Planar Ally Clarification


Rules Questions


Alright, so I'm trying to get the RAW clarification on this element of Planar Ally.

"If you serve no particular deity, the spell is a general plea answered by a creature sharing your philosophical alignment. If you know an individual creature's name, you may request that individual by speaking the name during the spell (though you might get a different creature anyway)."

I am playing a Neutral Good Oracle. This means that I do not have the Cleric's restrictions on casting of non-matching alignment.
However; the line above states a creature sharing your philosophical alignment (IE Neutral Good???)

I am trying to make a character who only casts Alignment Spells of Good alignment, because of being NG, and his will towards other alignments not being strong enough.

From a STORY point of view, I can just choose to only Call Good outsiders. However, I am concerned of an occasion coming up where Calling another type of Outsider (Inevitable, Protean, etc) will be helpful, and I can see my party trying to force me (as players to a player) to summon one, if I legally can. I don't want it to be a choice that the character chooses to never perform; I want it to be something he CANNOT perform, even if it leads to his death.

I'm looking for a RAW justification for why I can't, so that I can quickly shut down that train of thought. Any help available?


Umm... Just tell people you can't/wont.
Tell your party at the start that you will not call other things and would rather have your character die then call other.
Don't cave if they bother you later about it, explain how you told them at the start that you worked this way and that you're not changing.


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You already quoted your reasoning and why it wouldn't work. Your planar ally requests send out a plea to "Good". "Good" send back what it has. In order to summon something not from "Good" you need to know the name of the creature. Its given name, not the name of the creature's race.

Planar Ally is essentially "Hey, can I get some help down here?! And send Frank if you can, he was a big help last time!"

Shadow Lodge

The rule that a character without a deity calls a planar ally matching their alignment is separate from the rule that some classes eg clerics can't cast alignment-opposed spells. Your NG oracle will only call NG outsiders.

Chess Pwn is correct however that you should be able to decide that there are some things your character would rather die than do and your group should accept that.

And that's important because if you learned the name of a non-good outsider you could in theory call that creature with planar ally. (I'm not certain, but I read "you may request an individual by name" as an exception to the "general plea to your alignment" rule.)


The bottom line on Planar Ally is that the GM decides what's actually showing up, and the spell provides the GM guidelines for what SHOULD show up.

If your requesting a specific individual creature, odds are good the GM has invested some work on that creature and may have an interest that named creature showing up.

But if your concept is "I only get angels" and your GM knows it, odds are really good you're going to get an angel, even if the rest of party wants you to bring in a demon.


Yeah, the way I understand it is that unless you specify a creature you will only ever get Neutral Good outsiders. Not Lawful Good, not Chaotic Good, only Neutral Good. The named creature part is I think an exception to this general rule.

So yes, you are mechanically limited in what you will get. You cry out to the universe, "Help Me!". And Angels are the ones who respond.


I'd disagree that the named part breaks the alignment limitation of the spell. It would just allow you to call Mr/Mrs XYZ (which you have worked with before, probably the last time you called a creature using the spell) instead of some random generic creature which is normally the case. Nothing indicates that the alignment limitation is lifted regardless.

I believe the calling for a specific creature is due to the spells function. You are bargaining with a creature for services, if the agreement was beneficial for both, would you not try to gain the aid of that creature again if you were in need of help again? Would it not make sense to try and gain the aid of someone who knows what your predicament is, as well as how you work together, instead of having to explain everything to a new creature? Normally you don't have the option when summoning a creature, you gain a generic version. This spell allows you to gain the same creature repeated if you know it's name. It is making an exception to the rule of "generic creature" NOT the alignment restrictions of the spell.

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