Building a Summoner

[Systole]

You can build like a mage or a fighter, really. But you do have to pick one and go with it, because in Pathfinder trying to build a hybrid almost always means you suck at everything. I would honestly recommend Treantmonk's guide to bards, since the classes have a lot in common (Cha-based spontaneous caster, light armor, basic weapons).

Here is a summoner that I built like a World of Warcraft hunter, based loosely off Treantmonk's archer bard build. It's turned out surprisingly well, actually. The eidolon was a badass from the beginning, and just keeps getting more so. The summoner has taken a while to get rolling, but at level 6 and Rapid Fire, she's really starting to put out reasonable damage -- in addition to the heap of damage output from the eidolon.

Also, here is an optimization guide for summoners.

 

[Wycen]

Paradox, interesting idea with the eidolon. I am not sure it would mechanically work due to eidolon base INT and skill ranks, (getting +8 to a skill is nice but you have to wait until you level to swap the skill to another).

Systole points out something else by posting his stats. A summoner is one class where having a high primary casting stat is not always your priority. Summoners do not have a huge spell list, nor many spell slots. And you can choose spells where the saving throw isn't important to boost.

With a 16 CHA a summoner gets to cast their top level spells. For my character I still have CHA the highest, but I save a few points to boost my INT.

 

[Systole]

Exactly. If you're not making a caster summoner, 14 Charisma is plenty to work with. At higher levels, you just buy a Headband of Alluring Charisma and you're golden.

You'll also notice that my caster has no offensive spells whatsoever. None. Without a high casting stat, offensive spells are going to get resisted constantly ... but buff spells work just as well either way.

 

[paradox42]

Paradox, interesting idea with the eidolon. I am not sure it would mechanically work due to eidolon base INT and skill ranks, (getting +8 to a skill is nice but you have to wait until you level to swap the skill to another).

Thank you. Certainly, I never actually used the idea (so far), so I can't say for certain how well it works (or doesn't).

I will note, though, that the whole idea of using the Eidolon as a book was that the Eidolon gets skill bonuses only to Knowledge skills, and also you'd pull some shenanigans with the fact that the player can set some of the Eidolon's class skills. You get Knowledge (Planes) for free; I figure on setting the four "free" skills to Knowledge (Dungeoneering, Local, Nature, and Religion) for a start (pick Local because it's the skill usually used for Humanoids). That list of five covers most of what you want for a low-level monster encyclopedia, and you do everything you can to get the Eidolon's INT score as high as possible for whatever level you're at. Its INT may start low, but 6 + INT bonus skill points is just as good as a Bard- so you can easily max out one or two of those Knowledges even if you're not neglecting normally-obvious skills like Perception. You can also use the Eidolon's feats for Skill Focus and some of the other skill-boosting feats; since it's never supposed to be in combat (treat it more like a Familiar than an Eidolon) you should be able to afford using those.

The happy part is, since you never intended to use it in combat, it's not really a huge loss to you if it dies; bringing it back is pretty easy to do and gives no real penalty to you (again, because fighting isn't what you needed it for, it doesn't matter if the Eidolon has half hit points upon its return). It's like a Familiar that can talk to you directly, and doesn't hit you with severe penalties to bring back to life- nor even cost you diamonds for a Raise Dead spell or the like.