good forced to do evil?

[Particle_Man]

Could an evil wizard use the Summon Monster spells to summon good celestial creatures (a good act) but then command them to do evil things (torture innocent people, etc.)? How bound are such good summoned creatures to obey these commands?

 

[diaglo]

the only description in the spell that may refute this use is:

from the SRD: When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type.

but the rest of the spell says it attacks as you direct. so they may do it but they won't be happy.

 

[Kyramus]

That's an interesting thought.

I could just picture an evil wizard casing summon spells and calling up celestial beings to defend his base of operations that's being overrun by undead by a rival necromancer.

 

[Henry]

I have this really weird thought of the PC's, in the middle of an adventure, just being plucked from nowhere by a powerful variant of summon monster, deposited in the middle of a fight, being compelled to fight in a battle by a powerful evil wizard, possibly even dying, then instantly transported right back where they were, all wounds healed, and wondering what the hell just happened.

 

[Li Shenron]

Could an evil wizard use the Summon Monster spells to summon good celestial creatures (a good act) but then command them to do evil things (torture innocent people, etc.)? How bound are such good summoned creatures to obey these commands?

Yes he could.

They will be totally bounded for the duration of the spell, and as long as they can understand his commands.

 

[Li Shenron]

I have this really weird thought of the PC's, in the middle of an adventure, just being plucked from nowhere by a powerful variant of summon monster, deposited in the middle of a fight, being compelled to fight in a battle by a powerful evil wizard, possibly even dying, then instantly transported right back where they were, all wounds healed, and wondering what the hell just happened.

I had the same exact idea It came out to me because I was thinking of a campaign (I may be back to DMing soon) with all MotP planes to use, just because they are all cool. But since I don't like that there are so many outer planes, I took the 8 "intermediate" outer planes and turn them into alternate material planes. I didn't want to mess up with all the Summon spells, so I just though it would be possible to summon either outsiders or creatures from alternate material planes (after all, it's "summon monster" not "summon outsider"). Next thought was of course that from now on the PCs may be summoned themselves to another material plane

 

[Hand of Evil]

I think as a DM I would be very careful here. It comes down to the doing, would a celestial creatures go about performing the task the way the commander thought or try to direct the outcome. It is the 'becareful what you wish for' loopholes.

 

[Arravis]

Celestial creatures have Celestials friends...
Outer-planar creatures tend to be part of a chain of command, if a celestial is used for evil deeds, I'm certain he'll tell his boss, and if the offense is foul enough, he'll tell his boss, etc... then the offending caster will get a visit . So, as a DM, this kind of situation is fairly easy to resolve ... muhahaha!

 

[Urbannen]

Remember that unless the wizard speaks Celestial, he can only indicate enemies for the creature to attack, no torturing.

 

[Richards]

Originally posted by Henry:

I have this really weird thought of the PC's, in the middle of an adventure, just being plucked from nowhere by a powerful variant of summon monster, deposited in the middle of a fight, being compelled to fight in a battle by a powerful evil wizard, possibly even dying, then instantly transported right back where they were, all wounds healed, and wondering what the hell just happened.

There was actually an AD&D 2nd Edition mini-adventure in Dungeon Magazine based on this very concept. If memory serves, it was called "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" - I think a lock of the PC's hair was a material component for the "greater" version of the summoning spell in question.

Johnathan