Elemental animals (summon monster)?

[Magus Coeruleus]

Hey there,

For my particular campaign, I'm not keen on arcane casters summoning celestial/fiendish animals. I want to restrict that to divine casters. I think I read here somewhere that there are some elemental templates. Is that true? I'd like to have my group's wizard summon something like an electric/fire/cold/acid dog instead of a celestial one. Can someone give me the lowdown, or is this a house rules issue?

Thanks!

 

[RogueJK]

These templates can be found in the Manual of the Planes. I'll post more info in the morning, if you still need it.

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

Thanks, RogueJK. I'll be honest--I don't intend to purchase the MotP because overall it's not something I need. If you're okay with posting this information, I'd appreciate it. I should hope it's relatively simple and parallels the celestial/fiendish attributes and has the same relative power level. I wouldn't want Summon Monster to be significantly stronger/weaker as a result of applying elemental templates. I was thinking maybe the Smite ability would be an Energy Burst that applies extra damage of the elemental type, and that the resistances would be based on some sort of elemental wheel. I look forward to learning what the MotP did for it.

 

[RogueJK]

Actually, the Element Creature Template seems a bit more powerful than Fiendish/Celestial. The additions include stat increases, natural armor bonuses, speed increases, Damage Reduction, and loads of special abilities. Also, each element's template is different, so I probably won't be able to type up 6 pages worth of information. Sorry. Maybe you could borrow a friend's copy.

You might want to head over to House Rules forum and get some help making an alternate Elemental template that is closer in power to Fiendish or Celestial. I like the idea of them having an Energy Burst instead of Smite...

 

[The Sigil]

A little horn-tooting

You might want to head over to House Rules forum and get some help making an alternate Elemental template that is closer in power to Fiendish or Celestial. I like the idea of them having an Energy Burst instead of Smite...

There is also a free Elemental Native Template (that I did) at the ENWorld hosted site for the Fantasy Netbook Community Council's Netbook of Creatures... this way you don't have to beg/borrow/steal/buy a Manual of the Planes...

http://www.enworld.org/fancc/nbocr/entry/Elemental_Native-Template.asp

Not perfect, but a start. (I guess I am tooting my own horn a little since I made the template, so take with a grain of salt.)

--The Sigil

 

[Spatula]

Actually, the Element Creature Template seems a bit more powerful than Fiendish/Celestial. The additions include stat increases, natural armor bonuses, speed increases, Damage Reduction, and loads of special abilities.

It seemed to me that the elemental templates were about as good as, if not weaker than, the celestial/fiendish ones. Note that the damage reduction for elemental creatures is not as good, resistances are generally not as good IIRC, etc. What the creatures do get is some special abilities based on their element (patterened after the abilities of the actual elementals). Air creatures can fly, fire creatures cause extra fire damage, etc. The stat bonuses are generally minor. The lower damage reduction is a problem for higher-level creatures, since it affects what the creature is capable of damaging.

So with the elemental templates, you lose some thigns (higher DR, across-the-board resistances, smiting) for a few other things (fly/burrow/swim, air/water/earth mastery, fire damage, stat bonuses, etc.)

Magus, if you don't want to buy MotP, make your own templates. I had made my own prior to MotP and they were very similar to the official ones. Think of the templates as turning a creature into an elemental of the appropriate type - look at the elemental entries in the MM and base the abilities off of that.

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

Thanks, folks. I'll check that out, Sigil. I think ultimately I might just start swapping celestial/fiendish perks for elemental-seeming ones. Shouldn't be too hard.

 

[Corwin]

Actually, the Element Creature Template seems a bit more powerful than Fiendish/Celestial. The additions include stat increases, natural armor bonuses, speed increases, Damage Reduction, and loads of special abilities. Also, each element's template is different, so I probably won't be able to type up 6 pages worth of information. Sorry. Maybe you could borrow a friend's copy.

I'm betting you are getting confused between the Elemental Creature and the Half-Elemental templates.

Both are to be found in the MoP book, but they are basically analogous to Fiendish and Half-Fiend.

Monte Cook once did a PrC for Dragon called Flame Steward. On its spell list, it allows summon monster I-IV but fire creatures only. He latter clarified that he rcommended using the templates you are looking into.

I see nothing wrong with swapping them out. They are actually all on the same power levels. I'm sure this was on purpose.

 

[RogueJK]

I'm betting you are getting confused between the Elemental Creature and the Half-Elemental templates.

No... I was looking at the right one. At first glance, it seemed that they were more powerful, for the reasons that I listed. But the decreased DR and loss of Smite probably does make up for the added benefits.

I didn't get a chance this morning to give them a proper look. I was merely posting my first impression.

Of course, the CR increase is the same for the Element Creature template and the Fiendish/Celestial templates... that probably should have told me something.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Animental

You may also want to check out the animental conversion in the Conversions section of ENWorld.