More 3.0 Questions

[Bob5th]

Could I as a 17th level Wizard use the Gate spell to summon a Dire Elephant? Celstial Dire Elephant? Could I specify that I want 34 HD Dire Elephant?

If I can summon some form or another of a Dire Elephant could I then cast Animal Growth on it? If so when its HD double from the spell will that cause them to be uncontrolled because of going out of my controllable range for HD?

 

[MerakSpielman]

No. There is no Dire Elephant in the MM, and "Dire" isn't a template in 3.0. I wouldn't, as a DM, allow you to make up monsters. A plain ol' celestial elephant would be fine, though.

As for the other question, I would assume that if for any reason you're trying to control something with too many hit dice, you would lose control of it. This makes Animal Growth a good spell to eliminate somebody elses summoned Dire Animal!

I'm also not sure if you can issue commands to a Gated ally if you don't share a common language.

 

[MerakSpielman]

double post

 

[dcollins]

Per 3.0 rules, much of these answers are a DM's call. The DM sort of has to make a number of allowances for these things to happen.

(1) Dire Elephants are in the WOTC book "Masters of the Wild", so if that's an approved book, then probably Dire Elephants are at least in the campaign. However, they're not "extraplanar" as the Gate spell requires. Maybe Celestial Dire Elephants are an option if the DM rules that such things exist (nothing in the rules directly requires this).
(2) Picking an advanced creature is again a DM's call, but I would strongly recommend "no". The gate spell asks for a type of creature -- you should get the most common, standard type of that creature.
(3) Animal Growth is usable only on animals -- Celestial Dire Animals are instead Magical Beasts (MM p. 211). It's pretty unlikely to be able to use an animal-only spell on any extraplanar creatures sucked in through a Gate spell.