Alien Summoning

[hongrybuffalo]

I have an Alienist joining my group and I know Alienist can only summon Celestial/Fiendish creatures, but what happens to the celestial/fiendish template when it gains Pseudo-natural one? Does it just add on, or does it replace?

[AvatarVecna]

Alienists don't have to summon celestial/fiendish stuff; they can summon other things. But if they try to summon a celestial/fiendish creature, they instead summon a creature of that kind with the pseudonatural template. The Pseudonatural template replaces the celestial/fiendish template the creature would've normally had.

[hongrybuffalo]

So is it just outsiders they can't summon? The text isn't super clear (Complete Arcane p. 22) but it does say Mephits and Howlers can't be summoned since Alienists give up the ability to summon nonpseudonatural monsters. I'm assuming this is because both monsters are outsiders.

[AvatarVecna]

No, that's me not reading the whole ability. Yeah, you have to summon a creature that currently has the celestial/fiendish template. And then you have to replace that template with the pseudonatural one. No other summons are allowed.

[Psyren]

1) It replaces "celestial/fiendish" with "Pseudonatural" (note - the CArc version, not the ELH version.)
2) Monsters that didn't (or couldn't) have one of these two templates cannot be summoned at all.

That second one is the big difference between Alienist and, say, a Zceryll Binder. Both summon pseudonatural creatures but the Binder doesn't lose anything from their list.