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To be honest, this is why I think I'll kinda pass on playing future APs that start at level 1. The damage / HP math is so absurdly bad that it's just not fun once you learn that your are one zero-agency 5% chance roll away from Dying 2 at all times.
Level 1 is brutal. There's cases in the first chapter of APs where if you follow RAW, you can literally kill a character outright in one attack from full HP.
Extinction Curse has one with a Creature 3 NPC with 2nd level Shocking Grasp. Crit that (which given the NPCs stats is not that unlikely), and a good damage roll is going to invoke the massive damage instant death rule.
I house rule that way because it basically can only happen at level 1 and I hate that, but it is a symptom of how swingy level 1 combat is. In general I don't think any Creature 3 should be used at level 1 as their crit rate is too high and it just feels bad when even the toughest character in the party can't take a single attack.
I think the mitigating factor on timber sentinel is that it is fully two actions, which prevents you from using any other two-action activity and generally just leaves you with one. Like I'm playing a wood kineticist now, and I genuinely find that I don't want to spam it because then I don't get to do anything else really. Like you want to be able to land Hail of Splinters early, throw up some jagged berms or a wall or a sanguiviolent roots. "Stand there casting Tree" is really very boring!
The Summoner is specifically the place where you can snag it via the Kineticist Archetype and "Act Together" still leaves your Eidolon two actions to do things. So I think it's a more potentially problematic thing to bolt onto a Summoner than in its original context. It is potentially super-thematic though- my Strength of Thousands character was a Leshy Plant Summoner with the Druid (Leaf Order) archetype, so I wish the kineticist existed so I could have grabbed Infinitree.
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This hyperbole is simply untrue. If your Summoner is attacked 3 times between heals then even a mob of L-1's can do more HP damage with the 15% greater chance to hit than you get HP from your bonus Con.
Ok, we won't get an agreement.
Your model is, from my point of view, completely flawed. My model is, from your point of view, completely flawed.And trying to convince the other that he doesn't understand math well enough to modelize the game will only get us angry.
So it's a case where we can only agree to disagree.
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I generally value Con over Dex on a summoner. The former helps both the eidolon and the summoner whereas the latter only helps the summoner.
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I generally value Con over Dex on a summoner. The former helps both the eidolon and the summoner whereas the latter only helps the summoner.
I tend to prefer Dex over Con. HP is something that is easier to compensate for in the game, whether with feats, items, or spells, while the options to compensate for a lower AC are a bit more restricted or expensive.
For example, you can easily get more HP with Toughness with an increase equivalent to +1 in Con, besides temporary HP from various sources like elixirs and spells, besides heals not caring about your maximum HP (I always thought that healing effects should receive a Con bonus to make Con a more relevant attribute, it would have been much more interesting if healing spells received this bonus per die, for example in heal instead of receiving +8 they could receive +4 and the rest as Con bonus, and soothe could have been 1d10+Con, besides other skills like Treat Wounds which could receive Con x 2 at DC 20, Con x 6 at DC 30 and Con x 10 at DC 40. But I digress). While to compensate for the lower Dex with an unarmored character you need to take armor proficiency feats, and deal with all the drawbacks of using them such as weight, strength requirements and skill penalties or resort to Drakeheart Mutagen using an alchemist MC and deal with its drawback.
And the last point that makes me prefer to invest in Dex are the skills, which OK the eidolon can also use, but it can't use them with tools (at least not in RAW), so having a high Dex allows the summoner to benefit from thievery, stealth and acrobatics skills and their feats, which is very useful in exploration, in addition to counting on the Aid of your eidolon (since Aid doesn't need tools to help with something that requires tools).
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A sentence fragment that says "For Dex to matter more than Constitution the Summoner needs to be nearly the only one attacked" is not a model. Its just a bald assertion. Describe your model behind this, and we can see if I agree.
Look I'm not close minded about this. When you described your "keep the summoner and eidolon together" advice in greater detail, I did agree that what you meant was good and that the issue was more a communication one. So maybe this is like that, and giving a more detailed explanation of "For Dex to matter more than Constitution the Summoner needs to be nearly the only one attacked" will end up with us in agreement.
I can try.
If your Summoner is attacked 3 times between heals then even a mob of L-1's can do more HP damage with the 15% greater chance to hit than you get HP from your bonus Con.
This is untrue. A +1 to hit (or -1 to AC) is between 5% more chance to hit and sometimes (if it's a first attack with enough bonus to hit) a 5% more chance to crit. As we are speaking of 3 attacks, it's between 15 and 30% of the damage of a single attack.
Taking level 5 for example, a level 4 creature high damage is 14. 15% of 14 is 2, 30% of 14 is 4. A +1 to Con would give you 5 extra hit points so more than the damage a higher dex would prevent.But that's irrelevant, actually, because 3 attacks from a L-1 creature won't put you down even if they all hit. Same goes from 10 attacks from a L-1 creature which would put down a Champion, and as such your Summoner would be eating the dirt long before you reach the 10th attack.
On average, your Summoner will eat 4-5 attacks before going down, any other number of attacks will either end up being too low or overkill. The number of attacks you can take before going down is actually what we try to calculate: If I have this AC and this HP pool, how many attacks put me down? And if I have this other AC and this other HP pool, how many?
That's why I say your model is flawed, it won't lead to any usable conclusion, it doesn't answer our the question. The question being (at least for me): Between high Dex and high Con which one will ensure a higher survivability on a Summoner?
And that's why the Eidolon is important, as the Eidolon is maxed in AC. So, for example, if half of the attacks are against the Eidolon and half against the Summoner, the impact of higher AC is twice reduced (because you benefit from the higher AC only against half of the attacks). And considering that the Eidolon will be attacked more often than the Summoner, the Summoner AC is rather irrelevant to its survival compared to the Summoner hp pool size.
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I generally value Con over Dex on a summoner. The former helps both the eidolon and the summoner whereas the latter only helps the summoner.I tend to prefer Dex over Con. HP is something that is easier to compensate for in the game, whether with feats, items, or spells, while the options to compensate for a lower AC are a bit more restricted or expensive.
For example, you can easily get more HP with Toughness with an increase equivalent to +1 in Con, besides temporary HP from various sources like elixirs and spells, besides heals not caring about your maximum HP (I always thought that healing effects should receive a Con bonus to make Con a more relevant attribute, it would have been much more interesting if healing spells received this bonus per die, for example in heal instead of receiving +8 they could receive +4 and the rest as Con bonus, and soothe could have been 1d10+Con, besides other skills like Treat Wounds which could receive Con x 2 at DC 20, Con x 6 at DC 30 and Con x 10 at DC 40. But I digress). While to compensate for the lower Dex with an unarmored character you need to take armor proficiency feats, and deal with all the drawbacks of using them such as weight, strength requirements and skill penalties or resort to Drakeheart Mutagen using an alchemist MC and deal with its drawback.
And the last point that makes me prefer to invest in Dex are the skills, which OK the eidolon can also use, but it can't use them with tools (at least not in RAW), so having a high Dex allows the summoner to benefit from thievery, stealth and acrobatics...
Oh yeah, particularly for cloth casters! My go-tos are Numbing tonic and Soothing Tonic in close quarters combats.
I generally value Con over Dex on a summoner. The former helps both the eidolon and the summoner whereas the latter only helps the summoner.I tend to prefer Dex over Con. HP is something that is easier to compensate for in the game, whether with feats, items, or spells, while the options to compensate for a lower AC are a bit more restricted or expensive.
Summoner is a bit of an odd beast that way though, because there's two of you that can get hit. Only one of those benefits from DEX in terms of how tough you are. Both benefit from CON.
You also have more control than some other characters in terms of "avoid getting hit", because you can build one of you to Trip/Grab/Be Really Big And Get In the Way and thus make it harder for enemies to get to the other one of you. That gives you some control over where attacks go that another class has to rely on other players for.
It's not foolproof and you don't want to just totally tank your AC, but it's extremely important for Summoner's ability to be effective that the Eidolon be able to withstand an assault and CON is the ability that actually helps with that.
Hell, the Summoner in my Ruby Phoenix game went so far as to make his Apex Item a CON one. Obviously trading Summoner offense for durability there, but wow was he hard to take down, especially when I would finally get him low.. and then he'd bust out Moment of Renewal, which is a heal that does scale with CON.
In your model:
(using 3 swings with crit chance but no fatal, etc.)
The +1AC is 3 instances of a 10% chance to avoid 1 full hit of 14 damage.
+1 HP/L (for a matching Lvl) of 4 would be +4 max HP.
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If you receive a hit where the last 1 HP is threatened (?Dying?) you have a +4HP margin to stay above 0.
If the avg hit is 14, then 4/14 --> 28.5% chance to endure 1 more hit.
The chance of at least 1 dodge is 1-(.9*.9*.9) --> %27.1
This seems super close, but it's only comparing the odds of occurrence as presented.
The outcomes are different, with the +HP version meaning the PC took another hit, which could have riders like poison or knockdown.
Additionally, while both sides have 1-13 HP remaining, the dodge side still has its improved AC to benefit its final 1 HP, while the +HP side does not.
So even when you get the chances to align that closely, the AC side's bonus defense on the new final hit (if the new last hit is AC!) gives it a comfortable tie-breaker lead.
Even when the odds math out to look this close at first glance, it's super easy to accidentally underestimate the AC side.
Another "problem" for the +maxHP is that of multiple dodges. Getting a slightly larger HP pool is a certain and non-variable benefit. But every single non-?Dying? AC dodge gives you another future bonus roll of *any* save/defense because you never lost that HP in the first place.
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Furthermore, this doesn't consider what happens after this single ?Dying? event.
After the ?Dying? chance, any amount of continued fighting and healing further skews in AC's favor. If you get the "one more hit" via maxHP, that benefit only happens once,* and returning to the ?Dying? range does *not* trigger another chance for maxHP to help, because it's already been spent.
*If there's an (AC side) overheal event, that is how you "refresh" maxHP's ability to gain another chance at benefiting the PC. (though you now have a larger HP pool to restore in the first place. More AC and mitigation means each 1 HP point is worth more [e]ffective-HP)
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I'll say that again, only if the maxHP passes the ?Dying? check, *and* is healed beyond AC's max, can you then possibly roll another "one more hit" chance.
Meaning the PC needs to drop almost Dying, but stay conscious and be fully healed, *and then* once again drop all the way down to almost dying a 2nd time to gain a 2nd benefit from maxHP.
In comparison, AC continues to get full-hit-damage avoidance chance with every invocation of that defense stat, and every non-?Dying? dodge adds one more bonus roll that maxHP lacks.
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If one presumes 3 AC triggers vs a matching Lvl foe, AC has a clear lead in your own example.
And I think players generally underestimate how many AC attempts foes make, though a lot of those are at high MAP and should be counted as 5% and not 10% chances.
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By luck, your presented scenario can be a helpful "break point" for players to keep in mind when trying to evaluate something as complex as this. The 28.5% vs (27.1% + 10%) odds are so close, they can use that as an above/ambiguous/below measuring stick.
If one guesstimates they will genuinely take 2 or few swings to their PC / SMN's AC, then more maxHP might* be a better pick for them. If they guesstimate they take 4 or more rolls to their AC, then AC is very safely the better choice.
*(assuming they understand the attack-rider malady & other caveat/wrinkles)
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If one presumes 3 AC triggers vs a matching Lvl foe, AC has a clear lead in your own example.
AC-based attacks on the Summoner will account for less than 20% of the damage you take as a Summoner. So, no, AC has no lead, AC is rather useless on a Summoner.
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For example, you can easily get more HP with Toughness with an increase equivalent to +1 in Con
Toughness gives you 1 hp/level, Armor Proficiency gives you +2 AC.
Also, every 5 levels you reduce the AC penalty by one automatically while you'll never completely reduce the HP penalty.AC is much easier to compensate than HPs, it's nearly trivial.
As I said, there's a massive overvaluation of AC. AC is obviously important but most players disregards HPs in favor of AC even when HPs will grant them higher survivability.
You have the same phenomenom with chances to hit and damage: The Flurry Ranger and Precision Ranger have roughly the same damage output but lots of players consider Flurry to be a higher damage dealer than Precision.
Human bias...
To be honest, this is why I think I'll kinda pass on playing future APs that start at level 1. The damage / HP math is so absurdly bad that it's just not fun once you learn that your are one zero-agency 5% chance roll away from Dying 2 at all times.
To be fair, player HP math is done in such a way that, even at level 1 (the as-stated most brutal level in the game) a creature that is AT LEVEL with you will not one-shot you with a crit barring some f!!&in' WACKY exceptions and extremely poor luck. Double damage from a crit will get you CLOSE, but your ancestry gives you HP at level 1 specifically to avoid 100-0 scenarios being an extremely common occurrence.
It just so happens the math gets thrown out the window when your first few challenges in a 1-20 AP happen to be Severe/Extreme-level encounters where the MINIONs are at-level.
Stares angrily at Exctinction Curse
Thankfully more recent APs don't seem to have as much of an issue with that.
On the discussion of HP/AC, while it's true that the RESULTS of HP are binary (you're up and can act/you're down and cannot act), that does NOT, therefore, mean that HP is a binary resource. This is because, firstly, damage does not happen all at once in an encounter, and secondly, damage is ITSELF derived randomly as to-hits are.
You may not die immediately from an imp poking you with a fork, but that does NOT mean your investment into HP doesn't matter. Investing into HP could mean the difference between your NEXT hit becoming a down or not. These two instances of potential damage do NOT happen in a vacuum - the first hit will necessarily inform your next decision (as player and character) which will then influence the next hit depending on your actions.
HP is also a decent buffer against the randomness of dice-based damage - DOUBLY so if the damage dice are not shown to the players. Since we're talking a lot about crit sponges, note that the DOUBLING of damage on crit creates an extreme swing between a "s+$&" crit and a "holy s*%~" crit. Always looking at average damage paints a poor picture of actual play where randomness CAN mean your HP investment matters. If the enemy rolls max damage on a crit, a min-Con caster can go down from 80% HP where a maxed-Con caster would not.
If one presumes 3 AC triggers vs a matching Lvl foe, AC has a clear lead in your own example.AC-based attacks on the Summoner will account for less than 20% of the damage you take as a Summoner. So, no, AC has no lead, AC is rather useless on a Summoner.
I don't have any clue how you can claim that 20% of SMN's HP damage is coming from AC attacks on the caster. If this is a rough on the spot guesstimate, you should be clear in that distinction.
More to the point, that number is still completely disconnected and irrelevant when trying to crowbar such an inappropriate comparison.
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A single foe turn of Stride + Strike + Strike on the caster is already 2 AC rolls.
If that happens a second time, you are already at 4 AC rolls, and AC is clearly ahead.
And any time there's more dmg danger behind an AC roll, such as a 2A power attack, that puts more value onto that single boosted AC roll for a net 0 difference in +AC value.
Meanwhile, maxHP's formula of (bonus HP)/(hit's damage) means that incoming higher dmg is dropping the odds of it making the "one more hit" difference like a rock.
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The more the *scenario* favors maxHP, by featuring as many low dmg hits as possible, the less "dangerous" that combat will generally be in practice.
Some of the reasons include:
lower dmg & more hits means the creatures will likely be lower level,
it is much easier/safer to predict when healing is needed,
and more foes means you can more quickly remove those (lower HP & defense) foes from the battlefield, while a single boss foe only stops when the whole foe-side HP is 0.
This balance issue is a big part of why so much dev effort has gone into the troop rules.
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And if we are talking about SMN, they will be more of a priority target for the foes than a normal caster due to the "clearly visible" link to the Eidolon.
And for foes that can attack at range, they are just about guaranteed to shoot the SMN and not the Eidolon, making this "3+ AC invokes" breakpoint even more likely to occur.
Idk if there's some misalignment where you consider the Eidolon as taking 1/2 of the hostilities, when in actual play the Eidolon is adding 1 more target; more likely making a change where the foe's attention is spread in a way so that SMN is a 1/4 --> 1/5 target choices.
That extra target matters a good deal, but even in Abomination Corridors, our Grapple-happy Champion could outright not stop foes from going where they pleased and attacking whomever they wished.
At best, we could expect 1 less attack due to a successful stolen action before they moved to their desired square.
And using PC vs foes of equal level was being very generous, as the avg AP encounter certainly has the PCs facing higher Lvl foes.
For example, you can easily get more HP with Toughness with an increase equivalent to +1 in ConToughness gives you 1 hp/level, Armor Proficiency gives you +2 AC.
Also, every 5 levels you reduce the AC penalty by one automatically while you'll never completely reduce the HP penalty.AC is much easier to compensate than HPs, it's nearly trivial.
As I said, there's a massive overvaluation of AC. AC is obviously important but most players disregards HPs in favor of AC even when HPs will grant them higher survivability.
You have the same phenomenom with chances to hit and damage: The Flurry Ranger and Precision Ranger have roughly the same damage output but lots of players consider Flurry to be a higher damage dealer than Precision.
Human bias...
Calm down, Bidi, you're assuming too much here.
The difference between the proficiency of a caster without armor and one with armor is in fact 2 points, since the maximum that non-heavy armor provides is 5 (ignoring future rune bonuses) adding its item bonus to the dex bonus up to the cap.
So getting proficiency with light armor via general feat gives +2 compared to just that, but for that you need to have +3 in Dex, otherwise you'll still have low dexterity. If you consider a character with ancestry of 2 character attributes, if this character invests in Con as a secondary attribute and is not amnesiac, this means that you will only have +1 to AC from Dex, with a maximum of +2 from items and having only 13+lvl AC means that you can not only be hit very easily, but you can also be criticized very easily, which negates the benefit of having +2 HP per level very easily, this does not cover the damage and other effects of a critical!
This is not trivial to compensate with feats. You can even compensate later (probably at level 7) with another general armor proficiency feat to raise it to medium armor, but it will still be much later and will require 2 general feats at the end of the day.
I would even agree with you if having such a low AC did not affect the critical so much, but since it does, it becomes a real problem even against weak enemies that should not criticize you with less than a natural 20.
On the other hand, if you invest in dexterity, you lose 2 HP per level from constitution, but as I said, you can compensate with Toughness, but I personally prefer to get light armor and increase AC to 15, and get Toughness later.
That said, this calculation is done with characters who get 2 free attributes from ancestry, but you can mitigate both effects by getting a character who provides Cha and Dex/Con +1 free (Gnome, Goblin, Azarketi, Catfolk, Tanuki, Skeleton and Yaksha). That way you can get +3 and +2 in the secondary and tertiary attribute, if your GM is nice and accepts the amnesiac background and lets you choose the attributes you can even get +3 and +3 in 2 non-key attributes, which kind of solves the whole issue, or alternatively make an Automaton with Reinforced Chassis to actually leave Dex at only +1.
Finally, as I mentioned before, Dex is also important to increase your efficiency with Dex skills that you will possibly pick up to use with your eidolon as well, allowing you to perform the skills that require tools with your eidolon helping you.
The issue here is that you are considering the percentage of extra HP that Con provides, but in compensation you are underestimating what Dex provides in other uses and in reducing the chance of suffering a critical hit.
To be honest, this is why I think I'll kinda pass on playing future APs that start at level 1. The damage / HP math is so absurdly bad that it's just not fun once you learn that your are one zero-agency 5% chance roll away from Dying 2 at all times.To be fair, player HP math is done in such a way that, even at level 1 (the as-stated most brutal level in the game) a creature that is AT LEVEL with you will not one-shot you with a crit barring some f@#%in' WACKY exceptions and extremely poor luck. Double damage from a crit will get you CLOSE, but your ancestry gives you HP at level 1 specifically to avoid 100-0 scenarios being an extremely common occurrence.
Yeah, ancestry HP exists specifically to make this sort of thing (i.e. "unlucky crit, make a new character") much rarer, but you can as a GM mitigate it even further with house rules. Like the math of the game will tolerate "just give everybody 10 extra HP at level 1."
Why I don't like starting at level 1 is more about "playing level 1 characters is dull, compared to playing higher level characters who have more tactical options."
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I don't have any clue how you can claim that 20% of SMN's HP damage is coming from AC attacks on the caster.
Experience. My Summoner has been attacked dangerously once with AC-based attacks in the course of 7 levels. My Eidolon, much more often.
13+lvl AC
15+lvl
You can even compensate later (probably at level 7)
At level 7 you have -1 to AC compared to a Summoner with 16 starting Dex and at level 10 you have the same AC, so you don't have anything to compensate at level 7. Compensating the Dexterity difference happens all on its own as long as you take Light Armor Proficiency at level 3 (which you should if AC is so important to you).
On the other hand, if you invest in dexterity, you lose 2 HP per level from constitution, but as I said, you can compensate with Toughness, but I personally prefer to get light armor and increase AC to 15, and get Toughness later.
I went for Toughness. On a Summoner, +1hp/level is more interesting than +2 AC. My Summoner AC has been useful once, my Summoner hit points have been useful regularly.
Finally, as I mentioned before, Dex is also important to increase your efficiency with Dex skills that you will possibly pick up to use with your eidolon as well, allowing you to perform the skills that require tools with your eidolon helping you.
For me, this sentence really reveals the lack of reason when it comes to Dexterity. The only skill needing tools is Thievery, which is often proficiency gated, meaning that if you want to use it it needs to be one of your Legendary skills. On a Summoner...
Anyway, this discussion have gone past the due date. From experience, the Summoner doesn't really take AC-based damage. I would not understand why the conversation even exist if I was not aware of the extreme bia towards Dexterity over Constitution.
It's interesting that people clamor for DEX over CON or the opposite, while nobody talks about WIS.
CON and DEX are the more defensive choices, raising your HP pool and your summoner's AC respectively. But WIS is your perception (arguably one of the most rolled stat in the game), your will save (arguably the most dangerous save to fail) and, unless you're rolling with another method, your initiative.
Initiative is golden on a summoner, as with most casters. Playing before your opponent allows you to hammer them with a big spell, or buff yourself/your martials, or go out of the way, or trip a big baddie.
From MY experience (which I guess is as valid or invalid as all the other ones), acting first and moving the summoner away from action while using the eidolon to tank has prevented more hits on me than any dex investment. And winning initiative by 1 or 2 points happen as often as getting crit by 1 or 2 points.
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One of the big advantages of the summoner is that combined, they are high in nearly every important stat.
Summoner can focus on Dex, Con, Wis, Cha. If you start with at least a 12 in each, you'll end up with an end 18 in each by level 15.
The eidolon will end up with a maxed out combat stat, dex, con, and wis.
So the debate seems to be whether you start with a 14 or 16 in In Dex or Con and at least a 12 in Wis.
The reason I don't prioritize wisdom myself is you get a Master in Will saves, which is the equivalent of 2 stat points. Similar with Fort.
Dex is your weakest save which you can't bolster to Master until level 17 with Canny Acumen if you decide to do Reflex saves instead of Perception.
You should be able to equally bolster your stats over the levels. So the 1 or 2 point difference during character creation is the debate.
It's interesting that people clamor for DEX over CON or the opposite, while nobody talks about WIS.
Wis is a good choice if you don't expect your Eidolon to raise much attention. But if you want your Eidolon to be on the frontline or, worse, very big, then increasing its survivability is really important in my opinion. After all, it has average AC (even under average at level 1-4 if Strength-based) and has litteraly no defense mecanism to boost it's survivability. And Deriven can't insist more on that: If you ever go down, your Eidolon unmanifests, so the Summoner is really a character that should not go down.
That's why I don't consider Wisdom a secondary stat. It works for ranged Eidolons or for parties where the frontline is really sturdy and able to protect the Eidolon (Champion typically) but in many other parties it may end up being a dangerous choice to make.
The main reason why I'm guessing the math is *so* whack that a unique case like SMN has to be involved before maxHP vs AC becomes a conversation, is that it seems there's some dev blindspots where the PC v Foe asymmetry is forgotten. Enemies generally just deal way more damage than PCs.
This was "most blatant" to me when a regular human ~fighter w/ a trident in SoT almost 1-turn KOed the 100% Orcale, at like lvl 8 or 9.
It still stands out as particularly egregious (especially when their weapons had +1 potency, but 0 Striking runes), but all humanoid foes can evoke this "wow, that's ___" response to seeing what they can do.
Sometimes the devs do remember that foe-pc imbalance, which is why spells like 2A Heal are so potent, (and why all healing* scales faster than dmg) but other times you get things like +1 AC attempting to compare against +1 HP/L.
A number that is so low, you genuinely need some crazy luck to endure a single extra instance of dmg.
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maxHP being so niche / hard to justify is not a pf2 problem, it's an endemic issue to the countless games where HP is stuck as a "binary state resource pool."
Games like Elden Ring have to employ complex mechanics where the manner in which the main HP stat of Vigor works is "bizarre" in that the awarded amount of bonus HP increases the more points you already have in Vigor, until that trend reverses and diminishing returns set in.
(and S.Bidi you mis-quoted and put someone else's words in my mouth)
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My point earlier about "talking like there's some presumed layman default" is that you have got to account for your own table play and try to shift perspective to ask "is that normal?".
Asking things like "is it normal that my SMN has only been AC-threatened once by L7?" is crucial for forums like this to have productive talks at all.
You should have brought that up the *first* time I mention the "pf2 is a soft positioning game" point. The whole reason for saying that "presumed norm" was for it to be passively accepted or possibly objected to.
I've only cleared 2 APs, and have 2 more in progress. That's not a lot of pf2 playtime. I can say that I have never seen any PC (especially a 30ft range one) be able to genuinely "sit in the back and not get attacked."
While it's pretty hard to predict which PC is going to get rushed, as it's often retaliatory as to which seems the highest danger to the foes (did the foe crit succeed the spell, or crit fail?), in my small experience, every PC gets rushed at some point.
I have to ask you to think on the possible abnormality of your own play, in this case if your GM's style was abnormally "leave the backline alone."
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I've noticed that this specific issue is *very* skewed by the use of a VTT vs "mind map" play. When everyone can see the squares, it's super hard for GMs to justify foes *not* simply Striding around and swinging on the caster.
The issue is that for post L 10 play, there's no longer a reason to *not* be at DEX cap AC.
Once the player HP finally starts to catch up to foe damage, the "which do I prioritize" question has had both L5 and L10 to add stat points, along with general and ancestry feats to escape the unarmored penalty zone.
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This was not the scenario I was discussing, which was Con+3 Dex+0 vs. Dex+3 Con+1.
Why are you giving more stats boosts to one than the other? You should compare Con+3 Dex+1 vs. Dex+3 Con+1. It'd make more sense.
Scenario 3: Eidolon takes 42 (3 hits) during this time.
Why is your Eidolon always taking less hits than your Summoner? I don't expect the Summoner to take 50% of the damage of the couple, the Eidolon takes most of the damage. For example, you can consider that the Eidolon takes 80% of the damage (on average) and the Summoner the remaining 20% (which is much closer to the actual percentage). So you'll remove 54 hit points before making the calculations.
Initiative is golden on a summoner, as with most casters. Playing before your opponent allows you to hammer them with a big spell, or buff yourself/your martials, or go out of the way, or trip a big baddie.From MY experience (which I guess is as valid or invalid as all the other ones), acting first and moving the summoner away from action while using the eidolon to tank has prevented more hits on me than any dex investment.
Disregarding the drama over when certain Champion reactions expire - I find it's still best for everyone to roll a lower initiative than whoever's playing Champion or Fighter. And Champions tend to have very low perception rolls unless the character gets multiple things to boost it. Ideally that list would also include Barbarian but I've only ever seen one player play a Barbarian without going into 'Leeroy Jenkins' mindset.
Going first gives you plenty of opportunity to foolishly move into the wrong spot because in the moment you moved it looked good or because you're a newer player that doesn't think 3-4 complete turns ahead.
Rather than acting first to move away, Ideally I'd like the Champion or Fighter to move first and get somewhere around which all the enemies and front liners will cluster.
This almost never happens... Which then leads to your strat being a good one.
But given that a summoner starts with an expert Will save it feels safer to leave wisdom alone. There is a second side to the game - which stats will most benefit you during roleplay.
Of of combat the best stats seem to be Cha, Int, and Dex.
Social skills, getting more skills, and a things like stealth and thievery. Thievery can be ignored if there's anyone who's main stat is dex. But having good stealth is always handy.
Summoner does have an edge having Cha as a main stat so they can max out the social skills. They don't get 'enough' skills so I favor a +1 to Int in any game that's going to have a good amount of roleplay just because it gives one more skill and lets me spend skill feats on 'skill training'.
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Why is your Eidolon always taking less hits than your Summoner? I don't expect the Summoner to take 50% of the damage of the couple, the Eidolon takes most of the damage. 4 hits is the minimum you should consider.
Unless the Eidolon is grappling and has reactive strike, an aura, or something - I expect it to take almost no hits, and for the summoner to be the main target of any intelligent enemies. I expect most Eidolons to play a role more like a rogue or swashbuckler, or flanking for whoever does have reactive strikes, grapples, auras, and/or champion reactions.
The eidolon needs to find an excuse to force enemies to attack it, and it usually lacks these.
Often if the Eidolon is a target - it will be a target of 'Tumble Through' or 'Reposition'. More often 'Tumble Through' as while Reposition is superior for making someone susceptible to a very bad situation; in an indoor fight there's often nowhere to move someone to.
Relevant Tangent:
I had the experience two months ago of filling for a missing player at my brother's table. Final battles of the dungeon they were in - I took over a Monk with a +0 in Dex and all Str. I stood in a doorway and everything could just tumble through me to the backline, while I couldn't tumble past the enemy I was fighting. It was a badly made PC by a new player. I swapped his stance for Mountain - but it didn't solve the issue. This tangent is where I realized that you can't tank without either a reaction or the ability to block a spot - the low Dex on that monk meant every enemy just tumbled through me into the backline.
A Brutal Eidolon can just be tumbled through on the way to the Summoner.
A Fleet Eidolon has better odds of stopping that.
Both are pretty good at avoiding being repositioned.
However the Brutal is still what you want to be able to grapple or trip and thus lock enemies in place.
Why is your Eidolon always taking less hits than your Summoner? I don't expect the Summoner to take 50% of the damage of the couple, the Eidolon takes most of the damage. 4 hits is the minimum you should consider.
Unless the Eidolon is grappling and has reactive strike, an aura, or something - I expect it to take almost no hits, and for the summoner to be the main target of any intelligent enemies. I expect most Eidolons to play a role more like a rogue or swashbuckler, or flanking for whoever does have reactive strikes, grapples, auras, and/or champion reactions.
The eidolon needs to find an excuse to force enemies to attack it, and it usually lacks these.
Often if the Eidolon is a target - it will be a target of 'Tumble Through' or 'Reposition'. More often 'Tumble Through' as while Reposition is superior for making someone susceptible to a very bad situation; in an indoor fight there's often nowhere to move someone to.
Relevant Tangent:
I had the experience two months ago of filling for a missing player at my brother's table. Final battles of the dungeon they were in - I took over a Monk with a +0 in Dex and all Str. I stood in a doorway and everything could just tumble through me to the backline, while I couldn't tumble past the enemy I was fighting. It was a badly made PC by a new player. I swapped his stance for Mountain - but it didn't solve the issue. This tangent is where I realized that you can't tank without either a reaction or the ability to block a spot - the low Dex on that monk meant every enemy just tumbled through me into the backline.A Brutal Eidolon can just be tumbled through on the way to the Summoner.
A Fleet Eidolon has better odds of stopping that.
Both are pretty good at avoiding being repositioned.
However the Brutal is still what you want to be able to grapple or trip and thus lock enemies in place.
So, from experience I can say that chasing the summoner as the primary target is something that doesn't work very well given the necessary action consumption and the fact that the summoner+eidolon combination wins in this (while the opponent spends movement actions to chase the summoner, the summoner+eidolon use tandem actions sacrificing much less of their effective actions, which harms the opponent).
It's a theorycraft that I see a lot of people doing and even trying in PF2e, but that in the end is very inefficient. Usually it's not worth moving monsters and NPCs to chase certain PCs unless they have offensive activities to do so.
So I don't see or use this chasing strategy very much because usually you're not doing something with that action, be it a 3-action area attack, a 2-action + 1 attack spell, or even Demoralize, few creatures that don't have special activities to be used in combat to make it worth breaking through the frontline.
However, it does not change the fact that if a monster or NPC has an easy way to target and attack the summoner instead of the eidolon, it will most certainly do so.
So, from experience I can say that chasing the summoner as the primary target is something that doesn't...Why is your Eidolon always taking less hits than your Summoner? I don't expect the Summoner to take 50% of the damage of the couple, the Eidolon takes most of the damage. 4 hits is the minimum you should consider.
Unless the Eidolon is grappling and has reactive strike, an aura, or something - I expect it to take almost no hits, and for the summoner to be the main target of any intelligent enemies. I expect most Eidolons to play a role more like a rogue or swashbuckler, or flanking for whoever does have reactive strikes, grapples, auras, and/or champion reactions.
The eidolon needs to find an excuse to force enemies to attack it, and it usually lacks these.
Often if the Eidolon is a target - it will be a target of 'Tumble Through' or 'Reposition'. More often 'Tumble Through' as while Reposition is superior for making someone susceptible to a very bad situation; in an indoor fight there's often nowhere to move someone to.
Relevant Tangent:
I had the experience two months ago of filling for a missing player at my brother's table. Final battles of the dungeon they were in - I took over a Monk with a +0 in Dex and all Str. I stood in a doorway and everything could just tumble through me to the backline, while I couldn't tumble past the enemy I was fighting. It was a badly made PC by a new player. I swapped his stance for Mountain - but it didn't solve the issue. This tangent is where I realized that you can't tank without either a reaction or the ability to block a spot - the low Dex on that monk meant every enemy just tumbled through me into the backline.A Brutal Eidolon can just be tumbled through on the way to the Summoner.
A Fleet Eidolon has better odds of stopping that.
Both are pretty good at avoiding being repositioned.
However the Brutal is still what you want to be able to grapple or trip and thus lock enemies in place.
My experience goes the other way.
My idea that they will always go for the backline is a trained one. It's from seeing backline characters get rolled over and over and over again.
This one isn't a theorycraft issue. It's practical experience. Unless the frontline finds active ways to lock down enemies, they run around them, reach past them, or go through them and just wreck the backline.
And for summoner - the backline target is just way too attractive.
- The reach past them is a recent experience BTW. When on my alchemist I went in to give a martial something, I got hit with a crit by the enemy with reach the next round and barely survived.
And... the example I gave a page or two prior where at level 7 I got luck with crit spam and took 2 martials from full to dying 2, and nearly got the wizard as well - that was an Irnakurse, a large-sized enemy with 20-foot reach. I'd have hit all 4 of them but the last caster was out of reach.
In Kingmaker I was on a healer Kineticist. We were in camp, I was asleep. 6 wolves attack. 4 of them ignore the PCs that are up and about and run past them for the tent behind them and crit my sleeping character into dying. That... was routine for that GM. The other 2 wolves went for the other caster - running around a martial to do so. That GM would have even mindless or animal NPCs focus lock healers then casters - even on round 1.
Even when I GM, if the opportunity is there a caster is going to get it. I don't focus lock them like nearly every GM I've played under does, but I won't pass on them either.
Is it worth it to focus lock on the backline? For a pure caster or even ranged martial I'd say no because they're not the same threat in Pathfinder that they are in DnD (or with a ranged martial, the action economy is often not there like you note). That's why I don't do this myself as a GM.
But for a summoner I'd say yes because it's a weakpoint to take out a martial if it's AC is low enough. BUT only if you're going for the pair. As a GM myself I'd likely go for neither until they were a proven threat. But if I did - I'd have my NPC go for the summoner if it was an intelligent NPC, and usually the Eidolon if not.
But whether its the better option or not, I've been trained by GMs to expect it, and I've come extremely close to losing characters when not being prepared for it or when the dice that didn't favor me.
I've also been trained by other players to not expect the front liners to know how to play defensively and actually hold a line. They much prefer playing offensively and leaving gaps in the line. It's not hard to understand - if they feel they can get 2-3 times the single target damage output of the backline, that becomes addictive over telling them to trip that guy, stand in the way of the other one, grapple here, reposition there.
Every GM I've played under has been willing to lose whole turns running around. And if they're ranged NPCs - then it's even more brutal. In that same Kingmaker game, my Kineticist hiding in the trees across a river has been focused down by longbow archers in towers that the martials were busy lighting on fire, while our psychic caster faced the same but got lucky when they missed. This particular GM for a while mad me put 'come over from DnD' as a redflag against any potential GM as I started thinking that was why I keep finding GMs like this. But I've also seen it now from GMs who've been with Pathfinder since it's inception.
Anyway...
On a pure caster GMs have trained me to do everything I can to max out AC. So I will often get it as high as I can.
But on a summoner which is a hybrid exposed on both fronts I do see the appeal of having good HPs, which is why I posed the question that got us down this whole tangent.
I don't think any summoner build could survive the kinds of GMs I face that go to comical extremes trying to 'geek the mage' (an old Shadowrun term for this kind of focus lock, and I suspect where the mentality originated from as far back as the late 80s in tRPGs).
But even in a game with what most of you seem used to - GMs that judge it by situation - I worry summoner is too 'MAD' - needing good Cha, Dex, Con, likely Wis, and for me personally also +1 so I can unlock the 'train a skill' skill feat.
I don't see a good way to build or play the class unless a GM coddles me.
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I'm not sure any class can really survive being hard-focused by a GM out for blood. Even a tank like the Champion can't take damage for literally their entire team, so if the issue is that the GM is bending over backwards to direct any and all harm towards the party's spellcasters, even when doing so would be unreasonable, I think that's probably the priority issue to tackle.
As for the Summoner being MAD, one of the nifty aspects of the class is that you get two sets of attributes to play with. Although you'll likely be boosting Dex, Con, and Wis on both bodies, the Summoner will obviously have very good Charisma, whereas your eidolon is likely to have pretty good Strength, even on a Dex-focused build, and if their build is Dex-focused then their Dex mod will be higher than yours. This means you can pick skill increases in such a way that your eidolon will be able to make up for what you lack, and it's not uncommon to pick Intimidation and Athletics thanks to this, for instance. The Dual Studies feat builds on this and gives you and your eidolon separate proficiencies, making it easier to have a wider distribution of skills.
I think a big "breakpoint" in my experience as to if the backline is going to get jumped is if they are 1 foe stride away or more.
Because foes often swing at bad MAP, and spellcasters are stuck with 30ft range spells, this often means the foe's "cost" of rushing the backline is simply 1 bad MAP attack.
That "cost" is a no-brainer to pay. Especially if it's turn 1 and the PCs have half a flank going on the foe.
Whenever the cost is higher than 1 move action, that's when imo it's much less likely for the backline to get rushed. Being rushed when it's 2 or more actions usually has had some contextual reason to boost that, whether it's a RP thing like the PC bad-mouthing them, or a perceived threat thing like a dangerous near-miss w/ a spell, they used a heal, etc.
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I mean if your GMs are sending literal wild animals at you as if they were trained assassins from the Golden League then I think that's less "If the GMs aren't coddling me I can't play this class" and more "holy s~$~ I need to find better people to play this with".
There's LOTS of interpretations to the line of Summoner stating that its sigils "makes it readily apparent to an intelligent observer that the two of you are connected in some way". IMO "immediately knowing that if one dies, so does the other" is not one of the reasonable ones.
Here's a semi-workable simile: I can very obviously tell, as an intelligent being, that the big PC tower next to my monitors is connected to them in some way. But if I had never seen a PC before, I wouldn't automatically know that the tower does 99% of the work, and would probably presume the machine "broken" if I smashed the monitors, since nothing is showing up on them anymore. Someone more familiar would have to tell me that, "no, you need to smash the tower; it has all the stuff in it".
Similarly, a random nobody John Gatekeeper (only a nobody to you; his family loves him) - while trained in the art of keeping gates and fighting in formation all his well-lived life - would be able to tell via having working eyes that the Summoner and its Eidolon are, in fact, working together in some way. But John Gatekeeper doesn't know diddly squat about the summoning artes - he needs to keep watch on the horizon, not keep his nose in books, after all - and so would likely not know the pretty need-to-know fact that a Summoner and Eidolon share life force. For all he knows, ending you first only breaks the leash you have over that THING you're controlling and would only put him in more danger. That is something that his buddy Mage Manson would probably have to point out to him is a wrong assumption.
Now, he WOULD likely know, through his training, that a mage is something to try and contend with first, and he CAN see you're a mage. Unfortunately, there are at LEAST two hulking things in John's way, and running immediately to you, the mage, to try and hurt you first, is a sure-fire way to land him in an early grave as your buddies now attempt to avenge you to the best of their ability.
There's LOTS of interpretations to the line of Summoner stating that its sigils "makes it readily apparent to an intelligent observer that the two of you are connected in some way". IMO "immediately knowing that if one dies, so does the other" is not one of the reasonable ones.
Yeah, a reasonable interpretation (which is wrong) would be "if the tiny squishy one loses control then the big monster just goes rampaging, which would be worse."
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Similarly, a random nobody John Gatekeeper (only a nobody to you; his family loves him) - while trained in the art of keeping gates and fighting in formation all his well-lived life - would be able to tell via having working eyes that the Summoner and its Eidolon are, in fact, working together in some way. But John Gatekeeper doesn't know diddly squat about the summoning artes - he needs to keep watch on the horizon, not keep his nose in books, after all - and so would likely not know the pretty need-to-know fact that a Summoner and Eidolon share life force. For all he knows, ending you first only breaks the leash you have over that THING you're controlling and would only put him in more danger. That is something that his buddy Mage Manson would probably have to point out to him is a wrong assumption.
Now, he WOULD likely know, through his training, that a mage is something to try and contend with first, and he CAN see you're a mage. Unfortunately, there are at LEAST two...
I wholeheartedly agree with your example. The guard clearly understands that magic is in play but could easily make an incorrect assumption about the nature of said magic. They might well believe the markings to be an indicator of a spell effect cast by a third party, for example.
And one must not forget page 74 of the Lost Omens Travel Guide, which clearly spells out just how common knowledge of magic is in the world of Golarion.
How the average person sees and understands magic and spellcasters varies from culture to culture, of course, but common threads exist between similar types of regions.
In rural farming communities, where most people aren’t likely to encounter more powerful magic than the local priest’s minor healing spells or a neighbor’s inherited cantrips, magic is seen as a novelty. Though sorcerers and other innate spellcasters are sometimes born in these areas, particularly in regions with significant planar activity like Mendev and Cheliax, people in these more far-flung areas simply don’t interact with spellcasters aside from the occasional traveler or passing adventurer.
There’s a distinctly different story in the cities. Spellcasters become more commonplace the closer you get to urban centers, and once you’ve arrived in one, they’re everywhere: wizards selling their spellcasting services, bustling temples filled with clerics, bards performing in every tavern. Magic isn’t a wonder in the city—it’s a commodity, something to be bought or sold, or used as part of services. While many pursue magic for scholarship or power, it’s often treated as a path to a lucrative career. This isn’t to say spellcasters aren’t respected, but they’re seen in much the same way one would look at a barrister, physician, or another highly educated role in society.
Regardless of where you’re from, the people of the Inner Sea region do have some rudimentary understanding of magic, if only through storytelling. They may not be able to tell you the difference between a druid or fey witch—and many wizards have introduced endless confusion with their staunch refusal to introduce themselves by anything other than their chosen school—but most people in the Inner Sea know magic is divided into four traditions, and different mages use different means of casting. And, of course, they all have opinions about these.
The arcane is the most familiar to many, due to its accessibility to nearly anyone with a rudimentary education, making it among the most prevalent in both day-to-day life and legends. At most, there is an assumption that arcane spellcasters tend to be high-class and pretentious, despite the fact that arcane sorcery is nearly as common as wizardry and is less likely to accompany a formal education.
Divine magic is just as common, but seen by many as more special or important than the arcane. It’s understood by even the most common layperson to be a gift from the gods, a source of great miracles. Modest priests, capable of only minor spellcasting—if any at all—unfortunately are commonly expected to help someone beyond saving and take the blame for failure.
The divide between the rural and urban is reversed
with an understanding of primal magic. In the urban, druidic magic is seen the same way arcane magic is: a manipulation of the forces of the world and only constrained to nature by happenstance. Beyond the walls of the cities, people know better. They have their own respect for nature, and even if they don’t interact with primal spellcasters themselves, they understand nature isn’t commanded, and druids and their like must ask.
No form of magic is as misunderstood as occult
magic, fitting to its practitioners’ extensive study of the unknown. Seen as a creepy magic, it isn’t often discussed except in hushed whispers, leading to significant misinformation. While many of these misconceptions are harmful, a few are more amusing than anything.
In particular, it’s widely accepted by even the educated that bards, with their musical magic and more positive associations, can’t possibly use occult magic, but some variant of the arcane.
***********
The Travel Guide goes on to state that magic is commonplace with 1 in 5 people having some form of magical capability in most regions. However, practicing spellcasters (those that rise above cantrips or their natural innate abilities) are much rarer, closer to only 1 in 20 people.
And finally, the recently released NPC Core shows us that there are experienced guard and soldier groups are specifically trained to counter spellcasters and supernatural threats. However, they are very rare, and are generally only called in for higher level threats. They certainly are not counted among your typical rank and file soldier or guard unit. A simple guardsmen is unlikely to be trained in magical identification unless he happens to be an elite guard protecting something extremely important AND those who stationed him had reason to believe magic might be used to breech. A royal guard of the kingdom's treasury, or a secret society member protecting a powerful magical artifact, might know the difference between a buff and an eidolon link, but your simple every day street guard likely doesn't.
I think most NPCs should have a passing familiarity with magic, but an understanding of how a specific class works should be exceedingly rare. Like "understanding if you stop the Summoner, you stop the Eidolon" should be like "understanding that the Witch's familiar is the source of your curse."
I mean if your GMs are sending literal wild animals at you as if they were trained assassins from the Golden League then I think that's less "If the GMs aren't coddling me I can't play this class" and more "holy s##% I need to find better people to play this with".I think a number of GMs will play beasts as "go after the thing that hurt me most, if I can." That's not malicious, that's somewhat reasonable. So really it only takes one round of "EA did good, and my Eidolon missed this round" to send a beast towards the Summoner even with a reasonable GM.
Yeah, I get that and I myself GM animals more or less that way - as animals rather than covert assassins from the Golden League. :)
My own GM strat, very different from the GM's I've played under; comes from 'threat assessment and intelligence' assumptions.
1. What's the big threat to me here?
2. Am I an intelligent, Animal-level, or mindless enemy - which determines how I handle that threat.
So when I'm GMing casters get a pass until they prove to be a threat, and downed PCs get ignored or maybe dragged away because leaving them wounded makes their allies need to help them rather than attack me. Finishing them off is actually a bad tactic as once you do that their allies are free to focus on you.
BUT...
I do have some 'gamer trauma' over GMs that have a 'healers first, then casters' mindset that comes from somewhere.
When the one GM had the majority of the wolves go for my sleeping character hidden out of view inside a tent behind the rest of the party it was a bit of a final straw of a pattern in that game. I liked that GM as a person and as a story teller but he had a thing against healers and casters and it just went way too far sometimes.
I could keep breaking that story down but at that point it belongs on reddit under rpghorrorstories as a minor story. ;)
BUT (again)...
In an active fight - if they go for the backline, the backline needs to be ready for that.
Maybe folks are right here: An NPC seeing that the summoner and eidolon are connected is not enough for an NPC that doesn't pause to do a recall knowledge to know why. And said NPC needs a metagame-free reason to waste an action doing that recall knowledge.
So the player of the summoner has a reasonable expectation to expect their summoner will not be a target unless they act to make themselves one (prove to be a bigger threat), and we have a game-table social issue if they start getting focused.
If I thought I'd face a fair GM...
...
... I'd probably got for one of:
+4 Cha, +2 Con, +2 Dex, +1 Int
+4 Cha, +3 Con, +1 Dex, +1 Int
I still favor +1 Int over Wis because it gives me more I can do out of combat by opening access to the skill feat "Skill Training". It's combat inferior, but opens up more roleplay for me.
Maybe someday I'll find a GM that isn't hyper-focused on using every random house cat as if it was an assassin sent by the Golden League out to get the 'mage'. ;)
I think a number of GMs will play beasts as "go after the thing that hurt me most, if I can." That's not malicious, that's somewhat reasonable. So really it only takes one round of "EA did good, and my Eidolon missed this round" to send a beast towards the Summoner even with a reasonable GM.
Oh, I agree. Animals and beasts (even the humanoid kind) are fairly vindictive by necessity - if I got thwacked in the head by someone my immediate instinct would be to swivel in their direction and focus on them, and I would consider myself at LEAST semi-intelligent. I was moreso responding to...
In Kingmaker I was on a healer Kineticist. We were in camp, I was asleep. 6 wolves attack. 4 of them ignore the PCs that are up and about and run past them for the tent behind them and crit my sleeping character into dying. That... was routine for that GM. The other 2 wolves went for the other caster - running around a martial to do so. That GM would have even mindless or animal NPCs focus lock healers then casters - even on round 1.
...this, in which arcady's GM seemed to go too far in the other direction. Wolf packs should not be performing coup-de-gras default kill tactics from PF1, I think we can both agree.
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Maybe someday I'll find a GM that isn't hyper-focused on using every random house cat as if it was an assassin sent by the Golden League out to get the 'mage'. ;)
Reminds me of a couple GMs I met who claimed their NPCs would nuke any small animal that came anywhere near sensitive areas just because familiars existed.
Made familiars, pest shape, and similar options almost completely worthless. :(
I can't stand GMs who go out of their way to stamp out creativity or to limit fun options for no practical reason.
Unless the NPC in question has a magic skill and makes a successful Recall Knowledge check, or has encountered summoners and eidolons before, that includes GMs who have said NPC gank the summoner in the backline even though the eidolon is in their face.
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The summoner has a built in class feature that requires the summoner and eidolon to have a clearly visible mark on each that shows they are tied together. This is pretty easy for almost any creature to figure out they are somehow tied together and that killing the caster guy in light armor is much easier than killing the strange, otherworldly eidolon.
I don't really have a problem with a DM going after the soft summoner over the eidolon. Though it's often not a great idea in a party with more dangerous members. Summoner is very often not the most dangerous PC in a party.
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How do I run threat assessment...
Usually based on intelligence and experience.
Animals generally attack whoever hurts them worse focusing on the target.
Organized, intelligent humanoids target threats and problems. They definitely hate healers or magic users as they know what happens if they don't finish them. Though easier said than done if the PCs set up right.
I definitely do not do the whole meta-game enemies know where the PC is sleeping if the PCs take the precaution of concealing the healers or casters in back.
I do sometimes send organized assassination teams if the enemy is some powerful, intelligent NPC with resources. They will target a party based on capability knowing who to eliminate first.
If healers are present, the enemies will go for the coup de gras. Enemies do not like PCs the put down getting back up again and again.
If the party is well built and the PCs position intelligently, the enemies going after the backline should end up being a net negative as the martials rip them apart trying to bypass them.
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From my experience, the Summoner and the Eidolon are low aggro characters. The Summoner is mostly using Cantrips and Focus spells, with very occasional slotted spells and it doesn't benefit from 3 actions every round. On top of that, Electric Arc does low critical hits and spells in general only score a crit on a nat 1. The end result being subpar aggro, the Wizard next to them will be a far more attractive target during most fights.
The Eidolon... well, it really depends on its appearance. By default, the Eidolon doesn't hit as hard as the next martial and as such tend to raise lower aggro unless it starts criting. But before the enemies realize it, they will certainly determine the Eidolon dangerousness from its appearance and that's where things can go one way or another. The Large or even Huge Eidolon attracts a lot more attention than the Small one. So there's no general rule for the Eidolon aggro. I have a small and a medium Eidolon among my characters, none of them tend to attract extreme aggro by default.