The never less than stellar cognitive powers of the Advice forum brain trust is sorely required and most humbly asked for regarding the following scenario:
Starting a new adventure tomorrow. Home game with friends; homebrew campaign world. 5th level, 20-point buy, all Paizo stuff allowed, 3pp based on GM consent. We're a 3-man party; it's going to be a short-to-medium length adventure, mostly dungeon-based. The other two players are a vanilla archery ranger with a big cat companion and a vivisectionist/chirurgeon who'll be focusing on sneak attack and trying to cover our healing. I'm going to play a human or half-elf synthesist. Now, I know all about the truly unbearable levels of cheese and shenanigans this archetype can get up to, but I want to build one as teamplay-friendly and helpful to this particular group as possible. I don't want to utterly dominate combat or skills, though if there's any niche I might feel comfortable filling more fully it'd be that of a face, since neither of the other two characters will have stellar Charisma.
Are there any ideas out there for what sort of a focus might help this small group survive in a dungeon without detracting too much from the capacities of the other 2 members? Storywise the guy is going to be a dude who sort of discovered how to channel an outsider's essence into a mouldable suit and has since turned to a life of adventuring and amateur-superheroing in a big city in our campaign setting. He's Neutral Good and I want him to be versatile; I'm thinking synthesists can spread themselves pretty thin without losing combat viability, but honestly, I've never built a summoner before and I'm a bit confused over which evolutions to take. I'm not asking for a complete build or anything, just general pointers regarding feat chains and evolution combos that might help this character not add to synthesists' rep for overshadowing the rest of the party.
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Take Teamwork feats with the vivesectionist (Outflank for instance) and try get big party buffs (like haste at level 4). Pump UMD and get wands of cure x and infernal healing, because the alchemist is your healer it seems so you want as much heals as you can get. Make the Eidolon a Serpentine, and you can have the party scout covered (climb speed+high Stealth). Just some ideas.
Nice stuff, guys! Yeah, I definitely think that control in combat (trip, et al.) and healing would be smart choices. Our group sort of figured alchemists were quite decent healers, but after some research I've also come to realize we might need some supplementation. Of course, my own healing Rejuvenate Eidolon will take care of, but yeah, wands galore. I was thinking of maybe nabbing Eldritch Heritage, but couldn't really find a bloodline that'd work in my favor. Maybe get a familiar to help out with healing and buffs, though I'd probably have to wait till level 7 to get Improved, then. Anyway, thanks for all the suggestions!
A group friendly build I put together.