Big Bad Summoner Companion

[Garion Beckett]

Hey guys!! first thing... i dont play summoners. I have an idea for a real cool Big Bad and i wanted advice on how to set up his companion.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/nightshade/nightw ing/

I was planning on modeling his edolion after the nightwing nightshade for reasons. now how would you build it keeping to most of the orginal abilities as possible.

Note: Use everything you can to build it and dont worry about evolution points. if you need more than the base amount from the class, let me know how many times you had to add evolution points.

thank you for the help i will credit you in my campaign.

[David knott 242]

If you are creating a "Big Bad", you are the GM and can freely have a Nightwing ally with any spellcaster of an appropriate power level.

But if you are building a Nightwing-like Eidolon, definitely use the APG version rather than the one in Pathfinder Unchained. Take the most obviously useful evolutions from the Undead eidolon model in Ultimate Magic (which is duplicated on the Eidolon page of d20pfsrd.com).

You need it to be size Huge and have the Fly evolution, along with the Ability Increase evolution as often as necessary to increase any ability scores that are obviously too low. Resistance, Spell Resistance, and Damage Reduction evolutions to duplicate the defenses of a Nightwing (especially for attack forms that your PCs are likely to use) are also good ideas.

Then look at Minor Magic and related evolutions that grant suitable SLAs -- of course, you won't get many of the ones you really want that way. However, you could max out the Eidolon's Use Magic Device bonus (including giving it the Skilled evolution for that skill) and give it a wand with whatever spells you really want it to be able to cast. Alternatively, select spells for the Summoner that match things that a Nightwing can do, leaving the Eidolon free to tear apart foes physically.

If you want your Nightwing to perform negative channeling, you can give it VMC Cleric in place of some of its feats. There is some debate whether this is rules legal, but since you are the GM yourself, you should have no problem doing this unless you have denied one of your players permission to do something like that.

[Firebug]

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Why not just add it in as a sub-boss? A combined encounter with the Nightwing and the Summoner. If you want to fake it, have the Summoner not use an Eidolon and use its Summon Monster SLA instead (which arguably is the more powerful aspect, especially as a NPC). Note: if you currently have summons active and you use your SLA again, the summons disappear and the new ones show up. So round 1 summon, and your summons act because you summoned them as a standard. Round 2, round 1 summons act, then you summon a new set as a standard and the round 2 summons act.

You could build a Summoner to be able to control a Nightwing anyway, something to get Control Undead onto your class list. Say, Mythic Past Life Samsaran to add Control Undead or Animate Undead and into Agent of the Grave, or just the Spiritualist base class instead of Summoner. I didn't see an archetype that added undead spells or channel energy (to get command undead feat) but I think Wizard has an archetype/school that gives channel energy.

Undead Controlling armor enchant maybe? Though it references a spell that only lasts a minute per level... and implies it lasts all day.

To your actual question: I'm going to start with an Unchained Eidolon and the Shadow Subtype since someone else when with the Chained version.
This gets some cold resistance(not quite cold immunity, more later), DR & SR (10/magic and SR26 at 16, vs 15/good&silver and SR25), deeper darkness SLAs 3/day(vs at-will), see in darkness(not quite darksense). It also gets additional concealment when not in bright light.

Likely Quadruped since the Nightwing only has a bite and not other natural attacks. Nightwing is Huge, so go with Large (4 points) and Greater Evolution Surge to bring it up to Huge and save 6 points. Reach(bite) 1 point to get it the 15' reach. Improved Damage: 1 point and Improved Natural Attack feat which should bring its damage to 4d6(compared to 4d10). Energy Attacks: 2 points to add a little cold damage (1d6) and Amulet of Mighty Fists(Frost) for another 1d6 (Nightwing has 4d6 cold). Flight: 2 points for winged flight and 1 more point to bring it up to 60' though it would be poor maneuverability at huge. Immunity Cold: 2 points to bring it up to the Nightwing immunity. Instead of Cone of Cold, maybe go with the Breath Weapon for 4 points, roughly the same but a smaller cone.

The Channel Energy and Magic Drain I don't see a way to do, the spell-likes you might be able to shoe-horn in with Spellcasting Contract, Greater for Hold Monster(as the 5th), Unholy Blight as a 4th and maybe Haste (though the summoner can easily cast that). Desecrating Aura... maybe just a Desecrate Scroll.

So 15 evolution points spent so far, which is what a level 16 Summoner with a Shadow subtype Eidolon would have with the Extra Evolution Feat twice (or some FCBs). If you want to pad out with Improved Natural Armor, Ability Increase, Damage Reduction: 3 points to increase the DR to 15 to match to bring up the stats.

[Garion Beckett]

David knott 242 wrote:

If you are creating a "Big Bad", you are the GM and can freely have a Nightwing ally with any spellcaster of an appropriate power level.

But if you are building a Nightwing-like Eidolon, definitely use the APG version rather than the one in Pathfinder Unchained. Take the most obviously useful evolutions from the Undead eidolon model in Ultimate Magic (which is duplicated on the Eidolon page of d20pfsrd.com).

You need it to be size Huge and have the Fly evolution, along with the Ability Increase evolution as often as necessary to increase any ability scores that are obviously too low. Resistance, Spell Resistance, and Damage Reduction evolutions to duplicate the defenses of a Nightwing (especially for attack forms that your PCs are likely to use) are also good ideas.

Then look at Minor Magic and related evolutions that grant suitable SLAs -- of course, you won't get many of the ones you really want that way. However, you could max out the Eidolon's Use Magic Device bonus (including giving it the Skilled evolution for that skill) and give it a wand with whatever spells you really want it to be able to cast. Alternatively, select spells for the Summoner that match things that a Nightwing can do, leaving the Eidolon free to tear apart foes physically.

If you want your Nightwing to perform negative channeling, you can give it VMC Cleric in place of some of its feats. There is some debate whether this is rules legal, but since you are the GM yourself, you should have no problem doing this unless you have denied one of your players permission to do something like that.

Variant Multiclass rules right?? That is a great idea!!

[ErichAD]

VMC on companions sounds cool, I'd be interested to read the debate over legality if you have a link.

For my contribution, you could use an astral eidolon from an unchained summoner and use that to augment summoned creatures to be closer to the nightwing. That may not fit the flavor of the encounter as well as just putting the nightwing into the eidolon slot and calling it good.

The nightwing is CR14 and I don't think you can summon things that high level till summon monster 9, so building the encounter with the caster and nightwing as separate creatures is probably better.

[Firebug]

There is the Cleric Monster simple template which gives channel energy (HD-2 = cleric level), and some spellcasting (up to 9ths at 25 HD, though max 2 per spell level).

However, it's not something you can normally apply to a companion. The closest is actually the Ancestor Subtype for the unchained eidolon(which would replace the Shadow subtype in my example), which gets a limited version(as if it were 10 HD at level 20) of the Simple Fighter/Rogue/Sorcerer. The Ancestor also gets all of the racial traits from its summoner (or another 0-hd common race if the summoner is not a 0-hd base). I GMed for a pair of 'Orcs with greataxes' whose shtick was to confuse the enemies which one was the summoner and which was the eidolon on the battle-map. Same model, just marked on the bottom of the base which was which.

Since you are the GM, you could bend the rules a little and allow it to take Cleric Monster instead of Sorcerer/etc. At Summoner 20, that would give the Ancestor 10 HD which would be a single 4th level spell and 3/day 4d6 channels. At less then Summoner 20, it only counts as 5 HD, so 2nd level spells and 2d6 channel.