[Help] We're going to need a bigger Synthesist?

[facelessminion]

So, I am quite a fan of the Bigger Boat Eidolon, and my party for an upcoming game is needing a bit of a tank... I am ideally wanting to play a Synthesist, so I was wondering: How close to the raw, smashy slam-based DPR of the Bigger Boat eidolon could I get?

[grarrrg]

Link for reference (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?245496-PF-We-re-gonna-need-a-bigger-boat)


How close to the raw, smashy slam-based DPR of the Bigger Boat eidolon could I get?

Very close.
The only hiccup for a Synthesist is qualifying for the Imp. Natural Attack feat.
There's the semi-questionable way of wearing your Eidolon-suit for over 24 hours (you'll have to stay up past your bedtime) when you have a feat to pick. The feat would cease to function while you weren't wearing your Eidolon-suit, but would start working again when you were.

The more legal way is to pick a Race that has the Natural Attack you want to boost. This way you qualify for the feat as-is, and when you suit-up it applies to the matching attacks of your Eidolon as well. Sadly, none of the approved races have a Slam attack, but there are a variety with Claws.

The third way is to just go without the Imp. Natural feat. Your DM may very well say no to option one, and you may find you want to go Half-Elf for the +1/4 Evo point every level. in this case Claws are probably your best bet. Even though you'll take a hit on damage, you'll save a bunch of Evo points (Claws cost 3 Evo per 2 attacks, while Slams are 3 Evo per 1 attack).

The fourth way is to just choose Pincers instead.
If you want to go Quad for Pounce access, then stick with option 3 > Claws.
But, if you want Biped, then I suggest you swap out your base-Claws for Pincers. Since all of your Natural Attacks are Secondaries, they get upgraded to Primaries instead, and Pincers have a die size bigger than Claws (1d6 vs. 1d4). You may balk at having to pay an extra Evo to swap out your starting Claws, but just think of it as taking Improved Damage Evolution twice (note: Pincer-swap does limit you to 6 Pincer attacks, and the 7th Natural MUST be a Secondary, or you lose the "upgrade to primary" bonus).

[Snowbluff]

I think SKR said it was alright for a Synthesist to pick up feats like power attack, using the Eidolon's statistics for meeting the prereqs. Just having a Fused Eidolon feature should do fine, assuming the Eidolon qualifies.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Ok, I see why slam was chosen, for highest damage potential, but I am curious... can you take Slam twice for each set of limbs, or do you need a new pair of arms for each Slam? If the latter...that's horrible, 3 evo points per attack is too costly.

Consider pincers instead. Go biped to replace claws and not have a bite and...pincers become primary if they're your only natural weapon type. Does one size smaller damage, but you get 2 of them per evo and set of limbs, and you can grab on all of the hits.

[grarrrg]

Ok, I see why slam was chosen, for highest damage potential, but I am curious... can you take Slam twice for each set of limbs, or do you need a new pair of arms for each Slam? If the latter...that's horrible, 3 evo points per attack is too costly.

Slam is only once per pair of limbs. It was chosen for the Bigger Boat build for sheer damage optimization only. And it _is_ possible to afford 7 Massive-Slams at level 19 (min level for 7 Max Attack cap), you just won't really have any points left for anything but Slam optimization.

Pincers on a Biped, or Claws on a Quad are preferred for _actual_ use.

Going with Pincers on a Biped, is there a consensus for the 7th attack?
We have to stick with secondaries, otherwise the Pincers will downgrade.
Tail Slap, 2 Evo, 1d6 base damage
Tentacle, 1 Evo, 1d4 base damage
Or, if you're using the "Max attack cap is the number of attacks you can _USE_" interpretation, is it worth it to spend another 3 points on just ONE Massive-Pincer?

[the_other_gm]

multiattack? nah. multiweapon fighting. that's where the damage is truly at.

half-elf synthetist, grab the Ancestral Arms racial alternative for a free weapon prof (falcate)

feats:
1- extra evolution
3- arcane strike
5- multiweapon fighting
7- dual slice
9- weapon focus (falcata)
11- imp.crit (falcata)
13- power attack

for eidolon build, go quadruped form. at level 1 grab the pounce & arms evolution. this lets you use a falcate from the get-go in your furry powersuit.

every other evolution you get should be either more arms or a size up, leveling your strength whenever you have the option. you should only start MWF with the falcatas at level 5-6 though and at level 8 you should have no real issues with miss chances thanks to the first size boost.

regardless of how many arms you do have, keep at least one hand open so you can cast spells while doing all these shenanigans.

the key thing to note about this, is the line where "Max Attacks:This indicates 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. This does not include attacks made with weapons."

"Limbs:An eidolon grows an additional pair of limbs. These limbs can take one of two forms. They can be made into legs, complete with feet. Each pair of legs increases the eidolon’s base speed by 10 feet. Alternatively, they can be made into arms, complete with hands. The eidolon does not gain any additional natural attacks for an additional pair of arms, but it can take other evolutions that add additional attacks (such as claws or a slam). Arms that have hands can be used to wield weapons, if the eidolon is proficient. This evolution can be selected more than once."

so yeah 1d8 falcatas go up to 3d6(1d8 medium > 2d6 large > 3d6 huge), 4d6 if you cast enlarge person and if you can find a way to get "lead blades" cast on yourself (wand in "free" hand + UMD?) it'll go up to 6d6.

technically we can also make these falcatas "Inappropriately Sized" to up the damage to 8d6 per but at this point we're looking at the possibility of wielding about a dozen or so falcatas that only "critters" akin to the terrasque could comfortably hold.

then go to town. arcane strike at the start of the round for some damage boosts and DR-bypass then multiweapon pounce on everything in sight.

the bonuses you get from wearing the eidolon-zord can get pretty silly (we're looking at a strength of 30 from the quadruped's 14+16 for size alone) but add to this the normal strength buffs the eidolon gets from leveling (8 normal and 3 floating boosts), the fact you can equip magic belts and whatnot to boost your strength/to-hit and that transfers over to when you're in your suit means you're VERY accurate without any actual magic weapons (which doesn't matter since AS allows you to bypass magic based DR!).

a near-50 strength score on a 3/4 BAB chassis is nothing to scoff at, especially when charge bonuses, potential flanking, ioun stones, etc... are taken into considerations when looking at your "to hit" values.

so yes. you become a Hecatoncheires.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Slam is only once per pair of limbs. It was chosen for the Bigger Boat build for sheer damage optimization only. And it _is_ possible to afford 7 Massive-Slams at level 19 (min level for 7 Max Attack cap), you just won't really have any points left for anything but Slam optimization.

Pincers on a Biped, or Claws on a Quad are preferred for _actual_ use.

Going with Pincers on a Biped, is there a consensus for the 7th attack?
We have to stick with secondaries, otherwise the Pincers will downgrade.
Tail Slap, 2 Evo, 1d6 base damage
Tentacle, 1 Evo, 1d4 base damage
Or, if you're using the "Max attack cap is the number of attacks you can _USE_" interpretation, is it worth it to spend another 3 points on just ONE Massive-Pincer?

I think the reasonable interpretation for when you have an even number of natural attacks and an odd number of max attacks (such that you have 1 more than allowed), the reasonable interpretation is that you pay for the last 2 but only get one of them.

In any case...is it worth 3 evo for the one last attack? Possibly...since it's a biped and thus no pounce...I might actually just opt to not keep my max attacks at full capacity when I hit 7 allowed (or any other odd amount, for that matter). Or just get some other 2ndary weapon that won't have all the benefits you've invested into the pincers.

If not, then yeah...gotta stick to secondaries. Tentacle's cheap and creepier, so I vote tentacle. You're not going to have all the investment in Imp. Natural Attack, Improved Damage evo, and such on whatever you pick anyway, so the base damage doesn't matter nearly as much.


multiattack? nah. multiweapon fighting. that's where the damage is truly at.

Multiweapon Fighting is also where the poor house is at, if you attempt at all to actually magic-up said weapons collection. Even just TWF is usually too expensive to upgrade much, I shudder to think about trying to pay for 10 swords.

[the_other_gm]

you might have missed where I mentioned arcane strike (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/arcane-strike-combat).

Prerequisite: Ability to cast arcane spells.

Benefit: As a swift action, you can imbue your weapons with a fraction of your power. For 1 round, your weapons deal +1 damage and are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. For every five caster levels you possess, this bonus increases by +1, to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.

summoner casts arcane spells.

you don't need to buy a dozen or so magical blades. it kinda sucks losing out on the +to hit that the magic sword provides, but you have near 50 strength (14 base+16 size+8 just because eidolon+3 for leveling+6 for belt+2 for enlarge person=49 or +19 to hit/damage), an adequate BAB, bonuses from charging, flanking and anything else you can give yourself (haste, ioun stones, bards, buffs etc...) and you can reliably hit most things without needing to buy a dozen +1 magic swords while still telling DR to go bugger itself, since the average AC of a level 20 thing is about 36 (http://paizo.com/PRD/monsters/monsterCreation.html). higher attack values just help incase you're up against a heavier armored foe.

TWF relies on the magic bonus to hit since there are very few ways to up your accuracy sky high due to the general soft caps on your damage (most twf-ers focus more on dex to get the twf feat chain) and how DR works by making all your non-magic chip damage nearly irrelevant.

as for weapon costs: a falcata is 18gp. quadruple the price for huge, octuple the price for a gargantuan blade (making it colossal due to enlarge person) so 1 of these is about 144gp. twenty of these is just shy of 3k gold. IE: less then the cost of getting both of a TWF fighter/ranger/whatnot's weapons enchanted.

if anything you might want to buy a few spare ones incase of emergency, but most of your gold should be going towards stuff like bracers of AC, stat boost items, utility stuffs, etc...

[Sayt]

Ok, I see why slam was chosen, for highest damage potential, but I am curious... can you take Slam twice for each set of limbs, or do you need a new pair of arms for each Slam? If the latter...that's horrible, 3 evo points per attack is too costly.

Consider pincers instead. Go biped to replace claws and not have a bite and...pincers become primary if they're your only natural weapon type. Does one size smaller damage, but you get 2 of them per evo and set of limbs, and you can grab on all of the hits.

Are you sure about that?


]If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always made using the creature’s full base attack bonus and adds 1-1/2 times the creature’s Strength bonus on damage rolls. This increase does not apply if the creature has multiple attacks but only takes one. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules#TOC-Table:-Natural-Attacks-by-Size)

There could be a clause I don't know about, but seeing as pincers come in pairs, you can't have just one pincer?

[grarrrg]

Are you sure about that?

There could be a clause I don't know about, but seeing as pincers come in pairs, you can't have just one pincer?

The Bigger Boat Eidolon isn't just "I can make a massive Slam", the Bigger Boat Eidolon is "I can make MULTIPLE massive Slams".
So the 1.5 STR to damage isn't even a consideration when you can easily just make half a dozen hits or so.

No, if we we optimizing a _single_ attack, I think we'd go with Bite actually. It's just 1 die size smaller, but you can spend a extra point on it to get 1.5 STR to damage, add in "single attack gets extra .5 STR to damage", making it x2 STR to damage. And I think a Single-Massive-Bite _might_ actually come out ahead of a massive-Slam (which only gets 1.0 STR to damage due to there being MANY of them).

[Slipperychicken]

The only hiccup for a Synthesist is qualifying for the Imp. Natural Attack feat.
There's the semi-questionable way of wearing your Eidolon-suit for over 24 hours (you'll have to stay up past your bedtime) when you have a feat to pick. The feat would cease to function while you weren't wearing your Eidolon-suit, but would start working again when you were.

Get someone to cast Keep Watch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/k/keep-watch) on you when you would normally go to bed. Or snag a 1/day custom item out of it for 400gp (spell level 1 * CL 1 * 2000gp use-activated * (1/5 one per day) = 400gp), or craft it yourself for 200gp and an easy Spellcraft check, or even upgrade to an at-will version for 2000gp if you're worried about being ambushed. Congrats, now you don't need to sleep at night and can wear your eidolon for ever and ever as long as you don't get KO'd.

As a bonus, the party will love you for using the keep watch item on them while tucking them into bed, since now they all get to make Perception rolls against a nighttime ambush instead of just one of them, that grimy thief can't loot their bags with impunity, nobody has to worry about whose turn it is to take watch, and the spell's text lets the fighters make an argument that they can benefit from rest while wearing armor.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Yeah, we were talking about the horrific -5 to hit and half strength to damage that secondary attacks entail, and avoiding that like the plague. The 1.5x str to damage was never being considered at all; more attacks are usually better.



No, if we we optimizing a _single_ attack, I think we'd go with Bite actually. It's just 1 die size smaller, but you can spend a extra point on it to get 1.5 STR to damage, add in "single attack gets extra .5 STR to damage", making it x2 STR to damage. And I think a Single-Massive-Bite _might_ actually come out ahead of a massive-Slam (which only gets 1.0 STR to damage due to there being MANY of them).

Not to mention you can take the Trip evolution with Bite. Maybe not so impressive on your one attack per round (two, when you pick up Multiattack thanks to its clause), but...if you twink out your reach and take Combat Reflexes, could be pretty nice.

[facelessminion]

Thank you all for the information! I think my form may very well use claws for a good while; we will be starting at level one. Another question: just what sorts of defenses can I reasonably pile onto my eidolon?

[Snowbluff]

Multiweapon Fighting is also where the poor house is at, if you attempt at all to actually magic-up said weapons collection. Even just TWF is usually too expensive to upgrade much, I shudder to think about trying to pay for 10 swords.
This is what Samsaran are for. GMW really helps cut costs down.

you might have missed where I mentioned arcane strike (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/arcane-strike-combat).

Prerequisite: Ability to cast arcane spells.

Benefit: As a swift action, you can imbue your weapons with a fraction of your power. For 1 round, your weapons deal +1 damage and are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. For every five caster levels you possess, this bonus increases by +1, to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.

summoner casts arcane spells.
As a foot note, I hate PF Arcane Strike. It's the swift action cost that kills it for me. Power Attack gives 3 times as much damage without an action.

[the_other_gm]

agreed on the swift action to activate, but as it stands I find it's one of the easiest ways to get DR/magic bypass on multiple weapons without breaking the bank and only really good for that. it's very niche feat that fits only on very specific builds as most arcane casters would prefer to simply summon a litter of critters then do the facepunching themselves.

in this case, a summoner wearing his eidolon is still a rather capable physical powerhouse even without any crazy optimization, he's just a caster that probably either likes doing the messy jobs himself or uses it as a sort of powersuit, giving him access to a variety of "free" buffs: itemless/spell-less flight, swim speed, burrowing speed, x/day dimension door as a class feature, waterbreathing/no need to breathe, elemental immunities (one of the few accesses to sonic damage immunity I know of), tremorsense/blindsight), fast healing/healing others, etc...

it's a solid class if you're not looking to blatantly abuse it's worse aspects. there are several good-to-decent buffs/debuffs you can use to bolster the party's overall efficiency. summoner played as a sort of off-tank/buffer/debuffer won't draw too much ire from the GM and is overall just a solid contributor to the party.

[JellyPooga]

Since all of your Natural Attacks are Secondaries, they get upgraded to Primaries instead

Could someone give a source on this? I'm not familiar with this particular ruling.

[Slipperychicken]

This is what Samsaran are for. GMW really helps cut costs down.

As a foot note, I hate PF Arcane Strike. It's the swift action cost that kills it for me. Power Attack gives 3 times as much damage without an action.

Arcane Strike doesn't penalize attack rolls and lets you overcome DR/Magic. I'd say it's pretty balanced for an at-will Swift action, at least at low levels.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Could someone give a source on this? I'm not familiar with this particular ruling.

See here (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules#TOC-Natural-Attacks). Glad I checked, I thought they all had to be the same type of attack and not just all secondary to get upgraded, so the whole "add a tail slap or tentacle" to your pincer routine thing does not actually work.


Natural Attacks

Most creatures possess one or more natural attacks (attacks made without a weapon). These attacks fall into one of two categories, primary and secondary attacks. Primary attacks are made using the creature’s full base attack bonus and add the creature’s full Strength bonus on damage rolls. Secondary attacks are made using the creature’s base attack bonus –5 and add only 1/2 the creature’s Strength bonus on damage rolls. If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always made using the creature’s full base attack bonus and adds 1-1/2 times the creature’s Strength bonus on damage rolls. This increase does not apply if the creature has multiple attacks but only takes one. If a creature has only one type of attack, but has multiple attacks per round, that attack is treated as a primary attack, regardless of its type.

So the trick is to get multiple pincers and nothing else, to upgrade them to primary. Same deal with the slam build. Note that by RAW it's impossible to get rid of a bite from a base form but you can replace claws. Since biped is the only base form that does not start with a bite, it is the only form you can use for the slam or the pincer build.


Arcane Strike doesn't penalize attack rolls and lets you overcome DR/Magic. I'd say it's pretty balanced for an at-will Swift action, at least at low levels.

It's not a bad feat, but I think it's pretty underpowered. It's not out-performing Weapon Specialization (a feat that no one ever has accused of being a "good feat") until level 10 and at the levels before WS is available to fighters, it's at best half as good as weapon focus, another below par feat, if you have the swifts to use it every round. I've never bothered to take it, don't see myself ever doing so, there's just always better options.

[grarrrg]

the whole "add a tail slap or tentacle" to your pincer routine thing does not actually work.

I have so much brain-space dedicated to how Natural Attacks work, and interact with Manufactured weapons and such, I'm allowed to forget one sub-rule now and then :smalltongue:

That, and they could use a different word for "type" every now and then.
Here's the quote again:

If a creature has only one type of attack, but has multiple attacks per round, that attack is treated as a primary attack, regardless of its type.
Do they mean "type" as in Claw vs. Bite?
Do they mean "type" as in Primary vs. Secondary?

Going by context:
The first "type" could refer to specific form of attack (i.e. Bite), OR it could refer to classification (primary/secondary).
The "that attack" after the 2nd comma implies that it refers to specific form of attack.
But the final "type" almost seems to refer to classification, as it refers to it being upgraded to Primary.
:smallfurious:


So the trick is to get multiple pincers and nothing else, to upgrade them to primary. Same deal with the slam build. Note that by RAW it's impossible to get rid of a bite from a base form but you can replace claws. Since biped is the only base form that does not start with a bite, it is the only form you can use for the slam or the pincer build.

Slams are Primary, so feel free to Quad>Pounce to your hearts content.

The Pincer method is still restricted to Bipeds though.