Summon Monster Spells

[Twowolves]

I have a Wu Jen summoner that I just started out.

I hated the Celestial/Fiendish thing, and I wound up swapping in Earth/Air templates from a 3rd party book (kinda weaker than the base templates, actually).

IMC, we have elemental (air/earth/fire/water) and alignment (fiendish/celestial/axiomatic/anarchic) templates, and you can use whichever for your summonings. Also, each caster has a limited, personalized list based on their ranks in Knowledge/The Planes (Sorc/Wiz) or Knowledge/Religion (Clerics) or Knowledge/Nature (Druids).

 

[shilsen]

Game Mechanically, the Alienist has a *relative* gain in flexibility by being able to replace "fiendish" or "celestial" with "pseudonatural" when summoning creatures. Since the Alienist is otherwise relatively weak, this might be a minor consideration if you decide to expand the list of summonable creatures to all alignments.

But the alienist (in 3.5) is unable to summon any of the untemplated creatures on the lists, which leads to a drastic reduction in flexibility.

 

[Zurai]

But the alienist (in 3.5) is unable to summon any of the untemplated creatures on the lists, which leads to a drastic reduction in flexibility.

Unless you're allowed to follow the Dragon Magazine guidelines and the guidelines in the Pseudonatural template, and add the template to the non-celestial/fiendish critters. Doing so bumps them up a level (occasionally two, but that's pretty rare) on the Summon Monster chart, but the Pseudonatural template can be applied to any corporeal creature with no other restrictions.

Of course, if you're allowed to do that, you'd probably be allowed to just switch around the celestial/fiendish templates to suit, too.

 

[Nifft]

But the alienist (in 3.5) is unable to summon any of the untemplated creatures on the lists, which leads to a drastic reduction in flexibility.

Agree. Strongly, strongly agree.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Cameron]

But the alienist (in 3.5) is unable to summon any of the untemplated creatures on the lists, which leads to a drastic reduction in flexibility.

I must have missed this when I read through Complete Arcane. Alienist says you are not allowed to summon anything else?

 

[shilsen]

I must have missed this when I read through Complete Arcane. Alienist says you are not allowed to summon anything else?

I don't have my book in front of me, but I believe that is the case. That's one of the things about the class I house-ruled right off the bat.

 

[Nifft]

I must have missed this when I read through Complete Arcane. Alienist says you are not allowed to summon anything else?

Yep. "An alienist gives up the ability to summon any non-pseudonatural creature" and gives the examples of a howler or mephit.

Basically, you're an expert summoner who sucks at summoning... :\

Cheers, -- N

 

[Zurai]

Not quite.

Alienists cannot summon non-pseudonatural creatures using Summon Monster. They can still use Planar Binding, Gate, Summon Giants, Summon Nature's Ally, etc etc.

 

[frankthedm]

Not quite.

Alienists cannot summon non-pseudonatural creatures using Summon Monster. They can still use Planar Binding, Gate, Summon Giants, Summon Nature's Ally, etc etc.

Yes, but most of those have extra costs to the caster.

 

[Zurai]

Yeah, but they're still useable as written by Alienists. Alienist would be an absurdly weak PrC if they couldn't even use, for example, Gate. As it is, they're underpowered (as much as a full casting PrC can be, anyway).