Shin Okada
Explorer
Do those abilities have duration? As summoned creature do not give XP to PCs, permanent summoning seems to be too strong. Maybe 1 round per HD of the summoner?
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Summon Daemon/Demon/Devil/Slaad, etc.
- Thread starter Shin Okada
- Start date
Shin Okada said:
If you're referring to the abilities of various creatures to summon more of their kind, they usually last for 1 hour, after which the summoned creature disappaers. A summoned creature cannot use its own summoning ability for 1 hour (basically to remove the possibility of an exponentially growing horde).
Particle_Man
Explorer
I was in a 1st ed. campaign a long time ago where exactly that exponential deal started to happen. God, that got ugly. We had to teleport away.
The Sigil
Mr. 3000 (Words per post)
Funny you should mention that...
When I saw the "Read My Lips: No New Summonings" rule, trust me, that was one of the quickest things to get "Rule-Zeroed." Obviously, it's there to keep down exponential growth, but it did not make sense to me ("I can't use my spells just because somebody essentially teleported me here?") and because I also "Rule-Zeroed" the rule "you never gain XP for defeating Summoned Monsters... their CR is already factored into the CR of the summoner."
Both of those are, to be blunt, poor rules IMO... the bookkeeping on exponential summoning would get nasty, but that's one of the (many) dangers dealing with fiends... things can get out of control in a hurry... "give em an inch and they'll take over." As for not awarding XP for summoned creatures, you can't tell me that a fight against a single Pit Fiend (whose summon chance failed) is worth the same XP as a fight against 2 Pit Fiends.
Usually, one of the first spells my PCs try to research when they start meeting demons and stuff is of the "block summoning" variety. Well, at least, the smart ones do that... and I let them have it because IMO it's a valid tactic. 8)
BTW, I don't expect these to become "gospel-truth" and I'm not even telling you you're an idiot if you don't use 'em yourself... You are free to disagree with these Rule-Zeroes... just as long as you aren't PCs in my campaign!
--The Sigil
Particle_Man said:
When I saw the "Read My Lips: No New Summonings" rule, trust me, that was one of the quickest things to get "Rule-Zeroed." Obviously, it's there to keep down exponential growth, but it did not make sense to me ("I can't use my spells just because somebody essentially teleported me here?") and because I also "Rule-Zeroed" the rule "you never gain XP for defeating Summoned Monsters... their CR is already factored into the CR of the summoner."
Both of those are, to be blunt, poor rules IMO... the bookkeeping on exponential summoning would get nasty, but that's one of the (many) dangers dealing with fiends... things can get out of control in a hurry... "give em an inch and they'll take over." As for not awarding XP for summoned creatures, you can't tell me that a fight against a single Pit Fiend (whose summon chance failed) is worth the same XP as a fight against 2 Pit Fiends.
Usually, one of the first spells my PCs try to research when they start meeting demons and stuff is of the "block summoning" variety. Well, at least, the smart ones do that... and I let them have it because IMO it's a valid tactic. 8)
BTW, I don't expect these to become "gospel-truth" and I'm not even telling you you're an idiot if you don't use 'em yourself... You are free to disagree with these Rule-Zeroes... just as long as you aren't PCs in my campaign!
--The Sigil
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ruleslawyer
Registered User
You're not worried about the logical end-point of allowing exponential summoning?
Case in point: Cleric summons a balor using planar ally. Balor summons another balor, who summons another balor, etc etc. This goes on for a day or two (or more), and suddenly, you have an army of demons ready to rampage across the land! Moreover, this situation can occur whenever there's an 11th-level cleric around!
(Actually, given sufficient time, you need only a 7th-level cleric using lesser planar ally to summon a succubus, who then drags in Big Brother Balor. Things go similarly down-hill from here...)
Case in point: Cleric summons a balor using planar ally. Balor summons another balor, who summons another balor, etc etc. This goes on for a day or two (or more), and suddenly, you have an army of demons ready to rampage across the land! Moreover, this situation can occur whenever there's an 11th-level cleric around!
(Actually, given sufficient time, you need only a 7th-level cleric using lesser planar ally to summon a succubus, who then drags in Big Brother Balor. Things go similarly down-hill from here...)
The Sigil
Mr. 3000 (Words per post)
Logical endpoint...
It's a good example... having an army of balors ready to ravage the countryside... am I worried about it? To be blunt, no.
There are two reasons for this...
1.) The "army" winks back to the outer planes in an hour anyway... certainly enough damage to cause problems in a single city, but not enough to go cutting through huge swaths of countryside.
2.) Recall that "summoning" another fiend puts the "summoner" in the debt of the "summonee" and that fiends have a reputation of exacting a LOT in return for such favors... as highly intelligent beings, my fiends don't use their summoning ability frivolously... it's usually a means of calling in enough reinforcements to save their own butts from destruction by giving themselves time to escape. Fiends are notorious for their inability to "play well together."
--The Sigil
It's a good example... having an army of balors ready to ravage the countryside... am I worried about it? To be blunt, no.
There are two reasons for this...
1.) The "army" winks back to the outer planes in an hour anyway... certainly enough damage to cause problems in a single city, but not enough to go cutting through huge swaths of countryside.
2.) Recall that "summoning" another fiend puts the "summoner" in the debt of the "summonee" and that fiends have a reputation of exacting a LOT in return for such favors... as highly intelligent beings, my fiends don't use their summoning ability frivolously... it's usually a means of calling in enough reinforcements to save their own butts from destruction by giving themselves time to escape. Fiends are notorious for their inability to "play well together."
--The Sigil
