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I have a question on summoned animals and how they interact with "unnatural" creatures.
A summoned monster cannot summon or otherwise conjure another creature, nor can it use any teleportation or planar travel abilities. Creatures cannot be summoned into an environment that cannot support them. Creatures summoned using this spell cannot use spells or spell-like abilities that duplicate spells that have expensive material components (such as wish).
The spell conjures one of the creatures from the 1st Level list on Table: Nature's Ally. You choose which kind of creature to summon, and you can change that choice each time you cast the spell. All the creatures on the table are neutral unless otherwise noted.
When you use a summoning spell to summon a creature with an alignment or elemental subtype, it is a spell of that type. All creatures summoned with this spell without alignment subtypes have an alignment that matches yours, regardless of their usual alignment. Summoning these creatures makes the summoning spell's type match your alignment.
So if a druid cast's Summon Nature's Ally V and summons an Dire Lion, in my mind there's no question that this animal would attack any humanoid, monstrous humanoid, or animal (such as a Fire Giant, Human, Goblin, or even a Medusa) because the Handle Animal skill says it will but here's where my question comes into play.
What if the druid want's the Dire Lion to attack a Demon, Ooze, Dragon or Zombie? Would the druid have to "push" the animal using the Handle Animal skill's rules (a DC 25 check)? Or would the spell "just work" and override the fact that an animal won't normally attack an unnatural creature?
Again, I don't see this as a problem if the the druid summons an Elemental, Magical Beast or Fey with the Summon Nature's Ally spell but I'm asking specifically in regards to the normal animals that can can be summoned with this spell.
If this has already been covered somewhere please post a link.
Thanks for the thoughts.
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"The summoned ally appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn. It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions as you command."
You don't need Handle Animal skill. As per the spell, it attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with it, possibly using Handle Animal (I'd allow it), you can direct it in other ways. So Handle Animal skill can be very useful if you want to use Summoned Animals for miscellaneous tasks other than simply throwing themselves at your enemies (like summoning a weasel to go steal the jailer's keys, etc.). BUT you don't actually need Animal Handling skill to use the spell effectively.
Greetings, fellow traveller.
Hm. From what I gather
It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions as you command.
does the trick (sorry for the pun).
It does not detail any restrictions on what the summoned creature would attack (or not), thus I'd rule as GM that it would attack the undead just fine.[...]Conjurations[...]bring manifestations of creatures(summoning) to you.[...][/b]Creatures you conjure usually—but not always—obey your commands.[/b]
Emphasis mine and shortened for convinience.
This implies that the creatures you summon are not the real thing but manifestations, thus are magical in nature.
Last but not least, I can't find a quote where it says the summoned creature needs a Handle Animal check to to what you want it to do.
Ruyan.
Edit Ninja'ed by Cpt. Zoooooooooom.
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Last but not least, I can't find a quote where it says the summoned creature needs a Handle Animal check to to what you want it to do.
You don't need a Handle Animal check for it to attack your enemies. For it to do anything else, you must communicate with it. A normal, celestial or fiendish animal doesn't know any languages, so your most likely means of communication is a Handle Animal check. If you can speak with animals, that should work instead.
Design Manager
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Ok, so then summoned animals are more useful, in this regards, than Animal Companions? Because with an Animal Companion you would need to "Push" the animal to attack an "unnatural" creature unless it had the "Attack Any Target" trick.
That doesn't seem right to me.
Animal Companions get lots of bonuses and additional tricks, and the actions to command them are lessened. In addition, they can't be Dismissed, don't run on a timer, etc.
You just have spend the extra trick to get them to attack unnatural enemies. Even if you hadn't spent the trick, you'd still be able to push them and still take another action thanks to the improved action economy.
I don't think it's really fair to say the animal companion is worse. It's a full round casting to summon an animal with summon nature's ally, and a move action to push your animal companion to attack if it doesn't know the trick. You still win out on all fronts.