Cross class query

[jsin horm]

though i love pathfinder, i tend to lean toward cross classing all my characters. so i have a build question

Say the goal is arcane archer.

6 ranks of Ranger gets u an animal companion
1 rank of summoner for the arcane spell requirement
1-x ranks of arcane archer

i know the eidolon doesn't lvl up b/c of the prestige class, but would the character have both an animal companion AND an eidolon? if so, how do u think they would react to eachother.

[Zurai]

Yes, the character would have both types of companion. How they interact would be up to you and your DM; as a DM, I might request that the animal companion use one of its skill tricks to work closely with a supernatural being like the Eidolon.

[Frerezar]

Mate to create the weirdest companion ever.

[Warlord255]

Multiclassing Summoner could be problematic with other pet classes, but there's also good RP potential.

Best combination would easily be a Wizard, for spells and perhaps the eidolon/familiar or item for RP possibilities. Ranger or Druid would be a lot harder. Biggest problem would be the loss of power on the Eidolon, since it'd be harder to get bonuses from other classes to apply to it.

[LazarX]

jsin horm wrote:

though i love pathfinder, i tend to lean toward cross classing all my characters. so i have a build question

Say the goal is arcane archer.

6 ranks of Ranger gets u an animal companion
1 rank of summoner for the arcane spell requirement
1-x ranks of arcane archer

i know the eidolon doesn't lvl up b/c of the prestige class, but would the character have both an animal companion AND an eidolon? if so, how do u think they would react to eachother.

Another real problem here is that the utility of the arcane archer is to lace spells on your arrows... along with the trick stuff. the Summoner provides practically no useful spells for this purpose. the other problem is the massive splitting of attention, your Eidolon is not progressing, you get a weak animal companion because it does not progress.

Now as far as reactions. Your eidolon will react however you tell it to. it's your slave. Your animal companion is your animal companion but it's just an animal, by it's companion nature it's already getting over the fact that it's hangingwith you and your strange friends instead of doing what it would normally be doing. Now as long as you don't mistreat it by haing your eidolon use your animal friend as a punching bag, the relationship between the two is pretty much made irrelevant by thier relationship with you.

Still wouldn't see any practical reason to do this though, you're talking about taking 3 classes with practically zero synergy with each other.

[jsin horm]

what would be the best setup for an Arcane Archer then?
6 fighter
1 sorc (arcane with wep bond) or 1 wiz
the class itself always seemed messy to me, but i like the ability to track of the ranger vs fighter and his extra feats.

ps (i still think a lvl 1 summoner eidolon can be made tiny and very stealthy, 1 heck of a scout imo.

[LazarX]

There are good reasons to go either way.

Wizard.... better variety of spells to lace into your arrows

Sorcerer... more spells per day

And yes you can have a nice stealthy eidolon, but arcane archer levels do nothing for eidolon progression and you have practically no spells that you can use as arcane archer tricks. (summon spells take too long)

Summoner basically is not made for multi-classing because it's practically as focused as a prestige class already. It's one of those classes you really have to take an all or nothing approach.