How Would You: Synthesist Eidolon


Advice


Just looking for unique and interesting ideas on how others would build their Eidolon for a Synthesist Summoner.


I would first see if your Gm would allow it. (it's been banned officially, but hey, your GM might not care).

Second: any build with claws, improved ac, and large evolutions. Take it from there.

As I understand it, they're banning feats from eidolons in upcoming changes - not sure if that's all eidolons or just synthesists.

When you stack your feats on theirs, then dump your physicals, so that you can use the pet's, you'll end up with a super-cheddar special that will blow your GM's carefully crafted CR's into tiny bits. If he does allow the build, then don't expect him to allow it twice, lol


Oh, I missed the part about unique and original. Ha! Um,... anything that doesn't focus on combat efficiency, so... uh, pick another archetype maybe? eh... Don't mean to sound mean or anythng, just sayin, synthesist is totally built for uberiffics.


It's only banned in Society play, and this GM tends to run more 3.5 than PF, so "power-issues" aren't really issues at all.
Go wild! ;)


Neo2151 wrote:

It's only banned in Society play, and this GM tends to run more 3.5 than PF, so "power-issues" aren't really issues at all.

Go wild! ;)

Alright..

Then for evolutions, take a improved ac as much as possible as soon as possible. Take the Large evolution. Take improved damage (claws)-have to pay for each claw separately. Rend. You might want to take ability boosts, but the larger you are the more they cost-even taking a +2 in strength helps though so, F it. Then start adding in secondary attacks of whatever kind; as soon as you have three natural attack types, you get multi-attack free, basically. For feats, you can just take power attack+furious focus, or some other combat boosts (whichever, at this point, who cares, its a monster already), or some trip/overrun stuff (improved overrun, charge through etc.).

With your caster, take combat casting, and from there, take whatever the heck you want. Spell focus, diehard, uncanny concentration...

You're already plenty more powerful than most PCs with standard classes and such, so even if you don't dump physical stats, you'll be wrecking shop. That's why it got banned. Even in games I GM I won't allow it, just because it's like handing a Large sized, all 18+ stat hasted Monk dual-wielding a pair of dual-wielding halflings. We're talking like 5 -7 attacks a round, even at low levels. Death of a thousand cuts, and rending damage with 2 claws and a 1 point evolution (Rend). It's silly.


You could always go with a primal companion hunter. That has the option to apply eidolon evos to yourself for minutes/level.

Enough that you have a fantastic battle mechanic (since minutes/level= fights/level) but not so much that you completely invalidate an entire dungeon.


First, check to see whether your eidolon needs to be bipedal. If not you're going quadruped for pounce.

More evolution points are better so you're a half-elf. Since you're getting a Skill Focus for free you might aim for stealth (Dampen Presence & maybe Hellcat Stealth later on, & the skilled evolution) and/or Eldritch Heritage. If you do both you're getting the Shadow Bloodline, which is forgettable on the first EH feat but gives hide in plain sight on Improved EH. If you just want Eldritch Heritage, the Arcane bloodline is handy.

You could combine the above for a Hellcat theme. Be the absolute master of stealth and when people overlook you, you pounce on them with claws, bite & rake.


Serpentine eidolon with winged flight, a breath weapon (acid), wing buffet, large and skilled (fly).
Add the noxious bite feat and you have a nice variant wyvern.


Alternately, build as a grappler, take traits to reduce the metamagic cost of wall of fire (3rd level spell for a summoner) and the immunity to fire evolution and zig-zag across your empowered wall of fire with your grappled enemy. Comes together at 7th level but you can still find uses for a brawny grappler with some magic before then. Should probably have a crazed demonic theme.

On a not dissimilar theme at a slightly lower level you could build to push people into pits that you created. Since you can reassign evolutions at level up you could even do these successively.


For something else: A fish with the wingless flight.
Give it tentacles as barbels. Add the grab ability, large and swallow whole.
You got a catfish or something similar that can swim through the air, grab and swallow opponents.
Can be combined with avr's idea.

Or a shadow stingray. Again, the aquatic base form with wingless flight (or use the ray's fins as wings). Add a tail and sting. Add shadow form, frightful presence and sickening. Maybe later add shadow blend for 50% concealment.
This will not deal much damage but has some protection through concealment and passive crowd control abilities.

Edit: Forgot that you need limbs for spellcasting. Do tentacles count?


Quadruped for pounce, take 2 extra arms for the centaur look, as a Half-elf swap skill focus for proficiency in a 2 handed weapon.
Shadow form for a miss chance, take Large and then a few tentacles claws as you level up , boost your strength and then keep Heroism, Maqe Armour and Barkskin up all the time.
Take the power attack feat, and then mainly extra evolution.
Take Leadership , then a cohort optimized for mounted charges, have them ride you and use a lance .
Kill everything.


One more - not my invention. Eidolons can get a lot of arms. They're limited in their number of natural attacks, but nothing stops them getting a bunch of manufactured weapons & turning into a blender. Or into a warship firing a broadside, with firearm proficiency.


I went a slightly different way with a synth I played when the class was new. Not saying it's the best play, but it was a beast.

Half-elf for the extra points. By 12th level, that makes your eidolon effectively 14th. Any feat that you don't have to have, into Extra Evolutions. Three more points and your eidolon is now effectively 17th, five levels above the rest of the party.

Serpent form, magic flight, large (huge, if you can spare the points), with the highest AC in the party. One bite, one sting, take your Multiattack freebie on your bite. STR poison on the sting, grab and CON poison on the bite, constrict just for fun. Improved Natural Armor every time you can. I was able to convince my DM that grab did more than enough to fulfil the requirements for Improved Grapple, so by end-game he looked like this:

1: Extra Evolution
3: Power Attack
5: Improved Grapple
7: Extra Evolution
9: Greater Grapple
11: Extra Evolution
13: Improved Crit: Bite

So, by 14th level, the large flying snake would sting for 1d4 STR damage, bite for 1d4 CON damage, grab and constrict. If you're feeling lucky, drop as a free, bite again, grab again, constrict again. Also, unless it's been errated, constrict does the same damage as the attack that used grab, so if you critted on the bite and make your grapple check (now at +8, from grab and Greater Grapple), you get the crit damage as bonus damage. Once you have the grapple, you have two checks to do damage (bite and sting, which keep doing poison damage every round).

Barkskin at 140 minutes a casting, Greater Invisibility, Evolution Surge to give you SR 25... It was a lot of fun to play, but it's really easy to see what it got banned from PFS play.


My challenge to you: don't create a multi-limbed natural attack beast while avoiding immunity and natural armor evolution cheese, a couple sure, but no more than 2 or 3.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Just remember folks, if you want to CAST as a synthesist, make sure you allocate at least one usable arm and hand into the mix.


My beloved half-elf diplomancer Dune was a synthesist summoner who would turn into a four-armed monkey pseudo-God named Kung Rama Otak. Maxed out AC and strength, four arms (two with slams, two with claws), Large (and very much in charge). Could easily turn out 150 a round between the slams, claws and bite. The catch: role play. Dune hated calling on his dark patron and would try his best to talk his way out. Well, that's what I had intended until the DM gave every NPC a diplomacy bonus that would somehow trump my 50+ diplomacy checks. Had to let him go when the DM had him possessed by another creature as a plot point, ruining one of my favorite characters ever.

Moral of the story: if you're gonna build them as strong as you can, watch out for your DM raining hell on you. Come up with some drawbacks to summoning your eidolon and hope that your DM is cooperative.


Do you mean roleplaying ideas and builds or stats for a build?


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I'd run a Metamorph, Aegis, or Aberrant Aegis.

All the fun of evolution points without all the b%&*&@** OP of summoners!


Goddity wrote:
Do you mean roleplaying ideas and builds or stats for a build?

Either or. Preferably the former. :)


Large Eidolon, Tentacles with Reach, Grab, Push/Pull, and cast Create Pit.

Open up a long fall damage pit (and later on put spikes/acid/etc at the bottom of said pit), then make your reach tentacle attacks to automatically grapple everything around you, and then throw them into the pits.

Even if the fall/spike/acid damage doesn't kill them, you've either effectively taken them out of combat until the spell ends or they climb out. And since you're standing near the mouth of the pit, it should be fairly simple to just whack them as they start to climb out and knock them back down again.

Shadow Lodge

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Neo2151 wrote:

It's only banned in Society play, and this GM tends to run more 3.5 than PF, so "power-issues" aren't really issues at all.

Go wild! ;)

These issues will likely begin soon after you introduce your synthesist to the campaign.


Avatar-1 wrote:
Neo2151 wrote:

It's only banned in Society play, and this GM tends to run more 3.5 than PF, so "power-issues" aren't really issues at all.

Go wild! ;)
These issues will likely begin soon after you introduce your synthesist to the campaign.

Yeah, Pathfinder classes as a rule are more powerful than 3.5 classes, and the synthesist is pretty powerful even for a pathfinder class.

If thats going to be this GM's main taste of PF in his game, you're likely going to get PF as a whole banned...

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