... Please play at one of my tables with a character that has 7 CON."In most cases"
Pardon me while I dump Str, Dex, and Con for more ability points with hardly any drawbacks.
I have a super evasion kensai who does this more out of comedy than anything. He is all, weave like a butterfly, sting like a be--oh god, a pebble hit me, half my hp are gone!
He wasRatfolk Kensai
str 5
dex 20
con 7
int 20
wis 7
cha 7
and was hilarious. He gained 3hp a level on average. XD
Don't get me wrong, he hit like a truck and had spells for days, and could become untouchable with spell-shield but by the gods if he was ever attacked flat footed.
Rogues felt super-effective when fighting him.
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The underlying issue in this scenario is trust. The player has some system mastery. He built a character at the same relative optimization level of the group. That character got killed. The player trusted the GM not to take advantage of his sub-op build to kill his character. The player no longer trusts the GM to not take advantage of his sub-op build. So he made a build which is more powerful and less likely to get killed in the game. He actually did a pretty good job of it too because he is surviving well in his environment but didn't make some ridiculous juggernaut build either.
This guy would be welcome to come to my table and play whatever he wants any day.
My advice to the OP. First step, do a character audit and make sure he is legal, Summoners are very commonly built wrong, the system is a tad complicated and vastly different than the norm...screw ups happen, a lot.
Second if he is all legal ask him to make some minor tweaks, a lot of what ends up being overwhelming is the ridiculous 4 armed multi attacking craziness builds. Ask him to go bi-ped and used manufactured weapons. Cutting down on the 50 attacks around quickly brings them in line with a lot of frontline fighters for DPR.
Lastly after those two are done alter your tactics. Target touch AC. Have mobs gang up and assist when it comes to him, use things like walls of ice to fence him off, if need be use anti magic tactics to drop the eidolon off him now and then...though wholesale maiming of a character like that is a last resort.
In short ...make sure he is legal, ask him to tweak and get a little more creative and your game should be fine.
I'm sure they are but there are a vocal minority who cry "The DM is a dick when he limits this!"
It's those I suspect don't DM.
By that definition, some degree of dickishness is necessary to be a GM. If something is screwing up your game, you fix it or remove it.
(I say, as someone likely to ban the wizard, cleric, and druid in my next game world.)
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It sounds like this guy's AC is the main problem, really. I'd politely request he drop his Increased Natural Armor Evolutions for something else. That seems reasonable, and isn't even a retcon or anything since Summoners change their Eidolon Evolutions regularly.
Personally, I'd suggest an Immunity, it's 2 points, very thematically cool, and not a game-breaker.
This'll leave him with AC 31, still high (higher than anyone else in the party, in fact)...but not so high it makes the attacks of CR appropriate creatures impossible, and with a cool immunity (or two other points of Evolutions) to not make him feel like the GM is screwing him.
You don't need antimagic fields to take down thee eidolon. Banishment, plane shift, dismissal, control summoned creature and protection from <alignment> work fine for nerfing summoned creatures.
I haven't looked up the summoner rules in a while (since they are effectively banned at my table, due to the fact that they either crush the action economy, or basically have the same issues as the 3.5 druid), but I'm pretty sure eidolons are an exception to the Protection from <alignment> spells. I might be wrong though.
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I haven't looked up the summoner rules in a while (since they are effectively banned at my table, due to the fact that they either crush the action economy, or basically have the same issues as the 3.5 druid), but I'm pretty sure eidolons are an exception to the Protection from <alignment> spells. I might be wrong though.
They normally are, yes. As well as Dispel Magic. Though they become vulnerable to both if summoned via Summon Eidolon as opposed to the 1 minute ritual.
Banishment and the like still work fine, though.
It sounds like this guy's AC is the main problem, really. I'd politely request he drop his Increased Natural Armor Evolutions for something else. That seems reasonable, and isn't even a retcon or anything since Summoners change their Eidolon Evolutions regularly.
Personally, I'd suggest an Immunity, it's 2 points, very thematically cool, and not a game-breaker.
This'll leave him with AC 31, still high (higher than anyone else in the party, in fact)...but not so high it makes the attacks of CR appropriate creatures impossible, and with a cool immunity (or two other points of Evolutions) to not make him feel like the GM is screwing him.
I'll agree with this. I joined a campaign late and also ended up accidentally making a character with too-high AC. The GM asked me to tone it down a bit and I did.
Now that said, consider this: APs are usually made with balanced parties in mind. Naturally, unbalanced ones, especially those unbalanced towards combat, might have an easier time of it. Jacobs and the rest of the Paizo crew can't account for everything we players might do, we're waaaay too unpredictable as a whole. It's up to the DM to adjust the game to better fit his players. Fortunately, that's not as difficult as you seem to fear. Let's take the Four-Redcap encounter you brought up. Here are so.e quick ways to boost it with little work on your end: Add the Advanced or other Templates, Increase the size of the encounter (If he can solo four, send eight), use tactics (flanking and Aid actions to reduce his AC, for example)
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It sounds like this guy's AC is the main problem, really. I'd politely request he drop his Increased Natural Armor Evolutions for something else. That seems reasonable, and isn't even a retcon or anything since Summoners change their Eidolon Evolutions regularly.
Personally, I'd suggest an Immunity, it's 2 points, very thematically cool, and not a game-breaker.
This'll leave him with AC 31, still high (higher than anyone else in the party, in fact)...but not so high it makes the attacks of CR appropriate creatures impossible, and with a cool immunity (or two other points of Evolutions) to not make him feel like the GM is screwing him.
I'll agree with this. I joined a campaign late and also ended up accidentally making a character with too-high AC. The GM asked me to tone it down a bit and I did.
Now that said, consider this: APs are usually made with balanced parties in mind. Naturally, unbalanced ones, especially those unbalanced towards combat, might have an easier time of it. Jacobs and the rest of the Paizo crew can't account for everything we players might do, we're waaaay too unpredictable as a whole. It's up to the DM to adjust the game to better fit his players. Fortunately, that's not as difficult as you seem to fear. Let's take the Four-Redcap encounter you brought up. Here are so.e quick ways to boost it with little work on your end: Add the Advanced or other Templates, Increase the size of the encounter (If he can solo four, send eight), use tactics (flanking and Aid actions to reduce his AC, for example)
I think if the OP had taken this approach then he would have gotten more useful feedback here. If he had come in and said, "a character in my game died and his replacement has AC 8 higher than the rest of the group and he is a synthesis summoner so he has all good stats and this is making it difficult to challenge him," he would have done far better than throwing around terms like "obscene power gamer."
This thread has shown one persons idea of "obscene" is what others might call "vanilla" or even "toned-down." I can't speak for everyone here but I know I've been accused of power gaming when I don't believe I was*. It is essentially telling someone they are power gaming is saying they are having badwrongfun.
*playing a sorcerer with CHA as his 3rd stat, took a PrC that cost me a caster level, and didn't know haste. Go to spell was widened, toppling, magic missile.
I’d like to express solidarity with CNB on the idea that Adventure Paths should be basically playable as written assuming a 4 PC party using 15 point buy. If there are more than 4 PCs the DM might want to consider making easy changes to encounters by applying a +1 CR template or adding an extra monster. It also looks like the point buy here might have been higher than 15. If so that's even more reason to buff things up a little.
Anyhow, I think there are some positives here. While having an “untouchable” PC might aggravate the DM the PC’s AC won’t generally hop up and kill monsters in a single round. I’ve seen casters sporting a similar AC and or Mirror Images who blow through monster defenses with touch attacks. I’d much rather deal with some buffoon attacking regular AC at +16.
It is tough to offer general advice on running encounters in an AP I'm not familiar with. The advanced template should make this guy miss quite a lot though. Making sure that monsters who can buff do so appropriately could help too. The Shield spell in particular can make a big difference. On the offensive side of things, a CR10 monster is supposed to have an average attack of +18. Flanking for +20 would give such monsters a reasonable chance to hit. If the monsters have any access to buffs that could help too. This PC is also still vulnerable to spells and other special attacks which force saving throws. Enemies shouldn't have any trouble figuring out that they should focus their debuffs and damage on the 5 armed monstrosity. Simple stuff like Aid Another can also turn random mooks into contributing team members.
Use ability damage.
Poisons, special abilities, that attack Dex and Str.
If he's melded, they'll still be a huge cost to him because Eidolons cannot heal ability damage naturally.
If you can get the eidolon dismissed, which I have found to be surprisingly easy for mid-level NPCs, then he risks death for being a total weakling in two physical stats.
For my part, I haven't found the synthesist to be any worse than the vanilla summoner. The class is a tricky one for most GMs, because you need to know exactly what's in it. Players will usually overreach when interpreting their abilities, and there are huge weaknesses baked in.
Ability damage is one such notable weakness. By halving his number of actions and introducing two low scores on top of the intrinsic weakness of the eidolon, he's left himself wide open. Heavy help him if he fights a wraith or a shadow. Just the kind of thing I imagine you'd find in certain parts of Shattered Star. Such an encounter could not only kill the PC outright, but hobble him for a long time with ability damage.
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Instead of Obscene Powergaming this should be titled,
"How do you handle obscene adorableness?"
First off just send a huge owlbear skeleton at them and have it cuddle all of them until their heads pop.
Is everyone's contention that the Adventure Paths are far, far underpowered jokes that no one would dream of running without massive redesign? Because I'm having trouble reconciling the encounters I'm reading (and posted above) with the idea that the synthesist I posted above is merely an average, expected build.
I don't think that AP's are underpowered jokes. I suspect in terms of power level they actually cater relatively well to the vast majority of players (including what sounds like the rest of your party). They also provide useful frameworks that can be tweaked a bit to increase the power of monsters if you have a more powerful party. I know many GMs that add a few simple templates or roll a few encounters together and call it a day, running APs with minimal changes because they enjoy the on-the-rails aspect of the plot.
The thing is, APs are also built around the idea of a sort of beer and pretzel style level of optimization, because that's what most of the designers play. They don't do heavy optimization. The NPC Guide they published a while back actually included the stats for a few characters they run regularly, and when you compare them to the 'builds' that many here post you begin to see where the disconnect is between designers and some players.
The way I see it you have two options.
1. Talk to the player. It seems like your real problem is his armor class. Ask him to drop the improved natural armor evolution. If he balks, find out why. Have a dialogue.
2. Make some relatively small on the fly adjustments to encounters to keep them challenging. If enemies are having trouble hitting him give them a potion of bull's strength and heroism to drink before the fight. Suddenly +4 to hit. Throw in the advanced template or increase the number of enemies by 1/2 if you have to. These are small changes you can make on the fly without any major rebuilding that might be time consuming. Though option #1 is probably better.
Extra +1? Wha? Without even giving it any thought: assimar lvl 1:
Str 7, Dex 7, Con 7 Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 20 and the physical stats become normal or above average with eidelon.
Yes, you can play games and take away the eidelon then make them have to make a con check and yadda yadda. It's still a class that is begging to be munchkized and abused.
And how is it Summoner isn't complex enough to ban yet Synthesist is?
And strayshift it seems to be some people's view that if you don't spend hours of your free time scouring to find all the gadgets to make an elite character to keep up with Super Player, you deserve to die. Chose that 14 charisma for your CRB only fighter because you liked the idea of it? Hope you have a backup character written out.
Lets start with the assumption that you are completely correct and the synthesist doesn't need any physical scores. He has a starting 20 Charisma. What is powerful about him starting with a 20 Charisma? This isn't a class that throws out a lot of save vs. spells. It relies on its power suit for hit points and armor class, so it isn't using its summon monster ability. Where is the OP aspect of the 20 Charisma coming in?
Let me also note that I don't agree with that suggestion, since my reading (and that of many people!) is that you still need the base ability scores to pick up various feats (e.g. power attack, combat reflexes).
If anyone else posted this I missed it, sorry. But I noticed his stats were because he was a larger size? Make him have to go into a small area where he has to unsummon his Eidolon, have an ambush ready on the other side.
See, this is why I make people roll for their numbers. 4d6 take the best three,assign them how you choose. Also, if a player is going to start out higher than first level, they don't get to pick their magic items without consulting with me and it's going to be just enough to survive. They want potent and cool stuff? Great, that's why you participate in the adventure! The problem is not the class, it's letting the playing purposively build it to exploit the rules.
Um, rolling for stats doesn't prevent people from optimizing or "powergaming" their characters. And there are issues with giving new PCs just enough equipment to survive. It's a milder form of making the new PC start at a lower level than the rest of the party. In Pathfinder, wealth is power.
Um, rolling for stats doesn't prevent people from optimizing or "powergaming" their characters.
This. You could just make it worse. Look, now he has ALL good stats.
And he's still going to put lowest stats in physical and highest stats in mental.
The Synthesist archetype IS the problem.
Oh please. My PFS-legal barbarian had an AC approaching 40 at that level while raging and could DPR that summoner under the table.
build?
That 35 AC is a little higher than usual...
LOL
An AC of 35 is a "little higher than usual..."
...for a 17th level fighter.
The underlying issue in this scenario is trust. The player has some system mastery. He built a character at the same relative optimization level of the group. That character got killed. The player trusted the GM not to take advantage of his sub-op build to kill his character. The player no longer trusts the GM to not take advantage of his sub-op build. So he made a build which is more powerful and less likely to get killed in the game. He actually did a pretty good job of it too because he is surviving well in his environment but didn't make some ridiculous juggernaut build either.
This guy would be welcome to come to my table and play whatever he wants any day.
I have no idea how the first PC died, but I do not understand how a dead pc means the DM is taking advantage of anything. The Op have even stated he run the encounters as written.
Trust doesn't always make sense. Character was built at a low power level to mimic power level of party. Character dies. Player upset because perhaps character wouldn't have died if built stronger. Trust is broken. Doesn't matter if it was intentional or right out of the book or whatever. Trust is based on perception not facts.
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Let me also note that I don't agree with that suggestion, since my reading (and that of many people!) is that you still need the base ability scores to pick up various feats (e.g. power attack, combat reflexes).You could read it like that if you'd like, but that was already ruled against in an FAQ.
Link? I looked through the FAQ on UM before posting and saw nothing about this.
I have no idea how the first PC died, but I do not understand how a dead pc means the DM is taking advantage of anything. The Op have even stated he run the encounters as written.The underlying issue in this scenario is trust. The player has some system mastery. He built a character at the same relative optimization level of the group. That character got killed. The player trusted the GM not to take advantage of his sub-op build to kill his character. The player no longer trusts the GM to not take advantage of his sub-op build. So he made a build which is more powerful and less likely to get killed in the game. He actually did a pretty good job of it too because he is surviving well in his environment but didn't make some ridiculous juggernaut build either.
This guy would be welcome to come to my table and play whatever he wants any day.
It works like this.
Jack makes a Fighter archer with low-op since he didn't want to over do party. But he dies because of this. DM took advantage of his physical weaknesses.So Jack realizes that low-op=death, so now he brings out the big guns with medium-op with his Synthegist. Now he has no physical weaknesses.
Link? I looked through the FAQ on UM before posting and saw nothing about this.Let me also note that I don't agree with that suggestion, since my reading (and that of many people!) is that you still need the base ability scores to pick up various feats (e.g. power attack, combat reflexes).You could read it like that if you'd like, but that was already ruled against in an FAQ.
That's because it's not true. You can use temporary enhancements, like magic items, to qualify for ability score prereqs. If you ever lose that bonus, though, you lose the ability to use that feat/feature/whatever.
When running an adventure path, consider trying to keep the average party level 1 lower than suggested for the adventure, this is a good way to increase the challenge for an optimized party without reworking all the encounters.
As for your summoner, just ask him to tone it down a bit, and I think it will work out.
That 35 AC is a little higher than usual...LOL
An AC of 35 is a "little higher than usual..."
...for a 17th level fighter.
+3 Full Plate. (+12 Armor)
Ring of Protection +1 (+1 Deflection)Amulet of Natural Armor +1 (+1 Natural Armor)
Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier (+1 Luck)
+2 Heavy Shield (+4 Shield)
14 Dex (+2 Dex)
That's 31 without even trying.
Up that to a Tower Shield and it's 33.
Boost the Ring of Protection and Amulet of Natural Armor to +2 and it's 35.
10.5k Armor + 8k Ring + 8k Amulet + 5k Jingasa +4k Shield = 35.5k.
Of the 62k in wealth your 10th level Fighter has. Can easily up that shield to +3 actually, to beat him at 36 for an extra 5k, leaving ~22k free for your weapon (+3 sword 18k) and saves (4k +2 Cloak of Resistance).
Might be slightly off but close enough for government work.
You ban the synthesist summoner, and then do the synthesists are banned happy dance.
Yeah, just do regular summoner so you can buff your pouncing machine in the first round right before it attacks.
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I find it funny how some people think his stats are crazy and OP. Sure, he's strong, but there's a lot of strong builds out there that don't include the synthesist. Zen Archers, Kensai Magi, and Paladins (The ones I know for sure) can be just as ridiculous. Heck, if you think 33 AC at level 9 is bad, consider a level 6 with 31 AC, as a barbarian while raging I've been there and done that.
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See, this is why I make people roll for their numbers. 4d6 take the best three,assign them how you choose. Also, if a player is going to start out higher than first level, they don't get to pick their magic items without consulting with me and it's going to be just enough to survive. They want potent and cool stuff? Great, that's why you participate in the adventure! The problem is not the class, it's letting the playing purposively build it to exploit the rules.
Your statement does not say anything aside from "I think rolling is better," and "I strictly enforce PCs to not be able to create characters that will be able to do, specifically, what they intend to do with the class well."
Point buy is fantastic. It encourages SAD builds and discourages MAD builds. SAD builds can be stacked with extra classes, prestige classes, feats, class features and so forth to become godly builds that scoff in the face of the most MAD of builds.
The point is this: people moan about SAD builds being OP and MAD builds being UP, but what they almost never take into account is how these two types work.
If you want to enforce legitimate builds that are not dumped, then ban dumping. This means you will have a lot of casters with
(25 point buy) 18, 14, 10, 10, 10, 10.
(20 point buy) 18, 13, 10, 10, 10, 10.
(15 point buy) 17, 12, 10, 10, 10, 10.
(10 point buy) 16, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10.
The average for 3d6 is 10.5 (3.5+3.5+3.5).
The average for 4d6 drop lowest is (I'm assuming) 12 (4+4+4)
With point buy the player can make a PC that will be great at what he does to the exclusion of all others. He chooses what he will be good and crappy at.
With dice rolls the PC will be, overall, mediocre, which can be achieved with 10 point-buy, while there is also a chance that the rolls will equate to somewhere around 102-point buy (all 18s) which is when he plays a monk.
You are confusing Attribute derivation and character creation with refusing to adapt as a DM.
It boils down to this:
As a DM your JOB is to cater to your party. If you are writing pre-made adventures then your job is to cater to the iconic party (Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard) and have something for all of them to do. This is why you run into locked doors, traps, undead, physically resistant, and magically resistant enemies.
The OP has a synthesist who is the beat-stick of the ages. He isn't as bad as the "all my evolutions go into extra arms so I can wield 9001 kukri that are all spell-storing with a 10d6 shocking grasp in each and be able to pounce" summoner who flat-out destroys things.
If the eidolon is good at this, make sure it has to do that, if it is good at that, make sure it has to do this other thing, if it is good at this other thing, make it do that thing over there.
Lets look at the Iconic party in a design sense:
Fighter = Front-Line-Beat-stick; strength and dexterity skills, most notably (Climb and Swim).
Cleric = Mid-Line-Direct-Support-Beat-Stick; Wisdom skills (most notably Perception and Sense Motive), but also potentially charisma skills.
Rogue = Mid-Line-DPR; Dexterity and Charisma skills, finds traps and disables traps and other devices.
Wizard = Rear-Line-Indirect Support; Intelligence skills and magic.
If you open most Paizo scenarios or modules and find a Fighter, a Cleric, a Rogue, and a Wizard in them then you will find that the listed above skills are most likely going to show up en-mass. Think about what the Summoner can do. He can have a big pet or a bunch of little pets, but once all his pets are expended he is a glorified expert with sub-par armor/weapon proficiency. One fantastic exercise is to, instead of building a campaign or encounters for the iconic 4 (Who are all mostly SAD classes, btw) and build it instead around the iniconic 4 (Classes that can cover what the iconic 4 do, but are MAD classes instead). Instantly things change, even if just a little.
Now instead of 1 Front-Line, 2 Mid-Line, and 1 Rear-Line you might have 4 Front-Lines, 4 Mid-Lines, or 4 Rear-Lines.
One group flat-out kills their enemies after a charge, one holds the line and flanks their enemies to death, and one kills their enemies from afar and withdraws when the enemy gets too close.
Mostly, however, Gishes and divines tend to be Mid or Front-line characters.
Remember what the AP/Module/Scenario is built around, PC expectation wise, and then you will understand why one party is blowing through it while another is struggling.
The player trusted the GM not to take advantage of his sub-op build to kill his character. The player no longer trusts the GM to not take advantage of his sub-op build.
The player's previous character was a reasonably well-optimized archer. The previous death occurred because said player stood his ground and fired a full-round volley into a mounted dullahan rather than fire a single shot and move to safety. The dullahan was able to full-round attack back, knocked him into negative hit points, and then the player failed on his save against beheading (caused by an enchantment on the weapon).
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The player trusted the GM not to take advantage of his sub-op build to kill his character. The player no longer trusts the GM to not take advantage of his sub-op build.The player's previous character was a reasonably well-optimized archer. The previous death occurred because said player stood his ground and fired a full-round volley into a mounted dullahan rather than fire a single shot and move to safety. The dullahan was able to full-round attack back, knocked him into negative hit points, and then the player failed on his save against beheading (caused by an enchantment on the weapon).
Going after my 9th level PC with a vorpal weapon would pretty much guarantee I built the strongest character I could imagine to replace him. No wonder he focused on AC.
Going after my 9th level PC with a vorpal weapon would pretty much guarantee I built the strongest character I could imagine to replace him. No wonder he focused on AC.The player trusted the GM not to take advantage of his sub-op build to kill his character. The player no longer trusts the GM to not take advantage of his sub-op build.The player's previous character was a reasonably well-optimized archer. The previous death occurred because said player stood his ground and fired a full-round volley into a mounted dullahan rather than fire a single shot and move to safety. The dullahan was able to full-round attack back, knocked him into negative hit points, and then the player failed on his save against beheading (caused by an enchantment on the weapon).
Well, time to make an Arcane Archer Strix that is invincible.
Whileit's obvious that he's shamelessly cheesing out his attribute, the final build doesn't seem to be anything impressive. His AC is really high for a 9th level character, but that wouldn't upset me.
His spells can make him really powerful, though. With the right buffs, eh can very well out-damage a Fighter. That's the problem of Synthesists, IMO, they are difficult to have around without completely obsoleting martial classes... That and the fact that it has confusing and needlessly complicated rules.
I simply ban the archetype for the sake of simplicity, although I've been studying ways to make it better balanced. Simply forcing the Summoner to keep his own attributes instead of replacing them with the ones of his Eidolon should suffice... This way the Summoner gets the evolutions, but can't dump Str and Dex.
I recommend keeping physical stats. Yes, that could allow even higher base stats, but then you're a lot more MAD. I actually had a synthesist-esque archetype prepped for the year of RPG Superstar just before the official synthesist came out, and I did that, plus forced biped and none of the temporary hit points shenanigans. It worked pretty well in playtest, but my wondrous item didn't make Top 32. Given it was too similar to synthesist once synthesist came out, I made some adjustments to the concept, and the result is the Masquerade Reveler archetype in Convergent Paths: Fey Archetypes and the upcoming Secrets of the Masquerade Reveler (which expands the archetype's options dramatically).
If you're looking at a non-PFS game where you can use houserules or 3pp stuff, I highly recommend checking it out for your "good at fighting things but also with evolutions and without one or two design decisions that lead to the troubles with synthesist" needs. It has numerous small suites of evolutions and selects from them on the fly.
Going after my 9th level PC with a vorpal weapon would pretty much guarantee I built the strongest character I could imagine to replace him. No wonder he focused on AC.
It's not a vorpal weapon. It's an inherent power of the Dark Rider, and I ran it exactly as it's detailed in the Adventure Path.
In that situation, I suppose you would have stopped attacking the biggest threat who made a tactical blunder, so your players don't feel like you're "going after them"?
Going after my 9th level PC with a vorpal weapon would pretty much guarantee I built the strongest character I could imagine to replace him. No wonder he focused on AC.It's not a vorpal weapon. It's an inherent power of the Dark Rider, and I ran it exactly as it's detailed in the Adventure Path.
In that situation, I suppose you would have stopped attacking the biggest threat who made a tactical blunder, so your players don't feel like you're "going after them"?
It sounds to me like you did the Dark Rider exactly as expected. In our game, he was too bored to fight basically at all (Thanatoptic Oppressive Boredom), so at least that wasn't the case for you!
And hey, your math shows that the mummies or the medusa have an OK chance of just ending this guy, so it's certainly not a guaranteed win.
You could always have an evil sorc/wiz cast Antimagic Field on an evil, naked, half-orc barbarion who has the Toothy alternate Racial Trait and the Beast Totem rage talents. Then let the barbarion chagre/pounce the summoner in a surprise round, then full attack him again in round 1 of combat.
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Going after my 9th level PC with a vorpal weapon would pretty much guarantee I built the strongest character I could imagine to replace him. No wonder he focused on AC.It's not a vorpal weapon. It's an inherent power of the Dark Rider, and I ran it exactly as it's detailed in the Adventure Path.
In that situation, I suppose you would have stopped attacking the biggest threat who made a tactical blunder, so your players don't feel like you're "going after them"?
And we all can see how your choice to play it rough gave so beautiful results guaranteeing fun for everyone, yourself included ;-)
To summarize : the APs are not badly designed and this is basically a player vs GM problem.
So, any "solution" provided to deal with his build would only end up in more acrimony while what is needed is you talking with this player and both of you coming clear with the consequences of your choices.
To The OP:
The adventure paths are designed around the idea that the party is 4-5 15 point buy mildly optimized characters. So 20 point buy optimized characters in general will require some rework. As a side note, if you dont like 15 point buy (I dont) a work around (that has worked for me to maintain the appropriate power level) is 25 point buy but no starting stat can be higher then 17 after racial modifiers or bellow 10 before racial modifiers. No dumped stats and no starting 20s. Helps out mad character concepts without letting sad characters get away with murder in exchange.
Next. The summoner specifically is a difficult class to manage in terms of optimization. Its not actually power gaming in the sense you would normally think of it. The summoner is painfully easy to optimize. Like seriously easy. It gets to choose basically everything it gets from a list. The more 'powerful' options are obvious, and there are no restrictions in place to alter it. It takes almost no effort to make the most powerful summoner and especially synthesist that you can.
A casually created summoner is about on par with a druid made by someone who finds every little advantage he can with options, feats, spells, archetypes and racial abilities. Because every other class doesnt get to pick everything they get. Things come in packages. Fighters get bravery, druids get wild empathy, animal companions get scent, wizards get scribe scroll. Everyone has something that doesnt directly contribute to 'power' in their 'stuff that they get'. Summoners dont have this. So you have to do if artificially.
For my table there is an added restriction for summoners. Evolutions are divided into offensive, defensive, and utility. 1/3 (rounded up) of their evolution points is the maximum amount of points that can be spend in each category. That and simply dont allow the synthesist to dump physical stats, and the summoner and the synthesist become managable even when using an ap as written.
There is a reasonable chance your player wasnt trying to be super power gamer with his character. He just went through the class and made what seem like obvious choices to be able to morph into a badass monster thing. Your best bet is to simply sit down with the player and turn his character into something more managable for the adventure path, and in the future to keep in mind that the game in general (outside of pfs) does not expect significant optimization. If your group does this, you will need to make alterations. The easiest that I do is to simply double everything in all encounters (unless that doesnt make any sense). That raises the CR by 2, and is almost no additional work on your part. It also means that individual enemies are not more of a threat to the less powerful characters then originally included, there are just more of them, so hopefully your heavy hitters have a harder time of things.
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Worth noting that the logical arguments for these things are highly in the GM's favor when having the discussion.
Me: I don't think this trait is balanced.
Player: No! It is totally fair! It is no better than any other trait out there!
Me: Then you shouldn't have any problem with picking one of those other equally good traits then, right?
Player: Well, snap.
Correction:
"None of those other traits give what I need to have from a trait."
Your argument isn't a logical argument.
"I want this Trait that gives Linguistics as a class skill."
"I don't think that's balanced."
"It's no better than other traits though."
"Well you shouldn't have a problem picking one of them then, eh?"
"But they don't give Linguistics. They give Bluff, or Perception, or Use Magic Device."
If it doesn't work with most specific examples, it's not a logical argument.
There is no "obscene powergaming" that I cannot adapt to.
!
Make better encounters and you can deal with anything.
You are playing poker, you can see all of the PCs cards and choose your own cards. Why are you struggling to win if that is your objective?