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I enjoy playing mounted halflings. They're charasmatic, little, have good saves, and like to charge into danger. While there are a number of threads and guides dedicated to summoners and/or eidolons, there's a shortage of good advice specific to mounted summoner builds. For a general guide to summoners, this post is a good post, and thorough. The mounted halfling (or gnome) summoner fills a pair of primary roles: a skirmisher who packs a punch on charges and a caster who focuses on controlling the battlefield or buffing allies. If you're interested in a mounted archer build, I think that the master summoner subtype or a nature oracle would make for good builds. Keeping a fully developed eidolon out of melee so that you can shoot underwhelming arrows while mounted is not such a good idea.
On Ability Scores
There are a number of options depending on your combat preferences. I highly recommend starting with strength 13. It's a prerequisite for Power Attack. Furthermore, you really want to get to strength 14 as soon as you can. You'll be using two-handed weapons most of the time, so moving from 12 to 14 strength will boost you from +1 to +3 damage. If you start lower, you'll have to invest in a belt of giant's strength to get Power Attack. You're probably better off with a belt of constitution or, if you don't dislike the thought of a belt-wearing mount, a belt of strength on your eidolon. With a good skill list and only 2+INT skills per level, it's hard to take less than 12 intelligence.
I like the following for a 20-point build with a +1 to strength at level 4:
Str 15 (13) +7
Dex 13 (15) +3
Con 14 (14) +5
Int 12 (12) +2
Wis 7 ( 7) -4
Cha 15 (17) +7
For a little more combat resilience, drop the charisma to 16 and boost dexterity to 16. If you plan to focus on buffing instead of spells that require a save, you can drop charisma further still. You won't need it to be very high to cast all your spells and, since you'll be mounted, you will rarely use up your daily allotment of summon monster spell-like abilities. You can also invest as much as you want in a headband of charisma.
On Feats
I divide the feats into four groups: the mounted combat tree, damage-increasing feats, summoning feats, and utility feats. Most threads I've seen recommend the tree of mounted combat feats. These feats, however, are a bit too situational and not always the most useful. I don't recommend taking more than Mounted Combat.
Giddy up
Mounted Combat: I think this feat looks better on paper than it actually is. First, your GM will generally attack your summoner not the eidolon. You'll find you use it less frequently than you expected. Second, it doesn't scale particularly well. By level two, your eidolon will have an AC of 20 with mage armor. Depending on what you've invested in your ride skill and traits, you probably have a maximum ride check of around +10. Depending on your enemies' attack bonus, this will let you beat about a third of the melee attacks that hit your eidolon; pretty damned good, if anyone bothers to attack the eidolon. By level ten, even if you've invested between one-quarter and all of your skill points (depending on intelligence) in ride, you'll be dodging fewer attacks. Both the Eidolon AC and the attack bonus of enemies will be proportionally greater. That said, it's still a good feat and it works quite well against touch attacks. At the cost of a feat, trait, evolution, and a lot of skill points, however, it's probably overpriced.
Ride-by Attack: It's an already situational feat that you won't use too frequently. Worse, the consensus seems to be that your eidolon can't attack as part of the ride-by attack. It will be very rare, indeed, that you choose to forgo a full-attack pounce with your eidolon just to ride on by.
Spirited Charge: x3 damage with a lance is great. However, it costs three feats for something that you'll only get to use 1 to 3 times per encounter.
Kapow
If you follow the giddy up tree, you'll get Spirited Charge at level 5. A strength 14 fling charging with a lance will deal an average 19.5 points of damage with Spirited Charge: 3(1d6+3). With power attack and arcane strike, he will, at a -1 penalty to hit, deal an average 23 points of damage: 2(d6+3 [power attack] + 2 [arcane strike] + 3 [strength]). At most ACs, the EV of the Power Attack/Arcane strike will be higher. At level 6, the damage increases to 29 points. The feats are also more versatile and will be used a lot more frequently. Still, Power Attack and Spirited Charge combine quite nicely.
Power Attack: Great damage bonus, particularly on a charge with two-handed weapons. It's a feat that you'll want.
Arcane Strike: An underrated feat, methinks. Damage bonuses that scale with level and a feat that works with ranged and melee weapons. It also stacks with weapon enhancements and can give the occasional but critical DR-penetration to mundane weapons.
Martial Weapon Proficiency (Lance): Please find another way to gain proficiency. Heirloom weapon (make sure to take mend as a level 0 spell), a class dip, ioun stone, and a crafty gnome are all options.
From the depths of hell, I summon thee
All good feats. If you don't mind using a spell to summon your eidolon, these are particularly good. Try to summon and mount the eidolon just before combats, rather than during, if you can.
Spell Focus Conjuration: The summoner has a lot of good conjuration spells at a number of levels. This works well if you like the save-or-suck spells. Grease, glitter dust, and pits can really turn the tide of battle. At higher levels, you may prefer to use walls.
Augment Summoning: Nuff said.
Superior Summoning: I really like summoning multiple creatures. 1d3+1 creatures gives an average of three creatures. Even if weaker, three creatures can occupy more enemies than one and get a lot of AoO. I have a personal and unfulfilled goal to summon enough mud elementals to entangle, make helpless, and deliver a coup de grace to an enemy in a single summon.
Utility Belt
These are the utility feats that don't fall into the other categories. There are plenty of others. I like the first three.
Improved Initiative: I had to put it here. You really don't want your charge to miss. Ride past flat-footed meat-shields and splatter yourself a flat-footed caster.
Lucky Halfling: You're a halfling knight, plucky, courageous, and friendly. This is an appropriate and useful feat, given your high saves. If you're selfish, save it for your eidolon. If you're very selfish, dismiss your eidolon and save it for brainwashed or dead allies. Nothing brings out the adoration, love, and respect of your friends and allies like undoing a failed coup-de-grace fortitude save.
Resilient Eidolon: You've just charged the orc shaman gish, nearly scewering him to death. He swings his battle axe, tagging you in the face with a critical hit. You pass out and your eidolon disappears. Two-on-one against a near dead opponent can quickly turn into a dismissed eidolon and an angry enemy standing over a lonesome halfling. The quick coup de grace comes next. This feat will save you. I wish it was an eidolon feat.
Defensive Casting: You'll be in melee a lot. This saves you from having to quick-dismount to avoid an AoO when casting a spell. I wouldn't take it, but it's an option.
On Skills to Pay the Bills
Such a pretty skill list! You really want to max out ride...oh, and UMD...and spell craft. Don't forget some linguistics to tell your d3+1 earth elemental trap-finders to let you know if they tremor-sense any enemies or to glide through the dungeon walls and report back what's in the next room. It's worth putting at least a point in all of the knowledge skills too. You can never know too much and knowledge is half the battle. Perception, it's what's for dinner. With such high charisma and your natural halfling charm, you probably want some points in diplomacy too. You'll eventually be flying too, right?
Oh wait, you only get 1 to 4 skill points per level. So sad. You really need to let your eidolon deal with skills like perception, sense-motive, intimidate, and maybe one-or-two knowledge skills. If there's a wizard in your party, ignore spellcraft. If there's a cleric or druid, ignore UMD. It's painful, but so is having only 2+INT skills in a class that could otherwise dump intelligence. If you're not too concerned with using Mounted Combat, you probably still want +9 in ride to auto-pass your ride checks to attack. If you get to +13, consider dropping the mounted evolution and spending the point on something else.
On Multiclassing
In general, it's not recommended to multiclass with summoners. Both your spells and your eidolon will suffer for it. That said, you need a lance and would desperately like a bit more punch and survivability in melee. I think it's worth a one-level dip into barbarian or fighter. The boost to fortitude, access to mithril breast plate, higher BAB, and martial weapon proficiencies are great for your wee skirmisher. Level 2 is the time to take the dip into those icey waters, if you're so inclined. Level 4 will hurt when you look at all those nifty level 2 spells that you can't yet take. So will 7, 10, 13, and 15 for that matter. Level 5 will be all the sweeter though with a +4 BAB Power Attack charge and your second level spells. I don't much mind losing an eidolon level (see below). I also can't bring myself to spend a precious feat on a martial weapon proficiency.
Barbarian: Rage adds some vulnerability but a good damage boost and extra fun on charges. Two more skill points! One more hit point. Extra movement! If you take a second level, you can learn a nifty rage trick, rage a bit more, get two more skill points, and never get caught flat-footed. You may also want to consider a mounted barbarian for extra mounted speed or an urban barbarian for more conservative raging. The Extra Rage feat may be worth taking.
Fighter: A bonus feat is very useful. Dragoon is a good option if you plan to take combat riding. Heavy armor proficiency isn't useful. No extra hitpoints (d10/2 = d8/2+1) or skills. There's no reason to consider a second level.
Paladin: Good bonuses to attack from smite, hurray. Lawful halfling, boo. No sir, I don't like it.
On Eidolons
It's a mounted halfling summoner, not a halfling-mounted eidolon. The eidolon should complement the halfling, not the other way around. If you're interested in maxing DPS with the eidolon, I don't think you want a rider. Combat Riding seems like a nice defensive bonus, but having the summoner in combat adds another kink in the already weak armor of the various DPS-focused eidolon builds.
Evolutions like skilled, trip, and reach are good complements to the halfling. Defensive evolutions are not so important, since the halfling is the one with a big target on his back. I took toughness at level 1, but don't think it was a great choice, despite the eidolon's unpleasantly low number of hitpoints.
The really nice thing about eidolons is that you can play around with the build each level and figure out what you like. In that spirit, I recommend taking feats that are useful with a variety of builds.
On Combat Tactics
My preferred tactic is to take turn number 1 to set myself up to charge a caster or ranged-weapon specialist. If possible, I move a bit to the side to get a clear line and cast a combat control spell. At early levels, I like grease on a fighter or cleric's weapon or to block a hall or door. Pits work well, as does glitterdust, particularly for the weak-willed. At higher levels, you can use walls and not worry about saves or pits and not worry about SR. Stonewall and maze ignore both. During the first turn, the eidolon, with full ranks and an evolution in intimidate, demoralizes one of the spell's targets. Dazzling Display or Antagonize are useful eidolon feats for this first turn.
If you rolled well on initiative and have a clear charge line, it's often worth charging on the first round. You can't afford to waste spells on every encounter either. Against swarms and other specialized opponents, you may have to dismiss your mount--a sad state of affairs--and use your SLA--a happy state of affairs. Air elementals' whirlwind attack is particularly effective against fine and diminutive swarms. Your knowledge skills should come in handy here, but you'll need to know what summons work well against various SR, DR, or special defenses.
The eidolon and the summoner, since you probably can't afford to invest much in magic weapons, are particularly weak in melee against monsters with good DR. Drop them in a pit, blind them, cast haste, and otherwise find a way to help your team win. Charging into monsters and full BAB bosses is generally a poor idea. There are times, particularly in society play, however, when you have to play the tank. Dismount and let your eidolon go soak up the hits. When he falls below 0 hit-points, dismiss and summon something with as many hit points as you can get. A knight without his pony is better than a dead knight without his pony.
On other Tactics
With a shortage of skill points, the summoner needs to rely on SLA's and the eidolon for dungeon crawling, finding things, or doing most anything that doesn't involve knowledge checks. Your party needs to enter some castle unarmed? Stash their weapons in saddlebags on your eidolon and dismiss it. Summon when needed and arm yourselves. Likewise, it's fun to look through cracks or keyholes and summon creatures into locked rooms. Elementals are particularly useful servants that can deal with a lot of tricky situations, traps, and blocked passages. Learn the summon eidolon spell and you'll feel better about using SLA's out of combat.
On Equipment
Beyond the standard belts, headbands, and cloaks, I like the following items specifically for mounted summoners:
Scabbard of Vigor: After charging, you likely still need to fight in melee a bit. If you can afford any weapon enhancements, you probably want them on your lance. You also don't want to keep your distance, on account of the eidolon. This is a good and inexpensive way to boost damage with your secondary non-reach weapon when you get stuck in. Criss-crossed adamantium and cold-iron greatswords with scabbards of vigor are pretty cheap, relative to the benefits. I like +3 for 3 rounds.
Boots of Speed: Somewhat expensive, but stacks well with the scabbard of vigor and rage. To be an effective skirmisher, you need to do some damage when you strike. I'm not sure you want to be making full attacks much more than 10 rounds per day, so use it whenever you can.
Banners: I like all the banners except for swiftness. I think they're well-suited to the mounted halfling's style and swagger. For style points, I'm particularly fond of the banner of terror. That's right, cower before my 35 lbs.
Ring of Invisibility: For the buffing summoner, who wants to use Mounted Combat more often.
Ring of Retribution: Loads of fun once per day with fast movement and the immunity to fire evolution. At the GP price, 4 evolution points, and Aspect, this is probably better conceptually than tactically. Still, it's pretty funny and an immediate action that does 10d6 damage (with a reflex save for half) is nothing to sniff at. You probably only want to use immunity (or energy resistance to save evolution points) on either the summoner or the eidolon. Evasion and good reflex saves on the eidolon help.
Ioun Stones: I don't much care for the idea of my eidolon wearing belts, capes, or boots. Gag! I'll probably have to suck it up and buy him an amulet of mighty fists at some point in time and maybe even a ring of retribution. I don't, however, mind dozens of weird stones floating around my three-headed dog or rainbow colored dragon mount. This also gets around the shared slots problem. Check out the cracked stones. They're often pretty cheap for a decent bonus.
On Ugly Cousins
If you've seen Leprechaun in the Hood or eaten a bowl of Lucky Charms, you know who I'm talking about. Gnomes make good mounted summoners too. Master Tinker is an easy way to get all the weapons you'll need without dipping into another class. The +2 constitution is as good or better than the +2 dexterity.
Thanks for the guide! I've been playing around with small mounted bills for Paladins and Cavaliers. Some of your advice has been enlightening for those as well.
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Interesting...
I am planning to play a mounted halfling (or possibly gnome) summoner in an upcoming Rise of the Runelords campaign. My stat block doesn't look much like your recommendation, but yours seems more sensible. I would only wonder about dumping Wisdom so low. I realize that Will is the summoner's one good save (compensating for the -2), but a score of 7 in anything makes me nervous.
I like the idea of using a lance, but the "Ultimate Nerf" version of the Heirloom Weapon trait makes the weapon that much harder to justify.
I had planned to start with the evolutions Mount, Pounce and Claws to empower charges. Rather than a two-handed weapon I had thought to use a morning star two-handed.
Anyway, you have given me a lot to consider. Thank you.
Interesting...
I realize that Will is the summoner's one good save (compensating for the -2), but a score of 7 in anything makes me nervous.
I agree that a -2 will save is painful. That said, shield ally, halfling luck, and fearless all help out on will saves. So does raging, if you dip into barbarian. I leave all wisdom-based skills to my eidolon. For style, I replaced my halfling's Keen Senses with Low Blow (+1 to confirm crits on larger opponents), so I'm at -2 to perception rolls with the summoner.
Besides, mounted melee-focused halfling casters hardly seem like the wisest of folks.
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For my PFS Halfling Summoner "Knight" I used the Wanderlust and Outrider alternate racial abilities in the APG. I took one Lvl of FTR (Dragoon) and pursued the mounted combat line of feats for my Knight and toughness then the bodygaurd line for his steed. Currently 7th with all the Giddy Up feats, Skill Focus Ride (Dragoon) and Wheeling Charge and Indomitable mount. Wheeling Charge allows you to charge through freindlies and make one turn up to 90 degrees. Indomitable mount is mounted combat for saves. The steeds feats are toughness, combat reflexes and bodygaurd. I gave the steed reach and push to help maxamize charge potential. Now at 7th I use supernatural flight ride by and wheeling charge to charge away while remaing mostly out of harms way.
Corrections
It appears that, regardless of ride-check penalties, eidolons cannot be ridden without the mount evolution. That makes it a must-take evolution no matter how high your ride skill.
Riding Dog is not a level i summon. It looks like a level three summoner with superior summoning could not summon d3+1 riding dogs. Instead, he'd have to rely on eagles, getting an average of 9 attacks with a standard action.
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Noticed this thread as I also like mounted munchkins whether they be gnomes, halflings, or goblins; mounted Fighters, quadraped Summoners, or what have you. Was really impressed with the pointers above for a Small Summoner.
Just one question. Why no love for the Cavalier as a multi-class option? I can understand not wanting to multi-class. But if you do take that option, take a looksey at my case below for the ultimate mounted combatant ... the mighty (mini) Cavalier using the Emissary archetype.
The Cavalier (Emissary) at level 1 trades Heavy Armor and Tactician for In or Out of Saddle (Ex) which equates to Mounted Combat and the ability to move at normal speed in Medium armor. Compared to the Fighter (Dragoon) option above - which would seem the best multi-class dip other than this one - all you're losing is SF(Ride) feat. And Heavy Armor which you don't need.
In exchange for SF(Ride) you get 2 extra skill points (and a bevy of extra class skills to spend those points on), Challenge, Order abilities (minor for a 1-level dip, but bennies nonethless), and a Mount. With the Mount being the premo reason to take this dip. I'll tackle these in order of importance.
Mount
1) Back-up Eidolon. The biggest survival issue for Summoners tends to be "What happens when the Eidolon goes down?" Or is simply not available because you get attacked in camp without the mighty beast already summoned. For the Cavalier what happens is his/her enemies still have to deal with her tricked out raging Badger with Light Armor proficiency. Or carniverous guard Puppy. Etc.
2) Drawing Fire. The key here is Mounted Combat + Light Armor + Toughness + Boon Companion. A second survival issue for the Summoner is that he/she tends to draw more fire than the actual Eidolon over time. On a Mount you're a little more survivable. Not to mention mobile. Remember the Mount's Light Armor proficiency? Or the ability to take Toughness?? So is the Mount. Especially since you can use Mounted Combat to negate some of the incoming damage that otherwise crinkle your 1st level Mount. MC+LA+Toughness all make the Mount worthy meat shield until 5th level when you can take Boon Companion. At which point its survivability instantly "catches up."
Survivability then starts to dissipate again as you level forward, but as most campaigns end at 12th-15th level you have a shot of the Mount being a viable combatant until at least 9th level. After which you retire your loyal companion. Worst case is you have to wait a week to summon a new one. Not a great long term option, but well worth SF (Ride).
3) Flanking. The mounted Summoner can still ride the Eidolon. It would just rely on the Mount as a flanking buddy in combat. Insta-death for a cornerd target. With the Cavalier's Challenge ability adding a little oomph to the ability to effectively tie-up a single foe.
4) Ride Checks. You can suspend armor check penalties on your Mount. Sweet. Mounted Combat just got better.
5) Crafting. Craft Wondrous Item is a great feat for Summoners. You'll likely take it at 7th level with this build as you'll only have 4 caster levels at Level 5. However, while you have to share slots with your Eidolon. You can pimp your mount to make it even more survivable depsite not leveling past level 5 (with Boon Companion).
6) Action Economy. I hit the flip-side of this benefit in my final note. But you're adding a whole separate set of actions - every round - with the Mount in play. This is huge even if all the Mount is doing is flanking or aiding another. Let alone pummeling what's left of the Big Bad after the Summoner charges and the Eidolon full attacks.
Order
1) Role Playing Potential. As a player, the forced mechanics of the Order ability actually help me role play. Pick any Order. And then let the chracter's unique persona flow. Or pick a persona and then an Order. Either way, the Order abilities all nicely flavor any character's motivations and actions.
2) Order abilities. Most of these don't mean a darn until 2nd level. And even then don't scale well. As discussed above, a 2-level dip into any martial class isn't really worth it. That said, something is always better than nothing.
Challenge
It's basically the poor man's Weapon Specialization. Not phenomenal, but nice on a build with mostly 3/4 BAB. And again, you're getting it as a part of the Cavalier (Emmissary)'s larger package all for the price of SF (Ride).
This build isn't for everyone. Only an experienced player, or perhaps a player in a 2-3 person party, should ever consider it. The Player + Mount + Eidolon action cycle can easily clog-up play. That said, an experienced player should be able to make it work without destroying combat flow. And for many groups, the normal 4+ player party is not consistently available so having a Mount add to the party's action economy is actually really nice.
I excluded it strictly on the basis of there being one mount too many. Mounted summoners already make quite a few rolls per round. I find the additional clogging from a level 1 wolf or pony gratuitous. In PFS play, it's also not legal.
It would probably make the most sense to ride the wolf and use the Eidolon as the flank buddy. That seems to defeat a lot the joy of the build though. A level 1 wolf flank buddy will die every adventure beyond third level.
I do like the idea of keeping a wolf out of combat until your Eidolon gets killed. Beyond level 4 or 5, you'll probably want to use summon Eidolon instead.
The non-mount benefits look decent. Full movement in medium armor isn't so useful though. The only medium armor you'll be wearing is mithral, which won't influence speed or spell-casting.