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There are basically two types of eidolon.
The Biped is the "defensive" Eidolon; You focus on reach, opportunity attacks and possibly grappling. Evolutions: Reach, extra limbs, claws, grab. Note that you can cat Enlarge Person on your own Eidolon. And Mage Armor.
The Quadroped is the offensive Eidolon. You focus on Pounce, and getting as many attacks on the charge as you can. Rake is your friend here.
Meanwhile, the summoner himself is a half-caster with medium BaB. You need a medium Charisma - not 18+, because the spells you're casting are buffs, not Save-or-suck. You don't need a lot of feats for the summoning side of things (Extra Evolution is nice, but not mandatory, Augment Summoning is also entirely optional), so you're free to develop combat style. Or spend your feats on out-of-combat abilities and let your eidolon and spellcating pick up the slack.
Pupsocket has it right. That being said, the offensive quadroped is generally considered superior.
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Play a Master Summoner and ignore the Eidolon.
Synthesist basically picks an Eidolon, then becomes it.
Master Summoner, it's abilities and strategies are "Spam ALL the summons and hold up the game for 45 minutes per turn".
A standard summoner is a half-caster with a melee companion that can outperform any other melee character in terms of DPR. A summoners spells is mostly buff and battlefield control spells.
However, there is nothing stopping a summoner from building his eidolon in a different way, it can be an excellent scout and skill-monkey.
A master summoner specializes in the summoners Summon Monster SLA at the expense of his eidolon, which is a lot weaker than a regular summoner's eidolon. However, while a standard summoner cannot use his Summon Monster while his eidolon is out, the master summoner can. He is an excellent battlefield controller, and the sheer amount of Summon Monster spells he can cast, as a standard action no less (same as with all summoners), makes him a beast on the battlefield. These do need a good charisma, as that determines how many Summon Monster SLAs you will get each day, 10+ is not uncommon.
A synthesist is probably the best melee character there is, being able to create a character that is hard to take down, while having a high DPR.
However, it is not as powerful as the other summoners, because he cannot cast spells and fight at the same time, his eidolon is more of an exoskeleton and thus has no actions on its own.
The standard run-of-the-mill summoner might only have two eidolon types to choose from, but with some imagination you can get more than that. As mentioned is the Skill-monkey, while not all that powerful in combat, it can double as a rogue. An eidolon can get a cheap evolution that gives +8 to one skill, quite a boost. Another type of eidolon, which can be seen as a sub-type of the offensive one, is the multi-weapon-fighting eidolon. It can get an awful high DPR, but can become a bit tiresome in combat, what with 14+ attacks at level 13 (with pounce).
The summoner class in general suffers from poor writing, as the rules are not very well laid out, the synthesist especially. So when you have decided which archetype to go with, check back with the build, and we'll look it over.
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Be very wary with summoner builds, particularly the synthesist. It's very, very easy to misinterpret the rules and end up with an incredibly over-powered character, to the detriment of the rest of the party. I personally don't allow them, but if you do, make sure to read all the rules on them a couple times over.
If you want a master summoner, you had better be seriously prepared. Have all the attack routines (atk bonus and damage) ready for everything you summon, roll attacks before your turn comes around, and have a system to track HP and conditions separately for each summon. If the turn for one of your summons takes more than a few seconds (you should be able to tell the GM "my archon moves here and attacks at +X for Y damage" without thinking about it), you're going to start getting a lot of complaints.
All that being said, the summoner is an awesome class. Almost on par with the bard for buffing (no songs but you get Haste as a level 2 spell, etc.) and comes with a melee machine that can be literally anything you can dream up. Opens up a lot of possibilities for duos that you can't pull off with just a familiar or animal companion - you can get really creative as long as you and your group don't mind you roleplaying 2 things at once.
In terms of party role: you help with buffs, your eidolon is a DPR machine when properly built (though tanking is a bit harder), you can be the party face, and though you're not going to be the skill monkey you can be really, really good at one or two skills thanks to the Skilled evolution (and later the aspect class ability).
Do beware that if you're trying to build your summoner for melee, the shared magic item slots are going to hurt - only one of you gets that +str belt, the other will have to do with Bull's Strength or other buffs.
With a Master Summoner, it is all in the feat choice, as it is more how you use your already great power, than what you can bring extra to the table.
Some good feat choices includes:
Summon Good Monster, for good aligned Master Summoners. Greatly expands the selection of summoned monsters, with some very good ones included. A decent 1st level choice.
Improved Initiative. Going first is always good.
Eldritch Heritage -> Arcane. Get a familiar. At the bare minimum it is another +4 to initiative, plus the Alertness feat, but with clever use, this is also a good scout and much more. There are some very excellent choices with the improved version. There are some decent threads around these parts that discusses these further, including one I started. Great feat selection for a Half-Elf, as they already get the otherwise meh Skill Focus feat. Infact, A half-elf without it, is not living up to its full potential IMHO. You can also chose other heritages, but they are either heavily back loaded (Abyssal, only becomes fun at level 18), or useless for a Master Summoner (most others).
Superior Summoning. More or less a required feat for a Master Summoner.
Improved Familiar (see above)
Leadership. Duh! Always. Potentially broken as hell. A Kirin for a mount? Free Wish each week? Books getting thrown at you? Ya bet!
If you plan on using the Create Pit line of spells, or Grease or other such spells, a Spell Focus (Conjuration) might be in order, even though you can skip it.
Focus on Charisma, it is needed for the many Summon Monster X SLA, though when you hit 12+ each day, you'll probably not going to need more, you've got a good spell selection as well.
Otherwise, Con and Dex is your goto attributes, and skimping too much on Wis makes an Enchanter happy, so think about it before hand.
Let your eidolon be a skill monkey, and equip it with a net, so it isn't completely useless in combat. You can keep it around for combat at the lower levels (and build it for such, as you can just switch to a skill monkey build later), but at the higher levels, multiple Summon Monster X is far better. That the eidolon really takes a backseat in combat, also means that you can keep most or all of the magic slots for yourself.
But, as said, what makes a Master Summoner optimized is more how it is used. Especially how the Summon Monster X is used. A Master Summoner has a great toolbox, but knowing what tool to use and when is rather important.
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Here are the feats that my halfling MS took
1. Extra Summons
2. Augment Summoning(Bonus)
3. Superior Summoning
5. Extra Summons
7. Skill Focus(Knowledge Planes)
9. Eldritch Heritage( Arcane Bond) Love me some greensting Scorpion
11. Extra Summons
13. Eldritch Heritage: Arcane Bloodline(New Arcana)
15. Extra Summons
17. Greater Eldritch Heritage(School Power: Conjuration)
Awesome character, don't let the naysayers bring you down. Just be prepared. I have 1 to 3 monsters per level prepared on 3X5 cards and let other players run them although I rarely SLA more than 2 per encounter. Buff the party and be the battlefield general your party will love you.
And here's the kicker I have never summoned my eidolon, in fact I have not even built one.
Master summoner is great because he comes out of the box optimized.
Superior Summons and Extra Summons are the only feats you really want to have.
Summon responsibly though. Taking forever to do your turn is the worse thing you can do as a Master Summoner and is why the class is banned in PFS.
Here are the feats that my halfling MS took
1. Extra Summons
2. Augment Summoning(Bonus)
3. Superior Summoning
5. Extra Summons
7. Skill Focus(Knowledge Planes)
9. Eldritch Heritage( Arcane Bond) Love me some greensting Scorpion
11. Extra Summons
13. Eldritch Heritage: Arcane Bloodline(New Arcana)
15. Extra Summons
17. Greater Eldritch Heritage(School Power: Conjuration)Awesome character, don't let the naysayers bring you down. Just be prepared. I have 1 to 3 monsters per level prepared on 3X5 cards and let other players run them although I rarely SLA more than 2 per encounter. Buff the party and be the battlefield general your party will love you.
And here's the kicker I have never summoned my eidolon, in fact I have not even built one.
So you did go with Eldritch Heritage in the end. Good to know.
:)
How should I distribute ability points? It's a 30 point buy btw
If your just trying to learn about a Summoner on your play test I would stick to a Normal Summoner. You have 3 types of Summoner... Master, Normal, and Syth. They all play completely different. A Normal Summoner will at least let you see what a Eidolon can do(A Syth shell is exactly like this so you can kinda judge what a Syth can do) and give you a taste of the power of a Master Summoner. Its a good starting point. If you do go Master Summoner I wouldn't completely ignore your Eidolon. Even if you dont use him during combat he can be an excellent scout or skill monkey(Even at half strength).
As for stats on a 30 point buy. See below for a Normal Summoner and a Master Summoner. I would lower the DEX a bit and raise Wisdom or Int on a Syth. Contrary to what some will say... Dumping all your physical stats to 7 is a horrible idea for a Syth. You wont be in Syth form all the time and if your shell pops with a 7 con you will probably die from the HP loss. So the stats below are a good start for any Summoner on such a high point buy(Why so high? Its twice the points recomended). Also a High casting stat is important on a Summoner. They do have some nice Save or Suck spells. They already suffer from lower level spell progresion so having a High DC is harder to begin with. It also helps to provide more bonus spell slots. The following is just my opinion on a good starting point.
30 Point Buy (Half-Elf)
STR:8 DEX:14 CON:14 INT:14 WIS:10 CHA:20(18 + 2 Racial)
20 Point Buy (Half-Elf)
STR:7 DEX:12 CON:14 INT:12 WIS:8 CHA:20(18 + 2 Racial)
15 Point Buy (Half-Elf)
STR:8 DEX:12 CON:14 INT:12 WIS:8 CHA:18(16 + 2 Racial)
Note: I went with Half-Elf for the amazing Favored Class bonus. You can ignore that for a Master Summoner as you dont care about your Eidolon as much.
If you're running as powerful a campaign as you are running, I hope you intend to boost the power of the summoned creatures. Most of the creatures are built with the idea that you are running a fairly standard campaign. If enemies and characters are going to be much, much stronger, then the summoner's creatures should be stronger as well.
Nah don't worry about that. If the campaign gets harder just summon more than you would.
My last Master summoner was able to handle an encounter twice his CR because the GM had never seen me nova before.
Title says it all.. Looking for optimized build ideas with maybe a brief summary describing their strong points/what roll they fill in the party. This is the only class I haven't at least done a little research on so just trying to broaden a bit :)
First:
I really don't suggest the summoner for a noob to the PF system. It is one of the most complicated and easily screwed up classes. I have only seen 4 combat eidolon builds. Of those 3 were not actually legal. The 4th might not have been legal. Plus all the possible summoned creatures (maybe with templates), all their different attack types, all their different defenses, etc... Can really grind play to a halt while an inexperienced player flips through books reading different entries.However if you are an experienced and very organized player who is just a noob to this particular class, that could be a different situation. I think the summoner requires more out of game preperation, research, and organization of any of the classes. If you are up for that level of time commitment, give it a try.
Second:
The most powerful I have seen in actual play was:
Master summoner who only ever used his eidolon for a mount and/or minor body guard. Invested in stealth and spent most each combat invisible directing augmented summoned monster attacks. That requires lingustics and something to speak with animals to get them to do complex tactics or other tasks. He also put alot into UMD to use lots of low level wands for buffing his summons.
30 point buy!? That's higher than the system generally allows for.
Pretty sure the official cap is at 25. Going above that is fine, but is a house rule, and one whose repercussions I hope your GM is prepared for.