[PF] Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: A Summoner Build

[Tohron]

I'm still getting familiar with Pathfinder, so if there are any errors in the build below, feel free to point them out. All feedback is welcome!

On to the build. The actual PC Summoner isn't that relevant: all that matters is that he has Craft Magic Arms & Armor, Craft Wonderous item, and ranks in the relevant Craft skills and UMD. For thematic's sake, I'll say he's a halfling.

EQUIPMENT
The approximate WBL for a 20th level character is 880,000 GP. Since the equipment is hand-crafted, I use half the market value plus the cost of any needed scrolls.
+3 Corrosive, Cruel Double Sling (305+25000+225)=25530
+2 Corrosive, Flaming Double Sling (x8)(305+16000+400=16705)x8 = 133640
+2 Corrosive, Frost Double Sling (x8) (133640)
+1 Corrosive, Frost Double Sling (x14) (305+9000+400=9705)x10 = 135870
Belt of Physical Perfection +6 (72000)
Manual of Gainful Exercise +5 (26250+3825=30075)
Manual of Quickness of Action +5 (30075)

That leaves about 319,170 GP to spend on miscellaneous items for the eidolon & summonor, and any other expenses.

Now, for the Eidolon.

HP: 157 (112base)
Form: Avian
STR: 32 (base 21), DEX: 36 (base 25), CON: 20 (base 14)
INT: 7, WIS: 10, CHA: 11
FORT: +16(base +10), REF: +22(base +16), WILL: +9
Attack(ranged): +29 (+15 BAB, +13 Dex, +1 size)
Skill Ranks: Stealth 20, Perception 20, Fly 16, Sleight-of-Hand 1, Acrobatics 1, Disable Device 1, Escape Artist 1
Feats: Point-Blank Shot, Multiweapon Fighting, Precise Shot, Clustered Shots, Exotic Weapon Proficiency(Double Sling), Ammo Drop, Juggle Load, Double Slice
Evolutions: Limbs(arms) x13

The Full Attack:
The double sling is an interesting weapon. Like a regular sling, it allows adding your strength bonus to damage (half your bonus for off-hand attacks), and can be fired one handed. It is capable of making two such attacks in a single round, but by default is difficult to reload. However, Ammo Drop lets it be reloaded one-handed, and Juggle Load lets you make that reload a free action (your main-hand double sling even gets iterative attacks). So, just to reiterate, the eidolon has a total of 13 pairs of limbs which makes for 26 double slings, firing 54 projectiles every single round.

This gets even more potent when you factor in Clustered Shots, which lets you add your ranged attacks together for the purpose of overcoming DR (negating the main weakness of multi-weapon fighting builds), and Double Slice, which applies your full strength bonus to off-hand sling attacks. So, now for a damage breakdown:

Main hand damage: (3+1d3+1d6+11) x4 (is this actually x6 - I'm not sure how iteratives work with a double sling and Juggle Load) = 78 avg damage
+2 weapon damage: (2+1d3+2d6+11) x32 = 704 avg damage
+1 weapon damage: (1+1d3+2d6+11) x18 = 378 avg damage
Thus, if all attacks hit, the eidolon deals 1160 damage. Even if only half of the attacks hit, that's 580 damage. Un-buffed.

To take things even further, let's factor in Lesser Evolution Surge, Evolution Surge, and Greater Evolution Surge adding another 4 pairs of limbs (this assumes that the same spell cannot add the same evolution bonus more than once - if it can, things get even more absurd). Then let's switch to Bane ammunition, adding another 7 damage per shot. With 16 more attacks (using spare +1 double slings of the type described above), and all attacks getting 7 more damage, the average damage when everything hits goes all the way up to 1986.

So there it is. A build with functional behavior that is rougly equivalent to a GM's reaction if it is deployed in an actual game :tongue:

[Coventry]

The primary problem with a character like this is how long your turn will take during combat. Rolling that many attacks per turn is going to bog things down for everyone else. The DM may cringe, but the other players may choose defenestration!

On to the things I have noticed in my read-through:

The avian form of an Eidolon does not start with a pair of arms - it gets wings and flight, instead. So only 13 pairs of arms to work with

For a 20th level summoner, the Eidolon only has 15 hit dice. Without the belt, base hit points of the eidolon will be (5.5+2)*15 = 112.5. With the +6 CON, the math changes to (5.5+5) * 15 = 157.5. None of the Eidolon's hit dice come from a PC class, so the "maximum hit points at first level" does not apply.

You can increase its hit points by investing in a Manual of Bodily Health (115,000 for a +4 inherent bonus which stacks with the belt's enhancement bonus to constitution). However, that is a fairly large amount of gold to invest given that a Manual of Quickness of Action boosts Dexterity the same way for the same price. Here's why you might want the Dexterity book:

An attack bonus of +29 (+26 and the +3 sling) is decent. According to the custom monster creation guidelines, an average monster of CR 20 will have AC 36. Your eidolon will miss 30% of the time, which seriously cuts into the impact of Hammer the Gap. The chance of hitting with 13 attacks in a row is less than 1% with those numbers. Four more points of Dexterity is +2 on the attack, so only a 20% miss chance against AC 36.

(There are a lot of other tricks to boost Attack bonuses. My personal favorite is to get Divine Favor on a wand at CL 9 for a +3 luck bonus to hit and attack).

Against large masses of lower CR creatures, all those attacks will look impressive, but so does a 15 dice (intensified, empowered, maximized) fireball from a blockbuster wizard.

I am not sure how the double sling interacts with multiweapon fighting, so I'm giving the doubling of off-hand attacks a pass.

[Tohron]

The primary problem with a character like this is how long your turn will take during combat. Rolling that many attacks per turn is going to bog things down for everyone else. The DM may cringe, but the other players may choose defenestration!

On to the things I have noticed in my read-through:

The avian form of an Eidolon does not start with a pair of arms - it gets wings and flight, instead. So only 13 pairs of arms to work with

For a 20th level summoner, the Eidolon only has 15 hit dice. Without the belt, base hit points of the eidolon will be (5.5+2)*15 = 112.5. With the +6 CON, the math changes to (5.5+5) * 15 = 157.5. None of the Eidolon's hit dice come from a PC class, so the "maximum hit points at first level" does not apply.

You can increase its hit points by investing in a Manual of Bodily Health (115,000 for a +4 inherent bonus which stacks with the belt's enhancement bonus to constitution). However, that is a fairly large amount of gold to invest given that a Manual of Quickness of Action boosts Dexterity the same way for the same price. Here's why you might want the Dexterity book:

An attack bonus of +29 (+26 and the +3 sling) is decent. According to the custom monster creation guidelines, an average monster of CR 20 will have AC 36. Your eidolon will miss 30% of the time, which seriously cuts into the impact of Hammer the Gap. The chance of hitting with 13 attacks in a row is less than 1% with those numbers. Four more points of Dexterity is +2 on the attack, so only a 20% miss chance against AC 36.

(There are a lot of other tricks to boost Attack bonuses. My personal favorite is to get Divine Favor on a wand at CL 9 for a +3 luck bonus to hit and attack).

Against large masses of lower CR creatures, all those attacks will look impressive, but so does a 15 dice (intensified, empowered, maximized) fireball from a blockbuster wizard.

I am not sure how the double sling interacts with multiweapon fighting, so I'm giving the doubling of off-hand attacks a pass.

Thanks for the feedback! Didn't notice that Hammer the Gap only applied on consecutive hits - factoring that in, its effectiveness really diminishes. Doing the math, I calculated that it would take a 90% hit rate for it to outperform Weapon Specialization, and a 95% hit rate for it to really take off. Given that Multiweapon Fighting still leaves you with -2 to main-hand attacks and -6 to off-hand attacks, I decided Double Slice (which, despite the name, seems to work just fine with slings) was a better use of the feat slot.

I've now factored the tomes you mentioned into the build.

[upho]

I'm still getting familiar with Pathfinder, so if there are any errors in the build below, feel free to point them out. All feedback is welcome!Aight. First, I must applaud your bravery, diving directly into the veritable deep end of the PC rules pool, trying to build a summoner while you're still relatively new to PF. Especially the eidolon is infamous for being difficult to get right on the first attempts, as building it often involves just so darn many and spread out related rules mechanics interacting in complicated ways, many of which come with important FAQ entries. So while you may find the eidolon building learning curve steep and frustrating, keep in mind this is to be expected, and once you're able to get most of your ideas right you'll also have a much greater understanding of the system in general.

Which brings us to the issues with your current build:


The actual PC Summoner isn't that relevant: all that matters is that he has Craft Magic Arms & Armor, Craft Wonderous item, and ranks in the relevant Craft skills and UMD. For thematic's sake, I'll say he's a halfling.

/snip/

That leaves about 319,170 GP to spend on miscellaneous items for the eidolon & summonor, and any other expenses.You'll most likely not gain as much from your crafting feats. The related section of the magic item rules (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/Magic-items/#Adjusting_Character_Wealth_by_Level) say:

"As a guideline, allowing a crafting PC to exceed the Character Wealth by Level guidelines (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering#TOC-Table-Character-Wealth-by-Level) by about 25% is fair, or even up to 50% if the PC has multiple crafting feats."

So in accordance with the above guideline, I suggest you assume you'll have a total wealth with a market value of 1,300,000 gp (880,000 x 1.5), and that you instead calculate the costs of your items as if you had bought them at the full normal market price. Since your current gear has a total market value of approximately 1,120,000 gp, you should have about 180,000 gp left to spend on stuff you haven't listed.

Likewise, it may also be worth noting that the "Placing Treasure" section of the GM guidelines (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/Gamemastering/#Placing_Treasure) says:

"Characters should spend no more than half their total wealth on any single item. For a balanced approach, PCs that are built after 1st level should spend no more than 25% of their wealth on weapons, 25% on armor and protective devices, 25% on other magic items, 15% on disposable items like potions, scrolls, and wands, and 10% on ordinary gear and coins."

The market value of the many magic slings you've listed exceeds 850,000 gp, which is more than 65% of your total WBL. This may however very well turn out to not be an issue since you won't have a use for many of these slings, more about this below.



+3 Corrosive, Cruel Double Sling (305+25000+225)=25530
+2 Corrosive, Flaming Double Sling (x8)(305+16000+400=16705)x8 = 133640
+2 Corrosive, Frost Double Sling (x8) (133640)
+1 Corrosive, Frost Double Sling (x14) (305+9000+400=9705)x10 = 135870Remember that you enchant each end of double weapon separately, as if a separate weapon. And if I'm reading this correctly, the magic here is covers a total of 27 double sling ends: one +3 end, sixteen +2 ends, and ten +1 ends. Not the 52 ends of 26 double slings you refer to in your full attack description.



WILL: +9Assuming this isn't a purely Theory-Op exercise, I believe this is far from acceptable at 20th level, even should you assume the summoner gives up using the shoulders item slot (freeing it for the eidolon) so you can add the +5 from a relatively cheap +5 cloak of resistance (or you get the same bonus from a more expensive custom item in another slot). Here's a useful table (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BQS6uZh7_bpp3RSwOVfuYd_Eg-4iXlHXTXeWVKksihY/edit?usp=sharing), giving the basic approximate "passable", "good" and "great" values at each level for most common combat stats against relatively easy opponents, based on the monster design guideline values for monsters of a CR equal to level (see this article (https://rpgwillikers.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/bench-pressing-character-creation-by-the-numbers/) for an explanation). An eidolon doesn't need quite as high a Will save as the table suggests since it has compensating class features, but a Will of +14 at 20th level is still a major weakness for most eidolons, and I strongly recommend you try finding a way around it.



The Full Attack:
The double sling is an interesting weapon. Like a regular sling, it allows adding your strength bonus to damage (half your bonus for off-hand attacks), and can be fired one handed. It is capable of making two such attacks in a single round, but by default is difficult to reload. However, Ammo Drop lets it be reloaded one-handed, and Juggle Load lets you make that reload a free action (your main-hand double sling even gets iterative attacks). So, just to reiterate, the eidolon has a total of 13 pairs of limbs which makes for 26 double slings, firing 54 projectiles every single round.I believe the rather poorly worded first sentence in the double sling weapon description has made you come to the wrong conclusion. Most importantly, the double sling is a double weapon (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipmenT/weapons/#wpn-quality-double), which means it has to be wielded in two hands in order to attack with both ends, one hand attacking with one weapon end. So assuming you have two hands, the double sling gives you exactly the same full attack options as if you had wielded a normal sling in each hand, the only difference being that you take less penalties for fighting with two weapons. These full attack options are (excluding any extra attacks from a high bab, Rapid Shot etc):


1. One attack with your main hand using one end of the sling with your full Str bonus to damage, and one attack with your off hand using the other end of the sling with half your Str bonus to damage. These attacks take the appropriate penalties for two-weapon fighting with a double weapon, as normal.

2. One attack with either hand using either end of the sling with your full Str bonus to damage. (Of course, this single attack doesn't take any two-weapon fighting penalties.)

In summary, this eidolon can in fact wield and attack with both ends of 13 double slings. Meaning each one of its 26 hands can attack with one of the 26 double sling ends it wields.



Main hand damage: (3+1d3+1d6+11) x4 (is this actually x6 - I'm not sure how iteratives work with a double sling and Juggle Load) = 78 avg damageIteratives work just as if attacking with say a longsword in this case. So it's neither x4 or x6 (assuming this refers to the number of main hand attacks in a full attack), as the eidolon's default main hand attack sequence is +29/+24/+19. If it also had say Rapid Shot and had been buffed with haste, that could instead be +29/+29/+29/+24/+19.



Thus, if all attacks hit, the eidolon deals 1160 damage. Even if only half of the attacks hit, that's 580 damage. Un-buffed.If I add some roughly estimated crit damage and adjust a bit for hit chance vs the AC of an "average" CR 20 monster, this would certainly result in decent DPR (Damage Per Round), if not exactly spectacular at this level. But it's considerably less so when considering the eidolon can actually only make half of these attacks.


(As a sidenote, I think the by far greatest ranged DPR in the game can be achieved by a Synthesist summoner with a gunslinger or Trench fighter dip (for Dex to firearm or minotaur double crossbow damage). Can end up with tons of very accurate one-handed firearm attacks against touch AC within short range, or an equal number of less accurate crossbow attacks with a far greater range.)

HTH!

[Endarire]

Get ready to digitize your dice rolls with so many happening so frequently!

[Coventry]

The actual PC Summoner isn't that relevant

Come to think about it, that statement is a little ... hasty.

Specifically, the favored class bonus of a half-elf is "Add +¼ to the eidolon’s evolution pool". At 20th level, that is an extra 5 evolution points for your eidolon. You can also invest in the Extra Evolution Feat (up to 5 times, once each at 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th ... although you have to retrain the feat you received at 19th level to get that last one) at +1 evolution point per feat. Together, those give your eidolon an extra 10 evolution points to spend on arms.

[upho]

Come to think about it, that statement is a little ... hasty.

Specifically, the favored class bonus of a half-elf is "Add +¼ to the eidolon’s evolution pool". At 20th level, that is an extra 5 evolution points for your eidolon. You can also invest in the Extra Evolution Feat (up to 5 times, once each at 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th ... although you have to retrain the feat you received at 19th level to get that last one) at +1 evolution point per feat. Together, those give your eidolon an extra 10 evolution points to spend on arms.And as a half-elf you can go for the Wild-Caller archetype (the original version restricted to half-elves) since you won't be bothered by the evo restrictions or altered summon monster, which nets you yet another +¼ evo points per level. So you'll end up with a grand total of 41 points in your evo pool by 20th (rather than the default 26). That's another seven pairs of arms granting another 14 off-hand attacks, for a total of 40 attacks plus iteratives/feats/buffs etc.

Half-elves really are great for many summoner builds, and ideal for those focused on the eidolon/evos.

But of course, this unfortunately still wouldn't make the build that particularly highly optimized, not even purely in terms of its theoretical DPR numbers.