How do you use summoned creatures?

[Pielorinho]

How do you all think allowing templates to be changed out would affect the Summon Monster series?

For example, a caster can apply Celestial or Fiendish at her choice, to the monsters that are templated. (ie, if she wants a Fiendish Bison, she can get it)

What about allowing the Anarchic and uhm ... the lawful template from MotP?

I've thought about this some. I think the advantage clerics have over druids is that their creatures, due to templates, are slightly tougher; the advantage druids have over clerics is that they have a much broader set of creatures they can summon (since alignment doesn't restrict them). Of course, wizards & sorcerers have an advantage over clerics, inasmuch as they've got lots of flexibility AND templated creatures; OTOH, they have to use up one of their valuable known spells in order to get this flexibility, unlike clerics or druids.

I don't see a problem with allowing other templates on top of summoned creatures, although I'd personally allow one template per creature and two templates available per cleric, and I'd limit them to a certain number of creatures per level, just as they're now limited. If they want a celestial hawk instead of a celestial dog, that's fine -- but they can't have access to all the choices, only with a celestial template.

It would be cool to play a fire priest who summons fire-templated creatures all the time; I love that 3E makes that (relatively) easy to do.

Daniel

 

[Spatula]

How do you all think allowing templates to be changed out would affect the Summon Monster series?

For example, a caster can apply Celestial or Fiendish at her choice, to the monsters that are templated. (ie, if she wants a Fiendish Bison, she can get it)

What about allowing the Anarchic and uhm ... the lawful template from MotP?

I wouldn't have a problem with it (nor with switching around the alignment of the Fiendish animals between LE and CE), as the good/evil templates, at least, are just mirror images of each other. The law/chaos templates have the same CR adjustments as the good/evil ones and should be okay as well. But I have seen DMs who didn't want to mess with what was printed in the PHB, I guess thinking that the template choices are a part of the balance of the spell.

For example, at most levels the clear-cut best choice for a combat summons (from among the list of templated creatures at that level) is a Fiendish creature, which means (a) good clerics can't summon them, and (b) those creatures can only Smite Good - which typically isn't very useful for the PCs.

 

[Zad]

I'd like to think that it'd be ok. If you can get a celestial bear, what's the big deal making it fiendish instead, assuming it's appropriate to the alignment/god/whatever of the character.

As long a the player has the stats on hand and ready of course. Last thing anyone wants is a lot of page flipping through the monster manual while someone tries to apply a fiendish template.

 

[Dingleberry]

How do you all think allowing templates to be changed out would affect the Summon Monster series?

For example, a caster can apply Celestial or Fiendish at her choice, to the monsters that are templated. (ie, if she wants a Fiendish Bison, she can get it)

What about allowing the Anarchic and uhm ... the lawful template from MotP?

I like it. In my campaign, each of the players has developed certain abilities tied to their recently-discovered elemental ancestries. For the cleric with fire ancestry, that included the option of substituting the "fire elemental" template to his summoned monsters.

In my next campaign, I may add a house rule that the element- and alignment-based clerical domains have that as a granted power. It provides character uniqueness without throwing balance out the window.

 

[Archade]

Summoning

What I'm doing for summoning is this:

1. One of the latest Dragon magazines has an extended summon chart, and an explanation for the formula of assigning summoned creatures. So, if our party wizard wants to Summon an Anarchic Bison, he casts Summon Monster, and must successfully make a Knowledge (Arcana) check of DC15+spell level. If he succeeds he gets what he wants, if he fails the spell fizzles.

2. Priests in my campaign each have their own 'standard' list that replaces the PHB 'standard' list. Our resident Cleric of Kossuth can summon elementals, mephits, ash rats, etc., but he'd have to make a check to summon a Celestial Dog.

Ta!
Archade

 

[lukelightning]

My suggestion for summon changes:

Here are some changes I would make to the summoning spells:

1) Give versatility to the fiendish/celestial types. If you can summon a fiendish dire rat, why not a celestial one? There seem to be more fiendish than celestial creatures, which is unbalanced, and while we might think that squid are more likely to be fiendish than celestial, maybe the oceans of heaven are filled with holy squid, ready to dispense 10-armed justice.

2) Change the duration to 1 minute per level if the character has taken the "always summon the same monster" option. So if your summon monster II spell always summons Frank the tiny fiendish viper, then the duration is one minute per level, instead of one round a level.