[PF] Summoner- clawed eidolon

[CreganTur]

Building a 6th lvl standard summoner and I want to focus the eidolon on claw attack to give Rend a better chance at going off. The only thing that's holding back my build is the max attacks (4). I'm going with the Quadraped base build so I can use pounce, but that comes with Bite for free. How can I ditch the Bite evolution? I really just want 4 claws. Maybe this is an "ask the DM" kind of question, but I was wondering if this is addressed anywhere in the rules.

I have 10 evolution points to spend (took the Extra Evolution feat) and these are my choices (point cost in parantheses):
Improved Natural Armor (1)
Pounce (1)
Claws (1)
Claws (1)
Improved Damage (claws)(1)
Reach (Claws) (1)
Ability Increase (Str) (2)
Rend (2)

Along with the magical items I'm going to put on the Eidolon, and the improved natural attacks feat he takes, his damage for all claws is:
1d6 + 5 (he has 20 STR)
adding in power attack he becomes 1d6 + 11.
This means that on a full attack where all 4 claws hit, he deals 4d6 + 44 claw damage and 1d6 + 7 Rend damage (I don't think power attack stacks on Rend, but if I'm wrong it would become 13).

Can you enchant an Amulet of Mighty Fists with Valorous? I can't access that source book, so I'm not sure. If you can, then the eidolon's pounce (since it counts as a charge) becomes very, very scary. Would that only double the first attack that hits, or all damage?

My main tactic for using the Eidolon would be closing in with Pounce and then pulling him back with Maker's Call if he's ever in a tight spot or I think I may need him to protect me.

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Edit:
Had a thought right after I posted this and took a look at the base forms. They all come with 5 points worth of evolutions. The simple answer to me seems to be ask the DM to switch 1 starting point from Bite to something else, but I'd even be willing to lose that 1 point to just get rid of bite to go the claw master route.

[Rift_Wolf]

Getting rid of the bite would be GMs discretion. There's nothing I can see in the rules that say you can voluntarily forego free evolutions.

I think Power attack doesn't affect rend as it doesn't use an attack roll.

You can enchant an Amulet of Mighty Fists with any weapon enchantment, though scanning through the PRD I can't find Valorous. Is it a campaign specific enchantment?

[CreganTur]

Valorous is 3.5 from unaproachable east- our DM allows us to pull in things from 3.5

[RndmNumGen]

You can always just chose not to bite. At level 6, your Eidolon can only make 4 natural attacks per turn - but it could conceivably have more natural weapons available.

You are, however, short a pair of limbs for having 4 claws:


An eidolon has a pair of vicious claws at the end of its limbs, giving it two claw attacks. These attacks are primary attacks. The claws deal 1d4 points of damage (1d6 if Large, 1d8 if Huge). The eidolon must have the limbs evolution to take this evolution. This evolution can only be applied to the limbs (legs) evolution once. This evolution can be selected more than once, but the eidolon must possess an equal number of the limbs evolution.

[Rift_Wolf]

I should think you'd be able to get it enchanted then.

[meemaas]

Having the bite doesn't mean you have to use it. You don't have to take all your attacks on a full attack, and you could easily just keep the bite attack for those rare occasions where you can't pounce or full attack.

[Mathias1313]

Not sure if this is right but when I read it "the maximum number of
natural attacks that the eidolon is allowed to possess at the
given level. If the eidolon is at its maximum, it cannot take
evolutions that grant additional natural attacks".
To me that in no ways says you cant make more than the indicated # of natural attacks. That says you can have a max # of seperate natural attacks. So at at first lvl, giving you 3, you can have say claws, Bite and tentacle.

Just my 2 cents but i dont think it limits how many attacks in a round you can make, just the amt. of different kinds.

[grarrrg]

Improved Damage (claws)(1)

Along with the magical items I'm going to put on the Eidolon, and the improved natural attacks feat he takes, his damage for all claws is:
1d6 + 5 (he has 20 STR)

Your Claws would do 1d8 damage+Str.
1d4 (base for Medium creature) > 1d6 (Imp. Damage Evolution) > 1d8 (Imp. Natural Attack)


To me that in no ways says you cant make more than the indicated # of natural attacks. That says you can have a max # of seperate natural attacks. So at at first lvl, giving you 3, you can have say claws, Bite and tentacle.

First off, the Max Attacks limit is fairly stupid. The intent was to stop overpowered/overwhelming builds (the playtesters easily made Eidolons with DOZENS of attacks each), but there is nothing stopping you from making "Ball of Arms Man" and giving each hand a Dagger and going to town anyway.

That being said, this is one of those RAW vs. RAI vs. PWR (Poorly Written Rules) type things.

The RAW actually means 3 attacks PERIOD. Taking Claws gives 2 attacks, so a level 1 Eidolon could have Bite (1) and Claws (2).

For PWR I shall reference the Broodmaster (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/summoner/archetypes/paizo---summoner-archetypes/broodmaster) Archetype: (emphasis mine)

...the rest of the eidolons’ base statistics must be divided between the eidolons, including...evolution pool (but see below), and maximum number of natural attacks. Individual eidolons in the brood must ...
Larger Brood:

At 8th level, the broodmaster can spend 4 evolution points from the evolution pool for the large evolution....This allows him to summon two Medium eidolons, four Small eidolons...

At 13th level, if the broodmaster...can spend an additional 6 evolution points from the evolution pool for the huge evolution...This allows him to call two Large eidolons, four Medium eidolons, eight Small eidolons, or ...

So he must divide the Natural attacks between his Eidolons.
An 8th level Broodmaster can have 4 Eidolons, and has 4 Natural Attacks.
Going by RAW all of his Eidolons would have to be either Aquatic or Quadruped, as Biped/Serpentine have 2 Natural Attacks, and would put him over the Attack Cap.

A 13th level Broodmaster can have 8 Eidolons, but only gets _5_ Natural attacks.
A 20th level Broodmaster can have 8 Eidolons, but only gets _7_ Natural attacks.
Thus, by RAW a Broodmaster can NEVER have 8 Eidolons, because he'd never have enough Max Attacks to go around.

The RAI is you can HAVE as many Natural Attacks as you want, but you can only USE so many per round.
So to (finally) answer the OP's problem, you can have 5 Natural attacks on your Eidolon, but you can only use 4 (pending DM approval anyway...).

But, as has been mentioned, you can only put Claws on legs once. You can put Hooves on the other set if you desire (not really recommended, as they are Secondary attacks, and wouldn't benefit from Imp. Damage Evolution/Feat, but it's there).

[Barstro]

Not sure if this is right but when I read it

"the maximum number of natural attacks that the eidolon is allowed to possess at the given level. If the eidolon is at its maximum, it cannot take evolutions that grant additional natural attacks".

To me that in no ways says you cant make more than the indicated # of natural attacks. That says you can have a max # of seperate natural attacks. So at at first lvl, giving you 3, you can have say claws, Bite and tentacle.

Just my 2 cents but i dont think it limits how many attacks in a round you can make, just the amt. of different kinds.

To me, it clearly says that; if you already have the maximum amount of natural attacks (claws "giving it two claw attacks") you cannot take more. If you have bite and claws, you have three attacks (one for bite, two for claws). I, sadly, see no way to get rid of "free" evolutions, so that is what you are stuck with. At level 4, you get four attacks. Since you would already have three, you can take another evolution that grants an attack. Take claws (and its prerequisites) again and you have five attacks. Four of those attacks are claws (which is what you want), and is the maximum that you can use. This does force you to miss out on one attack when you would otherwise have an odd number of attacks.

I think this might have been designed as a trade-off so that there wouldn't be an easy way to have pouncing claws.

However, Synthesist still seems to be a work in progress, so maybe your DM will feel differently. A decent argument is that you are not even asking for the evolution points back from the bite attack, you are just asking that your eidolon lose all its teeth.

My personal opinions on claw-dolons is that you want the biped anyway, so you get reach when large. Find some other way to get pouce. :smallwink:

[Mathias1313]

True this is definately one of those things that is poorly written, however when is says that it is the "maximum number of natural attacks that the eidolon is allowed to possess", to me that still says how many seperate natural attacks you can have otherwise it would say maximum number of natural attacks that the eidolon is allowed to make in a round.
But again, my 2 cents. Definately an up to the DM kinda thing.

[Barstro]

True this is definately one of those things that is poorly written, however when is says that it is the "maximum number of natural attacks that the eidolon is allowed to possess", to me that still says how many seperate natural attacks you can have otherwise it would say maximum number of natural attacks that the eidolon is allowed to make in a round.
But again, my 2 cents. Definately an up to the DM kinda thing.

Am I correct that your view is that an eidolon can have (and make) as many claw attacks as it wants, since a claw is only one type of attack?

If so, then I propose that, were that the actual intent, the rules would say "maximum number of natural attack types (or forms) that the eidolon is allowed to possess". By stating that the eidolon is only able to possess a certain number of attacks (and I count claws "giving it two claw attacks" as eating up two attack spots) that the rules use that language to limit natural attacks that can be made in a round as well. If the rules say that you can only possess four natural attacks, they don't need another sentence stating that you can only take four natural attacks as well.

Again, this is a perfect display of why things like this require examples.

Along with those stupid rules; Centaur build states that the eidolon uses weapons one size smaller because the quadruped is normal size, so the torso must be smaller in relation. But I'm pretty sure that you can get a biped that is normal size and uses normal weapons, and get an evolution for more legs to bypass this.

[grarrrg]

Along with those stupid rules; Centaur build states that the eidolon uses weapons one size smaller because the quadruped is normal size, so the torso must be smaller in relation. But I'm pretty sure that you can get a biped that is normal size and uses normal weapons, and get an evolution for more legs to bypass this.

It's not a rule, it's more of a self-imposed restriction.

"Using a model does not change the eidolon’s type or give it special abilities unavailable to other eidolons—it is basically a shortcut to allow a player or GM to quickly create an eidolon with a specific look in mind."

If you want to make your Eidolon, say, a Nightmare, then the Model gives you a good idea of what you'll need. You are always free to tweak it as you see fit, nothing says you MUST follow their suggestions.

[Barstro]

It's not a rule, it's more of a self-imposed restriction.

"Using a model does not change the eidolon’s type or give it special abilities unavailable to other eidolons—it is basically a shortcut to allow a player or GM to quickly create an eidolon with a specific look in mind."

If you want to make your Eidolon, say, a Nightmare, then the Model gives you a good idea of what you'll need. You are always free to tweak it as you see fit, nothing says you MUST follow their suggestions.

In my mind, "tweak" would be feathers or a scaly body. Their description for any animal-body/human-torso animal is that the torso is one size smaller. I'd argue it is stupid, and not canon, but I can understand why someone else would consider it a rule. After all, it is not just eidolon flavor, it is stating that there should be a hindrance. If they didn't actually mean for that type to have such a hindrance, they could have left that sentence out.

"Eidolon" should be renamed "Player/GM-agreement".
"Synthesist" should be renamed "Crap-shoot"

[grarrrg]

"Eidolon" should be renamed "Player/GM-agreement".
"Synthesist" should be renamed "Crap-shoot"

Hmmm...
Those don't sound nearly "class-namey" enough.
What about...
Eidolon > The Haggler
Synthesist > Loopholer