Can you use Planar Binding to call an oracle with Energy Body active?


Rules Questions


Curious what the RAW people would say. If several PCs are on one plane and a Life-mystery Oracle is on another, can the PCs cast Planar Binding to call the Oracle to their plane if the Oracle is using Energy Body as the spell is being cast (thus having the Elemental creature subtype for the N rounds while the power is active, and elementals being subject to Planar Binding)?

My inclination is "no", if for no other reason than Planar Binding has a 10-minute casting time and oracles can only use Energy Body for rounds/level/day.


Energy Body specifies you gain the elemental subtype but does not indicate you lose any of your existing types. There are plenty of creatures that have multiple types. So, the question is can Planar Binding call a creature that has other types besides outsider and elements? Specifically, can it call something that has both humanoid and elemental subtypes?

If it can call the Oracle the party will need to know the proper name of the oracle. The description of the spell does not really specify what exactly that is. To me that sounds a lot like the creature's true name. But in all honesty, I think that you are right about the casting time.


By RAW, if the cleric is an elemental (has the elemental type), then planar binding should work (if they know the proper name).

My thoughts are that this is a misprint and was just copy/pasted from 3.5, which did allow elementals and outsiders, but those were two different creature types (not subtypes). In Pathfinder, they appear to have made elemental into a subtype and most elementals (the creature, not the type) are outsiders already and they didn't take that into account when they made the change. The spell should have been written to just work on outsiders (so it would still work on native outsiders, like some aasimar or possibly high-level monks).

By RAW it would work, (I would probably errata this myself, looking at it), but the cleric would have to be an elemental or outsider at the time they completed the spell.


Planar binding can call any "outsider or elemental", and the character is an elemental. So they can be called, if the timing can be made to work. That part would be tricky, because you would have to start casting it knowing somehow that the oracle would be using Energy Body in ten minutes' time - IOW, the low duration of Energy Body does not make it impossible, but does make it fairly unlikely in practice.

One interesting question is, if you do get the timing right, is the creature still bound to the trap once it stops being an elemental. And I am honestly not sure on that one.

In practice, the only way is it going to work is with the cooperation of the binder and the oracle. Maybe as a way to get the oracle home after a hostile plane shift (assuming they have some way to communicate across planar boundaries)? That would at least make the circle question moot.

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glass.

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