Good cleric summoning evil?

[coyote6]

He should have dropped the sword. Banishing him only removes the body.

Not necessarily. It's not clear from the OP where they were when they met him; he says they killed the devil, though. If he was wherever he was as part of a Summoning spell, then he didn't really die, and any stuff he picked up while Summoned wouldn't return with him. If he was there as part of a Calling spell or good old fashioned planar travel, then (a) he should have been destroyed when he died, but (b) if he did escape or been banished/dismissed, he could take stuff with him. Of course, it's possible he got the sword while travelling the planes or Called, then went back as part of a Summoning, which would let him "die" without really dying, and keep the sword. Then there's astral projection...

FWIW, the OP doesn't want to use a spell of the Summoning descriptor -- because if you did summon him, the sword would disappear with him when he died or the summons ended. You want to use a Calling spell -- but planar binding & the like are Calling spells, so you're good if you use those.

Does your sorcerer know limited wish? If so, she could use that to mimic planar binding, which would give the spell a DC of 17 + her Cha bonus.

Of course, planar binding only works on 12 HD or less, and your target may have more. Greater planar binding is 8th level, and effects up to 18 HD; if he's past that, you'd have to get a scroll or something of gate.

And you'd still possibly be screwed, any way you cut it -- he might not have the sword on him when you call, in which case you wouldn't get to chop him down and grab it. You could maybe bargain for it; you'd be bargaining with a devil, though, and that doesn't always work out real well.

I'm not sure there's a good (let alone Good) way to avoid doing it the hard way.

 

[Voadam]

I think you will need to plane shift to his plane, use a scroll of discern location, and then use find the path to track him down.

 

[SolitonMan]

Gate. I know you're not high enough level just yet to cast it yourself, but read the spell description, it should handle the situation as you wish. But get soemone else to cast it since it takes on the [Evil] descriptor when calling an evil creature.

Of course, your target may not have the sword on him when called, but you can probably "convince" him to retrieve it with appropriate persuasion...

 

[AbyssKnight]

You could look into taking a level of Malconvoker. It will let you cast an [Evil] Conjuration spell ignoring the clerical alignment restriction AND doing so does not change your alignment.

I am not sure if you will have an opportunity to level before you need to get the shards back, but maybe you could go look for a few other shards then when you get the level of Malconvoker come back to reclaiming this particular sword.