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Pathfinder Player Companion: Champions of Purity

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Pathfinder Player Companion: Champions of Purity
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Greatest Good!

You don’t have to be a holy warrior to be a true hero. Join in the fight against evil and be a paragon of righteousness as a character of any class with Pathfinder Player Companion: Champions of Purity. Arm yourself with a host of new options specifically designed for good-aligned characters—like new fighting techniques striking the balance between capture and execution, life-fostering magic, rules for the redemption of evil characters, and morally challenging alignment-changing alchemy. With new insights into what it means to play good-aligned hardliners and how to get paid for being a good guy, deal with evil companions, redeem villains, and handle all those goblin babies, this book will change the way you think about playing honorable characters. Also, learn more about some of the greatest do-gooders and virtuous organizations on Golarion—with a focus on nonreligious groups, since the fight between good and evil doesn’t have to unfold entirely in the arena of faith. Join the ranks of the just with Pathfinder Player Companion: Champions of Purity! Inside this book, you’ll find:

  • Detailed discussion on what it means to play a character of each of the three good alignments, including ideas for character generation and specific challenges of these alignments.
  • A look into good-aligned races, good-aligned homelands, and good-aligned organizations for your character, as well as some of the challenges of being good and what happens when good characters come from bad places.
  • A method for redeeming evil characters who your adventuring party encounters during the campaign.
  • New good-based feats, magical weapons and gear, rage powers, rogue talents, subdomains, and more!

This Pathfinder Player Companion is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, but can easily be incorporated into any fantasy world.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-511-2

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Shallow Treatment, with a Handful of Good Options

3/5 —

Champions of Purity is a sort of sequel to the earlier [/i]Faiths of Purity[/i]. Whereas the previous book was primarily about the gods and their devotees (clerics and paladins), Champions of Purity has a broader theme: characters of good alignment generally. Since PCs of any class can be on the side of good, a book designed for those characters makes sense. But although there are certainly some useful class options here and there, the book as a whole adopts the scattergun approach of throwing a lot of stuff out there and seeing what sticks. Written mostly by a crop of freelancers, the book is a loose collection of shallow two-page entries on vaguely-related topics. It doesn't really have much in the way of depth, but that seems to be the norm for many of the books in the Player Companion line.

Still, to give credit where it's due, we have to admire the great cover of Seelah cutting through a horde of monsters. The inside front cover is a table of good-aligned deities in Golarion that includes the usual suspects from the Core Rulebook along with some that are lesser-known, including several from the Asian-themed Dragon Empires. The inside back cover does an odd thing and introduces a new feat, "Summon Good Monster," that allows good-aligned spellcasters to substitute a good-aligned creature from the accompanying table in place of what the spell would normally allow, and to give them Diehard to boot. Not too shabby!

The book proper starts with a two-page introduction, "Why Be Good?", that talks about some more specific motivations for PCs, like freedom, honor, justice, mercy, order, and more. It then goes on to give some suggestions as to where characters with those goals might hail from geographically.

Next, each of the three good alignments (Lawful Good, Neutral Good, and Chaotic Good) are discussed in a separate two-page entry which is divided into Philosophies (Lawful Good PCs might be seen as Crusaders or Guardians, for example, while Neutral Good PCs might be seen as Mediators or Redeemers), Advantages & Challenges (in terms of role-playing), Opportunities & Allies (ways those PCs might fit into Golarion specifically), and finally Traits (three new ones each). One of the criticisms I have of the book is that its treatment of alignment issues only barely skims the surface: there's no mention, for example, of how hard it is to play a truly good character when the lowest common denominator is lazy players with a "kill things and take their stuff" mentality. Characters of good alignment face hard decisions and restrictions that other alignments don't, and this can create problems for groups. These are some of the issues that would be worth discussing.

The remaining two-page sections consist of the following:

"Paragons of Virtue" has a line or two on good-aligned races (Aasimars, Catfolk, Elves, and Samsarans), good-aligned organisations (like knightly orders), and good-aligned homelands (like Andoran), but it's a very cursory treatment and of very little use to those familiar with Golarion. Four new traits are included.

"Good Characters in Bad Situations" raises the classic "what do you do with goblin babies" quandary and then suggests (in a sentence or two each) some "bad places" that good characters could come from. Again, the book has identified an interesting issue but has a shallow and wishy-washy treatment of it. Don't look for any deep insights into alignment and RPGs here. (I do love the artwork of the samurai with the goblin babies!)

"Heavenly Virtues" presents one new feat called "Virtuous Creed" that has different effects depending on which specific virtue the PC identifies with (such as humility, courage, freedom, etc.). In a way, it's like six feats in one, which is interesting, but the different virtues have very different power levels in a mechanical sense.

"Redemption" presents a rules sub-system for tracking an evil creature's progress towards becoming good, along with a variety of penances they can do to help atone. I'm skeptical of these little sub-systems that I know will never be referenced again or expanded upon. This one looks a bit rough, but I guess it does add some content and perhaps guidance to a GM dealing with the issue. I wouldn't follow it too strictly, however.

"Divine Influence" introduces seven new clerical subdomains: Cooperation, Dragon, Imagination, Judgment, Redemption, Revelation, and Revelry. Each subdomain replaces the domain spells and granted power of a specific Core Rulebook domain. It looks like there are some good options.

"Fighting the Good Fight" is a miscellany: a new barbarian rage power (Celestial Totem), two new inquisitor inquisitions (Final Rest and Recovery), six new feats (including one very useful one to keep you from accidentally killing enemies outright and a silly one that adds a single point of damage when you hit with a good-aligned weapon), and a sidebar on subduing and binding opponents (no new rules, but it's useful to have the material all in one place).

"Grace and Guile" has a handful of new alchemist discoveries, a couple of bardic masterpieces, and three new rogue talents. The book really is trying to have something for everyone! The alchemist discoveries seem reasonable, one of the bardic masterpieces seems crazily overpowered (blinding and deafening, or even stunning, all evil creatures that hear the performance and fail a save), and I really like the rogue talent Sacrifice Self that allows a rogue to ignore the effects of their evasion ability to help shield an ally from harm.

"Sublime Spellcraft" has a couple of new summoner evolutions (I wouldn't touch summoners with a ten-foot-pole, so I have no opinion of these), three new witch patrons (which are apparently just bland lists of replacement spells), a few new hexes, and two new wizard arcane discoveries. I mostly liked what I saw here.

"Spells of the Just" includes ten new spells, most of which are for both divine and arcane spellcasters. I really liked the little story in the sidebar about how these spells came to be known, and I wish there were more attempts like this to explain the appearance of new spells and magic items.

"Tools for Good" introduces several new magic items. Although damned expensive, I really liked the Devil's Key (allowing you to follow an outsider to its home plane to kill it for good) and the Equalizer Shield (creating an antimagic field to stymie those pesky spellcasters!).

I think books like this have little enduring value because there's hardly any interesting setting lore or discussion, and readers will just cherry-pick a new spell or class option from an online database. Buy this one if you need to for PFS, but otherwise you can safely give it a pass.

Some interesting parts, but mostly uninspiring

3/5 —

I liked the first half, which explored the different ways to support the cause of Good, but I thought it lacked depth and I would have welcomed more discussion and examples of gameplay or stories in the campaign world for context. e.g. the illustration of Valeros in the Neutral Good section helped me understand what the writers were trying to convey. I found the second half less interesting, but those who enjoy technical details may find it useful.

My main gripe is that I expected a focus on Champions and the stuff that champions do, but I felt like I was reading the guide for Men-at-Arms or Sergeants for Purity.

Useful for many classes, but not necessarily all good characters

4/5 —

Champions of Purity will be useful for some good characters, and I think this depends less on the character’s class and more on the character concept. If you are creating a character that is built around his or her goodness – call it good with a capital “G” – I think there’s a fair amount of useful material here, no matter what class your character is. If not, you will probably pass over most of the character options for ones in other sources that provide more mechanical benefit or highlight other aspects of the character’s personality, talents, and backstory. There’s also a fair amount of space devoted to collecting information found in other sourcebooks (e.g., good-aligned deities, races, organizations, homelands, nonlethal weapons, spells with the good descriptor).

I am giving it 4 stars because if you are picking this up specifically to help you build characters which are "actively" rather than "passively" good, I think it works well.

See my full review at my blog Delver's Diary here.

Worth every penny

4/5 —

Champions of Purity is a good quality product with large collection of rules options for most classes along with a range of role playing advice for anyone interested in a playing a Good character.

Champions of Purity starts with an examination of good, trying to answer the general question of “Why to be good?” and then focusing in each of the three alignments individually. It provides generalized motivations for any sort of good character along with locations where characters with each motivation might originate. This provides a nice connection to Golarion in a book that is relatively light on setting details. The different alignment focuses provide examples of different types of philosophies that characters of a given alignment may fall into, along with some of the pros and cons of playing each good alignment. Golarion specific information about opportunities and allies that each alignment may be involved with round out the sections. The only concerns I have with these sections are the listing of the different philosophies, and with the included traits. I worry that players reading these, especially if they’re new players, may see the philosophy suggestions as more rigid limitations rather than just possible ways for characters of each alignment to be portrayed. The traits in each section are listed as complementing a given alignment, but having them listed in a section devoted to that alignment gives the impression that they’re only for that alignment.

The next section is entitled Paragons of Virtue and covers a range of setting information to make a completely Good character, what race to play, organizations to be a part of, and where to be from. Generally this is presented well though I was surprised that none of the good churches were mentioned under the good aligned organizations. The inclusion of countries in Tian Xia as potential character origins was nice, as Tian Xia is often underrepresented in most products. There’s also a list of potential Prestige Classes for good characters, which I appreciated because it’s often hard for players to know about what classes are out there, as they show up in a variety of products. One minor complaint I did have here was that in one of this sections traits they mention an empyreal lord; it seems like there should have been an explanation somewhere of what an empyreal lord is, as players may not know this.

This is followed by Good Characters in Bad Situations, which examines moral quandaries that good players may find themselves in, and shows how different good characters may react to the same situation in different ways. This is quite well done as it covers situations that may come up during gameplay, though a greater list of actual evil acts would have been nice. The list of how good characters fit within “evil” nations is nice, but all the different lists of where good characters come from makes me think that perhaps they all should have been together. It also seems like it could have been a good place to cover how good characters deal with worshiping neutral (or even evil) deities.

The center spread in Champions of Purity is devoted to Heavenly Virtues, creeds for players to live by that provide benefits when the associated feat is taken. All of the benefits seem to be reasonably balanced, but the creeds will require some DM work to keep track of, as breaking a creed means the character loses the benefit of the feat. Some creeds may not be appropriate in all campaigns as the situations they reference may not be present, making them impossible to violate. The art on these two pages is great, with a stained glass style that really works with the virtue theme. On the topic of virtues, I’m starting to feel like Virtue is becoming a bit of an overloaded term, now it may be because I’m running Rise of the Runelords where they come up a bit, but perhaps a different term should have been used.

Redemption is covered next, with a rules framework for an evil character to be turned from the dark side. It seems like a good system to me, though it will require a large amount of DM tracking; a lot of that could probably be avoided by combining it with in game story events. It does include rules for one or more characters helping a character seeking redemption, but I feel that some examination of how a PC could help an NPC seek redemption in a more role playing sense would have been good (and potentially more frequently useful).

The remaining sections of the book are a collection of character options, firstly separated up into Divine, Combat, Skilled, and Arcane characters, and then followed by new spells and items. The divine portion provides details of all the good deities which complements the inside front cover where all the deity’s Domains, Favored Weapons and the like are listed. A number of new subdomains are presented, with Cooperation and Redemption having the most interesting powers. For combat focused characters there are new rage powers and inquisitions, as well as a handful of new feats. There’s also a sidebar on taking enemies alive, going over the rules and options relating to subdual attacks and binding opponents. Some coverage of how to bind someone during a grapple and maybe a feat to go along with it would have been good fit here. For skill based characters there are new alchemical discoveries, masterpieces, and rogue talents, to go with a sidebar on character types for less straight forward good characters. The most interesting new options here are a couple of discoveries that can forcibly change the alignment of the imbiber. Included in the descriptions are the moralistic questions that arise from forcing an alignment change on someone. In the Sublime Spellcasting section arcane casters are the focus, with summoners getting new evolutions, witches getting new patrons and hexes, and wizards getting new arcane discoveries. The mechanics of the Celestial Appearance evolution are interesting, where it’s one 3-point evolution with an increasing point cost if you want to do more with it, so it can be up to a 7-point evolution if you so desire. Based on its name and effect I can see a devil/demon/etc. version showing up somewhere along the line.

In Spells of the Just there are 10 new spells, all with the good type, and a sidebar detailing a scroll that contains them all. I particularly like the Angelic Aspect chain of spells, and Burst of Radiance. For magic items there are a couple of new weapon special abilities and then 9 new magic items (which are said to be wondrous items, when only 2 of them are wondrous items). Surprisingly most of the items are new magic weapons or armor, with only 2 being not combat related. The neatest one is probably the Mantle of the Protector, a way to share some of a character’s armor bonuses. My only concern with all this new rule content is that a lot of it makes players very good at killing Evil things, which may make it on the high end of the power scale in campaigns with few neutral opponents. For instance I can see this material having a big draw in the upcoming Wrath of the Righteous AP.

The art in Champions of Purity is top notch, with good portraits of most of the iconics and a few others; I especially like the ones of Feiya and Kyra. The cover is also very good; however the two other larger pieces in the product are not really to my liking. On the topic of graphic design the font used on the cover and as the section headers is truly awful, I understand that its look probably matches the content of the book is some fashion but this is a situation where function is more important than form.

Champions of Purity is a great product which adds to the quality of the Player Companion line. There’s lots of interesting material here both for those looking for roleplaying ideas and suggestions and those looking for new mechanical tools to play with. A similar book for the neutral alignments would be good, as I find it harder to player neutral characters than good, though it may be hard to find as much neutral specific rules material as there’s fewer obvious things to build off of and because the core rules are written in a rather neutrally aligned way already.

4/5 —

I agree with almost everything that the previous poster mentioned (except the 3E material). There are areas I wish they had gone more in depth or expanded upon a topic, but over all, a very good book. Unlike many of the other player's guide books, this one does seem to offer options for basically everyone, rather than focus on a handfull of classes. The amount of mechanics in this book is great, and shows that it doesn't detract from the fluff material. Not too much of it is terribly etting specific, either.

The art is pretty good, particularly the cover and the center fold, while most of the other art is generally just various iconics is some sort of pose, but not really relvant to the topics.

The magic items are ok, not great. Nothing really jumps out, with a lot of it at the higher GP end.

The spells mostly look nice. I'm not really sure, (yes I know that Alchemists are their new baby and all) that the Alchemist's materail either needed to be in this book or was really thought out that well. Even at 12th+ level, a single save that can rob some clases of all class features (and can argueably require an Atonement even if it's a temp thing) probably needs to be errata'd a lot or out.

I'm very happy that Roles where not included in this book. Don't care for them. The Virtues look good, though I wish there there where more, or perhaps some of them would be switched out. I'm sad to see that they require a Feat to utilize, as I'm not sure most of them really are worth a Feat, and what's worse the main classes that the flavor really fits are generally the ones that are totally Feat-starved. About the same power level as the Knightly Traits in Knights of the Inner Sea, except in general even more situational, that I'm not really sure they are really worth a Trait. Other than that, they are great and look interesting.

All in all, a great and fun book. I would love to see more books like this, both in the amount of material presented as well as focusing on Good, heroic characters and play. I'd definetly buy a Champions of Purity 2 and 3, or a similar book that is not setting specific, but along the same lines.

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Personally, I'd do something quite different from penances for the law/chaos alignment axis. That way you clearly distinguish between the two "flavours".

Otherwise you may run the risk of lawful good coming to mean "really good" and chaotic evil being "extra evil".
Paizo Employee Developer
kevin_video wrote:

Got a question regarding the alignment changes, atonement, and penances. I see that it's double your HD to go from evil to neutral to good. So for a 7 HD creature, that's 28 penances. Possibly more if you level up on a fairly regular basis.

My question is, what about those alignments that shift the other axis. ....

The redemption system provided is all about becoming good and making that transition from evil (primarily), which is why it doesn't mention the chaos-law axis. I think someone could use the system to address other alignment shifts along the chaos-law axis, but it would take some reworking. For example, the penances should be reflavored to represent a move towards order more so than a shift towards good.

Of course, plain old atonement could work in those situations quite easily, but applying a system like this could make it more fun and could provide further roleplaying hooks for the character.

Hope some of that helps.
Grand Lodge
Adam Daigle wrote:
Hope some of that helps.

Not really. I had already put most of what you brought up in my own original statement.

Paizo Employee Developer

Sorry about that, then. Perhaps if down the road we do a similar book that talks about the law and chaos axis of alignment we can address the finer points of moving along that spectrum, but it wasn't relevant to this particular book.
Adam Daigle wrote:
The redemption system provided is all about becoming good and making that transition from evil (primarily), which is why it doesn't mention the chaos-law axis. I think someone could use the system to address other alignment shifts along the chaos-law axis, but it would take some reworking. For example, the penances should be reflavored to represent a move towards order more so than a shift towards good.

...or a move towards chaos (YEEEES! FREEDOM!!!)

Grand Lodge
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Adam Daigle wrote:
Sorry about that, then. Perhaps if down the road we do a similar book that talks about the law and chaos axis of alignment we can address the finer points of moving along that spectrum, but it wasn't relevant to this particular book.

James commented that he'd leave everything exactly the same. I was afraid he'd say that.

I hope eventually you guys do up a similar book, but also add in the evil alignments as well. It seems like a lot of players take CN to be the same as CE. It'd be nice to show them the difference, and let them know just how wrong they are in thinking that CN gives you a license to be a *insert paragraph long series of inappropriate words*.
Liberty's Edge

I have definitely seen "CN" to be "I wanted to be CE but my GM didn't allow evil characters".

CN can be played legitimately, but probably many players would mistake it for CG....
kevin_video wrote:
Adam Daigle wrote:
Sorry about that, then. Perhaps if down the road we do a similar book that talks about the law and chaos axis of alignment we can address the finer points of moving along that spectrum, but it wasn't relevant to this particular book.

James commented that he'd leave everything exactly the same. I was afraid he'd say that.

I hope eventually you guys do up a similar book, but also add in the evil alignments as well. It seems like a lot of players take CN to be the same as CE. It'd be nice to show them the difference, and let them know just how wrong they are in thinking that CN gives you a license to be a *insert paragraph long series of inappropriate words*.

I think I'd go with a 'quest for enlightenment' or something similar. The path to lawfulness being an acceptance of yourself as part of a bigger whole (with the super lawful outsider types going as far as to lose their own identities). Chaos could either be an ever increasing focus on individual freedom or (more traditionally, I think) defined by its conflict with law/order - challenging social fabrics and celebrating individuality.

Is it just me or do they mention slavery a lot. I mean more than one would expect. Also, the Laughing God Kofusachi seems odd to me.

Really liked the book, specially Tsukiyo, seems a really interesting god. Some about him outside Dragon Empires?
The only one thing I REALLY disliked is the will Save for redemption. You roll agaisnt your own Charisma? I would prefer 10 + own HD. Anything but rolling agaisnt yourself, really. Your own Charisma is on your way to redemption, I don't see any sense to it at all.
Shadow Lodge

Seems both incredibly appropriate and realistic to me. Your true inner self needing to resist your own ego and self worth. The more manipulative you are the more you tend to trick yourself, making excuses to rationalize your actions for example. I would suggest the higher of Int or Cha.
Liberty's Edge

Slavery is bad. (It turns out.)
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

I really liked this book, any think we will see sister books for it aka Champions of Balance and Champions of Corruption respectfully?
Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'm all over the idea of CoB and CoC, especially the former - neutral characters need all the help they can get while sitting on that fence!
Grand Lodge

I too hope to see sister books of this.

Out of curiosity, is there a reason the Celestial Totem abilities take longer to get to than the other totem powers from APG and UC? (2nd, 6th, 10th from APG/UC and 2nd, 8th, 12th from CoP)
Shadow Lodge
rknop wrote:
Slavery is bad. (It turns out.)

That's kind of the thing I was really worried about above. It has been very specifically clarified over and over in Golarion that slavery is not itself evil. It is very clearly (within the setting) neutral, which is a lot of the rational behind countries like Cheliax, Osirion, Taldor, and Katepesh. Cheliax for example was specifically called out as a NOT Evil empire, but very much walking the grey line, so that a group of Paladins and good Cleric could just walk in and save the world in a day by smiting the crap out of it. It just doesn't fit the established themes of the world, even if the agenda is to break away from the traditional ideal of virtue and morality, internal consistency should be more important.

Still a great book, don't get me wrong, just that sometimes it feels like it wants to push personal opinions on things rather than how the world or game is defined.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Really, it has been clarified that slavery is not evil? Aside from me never having seen such, it is a repugnant moral attitude.
Shadow Lodge

Yes, the designers have said that they introduced slavery as the norm for a lot of cultures to really push the bounds without being specifically evil in itself.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying in real life I'm for slavery. I am saying that within the context of the game, slavery has already been established as NOT evil. Lawful, yes, as we can see from multiple nations, (mentioned above, but also add in the LG Hermae as a different take on slavery, vs Geb's zombie slavery that has is very beneficial to the rest of the world despite being LE). The countries that are evil are evil because of the methods of slavery they use, for example Geb animating the dead as slave labor and keeping slaves specifically to feed their other undead population or Razmiran's corrupt slavery focused on "black hand" tactics, lying, and intimidation to get what the want, not that they have slavery, (something that for example the very Sarenrae-centric middle-eastern cultures of the world) actively encourage and use much more humanly. Along the same lines, Rahadoum, is an extremely tyrannical society, and it is very clear that it is the chaotic cultures and societies that are against slavery, (Andoran (CG), most of the River Kingdoms (CN), for example, while Milani, the deity of anti-slavery and revolt is CG, it's clearly the chaotic that is relevant, with the good being more focused on her other concepts such as hope, restoration, and peaceful means if possible.
Verdant Wheel

The fact is: there is voluntary slavery after all.
Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
"Devil's Advocate" wrote:

Yes, the designers have said that they introduced slavery as the norm for a lot of cultures to really push the bounds without being specifically evil in itself.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying in real life I'm for slavery. I am saying that within the context of the game, slavery has already been established as NOT evil. Lawful, yes, as we can see from multiple nations, (mentioned above, but also add in the LG Hermae as a different take on slavery, vs Geb's zombie slavery that has is very beneficial to the rest of the world despite being LE). The countries that are evil are evil because of the methods of slavery they use, for example Geb animating the dead as slave labor and keeping slaves specifically to feed their other undead population or Razmiran's corrupt slavery focused on "black hand" tactics, lying, and intimidation to get what the want, not that they have slavery, (something that for example the very Sarenrae-centric middle-eastern cultures of the world) actively encourage and use much more humanly. Along the same lines, Rahadoum, is an extremely tyrannical society, and it is very clear that it is the chaotic cultures and societies that are against slavery, (Andoran (CG), most of the River Kingdoms (CN), for example, while Milani, the deity of anti-slavery and revolt is CG, it's clearly the chaotic that is relevant, with the good being more focused on her other concepts such as hope, restoration, and peaceful means if possible.

Andoran is NG (Inner Sea World Guide, p. 42). Also, Champions of Purity calls out slavery as a core problematic issue for both NG and CG characters (p. 8, 10).

Shadow Lodge

Your sort of right. The Nation of Andoran is NG, with a very strong leaning toward chaos, because of it's colonial and independent roots, but also because of the number of fey in it's area. The organization of Andoran, (both the Faction in PFS as well as the Knighthood) are however both CG, recently with leanings towards CN. I should have been a bit more clear, though.

The main thing is that there is normally a large difference between slavery and indentured service.
Shadow Lodge

Sort of. In general, indentured servitude is seen as much worse, as it gives the false hope of, well hope, while all the time simply digging yourself and your children further and further into the hole. I kind of purposefully neglected to mention some of the nations/organizations that encouraged I.S. slavery, even though they would have really further boosted my point (Calistra's faith, The Shackles, some of the the River Kingdoms and Mwangi Expanse, Sarvaga, Nidel, Taldor, etc. . .

Has anyone used the Summon Good Monster feat? If so, how does it compare to not having it?
Shadow Lodge

I keep wanting to. I'm not really sure what the intent of the Feat really was, beyond slightly expanding the Summon Monster list, which was truly needed. It grants Die Hard feat to things you summon, but at the same time,

They really don't benefit from it:
Summoning: A summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate. When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from, but a summoned object is not sent back unless the spell description specifically indicates this. A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower, but it is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again.
When the spell that summoned a creature ends and the creature disappears, all the spells it has cast expire. A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have.

Die Hard:
You are especially hard to kill. Not only do your wounds automatically stabilize when grievously injured, but you can remain conscious and continue to act even at death’s door.

Prerequisite: Endurance.

Benefit: When your hit point total is below 0, but you are not dead, you automatically stabilize. You do not need to make a Constitution check each round to avoid losing additional hit points. You may choose to act as if you were disabled, rather than dying. You must make this decision as soon as you are reduced to negative hit points (even if it isn’t your turn). If you do not choose to act as if you were disabled, you immediately fall unconscious. When using this feat, you are staggered. You can take a move action without further injuring yourself, but if you perform any standard action (or any other action deemed as strenuous, including some swift actions, such as casting a quickened spell) you take 1 point of damage after completing the act. If your negative hit points are equal to or greater than your Constitution score, you immediately die.

Normal: A character without this feat who is reduced to
negative hit points is unconscious and dying.

So the Summoned Creature that is dropped to 0HP or less, but not outright killed, returns to its home plane and continues to be able to take a Move Actions for a few rounds and die or fall unconscious like normal?

At some point I need to go through the list one by one and see if it makes Sacred Summons actually a viable Feat (pre 17th level) unless your LE. The Blink Dog, Foo Dog, and a few Azatas and Agathions added to the SM3 might hold some promise.
Silver Crusade
Shalafi2412 wrote:
Has anyone used the Summon Good Monster feat? If so, how does it compare to not having it?

Devil's Advocate has pointed out the RAW flaw with this feat (and numerous efforts to get rulings from the developers on both this feat and others providing similar benefits such as Ferocious Summons have gone unanswered), but that's only half of what it does.

Advocate also correctly pointed out that it does expand the summon roster, but we differ on opinions of their value. I think it's excellent because the new summon options give you a lot of nice choices.

Summon 1 gets nothing due to the RAW issues above and receiving no new monsters. Oh well, I'll live.

Summon 2 gains the Grig (no fiddle), Faun, and Pseudodragon. Grigs are functional 'remote attackers'; they can fly around plinking entrenched enemies with arrows and forcing them to move up and do something. This is more valuable than it sounds; I've used tactics like these to force massive 'boss monsters' out of their cave and into open terrain where they were easier to fight; most enemies will not gladly sit there suffering even small amounts of damage if the source is constantly flying out of reach, giggling, and luring them outside. Fauns can do this same trick less effectively, but have other uses outside of that. Pseudodragons are an interesting anti-flier option; their Sleep Poison might just knock the flier out of the air entirely, at which point gravity will make them regret a lot of things.

Summon 3 mostly adds a grab-bag of random tricky monsters. They're situational, but alright if you need their exact set of abilities at that time.

Summon 4 however gives you several flying melee creatures. Among the better ones are the Celestial Giant Eagle and the Celestial Pegasus (which, fortunately, does NOT bring me to your gaming table). They can cross incredible distances, put up a decent fight, and being Large lets them set up flanking for up to two allies at once. This is in addition to other benefits such as the really efficient Foo Lion (which is basically a Lion on steroids, virtually obsoleting that summon within the same spell level).

I could go on, but frankly... even if Diehard doesn't work by RAW (and I really wish they'd clarify how this works!), the feat is worth taking. It was one of the two major reasons I bought Champions of Purity, and I am very happy with it.
Shadow Lodge

Ah, I wasn't aware there where efforts to get the feat clarified in it's intent with Die Hard, it was just something I noticed. I also didn't mean to imply that the expanded list wasn't great. It is, and it is something I think was very needed.
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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Slavery still is repugnant and I do not appreciate any efforts by the developers to make it appear less so. I'd also appreciate some sourcing on those comments, to be honest, because I'd like to see them for myself.

And while RAW is pretty clear on the whole Summon Monster thing, the feat would make no sense if you did not apply Die Hard in the way it obviously is meant to be.

And the list rocks, as soon as you Summon Monster V. Oh, it rocks so much.
Shadow Lodge

Yes, but if they didn't realize that Summoned Creatures automatically vanished at below 0 HP, they might have assumed they just sat there (in a dead-like state) until the spell's duration ends.

It's hard to say what they "obviously is meant to be". Being a book on good, it's just as likely that they intended it to be a bit of flavor so that truly merciful and altruistic casters didn't risk killing their summoned allies, and that when they returned after being taken to 0HP or less, automatically taken back to whatever heaven, they can still act and heal themselves to get back to whatever they had been doing before you zipped them away like they didn't have a life outside of the caster's needs.
Gorbacz wrote:
I'm all over the idea of CoB and CoC, especially the former - neutral characters need all the help they can get while sitting on that fence!

Lesser effects from evil nasty spells, and your summoned monsters laugh off protection from X spells .. TN is already an overpowered alignment option, you don't need any more! :)

Shadow Lodge
magnuskn wrote:
Slavery still is repugnant and I do not appreciate any efforts by the developers to make it appear less so. I'd also appreciate some sourcing on those comments, to be honest, because I'd like to see them for myself.

The threads I was referring to do not seem to exist any more, or at least their links no longer do. I believe was one of them, talking about how they had designed certain countries to be "very much bad guy's" but also designed so that Paladins and good Clerics could not just waltz in and use a lot of holy magic and smites to fix the issues, because they are not Evil Aligned.

Another thing I thought of was the Faith of Lissala. She had been a strictly LN deity whose focus was on duty, discipline, and rewards for obedience, with slavery being a very indirect, but present and acceptable thing). It's always sort of been a strange thing ooc, because she really doesn't come off as evil at all, very much LN, even after this next part. . .

As the Thassilonian empire grew more evil and corrupt, so did her priesthood, which shifted from LN to LE, (and somehow that forced her to shift, too???), until basically the wars and bickering between the Runelord's and their armies indirectly eradicated her faith. It's implied that her faith, and many of the older ancient cultures that do use slavery, use a very humane version of it, not unlike the Biblical version or certain modern prison terms, where it was only for an allotted time frame, and that slaves where to be treated rather well, and could earn their freedom through various means. I believe Osirion is like that, as area few others. Obviously others like Cheliax very much are not.
Liberty's Edge

Countries can do evil things without being wholly evil. The USA was founded on the basis of freedom and justice for all, and sounded very much like Androan (yeah, I know, it's the other way around, really), but slavery was legal within it for the first century or so of its existence. Even now, I would argue that the USA is not a wholly evil country, and is on balance a good country, but there are definitely things that the USA does that could be categorized as evil.

This relates to discussions I've seen elsewhere of paladins played well and played poorly. If you're playing paladins as somebody who sees a singular character flaw as a justification for condemnation and putting to the sword you're playing a cartoon paladin rather than a thoughtful one. Likewise, just because a country does some stuff that is undeniably evil-- as slavery is-- doesn't mean that that country should be invaded and torn down and the leaders put to the sword. Even Cheliax, which has fully made a deal with the devil, has shades of grey associated with it. (Is the diabolic rule in Cheliax really worse than the deadly chaos of Galt? The deal with the devil, after all, did stabilize the dangerous mess that was left behind by the death of Aroden.)

In short, you don't have to rationalize slavery as "not evil" for it to be going on in countries that are themselves not necessarily evil.
Gorbacz wrote:
I'm all over the idea of CoB and CoC, especially the former - neutral characters need all the help they can get while sitting on that fence!

Its true - this fence is really starting to ride up on me!

Silver Crusade

rknop: For what it's worth, I often just use the words "America" and "Andoran" interchangeably. Edit: Try it yourself sometime, it's fun!

On slavery: I remember at least one of the threads that came up on this topic... they were talking about the Sarenite faith in either Katapesh or Qadira, I forget which. The topic came up that it's very strange for Sarenrae's faith to be so prominent in a region that openly allows and significantly profits from slavery.

The response James Jacobs put forth, I believe (but concede I can't immediately find a source for, so please take this with some skepticism), was that the Sarenites of the region have a serious problem to consider: If they start actively crusading against slavery there, they are extremely likely to simultaneously trigger both a civil war in the region itself and a church schism in that same area.

Thus, the Good-aligned faithful are faced with an awful choice: Tolerate slavery, thus perpetuating the trade and the misery and lack of dignity accompanying it... or end slavery and engulf the area in war, which will spread a lot of misery and suffering and could have unforeseen consequences. That's a pretty bad choice to have to make.

This is where I enter personal conjecture and am NOT citing James Jacobs, I'm going to assume most Good-aligned Sarenites in the area take an approach of "Tolerate it for now, while subtly working against it through setting good civic examples. As our holy text tells us, 'The Dawn Brings New Light'; eventually there will be an opportunity for us to peacefully dismantle the slave trade in our area." They're probably reluctantly allowing it, because this is the only option they see that eventually leads to 'the most Good possible in the situation' with as little Evil/suffering as possible.

Basically, the point was that some Good creatures have to tolerate the practice because the societies they're in will violently fracture if they make a large campaign against said trade. They probably feel pretty awful about that, too.

Devil's Advocate: Oops. My apologies; I misread what you were saying on the list, in that case. I withdraw my 'our opinions seem to differ' remark. ...I'd edit the original post if I could, but that option has long since vanished.
Shadow Lodge
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Qadira:
Sarenrae
As Qadira is a Keleshite nation, the Dawnflower is understandably the primary deity for most citizens. Hers is the judging sun that beats down on the common folk day by day; hers is the flame that burns out liars and traitors; hers is the healing fire that purifies hearts or consumes those unwilling to be cleansed. Among Qadirans, it is whispered that the phoenix appears as a sign of Sarenrae’s attention. Just as the sun can grant both life and death, and the Dawnflower’s flame can as easily cleanse and kill, so too do Qadirans both fear and venerate the phoenix for its connection—true or imagined—to their most revered goddess.
All Qadirans are at least nominally faithful toward Sarenrae, for fear that she might unleash her wrath upon them. The aspect of the deity that Qadirans venerate is a harsh, sometimes pitiless goddess who can either heal or burn with her flame. Priests of Sarenrae have a great deal of political power at the court of the satrap, and push continually for conquest and expansion; in this, they are unknowingly in league with those few servants of Rovagug that can bear the sight of Katheer.

Slavery
No discussion of Qadiran trade is complete without mentioning the buying and selling of slaves. Not all slaves have a difficult life in Qadira, but most do, and portions of the markets in all major cities are devoted to the trade of sentient beings as though they were so much cattle. Slaves are priced in wildly varying amounts, from a handful of gold pieces to purchase a thin, sickly slave, to several thousand gold for a prized servant. A typical strong, healthy slave sells for 50–100 gp. No Keleshite will ever request or offer less than 2 gp for a slave, as a matter of superstition; they believe that the redemption price for each hand is at least 1 gp (anyone caught as a thief normally has a hand chopped off, but one can avoid this fate by paying a 1 gp fine, so a two handed thief in theory is worth at least 2 gp).

Slaves
A slave is a person owned by another person. In Qadira, this is a lifetime ownership, except when the slavery is entered into willingly for a set period, such as in payment of a debt. Nobles, citizens, and registered foreigners cannot be enslaved within Qadira. The child of a slave and a noble is a citizen, the child of a slave and a citizen is considered a foreigner, and the child of a slave and a foreigner is a
slave. Owners have the option of freeing their slaves, but this is a long, arduous process, and requires the placement of a special mark on the slave by the church of Sarenrae, to ensure that the freed person cannot be enslaved again.

<It also goes on to talk about concubines and the far worse off eunuchs.>
Silver Crusade

That's a very interesting selection. I seem to recall it coming up in the thre... you know what, let me go look for that thread.

Here it is, do a quick search for James Jacobs in this thread and you'll see the discussion brought up that said church is actually very corrupt and this shouldn't be seen as a condemnation of Sarenrae's proper faith: Thread!
Shadow Lodge

a bit off topic:
The trouble with the interpretation is that the priests of Sarenrae where a major power of the Qadiran people from the beginning. Literally they sort of solidified the nation that would be by pointing out the exact location that Sarenrae defeated Rovagug (prior to -43AR, so almost 5,000 years ago at least), so it's they where very much a strong presence from the beginning, even predating the idea of a single ruler. Being nomadic, very warlike Kellish, it's very unlikely that they didn't also practice slavery of their conquered enemies, and there is no indication that this was a trait they picked up later. interestingly enough, Qadira is also a very matriarchal system as well, with all wealth going to the women, rather than the sons. Qadiran women inherit all the titles and positions, while it's men essentially need to go out and earn it for themselves at each generation. It's also implied pretty strongly that the earliest Satrap was formalized by the preisthood in -42AD and specifically sent to conquer and enslave all the lands around him that would become Qadira.
It also sort of begs the question about how exactly one of the most powerful deities in Golarion could simple not notice her chosen people are going completely against her will, especially when Cleric in the setting are given power on a personal level and are the literal mouthpieces of their god in the world.

I don't mean that to come off as "I know your setting better than you do" as it might. I'm just trying to se a bridge between the two.
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Celestial Pegasus wrote:
Shalafi2412 wrote:
Has anyone used the Summon Good Monster feat? If so, how does it compare to not having it?
Devil's Advocate has pointed out the RAW flaw with this feat (and numerous efforts to get rulings from the developers on both this feat and others providing similar benefits such as Ferocious Summons have gone unanswered)

Hmm?

Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Celestial Pegasus wrote:


Devil's Advocate has pointed out the RAW flaw with this feat (and numerous efforts to get rulings from the developers on both this feat and others providing similar benefits such as Ferocious Summons have gone unanswered), but that's only half of what it does.

Checking your facts before posting is always a good idea.

Aww, ninja'd by Luthorne.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
"Devil's Advocate" wrote:

Yes, but if they didn't realize that Summoned Creatures automatically vanished at below 0 HP, they might have assumed they just sat there (in a dead-like state) until the spell's duration ends.

It's hard to say what they "obviously is meant to be". Being a book on good, it's just as likely that they intended it to be a bit of flavor so that truly merciful and altruistic casters didn't risk killing their summoned allies, and that when they returned after being taken to 0HP or less, automatically taken back to whatever heaven, they can still act and heal themselves to get back to whatever they had been doing before you zipped them away like they didn't have a life outside of the caster's needs.

Luthorne already pointed out that the developers make it clear that another similar feat does allow the summons to stay until they reach -CON HP. And summoned monster return unharmed to their homeplane anyway, so the concern over their well-being is misplaced in this case.

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
"Devil's Advocate" wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
Slavery still is repugnant and I do not appreciate any efforts by the developers to make it appear less so. I'd also appreciate some sourcing on those comments, to be honest, because I'd like to see them for myself.
The threads I was referring to do not seem to exist any more, or at least their links no longer do. I believe was one of them, talking about how they had designed certain countries to be "very much bad guy's" but also designed so that Paladins and good Clerics could not just waltz in and use a lot of holy magic and smites to fix the issues, because they are not Evil Aligned.

The single link you provided doesn't work. Not great sourcing so far. Without any corroboration to what you say ( not exactly because I think you are lying, but because a particular reading of a developers comment can come off very different to another person ), I do not have much basis to make an effective counterargument. Well, aside from the principle that slavery is Evil with a capital E and countries which engage in selfsame need to stop it or be stopped. That the reality of Golarion does not allow Andoran to be even more interventionist in that regard is also clear, but regrettable.

As for the alignment status of any nation which openly allows slavery, I'd put it at LN AT BEST, with the caveat that they might be so mired in the traditions of their more amoral ancestors that they have difficulty getting rid of them. But nations which openly use slavery and praise it as a valuable institution should be given the evil alignment in their overall description. Saying stuff like "those nations are not wholly evil" is beside the point, because you can always find some at least somewhat admirable traits in most people. Some of the evil rulers of Cheliax probably treat their dogs right, too.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Celestial Pegasus wrote:
Thus, the Good-aligned faithful are faced with an awful choice: Tolerate slavery, thus perpetuating the trade and the misery and lack of dignity accompanying it... or end slavery and engulf the area in war, which will spread a lot of misery and suffering and could have unforeseen consequences. That's a pretty bad choice to have to make.

Well, I think we have a real-life example of how that turned out for the rulers and peoples of a great nation. Lincoln something something...

Liberty's Edge
magnuskn wrote:
Celestial Pegasus wrote:
Thus, the Good-aligned faithful are faced with an awful choice: Tolerate slavery, thus perpetuating the trade and the misery and lack of dignity accompanying it... or end slavery and engulf the area in war, which will spread a lot of misery and suffering and could have unforeseen consequences. That's a pretty bad choice to have to make.
Well, I think we have a real-life example of how that turned out for the rulers and peoples of a great nation. Lincoln something something...

Pffttt !!! Just shows that real life is too light-hearted. We want gritty dark worlds for our escapism.

magnuskn wrote:
Celestial Pegasus wrote:
Thus, the Good-aligned faithful are faced with an awful choice: Tolerate slavery, thus perpetuating the trade and the misery and lack of dignity accompanying it... or end slavery and engulf the area in war, which will spread a lot of misery and suffering and could have unforeseen consequences. That's a pretty bad choice to have to make.
Well, I think we have a real-life example of how that turned out for the rulers and peoples of a great nation. Lincoln something something...

Abrham Lincolni from B5? I love that guy ;)

Silver Crusade

In regard to Ferocious Summons clarifications: Thank you. I'll keep this in mind going forward.

That said, Gorbacz, you probably could have come across less confrontational about it. I did check. Admittedly it was about a month ago, and the FAQ answer is very recent (May 9, 2013). Given the issue had been sitting for about a year in several multi-FAQ-request threads, it appeared to me there would be no answer. Ultimately, my attempt to research it came a bit before the answer existed.

I apologize for being wrong on this matter, but I did take some reasonable efforts to look into it. As I now have better information, I'll use that.

Regarding lincoln comparisons: I'm not so sure I want to get into this discussion. Unless everyone is very detached from any emotional value/weight/ideal unto him, this has the very real chance to turn ugly ("actually, I think he was Lawful Evil/Chaotic Neutral/May Have Had Class Levels in Monk/Whatever because..." "WHAT!?", and then it snowballs into a fight, perhaps?). So I'll stay out of that.

Edited for slight clean-up after original post.
"Devil's Advocate" wrote:
** spoiler omitted **...

You forgot an important paragraph:

Spoiler:
Sarenrae claims clerics, fighters, monks, and paladins among her faithful in Qadira, and although she is seen as a crueler deity here than she is in other lands, she still impels her worshipers toward kind and goodly deeds. A band of four suli-janni adventurers ...known as the Dawnflower’s Daughters rides the sands of the Ketz Desert, hunting down slavers in Sarenrae’s name.

So yeah, the issue of Slavery can be complicated for Kelishite/Qadiran Sarenans.
Lantern Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

Is there any reason the Witch Patrons have not been added as legal PFS options?
Shadow Lodge
SAMAS wrote:

You forgot an important paragraph:

** spoiler omitted **

So yeah, the issue of Slavery can be complicated for Kelishite/Qadiran Sarenans.

Odd, it must have been deleted while I was copy/pasting.

The Ketz Desert is where monstrous creatures (Bugbears, Gnolls, and a few humans) kidnap travelers for slaves and hunt humans. It's sort of a no-man's-land.
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