I'd probably play a Gnome or Halfling and use a medium sized quadruped eidolon as my mount. You don't want your eidolon anywhere near the front lines, not with half its normal strength. So make it your mount and use the evolution points to buy defensive and utility abilities (improved movements, senses and so on).
This of course requires a caster-focused build for your summoner. That shouldn't be too hard to pull off, though. Use a crossbow (or maybe a sling if you are a halflingwith the warslinger racial trait) whenever the situation doesn't call for a summon or a spell and you should be ok.
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Even a first level eidolon can be quite competent with wands if you want it to be.
1 rank
+3 class skill
+8 talented
+3 skill focus (use magic device)
That's a UMD of +15, so your eidolon has a 80% chance of success. If you take ability increase (charisma), its chance of success is 85%.
If you give it magical aptitude as its second feat, it has a 100% chance of success by 6th level.
In the long run, though, it might be better to use an improved familiar for the wands (although that'd need 3 feats from the summoner) and use multiple summoned monsters.
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With the evolved familiar feat (yet a fourth feat for the summoner, I know) a player could easily have 3 actions per round. 1 used to summon and 2 wand wielding side kicks (and if you go for leadership. . .). Burn through money fast, but how awesome when it works.
A character could do this by 7th level. It would cost all of his feats (unless he's a human or half-elf), so he'd be a crappy archer. He'd also have to be CG to be able to take a Lyrakien familiar, but the Cha 20 of them makes them the best choice for a UMD familiar.
I'm not quite sure, though, if a character who gained a familiar through Eldritch Heritage is able to take Evolved Familiar since that feat has 'familiar class feature' as a prerequisite.
I'd probably play a Gnome or Halfling and use a medium sized quadruped eidolon as my mount. You don't want your eidolon anywhere near the front lines, not with half its normal strength. So make it your mount and use the evolution points to buy defensive and utility abilities (improved movements, senses and so on).
This of course requires a caster-focused build for your summoner. That shouldn't be too hard to pull off, though. Use a crossbow (or maybe a sling if you are a halflingwith the warslinger racial trait) whenever the situation doesn't call for a summon or a spell and you should be ok.
Using your 1/2 power Eidolon as a mount seems like the best choice to me. Any other option I can think of requires feats spent early on that will be practically useless later on...
Anyone else have a good Master Summoner build? I just can't seem to come to one that really feels good. I'm trying to develop one for my campaign, lvl 10 25 point buy, tough.
My approach to a Master Summoner is to simply forget the Eidolon as a combat tool. The build is focused on summoning and casting. The Eidolon is actually built as a faceman (woman) with the skill evolution for diplomacy, diplomacy as a class skill, and skill focus diplomacy. At first level popping +15 on diplomacy checks is pretty handy.
The summoned monsters with augmented summoning is pretty sufficient for offense really. The Eidolon will have little if any combat ability and will never be out for combat.
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There seem to be two common choices for the Master Summoner's eidolon: Mount and Skillmonkey. I think the Skillmonkey's a better choice because you don't want to be sitting on some freaky extraplanar goon when you could be summoning pack upon pack of beautiful dogs. In fact it's not even possible to use your eidolon as a mount until 8th level unless you are a Gnome or Halfling or take extra evolution. (I suppose a half-elf could do it at 6.)
In general I'd recommend a Quadraped so you have the option of a mount later but Biped also works. You'll also want to choose feats and class skills that will mesh with his later role.
At levels 1-2 your eidolon isn't really behind so feel free to have him show up the fighter while you can.
Quadraped: Pounce, Claws, Reach (Bite) or Reach (Bite), Trip
Biped: Bite, Reach (Bite, Claws) or Bite, Trip
At level 3 or 4 he's going to start sucking so then you can turn him into a skillmonkey by reallocating his evolution points. Shrink him down to Small size and load him up with most Skilled evolutions.
Good choices include:
Perception (for scouting/trapfinding)
Stealth (for scouting)
Disable Device (if your GM insists it can't do this with its feet, just get a tentacle)
Survival (take with the Scent for tracking)
Diplomacy (if you can't be bothered to do it with your own +5 CHA)
Bluff (your lime green raccoon-fish has an honest face)
Sense Motive (if he's just going to all the talking anyway)
Use Magic Device (if you find wands too splintery for your silky hands)
If you're going to use him as a mount you'll need to spend an evolution point on it and he needs to be at least one size category larger than you. It should also probably be able to fly.
As for the Summoner himself just pump your Charisma up. Strength and Wisdom are pretty dumpable. Choose Con and Dex such that you don't die. An INT of 12 or 14 isn't a bad idea since you have only 2+Int skills and some decent options on your list but it isn't a priority.
You can shoot with a crossbow if you like, but if you're small you're better off spamming Acid Splash with an Alchemical Power Component (Adventure's Armory), merely keeping an Acid Flask on your person will make at 1d3+1 vs touch, which is better than 1d6 vs AC.
Feats don't matter that much to your core business except that you should take Improved Initiative at level 1 and Superior Summons at level 3. There's an Extra Summons feat but it only gives +1 summon/day. Spell Focus (conjuration) is alright if you want to use a lot of offensive battlefield control spells which are almost exclusively conjurations.
People always say you should take a lot of languages so you can talk to your summons but this really only applies to elementals, dretches and hellhounds. All of your other options either don't have languages at all (animals), can communicate in any language (celestials and fiends) or speak Common (mephits and a few others.) So maybe take Auran, since you sometimes want Air Elementals to fly around and do things for you besides murder.
Summoners get some really nice spells, but not so many of them and you'll either get them late or at a lower save DC than a full caster. The really big deal is haste, which is one of the best spells in the game and is available to you at level 4 (wizards don't get it until 5). Grease, Enlarge Person, Invisibility, Fly, Dimension Door, Black Tentacles, and Wall of Stone are also standouts. Note that you can continue to summon and buff allies without breaking invisibility.
Peruse the Summon Monster lists and decided which ones you like best before you get to the table. Until level 5 you'll be summoning a whole lot of Riding Dogs but your options open up once you get SMIII. With SMIII I favor Lantern Archons, Leopards, Crocodiles and Dire Bats. SMIV brings your eternal bro the Hound Archon, Lions, Rhinos and a selection of Mephits that give you access to a whole bunch of Spell-like abilities.
You'll mostly want to add the Celestial template since enemies tend to be evil, but the other templates offer you other options on resistance.
This Master Summoner will spend battle buffing, tossing out battlefield control spells and mostly just summoning lots of critters into flanking positions. Out of battle you can summon up your dewy-eyed little roguebeast to walk ahead of the party and talk to strangers. Try not to feel too bad if he's incinerated by a trap. He'll be back tomorrow.
In general avoid dips, but there's one trick that's cool but questionably worth it. A 1-level dip in Nature Oracle with the Friend to the Animals revelation will give you Summon Nature's Ally and give any animals near you your CHA bonus on saves. You can also get CHA as a bonus to AC with the Extra Revelation feat. Getting access to Summon Nature's Ally means you can take the Starlight Summons feat which gives all your summons Blind-fight, a bonus to Perception and makes their natural weapons into cold iron. You also get a few extra spells and the ability to use wands from the oracle list. The drawback is that you slow down your spell progression and summoning and you are afflicted with an oracle's curse. Tongues (celestial) would be the least annoying.
Hmm.. really. No one mentions
Your summoned creatures gain your ferocity.
Prerequisites: Augment Summoning, Spell Focus (conjuration), half-orc or orc.
Benefit: Creatures you summon gain the ferocity universal monster ability.
FAQ
How does this ability work if a summoned creature disappears when it reaches 0 hp?
The summoned creature does not disappear at 0 hp, instead it disappears when killed (when its current hp get to a negative amount equal to its Constitution score).
[Source]
If orc/half orc (or human with racial heritage) It doubles the life of your summons. They last 1 minute per level so why not use them that whole time.
Augment summoning you get free, spell focus you need for superior summons, so one extra feat and double the life of your summons.
Use your eidolon as a mount/scout, or both. A halfling/gnome summoner with a trait for Stealth as a class skill and the Skilled evolution for Stealth/Perception on an eidolon used as a mount would make a pretty efficient scouting team.
Focus on taking Skilled (incredibly efficient evolution) and things like various enhanced senses (Scent + Skilled in Survival will put even the ranger to shame with tracking).
I am also making a master summoner for Shackled City, I was thinking about using the eidolon as a different kind of skilldolon, What do people think of the idea of using it as a kind of walking library, focusing on the knowledge skills?
As the party will already have a rogue to use their skills, I wouldn't want to overlap skill.I will be the primary arcane caster and I know the spell lists don't cut it the same as a wizard's but I can spam summons in combat and use the eidolon for knowledge checks, add in UMD as well for a bit of wand assistance where necessary.
Could this work or am I flogging a dead celestial pony?