine 0th level caster. That means they have access to every spell on their list. The summoner is a spontaneous 6th level caster. That means they have a very limited number of spells known. The herald called can also convert any spell into either a summon monster or a cure/inflect spell. The cleric spell list is probably one of the best if not the best list for buffing. Blessing of Fervor is a perfect example of this. This gives the cleric an advantage when it comes to spell casting.
The cleric also get a couple of important summon related feats for free and can use channel energy to heal all his summons no matter how far away they are. He qualifies for sacred summons so can cast summon monster as a standard action to match the summoner.
The cleric can also continue to summon round after round and end up with a massive number of summoned creatures. If the summoner wants to do that he has to choose the summon monster as one of his spells known and the spell and he is limited to summon monster IV, where the cleric can eventually get summon monster IX.
Overall the cleric has the advantage over the summoner.
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Monster Tactician Inquisitor, perhaps?
A cleric can take sacred summons to get standard actions summoning. While they may have to spend a feat for it they get Augment Summoning and Superior Summoning for free. They can also pick up any feat that requires spell focus conjuration without having to have the feat. At first level there are not all that many useful feats for a summon focused casting cleric anyways, so they are not really hurt by having to take the feat.
For the first few levels the longer duration of the summoners summons gives them a clear advantage, but after a few levels that advantage becomes less important. Most combats don’t last that long anyways so as long as the summon last as long as the battle (or at least long enough to be killed) that is all that matters. Out of combat the longer duration of the summoner does give it a clear advantage, but often the summoner would be better off with their Eidolon instead.
The spell list for a summoner does include the summon monster spells, and as was pointed out do scale up nicely. But summoners get very few spells known, and there are very few ways to gain more. No race that I know of increases a summoner’s spells known as a favored class bonus. A 1st level summoner who chooses summon monster I has used up half of his spells known and 1/6 of all the first level spells he likely ever know. The summoner could use wands (at low level) and scrolls to summon using spells, but that is costly and due to the likely reduced caster level of the spell not as effective. The base summoner has a lot harder time flooding the board with creatures than the cleric. There are of course archetypes that can alter this.
The real advantage the cleric has is in the flexibility of their spells. Herald caller allows a cleric to convert any spell into a summon monster. They also still have the ability to convert any spell into either a cure or inflict wound spell. This means that a cleric can use any spell slot in three different ways. The summoner is a spontaneous caster so also has some flexibility, but still has a very limited number of spells. A 20th level summoner knows 6 1st level spells, a 1st level cleric knows around 150 1st spells (Based on the packages I have on Hero Lab). A high level summoner can cast any one of his 6 spells when he casts a spell. A Herald Caller can cast any one of 3 spells for any one slot. The cleric has all the advantages of a prepared caster and half the advantages of a spontaneous caster, but without the weakness of a spontaneous caster.
The cleric spell list is also a lot better than the summoner. The summoner has very few offensive spells compared to the cleric. The cleric also has a lot better buff spells than the summoner. Having more option in combat gives the cleric a tactical advantage. After the summons have been summoned the cleric can continue to summon more creatures, He can buff his summons to make them tougher, he can cast his own offensive spells to bring down the target. Last but most importantly he can channel energy to heal ALL of his summons with channel energy. So in combat the clerics summoned creatures will last longer than the summoners.
In combat the cleric has the advantage, out of combat (at least as far as summons go) the summoner has the advantage. What is more important to you combat or non-combat ability?
Early level, the summoner has a clear edge. The herald caller is generally better off to not even bother summoning in the first 2 levels. Summons don't last long enough and they don't have augment summoning yet. At level 3, it becomes worthwhile to start summoning the small elementals, and at level 4 you get free augment summoning and should start summoning regularly. At level 5, you have a decent chance(with the right feats) of having a valid option to use with sacred summons, so summoning will become your go to.
As virtually always the case, there is no universal "best", as it always depends on what you want and how the group and the campaign look like. In a vacuum, Cleric has the stronger casting, but that can change if you have another Cleric in the group (or a Shaman, or maybe even other classes like Witch or Alchemist), and a Summoner can have the better complimentary spell list. Similarly, in a campaign with long adventuring days, the no-daily-recource-consuming Eidolon can easily be stronger than lower level spells that a Cleric is forced to fall back on. And lastly, if you only really care about your party having a melee presence, or having "summoned creatures" do the fighting, defaulting to the Eidolon can easily be better than SM spells/SLAs.
Overall, when it comes to SM spells, Master Summoner wins any competition, hands down.
The cleric spell list is probably one of the best if not the best list for buffing. Blessing of Fervor is a perfect example of this. This gives the cleric an advantage when it comes to spell casting.
I'm sorry, have you even seen a Summoner? They get Haste as a second level spell, being first able to learn it at 4th level, three levels before Cleric gets BoF. The overall spell list is obviously stronger for the Cleric, but Blessing of Fervor is literally the worst example you could have picked.
Haste is great and all but most of the summoner casting isn’t that great.
Some of the disagreement between ratings of the Summoner spell list may come from pre-Unchained Summoner vs Unchained Summoner (for instance, Haste is 2nd level for the former but 3rd level for the latter, like it is for all other casters that have it at all, except for the Medium).
Well, if Cleric is allowed to use material from the APG (where Blessing of Fervor is from), denying the Summoner the same would obviously warp the comparison.
Haste is great and all but most of the summoner casting isn’t that great.What? Summoners get some of the best control spells at least 1 level earlier. While having the ability to create more than enough creatures to take advantage of them.
The fact that they are spontaneous casters means that they can always choose the spell they need. It also means that they can craft the cheaper version wand of those spells than trade the spell out.
Have you played a summoner before? The spell selection is really limited. I feel like people are playing schrodinger’s summoner.
Even if you fit the control spells into your build at the exclusion of other options, your saves DCs will be bad because of the delayed casting, and the lack of inbuilt bonuses for those DCs.
Honestly, I wouldn't want a master summoner or broodmaster at my table either. I don't think broodmaster is that troublesome power wise, but the master summoner is a menace. Too easy to put too many creatures on the field at the same time. The broodmaster has a little more versatility, but is probably worse than a core summoner. I think the main problem with broodmaster is just that it's a major pain to keep track of.
But I think the core summoner's spell casting is severely overblown. They get haste a level early, and that's not meaningless, but it's not that amazing. The other early access spells really only cause issues in magic item creation.
Early access to spells is a double edge sword. The saving throw of a spell is based on the level of the spell and the relevant casting stat. That means any early access spell that gets a saving throw is actually slightly weaker than its higher level version. Most of the time that means it is 1 lower, but that still means it is easier to resist.
No spell list is really bad. Some may be better than others, but all spells are useful. What I said was the cleric spell list is better and they get access to every single spell on the list. That is a huge advantage especially if you allow all the latter books and supplements that 1st edition Pathfinder has.
Blessing of Fervor has some nice abilities that can be exploited that Haste lacks. For one the ability to get a free use of the extend spell feat on low level spells is actually pretty good. There are a lot of useful low level spells (or spells that are early access for a class) that can benefit from this. Mage Armor for example normally last an hour per level. At 7th level that works out to 10.5 hours instead of 7 hours. The bonus movement does not have any limitation that it can only double the movement so characters with a slower than normal movement get full benefit from it. The bonus to hit, AC and reflex saves is higher than haste, and a lot of characters have ways to gain more attacks. Standing up as a swift action without provoking an AoO can be shut down a trip build. The paladin in the game I run has used this to get his full attack when facing a trip-based creature.
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People are seriously overrating Cleric's casting capabilities here. Cleric only has two or three spell slots of the highest level per day (plus a domain slot), meaning the number of times per day that can cast a highest level SM spell is always much lower than a Summoner's. Also, BoF is a 4th level spell, so Cleric can't do a "cast a highest level SM spell 1st turn, buff the party 2nd turn" routine more than once per day until 9th level (when they can do it twice per day - meanwhile, Summoner has been doing it thrice per day or more since 4th level).
When it comes to summoning and bonus-attack-buffing, Cleric can only surpass a vanilla Summoner when they nova, and a Master Summoner not at all. Cleric casting still has many advantages, of course (outfight problem solving, prebuffing, and preparing for specific situations).
Even if you fit the control spells into your build at the exclusion of other options, your saves DCs will be bad because of the delayed casting, and the lack of inbuilt bonuses for those DCs.
That's why you pick the spells without saving throws. Black Tentacles. Wall of Stone. Maze. First or second level spells (Grease, Glitterdust, Slow) don't have the issue because your spell levels aren't delayed yet, and Wall of Fire coupled with a Lesser Metamagic Rod of Dazing easily makes up for it's lowish DC with the sheer number of saves forced.
any early access spell that gets a saving throw is actually slightly weaker than its higher level version.
Only relevant when you try to cast spells with saving throw of a not-highest spell level. Like, yeah, Hold Monster cast by a 13th level unSummoner has a higher DC that one cast by a 13th level cSummoner, but the DC is low anyway, and the cSummoner could just cast Ice Crystal Teleport instead.
Blessing of Fervor has some nice abilities that can be exploited that Haste lacks.
Most of which are irrelevant. The metamagic stuff is rarely useful in fight (how often do you cast Mage Armor during or directly after a fight?), 40ft speed is usually enough, and almost all abilities that grant bonus attack either stack with Haste, or grant a bonus to AC and Ref on their own. The stand-up option is nice, and there are situations where a silent spell can be a lifesaver, but in most situations, Haste is the stronger spell.
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For my general statements, both, actually. My central points are true for either version of the Summoner, as the SM SLA wasn't touched in Unchained, and unSummoner's Haste is not later than BoF.
If you're talking Core, then OK but you have to accept that Paizo themselves decided to nerf it and many tables won't even accept it.
That's not correct. Paizo didn't nerf the Summoner, they released an alternate, nerfed version. It's not a functional reprint including nerfs á la Fencing Grace, it's an alternative option not meant to completely replace the original ("These classes can be used alongside their original counterparts" PU pg. 8).
The OP didn't ask "what fits best for my group with only moderate levels of optimization", but rather "which is better". What some tables ban has no bearing on what's strongest.
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If you're talking Core, then OK but you have to accept that Paizo themselves decided to nerf it and many tables won't even accept it.That's not correct. Paizo didn't nerf the Summoner, they released an alternate, nerfed version. It's not a functional reprint including nerfs á la Fencing Grace, it's an alternative option not meant to completely replace the original ("These classes can be used alongside their original counterparts" PU pg. 8).
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That may be technically correct, but who would want to use Unchained Summoner in a campaign in which pre-Unchained Summoner was available? (Rogue is reverse of this -- who would want to use a pre-Unchained Rogue in a campaign in which Unchained Rogue was available? Now Unchained Barbarian is more even with its pre-Unchained counterpart, so it actually makes sense for both to appear together.)
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who would want to use Unchained Summoner in a campaign in which pre-Unchained Summoner was available?
Anyone who likes going with a specific outsider-theme and knows that the cEidolon can easily overpower party members? People pick flavor options over stronger ones all the time.
Also, even if you may not see both versions at the same table, doesn't mean they don't both exist. Unchained didn't tell players to use that version exclusively. It's a weaker option for tables where that's desired. Which is not all tables.
That's not correct. Paizo didn't nerf the Summoner, they released an alternate, nerfed version.Oh pleeeeease..... that is stretching things beyond the point of no return. Pure pedantry.
If you're unable to accept the fact that two different versions of the class exist that are both valid for play, and thus unless otherwise specified (which the OP didn't do) are both valid for discussion, I think I'll abstain from responding to you from here on.
I would like to point out that the argument here is that Summoner is so good that Paizo made a new nerfed version of it for people who need it. With both sides agreeing too this conclusion.
That’s a different issue. The summoner received no nerfs to its summoning. Most of unchained is changes to the eidolon. And the spells would have been changed just because of the issues it caused with early access scrolls, potions and wands.