Synthetist is Shameful.

[joah_from_Alberta]

I have a mind to write to Paizo for such a poor addition, that I will <beep> if they continue writing such supplements that obsolete their core rules.

I have a player that is level 9 summoner synthetist. He is fused/hidden inside s a dragon eidolon that can carry 1 mounted archer and 1 rogue in a haver sack at his front (that he drops off when flying)

his str27, dex17, con20, with standard points buy.

his ac is 29, armour 3, dex 3, shield ability 2, natural 11 defence 1, size -1. hp 126, Dr 5/ Lawful.

Feats/special are: bears might, beastial fortitude, improved grapple, evasion, darkvision 60, greater grapple, lunge, combat reflexes, giant step, dimensional agility. Traits: reactionary, focused mind

Equipment is amulet of mighty fist, bracers of armor+3, belt of phy performance +2, ring of nat+1 and ring of prot+1

Tell me, if this build is acceptable, then what challenges must I present my party to make the game rewarding for everyone? A shoggoth, a clockwork golem perhaps a lich? Forgive my rant but please, if you want to feal like a god, why not just go squash some ants or go laugh at some handicaps instead of wasting my time.

Unless this player is cheating, the synthetist should be BANNED due to shameful disregard for proportional equity. God I hate corporatism.

Cheers,

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

...Welcome to ENWorld.


Anyway, I guess I can just copy/paste what I said not that long ago on a different forum:

[sblock]For what it's worth, Synthesist is actually weaker than normal Summoner, just for the sheer loss of action economy: a normal summoner can be casting spells while his eidolon is pounding face simultaneously. People just get upset about Synth. because it directly and blatantly makes all the martial classes look completely impotent by comparison. It's one of those funny things about the caster/martial divide. Giving up ability to cast (usually actual caster levels, in this case the mere loss of time to use them in the heat of combat without ceasing to melee and making the achetype pointless) in order to be a Big Stupid Fighter is a power downgrade; yet doing so and outfighting the fighter will catch WAY more flak because before you were much better but different. Now you're better and similar.

TL;DR: Dey tuk owr jobs! *rabble* *rabble*[/sblock]

Summoner is a stupidly powerful class. I consider on par with sorcerer, a 9-level casting class. And I'm one of those char op people who indeed thinks "casting > all", "never lose a CL", etc... Just try to FATHOM how powerful a 6-level caster class would have to be to bridge that gap. Yeah...

 

[tylermalan]

I can't really weigh in about the Summoner class specifically, as I have only heard about how powerful it is but have never seen it in action in a game. However, I recently had a pretty similar experience with my group, and would like to share my thoughts.

In this experience to which I refer, the character that I play is essentially the Summoner that you're talking about. I'm playing an Alchemist at level 6 who is focused on using mutagens to be the melee damage dealer. There was (last week) a fairly big, drama-filled to-do about my character. Essentially, I obliterate everything. Fast.

The party consists of myself, a Ranger, a Paladin, a utility Wizard, and a Bard. The Bard buffs us. The Paladin buffs us a little and heals us a little (not much on either front). The Wizard can render one encounter per day completely meaningless, and then he's out. The Ranger puts out 4 arrows per turn and does high damage, but not as high as me, mainly because of damage reduction and the fact that his 4 arrows counts as 4 separate hits.

Without going into the details of the drama, my main point was that my character is only good at combat. He has a 7 wisdom and a 7 charisma. He has no ranks in social skills. Further, he's only good at combat for one hour per day.

Our DM's main point was that he can't challenge the party because anything that challenges my character will destroy the others, and anything that is a challenge for the others is a cakewalk for me...

...immediately after this argument, the DM had a monster cut a rope bridge which killed the Wizard. Our group took 2 days of game time to find his body and get him Raised.

So, my point is that if your players are friends then they care about each other. You don't have to threaten the Super Hero to create tension in your game and in your group - threatening the wizard in my party makes me feel threatened, because I don't want him to die. The fact that it is almost impossible for MY character to die is truly irrelevant to me, the player. The only possible issue here is that it is possible that some of the other players have begun to hate combat because they feel useless when one character steals the show. If this is the case, the entire group needs to talk about what each player wants to get out of the game - how does each player have fun within D&D? If the person playing a Bard or a support Paladin ONLY has fun in combat, then why did they make a Bard? They should have made a Barbarian.

The other point here is that beyond combat, I'm useless. The problem here is that most DMs don't place serious consequences on "failing" social encounters in the same way that they DO place consequences on "failing" combat encounters (usually via death).

So, if you want to create tension, threaten the party. If this player is uncaring toward his fellow party members, then occasionally take them out of combat and create serious consequences for failing social encounters.

And your hate is pretty strong... maybe they just made a mistake with the synthesist? 126 hit points is... a lot. How did he get so many? At level 6, my Alchemist (with a 14 Con and the Toughness feat with a d8 HD) only has 61 HP.

 

[joah_from_Alberta]

Its good that you feel my hate, the jedi is strong in you and I appreciate your compassionate. Yet, I should mention that I programmed Unity 3d for 40 hours straight this week and it is my lack of patience that is my bad.

I did read the section on Power Gamer page 94 of the GMG and that helped. I realize that I do not wish to adopt an adversarial relationship with anyone in my group, this goes against all virtues that I uphold. That being said, I also can appreciate the Synthesist as it introduces a potential for abusing our game through complexity. And ultimately it has brought our group out of isolation and into the community. Which I value.

So in my opinion, the Synthesist obsoletes many core classes, druid, fighter, mage. It's harsh. I actually just found out that his max hit points are 231 combined. (I allow max hitpoints to pcs as a hero bonus.)

I did come up with a basic formula to outline the power disparity within our party-- compare these 6 values to get a (+/-) melee power rating:

1) your first BAB score (multiplied by 5:
2) # of attacks (multiplied by 5):
3) max damage (non crit):
4) max hit points:
5) base speed (unmounted):
6) AC (multiplied by 5):

We compared my sons level 9 Samurai with our firends level 9 Synthesist and the resultant score is 358 for sammy and 539 for the travesty. That's a difference of 180! one third, yikes. This basic rating does not account for the fact that his eidolon also has grab with his first three dragon bite attacks.

Cheers,

 

[Fooly_Cooly]

Wow.... I hadn't heard that this class could be such a problem. I'm glad I saw this. I will definitely not allow this class. Sounds like a real martial class killer. As if I need another optimized arcane build for ppl to play with...

 

[Wycen]

If you are the DM, you could always say, "sorry, the other players wont have fun if you bring this character in, you'll need to tone it down".

 

[joah_from_Alberta]

Well yes I am the GM and I did have a chat with him at Mall food court. He's a good player and I like to invest the time in good players for maybe they don't know that they're doing something wrong and who knows eh, a bit of effort goes a long way.

So yeah, I explained the overshadowing disparity caused by his uber character and I read to him certain parts of the powergamer definition in the GMG. I was trying to emphasize the fact that he needs to learn discretion for the game balance, but I think this will take more counseling to stick.

We decided to work on toning down his character using the formula I devised (which actually works great as a quick benchmark). We agreed that since his char had never allowed the eidolon to return to its plane for a very long time the summoner had actually morphed into the eidolon and can no longer combine hit points which went from 231 to 118. We ditched some optimization magic and feets to make the character less specialized and a bit more generalized.

I really liked that my player didn't seem too troubled by this and we were laughing by the end. Although, he did walk me out of the mall and when I turned to say good by, his eyes were bloodshot and with his smile he looked rather devilish. Oh well, all in a days work for the dedicated master.

Cheers,

 

[tylermalan]

can no longer combine hit points

Ohhhhh, they can combine hit points... I didn't know that. Then that's understandable why they are so high.

But still... 126 HP on JUST the summoner (not combined with the Eidolon)? That's still high. d8 HD with a 20 Con and always taking the Favored Class bonus to HP brings him to... Huh, exactly 126. Well there you go.

 

[Rampant]

You think that's bad?

Consider the brood master who absolutely trashes the action economy especially since the caster portion of the class has nothing better to do than keep his minions alive, they can dedicate themselves to rapid offensive blitzes with manufactured weapons, or even wands and staves via use magic device skills.

 

[Steel_Wind]

In all honesty, my Eldritch Knight at level 9 would have eaten this Synthesist for breakfast.

It's not that big a deal. A pure caster at 9th level has ARRIVED. With fifth level spells, the caster can cast world affecting magic. Teleport, Wall of Force, Cloudkill, Baleful Polymorph and Dominate Person are available, as is Raise Dead for the Cleric.

Want to teach your Synthesist Summoner a lesson? Throw him up against A 9th level Witch and a 9th level Wizard, buffed and flying, plus minions/allies. Two Enervations on round one (with his touch AC they'll miss on a 1 or 2 maybe?) An Evil-eye and Dominate Person, cast all in that order by the Witch and the Wizard should have the Synthesist kicking the crap out of the party by the end of round two. DC 20 Will Save with a -9 to his roll (on average) Even if optimized for Will saves (and he won't be as he'll be pumping CHA), he might manage an overall +2 to that DC 20 roll. It's over with an 85% chance of failure, on average. They roll lucky on the Enervation damage, it's an auto fail on all but a 20.

Or just have the Witch and Wizard him with Enervation and then the witch Baleful Polymorphs while the Wizard goes to town against the rest of the party on round 2. The Witch can evil-eye + cackle if the enervation damage isn't high enough to ensure an auto-fail.

Any 9th level Paladin, Fighter or Barbarian which is optimized with a strong 2 handed weapon, similar equipment values, enlarged, hasted and and buffed is going to TRASH that Summoner in 2 rounds. Hell, Big Grimm could do it in ONE round if he gets lucky.

Any character in Pathfinder which is optimized is going to kick ass and take names. This really isn't as bad as it looks. @StreamOfTheSky is right. The real problems with the Summoner class are in its action economy. The Synthesist does not benefit from that action economy imbalance.