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Before actually answering…was this challenge specific about you being the one to design the eidolon? If it was, then getting outside help seems dishonorable, which a proper samurai would not approve of. An honorable samurai eidolon would therefore not want to fight for you, and build advice is rendered moot. =[
What level are you looking at and what are your thoughts on multiclassing? I'll try to throw something together.
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'kay, just checking. I've never made a mid-level summoner before, so it'll take a bit. Brb. =]
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Well, the primary aspect of a Synthesist summoner's power is that they can focus on two different aspects of their character (Eidolon & Summoner) as a single unit. Since the eidolon will be your primary means if interacting with the world, you can dump most of your physical attributes in favor of increasing your mental ones. Even if you started 10/10/10/14/14/18 (assuming 20 point buy), you're getting good skills, a great charisma (because you're choosing Half-Elf for the favored class bonus that grants extra evolution points), solid saves, etc. The main question is what to do with the eidolon. Now, you've decided to settle on weapon-based combat, which is fine. However, you've locked yourself out of the strongest thing an eidolon gets access to: Pounce as a low-point ability. What this means, however, is that you can start off with a decent strength score and pour the rest of your evolutions into increasing your combat ability (weapon proficiency, increased Natural Armor bonus, movement via Flight, etc.). Since the Armor bonus you receive as part of the class feature can be transferred into Natural Armor instead, you can equip your eidolon with some pretty decent armor to get his AC sky-high (A Mithral Chain Shirt costs a little over 1k and has no Armor Check Penalty, so it's basically free. If you're really desperate for every point, you can add an Armored Kilt if you're okay with sacrificing a bit of move speed).
Basically, you're looking at a 20 AC just from the Improved Natural Armor evolution and your basic attributes, up to 24-25 if you grab the armor. If you get the Limbs evolution, you can even use a sword in two hands AND wield a shield for the extra AC that gives you, sitting you near 28-ish AC. Any remaining points you have can go into ability increases for more damage, or even more AC.
Add to this the fact that you have access to spells like Haste at 2nd level for your whole group, plus other great spells that can give you even MORE survivability, not INCLUDING spending your extra wealth on good items, and yes, it can get a bit nuts.
Eventually you can even pick up Large size and wield a 3d6 damage large greatsword like candy.
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Most of the "brokeness" of Synthesist comes from essentially having double HP, Pounce, and being able to dump your physical stats. With that in mind I'm thinking something like...
Synthesist Half Elf 6
-Use Elf favored class option to reduce summoning time of eidolon; at level 9 you will be able to always do it in one round.
-Maybe take the alternate racial for Exotic Weapon Proficiency Katana?
Ability Scores:
-Dump Strength/Dex into the ground, but keep a decent con just in case. Hell, be venerable if you can for the stat adjustments.
Feats
1. Extra Evolution
3. Power Attack
5. Extra Evolution
Eidolon: Biped, 11 Evo points
1. Pounce
2. Ability Increase, Strength
2. Ability Increase, Strength
1. Claws
2. Arms
1. Fly
1. Increase Fly speed
1. Improved Natural Armor
So now your Eiolon has:
-Str 14+2 (level)+4 (evo)= 20
-Nat Armor +6
-Fly speed 60
-3 natural attacks + his weapon, but the weapon actually hurts you a bit due to making your 3 primary natural attacks into secondaries; perhaps take a slam attack and flavor it as a katana fused into the hand?
-Pounce so he gets them all on a charge.
You look something like this while formed up, except fused together and with wings somewhere.
As far as multiclassing goes, I was going to suggest perhaps going Paladin of Vengeance for the charisma to saves and to give all your attacks a bit more ooph; that archetype would give you a decent amount of them per day rather easily. There's also an item that increases your effective Pally level for Smite by +4, so if you went Synthesist 6/Pally 4 you could essentially be smiting as a level 8 Paladin damage wise.
All that's just a rough idea of course. I'm sure it could be improved.
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My GM thinks that there's no such thing as an overpowered class in Pathfinder over other class
He.. He's never seen a wizard, has he?[/typical board response]
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Just a note: when you do finally prove your point to your GM (probably after soloing APL+5 boss encounters), then you can probably rework your build so that it gets watered down and works with the primal companion hunter instead.
The primal companion hunter lets you add eidolon evos to your companion for minutes/level. But if you do not have an animal companion, those sweet, sweet evos go to your hunter instead.
This set up is similar to synthesist, but lacks many of the components that lead to brokenness. You use your own base stats, you only get your own set of hp, and you do not get the scaling bonuses to strength and natural armor eidolons get (only the ability score and na increasing evos, which are fair enough to compare to rage or judgements on their own).
Still, you get rather nice bonuses from evos, and you can do things like grabbing flight, DR, energy restistance, and a ton of other cool stuff. The hunter also comes with martial weapon proficiency, which means you can grab a katana without a GM fiat.
Also watch some suggestions, biped base doesn't get pounce for instance and extra stats can only go to same stat every six levels. Also if you are planning on playing this OP character, expect others to hate it, Synths are known to have accidental breaks all the time based on misinterpreting evos and such.
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Starting at level 5. And looking like a oriental spirit thing. Biped(quatroped is better but a samurai spirit is biped)
Half elf and using half elf favored class bonus for extra evo. Points.
2 times armor evo.(2)
Extra arms(2)
Extra claws(1)
Improved damage(claws)(1)
That leaves 3 points at level 5
I am a fan of boosting intimidate with skilled and picking enforcer and bludgeoner as 2 of your 3 feats(claws are s/b)
The last 2 egos can go to strength boost. That will give you str 20
As your level 5 feat you Pick improved natural attack or arcane strike.
So you have at level 5; 4 attacks +9 2d6+5(or 1d8+7 count as magic), AC 24, 2 pools of hitpoints and several spells that can take you beyond this( mage armor, haste, longarm, enlarge person, barkskin, Bull strength are all possible choices for a level 5 summoner not all at once but take your picks)
And you will have magic items on top of this:)
Remember to have the Spell summon Eidolon in case you are attacked in the middle of the nigth and the rejsenoter Eidolon spells in case your GM decide that they are the only source of healing for eido.
At level 8 you go large.
If you want you can Pick a level in MOMS monk at level 9 and get the snake style snake fang feats. That will allow you a AOO(with your unarmed attack at full bab) every time somebody misses you and give you wis to AC. At that level you should have AC no lower than 30 and possibly higher.
The moms open up for you also using Dragon style (and ferocity)with feral combat training to get str times 1,5 to your claws.
I suggest you take stats along the Line of str and dex 10, con,int and wis 14 and cha 14+2.
If the monk dip dosent do it for you another plan could be to take the half elf alternate racial trait, drow magic and dip in to oracle ( lore or Nature) to get cha to AC instead of dex (you will get ok dex but if you go big your char will be better) and Pick the divine protection feat to get cha to saves as well. You can also get both but loosing 2 levels of Spell progression and 2 bab is for late game if ever.
If you dip i suggest you do it at 9 and/ore 20.
Your power comes from having good offense, incridebly defense and Spell casting only sligthly behind the full 9 level casters.
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Okay, I've been puzzling over this for a while now, and so far, I've been running into a bit of a wall. Summoner has the ability to break things so badly there are literally no rules to explain how to proceed. I don't know whether you saw the thread, but a while back there was a FAQ request to deal with weapon size increases. Unfortunately, that still has not been sorted out with an official ruling (to my knowledge), so I'm having a hard time deciding just how much damage the Eidolon is supposed to deal when wielding a weapon.
Here's the problem:
You can make your Eidolon Huge-sized by level 13, but the weapon tables only list damage up to Large. Worse, you can cast Enlarge Person on your Eidolon, meaning you can get a Huge Eidolon by level 8 and at 13, you can get a Gargantuan Eidolon. Your own personal Rune Giant Samurai wielding a Gargantuan Katana dealing I have no idea how much damage with natural reach of 20ft, and 40ft if you're using a reach weapon like a Naginata. Let's assume you're a Half-Elf level 13, granting you +3 evolution points. You can get 1 or 2 more with feats if you want, leaving you with 22 points to spend. Oh and by the way, there's actually no rule that says you can't start your Samurai off as a quadruped before giving it arms, as its general aesthetic is entirely of your choosing. So there's nothing stopping you from having your Gargantuan (10 points) Centaur-like Samurai Rune Giant pouncing (11 points) to deal their full attack, potentially chopping them up (arms, weapon proficiency twice for martial weapons, 17 points), biting them (free from quadruped), clawing them twice (claws on your legs, 19 points), potentially rending (20 points) them, and finally slapping them with its tail (22 points). If you want to, you can drop the rend upgrade and add a bite upgrade and mount instead, so you can ride on your Eidolon's back, always in touch range for casting, and with a height advantage over your foes. Or you can choose biped and change a couple things around so you have extra arms and an improved slam attack combo.
All of that with only 1 spell cast. You can add any of your other buffing spells you want on top. Enlarge Tail for more damage, Long Arm for more reach (if natural reach of 20ft isn't enough), Magic Fang, Bull's Strength, Evolution Surge (just in case you want to throw even more evolutions on), Haste (if you're cruel), Invisibility (yes, you also get access to the greater version, so it won't go down even after they hit your poor, poor enemies), the list goes on and on because by 13th level, you have access to level 5 Summoner spells. For instance, Summon Monster VII, which can summon a Tyrannosaur to keep your Samurai company.
This is all done by someone who's never built a Summoner before, and only 1 possible outcome. You can completely change your mind and rearrange your evolution points every level up or, starting at level 10, cast Transmogrify to change your point allocation, essentially allowing you to adapt to almost any conceivable situation you needed to.
You can have pounce and use weapons.
You take Quadruped body and then 2 extra arms this makes you a centaur , then you can charge Full Attack with sword, Bite , Tentacles, hooves and whatever else you have.
You should also ensure easily that your AC is ridiculous, in my only campaign with a synthesist summoner his AC was so good that anything that could hit him was unable to miss the rest of the party. He could easily have pushed it higher.
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Not something I'm using as my summoner is getting designed with broodmaster so they can have 2 best friends while being lousy at dealing with people (theory crafting) however I'd say remember you can make it immune to an energy for 2 evolution points or to fire:cold, acid, sonic and electricity for 10.
Pounce allow you to full attack on a charge. the bane of melee martials is that they only get one attack if they move more than 5 feet. pounce is the most popular solution to this problem. But thinks like Reach, magic and AOOS can be other.
the build i suggested a bit up could be pouncing and having 2 more dex and only loosing the +8 on intimidate and 2 points of strength. that would give it 4 times +11 1d8+7 attacks. but would cost on reach when you go large.
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Synthesists are far from the most broken that a summoner can manage. I've got two parties running currently, one has a synth, one has a regular bog-standard summoner. The bog-standard one is far rougher.
Synths face quite a few issues:
1.) I'm huge.
Well hooray for you. That's great in combat, but the world you're interacting with isn't built for large or huge sized beings.
2.) You're terrifying.
You're essentially wearing your soul on the outside of your body, meaning you look pretty damn weird. Even if you're aiming for a 'samurai' chances are good that the enormous (if you're going Large) dude with the glowing sigil on his forehead is going to be taken for something nasty unless he explains.
3.) Your reach, hp and stat benefits are all genuinely useful, but you're still a frontliner with summoner saves.
4.) Don't assume that high AC, high hp and high damage output makes you insurmountable. The fact that the only person capable of healing your armor's hp damage is you is going to result in you piling up issues. Also I'm not 100% sure (someone double check this for me), but I think nonsense like symbol of death bypasses your temporary hit points to get to your creamy nougat center.
On the other hand, the bog standard summoner with enhanced summoning, superior summoning and a bard backing him up is able to summon in 1d4+1 huge earth elemental linebackers at 14th level, prior to that it was lillend azatas, and bralani.
He's able to swarm the battlefield with guys who hit (even without bardic back up) at a +2 on top of their already nifty damage bonuses (and bralani have huge crit-range weapons).
A far more breaking and insane concept is not the synth, the synth is a honey trap.
You want broken?
The archetype you want is master summoner.
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First of all, you can't base your statment on the fact that one particular spell could could me instantly (as it could could a load of other class, it's like saying that a card at magic isn't good...Synthesists are far from the most broken that a summoner can manage. I've got two parties running currently, one has a synth, one has a regular bog-standard summoner. The bog-standard one is far rougher.
Synths face quite a few issues:
1.) I'm huge.
Well hooray for you. That's great in combat, but the world you're interacting with isn't built for large or huge sized beings.
2.) You're terrifying.
You're essentially wearing your soul on the outside of your body, meaning you look pretty damn weird. Even if you're aiming for a 'samurai' chances are good that the enormous (if you're going Large) dude with the glowing sigil on his forehead is going to be taken for something nasty unless he explains.
3.) Your reach, hp and stat benefits are all genuinely useful, but you're still a frontliner with summoner saves.
4.) Don't assume that high AC, high hp and high damage output makes you insurmountable. The fact that the only person capable of healing your armor's hp damage is you is going to result in you piling up issues. Also I'm not 100% sure (someone double check this for me), but I think nonsense like symbol of death bypasses your temporary hit points to get to your creamy nougat center.
On the other hand, the bog standard summoner with enhanced summoning, superior summoning and a bard backing him up is able to summon in 1d4+1 huge earth elemental linebackers at 14th level, prior to that it was lillend azatas, and bralani.
He's able to swarm the battlefield with guys who hit (even without bardic back up) at a +2 on top of their already nifty damage bonuses (and bralani have huge crit-range weapons).
A far more breaking and insane concept is not the synth, the synth is a honey trap.
You want broken?
The archetype you want is master summoner.
My statement uses one spell as an example. You might believe that the saving throws you have as a summoner are 'amazing,' which I find hard to believe since it still a standard +4/+4/+9. Your strength is in will saves.
If you're a synth you're stuck in the front line role, meaning you'll be dealing with stinking clouds, dessication auras, poisonous miasma, snakes biting you, and all kinds of fort save goodness. Not to mention the reflex saves from traps, spells and similar shennigans.
I've never bothered trying to have anybody banish the synth's armor. Because its a will save versus a will save type.
The synthesist is not an insurmountable pile of terror and nastiness. He's just a big stompy guy. Its like if you let an outsider into the party. Resistances, good attacks, and the like, but still just one dude. Also keep in mind you count as an outsider, so stuff that whallops based on alignment hits you harder.
Your evolution surge spell (which you should definitely take) will make you much more adaptable though, especially as you're a spontaneous caster.
The hit point thing really isn't a corner case. With normal eidolons, they get healed because they're creatures. A synth's eidolon is armor and becomes temporary hit points. Temporary hit points don't get restored by stuff like potions and channels, so your only reliable way of repairing the thing is 'heal eidolon.' If your DM decides to run otherwise then hey, more power to him and its one less headache for you.
On the issue of size, the others suggest the size increase because size gives you reach and increased damage by increased size. So if you're using manufactured weapons you're hitting for fistfuls of dice with a big modifier on the back end.
Size has its own set of drawbacks though, especially as most synths keep their armor up 24-7 because of the buttnumbing 1 full round action cost to put the thing up (that means that you initiate in one round and don't finish until another). Basically you don't want to be Large (or Huge for that matter) 24-7 unless you live in Giant-burg.
I mentioned the bard aided summoner because the true strength of a summoner rests in action economy.
The bard just acts as a force multiplier.
I want you to envision this situation.
You've got an environment to deal with, the bad guys are performing multiple tasks, and there's about seven or eight of them.
You want to stop the tasks they're doing. They're not going to run up and try to exchange hp as if it were a MMO.
There are probably about four guys in your party. I'd estimate that maybe half of those are guys who want to get up in someone's grill.
You're a big mean synth. You can tear people asunder. This is great when you're dealing with say, a dragon, or pit fiend or something, but when you've got little guys, you need more field control. And not just in terms of web spells or tentacles.
If you were a non-synth summoner you stand back and spend your normal turn pulling in say 1 big guy, 3 semi big guys or 4 medium guys (or more if you have superior summoning).
Now you out number the bad guys, and the summon monster list is a toolbox. You need healing? Its got it. Ranged magic attacks? Got it? Need to bypass DR? Bam, lantern archons. Need stat boosting, support? Need a literal wall to get in the way? Got it.
And while you sic your summoned buddies on the enemy the next round you get to cast more spells, reposition or do tons of other stuff.
And your summons? They last minutes.
Minutes are an eternity in Pathfinder. Earth elementals glide through walls. Air elementals to whirlwind people or disrupt flying opponents. Fire elementals to burn entire rooms down, almost off handedly.
All around for minutes.
As much damage as you can deal, a group of enhanced summoned earth elementals can probably do just as much, with the added benefit of you don't care when their hp hits 0.
Again, not trying to be a jerk here either. But the baseline summoner is infinitely better then the synth.
He's just not flashy.
Well, size might not be an issue depending on what issues you pick. Not everyone has to go huge. Even large gets you a lot (remember, large is 8'+, which is just a bit above upper human range), and since strength increase evos cost much less if you just stay medium, you can stay competitive in terms of raw damage without any size change anyway.
Also, the fact that you look terrifying might not be too much of an issue. Just drop a point into the skilled (disguise) evo and put at least 1 skill point into disguise (maybe get a trait to get that as a class skill). With a decent check, you can make yourself look like the guy constantly wearing fullbody armor. Of course, this assumes bipedal, rather than the centaur everyone wants to go with. Still, centaurs are a thing you can disguise as, and they only face mild racism (I think being a half orc is likely worse, quite honestly)
Not to say that summoning isn't powerful, but there are still certain advantages that make synthesists harder to deal with than your normal summoner wizard or cleric.
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...He's able to swarm the battlefield with guys...Truly how to break the game; swamp every combat with an overwhelming pile of summons. Every round will take an hour, the game will be unplayable.
Only thing worse is first-worlder with pugwampi.
I mean you're probably right (don't want to do the math, lazy) but that's the reason no one does it.
Most summoners I've encountered are nice enough to pre-prepare stat blocks for their summons. I think Pathfinder SRD actually has some blocks for when they come in enhanced as well.
As a DM I tend to run dozens of monsters too, I don't get why if a player does it all of a sudden it 'grinds everything to a halt.' They just need to do prep and figure out what they're gonna do on turns other then theirs, just like your friendly neighborhood DM has to.
Admittedly, even I'm not insane enough to allow for a PC Master Summoner.
Synthesists are far from the most broken that a summoner can manage. I've got two parties running currently, one has a synth, one has a regular bog-standard summoner. The bog-standard one is far rougher.
Synths face quite a few issues:
1.) I'm huge.
Well hooray for you. That's great in combat, but the world you're interacting with isn't built for large or huge sized beings.
2.) You're terrifying.
You're essentially wearing your soul on the outside of your body, meaning you look pretty damn weird. Even if you're aiming for a 'samurai' chances are good that the enormous (if you're going Large) dude with the glowing sigil on his forehead is going to be taken for something nasty unless he explains.
3.) Your reach, hp and stat benefits are all genuinely useful, but you're still a frontliner with summoner saves.
4.) Don't assume that high AC, high hp and high damage output makes you insurmountable. The fact that the only person capable of healing your armor's hp damage is you is going to result in you piling up issues. Also I'm not 100% sure (someone double check this for me), but I think nonsense like symbol of death bypasses your temporary hit points to get to your creamy nougat center.
On the other hand, the bog standard summoner with enhanced summoning, superior summoning and a bard backing him up is able to summon in 1d4+1 huge earth elemental linebackers at 14th level, prior to that it was lillend azatas, and bralani.
He's able to swarm the battlefield with guys who hit (even without bardic back up) at a +2 on top of their already nifty damage bonuses (and bralani have huge crit-range weapons).
A far more breaking and insane concept is not the synth, the synth is a honey trap.
You want broken?
The archetype you want is master summoner.
The synt use the saves of the eidolon and get +4 on top.
And the synt dosent loose summon monster spell like. The Near invulnerabillity of the synt is a Big deal unless the bad guys never go after the weak guys at your table.I assume bog standard is the summoner without archtype?
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The synt use the saves of the eidolon and get +4 on top.
And the synt dosent loose summon monster spell like. The Near invulnerabillity of the synt is a Big deal unless the bad guys never go after the...
Where do we get the 'he gets the saves' from? I might be missing something but...
Fused Eidolon:
A synthesist summons the essence of a powerful outsider to meld with his own being. The synthesist wears the eidolon like translucent, living armor. The eidolon mimics all of the synthesist's movements, and the synthesist perceives through the eidolon's senses and speaks through its voice, as the two are now one creature. The synthesist directs all of the eidolon's actions while fused, perceives through its senses, and speaks through its voice, as the two are now one creature.While fused with his eidolon, the synthesist uses the eidolon's Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, but retains his own Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. The synthesist gains the eidolon's hit points as temporary hit points. When these hit points reach 0, the eidolon is killed and sent back to its home plane. The synthesist uses the eidolon's base attack bonus, and gains the eidolon's armor and natural armor bonuses and modifiers to ability scores. The synthesist also gains access to the eidolon's special abilities and the eidolon's evolutions. The synthesist is still limited to the eidolon's maximum number of natural attacks. The eidolon has no skills or feats of its own. The eidolon must be at least the same size as the synthesist. The eidolon must have limbs for the synthesist to cast spells with somatic components. The eidolon's temporary hit points can be restored with the rejuvenate eidolon spell.
While fused, the synthesist loses the benefits of his armor. He counts both as his original type and as an outsider for any effect related to type, whichever is worse for the synthesist. Spells such as banishment or dismissal work normally on the eidolon, but the synthesist is unaffected. Neither the synthesist nor his eidolon can be targeted separately, as they are fused into one creature. The synthesist and eidolon cannot take separate actions. While fused with his eidolon, the synthesist can use all of his own abilities and gear, except for his armor. In all other cases, this ability functions as the summoner's normal eidolon ability (for example, the synthesist cannot use his summon monster ability while the eidolon is present). This ability replaces the class's eidolon ability, bond senses, and life bond.
Nothing here about him gaining save benefits, just the ability boosts. Which, as I stated, does ameliorate the bad save issue, but does nto eliminate it.
The +4 to his saves doesn't come until 14th level with greater shielded meld. He does get a +2 to everything at 4th level though, which /is/ pretty good, but only helps so much.
I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but I literally don't see where he gets the eidolon's saves.
There are several magical items and effects that counter the banish effect and by the time the badguys have Banish they have other Save or Lose Will save spells.
Synthesist Summoner needs to be countered by such spells, melee combat against it it utterly pointless (I think I managed to hurt him with monsters 5 or more CR above his level and a smiting antipaladin, the player who is a powergamer but a helpful one offered to retire the character to stop breaking the campaign)
5th level Half elf synthesist summoner
Power attack and 2 Extra evolutions as feats, Greatsword as weapon from alternate racials
With Barkskin and Mage armour up , no magic items
36 Eidelon hp , 43 of their own hp
Attack is Greatsword +9 2d6 +7 , Bite +8 D6 +4, 2 tentacles +3 d4+4
AC 27 Fort +6 Ref +6 Will +8 20% chance miss chance from Shadow blend
Enlarge person drops AC to 25 but boosts damage to 3d6 +8 Sword, d8 +5 bite and d6 +4 tentacles
After this power growth is exponential at 12th level without items I have AC 42 at Huge size Fortitude 15, reflex 10 Will 16
Take Leadership and add a Cohort Paladin with Shining Knight for Lance charges and the bonus saves
Weird. I completely overlooked the part about building a Synthesist (while tinkering, I was only referencing the list of 5 requirements). Oh well, I'm heading out the door, so no time to put up a new build. x_x
Spook205 seems to have a handle on things. :P
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Weird. I completely overlooked the part about building a Synthesist (while tinkering, I was only referencing the list of 5 requirements). Oh well, I'm heading out the door, so no time to put up a new build. x_x
Spook205 seems to have a handle on things. :P
This thread's pretty helpful, lets me know more of the misconceptions people have about this class so I can make sure I get them pointed out so we don't have more synth issues.
The synt use the saves of the eidolon and get +4 on top.
And the synt dosent loose summon monster spell like. The Near invulnerabillity of the synt is a Big deal unless the bad guys never go after the...Where do we get the 'he gets the saves' from? I might be missing something but...
...
Fused Eidolon:
A synthesist summons the essence of a powerful outsider to meld with his own being. The synthesist wears the eidolon like translucent, living armor. The eidolon mimics all of the synthesist's movements, and the synthesist perceives through the eidolon's senses and speaks through its voice, as the two are now one creature. The synthesist directs all of the eidolon's actions while fused, perceives through its senses, and speaks through its voice, as the two are now one creature.While fused with his eidolon, the synthesist uses the eidolon's Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, but retains his own Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. The synthesist gains the eidolon's hit points as temporary hit points. When these hit points reach 0, the eidolon is killed and sent back to its home plane. The synthesist uses the eidolon's base attack bonus, and gains the eidolon's armor and natural armor bonuses and modifiers to ability scores. The synthesist also gains access to the eidolon's special abilities and the eidolon's evolutions. The synthesist is still limited to the eidolon's maximum number of natural attacks. The eidolon has no skills or feats of its own. The eidolon must be at least the same size as the synthesist. The eidolon must have limbs for the synthesist to cast spells with somatic components. The eidolon's temporary hit points can be restored with the rejuvenate eidolon spell.
While fused, the synthesist loses the benefits of his armor. He counts both as his original type and as an outsider for any effect related to type, whichever is worse for the synthesist. Spells such as banishment or dismissal work
Looks like you are rigth.
But if you look at the numbers they still end up with good saves +3+3+6 at level 5 compared to monk +4+4+4 or ranger +4+4+1. And if that is still too low look up the tricks with the monk dip or the oracle dip i suggested above.
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...
The synt use the saves of the eidolon and get +4 on top.
And the synt dosent loose summon monster spell like. The Near invulnerabillity of the synt is a Big deal unless the bad guys never go after the...Where do we get the 'he gets the saves' from? I might be missing something but...
Fused Eidolon:
A synthesist summons the essence of a powerful outsider to meld with his own being. The synthesist wears the eidolon like translucent, living armor. The eidolon mimics all of the synthesist's movements, and the synthesist perceives through the eidolon's senses and speaks through its voice, as the two are now one creature. The synthesist directs all of the eidolon's actions while fused, perceives through its senses, and speaks through its voice, as the two are now one creature.While fused with his eidolon, the synthesist uses the eidolon's Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, but retains his own Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. The synthesist gains the eidolon's hit points as temporary hit points. When these hit points reach 0, the eidolon is killed and sent back to its home plane. The synthesist uses the eidolon's base attack bonus, and gains the eidolon's armor and natural armor bonuses and modifiers to ability scores. The synthesist also gains access to the eidolon's special abilities and the eidolon's evolutions. The synthesist is still limited to the eidolon's maximum number of natural attacks. The eidolon has no skills or feats of its own. The eidolon must be at least the same size as the synthesist. The eidolon must have limbs for the synthesist to cast spells with somatic components. The eidolon's temporary hit points can be restored with the rejuvenate eidolon spell.
While fused, the synthesist loses the benefits of his armor. He counts both as his original type and as an outsider for any effect related to type, whichever is worse for the synthesist. Spells such as
They end up with Outsider type saves, which scans because they're effectively outsiders. They're still going to be weaker then the average bear though, especially because they effectively don't get a fort or ref save bonus for twelve levels.
Don't make the mistake of believing that synths aren't powerful or I'm saying 'they suck' or anything. Just pointing out their drawbacks and limitations. And my belief the 'bog standard' summoner can be far more broken.
Every PC build can be broken by something. Sometimes that thing isn't statistical.
Synths get worn down because of the hit point thing, also they end up having to stand up front and lose the usual saving grace of the spellcaster (a pretty good touch ac) as they are usually bigger.
Despite a lot of hit points (and they have a LOT) they still have a tasty nougat center.
If they don't go around with their armor up too, that's one whole round of naked synthesist (who are usually like tiny Howard Hughes' from dumped physical stats) and if they keep them up all the time they have roleplay issues. Remember the summon is translucent, not opaque.
Being attacked in his sleep is a horror show for a synthesist unless he wants to blow a feat.
The guy with the two handed sword has a better idea too. The synthesist summoner with a multi-limb build in one of my games rapidly learned that the smallest amount of DR cut his damage output considerably.
Now to make my point more positively, with a normal summoner, you can get by for a few levels with a really hideously tough eidolon to back you up. When you graduate to being able to make use of bigger SM spells, then you can relegate the eidolon to basically being a skill battery where just being near the guy can push your diplomacy or profession (merchant) or damn near anything stratospheric while he still serves as a good bodyguard.
And synthesists might not actually lose summon monster, but they effectively do since they can't do it while the armor is out without desummoning the armor. They can still cast the spell though, which gives them rounds of nifty stuff as opposed to minutes.
I'm also kind of terrified that Cuuniyevo thinks I've got this. All my experience with this craziness is from screen-side.
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Does your GM allow Syn + 2 lvs pally dip? Else your saves really go up to the roof. Or the (I can't remember the feat to get cleric domain use for a day), to qualify for divine protection? Also makes your saves go to the roof, but you lose 2 feats instead of 2 levels of pally, however you do not have to be restricted to LG alignment. 2 levels pally lets you ignore DR 1/day...
Pounce is for quadpeds only, not allowed for Bipeds. Bipeds get some amazing reach when they get large, though. If I were building a Biped, I would go for Half Elf Ancestral weapon prof (get a Falchard for the crit range).
Combat Reflexes, Power attack, then go to town.
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The synt use the saves of the eidolon and get +4 on top.
And the synt dosent loose summon monster spell like. The Near invulnerabillity of the synt is a Big deal unless the bad guys never go after the...Where do we get the 'he gets the saves' from? I might be missing something but...
Fused Eidolon:
A synthesist summons the essence of a powerful outsider to meld with his own being. The synthesist wears the eidolon like translucent, living armor. The eidolon mimics all of the synthesist's movements, and the synthesist perceives through the eidolon's senses and speaks through its voice, as the two are now one creature. The synthesist directs all of the eidolon's actions while fused, perceives through its senses, and speaks through its voice, as the two are now one creature.While fused with his eidolon, the synthesist uses the eidolon's Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, but retains his own Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. The synthesist gains the eidolon's hit points as temporary hit points. When these hit points reach 0, the eidolon is killed and sent back to its home plane. The synthesist uses the eidolon's base attack bonus, and gains the eidolon's armor and natural armor bonuses and modifiers to ability scores. The synthesist also gains access to the eidolon's special abilities and the eidolon's evolutions. The synthesist is still limited to the eidolon's maximum number of natural attacks. The eidolon has no skills or feats of its own. The eidolon must be at least the same size as the synthesist. The eidolon must have limbs for the synthesist to cast spells with somatic components. The eidolon's temporary hit points can be restored with the rejuvenate eidolon spell.
While fused, the synthesist loses the benefits of his armor. He counts both as his original type and as an outsider for any effect related to type, whichever is worse for
Out of curiosity what does this feat do? Let then summon fast or keep the eidolon summoned while asleep/unconscious?
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Out of curiosity what does this feat do? Let then summon fast or keep the eidolon summoned while asleep/unconscious?
The latter.
RESILIENT EIDOLON
Prerequisite: Eidolon class feature.
Benefit: If you are knocked unconscious, fall asleep, or are killed, your eidolon remains for a number of rounds equal to your summoner level before it is banished. If you are brought back to consciousness before this duration expires, your eidolon is not banished. If the duration expires before you are brought back to consciousness, your eidolon is banished normally.Normal: An eidolon is immediately banished when its summoner is unconscious, asleep, or killed.
Its not great, but at least you get to keep your eidolon around for a little bit after you're asleep.
EDIT:
I just realized though, synths can't take this. They don't have the Eidolon class feature.
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Synths get worn down because of the hit point thing, also they end up having to stand up front and lose the usual saving grace of the spellcaster (a pretty good touch ac) as they are usually bigger....
I Think we have some of the thing here. It seems that the normal casters get a free pass in in combat in your game.
The synt have better saves before stats than every body save paladin and supestisious barbarians.They have the Best AC in the game.
They Can be in the Big Boys club when it comes to offense.
At level 5 this is only 1 round away with the summon eidolon spell.
And they have the most powerfull spells all in 6 levels:)
And the option to use the summon monster spell like if he feels like it.
After level 8 it is hard to Challenge a well built synt with out killing the rest of the team.
They Can self heal or get a wand of rejuvanate eidolon and they Can absorb most of the damage to them self and get healed like everybody Else.
The synt with out his outsider suit is exactly as good as a normal summoner with out his eidolon out.
I think it's a mistake to take the normal eidolon advice and apply it to synthesists. Its action economy changes the goodness of things. You are more like a cleric needing to cast and attack which is why you should build it more like a traditional reach build.
I recommend biped with a tricked out slam. Reach evolution on improved damage slam is a good start. You can reskin the slam as a katana if you want. Later on you can add extra arms and slams and reskin each to being another katana. Going huge evolution isn't recommended for quality of life but you will also eventually want a decent dex modifier for combat reflexes and all of the AoO you will be getting. You can still get more reach through spells like enlarge person and long arm.
Basically a normal eidolon goes for death from a thousand cuts, capitalizing on pounce. A biped eidolon goes for one overwhelming attack and lots of AoO. The biped will still have lots of attacks too. He just doesn't care about them as much as standard.
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Synths get worn down because of the hit point thing, also they end up having to stand up front and lose the usual saving grace of the spellcaster (a pretty good touch ac) as they are usually bigger....I Think we have some of the thing here. It seems that the normal casters get a free pass in in combat in your game.
The synt have better saves before stats than every body save paladin and supestisious barbarians.
They have the Best AC in the game.
They Can be in the Big Boys club when it comes to offense.
At level 5 this is only 1 round away with the summon eidolon spell.
And they have the most powerfull spells all in 6 levels:)
And the option to use the summon monster spell like if he feels like it.
After level 8 it is hard to Challenge a well built synt with out killing the rest of the team.
They Can self heal or get a wand of rejuvanate eidolon and they Can absorb most of the damage to them self and get healed like everybody Else.
The synt with out his outsider suit is exactly as good as a normal summoner with out his eidolon out.
My party's sorcerer and the wizards would disagree that I 'give a free pass' on spellcasters. :)
The synth is the tank of the group. Which I said, they're reasonably good at. At no point am I arguing that synthesists aren't good at their job, I'm arguing that they aren't this ubermensch that people seem to think they are.
And a wand healing isn't 'like everybody else' only they or the rogue can top them off and as brutal as the AC (my synth's popping a nearly 30 AC at 6th level thanks to mage armor and own natural gribbliness), it doesn't help as much against big nasty guys, traps, gaze attacks or the other myriad shennigans I've thrown at the party.
I'm expecting some 'no true scotsman' stuff to show up at this point about how my synth player isn't a 'real synth' build or something.
Generally the synths don't make use of the summon monster spell-like ability (although they have the capability) because it requires ditching their armor. Synths, justifiably, don't like ditching their armor.
The synth has never dropped his armor, even when he had to burn hp to keep it up. He actually gets worried when he's in 'real hit points.'
Now again, the type of damage guys do varies.
The 'hotness' is the multiattack but multiattack gets bolloxed up by DR.
The big giant gribbly attack is good for pounding past DR but overall does less damage then the multiattack, and its more of an 'eggs in one basket' situation.
Concealment's good for damn near everybody.
The synth I DM for, is a typical synth, dumped physical stats, big beefy body made out of hp. He's got like 3 times the hp of the rest of the party. He's good, he's tanky, but given almost all of his spells go towards enabling his tankiness and he ends up stuck in doing tanky gribbly things, he's essentially like a barbarian with a few more utility spells (and worse fort saves).
He's got the same problems with getting enfiladed with spells, kited by people with better movement and ranged weapons, dealing with guys with concealment, that any melee fighter has.
Is he good? Yup. Is he like unstoppably ridiculously good? Not too much. Is he hard to hit? Yep. Does he also have a hard time hitting? Surprisingly yes, because he tends to pull power attack to try to get past the DR of the guys he tends to fight (outsiders, undead, constructs).
At the same level, the bog standard summoner from my other game was trampling enemies with celestial aurochs, blasting them with lantern archons and swarms of little elementals while buffing his party.
Party composition comes into play a bit though, no class (Despite forum theory crafting) stands alone. And different builds do better in different games under different DMs.
So for a first level synth.
Race half elf. You will want dual minded. Getting slept is a bad deal.
Biped.
Evolutions : Slam, reach slam, improved damage slam.
Feat: improved natural attack slam, if your dm allows this. Otherwise power attack.
This will give you one slam with reach at 3d6 base damage.
Spells: enlarge person and long arm. Combined your reach should be 20 feet with slam.
Enlarged your slam goes up to 4d6.
For extra cheese, you can put the bipeds claws on his feet to allow for a full attack.
...I'm expecting some 'no true scotsman' stuff to show up at this point about how my synth player isn't a 'real synth' build or something...
I am sorry not to dissapoint:(
But could any other class have Filled the shooes of the tanky synt. A figther or monk pehaps that also Can have AC 30 at level 6 even if it Will cost there damage and they Will not have the self heal. Or a barbarian that wont have AC 30 but Will have almost as many hit points.But could the synt do what your normal summoner Does? He have all the class features.
Suggest to your synt that he used up his Real hit points first that Way he Can be healed like normal folks.
At 2nd level you will take the push slam evolution. With this you can do fun things like stop charges. Another neat trick is to 5 foot step back and attack with your reach+push+slam. If you succeeded, your opponent is now 10 feet away and must take an AoO to get back into melee range. And of course you deny your opponent a full attack.
So for a first level synth.
Race half elf. You will want dual minded. Getting slept is a bad deal.
Biped.
Evolutions : Slam, reach slam, improved damage slam.Feat: improved natural attack slam, if your dm allows this. Otherwise power attack.
This will give you one slam with reach at 3d6 base damage.
Spells: enlarge person and long arm. Combined your reach should be 20 feet with slam.
Enlarged your slam goes up to 4d6.For extra cheese, you can put the bipeds claws on his feet to allow for a full attack.
Half elfs are immune to sleep.
Half elfs are immune to sleep.
Yes. I guess that sentence was a little ambiguous. It could have used an "also". Regardless, dual minded is the choice you want.
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Just a note, with the change to the way synth HPs are handled (to make it easier to heal the eidolon?) this is no longer an option. Fused link can, under the rewording, only be used when the eidolon would be reduced to 0 HPs.
Suggest to your synt that he used up his Real hit points first that Way he Can be healed like normal folks.
Not that big of a deal, really.
A synthesist that takes enough hits to lose their little magic powersuit just starts pulling off of his or her own HP, which can be healed by party members (not that they will since "healing in combat is the worst thing you can do"). The fact that this puts the Synthesist in danger of exploding when they go unconscious is no different than the barbarian, who has had this problem since 3.0 days.
Which also echoes certain sentiments upthread, the synthesist summoner is no longer a caster, it is a martial who happens to have some spells.
Also, some mention was made of enhanced damage dice. This isn't really fair to call it a synthesist problem since it also applies to any warrior-type who decides to get big and scary for the increased reach and damage dice, and there are quite a few ways to do it when you have a friend who will buff you. I believe there have been a few threads complaining about the damage die growth tables being troublesome and needing an FAQ.
Its more folks were touting the size increase as a feature in 'synthesist awesomeness.'
I still content only a lunatic (or severe eccentric) would want to be Huge constantly if they intended to live a medium sized society. If you want to go live with the giants, more power to you.
The issue with the hp is once you're taking hits on your tasty nougat (strawberry, marshmellow?) center you're in a situation where you're down to 'just' your d6 HD.
As I keep saying though, synth is a good choice, its solid. Its just I disagree that its 'super broken' when we've got litany of righteousness canting paladins one shotting dragons, next to their superstitious barbarian pals, normal summoners bringing in 5 Huge augmented earth elementals at 13th level, maguses doing ridiculous damage with shocking grasp, and omnicompetent bards giving +6 competence bonuses to hit and damage.
The synth actually needs all his shennigans because he's a martial who unlike other martials doesn't usually get access to the same toychest they get.
He's a gish. He works. This is a good thing. But he's not intrinsically broken. And as I continue to purport, the bog standard or master summoner are superior in terms of causing the DM hair loss.
Basically, once you get to level 3, your summon monster ability can easily outclass your eidolon. 1d3 Celestial Eagles can tear something up if it doesn't have some sort of DR. And as you gain levels, the DR becomes less of an issue as you can summon creatures specifically to attack your opponents weaknesses.
The Synthesist Summoner is not over powered. It's weaker than regular summoner. To take it you give up the biggest advantage the summoner provides and that is action economy. That's what makes the Summoner over powered. It's like party of 4 with a summoner functions like party of 5 but only splits the exp 4 ways instead of 5. I find they can take on tougher fights and in doing so get more experience and level up much faster. That's about it though. Of course you do have to watch out for Edilons that break the rules, it's easy to over look something a create one that is more powerful than it should be at that level.