I'll tear your soul apart - Themed Summoners.....

[Darmanicus]

You are correct that you can summon a monster with spellcasting abilities, but with summon humanoid with a class you can summon humanoids with spellcasting abilities much earlier.
It is a big difference to summon with summon monster III e.g. a human cleric or sorcerer level 3 instead of a e.g. fiendish animal.
With a summon monster IV you also can summon 1d3 monster of summon monster III. So summon humanoid with a class IV can summon 1d3 human clerics or sorcerers level 3.
Most (equiped) humanoids with a class are IMHO better than the summoned creatures.

But casters at that level aren't that great. Sorcerers need to be hit a couple of times and they go down whilst clerics aren't all that offensive. 1d3 hippogriffs are pretty scary my friend, they fly, have decent HP's, grapple well etc. but I digress. As I said with equipping, the creation of summoned humanoids would have to be discussed with the DM. If casting is a problem for lower levels of play, do not allow the summoning of casters, simple.

 

[Rackhir]

Alienist is really more Lovecraft than Clive Barker. Perhaps you should come up with a Cenobite template to get to paste on your summoned creatures?

 

[noeuphoria]

That's actually a cool idea. If I remember hellraiser correctly, a cenobite template could be served well by something like this:

DR 3-/6-/9- (by HD, like fiendish or celestial) because the they enjoy pain
Similar to how pseudonatural has True Strike, give them either:

a) Fear spell-like ability
b) Fear aura similar to evil outsiders.

Neg energy heals, pos energy hurts, like undead (but they're not undead)
Some kind of cruel cut or bleeding wounds ability or bonus with slashing/piercing attacks.

That may be over or under-powered as compared to pseudonatural, but you can tweak it for balance or just say hell with balance if you're more interested in it for RP purposes.

 

[Rackhir]

Some kind of cruel cut or bleeding wounds ability or bonus with slashing/piercing attacks.

Perhaps they could be given a Reach attack, or an entangle attack?

 

[Darmanicus]

Alienist is really more Lovecraft than Clive Barker. Perhaps you should come up with a Cenobite template to get to paste on your summoned creatures?

Agreed however I was gonna substitute the tentacles for chains. I couldn't be @rsed to create a new template but some of the suggestions since have changed my mind.

DR/masochism is a cool idea and just replicates the other templates DR ability but with a really good idea behind it, nice one.

I also like the idea of applying maybe the wounding ability to their attacks.

Keep 'em coming!