Synthesist Help! Need to be able to be offensive with spells


Advice


Hey, this is my first thread, so please forgive any mistakes I make. I'm new to the forums and Pathfinder in general, so please bear with me. I want to make a synthesist character, but the GM wants me to make an offensive, blaster-ish caster. I need to be able to convince him that I can be an offensive caster AND the melee monster I will be. What spells, feats, and evolutions should I take. Lastly, I would be a level six half elf. My eidolon is going to be a biped, so don't tell me to change that. Thanks in advance!


Pits are great offensively, especially if you or your pet can bull rush, or in conjunction with spells like grease. I really enjoy glitter dust for battlefield control. The summoner spell list is kinda light on purely offensive spells, but seems to have decent buff and control power.


Spell Levels (almost zero direct damage spells, so you will have to blast 'creatively')

Level 1
- Enlarge Person, increases your damage output and reach to allow you to project damage to a wider array of potential targets

Level 2
- Create pit, little bit of damage plus lots of Battlefield Control, persistent enough to potentially inflict more damage to more targets over time
- Haste, extra attack for all nearby allies almost doubles team's damage output at low levels.

Level 3
- Pellet Blast, a shotgun for your eidolon
- Obsidian Flow 20' radius burst, + entangle
- Black Tentacles, debilitating damage over time
- Spiked pit
- Summon Monster IV, (who needs a lightning bolt, when a celestial Bison and keep trampling medium and smaller targets for several rounds)
- Mad Monkeys, most people would rather be stuck in a fireball
- Evolution Surge (at 9th level this can dial you up a breath weapon)

Level 4
- Summon Monster V (Bralani Azata get lightning bolt twice per day) and stay useful after the lightning bolts are done... also 1d3 Bison :D
- Acid Pit, Everything fun about a pit, only with alot of motivation to get the heck out

Level 5
- Conjure Black Pudding
- Creeping Doom, doesn't seem like much until you see used on you
- Summon Monster VII (Even see a celestial T-rex smite something?)

Level 6
-Incendiary Cloud


Summoners really don't blast, Synthesis or otherwise. You get a handful of good save-or-sucks. If your GM will tolerate a pit-creating mechwarrior, you're set, but if he really want fireballs and lightning bolts, you're pretty much up a creek.

Take the half-elf favored class bonus for extra evo points. And take Skilled: Diplomacy to convince your GM that create pit spells are totally blasting.


Maybe change the race of the character to Samsaran, and pick up some offensive spells via that interesting spell list mechanic they have.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Why does your GM want you to make a specific type of character, anyway? Is it a replacement-character?


It is a replacement character. Our old blaster left the party, so I'm supposed to be the new one. Secondly, I didn't even know about the create pit spells, and they look good! This should help a lot. Last thing, I don't know what feats to take. I was thinking combat casting (ill be casting in combat), arcane strike (with the four claws I have, it could be good), and weapon focus (claws), I'm a little sceptic all about arcane strike, but I'm not sure. Tips would be appreciated!


Extra Evolution is always solid if unexciting. Combat casting is similarly not bad. Improved Initiative. Combat Reflexes, if it makes sense for you.

Summoners don't have a lot of really good feat options.


What evolutions should I take to maximize melee power? I have 9 points, how would you use them?


It recently occurred to me that I could combine weapon attacks with my natural claws. I don't know how to do that. Could someone explain it? Would it be viable? If I had a sword in a hand that had claws, could I attack with the sword and the claws?


You can attack with manufactured weapons and natural attacks at the same time, but not with the same limb. So if you have two claws, and wield a sword in one of them, you can attack with the sword and the other claw.

However, when you combine manufactured weapons and natural attacks all natural attacks count as secondary. That means you take a -5 penalty on the attack rolls of your natural attacks. (Unless you have the multiattack feat, in which case it's only -2.)

How to maximize melee power depends a bit on what base form you have, biped or quadruped.

For a biped I'd start with bite x2 (the second one is to give a 1.5x strength bonus), improved damage bite, reach bite, ability increase strength and improved natural armor for 7 points. Do something fun with the last two points (or add some more natural attacks), wield a big two handed weapon, and attack with that on standard attacks and with that and your bite on full attacks.

For a quadruped I'd start with claws, ability increase str, pounce, rake and energy attacks for the first 8 points. The 9th one could be well spend on improving the existing bite attack. This build is all about natural weapons, and trying to pounce as much as possible.

In both cases, get the large evolution as soon as you're allowed to.

As for blasting: you cannot be a synthesist and a blaster, really. Also, in my opinion it's not really good form by your GM to try to force you to play a specific type of character - especially a new player should just play whatever they would like to play. A more experienced player could be expected to try to fill a particular role in the party, but even then 'blaster' is way too specific an instruction in my opinion.


After some thought- why can't you be a synthesist Blaster? Assuming summoner is mandatory. The only difference between a pure-melee synthesist and a blaster-focusing synthesist would be how they spend their feats.

Here is what I suggest.

Evolutions: Flight (6 points), Improved Natural Armor (2 points), Skilled (whatever skill you want) 1 point
Feats: Power Attack, Combat Casting (maybe), Empower Spell... whatever other blasting feats are necessary.
Stats: Dump strength and don't put anything into dex and con, maximize Charisma.
Race: Half-Elf for the Favored Class bonus

Fight with a sword. If you stick your claws on your feet, you can use them to make Secondary Natural Attacks at -5 to hit dealing half damage.

You'd be a nasty melee combatant with high AC, a fast flight speed, and you could raise a hand and shoot nasty blasting spells all you want.

The summoner spell list is sadly restricted in terms of blasting spells but there are still some good possibilities.


Like what? I don't see any good possibilities at all. There's a few battlefield control spells that deal some damage on the side (spiked pit, acid pit, obsidian flow, incendiary cloud) and there's pellet blast, but there isn't a single spell on the summoner list that manages the basic d6 damage per caster level all regular blast spells are based on.

Yes, summoning spells tend to be better than blast spells anyway, but that doesn't help anyone make a 'synthesist blaster'.


The Artaxerxes wrote:
It is a replacement character. Our old blaster left the party, so I'm supposed to be the new one. Secondly, I didn't even know about the create pit spells, and they look good! This should help a lot. Last thing, I don't know what feats to take. I was thinking combat casting (ill be casting in combat), arcane strike (with the four claws I have, it could be good), and weapon focus (claws), I'm a little sceptic all about arcane strike, but I'm not sure. Tips would be appreciated!

Use the quadraped eidolon base form, then explain to your dm that your claw attacks + pounce is your blasting, and that your spells wont do damage, they will just buff and controll the battlefield. If he is worried about a magical character being able to do damage, you have that covered as a synthesist (eidolons are among the best damage dealers in the game), but your spells wont be doing it, the magically summoned outsider you where like a mech does the damage.


How does this sound: improved natural armor, flight with an extra speed increase, ability increase on strength (bringing it to 20), and two more sets of limbs. That's all ten evolution points I can use at level six. I'll be using the biped form. Each hand, rather than a natural attack, would wield a katana. My feats will be exotic weapon proficiency (from being a half-elf), arcane strike, combat casting, and weapon focus katana. That means each hit with a katana will be 1d8+7 with a +10 bonus to hit. If all six katanas hit it would be 6d8+42. Am I figuring that right? Does this seem good? Another way I could prove that this would be a good character would be if I simply did ludicrous damage.


The Artaxerxes wrote:
How does this sound: improved natural armor, flight with an extra speed increase, ability increase on strength (bringing it to 20), and two more sets of limbs. That's all ten evolution points I can use at level six. I'll be using the biped form. Each hand, rather than a natural attack, would wield a katana. My feats will be exotic weapon proficiency (from being a half-elf), arcane strike, combat casting, and weapon focus katana. That means each hit with a katana will be 1d8+7 with a +10 bonus to hit. If all six katanas hit it would be 6d8+42. Am I figuring that right? Does this seem good? Another way I could prove that this would be a good character would be if I simply did ludicrous damage.

I presume you know how 2 weapon fighting rules interface with multi-armed creatures...

multiweapon fighting feat:

Multiweapon Fighting (Combat)
This multi-armed creature is skilled at making attacks with multiple weapons.
Prerequisites: Dex 13, three or more hands.
Benefit: Penalties for fighting with multiple weapons are reduced by –2 with the primary hand and by –6 with off hands.
Normal: A creature without this feat takes a –6 penalty on attacks made with its primary hand and a –10 penalty on attacks made with all of its off hands. (It has one primary hand, and all the others are off hands.) See Two-Weapon Fighting in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook.
Special: This feat replaces the Two-Weapon Fighting feat for creatures with more than two arms.


A Kali build with many arms and weapons can build a frightening DPS, but I find it makes you significantly less flexible in combat, at least until the Dimensional Assault feats; you're very dependent on full attacks, and you don't have many evolution points for flight and armor as you must get as many arms as possible before it pays off well.


Don't do the katanas. MC Templar did a magnificent job of explaining why.

Just use claws. You can spend evo points to up the damage on those things if you feel it's necessary, but you only have 4 attacks anyway so it's smart to just... not have 6 arms.

I'm playing a regular summoner right now and my eidolon is just a regular biped with one set of clawed hands and claws on his feet for his 4 attacks. He's a big fuzzy lionman. He wrecks things. Although I think that's due to the Large evolution and you don't have access to that yet.

I do have actual questions about your GMs demands, though. Why does he think you need to be a blaster? For AoE? What's the rest of the party look like? Is there already a fighter? You being a synthesist might crash his party and do the exact opposite of what your GM asked of you.

I can help you build a decent summoner, but I don't know if thats actually what you need.


The Artaxerxes wrote:
Hey, this is my first thread, so please forgive any mistakes I make. I'm new to the forums and Pathfinder in general, so please bear with me. I want to make a synthesist character, but the GM wants me to make an offensive, blaster-ish caster. I need to be able to convince him that I can be an offensive caster AND the melee monster I will be. What spells, feats, and evolutions should I take. Lastly, I would be a level six half elf. My eidolon is going to be a biped, so don't tell me to change that. Thanks in advance!

Instead be a samsaran and get blasty spells from other classes.


Being a samsaron is a great idea by the looks of it. I'm not sure if my GM will allow it. If he does, what are some spells you would choose to carry over for a blaster. Since I'm a summoner I can only take up to 6th level spells, right?

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Synthesist Help! Need to be able to be offensive with spells All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.