Synthesist (Competitive AC and build questions)

[Thaylen]

I'm working on a concept build for a ranged weapon Synthesist Summoner. The RP side of the Idea is that he summons a suit of steam punkish battle armor.

I'm creating at level 12 and my plan is to take evolutions (bipedal base form) to get extra arms and wield 8 or so blowguns (or other thrown weapons if they don't/can't use strength to damage)

In fused form the character will have an AC of 46 and can attack about 8 times with +16 to hit. My questions are thus... Is AC 46 good at 12th level, and can I expect to hit anything with a +16 to hit (this question is more geared towards PVP)?

[Thaylen]

Anyone???

[Mojorat]

ac 46 is huge ac far above what you need. ( this I think supports the view synthesists should not wear armor)

+16 to hit is around 50% chance of hitting npc opponents might be a teensy bit low fir pvp.

the mkti armed blowgun thing seems a little impractical unless it comes with extra heads.

[Thaylen]

The 46 AC is with bracers of armor +6. No actual armor worn. As for the blowguns it was more of an RP thing of wanting them to look kinda gunlike. I could just as easily switch to returning throwing weapons to make the crunch work.

[Mojorat]

really? I cannot remember what bracers +6 cost but 8 or so returning throwing weapons would be 64k gold which seems a bit high proportion of your wealth.

[thepuregamer]

against cr 12 monsters, (check the prd under monster creation) ac is 27 and a high attack is +21

So your ac of 46 is probably wastefully high. Forget the bracers of +6 armor. You can save yourself 36k gp and just cast mage armor on yourself. That only reduces your ac by 2. Meaning most things are still only hitting you on a 20. In other words, if you are getting hit then your party is likely mulch on the floor.

I like your idea of ranged weapons. Though you are going to need to push your hit chance alittle higher. Biped may be hurting you there with its 12 starting dex, serpentine may be better since if gives you a reach attack for getting AoOs and it gives you a starting dex of 16.

I am unsure how to help you with your expensive weapon woes. I do not know of any ways in pathfinder to get what you are looking for. Though the ground work is already there in an amulet of might fists. Just make an amulet of mighty shurikens or something like that. It is mechanically similar anyway.

Also could you post your build so far. more information is always better.

[Thaylen]

I took Craft Arms and Armor and Craft Wonderous to fund the expensive gear requirements. I'll Post the full build a little later tonight.

[Thaylen]

This character, as I have mentioned is still a work in progress. But as I have it thus far.

25 pt buy

Race: Gnome (I know half-elf would be better crunch wise but this is a RP choice)

Str 5 Fused Str 26
Dex 7 Fused Dex 26
Con 15 Fused Con 13
Int 16
Wis 16
Cha 18 {22} (2 Stat points will take this to 20, +4 Cloak will take it to 22)

Gear:
Headband of Cha +4
Belt of Str/Dex +4
Bracers of AC +6 (I will probably be dropping this for mage armor spell)
Ring of Protection +2
Goggles of Night
Winged Boots
Cloak of Resistance +4

8x +1 Seeking Blowguns (If Blowguns don't work, 8 +1 returning throwing weapons)

Feats: (Bit of a grey area ruleswise here, would need DM approval to take feats that I only meet prereqs for when merged.)
Point Blank Shot
Precise Shot
Multi-Weapon Fighting
Double Slice
Craft Wonderous Item
Craft Arms/Armor

Spells are as yet undetermined.

Evolutions:
4x arms (1 was free w/ base form)
1x Legs (free)
1x claws (free)
2x Improved Natural armor
2x Improved Dex
4x Energy Resistance (Fire/Ice/Acid/Elec 15)

[ProfPotts]

Quote:

This character...

Str 5 Fused Str 26
Dex 7 Fused Dex 26
Con 15 Fused Con 13...

Okay - that Con isn't a good idea. With your fused Con 2 points below your natural Con you actually lose 1 Hit Point per Hit Die when you fuse with your eidolon (see pages 554 to 555 of the Core books for all the gory details). You're better off not raising Con at all, if you plan on being fused most of the time (technically you can actually gain extra Hit Points by dumping your Con down to 1 via age... but I've covered that in a different thread, and it's really a theorycraft min-maxing tactic anyway... ;) ). At the most you want your Con to equal your fused Con.

Quote:

Evolutions:

4x arms (1 was free w/ base form)
1x Legs (free)
1x claws (free)
2x Improved Natural armor
2x Improved Dex
4x Energy Resistance (Fire/Ice/Acid/Elec 15)

A serpentine base form would certainly seem better for a ranged attack build based around AC: the serpentine form starts with Dex 16 (+3 Dex bonus to AC) and +2 natural armour, for a starting (pre-evolutions) AC of +5. Only the aquatic form matches that, but by having Improved Natural Armour as a 'free' evolution - and that's one of the evolutions with a limit on the number of times you can buy it. By contrast, the serpentine base form's starting 16 Dexterity isn't limited in the same way - only improvements over this base are limited, so the serpentine form's always going to come out on top in the AC wars...

You've gone for 4 pairs of arms with this guy... keep in mind that those extra arms don't grant him any extra natural attacks by themselves, and that Multi-weapon Fighting is just Two-Weapon Fighting for guys with more than two arms - that means all it gives you is one, single, extra attack per round on a full attack (just as a human with Two-Weapon Fighting, two swords, spiked armour, and blade boots still only gets one extra 'off-hand' attack per round). At +9 BAB this means your Synthesist can use a 'normal' +9/+4 full-attack routine, or Multi-Weapon Fighting for a +7/+5/+2 attack routine (assuming light off-hand weapons). Considering he could be getting 5 natural attacks at this level, it's not so impressive...

You seem to be missing out on some of the better evolutions available by level 12 as well. Fast Healing, for example, would seem vital to a Synthesist - even one point means you never need to waste resources healing up between fights.

[Thaylen]

Have some good points there. Part of the reason I went w/ humanoid was for the Role playing concept (ie. 'Giant' Mecha; at least compared to a gnome).

As for multi-weapon fighting you might want to give that feat another read. It says that it replaces TWF for a creature w/ more than 2 arms. and reduces the attack penalty for ALL of the off hands, not just one of them.

This concept has a way to go. If it were a pure munchkin build I would definitely start off w/ the serpent build as you suggested. I'll work on some refinements for tonight.

[ProfPotts]

Quote:

As for multi-weapon fighting you might want to give that feat another read. It says that it replaces TWF for a creature w/ more than 2 arms. and reduces the attack penalty for ALL of the off hands, not just one of them.

Yes: you get a mere -2 penalty if you make an off-hand attack with a light weapon in your lower left hand, mid right hand, or whatever... but you still only get the one extra attack per round when making a full attack. The only real difference to normal TWF is that you generally have a larger range of off-hand attacks to chose from.

[Thaylen]

You might want to have a look in the Bestiary at some of the multi-armed weapon wielding monsters. Take the marilith for example. It has 6 arms and can fight with all of them. (getting iterative on the primary, and a single attack apiece on the 5 other arms. The only special abilities that the marilith has in regards to multi-weapon fighting is that they take no penalty at all when doing so.

[Muja]

Given what you posted I don't see how you can have a 46 AC or a 22 Cha.

[Thaylen]

My bad, The charisma is actually a 24

18 (Base) +2 Racial, +4 Headband, 24 total.

For the AC,

2 Natural Armor base from base form,
4 NA from Evolutions
10 NA from level (can be taken as armor or NA but I'd rather have NA)
6 Armor from bracers of armor.
8 from dexterity
2 Deflection from Ring of Protection +2
4 Shield from Shielded Melding
10 base AC +36 in adjustments is 46 AC.

[ProfPotts]

Quote:

You might want to have a look in the Bestiary at some of the multi-armed weapon wielding monsters. Take the marilith for example. It has 6 arms and can fight with all of them. (getting iterative on the primary, and a single attack apiece on the 5 other arms. The only special abilities that the marilith has in regards to multi-weapon fighting is that they take no penalty at all when doing so.

The Marilith, of course, doesn't have the Multi-Weapon Fighting Feat...

I realise that the multi-armed / multi-weapon fighting eidolon is a commonly attempted min-max build... it just isn't rules legal. You need to consider three things...

Firstly, the Multi-Weapon Fighting Feat states...

'... See Two-Weapon Fighting in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook.

Special: This feat replaces the Two-Weapon Fighting feat for creatures with more than two arms.' (Bestiary page 315)

Next, Two-Weapon Fighting in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook states...

'... If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon...' (Core book page 202)

Finally, the Limbs evolution states...

'... The eidolon does not gain any additional natural attacxks for an additional pair of arms, but it can take other evolutions that add additional attacks (such as claws or a slam). Arms that have hands can be used to wield weapons, if the eidolon is proficient...' (APG page 62)

No-where is more than one, single, extra attack mentioned. There's a reason that Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Greater Two-Weapon Fighting exist, and with the prerequistites they have.

Monsters with mutiple limbs are often designed with enough attacks to equal them, true, but that's not an automatic right granted by having more than one off-hand weapon. If it were then how many off-hand attacks can a Monk take? He can attack with fists, elbows, knees and feet - can he declare multi-weapon fighting and get one primary plus seven off-hand attacks? Sounds better than Flurry, right? How about a Fighter with a weapon in ether hand, spiked armour, two boot blades, and a barbazu beard? One primary and five off-hand attacks? Really? They don't even need to qualify for the feat - they can just take the extra penalty, but still get the attacks...

Put another way, do you really think that the designers would go to the effort of limiting the maximum number of natural attacks an eidolon can take, but still allow a gaping rules-loophole where a mere 2 evolution points can gain your eidolon an extra 2 off-hand attacks? Think about it for a moment. That's a potential 26 extra off-hand attacks at level 20, or 34 extra off-hand attacks with a half-elf summoner and the Extra Evolution feat. Rules As Intended? Doubtful...

Occam's razor: which is more likely - that the designers intended a weapon-using multi-armed eidolon to completely destroy the power curve of the game; or that the rules-interpretation which allows such destruction is, in fact, mere wishful thinking by power-crazed eidolon builders? ;)

At the end of the day, the rules you play by are down to you and your DM to decide - but RAW, you only get the one off-hand attack.

[Nigrescence]

Except that's precisely what Multi-Weapon Fighting is supposed to do.
It only says if you wield the weapon in your hand. It says nothing about requiring a natural attack on that hand already, only about wielding a weapon in that hand. Natural attacks don't NEED Multi-Weapon Fighting to let you attack with them. Ever.

At any rate, that is the flavor text. You can take that off-hand attack even without the feat, but you have a massive penalty (as noted in the section explaining what happens normally without the feat). The feat just reduces the penalty.

The Limbs evolution only reminds that no additional natural attacks are given for just the arms, but evolutions can add natural attacks to those arms. Those arms can also wield weapons even if they don't have a natural attack, just as you can wield weapons even if you don't have a natural attack. The Limbs evolution even states, ironically in your quoted section, that arms with hands can be used to wield weapons if the eidolon is proficient.

By RAW, you're wrong.

Like it or not, the RAW allows all of those arms to have all of those attacks, whether or not they even have Multi-Weapon Fighting.

Even if you did give it all those arms, I don't think the power curve would be destroyed when it can be taken down so easily thanks to the lack of every other evolution it probably should have been taking in order to scale with the power curve of the higher levels of play. Go ahead and spend every evolution point on Limbs (Arms). That won't turn out well for you, and I won't even have to try hard to make you regret it.

Finally, please try not to abuse Ockham's Razor with your horrible misinterpretation of it.