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Has anyone had a discussion on the topic of where do summoned creatures come from?

It became a subject of ethical and alignment debate at our gaming table one evening. If a creature is indeed "summoned" and magically plucked from whatever it was doing and thrown into service - most likely to fight to the death - that brings some potential ethical issues for good-aligned characters and possibly neutral types too.

If, on the other hand, the creature is magically created on-the-spot, that pushes the spell into the godlike power of creating life, even if for just a short time. This explanation makes it easier to deal away with ethical problems, as the creature didn't exist before and won't exist when the spell ends so what it's made to do during it's short time in reality matters less. But it does raise eyebrows if it means that the humble Druid can, even briefly, create life.

So i would like your guys help on how would be a good way for me to kill the goblin babys without my gm saying im evil now and without having to fight the paliden one on one.

Your character is so lusting to kill defenceless creatures that pose no immediate threat that he / she has attempted several murder attempts, attempted to persuade others to side with him / her and has sought advice on how he / she might accomplish the horrible deed.

Your GM should immediately strip your "Neutral" alignment and deem you a new Evil alignment. (I suggest Neutral Evil, as your character is obsessed with murder but does not care the deaths are by his hand or not.) Your character is not "Neutral." That's for certain.

We should be discussing the Paladin. What's his problem? Why is he not calling out your character as a perverted, vile, evil monster that lusts, plots and tries to kill baby creatures because of a twisted, insane fear that they will grow up and "kill people's dogs."

The Paladin has an immediate duty to stick a sword through your evil character's head.

Interesting discussion, as always from this forum!

David Haller's comment got me thinking. I think he's correct that combat in a paper & pencil RPG like Pathfinder is very abstract and each dice roll does not literally represent each and every swing of a sword (or stomp of a foot) that occurs as opponents fight.

Also, thank you, Redchigh, for the coux de gras suggestion. That would be just interesting enough to add thrill to the fight without the burden of extra rules.

Judael: Nicely presented. I'm going to keep your idea printed in my binder for when my Wild Shaped Druid decides to jump from a cliff or wall. Or change shape from a bird into a rhinoceros while above a group of squishy foes.

If my Druid uses Wild Shape to become a large, Dire-class animal, he may weigh 2000 pounds or more. Is stepping on prone opponents a possible attack? What would the attack and damage rolls be?

It's not a Trample special attack; that would be applicable if the opponent was standing.

I just want to knock down opponents (for example, with a high-success Overrun) and then step on them.

Thank you for all the replies. It appears to be a gap in play testing. As Nepherti and Shar Tahl noted, easily fixed with some custom house rules. I wanted to check that I wasn't missing something, like a boar animal type I didn't know about.

I'll talk to my GM about creating custom huge and diminutive sizes.

Weirdo: I might disagree about Totemic Summons for the Boar Shaman. I ran all the combinations of Young, Advanced and Giant boars and dire boars in a spreadsheet. The only interesting combination was a Young Advanced boar which produced a higher AC but lower attack damage alternative to a normal boar, both being level III summons.

More powerful boars and dire boars didn't seem to stack-up to other creatures of the same summon level. For example; why choose an Advanced Giant Dire Boar for a level VI summon when you can choose a regular Dire Bear instead?

On this topic, as mplindusties suggested, the druid shaman classes seem to get a lot of criticism. Surely there's enough player ideas out there to improve them. Has anyone ever gathered all the good ideas together into one place. A Druid Shaman errata?

The Wild Shape ability for the Boar Shaman states:

"At 6th level, a boar shaman’s wild shape ability functions at her druid level –2. If she takes on the form of a boar, she instead uses her druid level +2."

That means at 6th level, a Boar Shaman can Wild Shape into a boar form as if she was 8th level.

The rules state:

"At 8th level, a druid can use Wild Shape to change into a Huge or Diminutive animal."

But there are no Huge or Diminutive sized boars to wild shape into? A normal boar is medium sized and a dire boar is large.

What's the point of being able to Wild Shape into a boar form as 8th level when there are no Huge or Diminutive sized boars to choose from?

The Boar Shaman bonus feat choices, which replace Venom Immunity at 9th level, seem to have steeper prerequisites than other animal shaman types. Perhaps even impossible to obtain.

Is this an error in game design? Is the Boar Shaman intentionally made to be difficult to play?

Bleeding Critical requires Critical Focus and a BAB of 11. Critical Focus requires a BAB of 9. A druid doesn't see a BAB of 9 until 12th level and a BAB of 11 is not until 15th.

Diehard requires Endurance.

Improved Overrun requires Power Attack, which requires a Strength of 13.

Only Blind Fight is a prerequisite-free bonus feat. All others require early-level feat and ability score choices to meet the prerequisites; choices that would handicap the Boar Shaman's spell casting if followed.

Is this how the Boar Shaman bonus feat choices were intended?