Summon Monster Revision

Does anyone have any detailed revisions on the Summon Monster spells? Below is a start, but I have a few issues.

1. Does it create too many choices?

2. The numbers of the additional monsters are unbalanced now, so I probably need to find some more.

3. Would a neutral-based outsider template help to offset the good/evil thing?

4. Assuming the answer to #1 is no, would it be okay to non-core sources for additional monsters? Or, would it better to simply replace some of the choices?




Rule: The spell lists are changed to be much more flexible. The caster has the option of applying celestial or fiendish to each of the creatures listed below and the alignment of the creature will match the caster’s in terms of law vs. chaos unless that descriptor is specified. Additional monsters are also listed, but they cannot be templated and the alignment remains as listed. Good casters can only choose celestial and evil casters can only choose fiendish. Neutral casters choose one or the other at character creation (or when the choice becomes relevant). A neutral cleric must choose similarly to her turning ability (i.e. celestial for turning undead or fiendish for rebuking undead). Casters are limited on the additional monsters as normal.

Reasoning: The spell lists are otherwise extremely limited, particularly for extremely aligned clerics who cannot summon anything of the opposite alignment. Without a change in protection from evil, the summon monster spells are pretty much complete crap.

*bump*

Comments? Criticisms?

Would it help if I promised to type up all the stats and post the document here or e-mail them directly to you in any format you wish? I've already sent the current Summon Monster stat blocks to many people from these boards.

Infiniti2000 said:

*bump*

Comments? Criticisms?

Would it help if I promised to type up all the stats and post the document here or e-mail them directly to you in any format you wish? I've already sent the current Summon Monster stat blocks to many people from these boards.

Click to expand...

I think I like the changes, though I need to read a little more carefully. I've got neutral (http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Equitus), chaotic (http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Shambolic), and lawful (http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Nomos) OGC outsider templates on my website.

Are the stat blocks in the new or old format? I'd love them in the new format.

They are in the old format. I'd consider putting them in the new format, but I try to fit the stat blocks into 6/page to print out onto card stock. They're already at 8pt font, so I don't want to go lower. Send me e-mail if you want, and I'd be happy to send them to you.

Your links are greatly appreciated, yet they require a password. By OGC, did you mean Openifyoucanhackintomywebsite Gaming Content?

Infiniti2000 said:

They are in the old format. I'd consider putting them in the new format, but I try to fit the stat blocks into 6/page to print out onto card stock. They're already at 8pt font, so I don't want to go lower. Send me e-mail if you want, and I'd be happy to send them to you.

Your links are greatly appreciated, yet they require a password. By OGC, did you mean Openifyoucanhackintomywebsite Gaming Content?

Click to expand...

That's odd. They're supposed to be locked to editing, not viewing. I'll look into it.

---
OK, try now. The last ")" was being included in the URL and apparently bumping you straight to the editing page (which, since it's locked to editing, requires a password). Let me know if it doesn't work -- I haven't been very public with the site, but I do want people to be able to see it!

That fixed it, thanks.

I'm trying avoid favoring Neutral. That's one of the problems I see in the Summon Monster spells. Neutral clerics can summon everything, but others cannot. In this template, neutral has the advantage because he can smite 8 alignments while other template's smiting is limited to three. An alternative might be to let the equitus get Smite at +1 per 2 HD.

Have you seen the axiomatic and anarchic templates?

PS. Some of the links on the site bring up the login page, probably a default. These are: Magic Items, Spell Templates, Mage, Sorcerer, etc.

Fix for neutral summoners

Infiniti2000 said:

That fixed it, thanks.

I'm trying avoid favoring Neutral. That's one of the problems I see in the Summon Monster spells. Neutral clerics can summon everything, but others cannot. In this template, neutral has the advantage because he can smite 8 alignments while other template's smiting is limited to three. An alternative might be to let the equitus get Smite at +1 per 2 HD.

Click to expand...

What if you disallowed neutral summoners from summoning creatures with an [alignment]
entry? Seems that they wouldn't remain neutral for long if they did so.

Infiniti2000 said:

I'm trying avoid favoring Neutral. That's one of the problems I see in the Summon Monster spells. Neutral clerics can summon everything, but others cannot. In this template, neutral has the advantage because he can smite 8 alignments while other template's smiting is limited to three. An alternative might be to let the equitus get Smite at +1 per 2 HD.

Click to expand...

You could have the caster select one or two fixed alignments as "opposed". Also, equitus creatures are vulnerable to two of the most common energies (fire and cold), and they lack a specific immunity (nomos to polymorphing, shambolic to petrification), so they might rank as a little weaker than the standard template. Finally, it is, at its core, still only one attack per day. The equitus isn't getting extra attacks; it's more of an assurance that it'll be able to use it (and even then it's no good against animals, vermin, oozes, mindless undead, and a host of neutral creatures).

Have you seen the axiomatic and anarchic templates?

Click to expand...

Yes, but I avoided looking at them when working these templates up.

PS. Some of the links on the site bring up the login page, probably a default. These are: Magic Items, Spell Templates, Mage, Sorcerer, etc.

Click to expand...

Uncreated pages have a dashed underline; clicking on these automatically brings up an "edit page" screen. Since I've got the site locked, that defaults to a login page.

I've got a ton of material to put online, and not so much time to do it in. I threw the two sites up pretty quickly (I LOVE this wiki thing), and have been slowly going back and cleaning them up. I'm more comfortable letting people see them now that I've gotten the legal page completed, but I still need to add alot of viewer friendly text. And some kind of guest book.

If you go to the Shadowend Campaign Wiki (link at bottom of Sidebar), and click on the classes link there, you'll get to my house classes (mage, sorcerer, champion, etc). Mage is essentially the Arcana Evolved witch, sorcerer = magesword, and wizard = magister. Champions are modified eidelons from Morningstar.

I'll eventually move most of the rules stuff back to the DRD wiki, and leave the campaign material on the Shadowend wiki. Eventually.

Infiniti2000 said:

That fixed it, thanks.

I'm trying avoid favoring Neutral. That's one of the problems I see in the Summon Monster spells. Neutral clerics can summon everything, but others cannot. In this template, neutral has the advantage because he can smite 8 alignments while other template's smiting is limited to three. An alternative might be to let the equitus get Smite at +1 per 2 HD.

Click to expand...

Often, I see "actively neutral" things being opposed to the "extreme" alignments: LG, CG, CE, and LE (e.g. intelligent weapons whose special purpose is to destroy opposed-aligned beings). Now, I'm not a big fan of considering these necessarily more extreme than the part-Neutral ones, but I think it would make a decent neutral Smite version.

warning: pseudo-threadmancy

After much time (new baby, etc.), I've had a chance to go back over this concept. I've revised the rule I posted above as follows:

Rule: The spell lists are changed to be much more flexible. Unless a fixed alignment is already specified, then the caster applies one of two templates to each of the creatures listed below and the alignment of the summoned creature will match the caster’s in terms of law vs. chaos or good vs. evil. The choices of templates are celestial, fiendish, axiomatic, anarchic, and equitus. All celestial creatures must be Good, fiendish Evil, axiomatic Lawful, anarchic Chaotic, and equitus Neutral (vs. Good/Evil). At the time a caster gains spells, he must choose two of the templates, each of which must be within one step of his own alignment (if his alignment changes, this choice cannot be altered which may mean he loses the ability to cast these spells). A caster cannot summon a creature that has an alignment more than one step away, on either axis. For example, a Lawful Good caster would choose two from celestial, axiomatic, and equitus. The alignment of any celestial or axiomatic creature would be Lawful Good, and equitus would be Lawful Neutral. A true neutral caster would choose two from any of the five. In no case can these choice conflict with a deity's religion (being more than one step from the deity) or domain powers. Also, a caster with turning ability cannot choose fiendish and a caster with rebuke ability cannot choose celestial.

Provided below are all the creatures by summon spell and alignment. The challenge rating and source book is also identified. The ones that are underlined were ones I explicitly added, but all the others are suggestions from the source books.

Summon Monster I
Any: Celestial, Fiendish, Axiomatic, Anarchic, or Equitus (see http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Equitus)

Summon Monster II
Any: Celestial, Fiendish, Axiomatic, Anarchic, or Equitus (see http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Equitus)
LN: formian worker (CR ½, MM), clockwork mender (CR ½, MMIV)
N: varoot [nerra] (CR 1, FF)
LE: lemure [devil] (CR 1, MM)
CE: kaorti (CR 1, FF), howler wasp (CR 1, MMIV, chaos domain only)

Summon Monster III
Any: Celestial, Fiendish, Axiomatic, Anarchic, or Equitus (see http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Equitus)
NG: celestial pseudodragon (CR 1, MM)
LN: azer (CR 2, MM)
N: any small elemental (CR 1, MM)
LE: hell hound (CR 3, MM), imp [devil] (CR 2, MM)
NE: vargouille (CR 2, MM)
CE: dretch [demon] (CR 2, MM), windrazor (CR 1, MMIV)

Summon Monster IV
Any: Celestial, Fiendish, Axiomatic, Anarchic, or Equitus (see http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Equitus)
LG: lantern archon (CR 2, MM), celestial giant owl (CR 4, MM), celestial giant eagle (CR 4, MM)
NG: celestial giant owl (CR 4, MM), celestial giant eagle (CR 4, MM)
CG: celestial giant owl (CR 4, MM), celestial giant eagle (CR 4, MM)
LN: formian warrior (CR 3, MM)
N: any mephit (CR 3, MM/Sandstorm), kalareem [nerra] (CR 3, FF), droplet [aoa] (CR 3, FF), small storm elemental (CR 2, MMIII)
CN: magmin (CR 3, MM)
LE: bloodbag imp/euphoric imp/futto imp [devil] (CR 3, FF)
NE: yeth hound (CR 3, MM), skeroloth [yugoloth] (CR 3, FF), voor [yugoloth] (CR 4, MMIV)
CE: howler (CR 3, MM), skulvyn [demon] (CR 4, MM), wrackspawn (CR 3, MMIV)

Summon Monster V
Any: Celestial, Fiendish, Axiomatic, Anarchic, or Equitus (see http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Equitus)
LG: hound archon (CR 4, MM), dwarf ancestor (CR 6, MMIV, cleric of Moradin only)
CG: celestial pegasus (CR 4, MM)
N: any medium elemental (CR 3, MM)
LE: achaierai (CR 5, MM), bearded devil [barbazu] (CR 5, MM)
NE: shadow mastiff (CR 5, MM)

Summon Monster VI
Any: Celestial, Fiendish, Axiomatic, Anarchic, or Equitus (see http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Equitus)
CG: bralani [eladrin] (CR 6, MM)
LN: winged warrior [formian] (CR 6, FF)
CN: mud slaad (CR 6, FF)
N: any large elemental (CR 5, MM), janni [genie] (CR 4, MM), sillit [nerra] (CR 6, FF), medium storm elemental (CR 4, MMIII), inferno spider (CR 8, MMIV, fire domain only)
CN: chaos beast (CR 7, MM)
LE: chain devil [kyton] (CR 6, MM), xill (CR 6, MM)
NE: corruptor of fate [yugoloth] (CR 5, MMIV)
CE: wind scythe (CR 4, MMIV)

Summon Monster VII
Any: Celestial, Fiendish, Axiomatic, Anarchic, or Equitus (see http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Equitus)
LG: movanic deva (CR 9, FF), justice archon (CR 6, MMIV)
NG: avoral [guardinal] (CR 9, MM), movanic deva (CR 9, FF)
CG: djinni [genie] (CR 5, MM), movanic deva (CR 9, FF)
LN: formian taskmaster (CR 7, MM), aramadon [formian] (CR 8, FF)
N: any huge elemental (CR 7, MM), invisible stalker (CR 7, MM), large storm elemental (CR 6, MMIII)
CN: red slaad (CR 7, MM)
LE: bone devil [osyluth] (CR 9, MM), desert devil [avatar] ?? (CR 6, Sandstorm)
NE: belker (CR 6, MM), piscoloth [yugoloth] (CR 9, FF)
CE: babau [demon] (CR 6, MM), arrow [demon] (CR 7, MMIII)

Summon Monster VIII
Any: Celestial, Fiendish, Axiomatic, Anarchic, or Equitus (see http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Equitus)
CG: lillend (CR 7, MM)
LN: zelekhut [inevitable] (CR 9, MM)
N: any greater elemental (CR 9, MM), huge storm elemental (CR 8, MMIII)
CN: blue slaad (CR 8, MM)
LE: hellcat (CR 7, MM), maelephant (CR 10, FF)
CE: vrock [demon] (CR 9, MM)

Summon Monster IX
Any: Celestial, Fiendish, Axiomatic, Anarchic, or Equitus (see http://darkwater.pbwiki.com/Equitus)
LG: couatl (CR 10, MM), monadic deva (CR 12, FF)
NG: leonal [guardinal] (CR 12, MM), monadic deva (CR 12, FF)
CG: monadic deva (CR 12, FF), noble djinni [genie, no wishes] (CR 8, MM)
LN: observer [formian] (CR 11, MM)
N: any elder elemental (CR 11, MM), greater storm elemental (CR 10, MMIII)
CN: green slaad (CR 9, MM)
LE: barbed devil [hamatula] (CR 11, MM)
NE: night hag (CR 9, MM), farastu [demodand] (CR 11, FF)
CE: bebilith [demon] (CR 10, MM), hezrou [demon] (CR 11, MM)