Synthesist7's page

Undead Master is a strange feat. Per RAW, it would not help with the Animate Dead spell at all, since the feat doesn't increase your caster level, it says you are considered four "levels" higher. My question is, 4 levels of what?

In our group we ruled that it affected your ability to raise and control undead as if you were 4 levels higher in the cleric class, and also affected Caster Level when casting Animate dead.

The monster ability write up will be correct in these situations. For another example of this, take a look at the "Grab" monster ability. The Eidolon write up for grab uses the old version, while the monster write up uses the updated information from one of the later bestiary books.

I would answer the original post by saying that a fighter with WBL will probably equal or exceed an Eidolon's DPR output, and a two-handed fighter can deal with DR better than the Eidolon (if the Eidolon is just using natural attacks). In a cash starved game, however, the Eidolon is just inherently better, needing far less gear to be awesome. The Eidolon can be effective with basically no gear at 10th level, since the Summoner will have tons of buff spells (mage armor, barkskin, haste, heroism, ect).

And at level 10, flight is not an issue since the Summoner can cast Overland flight on the Eidolon. Also, the Eidolon will probably have a much better AC then the fighter and can also get easy access to DR.

Level 6 is a sweet spot for Fighters IMHO. I recently played a fighter for quite a while in Rise of the Runelords, from level 7 to level 10. I was a serious damage dealer from 7-8, and had tons of feats compared to everyone else. I was using a two-handed weapon for damage.

Towards the later levels, around 9, I realized that I could make hardly any saves. This lack of saves, especially Will saves, will totally destroy a fighter at high levels. I was also getting hit by all the monsters every round. Monster to-hit scales to the point where having Plate Mail at level 10 doesn't matter, you will get hit every round by the monster's first attack. So regardless of having high HP, you can't really be the meat shield, and the monsters have so much HP, you can't take them out in one round even with a full-attack. I recommend letting the fighter have fun as a low level guy, and hope he doesn't get too upset when his relative power is less at a later level.

I think they might have a racial bonus to resist cold (endure elements style maybe?), and maybe a bonus to Con because of their sturdy bone structure.

To think about it another way, if the weapon had other features, such as trip or disarm, they would also work regardless of the creature size using it.

What is strange about this situation is that if a large (tall) creature used a medium sized reach weapon, it would still increase their reach with that weapon to 20' since it doubles reach. That seems more odd, since the same weapon is better in the hands of a large creature than a medium sized one. Longer arms I guess. It does seem odd to have reach available on a one handed weapon, but that is how it seems to work by RAW. Doesn't seem game breaking really, since using a weapon one handed has inherent drawbacks as far as str damage and power attack adds.

There are a lot of other ways other than actual "healing" to "mitigate" damage in a fight. Here a a few favorites that seem to work quite well in games I play.

1. Summons- These are like free meat shields. The casting time is long for the spells that summon things, and the duration is short. This is why I love the summoner class that can have summons out faster and with a longer duration.

2. Buffs- These can help mitigate damage by raising AC and raising stats such as Con that can increase hitpoints. Think of these as actions that can prevent damage that you can be done before the fight. That way you don't have to waste actions on healing during the fight.

I think it comes down to economy of actions, it takes an action and a spell slot or resource such as a potion to heal in combat. This is time that you are spending on not killing the monsters. Also, if you have a dedicated healer, you will be missing something else, usually more damage dealing. A 1st level cleric healing 1d8+1 that has to use a spell slot, for example, pales in comparison to a Barbarian with a Greatsword dealing 2d6+9 with power attack (more with rage, probably). This is why it is really difficult to get anyone at our gaming table to play a cleric! It is just more boring to be the healbot and have people complain when you run out of slots to heal.

Rolling lots of attacks looks cool and is very fun. Be careful at higher levels though, since DR of most any kind can shut you down very fast. And if you are using manufactured weapons, I recommend using a two-hander over a bunch of light one handers, both for more base damage and for power attack x3 adding. Also fewer weapons to enchant means less gold cost.

You cannot combine a charge and a vital strike, since vital strike is an attack action and charge is a full-round action. See the clarification on this page
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/vital-strike-combat---final

You can combine power attack with a charge or a vital strike, since power attacking is not an action of any kind. Hope this helps.

Personally, I don't like trample or any ability that can only be used on something smaller than your eidolon. By the time you can get the large evolution (lv. 8) a lot of your foes will also be large IMHO. Maybe I feel this way because we are playing Rise of the Runelords currently, which is full of giant after giant after giant.