Aasimar Shadow Puppeteer: Does this work?

[Felidaeus01]

I was looking at the shadow puppeteer, and thought it was REALLY cool, but found that the whole being so many levels behind thing kind of sucked, plus you never get higher than summon monster 6.

THEN I noticed that the wording for puppeteer doesn't actually have a cap! It just says: at level 4, and every 3 bard levels after, you get the next level of summons. Ergo, if you take the aasimar bonus you can get level 2 summons at level 3, and then a new summons every 2 levels thereafter. Suddenly, you get summons as a wizard! Except they're a standard to summon and you eventually get them as a move or a swift action, and can can shadow bard to summon them too!

The route would be: play a human kind aasimar, which makes you count as humanoid (human), and at 1st level take the feat Racial Heritage (wayang). As far as I can tell, this lets you take shadow puppeteer, but also the aasimar level bonus, and still be pfs legal.

Am I reading all of these correctly? If so, what would be some good feats to go with the build?

I was thinking of taking dirge bard to go with it, for extra shadow coolness.

[minoritarian]

Looks like it would work to me, good find! I'm going to play around with this when I get home. (Though I have vague memories of people claiming racial heritage doesn't qualify you for archetypes but can't see why)

[Felidaeus01]

Here's the faq on it :D

http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fn#v5748eaic9pka

[Felidaeus01]

Hmmm.... would augment summons affect the shadow summons?

[zefig]

I don't see this being a problem in a home game, but it wouldn't be pfs legal. Check the additional resources page. Pretty much everything from the ARG is only legal for characters OF each race. Counting as the race through racial heritage doesn't cut it.

[King_Of_The_Crossroads]

So, when a shadow puppeteer uses bardic performance to summon monster, does the monster only last as long as you keep performing, or does it us the duration of the summon monster spell?

And can they be augmented using Augment Summons?

[Felidaeus01]

Here's the specific ruling zefig:

Racial Heritage: Can a human with this feat take levels in an archetype that requires you to be of a specific race?
Yes, the Racial Heritage feat allows you to qualify for archetypes that have the chosen race as a requirement, assuming you still meet all of the other requirements to take levels in the archetype.

It was ruled that shadow puppeteer shadows last as long as you keep performing.

However, with lingering performance it means you get 4 rounds of summoned monster for a standard action, which is pretty much all you'll ever need anyway.

As far as I can tell, this means you summon, end performance, the summon lasts 3 more rounds, and you can summon again on your next turn for two concurrent summons. Or even better: standard, end performance, move, end performance, swift, end performance. Bam, 3 summon monster spells in 1 turn.

Augment summons I don't think works since its a SLA? I'm not sure though....

[zefig]

And here's the section I told you to check out for the PFS-specific ruling from the Additional Resources page:

Advanced Race Guide wrote:

Note: Alternate racial traits, racial archetypes, racial evolutions, racial feats, and racial spells are only available for characters of the associated race.

[Felidaeus01]

Yes, and the specific ruling for the racial heritage feat from the pathfinder advanced race guide faq is:

The Racial Heritage feat allows you to qualify for archetypes that have the chosen race as a requirement, assuming you still meet all of the other requirements to take levels in the archetype.

Specific beats the general every time :D

[Mojorat]

Pfs rulings over ride every other ruling where pfs is concerned.

[zefig]

Mojorat is right. There have been a number of threads in the pfs forums on this issue on racial heritage and/or scion of humanity qualifying for racial options from the ARG, and the line I quoted from additional resources still applies and trumps them every time. Since you're right and it IS pathfinder legal, that only leaves a question of being pfs-legal, and the sources for that are the PFS Guide to Organized Play and the Additonal Resources pagr. Sorry dude.

[Felidaeus01]

awww.

Whatever, I have no PFS where I live anyway, just home games. I was hoping others could use it :p

[zefig]

Aha! Looks pretty legit then. And fun!