Trailblazer's Summon Monster and [spell keywords]

AdmundfortGeographer · Jul 11, 2011

Trailblazer ditched to "pick from a list" method of summoning and replaced it with the table of ability sets.

But it kept this paragraph from the SRD version of the spell. "When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type."

This is important for spell keywords, as feats, domains, or battlefield effects can affect spells with certain keywords. How does choose a type of creature that it must apply one of these spell types? Just saying so and pick from the list at will?

Should this paragraph be stricken out? Should there be a step added declaring how these spell types become applied?

jedavis · Jul 28, 2011

Not that I have an answer, but I'm kinda hoping Wulf & Glassjaw's long silence / lack of response here might be indicative of having their noses to the grindstone on the monster book...

Personally, I'd just let the caster apply subtypes as they wish during the casting / construction of the summoned critter, within reason; one or two alignment subtypes, one or two elemental subtypes that don't conflict. Someaught like that.

AdmundfortGeographer · Jul 28, 2011

Makes a lot of sense. Both the monster book and the way to apply the keywords.

It isn't an purely flavorful decision. If I recall, creatures with a subtype can sometimes cause their unarmed/natural attacks to become typed with the subtype. Handy utility at times, maybe not game breaking in terms of what else the caster can do.

When batman has a hundred tools at his disposal, what's one more.

GlassJaw · Jul 29, 2011

Eric Anondson said:
Just saying so and pick from the list at will?

Pretty much. The Summon Monster rewrite was largely Wulf but that's the essence of it. The goal was to remove the selection of a specific creature for a couple of reasons:

1. It prevents players from scouring every monster book under the sun and cherry-picking the most powerful creatures.

2. Speeds up play by getting their noses out of the Monster Manual during a session.

So since each summoned monster is just a set of stats, it can really be anything the player can dream up, including its type. It essentially combines a rules mechanic (the summoned monster advancement table) with "fluff" - what is the player imagining when he is summoning the creature.

joela · Aug 3, 2011

GlassJaw said:
Pretty much. The Summon Monster rewrite was largely Wulf but that's the essence of it. The goal was to remove the selection of a specific creature for a couple of reasons:

1. It prevents players from scouring every monster book under the sun and cherry-picking the most powerful creatures.

2. Speeds up play by getting their noses out of the Monster Manual during a session.

So since each summoned monster is just a set of stats, it can really be anything the player can dream up, including its type. It essentially combines a rules mechanic (the summoned monster advancement table) with "fluff" - what is the player imagining when he is summoning the creature.

Nice. Kinda like the druid's alternate shape or the summoner's eidolon(sp?) from Paizo's Pathfinder RPG.

Trailblazer's Summon Monster and [spell keywords]

AdmundfortGeographer

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jedavis

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AdmundfortGeographer

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GlassJaw

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joela

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