So I'm trying to get a progenitor built to work, since I really like the idea of riding a massive robotic magical centaur beast into battle, but I ran into problems when I realized there may be a few snags to my plans. A few deal with what can affect the progenitor's servitor, but since that's dealing with 3pp I'll skip that part of the problem for now.
What my biggest concern is at present is, can a tauric base form eidolon take the pounce evolution? I understand that the pounce evolution states it's for "quadruped base form", but there's a couple snags there:
- These evolutions' limitations were written before the avian and tauric base forms were introduced. As such, I'm not sure if they would have been errata'd to accommodate the new base forms.
- From my understanding, an animal companion or familiar can take the pounce evolution so long as they are quadrupedal animals and you've taken the appropriate "evolved" feats. So if it's enough to just have four legs for anything else that could gain an evolution, why would it not be enough to have four legs if it's an eidolon?
- Conversely, if a tauric eidolon can't have it because it must specifically have the quadruped eidolon base form, then would that not bar animal companions and familiars from having it completely, since they aren't quadruped eidolons?
The only argument I can think of that has any logic would be "it must have at least 4 legs and no arms to pounce," and quite frankly that makes no sense to me either.
So, is there an official ruling or errata for this?
This is one I'm not super-concerned with, but it's still something I want to consider when picking my summoner's spells. Due to the share spells ability, you could cast enlarge person on an eidolon and affect it, despite enlarge person normally requiring the target to be humanoid, right? Would enlarge person, then, be able to affect an eidolon that has taken the large evolution, or advanced it to huge, thereby becoming huge or gargantuan? Since the large evolution is an Ex ability, it's hard to argue that it's a magical ability, but one could say that it was gained via the summoner's magical abilities, and therefore enlarge person can't stack with it.
Assuming tauric eidolons can take pounce, and I have it with natural jouster (so it can use a lance as if it were mounted), as well as adding in one extra instance of arms and two instances of claws on top of the original (so it has four clawed hands and two clawed feet, with one of its claw attacks given up for its lance, but also gaining an extra claw swipe at -5 attack via multiattack). Would it be possible to have him hit three times with the lance (once at full BAB, once at -5, once at -10) plus six claw attacks (five times at -5, once at -10) on his pounce, or would he only be allowed to hit one time with his lance? Or at all?
Say we've got my pouncing eidolon through whatever means, and I'm using it as a mount. If I have the eidolon itself do a charge attack while my summoner is riding, can the summoner use vital strike feats for her own attack since it's not technically her charging, or would the normal rules of not being able to vital strike on a charge carry over to her?
And on a similar note, how would this interact with her lance's double damage property?
I guess I'm basically trying to see if vital strike and lances' charging damage increase could ever occur simultaneously. If not, that's not really a big deal, since it just gives the summoner two more feat slots to play with.
1. Unfortunately, no, a tauric eidolon could not take pounce, only quadrupeds can as you noted. However, your point is valid and you should ask your gm if they would let it slide. In my opinion you should take a look at the unchained summoner, as it is a much better version of the APG one in many ways(notably balance and simplicity).
2. Yes, you can cast enlarge person on an eidolon with the "large" or "huge" evolution.
3. If he could get pounce, he would get his three lance attacks and 5 claw attacks, with all of the claw attacks as secondary natural attacks(-5 to hit and half strength to damage). Multiattack reduces these penalties to a -2; because you have more than 2 natural attacks, it does not give you an additional attack
4. No, both you and the mount are taking the charge action, and the charge action doesn't allow for vital strike.
Also, just a reminder that pounce with a lance only doubles damage for the first attack.
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1) Go Unchained. Ask your GM. PFS, no it wouldn't work.
2) Yes enlarge works when shared. Yes it stacks once you make your eidolon large.
3) Get a full attack. Can you do foot claws? Unless it says claws can go on feet, they can't. Can't claw with lance arm. -5 to all the secondary natural weapons. Multiattack reduces to -2.
4) When your mount charges, you charge. When you charge, the mount charges. You can't vital strike on a charge.
Aight then, thanks for the answers~ So what I'm getting is:
1.) It'll be more viable for me to use a quadruped eidolon with an arms evolution if I want something centaur-like that still qualifies (at least if I want it to work in PFS).
2.) I was actually under the impression that each individual type of natural attack was what counted (i.e. if I have four claw attacks it counts as one natural weapon, albeit still would require the eidolon to have four max attacks). That just means I'll have five claws at -2 if the eidolon's using a lance as opposed to five claws at full BAB and an extra claw swipe at -5. Not that bad, though.
3.) The vital strike thing is a let-down, but not really unexpected. And it gives me two more feat slots to play around with, which is nice. I'm not really going for PFS (as I want the character to also be able to craft cybernetics, and as far as I know crafting isn't PFS-legal), but this is something I'm much more willing to let go of.
Regarding the foot-claws, yes, eidolons can take them for one pair of feet and all pairs of arms they have. So if my eidolon has four arms and four legs, it can get up to three claws evolutions.
One of the reasons I wanted to go for baseline summoner was because I wanted it to have pounce out the gate, and pounce costs more evolution points for unchained and is unavailable until 7th (not to mention spell progression is a little different). I wanted tauric for the natural jouster ability, too, though I suppose I could argue that taking the Arms evolution would give my eidolon a tauric shape and make the feat legal. However, the points I would have saved are being payed out anyway to make the tauric a medium creature, so having it as a quadruped to begin with may be smarter regardless, even if it loses its lance. I'm not a fan of how the unchained eidolons' evolution pool is cut down to equaling their hit dice, but I'll need to examine the various subtypes to decide if it's worth it to me to use an unchained summoner.
Also, I realize this is technically a 3pp question but I figure since it's relevant I may as well ask here: progenitor's eidolon is a construct rather than an outsider (or maybe as well as, I'm not entirely clear on it but that's not really the question I'm asking). Does that mean it'll be affected by effects that normally wouldn't affect a construct (unless the effect specifically states it desn't work on constructs, which the wording for the progenitor's servitor ability states)?
Update: Yeah, unchained isn't really up my alley I don't think. I like the air and fire elementals and daemon, but... if I go for a Huge eidolon, I'm only gonna have 6 points in my evolution pool to play with. This compared to giving up the bonuses, but having 10 additional points in the evolution pool to mess with AND being able to grab mount, pounce, and claws right from 1st level (assuming of course I go with a small summoner, which was the plan).