So what are you supposed to do with the Summoner?

[harpy]

I'm finally sinking my teeth into this class and I'm just trying to figure out what to do with the Summoner. The Eidolon is obvious, make a nasty critter that has lots of attacks and mauls things.

Aside from the Summoner standing around taking full round actions and spamming the field with more monsters, what else can you do with this guy? He's got a medium BAB, so it seems as if you could build up a magic buffed fighter, but is that really the way to go?

Say you get your Cha up to 20, that means you get 8 summon monster spells per day. If you assume that there are 4 encounters a day, and each encounter is roughly 5 rounds long, then you've got two summons per encounter per day.

Now the extended duration of the summoned monsters is great, you can from time to time be able to cast it prior to the encounter, perhaps before he head into a dangerous area you could cast it, send in the monster to aggro the encounter and then let the party jump into the fray.

With the 20 charisma, I could see starting with an ok strength, perhaps 14, and then building up a fighter type with 3 spells per day to start. That means that for most of the encounters each day you could enlarge person yourself and then armed with a long spear and spiked gauntlets just poke away at things while the Eidolon is running around clawing and biting things.

So an encounter would roll out as:

hopefully pre-cast at least one summon monster, send ahead to trigger traps and aggro encounter...

Round 1: Once the encounter begins you send the Eidolon to go maul something while you kick off a second summons.
Round 2: Plop the second summoned creature in a good spot, then cast enlarge person.
Round 3: Poke things with long spear
Round 4: Poke again...
Round 5: Poke again...

rinse and repeat for the day.

What else?

I guess ultimately what I'm trying to figure out is what feats to take and ultimately what stat to dump.

 

[Set]

I guess ultimately what I'm trying to figure out is what feats to take and ultimately what stat to dump.

I take Spell Focus (conjuration) and Augment Summoning (which *does* affect the Summon Monster SLAs, according to the designers) first, followed by Improved Initiative and Toughness.

I dump Int and Wis to 10 (I don't do negative stats, just a quirk), and try for Str 14, Dex 14, Con 13 and Cha 17, at 20 pt buy (putting human bonus into Cha). Dumping Int and Wis to 9 would allow another point of Con, but I'm okay with waiting until 4th level to boost that, and then 8th to boost Cha to 18.

 

[Burn_Boy]

Round 1: Once the encounter begins you send the Eidolon to go maul something while you kick off a second summons.
Round 2: Plop the second summoned creature in a good spot, then cast enlarge person.
Round 3: Poke things with long spear
Round 4: Poke again...
Round 5: Poke again...

rinse and repeat for the day.

What else?

That is exactly what the Summoner in our group does, although instead of poking things with a spear he shoots things with his durable arrows. He had the same problem you seem to so he made his character really old for the INT bonuses and dumped all his skill ranks in Knowledge and Linguists and, outside of contact, has become a utility character, always getting all the information checks and has become the party leader essentially.

 

[Endarire]

Summoners in Pathfinder are like Necromancers in Diablo II. Most start fights by bringing out their pets then cast spells/shoot ranged weapons/melee. A Summoner can buff his party with haste and control crowds with grease or glitterdust like a Wizard.

In short, you're like a God Wizard who relies on CHA and summoning.

 

[Starbuck_II]

You are thinking of the Batman Wizard.
God is an entirely different Wizard.

 

[GishBandit]

Look at the creature's you are supposed to summon and look at their abilities. A Lantern Archon has an aura of menace that reaches out to twenty feet. If a creature fails that save they are -2 to everything. Multiple Archons stack because this is an unamed bonus. The languages of Hound Archons have Truespeech, everything understands it and it can speak back. At higher levels, ninth level for example, you can summon creature's to heal you.

From what I have seen the Summoner buffs his creature, summons ungodly creature's to do whatever besides kill, and sometimes cast spells that either help the party or hinder in some way the enemy.

A friend of mine at seventh level could do an average of 130 hit points of damage with his Eidolon if all his attacks hit. He buff's his Eidolon with greater magic fang earlier in the day then bull strength's the creature the first round in a fight. He hits most of the time and never goes down. My tenth level character can not compete with that, a fighter that is sixth level with four levels of Duelist doing sixty if I crit. I crit on a fifteen or higher.

 

[James Jacobs]

The trick with the summoner is that it's not necessarily the summoner who's doing the tricks in combat; that's mostly the domain of his eidolon and his summoned monsters. It's an unusual class in that you get to play monsters more than your actual character... but since those monsters, in a weird sort of way, ARE your character, it's all good!

 

[fireinthedust]

A friend of mine at seventh level could do an average of 130 hit points of damage with his Eidolon if all his attacks hit. He buff's his Eidolon with greater magic fang earlier in the day then bull strength's the creature the first round in a fight. He hits most of the time and never goes down. My tenth level character can not compete with that, a fighter that is sixth level with four levels of Duelist doing sixty if I crit. I crit on a fifteen or higher.

Is this a thing in 3.x that stayed in PF? For me I'm curious what to do as a DM for PCs who can hand out this much damage.
Should I build my own massive damage machines to counter? Should I set the PCs up to just steamroll? Should I distract them with traps and riddles?
My question is: if PCs can do this much damage with their abilities, which is basically a one-round kill for anything, am I running an honest game?

What would a challenging encounter in PF really look like? It's not just combat, it's terrain. It's other distractions that make a combat more difficult. Other considerations, like "you have to take this dragon down without injuring it in any way".
Am I on the right track?

 

[Dark Mistress]

Personally I think they would make a great backup ranged combat class. Throw in a few spells now and again, then bow attacks.