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Bare with me, I'm not as familiar with summoning and how it functions as I should be.
When using Summon Monster Spells, creatures are celestial animals if your character is good aligned and you summon fiendish animals if you are evil. If you are neutral you get to pick whether you want the animal to be celestial or fiendish.
1. Do creatures always have to have a planar template?
2. Can you summon resolute creatures if you are lawful/neutral or entropic if you are chaotic/neutral?
3. Do summoned creature's alignment change to match templates? (i.e. You are a LG wizard, you summon a celestial cheetah. Does the cheetah's N alignment change to NG to match the celestial template?
4. Are you restricted by your alignment as to whether you can summon devils/demons/azatas/archons? Meaning the summons can only be one step away from your alignment. (i.e. You are a NG wizard, can you summon demons and devils or are you restricted to azatas and archons?)
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Nanja'd by Chris, but here's my answer anyway.
1) Only the creatures marked with an asterisk are given a planar template, but as Chris mentions they must always have one of the templates. Typically that's only the "animals", but I just skimmed the list so I may have missed something.
2) The Resolute and Entropic templates are not in the allowed Bestiary 2 material on the Additional Resources page, so they aren't valid for your summons.
3) No, according to the description of the Summon Monster spell, the templated creature's alignment always matches yours.
4) If you summon a creature with an alignment subtype (such as Evil for demons) it becomes that kind of spell. If you cannot cast that kind of spell, then you cannot summon that kind of creature. For example, clerics of "Good" deities cannot cast spells with the "Evil" descriptor, so can't summon demons. I honestly don't know about other casters such as wizards. I would imagine a good wizard could summon a demon or devil, but it would reflect poorly on their alignment. (You would probably get a nasty note from your GM on your chronicle. :P )
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
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The only restriction for summoning creatures and alignments is for clerics (or other divine casters, see the individual class descriptions) who cannot summon a creature of an alignment opposed to their alignment or their deity's alignment.
Arcane casters have no restriction on the alignment of their summoned creatures.
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Yes, the ones that have an asterisk in the charts must have one of the (legal) planar templates. Although it talks about them coming from another plane, the template doesn't actually add the outsider type, so it looks like they remain animals.
Hope this helps, because I have to admit I'm learning new things as I go, too. :)
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Yes, the ones that have an asterisk in the charts must have one of the (legal) planar templates. Although it talks about them coming from another plane, the template doesn't actually add the outsider type, so it looks like they remain animals.
Hope this helps, because I have to admit I'm learning new things as I go, too. :)
Yes, it helps.
When I started RPing there was a playered who spam summoned, so summoning has rubbed me the wrong way from the very beginning. However, I am going to be running a scenario that has a conjurer BBEG in it and the spam summoner is going to be playing. So, I'm just making sure I have all my summoning bases covered.
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As a spoiler for an older PFS module...PFS 32 Drow of the Darklands Pyramid....
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I loved this aspect of the module and think Sean K. Reynolds did an awesome job with this particular optional aspect of the encounter.
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2) The Resolute and Entropic templates are not in the allowed Bestiary 2 material on the Additional Resources page, so they aren't valid for your summons.
Then how can you summon celestial or fiendish animals? Those don't appear on the Additional Resources page either.
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2) The Resolute and Entropic templates are not in the allowed Bestiary 2 material on the Additional Resources page, so they aren't valid for your summons.Then how can you summon celestial or fiendish animals? Those don't appear on the Additional Resources page either.
Core rulebook.
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Next question: When you summon animals, they always have a planar template on them. So does that make them outsiders or are the still animals?
If they are outsiders, are they effected by the extra damage from spells like order's wrath or unholy blight?
Technically, according to the spell Summon Monster (X), all of the creatures you can summon with that spell are of the extraplanar subtype: [Q] This spell summons an extraplanar creature (typically an outsider, elemental, or magical beast native to another plane).[/Q]
As such, they would be subject to anything that affects creatures of the extraplanar subtype (not to be confused with the Outsider Type).So they would not be affected by extra damage from order's wrath or unholy blight, but would be subject to such affects as the spell blasphemy.
If a neutral character summons a lawful good lantern archon to help her attack a merchant ship in a act of piracy, is it reasonable to expect the lantern archon to act against its alignment and assist the pirate? On the other hand is this akin to summoning a cop to watch you commit a crime and is it possible that the archon would turn on its summoner? CRB seems to say nothing regarding this.
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If a neutral character summons a lawful good lantern archon to help her attack a merchant ship in a act of piracy, is it reasonable to expect the lantern archon to act against its alignment and assist the pirate? On the other hand is this akin to summoning a cop to watch you commit a crime and is it possible that the archon would turn on its summoner? CRB seems to say nothing regarding this.
It can't turn on its summoner.
It must attack the summoner's enemies.Now, arguably you could have it choose to misinterpret other commands, if there were multiple reasonable meanings.
There's one scenario where an evil wizard has bound an angel. He's smart enough to have phrased his requests in 'non-evil' & limiting ways, but it doesn't prevent the angel from attempting to dodge obeying.
In a campaign, you could have the Lantern Archon remember being used in such ways, perhaps when presenting their case at a holy temple. :)
But in PFS, sorry, there aren't any such long-term consequences.
I suppose the GM could mark it on the chronicle, but I doubt anything would/could/should come of it.
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If a neutral character summons a lawful good lantern archon to help her attack a merchant ship in a act of piracy, is it reasonable to expect the lantern archon to act against its alignment and assist the pirate? On the other hand is this akin to summoning a cop to watch you commit a crime and is it possible that the archon would turn on its summoner? CRB seems to say nothing regarding this.It can't turn on its summoner.
It must attack the summoner's enemies.
Now, arguably you could have it choose to misinterpret other commands, if there were multiple reasonable meanings.There's one scenario where an evil wizard has bound an angel. He's smart enough to have phrased his requests in 'non-evil' & limiting ways, but it doesn't prevent the angel from attempting to dodge obeying.
In a campaign, you could have the Lantern Archon remember being used in such ways, perhaps when presenting their case at a holy temple. :)
But in PFS, sorry, there aren't any such long-term consequences.
I suppose the GM could mark it on the chronicle, but I doubt anything would/could/should come of it.
Binding is very different from summoning. A bound. Creature is more like mercenary, a summoned creature is under much stronger control.