As a claw slices a hole in reality from the outside, a puff of smoke pours through, then a battle llama. "Did someone call for an expert in the mutable ones? Here I am! Toddy is the name. But you would have known that, or you couldn't have called me. So, you need help forming your friend for his next challenges. I can help with that."
"OK, Quadruped, Dodge and Mobility. Those choices I see you have already locked in. Everything else we get to shuffle. And you say we have seven evolution points to sculpt. That is fine. We can do
2 points for an Extra head, at least he won't get lonely. giggles Depending on where you put the head, he can be a PushPull or an etin-dog.
1 point for an Extra bite
1 point for Reach with the left head
1 point for Reach with the right head
1 point for Resist fire
1 point for Improved Natural Armor
But that doesn't get the trip in there that you wanted. This guy will look weird. Walking through town, he will get stared at, and people will grab pitch forks. Are you sure you want to subject him to that? And he only gets two attacks while fighting.
Tell you what. Let me tell you what I am planning to look like at his age. I will be choosing
1 Reach bite
1 Claws, 2 front claw attacks
1 Improved Natural Armor, gotta protect myself
1 Skilled Acrobatics, so I can dance through the combat mess without getting touched
2 Energy Attacks(shock). All three of his attacks would get shock damage.
1 Pounce
Like that, he can still look like a normal, I hate that word, dog in town so people don't start being mean to him. He will be able to jump into flank a lot easier. He still has one reach attack for taking his one attack of opportunity when it presents itself. And the shocking magic in his attacks will add half again to the amount of damage he can do. But it is not as flashy as flames from his mouth, so it won't be noticeable until it hurts. And it does hurt a lot! The resistance is, meh, ok at this level, but when he ages a little more, it will double in strength and be more important.
Any questions?
Oh, and by the way, do you want to buy a slightly used quasit? I have one. I will sell him to you real cheap. No? No takers? I will never be rid of that little bugger." And in a puff of smoke, he disappears.
OOC: Sorry for the length, that was fun to write.
Reach gets attached to one attack evolution. So, it can be attached to two claw attacks, one slam attack, one bite attack, or one tentacle. HM missed adding the second head costs 2 evolution points. So, the second head, biting with reach requires a total of 4 evolution points. Looks cool, but kinda costly.
Trip Attack: "Whenever the eidolon makes a successful bite attack", so by my reading, Trip only needs to be taken once to affect both bites. It can only be taken once since it doesn't specify it can be taken more than once. A year from now, they might errata it because they didn't think of two heads when the first book was written.
Now, Improved Damage(Bite) only has to be taken once to apply to both bites, as it affects an attack form, not an attack evolution.
Cerberus looks cool, but should get pelted with stones and crossbow bolts when you enter town. With the trip once, bite with reach twice, you are looking spending all 7 points for two mediocre attacks and no defense.
On the other hand, going with a more normal looking beast, and adding the non-visible evolutions has advantages. Acrobatics can be used versus CMD to avoid AoOs. At fourth level, a +17 to Acrobatics is phenomenal. And with Mobility, if the AoO is triggered, he is still +4 to his AC to resolve that. Stealth is another skill that is worthy of spending an evo point on before Scent. More so if changing the eidolon to small size, as that gives another +4 bonus.
Paizo's writing of the summoner is fuzzy to say the least. My Reach answer is 95% likely. (General consensus but not locked in the faq.) The Trip answer is about 70% likely. (My best guess) It is GM prerogative on almost everything related to the summoner. But since I run five different summoners, I got called in as the expert.
