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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ajanders" data-source="post: 591160" data-attributes="member: 3271">Take two...What Toungez suggests ... all his different options, mind, are excellent.  I use some of them for choice in my own campaign, but it differs significantly enough from the standard SRD that I hesitate to fling it into the middle of discussion.  But they have some dramatic effects on the way magic works or the way the setting works.Let's first consider just the Monster Summoning spell from the SRD, please***This spell summons an outsider (extraplanar creature).  It appears where the character designates and acts immediately, on the character’s turn.***Immediately we realize that any form of contracting, Final Fantasy, Friends, or Mutual need is going to require a lot more frequent contact with outsiders than is generally standard in a D&D game...or summonings are going to be a lot more limited.  Generally it's not like you can pop out to the local pub, knock back a couple of pints with the spinagon or anarchic walrus down the block, pay him a few gems on retainer, and have a ready minion to summon.  You can't even find a spinagon in your local pub in the Realms, for Pete's sake.If you want to do any of that, either you have to go find them or they have to come find you.  The first will make summonings very rare magic, used only by the highest level of wizards, because they're the ones able to travel to the astral plane or survive the journey to the gate to the elemental plane of fire or whatever.  Your average first level wizard would never learn Summon Monster I: he'd have nothing to summon.The second can be where your bigger changes come in: why are outsiders seeking out spellcasters?  Clerics get this solved easily: the archon serves Pelor: I serve Pelor, I'm just calling in a professional colleague from way out of town.  Arcane spellcasters are a little harder to deal with...what might a 3rd level sorceror have that an earth-touched bear (for example) want?  This just grows adventure seeds all over the place, as summoners find themselves romping all over the world to find the perfect raspberry for an axiomatic rabbit or less pleasant things for a vrock.  Other heroes might find themselves called on to find them instead: or to corner the market on things others might want.Forced by raw willpower creates some interesting debates among summoners: is it then slavery to summon a djinn?  If it is, does the caster care?Some people might only summon unintelligent beings, like celestial dogs: some might only summon beings they disliked.  (Cleric of Heironius: "We need some expendable cannon fodder!Second cleric of H: "I'll summon celestial badgers."First cleric:"We'll be sending them to their painful bloody deaths, right?"Second Cleric: "Yup."First Cleric: "Then bring forth the legions of the darned, to suffer their deserved penance."Second Cleric: "Right.  Two dretch coming up.")This kind of thing might change the way you type a summoning spell.  (Or then again, maybe people just think it does.)To clarify my position, the standard SRD says nothing special about summonings, though much can be implied.  Mialee has no more intimate or personal a relationship with her fire elemental than she does with her cone of cold.If you want to change that, you're going to have to make some mechanical changes to the spells, then step through the world and see what's changing.Magic is the physics of your fantasy world: you have to have that worked out first before you can do anything elseaja</blockquote>

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