Undead Eidolon Multiclass Initial Benefit Clarification?

[Tiene]

I’m not very experienced with PF2 but I was trying to build a thaumaturge with an undead eidolon from multiclassing when I noticed gaining the initial benefit requires a feat. This raised a few questions for me:

Does the eidolon still have Negative Healing?

Is the Eidolon still a living creature even if it doesn’t have the Negative Essence initial benefit?

Rules-as-written, does this mean the eidolon has the normal undead immunities mentioned since not having them is part of the initial benefit? (I understand this is probably unintended if so. Though I also don’t see any immunities listed in the undead trait on the archives of Nethys, other than a description of effects that sound identical to Negative Healing)

[breithauptclan]

Negative healing is a bit of a can-o-worms at the moment. It is probably best to work out with your group what seems fair.

Tiene wrote:

I’m not very experienced with PF2 but I was trying to build a thaumaturge with an undead eidolon from multiclassing

Also, make sure that you actually want an Eidolon instead of an Undead Companion. Summoner Archetype doesn't give Act Together, so you will only have the standard three actions to split between the Thaumaturge and Eidolon. You can eventually pick up Tandem Move and Tandem Strike. Edit: No, that is removed in the Summoner Dedication.

An Undead Companion will be a minion and will therefore have 2 actions when you spend 1 - giving a total of 4 actions between you instead of 3. Also, you don't share HP or Multiple Attack Penalty.

The Eidolon will have better skill bonuses, be as intelligent as you want it to be, and could even get skill feats of its own.

[breithauptclan]

As far as the Undead Eidolon (or Eidolons in general) and the initial ability:

Reading an Eidolon Entry

Quote:

Eidolon Abilities The eidolon starts with an initial ability, gains the symbiosis ability when you gain the eidolon symbiosis class feature, and gains the transcendence ability when you gain the eidolon transcendence class feature.

It looks like all Eidolons have their initial ability inherently. The others are gained from Summoner class features, so the Summoner Archetype won't get those.

So the Summoner Archetype Undead Eidolon will have the Negative Essence initial ability that gives it negative healing.

[Super Zero]

Those are Summoner class features, though. For a multiclass Summoner is a 4th-level feat.

Construct eidolon has the same awkwardness, what the initial benefit is clearly meant to be the defensive features but the actual wording limits the inherent defensive features the type otherwise comes with. Meaning that as worded lacking that feature makes it extra powerful instead of less.

[breithauptclan]

Super Zero wrote:

Those are Summoner class features, though. For a multiclass Summoner is a 4th-level feat.

Hmm... So it is.

And yeah, it seems like a bit of a bug that the Archetype Eidolon wouldn't get some things that are fairly inherent into their type. But only for some types of Eidolon. Beast Eidolon for example, works just fine without Beast Charge. But an Undead Eidolon without any Undead mechanics like negative healing doesn't really seem like an Undead creature at all.