Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ninja-to" data-source="post: 2500469" data-attributes="member: 19551">Actually I don't agree, especially in the case of Demons and Devils. The Abyss is supposed to have 'infinite' layers, with an infinite number of denizens on each. There are too many 'infinite' numbers of outsiders, whereas Petitioners are not actually natives of the Outer Planes I believe. Not sure about that last point, but even if they're native, I'm positive *at least* the demons of the Abyss outnumber them by far.Anyway, even if a Petitioner outnumbers celestial creatures, I don't think they'd necessarily have a lot of contact with each other. Petitioners are mostly found in the Outlands if I remember correctly (Planescape... been a few years). Celestial creatures are more likely to be found deeper on their home planes like the 7 heavens or Celestia or wherever.Ok it just seems to make much more sense to me to have a player who wants to give highly specific instructions to a creature it summons to make use of devoting one of his languages to speaking the language of the creature's home plane. Let's put it another, very mechanical way: how does a player benefit from taking 'celestial' as a bonus language at first level? You can't take bonus languages later on, and seeing as how you're *far* more likely to have opportunities to speak, say, Orcish rather than Celestial (given the current rules, because only *very* high level creatures can speak it) then what's the real benefit? Ok it adds 'flavour' to your character. If you're really lucky, you might see some inscription written somewhere that gives you a clue about something blah blah. To me, that's not enough. And it doesn't 'feel' right.My house rule is, if you summon, as you do, the creature will attack and defend you as normal, but you're not required to give it any sort of instructions to do so. This is automatic. If you want your summoned creature to do something very specific (when I cast my Bless spell, open the door), you have to be able to speak it's native language, and the native language for outsiders is the language dominant on their home plane, which is Celestial for good etc.Love it, hate it, to me it adds proper flavour and rewards players for taking Outsider languages. It takes a little away from the spell in that not everyone can speak Common to every single creature listed, but this just means they can't give highly specific instructions to the creatures. The creature will still fight for and defend the caster to the best of its ability, regardless of whether or not the caster speaks its language.</blockquote>

Verification