Herald Caller & Sacred Summons: How do they work together?


Rules Questions


Divine Heralds (Su)
A herald caller can use summon monster spells only to summon creatures particularly appropriate to her deity. This includes all creatures listed as summon monster options for priests of her deity (see Expanded Summoning for Clerics), creatures whose alignment matches at least one aspect of her deity's alignment, and creatures of an elemental subtype that matches a domain granted by the deity (if any). When summoning a creature that is normally summoned with the celestial or fiendish template, a herald caller of a chaotic deity can instead summon it with the entropic template, and a herald caller of a lawful deity can instead summon it with the resolute template.

Sacred Summons
Prerequisites: Aura class feature, ability to cast summon monster.

Benefit: When using summon monster to summon creatures whose alignment subtype or subtypes exactly match your aura, you may cast the spell as a standard action instead of with a casting time of 1 round.

If I want to play a Herald Caller with the Sacred Summons feat to summon as a standard action what are my options? Previously the options were confusing and the list small. Does the Divine Heralds ability increase the options?


Herald Caller does not alter the sacred summons feat. The summoned creature still needs to have alignment subtypes exactly matching the deity's alignment (not the cleric's) for it to apply and so for standard-action summoning.


So summoning Elementals or Celestial animals as a Standard action still isn't possible?


Sorry no, the herald caller gives some bonuses with these, but not standard-action summoning.


To be clear, I'm asking if the Divine Heralds ability or that comment about "(see Expanded Summoning for Clerics)" increases the old options of what works with Sacred Summons.

The Exchange

where is that "see expanded summoning for clerics" information found? Also, does the celestial template add the good subtype to the creature? If so, a cleric following a NG diety should be able to summon as a standard action.


Dukai wrote:
where is that "see expanded summoning for clerics" information found? Also, does the celestial template add the good subtype to the creature? If so, a cleric following a NG diety should be able to summon as a standard action.

"Summoned by the faithful". Page 30 of Monster Summoner's Handbook. I don't thinks any online source have it listed yet.

Also, no. Celestial Template doesn't gives the subtype to creature.

Sovereign Court

There's basically not a great deal of interaction between Herald Caller and Sacred Summons. They're a passable combination, but relatively few of the extra summon options have correct alignment subtypes.


Sacred Summons is not really that good. It is too limited.

The monster has to match your aura which is determined by your deity. So if you have a LG deity then your standard action summons only work on outsiders with the lawful and good subtypes. If it only had to match on one axis, but not an opposed axis it would be a lot matter.

Sovereign Court

wraithstrike wrote:

Sacred Summons is not really that good. It is too limited.

The monster has to match your aura which is determined by your deity. So if you have a LG deity then your standard action summons only work on outsiders with the lawful and good subtypes. If it only had to match on one axis, but not an opposed axis it would be a lot matter.

I don't agree. There are many benefits to having an alignment as close to neutral as you can, like a bigger list of monsters you can summon. This creates an incentive in the other direction.


Ascalaphus wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:

Sacred Summons is not really that good. It is too limited.

The monster has to match your aura which is determined by your deity. So if you have a LG deity then your standard action summons only work on outsiders with the lawful and good subtypes. If it only had to match on one axis, but not an opposed axis it would be a lot matter.

I don't agree. There are many benefits to having an alignment as close to neutral as you can, like a bigger list of monsters you can summon. This creates an incentive in the other direction.

You missed my point. Yes if you are neutral it gets you the elemental and animals as a standard action, but most other alignments are out of luck.

And the best things to get are the good outsiders with cleric levels.

Saying "The feat is a lot better if you go true neutral" does not mean the feat is really good overall. It means it is better than it would be in that situation.

Sovereign Court

I don't think you get anything if you're neutral, actually.

Prerequisites: Aura class feature, ability to cast summon monster.

Benefit: When using summon monster to summon creatures whose alignment subtype or subtypes exactly match your aura, you may cast the spell as a standard action instead of with a casting time of 1 round.

Aura (Ex): A cleric of a chaotic, evil, good, or lawful deity has a particularly powerful aura corresponding to the deity's alignment (see the detect evil spell for details).

It doesn't look like clerics of neutral deities gain an aura.

EDIT: so since most of the creatures with alignment subtypes are in the "corners", clerics of those religions are profiting most. Which is how I like it.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Champions of Purity has a "Summon Good Monster" feat which adds to the summonable creatures list making Sacred Summons much better.


whew wrote:
Champions of Purity has a "Summon Good Monster" feat which adds to the summonable creatures list making Sacred Summons much better.

Expanded Summon Monster can also add a few more subtypes to your list. But summoning is already a feat-hungry playstyle.


I definitely remember reading somwhere from the designer that HC was specifically designed to work best with deities that had a neutral component to their alignment, to give them the widest summoning options.

SS he said works best if your deity has a more extreme alignment but then you will have a significantly reduced list to work with as the HC even without SS can only summon within 1 alignment step ie) a HC of Erastil can only summon LG, LN or NG monsters.


Question - if you are evil - and summon a fiendish animal - according to my understanding of the rules the summoning spell takes that descriptor - and the animal does as well.

Example: I summon a fiendish dire rat - both the rat and the spell get the evil descriptor.

Does that mean that the creature 'matches at least one aspect of their deity' as per herald caller? We've decided it does in our game - but I'd like other opinions.

The Exchange

Oh, fun detail in the summon monster spell description...

In the last paragraph of the summon monster I spell:
"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."

I think this means that "*" creatures (pretty much all the animals) are completely viable for the HC and Sacred Summons combination, right?

Shadow Lodge

Dukai wrote:
I think this means that "*" creatures (pretty much all the animals) are completely viable for the HC and Sacred Summons combination, right?

The subtype of the summon, not its alignment, must match your aura. Your aura matches your deity's alignment.

Let's use Sacred Summons for Asmodeus for example.

While your alignment is LN, your aura is LE to match Asmodeus.

Summon Monster

Look at the subtype row. It if is "Evil" & "Lawful" it is valid for a standard action Sacred Summons.

While a fiendish creature would have your alignment, nothing in the Fiendish Template changes the actual sub-type of the summoned monster. So, a fiendish eagle would not be eligible for a standard action Sacred Summons.


Sammy T wrote:
Dukai wrote:
I think this means that "*" creatures (pretty much all the animals) are completely viable for the HC and Sacred Summons combination, right?

The subtype of the summon, not its alignment, must match your aura. Your aura matches your deity's alignment.

Let's use Sacred Summons for Asmodeus for example.

While your alignment is LN, your aura is LE to match Asmodeus.

Summon Monster

Look at the subtype row. It if is "Evil" & "Lawful" it is valid for a standard action Sacred Summons.

While a fiendish creature would have your alignment, nothing in the Fiendish Template changes the actual sub-type of the summoned monster. So, a fiendish eagle would not be eligible for a standard action Sacred Summons.

It's not the template that he's talking about. It's this:

Quote:


When you use a summoning spell to summon a creature with an alignment or elemental subtype, it is a spell of that type.

So for creatures with a listed subtype - the spell is always that 'type' and the creature is always that alignment - but what about the creatures with * next to them - they have no subtype?

Quote:
Summoning these creatures makes the summoning spell's type match your alignment.

So the way I read that - is that if you summon a fiendish dire rat - then the spell matches your alignment, as does the creature. Now does that help a LN cleric of Asomdeus? I don't think so - the creature would be lawful neutral. However if you are Lawful Evil - then not only would your creature be Lawful Evil - but it would then match your aura...

Quote:
When using summon monster to summon creatures whose alignment subtype or subtypes exactly match your aura, you may cast the spell as a standard action instead of with a casting time of 1 round.

Thus if you had the same alignment as your deity - and your aura matches - it works...?

The Exchange

no...Sammy T is right. Sacred Summons has to match alignment subtypes not creature alignment. The creature does not gain the good or evil subtype, only the good or evil alignment. The spell gains the good or evil descriptor, but the descriptor does not impact creature subtype.

Dang...I was all excited for a second there, lol.


Dukai wrote:

no...Sammy T is right. Sacred Summons has to match alignment subtypes not creature alignment. The creature does not gain the good or evil subtype, only the good or evil alignment. The spell gains the good or evil descriptor, but the descriptor does not impact creature subtype.

Dang...I was all excited for a second there, lol.

But then why have this line at all:

Quote:
Summoning these creatures makes the summoning spell's type match your alignment.

Seems like alot of wasted words that have been in there from way before sacred summons - to me that implies that the spells subtype does become your alignment...

Regardless it looks like it does work with herald caller - as that ability doesn't work off of subtypes but specifically the alignment of the creature being summoned.


Dukai wrote:

Oh, fun detail in the summon monster spell description...

In the last paragraph of the summon monster I spell:
"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."

I think this means that "*" creatures (pretty much all the animals) are completely viable for the HC and Sacred Summons combination, right?

What's odd is that I can't seem to find rules for a spell having a "type". Some seem to take "type" to mean the "[Descriptor]", but I can't find rules evidence for those being the same thing.

The Exchange

I was about to assert that a spells type determines whether or not a divine caster can cast based on alignment, but Melk makes a very good point...I supposed they may have elected to use the word type rather than stating "...makes the summoning [spell gain the alignment descriptors that] match your alignment." However, there is no strict RAW evidence that indicates this is true. I would lean toward adjudicating that type = descriptor in this case, but you should probably talk with your DM for their opinion.


Quote:


But then why have this line at all:

Quote:
Summoning these creatures makes the summoning spell's type match your alignment.

Back in 3.5, if you had the Good domain, you added one to the caster level when casting Good-descriptor spells. In Pathfinder, it doesn't do that anymore, although there is still the rule that good clerics can't cast evil spells.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Herald Caller & Sacred Summons: How do they work together? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.