And the choice for taste, is Caster Choice brand summoned creatures.
Mmmm, mmm, that's good summons!
But seriously, would anyone have a problem with casters being able to summon any animal from the appropriate list and apply their choice of Celestial or Fiendish template?
Or should Monkeys stay CG and Apes LE?
Note: Obviously this would not apply to creatures that don't have either template - no LG Lemures!
I do think the choice of which animals are chaotic and which are lawful is kind of arbitrary, since all the template does is make it Good or Evil.
On the other hand, I don't think it's broken as it stands.
And the choice for taste, is Caster Choice brand summoned creatures.
Mmmm, mmm, that's good summons!But seriously, would anyone have a problem with casters being able to summon any animal from the appropriate list and apply their choice of Celestial or Fiendish template?
Or should Monkeys stay CG and Apes LE?
Note: Obviously this would not apply to creatures that don't have either template - no LG Lemures!
Celestial Spiders and Scorpions strike me as pretty odd, flavor wise. I'm not sure I like them as default options, but I might consider allowing a character to substitute them out in their summon list for another Good outsider of an equivalent level. The list is actually specifically balanced to provide approximately equal numbers of Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil options at any given spell level to good options, which means that summon monster is sometimes a better option for Team Evil than Team Good.
With that said, I think there could be better balance across character levels for the good summoning list, and I think a slightly larger neutral summon list, as often the evil portion of the lists is somewhat superior, limiting the good summoner somewhat.
I would not really say that it is broken now, but it ties alignment into a type of magic in a bizarre way. I think it tends to reward blowing off alignment, or at least minimizing it into irrelevance.
For example, I'm a Neutral Good 7th level conjurer specialist, and I just got Summon Monster 4. However, there is nothing on the list that won't push my alignment in one direction or another? Also, I can't summon a good aligned aquatic creature until I have access to Summon Monster 5.
It just doesn't make sense.
While I do appreciate that celestial vermin is a little strange at first (except bees?), I think it really makes sense when viewed in terms of game mechanics, and I would leave the limits based on flavor to the design of the campaign setting.
I don't see why summoned creatures all have to be Celestial or Fiendish in the first place, I think it just adds a bookkeeping annoyance...plus I find the barrage of Celestial/Fiendish creatures to be a bit silly anyway. I'd rather see the spells balanced such that the creatures summoned could be used straight out of the Pathfinder Bestiary.
Couldn't agree more. Summon spells are so limited by the list anyway, it's a shame being shut down by allignment restrictions. We're not advocating LG demons here, but a boar is a boar. If you can have an evil boar, you can have a good boar too.
Vermin ought to be excepted from this though, you would only be able to have fiendish vermin. Or at least, spiders/scorpions/centepedes. The reason is that these creatures primary forms of attack involve poison, and using poison is, strictly speaking, an evil act. So, by that logic, we'd go ahead and throw the Viper into the 'fiendish only' category.
But, Celestial Tigers and wolves, Fiendish Dire Bears and Rocs? Yes please!
This is actually the thing that struck me as one of the most obvious things to fix. Monster summoning was one of the first things I checked out and I was really disappointed and mystifed that it wasn't changed. I was stunned that this wasn't a part of the book that struck other people as egregiously bad. Am I really alone in this?
I still have to, on the fly, apply a template to a stat block out of the monster manual to use this spell? And the templates are 50% celestial and 50% fiendish with no rhyme or reason? So summoning ignores the law/chaos axis of alignment, what with the free will and compelling service aspects? And the templates are pretty useless anyways?
I wouldn't say that the Summon Monster lists are bad.
For what they are, they are quite good. They are specifically alignment limited on purpose!
A True Neutral caster has access to the full spectrum of the Summon Monster list. As long as summons are not played like robots, they provide a fairly broad spectrum of options. Undead and constructs are where robots belong, by the way, and trying to use SM or SNA as Summon Robot is where balance problems happen. The main thing that Celestial or Fiendish allow is the ability to speak common, although I would be quite happy to have the summoned monsters ready to go, without custom stat block writeups.
When you consider that every mephit is a different option, along with every elemental, the levels where mephits and elementals occur should provide a very versatile toolset. I would be happy stealing some of the lawful * and chaotic * options for more neutral * options, or trading some of the * good and * evil options for * neutral options.
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This is actually the thing that struck me as one of the most obvious things to fix. Monster summoning was one of the first things I checked out and I was really disappointed and mystifed that it wasn't changed. I was stunned that this wasn't a part of the book that struck other people as egregiously bad. Am I really alone in this?
Nope, but what I am hoping is that, since it is a limited list, someone at Paizo will stat up all of the monsters and stick them in a free PDF download on the website. Or organise someone off the forums to do that for them.
I think it would make more sense for summoned animals/vermin to be just denoted as planar in origins rather than given specific alignments. For example planar apes, planar monkey, planar centipede etc, the summoner would then have the choice to add eitehr the fiendish, axiomatic, anarchic or celestial template to teh summoned creature.
The axiomatic and anarchic templates are not Open, and even if they were, they are more complex than the Celestial/Fiendish templates.
That said, I would not at all be disappointed to see two new Order/Chaos templates in the Pathfinder Bestiary.
I don't mind the specific alignments for the animals, but a more generic template included with the spell might be better than actual "fiendish/celestial/etc". Tough call.
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Couldn't agree more. Summon spells are so limited by the list anyway, it's a shame being shut down by allignment restrictions. We're not advocating LG demons here, but a boar is a boar. If you can have an evil boar, you can have a good boar too.
Vermin ought to be excepted from this though, you would only be able to have fiendish vermin. Or at least, spiders/scorpions/centepedes. The reason is that these creatures primary forms of attack involve poison, and using poison is, strictly speaking, an evil act. So, by that logic, we'd go ahead and throw the Viper into the 'fiendish only' category.
But, Celestial Tigers and wolves, Fiendish Dire Bears and Rocs? Yes please!
So, you're saying there are no vermin in the Happy Hunting Grounds?
I'm all for swapping celelstial/fiendish at will.
The Damage resist at upper HD is worth the template...The template is almost worthless at lower level...
I don't see why summoned creatures all have to be Celestial or Fiendish in the first place, I think it just adds a bookkeeping annoyance...plus I find the barrage of Celestial/Fiendish creatures to be a bit silly anyway. I'd rather see the spells balanced such that the creatures summoned could be used straight out of the Pathfinder Bestiary.
I agree, it would be much better to have a better base creature selection. The Latern Archon and some of the demons/ devils are good but all the creature should come straight out of the MM without templates. For most creatures the celestial/ fiendish template isn't worth the CR increase and as Ross pointed out in a different thread the CR on the higher level summons is too low in the first place.
So an increase in the base CR with no templates would make summoning vastly more useful at higher levels.
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I don't see why summoned creatures all have to be Celestial or Fiendish in the first place, I think it just adds a bookkeeping annoyance...plus I find the barrage of Celestial/Fiendish creatures to be a bit silly anyway. I'd rather see the spells balanced such that the creatures summoned could be used straight out of the Pathfinder Bestiary.I agree, it would be much better to have a better base creature selection. The Latern Archon and some of the demons/ devils are good but all the creature should come straight out of the MM without templates. For most creatures the celestial/ fiendish template isn't worth the CR increase and as Ross pointed out in a different thread the CR on the higher level summons is too low in the first place.
So an increase in the base CR with no templates would make summoning vastly more useful at higher levels.
There should be more choices still, Instead of 1d4 celestial dogs at level 3, "Johnny Taco" wants to summon a HD advanced celestial dog, cuz "Johnny Taco" likes dogs...as long as it's balanced great...
Not like a DM I know who almost wiped out a party when he substituted Lightning Lizards for a MS Five spell...and they're lightning together was brutal.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I don't mind the specific alignments for the animals, but a more generic template included with the spell might be better than actual "fiendish/celestial/etc". Tough call.
I would DEFINITELY favor this approach. Use the beast shape precedent to make summons fairly uniform. Something like this in the spell description:
"Summoned creatures that are not outsiders or elementals are simply extraplanar variants of their natural equivalents. They can understand the caster's speech and commands, and they gain DR 5/magic and SR of 10 + hit dice."
This applies to celestial, fiendish, anarchic, axiomatic, pseudonatural, anything you want. One simple rule for sanity and simplicity (they can understand you when command them, no matter what), and one simple set of defensive abilities. Yes, this does boost low-level summons, and that's okay by me; they aren't going to be around very long anyway, so big whoop if they get a little extra cheese.
I could see a more complex version where you have a list of options you could apply to your summoned monsters; say you got one choice per level of the spell, but while it might be fun I think that way lies madness.
In my opinion the list of creatures for the summoning spells should be expanded,not only fiendish and celestial animals.
Maybe once they have the beastiary finished they can actually redo the summoning spells to just give limitations on what the spell can summon... however the problem with that little idea is that it can get to the place gate, and planar binding and the ilk are at now.
I find the use of this celestial zoo of summoned creatures quite annoying.
I considered using the psionic variant in which creatures are shaped construct-like creatures shaped in some form by the conjurer.
These creatures receive basic stats and a number of special abilities chosen from a table depending on the level of the spell, it seemed quite good to me and I could keep my monser manual to myself.
only thing that stopped me was one of my players playing a malconvoker, which is a summoner of fiendish and vile creatures, so instead I handpicked some fiends and other 'true' extraplanar creatures
to make for alot more flair.
If you can not find a nice creature for that challenge rating try advancing one, maybe a hellhound with elite scores and a fighter level.
you could even give it a magical collar of protection or barding to beef it up to level and use the gold a fighter of that level is supposed to have.
exchanging templates does not seem a problem to me, I just dont use the lame templates at all.
I don't mind the specific alignments for the animals, but a more generic template included with the spell might be better than actual "fiendish/celestial/etc". Tough call.I would DEFINITELY favor this approach. Use the beast shape precedent to make summons fairly uniform. Something like this in the spell description:
"Summoned creatures that are not outsiders or elementals are simply extraplanar variants of their natural equivalents. They can understand the caster's speech and commands, and they gain DR 5/magic and SR of 10 + hit dice."
This applies to celestial, fiendish, anarchic, axiomatic, pseudonatural, anything you want. One simple rule for sanity and simplicity (they can understand you when command them, no matter what), and one simple set of defensive abilities. Yes, this does boost low-level summons, and that's okay by me; they aren't going to be around very long anyway, so big whoop if they get a little extra cheese.
I could see a more complex version where you have a list of options you could apply to your summoned monsters; say you got one choice per level of the spell, but while it might be fun I think that way lies madness.
I think we're on to something here. I'm very in favor of this route.