If I summon Celestial Dogs and I speak Celectial, can I order them to do things other than attack? For example, attempt trips or disarms or attack the spellcasters instead of the warriors?
If I summon Celestial Dogs and I speak Celectial, can I order them to do things other than attack? For example, attempt trips or disarms or attack the spellcasters instead of the warriors?
Yup!
If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.
If I summon Celestial Dogs and I speak Celectial, can I order them to do things other than attack? For example, attempt trips or disarms or attack the spellcasters instead of the warriors?
Yup!
If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.
So are they considered smart enough to understand me?
So are they considered smart enough to understand me?If I summon Celestial Dogs and I speak Celectial, can I order them to do things other than attack? For example, attempt trips or disarms or attack the spellcasters instead of the warriors?
Yup!
If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.
Oh, woops. Should have actually read the whole post. Sorry, no.
Being celestial does not give the dogs higher than animal intelligence or a known language. You would need to use handle animal to direct their actions. I think you can safely assume that the dogs you summoned are combat trained, so you would be using the DC 10 "handle" action to direct them. It's a move action to do. The DC goes up by 2 if they are injured. 2 intelligence is the higher end of the animal intelligence binary, so I don't think it is too much a stretch to say that you can direct them to disarm or trip rather than attack.
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The way I have always played it is that the magic handles the ordering of the summoned creature.
The reason is because the handle animal check is fine if you have a pet and have been teaching it tricks over weeks but it falls very short if you are trying to (As a free action) order 1 or more summoned monsters around.
If you have 3 creatures summoned does it require 3 separate checks?
How long does each of these checks take to perform?
What if you get lucky and roll a large number of summoned creatures like 5? How long do each of these free/swift/standard/move action Handle animal checks take to perform?
It takes weeks to teach an animal a trick like "attack", and even then it doesn't happen all the time unless you have 9-12 ranks in handle animal. Now let's look at the summoned creature, you have seen this creature for ~1 second, and in the remaining 5 seconds of that turn you are expected to successfully tell it to perform a trick that it hasn't been trained to do (Attack, Flank, Trip, Grapple). It just seems a little far fetched, even for a D&D/Pathfinder game.
If a wizard has to use a full round to summon the creature, and the next round he has to tell the creature to attack, if he fails he has effectively wasted 2 full rounds of combat and one round of that creatures brief life. He has also wasted a portion of his spell.
If you are a summoner this means that every skill point you have will be tossed either into linguistics so that your summoned creatures can understand you, or into handle animal so you you can hope to control any non-elemental you summon.
It has always made sense to me that the extra planar being that you have chosen to summon to you is loyal to and can understand you unless specified otherwise.
The way I have always played it is that the magic handles the ordering of the summoned creature.
The reason is because the handle animal check is fine if you have a pet and have been teaching it tricks over weeks but it falls very short if you are trying to (As a free action) order 1 or more summoned monsters around.
If you have 3 creatures summoned does it require 3 separate checks?
How long does each of these checks take to perform?What if you get lucky and roll a large number of summoned creatures like 5? How long do each of these free/swift/standard/move action Handle animal checks take to perform?
It takes weeks to teach an animal a trick like "attack", and even then it doesn't happen all the time unless you have 9-12 ranks in handle animal. Now let's look at the summoned creature, you have seen this creature for ~1 second, and in the remaining 5 seconds of that turn you are expected to successfully tell it to perform a trick that it hasn't been trained to do (Attack, Flank, Trip, Grapple). It just seems a little far fetched, even for a D&D/Pathfinder game.
If a wizard has to use a full round to summon the creature, and the next round he has to tell the creature to attack, if he fails he has effectively wasted 2 full rounds of combat and one round of that creatures brief life. He has also wasted a portion of his spell.
If you are a summoner this means that every skill point you have will be tossed either into linguistics so that your summoned creatures can understand you, or into handle animal so you you can hope to control any non-elemental you summon.
It has always made sense to me that the extra planar being that you have chosen to summon to you is loyal to and can understand you unless specified otherwise.
It is loyal, and will attack to the best of its ability unless you tell it otherwise. You need ranks in Handle Animal to train or raise animals, but not to handle or push them. That you can do just as a charisma check, and it is just a DC 10, which is eminently achievable, and even easier with a few ranks.
If you want to be summoning lots of stuff, though, a few ranks in linguistics to cover the elemental languages and handle animal to cover the animals would not be ill advised. Most alignment outsiders will speak common, so you are probably alright on that front.
And again, I think it is safe to assume that if you are summoning an animal for combat that you will get a combat trained animal.
You can only handle 1 animal at a time. If they are trained in the trick it is a move action to handle. If not, it is a standard and the DC goes up to 25.
It is loyal, and will attack to the best of its ability unless you tell it otherwise. You need ranks in Handle Animal to train or raise animals, but not to handle or push them. That you can do just as a charisma check, and it is just...
So if you roll a D4+1 and manage to get 5 animals, you will have to spend 2 move actions to utilize handle animal to get 2 of the animals to perform the trick "Attack" while the other 3 stand by idle though still loyal to you. (This will be your action for the next round.)
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So if you roll a D4+1 and manage to get 5 animals, you will have to spend 2 move actions to utilize handle animal to get 2 of the animals to perform the trick "Attack" while the other 3 stand by idle though still loyal to you. (This will be your action for the next round.)
The spell compels them to attack your enemies. Its written into the spell description. If you want them to do something else or control they method in which they attack you need to be able to communicate that instruction.
So yeah. If you want them to attack the spellcaster in robes, and ignore the other 50 enemies in between them and the target, then you need to be able to communicate. And as they aren't trained you'd have to push them. Dogs don't gain a telepathic link with the summoner just because they are summoned.
This. wizard can now take feral speech as a discovery at 5th. out of ultimate magic. All my conjureres take linguitics, otherwise cratures just used to staight out attack nearest enemy to it.
Shameless plug for a summoner archetype that can communicate with everything he summons.
I don't think most people play RAW when it comes to summoning. At most, people use the 3.5 rules where the templates did add the ability to understand language.
The specifics of Summon Monster should beat out the generality of Line of Effect.
The line about being about to define the area of effect without seeing it, I believe does not apply here. I would apply it in two situations. The first is teleport and similar spells, where you have to define the area where you are going.
The second would be casting in darkness, while blind, or while under some similar effect which denies sight while not breaking line of effect.
For example, let's say that a deeper darkness spell creates an area of supernatural darkness around you. You can't see anything, but you know that the caster who put up the spell is eighty feet to your right and thirty feet up. You could cast a fireball, defining that as the target, even though you cannot see that area. If there is a wall between you and there, however, then your fireball will explode when it hits that wall.
It appears from the text that you can send a fireball into an area that has "line of effect", if not line of sight as per p215.
For any spell that targets a creature or object, it says on p214 that you must be able to see or touch the target, and you must specifically choose that target.
So really, the mage barrier is a pane of glass. As long as you have at least a window separating you, a mage cannot cast a fireball on you, but could target you with a "targeted" spell, because he can see you. Hmmmmm
Interesting, this is making magic a bit more interesting based on how the spell reads. I never paid that much attention before. I like it.
hehehe, now to craft the ultimate encounter......
Fair warning, while a pane of glass will stop MOST instantaneous duration spells, it won't actually stop a fireball, because fireball has specific wording in it saying that if the AoE radius encounters a barrier, and the damage is enough to destroy that barrier, then the barrier is destroyed and the damage continues to anyone behind it.
If the damage caused to an interposing barrier shatters or breaks through it, the fireball may continue beyond the barrier if the area permits; otherwise it stops at the barrier just as any other spell effect does.
wrong post, sorry
