Expanding Monster Summoning templates for Wizards

[Silveras]

The subject of allowing wizards to choose templates other than fiendish and celestial for SM spells has resulted in a fair bit of discussion between one of my players and I.

We both agree that wizards should be allowed to summon creatures with other templates. What I've done for clerics is allow them to summon any template represented by their gods offered domains and religion. So the goddess Denarri (CG, domains include earth) allows her clerics to summon celestial, anarchic and earth creatures.

Currently with wizards I allow them to summon any creature on my expanded list, with any template they like. Of course if they don't speak the language they can't tell them what to do, and I'll decide what attack and target it takes on.

This seems to me to be a slightly less than ideal situation. I'm not going to change it for this campaign, but I'll almost certainly introduce a huse rule for the next campaign.

My idea is this: wizards can choose two templates at 1st level that they can summon. Afterwards they can take a feat that allows them to expand that list.

Flexible Summoner [General]
This feat allows an arcane spell caster to select two additional templates to apply to their summoned creatures.
This feat can be taken multiple times, each time applying to new templates.

Does this sound like a reasonable situation? feedback always appreciated.

I treat the lists in the Players' Handbook as being the "basics", what every spellcaster is commonly taught to expect. I have taken the MM, MMII, FF, BoED, and BoVD and made an Excel spreadsheet listing every animal that can be given one of the 5 basic templates (9 if you count the Elemental ones separately and add the 'Elemental Wood' one), every outsider, every elemental, and so on. By my count, there are 380 summonable monster varieties in those books, of which about half (190) can be templated.

I like the variant rule for summoning specific creatures for adding flavor to the summonings.

What I would suggest is that variant lists should not require a feat, but don't go by the template. In the core rules, Clerics are already barred from summoning creatures of the alignment opposing their (as in, a Lawful X cleric cannot summon any Anarchic creatures, and a Good cleric cannot summon any Fiendish creatures), so you do not need to limit them more than that, really.

Instead, focus the summoning lists by the organizations in your campaign. A school of arcanists that specializes in fire-based magic should also lead to a summoned monster list heavy in fire-based creatures. A cult worshipping a fiend of blasphemy should result in lots of fiendish- animals and the appropriate type of outsiders.

[Edit: fixed a typo. grrrr]

 

[Nifft]

I have taken the MM, MMII, FF, BoED, and BoVD and made an Excel spreadsheet listing every animal that can be given one of the 5 basic templates (9 if you count the Elemental ones separately and add the 'Elemental Wood' one), every outsider, every elemental, and so on. By my count, there are 380 summonable monster varieties in those books, of which about half (190) can be templated.

Could you post it?

-- N

PS: I agree about not requiring a Feat to use different Templates. IMHO, the Elemental ones aren't as generally useful as the Celestial & Fiendish ones, or even the Axiomatic & Anarchic ones. Now, the Shadow template... that's a bit more generally useful, as is the Pseudonatural template.

IMHO, the Pseudonatural template gives a good idea of how to structure access: by PrC, or (for the weak elemental ones) by organization, deity, or some sort of quest-thing.

 

[Silveras]

Could you post it?

-- N

PS: I agree about not requiring a Feat to use different Templates. IMHO, the Elemental ones aren't as generally useful as the Celestial & Fiendish ones, or even the Axiomatic & Anarchic ones. Now, the Shadow template... that's a bit more generally useful, as is the Pseudonatural template.

IMHO, the Pseudonatural template gives a good idea of how to structure access: by PrC, or (for the weak elemental ones) by organization, deity, or some sort of quest-thing.

I don't think just listing the monsters' names is any violation of Closed content, but if any mods disagree, I will happily kill the post.

 

[Olive]

PS: I agree about not requiring a Feat to use different Templates. IMHO, the Elemental ones aren't as generally useful as the Celestial & Fiendish ones, or even the Axiomatic & Anarchic ones. Now, the Shadow template... that's a bit more generally useful, as is the Pseudonatural template.

IMHO, the Pseudonatural template gives a good idea of how to structure access: by PrC, or (for the weak elemental ones) by organization, deity, or some sort of quest-thing.

Yeah, that's a good idea. The reason that I was considerign a feat stems from the time when the party laid the smack down on a shade cleric and her shadow mastiff pets by blinding and then using earth elemental wolves (with tremorsense) to hunt her down and kill her pretty much instantly. Months of build up for a three round fight that barely touched the PCs...

 

[Silveras]

Another approach would be to have them make a "Knowledge (arcana)" or "Knowledge (the Planes)" check, once per level, to see if they learn of a non-standard creature to summon. The DC could vary by spell required for the creature -- learning of a Celestial that could be summoned using Summon Monster VI might have a DC of [Base] + 6/12/18 (1/2/or 3 per level of the spell).

Alternatively, you could let a character (PC/NPC) have 1 non-standard summonable creature per rank of Knowledge (the Planes).

 

[Olive]

I more or less do that already with non-templated creatures. I.e. to summon a advespa devil the player needed to make a knowledge the planes roll. He can't re-try till he gains another rank in that skill.