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The feat Evolved Summon Monster seems crazy powerful. So much so, in fact, that if I ever took it in a real game I feel like I would have to exercise restraint not to break anything.
But, this is a forum, so let's break things!
Let's assume you take Augment Summoning and Spell Focus (conjuration) at level 1, and all of your subsequent feats are Evolved Summon Monster. So, your Summon Monster II will have 1 evolution, Summon Monster III will have 2 evolutions, Summon Monster IV will have 3 evolutions, etc. What can we build with this?
Bite
Claws
Hooves
Pincers
Slam
Sting
Tail Slap
Tentacle
Wing Buffet
Attack Enhancers:
Bleed
Improved Damage
Magic Attacks
Pounce
Pull
Push
Reach
Sticky
Defensive:
Improved Natural Armor
Resistance
Slippery
Mobility:
Climb
Gills
Swim
Tail
Other:
Basic Magic
Low-Light Vision
Mount
Scent
Skilled
Unnatural Aura
First pass:
SMII:
Horse with bite
Wolf with claws
SMIII:
Aurochs with claws and hooves
Lantern archon with improved damage and bleed
SMIV:
Bison with claws, hooves, and tail slap
Grizzly bear with pincers, sticky, and hooves
SMV:
Ankylosaurus with bite, claws, hooves, and improved damage (tail)
Wooly rhinoceros with pounce, claws, hooves, and improved damage (gore)
Raw DPR is definitely interesting, but I'd also like to see any other cool combos that can be made!
Some DPR numbers:
The wolf with claws does 233% the damage of a normal wolf (7.35/3.15)
The horse with bite does 311% the damage of a normal horse (7.35/2.36)
The aurochs with hooves and claws does 268% the damage of a normal aurochs (27.88/10.4)
The ankylosaurus with bite, claws, hooves, and improved damage does 301% the damage of a normal ankylosaurus (69.82/23.15)
(I should note that at level 9, doing ~70 DPR is not too far shy of what a well-built PC will do.)
A tyrannosaurus with improved damage, claws, hooves, tail slap, tentacle, tentacle does 300% the damage of a normal tyrannosaurus (131.76/44)
I used the formula DPR = (chance to hit)*(damage)*(1+chance to crit).
When creature was larger than Huge, I used the listed damage for that attack type for a Huge creature instead of assuming a Gargantuan creature would increase the damage dice.
I used PFSRD to find Str and BAB for the creatures, but most of the attack bonuses and damages that were listed in the stat block didn't seem to add up, so I recalculated them.
i use this feat allready in my campaign. I knew i can exploit it like hell, but i am feeling really bad if i would do it at max potential.
Crocodile with SM 3 is pretty nice with sticky. 17 to grab.
Scent would be very beneficial in case the summoner is also an archer using Pheromone arrows.
you should however use the unchained eidolon evolutions:
Bite
Claws
Climb
Gills
Improved Damage
Improved Natural Armor
Magic Attacks
Mount
Pincers
Pull
Push
Reach
Resistance
Scent
Skilled
Slam
Sting
Swim
Tail
Tail Slap
Tentacle
Wing Buffet
Evolutions that grant additional attacks or enhance existing attacks can be applied only to Medium or larger summoned creatures
Ah yes, so unfortunately the super lantern archons won't work... a shame, but the rest of them would still be legal.
There are 30 1-point evolutions by my count, not counting 3PP. All of them specifically mention that they work for an Eidolon, but the feat specifies evolutions available to eidolons, so we're good.
The Evolutions Claws, Hooves, Pincers, Slam, Stinger, Tail Slap and Wing buffet all require the "Eidolon" to have specific limb Evolutions, not just specific limbs. Only Bite and Tentacle are available as extra attacks without prerequisites. So, you can't attach attacks to existing, non-attacking limbs. Is this the intended interpretation? I don't know.
Pounce and Mount require specific Eidolon Base Forms, which summoned creatures don't have. So, they can't be used. Intentional? I don't know.
But how do the horse and wolf compare to 1d3+1 eagles?
Just give it skilled linguistics and you have an at will translator that speaks 8 more languages.
*broken*
edit-also skilled intimidate/diplomacy, slight of hand, perception, disable device
Skilled doesn't give extra languages. It just gives a bonus to the skill. You could argue that a dog with +8 to linguistics has a decent chance of getting the gist of what you are saying but that's a DM call.
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Just been grinding the numbers to see whether to take evolved summon or superior summoner at level 3.
4 eagles are potentially doing 36-72 damage at +3 to hit for all attacks.
Have only got as far as claws but a giant ant with claws will do 20-34 damage at +5,+5,+6,+6 to hit. It would be doing poison damage too.
The minimum of 2 eagles would do 18-36.
The small earth elemental with claws would be doing 21-32 @ +9,+8,+8 if using earth mastery.
So I guess it depends on how hard things are to hit and whether they have any damage reduction. Also how happy will your party be with you taking 14 attacks per round for 4 eagles, you and your familiar?
I've assumed that I can put claws on legs which is the eidolon requirement. The quadruped and biped eidolon base forms come with them as free evolutions.
I think the magic attack could be very useful and am still undecided
I think that Reach for AoO types and Bleed for long lasting effect are interesting. Imagine a eagle with bleed going after minions. The eagle dies easily, but the damage keeps on giving.
Summon minor monster has the following:
- Skunk, which has Musk 2/day, with ~50% Sicken for 1d4 rounds, or ~20% Nauseate for 1d4 rounds then Sicken for 1d4 minutes (per use of Musk ability, which it has two of).
- Hagfish, which has 17 HP, great DPR with its +4 attack for d3+1 damage, and is aquatic (from AP 56). A somewhat ridiculous amount of meat - and won’t suffocate before the summons ends on land. Completely broken.
- Owl/Hawk for airborne DPR (2 talons at +5, d4-2). Stronger than the Summon Monster 1 winner - the Eagle.
- Armadillo, with its 21 possible AC including protective ball and total defense. With no offence, smart enemies will just ignore them. However, the rules on Moving Through a Square prevent Medium or smaller creatures from moving through the square of a Tiny creature, so these little guys can stop a charge or hold a chokepoint if nothing else.
- the poison creatures: Blue-Ringed Octopus, Platypus (clearly a fictional creature created by a demented wizard, right?), Compsognathus (Dinosaur), Viper, and Poisonous Frog. The Poison DC is Con-based, so Augment increases it. Seldom that useful, however, as things weak enough to be hurt by the poison normally have very few hit points.
- Bat and Platypus for locating invisible creatures
- Rabbit (Can move at 250 ft/round with its 50ft move speed and the Run feat)
- Porcupine (Tail Slap +2, 1d3) - not bad DPR for if your DM won’t allow you to summon a Hagfish out of water.
Note that Tiny Aquatic Animals are usually quite powerful in comparison, and that they can function just as well out of water as in it due to Suffocation not applying to them until long after the summoning spell’s duration runs out.
/cevah
This is why we can't have vanilla summoners in PFS...