I'm playing a summoner in the Jade Regent adventure path (in case you didn't notice from my forum name), and I'm loving her. I'll say that she is a strong character, but she really doesn't appear OP to me.
However, my question is less about summoners themselves and more about summoner feats... Mainly, why there are none.
There are a few (Spell Focus: Conjuration, Augment Summoning) and two or three that you can take to buff up your Eidelon (Resiliant Eidelon and the like), but I've found a lot more summon feats out there that as a base summoner I can't take.
Sacred Summons requires a level of Cleric (you need Aura), the Moonlight/Starlight/Sunlight Summons require you to have Summon Nature's Ally, which as a base summoner I don't have access to (which is another question all its own. If I'm a summoner should I not have access to all the spells titled "Summon ______"?).
Is the answer just "Balance" or is there another reason? Are there any other decent summoning feats you guys know?
Its because the Summoner is a newer class and has not been well supported with additional material.
There are ways you an get SNA to take those summons-- but they were originally built for Druids.
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There is a third party suppliment (open design) that focusses on summoner feats. It's called The Summoners Circle; collected into the Complete Advanced Feats.
It has things like Vampiric Summons (drain your summons for healing)
Balaced Caster - no concentration check needed while mounted
Improved Shield Ally - more AC!
Shifting Wall - move your wall spells
Clockwork summons - use that instead of celestial
and more.
I agree that Summoners lack support - I've done SO much work with them homebrew, from 20+ themed alternate summoning lists to new base eidolon forms to tweaks to the class features themselves...
Having said that, Extra Evolution for Summoners or Extra Summons for Master Summoners should serve to fill a lot of your limited feat slots. Also, I highly reccomend looking into the Eldritch Heritage feats to suppliment your character, especially if you're running a Half-elven Summoner (half-elves are widely considered the best Summoner option due to their bonus evolution points) since you'll get the Skill Focus pre-requisite for free.
Some good options for those EH feats include:
Abyssal (natural weapons, strength boost for those Summoners who enjoy mixing it up in melee alongside their eidolons and bonus summoned creatures at higher levels)
Elemental - Primal (bonus damage for summoned creatures, alternate movement type)
Orc (strength boost and a killer buff in Touch of Rage for your eidolon - I use this one for my mounted Summoner)
Arcane (significantly enhances your casting abilities, possible familiar)
If you are Good aligned there is a truly rockin' Feat on the inside back page of Champions of Purity that opens up a lot of Summon Monster options.
I don't have my copy with me but I believe it is called Summon Good Monster.
Don't forget that summoners, as a +3/4 BAB class, can be good secondary combatants (especially with all of the buff spells on their list). Combat feats to boost their fighting ability are worth looking into. One way that summoners can shine is by both the summoner and the eidolon taking teamwork feats to fight better together.
Boosting spellcasting with metamagic feats is another option. Or perhaps some item creation feats could come in handy.
Basically, there's more to the summoner than just the eidolon and summon monster spells/spell-like abilities.
Don't forget that summoners, as a +3/4 BAB class, can be good secondary combatants (especially with all of the buff spells on their list). Combat feats to boost their fighting ability are worth looking into. One way that summoners can shine is by both the summoner and the eidolon taking teamwork feats to fight better together.
Boosting spellcasting with metamagic feats is another option. Or perhaps some item creation feats could come in handy.
Basically, there's more to the summoner than just the eidolon and summon monster spells/spell-like abilities.
Truth. The most powerful character I ever made was a Half-Elven 19th level Summoner / 1st level Dragoon. He used his eidolon as a mount and maximized all of those buffs and class features. He also took the EH feats for the Orc Bloodline and at later levels would be large sized mounted on a Huge Eidolon. With a pouncing eidolon and lance-charging summoner on his back, he was pretty tough to stop - especially since they essentially share hit points.
One feat I didn't see you mention was superior summons. My summoner uses summons instead of his eidolon for combat, and this was a very useful feat for him. He's basically a PFS legal master summoner concept using straight summoner.
There is a third party suppliment (open design) that focusses on summoner feats. It's called The Summoners Circle; collected into the Complete Advanced Feats.
It has things like Vampiric Summons (drain your summons for healing)
Balaced Caster - no concentration check needed while mounted
Improved Shield Ally - more AC!
Shifting Wall - move your wall spells
Clockwork summons - use that instead of celestialand more.
I hadn't actually heard of this book and I do try to keep up on the extra books. I'll check out this one and see about picking it up, though none of these seem particularly like feats I would take. She's a Chaotic Neutral Tien woman, more focused on using her summons to fight her battles... I'm hoping to start going through and finding more chaotic things to start summoning, instead of all the good and evil choices that they mostly give you.
The reason for the feat deficit is that there really isn't any other class like the Summoner. Many people play him as more passive support, letting the eidolon carry the weight in combat. Every other character has some cool abilities at their disposal that can be magnified by feats; the Summoner's cool ability is the eidolon, and it gets its own feats. That's awesome and unique, but there really isn't any other class that plays like that, so there isn't much content to support it.
There are lots of great options for a more martial summoner; teamwork feats, mounted combat feats, and a wealth of great combat feats that can synergize with his tag-team approach. As a spellcaster, there's not so much; he's a 2/3rds progression caster and that means metamagic is never really going to take off and his save DC's are eventually going to fall behind. There really aren't any feats to support the kind of buff spells the Summoner excels in, and very few for actual summon spells.
That said, there are some good choices out there. Crafting feats can work exceptionally well for a support-oriented summoner. The Resilient Eidolon feat (ultimate magic) really stands out as a great summoner-specific feat. If you like summon spells, you might want to consider looking at the "experimental spellcaster" feat to grab the wordspell alternates. They only require a standard action to cast, and the wordcaster Summoner also gets slightly superior versions at the 4th and 6th spell levels (Servitor VI versus Summon Monster V, and Servitor IX versus Summon Monster VIII).
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Is the answer just "Balance" or is there another reason? Are there any other decent summoning feats you guys know?
I once asked James Jacobs about the lack of support for the summoner and he basically admitted that the summoner was his least favorite class. I suspect there is an editorial bias, either consious or unconsious, of 'this class is was a mistake and now we'll ignore it as much as possible. I think the fact that most of the archetypes elicit deep passions from a balance standpoint underlines this fact. The fact that Iconic has NEVER been featured in an adventure path or module or even had his background story told LIKE EVERY OTHER ICONIC is evidence of this bias.
Yes, this annoys me.
