Surprise Round questions and "optimization"

[Sinner505]

Hello everyone!

I have a couple question regarding Pathfinder (can we call it first edition by now?) for a current long-term looking homebrew campaign.

I'm playing an Unchained Summoner, currently lvl 5, and my eidolon is mostly used as a "fake rogue" ba going as a scout, giving me information on enemy position and front-tanking enemies for my "main" source of damage; Augment Summoning into summon Eidolon (once he died/not summoned), and then spam SM or occasionaly swarms. Note: being low level and "it worked up to now" we have 1 or 2 encounter at max per day, due to the setting, so we generally burn every ability we got without too much problems.

Now for the questions;
1) I manage to sneak close to a group of enemies, they did not detect me, I use my standard action to use Sumon Eidolon at max range (50 ft) right in the middle of them, since the eidolon is a separate entitiy that still acts in my turn, does he get a standard action since we're in the surprise round?(<- this is how we played until now). Nothing? A full turn since he wasn't present at the start of the round? Please, if you can, give a small explanation on why.

2) assuming we did it correctly thus far making the eidolon act in the surprise round, I scouted a bit but have not found any feat that specifically help in the surprise round (like a burst of damage or some CC effect, it's a creature appearing out of nowhere and there are monster with similar Special abilities) any ideas/suggestion that beats PAclaw -> full atk next round?

thanks :D

[upho]

1) Yes, you've been doing this correctly and your eidolon gets to take a standard action in the surprise round, just like you yourself. (The same is btw true for any summoned monsters if you had used your summon monster ability instead.)

2) There are quite a few feats which either help specifically with surprise round actions/attacks or which grant better uses of a standard action, an attack action or just melee attacks in general (evolutions like trip or grab can be great for this). I recommend you start by simply searching for "surprise round" (including quotation marks) at Archives of Nethys (https://aonprd.com/Search.aspx), and mark only the "feats" and perhaps "magic items" boxes.

One future possibility which requires a bit more investment than a single feat but can be made highly effective is Cloak and Dagger Style (https://aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Cloak%20and%20Dagger%20S tyle). (To make it easier for your eidolon to get the prereqs, buy/craft a Cracked Opalescent White Pyramid ioun stone - a.k.a. "COWPIS" - (keyed to suitable natural attack) and put it into a wayfinder for Weapon Focus (2,000 gp total market price), and get Dirty Fighting to bypass Combat Expertise and Int 13.)

It may also be a very good idea to give your eidolon a pair of Sandals of Quick Reactions (4,000 gp), allowing it to make a full round action (or a move + standard) during a surprise round.

Finally, note that you can have both your eidolon and summoned monsters without using summon eidolon, although it requires you to summon your eidolon normally after you've used your summon monster ability, so it's only useful for combat purposes if you have more than a minute to prepare. And speaking of, make sure to find/craft/buy at least one Rod of Giant Summoning as soon as possible if you really want to pump the melee combat prowess of your summons (including your eidolon with summon eidolon).

HTH!

[Sinner505]

Great thank you for the answer!

yeah I'm running the rod and looking to a ring of summoning to expand the shadow summoner list, fits with the lore of the game.

will look on nethys, I've been relying on google and d20pfsrd a bit too much evidently :D

as for the equipment on the eidolon, I played until now with the assumption that when you summon it it comes "naked" and you have to "re-equip" everything once it's sumoned, is this wrong? does the eidolon keep equipment? (I'm not including weapons under the equipment idea, but I'll extend the question to those since I've read a lot about "bringing extra sword for your kali eidolon") edit: google is my friend, I played with this WRONG assumption until now (and our previous summoner in another campaign did the same error too)

To be a bit more precise, we're playing as "villains" trying to restore order in a land extremely LG where evilness has been completely erased from history, and adventurer are therefore a rare sight (and kept under tight watch) so roaming with my eidolon by my side is a no-go unless we're in the wild, we need to keep an extremely low profile, hence the summon eidolon tactic :D

considering that the eidolon is feat starved, and for lore reasons it HAS to be biped, is it worth to invest in an intimidation build (considering skilled evolution) or is it a total waste of time?
the most "basic" thing I came up with is a 5 feat req, we're currently level 5 and 5 feat are level 11 for unchained eidolon, in comparison a rend build would go online sooner, but lose all the "surprise mothaf**a" flavour.

Edit#3: The cloak and dagger stle is amazing, but a combat manoeuvre is (imho, unless optimized) useles in "solo situation" where I'll most likely find myself for at least 2 turns, before the other party members can join in, any build suggestion for a "grappler eidolon" if I'd go for C&D Style?