I first looked at Sacred Summons when trying to make a Wizard/Hellknight Signifier summoner - but it looks like having an aura of "Lawful" doesn't really give you much of anything. Am I missing something?
Besides having an aura of "Lawful," what's the most useful alignment (of your aura) for that feat?
Better question: Which one has the most options? Is it the case that there's just more chaotic creatures on the list than lawful ones?
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Like I said, it depends really. If you are playing above level 9 or 10, The Bralani Azatas can get pretty silly with superior summoning on top of it, you could be looking at 20d6+ lightning bolts for just having a bunch of them on the battlefield.
Chaotic evil has the babau for some sneak attack and the shadow demon which depends if your dm doesn't agree that shadow conjuration can be used to summon other stuffs/creature since they aren't technically violating the rules of summon monster and also you get a succubus, for these times, when you need a social monster or a succubus to dominate somebody quickly.
If you want more options, you can take the feats summon evil or summon good but guess it depends, how many feats you will be able to get.
LG, CG, LE and CE. Forget about Nuetrality!! It's just another word for indecisive. >: )
Chaotic creatures seem to include more caster-types which adds more variety. Still, standard-action summoning lantern or hound archons has it's uses.
The best alignment aura for Sacred Summons is the one that will let you have the most options accessible as Standard actions through the feat. What influences this? Well, the aura is your god's alignment, and unless you want to limit yourself further as a cleric, you want the SAME alignment as your aura. Say, a CG cleric of a NG god would be unable to cast Lawful or Evil spells, limiting their repertoire to NG, CG (which can be summoned as a std action), and CN. Nota bene, without extra feats for it, LN and CN contains no creatures. A NG cleric of the same god would have LG, NG and CG to choose from. Do these maths and figure out how many creatures each alignment has. Evil is far better than Good at this, CE in particular. My answer would probably be CE or NE. However, Summon Evil Monster already allows summoning as std action, so they are not necessarily the best alignments for Sacred Summons.
Sissyl - note that the OP was looking at a hellknight signifer. You can get an aura without being a cleric (also see: magaambyan arcanist).
The best alignment aura for Sacred Summons is the one that will let you have the most options accessible as Standard actions through the feat. What influences this? Well, the aura is your god's alignment, and unless you want to limit yourself further as a cleric, you want the SAME alignment as your aura. Say, a CG cleric of a NG god would be unable to cast Lawful or Evil spells, limiting their repertoire to NG, CG (which can be summoned as a std action), and CN. Nota bene, without extra feats for it, LN and CN contains no creatures. A NG cleric of the same god would have LG, NG and CG to choose from. Do these maths and figure out how many creatures each alignment has. Evil is far better than Good at this, CE in particular. My answer would probably be CE or NE. However, Summon Evil Monster already allows summoning as std action, so they are not necessarily the best alignments for Sacred Summons.
I don't believe this is accurate. If you worship a LG god, you can *only* Sacred Summon creatures with both Lawful and Good subtypes. Your own alignment is completely irrelevant. Similarly, if you worship a NG god, you can *only* Sacred Summon creatures with the Good subtype but do not have the Lawful or Chaotic subtypes.
Am I correct on this?
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The best alignment aura for Sacred Summons is the one that will let you have the most options accessible as Standard actions through the feat. What influences this? Well, the aura is your god's alignment, and unless you want to limit yourself further as a cleric, you want the SAME alignment as your aura. Say, a CG cleric of a NG god would be unable to cast Lawful or Evil spells, limiting their repertoire to NG, CG (which can be summoned as a std action), and CN. Nota bene, without extra feats for it, LN and CN contains no creatures. A NG cleric of the same god would have LG, NG and CG to choose from. Do these maths and figure out how many creatures each alignment has. Evil is far better than Good at this, CE in particular. My answer would probably be CE or NE. However, Summon Evil Monster already allows summoning as std action, so they are not necessarily the best alignments for Sacred Summons.I don't believe this is accurate. If you worship a LG god, you can *only* Sacred Summon creatures with both Lawful and Good subtypes. Your own alignment is completely irrelevant. Similarly, if you worship a NG god, you can *only* Sacred Summon creatures with the Good subtype but do not have the Lawful or Chaotic subtypes.
Am I correct on this?
You are correct. Well at least that was the editor comment about being limited to your specific alignment, no one step stuffs.
LG, CG, LE and CE. Forget about Nuetrality!! It's just another word for indecisive. >: )I neither resent nor condone this statement!
I have no strong feelings one way or the other.
Crap. Well, I was wrong. Sacred Summons works off your aura, i.e. your deity's alignment. Still, you need to remember that your cleric PC still can't cast spells with an alignment descriptor that is opposed to either part of your alignment. So, if you are a CG cleric of a NG god, you will Sacred Summons NG creatures, but you can't summon LG creatures at all. This wouldn't be a problem if CN and LN had decent lineups, but in the basic rules, they have not one creature between them.
So (Evil can be substituted for Good in the following):
NG aura gets you both the LG and the CG creatures, but very few NG creatures for Sacred Summons.
LG aura gets you SS for LG creatures and you can also summon NG creatures. No LN exist.
CG aura gets you SS for CG creatures, and you can also summon NG creatures. No CN exist.
If your alignment deviates from your aura, you lose out on further creatures, so a summoning focused cleric should always keep to their god's exact alignment.
You can get more creatures through the Summon <alignment> Monster feats, which may change the above situation. Notably, Summon Neutral Monster gets you a few LN and CN creatures, which makes a LG or CG aura a different proposition. Note also that since Summon Evil Monster allows for std action summoning as is, the need for Sacred Summons lessens.
Finally, as seems necessary to point out: Sacred Summons doesn't help you at all with the *-marked creatures, since they never get the alignment subtype in question.
This feat opens up some options for having a solely "lawful" aura (assuming a Lawful equates to a LN aura for Sacred Summons).
It'd give you a sacred summon option for SM3, SM5 and two for SM7.