Teupokoles's page

How are you getting 15 foot reach? An ankylosaurs should only have 5 foot reach at large size due to being quadrupedal.

My bad, forgot about the tall/long thing for size based reach. The remaining 5ft was evolved companion for reach.

I completely agree with a ruling that bars using SLAs as prerequisites for prestige classes, seen one too many Aasimars running with that trick, bu do you have a reference to FAQ, erreta or the like that rules this out?

My google-fu is failing me.

If it doesn't conflict with the theme to have dinosaur companions, then check out the Ankylosaurus.

Unless somethings been added since i last played druid, it has the highest natural AC of any companion, it gets large for reach, uses a single big natural attack which is easier to improve with evolved companion and the stun it delivers is just crazy good.

15ft reach, combat reflexes and stun on its attacks makes it great for intercepting charges and keeping them stuck too far from you for them to fix it with a 5ft-step.

The Big Cat is an obvious choice, pounce is well hard, but it doesn't exactly aid in derense. To best use the Tiger it needs to charge right away, whereas something with big reach can better defend you, or even move into melee while still keeping you inside its reach.

I mostly prefer human as well, letting your character speak for itself without relying on an exotic race as a shortcut to flavour and being unburdened by racial associations and stereotypes.
However I would always choose whatever I could find the better flavour for, so if your Aasimar background seems like more fun and as having more at heart then by all means go for that.

I would also suggest taking a look at undine and the racial archetype they get for Bard, the Watersinger. It has just tons of interesting and creative uses for bardic performance outside of the standard party-buff thing... Using spells for combat manoeuvres via racial feats, performance for battlefield control and having an innate swim speed are all pretty cool ways to go for a sailing campaign.

If I'm not misremembering, racial spell-like abilities count as arcane.

So either go for a race with SLA or with an alternate racial trait like Fey-born that gives one.

There are also quite a number of traits that grans low-level SLAs.

The 'Which one goes when' is neatly solve by the line in the summon monster spell that read 'It appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn.'.
So they all act at the same time, even if you spend several turns in a row summoning more and more.

I generally refrain from having more that one summon spell running at a time, so as to not take up too much time at the table... Besides there's the fact that a well-built summoner can easily match an entire party for power, so a certain amount of being your own judge on limits is usually prudent.
With it being a construct casting a 2nd-level summon spell, I'm assuming that your characters level is quite a bit higher than that of the 3rd-level wizard that would usually cast this spell so the power level consideration isn't as relevant.

Consider playing them the same way that a GM would a horde fight. Since they all act at the same time, you can first move all of them and then roll a massive handful of d20s for all of their attacks at the same time. If the GM is willing to simply tell you the opponents AC then it's pretty quick to sort through how many hits you get, if he won't tell you then just ask in descending order if your hits land and you'll pretty quickly be able to work out what rolls go in and what don't.
With the low level of the summoning spell the creatures will quickly, if not already, devolve into just being HP bags to absorb a single attack each, obstacles that make enemies charges difficult and flanking buddies for the party, all of which are great uses of them since your not the one using actions to cast them.

Getting good at moving them quickly, rolling all of their attacks at the same time and maybe even just having them die immediately when they take any real damage so that you don't have to keep track of their remaining HP, are the keys to not being too annoying as a summoner of tons of low-level creatures. You ought to only ever summon one type of creature at a time too... It gets confusing if you have four different types of summons at the same time, faster to just summon 12 of the same creature so that you can do all the rolls at the same time.

If I punch a deaf person they're still going to feel it.

I love this as an argument... There are so many ways to argue your point, and you went with punching deaf people... How very subtle of you ;)

Take a look at Masterpieces if you want some flavourful versatility take a look at bardic masterpieces.
Dirge of the Torn Sail uses up a 2'nd-level spell slot and suits the pirate flavour as an example.

If you loose Divine Fighting Technique, then perhaps replace it with deceitful and then take Cunning Caster at this level. It enables a lot of fun social trickery that, depending on the campaign, can be exceedingly useful. Surprise rounds are handy, having three rounds of enemies not even aware they are being attacked is even better.
Alternatively Spellsong enables some of the same trickery at a bit narrower circumstance but without the prerequisite investment.

There is of course also the standard suite of good value feats that are a bit boring... Spell Focus, Varisian Tattoo and Umbral Spell are all good choices, but perhaps a bit dull.
Maybe consider Expanded Arcana for more spells known.

If Divine Fighting Technique is still an interest and you ignore the god requirement, I'm guessing that you do since Iomidae seems an odd fit for the character, there are other cool choices in it.
Desna's shooting star lets you use your Charisma instead of your strength for melee combat so long as you don't mind the starknife and Sarenrae's Mercy allows you to deal non-lethal damage with a scimitar and lets you convert a lot of spell damage to non-lethal without metamagic.
You could then use the newly gained feat to support whichever route you now take.

If your GM is ok with Faction Feats, then Master Performer is just crazy powerful.

Well nothing really beats Beastmorph/vivisectionist for melee with natural attacks... Maybe druid, but if you can reliably get sneak attacks then there just no contest.

Three natural attacks, pounce, Mutagen for strength and natural armor and sneak attack is really hard to beat...

But if you want something perhaps a bit more active and versatile, I'd take a look at Magus and Warpriest. Magus has a lot of trickery if you remember that you can combine other things with full-attacks than shocking grasp. Throw battlefield control, buffs and the like around and there's a lot of room for some creative fun.
The Warpriest is just horrendously overpowered, but if min/maxing is the order of the day it's hard to challenge the silly amount of free quickened personal range buff spells he gets. A cleric can be a proper monster in melee if he gets a couple of rounds to buff up, the Warpriest can buff up while charging, full-attacking, wielding a tower shield or even while grappling(!).

For style points you could also consider the Gloomblade fighter. With the Gloomstorm feat you could make full-attacks with every attack using a different two-handed weapon, or using a couple of feats for throwing you could make full-attacks throwing greatswords, with an extra attack from rapid shot as a cherry on top. I mean... That's just cool in a rather bizarre way...

As with just about anything it's a cost/benefit question...

For an arcane caster there certainly is quite the chance that encumbrance might be a problem and anything that requires a trait, like Armour Expert, or a feat, like Arcane Armour Training, has to contend with competition like spell focus and metamagic feats.

For the price of the items you listed I could also get a Metamagic Rod, lesser with extend spell. So for one use of an item that costs 3k and a 1'st level slot you can get a chainshirt that weighs nothing, has no spell failure chance, doesn't make a sound, is invisible and in case of arcane armour training, doesn't take up your swift actions.

Sure for tons of characters armour makes a lot of sense, both rules-wise and flavour-wise since it's a silly adventurer that ignores it, but for arcane caster's specifically the cost is a bit high... Maybe go for Silken Ceremonial and enchant it if you really want to, but in almost all circumstances there's better things to throw your cash at.

All this said, I'm quite a big fan of the Hellknight Signifier prestige class. Wizards in full-plate is just a cool concept.