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This is a follow-up on this question Can a summoned monster be commanded to aid another?

The answer to that questions seems to be "Not if they cannot understand you."


I am currently playing a Summoner with the Celestial Commander archetype, which has the following class feature:

Divine Tongue (Ex): At first level, a celestial commander learns the celestial language. In addition, every creature they summon can understand, but not necessarily speak, Celestial.

The question is:

Can a summoned celestial eagle, who understands one of his summoner's languages, use aid another in combat?

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2 Answers 2

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Because the celestial eagle summoned by the celestial commander understands him,

Yes, the Eagle Can Aid Another in Combat

According to the spell summon monster I et. al. the summoned creature "attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions."

The extraordinary ability divine tongue allows the celestial commander to communicate with the summoned creature, no matter its Intelligence score. Therefore the summoned creature can, according to the spell summon monster I, be commanded to aid another in combat without the celestial commander needing to resort to a Handle Animal skill check (DC 25 or DC 27) to push the animal to perform a trick it doesn't know (e.g. the trick aid), which is what other casters must do when they want summoned, unintelligent animals to do their bidding when their bidding isn't biting baddies.

The Secrets of Adventuring
If you're going to use that archetype, and you haven't already, I encourage you to purchase Rite Publishing's Secrets of Adventuring, not because I have a relationship with the company (because I don't have any relationship with Rite Publishing), but because the text might provide further information about the archetype--and maybe even that ability in particular--that's not contained on d20PFSRD.

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Aid another does not require any particular intelligence; no such requirement is noted in the rules, and plenty of real-world creatures with animal-like intelligence, or even creatures that are mindless under the rules, exhibit behavior designed to help one another.

And since the creatures you summon can understand Celestial, they can understand your order to use Aid Another. As summoned creatures, they are loyal to you and should obey.

How a creature can understand a language, particularly one that’s probably fairly complex, yet have Int –, 1, or 2, is anyone’s guess. Typically, understanding language requires Int 3 at a minimum, but hey, magic.

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