Pathfinder Player Companion: Monster Summoner's Handbook (PFRPG)

Terminalmancer wrote:

This is... interesting. Wife was hoping for an Eidolon-less Summoner archetype, and no dice on that front. I'm still wrapping my head around the implications of the Guardian Spirit feat, which is potentially interesting. Most unexpected thing--a feat granting additional options for the animal focus ability of the Hunter class: elemental foci.

After checking out my copy and seeing what the other freelancers wrote alongside the development passes, I have to say, Monster Summoner Handbook is a gem. (And not only because I'm a contributor to it!)

We (Owen and us freelancers) made something here that, in my opinion, is incredibly fun and awesome. Many of the options tackled in the Handbook open up player options that simply couldn't be done effectively before this, and there is some amazingly fun potential in the product. (I messaged Owen excitedly about how much I wanted to play the book's new cleric archetype, and the inquisitor archetype is fantastically cool and looks to be equally fun to play.) From a freelancer standpoint, I'm proud to have worked with the team that we got on this product; I think we did great work. From a player standpoint, I think that this is one of the overall best Player Companions since People of the Sands; it has great, innovative crunch and some very cool ties and tid-bits about Golarion.

But again, you might want to wait to hear what someone else says about the Monster Summoner's Handbook. I'm incredibly biased, after all. ;-)

Please don't take that as a negative review! It's not a review at all, because I haven't finished digesting everything yet. :)

My wife is really excited about the cleric archetype. I think the guardian spirit thing has potential, although I'm probably not going to get to use it unless it's PFS legal (which seems like it might be questionable?). And I am looking forward to seeing a spellcaster with the Versatile Summoning feat using Summon Monster IX to summon an Aerial Great White Whale to menace an airship or dirigible. I feel like that needs to be a campaign setting. And I bet there will be summoners with Rods of Giant Summoning summoning (not literal) swarms of Size Small stirges to blood drain without even granting their opponents complimentary attacks of opportunity.

That inquisitor archetype loses a TON of stuff for its summon tactics ability...

Alexander Augunas wrote:

DM Beckett wrote:

Would you mind telling if the Lantern Archon pet for a Cleric is something in there?

Or a little about the new Archetypes?

I don't feel comfortable with giving spoilers since I'm a contributor. (I don't want any bad will with Paizo; I'd like to work with them again, after all!)

That said, I WILL say that there is an option in the book that will sort of let you do what you want with the lantern archon. Part-time, anyway. But hey! If you don't like the option that's in the book, lantern archons can be taken as Improved Familiars, so you might want to check out the Familiar Folio for ways that a cleric can grab a familiar. (Admittedly, three feats is a LOT for a lantern archon, though. I think the sometimes-friend option in this book will scratch your itch better.)

Even though there isn't a lantern-archon-friend archetype in this book, there IS a cleric archetype that's so fantastically awesome in mechanics and theme that I messaged Owen immediately after reading it and said, "Hot Damn, Owen, we've done the impossible. We've made me want to play a cleric."

Actually, lantern archon isn't an Improved Familiar option, likely due to their game-breaking (especially combined with extradimensional storage) at-will greater teleport ability. So there's a harbinger archon at the same CR and everything, which works as a familiar.

Gotcha. I tend to get good-aligned outsiders all mixed up in terms of names and CRs. Except for agathions, which stick in my brain for some unknown reason. ;-)

I take it Terminalancer has the book already.

Which classes have archetypes? What're the feat names and a quick one sentence summary of what they do? What's the spell names? How many new base eidolon forms and new evolutions? What's the blurb on how the stuff interacts between the core summoner and unchained summoner?

Hey, there's a huge amount of crunch here. Hold your horses. :P

All the summoner stuff works with both summoners, if I remember correctly.

I'm writing something up for you.

And here comes the people looking to get all the info in the book for free...

Yes, a better idea if I want to purchase it sooner or later.
Or if I want to hold back on building a PFS character or wait until I get it.

:)

Since I got my shipping notice too, I would offer to offer teasers, but I don't know when I'll get to read my pdf. Chances are before I get it downloaded someone else will have probably stepped up to the plate.

So what are the archetypes called, and what exactly do they do?

I hope this is the appropriate level of detail for getting people interested in the product! Please yell at and/or censor me if not.

Me and my friends are gonna be talking about this for awhile, but I don't suppose we could get some more info on the Herald Caller? And personally I'd like a better idea of what you mean by "Absorbing summoned monsters in different ways."

Is there anything that allows you to build animal based eidolon that isn't celestial or fiendish or otherwise non organic? :P

(Or even something that allows for shadow based one? I don't remember shadowplane based outsiders being in unchained..)

What does the Herald Caller do? and what are the Feats called and what do they do?

Sure. Herald Caller is one of my favorite parts of the book. Lose some armor proficiency, a domain, and drop a bunch of things from your summoning list to get 4 skill points per level, spontaneously cast summon spells, and get augment summoning and superior summoning as bonus feats. There's more but that's the gist.

Absorbing summoned monsters... there's really a ton there. There's an item that lets you absorb a summoned monster--instead of getting a creature, you can use its spell-like abilities for the duration of the summon monster spell. There's a really complicated robe that, well, does something similar but includes the phrase "These abilities are determined as if the wearer were using a transmutation (polymorph) spell to assume the absorbed creature’s form."

Nice I'm going to like this book.

What does the Monster Tactician do?

What is a guardian spirit?

What are the new planar templates?

What are the new monsters?

Could you give a one or two sentences description of Morphic Savant and Unwavering Conduit, please?

Can anybody copy-paste the book plz plz?

Can somebody wipe the drool of the bag above me from the floor?

On a more serious note, are the Summon Good/Neutral/Evil Monster feats reprinted from Champions of Purity/Balance/Corruption? Seems like they would belong in this book.

And here comes the people looking to get all the info in the book for free...

Can anybody copy-paste the book plz plz?

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about! ;)

For that 'absorbing' thing... that's just an item, rather than an archetype or a feat? I'm definitely gonna have to look into that. XD

I'm mostly curious about Morphic Savant. Thanks for the details on that awesome Cleric archetype! *smiles wickedly and puts it next to the Void subdomain*

The inquisitor archetype gives up judgments and a few other things to get the Summoner's summon monster spell-like ability, and gives those summoned monsters teamwork feats. I can't really look at the PDF from work, but it makes me wonder whether that spell that blows up summoned monsters is on the Inquisitor list. Hmm.

Morphic Savant and Unwavering Conduit are chaos- and law-aligned, respectively. Don't remember a ton else at the moment. Morphic Savant's summon spells have a chance of some random effect.

Morphic Savant and Unwavering Conduit are chaos- and law-aligned, respectively. Don't remember a ton else at the moment. Morphic Savant's summon spells have a chance of some random effect.

Thanks! Sounds pretty cool, especially for my summoner with a Protean Eidolon.

I'm curious on the Elemental Ally Druid Archetype. I'm really excited about this book. I love summoners, but I avoid them due to the fact that I often play and big groups. So I don't play those classes to avoid slowing combat down. But with this book I may be able to have access to proper information faster and not slow combat down too much.

So from Terminalmancer's description, it looks like pretty much everything I wrote for the book got included (YAY!) though some of it seems to have changed significantly, so I'll wait until I get my copy before I talk about it.

So from Terminalmancer's description, it looks like pretty much everything I wrote for the book got included (YAY!) though some of it seems to have changed significantly, so I'll wait until I get my copy before I talk about it.

Well, thanks for writing cool things!

On a more serious note, are the Summon Good/Neutral/Evil Monster feats reprinted from Champions of Purity/Balance/Corruption? Seems like they would belong in this book.

No, they are not. Those feat have to come with entire tables of things you can summon, and that takes up a lot of space. The books are all in print, and the most recent of them is only 7-8 months old. I don't want to ask people to pay for a big chunk of less-than-year-old reprint content in a 32-page book if I can help it.

However, there is a NEW set of options to expand what creatures you can summon with summon monster, and a compiled and revised list of special things priests can summon (adapted from the deity articles in the many APs, revised and updated by myself and James Jacobs as needed).

So from Terminalmancer's description, it looks like pretty much everything I wrote for the book got included (YAY!) though some of it seems to have changed significantly, so I'll wait until I get my copy before I talk about it.

This book is a weird case where one developer who is no longer with us conceived, outlined, and assigned it, and a different one (me) developed it, ordered the art order, developed it, and shepherded it through the rest of the process to go from "manuscript" to "book." I never had a chance to tai to Patrick about what he had in mind with some of his choices in the outline, so I often couldn't carry his original vision forward. Also, I had access to Pathfinder Unchained, and the original developer didn't, which forced some changes. I did a lot more consulting with the design team and James Jacobs than usual, to make sure the book I put together matched the general vision of the company (though I am sure I still missed some things).

So for the folks who wrote this, yes in many cases there have been significant changes. That's always a possibility, it's one of the reasons we have developers - to codify and homogenize the ideas we get from freelancers into a consistent book - but in this case I took a heavier hand than I usually do. If you are someone who sees your work changed more than usual here don't panic. :)

I like the final product a lot, but it does bear more of my stamp than earlier PCs did, when I was working with the previous developer, or at least had plenty of time to talk about what he was thinking.

Of course the transition period was brief, and then we get into books I outlined and assigned, right after this. :)

I can't really look at the PDF from work, but it makes me wonder whether that spell that blows up summoned monsters is on the Inquisitor list. Hmm.

You mean final sacrifice? No, it's antipaladin 3, bloodrager 2, cleric 3, shaman 3, sorcerer/wizard 3, summoner 2, witch 4.

Aww man, seems like this book doesn't have the small thing I'm interested in... Ah well, maybe one day in the future..

magnuskn wrote:

On a more serious note, are the Summon Good/Neutral/Evil Monster feats reprinted from Champions of Purity/Balance/Corruption? Seems like they would belong in this book.

No, they are not. Those feat have to come with entire tables of things you can summon, and that takes up a lot of space. The books are all in print, and the most recent of them is only 7-8 months old. I don't want to ask people to pay for a big chunk of less-than-year-old reprint content in a 32-page book if I can help it.

However, there is a NEW set of options to expand what creatures you can summon with summon monster, and a compiled and revised list of special things priests can summon (adapted from the deity articles in the many APs, revised and updated by myself and James Jacobs as needed).

Thanks for the info, Owen!

Owen: for the Guardian Spirit feat, there are what might be conflicting requirements. Which applies? Would you be able to take a faerie dragon as a Guardian Spirit?

Feat: Select one creature that qualifies to be an improved familiar, and apply the guardian spirit template (see below) to it.

Template: “Guardian spirit” is an acquired template that can be added to any fey or outsider that qualifies to become a familiar through the Improved Familiar feat...

It sounds like the feat text overrides the template requirement--a faerie dragon qualifies as per the feat, and you don't check the requirements on the template. Is that correct?

Terminalmancer wrote:

I can't really look at the PDF from work, but it makes me wonder whether that spell that blows up summoned monsters is on the Inquisitor list. Hmm.

You mean final sacrifice? No, it's antipaladin 3, bloodrager 2, cleric 3, shaman 3, sorcerer/wizard 3, summoner 2, witch 4.

Thanks! Missing an opportunity for some seriously funny inquisitor tricks, but they'll live.

Overall, like the product - lots of interesting new options. My compliments on the Summon Guardian Spirit feat - very flavorful. The expanded summoning feat, assuming it's made legal, will likely be a must-pick for summoning focused PFS characters.

I will note that a "metamagic rod" that gives summoned monsters the giant simple template seems a tad... unbalanced. Especially since it's priced the same as a rod of extend metamagic or other +1 spell equivalent.

Not a big deal, since I'm dead certain it's going to be banned in PFS, but still.

Once the release date hits, can we hear how "Master's Mutation" is supposed to work? Either poison was accidentally left in after copy-pasting Beast Shape IV's description, or we can grant a creature the "poison" ability without actually defining what's poisonous or what the effect is.

(For those playing the home game, it's a spell that lets you grant certain abilities to summoned creatures.)

Nitpicks aside, great product, looking forward to using this in my home games.

What is a Guardian Spirit?

what does the expanded summoning feat add to the summoning list?

What are the new planar templates?

Hrmm. Priests of Asmodeus get to add Bearded Devils to the 5th level summoning list. Trouble is they are already summonable at that level.

Other notes - I'm not quite sure what the difference between the passive and 'use up' power of the caller's feather is. Or if it stacks with the Augment Calling feat.

Once the release date hits, can we hear how "Master's Mutation" is supposed to work? Either poison was accidentally left in after copy-pasting Beast Shape IV's description, or we can grant a creature the "poison" ability without actually defining what's poisonous or what the effect is.

That's ... a really good question. As the writer of the spell, I didn't intend for poison to be one of the options that you could grant the eidolon for the reason that you stated: too complicated. The spell was balanced around beast shape IV, so it likely slipped in while I was researching what abilities to put on the list. If you want to keep poison, I would recommend changing it to "poison (as an eidolon's 2-point poison evolution, with an effective number of eidolon Hit Dice equal to the summoned monster's Hit Dice)."

Of course, Owen's the developer so if he wants to errata it, his word trumps my suggestion. My suggestion's merely a quick fix that I came up with upon reading the issue.

What are the two new monsters?

Are there new ways to summon monsters as a standard action in the book aside from the Inquisitor ability?

Are there enough monsters added to the spell list so that Sacred Summons works better for clerics? Lawful Good clerics only getting three monsters to work with that spell and Neutral Good clerics only getting one did make the feat rather underwhelming.

Are there new ways to summon monsters as a standard action in the book aside from the Inquisitor ability?

Are there enough monsters added to the spell list so that Sacred Summons works better for clerics? Lawful Good clerics only getting three monsters to work with that spell and Neutral Good clerics only getting one did make the feat rather underwhelming.

I would recommend Champions of Purity to expand the list dramatically for Good characters. Champions of Balance and Champions of Corruption also further expand the summoned monster list with a Summon Good Monster/ Summon Neutral Monster/Summon Evil Monster feat. If you want to make good use of Sacred Summons, taking the appropriate alignment feat will go a long way in expanding your options. Of course... it is just one more feat to use up the limited slots.

That's ... a really good question. <SNIP>

I figured as much. No worries, copy-paste gets us all, and it's a very creative spell.

Are there enough monsters added to the spell list so that Sacred Summons works better for clerics? Lawful Good clerics only getting three monsters to work with that spell and Neutral Good clerics only getting one did make the feat rather underwhelming.

Not really - there's an expanded summoning feat that lets you pick and choose a couple of monsters from a list for each Summon Monster level (so taking it once gives two extra choices for SM I, SM II, SM III, etc...) but the pickings are still pretty sparse as far as actual typed creatures go. As always, evil casters seem to make out better - there're a lot of useful devils, daemons, and demons, but archons are sparse. Nothing you wouldn't be able to get via Summon Good Monster, anyway. There may be something that I've overlooked, but since it's a good 10-15 choices at each level, I'm not going to comb over it right away.

What are the two new monsters?

An archon and a psychopomp. Nice art and fluff, nothing too special mechanically.

Actually, lantern archon isn't an Improved Familiar option, likely due to their game-breaking (especially combined with extradimensional storage) at-will greater teleport ability. So there's a harbinger archon at the same CR and everything, which works as a familiar.

Uh... what? How is "take a feat for a CR 2 outsider familiar with at-will greater teleport that can't bring anything other than 50 lbs of objects" game breaking? Especially in the context of a system where you can cast a spell that comes online two levels later (lesser planar binding) or the same level (lesser planar ally) for the same thing without expending any permanent resources. o.O

Mark Seifter wrote:

Actually, lantern archon isn't an Improved Familiar option, likely due to their game-breaking (especially combined with extradimensional storage) at-will greater teleport ability. So there's a harbinger archon at the same CR and everything, which works as a familiar.

Uh... what? How is "take a feat for a CR 2 outsider familiar with at-will greater teleport that can't bring anything other than 50 lbs of objects" game breaking? Especially in the context of a system where you can cast a spell that comes online two levels later (lesser planar binding) or the same level (lesser planar ally) for the same thing without expending any permanent resources. o.O

How does lesser planar ally not expend any permanent resources? Even if the outsider chooses to to waive the payment - something implied by the spell to be quite uncommon - it still costs 500 gp. Not to mention, you don't actually control which outsider you receive, though if you have a name, you can make it a bit more likely you'll receive a particular creature, but even that's not a guarantee...

Mark Seifter wrote:

Actually, lantern archon isn't an Improved Familiar option, likely due to their game-breaking (especially combined with extradimensional storage) at-will greater teleport ability. So there's a harbinger archon at the same CR and everything, which works as a familiar.

Uh... what? How is "take a feat for a CR 2 outsider familiar with at-will greater teleport that can't bring anything other than 50 lbs of objects" game breaking? Especially in the context of a system where you can cast a spell that comes online two levels later (lesser planar binding) or the same level (lesser planar ally) for the same thing without expending any permanent resources. o.O

At the very least, it's significantly more powerful than any other improved familiar. If you want a lantern archon familiar, then use those spells regularly.

The most "broken" thing would be the at Will Aid as a psuedo infinite healing, but, honestly, I just want a little ball of light that pew-pews, and its very difficult to get a pet as a Cleric. 8 could kind of care less about their spell-like abilities. Ion Torch is cheap. Aid is fun, but takes an action. Teleport, I would imagine would not be allowed even if its self plus gear only.

Still, Ill check it out when its out.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Actually, lantern archon isn't an Improved Familiar option, likely due to their game-breaking (especially combined with extradimensional storage) at-will greater teleport ability. So there's a harbinger archon at the same CR and everything, which works as a familiar.

Uh... what? How is "take a feat for a CR 2 outsider familiar with at-will greater teleport that can't bring anything other than 50 lbs of objects" game breaking? Especially in the context of a system where you can cast a spell that comes online two levels later (lesser planar binding) or the same level (lesser planar ally) for the same thing without expending any permanent resources. o.O

Because at-will teleport is so damn useful. Have it scout the other side of the wall or door. Use it to carry messages. Use it to go for supplies. Stuff a party member in a bag of holding and teleport that one at a time.

Planar ally costs resources. Planar binding depletes spell slots and requires a deal: the outsider can point out it was bound to help fight X, not to be a taxi service.

What new ways are there to summon as a standard action or at least not as a 1 round action?

How does lesser planar ally not expend any permanent resources? Even if the outsider chooses to to waive the payment - something implied by the spell to be quite uncommon - it still costs 500 gp. Not to mention, you don't actually control which outsider you receive, though if you have a name, you can make it a bit more likely you'll receive a particular creature, but even that's not a guarantee...

Feats are permanent resources. Skill points are permanent resources. Ability score adjustments are permanent resources.

Gold is renewable and becomes more and more abundant (and, depending on who's in your party, infinite) at higher levels.

Because at-will teleport is so damn useful. Have it scout the other side of the wall or door. Use it to carry messages. Use it to go for supplies. Stuff a party member in a bag of holding and teleport that one at a time.

Planar ally costs resources. Planar binding depletes spell slots and requires a deal: the outsider can point out it was bound to help fight X, not to be a taxi service.

I don't think it isn't useful. There are major reasons to want it available to your party. But it's either not game breaking (because it's already available trivially to appropriately leveled spellcasters), or the game is already broken by it (which I don't believe). What I don't understand is why players are locked off from getting it through a more expensive sub-optimal method (which a lot of people would consider more fun- familiars tend to get more spotlight than bound outsiders). There's no game balance reason for it, which is why Mark's response perplexed me. It's more likely nobody thought to include lantern archons than that they were considered and discarded for being 'overpowered'.

FYI, you totally can bind outsiders for that sort of thing. Check out the section in lesser planar binding on open-ended tasks. All it requires is spell slots that can be spent during downtime, which is pretty trivial. At the level you can start binding, you'd only need to spend usually one spell slot every 9 days to keep a lantern archon around at all times.

Back on topic, I'm interested in hearing about these guardian spirits. I understand you acquire one through a feat, but what exactly do they do? Are they effectively a variant of Improved Familiars, or what?

First, there are psychological differences between paying once and getting something as many times as you want (psychologically, you are driven to use it as much as possible to justify your purchase) vs paying each time you use something (psychologically, you are driven to use it less to avoid paying). When it comes to something that would be highly disruptive to be used all the time, the latter psychological effect is the one you want to have.

That aside, however, the fundamental flaw in the entire comparison of gold vs feat is that it is assuming that the Improved Familiar feat was not already a dominant feat choice for characters with familiars (I can assure you that at least in games I have seen, it already is; big time. In fact many characters take three feats just to get an Improved Familiar. In one particular game, I think 5 out of 7 characters had improved familiars). This means that it is not a feat cost that we are discussing, but instead the cost is the opportunity cost of not having one of the other legal improved familiars instead, all of which are significantly below the power of the lantern archon.

As a weird aside, in a game of Council of Thieves run by Linda near the beginning of PFRPG right when it came out, we sort of accidentally playtested this when we missed the line about summoned creatures losing greater teleport and it was indeed extremely disruptive to have summoned (for minute/level by summoner) lantern archons use greater teleport. It would have been even worse if the entire campaign didn't take place in a really confined area. It was the most disruptive thing that summoner could do, and we were playing the beta summoner at the time, which had an even stronger eidolon than the APG version. So we may have had one of the few games in the planet that accidentally sort of playtested this.

In any case, the question of the balance of lantern archon as an improved familiar is really a discussion for its own thread, not the MSH product thread.

Mark, what is the difference between the two modes of the caller's feather? Both seem to be equivalent to the new Augment Calling feat: two more HD of critters.

Mark, what is the difference between the two modes of the caller's feather? Both seem to be equivalent to the new Augment Calling feat: two more HD of critters.

That's Owen's turf, Ross. ;)