Summon companion/familiar?

[Laurel]

Not sure if this should be Rules or House Rules, if incorrectly placed please move it on over Thanks!

Question 1: Summon Nature's Ally lets you summon a creature from a list, but does it allow you to summon a particular creature from the list?

Example: I have a giant eagle that obviously does not travel everywhere with the group. As a druid I can summon a Giant Eagle with Summon Nature's Ally III. Could I speak my companions name specifically with the spell and summon him?

Question 2: If you said no, would it make a difference if at every bonus HD or every two bonus HD a companion gets it has to be the next level spell up? Using the example above it would mean with a +2 bonus to HD for my Giant Eagle, I could summon it specifically with Nature's Ally IV instead of Nature's Ally III.

Question 3: What about summoning someone else's familiar/companion from your party?

 

[Silveras]

Not sure if this should be Rules or House Rules, if incorrectly placed please move it on over Thanks!

Question 1: Summon Nature's Ally lets you summon a creature from a list, but does it allow you to summon a particular creature from the list?

Example: I have a giant eagle that obviously does not travel everywhere with the group. As a druid I can summon a Giant Eagle with Summon Nature's Ally III. Could I speak my companions name specifically with the spell and summon him?

Question 2: If you said no, would it make a difference if at every bonus HD or every two bonus HD a companion gets it has to be the next level spell up? Using the example above it would mean with a +2 bonus to HD for my Giant Eagle, I could summon it specifically with Nature's Ally IV instead of Nature's Ally III.

Question 3: What about summoning someone else's familiar/companion from your party?

Well, standard rules say that when you summon a creature, you summon a *copy* or a *spiritual replica* of the creature -- unless you use a Conjuration (Calling) spell instead of a Conjuration (Summoning) spell.

Secondly, the standard rule is that you get an absolutely "average member" of the creature species in question - a generic "Giant Eagle" by definition.

The DMG proposes a variant which *does* allow you to summon a specific, non-generic, member of the creature species. However, it is still not any specific one that you might have met. All summoned creatures are presumed to come from some other plane.

Most of these details are discussed in the variant: p. 37 of the 3.5 DMG.

What you are suggesting is more of a teleportation than a summoning or calling effect -- you simply want to translocate a known, specific being to your current location. (See the 3.5 Players's Handbook discussion of spell schools, Conjuration, for the differences among Calling, Summoning, and Teleportation spells).