Does summoning a monster who proceeds to attack the enemy violate the vow of peace?

[Tidus4444]

Just curious if this does violate my vow of peace.

 

[sledged]

Yup. You summoned it, so it's your responsibility.

 

[Scharlata]

Just curious if this does violate my vow of peace.

Hi!

This is no rules-wise answer, just common knowledge:

Attacking is the semantic contrary of keeping the peace

If you vowed to keep a peaceful and pacifist life, than you refrain from attacking anyone with anything. You do not pursue thougths of strategies to find a loophole to violate your vow. You do the contrary, mate! You keep peace of mind and body.

Peace!

 

[Tidus4444]

Ok, one more question then... some of the upper leveled creatures in the summoned list are sentient, and can cast divine spells that will aid the party. I know I can order them not to attack... but if I do so, and they continue to attack anyway, am I responsible for their attacking?

 

[reanjr]

Ok, one more question then... some of the upper leveled creatures in the summoned list are sentient, and can cast divine spells that will aid the party. I know I can order them not to attack... but if I do so, and they continue to attack anyway, am I responsible for their attacking?

I would say in that case that you should lose all abilities until you attone for you accidental misdeed. And you probably should never again summon such a creature. As far as I know, the only reason they would not listen is if you could not communicate with them. So once you could successfully communicate with them, they would probably be open for summoning again.

My dipence.

 

[CalrinAlshaw]

The party or the monster? If the monster, yes, you can quite easily dismiss the summoned creature if it decides to attack contrary to an order. As for the party, you can advise them not to attack, and I would suggest NOT giving them any spell with the purpose of enhancing their ability to ATTACK.

If you give the party DEFENSIVE spells, and tell them to not attack, as well as offering alternatives, then no.

Calrin Alshaw

 

[Len]

The rules say:

Summon Monster I
...
It 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.

I take that to mean that the creature won't attack if you tell it not to. The summoned creature is constrained to aid you and follow your instructions. I'm sure that many creatures would resent being summoned to fight for you, and would rather attack you, but they cannot.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Pacifism does not word to well in d&d. Ordering the monster to attack would be the same as ordering a charmed or dominated creature to attack or to a lesser extend another player, a lackey etc.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Not considering the mechanical rules, it would depend upon the purpose of your vow.

If the vow is made for personal purity--your hands will not shed blood because that carries bad karma or impurity, etc--then you cold summon monsters to attack your foes to your heart's content because you're not shedding their blood directly. The point of the vow isn't to avoid violence but rather to avoid doing violence yourself. It would hardly be the first time vows and duties have been interpreted in such a literal manner. Orthodox jews reportedly consider it work (and therefore forbidden) to turn a light switch on on the sabbath but have no problem asking a non-jew to do so. (I've heard that some even employed non-Jewish servants to get around sabbath restrictions). Similarly, I could conceive of a culture where a holy man may not offer violence to his foes himself but it is though of as perfectly acceptable to summon his god's wrath (or emissaries of his god's wrath) to strike them down.

If, on the other hand, the vow is made for moral or sacrificial reasons, or if you intend to be an apostle of peace or some such nonsense then it probably would be breaking your vow of non-violence.

 

[Hypersmurf]

For what it's worth, it wouldn't count as an attack for purposes of breaking an Invisibility spell...

Whether it would break a Sanctuary spell, I'm not sure.

-Hyp.