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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Halae's Avatar

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    Default [Pathfinder] Creating an Effective Eidolon

    With the coming reboot into pathfinder that my campaign will be going through soon, all the players, myself included, are making new characters involved with the system. one of the books we picked up was the advanced player's guide, and I fell in love with the summoner class. Trouble is, I'm having trouble with the building of the Eidolon, which is essentially the summoner's answer to the animal companion in outsider form.

    My issue is that I'm not sure what makes creatures deadly and effective, which is what this is calling for. I was wondering if anybody may be able to help me?

    I essentially want the Eidolon to seem like an angelic girl, because of a point in my character's backstory, so it already has the Biped form, I know that. What other evolutions should I put to it, as I'm having trouble deciding?
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    Default Re: [Pathfinder] Creating an Effective Eidolon

    If you're trying to get it into an effective melee character add natural weapons until you hit the maximum number of attacks (3-7) based on level, make it huge and give it wings. Add pounce, as much strength as you can and give it improved grab if you want it to disable your foes since it'll end up with a pretty massive grapple modifier.

    The problem with it looking like an angelic girl is that limits its abilities to using manufactured weapons, which cuts into your budget and is less effective than stacking natural attacks. Unless you're willing to have an elephant sized angel with tentacles, claws, horns and really sharp teeth, at which point you have a new and interesting definition of angel girl.

    Oh and pick up spell resistance once you get the chance, it's 11+ your summoner level and if you're also using d&d sourcebooks you can boost that to 25 if you blow all her feats on it (makes her practically magic immune and you can just pick up evolutions that mimic the good feats)
    Last edited by Goonthegoof; 2010-12-16 at 02:41 AM.
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    Default Re: [Pathfinder] Creating an Effective Eidolon

    Hmm you could fluff her hair into those tentacle attacks, might be kinda scary for an angelic girl who is massive to lash out with her hair to bind up foes as she rakes them with razor sharp but beautiful nails (claw attack)

    Wing buffet is easy but im not sure how to work in horns or bite...
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  4. - Top - End - #4
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    Default Re: [Pathfinder] Creating an Effective Eidolon

    As stated above, the popular tactic with Eidolons is to pump out as many attacks as the level allows. An angelic girl, from 1st to 4th level, isn't going to be able to select the Wings evolution anyway, so you might want to just buy her an extra pair of arms and describe them as feathery limbs that can't yet support her weight, but will someday be functional wings.

    Either use the base claws with these wings, to represent 'rakes' with the pinfeathers, or purchase a slam attack.

    You could continue to have multiple feathery sets of 'arms' that are visually described as additional pairs of wings (that provide no mechanical benefit other than those of arms) after 5th level, when you purchase the real wings, riffing off of the notion that more powerful angels would have multiple sets of wings (with the archangels having six or twelve *pairs* of wings). She'd visually appear to be a many-winged angel, with only the two human arms, but in combat, her additional wings would go into a frenzy of raking attacks (using the standard claws) and / or slams (depending on how you want to spend your evolution points), while her *real* wings can pick up the wing buffet evolution, if you think it's worth the points. While you could, technically, equip these extra 'arms' with weapons, that would kind of defeat the entire point of making them all feathery and wing-like in appearance, so resist that temptation. She's got two perfectly good human-looking arms to equip with weapons, and you can pick up Improved Natural Attack for your claws, so that her 'wing-rakes' do some more damage (and while she could technically claw someone's face off with the claws on her human-looking arms, she chooses to use swords with those limbs, because it's more suitable to the angelic theme).

    Energy Attacks is a fun evolution, and if applied to her 'wings of fire' or if she's an 'angel of the storm' and have cloud-grey wings that spark with the storm's fury when she is enraged (lightning attack), you could have her various claw attacks (from her 'wing-rakes') do extra damage, and still be on theme.

    If you aren't married to a western 'angel,' you could also go with a more Hindu-inspired deva with six sword-wielding arms *and* wings (and three faces, just for show), and skip the 'arms as wings' visual reflavoring. (And that's all it is, visual reflavoring. Her feathery arms function entirely as arms, and not even a little bit like actual wings. It's just a visual, to keep her in theme.)

    [tangent] I had a super-hero once called 'Kensai, the Angel of Blades,' who was an archetypal supernatural patron of swordsmanship and bladed weapons, with a body of folded steel and supernatural sword-skills (as well as the ability to call blades, from daggers to greatswords, out of thin air). An 'angel of swordsmanship' or 'angel of blades' might be stretching your idea well past it's breaking point, but could be a suitable excuse to have a many armed 'angel' with a half-dozen shortswords. Similarly, a feline or vulpine angel, with the head of the appropriate animal (like a freaky sphinx-in-reverse), could be an 'angel of the wild' or the 'patron angel of cats' or something, and serve as a rationalization for why you might choose to have an 'angel' with a bunch of claws, or a bite attack, if you want to go that route. [/tangent]
    Last edited by Set; 2010-12-16 at 05:55 AM.

  5. - Top - End - #5
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    Halae's Avatar

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    Default Re: [Pathfinder] Creating an Effective Eidolon

    As far as the whole angel girl thing goes, the only reason my character really wants that is because a) he saw an angel as a child and b) he's something of a fop. He enjoys dressing her up and doing her hair and the like - as long as he can do that, he's happy. I'm thinking of dropping the angelic part down to less a winged girl as just silver hair, golden eyes, and porcelain skin, and she could have a bunch of arms. I'll talk to the DM about letting me have those claws as retractable so they aren't always present, but something really appeals to me about having a girl suddenly grow claws and massively sharp teeth to start ripping things apart. So it seems the general consensus is capping my number of natural attacks, right?
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  6. - Top - End - #6
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    Default Re: [Pathfinder] Creating an Effective Eidolon

    Quote Originally Posted by Harnel View Post
    As far as the whole angel girl thing goes, the only reason my character really wants that is because a) he saw an angel as a child and b) he's something of a fop. He enjoys dressing her up and doing her hair and the like - as long as he can do that, he's happy. I'm thinking of dropping the angelic part down to less a winged girl as just silver hair, golden eyes, and porcelain skin, and she could have a bunch of arms. I'll talk to the DM about letting me have those claws as retractable so they aren't always present, but something really appeals to me about having a girl suddenly grow claws and massively sharp teeth to start ripping things apart. So it seems the general consensus is capping my number of natural attacks, right?
    Yea getting the most Nat attacks is important if you want it to ne a real killer. Though as I said you can just have her claws be represented as razor sharp nails. Plus as he likes to dress her up he can also paint her nails lol.

    As for the teeth she could smile and talk with out showing her teeth
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  7. - Top - End - #7
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    Kobold

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    Default Re: [Pathfinder] Creating an Effective Eidolon

    Quote Originally Posted by Goonthegoof View Post
    The problem with it looking like an angelic girl is that limits its abilities to using manufactured weapons, which cuts into your budget and is less effective than stacking natural attacks. Unless you're willing to have an elephant sized angel with tentacles, claws, horns and really sharp teeth, at which point you have a new and interesting definition of angel girl.
    I'm pretty sure that since wepons deal more damage, have iteratives, have NO LIMIT per edilon rules, only cost as much as the limbs you put them on, and are enchantable(not actually a perk cuz it's too expensive), I would say multiple manufactured wepons is superior to maxed natural attacks.

    Also if you didn't want to do crazy many arms you cuold fe fluff them to being telekinetic (elfan lied) arms, so you basicaly just have a chick with a cloud of swords whirring around her.

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