Summon Monster

[griff_goodbeard]

However, I would always allow to swap the templates for their opposite when summoning monsters (i.e. fiendish for celestial). The summon monster lists are flooded with evil creatures, quite useless for the average PC cleric.

Bye
Thanee

Agreed, As a DM I would allow a LG cleric to summon a celestial raven, the celestial/fiendish templates are near identical power-wise. Not RAW, but a reasonable house rule me-thinks.

 

[lukelightning]

Savage Species gives insight into the effects of an aligned type. Regardless of actual alignment, a creature with an aligned typs is still treated as its alignment type. So that succubus paladin is somehow a lawful good creature with the Chaotic and Evil descriptors, and would be vulnerable to both holy and unholy weapons, and would be detected as both Good and Evil, Lawful and Chaotic.

Yeah, it's weird. But changing your alignment does not change your inherent type, which is why I don't think there should be good fiends or evil celestials. A good fiend is a celestial, an devil celestial is a fiend. I would possibly allow a succubus to become lawful good...in which case it would become an archon.

 

[Infiniti2000]

No, and it's very clear from the SRD parts you quoted yourself. It only becomes unclear if you want it to

Without the PH example, I don't think it's as clear-cut as you think. Sure, we can much more easily say that any creature with an evil alignment (LE, NE, or CE) is an "evil creature" and thus makes the spell [Evil]. Of course, an [Evil] creature with a good alignment would NOT be an "evil creature" using that method. However, it's not so easy for a "water creature." What's a "water creature?" Note that if you want to be consistent, you can't use the subtype (otherwise the "evil creature" scenario wouldn't work like that), so what do you use? Anyone with a swim speed?

 

[Eloi]

It's clear, if you devote a moment's contemplation to it:

Cast Augury and wait for enlightenment.

Nice and easy.

 

[werk]

Off topic but related-

While we are on the subject of summoned monsters, does anyone know where I can buy some sort of summoned monster/ally card set? I can find them out there with all the monsters from the MM1, but I want more options than that, plus all the dire/fiendish/celestial/whathaveyou templated versions too.

Just like a card with all the stats already calculated out, so when someone summons something, boom, you got it all right there. No muss/no fuss.

I can make them myself...but that doesn't sound like much fun.

[/hijack]

 

[Anti-Sean]

The Eberron Campaign Setting allows clerics to cast spells regardless of alignment descriptor. Casting an evil spell is still an evil act, but a good cleric is not prohibited from casting it. Yay Eberron!