Summoning Party Members

[Feyd Rautha]

I'm against player use of this spell, but the reverse of this does make for an interesting story arc.

The players are walking about doing their heroic thing when suddenly they are pulled from their homes and find themselves in the midst of a great battle between a powerful spellcaster and a bevy of fiends. They are marionettes of sorts when they have been summoned, but when they return (after dying horrible deaths) they can set about finding a way to either protect themselves or communicate with the extraplanar spellcaster.

Proves to be an interesting storyline as their adventures are often interuppted by this summoning.

Here's the problem though. Extraplanar creatures can reform when killed off plane. Prime material creatures do not. It is an unwritten rule in DnD dating back to 1st edition and so I don't know how to best resolve the issue.

 

[Shin Okada]

Hmm. What will happen to the PCs being summoned? Will they just disappear from the original place and then re-appear when the summoned version is slayed or the duration expires? Or do they fall into comatose just like when they make astral trip?

 

[RuminDange]

I toyed with this sort of thing in 2E.
The PC's were doing thier thing, traveling between citys when one of the fighters just disappeared. They were like 5th level single class characters at the time. The party went into paraniod searching trying to find the missing fighter.
Meanwhile the fighter appears before a human in a cave, who points at a creature in a room and commands the fighter to kill it. The fighter has no choice in the matter and proceeds to fight an 8-headed hydra. He barely won the fight, was all tore up, bleeding etc.... as he returned to the mage, the mage told him a name, a town, and told him to look him up one day if he ever makes to the town and he will make amends. This happened just as the spell ended, sending the fighter back to the location he was at when he vanished. He was still near death, and looked like he had been through hell and back. He told the party what happened as they healed him up and continued on after a bit.
The party made it to the town a few weeks of travel later and looked up the mage. He was true to his word and payed the fighter for the service as well as becoming a major patron of the party after that. It was a great way to introduce a patron.

I don't think I would do it again in 3.XE but then again......

RD

 

[The_Warlock]

Really, the answer should be "No". I don't have any of my books at work, but here's the whys.

Best explanation for summon spells is that they essentially call an astral projection of an average member of the race in question. I've also heard dream projection. Summon Monster is limited to extraplanar creatures only. Summon nature's ally to animals. And if you have FR, Summon Undead to, well, undead. Even with the variant rules for summoning individuals, they are an average member of their race or species (as I recall).

1) - PCs are not average members of their species. Best case scenario of summoning party members would be a likeness of the character but with all his attributes set to 10 or 11 (or appropriate), with average feats for his class, and average equipment for a member of his species. And then you'd need a summon spell level that would be able to summon a creature of the PCs CR/HD. That get's high-level fast. But frankly, I wouldn't even allow that.

2) - PCs are rarely extraplanar creatures, and are definitely not just Animals (referring to Type), though I've seen Undead PCs. In any regard, summoning, regardless of spell, seems to bring ideal generics from another plane of existence. Reading the summoning sub-school description suggests this with the statement about reforming after being unsummoned. While it does not explicitly state it, that is a common trope of demons, devils and otherworldly creatures. Furthermore, even if it did "work", summoning says it takes 24 HOURS for the summoned creature to reform if reduced to 0 hp. If you get whacked, there is NO recourse, since there isn't even a body for the healer at your safehold to patch up and heal.

3) - Given the similarities described between not being dead but reforming, and instant summoning to a locale And the description of passing planar gates/portals while in Astral form, if I would even consider it - it would be up there as a 9th level spell. And watch out for githyanki.

4) - There are precedents for Calling spells however. In FR, the mage Darsson made a spell which invokes part of his truename. He gave this spell to friends, so that they could instantly call him to their side - suck to be in the bath, and suddenly find yourself in a major land war. 3rd edition compromised with the Refuge spell (if I recall correctly). In all instances and precedents, the target is called, actually physicially brought to the location.

So, even if your characters are naturally extraplanar, they are likely on the same plane as the summoner. I'd say no go. If you are on a different plane and suddenly count as extraplanar, you aren't average for your race. No go, again. Sounds like an astral or dream projection to me. Maybe - if you are willing to cast a single 8th or 9th level spell PER PC summoned. Now, if the sorcerer has great scout spells, evades the traps, and has a CALLING spell to bring each of you, one at a time, to his location. That I might go for.

And lastly, and most importantly. Summoned people hang out for rounds. The summoned characters won't be there, can't make a meaningful contribution or be involved in the adventure - hope you trust you sorcerer implicitly when it comes to loot sharing and information exchange. As players, you are uninvolved and cut out of the game while the DM plays a one on one session with the sorcerer's player until he needs your fat butts to stand between him and the nasties, or disarm a trap (if you are around long enough). Hope you like doing something else until the bat signal flashes.

And that's probably why I, as a DM, would never allow that.

 

[The_Warlock]

Now, in 1st and 2nd edition, all it did was summon monsters. It was never clear where they came from, or what happened to them, with the exception of demons, devils, et al, who were described as reforming on their home plane if ever killed on a plane not their own.

In fact, there was a published 2nd Ed Plansescape product that had a mini-adventure in it where the heroes (being planars, were all extraplanar) got summoned by a nasty sorceress to defend her in a quest in the Abyss I think. It was railroading 101, since she found a way to "extend" the duration to days, while the PCs did her dirty work, and tried to find a way to break the spell's effect.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Actually, Summon Nature's ally doesn't necessarily go extra-planar, but I don't think the designers had the PC's in mind when they wrote up the augment summoning, etc. feats and class abilities.

Oh, there is one other problem; if you wanted the spell to summon PC's and give them those bonuses, not only should they be extraplanar, but they would need to be two to three levels higher than what could be summoned with an equivalent spell; I'd have to say to summon a group of, say, 5th level pc's, it'd have to be a monster summoning VI or so. A group of level 1's could be summoned with a summon monster II or III.

According to the Manual of the Planes, Summon Nature's Ally summons animals that are on the world that the caster inhabits. If you look at the table in MotP that shows what spells don't work without the Astral Summon Monster is on there, but Summon Nature's Ally is not. At least that was my interpretation YMMV

 

[Dog Moon]

I have never actually used a Summon spell before or really thought about it, so I really appreciate the input. I was thinking of a spell from some book when I thought of the idea for summoning ally PCs and I finally found it. It's from a Monte Cook book called Skreyn's Register: The Bonds of Magic Volume 1: Cabal. Here it is:

I Summon My Brother
Conjuration (Summoning) [Chaotic, Evil]
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
As summon monster V, except as noted above. The spell calls one of two particular creatures named Kalkarn and Virat. Both are half-fiend human chaotic evil 6th-level fighters, brothers to the sorcerer Handrath. If Kalkarn and Virat are ever truly killed—not just slain while summoned—this spell no longer has any effect. Unlike the “Summoning Individual Monsters” variant rule on page 96 of the DMG, the caster cannot replace the slain creature with a new one.

The person with the spell is a 10th level Sorcerer. This is technically supposed to be used for the NPC and his two brothers, but why can there not be a summon spell which allows the Summoner to target the other PCs in the group? It would only take a little modification of this spell...

This would assume that Summon Nature's Ally (which I don't know if it would technically work or not ; maybe it would only summon druids? ) or other summons don't work. Also, Summon Monster says an extraplanar creature. I don't see where it says that extraplanar creature actually has to be on another plane...

 

[Izer]

"Planar Binding" Should allow you to Call the dead back from the planes, as long as they A: fit within the HD limits and B: You know their true name. This pretty much amounts to a ideosyncratic "Raise Dead for mages".
Loose some levels, and take up your new carrer as a "Hound Archon" paladin or Dretch Rouge/assasin. Try not to get wasted again, as you are no longer raiseable short of a Wish. (What happens to called outsiders that die on the prime anyways?)

But summonings ? No way Jose. Far to munchkin.