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A Herald caller is a cleric.
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.
Nothing in the archetype overcomes the basic limitation. If he uses a spell to try to summon an Evil or Lawful creature, the spell becomes Evil or Lawful and he is incapable to cast it.
Being chaotic good, the herald caller can mostly only summon creatures that are chaotic good, chaotic neutral or neutral good. Of course sacred summons will only apply to chaotic good creatures.
On the bright side, azatas are some of the more useful monsters to summon, as they bring a lot of healing
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Sacred Summons applies when you summon a creature whose alignment subtypes exactly match your aura.
If, for example, you are a cleric of Desna (a chaotic good deity) then you have a chaotic good aura. You only get the benefits of Sacred Summons when you summon a creature that has both the [chaotic] and [good] subtypes.
Azata? Yes, you can summon as a standard. It is both chaotic and good.
Angel? Nope. It has to have the chaotic subtype in addition to the good subtype.
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I put a break in here, because there is an important aspect of the Herald Caller that needs to be addressed but that isn't directly related.
When you summon a creature with an alignment type, the summon monster spell has that type. If our cleric of Desna (CG) wanted to summon an archon. . . she can't. Because the archon is lawful, the spell is lawful. And clerics can't cast spells of alignment opposed to that of their deity.
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).
This is an additional limitation on the Herald Caller, not an expansion of allowed summons.
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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).This is an additional limitation on the Herald Caller, not an expansion of allowed summons.creatures whose alignment matches at least one aspect of her deity’s alignment
This is the only part that is truly tripping me up with the Herald Caller and then adding sacred summons. To me reading this part of the Herald Caller Archetype means a CG cleric can summon a creature so long it is either Chaotic or Good.
I can see the trip-up. But nothing in the Herald Caller ability takes away the normal limitation that our cleric of Desna (CG) can't cast lawful spells. The key word in the ability is "only" (bolded above) Our cleric of Desna could ordinarily use summon monster II to summon a small fire elemental. It's not a lawful or evil spell, so she's good. But if she is a Herald Caller then she can't, since Desna doesn't grant the fire domain.
CG may not be the easiest alignment to visualize the limitation. Let's take a cleric of Irori (LN), lawful aura. Assuming the cleric is also LN, she could ordinarily summon Archons (LG), Angels (NG), Devils (LE), . . . anything that doesn't have the [chaotic] subtype. But if she's a herald caller she can no longer summon angels because they don't have the [lawful] subtype.
But Sacred Summons from what it seems can only apply to CG creatures no matter what the Herald Caller grants.
Is this correct?
That is correct.
There are multiple sets of limitation in play.
Herald caller: must have one aspect of deity’s alignment
Cleric: can’t be opposite of any of your deity’s alignments.
Sacred summons: only applies to something that exactly matches the alignment by subtype. It’s not enough for the creature to just be of good and chaotic alignment. It has to have the good and chaotic subtypes to qualify.
As for feats, neither summon good monster or expanded summon monster nets you much. If your deity happens to be Desna you can get lyrakien for free which is the only extra CG option you’d get from those feats.
A feat you should consider is summon guardian spirit. That can get you a lyrakien that will scale with your level and last for minutes per level at level 5. And your sacred summons allows you to summon it as a standard action.
I should mention that a herald caller doesn’t summon in the low levels much. Your free feats take a while to kick in and the summons are only lasting for a few rounds anyway.
The trades for herald caller are pretty pretty fair. It’s not an overpowered archetype, but you get at least as much as you give up.
Losing shields isn’t that bad, since a masterwork light shield or masterwork buckler doesn’t generally require proficiency anyway.
You keep one domain so don’t lose any spells per day, just some variety. On the other hand, you don’t have to prepare a single healing spell or summon monster spell, so you have a lot of preparation flexibility.
You get 2 extra skills per day, but don’t have to use skills on handle animal or linguistics, because your summons always understand you.
And then you get some free summoning feats.
Alignment wise a partially neutral cleric is probably best. For a good cleric I would go with NG and look for a deity with an elemental domain. This would allow you to summon any good or true neutral creature and any non-evil fire creature. Since most elemental creatures are neutral anyways that means you can summon a good number on non-fire-based elementals. Make sure the cleric is also NG because a cleric cannot cast spells with an alignment descriptor that opposes their deities or their own alignment. So, the CG cleric of a NG deity cannot summon a LG creature.
The Herald Caller is one of the better archetypes if you want to play a pure caster. Losing proficiency in medium armor and shields is not that big of a deal because as a pure caster you are going to want to avoid being on the front line. As a pure caster STR is a low priority and if you are going to have a dump stat it would be the logical one to dump. Herald Callers get extra skills so is one of the few clerics that will actually get a decent number of skills. Light armor allows you to have some protection in case you get stuck in melee. Medium armor is likely to cause you to be encumbered and just slow you down. If you are looking for a warrior cleric the Herald Caller is probably not a good idea.
Yeah, I considered mentioning the issue with herald caller getting more benefit from having 1 neutral axis. But I was afraid that it would mess up the perception of what the poster was wanting to achieve. And it’s not like chaotic good isn’t still fun and playable. It’s just not the most optimal.
If you were neutral good, then summon good monster would be a helpful pick.
Most of the creatures you get access to from summon good monster are NG. So, it is a good feat for an summon focused good character. The creatures that are not NG are about evenly split between LG and CG. This would still be a good feat for a CG character.
Adding Summon Good and Sacred summons would open up a lot of opportunities. And from my understanding, a NG cleric can still cast LG or CG as it is 1 step from their deities alignment, yes? Sacred summons would only apply to NG monsters though.
Yes, but note for simplicity, we have been treating the cleric and deity as having the same alignment. Most of the limitations are actually based on your deities alignment and not your own.
Also was going to add some channeling to help buff the party or monsters since they are always in range or buff myself if needed.
Yes, Herald Caller can make a decent healer. You will want selective channel for in combat use, but may choose to go further into the channel feats
Personally, I wouldn't bother with warrior priest. The bonuses are minor or circumstantial. Improved initiative is ok, but clerics are mostly reactive, so initiative isn't quite as important as it is with something like a wizard or sorcerer.
You're starting at level 9, so it doesn't matter much to you, but if you were doing this from level 1, you'd likely want selective channel at level 1. If you were to go heavy on channeling, you'd want to take fey foundling, which has to be taken at level 1. And you'd want Sacred Summons by level 5.
A fun feat to consider is Versatile Summon Monster. Flying Dire Lions are fun. And it's even better that the Herald Caller can communicate with them. You could easily do something niche, like tell them to grapple the enemy instead of use a regular attack. Sure a lot of the time you will summon angels, but there isn't always a good Sacred Summons target for your level. And having to wait till the next round for your spell to go off is workable more often than you'll think
A cleric cannot cast a spell with an alignment descriptor that is opposed to either the deities or their own alignment. So, a CG cleric of a NG deity would not be able to cast spells with a lawful descriptor.
Dumping STR is fine, but I would avoid dumping INT. Trickery gives you bluff, disguise and stealth as class skills. Dumping INT will not give you enough skill points to take advantage of that. I would go with the following stats STR 5, DEX 14, CON 12, INT 10, WIS 21 (headband and level), CHA 14. If you put your favored class bonus into skills this gives you 5 skill points per level. This allows you enough skill point to get a decent bluff, diplomacy and stealth while still leaving enough points for other skills.
Take the feat Childlike to allow you to pass yourself off as a human child. It also allows you to take 10 on bluff to lie as long as you appear innocent. You could take pass for human to give you an additional +10 bonus on the disguise, but that is probably overkill.
Run around pretending to be a human child so everyone underestimates you. If the character is female, it would be even better. Everyone takes you for a little girl.
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Adding Summon Good and Sacred summons would open up a lot of opportunities. And from my understanding, a NG cleric can still cast LG or CG as it is 1 step from their deities alignment, yes? Sacred summons would only apply to NG monsters though.Yeah, I considered mentioning the issue with herald caller getting more benefit from having 1 neutral axis. But I was afraid that it would mess up the perception of what the poster was wanting to achieve. And it’s not like chaotic good isn’t still fun and playable. It’s just not the most optimal.
If you were neutral good, then summon good monster would be a helpful pick.
Ready to get more confused? Sacred Summons only applies to creatures whose alignment subtype or subtypes exactly match your aura. Let's assume you are a NG cleric of a NG deity, who has taken both Summon Good Monster and Sacred Summons:
-Sacred Summons does apply to a Silvanshee Agathion - NG Tiny outsider (agathion, extraplanar, good)
-Sacred Summons does not apply to a Grig - NG Tiny fey
The Grig is neutral good but does not have the (good) subtype.