PRPG Advanced Player's Guide Playtest: Summoner and Witch

[BryonD]

You mean the ability to have a permanent ally is broken? Hmm, kind of sounds like, oh, I don't know, this Summoner class or animal companion.

And last I checked, Leadership is in the PF core rulebook.

The Leadership feat and any and every permanent ally being broken are not the same thing. And honestly, the 3.5 Druid be at the top of the power stack does not at all show that 3.5 animal companions are broken. You can take the animal companion out of the healing, blasting, wildshaping powerhouse and STILL have a very potent class.

There is merit to the Lanchester point, but you are distorting it beyond any semblance of validity.

The current draft may truly be over-powered. But, if so, the better method for fixing it is to look at the whole package and work to correct it. Knee-jerk discarding of a whole concept is not the way to go.

 

[GlassJaw]

There is merit to the Lanchester point, but you are distorting it beyond any semblance of validity.

With validity? Let's not over-exaggerate now.

I said:

"Introducing anything that grants a player additional actions - above and beyond the other players at the table - needs to be done with extreme care."

Which remains absolutely true. If you design a class feature that grants additional abilities - regardless of what the rest of the class abilities are - a huge sign should pop up in your brain that says "You are entering dangerous territory - proceed with caution".

And yes, even without looking at the rest of the class features, I will be immediately skeptical at the overall balance of the class. Companions and allies are so easily broken at the table, I would rather avoid them altogether. You are introducing something into your game that is very difficult to control and balance.

And beyond that, granting extra allies has the potential to reduce the fun for the other people at the table.

It's a lose-lose design scenario in my opinion.

 

[Reneshat]

I can't wait to try this class out, but it might be a bit before I can. At first glance, I would drop the hit dice to d6, remove the armor proficiency and casting, drop to 1/2 BAB, and have the character choose to either get the Eidolon, or the SLA and extended duration for summon spells. My opinions on this very well might change upon actually playing the class

 

[EroGaki]

3) move some of the spells (haste, dimension door, greater invis) back to their original levels. The summoner shouldn't be focused on buffing the party, in my opinion --certainly he should not be better at this than a bard.

This, IMO, isn't really necessary. Having access to haste at level 4 instead of level 5 (when a wizard would get it) isn't a game breaker. And by the time he gets access to those other spells (dimension door, etc) a wizard would already be able to cast those. All together, not too bad, especially if the class loses the eidolon, its hit dice, and BAB like you wish it to.

With validity? Let's not over-exaggerate now.

I said:

"Introducing anything that grants a player additional actions - above and beyond the other players at the table - needs to be done with extreme care."

Which remains absolutely true. If you design a class feature that grants additional abilities - regardless of what the rest of the class abilities are - a huge sign should pop up in your brain that says "You are entering dangerous territory - proceed with caution".

And yes, even without looking at the rest of the class features, I will be immediately skeptical at the overall balance of the class. Companions and allies are so easily broken at the table, I would rather avoid them altogether. You are introducing something into your game that is very difficult to control and balance.

And beyond that, granting extra allies has the potential to reduce the fun for the other people at the table.

It's a lose-lose design scenario in my opinion.

Keep in mind that this is going to be the Advanced Players Guide. From what I understand, it will be emphasized in the book that these classes are intended for mature, trustworthy players. Ones who know enough to not hog the spotlight or break the game. If you don't like the class, don't allow it. But don't harp about how the class is going to ruin the game just because you don't like the idea of of the class. Just ban it from your game and move on. The point of the play test is getting constructive feedback. All you seem to be saying is don't create the class at all. Which is what they are not looking for.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

There is merit to the Lanchester point, but you are distorting it beyond any semblance of validity.

The understanding of Lanchester's impact on 3e is frustratingly incomplete, but you know very well that if the "pet" (cohort, animal companion, or summoned creature) is robust enough to be at all meaningful in combat, by "squaring" it represents a significant increase in power.

That doesn't necessarily mean that it is broken-- it represents party power, after all, which can be a good thing, even if that power is concentrated into the hands of just one player. It's brokenness is proportional to the "fairness" of having more power in the hands of one PC than another-- and of course there are plenty of other places in the rules where we are content to live with such imbalance.

But it is absolutely fair to consider it an instant "red flag." It's specious to claim that Lanchester's Square Law is a "hypothetical" at this point.

 

[Xendria]

2) drop the Eidolon, completely. It might make a good feature for a different class, it's super cool -- just too much power in combination with the SLAs

Paizo has stated they don't want class remakes or adjustments, they want new base classes. If you remove the Eidolon you are left with a better Conjurer, which is just another wizard. The Eidolon should be the core of this class because it is what makes it unique and interesting. If you want a super advanced summoner, go for a prestige class or a conjurer, don't destroy a perfectly good idea, that hasn't been done to this extent, for an ability that another class has a less powerful version of.

On that note, I say screw the SLA and keep the Eidolon. Just make all summon monster spells cast 1 minute / level duration. But don't give them the extra 3+cha casts per day.

 

[Sylrae]

Personally, I'd say keep both, but tone them both down.

Weaken the Eidolon so it isnt as good as the fighter, and tone down the summon ability. Maybe drop 1 min/level to 3-5 rounds/level.

A different possible nerf I thought of, is that when you have your summons, you lose an action. You can either make a move OR standard action, but not both. This is on any turn you try to direct your summons. You can't direct them while doing both. If you just tell them "Attack!", then you only lost that one action. If you want to use sophisticated strategy with them, you need to drop an action. Directing that many people takes effort.

Just a thought.

 

[Pants]

Weaken the Eidolon so it isnt as good as the fighter, and tone down the summon ability. Maybe drop 1 min/level to 3-5 rounds/level.

I agree with the first part. Tone down the eidolon a bit so that it's not stealing the fighter's thunder.

On the second (bolded) part, maybe instead of having the summons last minutes per level, have them last an additional number of rounds equal to the summoner's Charisma modifier (so a 1st level summoner's SM1 would last 4 rounds).

Then maybe add an ability later on that grants the summoner the ability to extend one of his summons to 1 min./level once per day. The ability could scale with more levels gained to 2/day, 3/day, etc.

 

[Xendria]

I put my party (Level 14 paladin, fighter, cleric, druid, wizard) against a Summoner tonight (level 16) and had them later help one out (level 14) and in neither case were the Eidolons as good as the fighter. The level 16 one was just about equal but the level 14 was not. Afterwards we talked and established this was due to the bonus feats and Weapon Training class feature. Overall, the Eidolon doesn't need nerfing, the summoning does.

 

[Zurai]

1) keep the extended summons SLAs with extended durations. This is the classes core competency.

2) drop the Eidolon, completely. It might make a good feature for a different class, it's super cool -- just too much power in combination with the SLAs

You've got these reversed. Jason's gone so far as to say (on the Paizo boards) that the Eidolon is designed to be at least as important, if not more important, than the PC. The Eidolon is the core competency, not the summon monster spells and SLAs, and if anything goes, it won't be the Eidolon. My vote's on ditching all the non-Eidolon summoning, but I was saying that months ago.