Though if you wanna pull something out of this in that vein, how does he have 4 Claw attacks if he only has two hands? Last I heard claws were not for feet, those were for talon attacks.
The claws evolution (quoted upthread) lets you have up to one pair of claws for the eidolon's legs.
Eidolons are summoned creatures, they have their summoner's alignment. Protection from _____ would stop it from being able to attack with natural attacks (unless he has SR). The guy with the protection can't do anything offensive directly to the synthesist, but he can totally ignore the nat attack onslaught and go about his business.
In addition, due to its tie to its summoner, an eidolon can touch and attack creatures warded by protection from evil and similar effects that prevent contact with summoned creatures.
I will have to look it up. I read somewhere that if all you have is a secondary, then its treated as a primary. But it is possible I'm wrong on this.Ok according to the bestiary, if you have a single attack its always a primary, if you have multiple types of secondary attacks but only attack with one then its treated as secondary. If you only one type of secondary attack but multiples of them, they are treated as primary.
You mean I could only take tentacle attacks and then proceed to do unspeakable things to my enemies?!
ITS JUST LIKE MY JAPANESE ANIME!
Or maybe the synthesist just looks like someone wearing a
Cthulhu Ski-mask.
This whole thread illustrates my belief that while there isn't really anything wrong with how the Summoner works, there's a whole lot wrong with how people think the summoner works...
Multiattack deals with secondary attacks while Multiweapon Fighting deals with primary attacks . This synthesist only uses primary attacks.
Multiweapon Fighting has nothing to do with Natural Attacks. It's used for manufactured weapons.
Core Rule Book page 182: “Attacks made with natural weapons , such as claws and bites , are melee attacks that can be made against any creature within your reach (usually 5 feet).”
And the general rule of "Eidolons get no Feats" does not override the specific rule of "Eidolons get Multiattack". This is just common sense, use your head. Why would it be printed that they get it if they don't actually get it?
I truly do not understand how you can read ‘the eidolon gets no feats’ to mean anything other than ‘the eidolon gets no feats’.
Maybe Multiattack is printed this way for summoners who are not synthesist archetypes.
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Multiattack deals with secondary attacks while Multiweapon Fighting deals with primary attacks . This synthesist only uses primary attacks.
Multiweapon Fighting has nothing to do with Natural Attacks. It's used for manufactured weapons.Core Rule Book page 182: “Attacks made with natural weapons , such as claws and bites , are melee attacks that can be made against any creature within your reach (usually 5 feet).”
And the general rule of "Eidolons get no Feats" does not override the specific rule of "Eidolons get Multiattack". This is just common sense, use your head. Why would it be printed that they get it if they don't actually get it?I truly do not understand how you can read ‘the eidolon gets no feats’ to mean anything other than ‘the eidolon gets no feats’.
Maybe Multiattack is printed this way for summoners who are not synthesist archetypes.
Multiweapon fighting deals with fighting with manufactured weapons in more than 2 hands. It has NOTHING to do with natural attacks.
I'm really not understanding how you keep mis-understanding this.Natural attacks have their own specific set of rules and only ever interact with the iterative combat rules when you mix manufactured weapons (or unarmed strikes) into the mix.
Where does Multiweapon Fighting specify manufactured weapons?
Where are these special set of rules for natural attacks found?
Are you trying to say that there are no feats that govern natural weapon, primary attacks?
If I am wrong, please show me how I am wrong with specific quotes.
I very begrudgingly allowed someone to play a synthesist summoner in the game I'm currently running, but it took a lot of negotiating on her behalf.
First, she had to point out some often overlooked drawbacks, like that magic items worn normally do not grant their benefits in eidolon form, and that there is some awkwardness with healing. Plus her type becomes outsider, so she can't benefit from, say, enlarge person, and the whole thing is technically less effective than playing a vanilla summoner, who has all this and can still spend their turns casting.
After that opening volley, I slapped her with the restriction the class was clearly designed around: She doesn't get to just take whatever evolutions she feels like. We sat down and worked out the specific concept she was going for with her eidolon. She wanted it humanoid (basically going for the whole magically summoned armor angle), I said she had to take the weapon proficiency evolution to give it opposable thumbs before she could use her own innate ability to hold a weapon. No loading up on natural attacks or pounce, they aren't part of the core concept. Etc. etc. etc.
I also made sure she let me see a preview of what this would look like at several particular levels down the road before the campaign ever began.
It is not, at all, a balanced class out of the box, but can be brought in-line if you work at it.
Multiattack deals with secondary attacks while Multiweapon Fighting deals with primary attacks . This synthesist only uses primary attacks.
Multiweapon Fighting has ZERO to do with natural attacks, whether they be Primary, Secondary, or Blarplefisk.
Natural Attacks do not use the Two-Weapon Fighting rules. Period. You're barking up the wrong tree here.
Multiweapon Fighting is literally just Two-Weapon Fighting for dudes with more than two hands.
Look, it even says it in the Feat: "This feat replaces the Two-Weapon Fighting feat for creatures with more than two arms."
A creature with Natural Attacks may take all of their Natural Attacks in a round. Refer yourself to any of the myriad bestiary creatures with multiple Natural Attacks that may take them all on a full attack, from a tiger (two claws and a bite) on up to a Dragon (bite, two claws, 2 wings, and a tail slap).
Natural Attacks, on the flipside, do not benefit from iteratives. That is the tradeoff. You are limited by number of attacks, not your BaB.
Hell, the example Format from the bestiary section on Natural Attacks proves this "Format: bite +5 (1d6+1), 2 claws +5 (1d4+2), 4 tentacles +0 (1d4+1);".
Notice the lack of an "or" anywhere in there.
I truly do not understand how you can read ‘the eidolon gets no feats’ to mean anything other than ‘the eidolon gets no feats’.
Because it's less of a Feat and more of a class feature for Eidolons, hence why it's listed under "Special" and in the table for "Special" abilities and not under the table for the Feats it naturally learns.
"The synthesist also gains access to the eidolon’s special abilities and the eidolon’s evolutions"
Where are these special set of rules for natural attacks found?
I'd pull the CRB page but my PDF is wonky and won't open.
This whole thread illustrates my belief that while there isn't really anything wrong with how the Summoner works, there's a whole lot wrong with how people think the summoner works...
I agree people are confused how summoners should work!
I think the synthesist summoner is broken if you follow all the rules and limitations correctly.
It is MORE broken if you do don't correctly follow all the rules (like let bonuses stack incorrectly).
Give an optimizer a shot to optimize a character, he will do it. Give an optimizer a shot to optimize a character and an eidolon together, he will do it twice. Let the optimizer stack physical stats of the optimized eidolon over the optimized stats of the original character and......well, the results should not be surprising.
Remember, the more the physical stats of the eidolon exceed the physical stats of the original character, the better!
I am only sad that the synthesist gets this powerful ability ONLY TWO LEVELS before the specialist wizard:
Maker’s Jump (Sp)
At 6th level, whenever the synthesist is fused with his eidolon, the synthesist can cast dimension door as a spell-like ability using his caster level. This ability only affects the fused synthesist and eidolon. The synthesist can use this ability once per day at 6th level, plus one additional time per day for every six levels beyond 6th.
Sorry, maybe i went in the wrong game, it just seems silly that chars can be strong as gods or weak like the most puny cobolds only because somebody had hours over hours to spend looking through the manuals.
It seems odd to you that the person with more knowledge of the game can make a better character/be better at it than people with no knowledge of it?
Can I be the first to welcome you to gaming, since it seems like you're new to it? Of any kind. Video, tabletop, or otherwise.
Guys, speaking about the healing thing, he gets to transfer damage done to eidolon on 1on1 basis to the pc, so that silly thing about temp HP is useless.
He can't give his real hit points to the eidolon until / unless the Eidolon would be dropped to zero (or less) hit points. So if he takes enough damage during a fight, he can sacrifice his real hit points to keep the Eidolon around and actually benefit from healing magic and channels. Outside of a fight the only way to heal the Eidolon is with rejuvenate spells.
Dispel magic is never used enough.
^So much this.
I have a suggestion. There is a downside to natural attacks as opposed to weapon attack mainly DR. Other melee charters can just pick up a silver or cold iron or magic weapon however the summoner has only natural attacks. Frankly I don't see how this has not come up yet monsters with DR magic are very common.
Natural Attacks can still overcome DR with the appropriate enhancement from an Amulet of Mighty Fists... just a bit more expensive than an equivalent single weapon. I don't recall the TC mentioning how high his player's enhancement is, but it's possible that it's high enough to make DR a non-issue, especially since Synthesists don't need a lot of gear besides that.
So what, throw a monster with 15 DR that the summoner can't beat and the fighter can and I bet the fighter will be out damaging the summoner. The fighter does have a +2 weapon at least right?
The point is to give the characters a chance to shine. (expect the monk don't know what you can do for him)
If the monster can't hit the summoner then it will just ignore it.
Some what different than "kill the summoner and/or his pet":
Design fights where the summoner is tied up in a brawl ,leaving the rest of the party to deal with another challenge. If the hero has an huge amount of attacks, send in the grunts. Send in something with 20/not-the-summoner, either to act as a speed bump for the summoner, or for the rest of the party to kill.
Another idea is to ask your players for ideas on how they're characters can shine. Take those ideas, put them in a blender, add in a dash (or more) of wicked GM, and use those ideas to power your encounters.
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If I am wrong, please show me how I am wrong with specific quotes.
Okay, let's simply look at the feat itself
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.
Special: This feat replaces the Two-Weapon Fighting feat for creatures with more than two arms.
I bolded the important parts.
Multiweapon fighting only minimizes the penalties for off-hand and primary hand weapons. Natural attacks do not have a handedness nor do they have off-hand penalties. They only have primary (full bab no penalties) and secondary attack (-5 hit half strength to damage) status.None of those are defined in multiweapon fighting so that feat does nothing for them or to them, it's irrelevant.
Natural attacks have the following rules:
Most creatures possess one or more natural attacks (attacks made without a weapon). These attacks fall into one of two categories, primary and secondary attacks. Primary attacks are made using the creature’s full base attack bonus and add the creature’s full Strength bonus on damage rolls. Secondary attacks are made using the creature’s base attack bonus –5 and add only 1/2 the creature’s Strength bonus on damage rolls. If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always made using the creature’s full base attack bonus and adds 1-1/2 times the creature’s Strength bonus on damage rolls. This increase does not apply if the creature has multiple attacks but only takes one. If a creature has only one type of attack, but has multiple attacks per round, that attack is treated as a primary attack, regardless of its type.
There is no off-hand defined under natural attacks. If a creature has 15 claw attacks a round all of them are primary and all of them are full bab no penalty. Multi-weapon is ONLY for non-natural attack types of which there are only 2, manufactured and unarmed.
Where does Multiweapon Fighting specify manufactured weapons?
I guess you suddenly never read how natural attacks work.
Primary attacks are always at full BAB, but do not get iterative attacks unless it is the only single attack.
Secondary Attacks all get a -5 to attack unless the creature has the multi-attack feat, at which point it is -2 to attack.
If a character has more than 2 hands and is wielding more than 2 weapons then the character takes -6 to primary hand attacks and -10 to all off-hand attacks (any hand other than the primary hand is an off-hand.)
Multiweapon fighting is like two weapon fighting for creatures with more than 2 hands, so if the synthesist, at level 10 takes the Limbs (arms) evolution from Aspect then he qualifies for multiweapon fighting, and since mutliweapon fighting replaces the feat two-weapon fighting, the feat would become multiweapon fighting.
Now, two-weapon fighting and mutli-weapon fighting ALL refer to manufactured weapons, and natural attacks do not qualify as manufactured weapons. Therefore it doesn't matter if a character has mutliweapon fighting.
Otherwise every single monster that has multiple attacks would be sitting at a -11 for one of its attacks and -15 to others. If you can justify that through the bestiary then we will all listen to what you think about how these work.
I would sugget making the next loot drop a +3 weapon. You said they are under wealth per level and it would help balance the party. Maybe drop a monks belt as well.
That's what he does, and in fact is like having a ton temporary HPs that can be healed separately and his own ton of HPs, that is why he has that high con score. He has high enough con and D8 for the HPs thast he is tougher than the tha cleric on his own.Guys, speaking about the healing thing, he gets to transfer damage done to eidolon on 1on1 basis to the pc, so that silly thing about temp HP is useless.He can't give his real hit points to the eidolon until / unless the Eidolon would be dropped to zero (or less) hit points. So if he takes enough damage during a fight, he can sacrifice his real hit points to keep the Eidolon around and actually benefit from healing magic and channels. Outside of a fight the only way to heal the Eidolon is with rejuvenate spells.
His Con score doesn't matter. When he's wearing the Eidolon, his bonus HP (and Fort save) are based on the Eidolon's Con as it replaces his own. And since you posted below that his Eidolon's Con is only 12, then he should have way less hit points than what he thinks he does. Oh, and by "healed separately" you mean that the Synthesist can use up his limited spell slots casting rejuvinate eidolon, right? Because that's the only way to heal the Eidolon - once he runs out of spells, he's hooped.
Stats go something like 26 str (16 base, 20 with free boost, 24 evos, 26 level and 30 with belt), dex 18 (12 base, 4 free, 2 evos) cos 12.
Am I reading the Strength breakdown right? You let him apply his 4th and 8th level stat bonuses to his Eidolon? Because he can't do that.
And you shouldn't have let him have feats that he's not allowed to have. They're normally restricted for a reason.
His Con score doesn't matter. When he's wearing the Eidolon, his bonus HP are based on the Eidolon's Con as it replaces his own.That's what he does, and in fact is like having a ton temporary HPs that can be healed separately and his own ton of HPs, that is why he has that high con score. He has high enough con and D8 for the HPs thast he is tougher than the tha cleric on his own.Guys, speaking about the healing thing, he gets to transfer damage done to eidolon on 1on1 basis to the pc, so that silly thing about temp HP is useless.He can't give his real hit points to the eidolon until / unless the Eidolon would be dropped to zero (or less) hit points. So if he takes enough damage during a fight, he can sacrifice his real hit points to keep the Eidolon around and actually benefit from healing magic and channels. Outside of a fight the only way to heal the Eidolon is with rejuvenate spells.
True, but him having a decent Con means that if he does happen to go unconscious he won't immediately die when he loses the Eidolon's Con.
While fused with his eidolon, the synthesist uses the eidolon’s Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, but retains his own Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.
Bonus HP and Fort saves are both based on Con. When he wears his Eidolon, his Con changes to 12. Thus, his hp will go down (as will his Fort save). And then he gets the Eidolon's HP as temp hit points that are difficult to restore.
Which base form is his Eidolon? I'm trying to check his evolution points, and noticed that they all start at 13 Con so his being 12 is hinky.