Hi Everyone,
Title says it all - what do you think is the best base form for a skill focused Eidolon?
I'm wanting to spend about 1/4 of my total EPs on combat oriented evolutions. Maybe grappling, maybe some other CM. But, this eidolon will not be built for full out damage.
Thanks!
Well, quadruped will help you if you still want to pounce. Pounce is cheap and will help you still be "competitive" during combat. It's also nifty or the small increase of speed.
Serpentine has a climb speed and can be used for grapple stuff if that's the way you want to go (constrict being the big one). In terms of flavor, I tend to associate serpentine with stealth over the others, with quadruped coming in second. But that's just flavor.
Bipedal doesn't have much to add, but it's the in between role and that's expected.
I'd guess it's up to how you want to do battle. Grappling, to me at least is good either with a pouncing quad or a constricting serpentine. If you just want basic natural attacks, depending on how much EP you have over all, a standard quad pounce would do the trick nicely. If you want to use weapons, most fit that bill fine, but I've seen quite a few builds go with bipedal for weapon based builds.
Thanks for all the replies everyone!
I'm thinking of a summoner who is a ex thief and his eidolon takes t he form of a raggamuffyn - the physical embodiment of his lust for treasure. So I was considering focusing on the grab evolution since that was the combat tactic for the raggamuffyn in 3.5.
The eidolon would act as the thief. Achieving what the summoner can not.
Is grappling effective without constrict? I'm concerned about the low strength of the serpentine base form at low levels.
There are other ways to do decent damage in grappling outside of constrict I'm sure. The only one that really stands out to me is Rake and that would only work with a quadruped base form according to the evolution. There is also swallow whole, but that is only useful when your eidolon gets big enough and generally you want to limit how big it gets in case your DM decides to put you through a small cave. However, this would work for a bipedal especially well as they have the highest starting STR score.
I would say its very doable, and far from an uphill battle. But I'd just drop all combat from him.
My eidilon is basically a rogue (I think hes about +25 to stealth at level 5). I use him as a scout, unsummon him for combat and use my summon sla during combat. Don't try and play catch up, go full skill monkey or full combat.
I picked the serpentine form for decent dex and climb before he could fly. I would've taken broodmaster so he'd be small (really good for a skill monkey) but its banned in pfs. If its legal in your game id look into that.
I would say its very doable, and far from an uphill battle. But I'd just drop all combat from him.
My eidilon is basically a rogue (I think hes about +25 to stealth at level 5). I use him as a scout, unsummon him for combat and use my summon sla during combat. Don't try and play catch up, go full skill monkey or full combat.
I picked the serpentine form for decent dex and climb before he could fly. I would've taken broodmaster so he'd be small (really good for a skill monkey) but its banned in pfs. If its legal in your game id look into that.
That's not a bad suggestion.
Also, I don't think I've seen it yet. It's a 1 point evolution, called "Skilled." Gives a +8 racial bonus to one skill, can be picked up multiple times.
Edit: Boost his Int with the Ability Increase evolution to get more skill points. Also, the best form, I'd say would be Bipedal. Logically, they should be able to pick up any skill a humanoid PC is capable of choosing.
None, the Eidolon starts with a severe Int penalty and only has a 2+int skill base for skill points. You're going to have to shove points just to bring it's Int up to par. Your best bet is to choose a couple of skills and work those up.
.....no? They are outsiders with the 6+int per hit dice. That means they have 4 skill points with the standard stats. With the skilled evolution and various other neat tricks (scent to boost survival used to track, for example) to fill in the gaps coming from the fact that they will not progress in hitdice as fast as the rest of the party, eidolons make fine skill monkeys.
Anyway, I am going to suggest the humanoid form, if only because it comes with an pair of arms from the get go. Some will suggest the serpentine form since it has 4 more DEX...but that is a mere +2 to a few skills. You are better off with more skilled evolution, as well as other tricks.
With grappling... the grab evo (instant +4 to all grapple checks, and you can start a grapple as a free action when you hit with that attack!) and your sheer strength bonuses might go a very, very long way towards being very successful as a grappler. And the fact that you can go large and huge makes it even better. The only problem I see with that path, at least on the outset, is that it takes a lot of feats with BAB prerequisites to be 'great' at grappling. For the basics, you need (besides dropping a point into dex): improved unarmed strike, improved grapple, greater grapple, and rapid grapple. You will not be able to take all of those until level 11. And you will only have room for one spare feat (power attack, typically). Still, Out of anything that lacks the insane abilities of a tetori monk, I'd say that an eidolon would be the best at it.
Give it weapon training and have it shoot people with a bow, now you don't have to worry about it's combat abilities. Heck give it an extra set of arms and have it shoot two bows.
Another note: if you compare it to the power level of 'most martials', rather than 'other eidolons', you could do perfectly fine damage-wise with three natural attacks (bite/claw/claw being the simplest and cheapest option from either humanoid or quadrupedal forms) until around level 10. As a general rule, natural attack builds are fine as long as you have more than a full BAB class has iteratives.
That leaves plenty of room for both defense and skill based evos. Sure, you aren't doing as much damage as you could...but by giving them more use with skills and the grappling idea...well, you should be ok.
I would say its very doable, and far from an uphill battle. But I'd just drop all combat from him.
My eidilon is basically a rogue (I think hes about +25 to stealth at level 5). I use him as a scout, unsummon him for combat and use my summon sla during combat. Don't try and play catch up, go full skill monkey or full combat.
I picked the serpentine form for decent dex and climb before he could fly. I would've taken broodmaster so he'd be small (really good for a skill monkey) but its banned in pfs. If its legal in your game id look into that.
Can you post the build?