Summoners, Eidolons, Leadership, and Epic Level Play

[pumpkin-tlof19]

So the situation is this: I'm playing a summoner in a continuation of an old campaign, and there's a possibility we will be going into epic-level play. We're definitely going to be doing something with 20th-level characters, and we're not able to take levels beyond 20 in a given class.

Which brings me to my conundrum, and suggested solution: If we proceed to epic-level play, I'm going to have a 15HD eidolon following me around contributing about the same impact as Summon Monster 1 vs Tarrasque. Which, while not necessarily bad, isn't what I had in mind when I chose the class. I remembered somewhere that you could use the leadership feat to increase your animal companion's level up to two below your own, and also that leadership was a ridiculous cheese feat beyond all comparison... at least as written. I don't know if I'm remembering wrong or what, but I figured if animal companions could do it, there was no reason Eds can't, and it's WAY less absolutely ridiculous than yodawging cohorts.

TLDR: If my summoner picks up the Leadership feat at 7th level, can I say that my eidolon is my cohort, and start giving him xp and class levels/hit dice to close the gap between the two characters?

[David knott 242]

You are definitely in house rules territory here, so you should see what you can work out with your GM. The Leadership feat does not help you here, as there are no rules that I know of for combining a cohort with an eidolon or animal companion.

The basic question here is whether and how you can advance your eidolon past what the eidolon table in the Advanced Player's Guide shows for the 15 hit dice eidolon of a 20th level Summoner. Your GM has ruled out the most direct approach of simply advancing the Summoner past 20th level and extrapolating the effects from existing information.

So -- the next question is whether he limits you to what the published tables show or whether you can still extrapolate eidolon features beyond what the table explicitly provides if you can find some other way to gain class abilities beyond 20th level.

If such extrapolation is disallowed, then you are basically out of luck -- the desired end result would be exactly what your GM is blocking.

If such extrapolation is allowed, I would recommend ensuring that you can qualify for the Evangelist prestige class by 20th level and then take your next 10 levels in that class, advancing all Summoner class features to 29th level via the Aligned Class feature. You would have to go into 3rd party material for further eidolon advancement if your campaign goes past 30th level.

[Dave Justus]

I don't know of anything in any rules that would allow for an eidolon (or an animal companion) with more than 15 HD.

That said, I think a rebuild of your Eidolon could keep it quite relevant, even if it is no longer a main combatant. An eidolon built as a skill monkey could cover pretty much any skill the party lacked, and be quite sufficient even for very high level play. An 15 HD mount is pretty good even for a very high level character, giving you all sorts of mobility options.

From a game play perspective, given the increased options all of the characters will have, not having a companion be a main combatant might not be such a bad thing.

[Devilkiller]

I agree that Leadership isn't very relevant here unless you wanted to get a teammate of some sort for your eidolon. It would probably be more streamlined to make your PC into that teammate though and let the eidolon be more like your "little buddy". An ability to share teamwork feats or perhaps some mounted combat capability might work out well.