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harpy
2010-03-17, 02:33 PM
I'm finally sinking my teeth into this class and I'm just trying to figure out what to do with the Summoner. The Eidolon is obvious, make a nasty critter that has lots of attacks and mauls things.

Aside from the Summoner standing around taking full round actions and spamming the field with more monsters, what else can you do with this guy? He's got a medium BAB, so it seems as if you could build up a magic buffed fighter, but is that really the way to go?

Say you get your Cha up to 20, that means you get 8 summon monster spells per day. If you assume that there are 4 encounters a day, and each encounter is roughly 5 rounds long, then you've got two summons per encounter per day.

Now the extended duration of the summoned monsters is great, you can from time to time be able to cast it prior to the encounter, perhaps before he head into a dangerous area you could cast it, send in the monster to aggro the encounter and then let the party jump into the fray.

With the 20 charisma, I could see starting with an ok strength, perhaps 14, and then building up a fighter type with 3 spells per day to start. That means that for most of the encounters each day you could enlarge person yourself and then armed with a long spear and spiked gauntlets just poke away at things while the Eidolon is running around clawing and biting things.

So an encounter would roll out as:

hopefully pre-cast at least one summon monster, send ahead to trigger traps and aggro encounter...

Round 1: Once the encounter begins you send the Eidolon to go maul something while you kick off a second summons.
Round 2: Plop the second summoned creature in a good spot, then cast enlarge person.
Round 3: Poke things with long spear
Round 4: Poke again...
Round 5: Poke again...

rinse and repeat for the day.

What else?

I guess ultimately what I'm trying to figure out is what feats to take and ultimately what stat to dump.

Starbuck_II
2010-03-17, 02:39 PM
I'm finally sinking my teeth into this class and I'm just trying to figure out what to do with the Summoner. The Eidolon is obvious, make a nasty critter that has lots of attacks and mauls things.

Aside from the Summoner standing around taking full round actions and spamming the field with more monsters, what else can you do with this guy?

What do you mean?
His Summoning ability is a standard action.


Round 1: Once the encounter begins you send the Eidolon to go maul something while you kick off a second summons.
Round 2: Plop the second summoned creature in a good spot, then cast enlarge person.
Round 3: Poke things with long spear
Round 4: Poke again...
Round 5: Poke again...

rinse and repeat for the day.

What else?

I guess ultimately what I'm trying to figure out is what feats to take and ultimately what stat to dump.

You have awesome buffs like Haste (2nd lv spell). You are expected to be in a party usually so use some of those as well.

Tinydwarfman
2010-03-17, 02:42 PM
You buff your ridonculously overpowered Ediolon. And then you have other pretty cool class abilitie as well. Like spells.

Zergrusheddie
2010-03-17, 06:02 PM
Is it possible for an Eidolon to have more than 1 primary attack? So could a quadruped have 4 claws, a bite attack, and a gore attack at it's base attack bonus? :smallconfused:

Starbuck_II
2010-03-17, 06:06 PM
Is it possible for an Eidolon to have more than 1 primary attack? So could a quadruped have 4 claws, a bite attack, and a gore attack at it's base attack bonus? :smallconfused:

Yep, natural attacks stack (if you have 2 claw and 1 gore= 3 attacks). You never use BAB to count how many you get (1 each).

Zergrusheddie
2010-03-17, 06:09 PM
I mean are they still considered Primary Attacks so they don't suffer a -5 penalty to attack.

A quadruped with 4 claws, a bite, and a gore attack has 6 attacks a round. However, are only 1 set of attacks considered primary and the rest secondary or are they all primaries. Gore, claw, and bite all show that they are primary attacks.

PinkysBrain
2010-03-17, 06:19 PM
You are supposed to train your reflexes, so you can avoid your DM throwing the book at you after your optimized eidolon finished half his attacks on the first round of combat you use him in.

Broken, broken, broken.

PS. only one set of natural weapons can be primary.

Starbuck_II
2010-03-17, 06:21 PM
Only 1 attack set is a primary at same time: rest are secondary.
So 2 Claws, 1 gore, etc.
Individual description might make secondary, but otherwise you can choose when combining.

How does a creature attack with 4 claws at same time?

Mongoose87
2010-03-17, 06:29 PM
How does a creature attack with 4 claws at same time?

With wings.

PinkysBrain
2010-03-17, 06:32 PM
The fact that the Eidolon in Pathfinder is allowed to get pounce but the fighter isn't is really the ultimate proof that only casters can have nice things ... as a 1 point evolution too.

The 20th level summoner has a pet with 16 primary natural attacks on a charge ... the fighter can do triple base only weapon damage if he walks to his target.

tyckspoon
2010-03-17, 06:40 PM
Only 1 attack set is a primary at same time: rest are secondary.
So 2 Claws, 1 gore, etc.
Individual description might make secondary, but otherwise you can choose when combining.

How does a creature attack with 4 claws at same time?

The Eidolon's specific rules would appear to differ. Attack evolutions are either primary or secondary, as given in the information for the evolution. Specific still beats general, and I don't think there actually *is* a rule that says you can't have more than one primary attack as is.

Starbuck_II
2010-03-17, 06:41 PM
That is because every other creature has one set primary. No one else has the ability to choose (not even Totomists) till this guy.

PinkysBrain
2010-03-17, 06:51 PM
The Eidolon's specific rules would appear to differ. Attack evolutions are either primary or secondary, as given in the information for the evolution. Specific still beats general, and I don't think there actually *is* a rule that says you can't have more than one primary attack as is.
Oops, you're right ... the rule did exist, but only in 3.5.

In Pathfinder primary seems simply a category which can be applied to multiple sets of natural weapons.

harpy
2010-03-17, 07:35 PM
Yeah, with pathfinder the primary and secondary tags are key to specific types of natural attacks and not the order in which they are used, like in 3.5. It's real easy to construct a Eidolon that would have all of its attacks count as primary attacks.

Still, the level progression for the Eidolon limits the number of natural attacks it can have. At 1st level it's 3 attacks, at 20th it's 8 attacks. So you can't overwhelm low level games with zillions of attacks.

PinkysBrain
2010-03-17, 07:50 PM
Oops again, didn't notice the max attacks. Still that only goes for the natural attacks, you can still get extra manufactured weapon attacks. So 12 attacks at level 20 with haste, 15 with GTWF.

Good Will save, cheap pounce and other abilities many times better than feats ... the Pathfinder Fighter wishes he was an Eidolon :)

PS. how about Simulacrum as a Sp ability (ie. no material components). Damnit Paizo, THINK MCFLY THINK.

Draxar
2010-03-17, 08:05 PM
With wings.

Or by essentially jumping onto you and slashing with all four.

tyckspoon
2010-03-17, 08:07 PM
Still, the level progression for the Eidolon limits the number of natural attacks it can have. At 1st level it's 3 attacks, at 20th it's 8 attacks. So you can't overwhelm low level games with zillions of attacks.

3 attacks *is* zillions of attacks for a low level game, and it can advance to 4 before normal BAB advancement gives any other character a second attack. And they have pretty decent stats.. certainly makes a Druid's animal companion look a little sad. Try out something like a Biped Eidolon with Bite and Increased Stat(Strength); 1st level combat pet dealing 3 attacks, +5 to hit, +4 damage. Plus a feat, so.. let's give it Power Attack, why not, +4 to hit +6 damage on all three attacks. Only needs 2 hits to exceed almost anything a normal 1st level attacker can do, and all 3 hitting is just gravy. The down side.. well, it's a little squishy since it can't wear armor and has mediocre Con, but you can Mage Armor it and there are no major penalties if it dies anyway.

Zergrusheddie
2010-03-17, 08:28 PM
Where is the limit of natural attacks listed? Can't seem to find it.

PinkysBrain
2010-03-17, 08:31 PM
Do you have the final playtest version?

It's on the Eidolon progression table (with BAB etc).

Zergrusheddie
2010-03-17, 08:35 PM
Do you have the final playtest version?

It's on the Eidolon progression table (with BAB etc).

Apparently I do not.

Starbuck_II
2010-03-17, 09:24 PM
Oops again, didn't notice the max attacks. Still that only goes for the natural attacks, you can still get extra manufactured weapon attacks. So 12 attacks at level 20 with haste, 15 with GTWF.

Good Will save, cheap pounce and other abilities many times better than feats ... the Pathfinder Fighter wishes he was an Eidolon :)

PS. how about Simulacrum as a Sp ability (ie. no material components). Damnit Paizo, THINK MCFLY THINK.

You can't haste natural attacks:
When making a full attack action, a hasted creature may make one extra attack with any weapon he is holding.

You don't hold natural weapons.

Glimbur
2010-03-17, 09:30 PM
You can't haste natural attacks:
When making a full attack action, a hasted creature may make one extra attack with any weapon he is holding.

You don't hold natural weapons.

The Eidolon can hold and use a manufactured weapon and still use natural weapons.

Nero24200
2010-03-18, 05:35 AM
What do you do with the summoner? You read a newspaper while your creature holds off foes.

Remember those "caster vrs melee" arugments? Remembering seeing any regarding the druid? Well, the druid was considered a powerful class despite possibly having the weakest spell list in core - The reason? It could transfer into a big, powerful creature and even got another as a class feature.

The druid on it's own or even just the animal companion on it's own could hold it's own compared to some melee classes. The Eidolon is a more powerful version of that.

Starbuck_II
2010-03-18, 06:10 AM
What do you do with the summoner? You read a newspaper while your creature holds off foes.

Remember those "caster vrs melee" arugments? Remembering seeing any regarding the druid? Well, the druid was considered a powerful class despite possibly having the weakest spell list in core - The reason? It could transfer into a big, powerful creature and even got another as a class feature.

The druid on it's own or even just the animal companion on it's own could hold it's own compared to some melee classes. The Eidolon is a more powerful version of that.

True, but Paizo errated it so it can't wear armor anymore (they thought that it had too much AC).
So your creature if a glass cannon: awesome damage, but hurt easily.

PinkysBrain
2010-03-18, 08:15 AM
Can still wear bracers of armor.

Set
2010-03-18, 08:44 AM
Despite the hand-wringing, a 1st level Eidolon is 1 HD behind a 1st level Druid's Companion, and could well get it's butt handed to it by a big cat, which can potentially have five attacks in a round, thanks to Rake.

At the lower levels, get used to pulling your Eidolon out of combat, sending it away before it dies (and becomes un-summonable for 24 hours) and / or loaning it your own hit points with Life Link, as it's got less HD than the Druid's already squishy animal companion, and won't have better than a 16 AC out of the box (if size medium, 18 if small), making it fall down fast (since it doesn't get max hit points at 1st level, like a PC would, resulting in your fearsome combat tank starting out with a beefy *six hit points* or so. (If your 1st level summoner has no Con bonus, doesn't spend his favored class bonus on an extra hit point, and doesn't take Toughness, he *still* has 25% more hit points than his Eidolon!)

The Eidolon is not even a little bit a substitute for a Fighter. It does get better than a Druid's companion fairly quickly, but the Summoner is not a Druid, and doesn't get Wild Shape or a full casting progression.

There is no 'sit back and let the Eidolon take care of it,' unless you are fighting stuff that is so far below your CR that it's not a threat anyway. The Eidolon can put out some damage, especially at 5th+ level when you can combine multiple attacks with energy attacks, but it also falls down fast. At 5d10+5 (average hit points 32) a critical hit from a CR 3 Ogre can mutilate the dreaded Eidolon.

Playing a Summoner who relies on only a single class ability to try and get by is like playing a Druid and deciding to leave your Animal Companion at home and never, ever Wild Shape. It's handicapping yourself, and shortchanging your party.

Starbuck_II
2010-03-18, 08:50 AM
Despite the hand-wringing, a 1st level Eidolon is 1 HD behind a 1st level Druid's Companion, and could well get it's butt handed to it by a big cat, which can potentially have five attacks in a round, thanks to Rake.

At the lower levels, get used to pulling your Eidolon out of combat, sending it away before it dies (and becomes un-summonable for 24 hours) and / or loaning it your own hit points with Life Link, as it's got less HD than the Druid's already squishy animal companion, and won't have better than a 16 AC out of the box (if size medium, 18 if small), making it fall down fast (since it doesn't get max hit points at 1st level, like a PC would, resulting in your fearsome combat tank starting out with a beefy *six hit points* or so. (If your 1st level summoner has no Con bonus, doesn't spend his favored class bonus on an extra hit point, and doesn't take Toughness, he *still* has 25% more hit points than his Eidolon!)

The Eidolon is not even a little bit a substitute for a Fighter. It does get better than a Druid's companion fairly quickly, but the Summoner is not a Druid, and doesn't get Wild Shape or a full casting progression.

There is no 'sit back and let the Eidolon take care of it,' unless you are fighting stuff that is so far below your CR that it's not a threat anyway. The Eidolon can put out some damage, especially at 5th+ level when you can combine multiple attacks with energy attacks, but it also falls down fast. At 5d10+5 (average hit points 32) a critical hit from a CR 3 Ogre can mutilate the dreaded Eidolon.

Playing a Summoner who relies on only a single class ability to try and get by is like playing a Druid and deciding to leave your Animal Companion at home and never, ever Wild Shape. It's handicapping yourself, and shortchanging your party.

Before when you could give them armor: that was fixed by having them take Armor prociency evolution and Toughness feat.

But now- yeah till you can afford good Bracers of armor, they have some worries.

LibraryOgre
2010-03-18, 10:26 AM
What you do is travel around, pitting your summons against other summoners. This gives you the right to compete in tournaments, and to gain more and more powerful summons.

Just watch out for evil Team Meteor Swarm, who want to steal your Eidolon for no good reason.

arguskos
2010-03-18, 10:43 AM
What you do is travel around, pitting your summons against other summoners. This gives you the right to compete in tournaments, and to gain more and more powerful summons.

Just watch out for evil Team Meteor Swarm, who want to steal your Eidolon for no good reason.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v221/stormshaman/ohoq9.jpg

Also, to be useful, from my observations of the Summoner, it appears as if you're meant to flood the field with summons and your Eidolon, and then stand back and buff or poke things with a stick. Not sure of the use of this, but given that YOU aren't fighting, I can't see how it wouldn't do at least decently well.

PinkysBrain
2010-03-18, 10:45 AM
The Eidolon is not even a little bit a substitute for a Fighter.
At high level the Eidolon can cast a quickened righteous might (a non abusive form of using his Sp evolution) and pounce ... on a surprise round. The fighter can make a single attack (which he can't even use vital strike on, not that it matters). Pounce is uber ... the Eidolon has got the fighter beat on action economy and action economy wins the game.

Just like the Psychic Warrior will eat a fighter for breakfast if Paizo doesn't force Dreamscarred Press to nerf psionics.

The only way for the fighter to hold his own is using 3e splat to get his own pounce or free movement (and getting giant form cast on him by a friendly neighbourhood batman).

grummul
2010-04-20, 10:27 AM
I don't understand how people are saying the Eidolon's AC is weak? Or hps. At first level this is a summoned creature. As such your augmented summoning is applied to him. So you start play with a bipedal with 20 str and 17 con. The AC problem is fixed via natural armor and buffs. You can shield, Mage armor and barkskin your eidolon and all will stack as they are different enchantments. Shield Mage armor at first level for Now as barkskin is a 2nd level spell. 10 + nat armor 2 + 4 mage armor+ 4 shield spell+1-2 dex bonus depending on other buffs etc. Your Eidolon could start combat with a 21 AC...That's a fighter in full plate. What fighter starts play in full plate? If a kobold does hit that 21 ac and avg roll is a 5 for hps you have a 17 con from aug sum so you now have 8 hps. Which is what? 4 hps less than a fighter of level one. If your are level one and get crit by a level 3 ogre, 2 questions...who's living from that hit and why aren't you running from an ogre at level 1?

Starbuck_II
2010-04-20, 10:30 AM
What fighter starts play in full plate?

Warforged with Adamantine body?
A Binder with improved Binding feat binding Sovnok for his full plate?
It isn't hard to get full plate at level 1.

Shield is personal only. Also has a low Duration.

grummul
2010-04-20, 04:05 PM
I was only referring to the pathfinder system though. My DM only allows paizo printed materials. If you can mesh campaign worlds sure. Lore of the warforged in any other world seems just kinda munchkining with no explanation to support it. Shield is a self only however your share spell link class feature let's spells with a target of you be cast on your eidolon. The purpose of my post was not to bash fighters but rather to show the potentials of a summoners eidolon to be really insane. At 6th level mine is sporting a 31 str, 22con, 20ac all without buffs. I couldn't replicate that without loot and buffs for a fighter.

Endarire
2010-04-20, 04:54 PM
Use your summoning spell-like ability to quickly amass armies.

Summoners summon, buff, and provide minor(?) crowd control. That's it.

9mm
2010-04-20, 05:00 PM
pretend to be shinigami from bleach...

grummul
2010-04-20, 06:13 PM
Use your summoning spell-like ability to quickly amass armies.

Summoners summon, buff, and provide minor(?) crowd control. That's it.

Don't forget that in the play tested class you can not have more than 1 cast of this up at any given time. No armies unfortunetly... which is definitley a wicked bummer...

My DM allows the 25 point buy system and as such at 6th level my character has a 24 CHA. One of his focal points is Use Magic Device. We may have a limited spell list but I believe we were given that Skill for a reason. Not to mention our class stat is CHA for spell casting. So you buff and have Utilities as your spell selections and your Damaging spells you have made into Wands and scrolls and staves etc. Our feat selections are so limited for Summoners it might even be worth taking the investment into

Two Weapon Fighting
Craft Wands
Dual Wand wielder

If your DM allows for out of source books! Two Plugin away with 2 wands of lightning bolt could be pretty devastating. Especially if you apply the Energy immunity evolution to your Eidolon and just get a couple wands of lightning bolt or fireball. Let him run in while you just blast away at them! Get him the Push evolution and have him push your enemies while attacking up against a wall... Then start casting lightning bolts into the wall so it hits your baddie twice!

Starbuck_II
2010-04-20, 06:29 PM
Don't forget that in the play tested class you can not have more than 1 cast of this up at any given time. No armies unfortunetly... which is definitley a wicked bummer...


Stupid errata. Got rid of army and the ability to summon well.

Akal Saris
2010-04-20, 07:01 PM
Starbuck_II, check the newest playtest version. They got the ability to summon well returned - summons again last 1 min/level and are a standard action cast. You can still only have 1 of the SLA summons running at a time.

For the summoner, no-brainer feats are Spell Focus (Conj) and Augment Summoning - it's like Natural Spell for the summoner. The summoner in my game took armored caster (medium) and toughness (PF version obviously) so he could work as a semi-tank with a longspear behind his eidolon.

From what I've seen, summoner is a great class, but it's still only got up to 6th level spells, and in the final version most of the spells that they got early were shifted back up a level. The druid is still a stronger class IMO.

Starbuck_II
2010-04-20, 07:06 PM
Starbuck_II, check the newest playtest version. They got the ability to summon well returned - summons again last 1 min/level and are a standard action cast. You can still only have 1 of the SLA summons running at a time.

Wait, it was errated twice? I can never keep up with the playtest stuff.

Set
2010-04-20, 08:56 PM
At high level the Eidolon can cast a quickened righteous might

Or would, if Righteous Might were on the Sorcerer / Wizard spell list, as it would have to be to be eligible for the Eidolons SLA list. There are other spells that it could cast (such as True Strike or Haste), and it's probably more useful to the OP to suggest tactics that are A) possible and B) would be available before 16th level, if if Righteous Smite were a wizard spell.


I don't understand how people are saying the Eidolon's AC is weak? Or hps. At first level this is a summoned creature. As such your augmented summoning is applied to him.

Sadly, Augment Summons doesn't work on Eidolons. But, as a special exception, it *does* work on the Summon Monster SLA (which, being a spell-like ability, wouldn't normally qualify), so it's still a good feat to take.

As a non-PC, the Eidolon does not start with max hit points at 1st level, which means 5.5 (rounded down) plus Con bonus (+1, unless you increase Con by +2 with 2 of your 3 starting evolution points) plus Toughness (if you took that feat, and I would surely recommend it, as a 6 hp 'tank' at 1st level is pretty dire!).

They start with +2 AC from Dex and +2 Natural armor, and pretty much everyone takes the Improved Natural Armor evolution at 1st level, bringing them up to AC 16 (for a size Medium Eidolon, Small ones can go up to 18 AC), which is quite a bit nicer than what Druids have to put up with (although Druid Companions still have 2 HD at 1st level, which is nice in it's own right).


Get him the Push evolution and have him push your enemies while attacking up against a wall... Then start casting lightning bolts into the wall so it hits your baddie twice!

Oh, I miss being able to do this! It was so fun when it worked perfectly.

And so annoying when it happened to you!

The fireball-expanding-to-33,000 cubic feet thing was less fun to play with...

PinkysBrain
2010-04-20, 10:41 PM
Oops ... okay, he can cast a wish then without paying material components to get righteous might :) And a quickened chain lightning to still do some damage.

Still broken.

grummul
2010-04-21, 12:02 AM
Sadly, Augment Summons doesn't work on Eidolons. But, as a special exception, it *does* work on the Summon Monster SLA (which, being a spell-like ability, wouldn't normally qualify), so it's still a good feat to take.


Can you let me know where you are getting this from? I have read the Summoner write up a million times looking for the typical clause that they stick into things like this (The creature can not benefit from the Augmented Summoning feat blah blah blah). I can not locate anywhere that it specifically states that it doesn't. What I do see is the language in the feat which is very vague and reads as :

Augment Summoning
Your summoned creatures are more powerful and robust
Prerequisite
Spell Focus (conjuration).

Benefit
Each creature you conjure with any summon spell gains a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength and Constitution for the duration of the spell that summoned it.

Then under the write up for your Eidolon it states clearly :

A summoner begins play with the ability to summon to his side a powerful outsider called and eidolon....

....Eidolons are treated as summoned creature, except that they are not sent back to their home plane until reduced to a number of negative hit points equal to or greater that their Constitution score....

A summoner can summon his eidolon once per day... etc etc

Based off the text everything about this creature makes it a summoned creature thus applying any summon spell

PinkysBrain
2010-04-21, 12:10 AM
The Eidolon ability isn't marked Sp though.

grummul
2010-04-21, 12:14 AM
The Eidolon ability isn't marked Sp though.

True. They dictate it as having the Ability to. As summoning a monster is a spell and to have the ability to summon a monster is not considered a spell, I would add them to obtain a Spell Like Ability. This was beaten to death in the play testing of the class and it was deemed that Spell like abilities can have the augment summoning feat applied to them.

PinkysBrain
2010-04-21, 12:29 AM
As summoning a monster is a spell
Going from "treated as a summoned creature" to "treated as if summoning it is like casting a spell of the conjuration(summoning) school" seems to me like an unjustifiable leap.

IMO something is a spell when it's a spell. It works like a spell if it's a spell like ability. If it's neither a spell nor a spell like ability then how it works god knows (ie. the DM).