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Herald callers... What can they summon?
The description states:
A herald caller can use summon monster spells only to summon creatures particularly appropriate to her deity. This includes all creatures listed as summon monster options for priests of her deity (see Expanded Summoning for Priests on page 30), creatures whose alignment matches at least one aspect of her deity’s alignment, and creatures of an elemental subtype that matches a domain granted by the deity (if any).
How do you interpret the part about alignment. For instance, could a cleric who follows a chaotic good deity summon creatures with either chaotic or good in their alignments? If so, they could summon LG, NG, CG, CN, CE. As they all fulfill that criteria. Am I misinterpreting the wording?
I would say that you cannot summon a monster that matches at least one aspect of your deity, and does not have any opposing aspects. So your chaotic good cleric could summon a NG, CG, or CN. They could not summon a LG, CE or true neutral monster.
Also keep in mind that a cleric cannot cast a spell of alignment opposed to his deity’s alignment. Summoning spells take on the alignment descriptor of the creature being summoned. So a summing spell that summons a demon is both a chaotic spell and an evil spell. A cleric of a chaotic good deity cannot summon a demon.
Yes, except clerics can’t cast a spell against their deity’s alignment. And most of the evil and lawful options have a subtype which changes the spell to those types too. So, your chaotic good deity isn’t going to let you summon demons. The CG deity would basically limit you to CG, CN and NG creatures, except for the other options mentioned like creatures specific to your deity or elementals that match the deity’s domains.
Generally, it is better to choose a deity with one axis neutral, as there will be no conflict for the entire non-neutral axis. So, if you and your deity are neutral good, you can summon any LG, NG, CG or N creature. Being part neutral also allows you to summon the multiple elemental types, which are just so very good to have as options.
Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's (if she has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaotic, evil, good, and lawful descriptors in their spell descriptions.
When you use a summoning spell to summon a creature with an alignment or elemental subtype, it is a spell of that type.Also, while we are talking about them, I think a lot of people miss this, but it’s one of the nicer things the herald caller can do.
The herald caller and her summoned monsters can understand each other’s spoken words as if they shared a common language (though this doesn’t give summoned monsters the ability to speak if they normally lack it).
So, you can do great things like summon a giant ant and tell it to grapple your enemy instead of just attack it. Or summon an eagle and tell it to bring you some object or flip a switch.
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Thank you all so far for such detailed answers. I totally overlooked the opposite alignment part. This does however open more questions, to me it seems a neutral axis deity will have a much stronger portfolio of summons to call upon.
Is there anything Chaotic Neutral herald caller summoning everything within 1 alignment step of them? NG, CG, N, CN, NE, CE.
How about a True Neutral one, would they get access to all except the 4 corners? NG, CN, NE, LN?
It doesn't work with sacred summons but remember a herald caller can also summon creatures with an elemental subtype matching one of the deities' domains, and any creature which the deity has as a special summoning option. Working out what a herald caller of any given deity can summon is quite a job, but fortunately Archives of Nethys has done half of the work for you.
A herald caller of a CN god can summon any standard summoning option from 2/3 of the alignments. Sacred summons will apply only to CN options of course.
A herald caller of a TN god gets to summon from 5/9 of the alignments but sacred summons applies to none of them.
Note that the pure range of alignments is only half the story. If you worshiped Torag, say, you'd get LG, LN and NG creatures but you'd also get TN creatures with an earth subtype (earth, magma and mud elementals by default; earth glide is useful), you'd get Torag's specific options of (dire) badgers and advanced azers, and sacred summons would work on lantern archons and hound archons which are among the best for their level.
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Is there anything Chaotic Neutral herald caller summoning everything within 1 alignment step of them? NG, CG, N, CN, NE, CE.
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Remember that Neutral on the Law-Chaos axis isn't the same as Neutral on the Good-Evil Axis. So Chaotic Neutral would get LN, N, CN, CG, and CE, except that the rule against casting an opposite alignment spell chops off LN, thereby leaving you with N, CN, CG, and CE, which is equal to the range of alignments allowed for a Chaotic Neutral deity.
For True Neutral you have it right.
(Note that Pathfinder 2nd Edition allows for more variety in what alignments a deity will accept; it may do something similar for summons, but I haven't heard/seen anything of this.)
Er, yes, UAE's right about what a herald caller of a CN god can summon based on alignment subtypes alone. I misread that.