Expanded Summoning Rules.

LoneWolf23

First Post
Got the latest Dragon Magazine last Sunday, and I just love the expanded summoning rules found within. Although I do agfree that some might consider these rules as making the Summon Monster spells very powerful, since they can now summon anything with the right CR.

But I got to thinking: What if we combined these new rules with the Optional "Unique Summoning" rules from the DM's Guide? Those rules say that each summoning spell summons a specific monster or animal, and that a different spell must be learned/prepared for different creatures. In other words, you'd need different Summon Monster I spells to summon a Celestial Dog and then a Celestial Badger.

Personally, I think those two rules fit perfectly together: Summoners have a huge variety of creatures they can summon, but must pick and choose the types of creatures they choose to summon. Now a Summoner can customize his Summon Monster list for different occasions. A Lawful Neutral summoner might favor Zenythri Planetouched, Formians and Axiomatic creatures, while a Lawful Evil one would summon Devils and Fiendish creatures.

Likewise, Druids summoning specific, named Nature's allies does fit in with themes like "Animal Friends" or "Elemental Forces" or "The Faerie's chosen one". I would definetly see a Forest Druid summon a Wood Element Creature while a Druid native to northern regions would favor Cold Element Creatures.

Any opinions?
 
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That is an excellent idea. I just picked up that issue myself this weekend, and tailoring the lists to each caster is really a great idea. I just mentioned to one of the people in my group, that I work with, and he actually wants to play a summoner now. Great idea! :)
 

Yes, I agree. I like the fact that you can, per Dragon magazine, customize your summoning list. That's something one of my players has been asking me about, but I just didn't want to tackle the task.
 

One thing I really like about the unique summoning rule is that it really puts summoning in the hands of wizards. It gives them a category of spells that they can excel at where no sorcerer ever could. A sorcerer might learn to summon one or two creatures but the wizard could learn as many as she wanted.

Plus most of my players have only ever summoned one or two creatures off any given list anyway. Of course they might complain at having the option taken away from them. Who knows.

It starts to fix my great frustration over sorcerer and wizard which is that they are too similar. Their spell lists are identical (except 1 or 2 spells I think) and that removes a great deal of potential flavor.

Long live Unique summoning.
-DC
 

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