Koumei wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 6:33 am
Obviously they're not summoned, because A) they existed before you caught them, they don't just spawn into existence out of the trainer's balls
and I know I could have worded that better, I elected not to. And B) you don't want someone else Dispelling them out of existence or casting the spell that lets you steal the loyalty of summoned monsters.
So, I get your argument. Yes, from a meta perspective that is a difference. But within the game text, summoned creatures ostensibly exist
somewhere before you summon them:
SRD wrote:A summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate. When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from, but a summoned object is not sent back unless the spell description specifically indicates this. A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower. It is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again.
That's why Creation is a separate subschool. Now, while I recognize that people here would hate it if a DM houseruled "you have to be familiar with a creature before you can summon something like it," pokemon seem to be similar to that situation. Calling might be a better way to look at pokemon, since it means they can't be dispelled, but Pokemon act a lot like Summoned creatures when they "die" in that when their hp reach 0, they just go back to their ball.
Likewise, an Animal Companion or Familiar basically starts existing when chosen - the class feature causes them to exist. You basically don't even have to do anything for those creatures to be added to the party, they're just there and the Druid can straight-up say "I get a T-Rex at this level", you don't have to encounter a T-Rex in game.
Likewise, textually, animal companions and familiars ostensibly exist somewhere before they matter to the game:
SRD, Familiars wrote:A familiar is a normal animal that gains new powers and becomes a magical beast when summoned to service by a sorcerer or wizard. It retains the appearance, Hit Dice, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, skills, and feats of the normal animal it once was, but it is treated as a magical beast instead of an animal for the purpose of any effect that depends on its type. Only a normal, unmodified animal may become a familiar. An animal companion cannot also function as a familiar.
I think we can all agree that it's important that no feats exist affect your pokemon just by dint of you having them: they don't get extra hit dice from Natural Bond or whatever it's called, you can't use Improved Familiar or the "Let my Mount be a Dragon" feat to turn them into a different creature, they don't just get bonuses because you took Greenbound Summoning or Corpsecrafter* feats, fucking obviously. If people have feats, which I'm still only talking about hypothetically, then your pokemon are affected the same as the other PCs: a feat that gives you some kind of aura probably does work. A feat that lets you Aid Other as an Immediate Action would work. Shitty [Teamwork] feats from PF would work (if the pokemon also has them). Just like how if you cast Haste or Energy Immunity, you could jolly well cast it on your pokemon, your friends and yourself (but couldn't cast Nature's Favour or Fortify Familiar or a Personal spell on them).
I took another look at Augment Summoning and
Greenbound SummoningBeckon the Frozen (I happened to have Fb open already), rather than just relying on my vague recollection of what they do. Both affect specifically "creature(s) you conjure with any summon spell". So even if Pokemon are treated as un-dispellable summons, these feats can't affect them (unless you specifically have the ability to summon Pikachu with Summon Whatever
n).
*If you used an actual spell to turn a pokemon into an Undead you control, then Corpsecrafter would presumably apply. Note that a magical ritual from a feat isn't a spell, and Corpsecrafter doesn't just say "all Undead you make", so chances are you're not making a Pikawraith, you're taking Pikachu and casting Animate Dead, adding the shitty Skeleton/Zombie template and you're probably at a net loss. Desecrated areas with altars to evil deities, on the other hand, would provide their benefits because that just happens to all Undead that are made in the area.
Similarly, I hadn't realized that Corpsecrafter specifies undead made through a spell, tho it makes sense because technically that's the primary way for PCs to make undead.
So, that's edifying. I think, in terms of mechanics, it's best to treat pokeballs as a sort of use-activated Conjuration (Summoning) item. I'm not even sure it's necessarily
bad for people to be able to magically interfere with your control of pokemon through dispelling or
appropriate summons (or whatever it's fucking called). But also... so far as I can tell, when you have an item that summons creatures, those creatures can't actually be dispelled because they're not the result of a summoning spell (barring items that literally cast a summoning spell). At best, you could target the
pokeball and suppress its power for 1d4 rounds, which opens a different can of worms (ie, what happens to the pokemon if its pokeball gets dispelled).
But... so far as I can tell, there's no specific
problem with saying that pokeballs are magic items that summon a monster they've been keyed to. Summoned monsters work almost exactly like how you'd want pokemon to work (the trainer acts as the caster, controlling them, if their hp hits 0, they are dismissed back to where they came from but are not actually physically harmed. Pokecenters just have a magic item that restores the pokemon without having to wait the 24 hours).
And if we say pokemon are summoned, well, they're not summoned by a
spell, so Augment Summoning etc won't apply to them, but you could hypothetically have an Augmented Ball that affects the pokemon it catches as if by Augmented Summoning. Which, aside from having to figure out the damned cost of that, seems like a kinda cool thing.