Frustrated at being entangled, Throgg flies into a rage and digs deep into his hatred of magical beasts. With one hand, he crashes his falchion into the tentacles trying to send the magic back from whence it came.
[dice=One-handed, raging spell sunder with a barbarian strength surge]1d20 -2 -4 + 9 + 3 + 15 + 3
-2 grappled
-4 one handing 2-hander
+9 strength surge to sunder
+3 Falchion
+15 CMB
+3 Rage bonus to strength
If the sunder works, he moves toward the Golem.
That should be a 34. The strength surge gives plus 12. When did we get to such a high level!
Throgg weaves between the tentacles, [dice=Reflex]1d20 + 11, but fails to escape. He shrugs off the damage, but curses as the Golem bears down and he struggles to free his leg.
Whoops. That should be against CMD. He fails anyway. :(
Hey all. I'm in the Netherlands and Indonesia for a month beginning on the 22nd. My posting will probably be limited, but feel free to send my froggy into action! I posted his stats on the profile.
The last I remember we got our asses handed to us by some flying creature(s). I thought we were all going to die, but it/they didn't seem to want to chase us. Apparently, my memory stinks too.
I'm really not a big fan of the mounted combat chain. It requires too many feats that are too situational and not that much fun. I do enjoy having the lance and there are a number of ways to get it. One thing to keep in mind with the lance charge is that your Eidolon will only get as many attacks as it has reach attacks on the charge. This makes pounce pretty useless at low levels.
I'm thinking about taking a dip into it with my alchemist. He'll be able to go to well below -25 hit points and keep fighting. Sure, that probably means he'll die young, but such is the life of the reckless adventurer.
I read it a little differently than tels and hogarth. To me, it seems to say that if you have the opponent pinned, tying him up is automatic, as long as you have rope.
It all falls under the heading of:
Quote:
Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple).
...where one of the "following actions" is "Tie Up". Seems pretty clear to me, YMMV.
Agreed. I had something similar come up in a game last night and it seems that the grapple flow charts need some editing.
If people agree this is incorrect we will replace with corrected versions anyone wishes to send us.
Do you have a copy of the original file?
If there's agreement about the edits, I'd be happy to make the changes and send it back to you. I could also edit in photoshop, but it won't look as clean.
I used the grapple flow chart on d20pfsrd last night and I noticed what I think are two problems:
1) As currently organized, the chart implies that a grappler who has pinned an opponent can tie them up without making a grapple check. This can be corrected by making the arrow from "Round 3 Attacker's Turn" to "...Tie the defender up" pass through the grapple check:
Round 3 --> Maintain Grapple --> Tie up --> Is defender pinned? --> etc.
2) The flow chart explicitly states that a grappler, who fails his -10 CMB check to move from a grapple to tie up his (not pinned) opponent, does not lose his grapple. The way the rules are written, he should lose the grapple any time he fails an action dependent upon the grapple check (i.e., move, damage, pin, or tie up). The escape artist rules implies that a grapple check or escape artist check by a pinned character moves the character from pinned to grappled, but the FAQ clears that one up.
I'm playing a vivisectionist and starting to think about all the wondrous Monstrous Physique possibilities. Okay, so there appear to only be about a couple dozen or so monstrous humanoids from which to choose for all four levels of the spell. My character, however, is much more interested in turning into monstrous humanoids than beasts or undead. Despite the limited number of creatures, there do seem to be some great options, but I have some questions and thoughts. How have you used the spell? Any thoughts other than "get beast form instead"? I couldn't find much on the message boards.
1) Monstrous humanoids do not appear to fall into the category of creature types for which polymorph spells transform armor and gear. That's a a big advantage, since you can keep your weapons, gear, and armor. Throw in a few extra secondary attacks and it's pretty powerful. Is this the case? Does UM or an errata change this? If so, I can't seem to find it.
Polymorph, however, also explicitly calls for GM discretion. How have you played this? Personally, I think it makes sense for a centaur to get weapons and armor, but not a gargoyle. I'm thinking that a nice simple house rule would be to keep the gear if the monstrous humanoid type uses weapons and to lose it if they don't.
Do you use polymorph discretion with Alter Self?
2) The doppelganger looks fun and useful. With Monstrous Physique II, you, or any of your allies with infusion, can use any weapon, spell completion device, or spell trigger device (mimicry). Anyone use this with siege weapons or anything else interesting? Any blunderbuss-wielding halfling sorcerers out there?
3) Monstrous Physique III and IV have some really great abilities. These don't, however, appear to scale very well, since there are not really creatures to go with the abilities. MP II already gives you fly plus 6 attacks (four-armed gargoyle), mimicry, and the all important speak with sharks. Anything fun or great that I'm missing? Blindsense I guess. By Monstrous Physique IV, I'll probably rather turn into a troll (Giant Form I) anyway.
4) Do you use templates to make the spell more versatile at later levels? If so, which ones? Increasing the size seems like a good way to get some use out of Monstrous Physique III particularly for a grapple build. I'm not so interested in cheese, like a young template to get 6 natural attacks with Monstrous Physique I.
Thanks for any comments, answers, or clarifications.
I excluded it strictly on the basis of there being one mount too many. Mounted summoners already make quite a few rolls per round. I find the additional clogging from a level 1 wolf or pony gratuitous. In PFS play, it's also not legal.
It would probably make the most sense to ride the wolf and use the Eidolon as the flank buddy. That seems to defeat a lot the joy of the build though. A level 1 wolf flank buddy will die every adventure beyond third level.
I do like the idea of keeping a wolf out of combat until your Eidolon gets killed. Beyond level 4 or 5, you'll probably want to use summon Eidolon instead.
The non-mount benefits look decent. Full movement in medium armor isn't so useful though. The only medium armor you'll be wearing is mithral, which won't influence speed or spell-casting.
Ratio of respondents who desire less combat to respondents who desire more: 14 to 1. Not only are Pathfinders just in it for the money, but they don't want to work for it, either!
It isn't that the players don't "want to work for it." They want (according to the data) tougher individual combats and more opportunity for RP.
I think this looks about right. 39% of respondents (188/486) find the main missions "Too Easy", compared to less than 1% (3/486) who find them "Too Hard". This has an interesting breakdown as well. Of the 131 respondents, who have never GMed, only 24% (31/131) find them too easy. It's good to keep in mind that the survey sample is probably biased toward GMs (355 out of the 486 who also answered questions about mission difficulty).
That bias may also reflect playing experience as well as any GM-related experience. The three people who find the missions too hard have been playing for six months or less.
Sorry about that. I'll use a link next time. :)
It does help. Thanks. A few responses:
Jiggy wrote:
Point #1 & #2: Encouraging Optimization
Optimization is going to happen no matter what. I sometimes think it's overrated. I don't think strength 19 is twice as good strength 17, but costs 2.6 times more. Maybe intelligence/wisdom/charisma on a caster is worth it. That said PFS does not respond well to certain builds. Giving a few dismissal spells to the occasional bad guys would help with half-elf synthesists. I think that's what a reasonable GM would do in a campaign.
Jiggy wrote:
...So Point #1 is not theoretical.
I don't think there's anything wrong with being theoretical per se. However, if there's no evidence of systematic min-maxing due to changes in difficulty, than I find it hard to weigh against the very observable problem of cakewalks (due to scenario).
Jiggy wrote:
Point #2: Accurate Feedback on Scenarios
That sounds pretty clear and is enough for me to feel less guilty about providing such an anti-climactic finale.
Jiggy wrote:
Point #3: Resource Inequality
I worry more about the guy who feels cheated because he rolled low on initiative and misses the fight. Or the guy who built a character around being sneaky or diplomatic, but no one will ever let be sneaky or diplomatic.
I tend to dislike when "kill random NPCs" is the default solution.
Jiggy wrote:
Point #5 & #6
I don't think either is really a one-way argument in favor of playing a scenario as written. In no way is awesomeness ever anticlimactic and it's generally fun and funny when a player creatively makes a difficult situation easy. I think it happens a lot less, however, if the players feel that they can blindly open every door and run into every fight without thinking.
I've always chosen sorcerers over wizards. Eight hours of beauty sleep and an hour in front an expensive, fragile book every morning do not mix well with adventuring. Clerics and druids are fine.
Thanks for the clarification. These reasons make sense. To what extent is this a theoretical problem (i.e., this could potentially happen) vs. an actual one (i.e., we frequently see these negative results)? I'm not in a position to observe the latter and I also notice there is some contradiction in terms of expected outcome. That is, you theorize that players could be systematically weaker or systematically stronger based on GM's upping the difficulty.
By contrast, I've observed several situations where adding a few more HP to the boss would probably benefit everyone at the table.
And you honestly believe that changing one side of the equation is cheating but changing the other side is your responsibility as a GM?
Nope. I think you misunderstand me. Perhaps we just disagree. An accusation of cheating is a serious one. I would reserve it for serious infractions, not either of the above.
Jiggy wrote:
Think about the big picture. Our responsibility as GMs is to the WHOLE community of PFS players, not just the handful at our own table.
I'm a bit confused. Could you explain how adjusting the difficulty at one table has a negative impact on the whole community? Is it diverting attention from officially adjusting scenarios? Will players try to power up a character in some scenarios to dominate in others? If it's the former, I probably agree. If it's the latter, I probably disagree. If it's about "the Rules", I can empathize but probably disagree.
Like I said, I've only GMed one PFS scenario and played in a dozen. In that short amount of time, it's pretty clear that GM's need some flexibility.
What did you expect? That kind of thing isn't the norm, so it should be expected that it'll result in weirdness. That doesn't mean it's indicative of a problem.
In my limited experience, it's pretty common to have a level 3 character with a few level 1's. Given how easy it is to one-hit kill a level 1 PC, putting four level 1's and one level 3 in a Tier 4-5 game will probably lead to a couple of them dying.
Jiggy wrote:
As for wanting to add mooks/HP, let me ask you: would you have increased his loot as well?
No, I would not have increased anyone's loot. I assume the player would have had a better time actually having a fight with the BBG.
Jiggy wrote:
The guy playing down with his level 3 character is getting low-tier rewards, so why should he have to face mid-tier challenges to get it? That's just as much cheating as reducing the challenge of a 4-5 to accommodate the 2nd-level PCs who played up, but then still giving them the 4-5 rewards.
We have a very different perspective on the risks and rewards of playing. A judge intentionally changing the rules to hurt someone or incapacitate the power of a player (sorry trip doesn't work on this guy, he has protection from good on him, etc.) is, in my view, a bad thing. Increasing the difficulty to make the fight last a bit longer is, again in my view, a good thing.
Cheating is a bizarre choice of words. Messing with your reward sheets and lying about attack bonuses are examples of cheating. Trying to make sure your players have fun is one of the primary purposes of GMing. Perhaps changing the level of challenge is inappropriate in society play. Cheating, it is not.
In my one, and so-far only, experience as a PFS judge, a third-level Zen Archer killed the boss in the first round of a Tier 1 and 2 game. I wish I had felt a bit more confident about throwing in some extra henchmen or giving the boss some extra hit-points. It was a pretty disappointing finale after slogging through a long maze. I kept making the players move in initiative to maintain a little suspense, but there was really nothing to do at that point.
As a player, I would much rather die occasionally than have somewhat regular cakewalks.
In the dozen or so PFS games I've played, I've noticed a general trend that the fights vs. monsters tend to work better. A few things that I think would make most of the scenarios work a bit better when the baddies are humanoid:
1) Always give them extra weapons. Preferably, these are a little weaker than the primary weapons but not useless. PCs have them. It's silly when a disarm or grease spell completely ends an enemy's combat effectiveness.
2) Put in more henchmen body shields. This will keep low-level, low damage PCs happy, encourage AoE spell use, and give the more powerful enemies more time to do their thing. It also encourages team tactics as opposed to all the PCs attacking the one lonely sorcerer.
3) Give the boss at least enough HP to survive a typical critical hit from a level-appropriate fighter. They get attacked anywhere from 4 to 20 (haste, multishot, etc.) times per round even at lowish levels. They're going to take a lot of damage and a lot of critical hits. Armor fortification would help too.
In general, I don't like alignment-driven characters. The one that pops up a lot is the chaotic neutral player, who treats the other party members badly or does anti-social things in game that would be hard to get away with in a normal society, or a chaotic neutral one for that matter. I really dislike hearing: "But, I'm chaotic neutral" as a justification for anything. That said, I love the fascistic lawful-good Paladin or fighter who wants to smash anything that could possibly be evil. It's probably just personal preference. In almost every game I've ever played (across nearly every system), someone (often the same person, nearly always chaotic) makes a big show of collecting trophies from slain enemies. That gets old fast.
For my own vices, I gravitate toward the 3/4 BAB hd8 caster classes other than Bard. Bard, for whatever reason, bothers me. I also tend to play characters who are neutral on at least one axis. To try something new, I made a lawful good Tetori for PFS. He will be fighting the evil inside and outside of the ring.
Swarms made up of Diminutive or Fine creatures are susceptible to high winds, such as those created by a gust of wind spell. For purposes of determining the effects of wind on a swarm, treat the swarm as a creature of the same size as its constituent creatures.
Creatures one or more size categories smaller than the whirlwind might take damage when caught in the whirlwind (generally damage equal to the monster's slam attack for a creature of its size) and may be lifted into the air.
Gah! I'm a big, fat cheater. I've been using the d20pfsrd (navigation is easier) and it only mentions whirlwind volume as a restriction. Small Air Elemental gets demoted to useful out of combat or for one round against fine or diminutive swarms.
Air elemental is pretty great. Make sure to learn Auran and tell it to whirlwind attack. The DC isn't great and it only lasts for one round. Depending on the enemies' set up, however, you can hit a lot of people in one turn and you're likely to pick one up and injure another. Fly out over a body of water or some other unpleasant terrain and drop. One enemy is out of the fight for at least a round or two and with 100' of perfect flight the elemental can charge someone else on the next round.
The trick to the Elementals is knowing which one to summon in what circumstance. Tremorsense is a great power for a level 2 summon. If you're a wizard or summoner, have your Earth or Mud Elemental target an invisible enemy before using Glitterdust. It's more effective for ground-based invisible creatures than detect invisibility, which you probably haven't memorized/learned anyway.
Corrections
It appears that, regardless of ride-check penalties, eidolons cannot be ridden without the mount evolution. That makes it a must-take evolution no matter how high your ride skill.
Riding Dog is not a level i summon. It looks like a level three summoner with superior summoning could not summon d3+1 riding dogs. Instead, he'd have to rely on eagles, getting an average of 9 attacks with a standard action.
I realize that Will is the summoner's one good save (compensating for the -2), but a score of 7 in anything makes me nervous.
I agree that a -2 will save is painful. That said, shield ally, halfling luck, and fearless all help out on will saves. So does raging, if you dip into barbarian. I leave all wisdom-based skills to my eidolon. For style, I replaced my halfling's Keen Senses with Low Blow (+1 to confirm crits on larger opponents), so I'm at -2 to perception rolls with the summoner.
Besides, mounted melee-focused halfling casters hardly seem like the wisest of folks.
I enjoy playing mounted halflings. They're charasmatic, little, have good saves, and like to charge into danger. While there are a number of threads and guides dedicated to summoners and/or eidolons, there's a shortage of good advice specific to mounted summoner builds. For a general guide to summoners, this post is a good post, and thorough. The mounted halfling (or gnome) summoner fills a pair of primary roles: a skirmisher who packs a punch on charges and a caster who focuses on controlling the battlefield or buffing allies. If you're interested in a mounted archer build, I think that the master summoner subtype or a nature oracle would make for good builds. Keeping a fully developed eidolon out of melee so that you can shoot underwhelming arrows while mounted is not such a good idea.
On Ability Scores
There are a number of options depending on your combat preferences. I highly recommend starting with strength 13. It's a prerequisite for Power Attack. Furthermore, you really want to get to strength 14 as soon as you can. You'll be using two-handed weapons most of the time, so moving from 12 to 14 strength will boost you from +1 to +3 damage. If you start lower, you'll have to invest in a belt of giant's strength to get Power Attack. You're probably better off with a belt of constitution or, if you don't dislike the thought of a belt-wearing mount, a belt of strength on your eidolon. With a good skill list and only 2+INT skills per level, it's hard to take less than 12 intelligence.
I like the following for a 20-point build with a +1 to strength at level 4:
Str 15 (13) +7
Dex 13 (15) +3
Con 14 (14) +5
Int 12 (12) +2
Wis 7 ( 7) -4
Cha 15 (17) +7
For a little more combat resilience, drop the charisma to 16 and boost dexterity to 16. If you plan to focus on buffing instead of spells that require a save, you can drop charisma further still. You won't need it to be very high to cast all your spells and, since you'll be mounted, you will rarely use up your daily allotment of summon monster spell-like abilities. You can also invest as much as you want in a headband of charisma.
On Feats
I divide the feats into four groups: the mounted combat tree, damage-increasing feats, summoning feats, and utility feats. Most threads I've seen recommend the tree of mounted combat feats. These feats, however, are a bit too situational and not always the most useful. I don't recommend taking more than Mounted Combat.
Giddy up
Mounted Combat: I think this feat looks better on paper than it actually is. First, your GM will generally attack your summoner not the eidolon. You'll find you use it less frequently than you expected. Second, it doesn't scale particularly well. By level two, your eidolon will have an AC of 20 with mage armor. Depending on what you've invested in your ride skill and traits, you probably have a maximum ride check of around +10. Depending on your enemies' attack bonus, this will let you beat about a third of the melee attacks that hit your eidolon; pretty damned good, if anyone bothers to attack the eidolon. By level ten, even if you've invested between one-quarter and all of your skill points (depending on intelligence) in ride, you'll be dodging fewer attacks. Both the Eidolon AC and the attack bonus of enemies will be proportionally greater. That said, it's still a good feat and it works quite well against touch attacks. At the cost of a feat, trait, evolution, and a lot of skill points, however, it's probably overpriced.
Ride-by Attack: It's an already situational feat that you won't use too frequently. Worse, the consensus seems to be that your eidolon can't attack as part of the ride-by attack. It will be very rare, indeed, that you choose to forgo a full-attack pounce with your eidolon just to ride on by.
Spirited Charge: x3 damage with a lance is great. However, it costs three feats for something that you'll only get to use 1 to 3 times per encounter.
Kapow
If you follow the giddy up tree, you'll get Spirited Charge at level 5. A strength 14 fling charging with a lance will deal an average 19.5 points of damage with Spirited Charge: 3(1d6+3). With power attack and arcane strike, he will, at a -1 penalty to hit, deal an average 23 points of damage: 2(d6+3 [power attack] + 2 [arcane strike] + 3 [strength]). At most ACs, the EV of the Power Attack/Arcane strike will be higher. At level 6, the damage increases to 29 points. The feats are also more versatile and will be used a lot more frequently. Still, Power Attack and Spirited Charge combine quite nicely.
Power Attack: Great damage bonus, particularly on a charge with two-handed weapons. It's a feat that you'll want.
Arcane Strike: An underrated feat, methinks. Damage bonuses that scale with level and a feat that works with ranged and melee weapons. It also stacks with weapon enhancements and can give the occasional but critical DR-penetration to mundane weapons.
Martial Weapon Proficiency (Lance): Please find another way to gain proficiency. Heirloom weapon (make sure to take mend as a level 0 spell), a class dip, ioun stone, and a crafty gnome are all options.
From the depths of hell, I summon thee
All good feats. If you don't mind using a spell to summon your eidolon, these are particularly good. Try to summon and mount the eidolon just before combats, rather than during, if you can.
Spell Focus Conjuration: The summoner has a lot of good conjuration spells at a number of levels. This works well if you like the save-or-suck spells. Grease, glitter dust, and pits can really turn the tide of battle. At higher levels, you may prefer to use walls.
Augment Summoning: Nuff said.
Superior Summoning: I really like summoning multiple creatures. 1d3+1 creatures gives an average of three creatures. Even if weaker, three creatures can occupy more enemies than one and get a lot of AoO. I have a personal and unfulfilled goal to summon enough mud elementals to entangle, make helpless, and deliver a coup de grace to an enemy in a single summon.
Utility Belt
These are the utility feats that don't fall into the other categories. There are plenty of others. I like the first three.
Improved Initiative: I had to put it here. You really don't want your charge to miss. Ride past flat-footed meat-shields and splatter yourself a flat-footed caster.
Lucky Halfling: You're a halfling knight, plucky, courageous, and friendly. This is an appropriate and useful feat, given your high saves. If you're selfish, save it for your eidolon. If you're very selfish, dismiss your eidolon and save it for brainwashed or dead allies. Nothing brings out the adoration, love, and respect of your friends and allies like undoing a failed coup-de-grace fortitude save.
Resilient Eidolon: You've just charged the orc shaman gish, nearly scewering him to death. He swings his battle axe, tagging you in the face with a critical hit. You pass out and your eidolon disappears. Two-on-one against a near dead opponent can quickly turn into a dismissed eidolon and an angry enemy standing over a lonesome halfling. The quick coup de grace comes next. This feat will save you. I wish it was an eidolon feat.
Defensive Casting: You'll be in melee a lot. This saves you from having to quick-dismount to avoid an AoO when casting a spell. I wouldn't take it, but it's an option.
On Skills to Pay the Bills
Such a pretty skill list! You really want to max out ride...oh, and UMD...and spell craft. Don't forget some linguistics to tell your d3+1 earth elemental trap-finders to let you know if they tremor-sense any enemies or to glide through the dungeon walls and report back what's in the next room. It's worth putting at least a point in all of the knowledge skills too. You can never know too much and knowledge is half the battle. Perception, it's what's for dinner. With such high charisma and your natural halfling charm, you probably want some points in diplomacy too. You'll eventually be flying too, right?
Oh wait, you only get 1 to 4 skill points per level. So sad. You really need to let your eidolon deal with skills like perception, sense-motive, intimidate, and maybe one-or-two knowledge skills. If there's a wizard in your party, ignore spellcraft. If there's a cleric or druid, ignore UMD. It's painful, but so is having only 2+INT skills in a class that could otherwise dump intelligence. If you're not too concerned with using Mounted Combat, you probably still want +9 in ride to auto-pass your ride checks to attack. If you get to +13, consider dropping the mounted evolution and spending the point on something else.
On Multiclassing
In general, it's not recommended to multiclass with summoners. Both your spells and your eidolon will suffer for it. That said, you need a lance and would desperately like a bit more punch and survivability in melee. I think it's worth a one-level dip into barbarian or fighter. The boost to fortitude, access to mithril breast plate, higher BAB, and martial weapon proficiencies are great for your wee skirmisher. Level 2 is the time to take the dip into those icey waters, if you're so inclined. Level 4 will hurt when you look at all those nifty level 2 spells that you can't yet take. So will 7, 10, 13, and 15 for that matter. Level 5 will be all the sweeter though with a +4 BAB Power Attack charge and your second level spells. I don't much mind losing an eidolon level (see below). I also can't bring myself to spend a precious feat on a martial weapon proficiency.
Barbarian: Rage adds some vulnerability but a good damage boost and extra fun on charges. Two more skill points! One more hit point. Extra movement! If you take a second level, you can learn a nifty rage trick, rage a bit more, get two more skill points, and never get caught flat-footed. You may also want to consider a mounted barbarian for extra mounted speed or an urban barbarian for more conservative raging. The Extra Rage feat may be worth taking.
Fighter: A bonus feat is very useful. Dragoon is a good option if you plan to take combat riding. Heavy armor proficiency isn't useful. No extra hitpoints (d10/2 = d8/2+1) or skills. There's no reason to consider a second level.
Paladin: Good bonuses to attack from smite, hurray. Lawful halfling, boo. No sir, I don't like it.
On Eidolons
It's a mounted halfling summoner, not a halfling-mounted eidolon. The eidolon should complement the halfling, not the other way around. If you're interested in maxing DPS with the eidolon, I don't think you want a rider. Combat Riding seems like a nice defensive bonus, but having the summoner in combat adds another kink in the already weak armor of the various DPS-focused eidolon builds.
Evolutions like skilled, trip, and reach are good complements to the halfling. Defensive evolutions are not so important, since the halfling is the one with a big target on his back. I took toughness at level 1, but don't think it was a great choice, despite the eidolon's unpleasantly low number of hitpoints.
The really nice thing about eidolons is that you can play around with the build each level and figure out what you like. In that spirit, I recommend taking feats that are useful with a variety of builds.
On Combat Tactics
My preferred tactic is to take turn number 1 to set myself up to charge a caster or ranged-weapon specialist. If possible, I move a bit to the side to get a clear line and cast a combat control spell. At early levels, I like grease on a fighter or cleric's weapon or to block a hall or door. Pits work well, as does glitterdust, particularly for the weak-willed. At higher levels, you can use walls and not worry about saves or pits and not worry about SR. Stonewall and maze ignore both. During the first turn, the eidolon, with full ranks and an evolution in intimidate, demoralizes one of the spell's targets. Dazzling Display or Antagonize are useful eidolon feats for this first turn.
Pointless Rant:
Frustrated with no one attacking my eidolon and rarely using Mounted Combat, I looked into Antagonize. I checked the forums to see how people interpreted the loose-ended "[t]he effect ends if the creature is prevented from reaching you or attempting to do so would harm it..." I was pretty surprised to find a number of posts claiming how overpowered the feat is. With an effective range of 30 feet, a need to be able to communicate in order to antagonize, and the other restrictions, it's a pretty situational feat. Sure, a fighter can force a caster to melee attack and this puts said caster into a bad position and prevents the use of a spell for that round. Given the other actions available, however, this seems hardly overpowering. At level 3, a human summoner or any master summoner could surround that same caster with d3+1 riding dogs, that will maim, trip, and provide d3+1 AoO. Any archer build can unleash a full attack or attack whenever the caster tries to use any spells. A monk can dodge around meat shields and trip, grapple, or attack the caster. A fighter or barbarian, depending on the build, can ignore the meatshield's AoA's and charge or move and attack. Wizards, clerics, and druids have a host of options. If everything in the game is overpowered, nothing is. Antagonize is a situational feat. Usually, you'll have better things to do with your turn.
If you rolled well on initiative and have a clear charge line, it's often worth charging on the first round. You can't afford to waste spells on every encounter either. Against swarms and other specialized opponents, you may have to dismiss your mount--a sad state of affairs--and use your SLA--a happy state of affairs. Air elementals' whirlwind attack is particularly effective against fine and diminutive swarms. Your knowledge skills should come in handy here, but you'll need to know what summons work well against various SR, DR, or special defenses.
The eidolon and the summoner, since you probably can't afford to invest much in magic weapons, are particularly weak in melee against monsters with good DR. Drop them in a pit, blind them, cast haste, and otherwise find a way to help your team win. Charging into monsters and full BAB bosses is generally a poor idea. There are times, particularly in society play, however, when you have to play the tank. Dismount and let your eidolon go soak up the hits. When he falls below 0 hit-points, dismiss and summon something with as many hit points as you can get. A knight without his pony is better than a dead knight without his pony.
On other Tactics
With a shortage of skill points, the summoner needs to rely on SLA's and the eidolon for dungeon crawling, finding things, or doing most anything that doesn't involve knowledge checks. Your party needs to enter some castle unarmed? Stash their weapons in saddlebags on your eidolon and dismiss it. Summon when needed and arm yourselves. Likewise, it's fun to look through cracks or keyholes and summon creatures into locked rooms. Elementals are particularly useful servants that can deal with a lot of tricky situations, traps, and blocked passages. Learn the summon eidolon spell and you'll feel better about using SLA's out of combat.
On Equipment
Beyond the standard belts, headbands, and cloaks, I like the following items specifically for mounted summoners:
Scabbard of Vigor: After charging, you likely still need to fight in melee a bit. If you can afford any weapon enhancements, you probably want them on your lance. You also don't want to keep your distance, on account of the eidolon. This is a good and inexpensive way to boost damage with your secondary non-reach weapon when you get stuck in. Criss-crossed adamantium and cold-iron greatswords with scabbards of vigor are pretty cheap, relative to the benefits. I like +3 for 3 rounds.
Boots of Speed: Somewhat expensive, but stacks well with the scabbard of vigor and rage. To be an effective skirmisher, you need to do some damage when you strike. I'm not sure you want to be making full attacks much more than 10 rounds per day, so use it whenever you can.
Banners: I like all the banners except for swiftness. I think they're well-suited to the mounted halfling's style and swagger. For style points, I'm particularly fond of the banner of terror. That's right, cower before my 35 lbs.
Ring of Invisibility: For the buffing summoner, who wants to use Mounted Combat more often.
Ring of Retribution: Loads of fun once per day with fast movement and the immunity to fire evolution. At the GP price, 4 evolution points, and Aspect, this is probably better conceptually than tactically. Still, it's pretty funny and an immediate action that does 10d6 damage (with a reflex save for half) is nothing to sniff at. You probably only want to use immunity (or energy resistance to save evolution points) on either the summoner or the eidolon. Evasion and good reflex saves on the eidolon help.
Ioun Stones: I don't much care for the idea of my eidolon wearing belts, capes, or boots. Gag! I'll probably have to suck it up and buy him an amulet of mighty fists at some point in time and maybe even a ring of retribution. I don't, however, mind dozens of weird stones floating around my three-headed dog or rainbow colored dragon mount. This also gets around the shared slots problem. Check out the cracked stones. They're often pretty cheap for a decent bonus.
On Ugly Cousins
If you've seen Leprechaun in the Hood or eaten a bowl of Lucky Charms, you know who I'm talking about. Gnomes make good mounted summoners too. Master Tinker is an easy way to get all the weapons you'll need without dipping into another class. The +2 constitution is as good or better than the +2 dexterity.
The opponent also has to a) understand the appropriate language, b) be within 30' (I assume this, based on the rules for demoralize), and c) be able to see and hear his antagonizer.
