Pathfinder: Summoner and Eidolons

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Shurijo
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Pathfinder: Summoner and Eidolons

Post by Shurijo » Wed May 16, 2012 12:41 am

Just wanting to hear other's opinions on this matter. This is a somewhat newer class and it's the first time I've seen one played, so I'm still a bit fuzzy on some of the details/implementation.

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Summoner
Eidolons

Technically, the eidolon has their own initiative and is suppose to roll and act on their own. However, to simplify initiative (6 PCs + 1 Eidolon), I'm using the house rule that says the companion uses the master's initiative. I'm okay with this.

My real question concerns skill checks and surprise rounds.
Eidolons - Link ability wrote: Link (Ex)

A summoner and his eidolon share a mental link allows for communication across any distance (as long as they are on the same plane). This communication is a free action, allowing the summoner to give orders to his eidolon at any time. ...
My understanding is that it's a communication process allowing the two to have a mental link. The question is concerning the "give orders at any time" phrase.

If a summoner passes the perception skill check and the eidolon fails the skill check, does only the summoner get to act in the surprise round? I'm thinking that the summoner could think/communicate "attack this monster" but the eidolon is either positioned incorrectly, looking other way, or thinking about something else and can't immediately act. My belief is that "giving orders" and "acting on orders" are two separate things.

I think Eidolons are similar to animal companions, but they are much more like NPC companions. They have their own skills, init, feats, saves, etc. It's a really interesting class feature and I hope to get a chance to play one soon :)

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

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Trogdor
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Re: Pathfinder: Summoner and Eidolons

Post by Trogdor » Wed May 16, 2012 12:49 am

I'm playing a summoner in V's Fallen Empires game, and Chanur is playing one in my Legacy of Fire game. V and I do the same as you with initiative. In both our games a summoner's eidolon has the same initiative as the summoner. Anything else would be just too confusing.

WE;ve never had to deal with the situation that you've outlined, however. Odds are we'd have let the eidolon go because we didn't think about it. But you make a compelling argument for forcing the eidolon to make its own perception check.

Of course, if the eidolon might fail when the summoner succeeds, it stands to reason that the eidolon might also succeed when the summoner fails. In that case, the eidolong should get an action in the surprise round. And to make matters easier, I'd let the summoner decide what the eidolon does. After all, they're intelligent, and they know their summoner pretty well. They'd know what to do.

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Shurijo
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Re: Pathfinder: Summoner and Eidolons

Post by Shurijo » Wed May 16, 2012 12:57 am

Good points. You're right about the eidolon could succeed and the summoner could fail. I'd agree that the player would just decide what the eidolon should do (since they're intelligent).

If the Eidolon were to use perception and pass for spotting something, then I see the Link ability a way for him to share that with the summoner, but I'm still unsure about how to handle surprise rounds.

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Re: Pathfinder: Summoner and Eidolons

Post by Vardaen » Wed May 16, 2012 4:51 am

Strange it hasn't really come up, but in surprise round I would probably give them seperate checks for perception, only let who makes it act, always the player doing that, its his class feature, and share inits still. We are actually using a variant on the class from the play test that allows you to summon monster and have eidolon out at the same time... I beileve the official version after beta was eidolon or summoned monster but not both. Honestly I think the summonoer would kinda suck that way having very little to do in combat
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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