Hegi: New Summonable Creatures. How are they mechanically?

[Siberys]

Some background info, for those interested;

[sblock]I'm going to be playing in a Planescape game using PF rules, and I am being allowed to play a summoner. Now, as a Summoner, I have access to summon monster as a spell like ability. However, I don't really like any of the choices. So I decided to make my own.

My character is a Tengu Primer from a material plane that is stuck in an ice age and dominated by a Tengu empire. His Eidolon is the physical incarnation of that empire's symbol; imagine a Linnorm, but with ravenlike features (beak, black feathers, etc). Essentially their variation on the Imperial Dragon. It is an incarnation of the order of the empire and the wintery conditions ther. That is a Hegi.[/sblock]

Now, then; I'm no monster-building master, so I want to run this past the community to cull out any errors before I pass it off to my DM. I basically took the eagle and giant eagle, then made templates whose basic structure was based off of the Celestial and Half-Celestial templates. After that, and copiously applying the advancement rules, and tossing on some size changes where it felt appropriate, I was done.

Thoughts? Critiques? Corrections to my math?

 

[freyar]

I didn't go over the math carefully, but at least nothing obviously jumped out as wrong. I also haven't gone over eidolon rules, so I don't know how these would fit with that. I have a couple of thoughts, though.

1) I'm not quite sure how arctic spirit works. The hegi can choose a single opponent (Bob, the enemy fighter) and get the stated bonus against Bob and only Bob for the rest of the day?

2) The AC looks a bit high for the given CRs, and so do the attack bonuses (maybe also damage). You should probably tone down Str and Dex. Also, usually monsters decrease in Dex when getting larger.

 

[Siberys]

Arctic Spirit - I was basing it off of the description of Smite Evil in the Celestial Quick Template. I'll switch that to one attack, with maybe extra uses at higher levels.

Dexterity - I wanted the creature to remain dextrous the whole way through, but I can see how that might not be good for some of the numbers. I'll tone 'em down.

As a note, these aren't Eidolons themselves, only loosely based off of what my Eidolon ended up being like.

 

[Ambrus]

Not being well versed in the summoner class nor its eidolon, what jumped out at me was the notion of playing a summoner in a Planescape campaign. My advice is to check with your DM about the planes you're likely to find yourself exploring; they may adversely impact your character's ability to summon creatures. It's normally impossible to summon creatures into Sigil for instance; the city's portals are the only means of entering or leaving the City of Doors.

 

[Siberys]

Hrm... Good point. I'll bring that up to him.

The story I was going to use was that I tried summoning something out of my depth - my eidolon - and something went wrong, probably tied up with my character not being royalty, and only royalty being allowed to summon hegi or something like that. The mishap shunted me to the outlands or sigil. or something.

Perhaps I can add in a note about "carrying" a demiplane or a very small portal with me as a result of that mishap, allowing me to 'summon' Hegi (and my eidolon) in Sigil. AFAIK, portable holes and the like still function in Sigil, right?

It could add some depth to the roleplaying - I'm in Sigil by accident, and I'm the only creature in the cage able to 'summon' creatures, and as a clueless, I didn't even know I wasn't supposed to be able to.

This is sounding more and more like a superhero origin story; radioactive spider / summoning mishap, super strength / ability to summon where others can't, etc.

 

[Siberys]

Okay; I've updated the Hegi. New download is below.

I reigned back the Dex bonus, then compared with the table on page 291 of the bestiary. In a few cases, my numbers are higher, but in others, they're lower. In fact, I had to toss in some bonus feats to balance the numbers in a few cases. They should be good now.

 

[Ambrus]

Perhaps I can add in a note about "carrying" a demiplane or a very small portal with me as a result of that mishap, allowing me to 'summon' Hegi (and my eidolon) in Sigil.

Well, even if your eidolon were somehow exempt, it still wouldn't do anything to help your character in summoning all the other beasties he'll need through the class' summon monster ability; the cornerstone of the class.

AFAIK, portable holes and the like still function in Sigil, right?

IIRC they do. But those are portable extradimensional spaces, not portals to other planes. A Well of Worlds for instance, wouldn't function in Sigil.

It could add some depth to the roleplaying - I'm in Sigil by accident, and I'm the only creature in the cage able to 'summon' creatures, and as a clueless, I didn't even know I wasn't supposed to be able to.

As a DM I wouldn't likely allow this for a character, except possibly in a solo game. Sigil is defined by its portals. A unique character known to be capable of subverting the Lady of Pain's control of what comes into or departs the city would quickly draw an unhealthy amount of attention from locals. He'd swiftly become the focus of the campaign as various high-ups, factions, groups and possibly the LoP herself began gunning for the character. Some DMs might just hand-wave away all of that, but it'd take something away from the setting's tone and mystique in my opinion.

 

[Ilja]

On the planescape note, while I've only been in Sigil through Planescape:Torment, there where a few instances of portable portals there. If they were made in sigil I don't know, but there were at least one portal that could be taken to other planes, a mechanical figurine that was a portal to a maze on Mechanus. There were also at least one case of summoning, a box which when opened summoned a lemure.
Don't know if those were exceptions though, or if things have changed. I do remember a general lack of summoning spells in the game though.

 

[Siberys]

Well, if summoner won't work, it won't work. I'll find another character idea, should my DM rule it out.

As for the creatures I statted; How do they look? Anything you think I should change before presenting them to my DM for his stamp of approval?

 

[freyar]

Looking at them more carefully, they're still just too good for their CR/summon monster spells. Their hp is about right, but AC, attack bonus, and maybe damage output are too high. Not to mention that they're pretty fast! I'd probably bump each one a notch on CR and the summon spells if you leave them as they are. Or else tone them down a bit again. The least hegi is the most overpowered, btw, with the SLAs and constrict and DR (cut to DR 1 or 2 at most for this HD and CR level). One thing you can do immediately is drop the natural armor to get the AC a bit closer to the right level.