Student org's 30th anniversary party was rather joyful

Well worth the € poured into it

@trogdor like water, yep

@kviiri fair enough

It just seems weird to think of it that way

Having not played PF, I am puzzling over the eidolon, and arrive at the conclusion that it is a super-familiar / super-homunculus that is called and created by a spell caster(summoner?). Is that about right.

Yeah, about. It's a class feature rather than a spell, for what that's worth. d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/summoner

@Glazius Thanks, I have noticed that eidolons attract, or feature in, quite a few questions here.

@KorvinStarmast Lore-wise, the summoner forms a bond with the eidolon (an outsider from another plane), and it gets stronger as the summoner gets stronger

@MikeQ Roger, they level up together. thx

Mechanically it's conceptually similar to an animal companion, plus it gets customizable evolutions every level (extra arms, wings, different senses and defenses and immunities, etc)

Balance-wise they are gross (because of how natural attacks function in PF) and they had to revise the class, so now there's the Summoner (from Advanced Players Guide) and the Unchained Summoner

@KorvinStarmast Since there are so many options and ways to build eidolons, it can result in some weird rules interactions, so it's understandable that they raise many many questions

@MikeQ I get it; OP with summoner and not as OP with Unchained Summoner, or worse with the latter?

Unchained summoner is a complete debuff of the class to make it more balanced

APG summoners would get spells at strange levels, like getting Haste and Stoneskin before wizards do

So unchained fixed that to match that of a typical 2/3 progression caster

Unchained eidolons are themed (angels, devils, elementals, djinn, robots, etc.) and come with a package of benefits (that apply at different levels), so they have fewer customizable evolutions and thus less wacky optimization

@KorvinStarmast tl;dr Eidolons were OP martials relative to the other martial classes

Oh also Eidolons can't die, usually, which is why they were so often optimized for damage output

@KorvinStarmast As casters Summoners are meh. They're like conjuration/transmutation sorcerers with fewer spells.

Aha. Thanks for the explanation.

At lower levels, when the other classes struggle with Summon Monster spells, Summoners are absurd because, under certain conditions, they can 1. summon as a standard action and 2. the summons last 10x longer

It doesn't work if the eidolon is out, or other fast-summoned creatures are out. But this means they can basically Zerg-spawn disposable minions. In addition to their other spells.

@MikeQ heheh ,kind of like Druid animal companions XD

Animal companions are stronger than martials at low levels, but by around levels 6-10 the martials catch up

Whereas with APG eidolons, martial classes never catch up unless they do some serious charop

@MikeQ I once played on a NWN server where they made the mistake of buffing animal companions out the wazoo

I was a druid there, and had a bear that basically could solo dragons :P

@Shalvenay Ah, true, animal companions were stronger in 3.5 compared to PF

@MikeQ yeah that's true as well

Youtube channel showing letterlocking techniques, and the associated website. (Many creative ways to secure a letter before envelopes became common, mostly using the letter itself.)

Propmakers take note!

lol