I am building my new pathfinder society gnome summoner and I have a fairly good idea on what I want to play. My only problem is I'm terrible with 20 point buys. The important part about my character is ill be flying around on my eidolon. If anyone can help me that would be awesome!
Rook Darklyth wrote: I am building my new pathfinder society gnome summoner and I have a fairly good idea on what I want to play. My only problem is I'm terrible with 20 point buys. The important part about my character is ill be flying around on my eidolon. If anyone can help me that would be awesome! With only that to go upon, I would say to not invest in STR.
Perhaps:
STR 05 (7-2race)
INT 12
WIS 12
DEX 14
CON 16 (14+2race)
CHA 18 (16+2race)
As a place from which to start?
From there if you want more in a stat, decide where you don't mind having less as a result.
In the end point buys are all about tradeoffs. Start with a reasonable guess, and then tradeoff from there.
-James
Is it possible to take less in wis and int to get to 19 in cha? That'll put me at 20 by level 4. What do you think?
Ill add more to this later but I'd go with
STR 10 (8)
DEX 16
CON 13 (15)
INT 12
WIS 10
CHA 14 (16)
Or u can swap int with wis but I wouldn't. More later
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
If you are new I'd avoid dump stats.
Also what kind of summoner? You are not a full progression-spellcaster so having a high cha may not be required. You could probably get by with even a 15 starting cha. Same number of bonus spells as say a 19 cha, but leaves you more for other stats.
14 con is a good idea.
Then I'd shoot for a 14 or so dex. 12 int for the skill point and effective +1 to all your int skills. Rest are your dicscretion.
Renegadeshepherd wrote: Ill add more to this later but I'd go with
STR 10 (8)
DEX 16
CON 13 (15)
INT 12
WIS 10
CHA 14 (16)
Or u can swap int with wis but I wouldn't. More later
Before I get specific on my post ill get to a question u asked. Yes u can reach 19 or even 20 charisma. However, unlike say a sorcerer you gain very little for more charisma than what is required to cast ur spells. yes u gain DC, yes u can gain 1 more spell, yes u are a better mouth but that is not very important. most of ur spells will be cast on urself or your summoned beasts so the DC barely matters.
Now for why I chose the stats I did.. first I don't know ur master plan of ur character so I have to generalize a bit. A gnome summoner is never going to be worth his salt in melee battle so DEX is the natural "attack stat" to go with so 16 is the minimum in my eyes. With that u can be fairly good in either dervish melee OR any ranged fighting u may choose to do. Dex also plays on ur saying u wanted to mount your eidilon at some point. Dex will also add initiative and AC that you will BADLY need as this class.
Your charisma would be high enough at 16 to cast any spell and get bonuses. 16 is all a summoner needs, anything is a guilty pleasure more often than not. Your constitution at 15 is where the controversy will come in. At level 4 it becomes 16 so you only miss out on 3 HP. The good news is ur hardy enough to be diverse and even get into fights urself. You also can use life link to greater effect. The bad news is that for ur constitution to be this high u sacrifice the opportunity to be better in other areas.
DEX, CON, CHA are the 3 that have to be high but I recommended a 12 int because u get a language, a skill point, and maybe more for it. but one can easily argue for wisdom as well if those don't matter to u.
I would say that u should not dump anything, even strength unless u go PURE caster.
If I were to do a gnome summoner:
Str: 5
Int: 12
Wis: 12
Dex: 14
Con: 16
Chr: 18
(Edit: Same as James above, as it turns out).
That seems about right; no real reason to be wearing armor or carrying much (if you are mounted you don't mind going into medium load for a mithril breastplate); your primary goal will be to buff and stay safe. High Con will make you very survivable. I'd personally recommend against riding the Eidilon; but if it's your flavor I would understand.
The above avoids dumping saves or skill points; gives you a solid save for things like grease, create pit, and slow; and lots of hp.
I'd personally take a trait to add stealth as a class skill, then max out diplomacy, stealth, and use magic device. Stay hidden, buff the eidilon and your party; be the face as needed (Diplomacy is also the most necessary PFS skill to make your faction missions).
What do you see your character doing while flying around on his eidolon? How will you contribute in combat?
The way I see it, you have two options: either your eidolon fights things and you buff your eidolon, or you both stay out of combat and you try to contribute through spells. However, that second option isn't great for a standard summoner: you won't really have enough relevant spells to be properly useful if your eidolon doesn't contribute to combat. You could play a master summoner though, and fly around safely on your half level eidolon while you use your summon monster ability plus your spells to contribute to the fight. For this, the builds given above (with high charisma and fairly low physical ability scores) would work very well.
If you want your eidolon to do the fighting, I would strongly suggest you also contribute something to the fighting yourself, by getting yourself a decent strength score and a lance. If your eidolon is next to the enemies, so are you, so you might as well help out. So in that case I'd go for:
Ability scores: str 17-2, dex 14, con 12+2, int 10, wis 8, cha 12+2
Increase strength at every opportunity. At some point you need a charisma headband to go up to 16 charisma, you never need more than that.
Feats:
1. Martial weapon proficiency: lance
3. Combat casting
5. Power attack
- At later levels consider weapon focus and furious focus to improve your chances of hitting, combat reflexes if you want more attacks of opportunity, or arcane strike for more damage.
Eidolon: quadruped.
Key evolutions: flight, claws, pounce, improved natural armor, ability increase: strength. Add extra limbs for extra claw attacks whenever you get access to more attacks. Get large at level 8. Take power attack and weapon focus claws as feats, as well as iron will and possibly improved iron will.
So now you're riding around on your flying eidolon, which has a ton of natural attacks and pounce. When your eidolon pounces, you can hit the enemy with a lance attack that deals double damage, which gives some serious hits. When your eidolon isn't charging things, you can cast spells (defensively, which you're good at) and use your lance (which is a reach weapon) to take attacks of opportunity. Your armor class is not going to be great, but with small size, decent dex, a chain shirt, the barkskin spell and the shield ally ability you will probably be fine.
Rook Darklyth wrote: Is it possible to take less in wis and int to get to 19 in cha? That'll put me at 20 by level 4. What do you think? Certainly fine.. it just depends where you want to focus, and the inherent tradeoffs.
Unlike other posters, I'd say that the summoner spell list has a nice selection of spells that rely upon save DCs. You can focus on that as a contribution in combat, and it will be more useful (imho) than trying to be a mediocre melee fighter.
My suggestion for you now is to figure out what skills you would like, what you really want, and what you feel you MUST have.
For example, you MUST have some ranks in ride, but you might really want MAX ranks or might only like having that.
Once you start that out then you can figure where your INT score needs to be. You can rob from that to increase your CHA. Likewise you can rob from WIS should you choose... or a combination of both.
Might I ask: why a gnome summoner riding the eidolon? And what else have you got figured out (again along the lines of like/want/NEED)?
-James
james maissen wrote:
Unlike other posters, I'd say that the summoner spell list has a nice selection of spells that rely upon save DCs. You can focus on that as a contribution in combat, and it will be more useful (imho) than trying to be a mediocre melee fighter.
I would definitely agree that the summoner has a good selection of control-type spells that require a save. But I don't think the summoner has enough spells per day to let his only contribution to combat come from spells. So in my opinion, he either needs to use his summon monster ability (so in this case, play a master summoner) or get his eidolon into combat. And once you're getting your eidolon into combat and riding it, it seems like a shame not to have a lance and decent strength. But it's definitely not required. You could also play a summoner who lets his eidolon do the fighting while he sits on top casting battlefield control spells and buffs. Just make sure you can make your concentration checks to cast defensively. (get the feat as well as the trait that increases concentration checks)
It really comes down to how u fight. The spells and summons and eidolon gives near infinite diversity. A plan for how u contribute in battle, who h besides being the face that's all u can do, is essential. If ur going to be riding ur eidolon into battle I'd get large and huge abilities ASAP.
soupturtle wrote: it seems like a shame not to have a lance and decent strength. If you have a lance, then you need spirited charge, power attack, and furious focus.. that's a lot of feats without bonus feats.
When I see boosting the racially penalized stat, and going with just 12s (or less) in the bonus stats.. it never sits well with me.
But I do agree with you, that hearing more from the OP is essential.
-James
You're right that it's not exactly an easy investment. I guess you have to make a choice between being good at spells that give a save, and being competent at melee but mostly casting buff spells.
What bothers me though is that when you're riding your eidolon while the eidolon is fighting every single spell you cast has to be cast defensively, and those checks aren't trivial. So then doing some melee seems like a safer option, and if you wield a reach weapon at least you'll get some action in through attacks of opportunity.
soupturtle wrote: What bothers me though is that when you're riding your eidolon while the eidolon is fighting every single spell you cast has to be cast defensively, and those checks aren't trivial. So then doing some melee seems like a safer option, and if you wield a reach weapon at least you'll get some action in through attacks of opportunity. Oh, I understand... which is why I wanted to hear more about what the original poster had in mind.
-James
I apologize for the delayed post. From what I hear in this thread I'm liking the lance idea, tho I don't know how we'll ill be able to wield it as a gnome. Another option I'm thinking about taking would be giving my eidolon the flyby feat, would this allow me to have my eidolon attack, get safely up on the air, and then cast control spells from above. Would I have to defensively cast at this point? If I chose to go human I would get that additional feat allowing me to do well with a lance but the trade off would be the lack of mounted combat till level level 4. If you all need anymore information ill be sure to check in later. Thanks again. :)
The flyby feat would work, but then your eidolon would be able to take only one attack per round, while most of the combat power of eidolons usually comes from taking many attacks per round. Giving your eidolon just one big attack could work fairly well at low-mid levels, but I'm not sure about higher levels. But that way you would be able to cast without needing to cast defensively. In principle you would have to make a concentration check for 'vigorous motion while casting', but that's quite an easy check that you'll be able to make automatically from quite low levels. I think all in all this would be a pretty useful character.
Also, I made casting defensively sound pretty horrible in my earlier post, but at mid to high levels it should be pretty much automatic if you build for it. You need to make a check of 15+2 x spell level, using your caster level plus charisma modifier. Your caster level will surpass 2x spell level after level 4, so for example at level 6 you need your charisma modifier plus any feats or traits plus your roll to be 13 for automatic success. If you take the combat casting feat and the focused mind trait and get your charisma up to 20 at level 4, and get a headband of +2 cha by level 6, that makes +12, so with a roll of one you get exactly 19, which you need for your second level spells.
If you are going to go for riding your eidolon while casting spells, I would consider playing a halfling instead of a gnome, or taking the adopted trait as a gnome, to get the helpful trait. That way you can use aid another to help your eidolon in quite a big way when you're out of spells, or when it's not worth casting another spell because your party is already winning.
With the lance idea, you are right that you're pretty short on feats. You need to spend a feat on proficiency, then get power attack, and later on probably also furious focus. You also kinda want the mounted combat -> ride by attack -> spirited charge line of feats, but that's probably too many feats. Still, even with just power attack, lance proficiency and 16 str (which you could have at level 4) you'd do a respectable 2d6+14 damage, with a to hit of +8. If you then get furious focus at level 5 your single attack damage on a charge will be pretty comparable to many melee characters. And you'll be able to charge quite often, since you're flying.
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