Summoner Homerule's

[Stag]

Hey, I was thinking of ways to make summoners more viable, and I thought it would be cool to type down some home ruling I thought would be cool, and maybe see what other people have come up with too. So far my group has decided to let the Wizard Conjuration school be universally accessible for summoners, and letting Summoners summon creatures even when their eidolons are already out. I'm not sure how this will work out, but i think it's a good start to making them good.

[Slipperychicken]

Summoners are OP as hell, they don't need houserule buffs. Use your class features and read this guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184592). Especially of note is the "Killer Centaur" example.

How to make an Eidolon which completely outshines most Fighters:

Quadraped base form
*Pounce (full attack on charge. This means you can Full Attack every round. Already a clear advantage over other melee)
*Claws as many times as you can get it.
Rend
*Large, as soon as you can get it
*Arms evolution, weild Greatsword in it (have eidolon take MWP: Greatsword). Make sure this set of arms doesn't have claws on it. The Eidolon receives iterative attacks in addition to natural attacks.
Magical Attacks
Improved Damage (Claws)
Flight (Ex)
Spell Resistance

* = prioritize

Then just have your Summoner use standard Sorcerer tactics: buff allies, debuff enemies. Grease, Glitterdust, Haste, Slow, and so on. If you really want to rub it in a Fighter's face, use an Eidolon build like the one I provided and be a Synthesist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/summoner/archetypes/paizo---summoner-archetypes/synthesist) with Mage Armor up. You'll out-fight basically everyone, guaranteed. No matter what archetype you use (aside from Master Summoner), Summoned Monsters can easily take the place of your Eidolon if it goes down.

Always take Resilient Eidolon, Augment Summoning, and Superior Summoning. This will make your summons strong, and your Eidolon will stick around even if you get KO'd like a dumbass.

[avr]

Not only would PF summoners not need wizard conjuration spells, they might not even want them. The summoner spell list is pretty amazing already and summoners have a restricted number of spells known.

Summoned monsters + eidolon + the summoner him/herself is a recipe for a round which takes forever. Don't do it.

Why in your opinion are summoners not viable? It might be as simple a fix as suggesting some changes to the options chosen or used by summoners in your game.

[sepchan]

I've never really understood some of the seemingly arbitrary limitations around the base forms of the Eidolon. Fluff wise it seems like your options are supposed to be very flexible, so that you could create an Eidolon to match whatever creature you visualize for your character's companion.

the eidolon takes a form shaped by the summoner’s desires

With this in mind I opted to remove the four "Base Forms" in favor of a single customizable "Base Form" and came up with the following:

Base Form - Head, torso, and no limbs or attacks.
Size: Medium (Can be adjusted to Small per normal)
Speed: 20
AC: Natural Armor +2
Str: 12
Dex: 12
Con: 13
Int: 7
Wis: 10
Cha: 11

When creating your Eidolon's base form you can spend a total of 5 evolution points on evolutions that will help determine the physical form of your Eidolon. You may select from the following evolutions: limbs (arms), limbs (legs), swim, climb, tail, improved natural armor*, gills, claws, bite, and tail slap.

(Optional) You could add Gore, Head, and Tentacle to the above options.

* If you select the improved natural armor evolution, the total natural armor bonus for your base form will increase to +4. You will not be able to select this evolution again until summoner level 5th.

When creating your base form you can increase your Str and/or Dex score. You have a total of 4 points to spend using increments of 2. So for example, you could increase either your Str or Dex score by 4 points, or you could increase both your Str and Dex scores by 2 points. You may not adjust your base Con score in this way.

Once these choices are made they cannot be changed at each new summoner level.(Optionally you could remove this restriction)
The second part of customizing your Eidolon's form that I found odd, is that there are evolutions that are relegated to specific base forms. The prevalent example being the Quadruped, which has exclusive access to the Pounce and Rake evolutions. Not only does this detract from the versatility of having a customizable monster, but it can be very limiting for a player who was not familiar with the summoner's Eidolon and chose a form that restricts access to an evolution they may want at later levels.

To me it would make more sense to add a prerequisite to those evolutions of having the limbs (legs) evolution a minimum of twice. (In addition to any other requirements the evolution may already have.)

So Rake would become:

Evolution Name: Rake (Ex)
Prerequisite: Summoner Level 4th, limbs (legs) evolution x2
Benefit: An eidolon grows dangerous claws on its feet, allowing it to make 2 rake attacks on foes it is grappling. These attacks are primary attacks. The eidolon receives these additional attacks each time it succeeds on a grapple check against the target. These rake attacks deal 1d4 points of damage (1d6 if Large, 1d8 if Huge).
Special: This evolution counts as one natural attack toward the eidolon’s maximum.
Using this example someone who created a Serpentine type of Base Form with the intention of evolving it into a Dragon over time by adding the Flight and limbs (legs) x2 evolutions, could then choose to take Rake or Pounce at later levels.