Summoning Vivacious creatures?

[Werephilosopher]

The Vivacious template (Planar Handbook) makes the base creature a native of the Positive Energy Plane, and gives them a few nice goodies- flight, incorporeality, continuous healing, etc. A spellcaster is able to swap out Fiendish or Celestial creatures from their Summon Monster menus and gain those creatures with the Vivacious template instead at the next level of Summon Monster. Has anyone done this? Is this a good idea? I'm playing a Malconvoker now so I'm mostly focusing on Fiendish/evil summons, but is it wise to swap out my Celestial pickings for Vivacious creatures?

[HunterOfJello]

Where does it say that you can swap out to get the Vivacious template instead? I'm just curious.


The vivacious template looks bad actually. Quite bad.


Pros:
Flying
Incorporeal (miss chance vs attacks)
Healing
Outsider Type
Ranged touch attack weapon (weak)
Deflection bonus to AC (small)

Cons:
Lose Resistance
Lose Damage Reduction
Lose Smite (always remember to smite!)
Lose Spell Resistance (weak, but always nice to have)
Lose Strength Score (attack and damage)
Lose ability to attack nonetheral creatures


Overall I wouldn't trade out Celestial for Vivacious. Once you put Vivacious on a creature it can't effectively fight in melee any non-ethereal plane any longer. The only thing that the vivacious creature would be better at would be attacking ethereal creatures or being a non-illusion distraction.

A wand of Mount and a wand of lesser vigor will generally be able to take the place of these sorts of creatures.

[Werephilosopher]

Where does it say that you can swap out to get the Vivacious template instead? I'm just curious.

"New Creatures and Summon Spells," Planar Handbook p 134.


The vivacious template looks bad actually. Quite bad.


Pros:
Flying
Incorporeal (miss chance vs attacks)
Healing
Outsider Type
Ranged touch attack weapon (weak)
Deflection bonus to AC (small)

Cons:
Lose Resistance
Lose Damage Reduction
Lose Smite (always remember to smite!)
Lose Spell Resistance (weak, but always nice to have)
Lose Strength Score (attack and damage)
Lose ability to attack nonetheral creatures


Overall I wouldn't trade out Celestial for Vivacious. Once you put Vivacious on a creature it can't effectively fight in melee any non-ethereal plane any longer. The only thing that the vivacious creature would be better at would be attacking ethereal creatures or being a non-illusion distraction.

A wand of Mount and a wand of lesser vigor will generally be able to take the place of these sorts of creatures.

The thing is, I'm focusing almost entirely on Fiends and Fiendish creatures for fighting/mounts/etc. I could really cut out the Celestial creatures from my list and not lose much. Vivacious isn't the best, but some of what it gives- notably incorporealness and "stay next to me too long and you go pop"- seem to add a bit more versatility than what the Celestials give me. I'm just wondering if it's worth raising the spell level.

[chaos_redefined]

It also adds healing to your list. Just to throw that out there. Combats over, throw up a Vivacious Monkey, and let it heal everyone up.

On a related note, that's probably the biggest loss. The Celestial Monkey is a SMI with hands, allowing it to open things, pick things up, etc... It's a negligible loss once you get the reserve feat, Summon Elemental. But, before that...

Frankly, a malconvoker shouldn't even have to think about it, he just switches them out. Other summoners... not so easy a choice, but I'd definitely consider it, simply because you already have Big Bruiser covered by the fiendish options.

[Yanisa]

The true strength of Vivacious creature is its ability to instantly kill anything with full hit points. :smallamused:

[Vedhin]

Lose ability to attack nonetheral creatures

You are in error. Vivacious makes it incorporeal, not ethereal. It's just as much a danger as a Shadow, but without spawn creation.
I think it's a good idead. The healing is nice, incorporeal creatures flat-out curbstomp many monsters, and watching things explode from healing is funny.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

The true strength of Vivacious creature is its ability to instantly kill anything with full hit points. :smallamused:

Hehehe

I had players who went to the positive energy plane without protection... Thinking that positive is always good and you can't get hurt by healing.

They all exploded and rolled up new characters. A year later they went to the positive energy plane... Without protection... I gave them a bit more time (double) and then the Sorcerer looked at me and said "Oh shi..." And I interrupted him with Michael Bay explosions from YouTube.. Hahaha.

Do note it was a silly campaign and we kept backup characters nearby for such an occasion.

[Erik Vale]

...
You should add that to the stupid deaths thread...