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

That's interesting. Summon Good Monster has the Leonal as a SMIX option. The expanded summoning list here has it as a SMVIII option. This book seems to be the one that gets it right--it's 2 CR too low for SMIX--but it makes me wonder how Summon Good Monster's diehard feat interacts with it. It's too small of a bump to really be worth worrying about, but I'm curious nonetheless.

I know this is kind of a long shot, but are there any options for non-casters (or 4th level casters, even) to counter summoning magic? A Fighter being able to put-that-thing-back-where-it-came-from-or-so-help-me a summoned outsider would be a huge boon to the class...

I know this is kind of a long shot, but are there any options for non-casters (or 4th level casters, even) to counter summoning magic? A Fighter being able to put-that-thing-back-where-it-came-from-or-so-help-me a summoned outsider would be a huge boon to the class...

Unfortunately, no. There's a decent feat chain for anyone with an arcane pool class feature, but I don't know if there's a way to get that outside of playing a magus.

There's a (sorry, author) pretty terrible bardic performance that also helps against summons, but it'd be useless past level 3 or so, and you can't get it until level 4.

Luthorne wrote:

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.

Huh, I guess I play in different sorts of games than you do. Most games I've been in, regularly spending gold like that would result in being well behind wealth by level...

Okay I've gotten my hands on a copy and thought I'd just give a quick comment about each of the things in the book that I wrote, and open up the floor for questions about them. :)

ARCHETYPES:

Ancestral Harbinger (Bloodrager Archetype) - This one has been essentially unchanged from my turnover. This one is all about getting your ancestors to aid you during combat, in the form of spiritual weapons, summoned creatures, or even ghostly visages. These summoned creatures also gain some benefits of the bloodrager's rage when they're around, as well.

Herald Caller (Cleric Archetype) - This archetype was changed a good bit since I turned it in, but in this case Owen made it significantly more interesting and flavorful. It lets you summon down heralds of your god/goddess by sacrificing prepared spells (sort of like a druid can do with summon nature's ally spells.

Monster Tactician (Inquisitor Archetype) - Originally named the Summon Tactician, this guy gets summoner-style spell-like summon monster spells 3+Wis per day. The big difference here is that the Monster Tactician grants Teamwork feats to his summoned creatures, which can be extremely potent tactics-wise.

Counter-Summoner (Summoner Archetype) - The Counter-summoner gives up its summon monster spell-like ability to be able to counterspell summoning spells as they are happening as a Swift or Immediate action. Obviously this summoner archetype is going to rely on his eidolon a bit more heavily than some other summoners, so make sure you build your eidolon well!

FEATS:

Banishing Critical (Critical) - I first want to point out that this feat should probably also have the (Combat) descriptor as well, and when I wrote it I meant it to require EITHER Arcane Strike or the arcane pool class feature... as written now, it requires both. This lets you banish summoned creatures back to their home plane when you confirm a critical hit against them.

Dimensional Awareness (Combat) - This one was written with the intent to allow non-casters a bit of an advantage against summoned creatures, but it now can only be taken by magi as well. It lets you take an AOO against a creature that gets summoned next to you.

Dimensional Disruption (Combat) - Again, I had intended this one to be usable by non-spellcasters, but alas it is now magus-only. This one lets you attempt to banish a creature when you use your AOO from Dimensional Awareness against it.

Planar Focus - This one lets you gain a ton of new options for the Hunter's animal focus class feature, based on different planes.

Scouting Summons (Metamagic) - This feat was written to fulfill an idea that many players have for summoned monsters... let them scout stuff out for you! It lets you see through the eyes of one of your summoned creatures until it takes damage, and if it is reduced to 0 HP you actually take some damage as your ejected from its consciousness as well.

Solid Shadows (Metamagic) - I know this is one that my Illusion-based Sorcerer will be grabbing ASAP... if a creature makes their Will save against one of your shadow spells, it's 20% more real than it would be otherwise.

Tattoo Attunement/Conversion/Transformation - This group of feats lets you turn a summoned creature (your own or even enemies') into tattoos on your body, storing them for later use and even gaining some of their elemental resistances while they're stored in such a way. I wrote this as a way for a Sorcerer or Wizard to get some more use out of those rounds/level summons, since you can summon a creature for one battle, and if it still has duration left at the end of the battle, slurp it up into a tattoo and use it again in the next combat!

Summon Guardian Spirit - This feat was actually part of a Druid archetype that was not used in the book, but I'm very happy to see it revamped as a more-generally-useful feat. This allows you to use your summon monster or summon nature's ally spells to summon a unique creature, your guardian spirit, who is essentially an Improved Familiar with a special template applied to it which gives it increasing abilities based on what level of spell you used to summon it. This one will DEFINITELY be a major focus of a future character build, because this is one of the few ways OTHER than having an eidolon that you can summon the same creature over and over!

MAGUS ARCANA:

Intuitive Protection - This is just as I wrote it, and lets a magus protect himself from summoned creatures as an immediate action if he can identify the spell being used to summon them.

Planar Hunter - Again, just as I wrote it, and it lets you deal extra damage to extraplanar creatures or lets you block any teleportation effects they might normally be able to use.

WITCH HEXES:

Disrupt Connection - This one is just as I wrote it with a bit of mechanical rewriting to make it fit into the confusion status. It causes summoned creatures to act erratically and even treat the witch as their summoner instead.

BARDIC MASTERPIECE:

Ballad of the Homesick Wanderer (Oratory, Sing) - This is a great way for a bard to contribute to a combat against summoned creatures... while you perform this masterpiece, summoned creatures long to return to their home plane, and if they fail a Will save they expend extra rounds of the spell that summoned them, making them disappear more quickly than they otherwise would!

So any love for the preservationist alchemist in this book? That's my one PC that currently summons things.

@Michael: Check out the Summmon Guardian Spirit feat as well as the Tattoo Attunement/Conversion/Transformation feat chain... might be worth investing into to get more rounds out of your summoning extracts. :)

That Tattoo Attunement sounds VERY interesting to me... I have a Master Summoner who uses a modified summoning list (lesson learned: Vilstraks are the most useful low-level summon ever), and depending on how exactly those work, I may look into giving her the whole chain. Goodness knows I have no idea what else to do with my feats. XD

@cartmanbeck: Will do.

My issue thus far is that preservationists can't take most of the feats because they specifically work on summoning spells and alchemists don't cast spells. So by RAW the only feats they can use are Planar Preservationist and Augment Summoning because the latter only because the archetype specifically allows it. Since this is a Pathfinder Society character I have to follow RAW.

@Michael: Ah, fair enough. For PFS, that makes it much tougher. And of course we don't even know what of this will be PFS-legal yet anyway.

@Rednal: The Tattoo feats would fit your Master Summoner more for the flavor, the elemental resistances, and being able to use it offensively to shut down other summoned creatures. You probably have no issue with summon durations, so that part of it isn't quite as useful for you.

What are the new creatures? and what are the new planar templates?

Are there any new conjuring- and summoning-focused groups in the inner sea?

a lot of awesome stuff

I was really excited reading through this book. I especially like the tattooed feats. Hopefully, I will get a chance to try them out soon!

Any other details or tidbits on the Monster Tactician? How does it compare to Rite publishing's Celestial Commander?

Why did they take away from noncasters and made an already broken class even more broken (the magus)? I can not understand still why the noncaster hate?

So Banishing Critical actually does the one thing I really wanted to see in this book, though for martial classes it's exclusive to Bloodragers.

*shakes fist at whoever decided to rescind the SLA FAQ*

Why did they take away from noncasters and made an already broken class even more broken (the magus)? I can not understand still why the noncaster hate?

It doesn't really make any kind of sense, that non-casters would be able to effect magic in that fashion anyway.

Barachiel Shina wrote:

Why did they take away from noncasters and made an already broken class even more broken (the magus)? I can not understand still why the noncaster hate?

It doesn't really make any kind of sense, that non-casters would be able to effect magic in that fashion anyway.

Barbarians are totally already capable of affecting other types of magic that way.

Excited for the Tattoo feats. Although I'd have to play in a campaign for a change...

nighttree wrote:

Barachiel Shina wrote:

Why did they take away from noncasters and made an already broken class even more broken (the magus)? I can not understand still why the noncaster hate?

It doesn't really make any kind of sense, that non-casters would be able to effect magic in that fashion anyway.

Barbarians are totally already capable of affecting other types of magic that way.

If Unchained is anything to go by, they can't use Spell Sunder now either. :P

Would someone be willing to spoil the new Psychopomp of rme and let me know if it is eligible for improved familiar?

Would someone be willing to spoil the new Psychopomp of rme and let me know if it is eligible for improved familiar?

It's got 11 HD so... no. :)

OTOH if you WANT an improved familiar psychopomp, the nosoi in Bestiary 4 has you covered.

Rowe wrote:

Would someone be willing to spoil the new Psychopomp of rme and let me know if it is eligible for improved familiar?

It's got 11 HD so... no. :)

OTOH if you WANT an improved familiar psychopomp, the nosoi in Bestiary 4 has you covered.

That's what my next character has. I was just hoping for another psychopomp option.

Barachiel Shina wrote:

Why did they take away from noncasters and made an already broken class even more broken (the magus)? I can not understand still why the noncaster hate?

It doesn't really make any kind of sense, that non-casters would be able to effect magic in that fashion anyway.

Why? I mean its not like magic is real, or that we are violating some real mystic principal. It could be as simple as "Hit them right here and they go poof."

I was thinking more along the lines of a mini-bull rush right back through the summoning portal they came through.

Barachiel Shina wrote:

Why did they take away from noncasters and made an already broken class even more broken (the magus)? I can not understand still why the noncaster hate?

It doesn't really make any kind of sense, that non-casters would be able to effect magic in that fashion anyway.

If, on level up, I can decide to randomly take a level of Wizard, why can I not take a feat that requires a small magical ability and understanding?

In both cases, I suddenly gain the ability to manipulate magic.

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

Should the cleric of Asmodeus happen to be a lawful neutral or neutral evil druid, and thus have summon nature's ally, that table allows her to call the bearded devil with summon nature's ally V.

I'm not quite sure what the difference between the passive and 'use up' power of the caller's feather is.

Used passively it allows you to summon more total HD of creatures, but each individual creature must be within the spell's HD limit. Used and expended, you can summon a single more powerful creature and gain the bonuses to skill checks.

Or if it stacks with the Augment Calling feat.

Do you mean the feat from from #1 With a Bullet Point 10 Subschool Augmentation Feats, or some other feat?

How much is that Caller's Feather? It sounds really great- sometimes it's a shame to have a critter sitting right at 7HD and not available for the Lesser spell. Ooh… the passive use sounds really nice for getting two 7HDs in under the regular version. (Assuming it's at least +2 total HD.) Man… sounds like a nicely thought-out item.

How much is that Caller's Feather? It sounds really great- sometimes it's a shame to have a critter sitting right at 7HD and not available for the Lesser spell. Ooh… the passive use sounds really nice for getting two 7HDs in under the regular version. (Assuming it's at least +2 total HD.) Man… sounds like a nicely thought-out item.

Fun random historical details about caller's feather. Linda (by which I mean Paizo Assistant Developer Linda Zayas-Palmer) invented the item in her first campaign ever as a GM, which was Council of Thieves, at the outset of PFRPG. She had added a summoner antagonist who wanted to do some bindings but was exactly 1 HD off. I'm almost sure what she wanted to do was bind a succubus antipaladin 11, which is 19 HD, with greater planar bindings so she could give all the bad guys aura of vengeance. Thus, the caller's feather was born. The original was actually a feather from the antagonist's mother, a lesser fallen angel->erinyes Whore Queen. This makes it Linda's first custom magic item that she ever designed!

nighttree wrote:

Barachiel Shina wrote:

Why did they take away from noncasters and made an already broken class even more broken (the magus)? I can not understand still why the noncaster hate?

It doesn't really make any kind of sense, that non-casters would be able to effect magic in that fashion anyway.

Why? I mean its not like magic is real, or that we are violating some real mystic principal. It could be as simple as "Hit them right here and they go poof."

Fair enough...for me it just comes across as weird. As noted above Barbarians can already be built to do so...I just wouldn't personally build one to do so....it's just not "in concept" to me....and I'm more interested in the concepts in trope, than min maxing characters to be able to do everything ;)

Now if a fighter or Barbarian had an enchantment on a weapon that does that ? no problem, that makes sense to me...or even if the feat required you to take a level of a magic manipulating class....again, then it would make sense to me. But just allow them to banish/sever a creatures tie to this plane because you happened to hit them "just so" ?...no, for me that makes no sense and goes into the cheesy realm...BYMMV ;)

Ross Byers wrote:

Or if it stacks with the Augment Calling feat.

Do you mean the feat from from #1 With a Bullet Point 10 Subschool Augmentation Feats, or some other feat?

I think he's referring to the Augment Calling feat on page 13, in the Binding and Calling section.

It appears the feat and feather stack, allowing for an additional 4 HD. However, I can't say for sure if that's the intent or how the consumption of the feather is supposed to be interpreted.

Ross Byers wrote:

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

Should the cleric of Asmodeus happen to be a lawful neutral or neutral evil druid, and thus have summon nature's ally, that table allows her to call the bearded devil with summon nature's ally V.

I had not considered that! Neat.

Ross Byers wrote:

I'm not quite sure what the difference between the passive and 'use up' power of the caller's feather is.

Used passively it allows you to summon more total HD of creatures, but each individual creature must be within the spell's HD limit. Used and expended, you can summon a single more powerful creature and gain the bonuses to skill checks.

I suspected it was something like that, but the rules text for those spells never actually makes it explicit that there's a 'per critter' limit separate from the overall spell limit. That is, it would seem that if you can call an extra 2 HD of creatures with lesser planar binding, that you'd get one creature of 8 HD or less.

But, it sounds like the intent was that with the caller's feather, I could call two 7 HD outsiders with planar ally/binding. I could call two 10 HD outsiders with greater planar ally/binding. The lesser versions are unchanged unless I use the expended version of the power.

Ross Byers wrote:

Or if it stacks with the Augment Calling feat.

Do you mean the feat from from #1 With a Bullet Point 10 Subschool Augmentation Feats, or some other feat?

Luis is correct, I mean the feat on page 13. Given our discussion above about the ambiguity of lifting the HD limit, does Augment Calling work as the active or passive power of the caller's feather? A naive reading would imply I can get an 8 HD outsider with lesser planar binding, but the same wording for caller's feather would imply that I cannot. But it only becomes clear that caller's feather works that way because it has the second power.

Is there a reason why the "Fiery" template under Versatile Summon Monster feat (page 19 of the Monster Summoner's Handbook) does not provide Fire Resistance?

The Aerial, Aqueous, and Chthonic do provide the expected resistances (electricity, cold, and acid respectively).

Is there a reason why the "Fiery" template under Versatile Summon Monster feat (page 19 of the Monster Summoner's Handbook) does not provide Fire Resistance?

The Aerial, Aqueous, and Chthonic do provide the expected resistances (electricity, cold, and acid respectively).

Because they gain the fire subtype, which should grant them fire immunity and cold vulnerability.

Hey, you guys did give me a feat to let my Time Oracle summon more dinosaurs, just like I asked for above! Thanks Owen!

Lord Fyre wrote:

Is there a reason why the "Fiery" template under Versatile Summon Monster feat (page 19 of the Monster Summoner's Handbook) does not provide Fire Resistance?

The Aerial, Aqueous, and Chthonic do provide the expected resistances (electricity, cold, and acid respectively).

Because they gain the fire subtype, which should grant them fire immunity and cold vulnerability.

'

Correct.

Didn't Pathfinder change it so that the Fire subtype no longer gives Cold Vulnerability, and vice versa?

Does the fiery template have any equivalent of Smiting?

Didn't Pathfinder change it so that the Fire subtype no longer gives Cold Vulnerability, and vice versa?

It has not changed. ^_^

Okay so I am told this is a succubus, and not an incubus, so... um... why is there a male succubus when incubus exist? Sure, a succubus CAN take male form technically, but why is it so wrong that when I see this I think "oh it's an incubus not a succubus"?

Incubus or Succubus?

Because succubi are sneaky charmers and seducers while incubi are spread your legs and open your mouth wide brutes, and there's no reason either should be limited to either sex.

I believe the disconect is from the fact that from a mythological standpoint Sucubuss and Incubus were the same creature only diffrent genders whilst in pathfinder they are treated as seperate creatures.

I believe the disconect is from the fact that from a mythological standpoint Sucubuss and Incubus were the same creature only diffrent genders whilst in pathfinder they are treated as seperate creatures.

Yeah, I think really that's why it confuses me. Especially since depending on the myth source they take a male form, they are an incubus if they take a female form they are now a succubus... same exact demon, just what it's called changes when it's gender changes to seduce a particular person.

Scouting Summons (Metamagic) - This feat was written to fulfill an idea that many players have for summoned monsters... let them scout stuff out for you! It lets you see through the eyes of one of your summoned creatures until it takes damage, and if it is reduced to 0 HP you actually take some damage as your ejected from its consciousness as well.

Hm, since this is a metamagic feat, if would not work with the summon ability of the Summoner or the Arcanist (Occultist), correct? I get why that would be a concern with the minute/level duration of their summons, but it's a bit of a shame.

The book doesn't really seem to do much for Arcanists, so far, aside from the effects everybody gets who is summoning creatures. A bit of a shame, since I plan to play a summoning focused Arcanist (Occultist), whenever I next get the chance to be a player, instead of a GM.

Kevin Mack wrote:

I believe the disconect is from the fact that from a mythological standpoint Sucubuss and Incubus were the same creature only diffrent genders whilst in pathfinder they are treated as seperate creatures.

Yeah, I think really that's why it confuses me. Especially since depending on the myth source they take a male form, they are an incubus if they take a female form they are now a succubus... same exact demon, just what it's called changes when it's gender changes to seduce a particular person.

I always found the general backstory behind that to be pretty hilarious...as I recall, the sex-swapping was actually the result of theologians who believed in succubi and incubi, but who also firmly believed that demons, having turned their back on God, would be incapable of actually creating, only destroying, including creating new life. Thus, the supposed ability of an incubus to impregnate a woman posed a theological conundrum...so they came up with the brilliant explanation that the incubus couldn't actually impregnate someone with their own seed, but instead, the succubus stole the seed from men, transformed into an incubus, and used the stolen semen to impregnate a woman, thus allowing the usual logic (demons cannot create, but can twist or corrupt existing creations) to have their demon-tainted children. Maybe it's just me, but imagining church theologians, uh, grappling with these...weighty issues...amuses me immensely.

Unrelatedly, really looking forward to my copy shipping...

So what are the two monsters? Is one of them a psychopomp?

Thank you for the Dispel Focus feats. I think the game has needed those for a long time, considering the failure chance of Dispel Magic, and the fact that you are always going up against casters stronger than yourself.

I am also very excited to have a Summon Bane weapon.

I do wish Banishing Critical would have been open to bards. I love the idea of a halfling bard knowing exactly where to poke the huge summoned creature with his tiny rapier to make it pop. It also would have thematically worked very nicely with the Arcane Duelist archetype. (We will soon be up to 35 classes, so why make such a feat so specific to one?)

Planar Focus - This one lets you gain a ton of new options for the Hunter's animal focus class feature, based on different planes.

wait wait, does this mean I could make an unchained summoner, Slap on the naturalist archetype, get this feat, and make eidolon's based on a specific outsider and have them use animal focus of that outsider? that's insane, that better not have any benefits that would stack.

Arachnofiend wrote:

nighttree wrote:

Barachiel Shina wrote:

Why did they take away from noncasters and made an already broken class even more broken (the magus)? I can not understand still why the noncaster hate?

It doesn't really make any kind of sense, that non-casters would be able to effect magic in that fashion anyway.

Barbarians are totally already capable of affecting other types of magic that way.

If Unchained is anything to go by, they can't use Spell Sunder now either. :P

What do you mean? There was no Barbarian section in Pathfinder Unchained. Certainly no completely unnecessary nerfs to be found in that book.

(Though the UBarbarian can still spell sunder, it's just tied to crits with Witch Hunter. Which sucks.)

Is Banishing Critical the same as the feat by the same name in Blood of Angels?

If so that is kinda lame considering the feat can be found online instantly. For example, here:

Archives of Nethys

Coulda used that feat space for something new and not a reprint.

The book doesn't really seem to do much for Arcanists, so far, aside from the effects everybody gets who is summoning creatures. A bit of a shame, since I plan to play a summoning focused Arcanist (Occultist), whenever I next get the chance to be a player, instead of a GM.

That's still a benefit for Arcanists. even if it's not "Arcanists Only". Keep in mind also that it was only allocated the page space of a small book.