[PF] Synthesist/Soul Knife-Am I insane?

[Beowulf DW]

So, while pacing my study (read: bedroom) attempting to come up with ideas for characters, I hit upon the idea of a character who was very sickly as a child, and ended up developing the means to exit his sheltered existence and seek a life of adventure through the power of his mind. Since he likely would have been reading lots of books about knights and such, his imaginings-made-real would likely take the form of a warrior in armor with a mighty sword (So no natural attacks).

I was thinking something along the lines of Synthesist 5/Soulknife X. I figure this would give me access to the Flight evolution for the Eidolon, without losing out on BAB too much, while still getting most of the goodies from Soul Knife. Basically, my plan is to make the Eidolon a really cool set of armor, and rely on Soulknife abilities for offense. At least, that's how I'd hope it would work.

Thing is, I'm really uncertain about the viability of such a character. How does the Eidolon's BAB interact with the BAB of multiclass characters? Does it override it completely? Do I combine them as I would with any multiclass character? Should I put more levels into Summoner to help the Eidolon keep up?

And perhaps the most important question of all: Should I just replace Synthesist with Aegis?

Any PrC and Feat suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[inertia709]

I recommend replacing synthesist with aegis and taking levels in metaforge http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/psionic-prestige-classes/metaforge. That way you can flesh out your idea without being at half level for the important class features of each class. Plus IMHO aegis works better for the armour side of the concept anyway, since the aegis' armour is made by the mind, whereas the synthesist calls in a planar spirit to do the dirty work.

[grarrrg]

Thing is, I'm really uncertain about the viability of such a character. How does the Eidolon's BAB interact with the BAB of multiclass characters? Does it override it completely? Do I combine them as I would with any multiclass character? Should I put more levels into Summoner to help the Eidolon keep up?

And perhaps the most important question of all: Should I just replace Synthesist with Aegis?

Eidolon Bab only replaces Summoner Bab.
In the case of Synthesist 5/Soulknife 5 you'd have 8 Bab in 'normal' form, and 9 Bab in 'Eidolon-suit'.

And yes, you are probably better off just going Aegis (mechanically anyway, flavorfully Synthesist/Soulknife is probably better).

[Beowulf DW]

Thank you, inertia, for letting me know about the Metaforge (never heard about that one before, to be honest :smallredface:). And thank you grarrrg for answering that question about BAB.

So, as I suspected, Aegis would be better mechanically, especially due to the presence of a PrC for just this sort of thing. Looking everything over, it appears that Aegis/Soulknife can indeed do everything that I was trying for with the Synthesist, except for the Temporary Hit Points and being intelligent itself, that is.

Once more, thank you.