PF: Is Pounce necessary for an Eidolon?

[Rossebay]

I want to play a summoner, but I wanted a serpentine creature. The problem is, by RAW I can't get pounce on it, can I?

Is it necessary for an Eidolon to possess pounce in PF?

[Baroncognito]

Oh, serpentine. I wouldn't say it's necessary. How many attacks will it have?

[Rossebay]

Ahaha. Uhh, I was hoping for as many as possible, really. I mean, it comes with 2 attacks base, so I was going to go for a third secondary attack at level 1.

[stack]

Depends. If you were going for a biped reach build, I would say you can live without. With serpentine though, that's another matter. How do you want to build the eidolon? If you are adding limbs anyway, then use a quadruped base and fluff it as snakelike. If you really want a big snake, then you live without. You may be less optimized, but it should still be perfectly playable.

You might focus more on one really big attack (improved damage, reach, poison) rather than a bunch of smaller ones. There are a bunch of other evolutions you can use with the points not spent on more natural attacks (scent, spells, skills).

[Rossebay]

Depends. If you were going for a biped reach build, I would say you can live without. With serpentine though, that's another matter. How do you want to build the eidolon? If you are adding limbs anyway, then use a quadruped base and fluff it as snakelike. If you really want a big snake, then you live without. You may be less optimized, but it should still be perfectly playable.

You might focus more on one really big attack (improved damage, reach, poison) rather than a bunch of smaller ones. There are a bunch of other evolutions you can use with the points not spent on more natural attacks (scent, spells, skills).

That's true... Alright. I'll go with that, thanks. I mean, he's already got the reach and such, so focusing on that won't be too bad.

[stack]

1 point to give bite 1-1/2 str to damage
1 point to increase damage size to 1d8
1 point to improve natural armor

Scent, gills, and resistance can all be useful for certain campaign types.

If you are small, 1 point makes the eidolon a mount.

Grab and constrict don't really do much until you can get large at lvl 8.

Poison starts at lvl 7.

[The_Scourge]

Have a look at Ultimate Combat, there's a trio of feats for things that can constrict which I suspect would do wonders for a serpentine Eidolon

[Zejety]

There's a really nice Summoner Guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184592) here on the forums.

Here's its serpentine package:

Base Form: Serpentine
Evolutions: Grab, Constrict, Ability Increase (Strength), Improved Damage [, Large]
Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike -> Improved Grapple, Weapon Focus

Grab enemies and crush them. Grappling paralyses an enemy quite effectively, but the big weakness of this strategy is that the Grab evolution only works on enemies smaller than your Eidolon, meaning you'll need to make heavy use of Enlarge effects to make it work. With a starting Strength of only 12, you'll also have trouble making the combat maneuver checks - Pincers will help, but they're secondary attacks. This build is a combat-ender when it works, but it'll probably fail more often than it succeeds.

[Rossebay]

Yeah... I might go Quadruped. It seems like there are more options for that.

[Larpus]

Serpentine sadly got the short end of the stick, bad move speed and no ability to actually be a constrictor; as in, no way to use body to grapple and no way to get a 1 size bigger mouth so it can use swallow whole and similar on bigger creatures.