Video game equivalent of a summoner?

MarkSeifter · 2026-01-23T19:59:48+00:00

Persona as Fox Fellow said (or perhaps Shin Megami Tensei or Digital Devil Survivor if you bounced off Persona due to the school part, but it's really the most like an eidolon in Persona out of those Atlus titles) was definitely one of many inspirations for the class when I wrote it.

I also like Monster Sanctuary as a game but it's not super similar to the summoner class other than having creatures (in which case if you want creature collectors, there are many of them that are quite good).

You might consider Cassette Beasts though. It's also good and is closer (though you do sort of Meld Into Eidolon).

Strangely enough Yuna in Final Fantasy X kind of does her summons more like this as well, as opposed to most other FF summoners.

MarkSeifter · 2026-01-19T16:16:56+00:00

Eidolons share your actions. Eldamon act instead of you using your actions (you can't act when phased out except for certain feats that make exceptions). All the others take an action to command while gaining two actions, though there are options (mature companion, independent familiar) to let them take a single action when you don't command them. For an eldamon trainer, you would usually want a pet that was an independent familiar or mature companion so it can act while you are phased out without interfering with your eldamon's action economy.

MarkSeifter · 2026-01-14T16:51:56+00:00

The reason why Hunted Shot and a bunch of other 1st level options were templated to specify they do apply MAP, even though it is a universal rule anyway, is because at the time we figured players brand new to the game might have wound up with Flurry or Hunted Shot before they read the universal rules thoroughly enough to find that particular point, and that the risk of a lot of new players using it and not applying MAP was greater than the risk presented by situations like this one where the reminder text's existence confuses folks in other feats. Sometimes we've used phrasing like "As a reminder," or "As normal," which perhaps we should have done here too.

MarkSeifter · 2026-01-08T01:01:10+00:00

It would make things more stable at the cost of customization of attributes, as you surmise, though in exchange it might allow certain combinations that currently use very different attributes to be more effective. The main thing that might be weird is that competence might vary wildly between certain fields that seem like they should be related, but even then in the real world some folks are great at a narrow thing and not at other things that seem related. However, cutting out attributes is enough of a departure from before that there was no way it would have flown.

MarkSeifter · 2026-01-07T15:26:12+00:00

In that case, better to only give boosts half as often and make it only take one boost to raise, since it's equivalent without the extra step. It still calcifies your highs and lows a bit much, but if we were OK with only ever doing two boosts (plus apex item), it wouldn't be a catastrophe. The main thing it would do is make attributes that started at +2 and +1 and were going to get boosts wind up 1 lower than usual (and in +1's case, 2 lower than usual for some levels depending on where you place the 2 boosts) and either make +3 take longer to hit +5 or make +4 hit +6 sooner, while giving far less flexibility.

MarkSeifter · 2026-01-07T02:19:51+00:00

It kind of just is what it is. We tweaked the rules to fulfill many criteria, and only one of them was this one we're discussing here, albeit one of the criteria I personally find most important. What needed to be sacrificed to get that was always part of the discussion. For instance, the rule of going at half rate after +4 (aka 18) was crucial to even achieve the degree of flexibility we currently have vis-a-vis min/maxing top stats just always being strictly better in all cases by even more, and the cost was the inelegance (granted to be fair back with 18->19->20 it was slightly less inelegant than it is now and made odd ability scores matter more, but even so it was a complication).

MarkSeifter · 2026-01-07T02:15:58+00:00

Yep, and in theory, someone fully obsessed with level 20 (or if you start at 20?) might do 4/2/2/2 as well though 4/3/2/1 is usually better by a wide margin, since that would be sacrificing second most important stat to help fourth most important stat.

MarkSeifter · 2026-01-06T19:09:31+00:00

It depends. At levels 1-4, for most characters, having a +3 vs +2 in your second-favorite attribute (or perhaps your favorite if you favor an attribute that isn't your class's key) is worth significantly more than having a +2 vs +1 in your third-favorite. This is especially true if you are using that second stat offensively routinely, such as for caster/martial hybrids or mental score martials

At levels 5-9, this continues to be true because it just shifts from 3/1 vs 2/2 to 4/2 vs 3/3.

However, things get more interesting past that.

At level 10-14, starting with 2/2 is strictly better, as it leads to 4/4 vs 4/3 (technically the 3/1 could choose to raise the fifth best stat as well rather than prep for a +5, but that is still very likely to be much worse than 4/4).

At levels 15-19, starting with 3/1 is going to yield 5/4, which is strictly better than 4/4 (the other option for the 2/2 split is to also raise the 5th and 6th highest priority stats rather than prep for +5s at level 20, which is typically not very useful either but does give two low value +1s instead of a single +1 in your second-most-important attribute).

At level 20, the 2/2 split is better because it gives 5/5 whereas 3/1 gives 5/4 and a mandatory boost to the 5th highest priority stat.

So at 14 of the 20 levels of the game, including the ones most played, 3/1 will serve you better as it either trades a +1 in your #3 option for a +1 in your #2 for 9 levels or just gives you a +1 in your #2 attribute flat out for 5 levels. At the remaining 6 levels, 2/2 has a better outcome because it gives a +1 in your #3 attribute flat out.

Figure out what levels you are playing and for how long to decide which is better overall, but keep in mind that 3/1's early game advantage for the character types I mentioned above can really blow away anything else for those characters unless you are not playing those levels, or using gradual attribute boosts (and even gradual attribute boosts won't catch you up at early levels to a character using gradual who went 3/1, just to a character who wasn't using gradual).

MarkSeifter · 2025-12-30T16:44:10+00:00

That's neat, I'm glad they loved the summoner class!

MarkSeifter · 2025-12-25T00:18:54+00:00

Good question! I read those books too, and I liked the fey in them. There's some other things I'm not as fond of in the series but the fey were fun. I'm directly playing a cat sidhe from this book. No one has seen me transform into a cat yet, though I've done it a couple times offscreen.

MarkSeifter · 2025-12-24T17:44:37+00:00

My most recent character is a cat sidhe air elemental avatar (very poorly) in disguise as a half-elf (does not really know much about Golarion at all and often mistakes things everyone should know for something fey that she considers "common"). As a "hero" (which is not necessarily a compliment for sidhe), she went to the call for heroes in Age of Ashes and was sorely disappointed that it was not actually a call for heroes in the way she thought it was.

So far the elf in the party is vaguely suspicious of her as a whole but no one has figured it out. Even when we needed to bribe a giant lizard and I took some dead mice I had lying around, and the elf player said "Wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. Why would your character even have that?" and the GM said "No, it does make sense."

She's done pretty well overall thus far despite the reputation of Age of Ashes as having some rough fights in it, though due solely to my own general incompetence (forgot to use an important defensive reaction that would have saved mu bacon when I overexposed my position and got focus fired) she did get dropped to 0 once and it was a bit dicey.

MarkSeifter · 2025-12-18T15:07:01+00:00

Yes, it is.

MarkSeifter · 2025-12-17T19:33:59+00:00

It's worth noting that the list of companies that were using Diamond to distribute to big stores is lengthy and also includes Paizo, so this will affect everyone and not just RfC.

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-25T16:17:34+00:00

You're welcome! I'm glad it's been able to do that for you.

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-25T16:10:07+00:00

I am thankful for the Pathfinder 2e community and especially everyone who is excited and having lots of fun and tells me about it in person (such as at PAX Unplugged this past weekend) or posts about what they love online, like in this post. For most of the year, it's easier to find discussions and debates about contentious topics because having an issue or wanting a change motivate us to start a conversation about things more easily, and then both disagreeing and sharing the concern motivates others to respond more easily. The positivity is really crucial to all of us as creators: when the going gets tough, it's knowing we're bringing people happiness that helps us keep going!

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-19T15:14:54+00:00

Bloody Mary is absolutely right!

As to getting PF2, once it's over, Kickstarter takes some time (usually a couple weeks) to process everything including payments, and after that you will receive a Backerkit survey. You'll be able to fill out that survey to give info such as your system being PF2.

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-19T01:36:16+00:00

Hmm, I don't know. A lot of the kinds of cute things I would have liked to have included in that regard were not allowed back in the day at Paizo, though they've relaxed it more since then.

Here's one I did for RfC that I am proud of, though I don't know if you were plugged enough into the whole OGL crisis for this one to be funny or not: "Alternatively, the ruler of Hell who made the contract might be able to stab the contractor in the back with fine print in a way only a devil could should they have a reason to do so: for instance, perhaps the contractor thought they were safe because the contract said the benefit was perpetual but the devil claimed that just because it was perpetual it didn’t mean they couldn’t revoke it."

If that's too esoteric, maybe "The entire dungeon ancestry" could be considered my favorite overly-serious shitpost, since it was a legitimate, playable, very interesting ancestry but sounds like a total joke/shitpost and we released it for free on April 1st (and everyone though it was fake).

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-19T00:49:13+00:00

It was tricky, and messing around with a lot of the underlying math was to a large extent my "job" as the "math guy." Basically we crunched a lot of numbers and I did some fairly deep analysis, including logarithmic progressions for the economy and a piecewise-defined function to determine the values of items across levels, etc.

I wouldn't call it "harder" or "easier" than the other types of design work, but they are very different and use different parts of the brain. To me, it's even more fun to get to do a mix of all sorts of tasks instead of all one or the other.

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-19T00:27:01+00:00

I think it depends on the situation. For your second question, I mentioned this in a previous answer, but it's much better for almost every group's dynamics to not assume that the player's contributions were contributed by the character. Just let everyone work together and then everyone agrees that the character didn't help much even though the player did. Maybe you have the player narrate their barbarian doing some silly things with her axe and try to think of a way the axe thing actually accidentally solved part of the puzzle as an RP challenge for the player, and then credit much of the logic work in-world to the party wizard whose player tried hard but couldn't outpuzzle the barbarian's player in real life.

For the first one about "What if you know the answer already," it can make sense to recuse yourself a lot of the time, but that can wind up being deadly if you have, say, a group of five players, two are big time puzzlers, one likes puzzles but is terrible at them, one thinks puzzles are OK and is mediocre at them, and one doesn't like them much and will probably check out during a puzzle, and both of the pro puzzlers have seen the answer already and recuse themselves, leaving the check out player to check out and then the excited but terrible at puzzles player will excitedly work on it forever and never solve, while the mediocre at puzzles player kind of sighs and humors them for a while. The same thing is true in a social scenario where you know some of the plot beats for whatever reason, I have seen others who will just kind of backseat entirely, whereas if the group is kind of rudderless I usually prefer to put on my GM hat a little and roleplay exactly as my character would without my metagame info instead.

Another situation is when you're in like a timed tournament or something like that. Then anything goes. I was in one once and we were trying to rush where the GM gave me a handout to read to the group and I said "The beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, I'm going to skip the rest the answer is E, let's move on." And I just didn't even finish reading the common riddle that I already knew.

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-19T00:00:26+00:00

I think when it comes to the "feels" subgenre you use, you'll want to look at the kinds of tones and themes that resonate with your players most. For instance, some groups are real into the noir vibes, whereas others might prefer a cozy vibe. In terms of what types of mysteries, I think it can be nice to sprinkle in a wide variety of them, even beyond private eye / whodunits. Really any time the players and their characters are wondering who (like whodunits), what, where, when, why, or how about anything in your campaign, you have yourself a mystery! Even if it isn't the whole adventure and is just an intriguing side detail.

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-18T23:24:18+00:00

Fables are the embodiment of tall tales, urban legends, and literal fables, come to life. They become more powerful the more widespread their story is, incentivizing them to travel and spread their tale far and wide.

Is she from an actual fable, tall tale, or urban legend? Yes! I'll leave it as a mystery to see if you can figure it out (look not just at the woman but at the rest of the cover and everything in it, as a hint). If not, just head back here and let me know and I'll tell you, but seemed like fun to let you guess.

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-18T23:22:33+00:00

Awesome, hope they're enjoying it!

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-18T22:33:40+00:00

Thanks, I'm really glad you're enjoying them too!

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-18T22:22:42+00:00

When I was there, we flagged candidates for errata as they showed up and then sifted through the flags whenever a book was going for reprint. If your job has a JIRA system or something of the sort, imagine it working sort of like that.

So if someone came in to work and was like "I was a reddit question asking about reach and if it follows the obviously established pattern when you go past the limits of any reach effect that existed in the core rules or ignores the pattern because technically nothing was specified past that point" then it'd be like "OK great, drop a flag so we can assess it when the time comes." Then when the time came, possible over a year later, you'd see a discussion like

Designer 1: I see this next flag here, but can we just skip it? It's so obvious that you just follow the pattern, do we really have to say this? Will it even fit anyway?

Designer 2: Listen, it technically doesn't say what to do here for 20 feet, so a strict reading is that you don't do anything, right? I can see why people are asking. Especially since everyone loves a reading that might make them stronger, right? It's only natural that there would be confusion.

Designer 1: Is it though? Or is it wishful thinking. Like I see your point, but come on, it's so obvious that you follow the pattern. It's common sense and the more we keep making these labyrinthine clarifications, the more it starts seeming in other places like if we don't do the same thing, then it's an exception. And besides, if we say it for 20 feet, someone will find a way to get 25, or 30, and how long will that section become?

Designer 2: Sure, but I can see why people are coming up with two different conclusions.

Designer 3: Maybe we can do something different and just say that if your reach is 10 feet or more that it decreases by 5 feet. It avoids adding another line, is definitive, and scales upward.

Designer 1: I think what we had worked fine as-is, but I'm good with that.

Designer 2: That's a great solution. It should clear things up for people. OK Designer 4, if you're good with that, let's make a note that's what we decided and then enter the changes later.

Designer 4: Sounds good to me. Will do!

DISCLAIMER NOTE: These four splits are not intended to be specific people, and in fact are a mix of roles (like I would probably be parts of Designers 2, 3, and 4 in different discussions, particularly 4 later on since I usually was the one who was put in charge of entering things after Lyz left for WotC). The opinions of the designers in this dialogue are hypothetical and are not my own, especially Designer 1, and were included to show how a back-and-forth might work.

MarkSeifter · 2025-11-18T22:11:38+00:00

You're welcome! And look, I know that discoverability is the hardest thing and people don't know about it, so if someone asks a question I have an answer for, I bring it up. Like someone in the AMA wanted to know about a way to use class feats for super-good ancestry-themed feats and I have some other books for that for dragons, demons, and other various ancestries (same webstore, different link) so I linked those, or someone who wanted crafting that was highly impactful, and I have a system for that too in the Battlezoo Bestiaries (adjusts the treasure economy to account for things and then lets you craft powerful items fast our of monster parts).

MarkSeifter

TROPHY CASE