I Can Call Spirits From the Vasty Deep!

Friday, June 12, 2015

Looking to see what will come when you call for it? Find the answer in our new Player Companion, Monster Summoner's Handbook!

Summoning is a popular tactic, and it's one of the few magic options that has an entire character class built around it (a class that is also one of the few to get a revision in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Pathfinder Unchained). So when we dedicate a 32-page book to the topic, we know there are a lot of expectations, and a lot of concerns. As a big fan of summoning (so much so I stepped in and wrote part of this book, as did Assistant Developer Linda Zayas-Palmer) I wanted to make sure, it provided a wide range of options.

So, to put a lot of folk's minds at ease quickly, be aware that all the summoner class options we present in this book function with both the base summoner, and the Pathfinder Unchained summoner! Second, we provided options for expanding monster summoning spells with creatures from Bestiary 2-4, without just openly boosting the power of those spells. There are also options for priests of various gods to gain access to new summoned creatures when using either summon monster or summon nature's ally.

Illustrations by Darren Waud, Katherine 'Kez' Laczin, and Ian Perks

We also added two new outsiders (one with 5 HD and one with 11 HD, filling some gaps in the list of HD for outsiders appropriate for planar ally and planar binding spells), a slew of archetypes (my favorite being the elemental ally, a druid with access to four elementals, one for each element, that function as eidolons but with just one out at a time), simple templates (for creatures from elemental planes, Plane of Shadow, and the First World) and ways to access them, a way to use summoning spells to summon the SAME guardian spirit each time, and some anti-summoning options (ranging from the counter-summoner archetype to the summon bane magic weapon special ability).

It's only 32 pages of course (efforts to summon a bigger book failed...), and I'm sure there are yet more things people would have loved to see. But I hope we managed to provide a little something for everyone, and a lot of cool options for anyone wanting to master summoning!

Owen K.C. Stephens
Developer

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