Summoning and Celestial Dire Bears

[Black Omega]

Has there been any errata addressing the monsters you can summon with the Summon Monster spell? I recently noticed the Celestial Dire Bear was far tougher than any other monster for the 6th level of the spell and tougher than most of the 7th level spell monsters as well.

 

[Crothian]

There is info on summoning in Dragon 302.

 

[dcollins]

One thing that may modify your view a bit is that the MM Web Eratta modified the dire bear's Face/Reach to be only 5x10/5 ft. (i.e., no reach). That makes a significant difference.

My personal opinion is that the dire bear then ends up having way too many Hit Dice for a Large-size creature (I think they should have just declared it Huge). But, I guess that's the "official" status.

 

[Jeremy]

It has enough HD to be huge. It's strength and constitution fall in the ranges for huge animals. It's descriptive text for length and weight both fall into huge range. It's size and face were that of a huge creature.

I agree. They should have errata'd the size to huge. Changing the face/reach only fixes one of the abnormalities.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

One thing that's worth remembering about that though. . . . The Celestial Dire Bear can't do anything other than tear things apart on the ground. A celestial Unicorn can heal. An Avoral Guardinal can heal and has True Seeing, etc. at will. The summon monster spells aren't just rated for combat--utility summons have their place as well.