Celestial / Fiendish creatures no longer good / evil?

Checking the templates in the back of the Bestiary in preparation for using them in a game, I noticed that the Celestial and Fiendish creature templates no longer raise the animals (or vermins) intelligence to 3, afford it the ability to understand instructions in Celestial (or Infernal, etc.) and no longer change it's alignment to Good or Evil.

As a result, a Summoned Celestial (or Fiendish) creature can no longer be directed to do anything other than attack the casters foes (which it does automatically), and Celestial and Fiendish-templated creatures cannot Smite each other, since they are all Neutral (or otherwise retain their base alignment).

Is this a deliberate change in Pathfinder, or an oversight?

It does make a pretty darn huge difference in the use of Conjuration (Summoning) spells.

As Celestial (or Fiendish) animals no longer become Magical Beasts, it does mean that a Speak with Animals spell could be used to communicate with a conjured animal, [/i]assuming that spell were available to Conjurers[/i], and, even in that case, removes as well the ability of the Conjuror to give instructions to a Fiendish Giant Wasp, which he could do in 3.X, and, according to the text of Summon Monster, he's still supposed to be able to do, somehow.

Good catch, I totally missed that, I dont know. If its intentional we'd prolly need word from on high, if its accidental it should be in the next errata.

As Celestial (or Fiendish) animals no longer become Magical Beasts, it does mean that a Speak with Animals spell could be used to communicate with a conjured animal, assuming that spell were available to Conjurers, and, even in that case, removes as well the ability of the Conjuror to give instructions to a Fiendish Giant Wasp, which he could do in 3.X, and, according to the text of Summon Monster, he's still supposed to be able to do, somehow.

Where does it say that you should be able to communicate with a fiendish giant wasp? I'm not doubting it does, I just can't find it in the PRD.

Hah, I totally dropped that in the ghoul thread yesterday. I was digging through the acquired templates and it was pretty shocking.

Checking the templates in the back of the Bestiary in preparation for using them in a game, I noticed that the Celestial and Fiendish creature templates no longer raise the animals (or vermins) intelligence to 3, afford it the ability to understand instructions in Celestial (or Infernal, etc.) and no longer change it's alignment to Good or Evil.

As a result, a Summoned Celestial (or Fiendish) creature can no longer be directed to do anything other than attack the casters foes (which it does automatically), and Celestial and Fiendish-templated creatures cannot Smite each other, since they are all Neutral (or otherwise retain their base alignment).

Is this a deliberate change in Pathfinder, or an oversight?

It does make a pretty darn huge difference in the use of Conjuration (Summoning) spells.

As Celestial (or Fiendish) animals no longer become Magical Beasts, it does mean that a Speak with Animals spell could be used to communicate with a conjured animal, [/i]assuming that spell were available to Conjurers[/i], and, even in that case, removes as well the ability of the Conjuror to give instructions to a Fiendish Giant Wasp, which he could do in 3.X, and, according to the text of Summon Monster, he's still supposed to be able to do, somehow.

Some of that actually makes sense to me to a degree. If a tiefling and aasimar's alignment is not set why should an fiendish/celestial animals be? Tiefling is just a variant fiendish human. Aasimar is just a variant celestial human.

However, it does mean to me that a fiendish or celestial animal should also now be "native outsiders".

-Weylin

However, it does mean to me that a fiendish or celestial animal should also now be "native outsiders".

No. Outsider means more than just "from another plane". That's what the extraplanar subtype is for.

It's deliberate. The celestial and fiendish templates were redesigned to make them simpler to apply, since applying them to summoned monsters during game play is the primary use for them. It also helps to limit the abuse one can heap on the lower level ones—if you want to do some REALLY tactical stuff with summoned monsters, that's an advantage of summoning things like devils and demons and azatas and archons.

That doesn't mean that the PC should have NO control over his summoned monsters, of course. He should be able to direct who the summoned monster attacks, and what attack options the summoned monster uses, and where it attacks from. The GM, of course, has final say in how tactical he wants to let a summon monster spell get, of course.

Weylin wrote:

However, it does mean to me that a fiendish or celestial animal should also now be "native outsiders".

No. Outsider means more than just "from another plane". That's what the extraplanar subtype is for.

Both the Tiefling and Aasimar are listed as "Medium outsider (native)". So to me, fiendish and celestial templates should be as well. Since that is what a Tiefling and Aasimar are really.

Zurai wrote:

Weylin wrote:

However, it does mean to me that a fiendish or celestial animal should also now be "native outsiders".

No. Outsider means more than just "from another plane". That's what the extraplanar subtype is for.

Both the Tiefling and Aasimar are listed as "Medium outsider (native)". So to me, fiendish and celestial templates should be as well. Since that is what a Tiefling and Aasimar are really.

No. Tieflings and Aasimars are directly descended from Outsiders.

Celestial and Fiendish creatures are merely residents of a plane with the Good Dominant or Evil Dominant traits.

It's deliberate. The celestial and fiendish templates were redesigned to make them simpler to apply, since applying them to summoned monsters during game play is the primary use for them. It also helps to limit the abuse one can heap on the lower level ones—if you want to do some REALLY tactical stuff with summoned monsters, that's an advantage of summoning things like devils and demons and azatas and archons.

That doesn't mean that the PC should have NO control over his summoned monsters, of course. He should be able to direct who the summoned monster attacks, and what attack options the summoned monster uses, and where it attacks from. The GM, of course, has final say in how tactical he wants to let a summon monster spell get, of course.

How exactly does the caster direct this though? The spell description specifically says

"If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions."

So if you cant communicate with it you can still direct it's attacks?

I guess a dedicated summoner would then be possibly inclined to take max ranks in handle animal and attempt to 'push'. But otherwise how would it be done?

I guess a dedicated summoner would then be possibly inclined to take max ranks in handle animal and attempt to 'push'. But otherwise how would it be done?

In the past I've ruled that a summoned animal or monster can obey any of the tricks listed under "Combat Training" (i.e. attack, come, defend, down, guard and heel) without needing a Handle Animal check. Works for me.

So if you cant communicate with it you can still direct it's attacks?

Be a gnome and use your speak with animals ability (limits your summoned choices somewhat and there is the whole once a day thing) OR drop the creature right on your enemy's head - might provoke it enough to focus on the target.

...of course, I'm a cruel and heartless DM.

Weylin wrote:

Zurai wrote:

Weylin wrote:

However, it does mean to me that a fiendish or celestial animal should also now be "native outsiders".

No. Outsider means more than just "from another plane". That's what the extraplanar subtype is for.

Both the Tiefling and Aasimar are listed as "Medium outsider (native)". So to me, fiendish and celestial templates should be as well. Since that is what a Tiefling and Aasimar are really.

No. Tieflings and Aasimars are directly descended from Outsiders.

Celestial and Fiendish creatures are merely residents of a plane with the Good Dominant or Evil Dominant traits.

Nothing I have read in crunch or fluff lead me to think of Fiendish/Celestial Templates as only being residents of Evil/Good dominant planes. Not in 3.0, 3.5 or PFRPG. Fiends and Celestials can obviously breed with pretty much any race they wish, same with dragons (through previous editions Draconic Template). A fiendish warhorse could just as easily be a decendent of a Nightmare as an animal from a Evil Dominant plane.

Nothing I have read in crunch or fluff lead me to think of Fiendish/Celestial Templates as only being residents of Evil/Good dominant planes. Not in 3.0, 3.5 or PFRPG.

Really? Because that's what all the 3.x fluff and crunch states. 3.5 specifically states that when a celestial or fiend breeds with another creature, that creature is a half-foo, while celestial/fiendish creatures are something entirely different. Crunchwise, they've never been outsiders, while all of the outsider-descendant templates do change the base creature's type to outsider.

It's deliberate. The celestial and fiendish templates were redesigned to make them simpler to apply, since applying them to summoned monsters during game play is the primary use for them. It also helps to limit the abuse one can heap on the lower level ones—if you want to do some REALLY tactical stuff with summoned monsters, that's an advantage of summoning things like devils and demons and azatas and archons.

That seems like a fairly large change to not get mentioned in the spell itself, and only become known through the purchase of another book several months later.

Should the Summon Monster spell text itself be updated to make note of this new restriction, for those still using backwards-compatible monster books?

That doesn't mean that the PC should have NO control over his summoned monsters, of course. He should be able to direct who the summoned monster attacks, and what attack options the summoned monster uses, and where it attacks from. The GM, of course, has final say in how tactical he wants to let a summon monster spell get, of course.

That sounds like a nice compromise, although the rules do not permit that sort of thing.

Will that be eratta-ed in (and become an option for Organized Play), or is it just a suggested house rule?

Not trying to be a jerk or anything, it's just a pretty darn major change to the functionality of the spell, which seems a bit excessive to cut out the following sentence in the name of 'simplicity;'

'Celestial creatures have a minimum Intelligence of 3 and can understand celestial.'

I do find it highly peculiar that a celestial or fiendish creature retains the ability to Smite evil or good, despite not actually being good or evil any longer!

'Yes, the energies within me empower me to make specially targetted attacks against people that I really don't mind that much... It's like Race Hatred, but, in my case, more like Alignment Apathy.'

Maybe we should wait for Jason to have the time to address this issue, honestly. When I GM things, I'm probably going to handle things the same way I did in 3.5; if you summon a fiendish viper or fiendish spider or fiendish ape, you can direct its attacks however you want. It's less work for me as the GM to let the conjurer run his summoned monster, and it doesn't really cause anyone to have less fun to do it this way.

It's important not to slave yourself to the rules, I guess, but to run the game the way it feels right. As a result, this makes me probably not the best guy to be talking to about hard-core exacting rules interpretations.

Maybe we should wait for Jason to have the time to address this issue, honestly. When I GM things, I'm probably going to handle things the same way I did in 3.5; if you summon a fiendish viper or fiendish spider or fiendish ape, you can direct its attacks however you want. It's less work for me as the GM to let the conjurer run his summoned monster, and it doesn't really cause anyone to have less fun to do it this way.

That seems sensible, and the DM for the game in question had the same opinion, expressing a desire to not have to run summoned creatures in addition to the NPCs / monsters.

I didn't mean to shout down your suggested 'fix,' I was just curious as to whether this would apply for Organized Play or whatever.

I feel kinda bad when you give a reply to a topic like this and it seems like nobody respects your advice...

I feel kinda bad when you give a reply to a topic like this and it seems like nobody respects your advice...

Well, it is just advice after all and not an official ruling.

There are people who all the time don't respect my advice. They usually learn by themselves down the road, though. James may feel the same way! ;)

In the interests of respect to The Maker I'll refrain from commenting other than to say, "wow".

Maybe we should wait for Jason to have the time to address this issue, honestly. When I GM things, I'm probably going to handle things the same way I did in 3.5; if you summon a fiendish viper or fiendish spider or fiendish ape, you can direct its attacks however you want. It's less work for me as the GM to let the conjurer run his summoned monster, and it doesn't really cause anyone to have less fun to do it this way.

It's important not to slave yourself to the rules, I guess, but to run the game the way it feels right. As a result, this makes me probably not the best guy to be talking to about hard-core exacting rules interpretations.

This is pretty much how we play it at my table too. Unless the caster is asking the summoned creature to do something completely off base we generally let the conjurer control the summoned critter.

I think your advice is good advice I was just curious how it would react to the line that i quoted from the summon spell. I was interested in your reasoning, and "Its easier and more fun for all involved" is prefectly good reasoning to me. I just wanted to see if there was something you had thought of that I hadnt regarding it.

Ah, my first post. I’ve been scouring these boards and others (En World, Giant in the Playground, etc.) for the answer to a particular question, and this thread comes the closest, but there was no final call made from up on high. I hope this is the correct place and thread.
A little background first. I am a newbie. My limited exposure to PF comes only—so far—from PFS, and I have played two characters over six sessions. My character is a Halfling Summoner with an intelligence of 8. This means that I receive just a single skill point per level, and I do not want to use those skill points where I do not have to. My dilemma is that my last session had a GM who said my summoned (celestial template) eagle would not use Smite Evil because I did not speak celestial and could not instruct it to do so. I did not want to bog down the action at the table with a rules discussion, so I went the rest of the scenario with none of my summoned creatures using their smites.
Here is what I do understand:
1. The eagle has an intelligence less than 3, so it cannot communicate, even if my character speaks celestial
2. Summon Monster I states that “it attacks your opponents to the best of its ability.”
As this is PFS, I do not know how the next GM will handle summoned critters and smites, and do not want to waste my precious few skill points learning celestial, abyssal, infernal, aquan, auran, ignan, terran, and so on just to ensure that my critters fight to their best ability. I understand the requirement of language if I am giving them tasks, having them guard a door, and telling them to do more than “kill that!” If there is no official ruling, what else would you good people suggest to plead my case to the next GM?
Thanks!

As a summoner, you really do want to gain the four elemental languages (or a subset of them), because the elementals are handy for all sorts of out of combat things, and not being able to ask them to do them negates this whole option (you want an earth gliding earth elemental to explore somethin and report? Or a water elemental to quench a fire? Or a air elemental to whirlwind up a swarm? etc, etc... you need to speak the language)

No language will help you with templated animal summons, as they are animals and do not speak a language of any sort. Mostly they're just good for attacking things.
Handle Animal skill will help with these, but since its unlikely your summoned animals will come appropriately trained, you will have to Push them to do odd things, which is a full-round action on your part and a DC 20 check regardless. Way to large an investment to make this a reliable option, really.

(To be honest, I'd assume a celestial creature would smite everything it can, as its not smart enough to know the difference, and would never use the option otherwise)

Most of the outer planes outsiders (demons/devils/angels et al) could benefit from you knowing the outer planar languages, but most of them can speak enough languages to cover common and/or have telepathy or truespeach or the like. So you can avoid learning those (Check the language entry for the creatures you can summon to see if you can talk to them)

Your GM, IMO, was wrong about the smiting. Even if you knew celestial, you could not have told it to do so.

I think 'when the monsters use Smite' is not written anywhere. However, I always assumed they just used it on the first creature they attacked. The DM in question effectively denied any celestial creature (as most of those far as i know are animals) from ever using the smite as there is no way in practical terms to tell them to use it.

Anyhow like the last poster, i Agree the GM was wrong.

As a result, a Summoned Celestial (or Fiendish) creature can no longer be directed to do anything other than attack the casters foes (which it does automatically), and Celestial and Fiendish-templated creatures cannot Smite each other, since they are all Neutral (or otherwise retain their base alignment).

Not 100% correct on the Aligment issue.

Creatures marked with an "*" always have an alignment that matches yours, regardless of their usual alignment. Summoning these creatures makes the summoning spell's type match your alignment.

If the character is good then so will the creatures be that have the celestial template, since the caster must be good to apply it. Same for evil casters and the Fiendish template.

The only time your summons are actually neutral is when the summoning character is also and can freely choose which alignment to summon (with the appropriate effects for casting spells of those aligments).

I have not checked the other summon spells but I would guess a similar structure is in place?

EvilMinion,
I should have clarified that I do intend to take some languages in the future when I gain access to more powerful critters (beyond my current 1st level choices) so that I might give them commands that are more complex. I just did not want to expend my precious skill points on languages I did not have to. Thanks for the idea of the air elemental zapping a swarm! I’m new, so great exploitations like that are still revelations to me.
Mojorat,
Thanks for the spiritual support.
Without a hard and fast ruling, I guess what I should do going forward is have a sidebar with my GMs prior to the start of the session and clarify it with them.
Thanks!

Since it is an innate ability of the summoned creature, the worse case scenario is that the GM requires that it uses it against the first enemy it attacks.

The GM is out of bounds for not allowing you to use the full ability of the spell. That would be like a GM not giving you the second Magic Missile for your cast when you are 3rd level as a Sorcerer "because you don't get second level spells".

EvilMinion,

I should have clarified that I do intend to take some languages in the future when I gain access to more powerful critters (beyond my current 1st level choices) so that I might give them commands that are more complex. I just did not want to expend my precious skill points on languages I did not have to.

Keep in mind creatures with the celestial template still don't understand nor speak celestial. So they still won't be able to understand you.

MinimumMax wrote:

EvilMinion,

I should have clarified that I do intend to take some languages in the future when I gain access to more powerful critters (beyond my current 1st level choices) so that I might give them commands that are more complex. I just did not want to expend my precious skill points on languages I did not have to.

Keep in mind creatures with the celestial template still don't understand nor speak celestial. So they still won't be able to understand you.

What about the speak with animals spell? Should work on those celestial animals just fine right?

Indeed.

There's also a Wizard Discovery worth looking into.

Checking the templates in the back of the Bestiary in preparation for using them in a game, I noticed that the Celestial and Fiendish creature templates no longer raise the animals (or vermins) intelligence to 3, afford it the ability to understand instructions in Celestial (or Infernal, etc.) and no longer change it's alignment to Good or Evil.

As a result, a Summoned Celestial (or Fiendish) creature can no longer be directed to do anything other than attack the casters foes (which it does automatically), and Celestial and Fiendish-templated creatures cannot Smite each other, since they are all Neutral (or otherwise retain their base alignment).

Is this a deliberate change in Pathfinder, or an oversight?

It does make a pretty darn huge difference in the use of Conjuration (Summoning) spells.

As Celestial (or Fiendish) animals no longer become Magical Beasts, it does mean that a Speak with Animals spell could be used to communicate with a conjured animal, [/i]assuming that spell were available to Conjurers[/i], and, even in that case, removes as well the ability of the Conjuror to give instructions to a Fiendish Giant Wasp, which he could do in 3.X, and, according to the text of Summon Monster, he's still supposed to be able to do, somehow.

You're a bit late to the party on that, friend. And yes, the devs did come out and say it was a deliberate change.... about 5 years ago. Smite ability still works... it's a function of the template, not alignment.

Rikkan wrote:

MinimumMax wrote:

EvilMinion,

I should have clarified that I do intend to take some languages in the future when I gain access to more powerful critters (beyond my current 1st level choices) so that I might give them commands that are more complex. I just did not want to expend my precious skill points on languages I did not have to.

Keep in mind creatures with the celestial template still don't understand nor speak celestial. So they still won't be able to understand you.

What about the speak with animals spell? Should work on those celestial animals just fine right?

Too bad speak with animals isn't on the wizard list.

You're a bit late to the party on that, friend. And yes, the devs did come out and say it was a deliberate change.... about 5 years ago.

The post you quoted was from 2009, so not all that late ;)

Why exactly is speak with animals a third level spell for bards?

You're a bit late to the party on that, friend. And yes, the devs did come out and say it was a deliberate change.... about 5 years ago. Smite ability still works... it's a function of the template, not alignment.

Seeing that the comment you're quoting was made about 5 years ago, is oddly appropriate.

Yeah, may want to check the timestamp on the first post. Nearly 5 year necro on this, which to me is a bit absurd, and shouldn't have happened. If you can't find a thread about a topic within the last 6 months, just go ahead and start a new one. Necro-ing a thread from 2009 is just too much, and you get people making comments on posts that no longer have any real relevance.

Why exactly is speak with animals a third level spell for bards?

Because they aren't good with animals, but they are good at speaking to things.

LazarX wrote:

You're a bit late to the party on that, friend. And yes, the devs did come out and say it was a deliberate change.... about 5 years ago. Smite ability still works... it's a function of the template, not alignment.

Seeing that the comment you're quoting was made about 5 years ago, is oddly appropriate.

Actually no, LazarX was quoting someone posting this morning, who was replying to a 5 year old post.

Actually no, LazarX was quoting someone posting this morning, who was replying to a 5 year old post.

Except he made two posts, the first of which quoted Set's original 2009 post, and was thus the subject of some mirth since he called that post late to the party ;)

What about the speak with animals spell? Should work on those celestial animals just fine right?

Too bad speak with animals isn't on the wizard list.

Or on the summoner's list.

So if the summoned creature is still an animal and not a magical beast does it mean that I can cast Animal Growth on them?

My dire tigers could grab Huge enemies too.

If I can my familiar will soon have a staff of animal growth.

So if the summoned creature is still an animal and not a magical beast does it mean that I can cast Animal Growth on them?

My dire tigers could grab Huge enemies too.

If I can my familiar will soon have a staff of animal growth.

Any spell that works on animals should work, yes. Do remember that you'll have to beat the SR of the celestial creature.

Go to town. ^_^

So if the summoned creature is still an animal and not a magical beast does it mean that I can cast Animal Growth on them?

Yes.

If summon monster doesn't summon anymore magical beasts but animals his description should be changed.

This spell summons an extraplanar creature (typically an outsider, elemental, or magical beast native to another plane)

It should also be changed because of "This spell summons an extraplanar creature (typically an outsider, elemental, or magical beast native to another plane)"

Milo what's wrong with elementals and outsiders? I didn't understand your post.

Milo what's wrong with elementals and outsiders? I didn't understand your post.

Elementals Are outsiders. It's pointless to say "outsiders & elementals" when all elementals are outsiders. But they just copy-pasted from 3.5e back when elemental was a different creature type. Planar ally/binding has the same issue.