(PF) Summoner: Is Slam worth it

[Azernak0]

I don't want to use weapons. I think it is kinda cheesy to use weapons as it bypasses the damage limit set by maximum attacks.

So I have been looking at the Summoner for years. I guess I will be playing in a PF game soon (first ever) and I was looking through it. I think I am going with a Half-Elf Wildcaller just to get the biggest dude around. Obviously, Slam is the hardest hitting. It starts at 1d8 and can be buffed ludicrously fast with Improved Damage, Imp Natural Attack, and size stacking. However, is Slam worth it as it is 2 for 4 rather than Claws which are 2 for 3?

What about at early levels versus high levels?

[Spore]

Slam is very powerful but quickly looses ground to maxmimum amount of attack plus multiattack. That said, the summoner is generally the caster's answer to a BSF with buffs as icing on the cake. It is really REALLY powerful. You will have sufficient power when choosing Slam (+ Charge + Furious Focus + Power Attack). Make him largeand give the slam attack the "grab" ability. If it is enlarged to huge, the damage with Furious Focus is:

Slam +17 (charge +19) 3d6+15 (avg. 26,5) Grab with CMB +21, so it has a good chance to grapple a CR 10 Wood Golem with Enlarge Person, Magic Fang up. I would however generally not recommend NOT taking grab.

It is one big hard hit but here is the twist. See buffs like magic fang? They work on ALL natural weapons of the creature. If you play a 6 armed beast, you get +6 damage from that spell alone. Size Increase (+8 Str) gives you instead of +4 (pot. +6 damage) +4 for EVERY attack. This can quickly.

Even if you do just 5 claw attacks with your 6 limbs, you get 5 times the strength bonus (+20) and five times the magic weapon bonus (+5) plus the size bonus of enlarge person.

Netting you in damage potential of
5 Claws +17/+17/+15/+15/+15 1d8+30 damage (avg. 52,5) And the dude isn't even powerattacking right now (PA gives you +20 damage).

[Frosty]

You can use Vital Strike with Charging? :smallconfused:

Anyhow, Slam can be worth it if you're really dedicated to effective size increases.

Get your Eidolon to Huge using evolutions. Cast Enlarge Person on it (preferably quickened via a Metamagic wand or something), and then cast Strong Jaw on your eidolon from a wand (or have it in potion form and have your eidolon drink it). This is 3 more size increases effectively for slam damage.

Throw in the Improved Natural Attack feat for a 4th effective size increase above Huge, and have your eidolon take the Improved Damage (Slam) evolution, and you've got yourself a whopper of a Slam attack.

Huge Slam base --> 2d8.
Improved Damage (Slam) --> 2d10
Improved Natural Attack (Slam) --> 4d8 [now effectively Gargantuan]
Enlarge Person --> 6d8 [now effectively Colossal]
Strong Jaw --> 12d8 [now effectively 2 beyond Colossal]

12d8 plus Improved Vital Strike means 36d8 on a standard action, with a Mean of 162 damage, and a standard deviation of 13.75. Not bad at all.

[Spore]

Corrected. And your example is more impressive. Still the attack has to connect.

[Keneth]

Strong Jaw --> 12d8 [now effectively 2 beyond Colossal]

That's assuming you can go beyond Colossal, but by PF RAW, there are no size categories beyond Colossal. Increasing the size by any factor still makes it Colossal, thus stopping any damage progression as well.

[Frosty]

1) The creature's ACTUAL size never goes beyond Gargantuan. There are 3 "effective" size increases for the purposes of damage. 1 actual size increase comes from Enlarge Person.

2) The strongjaw spell specifically states that "If the creature is already Gargantuan or Colossal-sized, double the amount of damage dealt by each of its natural attacks instead." In other words, for each 2 effective sizes, you double the damage, which is consistent with the damage chart provided from the Improved Natural Attack (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/monster-feats/improved-natural-attack) feat.

Sporeegg: No iteratives, and the eidolon is going to have a Str score in the 40s. Landing a hit probably isn't a big problem. At the minimum level this can work, the Eidolon has a BAB of 12, and +16 to hit from Str (at an absolute minimum, assuming Huge size is taken and NOTHING else, and also that the Ability score increases do not go to Str. Takes Enlarge Person into account), for a +28 to-hit. Wait, Gargantuan size modifier brings this down to +24.

Some monsters at CR15:
Agathion, Cetaceal (AC 30)
Daemon, Crucidaemon (AC 29)
Black Dragon, Very Old (AC 35)
Golem, Cannon (AC 31)
Kami, Toshigami (AC 30)

Okay, against the dragon, the eidolon will miss half the time. Still, +24 isn't bad at all.

Oh yeah, the 162 damage does NOT take Strength bonus into account. As the slam is likely the eidolon's only nat attack, it gets 1.5 times Str bonus to damage. That's a minimum of +24 to damage from Str alone.

[Keneth]

Strong jaw is the exception in this case (I've never actually used it on anything Gargantuan or Colossal, so I missed that part). Otherwise size increases, effective or not, can't go beyond Colossal. No matter how big the creature or weapon gets, Colossal always has the same bonuses, penalties, and weapon damage.

[grarrrg]

Obviously, Slam is the hardest hitting. It starts at 1d8 and can be buffed ludicrously fast with Improved Damage, Imp Natural Attack, and size stacking. However, is Slam worth it as it is 2 for 4 rather than Claws which are 2 for 3?

What about at early levels versus high levels?

Slam is 1 for 3 (arms cost 2, Slam costs 1).
Claws are _generally_ the better option, you lose a little in damage, but they are 1/2 the Evo-cost per attack, which means you have more Evo to spend on other things.

If you're going for sheer damage AND/OR you are near the Max Attack cap, then Slams can be better. Linky (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245496).
At level 20 you're limited to 7 Max Attacks, while it is quite cheap/easy to fill these up with Claw attacks, it is possible (albeit more expensive) to have 6 or 7 Slam attacks instead, which would do more damage.

[Frosty]

Strong jaw is the exception in this case (I've never actually used it on anything Gargantuan or Colossal, so I missed that part). Otherwise size increases, effective or not, can't go beyond Colossal. No matter how big the creature or weapon gets, Colossal always has the same bonuses, penalties, and weapon damage.Thank the lord fro Strong Jaw :smallbiggrin:

grarrrg: If you have 6 or 7 slams, what will be the average damage? With my setup, average damage is approx 186, and that's without the Ability Increase evolution. I'm betting applying your Str bonus 7 times pushes the damage pretty high.

[Azernak0]

Thanks for the help everyone.

grarrrg, the reason I was saying that it is 2 for 4 is because you go Arms-Slam-Slam versus Arms - Claws. That extra arm will generally be used by the other Slam so it works out.

Is there anything specific I should know about the Eidolon? Like I said, I have been looking over it for probably three years but have never ever played PF.

[grarrrg]

grarrrg, the reason I was saying that it is 2 for 4 is because you go Arms-Slam-Slam versus Arms - Claws. That extra arm will generally be used by the other Slam so it works out.

Nope, 1 for 3:
"This evolution can be selected more than once, but the eidolon must possess an equal number of the limbs evolution."
If I have 3 sets of arms, I can take 3 Slams, no more.

Which is _slightly_ odd, as it only mentions "limbs" here and not "Limbs>Arms. Earlier it says "The eidolon must have the limbs (arms) evolution to take this evolution." So, if you have a DM open to interpretation, this means you can take Slam for your Legs, just so long as you have at least 1 pair of Arms.

[Azernak0]

Wow. That is silly. I kept reading it as possess same number of arms. Interesting. Thanks for catching that.

[Frosty]

Do note that while my build requires heavier feat investment, it does free up some Evolution points so that you can have more defensive goodies if necessary.

[stack]

Be really painful if your target has mirror image or a significant miss chance. Its a cool build, but I'd probably prefer a pile of claws in actual play when its time to roll for miss chance, which every not-surprised caster will have after early levels.

[Frosty]

Well, don;t forget the Eidolon has a Summoner backing it up, and buffs can be dispelled. Secondly, Blindsight is an available evolution :smallamused:

[Azernak0]

We are starting at level 1 so I will probably just grab claws at the start. That will bring me to 3 attacks with my Quadruped for 1 point. I am grabbing Extra Evolution so I'll have 4 or 5 Evolution Points if the DM allows the half Evolution Point to round up.

Claw and Pounce are pretty easy to guess at the start. That leaves 2 points left conservatively. Gotta look into the other points to see if I can build something of decent power.

[Eladrinblade]

I came upon a similar problem with my summoner. I wanted a big King Kong-esque yeti who punches and slams things, and breaks T-rex jaws and snaps necks, but claws seemed the more effective thing (especially with rend). Now, I don't like the size-stacking stuff mentioned above, I think it's cheesy and I know my DM wouldn't allow it, so I told him about my concept and we came to an agreement; I would use "claws", but they'd deal bludgeoning damage and be fluffed as "slams", and I could even get rend like this. We both thought that the yeti using weapons was in poor taste (though mechanically effective), so he didn't mind. He even let me bypass a few prereqs for Neckbreaker.

[Frosty]

I came upon a similar problem with my summoner. I wanted a big King Kong-esque yeti who punches and slams things, and breaks T-rex jaws and snaps necks, but claws seemed the more effective thing (especially with rend). Now, I don't like the size-stacking stuff mentioned above, I think it's cheesy and I know my DM wouldn't allow it, so I told him about my concept and we came to an agreement; I would use "claws", but they'd deal bludgeoning damage and be fluffed as "slams", and I could even get rend like this. We both thought that the yeti using weapons was in poor taste (though mechanically effective), so he didn't mind. He even let me bypass a few prereqs for Neckbreaker.It's not more cheesy than getting 7 attacks + Pounce with a Quadraped. Eidolons can deal tons of damage. It's what they do.

[Azernak0]

How does a beefy Eidolon (Wild Caller Half-Elf) compared with a Master Summoner? Obviously they do different things: flood the world versus King Kong.