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So, I'm a big fan of sumoning spells and I cam across this nice little feat in Ultimate Magic
The minions of your divine patrons stand ready to answer your call.
Prerequisites: Aura class feature, ability to cast summon monster.
Benefit: When using summon monster to summon creatures whose alignment subtype or subtypes exactly match your aura, you may cast the spell as a standard action instead of with a casting time of 1 round.
(emphasis mine)
However, I'm not sure the feat as written is useful. It only applies to a VERY small number of summons, especially if you don't happen to be LE or CE. Here are the numbers of summons that match the alignments, decending by number.
LE 9, CE 9, CG 3, LG 3, NG 1, NE 1, LN 0, N 0, CN 0.
Is that intended? I'd have thought the feat would apply to summoned animals. But if you summon a celestial or fiendish animal, it gains your alignment but not any alignment subtypes. Neither the spell nor the template mention any subtype changes.
So yeah, shouldn't the feat say "If you a summon monster whose alignment exactly matches your aura, the spell becomes a standard action"? Or would that be too powerful?
The vast majority of summons are summoned with an alignment that matches yours. All *'d creatures on the SM lists and all creatures without a listed alignment on the SNA lists. I'd say that qualifies. Not sure what the hair you are splitting is.
The vast majority of summons are summoned with an alignment that matches yours. All *'d creatures on the SM lists and all creatures without a listed alignment on the SNA lists. I'd say that qualifies. Not sure what the hair you are splitting is.
Sure, that's true while you are summoning animals. Check out the outsiders you can summon. Especially at 8 and 9 where exactly THREE of EIGHT creatures are good. Eight doesn't even HAVE a good aligned creature to summon. Good summons get the shaft just like they did in 3.5
The vast majority of summons are summoned with an alignment that matches yours. All *'d creatures on the SM lists and all creatures without a listed alignment on the SNA lists. I'd say that qualifies. Not sure what the hair you are splitting is.
Read the bolded part of the description. The feat as written doesn't work for creatures of your alignment, but ONLY for creatures with an alignment subtype that matches your aura.
Only outsiders have alignment subtypes. Celestial and Infernal animals have your alignment, but still no subtype. As such, the feat - by RAW - won't work for them.
Blave, still not seeing the difficulty. Let's talk NG Cleric. Cleric has an aura matching their deity (hopefully NG because if they have a CG or LG deity this feat will not work for them). Cleric summons asterisked critters with the Celestial (and therefore outsider) template and an alignment matching theirs which is an alignment subtype for outsiders. Cartigan's complaint about the dearth of excellent high level summons to use with this feat is well-noted, but I don't think the original issue is really a problem.
Blave, still not seeing the difficulty. Let's talk NG Cleric. Cleric has an aura matching their deity (hopefully NG because if they have a CG or LG deity this feat will not work for them). Cleric summons asterisked critters with the Celestial (and therefore outsider) template
Neither Celestial nor Fiendish template changes type of the creature modified.
and an alignment matching theirs which is an alignment subtype for outsiders.
Not true. First of all Outsider can have alignement without having alignement subtype. For example Lawful Evil Rakshasas have neither Evil nor Lawful subtype. Second, gainin Outsider type due to template does not automatically give you subtype matching your alignement - actual alignement subtype, if any, will be determined by template (and neither Celestial nor Fiendish gives one).
It's pretty simple, really. There is no rule stating that a fiendish or celestial creature automatically gains an alignment subtype. Neither the templates, nor the summon spells, nor the subtypes say anything like that.
The aligmnent subtypes state that they "usually" belong to outsiders of the appropriate alignment. But that still doesn't mean they automatically gain the subtype just because their alignment is set by a spell. And I don't even think summoned animals are outsiders. They are animals with a template.
No matter where I look, I can't find ANY reference of summoned animals acually having an alignment subtype. Unfortunately, having a subtype is required for this feat. So if there is any such rule somewhere, I'd really like to know where.
I hope the RAI is that it works with animals. By RAW, however, I don't see that happening.
Edit: Thanks Drejk. I was beginning to think I was seeing a problem that's not actually there.
The rules neither yea or nay it, but allow for an interpretation. In this case, it seems unreasonable to interpret it as anything other than "summoned critters that gain the celestial or fiendish template and an alignment matching that of the caster also gain an alignment subtype matching the alignment of the caster". Should the feat have said "If you a summon monster with either the celestial or fiendish template whose alignment exactly matches your aura, the spell becomes a standard action"? Probably. Is there really a halfway decent GM somewhere that would rule against the RAI of the feat because it is possible to rule that the celestially templated summoned critter only gained the alignment without the alignment subtype? I sure hope not.
Of course, maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps the feat was only intended to work with a handful of summons. I've been wrong before.
I don't like "leave it to interpretation." That is not good rules writing.
I don't like "leave it to interpretation." That is not good rules writing.
*chuckle*
No reason to let this thread devolve into that argument.
Well, the RAW is what bothers me. They could just have written the feat woks for any creature whose alignment exactly matches your aura. This would automatically include all creatures of the appropriate subtype since they always have that alignment.
But Paizo specifically called out for a subtype-aura-match in the feat description. One has to wonder why. Maybe the RAW is in fact the RAI. Would make the feat utterly pointless for most clerics.
And here I thought clerics finally get a bit summoning love of their own. They are already the most limited summoning class. Sure, they can take Augment Summoning, but there are like how many spells on the cleric list that benefit from Spell Focus Conjuration? Three, maybe four?
But Paizo specifically called out for a subtype-aura-match in the feat description. One has to wonder why.
I suspect it is to prevent Druids from taking a 1 level dip in Cleric so that they can use the feat with SNA.
But Paizo specifically called out for a subtype-aura-match in the feat description. One has to wonder why.I suspect it is to prevent Druids from taking a 1 level dip in Cleric so that they can use the feat with SNA.
How many SNA creatures have a Chaotic or Lawful subtype? I doubt many if any since there aren't any outsiders on the list
But Paizo specifically called out for a subtype-aura-match in the feat description. One has to wonder why.I suspect it is to prevent Druids from taking a 1 level dip in Cleric so that they can use the feat with SNA.
Not likely. The feat Description begins with the words "When using summon monster". So doesn't work with SNA. A wizard or sorcerer (or even a summoner) could use the level dip, but since they use the same summon spells like a cleric anyway, it wouldn't really benefit them in any way.
Well, Paladins get an Aura, too. So I guess if you want to play a summon-focused Paladin/Sorcerer, the feat would help a bit. But as far as I can tell, a Paladin's aura is only good, not lawful. So any animal he summons would probably not match his aura anyway.
Okay, in review of the Bestiary, all Outsiders have subtypes related to their planes. The Summon Monster description notes these are planar creatures. It is a very, very small leap to believe that they have subtypes matching their planar alignment.
Okay, in review of the Bestiary, all Outsiders have subtypes related to their planes. The Summon Monster description notes these are planar creatures. It is a very, very small leap to believe that they have subtypes matching their planar alignment.
Two things:
1. It's still a leap. One that's not backed up by RAW in any way. It's true that every outsider has at least one subtype and that one matching the alignment of the creature would make most sense. However...
The Summon Monster description actually says:
This spell summons an extraplanar creature (typically an outsider, elemental, or magical beast native to another plane).
Well, there are no magical beasts (like griffons) on the summon monster list. Which probalby means the celestian/fiendish animals are considered magical beasts. And unlike outsiders, magical beasts come without subtypes all the time.
2. If your theory was right, the summon monster spells would become quite a bit stronger. If the summons of a LG character had the lawful and good subtypes, they could overcome DR lawful and good. So even a dire rat could hurt many mid-high level monsters.
I don't get the problem? The feat says alignment or subtype. Does not sound inclusive to me but that you may choose. No reason to get into a fight about subtypes, just ignore them.
No, the feat says alignment subtype or subtypes to cover creatures with either only one or two alignment subtypes.
If only paizo would update the summoning options to include bestiary 2 creatures for example that would help alot.
Well, there are no magical beasts (like griffons) on the summon monster list.
What? Paizo got rid of the magical beasts? What a load of crap. They probably just copied the text and modified the list therefore making the text another piece of evidence of weak editing.
And, in fact, due to the change in Celestial and Fiendish (the no longer elevating a creature's intelligence to 3), Celestial and Fiendish animals are NOT magical beasts.The feat is almost entirely useless.
I wish they would stop being stubborn and add more creatures to the Summon Monster list. If only Good outsiders.
I wish they would stop being stubborn and add more creatures to the Summon Monster list. If only Good outsiders.
I agree. At least, make a list of swappable ones. It would make more interesting the bestiary 2.
Unearthed Arcana in 3.5 had rules for custom summon lists.
Another idea could have been a new spell working like summon monster, but with a new list, so the single spell is not more powerful.
Ironically, this could have been a nice thing in Ultimate Magic -_____-