Hello, I thought I'd try out a summoner in my local PFS games. As I haven't played one before, I was hoping for some advice building the eidolon. From the advice of the people, what are some optimal choices as far as evolutions and feats? Should I go with a cat? A bear? A mount? The people in my society tend to optimize their characters as much as possible so I want to be able to keep up. Also, how are the archtypes for summoner? Do synthesist or master summoner do any outrageous or fun things?
Hello, I thought I'd try out a summoner in my local PFS games. As I haven't played one before, I was hoping for some advice building the eidolon. From the advice of the people, what are some optimal choices as far as evolutions and feats? Should I go with a cat? A bear? A mount? The people in my society tend to optimize their characters as much as possible so I want to be able to keep up. Also, how are the archtypes for summoner? Do synthesist or master summoner do any outrageous or fun things?
In my (limited) experience with a synthesist, yes. Very outrageous. Also very capable. You're extremely powerful with your eidolon, but without it, you're definitely lackluster. Typically, people reccomend bipedal for the ability to use manufactured weapons, and cast spells. That said, really, any type works. Think about what sort of image you want to convey, and go from there. Nearly any base form has a way of being powerful enough.
As a synthesist, did you go with natural or manufactured weapons?
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Hello, I thought I'd try out a summoner in my local PFS games. As I haven't played one before, I was hoping for some advice building the eidolon. From the advice of the people, what are some optimal choices as far as evolutions and feats? Should I go with a cat? A bear? A mount? The people in my society tend to optimize their characters as much as possible so I want to be able to keep up. Also, how are the archtypes for summoner? Do synthesist or master summoner do any outrageous or fun things?
I think its been said a gazillion times if you care to search, but for the msot part...
Quadreped, Claws, Pounce, Rake, Increased Size, Rhino Hide Armor, Pillage, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, etc.
All you have to do is increase your Strength and Natural Attacks and the Pounce, Rake and Rhino Hide Armor will take over in doing the rest. Mounts are meh...to be useful you'd have to sink SOOOO many feats into taking advantage of that. Its easier to just focus on being able to cast spells to make your Eidolon and allies more powerful, or controlling the battlefield from the back.
As a synthesist, did you go with natural or manufactured weapons?
It changed over the course of the game. I started out with natural, allowing me to pull ahead of the party at lower levels, but later on, found it cheaper in evolution points to just buy a magical huge category greatsword, and the evolutions to go with that, then spending on a variety of natural attacks.
That said, in the actual practice of a game, a synthesist really doesn't need to min-max. I'm in a party with a ranger, a battle oracle, and a cleric, and I'm easily the main tank. I can use spells, magic items, wield weapons, fly, use a breath weapon, and my melee abilities are devilish. (Pun intended.)
ossian666, maybe you didn't get the memo, but eidolons cannot wear armor.
I'm playing a standard summoner in Rise of the Runelords (lvl 9 currently), and I'm having a blast.
Several of my party members are pretty new to the game. And with a little optimization the eidolon is basically >50% of the dps (even though we have a 5-6 other players and I'm casting haste on the party most fights).
The summoner handbook is really good.
In actual play, I've found pounce to be too good to pass up. You can one shot pretty much any single mook creature (and some bigger things) on the battle field in the first round while everyone else is buffing and running around positioning themselves. So with that basis, I went with quadruped base form and always pick pounce as my first evo pt.
For the 9 levels I've played, I've always been short on evolution pts., and was glad I took the advice of others to be a half elf and always choose 1/4th extra evolution pt at every level (extra evolution feat helps a little too).
The second priority, after quadruped/pounce, is maximizing your natural attacks (if you aren't going the weapon route). Bite is free, and use arms/claws for 3 pts total (1 pt to add claws the first time to a set of feet) to get 2 primary attacks (repeat until you can't add 2 more attacks). And gore or tail/sting for 2 pts to fill out your last 1 attack up to the max (for when you have an even number of max attacks).
Then if you have more points, add Str (ability increase) or Large if you >= 8th level. Add evolutions that effect all your attacks like energy dmg. Add rend. Add in a improved natural armor or two. I'm not a fan of rake due to the wording of the evolution that you have to grapple - depending on if your GM house-rules eidolon pounce/rake to be like monster pounce/rake and works after any charge.
Work in flight when you can (and drop it when you get overland flight). Evolution surge (or lesser/greater) help you fill in the gaps for anything situational - skilled, scent/tremorsense/blindsense, energy resistance/immunity, etc. (on a side note, I think I've pissed off my GM a few times due to evolution surge making our party a little too prepared for almost anything...).
The handbook seems to favor weapons (to bypass DR and save you evolution points), as well as reach. I haven't found I miss those things too much in RotR, but YMMV. It depends on how much DR you face (specifically cold iron is the main difficult one to overcome), and the average spread of foes on the battle mat. I like natural attacks due to the straight up +str and no negatives on subsequent hits. I would only go the reach route if I went with biped base form - FLYCHARGEPOUNCE solves most things.
Feats - power attack, improved natural attack-claw, death from above. I also like Iron will (and improved), lunge, improved initiative, hammer the gap (once you get a bunch of attacks).
I buff the eidolon with mage armor always and shield/barkskin/protection from evil as I can. I give him items like Amulet of mighty fists and belt of giant strength.
At 9th level, I'm averaging 90 to 110 dmg per round against the foes we are fighting in RotR (attack routine: +16/+16/+16/+16/+16 1d8+10 +1d6 acid but usually power attacks). The eidolon usually runs around with 31 to 33 AC depending on if I get any pre-fight buff time (level 10 it'll be more like >35).
The AC on my summoner is pretty shoddy so I usually self invis and toss around buffs and spells that don't break invis. The weak spot on the eidolon is the magic saves (specifically will is horrible on quadrupeds). Watch out for magic users. Luckily your eidolon is just a pet and isn't your character, so if it gets blinded/cursed/ability drained, you can dismiss and resummon later when your party has time to cure it. The summon monster SLAs are a pretty awesome fallback.
The Synthesist gives up 2 turns per round (down to 1), skills, feats, etc to solve the weaknesses above and create a much more survivable character. So you have to weigh that when deciding between the two. I like having an expendable eidolon eating the bad guys face, while I'm running around hiding and staying out of harm's way, buffing the party.
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master summoner do any outrageous or fun things?
outrageous? maybe, fun? i'd say no. from what i've seen master summoners can be very deadly, just the fact that they can summon such a large army of monsters which ends up being very efficient during combat. But in combat, that's all you do, summon monsters, move them around, kill. your turn will take ages and everyone at the table will start to get annoyed since 1) combat is drawn out so much and 2) they actually don't get a chance to do anything, your summons will do it all.
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ossian666, maybe you didn't get the memo, but eidolons cannot wear armor.
Maybe not a normal Eidolon, but I swear someone on here mentioned a Synthesist gaining the benefit from armor being worn. You get the benefits of other magical items, so why would the armor be any different?!
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Maybe not a normal Eidolon, but I swear someone on here mentioned a Synthesist gaining the benefit from armor being worn. You get the benefits of other magical items, so why would the armor be any different?!
From the FAQ:
Summoner: Does a synthesist (page 80) keep any armor bonuses or other benefits from his armor when he is fused with his eidolon?
No. The eidolon is, in effect, the synthesist's armor, and any armor the synthesist wears does not function while the eidolon is present. Fortunately, this doesn't mean the synthesist has to remove his armor when wearing the eidolon, and when the eidolon is banished/dismissed/killed, the summoner's worn armor immediately begins functioning again.
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Maybe not a normal Eidolon, but I swear someone on here mentioned a Synthesist gaining the benefit from armor being worn. You get the benefits of other magical items, so why would the armor be any different?!From the FAQ:
Summoner: Does a synthesist (page 80) keep any armor bonuses or other benefits from his armor when he is fused with his eidolon?
No. The eidolon is, in effect, the synthesist's armor, and any armor the synthesist wears does not function while the eidolon is present. Fortunately, this doesn't mean the synthesist has to remove his armor when wearing the eidolon, and when the eidolon is banished/dismissed/killed, the summoner's worn armor immediately begins functioning again.
Ahh. See then I did NOT get the memo. We've been playing RAW. Didn't even think to read the FAQ.
Yikes! Im going to have to change up my summoner as well!
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I've seen three different kinds of summoner's being played, all with VERY different styles. All three were designed for Society play.
1. I play a straight summoner and have a quadruped with pounce, 4 natural attacks (my max) and Elemental damage. My actual character buffs the eidolon with long lasting buff's before battle, then buffs short-term and party buffs as soon as the fight starts.
I don't get to pounce often, as we are often in tight spaces, but very little survives more than a round in close combat with my Eidolon. (And my level 8 summoner has been attacked four times in his career.) On the more character driven side my summoner is a skill savant, with few points in a lot of skills so if we need to make a roll I can at least attempt it.
Compared to a druid I play with my eidolon can do a lot more damage per round than his seriously tweaked animal companion, but his companion has a lot more AC and HP and has never fallen in combat. This is unlike my eidolon which has been killed a few times, making me a LOT weaker for the rest of the session.
2. I've played with another straight summoner, who focuses more on the party support. His eidolon is a small humanoid using natural weapons. His eidolon is a "flank buddy" for all the melee fighters while he stays at the edge of the combat buffing and firing a crossbow.
His play-style is more about making the party more effective than just his eidolon, which focuses on survival. He also specialized in fewer skills than my own build, but had more points in each.
3. Finally I've run with a synthesist summoner/barbarian. He played a gnome with miserable physical stats save con. When he summoned he became a medium creature, wielding a medium greatsword, and had frightening stats. His level was too low to determine if he was going to go more for barbarian or more for summoner.
During the normal fights he would rage, then power attack for one hit drops. Then the last fight started and his opening words where "I start casting Enlarge Person on myself". The next round was "I Rage." He managed two rounds of attacks in that fight, both were non-crits on targets with full health. Both went to negative con and died in ONE hit.
He was hit several times, but he told the group that until his character was at one HP he would sacrifice his HP to keep the eidolon going. And outside of combat he still had all his skills. If I didn't want to avoid duplicating someones ideas I would have made one myself.
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Edit: In example one of my last build, I forgot to mention that the animal campaion was more accurate than the eidolon due to higher stats. The eidolon will be catching up, but he got the level 7 bump and my eidolon has not taken large yet.
Okay I left off actually answering the question.
For build advice it really depends on how you want to handle your attacks. Generally speaking though most builds will put enough points in to have their maximum number of attacks, then start doing everything else.
Natural weapons have the advantage of being free, having lots of evolution support, and being able to chose the damage type, including non-lethal, without penalty. (Or rather that was what I've been told.)
Manufactured weapons can be enchanted, have more feat support (and are generally all the same so they get more from the feats), can be made of special materials, and can do more damage per hit. They also aren't subject to the maximum attack cap that natural weapons are. I'll admit that I have never seen a non-synergist use weapons with their eidolon, however.
Regardless, if you go the multi-attack route take Elemental Attack as soon as you hit level 5 and watch your damage go crazy. (My eidolon went from 4d6 a round to potentially 8d6 a round and that's BEFORE haste.)
As for Archtypes, you saw my thoughts about the synergist above. As for the Master Summoner, you basically are sacrificing the utility of your eidolon to allow you to use your class summon. At low levels the advantages/disadvantages are minimal, but as your level go up and your summon options go up the advantages become quite acute, but your poor eidolon will have to really specialize in defense, or you can expect it to die, a lot. The Summoner feats are required for this build.
The synergist makes your character hard to kill, but you lose a whole set of actions from having your eidolon be a separate creature. It's hard to beat "I cast haste" and "My eidolon charges" in a single round.
Ahh. See then I did NOT get the memo. We've been playing RAW. Didn't even think to read the FAQ.Maybe not a normal Eidolon, but I swear someone on here mentioned a Synthesist gaining the benefit from armor being worn. You get the benefits of other magical items, so why would the armor be any different?!From the FAQ:
Summoner: Does a synthesist (page 80) keep any armor bonuses or other benefits from his armor when he is fused with his eidolon?
No. The eidolon is, in effect, the synthesist's armor, and any armor the synthesist wears does not function while the eidolon is present. Fortunately, this doesn't mean the synthesist has to remove his armor when wearing the eidolon, and when the eidolon is banished/dismissed/killed, the summoner's worn armor immediately begins functioning again.
The FAQ isn't official until put into errata.
Yikes! Im going to have to change up my summoner as well!
The FAQ isn't official until put into errata.
ossian666, maybe you didn't get the memo, but eidolons cannot wear armor.Maybe not a normal Eidolon, but I swear someone on here mentioned a Synthesist gaining the benefit from armor being worn. You get the benefits of other magical items, so why would the armor be any different?!
** spoiler omitted **
You can wear the armor not the eidolon.