Advanced Feats: The Summoner's Circle (PFRPG) PDF

This is the as-of-yet longest installment of the Advanced Feats series, containing 19 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD.
As all the books of the advanced feats series, this one starts with a discussion/introduction of the class.

After that, we get the meat of the book, the 30 new feats.

The feats are:

Aerobatics: Gain flying maneuverability and speed

Balanced Spellcaster: No concentration checks for motion

Cannibalistic Casting: Lose Con to cast more spells

Clockwork Summoning: Summon clockwork versions of the normal summons

Controlled Charge: Charge without reducing AC

Enhanced Scent: Double the range of the scent ability

Enlarge Breath Weapon: Innate breath weapon Increase area by 50%

Enlarge Wall: Double the dimensions of walls

Fast Spell: Reduce full round spells to a standard action

Fleet of Foot: Turn while charging

Giant Step: Increases the size of 5-ft. steps

Hardened Spell: +5 bonus to spell DCs against dispelling and identification

Improved Concentration: +2 bonus to concentration checks

Improved Multiweapon Fighting: Gain additional off hand attacks

Improved Resistance: +2 bonus to spell resistance

Improved Shield Ally: +1 bonus to shield ally benefits

Multihanded Weapon: Use more than two hands on a weapon

Raw Magic: Sacrifice spells for level bonus to d20 roll

Shifting Wall: Walls from spells can move

Sizeshifter: Forgo size evolutions

Spirit of Vengeance: +1 bonus to attack and damage against last opponent that hit you

Stay Down: Prevent opponents from standing up

Strengthen Link: Share magic item benefit with eidolon
Tail Tricks: +1 bonus to CMB for trip and grapple

Toss Foe: Throw grappled opponent

Touch of Grace: +1 bonus to all saves

Unstable Evolutions: Adjust 2 points of evolution when eidolon is summoned

Vampiric Summoning Spell: Drain health from summoned monsters

Wall Mastery: Add holes to walls you create

Weaken Link: Eidolon and summoner can both use a chosen itevm slot

Comments on the feats:

Cannibalistic Casting: Ability damage for spell-casting. The comment admits this feat to be potentially being prone to abuse and I agree, though in another way: PCs will find it hard to to heal the damage in most campaigns, due to magic not working in healing them. What about another feat I didn't like from "Witch's Brew" that reduces ability score damage by 2? That would lead to unlimited 1st and 2nd level spells.

Clockwork Summoning: As a Zobeck-fanboy, I really like this one.

Enlarge Walls: Nice idea, as area control via walls is something I can see summoners excelling at.

Fast Spell: Cast faster at cost of half the spell's duration. God is this broken. How many battles are long enough for the high-level spells to actually run out during the battle? This will lead to almost ALL SPELLS that are eligible being cast like this. No way, not in my campaign.

Multiweapon Fighting and its mini-feat-tree gets some advice on how to e.g. balance it with multiple sets of arms.

Spirit of Vengeance: +1 to attack and damage against the last enemy who damaged you. This feat actually seems underpowered to me and I don't really get why it's in this book.

Strengthen Link: I'm not sure whether this has a benefit if only the summoner and not the eidolon has the feat or vice versa. the text only mentions what happens if both have this feat.

Toss Foe: Cool feat, but I feel it should have been a combat maneuver instead that gets stronger by using a feat like this.

Touch of Grace: + 1 to all saves. Come' on. NO ONE buys books for feats like this. Any DM can come up with this. Anyone. Even the ones who don't know the 3.5-feat. This is filler, plain and simple. Also, it's a boring feat-choice. And has nothing specifically to do with the summoner.

Vampiric Summoning: Leech the energy of your summoned creatures. good idea, solid mechanics.

Wall Mastery: Huge possibilities for PCs to fight clever and dirty. I really like this one.

Then, we get three sample builds, the chess master, the mythic rider and the master of arms, all including eidolon builds.

Finally, as a neat bonus to this installment, we get a 1-page Eidolon char-sheet.

Conclusion:

I do consider the summoner-class to be quite complex and thus was not exactly looking forward to do the math for this review. Surprisingly, the signature feats for the eidolon presented herein (at least as long as you heed the balance-warnings from the boxes!) are balanced. Editing is top-notch, I didn't notice any obvious typos. Formatting suffers from one glitch: The table of feats lists 31 feats, one of which is not in the book and actually is featured in "Witch's Brew", namely "Usurp Spell". While many of the feats actually feel "Summonerish", i.e. use his battle area control, enhance his eidolon etc. ("Vampiric Summonings" being among my favorites), some are just plain filler. "Touch of Grace" and "Spirit of Vengeance", I'm looking at you! All in all, while most are mechanically cool, some just felt like either filler or simply not as focused on the class as I would have liked them to be.
In addition, I don't like the cover (which more or less made me giggle...)as well as the cut-out black silhouettes throughout the book. They look somewhat amateurish.
Thus, my final verdict will be slightly lower than for "Witch's Brew", a good 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 for the purposes of this platform.

The Summoner Circle by Open Design

This product is 19 pages long. It starts with a cover, ToC and credits. (2 pages)

Next we get into a introduction and examining the new Summoner Class. (1 page)

This is followed by new feats for the Summoner. (7 pages)
Aerobatics
Balanced Spellcaster
Cannibalistic Casting
Clockwork Summoning
Controlled Charge
Enhanced Scent
Enlarge Breath Weapon
Enlarge Wall
Fast Spell
Fleet of Foot
Giant Step
Hardened Spell
Improved Concentration
Improved Multiweapon
Fighting
Improved Resistance
Improved Shield Ally
Multihanded Weapon
Raw Magic
Shifting Wall
Sizeshifter
Spirit of Vengeance
Stay Down
Strengthen Link
Tail Tricks
Toss Foe
Touch of Grace
Unstable Evolutions
Vampiric Summoning
Wall Mastery
Weaken Link
Usurp Spell

The final section is advice for building summoners with three example builds, it also includes suggested builds for the Eidolon for each summoner build as well. (7 pages)
The Chess Master – Battle field control focused build.
Mythic Rider – Summoner Rides their Eidolon into battle and fights astride it.
The Master of Arms – Fights along side their Eidolon in battle. They fight as a paired warriors.

It closes with a Eidolon character sheet and OGL. (2 pages)

Closing Thoughts. Like the others in the series while the feats are all useful to a Summoner many of them would be useful to other classes as well. Also some of these feats are more geared for the Eidolon with a few of them being only for them. Most classes could find a few useful feats. They seem fairly well done and I didn't notice any obvious spelling errors or area's where they was hard to understand.

There is virtually no art, just one silhouette. The borders are pretty and the book is pretty print friendly. In this book I felt the weakness was in the builds section. They are not bad but to of them are a bit similar. Though with the focus of the Summoner I am not sure I could have thought of better builds concepts. But regardless I found these less useful than the previous books personally. The Eidolon character sheet was a nice bonus. All and all I am giving this one a 4 star review. Good but I thought it could have been a little better.

Summoners are a particularly interesting addition to the roster of character classes available for Pathfinder players. The Introduction states the purpose of this book, to provide carefully-designed feats chosen to make the most of the special abilities of this particular class, and - through the suggested 'career paths' - demonstrate how to use them to good effect in constructing effective and interesting characters.

Next is an overview of the summoner and, as always with this series, a good knowledge of the basics from Paizo's Advanced Player's Guide is recommended before you settle to explore the potentials laid out here. Suffice to say, he's an arcane spell-caster specialising in summoning creatures to do his bidding and has one particularly intriging feature: his eidolon. This is a powerful outsider with whom the summoner forms a lifelong attachment, being able to summon it like any other creature except that it can stay until dismissed. It acts in accord with the summoner's wishes but has free will as to just how it goes about it! Fun indeed and in the hands of a creative player far more than an adjunct to combat. Although a regular spell-caster outside of summoning ability, the summoner is relatively weak in this regard and his lists concentrate on defence, enhancement and things related to summoning - such as calling up walls and pits, which can lead to some interesting and unusual battlefield tactics, if that's the way that your summoner is inclined.

So, on to the new feats. Many are available to any character who can meet the requirements, although they are aimed at this particular class. One thought for effective use of an eidolon is to have one which can fly, so feats like aerobatics and balanced spellcaster (which lets you dispense with Concentration checks when you try magic on the move) are of particular use if you have taken that path. One of the most unusual requirements for a feat must be that for multihanded weapon - you need 3 or more arms! (As you can imagine, it's mostly intended for eidolons.) If you take a tactical approach, wall mastery is useful as it permits you to have holes in walls that you have summoned through magic, while enlarge wall lets you have bigger ones than the opposition might expect. Another feat with potential for fun must be clockwork summoning which enables you to summon a mechanical version of the creature you wish to summon. There's one minor problem: in the headings to the feat descriptions, somehow the letters 'ft' - as in shifting wall and sizeshifter do not render correctly, although a quick play with the copy tool shows the right letters are actually there!

Next, three character builds are presented - which for summoners include builds for both yourself and your eidolon. First is the Chess Master, and it's a real gem, using the varied abilities of the Summoner to take control of a battlefield, manipulating the terrain and the movement options available to your opponents to your advantage (and, of course, their detriment). If you enjoy a calculating and tactical approach to combat, this build is worth your consideration. The others are Mythic Rider, based around using your eidolon as a mount, and the Master at Arms, where both character and eidolon are carefully-crafted battle-monsters, fighting side-by-side! The work rounds off with a 'character sheet' specially tailored for eidolons, as you are going to need to track its capabilities as much as you need to document your own.

Overall, this is a good addition to the series, very combat-oriented but opening out some very interesting possibilities - now to learn all the wall spells I can and take the wall-manipulation feats...

This is an interesting pdf, to say the least.

While the feats are the main focus, and there are feats any class can use, I liked the silhouettes and character builds at the end the most. For example..

The Chess Master: A Summoner who turns the battlefield into a giant chess board, calling extraplanar creatures and making walls and pits to halt the enemies movement and trap them.

For the Chess Master, life is a game, and he plays it well..

So, considering all the good feats, the art, and the helpful builds, I give this product 4 stars.