Oracle is one of my favorites because of the Curse mechanic having active drawbacks. Any class feature that actively causes your character suffering is going to catch my eye. It adds so much more theme, gravitas, and cinetmatic impact to magic when it comes at some terrible price that visibly takes a toll on the character. Summoners... a youtube comment section does not do justice to my love of the class. To give some ideas, I've designed: - A pine tree leshy acting as the home for a fledgeling dryad (Fae). - An anger phantom eidolon shaped like a giant, crushing hand with far too many fingers. It came from a dark summoning ritual that went terribly wrong and summoned a great and terrible monster. The last surviving ritualist managed to stop the summoning, severing the one part of it that came through, and in the process bound the severed flesh to his will. - A mind-controlling fungus currently inhabiting the corpse of a man-sized beetle. It follows an irongut goblin around out of sheer respect because it managed to eat some of the fungus and live. - I even homebrewed a proper aberration eidolon, the Skinswimmer, which can possess the bodies of critters to grant you a familiar. It can eventually possess the bodies of sentient creatures.
I really like the summoner, it was the first class I played in PF2e. Was a dwarf and used the plant Eidolon. Treeguard had so much reach 15ft normal and 20ft with an action at level 7-ish if i remember.
What do these classes have in common? "Both almost made the Local Disaster Tour Guide rage quit his Classic Introduction series." Still love the Oracle, though!
Love summoner! My first character in pf2e Playing as a kobold dragon summoner, GM-ed a leshy plant summoner... Loved some pretty strange concepts of evil summoners that I probably won't elaborate on in this comment... So much creativity with it's options! You can basically fill two party roles at once! Easily! Still, class is hard to play if you are a new player, but nonetheless -- FUN
So. One thing I'm not sure if it's been mentioned. The Ranger or the Druid, for example, Don't really have the same option at low level, to let the Companion take the priority The Eidolon, can use several of the actions. And if the summoner hangs back near the healers, The Eidolon could be kitted out to be a front liner... With the one unique benefit, That healing the summoner at the back line, or inside the castle... Heals the hit point pool of the eidolon, because they share. The Ranger / druid / beast master, can lose the companion. If it's not being prioritized in healing. So. Aside from any comparisons between the eidolon vs the companion. That's interesting.
While I don't particularly enjoy playing summoners, they are my favourite class to GM for. You can throw a lot at them and make it seem like fights are tougher than they are simply by hitting the innocent caster with some damage. It's instant investment for the party into the combat and makes them all want to grind down the monsters more.
OK. So, When you mention the 'one more type of minion... That's not a companion, or familiar, or summon'.... You could consider the Summoner to be the original, and the others to be kind of the copy cats, Trying to do what the eidolon summoner bond does... Could do.
tbh summoner and magus would probably be better to be set in the same comparision. Summoner is basically alternative Sorcerer, while Magus is alternative Wizard. Both are more gishy, both are bounded casters And then I would compare upcomming Animist with Oracle
4:22 So, if I take a look at the Summoner, as is, currently, with its Eidolon... (a word I will. Pronounce softly, as I learned it in Final Fantasy, not this weird hard DOH... Like Homer Simpson wrote it...) I will be comparing the Sumoner against the Ranger or Druid with animal Companion. Almost Any character can pick up the Beastmaster archetype, so I won't look at it here. But, the Ranger or Druid with an animal companion, Has 4 actions reliably. The Ranger with Hunted strikes, can make 4 strikes, with 3 actions. Or spend 1, to grant the companion 2 strikes. Or enjoy the Support benefit from the companion. That's, 5 strikes, at low level, in a single turn, between the Ranger, and the Companion. They can flank together, and the companion automatically enjoys the Hunted Prey and style (Flurry, Precision, etc...) For anyone tracking, for the Flurry Ranger, that means between the pair, 2 attacks with zero MAP. Two attacks, at Agile - 2. And a 3rd Ranger attack, or whatever, at agile - 4. Thats before any Quickened actions or any other free actions. That is a lot of potential strikes. Accuracy falls off a bit for the other non flurry Rangers, but the precision Ranger would grant self and companion bonus precision damage vs the Hunted Prey. Not shabby in itself either. On up to 5 or 6 strikes. In addition to all that. The Companion brings a pool of HP and a body. And a mature companion, has its single action even without being commanded..... The druid, has spells instead. So much potential. Loses the Hunted Strike maneuver but. Spells. So that's what Eidolon is up against.
Personally, I think it's better to play some other class with the Summoner archetype than the Summoner themselves. But as for the Oracle, I would ban it at my table just so I wouldn't have to dedicate an hour per session just to figure out how it works, again. Still if you wish to be useless, I recommend playing the Summoner with a animal companion and the familiar, so you can watch your action economy disappear. :3
One of the things that isn't very good with the Summoner Archetype is you don't get "Act Together" so you're to characters that only can do one Encounter activity and only have 3 turns.
The oracle suffers from pathfinder 1e's/dnd third edition's philosophy that things need drawbacks to be interesting and powerful. Which I personally hate with all my passion and think 5e did better by getting rid of.
