Aeaeaoai's page

I've decided to throw together a summoner for Pathfinder Society. I'm not using any of the archetypes. While I have a very good idea of what I'm going to do with the summoner himself, I'm having a hard time assembling the eidolon in a satisfying way.

My intention is to build an eidolon who wades into combat and has a serious impact on it without actually dealing very much, if any, damage. My initial idea was to combine Standstill with the enormous amount of reach a bipedal eidolon can attain to completely lock down enemy movement, but I've recently realized that Standstill doesn't apply to AoOs made on enemies that are not adjacent to the eidolon. Another route to take is the Trip evolution for bite, but I can't take the Improved/Greater Trip feats because the eidolon doesn't have nearly enough intelligence, besides that there are a lot of ways for creatures to resist or outright deny trip attempts (such as by having more than 2 legs, none at all, or flight).

The purpose of this eidolon is to wander into the fight and protect the squishy casters, especially my squishy caster. He'll provide flank and make attacks where he can, but his primary purpose is to impede enemy movements/attacks/spells or otherwise just give enemies a really bad day in ways besides just full attacking on a pounce for a million damage. I want the fighters of my parties to have the glory.

So I was looking at Summon Monster vs Summon Nature's Ally, and noticed something a little off-putting. It seems like they're almost identical spells, except that Summon Monster gives everything a template. For example, Nature's Ally V can summon a Dire Lion, while Monster V can summon a celestial/fiendish Dire Lion. There are a very large number of examples exactly like that where Summon Monster is just strictly better.

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I'm really only expanding on what Jackissocool said, but yes. Basically, you either interpret that First Worlder's summon completely replaces Summoner's summon (which means it takes a full round to cast and only lasts 1 round per level but can be used while your eidolon or other summons are out), or you interpret that First Worlder's summon is a modification of Summoner's summon, in which case they function the same way except that it's Summon Nature's Ally instead of Summon Monster.

You can't just carry over the parts of the Summoner's ability you like and then say the others don't apply. It either all carries over or none of it does.

It's sort of nice, but for the reasons in my previous post, it's also really harsh. Full round casting and round per level duration is a very high price to pay for being able to summon more than one squirrel at a time.

Also, and this is a little rules iffy, I've come to the conclusion that you can use your SNA SLAs while your eidolon is out. Nowhere does it say you can't, as opposed with other archetypes.

PFS does run on RAW, and by the RAW you appear to be correct. In fact, along the same line of thought, you could also have multiple summons at one time (not that I would often want to blow all my turns filling a fight full of monkeys). The downside is that by this completely flat interpretation of the written words, the summons only last 1 round per level instead of 1 minute per level and take a full round to summon just like the spell (since the Summon Nature ability for First Worlder doesn't say otherwise).

Anyway, excellent catch, thank you!

Also, the Fey Foundling feat is so full of flavor. Thanks for pointing it out to me, Calagnar.

With the First Worlder looking better by the minute, I'm certainly leaning that direction, if only because my favorite spell in the game (Haste) is obtained as follows: Sorcerer level 6, Wizard level 5, Summoner level 4. This hadn't even occurred to me until a little while ago.

In fact, though Summoner's casting is played up like a secondary feature, they actually learn a lot of very good Transmutations at the same level as a Wizard, or even before. Which, if I were a Fey Sorcerer, I'd probably take a Compulsion each spell level because the DC bonus pretty much means I have to, then otherwise pile up nothing but Transmutations. I've always associated the Fey with that sort of thing. If Baleful Polymorph isn't the most first-worldy SoD I don't know what is. "You're a squirrel now."

Sorcerers get a few more spells per day at each level, but their progression is so painful. And SNA is sounding better every post.

I think First Worlder it is. I may throw something together for that now and put it up here for criticism.

I'll probably build a Fey Sorcerer too anyway, just for good measure.

This is all extremely useful. Thank you.

I am really not knowledgeable about PFS

Basically, the no crafting rule, and this page: http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/resources

Alright. You've made a pretty convincing argument for the utility of First Worlder. I can see a Gremlin being more useful than, say, a wolf, just because it has opposable thumbs and is intelligent enough to communicate and do complicated tasks.

With how First Worlder gives so much more to your summons and takes so much away from your eidolon, would it be true that the eidolon should only come out situationally? Or would you still focus on building it up and keep it out in combat anyway?

I guess this is turning into a "how would you build a first worlder" thread.

What really gets me about First World is that if I'm going to take advantage of the special summons, it means I have to have my Eidolon put away all the time. In which case Master Summoner is flatly superior, isn't it?

And what do Gremlins even do. If I have six of them, they can disable a device or curse a willing person (what?).

I'm very interested in playing a spellcaster in PFS with a focus on the First World and its Fey. For this reason, I am likely going to play a Gnome, because of their origins. The two most obvious options appear to be the Fey Bloodline Sorcerer and the First World Summoner.

The former focuses on compulsions and mind-effecting, which a very large quantity of encounters in PFS are completely immune to- Fey Bloodline Sorcerer's laughing touch and compulsions all turn off when we walk into one of the million Pathfinder crypts full of nothing but undead. While the latter is maybe the worst Summoner archetype in the game (second to Brood?). I honestly can't see why anyone would play a First World Summoner besides just really wanting the flavor. So that puts me in an awkward spot, really.

While I value the theme of this character, I also want to be relatively effective. Nobody likes being the guy who has a cool background but never actually does much of anything in the adventure.

Basically, I'm calling on the community to throw me ideas at optimizing the most heavily Fey-based character that I can play. Class/race etc is all flexible within that theme and PFS legal. If you can think of anything, just toss it up here. Thank you.